ABSTRACT
The first expedition sent out by the English East India Company in the opening years of the seventeenth century could not have made a great impression on the English public. As an Atlantic state, England, like Spain its arch rival and frequent enemy, looked to the west to realize its mercantile ambitions. The Mughals entered India through the geographical gate that had open to so many previous invaders, but they were inhibits by the internal geography of India from extending their domination to the limits of its natural boundaries. The inauspicious beginnings Surat became the headquarters of the East India Company in India during the seventeenth century. The disorders in the interior of the subcontinent thus created the conditions for exchange between the nayak and the representatives of the East India Company. The few Englishmen that served the Company in India were incarcerates in the coastal factories, unknown and unseen by Indian society.
