me with all expedition, that I might distribute them at my discretion.  He likewise commanded the prince to give orders for the good usage of our people, and that I should be satisfied in all my demands.  This order did not extend to the grant of a fort, as Asaph Khan had absolutely refused to deliver in that clause.  This charge was very round and hearty on the part of the king, and a great grace to me.  The prince called Asaph Khan forwards in my presence, and promised, before his father and the whole court, to give me all reasonable satisfaction.  All this was on the strength of the new presents.

That same day I sent for the Portuguese jesuit who resided at court, and gave him an account of the engagement between our ships and the carrack, offering to make peace between our nation and the Portuguese upon equal terms.  He promised to acquaint the viceroy of Goa with my offer, and so departed.  The 15th I received accounts from Masulipatan that Captain Keeling had taken a Portuguese ship and two barks; one on the coast of Cochin, laden with tin, and the other freighted from Bengal, both of which were carried to Bantam.  I was also informed that Sir Robert Shirley had been dismissed with disgrace from Goa, and was on his way overland to Masulipatan, to procure a passage; but am apt to believe this intelligence is untrue.

The 16th, being with the prince’s secretary about the dispatch of our affairs, he proposed to me, by his master’s orders, to procure him two gunners from our fleet to serve him in the Deccan war, offering good pay and good usage.  This I undertook to perform, knowing that indifferent artists might serve there.  While at the prince’s palace, Abdala Khan came to visit him, so magnificently attended, that I have not before seen the like.  He was preceded by about twenty drums, and other martial music, on horseback, who made abundant noise.  After them followed fifty persons bearing white flags, and two hundred well-mounted soldiers, all richly clothed in cloth of gold, velvet, and rich silks, who all entered the gate with him in regular array.  Next his person were forty targeteers, in the richest liveries.  After making his humble reverence, he presented a black Arabian horse, splendidly caparisoned, all his furniture being studded with flowers of enamelled gold, and set with small precious stones.  According to custom, the prince returned a turban, a vest, and a girdle.

Still persisting in his purpose of personally finishing the war in the Deccan, he would give no answer to the ambassadors from that country, but detained them till he should come to the frontiers.  Being now about to depart, he and his party thought themselves not secure if Sultan Cuserou remained under the safeguard of Anna-Rah, lest, during the absence of Churrum, the king might be reconciled to Cuserou, by whose liberty all the hopes and power of their faction would be overthrown, in which case their ambition and the injuries they had done could hardly escape punishment.