Evidence1613

The English factory at Surat

Name: The English factory at Surat
Start: 1613
End: 1613
Location: Surat, Gujarat

Surat, Gujarat

Surat castleE. Carmichael, John (Around 1751); Grose, John Henry (Around 1750-1783), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

After an English victory over the Portuguese off Swally, Jahangir confirms the East India Company's right to trade at Surat.

Thomas Best's ships beat off a Portuguese squadron at Swally, Surat's roadstead, in November 1612. The Mughal governor then agreed terms, a farman from Jahangir ratifying them reached Best in January 1613, and Thomas Aldworth stayed on to run the factory: a trading house, not a fort.

The Company spent most of its first century as one trader among Portuguese, Dutch, Armenian and Gujarati rivals, and Surat remained its chief Indian base until Bombay took over in the 1680s. Thomas Roe's embassy to Jahangir in 1615-19 won firmer terms.

trade
colonial