78 THE GREAT MOGHUL

to insufferable insolencies, and vse vs woorse than any braue enemie would or any other but vnthanckfull drunckards that wee haue releeued from Cheese and Cabbage, or rather from a Chayne with bread and water." In his solitude and harassments his great con- solation was the sense of duty ungrudgingly performed, and he could write to his employers proudly, yet with- out boasting, " My sincerity toward you in all Actions is without spott; my Neglect of Priuat Gayne is without example, and my frugalitye beyond your expectation. I was neuer an ill husband of my Credit nor any trust committed to mee. My Patrimoniall vnthriftines only I feele and repent. I will bragg of no Industrie nor suc- cesse. Judge mee by my Actions, Not by the fauour of an Infidel King, with whom yet I stand on such out- ward showes of Creditt as Neuer any stranger did." His " frugalitye " was indeed extraordinary. He kept up the embassy on about 250 a year; his own salary was only 600; and though the Company received him with twelve coaches at Tower Wharf, and voted him 1,500 for his services, he returned a poor man, and was thankful to accept another mission from the king, though it involved a second exile, this time to Constan- tinople. In those days it was an exception for a man in his position to refuse, as unworthy of his high office, the many opportunities for making money in India; but Thomas Roe was fashioned in a refined and exalted ideal of conduct, and his high principles and noble char- acter stand clearly revealed in his writings. TVe shall obtain no more familiar glimpses of the jo-