The vials of long-accumulated wrath were poured out on the English.  Instigated by Abdul Guffoor, the populace of Surat flew to arms to wreak vengeance on the factory.  The Governor, Itimad Khan, was well disposed to the English, but popular excitement ran so high that he found it difficult to protect them.  Guards were placed on the factory to save it from plunder.  A mufti urged that the English should be put to death in revenge for the death of so many true believers, and quoted an appropriate text from the Koran.  Soon came an order from Aurungzeeb directing the Seedee to march on Bombay, and for all the English in Surat and Broach to be made prisoners.  President Annesley and the rest, sixty-three in all, were placed in irons, and so remained eleven months.  To make matters worse, news arrived of Every having captured the Rampura, a Cambay ship with a cargo valued at Rs.1,70,000.

“It is strange,” wrote Sir John Gayer, “to see how almost all the merchants are incensed against our nation, reproaching the Governor extremely for taking our part, and as strange to see that notwithstanding all, he stems the stream against them more than well could be imagined, considering his extreme timorous nature.”

The strangeness of the merchants’ hostility is hardly apparent, but it is not too much to say that Itimad Khan’s friendly behaviour alone saved English trade from extinction.  The Dutch, always hostile in the East, whatever might be the relations between Holland and England in Europe, strove to improve the occasion by fomenting popular excitement, and tried to get the English permanently excluded from the Indian trade.  In the words of Sir John Grayer, “they retained their Edomitish principles, and rejoice to see Jacob laid low.”  But Itimad Khan knew that the pirates were of all nationalities, and refused to hold the English alone responsible.  To propitiate the Governor, Sir John Gayer made over to him the six French pirates taken at Mohilla, not without qualms at handing over Christians to Mahommedan mercies.  He fully expected that the treasure taken out of the wreck would also be demanded of him; but Itimad Khan was not an avaricious man, and no such demand was made.  “His contempt of money is not to be paralleled by any of the King’s Umbraws or Governors,” Sir John wrote, a year later, when Itimad Khan was dead.  To forestall the Dutch with the Emperor, Gayer sent an agent offering to convoy the Red Sea fleet for the future, in return for a yearly payment of four lakhs a year.  The offer was refused, but it served to place the English in a more favourable light, and to procure the cancelling of orders that had been given for attacking Bombay and Madras.  Had it been accepted, the Seedee would have been added to the number of the Company’s enemies.  The Dutch, not to be outdone, offered to perform the same service in return for a monopoly of trade in the Emperor’s dominions.  This brought all other Europeans into line against the Dutch proposal,