Absolom. Roe began by being very bitter about the treatment of Khosru, of whom he thought highly, and far better than he deserved-no doubt because the prince was underdog, and was hated by the arrogant Khurram. Towards the end of his diary his tone to the father alters. He clearly came to realise that Jehanghir had but little choice. The absolute ruler of vast dominions who had to direct so many great and serious questions of policy and government was there is no denying that at times very childish when he is looked at by Western eyes. "Your toy-loving master was a scoffing description of him not unusual with the Company's servants. When he was given a present of a rapier he pranced about flourishing it as a small boy might, and when some one who had little regard for the comfort of the ladies of the Zenana presented him with a boatswain's whistle, he ran about his palace blowing it unmercifully. And Jehanghir made playthings of religious discussions. His father may have been, and indeed was, deluded in a fantastic way when he tried to make a new creed to be accepted by all his subjects. But there was serious, indeed a statesmanlike, purpose in the mind of Akbar. He knew that the irreconcilable hostility of Islam and Hinduism was the deadly inward wound of his empire, and he made his hopeless attempt to provide a real bond of union a with a noble purpose. Jehanghir toyed with religion, and by preference when he was drowsy from the "fumes of Bacchus.' As for those fumes, they rise and float over and over again in Roe's Journal.' Here is one, perhaps the best of the Lord Ambassador's thumb-nail sketches of the majesty of Asia in his cups: "The good King fell to dispute of the laws of Moses, Jesus, and Mahomet, and in drink was so kind that he turned to me and said, 'Am I a King?' You shall be welcome: Christians, Moors, Jews he meddled not with their faith; they came all in love, and he would protect them from wrong; they lived under his safety and none should oppress them; and this often repeated: but in extreme drunkenness he fell to weeping and to diverse passions, and so kept us all till midnight." Roe saw this variation of the scene on the Court of Guard in Cyprus, and, thanks to him, we see it too. A man who plays the fool from time to time is not necessarily a fool simpliciter, and Jehanghir was not. The fact that he kept his place to the end, and could subdue even the insolent Khurram, of itself shows that he was neither weak nor silly. As for Khurram, who was promoted to be Shah Jehan by his father, and ruled by that name, his end was ignoble. Roe did not live to see the fulfilment of his prophecy that there would be a combustion among the sons of the great Mogol, but it came He "Sir to a when Shah Jehan's offspring services. He was manifestly fought for the throne be- the best man to send to the fore his face. He died as East again. Therefore from the prisoner of Aurungzebe, 1621 to 1628 he was wrecked by a disease from which Thomas Roe, Knight, Lord "the discipline of the harem Ambassador for His Majesty might have been expected to the King of Great Britain at protect him." Jehanghir kept Constantinople." A Secretary his vice in some control. of State was Right Honourwould not allow of drink before able," but an Ambassador who Durbar. It was not of him, represented the King's person or not of him chiefly, that Roe was a lord. So they adwas thinking when he wrote dressed one another and were that he longed to be back at addressed by all men. This home among human beings, for mission to Turkey has not the that these creatures in India same domestic interest for us were devils. The Lord Am- as his first. He did not make bassador had other troubles. a journal of it, which is a sad "I was not born to a life pity. The crushing folio called smooth and easy," so he said. his 'Negotiations' yields none "All my actions have been the less copious fruit to mingled with crosses and rubs, curious reader capable of enjoythat I might rather say I ing good narratives of strange wrestled than walked toward occurrences which did happen my grave." The Company's and are forgotten, who is also factors resented his interfer- able to wrestle with its proence with their schemes, and portions. It was indeed a the disorders of English sailors wonderful state of things which ashore were an offence to him. Roe saw and reported on beIt was a happy day for him tween the day when he dropped when he left for home, not by anchor at Malaga on his voyage the overland route through out till the time when, on his Persia as he had planned, but return home, he broke his by long sea. He had done one way through a fight with the thing. His 'Journal,' partly galleys of Malta, "as sharp as put into shape by himself, has been upon these seas in partly left in the form of notes, many years." This time Lady was published by Purchas in Roe was with him, and he his characteristic fashion. It goes on to tell Lord Grandison showed his countrymen what how my poor wife had but an Oriental Government was, little place of refuge, which and has remained a monument much perplexed me. Our ship of keen observation and sound overladen, she sat upon the deck among the guns, and was often forced to tack (sic) as the enemy came on our quar judgment. 66 The King who had appointed him, and the Company which had paid him, appreciated his ters. This glory she hath, VOL. CCXXI.-NO. MCCCXXXVII. 02 itself. He went on to supply the true explanation, which was that English ships had taken to rushing at everything they met. Those who play bowls must look out for rubbers. They were rushed at in their turn. But that only sends us a step farther back for our explanation. Why did English ships which were in the Mediterranean for the trade of merchandise assail all mankind? that she showed no fear nor and France in 1628, but had passion [emotion), but resolved no quarrel with the Order that, seeing it was her portion, she would bear it. Some great shot fell about her which moved her not; only while I was with her to see her, I got a bruise with a piece of wood over the back that felled me, and this amazed her; but when I rose, and had no harm but pain, she said the chance of the day was past the bullet came dangerously right with me, but was diverted, and split the bitts behind me." Lady Roe was, it seems, of the opinion of Marryat's midshipman in 'Peter Simple,' who said that the safest place in action was a hole in the side made by an enemy's shot, for it had been calculated that the odds against a second coming to the same place were 32,647 and some decimals to boot. In such times and conditions a wife of this intrepid spirit was more precious than rubies. Well might he record in his will: "Here I take my last leave of her, my most faithful, loving, and discreet companion in all the troubles and infirmities of my life, beseeching God that we may meet in the joys of heaven." Why did the galleys of the Knights of St John attack the ship which was carrying King James's Ambassador ? Roe was obviously not serious when he asked whether the Spanish and French knights, who were numerous in the Order, were patriotic out of place. England was at war with Spain Because the Mediterranean, shore and sea, all round and across, was reeking with anarchy, of which piracy— carried on by Moslem and Christian-was but one side. When Sir Thomas reached Malaga on his way out in November 1621, his first duty was to consult with the Spanish authorities for the protection of trade against the Barbary pirates. The wretchedly illmanaged expedition sent out a little before by King James under command of Sir Robert Mansell to suppress the pirates of Algiers had gone home, leaving the sea in a worse state than it had been. The Algerines were only exasperated, and were swarming everywhere not only within, but without, the Straits of Gibraltar, as far as Cape Finisterre, the Channel, and the south coast of Ireland. Roe heard at Malaga that forty English ships had been taken by them. Some which submitted tamely had only been rifled and then allowed to go. nowhere worse than at Con Roe found them lurking at This turmoil on the water Malaga. Others which showed was but the fringe of the fight had been overpowered, furnace blazing ashore, and burnt, and the crews massacred. Some had been taken to Algiers. The Spanish Armada de Galeones had recaptured six, but the loss was ours. The captors had, of course, kept them as good prize, as we would have done in the The Spaniards were profusely polite to Sir Thomas and his wife both at Malaga and in Sicily, but their Government was intent on its contumacious attempt to reconquer the Northern Netherlands, and had plunged into the Thirty Years' War in Germany head down. It could not protect its own shores. To this day the Spanish equivalent for our 66 same case. ware hawk" is "hay moros por la costa "-the Moors are on the coast. All Europe was by the ears, or expected to be, or was nervously on the watch to keep out of trouble. Piracy reigned in the Mediterranean. The Ambassador felt as an honest man should at the sight of all this shame to civilisation and Christianity. He implored, he planned, he besought Buckingham, now Lord High Admiral, to do something to protect his poor countrymen, if only for his honour's sake. The showy favourite of King James I. did write to him-about the purchase of diamonds. For the traders he did nothing. Where every man's hand was against every other, the English merchant shippers hit out all round. stantinople. Within a year the hitherto quiet flow of the Ambassador's despatches was broken in May 1622 by a letter written in hot haste to be handed to the Venetian courier, who was to sail that night. In swift cutting sentences Roe reports to Secretary Calvert that the Janissaries have broken out, have stormed the Seraglio, have deposed the Sultan Othman, have dragged his uncle the visionary and idiotic Mustafa from a hidingplace, screaming in terror and clinging to the women for protection, and have tossed him, jibbering and cowering, on to the throne. Then broke out the mad confusion which to the most cautious observers seemed to have brought the Turkish Empire to the verge of inevitable dissolution. The provinces were in revolt; the treasury was swiftly emptied ; the war-galleys were rotten. In Constantinople mutinous soldiers pulled viziers down and set up other puppets, fighting the while Janissaries against Spahis. In September 1623 Roe could write to Calvert : "In this time [fifteen months] I have seen three Emperors, seven Great Viziers, two Capitan Pashas, five Agas of the Janissaries, three treasurers, six Pashas of Cairo, and in proportion as many changes of Governors in all the provinces.' In the midst of this turmoil there was no security for life Murad IV., a boy of fourteen, or property. "The mutinied soldiers even in this city, the head of the Empire, is grown to that height of insolence that they demand in troops at this court all offices of gain; to be stewards to the revenues of churches [i.e., mosques], which are great; and take the farms of customs, and there commit those outrages that are insufferable. The viziers dare deny them nothing. They drink on the streets without prohibition contrary to their law, and stand in companies in the open day and exact money of all Christians to pay for their wine, and being denied it stab and murder without any punishment. In a question between our factors and a Spahi, now waiter [i.e., tide waiter] in the customhouse, my dragoman showing him the imperial command that he ought to take no more upon a bale of goods for which he demanded ten shillings above the rate and desired him to produce by what authority, he replied: Am not I a soldier' and drawing his dagger said, there was his command, and enforced it. Complain no man dares, or if he do to no purpose. The vizier answereth, that he cannot meddle with them. They have murdered their own King and all the Pashas, desiring our patience, and to bear a part with the general." A very sharply drawn picture of an anarchy, is it not? The third emperor Roe had seen in fifteen months was son to Othman, who in the meantime had been murdered. The lad was brought out when the puppet Mustafa was pulled off the throne as rudely as he had been tossed on to it. Our Lord Ambassador was a capital judge of character. A look or two was enough to convince him that Murad was intelligent. He was now "under government," only a minor in the hands of intriguing Sultanas and transient viziers; but Roe was sure that he would in time "know himself and prove a stirring prince." And that prophecy came true likewise in a few years, for Murad IV. drowned the anarchy in its own blood, and gave the sublime Porte another lease of life. But he would not have achieved that feat if the Christian Powers had not given him ample leisure. The strength of the Turk was based on the divisions of the Christians. When Roe, who would never believe that any good work was hopeless till he had done his utmost and had found success impossible, tried to bring the four Powers most concerned-England, France, the Netherlands, and Venice-together for the purpose of putting combined pressure on the Porte, his well-laid plan was ruined by the French Ambassador, who at the last moment drew back, insisting that his master must be named Emperor, and be given precedence over the other three. Roe was so angry that he took care to avoid meeting |