be preferable to make the purchases of goods
inland, by the natives, [particularly the indigo from Agra, and the
Bengal goods] who could obtain them at reasonable rates. But if the
court were of opinion that English factors ought to be stationed at
Agra, he recommended sending the goods in carts rather than on camels.
He concludes this part of his report by advising that agents should
reside at Cambay and Baroach, because the best cloths in India could be
procured at these towns.

"Though Sir Thomas Roe appears to have procured a phirmaund through the
means of Noor-Mahal, the favourite sultana or empress, for the general
good treatment of the English at Surat, and had desired that an
assortment of English goods, perfumes, &c. should be forwarded to him as
presents to her and to her brother, Asaph Khan, he yet describes, in
1618, the governor of Surat as reluctant to shew that favour to the
English which the phirmaund had enjoined. It therefore became a question
with him, as the governor of Surat would not allow the English to
strengthen or fortify their factory for the protection of their goods
and servants, whether it might not be expedient to remove to some other
station, where the means of self-defence might be more practicable. At
one time he thought of Goga, and subsequently of Scindy; but, after a
review of the whole, decided that it would be more expedient to remain
at Surat, though, from the character of the natives, and the instability
of the Mogul government, all grants of privileges must be considered as
temporary, and any agreement or capitulation which might be procured,
ought not to be depended on as permanent. He concludes, that, though a
general phirmaund for trade in the Mogul dominions had been obtained,
and of course a foundation laid for the English intercourse with the
rich provinces of Bengal, yet the attempt to enter on that trade would
be unwise, from being in the exclusive possession of the Portuguese.

"Sir Thomas Roe returned from the embassy to Surat in the spring of
1618-19, when it appears that the opposition in opinion between him and
the factors at that place had subsided, as the efforts of both were
united to establish a distinct system for the trade of the English at
Surat. It has been already stated that Sir Thomas Roe had procured a
phirmaund to the English from the Mogul, for the establishment of a
general trade in his extensive dominions, but that the relaxed situation
of the gove