# Early English adventurers in the East (1917)

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EARLY ENGLISH
ADVENTURERS
IN THE EAST
By
ARNOLD WRIGHT
SECOND EDITION
LONDON: ANDREW MELROSE, LTD 3 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C 1917
"It is always the adventurous who accomplish great things and not the monarchs of great empires." —Montesquieu.
Published April 1917 Reprinted November 1917
PREFACE
THIS work covers the period which intervened between Drake's circumnavigation of the world at the close of the sixteenth century and the founding of Calcutta at the end of the seventeenth century. Those were the years in which the initial efforts were made by the English to establish themselves in the East as traders. It was, as far as this part of the world concerned, preeminently the age of the adventurer—the merchant adventurer, if you will, but still of the true adventurer who seeks fortune by his daring enterprise and his mother wit. For varied interest and picturesqueness, there is no more fascinating period than this in the whole of the Empire's past. Tragedy and comedy mingled their elements in what was in essence one of the most romantic dramas of the world's history. Men started out to build up a commercial connexion, and they ended in laying the foundations of a dominion over alien peoples more wonderful than that of Rome in her palmiest days. How this was accomplished is told in the accompanying pages, but the author's aim has been not so much to write an exhaustive history as to bring into prominence the personalities of those who were engaged in this great work—to show what ​manner of men they were, how they struggled and fought and how in many cases they died for their country in furtherance of aims which on their full fruition in subsequent years were to lead to the dominance of the British race in India. Their splendid part in the building of the Empire has been obscured by the more dazzling achievements of the men of a later generation who on an ampler stage and with more impressive accessories carried forward the story of British ascendency from crisis to crisis to its magnificent dénouement in the unchallenged supremacy of Britain under the æegis of the Crown. Few of those who read this work, however, will be prepared to deny that many of these humble adventurers of the seventeenth century are fully worthy of a place in the illustrious roll of men who made the Empire.
It should be stated that the work is mainly based on the splendid series of records preserved at the India Office, which supply a full history of the early life of the English in the East. In the prosecution of his researches the author received the most complete facilities from the courteous officials at the India Office Library, and he desires to avail himself of this opportunity of making due acknowledgment of their kindness. As far as the earliest years of the period dealt with are concerned he has to express his indebtedness to the useful series of transcripts edited by Mr. Wm. Foster under the authority of the Indian Government. These volumes, reproducing as they do in faithful detail the text of the older documents, many of which are illegible to any but an expert archivist, are of immense value to the writer who is dealing with any ​special phase of British Indian history. The hope may be permitted that the series will be continued until all the rich store of historical fact and incident is made readily accessible to the literary student.
A. W.
London, January, 1914.
LIST OF CONTENTS
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.
The longest-living author of this work died in 1941, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 82 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.
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