Free The East India Company: The World's Most Powerful Corporation (The Story of Indian Business) by Tirthankar Roy

calicoes and indigo were to be found in these interior towns, but that in order to procure these goods on a sustained basis it would be necessary to have a permanent diplomatic mission stationed in Agra, a lot of ready cash, and a strong military backing.
    The Surat team knew that a mere imperial edict did not mean very much in practical terms. On each occasion when the English fleet had left Surat, those who remained behind were obstructed by numerous local orders, to be lifted only on payment of money to the governor and his courtiers. What Best and Downtondid achieve was a reputation in the Mughal court for English mastery over the seas, which to the Mughals was very critical as they did not have a navy of their own. With this reputation behind them, the Company shifted its diplomatic tactics and sought to establish a direct link between the English monarchy and the Mughal emperor, which would then give it the legitimacy to deal with the Mughal court as equals. But their experiences had also shown that setting up a viable trade mission in India was beyond the capability of mariners. The job needed a seasoned diplomat. It fell upon Thomas Roe to carry it out.
Thomas Roe
    Roe (1581–1644) came from a landowning family of Essex. Having completed his matriculation in Oxford (at the age of twelve!), Roe spent the next five years as a student in the Middle Temple, a finishing school for future court officers, and joined court service at age twenty. He rose quickly in position, and was entrusted with several daring as well as delicate tasks, including an expedition to seek the fabled El Dorado, the gold-laden city lost in the forests of the Andes, and sorting out Princess Elizabeth’s dire finances. His reputation as a courageous and honest officer stayed with himthroughout. When in October 1614 the king invited Roe to go to India as ambassador, he did not hesitate in accepting a job that was going to be no less difficult than looking for El Dorado.
    Roe’s mission took full four years to come to a conclusion. During these years, Roe followed the camp of Jahangir from Ajmer to Mandu, falling in and out and back in favour with the emperor. These swings partly depended on the quality of the presents made to the emperor. English mastiffs, Irish greyhounds and red wine delighted him. In a match arranged in an enclosed courtyard, the mastiffs attacked an elephant so fiercely that the highly impressed monarch appointed a team of servants to feed them with silver spoons and fan the flies away from them. But many of the routine presents like cloths, pictures and boxes, which the English considered worthy of a king, bored him. Roe’s mission was made difficult by the switching sympathies of Prince Khurram (later Shah Jahan) from the English to the Portuguese. The prime minister Asaf Khan was also in two minds over granting special favours to the English. Communication was another serious impediment to worthwhile dialogue with the Mughals. Roe communicated with the courtiers in a very indirect fashion through a Portuguese Jesuit priest who translated his Latin into Persian. Neither language was native tothe speakers. All along, the Dutch, who had already been settled in the eastern port Masulipatnam, tried to frustrate the English efforts at diplomacy.
    If Roe succeeded, it was primarily because he was different from his predecessors in the imperial court. He was not a merchant-mariner. He was an officer of the king, and his appearance, bearing and education made this amply clear. Through gentle persuasion, firmness in his dealings with Khurram, and a steadily improving equation with Jahangir and Asaf Khan, Roe succeeded in obtaining a license to trade from the emperor.
    In theory Roe got nothing more substantial than the usual promises that Best and Downton had received before. Roe’s intention, by contrast, was to bring the emperor to a more permanent commitment, and it appears that his strategy to that effect was to make the