FITCH, RALPH (fl. 1583-1606)

This article appears in Volume V10, Page 439 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

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FITCH, RALPH (fl. 1583-1606) , London merchant, one of the earliest English travellers and traders in Mesopotamia, the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, India proper and Indo-China.
In January 1583 he embarked in the " Tiger " for

Tripoli

and Aleppo in Syria (see Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act I. sc. 3), together with J. Newberie, J. Eldred and two other merchants or employees of the Levant Company. From Aleppo he reached the Euphrates, descended the river from Bir to Fallujah, crossed southern Mesopotamia to Bagdad, and dropped down the

Tigris

TIGRIS (Old Persian Tigrd, Diklat of the cuneiform inscriptions, Hiddekel of the Old Testament, Diglath of the Targum, Digla of the Arabs)

to Basra (May to July 1583). Here Eldred stayed behind to trade, while

Fitch

and the rest sailed down the Persian Gulf to Ormuz, where they were arrested as spies (at Venetian instigation, as they believed) and sent prisoners to the Portuguese viceroy at Goa (September to October). Through the sureties procured by two

Jesuits

JESUITS

(one being

Thomas

Stevens, formerly of New College, Oxford, the first Englishman known to have reached India by the Cape route in '579)

Fitch

and his friends regained their liberty, and escaping from Goa (April 1584) travelled through the heart of India to the court of the

Great

GREAT

Mogul Akbar, then probably at

Agra

AGRA

. In September 1585 Newberie left on his return journey overland via Lahore (he disappeared, being presumably murdered, in the Punjab), while Fitch descended the Jumna and the Ganges, visiting Benares, Patna, Kuch Behar, Hugli, Chittagong, &c. (1585-1586), and pushed on by sea to

Pegu

PEGU

and Burma. Here he visited the Rangoon region, ascended the Irawadi some distance, acquired a remarkable acquaintance with inland

Pegu

PEGU

, and even penetrated to the Siamese Shan states (1586-1587). Early in 1588 he visited Malacca; in the autumn of this year he began his homeward travels, first to Bengal; then round the Indian coast, touching at Cochin and Goa, to Ormuz; next up the Persian Gulf to Basra and up the

Tigris

TIGRIS (Old Persian Tigrd, Diklat of the cuneiform inscriptions, Hiddekel of the Old Testament, Diglath of the Targum, Digla of the Arabs)

to Mosul (Nineveh); finally via Urfa, Bir on the Euphrates, Aleppo and

Tripoli

, to the Mediterranean. He reappeared in London on the 29th of April 1591. His experience was greatly valued by the founders of the

East

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

India Company, who specially consulted him on Indian affairs (e.g. 2nd of October 'boo; 29th of January '6o'; 31st of December '6o6).
See Hakluyt, Principal Navigations (1599), vol. ii. part i. pp. 245-271, esp. 250-268; Linschoten, Voyages (Itineraris), part i. ch. xcii. (vol. ii. pp. 158-169, &c., Hakluyt Soc. edition) ; Stevens and Birdwood, Court Records of the

East

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

India Company15991643 (1886), esp. pp. 26, 123; State Papers, East Indies, &c., 15131616 (1862), No. 36; Pinkerton, Voyages and Travels (18081814), ix. 406-425.

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