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 Jan. 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 of the Levant Company. From Aleppo he reached the Euphrates, descended the river to Fallujah, crossed southern Mesopotamia to Baghdad, and dropped down the Tigris 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 and sent prisoners to the Portuguese viceroy at Goa (September to October). Through the sureties procured by two Jesuits (one being Thomas Stevens, formerly of New college, Oxford, the first Englishman known to have reached India by the Cape route, in 79) 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 Mogul Akbar, then probably at Agra. In Sept. Newberie left on his return journey overland via Lahore (he disappeared in the Punjab), while Fitch descended the Jumna and the Ganges, visiting Benares, Patna, Kuch, Behar, Hugli, Chittagong, etc. (1585, 86), and pushed on by sea to Pegu and Burma. Here he visited the Rangoon region, ascended the Irawadi some distance, acquired a remarkable acquaintance with inland Pegu, and even penetrated to the Siamese Shan States (1586-87). 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 to Mosul (Nineveh) ; finally tia Urfa, Bir on the Euphrates, Aleppo and Tripoli, to the Mediter ranean. He reappeared in London on April 29, 1591. His expe rience was greatly valued by the founders of the East India Corn pany, who specially consulted him on Indian affairs. He died c. Oct. 5, 1611.
See Hakluyt, Principal Navigation vol. ii., part i., pp. esp. 250-268 ; Linschoten, Voyages (Itineraris), part 1. ch. xcii. vol. ii. pp. 158-169, etc. (Hakluyt Soc. ed.) ; Stevens and Birdwood, Court Records of the East India Company 1599-1603, esp. pp. 26, 123 (1886) ; State Papers, East Indies, etc., 1513-1616, No. 36 (1862) ; Pinkerton, Voyages and Travels, ix.4o6-425 (1808-1814) . J. Horton Ryley, Ralph Fitch, England's Pioneer to the Indies (1899).