Ralph Fitch- England's Pioneer to India and Burma (His Companions and Contemporaries, with his Remarkable Narrative Told in his Own Words)

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About the Book The plan of the book has been to introduce the account of the arduous journey by a historical summary, drawn from authoritative sources, designed to illustrate the circumstances under which it was entered upon; to borrow every additional light obtainable, either from the letters of Fitch and his companions, or the statements of those who came in contact with them; to furnish a series of pen-portraits of the men concerned; and finally to give a brief account of the preliminary proceedings of the first East India Company, in which Ralph Fitch himself took no small part.

The account of the voyage is here presented in full, with one small excision, which is duly indicated, for the first time since Hakluyt gave it to the world three centuries ago. The object of this book is to present a popular and yet reliable account of a somewhat obscure, though fundamental, phase in the history of England's expansion.

About the Author The author, John Horton Riley was a member of the Hakluyt society. Being of humble nature, he has left it on readers to judge whether the ideal set forth for the book has been approached in this work or not; he puts forward no claim in regard to it. It is typical of his modesty that he summarizes, in the briefest possible fashion, the details of the various portions of Ralph's journey to the exclusion of all incidents.

The author has many grateful acknowledgements to make for the generous and in some cases spontaneous. assistance rendered to him during the progress of his undertaking. But particular mention is due to Hakluyt's "Principal Navigations" 1599-1600, which is the foundation of this book. The author has endeavored to trace each stage of the journey with the invaluable assistance he obtained from Sir W. W. Hunter's unparalleled "Gazetteer" (H.) and from Sir Arthur Payer’s unique "History of Burma".

Preface So much has been written of recent years of the history of what is generally known as the East India Company, and so much interesting matter has of late been brought to light from its earliest records, that it seems strange that the first successful English expedition to discover the Indian trade should have been, comparatively speaking, overlooked. Before the first East India Company was formed the Levant Company lived and flourished, largely through the efforts of two London citizens, Sir Edward sometime Lord Mayor, and Master Richard Staper, merchant. To these men and their colleagues we owe the inception of our great Eastern enterprise. To the fact that among them there were those who were daring enough, and intelligent enough, to carry their extra- ordinary programme into effect we owe our appearance as competitors in the Indian seas almost simultaneously with the Dutch. The beginning of our trade with the East Indies is generally dated from the first voyage of James Lancaster, who sailed from Plymouth in 1591. But, great as his achievement was, and immediately pregnant with consequences of a permanent character, he was not the first Englishman to reach India, nor even the first to return with a valuable store of commercial information. To keep to the chronological order of events, the Rev. Thomas Stevens, S.J., went out in 1579 to join the Jesuit establishment founded at Goa under the Portuguese, doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and ended his days in the neighborhood of the Indian settlement. The honor of "Pioneer Englishman," however, justly belongs to Ralph Fitch, who, as the survivor of a small party of men who carried with them Royal missives to India and China, returned with some practical, if not diplomatic, results of the mission. Sailing from the Thames on board the historic ship Tiger, in 1583, and arriving in India as the prisoner of the united crowns of Portugal and Spain, Fitch eventually crossed the Peninsula, pursued his investigations to Burma and Malacca, and, after spending some time in Asia Minor, returned home within a month of Lancaster's first departure.

**Contents and Sample Pages**