ABSTRACT
Virji Vora is mentioned for the first time in English Factory Records as a trader in 1619. For the next half-a-century European Factory records repeatedly refer to him in a variety of roles, as the chief trader and moneylender. The deal was struck in the name of Virji Vora, then the greatest Gujarati trader of the seventeenth century. In 1619 the English gave a license to his agents ‘Hacka Parracke’ to sail in a junk owned by Virji Vora. The English asked their country-men to extend to them all courtesy on the high sea. The European traders tried to develop close relation with Virji. His support and active assistance were indispensable for successful pursuit of business in the province. The England learnt by experience that Virji could help them when everyone else had failed. Virji Vora remained a leading business house even after Shivaji’s loot of Surat in 1664.
