38 – Abraham Navarro

For Camila Loewe, with much love and thanks for decades of friendship and support

This post on Abraham Navarro would not be here without the work of Walter J. Fischel (1902-1976), who was Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Literature at the University of California from 1945 to 1970, after studying for his doctorate at the Hebrew University, where he served in the Faculty of Oriental Studies. Fischel specialised in the history of Jews in India, Iran, and Central Asia. It was doubtless while researching for his book The Jews of India that he came upon Navarro’s name. ¹ His two articles covering Navarro’s work for the East India Company from 1682-92 appeared in the Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research in 1956 and 1957.² It is thanks to these two pieces that I have been able to investigate Navarro’s experience as a linguist.  The scarcity of resources has led me to explore the history of the Sephardic community in seventeenth-century London, trade between Britain and Siam and the First Anglo-Mughal War. The ten years that this Sephardic Jew, spent in Asia in the early days of the East India Company, shed an intriguing light on British manoeuvres in Asia in the late seventeenth century.

By the mid 17^th Century, London was beginning to hold advantages for the Sephardic Merchant. England, under Oliver Cromwell, needed trade and another valuable commodity that the Sephardic Merchants had through their dispersed family connections – that of Intelligence & information. Additionally, the Puritans were extremely interested in the Writings of the Old Testament and were studying Hebrew to understand what was written there. The conditions were therefore favourable to ease the readmission.³

It is with this Abraham Navarro and the ship “Delight” that one of the most dramatic chapters in the annals of Jewish activities in the service of the East India Company during the 17th century is connected. ⁴

Two cautions. Which languages [Abraham Navarro] interpreted is not established — Portuguese is near certain, and Persian, the language of the Mughal chancery, is likely; the claim sometimes made that he interpreted an Indian vernacular is unevidenced. And he should not be confused with the Abraham Navarro of Amsterdam recorded in 1627… Different man, different city. ⁵

Sephardim in London

Abraham Navarro (d. 1692) was part of the Sephardic community in the East End of London. (“Sephardic” is derived from “Sepharad”, the Hebrew word for Iberia, where Jews had lived until their expulsion in 1492.)  The East London settlement was made up of people who moved there following a 1656 petition to the head of state, Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, for the readmission of Jews, who had been banished from the British Isles in 1290. The scholar and printer, Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel (1604-1657), played a key role in convincing Cromwell that such a resettlement would be of mutual interest. Cromwell acceded to the request of the representatives of some twenty families for a place of worship and a graveyard. A burial ground was found for them in Mile End, in the grounds of what is now Queen Mary University of London, and a synagogue was created in a house on Creechurch Lane, near the Tower.⁷

This community was multilingual; many people were fluent in Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, and English. There were several scholars among them who specialised in biblical translation and Hebraic studies.⁸. While linguists and scholars played a significant role in the small community, it also included merchants. It was the very success of their Jewish competitors that led English traders to object to Cromwell’s decision to allow them to live in London.

In 1663, thirty London Jewish merchant houses had accounts with Alderman Edward Backwell, the goldsmith-banker, and by 1672 some seventy-seven Jewish names had appeared in the pages of his ledgers. Among them they traded with Spain, Portugal, Holland, Italy, Flanders, Germany, and France; with Jamaica, Barbados, the Canaries, and the Azores, and with India.⁹ The merchants’ wealth and success appealed to the authorities; so did their connections. The merchant, Antonio Fernandez Carvajal, provided information on Royalist activity on the Continent, as he had agents acting as “intelligencers” or spies. Cromwell recognised the useful role that the Jews could play.

They had aided him as “intelligencers,” and he foresaw that, with their control of the Portuguese and Spanish trade, and their large commercial interests in the Levant, the Hamburg Bank, and the Dutch East and West Indies, they would be of service to him in his expansionist policy, and would bring wealth into the country.¹⁰

The East India Company

This small settlement afforded its members opportunities in translation, interpreting, intelligence operations, trade and other sorts of intermediary roles.  It could well be that Navarro decided that travel and trade were an interesting option, as he had language skills and wanted to see the world.  How he ended up with the East India Company (EIC) is not clear. It could be that there was an introduction from a merchant from his community or that he decided that his command of Portuguese was good enough for him to seek employment there. His appointment is recorded in the EIC minutes for November 3, 1682:

 In the Court Minutes for 3 November, 1682, it is recorded that “Mr Abraham Navarro was now elected to the Company’s services as an interpreter to go for China at the salary of 50£ a year, and was now admitted to the freedom of the Company.¹¹

This is his first appearance in any record: we do not know how old he was in 1682, or if he had any prior interpreting experience. The EIC had used interpreters from the outset: its first expedition in 1601 included an interpreter with Arabic who was able to assist with negotiations in Sumatra.  Also the expedition of the East India Company to the Orient headed by John Jourdain (1608-1617) employed, after arrival in Mocha in 1609, a Jew whose name was David, as interpreter. He is said to have been a great linguist wh spoke Arabic, Portuguese, Spanish and other languages and served, according to the records, as interpreter and agent for some time and conducted negotiations with the natives all along the west coast of India.¹² Navarro was recruited as a linguist with Portuguese for the EIC, though he may have had other languages. Portuguese was spoken in his community and a lingua franca in Asia.¹³ He set sail for China on the Delight soon after he was hired, in December 1682. He was one of three supercargoes (agents on board the vessel to manage all trade-related matters), the others being Peter Crouch and John Thomas.

Siam

The Delight was forced to seek shelter in Siamese waters in October 1683, and it is there that Navarro is recorded as having carried out his first work as a linguist for the EIC, dealing with the colourful character who was the head of trade in Siam, Constantine Phaulkon. The Delight’s accidental presence in Siamese waters coincided with an EIC investigation into its operation there, and he was called upon to help the supercargoes leading it, William Strangh and Thomas Yale. He drafted a note on EIC affairs addressed to Phaulkon and attended meetings with him. Some of them involved some strong language; it turned out that Phaulkon himself was an obstacle to the EIC’s efforts to trade in Siam. During a meeting in November 1683, according to Strangh’s diary,

[a]t one point Navarro became so enraged about Phaulcon’s statements that he told him “that he, Phaulcon, should know that we had both a King and an Honorable Company that would defend us,” whereupon Phaulcon got into a great rage and shouted, “Do you threaten me?”¹⁴ The whole matter ended inconclusively with an attempt to submit a petition against Phaulkon to the king of Siam. That was not the end of Navarro’s dealings with Phaulkon, however. The three supercargoes on the Delight managed to infuriate him once again when they refused to supply him with the iron nails he had requested for his king’s use. They conceded to him only after he had them seized, imprisoned, and starved of food and water. The EIC and the men themselves submitted complaints against Phaulkon’s treatment of them, but they do not seem to have gained satisfaction. In April 1684, the Delight finally set sail for its original destination, China. The factors’ last letter to Phaulkon reveals the extent of their disappointment in him.

 The unworthiness of your person, indeed, was almost argument sufficient to persuade us that we yet further undervalued ourselves in regarding your baseness with any cognizance, but that your sycophants might not think our silence to proceed rather from meanness of spirit or such like than from disdain, we disturb Our pen and tell you that for monstrous ingratitude the likewe have we not seen even among Greeks.¹⁵

India

There were discussions with Chinese officials while the Delight was docked in Amoy, but they proved inconclusive, so the six months spent in China were fruitless: the best hope the factors had was that there would be some progress in 1685. There was little point in prolonging the stay there, so the Delight sailed for Surat on its homeward journey. Navarro did not want to return to England, however.

The authorities of the East India Company, having considered Abraham Navarro’s application to stay behind, permitted him to remain in India. They declared that “not being a covenant Servant and not otherwise employed than a linguist, that we let him to continue in India…, he is being free to go home in the first summer ship.”¹⁶ There is no record of his activities over the next four years, until he was suddenly involved in another round of diplomatic negotiations.

The Anglo-Mughal War

As a result of an ill-advised military attempt to assert their power, the EIC had incurred imperial wrath and was found itself in serious trouble in the Anglo-Mughal War of 1686-1690. We have an eyewitness account of the hostilities from the trader Alexander Hamilton, who was drafted into the EIC’s forces. His description of the power of the Mughal admiral Sidi Yaqub gives a sense of the British side’s difficulties.

The Sedee’s [men] being ten to one in Numbers, and better runners than our Men, and better acquainted with closs Fighting with Sword and Target, took hold of the Opportunity and advanced with all their Speed, which the Captain perceiving, betook himself to his Heels…¹⁷Hamilton, A. A New Account of the East Indies, 2013 Cambridge University Press digitally printed version of the 1727 edition, p. 220[/efn_note]

Modern scholars confirm Hamilton’s views. The Mughal war machine swept away the English landing parties easily as if it were swatting flies; soon the EIC factories … had all been seized and plundered,   and the English had been expelled completely from Bengal. The Surat factory was closed and Bombay was blockaded.¹⁸

The Firman

The Company was manifestly in serious difficulty and had to remedy the situation. That is why Abraham Navarro was asked to join the factor (agent) George Weldon in negotiations with the Mughal court in the summer of 1689. They were given clear instructions as to the goals and non-negotiables of the discussions. They were to meet first with a representative of Emperor Aurangzeb under the auspices of the Portuguese Captain-General John de Segueira de Faria. Navarro had to draft some letters in Portuguese, including the one expressing concern at how they had been waiting for one month for talks to begin. In September, the two parties finally reached agreement on the conditions governing the EIC’s trade in the region. The imperial firman, or decree, that resulted was as ungenerous as could be expected:

[a] contemptuous Imperial Firman or decree of the Emperor Aurangzeb in February 1690 readmitted the East India Company to trade in his dominions as before the war in exchange for a grovelling admission of guilt and a stiff fine of 150,000 rupees (at the time about £15,000)¹⁹

After this initial stage, Weldon and Navarro were told to proceed to Jehanabad, in present-day Bihar, for an audience with Aurangzeb. Once again, they were given strict guidelines. Hamilton noticed the tension surrounding the meeting, which recalls Sir Thomas Roe’s earlier imperial audience. Weldon and Navarro were forced to embody the EIC’s humiliation when they came before the court.

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In fifteen days they arrived at Court, being then at Jehanabant. They were received but coldly… by the special Assistance of Presents to the Officers of the Court, they were admitted to Audience, but were brought to Aurangzeb’s presence after a new mode for Ambassadors, their hands tied by a Sash before them, and were obliged to prostrate.²¹ Despite these humiliating terms and conditions, there was reason to be satisfied with the imperial decree: the fighting stopped and trade resumed.

His Majesty’s Charter …

There is one last chapter in Abraham Navarro’s EIC story. Following his success with the firman, he was listed as a Company employee in Bombay in August 1690. The EIC authorities considered rewarding him with the honour of full membership of its Bombay Council but in the end decided that they could do no more than offer him the fourth-ranked post of Purser Marine, responsible for dealing with foreign ships and merchants, with management and accounting responsibilities. The reason for this decision had nothing to do with his qualifications:

“[T]o admit him into Bombay Council as being a professed Jew is quite contrary to His Majesty’s Charter to the Rt. Honorable Company for Bombay which is to govern the same as near as possible conformable to the laws of England and you know it is against the law that any Jew have any authority in Government and we must be careful how we make any breach in our Master Charter.”²²

Navarro’s reaction to this decision appears in two letters he wrote in 1691, requesting permission to travel to London to seek justice. Given that no one in Bombay could help him, he informed the Governor of Bombay on January 14 that I humbly desire to embark my self in this present occasion for Europe that I may apply my self to my Right Honorable Master for Justice, and in gra[n]ting of which you will highly oblige, Your Humble Servant. Two days later, he informed the Agent and Council of Surat that he wanted to travel to Europe with his family to seek redress since your Hono. Council do not think me worthy of your notices in granting me what is really and truly my due.²³

These letters are the only personal trace of Navarro in the archive and his involvement with the EIC is the only known part of his life. We learn from a February 11, 1693, letter to the Company authorities that he had died. He is referred to as the Purser Marine: he did not make it to London to plead his case.

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1. Halkin, A. S. Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 41/42 (1973 – 1974), pp. xxv-xxvii, in American Academy for Jewish Research
2. Fischel, W. J., Abraham Navarro: Jewish Interpreter and Diplomat in the Service of the English East India Company (1682-1692) in Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research, Vol. 25 (1956), pp. 39-62 and Vol. 26 (1957), pp. 25-39
3. https://www.ferdinando.org.uk/17th_century_readmission.htm
4. Fischel op. cit.Vol. 25 (1956) p. 44
5. Sephardic Genealogy in India https://sephardicgenealogy.com/
7. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/oliver-cromwell-protector-jews⁶Fischel, ibid., p. 44
8. https://jewishmuseum.org.uk/
9. Woolf, M. Foreign Trade of London Jews in the Seventeenth Century, Transactions & Miscellanies (Jewish Historical Society of England), 1970-1973, Vol. 24 (1970-1973), pp. 38-58, p. 48
10. https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/4772
11. Fischel, ibid. p. 44
12. Ibid, pp.. 43
13. Kaislaniemi, S., Jurebassos and Linguists: The East India Company and Early Modern English Words for ‘Interpreter’ in Selected Proceedings of the 2008 Symposium on New Approaches in English Historical Lexis (HEL-LEX 2), ed. McConchie, R.W., Alpo Honkapohja, A., and J Tyrkkö, J.60-73. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project, pp. 60-73, p. 67.
14. Fischel, op. cit. Vol. 25, p. 47
15. Record of the Relations between Siam and Foreign Countries in the 17^th Century, Vol 3, 1680-1685, p. 295
16. Fishel, op. cit. Vol. 25, pp. 57-58
18. Dalrymple, W. The Anarchy:Rhe Relentless Rise of the East India Company, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019, p. 24
19. https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/aurangzeb-versus-east-india-company https://www.historytoday.com/history-today-issues/volume-37
20. The English beg forgiveness of Aurangzeb, whom they have offended. (My translation)
21. Hamilton op. cit. p. 24
22. S Surat Factory Records, Vol. 92, August 16 in Fischel, op. cit., Vol. 26 p. 35
23. Ibid., p. 38