While
Considering These Things, The Tide Of Flood Was Spent, And It Was Time
For Us To Use The Ebb, When, To My Great Satisfaction, I Saw The Viceroy
And His Whole Fleet Standing Towards Us, With A Fresh Breeze.
We
likewise made sail, and stood our course before him all that ebb, and so
spent that night to the best advantage, partly at anchor, and partly
under sail, according as wind and tide served.
In the morning of the 5th, the enemy had gained very little way upon us.
We spent this day, as before, in riding or sailing, as the tide
answered. This night the viceroy gained much ground upon us, and by this
time we had got a good way from the coast, and had advanced well to the
southwards, so that I was now satisfied the Portuguese forces could not
this year give any annoyance to Surat. I considered that my purposes in
these parts, both by the authority of my king, and to fulfil the designs
of my employers, were, in merchant ships, fitted indeed for defence, to
seek honest commerce, without striving to injure any; wherefore I held
it fit for me to proceed soberly and discreetly, neither basely to flee
from the enemy, nor to tempt danger by proudly seeking it, if it might
be honourably avoided. The viceroy was quite differently situated. He
had been sent by his master with the principal ships of all India, and
all the gallants and braggarts of these parts, not only to disturb and
intercept the peaceable trade of the English with the subjects of the
Mogul, but to take and burn them in the harbours of that great king.
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