Mr Barwick’s man, who had been inveigled to run away by a deserter from Captain Best who had turned Mahomedan, was brought back from Surat on the 1st of October.  Others afterwards ran away to Damaun, and wrote to their comrades to induce them to do the same.  The 2d, two Hollanders came on board, who had travelled by land from Petapulli, on the Coromandel coast.  On the 10th, the governor’s brother came on board, making many fair speeches, and had a present given him.  The governor impudently urged us to give him presents, though he had already received three, but found fault with them, and even named what he would have given him, being beggar and chooser both at once.  We had this day news of Mr Aldworth’s death; and on the 5th November we received intelligence of the lord ambassador having fallen sick at Burhanpoor, and that Mr Boughton was dead.

The most current coin at Surat is rials of eight, or Spanish dollars, of which the old with the plain cross passes for five mahmoodies each.  The new dollars, having flower-de-luces at the ends of the cross, if not light, are worth four 3/4 mahmoodies.  The mahmoody is a coarse silver coin, containing thirty pice, and twelve drams make a pice.  The English shilling, if full weight, will yield thirty 1/2 pice.  Larines are worth much the same with mahmoodies.[169] There are sundry kinds of rupees, some of which are worth half a dollar, and others less, by which one may be easily deceived.  The trade at Surat is conducted by brokers, who are very subtle, and deceive both buyer and seller, if not carefully looked after.  In weights, each city of India differs from another.  The commodities are infinite, indigos being the chief, those of Lahore the best, and those from Sarkess inferior.  Great quantities of cloths made of cotton, as white and coloured calicoes, containing fourteen yards the book or piece, from 100 to 200 mahmoodies each.  Pintadoes, chintzes, chadors, sashes, girdles, cannakens, trekannies, serrabafs, aleias, patollas, sellas, quilts, carpets, green ginger, suckets or confections, lignum aloes, opium, sal amoniac, and abundance of other drugs.  Vendible commodities are knives, mirrors, pictures, and such like toys; English cloth, China wares, silk, and porcelain, and all kinds of spices.  The Guzerates load their great ships, of nine, twelve, or fifteen hundred tons, at Gogo, and steal out unknown to the Portuguese.

[Footnote 169:  From this explanation, the mahmoody and larine may be assumed as worth one shilling; the pice as equal to a farthing and a half, and the dram at about 1-10th of a farthing.—­E.]