Mr Barwick's Man, Who Had Been Inveigled To Run Away By A Deserter From
Captain Best Who Had Turned Mahomedan, Was Brought Back From Surat On
The 1st Of October.
Others afterwards ran away to Damaun, and wrote to
their comrades to induce them to do the same.
The 2d, two Hollanders
came on board, who had travelled by land from Petapulli, on the
Coromandel coast. On the 10th, the governor's brother came on board,
making many fair speeches, and had a present given him. The governor
impudently urged us to give him presents, though he had already received
three, but found fault with them, and even named what he would have
given him, being beggar and chooser both at once. We had this day news
of Mr Aldworth's death; and on the 5th November we received intelligence
of the lord ambassador having fallen sick at Burhanpoor, and that Mr
Boughton was dead.
The most current coin at Surat is rials of eight, or Spanish dollars, of
which the old with the plain cross passes for five mahmoodies each. The
new dollars, having flower-de-luces at the ends of the cross, if not
light, are worth four 3/4 mahmoodies. The mahmoody is a coarse silver
coin, containing thirty pice, and twelve drams make a pice. The
English shilling, if full weight, will yield thirty 1/2 pice. Larines
are worth much the same with mahmoodies.[169] There are sundry kinds of
rupees, some of which are worth half a dollar, and others less, by which
one may be easily deceived. The trade at Surat is conducted by brokers,
who are very subtle, and deceive both buyer and seller, if not carefully
looked after. In weights, each city of India differs from another. The
commodities are infinite, indigos being the chief, those of Lahore the
best, and those from Sarkess inferior. Great quantities of cloths made
of cotton, as white and coloured calicoes, containing fourteen yards the
book or piece, from 100 to 200 mahmoodies each. Pintadoes, chintzes,
chadors, sashes, girdles, cannakens, trekannies, serrabafs, aleias,
patollas, sellas, quilts, carpets, green ginger, suckets or confections,
lignum aloes, opium, sal amoniac, and abundance of other drugs. Vendible
commodities are knives, mirrors, pictures, and such like toys; English
cloth, China wares, silk, and porcelain, and all kinds of spices. The
Guzerates load their great ships, of nine, twelve, or fifteen hundred
tons, at Gogo, and steal out unknown to the Portuguese.
[Footnote 169: From this explanation, the mahmoody and larine may be
assumed as worth one shilling; the pice as equal to a farthing and a
half, and the dram at about 1-10th of a farthing. - E.]
The chief places for trade on the river Sinde, or Indus, are Tatta,
Diul-sinde, Mooltan, and Lahore. The Expedition, on her former voyage,
had landed the Persian ambassador, Sir Robert Shirley, at Diul-sinde;
and of him I have thought it right to give the following particulars, as
an appendix to my former voyage, having learnt them from some of his
followers at Agra.
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