for sale. The commodities we now had, were
elephants and morse teeth, fine fowling-pieces, lead and tin in bars,
and some Spanish dollars. If we could not be permitted to trade, we
requested leave to provide ourselves, with refreshments, and so to
depart."

The 30th September, the ambassador had an audience of the governor
concerning all his business, to whom he shewed the _firmaun_ of the king
of Persia, as also the pass of the king of Spain, thinking thereby to
satisfy the jealousy of the Portuguese residents at that place, who
reported, on pretended intelligence from Ornus, that Don Roberto Shirley
was come from England with three ships to the Indies, on purpose to
steal. They peremptorily refused to give credence to the Spanish pass,
saying it was neither signed nor sealed by their king, in which they
could not possibly be mistaken, knowing it so well, and therefore that
it was assuredly forged. On this, the ambassador angrily said, that it
was idle to shew them any king's hand-writing and seal, as they had no
king, being merely a waste nation, forcibly reduced under subjection to
the king of Spain, and mere slaves both to him and his natural subjects.
Yet the Portuguese boldly stood to their former allegations, insisting
that the ambassador had other two ships in the Indies. Then _Arah
Manewardus_ sharply reproved them for their unseemly contradictions of
the Persian ambassador, and ordered them out of the room.

The ambassador then made a speech to the governor concerning our
admittance to trade at his port, on which the governor expressed his
readiness to do so, all inconveniences understood, and desired the
ambassador to send for one or two of our merchants, that he might confer
with them on the subject. Upon this the ambassador wrote to us on the 2d
October, saying what he had done in our affairs, and sending us
assurance for our safe going and returning. Being thereby in good hope
of establishing trade at this place, if not a factory, and to make sale
of the small quantity of goods we now had, Mr Joseph Salbank and I, by
advice of the captain and others, made ourselves ready and went ashore
that same morning in one of the country boats. Our ship lay about four
or five miles from the mouth of the river, from whence we had fifteen
miles to travel to _Diul_, where the ambassador was, so that it was late
in the evening before we landed there.

In our way we met a Portuguese frigate or bark, bound for Ormus, on