Our Broker Also Told Mr Needham, That It Was Not Becoming To
Go Up And Down The Streets With A Sword And Buckler; And Indeed His
Whole Conduct And Behaviour More Resembled Those We Call
Roaring-Boys,[182] Than What Became The Character Of A Merchant.
For
my admonitions, he requited me with ill language, disgracing himself and
injuring the affairs of the company.
[Footnote 181: This term is obviously Portuguese, and cannot be the
proper appellation for a judge on the Malabar coast. - E.]
[Footnote 182: This character is now only to be met with in some of our
old plays such as Captain Bobadil in Every Man in his Humour. - E.]
A Dutch ship, which had been trading in the Red Sea, arrived here on the
23d of September, with the intention of settling a factory, and they
were referred by the governor to the Zamorin, promising to carry a
letter for us, but went without it; so that our delays continued. Mr
Needham went himself to the Zamorin on the 4th November, and returned on
the 25th, having got a present of a gold chain, a jewel, and a gold
armlet, with orders also from the king to further our purposes; but the
performance was as slow as before. The 20th December, a Malabar captain
brought in a prize he had taken from the Portuguese, and would have
traded with us; but we could not get in any of our money, due long
before. We also heard that day of four English ships being at Surat. The
governor and people continued their wonted perfidiousness; the former
being more careful in taking, and the latter in giving bribes, than in
paying our debts. We used a strange contrivance of policy to get in some
of these; for, when we went to their houses, demanding payment, and
could get none, we threatened not to leave their house till they paid
us. We had heard it reported, that, according to their customs, they
could neither eat nor wash while we were in their houses; and by this
device we sometimes got fifty fanos from one, and an hundred from
another. They would on no account permit us to sleep in their houses,
except one person, with whom we remained three days and nights, with
three or four nayres. They were paid for watching him, but we got
nothing. The nayre, who had been appointed by the king to gather in our
debts, came to demand a gratuity from us, though he had not recovered
any of our money. He would go to the debtor's houses, taking three or
four fanos, and then depart without any of our money.
On the 9th of January, 1616, Mr Needham went to demand payment of a
debt, and being refused permission to pass by a nayre who struck him, as
he says, he gave the nayre a dangerous wound in the head with his sword,
of which it is thought he cannot recover, and others of the natives were
hurt in the fray.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 208 of 474
Words from 108280 to 108788
of 247546
