Having opened negotiations with the Moghul emperor of India, Jehangir, the Company obtained the privilege of establishing a factory at Surat, and in return for the payment of certain fixed custom duties, secured their vessels and property against the hostility of the Portuguese, and their still more formidable rivals the Dutch. They also contrived to obtain a footing in Japan, through the influence of one William Adams, a native of Kent, who, having been pilot in one of the earliest Dutch expeditions, had settled there, and had gained the confidence of the emperor, from whom he received many favours. It is to be regretted that the intercourse thus formed was allowed to fall into abeyance after the death of Adams[154] in 1631, and that Europe, during the long period since, has, till quite recently, derived little or no benefit from a commerce likely to become second only to that of China. When, in 1614, the English Company despatched the _New Years Gift_, of six hundred and fifty tons; the _Hector_, of five hundred; the _Merchant’s Hope_, of three hundred; and the _Solomon_,[155] of two hundred tons, they for the first time consolidated their profits into one common stock. In this expedition they were fortunate enough to repel the Portuguese in their attack upon one of the ports belonging to the Moghul emperor, thus materially strengthening their relations with that powerful Indian monarch. An event so fortunate was promptly followed by the despatch of Sir Thomas Roe as ambassador from England to his court, where he resided until the year 1619. Numerous privileges were then granted to the Company, whose ships now traded with Achin, Tambee, and Jewa, in Sumatra, where they established factories, as well as to Surat, in the dominion of the Moghul, to Ferando in Japan, and to Bantam and Batana, in Java. They also carried on trading operations, to a greater or less extent, with Borneo, Banda, Malacca, Siam, Celebes, and the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel.[156] [Sidenote: Treaty between the English and Dutch East India Companies, soon broken.]