is
musicians died, and was buried in the church-yard belonging to the
Portuguese, who took up the body, and buried it in the highway; but on
this being complained of to the king, they were commanded to bury him
again, on penalty of being all banished the country, and of having all
the bodies of their own dead thrown out from the church-yard. After
this, Mr Canning wrote that he was in fear of being poisoned by the
jesuits, and requested to have some one sent up to his assistance, which
was accordingly agreed to by us at Surat. But Mr Canning; died on the
29th of May, and Mr Kerridge went up on the 22d of June.

At this time I was to have been sent by the way of Mokha to England; but
the master of the ship said it was impossible, except I were
circumcised, to go so near Mecca. The 13th October, 1613, the ship
returned, and our messenger made prisoner at the bar of Surat by the
Portuguese armed frigates, [grabs] worth an hundred thousand pounds, and
seven hundred persons going to Goa.[97] This is likely to be of great
injury here, for no Portuguese is now permitted to pass either in or out
without a surety; and the Surat merchants are so impoverished, that our
goods are left on our hands, so that we had to send them to Ahmedabad.
John Alkin, who deserted from Sir Henry Middleton to the Portuguese,
came to us at this time, and told us that several of their towns were
besieged by the Decaners, and other neighbouring Moors, so that they
had to send away many hundred Banians and others, that dwelt among them,
owing to want of provisions; and indeed three barks came now with these
people to Surat, and others of them went to Cambaya. Their weak
behaviour in the sea-fight with us was the cause of all this.

[Footnote 97: Probably owing to careless abridgement by Purchas, this
passage is quite unintelligible. The meaning seems to be, That the ship
in which was the English messenger, having a cargo worth 100,000_l_.
sterling, and 700 persons aboard, bound on the pilgrimage to Mecca, was
taken and carried into Goa.--E.]

About this time also, Robert Claxon of the Dragon, who had deserted to
the Portuguese for fear of punishment, came to us accompanied by a
German who had been a slave among the Turks. One Robert Johnson, who was
with the Portuguese, and meant to have come to us, was persuaded by
another Englishman, while passing through the Decan, to turn mussulman,
and remain in that country, where he got an allowance of seven sh