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The Jesuit '''missionary''', Father Thomas Stevens, or Stephens, (c1549-1619) has been generally accepted as the first Englishman to arrive in India. He had studied in Rome and, having sailed on a [[Portuguese]] ship, settled in [[Goa]] 1579. There he learned the local languages and taught Christian doctrine to the local people.

As his father was a prominent merchant in London the information he sent home no doubt generated a lot of interest and raised awareness of the trading advantages in the East. In fact, it was not that long after, in 1600, that the Queen Elizabeth I eventually granted a charter to the [[East India Company]].

Moreover it is also documented that in 1583 Stevens sent a letter in Latin to his brother in Paris which described his missionary methods. He lived in Goa for over 40 years producing works in local languages. His masterpiece was the ''Christian Purana '', an epic poem based on the life of Jesus, written in the local Konkani dialect of Marathi. This was all the more ingenious as he had to adapt European script to embrace Indian language.