ANGLO -PORTUGUESE QUARRELS IN INDIA 21

Gulf. The business was done, with the aid of the Per- sians, very thoroughly; there was a regular bombard- ment of the fortress, and a naval action with the Por- tuguese royal fleet, until the island was surrendered, the fortifications razed, and the Portuguese garrison transported to Goa. We do not hear that Portugal made any serious remonstrance against these proceedings, which would certainly startle modern diplomacy; but it stands on record that James I and the Lord High Admiral (the Duke of Buckingham) exacted large sums of money from the Company as the royal share of the profits. Another heavy fine was again demanded by Bucking- ham from the Company before he would permit them to despatch a fleet for the protection of their commerce against Portuguese reprisals. Probably the English might have claimed to set off against the affair at Or- muz other similar irregularities on the part of the Por- tuguese; for among the nations then engaged in the East India trade there was little scruple about ways and means of dealing with rivals. But the Dutch, though formally friends and allies of England, soon became much more dangerous ene- mies in Asia than the Portuguese, and were now inflicting heavy damage on the British East Indian trade which the English Company was by no means disposed to endure. The two Companies were rapidly drifting into a rather ferocious war, quite uncontrolled by international law or military usage, in which little quarter was given and nothing spared that might extir-