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JANUARY, 1918 ]
AUSTRIA'S COMMERCIAL VENTURE IN INDIA
where not interrupted by particular Treaties. The Principles on which Your Honor &ca. Gentlemon herein appear to consider the Mogul's Phirmaunds as essential to that Peace .and Freedom of intercourse are to me perfectly unknown.
You are also pleased to inform me that “The English East India Company, by Phirmaunds from the Mogul, are Governors of his Castle and Fleet at Surat, and as his allies must certainly be affected by any Acts offensive to his Government." I have very attentively considered the Petition said to have been presented to the Mogul Emperor in 1759 on behalf of the Honble. English East India Company, together with the Perwunahs Husbulhookums and Firmauns [parwana, hasbu'l-hukm, farmin] said to have been obtained in consequence thereof from the Mogul's Court, respecting their Government of the Castle and Fleet of Surat, as those authorities have been publickly acknowledged bɔfore the most respectable Tribunals of Great Britain. The Petition to the Mogul expressly paya that the Company might be invested with those offices for the purposes of protecting the Inhabitants and traders of all Denomination from injustice and oppression; and the Orders issued in Consequence recite the Petition to have been granted for the express purposes of preserving the Bar and Sea open to all ships and Vessells, that the trade of all Merchants and pilgrims might meet with no trouble or impediment and they impose on the Company the strongest injunctions of "Care, Circumspection justice and moderation" in the execution of those offices.
Regarding to those acknowledged documents and the immemorial established usages of the Moguls City of Surat, The English East India Company, in the Character of the Mogul's Castle and Fleet, cannot permit, much less themselves occasion, in the name of the Nabob, any impediments of trade by the exaction of exorbitant and unusual duties, or even by any other breaches of humanity or aots of oppression, which were the very grounds on which they themselves dispose[ess Jed the former Nabob of his Government. And altho it were admitted that the English East India Company as Governor of the said Castle and Fleet might be at liberty to defend them when attacked, it would merely [be] as servants of the Mogul : but how.". they must certainly be affected "as his allies against an European Nation in amity with Great Britain for any other act of reprisal, in retaliation of a breach of the Law of nations on the part of Nabob, is a point above my powers of discussion, and must be left to the decision of the Courts of Vienna and St. James, if ever occasion should be given for it. How far their Imperial Majenties have reason to be diagatisfied with the treatment their subjects have already received on the score of Trade and Hospitality at Sarat, I leave Your Honor &ca. Gentlemen, to judge!
In another Paragraph I am farther acquainted "that circumstanced as I have been with Your Honble. Employers, I must be sensible I can expect no farther countenance or attention than what the Laws of Hospitality indispensibly require."
Permit me to assure Your Honor &ca. Gentlemen, in answer to this Paragraph, that I have perfectly obliterated from my Memory all the injuries I have formerly received from the Honble. English East India Company. They are dead with their Author, and I wish never to revive their remembrance. But my present claim, having no relation to any former circumstances, but to that situation alone in which I have now the Honor to
resant myself, it is solely on behalf of their Imperial Majesties that all my applications will be made, when necesary, to the Representatives of the British Nation in every part of Asia. In this point of view, expect to countenance for the very idea would be an
