inducement that she should turn Christian. Hawkins declined to accept the proposal as far as it concerned his marriage to a "Moor," but he allowed his imperial patron to understand that if a Christian could be found he would be willing to espouse her. He represents that he made this concession because he wanted to be free and he imagined that the condition was an impossible one. But he had literally reckoned without his host. Jehangir discovered for him an Armenian girl, the daughter of a captain who was in great favour with Akbar and who had some time previously died, leaving his offspring in rather poor circumstances. As the Emperor had set his heart on the marriage Hawkins had no alternative but to yield a reluctant consent. As no Christian minister was available to sanctify the union Hawkins got his personal servant Nicholas to act the part of priest, a procedure which, he says naively, "I thought had been lawful till I met with a preacher that came out with Sir Henry Middleton and he, showing me the error I was in, marryed (me) again." Mrs. Hawkins, as we shall discover, was a very enterprising lady who quite justified Jehangir 's selection of her as a suitable mate for his English favourite.
Not long after the curious episode just related Jehangir gave Hawkins his commission "under his great seal with golden letters." This he promptly sent on to Surat, where he had left two of the Company's representatives, William Finch and Thomas Aldworth, to keep the place warm pending brighter days for trade. Before the document reached its destination news of the remarkable favour shown to Hawkins at Court had reached the Western port and had led to the circulation of a curious rumour as to the means by which he had captured the vagrant imperial
