Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/74

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46 THE STRUGGLE WITH THE PORTUGUESE at Madrid, the English nation had made up its mind that in the Asiatic seas there could be no peace with Portugal. To this conviction Captain Nicholas Down- ton of the first Joint Stock voyage gave practical effect. Arriving in Suwali Roads off Surat on October 15, 1614, with his four ships, and " not having above four sick men in the whole fleet," he found the Moghul governor GENERAL VIEW OF DIU. besieging the Portuguese coast settlements of Daman and Diu. When the governor pressed him to take part against the Portuguese, he refused " for that there was peace between our king and the King of Spain." The Moghul governor replied that if the English would do nothing for him, he would do nothing for them; but Downton sternly declared that he would not be hired to fight the Portuguese, yet would not be withheld from fighting if they attacked him first. The governor ac- cordingly forbade all trade on shore with the English ships.