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SEPTEMBER, 1911.] G. BOUGHTON AND TRADING PRIVILEGES
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last place Mr. Waldegrave, accompanied with Capt. Darson and Thumss Wilson etc servants having passed, about two daies journey on this side were sett on by other theeves, wounded, and robbed of all about them to their very clothes; in which disaster the said papers were lost, and could never since bee heard of, though Mr. Waldegrave bimselfe staied some daies behind to make enquiry after them, and Mr. Winter since by
our order sent purposely others to looke for them." . The date of Boughton's death is unknown. There is reason to believe that he was still alive in January, 1652, when two small vessels, in whose lading he had an interest, started from Bengal for Persia; but he was certainly dead by the summer of the following year. A letter from Paul Waldegrave at Balasore to the President at Surat, dated August 17, 1653 (0.C. 2386), referring to this venture, says:
"Mr. Boughton had a great share therein, who died in debt to one Churmull, a shroff in
Pattanah [Patna], betweene 5 and 6,000 rups. With its interest; and from whome wee have often received very many troublesome solicitacions for payment or securitie for that debt, hee [Boughton] being the under the nocion of the Companies servant and
did their bussinesse in Pattanah that yeare." Other claims were made upon the estate, particularly by William Pitt or Pitts, who had married "a Mogullana or Morish woman, the relict of Gabriell Boughton" (O. C. 2610). With this glimpse of Boughton's domestic arrangements we must here take our leave of him.
It would lead us too far to follow the unknown writer's account of transactions in Bengal subsequent to the viceroyalty of Shab Shujâ ; and it must suffice to warn the reader that the datesdoubtless given from memory-are approximate merely, and that there is an evident animus on the part of the writer (whom we have already guessed to have been John Beard) against Agent Hedges. It is quite possible, by the way, that the note was pended for the information of President Gyfford, who came from Madras to displace Hedges and at his departure left Beard in charge of the Bengal factories.
We may conclude by citing an interesting passage in the Court Minutes of the East India Company, to which attention was first drawn by Sir Richard Temple in his edition of Bowrey's work (p. 234). It is from a report made to the Court on September 4, 1674, by a Committee specially appointed to investigate the question of trade in Bengal; and it gives the following account (based, it would seem, on hearsay mostly) of the origin of that commerce :
** We have discussed with Mr. [Shem] Bridges and others concerning the phirmaund
or patent for trade granted the English by the Prince of Bengals; and we find that it was first procured by one Mr. Bowden, a chyrurgeon, and gave the English onely libertie to trade, paying custom according to the King's phirmand, but was altered and made to pay noe custom according to the King's phirmand : that afterwards there was another phirmand, thought to be more advantageous to the trade of the English, procured by Mr. Gauton and Billidge, by which the English enjoyed the privilege of trading custom free (but still according to the King's phirmand) till the King [sic] Hled out of Bengal : after which, and in Mr. Trevisa's time, the Nabob Mozam Cawne (formerly called Meere Jumbla) confirmed to the English the privilege of trading custom free, for all goods in and exported, by his perwanna: which privilege was again confirmed by Sbaster Cawne, the present Nabob of Bengal, in Mr. Blake's time."
