[155] Dela Valle’s Travels, Hakluyt Edition, I. 97. [↑]
[156] Elphinstone’s History, 507. [↑]
[157] Herbert’s Travels, 84. Corryat’s Master Herbert was as already noticed named like the traveller Thomas. The two Thomases were distant relations, both being fourth in descent from Sir Richard Herbert of Colebroke, who lived about the middle of the fifteenth century. A further connection between the two families is the copy of complimentary verses “To my cousin Sir Thomas Herbert,” signed Ch. Herbert, in the 1634 and 1665 editions of Herbert’s Travels, which are naturally, though somewhat doubtfully, ascribed to Charles Herbert, a brother of our Master Thomas. It is therefore probable that after his return to England Sir Thomas Herbert obtained the Mándu details from Master Thomas who was himself a writer, the author of several poems and pamphlets. Corryat’s tale how, during the water-famine at Mándu, Master Herbert annexed a spring or cistern, and then bound a servant of the Great King who attempted to share in its use, shows admirable courage and resolution on the part of Master Thomas, then a youth of twenty years. The details of Thomas in his brother Lord Herbert’s autobiography give additional interest to the hero of Corryat’s tale of a Tank. Master Thomas was born in. a.d. 1597. In 1610, when a page to Sir Edward Cecil and a boy of thirteen, in the German War especially in the siege of Juliers fifteen miles north-east of Aix-la-Chapelle, Master Thomas showed such forwardness as no man in that great army surpassed. On his voyage to India in 1617, in a fight with a great Portuguese carrack, Captain Joseph, in command of Herbert’s ship Globe, was killed. Thomas took Joseph’s place, forced the carrack aground, and so riddled her with shot that she never floated again. To his brother’s visit to India Lord Herbert refers as a year spent with the merchants who went from Surat to the Great Mughal. After his return to England Master Thomas distinguished himself at Algiers, capturing a vessel worth £1800. In 1622, when Master Thomas was in command of one of the ships sent to fetch Prince Charles (afterwards King Charles I.) from Spain, during the return voyage certain Low Countrymen and Dunkirkers, that is Dutch and Spanish vessels, offended the Prince’s dignity by fighting in his presence without his leave. The Prince ordered the fighting ships to be separated; whereupon Master Thomas, with some other ships got betwixt the fighters on either side, and shot so long that both Low Countrymen and Dunkirkers were glad to desist. Afterwards at divers times Thomas fought with great courage and success with divers men in single fight, sometimes hurting and disarming his adversary, sometimes driving him away. The end of Master Thomas was sad. Finding his proofs of himself undervalued he retired into a private and melancholy life, and after living in this sullen humour for many years, he died about 1642 and was buried in London in St. Martin’s near Charing Cross. [↑]
[158] Khafi Khán in Elliot, VII. 218. [↑]
[159] Malcolm’s Central India, I. 64. [↑]
[160] Malcolm’s Central India, I. 78. [↑]
[161] Malcolm’s Central India, I. 100. [↑]
[162] Malcolm’s Central India, I. 106. [↑]