In December, 1723, he set sail for England. During the two years he had
been in the Indian seas he had accomplished nothing he ought to have done,
and done almost everything he ought not to have done. He had been sent out
to suppress the pirates and to protect the Company's interests. He had not
captured a single pirate ship or rooted out a single pirate haunt.
Claiming, as a King's officer, to be exempt from the provisions of the
Company's charter, he had indulged in private trade, and had even had
dealings with the pirates. He had flouted the Company's authority wherever
it existed, and had encouraged others to resist it. Every person who had a
dispute with the Company received protection from him. He told the Goa
authorities that the Company's vessels were only traders, and therefore
not entitled to the salutes they had always received. He had refused to
give up the Company's sailors whom he encouraged to desert to his ship. He
forbade the Bombay traders to fly British colours, but allowed his own
trading friends to do so. He had gone trading to Bengal and Mocha, where
there were no pirates; two months and a half he had spent in the Hooghly;
three months and a half he had spent at Madras and St. David's for trade
purposes; and, when the quarrel between the Bombay authorities and the
Portuguese was going on, he gave out that he would send the Goa Viceroy a
petticoat, as an old woman, if he did not take every one of the Company's
ships. He had quarrelled with all his captains, and one of them, Sir
Robert Johnson, owed his death to him. At Surat he had found a discharged
servant of the Company, one Mr. Wyche, on whose departure the Governor had
laid an embargo till his accounts were cleared. Matthews took him and his
eleven chests of treasure on board his ship, in defiance of the Governor's
orders, and put him ashore at Calicut, whence he escaped to French
territory. From Surat also he carried to England the broker's son,
Rustumjee Nowrojee, to worry the Directors. He carried off Mrs. Gyfford,
and brought her to England in his ship. His last act on the coast was to