SIR THOMAS EOE 69

useful qualifications for a mission to an Eastern court, while in the still more important matters of judgment and tact he was equally well equipped. Sprung from a noted City family, he combined the shrewdness, readi- ness of resource, and business ability which had raised his ancestors to fortune, with the culture and experi- ence obtained by a varied training in most favourable circumstances." More than all this, he was a true Elizabethan, with the gallant bravery, the passionate devotion to king and country, and the great-hearted fanaticism of his age. It was not the merchant's son, but the Elizabethan gentleman, who faced the Moghul prince as an equal, and told* an insulting prime minister that " if his great- ness were no more than his manners he durst not use me soe; that I was an Ambassador from a mighty and free Prince, and in that quality his better." When the governor of Surat tried slyly to carry out the odious practice, hitherto tamely allowed, of searching the per- sons of British subjects, in spite of Roe's claiming the absolute exemption of an ambassador's suite, there was a spirited scene: " Master Wallis breaking out came up after me and tould me this treachery; whereon I turnd my horse and with all speed rode backe to them, I confess too angry. When I came up, I layd my hand on my sword, and my men breake through and came about me. Then I asked what they entended by soe base treachery: I was free landed, and I would die soe, and if any of them durst touch any belonging to me, I bade him speake and shew himself. Then they de-