ries suffered by the English at Surat, from his
governors, and of which I had forborne to complain to the king from
respect to him, he promised me speedy and effectual justice, and to
confirm our security in any way I might propose. He professed to be
entirely ignorant of any past transactions there, as stated by me,
except as informed by Asaph Khan; and especially denied having given any
order for our dismissal, which the governor had falsely alleged, and for
which he should dearly pay. He then dismissed me, full of hopes to have
our decayed state and reputation rectified, making me a promise of an
effectual firmaun for our trade and secure residence at Surat.

[Footnote 197: In the Pilgrims, this prince is uniformly named Corone;
but the name in the text has been adopted from the authority of Dow's
History of Hindoostan. He succeeded to his father in 1627, when he
assumed the name of Shah Jehan; and was, in 1659, dethroned and
imprisoned, by his third son, the celebrated Aurungzebe, who assumed the
name of Alumguire.--E.]

The 24th, I went again to the royal durbar to visit the king; who, on
seeing me far off, beckoned with his hand, that I should not wait the
ceremony of asking leave, but come up to him directly, and assigned me a
place near himself, above all other men, which I afterwards thought fit
to maintain. On this occasion I gave a small present; as it is the
custom for all who have any business to give something, and those who
cannot get near enough to speak, send in or hold up their gift, which he
always accepts, be it only a rupee, and demands to know their business.
He held the same course with me; for having looked curiously at my
present, and asked many questions respecting it, he demanded to know
what I wanted of him. I answered that I wanted justice. For, on the
assurance of his firmaun, which had been sent to England, the king my
master had not only given leave to his subjects to make a long and
dangerous voyage to his dominions with their goods, but had deputed me,
as his ambassador and representative, to congratulate and compliment his
majesty on the amity so happily commenced between two so mighty nations,
and to confirm the same. Yet I found that the English, who were settled
at Ahmedabad, were injured and oppressed by the governor in their
persons and goods, being fined, subjected to arbitrary exactions, and
kept as prisoners; while at every town new customs were demanded for
their goods on the