The Groivth of European Enterprise 67
of one far more complete and aggressive, and making the effort of
the English company seem puny.'1 The English company was
indeed for the first fifty years of its existence chaotically financed
and administered, and it was obstructed rather than helped by the
early Stuart governments.2
Meanwhile the English brothers Sir Antony and Sir Robert
Sherley had in 1598 received a warm welcome from the illustrious
and enterprising Shah Abbas the Great of Persia (1587-1629), who
was seeking the most favourable market for Persia's raw silk, her
main commodity for export and largely a royal monopoly. The
Persian Gulf was still dominated from Hormuz by the Portuguese,
who 'were everywhere hated by the native populations on ac-
count of the savage cruelty which they had constantly used to
mask their deficiency in real force';3 the route to the Levant coast
was controlled by the Shah's enemy, the Ottoman Sultan, for his
own profit; and the Caspian route was impossibly roundabout.
The Shah accordingly sent first Antony and then Robert as his
ambassador to the capitals of Europe to seek alliance against the
Ottoman Empire and trade-relations. The East India Co., which
had already opened a factory (trading-station) at Surat north of
Bombay in 1612, accepted the Shah's proposals, and sent ships in
1616 to the Persian Gulf to trade with his capital at Isfahan. The
Portuguese at Hormuz made a determined attempt to intercept the
Company's merchant-ships, in return for which a joint Anglo-
Persian expedition in 1622 expelled them from Hormuz and the
Persians drove them out of Bahrain also. Their decline was
accelerated by their loss of Muscat in 1650 and the closing of their
factory at Basra.
The East India Co. now had factories at the Shah's new port of
Bandar Abbas, with branches at Isfahan and Shiraz; at Mokha for
the Yemen coffee-trade; and soon afterwards at Basra for trade
by river-boat with Baghdad. However, the reorganization of the
Company in 1661 was followed by a change of policy and the
abandoning of all these factories. Experience had shown that it was
not profitable for the Company to operate the local coastal trade,
which was the natural business of the highly efficient Asiatic ship-
ping. The Company accordingly concentrated its staffs at a few
Foster, op. cit., 183.
2 J. A. Williamson, The Ocean in English History, 104 ff.
3 Williamson, Short History, I. 223.