The East India Company's Maritime Service, 1746-1834: Masters of the Eastern Seas (Worlds of the East India Company, 6) [1 ed.] 1843835835, 9781843835837

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THE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S MARITIME SERVICE 1746 –1834 Masters of the Eastern Seas JEAN SUTTON

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WORLDS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY  Volume 6

The East India Company’s Maritime Service 1746–1834 Masters of the Eastern Seas

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Worlds of the East India Company ISSN 1752-5667

Series Editor H. V. Bowen (Swansea University) Editorial Board Andrew Cook (British Library) Rajat Datta (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi) P. J. Marshall (King’s College, London) Nigel Rigby (National Maritime Museum) This series offers high-quality studies of the East India Company, drawn from across a broad chronological, geographical, and thematic range. The rich history of the Company has long been of interest to those who engage in the study of Britain’s commercial, imperial, maritime, and military past, but in recent years it has also attracted considerable attention from those who explore art, cultural, and social themes within an historical context. The series will thus provide a forum for scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds, and for those whose have interests in the history of Britain (London and the regions), India, China, Indonesia, as well as the seas and oceans. The editors welcome submissions from both established scholars and those beginning their career; monographs are particularly encouraged but volumes of essays will also be considered. All submissions will receive rapid, informed attention. They should be sent in the first instance to: Professor H. V. Bowen, Department of History and Classics, Swansea University, Swansea SA2 8PP Previously published titles: The Richest East India Merchant: The Life and Business of John Palmer of Calcutta, 1767–1836, Anthony Webster The Great Uprising in India, 1857–58: Untold Stories, Indian and British, Rosie Llewellyn-Jones The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution of Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics, 1790–1860, Anthony Webster Scottish Orientalists and India: The Muir Brothers, Religion, Education and Empire, Avril Powell East India Company’s London Workers: Management of the Warehouse Labourers, 1800–1858, Margaret Makepeace

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The East India Company’s Maritime Service 1746–1834 Masters of the Eastern Seas

Jean Sutton

THE BOYDELL PRESS

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© Jean Sutton 2010 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Jean Sutton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 First published 2010 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge ISBN 978-1-84383-583-7

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library The publisher has no responsibility for the continued existence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Papers used by Boydell & Brewer are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests

Typeset by Frances Hackeson Freelance Publishing Services, Brinscall, Lancs Printed in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view these images please refer to the printed version of the book. This content downloaded from 128.104.46.206 on Mon, 15 Apr 2024 20:29:05 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

CONTENTS List of Illustrations: plates and maps     Preface Larkins Family Tree

vi ix xi

Introduction

1

Part I  In the Company’s Service 1 A Hazardous Voyage 2  Bombay and ‘the Gulphs’ 3 From Malabar to Whampoa

17 19 36 54

Part II  William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner 4 The Worst Voyage: Sumatra 5 Abuse, Pains and Penalties 6 The Company in Crisis

77 79 103 118

Part III Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner 7 The Darkest Years 8 The Domination of Tea 9 Diversifying: Brahmins and Convicts

135 137 155 171

Part IV  John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner 10  Competition and Conflict 11 An Event Unique in the Company’s History 12 The Fortunes of War

187 189 207 224

Part V The New World Disorder 13 The Machinery of Justice Conclusion

245 247 267

Appendix I Appendix II Bibliography Glossary Index

277 281 283 291 295

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Plates     1 The European anchorage near Whampoa Island, Canton 67 Photo: Martyn Gregory Gallery, London   2 The European companies’ factories outside the City of 68 Canton Photo: Martyn Gregory Gallery, London   3 James Town, St Helena, and the anchorage 85 Reproduced by courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, London   4 The French king’s order for safe passage for the ship 91 Neptune, Captain Steward Reproduced by kind permission of David Gordon-Steward   5 Translation of the order for safe passage 92 Reproduced by kind permission of David Gordon-Steward   6 David Scott, first Baronet of Dunninald 146 Reproduced by courtesy of the National Maritime Museum, London   7 Park House, Cresswell Park, Blackheath, a house 172 leased by Thomas Larkins With permission of the Blackheath Society and Neil Rhind   8 Point House, West Grove, Blackheath, home of William 172 Larkins With permission of the Blackheath Society and Neil Rhind   9 Two silver urns presented to Captain Pennell for 176 transporting Hindu soldiers in 1791 Reproduced by kind permission of Poole Museums 10 Captain Nathaniel Dance, commodore of the China fleet 219 attacked by the French East Indies squadron off Pula Auro in 1804 Author’s collection 11– Four paintings depicting stages in the historic battle 230– 14 between Warren Hastings and La Piémontaise 231 Reproduced by kind permission of Giles Bovill Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view these images please refer to the printed version of the book. This content downloaded from

List of Illustrations

vii

Maps   1 The wind systems of the oceans and the routes followed by the East Indiamen   2 Topographical map showing the principal trading stations belonging to the European East India companies in India   3 The approach to the River Hooghly showing the Braces or ‘sandheads’   4 The chief centres involved in the trade between western India, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea   5 South India   6 The Pearl River showing Canton and the European anchorage at Whampoa   7 Various ships’ routes via the ‘eastern passage’   8 Topographical map showing the main division of territory in India in 1765   9 The cotton producing area of Gujarat in western India 10 The estuary of the Pearl River and the approach to Canton

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14 15 24 45 58 67 106 162 208 254

In memory of my husband Bryan, who gave me his unswerving support over many decades

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PREFACE My earlier study of the East India Company’s maritime service, Lords of the East, the East India Company and its Ships (Conway, 1981 and 2000) dealt with the basic system by which the Company chartered the ships and men required to carry on its trade. A further book is needed to consider the various roles the service played in the final, turbulent century of the Company’s commercial life. For most of the period from the 1740s to the 1830s the Company’s ships were supporting the small royal naval force in the eastern seas in their struggle to achieve British supremacy in India. Concurrently, the maritime service advanced the knowledge of navigation and hydrography in the course of its expanding trade with China, conducted in restricted conditions in an alien culture. Such a complex study over a long period requires a cohesive theme. I decided to follow the careers of members of the ubiquitous Larkins family, but was daunted by the genealogical aspect. Following publication of the second edition of Lords of the East I received a letter from a Geoffrey Bovill. He said he was descended from the Larkins who served in the Company’s maritime service and asked me if I would write a book about them. His father had spent many years studying the India records and had written a book, which he had failed to get published. Geoffrey offered to allow me to use all his father’s notes and the script. Although my theme differs greatly from that of his father, the notes, especially his abstract of every reference to members of the Larkins family in the Court Minutes and the family tree, have saved me months of research. I had many conversations with Geoffrey, a truly charming man, and sent him instalments of my script but sadly he died just as I completed it. His son Giles has continued the family’s interest in my work and has generously supplied me with prints recording the battle between Warren Hastings and La Piémontaise and permitted me to reproduce them. I am also greatly indebted to David Gordon-Steward for inviting me to view the ‘commander’s packet’, containing all the information a captain of a Company ship required for a voyage, belonging to his forebear Captain Gabriel Steward, a colleague of William Larkins. During forty years of research this is the only complete packet I have seen. It has proved a valuable resource and David has kindly allowed me to

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Preface

r­ eproduce the French king’s order to allow safe passage for Neptune, with the translation. I am grateful to several other people for supplying images and giving permission to reproduce them in the book: the Martyn Gregory Gallery for the views of the factories at Canton and the anchorage at Whampoa; the Blackheath Society and Neil Rhind, the authority on Blackheath, for the views of Park House and Point House; and Poole Museums for the Pennell urns. I owe special thanks to my sons, Michael for drawing the maps and Paul for solving every problem in completing them and organizing all images electronically. David Watkins at Poole Museums generously gave his time to solve a particularly difficult problem. Many people have helped with information and advice which have contributed to this book, particularly Ken Jones, Georgina Green, Ed Cumming, Stephen Taylor, John Evans, Derek Morris and my dear friend John Versey who has with great patience, over many years, helped me master the technology. I am particularly indebted to the staff in the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collection at the British Library and the National Maritime Museum for their unstinting service and support, always offered with great courtesy. Most of all I wish to thank Professor Huw Bowen, whose patience and great experience as a writer and teacher have helped me to produce a much better book than would otherwise have been the case.

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The Larkins Family William Larkins 1721–1784 m. 1745 Christian Pascall 1728–1788

            Thomas         William              John            1745–1794   1755–1800          1756–1818              m. 1767         m. 1776            m. 1786    Susannah Collingwood  Mary Harris     Mary Ann Samson*            1748–1818                         1767–1831   William    Thomas   John Pascall             Thomas 1770–1786  1775–1858   1781–1856             1793–1850                m.          m.                    m.         Harriet le Gallais  1) Louisa M. Muller        ?              d. 1806     2) Mary Ann Robertson               Only those members of the Larkin family who served in the East India Company and who are mentioned in the text are included.  Dates of birth, marriage and death are included where known. * A great deal of confusion has arisen from the variations in spelling. Samson has been used throughout the text.

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INTRODUCTION

CATHAY! FOR centuries its siren cadence lured European adventurers over land and sea. The Spanish searched to the west while the Portuguese penetrated ever further south down the coast of Africa. Within five years of Columbus’s arrival in the Bahamas Vasco da Gama had rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached the ancient emporium of Calicut on the Malabar coast of India. Although the Spanish had failed to reach China, the silver they acquired in America fuelled the European trade with the East for centuries.1 The Portuguese systematically established control over the eastern seas through powerful fortifications at Mozambique, Ormuz, Diu, Goa, Cochin, Colombo, Malacca, and fortified factories in the Moluccas, with access to Chinese products through a settlement at Macao. Denied the use of the southern sea routes by the great Catholic powers legitimized by Papal Bull,2 the English sailed by the northeast and the northwest to find markets for their surplus woollen cloth. They believed ‘… the fittest places are the manifold islands of Japan and the northern parts of China and the regions of the Tartars next adjoyning’,3 but none of the expeditions was successful. In the last two decades of the sixteenth century English seamen dared to venture into the southern ocean,4 confident in their ability to take on the huge Portuguese carracks. In 1578 Drake sailed by the Strait of Magellan and circumnavigated the world. Emboldened by the defeat of the Spanish armada, Elizabeth I licensed an expedition which sailed by the Cape of Good Hope to search for countries between Calicut and China not settled by the Portuguese ‘for the ventinge of our comodities … but especially our trade of clotheinge’.5 Commercially it failed,

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Introduction

but two English ships sailed round the Indian seas as far as the Malay peninsula without interference from the Portuguese. Merchants of the Turkey and Levant companies travelled widely overland in Persia and India, supplementing the knowledge of navigating to the eastern seas with valuable information about markets and products. Linschoten, a Dutchman who had worked for several years for the Portuguese in Goa, vastly increased this knowledge by publishing Portuguese sailing directions and full information on Portuguese possessions in the East. The capture by English seamen of two Portuguese carracks revealed at once the enormous wealth to be acquired in the East and the weakness of the Portuguese at sea. Spurred on by the Dutch, who sent out many expeditions which were bringing back valuable cargoes by the end of the century, a group of London merchants petitioned Elizabeth I to grant them the sole privilege of trading to the East, with immunities and freedom from customs. They requested that they be incorporated ‘for that the trade of the Indias, being so farre remote from hence, cannot be traded but in a joynt and a unyted stock’.6 On the last day of 1600 Queen Elizabeth I granted the Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies the exclusive privilege of trade between England and the lands ‘beyond the Cape of Bona Esperanza to the Straits of Magellan for fifteen years …’7 A Court of all the stockholders elected a Governor, Deputy Governor and seventeen ‘committees’ to administer the Company. As there were few English products in demand in the East, an exception was made to the law prohibiting the export of bullion. The Company was allowed to take out silver to purchase a return investment, provoking cries of ‘enemies of Christendom’ as they ‘carried away the treasure of Europe to enrich the heathen’.8 The first fleets had to lock into the ancient trading system dictated by the seasonal winds in the eastern seas. They followed the Dutch to Acheh and Bantam where valuable cargoes of pepper were acquired, and on to the Moluccas, the only source of the valuable spices nutmeg, mace and cloves.9 Here they met determined Dutch opposition. From the formation in 1602 of the state backed Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), a loosely knit federation of individual states’ companies, Dutch policy was to use overwhelming force to control the spice trade by limiting production and maintaining high prices through monopoly. The English were powerless to intervene as the Dutch stormed Portuguese forts and forced the native rulers to make treaties confirming Dutch supremacy in the Moluccas. Both the East India Company and the VOC set up their headquarters in Bantam in the early voyages. There the factors found Chinese junks laden with velvets and damasks and ships from Surat in northwest

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Introduction



India taking cloth from Gujarat to barter for spices from the Moluccas. The Company recognized that Surat was an important trading base: ‘… through the whole Indias there cannot bee any place more beneficiall for our country than this, beeing the onely key to open all the richest and best trade of the Indias’.10 A small fleet which arrived at Surat in 1608 to trade had to overcome a strong Portuguese force, impressing the Indians who had long believed in the invincibility of Portuguese power at sea. A Surat factor wished ‘there might a sufficient man be sent to the Emperor’s court at Agra … such a one whose person may breed regard, for they here look much after great men’.11 James I sent Sir Thomas Roe as his accredited ambassador from the Court of St James. He secured from the Emperor a farman, or official permit to trade, and permission to rent a house for a factory, though credit must be due also to the strength shown by the Company’s fleets. The factors at Surat informed Roe that ‘fear of our ships hath and must hold us here if we continue’.12 Indigo, sugar, saltpetre and fine cottons and silks were soon arriving at Surat by the caravan route from as far away as Bengal, and large stocks of bleached calicoes from Broach and Baroda in Gujarat. The Company joined in the flourishing trade carried on by Indian merchants from Surat with ports in the Red Sea where Egyptian merchants paid in specie for spices obtained from the Malabar coast and the textiles of Gujarat. The Gujarati merchants sailing on the annual haj to Mecca welcomed the protection of English ships and the opportunity to freight their treasure on them on the return passage. The Surat factors were sure that Persian silk would sell at a profit in London while English woollens should find a good market there. The Shah readily gave the English a firman for the exclusive trade by sea for his silk, but Portuguese fleets attacked Company ships visiting their factory at Jask. In 1623 the English fleet helped the Persians to conquer the great Portuguese fort at Ormuz. The Shah rewarded the Company with half the customs receipts of Gombroon,13 which became the headquarters of the Company’s operations in Persia, with subordinate factories at Isfahan and Shiraz.14 Further east, 1623 was a year of failure for the English in two important trading areas. Dutch patience with the English Company’s persistent attempts to benefit from costly Dutch operations against the Portuguese east of Java resulted in hostilities between the Protestant companies. In the Banda islands, the only area where nutmeg grew, the heroic resistance of a handful of Company agents who occupied Pularun ended tragically. In Amboyna the torture and summary execution of several English company servants for allegedly plotting against the Dutch marked the English withdrawal from the area and soured

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Introduction

Anglo-Dutch relations for generations.15 A fleet had sailed to Japan from Bantam and opened factories at Firando (Hirado) to trade with Siam, attracted by the prospect of earning Japanese silver, which could be used to purchase Chinese goods. But the trade was disappointing and little was lost when the Emperor evicted the English factors. The Company faced setbacks in its trade centred on Surat soon after it had been made the Presidency of all the factories in northwest India and Persia. In 1629 famine devastated Gujarat and spread to the east coast where the Company had opened a factory at Masulipatam to obtain painted cloths, or chintz. When the economy began to recover, Francis Day acquired a strip of land further south on the Coromandel coast at Madraspatam and built Fort St George which succeeded Bantam as the Presidency of the east coast and the Malay archipelago in 1641. From there several expeditions were made to the north by sea to obtain the beautiful cottons and silks of Bengal. Impressed by the order within the Moghul’s dominions, Day opened a factory at Balasore and later at Hooghly, the Portuguese emporium on the River Hooghly. He obtained a farman to trade free of internal customs duties. Just as the Company’s prospects began to improve, Charles I granted a charter to a rival company whose ships proceeded to rampage round the eastern seas from the Red Sea to China where the English were consequently outlawed and their name damned for decades. Civil war at home depressed trade still further and the Company, a royal creation, languished after the King’s execution. No one benefited from the free-for-all that followed in the eastern trade. It ended in 1657 when Cromwell recognized that a strong Company and expanding foreign trade would buttress his policy of achieving superiority over the Dutch at sea, already begun with the passing of the Navigation Acts and massive capital investment in the Commonwealth navy. He revived the failing Company by creating a permanent joint stock in which a confident public invested almost three-quarters of a million pounds. This financed the establishment of seventeen trading bases well supplied with capital and men throughout the East.16 The Company’s government remained as before. Charles II renewed the charter several times, extending the Company’s powers to enable its servants to make alliances, raise troops, mint money and administer civil and criminal justice. In the early years of the century the Company had invested heavily in dockyards at Deptford and Blackwall where it built its own ships. Mismanagement and the collapse of trade in the late 1620s and 1630s resulted in the running down of these costly installations in succeeding decades.17 Now they were sold off as hiring ships for the Company’s

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Introduction



s­ ervice was embodied in the charters. The government’s policy of rewarding builders of large ships with bounties and remission of customs encouraged shipowners among the ‘committees’ to build large ships for hire to the Company. They were further encouraged by the Company’s offer of extra freight for any large ship tendered.18 They used their power in the Company to ensure that their ships were hired for more than one voyage. The Company extended its privilege to trade with the East to the commanders with the navigational skills and experience of sailing to the eastern seas. In addition, the Company ordered a new ship to be built for a commander whose ship was lost or worn out in the Company’s service. Both owners and commanders benefited from this policy which developed into the twin customary rights of the ‘hereditary bottom’ and the ‘perpetual command’. Wealthy, influential ‘committees’ close to the King dominated the provision of the Company’s shipping, while their friends were appointed to the commands of the ‘great’ ships. Small ships were required to carry cargoes from the subordinate factories to the Presidencies where they were transferred to the ‘great’ ships. They were also employed on exploratory voyages to seek out a trade in those areas where there was likely to be a demand for English woollen cloth and lead to exchange for products which would sell at the Company’s sales. Establishing a direct or indirect trade with China and Japan remained the prime objective but none of the many expeditions of the 1670s and 1680s was successful. Circumstances beyond the Company’s control disrupted its trade in some areas where it was well established. A powerful group of Hindu families developed into the Maratha people who pressed northwards into Moghul territory, disrupting the transport of cotton from the producing areas in Gujarat to Surat. In 1687 the President and factors reluctantly transferred the seat of their operations from healthy Surat to the malarial island of Bombay which the Company had received in 1668 from Charles II. It had the best harbour on the west coast of India, approachable at all times of the year. In the Malay archipelago, the VOC advanced relentlessly westwards from its headquarters at Batavia:19 Macassar, Malacca, Colombo successively fell under the Dutch yoke. In 1683 the English factors were forced out of Bantam, their last foothold in the region. The Company transferred its operations to the west coast of Sumatra, developing pepper plantations administered from a fortified settlement at Benkulen. In South India the English Company successfully foiled Dutch attempts to monopolize the production of Malabar pepper, the best pepper in the world, by entering into treaties with local rulers.

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Introduction

Despite setbacks, the 1670s and 1680s proved increasingly successful. Bengal silk and cotton textiles and raw silk, half of which were re-­exported, realized a million pounds a year at the Company’s sales. The ‘India craze’ swept through Europe. Ladies in high society would wear nothing but Bengal silks and muslins and furnish their homes with nothing but chintz. The Company instructed its servants in Bengal to change the patterns every year, the brighter and gaudier the better. Profitable ballast cargoes of Malabar pepper, increasingly popular Mocha coffee and saltpetre boosted profits. In 1682 the dividend rose to a record 50%, falling back to 25% a few years later. The Company was nevertheless dissatisfied with conditions in Bengal. Local officials stopped boats bringing goods down the Hooghly and demanded customs in contravention of the Emperor’s grant of freedom of trade. This annoyed the Company’s servants in Bengal who used the dastaks, or passes, for their own private trade as well as that of the Company. Difficulties also arose from the frequent appearance with great panoply of interloping English traders who called themselves the New Company. The chartered Company in London and their servants in Bengal all agreed that the trade could never be conducted satisfactorily until they had a commercial and military base from which to impose their will on the native government. The largest force of the Company’s ‘great’ ships ever to sail to the eastern seas arrived in the Bay of Bengal with instructions to seize Chittagong while another force reached Bombay to take Indian shipping hostage. The operation was a complete failure but the Emperor acknowledged the value of the English trade and his reliance on the Company’s ships to protect his pilgrim fleets in the Arabian Sea. On payment of a large fine, the Company was allowed to resume trading and established its new headquarters on the east bank of the Hooghly at Calcutta. A few years later Fort William was built to defend this new site on a long broad reach of the river where the Company’s ships could moor and protect the settlement with their guns. It became the Presidency of Bengal with subordinate factories at Patna and Kasimbazar. The war, ‘which has rendered the English in all parts of India Odious and Contemptible’,20 and a downturn in the trade reinforced growing criticism of the Company from various groups. The decision by the small inner group of the largest stockholders to permit individuals to trade to the East up to the amount of their stock21 and to subsidize ships built for the Company’s trade with Company money22 hastened the discredited old Company’s demise. No one questioned the importance of the eastern trade, which by the last decade of the seventeenth century constituted one sixth of the

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Introduction



whole trade of the kingdom in value and profit.23 Monopoly was accepted as necessary because of the cost of installations abroad and of gaining privileges, which were not transferable.24 The new Company formed with a new joint stock25 succeeded in establishing a direct trade with China at Canton in the first year of the new century. The same year that the Company gained access to the prized Chinese silks the British silk weavers and the nascent dyeing industry, suffering from the competition of Indian textiles produced with cheap Indian labour, succeeded in getting restrictive legislation passed. The wearing and use of chintzes and wrought silks from China and India were prohibited but the reexport trade remained buoyant. The two companies, the old and the new, operated in a spirit of bitter rivalry. After a few years all involved agreed that merger was essential for a successful trade. In 1709 the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies began operations from the headquarters in Leadenhall Street. The government of the Company remained the same though the names changed: the Governor and Deputy Governor became Chairman and Deputy Chairman and the twenty-four ‘committees’ became directors elected annually by the stockholders in the General Court. In all other respects it had completely changed. Parliament, not the king, now held the power to renew or end the Company’s charter. The whole capital of £3.2 million was loaned to the state, the working capital being supplied by loans from the Bank of England or raised through issuing bonds.26 Within a few years investors considered East India stock second only to that of the Bank. On its formation the Company dealt with three issues which had brought the old Company into disrepute: by-law number eight stated that Company money should not be laid out in the provision of ships; by-law number nine prohibited directors from ownership of ships hired by the Company. The first was respected until under changed circumstances late in the century the Company invested money in a few ships; the second was largely ignored for half a century. Equally important was the by-law establishing competition in tendering ships for hire by the Company in order to keep freights at an economic level, but within a few years the more powerful owners used their influence to ensure that all ships were tendered at the same, inflated, freight. They also re-established the customary right of replacing a worn out or lost ship. Though originally introduced to benefit the commanders, the owners were major beneficiaries. The customs of the ‘hereditary bottom’ and the ‘perpetual command’ established, in effect, a monopoly of the supply of ships and commanders within the Company’s overall monopoly.

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Introduction

The increasing size and number of the ships reflected the steadily increasing trade: by the 1740s an average of twenty ships of 400–500 tons sailed to India and China every year.27 Bengal textiles remained the staple of the Company’s imports.28 Britain’s monopoly of the slave trade after the Peace of Utrecht boosted demand for coarse calicoes and the re-export of all textiles to far wider European markets successfully countered the effects of the restrictive domestic legislation. Demand for pepper remained buoyant and sales of saltpetre increased, and in spite of very high import duties China tea overtook coffee in popularity. The United Company was determined to deal firmly with anyone who did not observe the Company’s privilege. Those wishing to trade with eastern countries sought the protection of foreign flags. Jacobites, Irish, disaffected of all kinds joined in a new joint stock under the authority of the Viennese government when it acquired the southern Netherlands, taking the name of the Ostend Company. The United Company joined with the VOC to force its closure but its backers simply reformed under the authority of the Swedish government and concentrated on buying tea in Canton to smuggle into England. More serious competition came from the lapsed French Compagnie des Indes, resurrected in 1722 with huge state backing, operating from headquarters at Pondicherry29 about a hundred miles south of Madras. From a subfactory at Chandernagore between Danish Serampore and Dutch Chinsura on the west bank of the Hooghly, its servants traded very successfully in Bengal textiles, overtaking the English Company by the 1740s. In the south, the English and French companies were drawn into the dynastic struggles of native families seeking to improve their position in the vacuum left by the Moghul power, weakened by the Maratha advance. Superior British naval power in the Bay of Bengal and the French government’s failure to back its own Company’s chief ensured English supremacy in South India. In Bengal, the succession of a weak ruler, hated by all the main groups in society, ended a long period of stability conducive to a growing trade. Some within the local elite turned to the British, who had demonstrated their power in the dynastic wars of the south, to wield the knife. After the Battle of Plassey, by which the English Company became the ruler of Bengal, the nature of the East India Company changed from trader to ruler. In the immediate aftermath the Company’s servants lost ‘… every spark of sentiment and public spirit … in the unbounded lust of unmerited wealth’30 as they entered on an orgy of abuse of dastaks31 and accepted ‘presents’ for favours as they installed a succession of native puppet rulers. This abuse and the non-appearance of the promised Bengal revenues led to government scrutiny of every aspect of the Company’s activities.

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Introduction



It revealed the excessive costs of the Company’s shipping due to gross overprovision of tonnage and excessive freights. A new by-law32 prohibited any more building of ships until an economic level had been reached. All those connected with the provision of the Company’s shipping combined to form the most powerful group in the General Court to defend its interests. Government intervention in the Company’s activities culminated in 1784 in William Pitt’s India Act which limited the Company’s powers to commercial decisions. In return, the Government drastically reduced duties on importing tea into Britain, virtually eliminating the foreign companies’ smuggling trade and immediately doubling the legitimate imports of tea. As Indian wars and increasing administrative costs continued to absorb the Bengal revenues, the Company henceforth concentrated on its one remaining profitable commercial venture: China tea. The Company allied with the free merchants in India who traded within the eastern seas to acquire sufficient silver to finance its tea investment. The Company increased its exports of woollens and metals while the free merchants exported Gujarati raw cotton, Malabar pepper and sandalwood in their own fine fleet of India teak built ships. They paid the proceeds into the Company’s treasury at Canton in return for bills redeemable in London. The private merchants intrigued to extend the Company’s powers over the small kingdoms of the Malabar coast and the cotton producing regions of Gujarat to secure supplies and ensured the survival of Bombay as a Presidency.33 In the final decade of the eighteenth century, opposition mounted against all aspects of the Company’s monopoly. The British northern manufacturers demanded the right to ship their goods to the East, sceptical of the Company’s assurance that its own exports and those of the commanders in their privilege trade fully met the demand for British goods in India. The shipbuilders in the outports demanded a share of the lucrative eastern carrying trade. Pressure from these various interests forced a partial opening of the trade at the renewal of the Company’s charter in 1793, but the private trade failed to take up the full amount of tonnage made available. The manufacturers blamed the high freight and the slow and cumbersome schedules of the Company’s ships. At the same time, a well-organized attack defeated the shipping interest. For nearly a century the managing owners had successfully resisted all attempts to put into operation the by-law requiring ships to be tendered by open competition and had persistently exacted uneconomic freights. Government support of progressive elements inside the direction and a few independent stockholders succeeded in overturning

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Introduction

the shipping interest’s majority in the General Court in 1796. The reintroduction of tendering ships by fair and open competition for the Company’s service was reinforced by legislation, ending the customary rights of the ‘hereditary bottom’ and the ‘perpetuity of command’. The British government was also concerned that their policy of bringing back the produce of the East to the Port of London was being undermined. The British in India had to bring home their accumulated wealth by some means. The Company’s financial situation forced it to restrict the availability of Bills of Exchange, the simplest way of transferring money. The returning British therefore left their capital in India in the hands of the Agency Houses which employed some of it to finance the trade of other European countries: the French, the Danes and increasingly the Americans who were fast becoming the world’s carriers. This ‘clandestine trade’, difficult to measure and track down, benefited other European ports and threatened London’s supremacy as the port of entry of Asian produce. The Houses of Agency in India and their branches in Britain campaigned for the right to bring back this trade in their splendid fleets of India-built ships and return home with their holds filled with British manufactures. Far from joining with the shipbuilders of the outports, the Houses of Agency claimed that they should have the monopoly of the trade between Britain and India, weakening their cause. They met the intransigent opposition of the shipping interest representing the Thames builders and the owners of East Indiamen. Twenty years of discord ended in 1813 when the trade between Britain and India was opened to all. The Government agreed with the Company that the China tea trade required special conditions and continued the Company’s privilege for another twenty years. When the Dutch possessions were returned after the Napoleonic wars both the Company and the Government recognized the necessity of possessing a base at a strategic point in the Straits of Malacca. The government had for many years tried to obtain territory to develop as an emporium where British manufactures would be exchanged for eastern produce brought from all round the eastern seas. Singapore, acquired in 1819, met both strategic and commercial needs. The free port of Singapore virtually nullified the Company’s special trading privileges with China, and monopoly had no place in the increasingly free trade climate of Britain in the 1830s. On the renewal of the charter in 1833, the Company withdrew completely from commerce, but continued to administer the British territories in India. In 1857, in the aftermath of the ‘Mutiny’, the British government assumed full responsibility for its territories in the sub-continent.

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Introduction

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*** The individual voyages made by successive members of three generations of the Larkins family, from their initial involvement in the Company’s maritime service in 1746 until its withdrawal from commerce in 1834, form the basis of what follows. During this time family members progressed from officers to commanders to managing owners of ships employed by the Company. Their careers therefore admirably illuminate the mass of customs and traditions that constituted the monopoly of provision of the Company’s ships and the situation following reform of the system in the late eighteenth century. The voyages reveal the role played by the Company’s maritime service in the broader context of the acquisition of a territorial empire in South Asia and dominance of the China trade. Throughout this turbulent final century of the Company’s commercial life, members of the Larkins family were at the least witnesses and frequently active contributors to the Company’s maritime history. The chapters are grouped into five parts, each comprising a significant aspect of the careers of the different members. The three chapters making up Part I follow William Larkins’s career as he gains experience in the Company’s widespread trade during a decade of political and military upheavals in Bengal and South India. Part II concerns William’s experiences as commander until his retirement and move into ship ownership. Chapter 4 examines his voyage to Sumatra and to China, where the alien culture and increasingly restrictive conditions of trade were becoming oppressive, but attempts to find alternative sources of valuable Chinese imports failed. Chapter 5 considers how the oversupply of shipping, consequent on the power struggle within the Company following the acquisition of Bengal, put William’s command at risk. Chapter 6 explains the effects of the outbreak of war on the supply of ships and describes William’s younger son John’s active service in the Indian Ocean. Chapters 7, 8 and 9, comprising Part III, examine both John’s and the elder son Thomas’s careers. Chapter 7 reveals the injurious effects of a war in which the seas were rendered unsafe by the massed naval might of the major European powers. At Canton, John found trade brought to a halt by a particularly serious clash between the British and Chinese cultures, highlighting the inherent dangers of trading with China. Chapters 8 and 9 examine Thomas’s management of the family business following William’s death at an important juncture: the assumption by government of control over the Indian empire and the eclipse of Indian cotton by China tea as the Company’s chief import. The first chapter in Part IV ­considers

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Introduction

John’s management of the business during a period of even greater change following Thomas’s untimely death: tendering ships in a competitive market and conducting a distant trade during two decades of war. Chapters 11 and 12 chiefly follow the career of John’s nephew Thomas, exemplifying a commander’s increasing difficulty in securing the means for a comfortable retirement. Finally, the single chapter comprising Part V concerns John’s son, the irascible Captain Thomas Larkins, the youngest and last member of the family employed in the Company’s maritime service. His career provides a fitting opportunity to discuss the Company’s sophisticated machinery for dealing with those who breached its rules and providing channels of complaint for those who had a grievance. Thomas’s career as commander was confined to the China trade during which opium increasingly overtook India cotton as the main earner of silver to pay for the tea in the final years of the Company’s commercial life. Notes   1 The silver coin known as the reales de a ocho or real of eight, later the piece of eight, and throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Spanish dollar, constituted the medium of international trade in China and most of the east until 1857.   2 In 1493 the Bull of Pope Alexander VI divided the as yet unknown world between Portugal and Spain, the dividing line being 100 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. This was changed the following year by the Treaty of Tordesillas between the two rulers to a line 370 leagues west of the Islands.   3 Hakluyt, dedication of vol. 2 of the second edition of The Principall Navigations, Maclehose reprint 1903–7, quoted in Sir William Foster, England’s Quest of Eastern Trade (London, 1933), p. 6, n. 1.   4 The northern ocean was to the north of the central American isthmus, the southern ocean to the south.   5 Foster, Quest of Eastern Trade, p. 128.   6 Ibid., pp. 146–7, petition of subscribers to the Privy Council, 25 September 1599.   7 F. W. Madden and D. K .Fieldhouse (eds), Select Documents on the History of the British Empire and Commonwealth (London, 1985), vol. 1, pp. 235–6.   8 R. Keale, The Trades Increase (London, 1615), p. 32.   9 For an examination of the development of the East India Company and its trade, see two works by K N. Chaudhuri, The East India Company: The Study of an Early Joint-Stock Company, 1600–1640 (London, 1965), and The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660–1760 (Cambridge, 1978). 10 British Library, Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections (hereafter BL, APAC), Sir William Foster (ed.), Letters Received by the East India Company from its Servants in the East (London, 1896–1902), 6 vols, vol. 1, 1603–13, p. 307. 11 Ibid., pp. xxi, 301–2.

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Notes to Introduction

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12 Ibid., 23 July 1616, vol. 4, p. 321. 13 Bander Abbas, which succeeded Ormuz as the chief port. 14 The Company received a half share of the customs for some years. Foster, Quest of Eastern Trade, p. 312. 15 H. H. Dodwell (ed.), The Cambridge History of India (Cambridge, 1929), 5 vols, vol. 4, ‘The Moghul Period’, p. 84. 16 They were: Surat (20), Ahmadebad (3), Tassa (Sind) (5), southwest coast (5), Persian Gulf (6), Fort St George (6), Masulipatam (4), Verasharoon (3), Hooghly (5), Balasore (5), Cazimbazar (4), Patna (4), Macassar (4), Bantam (6), Jambi (4), China (5). This must represent future plans as no foreigner was ever allowed to reside in China. Not until 1700 was a direct trade started with China and permanent residence was never allowed. 17 James Gordon Parker, ‘The Directors of the East India Company, 1744–1790’, unpublished PhD thesis (University of Edinburgh, 1977), p. 394. 18 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/1, ‘A brief historical sketch of the shipping concerns of the East India Company up to 1796’, p. 12. 19 In 1619 Jan Pietersoon Coen conquered Jakarta and founded Batavia as the centre of the VOC’s operations in the East. 20 BL, Add. MSS 22185, ‘A Brief Account of the Great Oppressions and Injuries which the Managers of the East India Company have acted on the Lives, Liberties, And Estates of their Fellow Subjects …’, XI, p. 3. 21 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/1, ‘Brief historical sketch’, p. 14. 22 Robert Knox, An Historical Relation of Ceylon (Glasgow, 1911), p. 374. 23 William J. Barber, British Economic Thought and India 1600–1858 (Oxford, 1975), p. 44. 24 Ibid. 25 Actually the winner of an auction to lend money to the impoverished king. See Philip Lawson, The East India Company (London, 1993), pp. 55–7. 26 Ibid., pp. 74–5. 27 Anthony Farrington, Catalogue of East India Company Ships’ Journals and Logs 1600–1834 (British Library, 1999). 28 John Keay, The Honourable Company (London, 1991), pp. 224–9. In 1717 a United Company delegation succeeded in obtaining the Emperor Farruksiyar’s agreement to renew the farman granting the Company the privilege of trade without paying internal duties in Bengal. 29 Pondicherry had been French since 1672. 30 Sir John Malcolm, Life of Robert, Lord Clive: Collected from the Family Papers Communicated by the Earl of Powys (London, 1836), 3 vols, vol. 2, p. 338, Select Committee to the Directors, 30 September 1763. 31 Passes enabling goods to move around Bengal without payment of internal customs. 32 Number 30: no new ship was to be built until the total tonnage was reduced to 45,000. 33 See Pamela Nightingale, Trade and Empire in Western India, 1784–1806 (Cambridge, 1970), passim, for British expansion in the area.

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Introduction

Map 1:  The wind systems of the oceans and the routes followed by the East Indiamen

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Introduction

Map 2:  Topographical map showing the principal trading stations ­bel­onging to the European East India companies in India

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15

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Part I IN THE COMPANY’S SERVICE

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One A HAZARDOUS VOYAGE

ON 31 JANUARY 1746 William Larkins, a thirty-four-year-old seaman from Dover, entered the headquarters of the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies in Leadenhall Street. In a committee room ‘scarce inferior to anything of the like nature in the City’,1 Thomas Hall, managing owner of several East India ships, introduced William to a few directors who formed the Committee of Shipping.2 He presented William as the second mate of his ship Salisbury, hired by the Company for a voyage to Madras and Bengal. William duly swore the traditional oath not to trade in the goods that the Company traded in or to break bulk of the Company’s cargo on the way home.3 Although from now on he would be employed and paid by Thomas Hall, William would receive the Company’s protection. Provided he abided by the Company’s rules his feet were now firmly on the ladder leading to a command and a possible fortune from the Company’s indulgence of private trade. Nothing is known of William’s early career, but he must have spent many years at sea and acquired a thorough knowledge of navigation to secure an officer’s berth in an Indiaman.4 Influence as well as skill was needed. His marriage the previous year to Christian Pascall, daughter of a banker of Dover and mother of baby Thomas, probably opened the door to investors in ships owned by Thomas Hall, thereby sharing in the valuable patronage. The hostilities between Britain and France favoured him as the navy soaked up skilled navigators from the merchant marine. War always offered the best opportunity for an experienced mariner to walk straight into the post of a sworn officer in the most highly sought after branch of the merchant service.

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Emerging from East India House, William probably turned left down Leadenhall Street and Cornhill and into Birchin Lane to the Jerusalem Coffee House, ‘the general resort of those who had anything to do with India’ and the hub of the Company’s shipping.5 Company regulations, shipping schedules, chart makers’ and instrument makers’ advertisements were posted up round the walls. With the ships of the season preparing to depart, the bustle was at its height. Commanders and officers shared a last excellent meal with family and friends before embarking for the East. Anxious parents sought reassurance from commanders to whose care they had committed their children for a first voyage as captain’s servant. Managing owners made final arrangements with their commanders, urging them to follow their directions rather than use the voyage for their own self-interest. William found life on board Salisbury in stark contrast to the jovial warmth of the Jerusalem. In accordance with her charter party, the contract agreed between her managing owner and the Company, she ‘came afloat’ out of Stanton and Wells’s dock at Rotherhithe. This was where she had been built in 1742 and had returned for maintenance and repairs at the end of her first voyage.6 On New Year’s Day she warped down and moored in mid-stream opposite the Royal Naval Dockyard at Deptford where William joined her.7 During the following eight weeks he took his turn as commanding officer while a skeleton crew took in stores and provisions for the Company’s army and the ships of the Royal Navy in the Bay of Bengal. In freezing weather towards the end of February, Salisbury dropped downriver and moored on her appointed day below Gravesend. Lumpers hoisted aboard the guns and the Company’s cargo consigned to Fort St George, the Company’s Presidency at Madras. Twenty-five chests of assorted silver dollars comprised the greater part of the value, with some lead, gunpowder and coral.8 Recruits for the Company’s army and some Lascars returning to India at the Company’s expense embarked and Salisbury prepared to sail in the third week in March. The Company’s searcher checked that all the private trade goods were in order, the soldiers were paid and Captain Burrowes went on board to pay all the officers and crew their river pay. Thomas Hall accompanied him and paid the whole ship’s company their impress, two months advance wages, and the voyage officially began. After pigs and sheep, milch cows and fodder had been taken aboard, on 26 March the pilot took charge of the ship and nine days later, in company with Houghton Indiaman, she arrived in the Downs. The Downs was the traditional mustering point for all shipping waiting for a northeast wind to carry them to the westward. In wartime, the

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A Hazardous Voyage

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anchorage was dangerously exposed and ships lingered no longer than necessary. HMS Milford was there to protect the ships, keeping them off and on while formalities were completed. Salisbury’s quarterdeck guns were fitted as bowchasers while the Company’s agent mustered the officers and crew and checked the guns to ensure charter party requirements were met. The Thames pilot disembarked, the Channel pilot came on board and after only four days the two East Indiamen and three merchant ships weighed and followed the convoy’s signals, arriving on 12 April at Spithead. The national euphoria following the capture of Louisbourg in 1745 had sobered as the French effort to retake it made great demands on Britain’s naval resources. Invasion fleets assembling at Dunkirk and Boulogne threatened the south coast and though Prince Charles Edward’s army was in full retreat the Scottish coasts still had to be patrolled to prevent the French making contact with him. Above all, naval consorts had to provide protection for merchant shipping through the dangerous Western Approaches. Whatever trade William had followed before, to Newfoundland, the West Indies or the Mediterranean, he would have been prepared for the delay as merchantmen collected for convoy down Channel. Long periods at moorings in port, especially at Spithead where the lights of Portsmouth winked their promise of women and alcohol, were testing times for commanders and officers. River pay and two months’ impress burned a hole in the men’s pockets and there was a danger of their being seduced by naval officers offering a better life on board one of His Majesty’s ships. At the least bored, under-occupied men were difficult to handle. Captain Burrowes and his officers filled the time as far as possible with daily exercise of the great guns. In the event barely a week later HM Milford made the signal to unmoor. The convoy of forty sail followed in the wake of HM Rye and a bevy of coasters, but they got only as far as Plymouth. It was not until 7 May, as news of the total defeat of Prince Charles Edward at Culloden reached the convoy, that the whole unwieldy fleet sailed to the sound of distant gunfire. HMS Rye, having deposited her coasters, separated from the rest and headed off with the Newfoundland fleet. At dawn on 15 May they saw three ships standing to the northward and HM Milford signalled Salisbury to join her in the chase, leaving off at noon. On 20 May Salisbury, no doubt with some relief, lost sight of her naval consort and when a Barbados ship veered off westward on the last day of the month, the Indiamen were alone and in charge of their own destiny. Salisbury’s guns were shifted back to their positions on the quarterdeck and her commander and company settled down to their 11,000 mile voyage. The main problem facing Mr Foot, the first officer, and William was keeping track of their position. They took their departure from Land’s

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In the Company’s Service

End, the longitude of which was known. Calculating their north-south position was easy and accurate to an exact degree in clear weather using Hadley’s quadrant to measure the height of the sun or a star above the horizon, but there were no instruments to help them calculate their east-west position. This had to be done ‘by account’, the careful recording of distances run by the hourly heaving of the log, the course followed according to the wind, while allowing for the effects of current and variation. The product of all these detailed calculations throughout the ship’s nautical day, commencing at noon (12 hours before normal day) were reduced to a simple total and noted in the fair log at noon daily as ‘the day’s account’. The azimuth compass gave them the magnetic variation which, in conjunction with Halley’s map showing the variation throughout the world, they considered the most reliable indication of their east-west position. Commanders in the Company’s service provided their own charts. British and Dutch charts at this time were very out of date9 while the excellent French charts already being published were not translated into English. So had William and Mr Foot been able to calculate their position with great accuracy, they would not have been able to rely on the position of hazards or land laid down on the charts. Reliable printed sailing directions were very sparse, too, at this time, though commanders and officers with experience of sailing to the eastern seas would have acquired a vast body of lore through discussion. Caution was the rule when anywhere near the land, and when Salisbury reached the latitude of the Cape Verdes, Captain Burrowes and Captain Worth of Houghton agreed it would be wise to lay to till daylight. A few days later they lost the northeast trade and the men immediately began to fall sick with fever in the hot air which appeared to come off the land. They got the windsail down the after-hold, one of the very few means of extracting the putrid, noxious fumes that built up below decks, made worse by the presence on board of so much livestock. Heavy rain in the doldrums brought relief while providing plenty of water for the animals. In fresh gales which carried them on a southwest course they lost sight of Houghton which probably outsailed Salisbury, as Captain Burrowes repeatedly recorded in the log his irritation at not being able to keep up with his consort owing to the smallness of Salisbury’s sails. On the 21st, Salisbury crossed the Line at which time the log records 71 in the ship’s company. Although one or two went down with the fever daily they made a quick recovery, On 2 July they passed to the west of the Island of Trinidada in latitude 20°24′S and taking their departure from the island followed a southeast course towards the Cape of Good Hope. As ‘a fine stearing (sic) sail gale’

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A Hazardous Voyage

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carried them into the high southern latitudes, the swell increased while the temperature dropped. Though the incidence of fever continued, the greater problem of scurvy now raised the sick list and on 13 July it claimed the life of the cooper. With diminishing supplies, the beer finished and water rationed to three pints per man per day exclusive of thrice weekly punch, they were glad of the fine gale which carried the ship at high speeds of over 200 miles per day with all possible sail set round the dangerous southern cape. Latterly, in bitter cold, amidst lightning and squalls and labouring in the swell, with only her foresail set, Salisbury scudded up to 200 miles a day in 36°33′S latitude. On 20 August, with twenty-six men sick, estimated position 85°26′E meridian distance from the island of Trinidada and 36°23′S latitude, Salisbury at last turned her head slightly north. At the end of the month the water ration was increased to two quarts daily exclusive of water for broth, while wheat and plum porridge were daily fed to the thirty men suffering from a variety of ailments. With the season advancing dangerously towards the onset of the northeast monsoon, the main problem facing the commander and officers was finding some confirmation of their estimated position. When they reached latitude 8°20′S they looked in vain for the island of Apularia. The presence of land birds and tree roots suggested they were well to the east of their position by account. On 9 September, meridian distance 104°48′E from Trinidada, they kept a lookout for the island of Auro, but since its position differed very widely on the charts, they would not have been much wiser had they sighted it. Three days later the dark, mud-coloured water with some crabs indicated their proximity to Acheh, as the log records ‘sounded, not seeing Acheen’. From now on the first and second officers recorded every aspect of their physical environment according to Company instructions, designed to build up a body of observations to help future navigators. On 13 September when the sun passed the Line they saw a great quantity of crabs, some snakes, and three land birds like linnets. They noted quails, barracudas and porpoises on the 15th; locusts and butterflies on 18th. But of more immediate concern was the sighting of a stranger hoisting Dutch colours. Immediately Captain Burrowes gave the order for hammocks up in the nettings and men to quarters. She proved indeed to be Dutch and the two ships proceeded in company. With scurvy claiming two more lives, the log records that they sounded frequently in dark coloured muddy water which changed to a light green then became milky. In 107°35′E from Trinidada, it became sea coloured and they concluded it was a reef, part of the bank of the east shore. By now the wheat and rice had all gone and they were using oatmeal. As the week progressed

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In the Company’s Service

and the number of the people down with scurvy rose to forty-nine, the patient recording of natural phenomena continued: ‘dark clammy mud like tobacco pipe clay’; a ‘mino’ bird, a pigeon, reeds, horse-stingers, small land birds, butterflies, bamboo. The mud was unwilling to release the lead when heaved and ‘sucks the arning (sic) off’, limiting the amount of information which could have been gleaned from the sea bed and help them to evaluate their position. Although Salisbury had been stationed for Fort St George, the last despatches from the Court probably ordered Captain Burrowes to avoid the Coromandel coast where a French squadron was likely to be cruising. On 2 October, just under five months after their last sight of Britain, with the ‘few people that stand the deck daily fading away’ with what

Map 3:  The approach to the River Hooghly showing the Braces or ‘sandheads’

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A Hazardous Voyage

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they had concluded must be scurvy, they sighted land bearing northnorthwest five leagues, which they judged from the latitude to be Point Palmyras on the coast of Orissa. At least their time of arrival was in their favour. Clear weather is normal in this part of the Bay of Bengal towards the end of September and beginning of October when light, variable winds prevail, an advantage when approaching this low-lying, almost featureless coast. There was a danger of mistaking False Point for Point Palmyras with the risk of the ship becoming embayed in Codgone Bay by the south and southwest current. Experienced India commanders tried to fall in with the coast at the White Pagoda (or Juggernat) which looked like a sail at a distance, or the Black Pagoda a little further east, and stand off the land about three miles in twelve or thirteen fathoms approaching False Point.10 The following day Salisbury was brought to an anchor and the draft of water fore and aft was recorded in the log, a Company requirement in this dangerous corner of the Bay of Bengal, with its long, ever-shifting sandbars, the Braces, extending ­treacherously just under the surface. Two days later, in calm weather, they were still concerned that they could not see False Point. They fired guns repeatedly to signal they needed a pilot but two more days passed and still no pilot had appeared. Fifty men were now incapable of duty in calm but ‘excessive hot’ weather. They caught cat fish but to their annoyance they failed to catch a turtle which would have fed the whole company and cured much of the scurvy. The following day Captain Burrowes sent the yawl in search of a pilot and the next day the longboat took off the captain with the Company’s treasure to the pilot sloop and brought back fresh provisions and greens for the sick men who now numbered sixty. The pilot took charge of Salisbury to navigate her through the ever-shifting sands of the western channel of the southern arm of the Ganges, the Hooghly, one of the most dangerous rivers in the world.11 In mid-afternoon on 10 October Salisbury anchored in Rogues River where she found riding the East Indiamen Montfort, Captain Hanslapp, Marlborough, Captain Smith and five of His Majesty’s ships: Medway, Harwich, Preston, Winchester and Medway’s prize. Once the sick seamen and Lascars had been put in the boats and sent on the fifty mile trip to Calcutta, the officers were able to catch up on events down the coast. The news was mixed. Admiral Barnett and the East Indies squadron had captured a good haul off Acheh in the previous year: seven French ships including several East Indiamen returning from China with rich cargoes. On his death he had been succeeded by his second in command, Admiral Peyton, a different man altogether, very cautious and not happy with responsibility. In December, the East Indiamen bound to the Coromandel coast had landed Company

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troops at Madras. News of the despatch of French reinforcements from Mauritius reached Admiral Peyton, and his fleet had met the French squadron off Negapatam in June. After an inconclusive encounter, the Admiral had continued to Ceylon to refit. The naval officers had seen no reason to leave the coast. The French ships were not warships. They were French East Indiamen that the Mahé de Labourdonnais, Governor of the Isle de France,12 had reinforced since the naval squadron he had asked for had returned to France.13 The British men of war were capable of out-sailing them and their guns had a longer range. The withdrawal of the British fleet had left the way clear for Labourdonnais to land 1200 troops at Pondicherry. This had alarmed Admiral Peyton. When he encountered Labourdonnais’s fleet at the end of July he had moved north to protect Fort St George but he arrived instead off Pulicat, mistaking it for Madras. By September, the Admiral had begun to worry that his fleet would still be on the coast when the northeast monsoon began and had sailed north to Bengal. No one as yet knew the fate of Madras but the naval officers feared the worst. Only by remaining on the coast and occupying the French ships could Admiral Peyton have prevented seamen being taken out of the enemy ships to strengthen a besieging force. On 16 October the sloop came on board Salisbury to fetch all the Company’s coral and from then on ferried the soldiers up to Calcutta, the seat of government of the Company’s Bengal Presidency, finally returning to load sixty barrels of Company gunpowder. Several men had died by 21 October when, sufficiently lightened, Salisbury was piloted further upriver on the flood to the usual anchorage at Culpee. Then began the arduous task of unloading all the government stores which Salisbury had brought out for the men of war: masts, cordage, pitch, tar, cables, hawsers. Some of the lead was sent up to Calcutta with the provisions belonging to Fort St George. Now fever, rife in Bengal at this particular time of year from the sudden fall in temperature during the nights, began to take its toll of the crew. At least the Hooghly water, at its height from the freshets which reached their peak in September when the tide was barely visible, was good for the men. But the heat was still intense as the crew overhauled Salisbury in preparation for her return to Britain. Her bottom, which they found to be worm-eaten, was ‘paid’ with pitch, oil and brimstone. Captain Burrowes spent most of the time in Calcutta, selling his private trade venture and investing the proceeds in goods for Europe. In his absence, his navigating officers took turns as commanding officer while the others went up to Calcutta for a few days’ leave to see to their own much more modest ventures. William was probably taken up to

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Calcutta in one of the ship’s boats past flat verdant rice paddies stretching away into the distance . Along the banks between the palm trees and mango groves were clusters of cajan huts and groups of children played in the river. Three miles after passing the boundary stone of Govindpur, marking the southern limit of the Company’s settlement, the broad, straight expanse of Garden Reach opened out with one or two elegant mansions gracing the eastern bank. Beyond, the long retaining wall fronting the river glowed pink in the sun,14 and rising above it the towers and bastions of Fort William from where the Governor and Council managed the Company’s trade. The ghats above and below the fort were crowded with local boats which had brought the produce from the subordinate factories up the Ganges to make up the £400,000 Company investment in Bengal goods for the European market: the high quality products of Kazimbazar and Dhaka in the silk belt centred on Murshidabad, the nawab’s capital of Bengal; the famous cotton cloth of Patna and the saltpetre of Bihar.15 At this time, India textiles formed the greatest proportion in value of the whole of the Company’s investment.16 The Company had always allowed their servants to trade within the eastern seas and the councillors benefited from the very favourable inland trading terms secured in 1717 for the Company from the Emperor Faruksiyar by their predecessors.17 They shared their advantages with the leading Indian merchants who were attracted to the Company’s settlement, benefiting in return from the Indians’ sophisticated financial expertise and credit facilities. Calcutta, with its affluent British community, was the best market for Europe goods. William’s small venture, probably comprising some glassware, wine, hams and cheeses in canvas, sheet music and pictures no doubt found eager buyers. He would easily obtain credit from the native merchants to purchase his return investment without waiting for all the goods to be sold. The unwelcome events down the coast disrupted the councillors’ investments in the country trade, the trade within the eastern seas carried on in ships owned by British and Indian merchants, including the councillors, and largely commanded by Britons. On receiving news of the outbreak of war between Britain and France in September 1744, the Governor of the French Compagnie des Indes at Pondicherry, Joseph-Francois, Marquis Dupleix, had sought to continue the mutually beneficial pact of non-involvement agreed with his counterpart at Madras during the previous war.18 Hostilities on the coast were in the private interests of neither. However, the rapid expansion of French trade in India over the past two decades alarmed both the Company and their servants on the spot. Governor Morse at Madras, encouraged by instructions from the Court of Directors and aware of a British

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naval squadron on its way to the Coromandel coast, had evaded the Marquis’s proposals. The capture of the French East Indiamen in the Straits of Malacca had induced M Dupleix to appeal to the Mahe de Labourdonnais for naval support.19 This gifted, extraordinary man shared Dupleix’s dream of French sovereignty over India on land and was determined to sweep the Indian seas clean of British commerce. News of subsequent events had reached Calcutta from the Madras servants who had escaped down the coast to the subordinate Company factory of Fort St David at Cuddalore.20 Governor Morse’s desperate requests to the Dutch and Danish settlements and to catamaran owners along the coast to find Admiral Peyton and persuade him to return had failed.21 He was forced to negotiate with Labourdonnais: they agreed that Madras would surrender then pay a ransom for its freedom. Dupleix strongly disagreed and as the two French commanders argued the gales attendant on the arrival of the northeast monsoon destroyed the major part of Labourdonnais’s fleet. After he had left with his surviving ships, Dupleix, correctly foreseeing the restoration of Madras at the peace, ransacked Fort St George and bled it dry. On returning to Salisbury, William found the crew still plagued by fever and an unstable ship. On his arrival in the Hooghly, the Council had ordered Captain Burrowes to keep Salisbury in a posture of defence as French warships were expected in the river. With an empty ship and all guns mounted, Salisbury’s stability was threatened. Captain Burrowes wrote to the Council anxiously requesting to receive as soon as possible sufficient weight in her hold to enable her to withstand the weather or the enemy. The Council gave him permission to strike down his guns till they could supply his saltpetre as there was now no danger from French ships. News of Commodore Griffin’s arrival at the beginning of December to take over the command of the naval squadron from Admiral Peyton swept up the river, boosting morale, but his first act was to demand men from the Indiamen. The Council summoned Captain Burrowes and his colleagues, Captain Hanslapp and Captain Smith, to inform them of the Commodore’s request.22 The commanders took a firm stand. They told the Council that their ships were so weakly manned it would not be safe to part with any of their crew. Sickness and other accidents had reduced each ship’s company by fifteen to twenty men below charter party requirements and they had had to resort to shipping Lascars to bring their crews up to strength. If they parted with any of their men their cargoes would be endangered. Saltpetre was the main bulk cargo from Bengal. Agents of the British company and the powerful Dutch Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie

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bought direct from the producers at Patna and stored it in huge warehouses. The Dutch monopolized the fleet of armed barges that brought the saltpetre down the Ganges to the Dutch headquarters at Chinsura and to Calcutta. Throughout January, the backbreaking work of loading it carried on uninterrupted in the oppressive heat of the holds. First, second and third heights, fourth and fifth heights, all had to be beaten down in the fetid atmosphere conducive to the spread of fever. The rest of the crew were getting up and blacking the masts and rigging in preparation for Salisbury’s departure. On 19 January work was briefly interrupted when Salisbury was manned and a fifteen gun salute and three hearty cheers encouraged Commodore Griffin as he passed down the Hooghly to Ingeli to his squadron prior to sailing to the Coromandel coast. On arrival, he informed the Council that he found his ships desperately short of European seamen to fight the French fleet ‘which abounds with men’.23 The Council stood firm behind the commanders, stressing that it was contrary to the Company’s contract with the owners of the Europe ships to take out any of their men. They had already supplied him with all the soldiers who were willing to sail with him on board His Majesty’s squadron and if any more could be prevailed on they should be sent. The Council had its own worries: Commodore Griffin had not told them where he intended to go after sailing down the coast. The President wrote to him stressing the absolute necessity of defending Calcutta and asked him not to go far away.24 At the beginning of February, thunder and lightning surrounded the ship all night and the weather deteriorated generally as Salisbury prepared to drop downriver to deeper water to complete her lading. The pilot boarded the ship on the 4th and Salisbury anchored at Kedgeree the following evening in company with Montfort and Marlborough and Medway man of war. The appalling weather continued unabated: squalls all round the compass, thunder and lightning and torrential rain lashing the ships at night, putting a great strain on the cables which constantly parted. During the following two weeks country boats brought bales of silk and more saltpetre which had to be loaded and beaten down in these dreadful conditions. While the ships were at Kedgeree, news sent from Fort St David on 11 and 29 October warned the Council of an imminent French attack and though the fort was well defended and stocked and strongly garrisoned they were seeking relief from all quarters. It was getting dangerously late in the season for the Indiamen’s departure and sending them down to Fort St David would result in their rounding the Cape of Good Hope at the worst time of year.25 The Council decided to load stores, ammunition and powder on the men of war.26

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On 23 February, the pilot came on board and three days later Salisbury began to drop downriver in stages. The following day two members of the Council, Mr Bellamy and Mr Kemp, arrived to give the captains their despatches. The Directors were well aware that the commanders were far more concerned with filling their ships with their own private trade goods than the Company’s cargo; after all, several of them owed their position to fortunes acquired as commanders. Mr Bellamy read the Company’s warning against failing to carry the full charter party tonnage, not having the full complement of men and the agreed amount of ammunition, and having their ships ‘pestered’ with goods so that they were not in a warlike and defensive posture.27 He then mustered the ship’s company and cleared the ship. Commodore Griffin grasped the opportunity to get even with the Council and the commanders for their lack of cooperation. He regretted he must refuse the Council’s request for convoy for its homebound fleet on the grounds that if he detached any of his squadron for that service his strength would be weakened in comparison with the French, thus endangering other settlements. The Council therefore decided to send four ships home together for greater security with the senior commander, Captain Hanslapp, as commodore.28 By 5 March, Salisbury was in Balasore road where she weighed in company with Marlborough, Montfort and Kent East Indiaman, which had gone out in the season 1745 and been detained by the Council for service. The ships took their departure from Point Palmyras, following a course to the south-southeast.29 A month later the fleet picked up the southeast trade and sailed southwest with a brisk gale. Scurvy had already begun to take its toll with eight men sick by 8 May when they judged their position to be off the head of Madagascar at 40°16′W of Point Palmyras. Squally weather now slowed the fleet right down. On 17 May, in very bad weather, they judged their position to be 260 leagues east of the Cape, and remained roughly in this position for several days. 1 June dawned bright and clear and on 3 June seven large sail of ships flying Dutch colours, the largest of which appeared to be 70 gun ships, all having pendants, stood for the fleet. Salisbury cleared for action though only fifty of her crew could stand the deck. With the advantage of the largest spread of canvas the officers of Salisbury had ever seen, topgallants and royals all set, the strangers gained on the Indiamen. The wind then veered to the northeast, favouring the Indiamen, and they managed to keep to the westward of the strangers. During the night Salisbury’s only light was in the after binnacle but the large ships continued chasing them in the clear moonlight. Salisbury’s crew set a raft adrift with a light fixed to a mast to fool them. At daylight the strangers were

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on their lee quarter and, the wind veering, they tacked and stood to the north. By 5 June they had disappeared. Salisbury’s officers were sure that had they been British ships they would have been alongside. The Indiamen were now in 36°21′S latitude, 55°46′W of Point Palmyras by account in heavy, dark, threatening weather, with scurvy rife and no probability of gaining their passage round the Cape at this late stage. Kent was nowhere to be seen and as the captain and officers of Salisbury could not reach the commodore they held a consultation with Captain Smith and his officers and agreed to put into the land. They judged their position to be 150 leagues off Cape Agulhas. More than two weeks passed, the ships barely making any headway, while scurvy got a greater hold on the crew. On 25 June they sighted land ahead about four to five leagues distant and the following day they stood in. For some days the ships made no headway as they battled against the strong Agulhas current which constantly pushed them southward. July began with the company on Salisbury in a bad state of health, the few men able to stand the deck having to go aloft in very blowy, squally weather with abundance of lightning and a great sea caused by the southwest and southeast wind battling against the strong southerly current. Keeping the land in sight constantly, they estimated on 8 July that they were off the island of St Mary in Delagoa Bay.30 The boats from Marlborough and Kent, which had rejoined the fleet, constantly sounded ahead to find a channel as the sands shift with the tide in this bay and on the 10th the ships dropped anchor. The sick were immediately carried ashore and a tent erected, and rice and paddy brought up from the hold together with cotton cloth to truck with the natives for bullocks and wood and water. The ships remained in the Bay for several weeks while their companies recovered, though the constant swell put a great strain on the ground tackle. Their problems were intensified with the death on 5 September of Kent’s surgeon after a week’s illness. It was not until 25 September that the three ships finally weighed, taking their departure from St Mary’s Island. They followed a generally southerly course until 6 October when in latitude 32°35′S strong westerly winds pushed them eastwards. The sea increased during the night, causing Salisbury to labour a great deal. In the morning the wind blew more to the northward in squalls, the swell much greater than before. They managed to keep the ship’s equilibrium for a time but then she ‘pitched on end, rolled gunnel under’. They concluded it must be caused by a strong opposite current as they found by observation she had been set to the northward. By noon of 7 October the sea had abated considerably and the wind allowed them to resume a southwesterly course in ­ latitude

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32°22′S, meridian distance 15′W of St Mary’s. On 19 October they had soundings and reckoned Cape Agulhas lay about forty leagues to the west-northwest. The commanders held a consultation and decided to haul in for the land which they sighted the following day, the ships pitching a great deal. On 22 October a fresh gale ‘blow’d in frets’ very hard from the northwest and in a heavy squall, veering westerly with a considerable sea running, Salisbury laboured greatly, rolling deeply ‘in as severe a gale as any in winter on a full or new moon’. This deep swell from the westward continued on 23 October when the new moon rose at 2pm and it was colder than winter. All Salisbury’s sails were now in a very bad state and the rats were gnawing the few that remained and the water casks. They sighted False Cape, Table Land and the Cape of Good Hope in turn on 27 October and the following day, now sure of their position, the commanders agreed to head for the destined port without Kent, which was no longer in sight. The commanders’ orders from the Bengal Council, to be read only after rounding the Cape, must have directed them to avoid St Helena, the usual port of call for homebound ships, in case it was in enemy hands and French ships were cruising on the lookout for the returning Indiamen. They were to head instead for friendly Portuguese Luanda. On 19 November, the ships anchored at St Paul’s Island where they found Britannia East Indiaman which had sheltered in St Augustine’s Bay when the others headed for Delagoa Bay. All the ships weighed on 3 December with sickness rife. They took their departure from Ascension Island and from there followed a northwest course with good speeds in generally clear weather. From 26 December, Mr Foot or Mr Larkins or, at times, both signed their recorded observations and the variation by amplitude and azimuth in the log. As the ships approached possibly enemy-infested seas, they prepared the ship for meeting strangers. In bad weather in 33°N latitude, Salisbury kept losing sight of her consorts and kept a light going at night with false fires and a lookout constantly aloft. Wind and current systems carried homebound ships in a wide northwesterly arc and on 2 February 1748, in latitude 36°57′N, they sighted the island of St Mary’s in the Azores from which they took their departure. Twelve days later they anchored in Lisbon harbour and spent two weeks stocking up with bullocks, sheep, victuals and water. On 15 March Salisbury weighed in company with HM ships Norwich, Dunkirk and Jamaica sloop of war and about forty merchant ships. On 5 April 1748, thirteen months after leaving Bengal and two years after leaving Britain, Salisbury sailed through the Downs, well behind Montfort which had arrived in November 1747

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but ahead of Kent which put into Kinsale and reached the Downs on 27 May. *** William had made a good start in the maritime service. He could expect his small investment to yield a profit at the Company’s quarterly sales and so increase his capital, which he could invest wisely over the following few months until the ships of the 1748/9 season were stationed. He had acquitted himself well as second mate in the eyes of one of the major East India shipowners and so had good grounds for hoping for a berth on one or other of Thomas Hall’s ships. He had also made new friends who could keep his name in circulation at the Jerusalem Coffee House, the centre of East India shipping business, while he was at home in Dover. One of these friends was his counterpart on Montfort, Benjamin Braund, who, as a member of another East India shipping family and one with influence in the Court of Directors, was set to command his own ship on his next voyage. Notes   1 K. N. Chaudhuri, ‘The English East India Company in the 17th and 18th Centuries’, Companies and Trade, eds L. Blusse and F. Gaastra (Netherlands, 1981), p. 29.   2 At this time ships hired by the East India Company had up to about twenty part-owners, one of whom, by common consent, managed the ship on behalf of the rest. Those who managed several ships were generally men of great influence in the City and the Company. For an authoritative account of the Court of Directors and the various committees, see H. V. Bowen, The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain 1756–1833 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 118–50.   3 BL, APAC, B/68, 31 January 1745 (Old Style), p. 429.   4 Seamen who entered the Company’s service as sworn officers had usually risen to first mate or master in other branches of the merchant service, particularly the Newfoundland or West Indies trades. See Anthony Farrington, A Biographical Index of East India Company Maritime Service Officers 1600–1834 (London, 1999), passim.   5 Alfred Spencer (ed.), Memoirs of William Hickey, hereafter Hickey, Memoirs, 4 vols, 7th edition (London, 1923), vol. 1, p. 97.   6 Conrad Gill, Merchants and Mariners in the 18th Century (London, 1961), p. 66: most of Thomas Hall’s ships were built here.   7 BL, APAC, L/MAR/B/478B Journal of Salisbury, 31 December 1745 (Old Style), 18 April 1748. The following information about the voyage is based on this unless stated otherwise.

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  8 BL, APAC, L/AG/1/6/12, Commercial Journal 1742–50, April 1746, f. 168: cargo of Salisbury for Fort St George. Silver accounted for £23,980 of the total of £25,665.   9 C. R. Boxer, ‘The Dutch East Indiamen: Their Sailors, their Navigators, and Life on Board 1602–1795’, p. 87, and ‘The Maritime Twilight of the VOC: Some Sources and Problems’, in Dutch Merchants and Mariners in Asia, 1602– 1795, ed. C. R. Boxer (Netherlands, 1988), p. 117. See also Andrew S. Cook, ‘Establishing the Sea Routes to India and China’, in The Worlds of the East India Company, eds H. V. Bowen, Margarette Lincoln and Nigel Rigby (Woodbridge, 2002), p. 123. 10 Coolie Verner and R. A. Skelton (eds), John Thornton, The English Pilot, The Third Book (London, 1703). For over a century this was the principal aid to navigation in Asian waters and coasts for British shipping. James Cook commended the chart of Java in 1770. 11 National Maritime Museum (hereafter NMM) THS/12/2, Captain G. T. Labey and Captain R. K. H Brice, ‘History of the Bengal Pilot Service’, p. 196. The western channel was used to approach the River Hooghly up to the end of the eighteenth century. 12 The French base in the South Indian Ocean, formerly Mauritius. 13 E. H. Jenkins, History of the French Navy (London, 1973), p. 116. 14 The curtain wall was coated in crimson lime. 15 Gordon Johnson (ed.), The New Cambridge History of India (Cambridge, 1987), II, 2; P. J. Marshall, ‘Bengal: The British Bridgehead, Eastern India 1740–1828’, p. 15. 16 Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, Appendix 5: Statistical Tables, C24, p. 548. 17 Philip Lawson, The East India Company: A History (London, 1993), p. 69. 18 The war of the Spanish Succession. 19 Catherine Manning, ‘Un tournant dans la politique des Anglais’, in Pondicherry 1674–1761, ed. Rose Vincent (Paris, 1993), p. 199. 20 Robert Clive was among these. Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Clive of India (London, 1975), p. 63: ‘I made my escape, the beginning of October, disguised in the habit of a Dubosh [dobhashi – an interpreter…] and black’d and arriv’d at St David the same month.’ 21 Keay, Honourable Company, p. 276. 22 BL, APAC, P/1/19, Bengal Public Proceedings, Wednesday 7 January 1747, f. 33. 23 Ibid., Monday 26 January 1747, ff. 84–5. 24 Ibid. 25 Late despatch from Indian ports was a bone of contention between the Company and the managing owners throughout the Company’s life. In 1755 the Company lost a case brought by Charles Raymond in the Court of King’s Bench: BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts from the proceedings of the Court of Directors respecting shipping, 16 July 1755: disallowed that 11 February was a reasonable time to despatch ships from India. 26 BL, APAC, P/1/19 Bengal Public Proceedings, 7 January 1747, f. 117. 27 The Company did not insure its cargoes but depended on convoy or, in the absence of convoy, on their freighted ships keeping company. BL, APAC, L/ L/6/1, Legal opinions on ships, no. 406, 20 October 1796, f. 593, by 6 Geo.I

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section 26 corporations were prohibited from insuring their ships, too, either directly or indirectly by arrangement with the owners (though the South Sea Company was exempted). 28 BL, APAC, P/1/19, Bengal Public Proceedings, 7 January 1747, f. 33. 29 All the information in the following section is taken from the Journal of Salisbury. 30 James Horsburgh, Directions for sailing to and from the East Indies, China, New Holland, Cape of Good Hope, and the Interjacent Ports; compiled chiefly from Original Journals at the East India House, 2 vols (London, 1809 and 1811), vol. 1, p. 171: Delagoa Bay (Bay of Laurenzo Marques) is of great extent, seven leagues in breadth from St Mary’s and Elephant Islands at the entrance to the River Delagoa.

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Two BOMBAY AND ‘THE GULPHS’

ON 29 JULY 1748 invited guests streamed over the new ship built for Captain Benjamin Braund in the Blackwall Yard, an island of industry amidst the marshy wastes where the River Lea flows into the Thames.1 From their vantage point high above the river they looked out over the Isle of Dogs to Greenwich, Deptford, Rotherhithe and St Pauls dominating the distant mass of the city. To the east the river snaked away across thirty miles of low-lying ground to the Hope and the Thames estuary. The East India Company’s presence was everywhere. Only a few years after the yard opened in 1612, the date on the inside wall, the Company acquired the lease and began building its own ships. The Company’s arms decorated the outside wall. The Company’s motto, ‘God be My Good Speed’, encircled the rim of the great bell which regulated the lives of the 235 men employed by 1618. The Company had developed the yard into the biggest shipbuilding complex in England, with a wet dock, three dry docks and several building slips. In the dark days of the mid-seventeenth century the Company had found the overhead costs too great for its declining trade to bear and had leased the yard to private owners. John Perry, the present lessee, was a part-owner of the new vessel. William must have made a good impression on Benjamin Braund on his previous voyage, as he had invited him to sail as his first mate. Samuel Braund presided over the launch of his new ship, one of seven of which he was managing owner, making him one of the most powerful managing owners of ships chartered by the Company. Present was Sir William Baker, MP, Ropemaker General to all Company ships built at Blackwall, and a shareholder in several of Samuel Braund’s ships. He

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and William Braund, the managing owner’s brother, were both directors of the East India Company.2 Henry Crabbe Boulton, formerly Paymaster to the Company and at present clerk to the Shipping Committee, two prominent iron masters, a Blackwell Hall merchant and several other suppliers of East Indiamen numbered amongst the twenty owners.3 The guests marvelled at the ship’s size, at 650 tons, but it was her revolutionary design that created the greatest interest. Her upper deck was flush, the traditional waist covered over so that the quarterdeck was on a level with the rest of the upper deck. A roll of drums warned the guests to clear the ship, and, ceremoniously named Boscawen after the admiral who had brought fame to the British navy, her stern slipped smoothly into the Thames. As the new hull was towed into dock to be finished off, the guests made their way to the mould loft to enjoy a splendid cold collation and a variety of choice wines. On 7 September Samuel Braund presented William Larkins to the shipping directors as Boscawen’s first officer, Edmund Haddock as second officer, and they went off immediately to join their ship. The two officers worked round an army of workers still fitting out the hull.4 An engineer was laying pipes along the keel as part of an advanced ventilation system and a carpenter was casing the pipes in wood.5 Above them the bricklayer was building the furnace which heated the air passing along the pipes, ‘extracting the foul air by fire’ and expelling it up one chimney while a second chimney admitted clean air to replace it. Amidships on the lower deck the bricklayer was plastering the powder room and in the fore part of the main deck the tin man was lining the galley. Carpenters were fitting hanging shutters to the quarterdeck awning and folding doors to the roundhouse, while another was building coops for the poultry on the poop. Boscawen was stationed for the Company’s Presidency of Bombay. Peace at last. In October 1748, before Boscawen left the dock, the British and French kings had agreed to end hostilities on the basis of mutual restoration of conquests in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle.6 There would be no dallying at Spithead waiting for convoys. On 13 March 1749, in fog and snow, Boscawen was at the Hope with Salisbury, Captain Burrowes, and Warren, Captain Glover, waiting for a fair wind to get over the Kentish ‘flatts’.7 After a few days they attempted the passage but suddenly the wind came round to the south with a good deal of sleet and they were obliged to put back. As Boscawen passed over the Middle Ground, the keel ploughed into the sand and she came to a halt. Warren immediately sent her longboat and yawl with a hawser and carried a warp off, successfully clearing her at high water.8 Captain Braund ordered the anchor to be dropped so that the carpenter could inspect the

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hull for damage, while her consorts weighed and headed off towards the North Foreland. Late in the evening of 25 March Boscawen arrived in the Downs. For James Barlow and a few other young men waiting at Deal to board Boscawen the sight of Warren and Salisbury heading off down Channel with a fine northeast wind was very disappointing.9 Their spirits rose when Boscawen appeared round the North Foreland, though there was little prospect of her getting away with the wind now at southwest. However, at 5am the following morning Boscawen’s guns boomed the signal for sailing, sending the young men hurtling down the steeply shelving gravel beach to hire a boat to take them to the ship. The wind had come about to the eastward and Boscawen was under sail within the hour in company with four or five merchant ships. Eight passengers joined the officers at the Captain’s table. Richard Peisley and William Mann were distinguished merchants of great standing in the City. The Company employed them as supercargoes to purchase its coffee and teas on a commission basis. Six of the passengers were Company servants, young men appointed to posts as writers, or clerks, on the Council at Bombay. Two ‘guinea pigs’, young boys under the captain’s personal care, were on board to ‘learn the sea’ in the hope that the experience would later prove an advantage in obtaining a berth on an Indiaman. The roundhouse was the social centre for all the gentlemen, as well as being Captain Braund’s official station on board. There they dined at noon and assembled for supper at 8pm. Both meals ended with toasts to absent friends, a fair wind and a happy sight of the next land they intended to make. They wagered many bottles of wine on the date the Boscawen would arrive at Johanna in the Comoro Islands, their next landfall. During the two hours of the dog watch when he was not on duty, William joined James Barlow and two other writers for a game of whist and a bowl of punch while Captain Braund made up a four with Mr Peisley, Mr Mann and the surgeon, Francis Mitchell. After supper Mr Peisley or Evan Evans, the purser, entertained the company with a song or Mr Stuart, a writer, played the violin. Soon after passing the Canary Islands on 12 April they crossed the Tropic of Cancer and picked up the northeast trade. They ran 150–200 miles a day with all the sail they could set in a fine, pleasant gale with smooth water until the wind failed on 23 April. For ten days they had to put up with an insufferable sultry heat alternating with torrential downpours accompanied by thunder and lightning, squalls and tornadoes. During this time the crew entertained themselves by catching sharks which surrounded the ship in huge numbers, indicating they were dangerously close to the coast of Guinea. Tragedy was only just avoided on

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one occasion. Several people on the poop were trying their luck with baited hooks, one of which ran through the back of a shark. They hoisted the violently writhing, thrashing creature level with the roundhouse balcony where about a dozen officers and passengers were watching the sport in the confined space. Panic gripped the spectators who forced open the narrow folding door to the roundhouse and climbed through the flanking windows. The space was further limited by dozens of bottles of wine cluttering the gallery. Captain Braund and his officers repeatedly ordered the fishermen to desist, but the crew were reluctant to give up their prize and hoisted the beast up to the taffrail. Fortunately, it tore itself free and plunged back into the sea. When things had calmed down the crew had fun harpooning the pilot fish swarming round several sharks which had been secured and towed behind the ship. Those sailors who had caught an edible shark tucked in while the rest threw buckets of water over them. During the calms Boscawen was at the mercy of the strong Guinea current which had been pushing her eastwards towards the African coast.10 As soon as she picked up the southeast trade just north of the Line, William and Edmund Haddock kept her to a south-southwest course, running 100–120 miles a day until she struck squally, unsettled weather and the wind came round to the southwest. For nearly a week they had gloomy weather and a large head swell which threatened to push them towards the coast of Brazil. By the latter part of May the wind had come round to the northeast and they were able to carry topgallants and studding sails and at last set a course to the southeast. When they reached 32°S latitude, William and Edmund Haddock prepared for the boisterous gales and large seas they expected to encounter in running down their easting. The boatswain brought out the best suit of sails, they reeved a new tiller rope, hung the chains to secure the rudder, put up the deadlights in the great cabin and shut in all the half ports. Finally, they lashed everything that moved as securely as possible. She ran 150–200 miles a day before a fresh northwesterly gale between latitude 35°20′S and 34°S. With such good speeds they were optimistic that they would sight the Cape within two weeks. The prospect kept up their spirits in the dismally cold weather with very large seas, hard squalls, heavy rain and hail, thunder and lightning. Captain Braund and his officers recognized the advantages of the third deck. They had a clear run in emergencies and when the sea broke in it ran off quickly. As the ship constantly rolled almost gunwale to, meals challenged physical possibilities. Everyone had to sit on deck with a plate in one hand and an arm round some stable object to eat the cold fare that the cook managed to produce.

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The violent agitation of the ship and the crash and rumble of objects that had come loose inhibited sound sleep. At least the ship’s company was healthy. Captain Braund and his officers were convinced this was due to the ventilation system, helped by frequent doles of punch out of the forfeits the crew had paid to avoid being ducked when crossing the Line. As they approached the Cape the weather turned quite moderate with a smooth sea so they crowded on the sail, carrying studding-sails and topgallants. On 8 June they had just sighted gannets and trunkweed, sure signs that they were on Cape Bank, when they got soundings of 92 fathoms. As they hauled up for the African coast Captain Braund offered a prize of a gallon of brandy for those who sighted land first. They saw Cape Agulhas at noon and checked their position.11 William found they were 2° ahead of their reckoning, which suggested that they had underestimated the strength of the easterly current on the other side of the Line. Helped by a fine, fresh gale they crowded on all the sail she would bear to get away from that dangerous corner of land as quickly as possible. Boscawen ran nearly 200 miles before the weather suddenly changed for the worse early on the afternoon of Sunday 11 June. The wind and the sea rose violently and the topmen fought to haul in the sails and treble reef the spritsail, foresail and foretopsail in rapidly deteriorating conditions. Fortunately, the wind was at west-northwest, driving Boscawen in the direction they wanted to go. Six men were swept from the helm when a great sea overtook her starboard quarter. The force of the water carried away the quarter gallery and wrung off the heads of the iron hooks by which the yawl was lashed to the gratings. It broke loose and was dashed to pieces against the quarterdeck guns, crushing one seaman’s foot and breaking another’s ribs. The quartermaster took over controls from the gunroom and managed to keep the ship on course. The sea poured down the hatchway, washing some of the passengers from one side of the steerage to the other. Half-drowned, they managed to crawl up to the roundhouse, keeping well out of the way of the officers and men fighting to keep the ship afloat. Three hours after the first, a second sea struck the starboard quarter and swept over the quarterdeck, forcing the foremost gun on the larboard side from its carriage and over the side. It washed a chest of wine under the awning, injuring several of the crew, and swept away all the coops on the poop. Throughout the night the Boscawen continued to drive before the gale but it was not until eight in the morning that she shipped another sea, this one right aft. It drove in the deadlights of the great cabin and swept through the ship, shattering the larboard gallery. After that the storm gradually abated. Everyone on board was ­convinced that had it not been for the third deck Boscawen must have

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foundered, the sea breaking so short. Incredibly she had made no water.12 By mid-afternoon the craftsmen had assessed the damage and started on repairing the stern and galleries. Mr Mitchell and his mate tended the various injuries. The bruised passengers lay down on the deck of the roundhouse covered with any dry item they could find and sank into a deep sleep. The cook prepared hot victuals to restore the exhausted crew’s spirits. In the welcome sunshine the ship was soon festooned with all the crew’s clothes and bedding. Captain Braund gave orders to haul to the northward to get away as soon as possible from that tempestuous climate. Still the Boscawen’s problems were not over. She struggled against a strong northeast wind, with squalls and rain, unusual for the time of year, pitching against a large head swell. They tacked repeatedly to avoid being pushed too far south and west but they were afraid of standing too far to the eastward and missing the Mozambique Channel. On 24 June the wind came round to the south and they hauled away for St Augustine’s Bay on the southwest corner of Madagascar to make sure of their position before heading up the Channel. They needed to be sure they were well clear of the strong Agulhas current sweeping down close to the African coast and the dangerous Bassas da India shoal in mid-Channel on which many ships had come to grief. They shortened sail and kept the lead going all night, anchors over the side at the ready, but they had no soundings and did not see land. By noon next day they were in latitude north of the Bay, so they proceeded cautiously and early on 27 June the lookout alerted them to land ahead. Very low-lying land covered with trees lay right ahead bearing east-northeast. Captain Braund ordered a course to be set to the north then east to clear it, and by noon the land bore south about six miles away. They had an observation which showed they were in 22°10′S latitude and William and Edmund Haddock estimated their longitude from Cape Agulhas at 20°30′E. These estimates confirmed their suspicion, which had been growing during the morning, that the land they had passed was not the Madagascan shore but the Bassas da India. Its latitude was correctly laid down in the charts but it appeared to be a rock, whereas it is a large, verdant island, six to eight miles from north to south. The very great surf breaking nearly all round makes it very dangerous for ships to fall in with during the night. Dismay soon succeeded euphoria at having avoided possible disaster. William and Edmund recalled hearing some of the crew say during the morning that they could see smoke. At the time they had taken no notice, believing the land to be Madagascar. Now they realized it could have been a signal sent up by some people in distress. They could have been from the Sussex, wrecked

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on the Bassas some years earlier, or the missing ships Northampton or Prince of Orange which might have run on it on their way to Madagascar. Dolphin bound to Bombay had left Admiral Boscawen’s squadron in May 1748 and not been heard of again. Now they were too far to leeward to beat up to find out who had made the fire. They pressed on northwards in sober spirits. The sight which greeted William as the sun rose on 5 July dispelled any dejection. Soon everyone was lining the gunwales and climbing the ratlines to view the tree-covered mountains and the silver strand of Johanna, an island in the Comoro group. Scores of native craft came off from the shore as Boscawen sailed into the idyllic bay and soon hundreds of black people were crowding over the deck bearing limes and oranges and exotic fruits which everyone eagerly exchanged for tobacco and knick-knacks. Wood and watering parties were soon at work, while Mr Evans went ashore to purchase fresh fruit and vegetables and bullocks and the craftsmen overhauled the ship. Two days later Captain Braund and all the officers joined the passengers for a picnic under a sail they had erected on sheerlegs under a few palms near the watering place. They washed down the tasty fare with wine supplied by those who had lost the wager on the time of arrival at Johanna. At sunset they prepared to return, but the longboat and pinnace had gone off to collect wood. Only the jolly boat was available, but the surf suddenly rose so high most of the party were daunted at the prospect of going off in her to the ship. Only Captain Braund, Mr Mitchell and Mr Evans were prepared to risk it. They went off, promising to send the pinnace as soon as she returned. The temperature soon dropped dramatically. William and those left behind made a big fire and drank the rest of the wine, keeping on the move to keep the cold at bay. The wind rose and by midnight torrential rain overwhelmed their simple tent and they were ankle deep in water. Not until 5am did the pinnace make an appearance as it had reached the ship only an hour earlier. The young writers claimed it was the worst night they had ever spent apart from 11 June. No sooner were they on board and in dry clothing than the ‘king’ – the ruling sultan – arrived on a state visit. His hideous tom-toms grated on their ears and the ship’s five gun salute as the colours were hoisted jarred on fragile heads. The visitors devoured their dinner voraciously but declined any alcohol and prostrated themselves rather ostentatiously as soon as the meal was over. For the remaining few days the purser took advantage of what one of the writers called the ‘great fair’ constantly on board to buy poultry and fish and greens and went ashore to buy bullocks for Bombay. Boscawen sailed early on Friday 14 July. She crossed the Line and got over towards the Ethiopian coast, continuing northeast for a time and

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running 135–200 miles a day with a strong favourable current. On 29 July they reached the latitude of Bombay and bore away to the eastward. On the morning of 31 July they got soundings in 60 fathoms. The sea around seething with water snakes indicated that the currents had set them further to the eastward than they had calculated and they sighted land on Tuesday 1 August. The pilot guided Boscawen round the reef which projected like a tongue from Old Woman’s Island and brought her to an anchor in Bombay harbour. William was delighted by the distant view of white buildings on lush green terraces against the backdrop of the purple Ghat mountains, but he was aware of Bombay’s reputation as a fever-ridden settlement. Even the lighthouse at the outermost point of Old Woman’s Island was a converted tomb, and the many graves at Mendham’s Point evoked an earlier resident’s comment that two monsoons were the life of a man. The air resounded with gunfire as Boscawen saluted the fort with nine guns. They were returned together with nine more from both ship and fort honouring the supercargoes, and eleven for Captain Braund, as they and the writers were rowed across to the Bunder quay. Governor Wake and the Council were impressed by Boscawen’s fast passage of four and a half months. She was the first Europe ship to arrive bringing the news of His Majesty’s Declaration of Peace. The news that Madras had been returned to Britain would come as a great relief to those on the Coromandel coast where developments had been disappointing. Admiral Boscawen’s fleet had failed to take Mauritius the previous year owing to the great surf. The huge naval and military force had gone on to the coast to disembark troops who had proceeded to lay siege to Pondicherry but they suffered such mortality from the marshy ground they had to pull back. The naval ships had kept up a bombardment from the sea but the arrival of the northeast monsoon drove them from the coast. At least the combined operation had removed the French threat to Fort St David, which had survived repeated attempts to take it. *** Ever since 1623, when a grateful Shah of Persia rewarded the Company for helping him to break the stranglehold of the Portuguese on the trade of the Gulf, the Company had maintained a factory at Gombroon. Persian silk had long been superseded by the finer Bengal silks and Chinese raw silk but in the mid-eighteenth century the Company still carried on a profitable trade. The sailing season for the Gulf fitted well into the Company shipping schedules: the best time to sail was in September when the southwest monsoon had lost its force and the

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west coast ports reopened; the northwest wind carried the ships back to Bombay in December. As the first ship of the season to arrive at Bombay, Boscawen was ordered to Gombroon. William left Edmund Haddock in command supervising the overhaul and repainting of Boscawen in preparation for her imminent departure and went ashore in the sloop. To his right the town wall stretched away to enclose the fort, the corner bastions projecting like arrowheads into the harbour. To his left the sound of hammering and sawing came from the Parsi Wadia’s docks. William alighted at the Bunder quay and passed through the elegant arch of the impressive Bunder, or custom house, on to Bombay Green. Ahead was the church of St Thomas and over on his right the barracks modelled on those at Chelsea, but the single-storey houses where the English lived were poor things. Every nationality thronged the Green – Hindus, Armenians, Arabs, Bohras and other Muslims – all attracted to Bombay by the Company’s policy of religious toleration, the rule of law and encouragement of trade. As Boscawen completed her lading for Persia towards the end of August, country ships began to arrive from Mocha, part of the great annual fleet that sailed every year to the Red Sea carrying pilgrims to the haj at Mecca. It was also the greatest market in the East. Silver received in exchange for spices, the beautiful cottons of Gujarat and the fine silks and cottons of Bengal poured into India. With them came another of Samuel Braund’s ships, Durrington, Captain Crabb. Soon after establishing a foothold at Surat, the Company had locked into this age-old trade, their ships later making themselves indispensable as convoy in this great transfer of wealth. The European taste for Mocha coffee, for a long time the sole source of the beverage, boosted the Company’s profits. As coffee grown in other parts of the world eroded the Company’s profits, the value of the trade fell but the Company had not yet relinquished its foothold at Mocha. One ship per year was still stationed for the Red Sea, the commander benefiting from the many ‘perks’. Captain Crabb was feeling very pleased with himself: with the commission for carrying treasure and the profit from his private trade he was sure he had made a sufficiently large fortune to retire. The ship stationed for Mocha for the 1749 season was Walpole, Captain Lowe, which was on the other coast, but should she fail to come round in time, the honour would fall to Boscawen, which had brought the stores for Mocha from London. By 12 September Boscawen was loaded with bales of woollen cloth ready for Persia and she sailed north for Surat, escorting a ketch. Bombay Grab passed her heading south, convoying coasting vessels to Bombay. The many defensible headlands on this coast favoured petty rulers who

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Map 4:  The chief centres involved in the trade between western India, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea

lived by preying on coastal shipping. Merchants bought the passes of those maritime powers most able to defend them. The Bombay Marine had grown up over the decades to provide protection for those who bought the British pass, as well as to defend Bombay. The Governor ordered East Indiamen to play their part in the system whenever they sailed up and down the coast. On 26 September Boscawen anchored off the estuary of the River Tapti. Captain Braund went off in the longboat with the treasure to the Company’s factory at Surat twenty miles upriver. In the estuary the myriad of craft were still bedaubed with the vermilion and ochre applied on 1 September, Coconut Day, marking the reopening of the port after the rains. Crowding the immense flat sands were hundreds of brightly coloured tents forming the temporary annual market generated by the hajis returning from the great mart of Mecca. Soon the bales of fine textiles, woven from the cotton produced in the rich black soil belt of Gujarat watered by the Rivers Narbada, Mahi and Tapti, began to arrive from the factory. Captain Braund came on board on 16 October and Boscawen weighed anchor and sailed northwest, keeping the Gujerati coastline in sight. On 20 October the cliff of the small Portuguese island of Diu rose up ahead out of the rock-strewn

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sea, its many beautiful churches climbing the hill behind strong castles. Boscawen’s company prepared to encounter the most formidable of the pirates operating to the north of Bombay. If they left the coast the prevailing northeast wind might blow the ship on to the Arabian shore where she could be becalmed. The armourers set to work at the forge making shot and checking the guns as they approached Baet, the base of the Sanganian pirates. These notorious fighters fortified their courage with bang and while under its influence would give no quarter.13 Boscawen passed the dangerous point safely. The ketch went off to Bussorah and at noon the following day, Saturday 18 November, Boscawen dropped anchor at Gombroon. Her arrival was a highlight in the lonely, monotonous existence of the three members of Council, Messrs Cowan, Draper and Wood. Though isolated they were not deprived. There was no shortage of the good things of life. Fruit and vegetables grew in profusion in the Company’s garden, well watered from its wells fifteen miles away at Asseen, to which the councillors retreated during the hot months of June, July and August. In Gombroon livestock was plentiful and there were ample supplies of Shiraz to wash down the excellent food. But the councillors complained bitterly of the insupportable climate, with its scorching hot summers and freezing cold winters, and their dependence on their camels for fresh water brought all the way from Asseen. They had good grounds for complaint. A few months later their calls for help to Bombay became quite desperate. The local ruler Mullah Ali Shah and his men stole their camels and the Council’s complaints were met with threats to cut off the camels’ ears, and if the Council’s interpreter complained any more, they would cut off his head, too. The situation was deteriorating: they feared the local ruler would attack the factory and the Balouchis were also advancing which would cause general confusion.14 The main Company import from Persia was treasure acquired mainly in exchange for Surat piece goods and freight. The numerous Armenian merchants in Persia were prepared to pay well for the security offered by a Company ship to transport their treasure to India.15 Captain Braund and a few Armenian and Portuguese passengers came on board on Thursday 8 December and Boscawen sailed. The familiar hills of Malabar and Caranja came into view on 22 December. In the road, lay Salisbury, the first time Boscawen’s company had seen her since she disappeared round the North Foreland in March. William renewed his acquaintance with his old commander, Captain Burrowes, and over festive food and wine heard how Salisbury had been forced to put into Falmouth and only arrived at St Augustine’s Bay when Boscawen had been at Bombay for three days. She had finally

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arrived at Bombay on 17 October and since then had been cruising to protect the coastal trade. Captain Burrowes had heard nothing of Warren, Captain Glover. Governor Wake and his Council were concerned at the non-appearance of Walpole. Nobody had reported her presence on the Malabar coast, so they had to make other provision. As Boscawen was the second designated ship, the Governor informed Captain Braund that she would be sent to Mocha if Walpole failed to arrive in time. Meanwhile, there was other work for Boscawen. She was the only ship available to convoy Drake, a ketch, down the coast to fetch bullocks. Bombay Council fought a never-ending battle for survival against attempts by the Presidency’s old enemy, the Angria family, to starve the population. Half a century earlier a Maratha queen had rewarded the head of the family, Canoji, for his support in a succession dispute with ten forts which dominated peninsulas on the west coast south of Bombay. His stranglehold on Bombay harbour had almost destroyed the infant settlement. Canoji’s son Tulaji had maintained and developed a huge fleet of grabs and gallivats which preyed on all coastal shipping not carrying his pass. They usually left Indiamen alone as they were too heavily armed, but Captain Burrowes cautioned Captain Braund against over-confidence. He was third mate on Derby when she approached the coast on 26 December 1736. They had cleared for action in preparation for meeting Angria’s grabs, which were known to cruise fifteen or sixteen leagues from the coast. At six in the morning five grabs had closed on her.16 There was no wind and Derby would not answer the helm so they were unable to bring their broadside to bear on the enemy. The battle had continued right through the day, the grabs constantly firing at her stern. By four or five in the afternoon so many of Derby’s officers were dead or had lost their legs that the captain had no choice but to strike. Derby’s commander, officers and crew had all been taken to Angria’s fort at Gheria where they were double-ironed and kept to hard labour in the open on a pint of rice a day. They had been prisoners for many months and suffered great mortality. Christopher Burrowes had accompanied Captain Anselme to Bombay bearing a letter from Angria offering to release the prisoners in exchange for peace. The captain had found Tulaji Angria a sad, arbitrary, maggoty man. Captain Braund needed no warning to be on the alert. In recent weeks Angria’s grabs had captured the heavily armed Restoration grab of the Bombay Marine after a two-day battle in which many men had been killed.17 Boscawen sailed south with Drake, towing a patamar. William kept his glass trained constantly on the horizon. He saw three masted vessels, grabs or ships, anchored further out to sea, and twelve gallivats and one

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grab standing to the northward. Joseph Bell, the gunner, and his mate began loading the guns in preparation for action. Unfortunately, the quarterdeck gun went off, blowing Bell overboard and he sank before anyone could reach him. Boscawen anchored and the smaller boats went off to the mainland to fetch cattle while William and his officers kept a constant watch on several gallivats standing to the northward outside the river mouth. By Wednesday evening the crew had loaded fifty-three head of cattle. At midnight they weighed, cleared the ship, got all the cabins down and ran out the stern chasers in the gunroom in preparation for passing Angria’s strong fortification of Colaba. All day Thursday two grabs and twelve gallivats were in sight to the south of the river mouth and still in sight the following day when Boscawen came to at Rajapore. Captain Burrowes had warned Captain Braund that each of Angria’s grabs was served by a gallivat which carried extra men to replace any wounded in action. On Saturday they saw a gallivat with the pilot boat in tow. Immediately, they manned the patamar and sent her after it, but though they kept up musket shot and fired several times they were forced to give up when a gun on the island fired grapeshot ahead of the patamar. Boscawen and Drake stood in for Bombay and delivered 150 head of cattle. After taking on more water and about thirty soldiers from the Bombay garrison, they sailed for Rajapore again with another small vessel. They returned on the Thursday after collecting 80 head of cattle without incident. On 29 January Governor Wake formally appointed Boscawen to proceed to Mocha.18 According to Company tradition, Captain Braund now relinquished his supreme authority on board his ship but gained advantages far more valuable in return. He was sworn in as the third supercargo. He would participate in the purchase of the Company’s coffee, earning a commission on a very large investment. Even more lucrative was the associated entitlement to a quarter percent of the freight from carrying treasure back from Mocha. He willingly complied with the Company’s orders to deliver his ship over to Mr Peisley and Mr Mann, with all the official ship’s papers and to obey them in all his future proceedings until his final despatch for Europe. This was Captain Braund’s chance to make a small fortune and he lost no time in getting the celebrations underway. He invited all the commanders in port: Captain Knight of HM Ruby, Captain Brett of HM Tartar, Captain Mantle of HM Syren and his colleague Captain Burrowes. Mr Mann had gone down to Tellicherry ahead of Boscawen to buy spices for Mocha, but Mr Peisley was included among the guests. They all came on board Boscawen and for three days, and while the crew took in all the Mocha

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stores and William and his colleagues prepared the ship for sailing, the commanders yarned and drank and dined by turns. On Wednesday 31 January Boscawen weighed in company with Salisbury and a ketch and headed south. Gunfire echoed round all night but at a distance. Eleven days later they arrived at Mangalore, the rice bowl of the Malabar coast, to load stores for Mocha. On Sunday 18 February the two ships anchored off Tellicherry where Boscawen remained for a week taking in spices. Mr Mann joined the ship and she weighed on Saturday 24 February, taking leave of Salisbury which was bound to Britain, calling at Cochin and Anjengo. A week later Boscawen anchored at Socotra and Mr Peisley and Mr Mann went straight to the governor’s house to deliver the President’s letter. The supercargoes demanded that he hand over three chests of treasure out of the ten his people had saved out of Heathcote, wrecked on 7 June 1747 in the Babelmandeb Strait in her passage to Mocha, and which his overlord, the Imaum, had promised to restore. After browbeating the hapless governor for some time the supercargoes concluded there was no hope of recovering any part of the silver. They had more success with Heathcote’s iron and steel. The governor confessed to having sold part of it to a Dutch ship’s captain but was happy to return the rest. Boats loaded with iron bars and steel came off the shore and Mr Mann and Mr Peisley rejoined the ship. They had left a reward to be distributed among the people for their cheerful assistance.19 March to mid-April was the best time to enter the Babelmandeb Straits, when the wind was at south-southeast up the Gulf of Aden. They set a course for Aden then took soundings, keeping to the shore until they sighted Babelmandeb Point and sailed through the narrow strait between the Point and Bab Island. Late in the afternoon of Wednesday 28 March they saw the Great Mosque of Mocha and Boscawen came to. Captain Braund and the two supercargoes immediately went ashore in the longboat to report Boscawen’s arrival and to give notice that she would remain in the road until 10 August to take in treasure on freight for Bombay on the usual terms. The native merchants welcomed the opportunity to ship treasure and valuable cargoes on the English East Indiamen as opposed to the Portuguese and Dutch. Although the freight was higher on British ships the seamanship and navigational skills of their officers and men were considered superior.20 Captain Braund and Mr Mann were to remain at the Company’s factory to buy coffee in Mocha. Mr Peisley, as the senior supercargo, was ‘with all convenient speed to go to Beetlefukee’, the great coffee mart at Bait-al-Fakir, a hundred and fifty miles north of Mocha. William was now in command of Boscawen for the next four and a half months. She lay in a large sea, in gusty, blowing weather, and he needed

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extra manpower to get her into the road. Edmund Haddock went off to find men and returned with twenty Lascars from London, a country ship. Once Boscawen was at anchor, her masts and yards were struck and the factory stores, spices and rice, iron and steel, were sent on shore. The craftsmen set to work painting and maintaining the ship, constantly watering the decks to prevent shrinkage. William left Edmund Haddock in command and went ashore. The tall, white houses interspersed with the steeples of many mosques formed an attractive vista round the bay. He took a party of his most stalwart seamen with him to watch his back. Company men were welcome in Mocha because they brought money with them, but their affluence attracted unruly mobs. William had his work cut out to keep his men sober as British seamen’s drunkenness was a constant problem. The Company instructed its commanders to keep an eye on them, ‘that our affairs may not be embarrassed by their disorders’. William had also to make sure they did not run goods or they would end up in some very uncomfortable prison. Mocha was an inferno, but although the temperature was approaching its peak the town was at its busiest. It was an exhilarating atmosphere. Merchants and traders of every nationality thronged the streets, looking for a passage on ships bound to all the ports in the Indian Ocean before mid-August when the wind turned round to southeast in the Gulf of Aden. Soon afterwards the northeast monsoon would set in, making exit from the Red Sea impossible. The rich variety of food of every kind amazed William. Mr Evans had no difficulty purchasing plenty of fresh food, except pork, for the ship’s company. Although rain fell only three days a year, in July, daily showers fell on the mountains, watering the fertile inland valleys where delectable fruits were grown. William had brought a small investment which had sold at a profit and although there was nothing of great value on sale at Mocha, some drugs and ivory and ostrich feathers would find a good market in England.21 Towards the end of May, HM Tartar, Captain Brett, arrived to convoy the fleet back to Bombay. The coffee began to arrive and by 12 July Boscawen was so heavily laden William had to move her into deeper water three miles from the Great Mosque. Pilgrim ships sailed into Mocha road from Jedda carrying many merchants who had sold their goods at the great mart of Mecca. At the end of the month Boscawen’s longboat brought on board fifty baskets of freight treasure. William took in cattle to replenish stocks in Bombay and on 13 August Captain Braund and Messrs Mann and Peisley came on board. The following day the fleet took its departure from Old Aden. Exactly two weeks later, Boscawen anchored in Bombay harbour where she found riding Warren, Captain Glover, which had arrived in June. She

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had suffered a series of misfortunes since helping to float Boscawen off the Middle Ground fifteen months earlier.22 After a long stay at the Bay of all Saints in Brazil for repairs she had got as far as Socotra towards the end of 1749 but the northeast wind had forced her to put back to Johanna. Even then ill fate had pursued her. She had had to throw nineteen guns overboard in a storm north of Diu to prevent foundering. Captain Glover, an abrasive man, had had ‘a great disturbance’ with his officers and problems with his crew. According to the captain, when he accused his coxswain, John Cox, of neglect of duty, he had answered provocatively, bordering on mutiny. When Captain Glover reproved him, Cox had the presumption to collar his commanding officer. The commander considered this sufficiently serious to report to Governor Wake. Captain Braund was among those summoned by the governor to conduct a court martial on board the Warren on Monday 24 September. John Cox was cleared of mutiny but severely reprimanded for misconduct, bad behaviour and neglect of duty. On the afternoon of Wednesday 26 September the Governor requested Lt McKenzie of HM Tartar to press John Cox as Captain Glover did not think him capable of fulfilling the station of coxswain and he might cause trouble if he had no position. When Cox was going over the ship’s side the crew stopped him and would not let him go. Lt McKenzie wisely left him as he did not have sufficient men to take Cox by force. Captain Glover heard about all this when he returned to his ship in the evening. He called all hands and asked them to account for making such a disturbance and disobeying officials. They replied in a mutinous manner and refused to go to work. Captain Glover put the three most outspoken in irons and the rest went back to work, growling. Early the following morning the captain sent an officer ashore with a letter to the Governor to tell him he thought it dangerous to proceed with a parcel of such mutinous men. He requested that Captain Brett would send a lieutenant on board to take out all the ringleaders and replace them with others. At nine o’clock in the morning Mr Lane, the Marine Paymaster, came on board with his deputy and two commands of soldiers, each of thirty men. Captain Glover had the soldiers drawn up on each side of the quarterdeck and then ordered all hands to be called. When the deputy had read out the Articles of War the captain asked the men if they wanted for anything, if they had as many victuals as any ship in the road or if they were used ill. There was no response. Captain Glover then took out those men who he believed had caused the disturbance and Mr Lane took them ashore, promising to send on board the same number of Europeans. At the Governor’s request, Lt McKenzie pressed John Cox to prevent further disturbances as it was obvious the majority of the

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ship’s company sympathized with him. Warren sailed with Britannia on 11 October carrying treasure to Bengal. Governor Wake had resigned his post and asked Captain Braund to take him and his wife back to England on Boscawen. On 17 November the Company’s employees and the inhabitants of Bombay accompanied them to the waterside where a detachment of soldiers saluted the governor with three volleys of small arms and the fort fired a twentyone gun salute. Boscawen responded with an equal number and sailed immediately the Governor and his Lady embarked. HM Tartar met her at the harbour mouth and escorted her to a safe distance to the westward.23 Governor Wake became ill during the passage and asked Captain Braund to put in at the Cape where Boscawen anchored on 16 January. The Governor and his Lady went ashore, no salute being fired in deference to his condition. On 24 January news of Mr Wake’s death reached the ship. *** Back in Dover in June, William looked forward to spending several months with his wife and five-and-a-half-year-old son. The future looked promising. Now that he had established himself in a powerful East India shipping group he could reasonably expect to be offered employment on a ship with a good voyage. Despite continuing hostilities in South India, the Company’s trade with Bengal, its chief source of wealth, was unaffected.24 William expected his small investment to sell well at the Company sales and he could look forward to obtaining a command after a few more years. Notes   1 Philip Banbury, Shipbuilders of the Thames and Medway (Devon, 1971), pp. 114–24.   2 Company by-law number 9 stated that no ship should be taken up by the Company wherein a director was owner or part-owner.   3 For Henry Crabbe Boulton’s career, see Parker, ‘Directors of the East India Company’ and Lucy Sutherland, A London Merchant (Oxford, 1962), pp. 152–3. Blackwell Hall was a powerful London cloth guild which supplied West Country cloth to the Company for export.   4 Essex Record Office, Papers of Samuel Braund, D/Dru, B11, Tradesmen’s bills for the first voyage of Boscawen.   5 A. E. Clarke-Kennedy, Stephen Hales (Cambridge, 1929), pp. 151–68. Admiral Boscawen had tested this and another innovative ventilation system in the navy and found Hales’s invention superior.

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  6 The Treaty of Aix-la-Chappelle brought the war of the Austrian succession to a close.   7 BL, APAC, L/MAR/B/572A, Journal of Boscawen, August 1748–July 1751.   8 Essex Record Office, Papers of Samuel Braund, D/Dru, B20, Letters from commanders to Samuel Braund, Letter no. 2, 21 March 1748, Captain Glover to Samuel Braund, and Letter no. 3, Benjamin Braund to Samuel Braund, 22 March 1748.   9 BL, APAC, Tracts 133, Journal or Narrative of the Boscawen’s Voyage to Bombay by James Barlow, communicated to his father in London, August 1750. Much of the following is based on this journal. 10 Andrew S. Cook, ‘Establishing the Sea Routes to India and China: Stages in the Development of Hydrographical Knowledge’, in Worlds of the East India Company, eds Bowen et al., p. 126. 11 According to Horsburgh, Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies, vol. 1, p. 79, Cape Agulhas 34º58 1/2´S true latitude, 20º18´E (of Greenwich) true longitude; that would be 24º40´E longitude from the Start. 12 Essex Record Office, Papers of Samuel Braund, D/Dru, B20, Captain Benjamin Braund to Samuel Braund, Letter no. 5, Bombay, 13 September 1749 by Durrington, received 21 May 1749. 13 Sir William Foster (ed.), A. Hamilton, A New Account of the East Indies (London, 1930), 2 vols, vol. 1, p. 80. 14 BL, APAC, Persian Gulf Proceedings, neg. 4912, August 1750. 15 Om Prakash (ed.), European Commercial Expansion in Early Modern Asia, 10 vols: P. J. Marshall, ‘British Private Trade in the Indian Ocean before 1800’, vol. 10, An Expanding World: the European Impact on World History 1450–1800 (Aldershot, 1997), p. 243. 16 BL, APAC, L/MAR/B/653 - I(3): Imprest book of Derby includes an account of her loss, 26 December 1735. 17 BL, APAC, neg. 210, Bombay Journal 1749–50, 26 December 1749. 18 Ibid., 23 January 1750, cargo and treasure for Mocha. 19 Ibid., supercargoes’ letter to the Governor and Council of Bombay, 12 August 1750. 20 See note 15. 21 Olibanum, arsenic, gum arabic, storax and balm of Gilead. 22 BL, APAC, L/MAR/B/571A, Journal of Warren, 11 January 1749–5 October 1751. 23 BL, APAC, Bombay Journal neg. 210, 17 November 1750. 24 Chaudhuri, Trading World, p. 510: British investment in Bengal was about £400,000 p.a. in the 1740s.

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Three FROM MALABAR TO WHAMPOA

IN THE event, William barely had time to unpack his chest before Richard Crabb summoned him to London. As commander of Durrington, Captain Crabb had made his fortune on the Mocha voyage in 1749 and had now retired to become her managing owner, along with other of Samuel Braund’s ships.1 Her new commander was Richard Drake, related to Roger Drake, the Company Chairman that year.2 Consequently, he had been offered the best voyage of the season, traditionally in the Chair’s gift. Durrington was stationed for Madras, Bengal and Bombay, offering William the best opportunity to trade from port to port. Within twenty days of Boscawen’s arrival at Gravesend, William took the oath at the India House as first mate of Durrington and hurried down to Gravesend to join his ship as she was on the point of sailing to the Downs.3 Three senior factors bound to Fort St David embarked as passengers.4 They were taking orders to the government to return to Fort St George, Madras, and re-establish the Presidency there. Ever since November 1746, when the Governor and his Council had finally left the fort in French occupation and retreated to its subordinate factory at Fort St David down the coast, the Company had carried on the business of the west coast from there. The Company provided generously for their servants to ensure that their passage to Coromandel would not be marred by insufficiency of food and wine. All this William was able to enjoy as he learned of the latest developments in India from the horses’ mouths. Both the government and the Company agreed that since the victories of a small French force over the vast army of the nawab of Arcot, Indian ruling families were seeking French support for their own advancement

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in the unstable conditions prevailing in South India. They had supported Chanda Sahib’s claim to be nawab of the Carnatic and according to the latest news he had been proclaimed nawab in the capital, Arcot. In December 1750 the new nawab had visited Pondicherry to reward the Marquis de Dupleix and the French Council for their help. The grand durbar had lasted several days: a fabulous pageant in oriental style, fireworks, feasting, processions, every soldier rewarded. And Dupleix, dressed from head to toe in a splendid Muslim costume, had sat on a gilded throne next to the nawab. He had made the Marquis a naib, commander of 7000 horse, and awarded him territories yielding R35,000 to pay for their upkeep.5 The Marquis de Dupleix was now Governor of the whole of South India from the Kistna to Cape Comorin. His brilliant young general, Charles de Bussy, had achieved a similar success with the nawab’s overlord, the nizam of Hyderabad. He had installed a French puppet on the throne at Hyderabad and now, as the nizam’s deputy, de Bussy was the real ruler of the whole of the Deccan. The grateful nizam had given the French the revenues of the Northern Circars, that rich coastline north of Masulipatam whose excellent printed cloths and valuable wood, iron, sugar cane and teak had attracted all the European companies in the early days. Every would-be petty ruler in South India now looked to the French to provide the arms they needed to achieve their ambitions. But the British were fighting back. Thomas Saunders, a determined man of iron will, was now Governor of Fort St George. He had written to tell everyone, the directors and the Government, that he wanted Monsieur Dupleix’s head. Not that Monsieur was the main problem. Saunders realized that Madame was the organ-grinder.6 She saw the opportunities and her husband had the ambition and the money to carry them out. At Saunders’s right hand was Colonel Stringer Lawrence. He had returned to England disgusted with the interference in military affairs of the Madras council under the former governor and had got the ear of government. He was not as brilliant as de Bussy but he never let go. If anyone could turn the tables on the French in the Carnatic it was Saunders and Lawrence. On 15 March 1752 Durrington arrived off Fort St David, which stood on rising land on the low-lying, featureless sandy coast about a mile to the north of the native town of Cuddalore. Its four-square construction with a clear field of fire over the land on three sides had enabled the garrison to hold out against the French in 1746. William was able to go ashore and enjoy the hospitality of the fort and hear at first hand the good news. The tables had been decisively turned. The success of the French candidate, Chanda Sahib, in claiming the throne of the Carnatic

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at the expense of the English Company’s candidate, Muhammad Ali, had been short-lived. The Council had devised a plan to draw off the nawab’s forces which were besieging Muhammad Ali in the fort at Trichinopoly. Impressed by the military genius of one of the young Company servants who had escaped to Fort St David when Madras fell, Thomas Saunders had commissioned him and backed his judgment by entrusting to him almost all the troops defending Madras to carry out the plan.7 On 12 September, while Durrington was sailing down the Atlantic, Captain Robert Clive had taken the fort and the city of Arcot against overwhelming odds. The force besieging the Temple Fort at Trichinopoly had marched to the defence of the capital, but for more than two months Clive and his men had resisted all attempts to retake the fort. This had completely altered the situation in the Carnatic, but the French threat was still grave. General de Bussy continued to control the Deccan and all the Indian rulers still recognized the Marquis de Dupleix as a great Moghul noble and looked to him to help them to achieve their own ambitions. On 5 April Durrington, with the Secretary’s office, the writers and various sundries, followed the ship carrying Thomas Saunders and his Council to Madras. Eight miles north of Fort St David they passed the forbidding, regular pentagon of the Vauban fortress of Pondicherry. Durrington dropped anchor in Madras road on 8 April. William had been warned by fellow officers used to the coast of the problems of getting through the three surfs at Madras but foreknowledge made the prospect no less daunting. Everything and everybody had to be carried to the shore in deep-hulled masulah boats which were sewn together to ensure flexibility and let in the sea to an alarming extent. Almost naked boatmen astride rude logs, or catamarans, paddled alongside ready to pick up the victims should the boat capsize while crossing one of the surfs. Since the return of Madras to Britain in 1748 the Company had sent out increased numbers of ships with their holds full of materiel: guns, ammunition and small arms. Work was underway to strengthen the fortifications. No one doubted that open warfare would be resumed between the French and British on this coast and when it began Fort St George must not be in the weak, defenceless position that had made it such an easy target for Labourdonnais in 1746. On 11 April, after a brief stop at Madras, Durrington sailed for Bengal and reached Culpee on 1 June 1752. Captain Drake showed the iron hand in the velvet glove when four men ran in the jolly boat, a common occurrence as men could easily find employment as mariners in the country trade or as soldiers in the native armies. One was pardoned but the rest were

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s­ entenced to receive thirty-six lashes each. The commander mustered the whole ship’s company to learn the lesson that it was not worth jumping ship. The dreary work of unloading began in squally, wet weather with a good deal of thunder and lightning. William found the inhabitants of Calcutta very concerned about their own security. Fort William was no fort at all. Unlike Fort St George where all the white people lived inside the fort, houses crowded against the outside walls providing an easy route to attack and capture by an enemy. For years everyone had recognized the danger but their wealthy owners were reluctant to agree to the demolition of their homes. Godolphin had arrived from Madras with special despatches which contained encouraging news. The enemy had been totally defeated at Trichinopoly. The French army under Jaques Law, holed up in the great temple city of Srirangam on an island in the River Cauvery near Trichinopoly, had surrendered to Major Lawrence. Most of the French officers were on parole, the men prisoners, and Chanda Sahib beheaded. Captain Clive had mopped up enemy troops who had been threatening Madras and Arcot. Everyone recognized, however, that Dupleix was not prepared to concede defeat, and de Bussy’s position in the Deccan remained unchallenged. From the beginning of November Durrington began taking in saltpetre and in the second week of January 1753 she dropped down to Ingeli bound to the Malabar coast.8 Six weeks later she rounded Cape Comorin and soon afterwards a range of low, undulating hills marking the Company’s settlement at Anjengo came into view. The British flag flew over the Company’s fort dominating the palm-fringed beach, the fishermen’s cajan huts clustered round its walls. This was a world away from the troubled Coromandel coast and the populous Calcutta Presidency. Durrington anchored in eleven fathoms immediately in front of the fort at a distance of two miles, well beyond the foul bottom which caused the wild surf to beat continuously on the shore. This was the most southerly of the settlements on the Malabar coast, just south of the ancient emporium of Quilon, centre of the spice trade when Augustine brought Christianity to England and probably well before that. The Moghul empire had never engulfed Malabar, so it had not suffered the convulsions attendant on new forces competing for power in the vacuum left as the Emperor’s power diminished. The whole area was governed by petty kings from their rude reed and cajan huts, aided by their feudatory nayar warrior caste. All attempted to monopolize the production of the fine black pepper in their own territories. Ever since the Company had entered the trade, its Governors and servants at Anjengo had tried

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Map 5:  South India

to manipulate the pepper trade, by fair means or foul, to their own advantage, never to the Company’s. Alarmed by the haemorrhaging of money through the tiny settlement the Court of Directors had repeatedly ordered the Bombay Council to close it down, but the Councillors had turned a deaf ear. Now, the Governor at the factory told Captain

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Drake and his officers, change was on the way in Malabar. In the past two years, Martanda Varma, king of Travancore, had gained control over the whole country and successfully created a pepper monopoly, which he was enforcing with a strong army. Standing on a sand spit facing the Indian Ocean and backed by a river leading up to the native capital Attinga, the Company’s fort at Anjengo was deceptively isolated from the world. Shipping of three oceans paused in the uneasy anchorage on its surf ridden coast. The factors at Anjengo were the first to learn of French squadrons sailing from Mauritius. Closer to their own interests, they learned of any developments in trade throughout the Asian world from the ‘Gulfs’ to Canton. Relaxing after dinner on the barbican, fanned by the fresh breeze, William learned what price he would get in ports up the coast for his fine Bengal silks; what Anjengo pepper and fine cloth and betelnut9 would fetch at Surat and the rate of exchange of the great variety of coins used in the trade. After a couple of days Durrington sailed, Captain Drake raising the broad pennant ready to perform the customary duty of convoying friendly shipping who held the Company’s pass up this dangerous coast. Sailing off and on up the Malabar coast was a tedious business. There was no alternative to falling into the leisurely rhythm of this timeless trade imposed by the wind system. Durrington had to wait first of all until about midnight when the land cooled down and the breeze carried her northward up to thirty fathoms offshore. She then had to anchor in sandy ground and await the sea breeze which began to blow about 1pm, carrying her a little further north and back towards the land again where she anchored in seven fathoms. On 13 March she reached Calicut, where Vasco da Gama had made his first landfall. This ancient emporium was the centre of a large pepper production, with betelnut and the usual coconut products, but also a source of sandalwood, iron and cassia lignum.10 All these products were transported to the Company’s subordinate fortified factory at Tellicherry. On the way to Tellicherry Durrington fell in with two ships of the Bombay Marine, Guardian, Captain James, from Bombay and Britannia, Captain Ricardo, from Bengal. Tellicherry was a good market for goods from Bengal and the coast, and the source of products which would yield a profit in Bombay, Surat, Madras and Bengal: just to the south, the best cardamoms in the world were grown and transported by river to the Company’s warehouses. Before leaving Tellicherry, Durrington prepared to run the gauntlet of the various freebooters of the Konkan coast. Captain Drake borrowed four guns out of Britannia, the carpenter built a platform in the gun-room to mount two stern chasers, and

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twenty sepoys came on board at Tellicherry with some provisions for Bombay. The convoy proceeded on 27 March; Guardian, two country ships, a French and a Dutch ship in company. On 4 April at Mangalore, a British ketch and eight gallivats joined the convoy, keeping close company as they passed Goa and the island of Malwan, the base of one of the most notorious of the petty rulers who preyed on shipping. To the north they sighted the grey mass of Angria’s fort at Gheria jutting out into the sea. Two days later they passed several of his grabs and gallivats standing to the southward and saw his fleet at anchor inshore. On 26 April the familiar shape of Caranja Hill appeared to the northeast and Canary, Elephant Island and Malabar Hill opened up. Durrington remained a week at Bombay before sailing up the coast to Surat where she delivered saltpetre and took in cotton. William probably had some Bengal silk, cardamoms, pepper and sandalwood to sell here and bought Gujarati cotton for Bengal. He could use the services of the schroffs and banias, sophisticated bankers who offered credit and arranged transfers of money to other centres. Durrington was taking in water and Captain Drake was anxious to get her into dock. On her fourth voyage, already two years ‘off the ground’ and with at least another twelve months ahead, she needed a thorough inspection. On returning to Bombay, she was put into the new dry dock in the Parsi Wadia’s yard. Her bottom repaired and now seaworthy, Durrington sailed and dropped anchor at Culpee one month later. William went up to Calcutta to sell his private trade purchases and invest the proceeds in goods for the British market. He also bought a black slave, increasingly the mark of success amongst fashionable people in Britain, and signed him on as a seaman. With the onset of the sickly season, fever began to bring down the crew. William’s kinsman William Pascall was among the few dead. The rest were recovering by November as Durrington took in her cargo and prepared to sail for Europe. It was a poor season. Her hold was only half filled when she dropped down to Ingeli early in the new year. On 11 February she sailed into Madras road to load bales of cloth for Europe. The whole situation on the coast had changed. Though hostilities continued, protracted, intermittent, the French Company’s dissatisfaction with the Marquis de Dupleix’s meddling in native affairs was changing the situation. The latest despatches from Europe brought news that in July they had approached the English Company and negotiations for peace were in progress. Dupleix had agreed to a conference and the delegates from each side were at Sadras considering ways of restoring tranquillity. But Governor Saunders and his Council remained convinced that, in the end, they had to depend on military force to

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get their way. This was not possible at the moment as Major Lawrence was exhausted and Colonel Clive had sailed for Europe. The protracted military operations had not helped the generally depressed economy of the Coromandel coast, already plunged into anarchy in the 1730s by native wars. Durrington weighed and sailed on 11 March and on 5 October she arrived in the Downs.11 Durrington’s late arrival in the river did not augur well for William finding a berth on a ship of the 1754/5 season. In recent years the supply of ships had outstripped the numbers required for the trade, even though that trade was expanding. The shipping had become a pawn in the annual auction which constituted the April elections for the Court of Directors. A directorship carried with it great power and patronage in the City of London. Candidates were willing to gamble enormous sums of money to secure sufficient support among the proprietors in the General Court. A sure way of gaining a large number of supporters was to persuade the Court of Directors to approve the tender of a new ship. Acceptance of a tender created a new ‘bottom’, securing the loyalty of a whole range of people who would benefit: the shipbuilder, the suppliers of equipment and victuals, the armaments manufacturer, the chosen commander. All these people, many of whom owned the requisite £500 worth of Company stock, would back their benefactor in the election to the Court. This resulted in too many ships being available so that some were lying idle for twelve months at a time. The pool of officers had increased proportionally and William faced the possibility of being out of employment for ten months or more. The existing shipowners were feeling the pinch as the return on their investments was diluted. The most powerful managing owners, Samuel Braund among them, closed ranks and agreed to work together, with the Court’s backing, to limit the hire of ships for the Company’s service to those already in existence. When Mr Freeman tendered for Captain Egerton’s ship which had broken its back on a sandbank at Fulta in the River Hooghly on her fourth voyage the owners represented to the Court that taking it up would frustrate their agreement to reduce the number of ships.12 The Committee of Shipping was not happy either since the same forces which managed to get new ‘bottoms’ approved voted for more ships than were needed being hired. The Company’s authorities in India complained that they could not fill all the ships which arrived. The trend to build ever larger ships exacerbated the problem. The Company still hired all its ships at 499 tons but increasingly they exceeded 600 tons burthen. In an effort to halt the trend the directors resolved, on the recommendation of the Committee of Shipping, that no tender would be received for any

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new ship measuring more than 600 tons and the Master Attendant and Surveyor were to certify the tonnage of each ship.13 The Company’s problems did not end there. The Committee of Shipping was concerned at the Company’s valuable cargoes and bullion being committed to the care of commanders with little experience. All too often their only qualification was their close relationship with a powerful director or another person with great ‘interest’. There had been blatant abuse of power in recent years.14 Often these self-important commanders had powerful backers who used their great influence in the Court of Directors to secure the best voyages. The commander then stood aside in favour of another commander, probably in return for a large sum of money, a transaction difficult to prove. The Court warned the commanders that they might alter the ship’s voyage if they stood down after stationing.15 William needed a breathing space to organize his private affairs. He could afford to spend a few months at home. The goods brought back on the Boscawen had sold at a good profit at the Company’s auctions in his absence.16 He would probably still be in London when his investment in Durrington was sold at the candle in the spring and he would have time to invest the proceeds with more planning and thought.17 If he managed to get a good voyage he would be in a position to purchase a command on his return, should the opportunity arise. William certainly needed to improve his financial position. Thomas was nearly ten now and ready for sea, but he would be financially dependent on his father for several years until he was appointed as second mate. William took advantage of his protracted stay in the country to move his family from Dover to a house in Poplar. Their second son, born on 1 October 1755, was baptized William at St Dunstan’s, Stepney.18 Throughout 1755 the renewal of war with the French in Europe was constantly expected. For the past two years the British and French had been fighting it out in India and in America and it was becoming clear to everyone that the question of which country was to be in control in these two disputed regions would soon have to be decided. Dupleix had been recalled in 1753, but the French government was supporting de Bussy in the Deccan, so the struggle in India was far from over. The City men, among whom were many of the directors, supported William Pitt’s view that the protection of trade was central to British policy. Their priority was a strong western squadron covering the English Channel and Ireland to defend Britain against invasion and protect the British merchant fleet. On 19 November 1755, a whole year after Durrington had cleared, William was sworn as first mate of the Royal Duke, George Cumming

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commander, stationed for Bombay and China.19 On his previous voyage, William and the fourth mate, Nathaniel Smith, had become firm friends. Nathaniel was now second mate on Clinton, also bound to Bombay. He agreed to take Thomas as his servant to see if the lad took to life at sea. Thomas quickly struck up a friendship with one of Captain Nanfan’s servants, Nathaniel Dance, who was two months short of his ninth birthday. Christian was pregnant again and she must have watched her husband and son go to join their ships in February 1756 with some anxiety as the drums of war beat ever louder. The French had delivered an ultimatum couched in language the British government could not accept and though there had been no formal response the two nations were in reality at war.20 Clinton and Royal Duke sailed in company so William was able to keep an eye on Thomas without having him on his own ship. The ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope in July and set a course for St Augustine’s Bay. Royal Duke kept nine or ten leagues off the land and in pleasant weather early on the afternoon of 3 August they saw the landmark known in the service as Westminster Hall and came to an anchor at 8.30pm. They found Hector, Walpole and Chesterfield all outward bound and Denham returning to Britain from Bengal. When Clinton arrived the following day William found his son had taken well to the life and he and Nathaniel Dance had become firm friends. Royal Duke and Clinton arrived in Bombay harbour on 7 September 1756. There was still no news of the expected outbreak of war between Britain and France in Europe but hostilities of a different nature had taken place down the coast. Commodore William James, the head of the Bombay Marine, had attacked and subdued Severndrug, one of Tullaji Angria’s strong fortresses. He and the Governor of Bombay were anxious to follow up this success with an attack on Angria’s most powerful stronghold, Gheria. Admiral Watson, arriving with his squadron in November 1755 to escape the northeast monsoon in the Bay of Bengal, agreed to command a combined royal naval and Bombay Marine expedition. At this juncture Colonel Clive arrived in Bombay from Britain with a strong force and orders from the Company to attack Colonel Bussy in Hyderabad but the conclusion of peace between the British and French following Dupleix’s recall to France pre-empted this plan. The branch of the Marathas under the Peshwa were also anxious to deal with their renegade, Angria, and offered their support in return for a promise to hand the fort over to them after the conquest.21 No better opportunity would present itself to complete Commodore James’s task. About the same time as Royal Duke and Clinton sailed from Gravesend one of the most powerful combined naval and military forces ever assembled in the eastern seas had sailed south to Gheria.22 After only

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twenty-four hours’ bombardment the fort had surrendered and a detachment of British and Maratha troops took possession. Developments on the other coast gave no cause for celebration. On news of the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and France, the French under de Bussy had invaded Orissa, seized the British factories and now dominated the whole east coast from Madras north to the Hooghly. Worse was to follow. In mid-October news arrived of hostilities which threatened the Company’s most valuable trade. The Governor and Council of Bombay received a letter from the Governor and Council of Fort William dated 15 September 1756, but it did not come from Calcutta. It came from Fulta, a Moorish town and Dutch pilot station on the River Hooghly about thirty miles below Calcutta. The President reported that the nawab, Siraj-ud-Daula, had attacked and taken Fort William and he and his Council and several of the families were on board the Indiamen. In response to the President’s appeal to Madras for help, the Council at Fort St George had sent Colonel Killpatrick with 250 soldiers on Delaware East Indiaman, which had arrived safely at Fulta. The President had appealed to Bombay for additional help as this force was too small to take the offensive. After much wrangling the Bombay Council had at last signed a treaty on 2 October with the Marathas by which they agreed to hand over the fort of Gheria to the Peshwa. The President and Council of Bombay ordered Captain Cumming to go down the coast in Royal Duke, accompanied by Bombay Grab, to take off the garrison and bring it back to Bombay.23 William found the fort, which he had seen at a distance two years earlier, much less awesome than it was reputed to be. It crowned the rock at the end of a promontory on the south side of a river mouth, enclosed by two curtain walls. In the harbour by the town, which straddled the sandy neck joining the fort to the mainland, were the remains of Angria’s fleet, which had been destroyed by fire during the action. Royal Duke embarked the garrison and sailed back to Bombay. On arrival they heard that a second letter had just arrived from the President and Council of Fort William announcing the arrival at Fulta from Madras of the whole naval squadron under Admiral Watson with a large military force and a train of artillery. The President asked Bombay to send Protector and another vessel of the Bombay Marine to remain as guardships as the squadron might have to leave before they had secured Calcutta. Royal Duke could not proceed to China until April when the southwest monsoon set in. Captain Cumming was not a man to let such an opportunity slip by. He intended to spend the time cruising up and down the Malabar coast and turn over his investment several times before buying

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his private trade goods for the China market. This suited William. He said goodbye to Thomas and Royal Duke sailed south to Calicut and Anjengo, then headed north, putting into Dutch Cochin, where merchants from western Asia exchanged their goods for the valuable spices grown under monopoly conditions by the Dutch in the Moluccas. She carried on north to Tellicherry and arrived back at Bombay on 5 March 1757. William learned that Clinton had remained until 22 January before being despatched direct for Britain. During Royal Duke’s absence, news from Calcutta had arrived from another source. John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the Councillors who had remained in the fort, had suffered the horrors of a night in the fort lock-up, generally referred to by the occupants of Fort William as ‘the Black Hole’. His letter, dated 3 August 1756, was the second of two, but the first had not arrived. He explained that the nawab’s troops had taken possession of the church and houses round the fort. All had been abandoned the following day after the President, Commandant and others had fled because the garrison was too small to hold it.24 Since writing his first letter he had talked to several people and was at pains to correct some points. He had overstated the number who had been imprisoned in the Black Hole: it was actually 146, of whom 23 had recovered when the door was opened in the morning. And he had been wrong to accuse the nawab of ordering them all to be crammed into the lock-up. The nawab had simply ordered their confinement. It was his officers, in revenge for their losses, who had ordered everyone to be forced into such a confined space. Royal Duke sailed up to Surat to load cotton for the China market and on 1 April was back at Bombay. She received her despatches for China and headed south calling again at Tellicherry for sandalwood and pepper before setting an easterly course for the northern entrance to the Straits of Malacca. She dropped anchor at the Dutch port of Malacca, the ancient emporium subdued first by the Portuguese then by the Dutch, and a source of tin and pepper which sold well in China. Malay prahus from all over the eastern seas thronged the harbour. Royal Duke followed the usual course, past Pula Pisang, down between Pedro Branco rock and Point Roumania, and out of the Straits.25 At this time of year, when the southwest monsoon was established, ships followed the track to the Macclesfield Bank, as there were steadier winds in the open sea.26 Royal Duke sailed through a channel between the Lema Islands and took on board a pilot as far as Macao, where the river pilot embarked. The land was uninteresting round Macao, but beyond the Bocca Tigris, where twin forts guarded the narrow entrance to the Pearl River, a beautiful scene opened up.27 Royal Duke dropped anchor by the island of Whampoa where a Dutch and a Swedish ship were riding.

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The European anchorage at Whampoa was in the middle of delightful country. Interconnected rivers divided the land into islands of various sizes, mainly low and inundated where rice was grown. The higher islands were intensively cultivated with garden produce and neat terraces of fruit trees, like an English country gentleman’s estate. Danes Island was the nearest to Royal Duke. The natural beauty of the island with its neat gardens was enhanced by the pretty tombs which covered it. The rich people’s tombs covered a large area. They were circular, beautifully paved and ornamented, their entrances guarded by dragons. Near Whampoa village and at the second bar, elegant pagodas rose ninety feet into the air. The delightful setting was enhanced by the bands of the foreign ships striking up for an hour before sunset and after sunrise every day. Captain Cumming went off in the longboat to Canton with his private trade and the Company’s treasure, the union jack flying at the masthead enabling her to pass through all the customs houses without stop and search. William’s first task was to see that the boatswain got out all the upper masts, yards, spars and sails, rigging and stores and put them in a banksall, a light wooden structure shared by two or more ships, on Danes Island. There they were repaired and put into order for the return passage while providing the men with a shelter for their recreation during the five or six month stay at Whampoa. In recent years during peacetime the British seamen were confined to Danes Island, the French to nearby French Island, in an attempt to keep to a minimum the brawls and fights which had formerly disturbed the peace of the anchorage.28 In wartime the French ships wisely kept away from Canton. A couple of days after Royal Duke’s arrival Caernarvon, Captain Hutchinson, dropped anchor. She had left the coast in August 1756 so the captain’s news was not recent but he had heard that three East Indiamen, Walpole, Marlborough and Delaware, carrying troops, had sailed in mid-October as part of the military and naval force sent to the Calcutta Council’s aid. Clive was in command of the troops, both King’s and Company’s. Discharging the cargo was gruelling work in the heat of August. The men filled bags sent down from Canton with the pepper. In succeeding weeks boats came alongside every morning at 7am with clockwork precision. Everything was organized according to government regulations, each boat taking fifty-five bales of cotton or 500 piculs of heavy goods such as sandalwood and pepper, working exactly to time, finishing at noon. The whole process was overseen by a clerk of the Customs and employees of the merchant, or Hongist, responsible for Royal Duke’s

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Map 6:  The Pearl River showing Canton and the European anchorage at Whampoa

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of the book.

Plate 1:  The European anchorage near Whampoa Island, showing the banksalls on Danes Island

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inward and outward cargoes. The custom’s official conducted all the business with his counting board, assisted by a weighman with his scales, both working so fast William found great difficulty in keeping up with them. At the first opportunity William loaded his private trade goods into one of the boats and headed upriver the eighteen miles to Canton. He was stopped at each of the three chop houses where the Chinese tried to extract money from him. At the approach to the city the river seethed with craft of every shape and size, a city afloat. Close to the shore stationary boats were moored in regular ‘streets’. The strikingly beautiful foreign factories fronting the river at last came into view. William had to rent a hong in one of the Chinese warehouses to the rear to store his goods, probably sharing with one or more officers from his own or the other ships. Once he had disposed of them he could invest the proceeds in China goods. Company regulations allowed him to take out a certain amount of silver which he changed into gold to advantage, silver being prized more highly there than in Europe. He may also have brought some amber. No foreigners could enter the walled city of Canton whose gates were always guarded. All the attractions for foreign visitors were concentrated in two streets running up between the foreign factories.

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of the book.

Plate 2:  The European companies’ factories outside the City of Canton

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The rage for everything Chinese had reached great heights in England and all the exotic goods that sold so well in the China shops in London were displayed in Hog Lane alongside the British factory and China Street further along. Here was a test of a man’s moderation. China Street particularly was endlessly fascinating. Quite broad and about a quarter of a mile long, it was lined with the premises of silk merchants, fan makers, lacquer ware craftsmen, printers of delicate water-colour paintings and drawings, jewellers, screenmakers and glass painters. In the chinaware shops old men down to children of six or seven years sat in a long gallery carrying out all the finishing processes in the production of fine porcelain European dinner services and figurines. William could even have his likeness made in porcelain.29 In mid-September Sandwich, Captain Purling, and Triton, Captain Harris, sailed upriver to Whampoa. Both had sailed from Portsmouth on 11 March 1757. William and his fellow officers of Royal Duke and Caernarvon would have lost no time in going on board to find out if there were any letters for them. William probably heard of the birth of his third son, John Pascall Larkins, a name uniting the two families, on 19 October 1756, while he had been at Bombay. There must have been other events to celebrate, and no doubt some to grieve over, but the madeira would have flowed that night and for several days afterwards. Late in September William renewed his acquaintance with an old friend from his Boscawen voyage when Richard Peisley came down from Canton. He had come out as supercargo of an Indiaman in 1755 and been held over to deal with the ships of the following season. He was in charge of selling Royal Duke’s cargo to the Hong merchant appointed ‘security’ for the ship and purchasing from him her return cargo. Tea was becoming an increasingly important item in the Company’s imports but Mr Peisley considered the conditions at Canton were not conducive to a stable, profitable trade. The exactions by the Chinese government were not only high, they were capricious. It was difficult to complain because the Chinese mandarins considered Europeans to be barbarians, too low to deal with directly. All communication with the mandarins, mainly the Imperial Superintendent of Maritime Customs, the hu pu, always called the Hoppo by the English, and the Tsong-tou, the Governor of the district, had to be conducted via linguists who were too afraid of the mandarins to deliver letters they considered too candid.30 The mandarins viewed James Flint, a supercargo who had mastered the Chinese language, with suspicion and his Chinese teacher with disfavour. Richard Peisley shared all the supercargoes’ concerns at the draconian rules regulating the trade with foreigners included in the Emperor’s

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Edict published in 1755.31 This defined a process which had been evolving over the decades. It put an end to any hopes of the supercargoes’ freedom to trade with any merchant they wished and so reduce prices through competition. The supercargoes were to deal only with the ‘Hongs’, a small group of merchants who had paid dearly for their licences to conduct the profitable trade with the Europeans. Each ‘Hong’ merchant was also to be held responsible for any crimes or transgressions committed by the supercargo, captain or officers of the ship for which he was ‘security’. If the seamen, of whom ‘some or the Major part are brutes’ according to the Edict, committed any crimes the supercargo, captain and officers of the ship were responsible.32 At the same time the Hoppo issued a mandate designed to ensure that the shopkeepers no longer had any part in the purchase of the ‘curiosities’ brought by the commanders, usually the most profitable item in their private trade. Only the Hong merchants were to purchase these on behalf of the Hoppo.33 These often valuable clocks and watches, also called ‘curiosities’, ‘sing-songs’ or ‘toys’, were the particular interest of the Emperor. The Hoppo grasped the opportunity to exploit the wealthy Hong merchants and to obtain promotion by using the curiosities to bribe superior influential officials. The supercargoes were pinning their hopes on reopening a trade carried on early in the century with ports to the north. These were nearer the areas producing raw silk and the green teas which comprised the greater part of the Company’s investment, as well as being potential markets for British woollen cloth. Earl of Holderness had gone up to Chusan in 1755 and been quite successful according to James Flint, her supercargo, who had conducted the trade with the Chinese merchants and mandarins. Griffin had not been so well received the following year, but Onslow was at Chusan this season and news so far from Flint was encouraging. It would ‘be a grand coup upon the Mandarins and Merchants (at Canton)’ if it succeeded.34 Hopes were soon dashed. The Hoppo at Chusan died and was replaced by the Viceroy from Canton, securing a complete victory for the Canton mandarins and putting an end to the Company’s hopes of developing a freer trade. Onslow’s supercargoes were allowed to complete their business in accordance with contracts already agreed and enjoy the profits secured but there was to be no further trade to the north. She was to leave Chusan by 7 January 1758, carrying all the stock from the warehouse, and the supercargoes were to inform all the European merchants that no ships should in future go to that port. Shortly after Richard Peisley’s visit to Royal Duke, the Hoppo arrived to perform the ceremony of the measurage to ascertain the duty she

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should pay. The company on Royal Duke heard the boom of a large gong at five minute intervals and soon a convoy of small boats appeared, towing an immense boat, highly ornamented with dragons. Royal Duke saluted the Hoppo with nine guns as he mounted the accommodation ladder attended by a dozen squalid executioners carrying whips and batons and wearing high wickerwork caps. The Hoppo himself was resplendent in blue and had a very large pearl in his cap. After drinking a glass of wine he mounted a stage, specially erected for him by the carpenter, to supervise the stretching of a line from the mizzen to the foremast to measure the length and another abreast the mainmast to measure the breadth.35 The charge of about £453 was added to the ‘presents’, a fixed charge of 1950 tales per ship, about £650, comprising fees for various mandarins and one third for the Emperor. These were the port charges paid by the ship for the pleasure of trading at Canton, exclusive of the customs dues which were paid on the cargo by the supercargoes on behalf of the Company.36 Captain Cumming’s orders permitted no relaxation of the ship’s normal discipline and routine. William had to see to it that the people exercised the great guns and small arms regularly. A man of strong faith, known as the ‘fighting Quaker’, Captain Cumming insisted that divine service be held every Sunday, at sea and in port, unless circumstances absolutely prevented it. William ordered one man to receive a dozen lashes for attempting to swim off, a common occurrence once a ship had arrived in China. John Vindoora’s crime must have been much worse, so bad that it was not specified in the log. No doubt William requested Captain Cumming to come down from Canton for consultation with his officers to decide on the punishment. Vindoora was ordered to run the gauntlet. At the gangway each officer applied three strokes of the cat, then the culprit ran between the men, each striking him once as he passed. Not only did Vindoora recover from this appalling experience, but ten days later he repeated his crime and had to submit to the whole process again. On Thursday 17 November all the ships saluted the gentlemen and the supercargoes when they came down from Canton to enjoy a grand picnic in the delightful surroundings of Danes Island. William and the other senior officers of the Company’s ships would have undoubtedly been invited to participate in this enjoyable occasion. It may have been to celebrate the conclusion of the season’s business, or the coming of the cool weather and the end of the sickly season. If the latter, it was premature for Richard Peisley. He died barely a fortnight later, and on 3 December Royal Duke, with the rest of the Company’s ships, fired sixteen half-minute guns while he was being interred at Canton.

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The crew took turns in going up to Canton in groups of fifty for twenty-four hours’ ‘liberty’ while the rest took in cargo and prepared for departure.37 All the masts and spars were restored, the gunpowder taken ashore to dry, and a continuous stream of chop boats delivered supplies to the compradore, always on board between 7am and 4pm. There was no shortage of good food: beef, pork, fowls, fish were plentiful but all at four times the price the Chinese paid. The longboat made repeated trips upriver to fetch water. Royal Duke and Caernarvon received the ‘grand chop’ and were despatched together at the end of the year. On 20 January they dropped down below the second bar, the departure point for the homeward passage, and ten days later sailed from the Ladrone Islands in company. On 4 February they had soundings on the Macclesfield Bank38 and from there had an easy passage to the island of Pula Aoro, which indicated they were on course for the Straits of Malacca. On 10 March they anchored off Princes Island and took on board wood and water and a hundred turtles, enough to keep scurvy at bay among the whole crew until they reached St Helena where both ships arrived on 3 June 1758. William was anxious to hear about the situation in Bengal as his future livelihood depended on the Company re-establishing its trade there. Fortunately, Marlborough had arrived at St Helena in April and her second mate, John Nalton, was able to give them a firsthand account of what had happened.39 The news was encouraging. Fort William had been retaken without a fight at the beginning of January 1757 by Admiral Watson’s soldiers and handed over to Governor Drake on 3 January.40 This was not enough for the Governor and Council. They demanded restitution from the nawab for violation of the firman governing relations between the nawab and the English and declared war against him the same day.41 At the same time, Admiral Watson declared war on the nawab as the King’s honour had been insulted, though he was aware of the weakness of his force: his ships were in a bad state; he had lost many men and the rest were very sickly. A couple of midshipmen and thirty seamen had immediately volunteered to go to Colonel Clive’s camp to help him against the nawab’s troops.42 On 3 February the nawab had pitched camp near the northern bounds of the town from where flying parties had set fire to parts of Calcutta, alarming the people and causing a stampede to the riverbank and the ships. In response to Colonel Clive’s request for more seamen, Admiral Watson ordered the commanders of the various ships to send their longboats manned and armed, and early on the following morning they were landed. At daylight, Colonel Clive, with 500 European soldiers, 2000 sepoys and 600 seamen, led the attack on the nawab’s forces, estimated

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to number over 50,000. It was a short but hot engagement, the British advancing and laying waste all around them before retreating at 11am and marching into the fort. At 6pm they had marched out again and met no interference from the nawab’s men. They had buried their dead, the bodies mutilated beyond recognition, the field littered with the corpses of horses, camels and elephants. The nawab had sent a flag of truce, followed on 9 February by peace proposals which Colonel Clive had accepted provided Siraj move his camp farther off. Marlborough had been despatched down the coast and when she returned to Calcutta in November John Nalton found that succeeding developments were nothing short of revolutionary, a story of ‘… fighting, tricks, chicanery, intrigue, politics, and the Lord knows what’.43 Colonel Clive and Admiral Watson had sailed upriver and mounted a combined military and naval attack on Chandernagore which had surrendered, pre-empting any future French pretensions in the region.44 The two commanders had then been approached by leading men in banking and commerce to accomplish an even greater coup: the removal of the nawab, Siraj-ud-Daula. They recognized the British as the only means of achieving their aim of displacing him. Colonel Clive had defeated Siraj at Plassey on 23 June 1757 and installed one of the dissidents, Mir Jafar, as nawab in his place. The terms demanded by Clive gave immense privileges to the Company, while the grateful nawab rewarded Clive personally and many others with enormous wealth. East Indiamen no longer had to face the long haul from St Helena without protection. On Monday 17 July, Royal Duke sailed with nine other Indiamen under convoy of HMS Colchester, Captain O’Brien. They headed for Fernando Loronha with its distinctive mountain like a finger pointing upwards, the rendezvous for any East Indiamen which may have bypassed St Helena because of obstruction by enemy ships. The convoy reached Cork where the ships anchored on 25 October. There was a long delay while the Admiralty arranged convoy to Britain and it was 8 February 1759 when Royal Duke and the rest of the ships arrived in the Downs. *** During thirteen years in the Company’s maritime service William had been fortunate to gain experience in all the main branches of the Company’s trade under commanders with powerful friends in both the East India shipping circle and in the Court of Directors. His position had improved voyage by voyage. A command was now well within his grasp and young Thomas was on the first rung of the ladder in the

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s­ ervice. During those thirteen years the Company’s trade had suffered a series of violent shocks, first in South India, then in its most important region, Bengal. As William returned to his family in Poplar he could feel confident that, with government support, the Company would eventually emerge as the superior European trading company in India. Only the trade with China gave cause for concern at a time when the profits from tea were beginning to exceed those from Bengal textiles. Hopes of avoiding the restrictive conditions of Canton and escaping harassment by the mandarins and the monopoly of the Hong merchants by trading direct with northern ports had been dashed. Notes   1 Profit from Mocha coffee declined from 1750. In 1757 the last coffee from Beit-el-Fakir was sold at the Company’s sales and the factory at Mocha closed.   2 Roger Drake was Chairman of the Company in 1751, 1754 and 1755, Deputy Chairman in 1753.   3 William signed up his wife’s kinsmen John and William Pascall as midshipman and coxswain, and an indentured servant, John Taunton, as seaman.   4 The factors were accommodated in the great cabin as part of the tonnage hired by the Company and received the hospitality of the captain’s table. Captain Drake could also charge each £30 for the provision of fresh victuals during the voyage. Essex Record Office, Papers of Samuel Braund, D/Dru, B18: Copy of charter parties of Samuel Braund’s ships, 1749–1752, p. 9.   5 Vincent, Pondicherry, p. 136.   6 Ibid., p. 126.   7 For the genesis of the plan, see Chaudhuri, Clive, Appendix 2, pp. 417–420 and for the attack and siege p. 83; and Percival Spear, Master of Bengal: Clive and his India (London, 1975), p. 49.   8 New style. Instructions for the adoption of the Gregorian calendar had been sent to Fort William during 1752.   9 A mildly narcotic drug. Wrapped in a leaf with a piece of lime, it is chewed as paan. 10 A coarse type of cinnamon. Early in the century the Company had maintained a subordinate factory there. Former Company governors of Calicut, recognized by the country folk as petty rajahs, had been even more successful than their colleagues at Anjengo in manipulating the pepper trade in their favour. Thirty years earlier the powerful ruler had ejected the English factory. 11 William picked up quite a large amount in wages apart from his own: the deceased William Pascall’s for Christian who was his attorney, John Pascall’s, John Taunton’s and those of his slave, John Ceasar, a total of just under £250, the equivalent of £25,000 today. These wages were for four years. 12 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 17 June 1752 and Essex Record Office, Papers of Samuel Braund, D/Dru, B22: the owners came to an agreement, which they all signed, ‘to use all their influence to see that extra ships (­required

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Notes to Chapter 3

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15 16

17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

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by the Company) were built on the bottom of old ones on a first worn out or lost basis, and to prevent application for adding to the number’. As ships wore out or commanders died, the bottoms should lapse and be brought back into service as occasion required. BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 28 August 1751, Standing Order 29 August 1751. This did not operate for long: ibid., 10 June 1752, the Committee of Shipping report advised that tenders of ships should be limited to 106 ft on the keel, 33 ft broad, 630 tons. Robert Haldane who had gone out purser on Richmond in 1732 and fifth mate on Somerset six years later was suddenly raised to the command of Haeslingfield in 1742. William Egerton, after one voyage as sixth mate, had sailed as fourth mate on Lynn and commanded her on her next and final voyage. BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 18 August 1749. BL, APAC, L/AG/1/6/13, Commerce Journal, f. 201, May 1752 and f. 204, May 1755: the amounts paid by William Larkins for the Company’s 5% charges on goods brought back on Boscawen and Durrington sold at Company auctions show that the return on his investment compared very favourably with those of his fellow officers. In May 1755 goods brought back on Doddington, Captain Hutchinson, were also sold on his behalf. Everything, both Company and private goods, brought back in the Company’s ships was sold at Leadenhall Street. The successful buyer was the last to bid before the light on an inch of candle went out. The register recorded that the parents were ‘of Poplar’. His connection by marriage to Sir Abraham and Alexander Hume, members of a leading East India shipping family, had eased his path to a command after three voyages as second and first mate. N. A. M. Rodger, The Command of the Ocean, a Naval History of Britain 1649–1815 (London, 2004), p. 265. Johnson (ed.), New Cambridge History of India, II, 4, Stewart Gordon, ‘Marathas 1600–1818’. The Peshwa was the head of the central government’s record keepers, but by this period he was the actual head of the Maratha polity in place of the king. C. R. Low, The History of the Indian Navy, 1613–1863 (London, 1877), 2 vols, vol. 1, pp. 132–37; Keay, Honourable Company, pp. 265–70. BL, APAC, P/D/49, Bombay Select Committee Consultations, September 1755 to April 1758; committee resolution of 21 October 1756. BL, APAC, P/341/21, Bombay Public Proceedings, 27 January 1757. A large chart of the Straits of Malacca and Sincapore [sic] by John Thornton, reproduced in Sutton, Lords of the East, p. 28, probably carried by Captain Cumming. Horsburgh, Directions for sailing to the East Indies, Pt II, p. 197. The British usually referred to this river as the Canton River. H. B. Morse, Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China, 1635–1834 (Oxford, 1926), 5 vols, vol. 5, p. 19. Anne Bulley, Free Mariner: John Adolphus Pope in the East Indies 1786–1821 (London, 1992), p. 74. George Thomas Staunton, Britain and the China Trade 1635–1842: Notes of Proceedings and Occurrences during the British Embassy to Pekin in 1816 (New York,

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31 32

33 34 35 36 37

38

39 40 41 42

43 44

Notes to Chapter 3 1999), Selected and with a new introduction by Patrick Tuck: vol. X, pp. x and xiii. Earl H. Pritchard, The Crucial Years of Early Anglo-Chinese Relations 1750– 1800 (Illinois, 1936), pp. 107–08 and 192. Morse, Chronicles, vol. 5, Appendix AI, pp. 37–41. Other clauses stipulated that the hongs or factories which the supercargoes and commanders rented to carry on their private trade, often filled with people noisily haggling over the goods, were to be quiet places and the crowds cleared away. The shopkeepers were to be strictly limited to the retail trade in future. Morse, Chronicles, vol. 5, p. 41, Mandate of the Hoppo relating to the European Trade issued in May 1755. Ibid., p. 64, Letter to Samuel Blount and James Flint from Thomas Lockwood, Supercargo, Canton, 14 September 1757. Bulley, Free Mariner, pp. 94–5. See Morse, Chronicles, vols 1–5, passim, for details of the charges at Canton. Chests of chinaware stuffed with sago provided a flooring for the teas to protect them from damp. The cheaper bohea, black teas, were loaded first, then the green, more expensive, Hyson and Singlo, and the bales of raw silk. Commanders were strictly enjoined not to carry any camphor and musk back in their private trade as the scent would spoil the teas. All ships sailing from Canton during the northeast monsoon were instructed to get soundings on the Macclesfield Bank before proceeding southwest to the Straits of Malacca or Sunda. Typical were the instructions to the commanders of the first fleet despatched 10 January 1797, Morse, Chronicles, vol. 2, p. 291–2. BL, APAC, L/MAR/B/602J, Journal 22 October 1755–28 March 1759, John Nalton, second mate of Marlborough, 4–9 February 1757. Governor Roger Drake was the nephew of an East India Company director. Dodwell (ed.), The Cambridge History of India, vol. 5, H. H. Dodwell, ‘British India 1497–1858’, p. 112. Essex Record Office, Papers of Samuel Braund, D/Dru, B18, copies of charter parties of several ships from 1749 to 1752, p. 2. The commanders were bound to make available boats and up to thirty men when ordered by the Company’s agents. Clive to Robert Orme, 1 August 1757, quoted in Chaudhuri, Clive, p. 167. Ibid., pp. 205–8.

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Part II CAPTAIN WILLIAM LARKINS, ESQ., COMMANDER AND MANAGING OWNER

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Four THE WORST VOYAGE: SUMATRA

FOR THE first time William arrived home to find his eldest son absent. Clinton had made a quick round trip to Bombay, arriving back in the Downs on 5 October 1757. William was arriving at Cork when Thomas rejoined Clinton for another voyage to Bombay. Thomas must have performed well on his first voyage as Nathaniel Smith, now in command of Clinton, had given him a midshipman’s berth. Thomas’s young friend Nathaniel Dance was also a midshipman so they were still together. But William had two other sons to occupy him. His namesake, now threeand-a-half years old, was forced to grow up quickly to help look after the younger one, John, now nearly two-and-a-half. When Royal Duke sailed into the Downs the season’s shipping was already assembling. William’s hopes of getting a command quickly seemed very slight. Another man’s misfortune dramatically changed his prospects. Barely a month after arriving home, he was approached by Captain Slater, an ex-India commander and now managing owner of Delaware, to take over the command. She was lying in the Hope without a commander. The Company’s searcher had boarded her on 14 March and found that Captain Quallett’s private trade investment included illegal goods. He had been dismissed immediately.1 Wondering how he was going to pay for his command must have followed quickly in the wake of William’s euphoria at his unexpected promotion to captain.2 So many commanders, like George Cumming and Richard Drake, had made their fortunes in a few voyages that the price of a command had risen sharply to about £5000. No measures introduced by the court to ban the practice had proved effective.3 However daunting the immediate implications, William did not hesitate. Within two days of Captain Quallett’s dismissal Captain Slater

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proposed William as Delaware’s commander before a few directors;4 they approved him as ‘fitly qualified for the command of the ship Delaware’ and called him in to take the oath.5 He had only four days to arrange his domestic affairs for a further two years, to find credit to pay Captain Quallett for his command and to purchase his private trade investment, which amounted to about half the total privilege of twenty-five tons. On 19 March 1759 Captain Larkins boarded his ship at Northfleet. Delaware was stationed for St Helena and Benkulen, the least profitable voyage.6 She was to take soldiers and supplies to the rocky volcanic outcrop which served as the Company’s homeward watering and victualling post in the South Atlantic and go on to Fort Marlborough, the headquarters of the Company’s pepper plantations on the malarial west coast of Sumatra. Commanders joked among themselves that if one of them offended the directors he would be punished with a Benkulen voyage. There was no population of expatriates in Sumatra willing to pay a high price for the refinements of a European life-style brought out in the commanders’ and officers’ private trade; just a few members of council in a small fort and a large number of slaves. Delaware’s cargo was already in the hold7 and the following day twenty-nine soldiers for St Helena embarked. None of William’s officers was of his own choosing. Only his first mate, Alexander Wilson, had ever sailed to the eastern seas. Neither Richard Stavely, surgeon, nor Thomas Willett, purser, had experience in the India trade. However, William had been in the same position as the rest of his officers when he was appointed second mate of Salisbury and he had no reason to believe they would not be as competent. At the end of March Willett came on board with the final despatches and the passengers embarked: a newly appointed Lieutenant Governor and a councillor for St Helena and five factors for Fort Marlborough with a carpenter, an apprentice and a black boy. The Company’s generous provision for its servants dining at the captain’s table was very welcome.8 By 26 April the convoy was out of sight heading westward and William found himself for the first time completely responsible for an Indiaman. He saw to it that the men, both seamen and soldiers, exercised the great guns and small arms. At daybreak the following day four sail were sighted, all small brigantines and snows, but he ordered hammocks up, slung the yards and cleared for action, probably looking on it as a good opportunity to test his men in a fairly danger free situation. Delaware crossed the Line on 24 May in 15°32′W longitude from the Lizard. Winds and currents dictated that she approach St Helena in a wide sweep.9 On 8 July the dark, sombre mass of St Helena, like a saddle, the pommel to the north, appeared on the horizon to the northwest.

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William did not need the Secret Committee’s instruction to ‘be cautious how you make it, keep a strict watch, and a constant look-out, to prevent falling into any pirate’s or other enemy hands lying thereabouts …’. As they approached, the company on Delaware heard the warning boom of the guns fired from the high point where outguards with sixty miles vision kept a lookout for approaching ships. William gave the order to furl the main topgallant sail and hoist a jack flag at the main topgallant masthead, as instructed. He brought the ship to an anchor ‘before coming open with Chapel Valley near Munden’s Point’, then sent the pinnace ashore to report to the Governor as ‘he has our orders to fire upon any unknown ship that shall attempt to pass that point and come into the Road’.10 On its return, Delaware sailed into the safe anchorage of James Bay, her sails all double reefed to prevent her being laid on her broadside by the strong winds rushing down the valleys. William could now leave Delaware in Wilson’s hands and enjoy the perquisites of a command. As he was rowed ashore with the gentlemen passengers, the Bay echoing with the salutes from the fort and the ship, he no doubt relished those for him as commander. James Valley was completely sealed off from the shore by James Lines and the fort, and beyond was the town with the Governor’s house. All the gentlemen received the Governor’s hospitality. St Helena may present a forbidding, inhospitable exterior to the approaching mariner, but the valleys were very fertile. Willett immediately ordered supplies of fresh fruit and vegetables and fresh meat for Delaware to check any signs of scurvy among the people. From mid-July the returning Indiamen sent their pinnaces, one by one, to report to Bankes as required. The latest news from the coast was mixed. The new French Governor and Commander-in-Chief, Count Lally-Tollendal, had arrived on the coast with orders to clear the British out of India. Admiral Pocock had been unable to protect Fort St David and it had fallen in June 1758. The French had begun to besiege Madras in December but Governor Pigot and Colonels Lawrence and Draper, commanding Company and royal troops, were still holding out when the ships left. The good news was that Colonel Forde had landed at Vizagapatam, which de Bussy had taken immediately following the attack on Chandernagore, and had taken Masulipatam. The British now controlled the Northern Circars. Furthermore, he had followed this by winning over the Nizam. For a decade Salabat Jang had been pretty well a puppet in the hands of de Bussy, on whom he had relied to keep the Maratha insurgents out of Hyderabad. Disgusted by Lally’s orders to de Bussy to leave his territory, Salabat Jang had turned to the British and agreed not to support the French.11 Britain’s superiority in Bengal had

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enabled the President and Council there to send men, money and supplies down the coast, denying the French admiral, the Comte d’Aché, the freedom of the seas. The Comte had run for Mauritius but before sailing he had landed plenty of troops and Madras was in real danger. Ten working days allowed by Delaware’s charter party having expired, the Governor gave Captain Larkins his sailing orders.12 Delaware continued her lonely voyage through the South Atlantic and in latitude 37° picked up a good westerly breeze which carried her between 100 and 200 miles a day in fair weather. After less than six weeks they were looking out for the Isle of St Paul, the sign for turning north towards the coast of Java, but visibility was so poor they failed to locate it. After four days William and his officers agreed that they must have passed it and steered in a northeasterly direction, looking out for the Keeling Islands. William ordered the men to exercise the great guns and small arms as they approached the vicinity of the Sunda Strait. In the last week in September in 9°25′S latitude by observation, 84°26′E longitude from St Helena by account, they looked in vain for Christmas Island and Selam Island.13 By 26 September William and his officers judged that they were near land and prepared to moor. On Sunday 7 October they saw the Company’s flag flying over Fort Marlborough and Delaware anchored three to four miles from the shore, well outside two dangerous reefs. The prospect of southwest Sumatra differed markedly from that of St Helena. High, thickly wooded mountains of an intense green descended to a coastal plain. But William was not fooled. He had talked to enough people to know that what appeared to be the Garden of Eden was a sink of disease. Buffalo and turtle were taken on board immediately and fed to the men to counter the onset of scurvy. The passengers transferred to the pinnace and William accompanied them to Fort Marlborough with the chests of treasure while Mr Wilson supervised the preparation of the ship to receive pepper. Fort Marlborough, under the Governor and Council of the Madras Presidency, stood on slightly higher ground at the southern end of the bay. Round the fort were a few cajan huts housing native and Chinese workers and the Madagascan slaves who worked on the pepper plantations. The Company hired ships specially to go to Madagascar to buy slaves and carry them to Benkulen.14 The factors of Fort Marlborough compensated for their banishment to this malarial outpost by forming a General Association, which exploited their proximity to the Dutch Company’s Asian capital of Batavia. The burghers found Benkulen a source of goods from India and the Indian Ocean and it was excellently placed as a smuggling base for the valuable spices grown in the

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Dutch East Indies.15 Very recently the British factors had turned to their advantage the increasing popularity of tea in Britain, and the consequent increase in demand for specie at Canton, by trading in Bengal opium and other goods which sold well in the archipelago and China. Benkulen had long been a drain on the Company which repeatedly ordered the Presidency of Fort St George to close it down but the Madras councillors found it far too useful and paid no heed. Apart from one or two country traders few ships had called at Benkulen in recent months, but of these one had made an historic voyage. She was Pitt, Captain William Wilson.16 The directors, possibly impressed by the French company’s ships, which were larger and carried a much heavier armament, had encouraged the building of more heavily armed ships which could double as cargo carriers and warships.17 Pitt carried fifty instead of the usual twenty-six nine-pounder guns. Admiral Pocock had requested that she be added to his squadron on the Coromandel coast as French reinforcements were expected, but the Council had refused. The Admiral had already detained five Indiamen to cruise with his fleet and had taken many men out of them for his own ships; further, the Council needed to get silver to China. By this time it was too late to sail to Canton through the China Sea as the southwest monsoon had ended. Captain Wilson decided to try to reach the coast of China by following a route through the eastern islands. Alexander Dalrymple, the young deputy secretary at Fort St George, had probably influenced him. He was fascinated by the early Company navigators and had studied the logs of several of the ships which had traded from Sumatra as far as Japan before the Dutch effectively pushed the Company out of the eastern seas. Dalrymple was sure there was a potential entrepôt among the islands which would attract boats from India, the Philippines, China and all over the eastern archipelago. Such a port would nullify the Dutch monopoly over the eastern archipelago while enabling the Indiamen to obtain Chinese products without suffering the increasingly restrictive conditions of trading at Canton. Lally’s siege of Madras had prevented Dalrymple exploring the eastern sea routes himself, but he had given Captain Wilson some useful charts which the commander had supplemented with some from Dutch contacts, and he also had William Dampier’s account of his passage through those seas with him.18 Hiring a small boat, Surprize sloop, to sound ahead through the many islands, Captain Wilson had reached Canton in April, very good going since he had spent a whole month in Pitt’s Passage, as he named the strait which he passed through prior to entering Dampier Strait. To the amazement of the Governor and factors at Fort Marlborough, Captain Wilson had arrived at Benkulen in September, at the height of the southwest ­monsoon, within three months of leaving Canton.

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Captain Larkins and Mr Stuart, a factor, boarded Delaware on Saturday 4 November and on Sunday she weighed and started to run along the coast. Suddenly, she was tossed like a cork, men and chattels overturned and casks split by the force of an earthquake. The following day Delaware dropped anchor off Manna Point. Steep cliffs line the shore here and between September and March, when the northwest wind prevails, a heavy sea rolls into the road creating a tremendous surf. William must have been relieved that he did not have to live on board Delaware in this uncomfortable road. Slaves brought pepper to the ship in local boats and the crew laboured to stow it in the uncomfortable conditions. Some of the people fetched water, the tradesmen worked on the ship while the cooper and his mate repaired the damaged casks. At the beginning of December the weather deteriorated. Delaware pitched constantly, battered by torrential rain accompanied by thunder and lightning. On 4 December at two in the morning a severe earthquake loosened the ship’s timbers and shifted all the casks. The cables were constantly breaking, needing continuous checking and replacing. The rice ran out so William authorized each man to receive four pounds of bread each week from the store reserved for the great cabin. Later, when he managed to get hold of some rice, he shared it out amongst the people and the slaves working the plantation and manning the boats. On 3 January the longboat went off for water. In going over the bar a sea broke over her and washed many on board over the side. Mr Gammon, the Company’s carpenter, was never seen again. He was replaced before they left Manna. Everyone must have been relieved when Delaware weighed on 5 January and retraced her passage to Fort Marlborough where she arrived the following day. On 8 February, after a factor and his wife bound to St Helena and three children bound to Britain had embarked, Delaware weighed in a fine northeast gale. Vigilance was paramount as Delaware followed her lonely course west by south making good speeds generally through the Indian Ocean. When well out to sea, according to his instructions, William opened his orders from the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors.19 They instructed him not to touch at the Cape of Good Hope, but to keep well to the south, about forty or fifty leagues. Details of the signal agreed between the Secret Committee and the Lords of the Admiralty for His Majesty’s ships and those of the Company to know one another were enclosed, with the exhortation to keep them inviolably secret. The signal had also been communicated to the Commander-in-Chief of HM squadron in the East Indies. William ensured that the men exercised the great guns and small arms frequently and kept a man in the foretopmast constantly looking out for strange sail. Delaware rounded the Cape

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and followed a westerly course. When she was a hundred leagues west of the Cape William opened his next secret instructions for approaching St Helena. As the sombre saddle of the island appeared above the horizon Delaware steered for the pommel to the north and came to off the island. William sent two of his officers in the boat with orders to hoist a waft at some distance from Bankes platform and fire two muskets. This was answered, as hoped, by three muskets from Bankes and a waft hoisted. It continued flying until the waft on the boat was struck, when it was struck in turn. The boat returned to Delaware with notice that the ship may safely proceed into the road. Captain Larkins ordered both topgallant sails to be furled and a British jack hoisted at the main topgallant masthead according to his secret instructions. The formalities duly carried out William climbed into the captain’s cutter with the passengers and was rowed across to James town. There were only two other ships in the road. The bright green of the valley and the variety of colours of the fruit trees welcomed William as he made his way up to the Governor’s house, his servants carrying his papers and chest. There he found Captain Samson, an old friend from Dover, and Captain George Willson, commanders of Hardwicke and Calcutta, both from Bengal. They were in ebullient mood, not only because ­according to custom ships arriving first at St Helena in wartime ensured that they would be the first to be taken up in rotation when the ships

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Plate 3:  James Town, St Helena, and the anchorage.

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were stationed the following season.20 More importantly they were looking forward to concrete evidence of the directors’ gratitude for their action in scotching a Dutch bid to replace the English in the favour of the new Viceroy of Bengal. Eight Dutch ships from Batavia carrying military reinforcements for Chinsura had entered the Hooghly and the Dutch threatened to retaliate if the ships were stopped and searched. Clive, now President of the Calcutta Council, warned them against attempting entry and prepared defences along the river. The Dutch had taken some small British boats and Clive ordered Hardwicke, Calcutta and Duke of Dorset, under Captain Forrester as commodore, to stop the eight ships. Ignoring Clive’s warning, the Dutch ships landed the troops opposite the southern point of Calcutta then dropped back downriver. The Indiamen gave chase and attacked them and forced them to surrender.21 One escaped but was captured by two British warships coming up the Hooghly. Colonel Forde, who had just returned from the coast, marched on Chinsura, forcing the troops back, then turned south and marched on the advancing reinforcements. Though outnumbered he had defeated them in a short, bloody and decisive action south of Chandernagore. William’s fellow commanders were looking forward to pocketing the spoils. All the Company’s servants were taking a share. Bengal councillors who had been barely making a profit on their private trade in 1750 were now wealthy men, sending their fortunes back to Europe on Dutch ships. With the proceeds of their private trade goods from Bengal and their anticipated reward both commanders intended giving up the sea. Captain Samson would hand over his command to his son and first mate, John Brook. Captain Willson planned to sell his command and take over the management of Calcutta. William readily joined the two commanders in their celebrations, but the non-appearance of Dorset cast a cloud over the party. Captain Forrester had been wounded in the leg in the action and his first mate John Allen had assumed the command and taken over as commodore.22 Dorset had got separated from the other two ships on the passage to St Helena. Not until ten days later did a general alarm herald the approach of another sail. Soon afterwards the thirteen gun salute from the ship and the fort announced a person of some standing. The ship proved to be Royal George, a small ship belonging to the Company. The identity of her prestigious passengers ran like wildfire round the small community. William and the other commanders had little time to prepare themselves for the appearance of the legendary Lieutenant Colonel Clive and Colonel Forde. Tall, young, assured, the thirty-five-year-old Robert Clive dominated the company. He was the centre of attention, everyone hanging on his every word as he recounted events in Bengal, giving way

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to Colonel Forde regarding developments on the coast. Colonel Clive confirmed the commanders’ view that the Dutch defeat was important: it had cost them £100,000 without counting the loss in prestige. The weakness of the once mighty VOC had been clearly exposed for all to see. They had been firmly put in their place alongside the French. Lally had decamped from before Madras on the arrival of Admiral Pocock and the fleet from Bombay23 and Lt-Col. Eyre Coote had decisively defeated the French Commander-in-Chief at Wandiwash, where he had taken de Bussy prisoner. Coote had then headed for Pondicherry which, starved of supplies by British naval control of the Bay of Bengal, could only await its fate. It had been made clear to the country powers that only the British were now of any account in India. Clive had been offered the diwan, controller of the collection of revenues in Bengal and the second most important position in the country. He had declined because he did not think the Company was ready to assume such a huge responsibility. But he was sure the British could take over the sovereignty of Bengal, though this would be ‘an object too extensive for a mercantile company’. He estimated that ‘this paradise among nations’ would produce an income of ‘upwards of two million sterling’ annually for the Company.24 Colonel Clive and Colonel Forde did not stay long at St Helena. Royal George weighed and sailed to carry them quickly to London to report to government and the Court of Directors. From the last week in May the guns boomed repeatedly from the mountain top, alerting the tiny settlement of approaching sail. Manned guard boats from all the Indiamen patrolled the road constantly. On 25 May the salute of guns from Bankes heralded the arrival of HM ship Colchester, Captain Roddam and HM Rippon, Captain Jekyll under his command, come to convoy the St Helena fleet home.25 Before entering the road they had cruised to windward for a few days to seek out any enemy ‘lying in wait for returning Indiamen’. They brought heartening news. The glimmer of a reversal in Britain’s fortunes, apparent when William had sailed in March 1759, had blazed into a roaring flame. It had been a year of the most amazing victories in every theatre of the war. Admiral Boscawen had been victorious at Louisbourg and Lagos and had locked up the French fleet at Quiberon Bay. But the greatest victory had been won by General Wolfe at Quebec. By an incredible feat of endurance the British troops had mounted the heights of Abraham and attacked from a quarter the French had least expected. There was general rejoicing on all the Indiamen and at the Governor’s House. In the second week of June the China ships began to come in, nearly all arriving within a week. The commanders brought discouraging news. The trade was now definitely restricted to Canton, and the problems

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there had worsened. Mr Flint had made a bid to get the Emperor’s ear, convinced that he would not approve of most of the oppressive conditions imposed by the local officials at Canton. He had daringly travelled as far as Tientsin, the port of Peking, and put a petition from the supercargoes into the hands of the Emperors’ officials. News of his audacity had spread to every corner of the empire and on his return to Canton the Viceroy had summoned him for an audience. The supercargoes had insisted on accompanying him and had suffered repeated humiliations. Their swords had been forced from them at the inner gate, and they were ordered to prostrate themselves before the Viceroy. When they refused the guards threw them down, repeatedly restraining them when they tried to rise. Mr Flint was banished to Macao for three years after which he was to go back to Europe and never return to China. Some poor innocent Chinaman was executed that day in place of the man who had written the petition because neither Mr Flint nor the supercargoes would divulge the name of the scribe. Chinese law required a life for the transgression; whose did not much matter to them. And poor Flint was now in close confinement in Macao, no one permitted to contact him, no letters allowed. The supercargoes of all the Europe ships were up in arms over his treatment. Neither they nor the commanders held out much hope for the continuance of the China trade after these events.26 On 15 June a single ship approached the island and her captain was rowed ashore. William’s delight must have been boundless as he recognized his old friend Captain Nathaniel Smith. It was nearly four years since he had said goodbye to his puny ten-year-old son at Bombay. Now Thomas was getting on for fifteen and after four years at sea must have grown into a stout, strong youth. The following day Vice-Admiral Pocock’s ship HM Yarmouth from the coast anchored in the road with four China ships. On 22 June Edgecote came in, accompanied by Duke of Dorset, but it was Captain Allen who had gone out first mate, not Captain Forrester, who was rowed ashore. He brought the sad news that Captain Forrester’s wound had not healed and his leg had been amputated on 2 February. Exactly a month later he had died at sea and his body committed to the deep. The hazards of their trade must have sobered his fellow commanders. They were not home yet. In the first days of July the Governor informed the Vice-Admiral that he thought it was an appropriate time for the convoy to sail,27 and on the morning of 6 July the fleet comprising sixteen East Indiamen under convoy of HM Yarmouth, HM Colchester and HM Rippon weighed. On 21 September the fleet lay to off the Isle of Wight to enable the naval lieutenants to go on board all the Indiamen to press their best seamen.

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William had to give up twelve of his men and received replacements the following day. Admiral Pocock travelled up to London immediately where he appeared with Colonel Clive and Colonel Stringer Lawrence before the assembled General Court and the Court of Directors to receive the formal thanks of the Company ‘for their many, excellent and signal services’. William found the country in ebullient mood. William Pitt’s policies had not pleased everyone. His hit and run raids on French ports many believed amounted to ‘breaking windows with guineas’28 and raising Scottish regiments invited disaster in many people’s minds. Doubling the national debt to subsidize Britain’s ally Frederick II of Prussia was what got under most people’s skin but Pitt’s most bitter critics had to agree that it had worked. William for one was grateful. Concentrating resources on protecting the trade routes and the colonies had created the conditions in which the East India trade could expand.29 Most important, Pitt and the government had supported the Company in India in contrast to the sad denial of resources to Dupleix, de Bussy, Lally and d’Aché. The French company had been reduced to a minor trading settlement on the Hooghly, while its Presidency at Pondicherry was awaiting its end without any hope of relief. The French had lost the maritime war. The bankrupt nation was seriously weakened and was likely to be so for many years to come. By contrast the British merchants and manufacturers had unflinchingly responded to Pitt’s appeals for finance and now they prepared to reap their reward: trading in seas controlled by the Royal Navy. William could afford to relax. After nearly five years away from home except for those two brief, harassed weeks early in 1758, he would have a long break now. Delaware had completed her fourth voyage, traditionally considered the life of an Indiaman. Her managing owner had the customary right to replace her and William would be named as commander of the new ship in the contract drawn up between managing owner and builder. William now had to wait for her turn for a new ship to be built on her bottom to come round. The oversupply of ships was still accelerating and he could be in for a long wait, but there was plenty to do. He had to wind up his affairs from Royal Duke and see to his private trade from Delaware. He could now enjoy his wife’s company and get to know his growing family, confident that the future was secure for many years. Thomas was getting on well. Now that he had learnt his trade under other commanders, William planned to take him as a midshipman on his next voyage. On 23 October, only four weeks after William had cleared his ship, the country was plunged into uncertainty by the King’s death. That

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meant Pitt must go. Everyone knew that the rival establishment at Leicester House, where the new young King George III had grown up, hated William Pitt even more than his father had. The great statesman hastened his own departure by proposing that Britain should launch a pre-emptive strike on Spain, certain that she would soon declare war on Britain.30 In Bengal, clouds were already beginning to dim the Company’s prospects, despite Clive’s great success. Hints of dislocation, lack of organization, of excesses of private trade in the hinterland of Calcutta in association with every sort of native hanger-on seeped through to Leadenhall Street. Leading Bengal Councillors returning to Britain with enormous fortunes were joining together in the ‘Bengal Club’ to form a powerful group to promote their interests in the General Court.31 What was worse, the newly installed nawab, Mir Jafar, informed the Company that he was unable to pay them what he had guaranteed by treaty.32 William did not have too long to wait for the new ship ‘building for Captain Larkins’. Soon after he arrived home the keel was laid at West’s yard at Deptford under the critical eyes of the Company’s Surveyor and Master Attendant, and Captain Slater’s surveyor. In the autumn of 1761 Captain Slater told William that the ship to replace Delaware was stationed for China direct. William would have preferred a coast and China voyage, giving him the chance to turn his investment over twice; better still, a coast, Bombay and Bengal voyage, which had enabled Richard Drake to retire after only one voyage. But fortune was with him. In December 1760 the Court of Directors greatly increased the privilege of trade granted to their commanders and officers.33 William’s share as commander would be more than double the total tonnage previously allowed to the whole ship’s company. He could make good use of his time while waiting for his ship to be built in raising credit to finance his venture.34 There was no market at Canton for European goods, but he could get a fair return exchanging gold for silver. The one great advantage of the China market was the demand for clocks, watches and automata of all kinds, but the Company frowned on the trade as these ‘toys’ or ‘singsongs’ were used as bribes and could disrupt the trade. William would have no difficulty finding a homeward investment. There seemed no limit to the British people’s appetite for tea and the directors welcomed the additional amounts brought back by the commanders and officers. Early in 1762 the new ship was launched as Albion, a three-decker like Boscawen. She joined a great cumbersome convoy of six East Indiamen and ninety merchant ships which took its departure from the Lizard on 8 May 1762, when William started his log proper.35 After leaving the

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of the book.

Plate 4:  Captain Gabriel Steward’s packet contained this document, issued by the French king on 22 November 1762, ordering that his ship Neptune should be allowed a safe passage to Madras and China.

convoy Albion made a good passage. Three and a half months after the Lizard slipped down below the horizon they sighted the high, easily recognizable outline of the island of St Paul, believed to be the most southerly island in the Indian Ocean. Albion followed a generally northeasterly course and by 9 September they were keeping a good lookout

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Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the image on this page please refer to the printed version of the book.

Plate 5:  Translation of the document shown on plate no. 4.

for the Trial Rocks, eighty leagues to the west of New Holland.36 William’s instructions from the Company cautioned him against not keeping far enough to the eastward and risking falling to leeward of Java Head in the easterly monsoons, a common cause of ships losing their passage. They failed to sight the Trial Rocks but on 15 September they prepared

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to enter the Sunda Strait. In the morning the ‘Grand of Java’ came into view. Many of the crew were suffering very seriously with scurvy and others were falling down daily. The passage from that point to the China Sea was precarious and they could not attempt it with a weak crew. William’s officers unanimously agreed to put into Mew Bay on Princes Island for refreshment. The directors’ instructions to their commanders all but prohibited them from putting into Batavia.37 They were sure the commanders’ main purpose was to carry on their own private trade rather than to recruit their crews’ health. The Dutch, always jealous of their monopoly, objected to British Company ships putting into the port and received their officers with hostility. Relations were not improved by the riotous and disorderly behaviour of crews allowed ashore. Fever was rampant there, too, and it was stupid to invite more sickness. On Thursday 16 September they saw the Peak on Princes Island, and two days later they anchored in Mew Bay. The sick were immediately taken ashore while the longboat carried out several trips for wood and water and the ship was heeled, scrubbed and the booms tarred. Well stocked with fowls and buffalo, Albion made sail in hazy weather with light winds, and the tedious business of constant sounding, anchoring and weighing through these dangerous waters began. A Dutch ship came on board and warned William that there were four French men of war at Batavia so he kept a lookout at the foretopmast yard. With the longboat ahead sounding and finding good depths at 5°S latitude they looked out for the Two Brothers, two small, tree-covered islands which were the mark for making Lucepara Island at the entrance to the Bangka Strait. They passed round Lucepara to the west as customary. The difficulty was clearing the shoals off Lucepara without going too far over to the mud off Sumatra. Following the advice of commanders familiar with the Strait William sent the longboat ahead sounding for a deep channel. He kept the chain of mountains called St Pauls dominating the Bangka skyline to starboard, while keeping as close to the featureless Sumatran coast to larboard as possible. They passed Parmasang Hill and eventually the high distinctive shape of Monopin Hill confirmed that they had reached the north end of the Strait. Passing Palambang Point on Sunday 26 September they steered northwest for Batacarang Point on the Sumatran side, sounding continuously, keeping between the shoal muds to the west and the rocky eastern shore. They now headed north-by-east to clear the hundreds of islands in the mouth of the Straits of Malacca, still sounding regularly. They looked out for Pula Taya while being very vigilant for signs of the spiral rocks comprising the dangerous Frederick Hendrick shoal, lurking a few feet under the surface. After sighting Pula Taya they steered a more easterly

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course to avoid the Dogger Bank, a dangerous shoal whose position was not exactly known, then resumed their northerly route. On 29 September the familiar landmarks of Pula Dimar and Anambas appeared and Albion took her departure, allowing them to lie in latitude 3°10´ N; at noon they were able to take an observation showing their position was 4°30´ N latitude. No more observations were possible as October began squally and rainy with strong gales usual in the China Sea at this time of year. They sounded constantly, estimating their position to be thirty-one miles to the south of account due to current, but suspected they were to the eastward as well. The weather improved after the first few days with moderate gales but scurvy was already getting a grip on the crew again and on 5 October it claimed a seaman’s life. In 10°6′N latitude they hauled up to the northward to avoid a reef laid down in the charts in latitude 11°05′N, as William was sure the ship was set considerably to the eastward. On 12 October in 19°25′N latitude they noted irregular currents which varied within a few hours of frequent tests, bedevilling their passage. Four days later the lookout at the masthead signalled land bearing northwest-by-north. Albion anchored at Whampoa on 19 October and found riding six British Indiamen, two Danes, two Swedes and three Dutch ships. His instructions enjoined him to maintain sobriety and civil deportment among his seamen.38 The war had deterred the French from coming to Whampoa this season so he would be spared the problems arising from fights between the British and the French seamen. Any incident involving a member of his crew could result in the stoppage of the whole trade. There were plenty of other potential threats to the peace. William and his officers had to disperse the scores of boats full of women and people looking for ‘curiosities’ which immediately closed on Albion. Chinese law prohibited women going on board ship and the running of goods. The stills producing the noxious brew ‘samshu’ extended temptingly over the water from Danes Island were more difficult to deal with. Scurvy was the most immediate problem. The compradore assigned to Albion brought fresh meat and vegetables but it was not soon enough for one seaman who died on 22 October. At least by Albion’s late arrival they had avoided the heat of summer with its danger of sickness and death from fever and the ‘bloody flux’. A responsibility weighing heavily on William’s shoulders was getting the ten chests of treasure safely up to Canton. Each chest was individually buoyed according to orders. Willet, the purser, accompanied the treasure, the jack flying to indicate its presence so that the boat was not stopped at the various custom houses. On arrival at the Company’s factory he supervised the opening of every chest and checked the contents against invoice.39

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With all his responsibilities to the ship, crew and cargo in hand William went up to Canton in the chop boat to deal with his private trade investment. Within a short time of Albion’s arrival the Hoppo’s men would be snooping round to find out if he had any clocks or other ‘toys’. A letter from the supercargoes awaiting him on his arrival forbade him to show any curiosities to the Hoppo’s people.40 The supercargoes complained bitterly to the directors that the trade in clocks and ‘toys’ bedevilled their relations with the merchants. The more expensive clocks cost as much as £500 each in Britain: on striking the hour couples emerged and danced, waterfalls cascaded, birds sang; all sorts of mechanisms were incorporated. Great circumspection was needed to dispose of them without the supercargoes getting wind of it. As he approached the city William saw the splendid European factories rising above the press of craft. Along the waterfront each nation’s flag indicated its company. The Union Jack flew before the widest of the factories, distinguished by a veranda supported on imposing Roman columns. The commanders routinely ignored the directors’ exhortations to find a lodging at their own expense to reduce the expenditure of the factory.41 William could anticipate two months of luxurious living. He probably found another commander willing to share a hong where they could store their private trade goods and stay overnight if necessary for security. On the ground floor of the British factory, tea was packed into chests lined with lead. Above was the dining-room and after enjoying several courses of fine food accompanied by the best wines the diners wandered out on to the terrace above the veranda to enjoy the cool of the evening and view the seething life of the river. The pleasant surroundings failed to dispel the pervading pessimism on the whole future of the European trade with China. Starting this season there was a permanent Council of Supercargoes to handle the Company’s trade at Canton, though they had to retire to Macao at the end of the shipping season. However, they were powerless to prevent the system taking shape entirely to suit the Chinese. The Co-hong was firmly established and although the leading Hong merchants confided to the supercargoes that it was not in their interests, they appreciated the protection it afforded them against exploitation by the mandarins in the trade in curiosities. All hope of trading with any other port but Canton had to be abandoned. The previous season Captain Skottowe, commander of Royal George, had arrived in Canton to ask the mandarins on behalf of the Court of Directors to address their various grievances.42 The mandarins’ reply, received through the medium of the merchants, had conceded nothing.43 The variety of charges had to be paid and the channels of complaint were restricted. Only the directors’ request that

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the supercargoes might appeal directly to the Viceroy from a decision by the Hoppo was conceded, with reservations. The general tenor of the reply was: if you don’t like the conditions, then don’t come. It is all the same to us.44 What was more worrying was the personal insecurity. Poor Flint had suffered dreadful conditions in the first few months of his confinement in Macao: bars at the windows, four or five gongs and bamboos beating all night and two men in his room to make sure he did not do away with himself. Bribes in the right places had ameliorated his situation but he was still a prisoner.45 Only now, with additional wellplaced bribes, was there any hope of gaining his release.46 Neither the supercargoes nor the commanders were comfortable with the prospect of being held personally responsible when a Chinese died in a brawl with their drunken seamen. In mid-November Captain Jackson of Essex East Indiamen brought news of dramatic events which raised everyone’s hopes that they would soon say goodbye to Canton and all its anxieties. Britain had declared war on Spain early in the new year, just before Essex sailed in the same fleet as the frigate conveying Colonel Draper to Madras, where it arrived on 11 July. The Colonel brought orders, agreed with the directors, for the Governor and Council at Fort St George to provide the troops for an expedition to take Manila.47 Once in British hands, Manila was to be handed over to the Company as a centre of trade in view of the increasing difficulties put in the Company’s way at Canton by the Chinese government. This was to be followed by an attack on Mindanao, to be retained by the Company as an entrepôt in the event of Manila being handed back to Spain at the peace.48 The Government assured the directors that they would be reimbursed if their costs were not met by the immediate profits of the fall of Manila, known to be a place of great wealth. Governor Pigot had agreed to detach a substantial force for the attack on Manila but his councillors were far from supportive and, more important, Major Lawrence had dug in his heels over providing Company troops. He could not prevent the 79th Regiment of King’s troops being detached but he vetoed any Company military support. Brigadier-General Draper had been scathing about the councillors’ attitude.49 He accused Lawrence of not acting in the national interest, and the councillors of being concerned only with their own financial advantage. It was well known they traded illicitly with Manila under Moorish colours and that at that very moment there was on the high seas a cargo of £70,000 owned by them and some of the leading citizens of Madras. This would be put at considerable risk by the government’s policy. Draper described the force he finally managed to cobble together as ‘bandetti’. The Governor and Council allowed

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only two East Indiamen to be commissioned, Osterley and Essex; a third was hired on the part of the British government. They joined the East Indies naval squadron, commanded by Admiral Cornish. He and his officers also expected to capture the Acapulco galleon, the annual ship which arrived at Manila loaded with silver from Mexico and returned with Asian goods. Cornish had been present when Admiral Anson took the galleon, Cobadonga, in 1744. Twenty-seven carts had carried the loot through the streets of London and into the Tower after Anson’s return. On 7 October after a short siege, Manila and Cavite50 were occupied and when Captain Jackson left for Canton, Dawson Drake was in charge as Deputy Governor of Manila under the Fort St George Presidency. William and his fellow commanders viewed the acquisition of Manila and possibly Mindanao with some optimism. Junks from Chusan and Ningpo would bring cheaper teas and silks and exchange them for English woollens.51 Bugis prahus would bring the spices and other products of the eastern islands which the Dutch guarded so jealously. All this would obviously be to the Company’s advantage and the commanders would be able to trade in those goods the Company did not consider worth their while. On the whole Manila, or Mindanao if Manila were handed back, seemed a better prospect than another attempt to establish a trading post in the China Sea being pursued at the same time. Alexander Dalrymple had never ceased to beaver away to achieve his dream of establishing an entrepôt in the eastern seas. Backed by Governor Pigot he had ranged round the China Sea, north of Luzon, Hainan Island, da Nang in Annam, and finally, while piloting the East India fleet back by the eastern passage in 1761, the Sulu Sea. There he had entered into an agreement with the ruler of Sulu; the Council at Madras had informed the Company but according to Captain Jackson they had not waited for a reply. At about the same time as the expedition left for Manila Alexander Dalrymple had sailed to the Sulu archipelago with a cargo from Madras to realize his dream.52 William had to get his homeward investment together. Tea was the principal item. The Company now kept the cheaper black teas like Bohea to itself but was happy for the commanders to purchase the dearer green teas, particularly Hyson.53 With his private trade organized and the homeward cargo being loaded, William could enjoy the social life of Canton. The Hong merchants’ hospitality was prodigious.54 The supercargoes from all the European factories and the commanders of all the ships were frequently the guests of the leading merchants at their large country estates away from the throbbing city. There they could relax amidst the delights of a beautiful Chinese garden, cunningly planted with every sort of fruit tree to provide shade in the oppressive

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heat of summer, while ingenious canals and fish ponds and fountains cooled the air. Whimsical, romantic features such as artificial rocks, pavilions, arches, arbours and aviaries made strolling round the estate a pleasure. Superbly cooked dinners were served, British cuisine for those who preferred it, accompanied by the best wines. At nightfall a thousand coloured Chinese paper lanterns illuminated the gardens and the company retired to one of the pavilions where they were entertained by tumblers and jugglers, perhaps a play or opera, and finally a firework display. The supercargoes informed William that Albion was to proceed to Manila in company with Essex to pick up prisoners. On 15 February both ships anchored in the road at Manila where Rear Admiral Cornish’s flagship Norfolk and several naval ships were riding. William soon heard that chaos reigned in the Company’s administration of Manila. Governor Drake was a virtual dictator, greed and lust for power his only motivation. All his councillors had left because they were not strong enough to stand up to him, and their replacements were young writers who did his bidding. There was no order at Council meetings; no records were kept. Drake had failed to take Mindanao, claiming that he lacked both time and resources. Despite every effort to extract money from the wealthy citizens of Manila, Admiral Cornish had failed to collect the ransom. A provincial government had been set up to oppose the British. It had succeeded in warning off the Acapulco galleon which had subsequently brought ashore her treasure, now in the provincial stronghold. Captain Hyde Parker, who had been a seaman in Centurion twenty years earlier when Anson had captured Cobadonga, had been sent to cruise for the galleon. He had sighted a large ship and given chase. After a brief engagement she had surrendered and was taken prize. But when Parker boarded Santissima Trinidada he found that though she was very large she was not rich. Bound to Europe with a cargo of China goods she had been dismasted in bad weather and driven back to the Philippines.55 As Albion prepared to sail with the rest of the fleet at the beginning of March a ship arrived bearing the final treaty of peace agreed with Spain. Manila was returned to Spain without compensation. Expectations of exchanging British goods for the products of China at Manila instead of Canton were at an end. There was as yet no news of Alexander Dalrymple’s attempt to develop a free port in the Sulu Sea. *** William had achieved his ambition to command his own ship at a time when the future looked promising. He no doubt had to pay a high price

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for his command but the substantial increase in the commanders’ privilege should enable him to recoup the outlay in a short time. Thomas was now well established in the service and would soon be able to support himself. On the broader front, peace meant fewer dangers and an end to wearisome delays waiting for convoy while Pitt’s epic eastern passage from Madras to Canton heralded an end to ships waiting around at Batavia when they lost the monsoon. Most important, the Company’s position in India seemed unassailable. Revenue was beginning to flow into the Company’s coffers from Bengal. The French had been reduced to their position when William joined the service. They could erect no fortifications and maintain no troops.56 There would be no more deputy subahs of Hyderabad or empire building in the Carnatic and Governor Pigot had made sure that Pondicherry would cause no trouble for a very long time. On Lally’s surrender in January 1761 he had ordered the destruction of all the buildings, civil and military, without waiting for the Court’s orders.57 The Indiamen’s victory had exposed the weakness of the Dutch and ended their traditional control of the saltpetre trade from Bihar. Conditions in Canton were discouraging. The co-hong consolidated the merchants’ monopoly but that did not affect William’s private trade. Tea was in increasing demand in Britain and the commanders could look forward to its constituting a substantial and profitable part off their private trade in future. Notes   1 BL, APAC, B/75, 14 March 1759, p. 288.   2 BL, APAC, V/27/220/6, By-laws printed in 1774: by-law number 13 in the Company’s regulations, agreed in 1709 and confirmed in 1734, stated unequivocally that no office on board ship should be sold. This by-law was incorporated in the charter parties, backed up by sanctions: miscreants were to be fined twice the sum paid for the office, half to be retained by the Company, half to reward any informant.   3 BL APAC, L/MAR/C/532, f.1110-1119. In March 1757 the Court set up a Joint Committee of Law Suits, Private Trade and Shipping to consider the problem. The Committee condemned the practice and proposed the introduction of bonds in an attempt to deter would-be purchasers. Commanders were to commit themselves to a penalty of £3000, first and second officers to £500 each, should they contravene the law, but it was repealed after a few months as ‘bonds had not answered’.   4 BL, APAC, B/75, 16 March 1759, p. 291.   5 Ibid., p. 293.   6 To encourage the owners to charter their ships for such a voyage the Company paid six weeks’ demurrage for deviation to St Helena, demurrage of £12 12s per day for any delay and £5 per head for each soldier.

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100 Notes to Chapter 4   7 BL, APAC, L/AG/1/6/14, St Helena, f. 127, 31 May 1759, and Fort Marlborough, f. 128, 31 May 1759: £4000 for St Helena comprised £2000 of pork and beef, the remainder clothing, medicines, cutlery, soap, pitch and tar. Silver accounted for nearly all Fort Marlborough’s £15,000 cargo, the small balance comprising small arms and military stores, steel and ironmonger’s wares, cordage and the necessities of daily life.   8 Essex Record Office, Papers of Samuel Braund, DDru, B/20: Owner’s instructions to commanders: the owners also contributed to the costs and gave the commander a daily allowance during his stay in any port they instructed him to call at.   9 She continued on a southwest course as far as 19°41´S latitude, 14°34´W longitude then steered southeast following a more easterly course up to 23°36´S latitude, 10°49´W longitude. She continued slightly south of easterly as far as 10°31´W longitude after which she kept generally to 28°S latitude, reaching 0.25´W on 23 June. She kept on an easterly course until 28 June when she followed a more northerly course up to 4°17´W before heading west-by-north. 10 NMM, Pocock Papers, POC/1f, Miscellaneous 6, 31: Court of Directors’ Instructions to commanders of ships … on making the Island of St Helena. 11 See particularly Vincent, Pondicherry, pp. 220–31. 12 BL, APAC, G/32/19 Factory Records, St Helena Consultations, 20 July 1759, f. 173. William took letters for Governor Pigot at Fort St George, Colonel Clive at Fort William, and Governor Bourchier at Bombay informing them of the changes in the Council at St Helena. 13 Selam is part of the Cocos or Keeling Islands group in approximately 11°25´S latitude, Christmas Island approximately 10°25´S latitude. At this time Delaware was at least 10° out in her estimated longitude. 14 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, e.g. on 14 December 1763 Triton and Success were taken up to go to Madagascar to buy slaves and transport them to Fort Marlborough; the males should be between fifteen and forty, females between fifteen and twenty-five and boys between ten and fifteen. Ibid., 6 June 1764, Royal George was sent to India via the coast of Guinea to pick up a cargo of slaves for Benkulen. 15 The VOC did not allow its servants to trade on their own account. 16 R. P. Crowhurst, ‘The Voyage of the Pitt – A Turning Point in Eastern Navigation’, Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 55, no. 1 (1969), pp. 43–56. 17 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts: on 24 June 1757 the Directors referred to the Committee of Shipping the question of hiring larger, more defensible ships. Pitt was taken up on 2 November 1757 at 600 tons. On 31 May 1758 the Committee of Shipping recommended that ships should be not less than 106 ft in length and 33 ft 6in. in breadth, and the owners were desired to build ships with three decks. 18 Following his voyage in Roebuck in 1699, Dampier produced a chart of coastlines, trade winds and currents in the seas around Australia and New Guinea, now in the National Library of Australia. 19 NMM, POC/1f, Miscellaneous 6, 30: Secret Committee’s letter to the Governor of Bombay, 12 March 1758, containing orders to be given to the commanders of the Company’s ships. The members of the Secret Committee were G. Hay, Gilbert Elliot and J. Forbes.

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Notes to Chapter 4 101 20 In peacetime, the first ships to arrive in the Downs took precedence. 21 Johnson, New Cambridge History of India, II, 5, Om Prakash, ‘European Commercial Enterprise in Pre-colonial India’ (Cambridge, 1998), p. 271. Holden Furber, Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient (Minneapolis, 1976), p. 259, suggests the Dutch force was probably inspired by Mir Jafar’s grant of a parwana to Clive by which the English Company acquired the monopoly of the Bengal saltpetre trade, which the Dutch had always dominated. From 1759 the Dutch would receive an allocation from the British along with all other European companies. 22 The Company presented John Allen with a large silver urn in recognition of his successful command of the operation. 23 Bombay was the nearest port for repairing and refitting the fleet. The Admiral commanding the eastern seas squadron usually sailed for Bombay in October when the onset of the northeast monsoon made the Coromandel coast unsafe. 24 Letter to William Pitt, January 1759, quoted in Keay, Honourable Company, p. 326. 25 NMM, POC/1f, Miscellaneous 6, 30–2: Letter from the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors to Captain Roddam of HM ship Colchester, 5 February 1760, by command of the Admiralty, containing instructions for approaching St Helena and convoying the returning Indiamen back to England. 26 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 5, pp. 83–4. 27 NMM, POC/1f, Miscellaneous 6, 32: Captain Roddam’s orders were to remain at St Helena until the Governor decided it was ‘a proper time’ to proceed home with the Company’s ships. 28 Michael Lewis, The History of the British Navy (London, 1957), p. 147. 29 Daniel Baugh, ‘British Strategy during the First World War in the Context of Four Centuries: Blue Water versus Continental Commitment’, in Naval History: The Sixth Symposium of the U.S. Naval Academy, ed. Daniel M. Masterson (Wilmington, DE, 1987), pp. 87–8. 30 Grant Robertson, Chatham and the British Empire (London, 1946), p. 276. Spain and France had renewed the Bourbon Family Compact on 15 August 1761 and Pitt believed, rightly in the event, that France was working to involve Spain should the peace preliminaries not be satisfactory. 31 Lucy Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth Century Politics (Oxford, 1962), pp. 74–5. 32 Johnson (ed.), New Cambridge History of India, II, 2, P. J. Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead, Eastern India 1740–1828 (Cambridge, 1987), p. 83. Mir Jafar had pledged three million sterling as indemnity to the Company, rewards for individuals and payment for the use of the Company’s troops. 33 See Appendix I. 34 Some commanders issued personal bonds, redeemable at a fixed rate of interest at a given date, allowing time for the sale of the goods at the Company’s sales on their return. 35 The Committee of Private Trade supplied their commanders with a specimen of the improved method in which they would have their journals kept, which they were ‘carefully to observe, and communicate to their Chief and Second Mates, for their guidance for all journals to be delivered to the office

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102 Notes to Chapter 4 in future’. 36 Named after Trial Company ship which had come to grief on these rocks on her way to Bantam in June 1622. 37 Orders and instructions to Captain Gabriel Steward, commander of the ship Neptune, 1764, no.19, in the family’s possession. 38 Ibid., no. 28. 39 Ibid., no. 40. 40 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 5, p. 71. 41 Steward, Orders and instructions, no. 31. 42 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 5, p. 104; Pritchard, Crucial Years, p. 132 and for full details of charges, pp. 134–7. 43 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 5, p. 105. 44 Ibid., p. 105. 45 Ibid., pp. 88–9. 46 Ibid., p.107. 47 See N. Tracy, ‘The 1762 Manila Expedition and the Expansion in the Pacific of East India Company Trade’, in Les Flottes des Compagnies des Indes 1600– 1857, Cinques Journées Franco-britanniques d’Histoire de la Marine, Service Historique de la Marine (Vincennes, 1996), pp. 235–53, for a full account of the expedition. 48 It is most likely that Colonel Draper had been influenced by Alexander Dalrymple with whom he had sailed on Winchelsea from Madras to Malacca in 1759. Tracy, ‘Manila Expedition’, p. 236. 49 Ibid., p. 241: Colonel Draper had been made brevet Brigadier-General on his arrival at Madras in 1762. 50 The harbour and dock area of Manila. 51 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 5, p. 26: diary of the three Councils at Canton, 1755, letter from James Flint, Supercargo of Earl of Holderness, 22 July. 52 Keay, Honourable Company, p. 355. 53 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 5, p. 113: each invested about £1000 on 100 chests, £1000 on chinaware, the Company not wishing to provide the whole of the necessary chinaware as it was not now so profitable. William also invested in rhubarb, turmeric, sago and rattans. 54 See particularly Bulley, Free Mariner, p. 74, for a description of such occasions. 55 See Tracy, ‘Manila Expedition’, pp. 243–53. 56 Sutherland, East India Company, pp. 92–3. 57 Vincent, Pondicherry, p. 231.

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Five ABUSE, PAINS AND PENALTIES

AT THE Jerusalem William heard disquieting news from Calcutta. William’s old friend’s son, Captain Brook Samson, and Nathaniel Smith, both back from Bengal, talked of anarchy in the Council and an orgy of private trading up country. Mir Jafar had fulfilled none of his promises and failed to produce any of the money he had pledged. Henry Vansittart, whom Clive had left as Governor, was a man of great integrity but he was quite unable to curb his fellow councillors’ excessive private trading in league with their Hindu banias. The councillors had persuaded the weak Governor to replace Mir Jafar with his son-in-law, Mir Kasim, who showed signs of firm leadership.1 Mir Kasim had shown his gratitude by showering the councillors with presents.2 But he had proved competent indeed. He had reformed his army and then tackled the English abuse of the dastaks by removing duties for everyone. In consternation, the councillors demanded the restoration of preferential treatment for the British. They were on the brink of war when Captain Smith left the Hooghly six months earlier. In Leadenhall Street the situation was no better. The Bengal servants dismissed by the Court for refusing to sign covenants swearing they would take no ‘presents’ had returned with their ‘Asiatic wealth’, buying up rotten boroughs to obtain seats in Parliament and Company stock to qualify them to vote in the General Court. ‘Luxury’ was insidiously infiltrating the country, corrupting the body politic. No one objected to a man using his position to acquire a fortune to improve his own and his family’s position; indeed it was his duty and the reason any man went out to India. But it should be earned through honest industry over many years. The sudden acquisition of untold wealth by ‘presents’ was

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104 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner dangerous. The prime example of this, Clive’s jagir, had come between him and his old friend Laurence Sulivan, Chairman of the Court since 1758. Sulivan had succeeded in getting the jagir stopped in 1763.3 This had triggered a frenzied battle between the former friends for control of the Company and reduced the dignified formality of the annual election of the directors to a bear garden.4 Owners of East India stock ‘split’ it into blocks of £500 to create extra votes: the major respected banks had entered the ring to manage ‘splitting’ funds and both Government and Opposition were taking part.5 And in their wake came the speculators fishing in the troubled waters in the hope of forcing up the price of stock and making a killing. But everyone realized the situation in Bengal had to be sorted out and Clive was the only person with the will and leadership qualities to do it. He sailed in the summer of 1764 with the widest powers: Commander-in-Chief and Governor of Bengal. Inevitably the battle for control of the Company dragged the provision of shipping into its vortex as both sides attempted to increase their support in the General Court by increasing the number of ships taken up by the Company. Overproduction of ships was now so great that a third lay idle for twelve months between voyages at enormous cost to the owners: a quarter of a million pounds of capital stock lay deteriorating in the yards every year. The commanders were also the losers, many idle for two to three years. The voyages had become part of the auction, too. Influential commanders bartered the support of their friends in the General Court for the best voyages. William had to face a lengthy period of unemployment but at least Thomas was a free agent. Barely were they back in the river than he had managed to get a berth on a Dutch prize and sail her to the West Indies, good experience that would help his career and bring in some useful money in a short time. Captain Samson had offered him a berth as third mate on Hardwick on his return. In the autumn of 1764 Albion was stationed for the coast and China and in the first week of January 1765 William took leave of his family, not expecting to see them again for two years. 1765 was not to be William’s luckiest year. In the chill early hours of 16 January Albion sailed from Gravesend with the Company’s treasure for China and officers and recruits for the Company’s army in Madras. Pilot John Hall cautiously kept Albion in Horsenden’s wake through the dangerous shoal waters of the Thames estuary. Horsenden dropped anchor but made no signal of any kind to Albion. John Hall pressed ahead and suddenly William felt the unmistakable shock of the hull hitting a sandbank. Only hours after weighing at the start of an eighteen-month voyage Captain Larkins was supervising the ­abandonment

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Abuse, Pains and Penalties 105 of his ship west of Knock Sand and just south of Long Sand. All the crew and passengers were transferred safely ashore. Company officials were soon brought out to the wreck to supervise the safe transfer of forty-seven chests of treasure to other ships bound to China. William’s private trade goods and all his hopes for a quick retirement were carried to the shore. Back at home in Poplar, William had to wait for eight long weeks before the Court informed him that he and his officers were completely exonerated. All blame was laid at the door of Captain William Martyr, the commander of Horsenden, and her pilot for not making a signal of distress when she came to an anchor in shoal water. This would probably have prevented the tragedy.6 Losing his ship could not have occurred at a worse time. The Committee of Shipping and the managing owners were in process of agreeing further regulations to bring about a reduction in the shipping stock.7 Albion’s managing owner, John Hyde, refused to build in Albion’s room as he wanted to build on the bottom of Triton and under the new arrangements for replacing ships he would not be able to do both. Consequently, Albion’s bottom would lapse. The custom of building on a ship’s bottom, as entrenched as any of the Company’s bylaws and the reason why men were willing to pay thousands of pounds for a command, was collapsing. Suddenly, William’s future and that of his sons, which had seemed assured beyond any doubt a few months earlier, had become a chimera. In desperation William threw himself on the mercy of the Court, setting out his difficulties and ‘praying such relief from the Court . . . as shall to them seem meet’8. The Court referred the matter to the Committee of Shipping and only two weeks later Mr Hyde expressed his willingness to build a ship for William in Albion’s room for this season provided it did not prejudice his claim to build on Triton’s bottom later.9 Some behind the scenes’ activity must have eased the decision as Gilbert Slater, a former commander of Triton, bought the bottom rights of Albion. Six months of anguish ended for William in mid-July when he took the oath before the directors as commander of the new ship to be built in her room by Thomas West.10 The year 1765 ended more happily for William than it began. His new ship, just short of 700 tons, was launched on 1 November 1765 as Lioness. The mood at the Jerusalem was uneasy. Several commanders had been dismissed for infringing the Company’s monopoly. The peace meant an end to convoys and forced sailing in company and they had seized the opportunity to trade at ports on the passage to the East and unload illicit goods in ports short of the Downs homeward. Captain Mitford of Northumberland and his first four officers were suspended for not giving adequate reasons for putting into Plymouth and Captain

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Map 7:  Various ships’ routes via the ‘Eastern Passage’

First fleet dispatched from . ___ . ___ . ___ . Canton without escort June 1797

First fleet dispatched to Canton without escort June 1797

Canton without escort January 1797

……………………...

_________________ -----------------First fleet dispatched from  __ __ __ __ __ __ __ Warren Hastings, 1787

Pitt, 1758

106 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner

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Abuse, Pains and Penalties 107 Pigou of British King lost his command for disposing of large quantities of private trade at Lisbon. The Company offered rewards for any information, ‘determined to put a stop to this growing evil’.11 Richard Lewin, commander of Vansittart, was dismissed in November12 following reports that a vessel had sailed from England carrying a large quantity of iron, cannon, military stores, cloth and other illicit items which were transferred to Vansittart’s hold off Madeira. Richard Lewin pocketed his profit and bought the ship from John Durand, a fair outcome as it was common knowledge that Durand was complicit in shipping illicit goods on his ships. William had a lot of leeway to make up. As part of the general increase in privilege tonnage in 1760 the directors had allowed up to half outward cargoes to consist of iron, lead or steel. But this had failed to satisfy the enormous demand for iron in India. Concerned primarily to preserve the Company’s exclusive trade to India the directors failed to allow further flexibility in the commanders’ private trade. William’s packet containing the Company’s instruction for the voyage included a copy of the tenth by-law, a reminder of how difficult it would be to ship more iron than the rules allowed. The names of his officers on duty on board each day had to be recorded and validated with his signature. The Company’s Surveyor kept all the keys to the hatchways and scuttles into the hold, the gunroom ports, the lazaretto, the bread room and the powder room. Dismissal awaited any commanding officer or others guilty of opening any of them without the Surveyor’s knowledge or allowing any clandestine trade on board.13 William decided to take the risk and shipped over forty-five tons but he was caught. He was not alone. Five other commanders owned up to lesser amounts. The commander of Neptune, Gabriel Steward, had shipped the most. All swore before the directors that they had ordered only what they were allowed to carry out for their allowance and for ship’s store, that they had no idea they had ‘exceedings’ until the Company’s orders were given to make the enquiry. The Company paid the commanders the prime cost of the iron comprising their allowance and consigned all of it to the Presidencies of Forts William and St George. None of the commanders was dismissed.14 Lioness anchored in Madras road alongside Hampshire, Glatton and Neptune on 13 June 1766.15 Captain Steward apprised William of a tightening up of the procedures for checking for illicit trade. Councillors came on board and asked all the passengers and officers if goods had been taken aboard or delivered out of the ship during the course of the voyage.16 All the witnesses replied in the negative. At night a guard boat rowed round the Europe ships, but in this open roadstead, full of

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108 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner country ships, it was impossible to be everywhere at once, and someone ­determined on illicit trade could ship off goods undetected. Anyway, the Court was fully aware that its orders, exhortations and threats fell on largely deaf ears. The Madras councillors had until now even failed to find private trade goods that the Court had informed them were on board certain ships.17 They were feeling very aggrieved at that particular time. Lord Clive had called at Fort St George in May on his way to Bengal and taken with him four of the councillors to fill the vacancies left at Calcutta by men who had been dismissed or resigned over the issue of the covenants. Those left felt a mixture of rejection, envy at not getting the chance of going to the Promised Land and annoyance at the increased workload caused by their colleagues’ departure. They were more concerned with promoting their private trade through the firm of Jourdain, Sulivan and de Souza which exchanged Indian cottons and opium in the Malay peninsula and Acheh for products suitable for the China market. And they had one advantage over their brethren in the north. Nawab Walajah18 consistently lived well beyond his means. He had no intention of reducing his standard of living: he and his extended family and large number of women lived a luxurious existence, drifting from one to another of his twenty sumptuous residences. When the revenues of the Carnatic failed to meet the costs of his protection by the Company’s troops he simply borrowed more money. The residents and councillors of Fort St George queued up for the pleasure of lending to him at 16%, 18% and eventually 36%. By the Company’s orders brought out by Lioness the interest was reduced to 20%.19 The commanders also benefited from the nawab’s extravagance, as he was very attracted to the valuable clocks and automata they brought in their private trade investment. The nawab bought Captain Steward’s best pair of clocks, for which he had paid a thousand guineas in London.20 But it was the arms trade that presented the Court with the biggest headache. There was a burgeoning demand by the country powers in India for European small arms and military stores.21 The nawab was always willing to spend other people’s money on arms that the Company feared might end up being used to kill Company or King’s troops. The councillors assured the Company they were doing their best to keep down the trade in military stores but the situation was largely out of their hands. The Danes brought large quantities in their annual ship to their factory at Tranquebar.22 The nawab’s agents employed people at every small settlement on the coast where boats could run up on the beach loaded with all kinds of stores. Anyway, the more the nawab borrowed the better off the Councillors were. Far from struggling to end the wars, they were secretly encouraging him to attack Tanjore to ensure that he

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Abuse, Pains and Penalties 109 had sufficient revenues to underwrite his debts to them. Lioness sailed on 7 July for China and ten months later, on 4 May, she anchored in St Helena road. Two weeks later Britannia, Captain Rous, arrived carrying Lord Clive. Captain Rous had done well for himself. Lord Clive had paid him 1200 guineas for his passage and provided all the liquor for the ship.23 It was seven years since William had sat at the Governor’s table in the company of this famous man. All had changed since then. Lord Clive was now the undisputed arbiter of British rule in India. William heard at first hand how he had arrived in Calcutta to find that the old nawab, Mir Jafar, reinstalled when war with Mir Kasim began, was dead and the Councillors had installed a new, untried nawab with indecent haste, receiving another round of ‘presents’. Clive had set about cleansing the Augean stables of the ‘luxury’ that had taken over Calcutta. ‘Corruption, licentiousness and a want of principle seem to have possessed the minds of all the civil servants. By frequent bad examples they are grown callous, rapacious and luxurious beyond conception.’24 He had persuaded the Councillors to sign new covenants agreeing not to receive presents exceeding £40025 but several had taken their ill-gotten gains and returned to Britain. Clive believed that the Company’s servants must be enabled to gain a fortune in India but it had to be gained honestly, with industry. Clive had gone on to Allahabad to meet the Moghul Emperor Shah Alam II who, with the nawab of Oudh, had supported Mir Kasim. In October 1764 their combined armies had been defeated by the Company’s forces at Buxar.26 At St Helena the commanders must have pressed Lord Clive to describe the scene when the Emperor, seated on an improvised throne erected in Clive’s tent, had granted the diwan, the revenues of the provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, to the Company ‘forever and ever’. The Company would be responsible for the civil administration of Bengal. The nawab of Oudh had accepted a British alliance and a British garrison, taking the Company’s influence almost to Delhi. The Emperor also recognized the Company’s territorial and other rights in the Carnatic and the Northern Circars.27 In return, the Company guaranteed to the Emperor an annual revenue.28 That, according to Clive, should definitely be that. No more acquisitions. He did not doubt that Britain could take over the whole Moghul Empire. It was there for the taking but it was not in Britain’s or the Company’s interests. Clive estimated that there would be a clear gain to the Company from the Bengal revenues in the coming year of £1.65 million. This should ‘defray all the expense (of the investment), furnish the whole of the China treasure, answer the demands of all your other settlements in India, and leave a considerable balance in (the

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110 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner Company’s) treasury besides’29. He firmly believed that Government would have to be involved in the administration of India sooner or later. He had left Bengal in good hands: Henry Verelst, now Governor, was a worthy man with great integrity.30 On 22 July Lioness cleared ship at Deptford. Perhaps news of events at home had reached William by an outward bound ship at St Helena or at the Downs. If not, a surprise awaited him, not to say a shock. Thomas was all set to get married on 1 September to Susannah Collingwood, daughter of Captain Edward Collingwood, RN, Master Attendant of Deptford Dockyard and a relative of Admiral Lord Collingwood. William could hardly criticize his son’s plans. Although he had been two years older than Thomas when he embarked on matrimony, in all other respects his circumstances had been very similar. Thomas, like his father in 1745, having secured a berth as second mate, was now financially independent. William could only hope that he himself would soon make enough money to retire, buy his ship and hand over the command to Thomas. At the Jerusalem William heard that the Company had undergone even greater changes. It was no longer completely independent. News of the diwan had shaken the financial world and led to speculation not only in London but in Paris and Amsterdam. India stock had risen to 164 then to 273 by William’s return.31 Speculators had been rampaging in an atmosphere reminiscent of the South Sea Bubble nearly half a century earlier. The directors had held the fort against raising the dividend but a pamphlet war and ‘splitting’ on an unprecedented scale had bolstered opposition and they had been forced to raise it from 6% to 10% and later to 12%.32 The Earl of Chatham shared Lord Clive’s views on the necessity for government involvement in the affairs of India and had claimed the state’s rights over all revenue. Negotiations between the Treasury and the directors on an appropriate sum to hand over to government had been going on for some time. Now the government passed a bill preventing the raising of the dividend. At noon on 18 May 1767, the day Lord Clive arrived at St Helena in the Britannia, the stockholders met in a General Court. At 4am on 19 May, after one of the longest and stormiest meetings in the Company’s history, they accepted the dividend bill and agreed that the Company should hand over to the government £400,000 a year.33 A significant number of ex-commanders who had made their fortunes from protracted cruises round the eastern seas had been voted on to the Court of Directors in recent years and formed an influential group.34 They persuaded the Court that much greater capacity would be required to bring back the larger cargoes purchased from the

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Abuse, Pains and Penalties 111 ‘­investment’ of surplus Indian revenues. This enabled them to reward their supporters among the stockholders who would benefit from an expansion in the Company’s shipping. In July 1768 the Court agreed to permit eight old bottoms to become ‘alive’.35 A record thirty-three ships were taken up for the season 1768–9 to reward those members of the General Court concerned in the provision of the Company’s ships.36 The wedding over, Thomas had sailed as second mate of Pacific in the new year of 1768. Captain Nathaniel Smith agreed to start twelve-yearold John on his career in the service by taking him as his servant on Lord Camden, bound to Bombay and China, the only ship so stationed that season. John’s kinsman Henry Pascall was second mate so he was in good hands. Lioness sailed in December 1768 for Madras and Bengal, just the voyage William needed. On 11 March she reached the Cape. At anchor William found two French ships of the line and two frigates carrying a large military force. This reinforced the general opinion among the Dutch that the French were building up strength at Mauritius. At Madras William found the Governor and Council bankrupt by a war they had brought on themselves. To secure the occupation of the Northern Circars on the accession of the new Nizam, they had signed a treaty promising him military support when needed. This had soon embroiled them in hostilities with the Nizam’s enemy, Haidar Ali, who had usurped the throne of Mysore and was developing the country into a powerful state. Lioness arrived just after Haidar Ali had defeated the Company’s troops in a devastating war. He had forced the Governor and Council to make peace and sign a defensive alliance. As they had signed similar treaties not only with the Nizam, but with the other major power in the south, the Marathas, the future would not be without its problems.37 The Court’s instructions brought by Lioness threw the Council into turmoil.38 There were seventeen ships stationed for China via Madras.39 The Court wanted each ship loaded with cargo to the value of £40,000, greatly in excess of what the Council had expected. Far from having two-thirds of a million pounds to hand, the Council faced the prospect of barely defraying its civil and military charges. They were already in trouble with the Court of Directors for using the previous year’s silver to pay the expenses of their war with Haidar Ali. There was no prospect of help from Bengal. The Council there had had to reduce their own investment and Bombay could only just cover its costs. Borrowing more money was not an option. The Council was deeply indebted to individuals, including its own members, and its credit stretched to the limit. The councillors solved the problem by putting up public notices inviting private merchants to send their merchandise to China on the

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112 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner Company’s ships, freight free, provided they paid the proceeds into the Company’s treasury at Canton. In return they would receive bills of exchange drawn on London.40 Lioness arrived at Culpee on the last day of May 1769. The humid heat weighed down on her company in this unhealthy, fever-ridden spot. Seventeen years earlier William recalled he had arrived on Durrington at about the same time, but then May and June had been squally and wet, tempering a little the heat of the worst season of the year on the Hooghly. This year there was not a drop of moisture in the air. William escaped up to Calcutta. When he passed the huge new Fort William built to Clive’s design at Govindpore, he realized the extent of the changes that had occurred since his last visit and could understand the Directors’ complaints that all the revenues had been spent on the new fort. The increased number of great houses on Garden Reach reflected the generous ‘presents’ of recent years. William delivered his packet to Governor Verelst and told him of what he had seen at the Cape and heard from the Dutch there. The Governor concurred in the view that the French were up to something. He had found disquieting evidence of this up at the French settlement at Chandernagore. Although the fort had been destroyed by Admiral Watson and Clive ten years earlier and the terms of the treaty prohibited the French from fortifying again, they would not be kept down. They were forever plotting. The Governor there had told the Council that the settlement suffered from flooding and had sought permission to dig a drain across to prevent it. The works had alarmed the nawab who had approached the Council to inspect it. This had been done and passed as nothing untoward could be seen. Later they had checked on the progress and found the permission had been greatly exceeded. The Governor and Council had ordered the destruction of the works. This was a wake-up call to the Council who had set about bringing their own defences up to standard. The Governor assumed that the Court had got wind of the French build-up and had urged the British government to send a naval squadron to the Bay of Bengal.41 The contrast between the situation when William had last been in Calcutta and now was very marked. The establishment was huge, but young faces predominated. Many of the older men with experience had left with their gains, others had resigned over Clive’s firm handling, leaving young inexperienced men to carry out the hugely more responsible and complicated work. Those mature men still left bemoaned the increased work load and the little time they had to devote to their own private trade. Their task was now greater than that of the British government. Governor Verelst’s view was that the Governor and Councillors

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Abuse, Pains and Penalties 113 should receive large salaries and be totally free from ‘commercial views and connections’: that would be the most honourable for the receivers and the most beneficial for the community.42 But he would not be in Bengal to see what was eventually decided. He intended to return to Britain and expressed a wish to travel back on Lioness.43 There was still no rain when Lord Holland, Captain Nairne, left Calcutta in mid-September, unusually early, with despatches for Europe. A few days later a boat arrived at the ghats carrying some of the survivors. She had sunk on the tail of the Eastern Brace. William was summoned to attend the enquiry held on 4 October to examine into the conduct of James Ogden, the pilot in charge of the ship when she was lost. Also on the court were William’s fellow commanders John Smith, captain of Hampshire, and John Griffin, captain of Admiral Watson. Captain Henry Wedderburn, Master Attendant, presided and Joseph Price, a private merchant, was also a member. It was a sad affair. Captain Griffin’s son, first mate of Lord Holland, was among the sixteen who had lost their lives out of a total of ninety-six. The pilot in charge was one of the best in the service. He had thirteen years’ experience and had won universal acclaim in 1757 when he had successfully piloted Admiral Watson’s 70 gun ship up the Hooghly to Chandernagore.44 In his remarks, Captain Nairne stated that James Ogden was chosen to pilot the ship as it was hazardous and contrary to charter party to send East Indiamen from this port at this season of the year,45 Captain Nairne explained how he had questioned the pilot’s actions. There was a very great sea and he feared the danger of coming upon a lee sand. The pilot had insisted on standing on and she had struck. The ship subsequently fell off the bank into deep water. The captain’s priority had been to save the crew: he ordered all boats to be hoisted out to take away the sick and signalled the pilot schooner to come close. Both the commander and chief mate remained on board with all those fit to man the pumps. Every boat that went off had hailed the pilot schooner to come close but it had remained at a distance and the ship had sunk on her beam end in seven fathoms. The captain had jumped overboard and had been picked up; the rest had been taken to Balasore in other boats. By the following morning the ship had righted herself. Pilot Ogden had no defence. He believed he was far to the southward of the foot of the Braces, where there was no less than four fathoms, and the ship drawing 18’4” on an even keel, he thought he could cross over. The Court’s opinion was unanimous. The loss of Lord Holland was entirely due to the error of the pilot ‘by his obstinately persisting in standing on the Eastern Brace, contrary to the prudent remonstrance of Captain Nairn [sic]’. He was discharged from the service.46

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114 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner For a few days at the end of September the weather was pleasant, with the wind to the northward, promising the change of the monsoon, but the first two weeks in October were again very hot and sultry, becoming ‘excessive hot’. The sick list lengthened and men continued to die: the cooper, the armourer, several seamen, and two boys signed on as William’s servants had died by the end of the month. News from various parts of the delta showed that the failure of the rains was beginning to take its toll. By November there was universal distress: the whole country suffered from the lack of grain, threatening famine. The Council warned the Directors that this was bound to result in a reduction in the revenue, though it was not possible to estimate by how much at this stage.47 The famine ended Governor Verelst’s hopes fully to implement a scheme of sending supervisors up country to see that the revenues were collected fairly from the peasants instead of by violence, as the nawab’s men did. This led the peasants to hide their crops, among other subterfuges. The Governor could not believe the dreadful treatment meted out by Indians on Indians.48 Bengal was ‘hurrying towards its ruin’.49 The time approached for Lioness to sail. William had sold his investment to advantage and put R44,443 into certificates, about £4000. It was unlikely that Governor Verelst paid William as much for his accommodation as Clive had paid Captain Rous, but it would be a significant sum, nonetheless. The Governor’s effects included bulses of diamonds and precious stones, part of his ‘modest fortune in presents’ accepted only as the ‘custom of the country’.50 At 10am on 8 January 1770 Governor Verelst came on board. The following day Lioness saluted him with nineteen guns, hoisted the Union Jack at the main topgallant masthead and sailed in company with Royal Charlotte. There was general relief at clearing this unhealthy place. From the northern districts of Bengal came news that the dead were being loaded in hundreds on rafts and sent downriver.51 Six months later, on 12 July, Lioness anchored at Spithead to enable Governor Verelst to go ashore. *** In the new world order following years of hostilities in India and the wider world William found he had to navigate through turbulent conditions as treacherous as the ocean off Cape Bank in winter. Success in Bengal led to greed, excessive abuse of the Company’s privileges and instability, which spread down the coast to Madras and dislocated the traditionally steady administration in Leadenhall Street. There, the struggle for power between rival factions disrupted the shipping

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Abuse, Pains and Penalties 115 system, resulting in oversupply which threatened the very foundation of William’s livelihood and his sons’ prospects. As he reached the age when he could contemplate retirement and handing over his ship to Thomas, William had to face the possibility of losing everything he had worked for. In the event, a ship was built in Albion’s room and William assumed her command, which he immediately put in jeopardy by flouting the rules. Ironically, the huge predicted Bengal revenues, which caused the collapse of traditional practices amongst the Company’s servants and led to the breaching by government of the Company’s sturdy 150-year independence, did not materialize. Famine was now adding to human greed to destroy the foundations of the newly acquired wealth. Notes   1 Dodwell (ed.), History of India, vol. 5, British India, pp. 167–70. Om Prakash, European Commmercial Expansion, p. 270.   2 Dodwell (ed.), History of India, vol. 5, British India, p. 168: he had also granted the Company three districts, Burdwan, Midnapore and Chittagong, to provide revenue to maintain their troops.   3 Ibid., p. 206; Chaudhuri, Clive, pp. 300–20, passim; Sutherland, East India Company, p. 88.   4 Sutherland, East India Company, pp. 100–09 and Chaudhuri, Clive, pp. 306–7.   5 The practice was actually outlawed by a by-law of 1709: see Bowen, Business of Empire, p. 60.   6 BL, APAC, B/80, 13 March 1765, p. 418: resolution of the Court of Directors. John Hall was prohibited from piloting any Company ship in the future.   7 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 6 April 1763: not specified.   8 BL, APAC, B/81, 1 May 1765, p. 34.   9 On 5 June the Committee gave permission to build on Triton’s bottom. 10 BL, APAC, B/81, 16 July 1765, p. 108. 11 C. S. Srinivasachari (ed.), Fort William-India House Correspondence and other Contemporary Papers relating thereto (Public Series, Delhi, 1949–85), 21 vols, hereafter FWIHC, vol. 4, 1764–66, 13 December 1765, p. 105, paragraph 14. See also H. V. Bowen, ‘Privilege and Profit: Commanders of East Indiamen as Private Traders, Entrepreneurs and Smugglers, 1760–1813’, International Journal of Maritime History, vol. XIX, no. 2 (December 2007), pp. 43–88. 12 Srinivasachari (ed.), FWIHC, 13 December 1765, pp. 113–14, paragraph 52 and BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, 20 November 1765. 13 A commander’s packet of the 1765/6 season in the author’s possession. 14 ������������������� N. K. Sinha (ed.), FWIHC, 1767–9, p. 115, paragraph 59. 15 Her surgeon claimed head money for ninety-three recruits delivered in good health to the fort. 16 ������������� Sinha (ed.), FWIHC, 1767–9, p. 113, paragraph 51. ������������������������� The passengers were questioned on oath but not the officers. 17 Srinivasachari (ed.), FWIHC, 1764–6, letter from the Court to the Presidencies

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116 Notes to Chapter 5 13 December 1765, p. 113, paragraph 50. 18 Muhammed Ali Walajah, nawab of the Carnatic, owed his throne to British support. Nawab Walajah’s territory was protected by the company’s troops, at his own cost. 19 Dodwell, History of India, vol. V, British India, p. 273: in 1766 the interest was reduced by order from the Court to 20% then 10%. 20 Letter from Francis Steward, surgeon of Neptune, Gabriel Steward commander, in the family’s possession. 21 Sinha (ed.), FWIHC, 1767–9, p. 113, paragraph 50: ‘which we have too much reason to believe has been, and may be turned against the Company, and contribute to keep up the troubles which we have been so long struggling with in several parts of India’. 22 That year they had imported 3000 stand of arms and 115 pieces of small ordnance as well as flints and powder. 23 Chaudhuri, Clive, p. 368. 24 Ibid., p. 367. 25 Ibid., p. 337. 26 Dodwell (ed.), History of India, British India, p. 174. 27 The independent rulers of former Moghul dependencies accorded legitimacy only to those recognized by the Emperor, though now a powerless man under the protection of the Marathas. 28 Chaudhuri, Clive, pp. 344–5. 29 Srinivasachi (ed.), FWIHC, 1764–6, Robert Clive to the Directors, September 1765, pp. 338–9, quoted in Om Prakash, ‘The English East India Company and India’, in Worlds of the East India Company, eds Bowen et al., p. 12. 30 Chaudhuri, Clive, p. 358. 31 Sutherland, East India Company, p. 141. 32 Ibid., p. 171. 33 Ibid., p. 173. The restriction on raising the dividend was limited to two years. 34 Parker, ‘Directors of the East India Company’, p. 394. Twenty-three ex-commanders became Directors between 1754 and 1790. 35 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 29 July 1768. Parker, ‘Directors of the East India Company’, p. 394. The shipping directors made sure that they retained the means of influencing the election of directors the following year by ensuring that ships worn out after March 1769 would require the Court’s permission before being replaced. 36 Parker, ‘Directors of the East India Company’, p. 399: the Company’s Surveyor claimed that Laurence Sulivan and Sir George Colebrooke hired eleven ships for goods which required only five. 37 For an account of the relations of the Madras Presidency with the powers of South India, see Dodwell, History of India, vol. 5, pp. 273–95. 38 BL, APAC, P/240/28, Madras Public Proceedings, Consultation 18 May 1769, f. 320. 39 Sixteen stationed for Madras and China in 1768–9 and Granby which had lost her passage to China the previous season. The following information is contained in BL, APAC, P/240/28, Madras Proceedings, Consultation 19 May 1769, ff. 321–5. 40 BL, APAC, P/240/28, Madras Proceedings, f. 337.

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Notes to Chapter 5 117 41 A. Prasad (ed.), FWIHC, Letters to the Company from Fort William, 6 July 1769. 42 Ainslie Embree, Charles Grant and British Rule in India (London, 1962), p. 29. 43 Prasad (ed.), FWIHC, Letter no. 39, p. 611, paragraph 10, 1 December 1769. 44 BL, APAC, L/MAR/B/469B, Journal of Lord Holland. 45 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 28 June 1769: by a change in the charter party ships were to be despatched from 1, not 21, November, and not later than 11 March. 46 The Dutch master of the pilot schooner was degraded to foremastman for keeping at so great a distance from a ship in distress and not coming to anchor when pressed by every officer that came from the ship. 47 Prasad (ed.), FWIHC, Letter no. 38, p. 605, 23 November 1769. 48 Embree, Charles Grant, pp. 33–5 for the scheme devised by Richard Becher, Resident at Murshidabad, for supervising the collection of the revenues and ameliorating the conditions prevalent under Clive’s dual system by which primary duties and functions continued to be conducted by Indians. 49 Becher, quoted in Embree, Charles Grant, p. 32. 50 William would receive a commission of one quarter per cent of the value of the diamonds for transporting them back to England. 51 Embree, Charles Grant, p. 36.

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Six THE COMPANY IN CRISIS

WHEN WILLIAM arrived back in London in July 1770 he found the Company’s financial situation worse than in 1767 following the Company’s appointment as diwan. News of the French build-up at Mauritius had reached London a few months after William had reported it to the Governor of Bengal. This, soon followed by reports that Haidar Ali and his troops were before Madras, had caused the now volatile Company stock to collapse. Yet the belief that Bengal was the goose that laid golden eggs persisted. Company servants who returned and joined the ‘Bengal Squad’ in the General Court demanded an ever higher dividend. They succeeded in raising it to 12.5% in March 1771. Although aware by the summer of a deficit in the revenues of two million rupees caused by the Bengal famine and the consequent recession, the proprietors voted to maintain the dividend at that level in September.1 The over-provision of tonnage contributed to the Company’s mounting costs. There were now eighty-five ships afloat or on the stocks. Each ship spent over a year at home between voyages and those that were taken up sailed to the East half-empty and returned home half full. Despite the excess capacity, Sir Charles Raymond, an ex-Company captain who now led the small group of the most powerful owners, made sure that freight remained at a very high level. Some commanders converted voyages into personal cruises for their own private trade, entailing enormous demurrage bills paid by the Company and the ships’ shareholders. The commanders were able to retire with a fortune while the husbands sold on the command at a higher price.2 It was an Admiralty enquiry into the scarcity of timber for the navy that thrust the state of the Company’s shipping into the public glare. This revealed

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The Company in Crisis 119 that the cause was the ­general increase in shipping, particularly that of the East India Company whose ships had not only trebled in number in the past thirty years but greatly increased in size. The ships were now up to 800 tons, taking the same scantling as a naval ship of fifty or sixty guns.3 In March 1771 the Court imposed a moratorium on new building until they and the shipowners had conferred with the Admiralty on the subject of the scarcity of timber.4 The Company’s shipping was to be reduced to 45,000 tons builders’ measurement or no new ships built for six years except those already on the stocks which could be built to any size.5 Nevertheless, as William sailed from the coast at the end of December 1771 he felt optimistic. His latest voyage had been very profitable. His investment had realized well over £4000 at the Company’s sales and he had several thousand pounds’ worth of certificates. One more good voyage would enable him to buy his ship. Lioness was stationed for the coast and China, which suited him well. She was one of the few ships permitted to call at Madeira where William would be able to buy a large stock of wine.6 The increasing numbers of military and civil servants in the presidencies, all prodigious imbibers, agreed that madeira had ‘the best Tast’.7 William’s outward investment amounted to two and a half thousand pounds according to the records passed by the Committee of Private Trade, but this was a great understatement. Sir Richard Hotham, a managing owner, believed that commanders took out £20,000 or more in privilege goods.8 As a father, too, William had good cause to feel satisfied. His three sons were all sailing to the East that season. Thomas and John were sailing on Triton, also calling at Madeira en route to the coast and bay, his eldest son as first mate, his youngest as a midshipman. His second son and namesake was sailing to Bengal to take up a post as writer, which William had managed to secure for him by the good offices of a friend in the Court of Directors. Eighteen months later, in June 1773, William returned to the Downs and retirement to find Leadenhall Street in deep crisis. The gathering storm of the Company’s financial position had erupted over the Christmas of 1772. Faced with the Company’s inability to meet its obligations and imminent bankruptcy, the directors had suspended dividend payments, triggering the collapse of East India stock. The immense value of the Company’s activities to British tax and customs revenues forced the Government to act. The King recalled Parliament as the ‘maintenance of credit and the prosperity of the East India Company’ were necessary.9 Parliament immediately steadied the markets by approving a loan of £1,500,000, clearly demonstrating government’s intention to support the Company.10

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120 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner But support would not come free. Few people advocated the outright takeover of the Company by the state. Encroachment on chartered rights by jobbing and placemongering politicians would not be tolerated. Equally there was general concern that the acquisition of the Company’s great and valuable patronage could free the King from reliance on Parliament. But some measure of government control was obviously needed. Warren Hastings, who had sorted out the chaos of Fort St George’s finances and gone on to be Governor of Bengal, was now appointed Governor-General of Bengal. A council of four, three of whom were appointed by Government, was to assist him.11 These were to work together to return Bengal to its old profitability as a fertile, fecund region producing valuable products to be purchased with the Bengal revenues, so transferring the wealth to Britain. A Supreme Court of three judges was to make sure that both Indians and British received justice. William could feel optimistic that his son was to be part of this reformed and improved government. During William’s absence parliamentary Select and Secret Committees had been at work examining every aspect of the Company’s affairs.12 The Company’s shipping had not escaped investigation. The evidence of Gabriel Snodgrass, the Company’s Surveyor of Shipping, had been damning: ‘that from the great Numbers, Opulence and various interests of the Owners of Shipping, due economy was prevented’. In the circumstances they were ‘not only enabled to obtain too high a freightage, but were likewise exempted from the necessary Control’.13 In the ten years 1762–72 freight and demurrage paid by the Company amounted to £4,777,902, of which one third could have been saved.14 On his return to London William found the General Court in the process of approving new by-laws designed to curb the excess tonnage and freight.15 There was some compensation for the owners. Concurrently, a law was passed rationalizing the method of measuring tonnage in the merchant fleet generally. The Company now agreed to hire the ships at builders’ tonnage in future, rather than the artificial figure of 499 tons which had prevailed up till that date. At the same time the government waived the rule that ships of 500 tons and more should carry a chaplain. William could now expect to receive freight not for 499 tons but for the whole of Lioness’s 693 tons burthen. The drastic measures to reduce tonnage spread alarm through the ranks of the commanders. The excessive supply of shipping was exacerbated by the accumulation of large unsold stocks of exports in Bengal and of tea in the Company’s London warehouses. Only sixteen ships were stationed for the East in the season 1773/4. Lioness was not among them, nor amongst the sixteen ships stationed in 1774/5. It was not

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The Company in Crisis 121 until March 1776 that Lioness finally sailed from Portsmouth bound to Madras and Bengal. Thomas faced unemployment for an indefinite period when Lioness returned from her next and fourth voyage. Some of his fellow commanders were already in that position. Normally an independent breed of men who pursued their own interests without regard to their fellows, the commanders now felt sufficiently vulnerable to combine for protection. They succeeded in obtaining the General Court’s support for compensation to be awarded to those commanders who lost voyages as a result of the reduction of tonnage, provided they could prove that they had very few financial resources. There were some dissenting voices. Sir Richard Hotham, inveighed against some concerned with the Company’s shipping who had milked the Company almost to the point of ruin. He pointed out that the same ship which could now load up to a 1000 tons including surplus, had previously loaded only 400 tons. For years commanders had appropriated the rest of the tonnage to their own use to the detriment of the majority of shipowners and Company stockholders. They had regularly taken out £20,000 worth of goods and made sure they sold their own goods first so that the Company’s sales had been reduced, and woollen cloth lay unsold in the Company’s warehouses in the Presidencies. According to Sir Richard, ‘poisonous private trade’ should be abolished and replaced by a flat payment to the commanders of £4000 a voyage. That would bring to an end those long, unprofitable voyages, especially those Bombay/China voyages which the Chairmen reserved for their favourites for ‘extraordinary services’. Sir Richard believed all voyages should be limited to sixteen months and an end brought to wilful loss of passage and seasons for which either the Company or the owners had paid huge demurrage bills over many decades.16 The Court of Directors respected the General Court’s resolution for making provision for those commanders who faced redundancy from the reduction of shipping. In October Captain John Stewart, commander of Duke of Albany, lost in the River Hooghly on her fourth voyage, was granted £200 per annum, the first of many awards of compensation.17 Captain Thomas Larkins had other worries as he prepared to sail for coast and bay on 7 February 1776. Word had reached the Jerusalem a few months earlier that French ships were loading at Lorient destined for Madras and Bengal with goods including those on the prohibited list. The commanders wrote to the Court of Directors voicing their concerns for their own private trade and pointing out the effect on the Company’s exclusive trade.18 The commanders were so concerned about their future that they were drafting rules for a mutual society designed to give relief to any of their number who fell on hard times and

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122 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner to lend the force of an organized body to their requests.19 In spite of these discouraging developments, Captain William Larkins must have relished the moment as he sat at Captain Thomas Larkins’s table in Lioness enjoying a grand dinner prior to her departure for the coast and bay. William’s younger son John, embarking on his fourth voyage to the East, sat at the head of the third mate’s mess in the steerage. Gilbert Slater, the managing owner, shared in the festivities. He had paid the ship and when all the legal documents had been sorted out William would be the managing owner of Lioness. Whatever new developments diminished the value of owning an Indiaman, Thomas would have the customary right to command any new ship built on her bottom, and, in due course, to pass on the command to John. With luck, the Larkins family would survive the draconian measures to reduce the Company’s excessive tonnage. William could be forgiven if his natural paternal instinct to wish his sons a safe return was sharpened by that of the businessman. According to the new by-laws, in the event of the death of the commander of a ship lost or taken on her fourth voyage the bottom would lapse.20 Both brothers were probably inspired by Captain Cook’s account of his first voyage, published in 1773. Every young navigator aspired to Cook’s high standards and achievements. In marked contrast to his father’s last voyage, Thomas recorded every aspect of the passage meticulously. William already had a command when the new method of calculating the longitude was introduced and had not been required to learn it but Thomas had been forced to master the complicated method of taking lunar observations introduced in 1768. Using Hadley’s quadrant, a great improvement on Davis’s backstaff, in conjunction with Nevil Maskelyne’s Nautical Almanac, longitude could be calculated to a great degree of accuracy.21 For the first time a watch was carried on board a ship commanded by a Larkins. Captain Larkins made sure that observations were taken frequently and the watch’s time checked against these results and the ship’s estimated position by account. As they sailed close to the coast of South America, Thomas and his officers looked out for the Abrolhas Shoal on which Cook struck soundings in 19°03′N, 35°30′W at 32 fathoms, but there was no land in sight. On 15 June they began reckoning their longitude from Cape Agulhas as they judged it bore due north at noon on 13 June. On 6 August Lioness anchored in Madras road. Captain Larkins accompanied his passengers ashore with the satisfaction of having brought his ship safely to the coast of India with a healthy company, the only death by accident when a seaman fell from the foretopsail yard and was killed instantly. He found the Council at Madras in a state of upheaval having that day seized the Governor, Lord Pigot, and

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The Company in Crisis 123 confined him at St Thomas Mount. The destroyer of Pondicherry had been appointed by the Company to serve a second term as Governor and to put into effect the policy he himself advocated: the restoration of territory taken by the nawab from Tanjore. This would have meant that the nawab’s creditors lost the assignments on the Tanjore revenues, which guaranteed the payment of their interest. Nearly all the most important Company servants were involved under their own names or that of Paul Benfield, the contractor for the government of Madras as engineer of the ramparts of the Black Town. His great wealth was derived from his huge loans to the nawab, for whom he acted as banker. All those affected had united in opposition to Governor Pigot’s firm measures. When he suspended his opponents on the Council they met in secret in Benfield’s garden house and planned to seize the Governor. Thomas found the whole Council in a state of anxiety as they awaited the repercussions from Leadenhall Street. Thomas’s worst fears were realized when Lioness anchored at Ingeli on 28 August. The French ships, which had caused so much anxiety for the commanders before they sailed, had brought all those items required by the growing population of Calcutta, as well as those goods prohibited to the British commanders and officers by the Company. The word had spread. The French paid no duty on landing their cargoes at Chandernagore, and though their goods were not allowed into Calcutta, they found a ready market amongst the military and the civil servants in the sub-factories.22 The inhabitants of Calcutta were quite prepared to go a few miles upriver on a shopping spree to stock up with cheap European goods. Thomas signed the petition delivered to the Council jointly by the commanders against the Company’s imposition of 4% import duty, which priced their goods out of the market. The Council decided to remove the duty on all articles except iron, steel and lead, which formed the main part of the Company’s imports.23 There were more pleasant aspects to the brothers’ stay in Calcutta. They had not seen their brother William since 1772 when he took up a writership in Bengal. Now they were able to be guests at William’s marriage to Mary Harris, a beautiful and fun-loving young woman. She seemed a good counterpoise to William’s over-serious nature. The young couple received their best wedding present shortly afterwards from Warren Hastings whom William greatly admired. The GovernorGeneral had already recognized the young writer’s talents and now offered him the post of sub-accountant.24 The general state of the government in Bengal was not so heartening. William told his brothers that three of the Supervisors, Colonel Clavering, Colonel Monson and Philip Francis – the last an able, ambitious man who wanted Hastings’s job –

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124 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner opposed every motion the Governor-General proposed. Supported only by his faithful Company colleague Barwell, Hastings was in a permanent minority in his own Council. All three constantly bombarded the Court of Directors with abuse of the Governor-General. As if this were not enough, the Supreme Court of Judicature, which the Government had instituted in Bengal, seized every opportunity to impress the natives with their superiority to the Governor-General. In spite of all this Hastings managed to continue his skilful diplomacy in a period of great danger to the Company’s possessions. The news of Colonel Monson’s death broke in Calcutta on 27 September while the brothers were still in the area. Hastings’s friends believed this must surely mark the end of the deadlock in government. Now, with his casting vote as GovernorGeneral, he had a majority. Lioness was directed to call at the coast on her return. She anchored on 2 January 1777 at Madras where Sir John Macpherson, Warren Hastings’s close friend, embarked for London. He knew Hastings’s spirits were very low because he could see no end to the long contest. Abused by the Court of Directors on every measure they could mark as his, Hastings knew that when the Regulating Act came up for renewal the best he could hope for would be his recall and that of his associates, making way for a new set of rulers.25 Lioness put in at the Cape, where Sir John went ashore. On his return he told them he had heard that the directors, under pressure from government, had agreed Hastings’s recall, but the proprietors had rejected the decision after a long and stormy session in the General Court. Unaccountably, Lauchlin Macleane, Warren Hastings’s agent in London, had tendered the Governor-General’s resignation. This had at least defused the situation. Sir John had written to Hastings immediately to assure him that he could continue as Governor-General without violating the spirit of his resignation while Macpherson prepared people’s minds for his remaining in office.26 Lioness reached the Downs in July 1777, her life at an end. William immediately found a buyer: the Admiralty bought her as an armed escort ship. It would be some years before the Company’s shipping was reduced to 45,000 tons. Fortunately, like many other managing owners, William combined ship ownership with banking, which provided a means of employing his capital. Thomas, with four children already, was in a less fortunate position, though he had done well with his private trade.27 Only John’s immediate future was mapped out. He was appointed second mate of Nassau, Captain Arthur Gore, who had commanded her since 1771. War with France was in the air. The French realized that their defeat during the Seven Years’ War had been caused by weakness at sea and a succession of excellent Ministers of Marine had brought

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The Company in Crisis 125 about great improvements in the French navy. A new spirit and greater efficiency reigned as France prepared for revanche.28 Britain’s weakening position in the American war offered her the chance. Benjamin Franklin had been trying to persuade France to come in on the side of the colonies for some time and the French had already afforded a good deal of help to the Americans. Increased activity at Brest suggested intervention would soon begin.29 Nassau sailed from Portsmouth on 8 March 1778 with Company recruits for Madras. Captain Gore lost no time in making it clear to the soldiers that they were not there just for the ride. When one refused to lay hold of a rope, announcing that if the rest had any sense they would do the same, the captain immediately gave the order to punish him with twelve lashes of the cat-o’-nine tails. It was salutary. The recruit promised to behave himself in future.30 Nassau anchored at Madras on 27 August 1778. Next day the Governor ordered Captain Gore ‘to go on the service to Pondicherry’. News of the outbreak of war with France on 8 April had reached Fort St George in July, with instructions to attack the French if the Governor and Council thought they had superior strength. The Madras Council had immediately decided to attack Pondicherry and prepared a force under General Munro. They invited Admiral Sir Edward Vernon, whose squadron had just arrived on the coast from Bombay where it had been refitting, to participate, and he agreed. As General Munro’s force approached Pondicherry by land, Admiral Vernon’s squadron was deployed to cut off supplies by sea and prevent French reinforcements from Mauritius reaching their destination.31 The British fleet found the French squadron under Captain Trou Jolie already off Pondicherry. The French immediately put to sea and bore down on Sir Edward’s ships, engaging them for two hours. Trou Jolie then withdrew to the southward and at daybreak the French had disappeared. Sir Edward carried on with his squadron to Pondicherry, his ships’ masts and rigging very much cut about. He sent to Madras for support and the Council ordered Glatton and Valentine East Indiamen down the coast but Glatton was too slow and had to return. Nassau was sent down to replace her. Fired by the prospect of prize money, the seamen lost no time in knocking down all the cabins fore and aft and clearing the ship for action. After taking on board thirty-four Company soldiers to help defend the ship, Nassau stood down the coast in company with Southampton and St Helena country ship from Bengal under convoy of HM Cormorant sloop. All the ships exercised the great guns during the passage. On 6 September they saw the English fleet lying five to six miles off shore to the southwest: HM Rippon, Sir Edward’s flagship, HM Coventry, Captain

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126 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner Marlow, and Valentine and Bessborough Indiamen. The following morning Captain Gore went on board the commodore to receive signals and instructions and at noon the fleet weighed and stood to the northward under topsails. On 8 September all the ships anchored in Pondicherry road. The armourer on the Nassau was kept busy at the forge while the seamen and soldiers were building a barricade with stanchions and rattans on the fore part of the quarterdeck. For four weeks the fleet blockaded the French presidency. On 8 October John and the fifth mate and thirty hands were ordered on board the flagship, HM Rippon, which immediately chased a snow and took her. Boats from all the ships in the fleet landed parties to fetch stores, while the naval ships chased strangers and cruised to check on the activities of any French ships reported in the area. The weather was already beginning to deteriorate with the break-up of the monsoon and the ships struggled to maintain their stations against a strong southerly current. After three more weeks maintaining a close blockade all the ships’ companies were rewarded by the sight of the British flag flying over the Fort of Pondicherry. Monday was a day of celebration. The fort saluted the fleet with 21 guns, the fleet replying with an equal number. At noon the fleet weighed. The commodore hoisted the standard of England at the main topmast head and the broad pendant at the mizzen topmast head, upon which all the guns of Pondicherry fired and all the ships’ guns responded in turn with a feu de joie. John and the other men returned to Nassau and after a brief stop at Madras she continued her passage to Bengal. With the northeast monsoon well established, she sailed over to the Burmese coast, battling against a swell from the eastward. They sighted the Isle of Preparis in 94°43′E longitude then steered a northwest course to Bengal. On 25 January 1779 Nassau anchored at Kedgeree alongside three other Indiamen. John lost no time going to see his brother William and his lively wife and daughters. William was now churchwarden of St John’s Church and their home was always full of ‘objects of compassion’ who had fallen on hard times. William’s professional life was no less demanding. His loyalty to Hastings earned him the enmity of all those whose aim in life was to work for Hastings’s destruction. The GovernorGeneral had stuck to his post despite his resignation being handed in at Leadenhall Street and the government was now too busy elsewhere to concern themselves with his future. Nassau and Southampton were ordered down to Madras to pick up more cargo, as there was not sufficient at Bengal. John and the other officers shared Captain Gore’s anxiety at the prospect of sailing in April, long after the final charter party date for leaving Bengal.32 The

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The Company in Crisis 127 northwesters were at their height, wild, sudden tempests that jostled the ships at their moorings and tested the ground tackle to the limit. For several days both ships lay in a wild, open sea, eight miles from land, surrounded by surf breaking violently on the sands. John expected the cables to part every minute but the pilot dared not move the ships. On 3 May, with a hard gale from the south, the two ships stood to the east-southeast. Though the Council’s instructions to the commanders were on no account to separate, but keep as close as weather permitted, Southampton proved to be such a poor sailor Nassau managed to lose her during a particularly boisterous night. Throughout May, Nassau struggled to make headway in the face of an uninterrupted gale with incessant rain and squalls, keeping the eastern shore of the Bay well on board. Every day the jacks, sheets or halyards were carried away, or the sails split. After passing the Andaman Islands, Captain Gore consulted his officers on the necessity of calling at Malacca to refit and replenish. All agreed and they bore up two points and stood for the Straits. After twenty-four hours the wind moderated and the officers agreed with the captain that she might make Madras after all. On 4 June the sun suddenly appeared and John was able to make an observation. Now sure of their latitude and with the northern point of Sumatra and the Nicobars clearly in view, they stood confidently for the Sombrere Channel between Kutchuk Island and Little Nicobar. The wind increased towards evening and she sped along with the wind on the beam under closereefed topsails. John went on duty on the first watch with the fifth mate as Captain Gore and the passengers settled down to celebrate the King’s birthday. About 9 o’clock he noticed a black spot which he could not account for right ahead. He ordered the helmsman to keep the ship half a point nearer the wind. He pointed out the black spot to the fifth mate, and several seamen agreed with the younger officer’s view that it was a cloud. John was not convinced. He ordered the lead to be cast. It showed fifteen fathoms. Immediately John sent a quartermaster to request Captain Gore to come on deck. By the time he arrived land was clearly visible from the lee bow to abaft the beam. Captain Gore panicked, giving orders and counter orders in the same breath. Mr Greer, the first mate, who had kept his cabin through indisposition since leaving Bengal, appeared and called for the anchor to be dropped. John realized this would be madness in such a sea. In the general commotion of people and passengers crowding the deck he managed to prevail. He persuaded the passengers to go back into the roundhouse and convinced the captain that their only hope was to make as much sail as the conditions allowed and clear the land. The boatswain, an enormous,

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128 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner powerful man, set an example to the seamen by going aloft and out on to the main topsail weather yard. Others followed and soon they had let out a reef in each of the topsails and set the courses, reefed. They hauled Nassau very close to the wind, expecting every minute that something would give way, but she held and within two hours she had cleared the dark land towering above her masts. No one could believe that this island, right in the middle of a very frequented channel between Madras and the Straits of Malacca, had remained uncharted. On 29 June, forty-nine days out from Bengal and with diminishing morale among the people, Nassau anchored in Madras road. The Governor and Council ordered her to wait for Southampton but as July gave way to August and August to September nobody any longer believed she would ever be seen again. On 3 September a sail appeared on the horizon and a few hours later Southampton anchored alongside Nassau, 114 days out from Bengal. Captain Lennox blamed the great delay on his nephew and chief mate who had insisted on taking lunar observations, a newfangled process that Captain Lennox had no time for.33 As it was highly likely the French would intercept Nassau and Southampton, the Madras Council planned that Sir Edward Vernon in the Rippon should escort them to Europe, provided his successor Sir Edward Hughes arrived in time. Meanwhile Captain Gore and Captain Lennox were ordered to receive on board each ship eleven French officers and seventy private soldiers from the garrison at Pondicherry and convey them to Britain according to the articles of capitulation.34 The officers, who were on parole, were to travel as passengers and be treated with respect. Captain Gore was furious. He swore he would not take one man of them and asked the purser to write to government to that effect. Mr Darling temporized and declined. Captain Gore had to accept the order, encouraged by Governor Sir Thomas Rumbold’s assurance of a generous allowance. The captain’s temper was not improved by the arrival amongst the passengers of a large family with excessive amounts of luggage but eventually all were accommodated. On 11 October the Madras flag was struck, indicating that all shipping should leave the coast as insurance ceased until 11 December. The Governor and Council ordered the two commanders to sail with the fleet to Dutch Trincomalee, the only refuge on the west side of the Bay of Bengal at the height of the northwest monsoon. If Sir Edward Hughes did not arrive, releasing Admiral Vernon, the two Indiamen were to sail at all risks after the end of November without convoy. On 23 October the fleet anchored in Trincomalee harbour but as November drew to a close there was still no sign of Sir Edward Hughes’s

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The Company in Crisis 129 fleet. On the last day of the month Sir Edward Vernon ordered Nassau and Southampton to depart. Scurvy began to affect the crew within a few days. Captain Gore became increasingly alarmed at the sight of the French officers with their side arms. His fears for the security of his ship got the better of him and he ordered the officers to give up their swords. They remonstrated but finally submitted, choosing to don full regimentals and ceremoniously throw their swords overboard rather than surrender them. Scurvy had considerably reduced the number of men capable of duty by the latter part of December. To make matters worse, off Madagascar the weather became very boisterous. The Indiamen sailed as far south as 39°5′S latitude in an attempt to evade enemy ships out of Mauritius and ran into a tremendous gale from the west-northwest. By the last week of January the weather had moderated but the scurvy had become an epidemic. Six hands died in the space of three days, all suddenly. Twelve days later the sick list was up to thirty-three. Captain Gore was beside himself. He refused to receive the sick list from the doctor and forbade the tolling of the bell prior to the committal of a corpse to the deep. He shut himself in his cabin, appearing only for meals. Mr Smith, the surgeon, a very able man, tried everything to halt the spread of the disease. He prescribed all the anti-scorbutics in common use – wine, sugar, spruce – but nothing had any effect. He opened up the first three victims in the hope of learning something but their internal organs were all healthy. Mr Greer, the first mate, spent most of the time locked up in his cabin. He was always drunk when he emerged, provoking Captain Gore to abuse him and evoking comments on Gore’s lack of seamanship from Greer. On one occasion Gore ran for his sword and only the boatswain’s presence of mind in picking up Greer bodily and depositing him by force in his cabin prevented the drawing of blood. The French prisoners buckled to and worked the ship, those who had previously been seamen really proving their worth. Nevertheless, John was convinced Nassau would never reach Europe unless the crew were enabled to recuperate. On several occasions he suggested to Captain Gore that they try to reach a port, but the distracted commander would not make a decision. When the active members of the crew were down to a handful of men Mr Larkins decided to adopt another approach. After dinner on 30 January he addressed the commander in front of the other officers and passengers. He pointed out that only himself and the fifth mate among the officers and sixteen members of crew were capable of duty. The fresh provisions were exhausted and, in his view, despite the risks of meeting enemy ships they should make for the

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130 William Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner Cape, the nearest port. John’s arguments were so forceful Captain Gore had to accept them. He ordered his second mate to speak Southampton immediately and inform her that Nassau’s situation was desperate and they must run for port. Captain Lennox agreed that it was necessary for the preservation of both ships. On 1 February Nassau and Southampton struck soundings on the Cape Bank off Cape Agulhas and sighted land early the following morning. As the wind was blowing very strongly on shore the two commanders decided to make for False Bay, rather than round the Cape, in order to avoid enemy ships. The two ships sailed close into the land and ran along shore until they opened False Bay and ran directly in. The great hulk of a ship lay on the shore, a reminder of the hidden reefs and rocks in this bay. They learned it was Colebrooke East Indiaman which had sailed from Britain a month after Nassau and had struck a rock entering the Bay on 24 August 1778. Captain Gore set Nassau’s course for Simon’s Bay, on the west side of False Bay, where they would find a little more protection from the wind. The officers took great care as the bay is notorious for rocks and shoals and Nassau came to an anchor at 6pm on 13 February. Captain Gore and all the passengers went ashore immediately to learn from Governor Brandt that Captain Trou Joli and six ships of the line were cruising off the Cape of Good Hope. The French ships had failed to spot the Indiamen as they were in the habit of standing further out to sea at dusk to give themselves plenty of sea room. As the French fleet was expected to remain cruising up to the 40° station until April the two East Indiamen were to remain under the protection of the Dutch. The Dutch governor sent an armed Dutch ship round to False Bay to protect the British ships from any devious attempts to take them, while Trou Joli stationed a frigate at the mouth of the Bay ready to take the ships should they move. The presence of the French squadron delayed the Indiamen’s departure, enabling all the ships’ companies to enjoy the largess of the Cape and freedom ashore. Unfortunately the plentiful bounty came too late for some. Two seamen and a midshipman died very soon after arriving in False Bay. Thirteen seamen were taken on to make up the numbers and men released from the hospital rejoined the crew. On 11 April Resolution and Discovery anchored, returning from their cruises. John heard about Captain Cook’s tragic end in Hawaii and the subsequent voyage of exploration up the northwest coast of America as far as the Arctic Sea.35 With the departure of Trou Joli and his squadron, recently arrived HM Sybille gave the signal on 2 May to prepare to sail and in a little over four months the fleet reached the Downs.

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The Company in Crisis 131 *** As William retired from the sea and took over the management of Lioness, the Company’s fortunes plunged so alarmingly that both King and government stepped in to prevent the bankruptcy of this important financial institution. The price of this support was British government involvement in the government of Bengal and the strict curtailment of the total tonnage of the Company’s chartered ships. The commanders combined in a society to protect their interests, successfully obtaining compensation for those commanders who faced unemployment. They also obtained a reduction on the duties they paid on their privilege goods entering Calcutta to neutralize French competition. On the whole William felt optimistic. His sons were established in the Company’s maritime service and the Bengal government and he could look beyond the present restrictions to a prosperous future for his family. Notes   1 Sutherland, East India Company, p. 226. For a study of the General Court in the 1760s and 1770s, see H. V. Bowen, ‘The “Little Parliament”; the General Court of the East India Company, 1750–1784’, Historical Journal, vol. 34 (1991), pp. 857–72; and Bowen, Business of Empire, chapter 3, pp. 53–83, passim.   2 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 27 November 1771 and 31 December 1771: the Committee of Correspondence and Law Suits came down hard on one of the chief culprits in November 1771 when the Court received information that Captain Todd had purchased Peter Hardwick’s command of Earl of Lincoln. The managing owner, Mr Durand, was forbidden to sign any charter parties for the time being. The rest of the owners of the ships of which he was managing owner were advised to appoint another to sign in his place. No tenders were to be received from Mr Durand in future.   3 D. B. Horne and M. Ransome, English Historical Documents, vol. 10, p. 597.   4 BL, APAC, LMAR/1/36, Extracts, 15 March 1771.   5 Ibid., 3 January 1772. An additional clause stated that there was to be no limit on ships built in India but the powerful London shipping interest prevented this development for a generation.   6 Ibid., 29 October, 26 November and 1 December 1773: several owners requested permission to call at Madeira but some were refused.   7 David Hancock, ‘An Undiscovered Ocean of Commerce Laid Open: India, Wine and the Emerging Atlantic Economy, 1703–1813’, in Worlds of the East India Company, eds Bowen et al., pp. 156–7. Twenty pipes were allowed to the commanders and officers and five to the commander to dispense or sell as he wished.   8 BL, APAC, H/20, 20 December 1772–3 July 1773; Bowen, ‘Privilege and Profit’,

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132 Notes to Chapter 6

  9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16

17

18

19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27

especially pp. 56–67. Sir Richard Hotham, Letter to the Proprietors of East India Stock, 31 January 1775. Sutherland, East India Company, p. 238. Ibid., p. 248: 13 Geo.III c64. Ibid., p. 337: the Regulating Act, 13 Geo. III c. 63, was to last for ten years. For discussion of the Company’s problems during these years and the government’s response, see Philip Lawson, The East India Company (London, 1993), pp. 116–25. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/1, Brief historical sketch, ff. 33–5. Ibid., f. 39. BL, APAC, V/27/220/6: By-laws printed in 1774: no. 30 incorporated the agreement already made with the Admiralty prohibiting any new building until the total tonnage had been reduced to 45,000 tons, or for six years; no. 39 stated that no ship should be repaired to go beyond four voyages; no. 40 that on attaining the target of 45,000 tons, ships should be employed in rotation; no. 42 introduced a stringent process to prevent ships sailing half-laden. Hotham, Letter to the Proprietors: e.g. Captain John Clements in Royal Charlotte sailed on 19 February 1772 and returned on 12 August 1775. The first two years were spent sailing up and down the Malabar coast, the most profitable of the port to port cruises, before going on to China. See Farrington, Ships’ Journals. BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 19 October 1774 and 30 November 1774: Captain Richard Doveton, returning in Glatton from her fourth voyage, was able to prove a minimum income and received £200 to tide him over until permission was given to build on Glatton’s bottom. Guildhall Library, Society of East India Commanders memorial book MS 31376, no. 7, memorial of the commanders to the Court of Directors, 25 October 1775. Lorient was the European headquarters of the Compagnie des Indes. Ibid., 28 February 1776. BL, APAC, V/27/220/6, By-laws, no. 41. Maskelyne was the Astronomer Royal. The Almanac predicted lunar distances for every three hours of every day of the year. This method was accepted by the Board of Longitude in May 1765. It required great mathematical skill and involved lengthy computations. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/1, 7 October 1768: the Court of Directors resolved that in future all officers and mates would be required to produce certificates vouching that they were qualified in the method of lunar observation before being examined for the position of mate. BL, APAC, R. P. Patwardham (ed.), FWIHC, vol. VII, 1773–6, Letter no. 40, p. 460. Ibid.: the council ‘could not but see the expediency of granting every reasonable encouragement to the exportation of British manufactures and importation of private trade on the Company’s ships’. Ibid., p. 455. H. H. Dodwell (ed.), Warren Hastings’ Letters to Sir John Macpherson (London, 1927), p. 51, 17 January 1777. Ibid., pp. 56–7. BL, APAC, L/AG/1/6/17: sums paid by Captain Thomas Larkins for Company

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Notes to Chapter 6 133

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

charges and customs duty on his private trade goods sold at the Company’s sales following Lioness’s return to England in 1777 were among the highest. E. H. Jenkins, The History of the French Navy (London, 1973), pp. 143–7. Sir H. W. Richmond, The Navy in India 1763–83 (London, 1931), p. 77. L/MAR/B/544G-H: Journal of John Larkins, Second Mate, 16 December 1777–21 October 1780. Richmond, The Navy in India, pp. 80–1. BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 28 June 1769: changes in the charter party agreed between the Court of Directors and the managing owners stated that the limit for ships leaving Madras was 11 March. Hickey, Memoirs, vol. 2, p. 203. William Hickey sailed on the Nassau from Bengal to the Cape of Good Hope. The following account is from Hickey, Memoirs, vol. 2, pp. 202–22. Nigel Rigby and Pieter van der Merwe, Captain Cook in the Pacific (London, 2002), pp. 57–61.

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Part III THOMAS LARKINS, COMMANDER AND MANAGING OWNER

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Seven THE DARKEST YEARS

THE GLOOMY prospects for East India shipping pervading the Jerusalem in the middle of the 1770s lasted barely five years. By the middle of 1779 the Committee of Shipping was facing a shortage of tonnage to carry exports and troops to India, where the struggle with the French and Mysore was becoming a matter of survival. The Court met the immediate shortfall by suspending the 39th by-law and taking up two ships for a fifth voyage.1 When ships began to arrive from India they brought news from the Presidencies of delays in the despatch of shipping.2 Immediately the Court gave permission to build on the next ten bottoms. Lioness was one of these.3 The shortage of ships was so great by the summer of 1780 that the Court advertised for ships of 500 to 1000 tons for one voyage.4 Eleven ships were taken up, adding almost 8000 tons to that season’s shipping.5 Britain’s situation became desperate in December 1780 when the government declared war on the Netherlands.6 Early in 1781 news reached London that sent shock waves through the India House and the Jerusalem. A whole convoy comprising five outward bound East Indiamen and forty-seven vessels bound to the West Indies had been captured by the combined Franco-Spanish fleet to the north of the Madeiras in August 1780.7 The realization that for the first time in thirty years the Navy had lost control of the main sea lanes caused panic at Lloyd’s. The Court acted quickly, taking several decisions in one day.8 The directors exonerated all the commanders and officers of the captured ships and gave the owners leave to build on their bottoms. They consulted the owners of those ships returning from the East and obtained their agreement to dock the ships immediately on their arrival in the river. They empowered the Chairman and Deputy

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138 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner Chairman to buy one or more ships to be employed as they thought suitable and directed them to provide two small fast vessels to carry ‘advices’. At its quarterly meeting in April, the General Court tore up the eighth by-law for the duration of the war and empowered the directors to purchase ships to transport much-needed troops to India, provided they were not allowed to load homeward.9 The owners were not slow to take advantage of the Court’s embarrassment. Their leader, Sir Robert Preston, demanded £48.14s freight for China, an increase of more than ten pounds on that of 1780, and the Court succeeded in bringing it down by only £1.10s.10 The Committee of Shipping responded immediately, taking up several additional ships at a lower freight. William concluded a contract for building an Indiaman, naming Thomas Larkins as commander, with William Barnard of Deptford who owned yards at Grove Street and Deptford Green on the north side of Deptford Creek.11 The cost of building ships had been rising steadily. The £8.10s per ton paid for the Boscawen had almost doubled to £15.15s.12 Both yards were working at full capacity. Gabriel Snodgrass, the Company’s Surveyor of Shipping, visited Barnard’s every day to check the quality of the materials and the workmanship13 and to make sure that all the improvements he had introduced into the building of the Company’s ships over the past two decades were incorporated.14 When the hull was completed it went into dry dock where several tons of ‘brads’, large-headed nails, were driven into the ship’s bottom and wales. The heads soon rusted in salt water and congealed to form a carapace, which had some deterrent effect on the teredo worm.15 Ports for twenty-six guns were cut on the main and upper decks to accommodate the customary twenty-two nine-pounders and four four-pounders. Early in July William’s busy schedule was interrupted by a summons from the Shipping Committee to come up to India House. Nassau, Captain Gore, had put into Plymouth with severe damage, and the directors wanted him to inspect her on the Company’s behalf, with two of the owners. Nassau, on which John Larkins was first mate, had arrived on the Motherbank on 11 May 1781 where a company of the 78th Regiment embarked. Despite predatory naval lieutenants and the temptations of Portsmouth, John managed to keep his company intact for five weeks but was relieved when the convoy finally cleared the land. On 3 July, not far west of the Lizard, in a hard gale, heavy squalls and a great sea, Nassau began to labour extremely and ship a great deal of water. At midnight Captain Gore consulted his officers on getting Nassau on another tack. It was not an easy choice: whether to stay on that tack and risk her going under or change tack and risk losing the convoy. John believed that parting with the fleet was too dangerous an option

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The Darkest Years 139 and his fellow officers agreed that they should continue on course. By 3am the situation had deteriorated to such an extent that Captain Gore consulted his officers again. Now all agreed they had no choice but to get her head round the other way. At that moment, she lurched heavily; all the boats on the booms were fetched away, the mainmast had great play in the partners and the decision was out of their hands. They had to change tack. They fired a gun as they wore but the convoy took no notice, so they stood for the Channel. At 6am the following day, they spoke HM Medway and Captain Gore went on board to ask her captain for protection, which was granted. William Larkins and the two owners found there was a good deal of damage to Nassau’s upper works and all three were determined to see her bottom. Weeks of tedious hanging about finally ended when a slip and a team of shipwrights and caulkers were made available. The cargo had already been transferred under the watchful eye of the Customs officers and the 78th regiment moved to alternative accommodation. Now all the people and the recruits were transferred to a hulk and John’s difficulties in hanging on to all his men increased. When his third and fourth mates ran Captain Gore determined to make an example of them to deter the rest of the company. Both were hunted down, brought back to the hulk and punished with the lash. William and the owners found the false keel, the keel and the rudder all in a bad state. By 17 September, Nassau was repaired and heaved out of dock but loading went on until mid-January. In the bitter cold, advance money and clothing had to be doled out to the recruits who, as usual, had sold their clothing before leaving Britain.16 Captain Gore gave orders to sail Nassau into the Sound to await convoy. The crew’s mood was disquieting. On 30 January, the ship’s company was given one month’s pay to scotch any rebellion, but the whole company signed a petition demanding more. Captain Gore ignored this. Two days later when he gave the order to unmoor no one moved. Their spokesman said they refused to proceed until the whole of the river pay was paid up to the day of sailing. Neither the captain nor John could persuade them to wait until the Nassau reached Portsmouth. Captain Gore had no choice but to submit. He sent John ashore to borrow sufficient cash to pay the men in full. In the event, Nassau never reached Portsmouth. In a strong westerly wind with pouring rain Captain Thomas Larkins saw Nassau come out of the Sound escorted by a frigate and join the convoy. Captain Larkins was in command of the new ship Warren Hastings, named after the family’s idol, and the proud father of a second son named John after his uncle. Captain Larkins’s old friend Nathaniel Dance was his first mate.17

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140 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner Twenty-six years earlier, as boys on Clinton, they had shared their first experience of sailing to the eastern seas. Dance had been put to great trouble getting and keeping men. As soon as he had managed to get seamen to agree to sail with him, he had taken them straight up to India House to sign agreements before any other mates grabbed them. The cost in coaches and beer to keep them in a good mood had been excessive but necessary.18 The competition with the navy and with other Indiamen for seamen meant not only that it was difficult to get men, but they demanded top rates.19 The unwieldy convoy of sixteen East Indiamen and two India transports with ten King’s ships progressed slowly down the Atlantic Ocean in two divisions, larboard and starboard, hampered by some bad sailers which had to be towed by the naval ships. Scurvy soon appeared on Warren Hastings. Thomas served a pint of spruce beer with each man’s ration of three pints of water per day but by the beginning of April five soldiers and a seaman had been committed to the deep.20 The fleet could not put into the Cape to refresh. A year earlier at Porto Praya in the Cape Verdes, le Baillie de Suffren commanding a French fleet had overtaken and disabled a British fleet sent to pre-empt a French takeover of the Cape of Good Hope. The fleet put into Rio de Janeiro to renew supplies. The first mate and the other officers had to be very vigilant throughout the whole of May while in port to prevent men deserting and running goods. Thomas dealt severely with anyone guilty of either offence, ordering several to receive two dozen lashes. By 5 June when the fleet weighed, three more men had died and been interred ashore. The men’s health did not improve when the fleet sailed. Within two weeks nine men had died from fever or flux or unrecorded causes. Every day, the mournful tolling of the ship’s bell summoned the company on deck to witness the sad ceremony of committing a body to the deep: not only soldiers now, but a sergeant’s wife and a two-year-old child.21 Such news as reached them of French activities in India was not encouraging. A Danish ship which had left the Cape the previous Saturday brought news that Suffren had landed 1200 troops there. He had attempted to take command, but the Dutch soldiers had come near to mutiny at the prospect of being governed by the French and he had given up the attempt. Five of his ships had sailed for Mauritius to join Comte d’Orves who, it was believed, was planning a secret expedition to India, probably to Bombay. Intelligence sources suggested he hoped to embark 7000 men but his fleet was desperately short of naval stores. It made sense for the French to attack Bombay with its harbour approachable at all seasons and its docks capable of receiving and repairing ships

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The Darkest Years 141 of the line.22 On 5 September, the fleet sighted Malabar Hill and by the evening all the ships had anchored in Bombay harbour. Panic had prevailed for some time in Bombay due to intelligence that eleven ships of the line with about 4000 men, presumed French, had sailed in November 1781 with orders to attack Bombay. Boats from Muscat had reported seeing several men of war sailing up the African coast and an attack had been daily expected.23 Later intelligence had suggested that d’Orves had joined Suffren at Colombo to take on board Dutch troops and intended making a junction with Haidar Ali of Mysore on the Coromandel or Malabar coast. Other intelligence suggested that Suffren had sailed from Mauritius to the coast to attack Madras in January 1782.24 The one good piece of news was that a combined naval and Bombay Marine force had exterminated Haidar Ali’s fleet off Mangalore in December 1780. Mysore no longer posed a threat at sea.25 On 19 September, Warren Hastings sailed south with Sir Richard Bickerton’s squadron, reinforced by men pressed from all the Indiamen. On 7 October, they sighted Cape Comorin. Knowing that Suffren was off the Coromandel coast with the French fleet, the squadron was on top alert and exercised the great guns despite the squally southern swell. Five days later the fleet was off Madras. Thomas learned that Suffren had taken Trincomalee, which Sir Edward Hughes, Commander-inChief in the Eastern Seas, had battered into submission as soon as he learned of the war against the Dutch. Now the only safe refuge on the west side of the Bay of Bengal during the northeast monsoon was denied to the British fleet. But despite the inferiority of his squadron, Admiral Hughes had shown superb leadership and consistently denied Suffren the freedom of the Bay of Bengal. The reinforcements brought by Sir Richard Bickerton reversed the French Admiral’s earlier superiority, though both fleets were desperately short of men. Thomas found Madras an island, the whole coast from Cape Comorin to Fort St George in enemy hands and the hinterland controlled by Haidar Ali. Many of the splendid houses belonging to the Company’s servants were in a ruinous condition, their woodwork torn out by Haidar’s soldiers for firewood. Banditti infested the whole country round about. Famine had exacerbated the impoverished state of the country people. The roads approaching Madras were strewn with the skeletons of those who had failed to reach the town and relief. The treasury was empty; Fort St George was completely dependent on Fort William for supplies. The army, unpaid for a long time, had suffered defeat after defeat, the few survivors prisoners in Haidar’s hands. Nothing short of a million pounds would solve Fort St George’s problems.26 But Thomas found

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142 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner the inhabitants of Madras, Company servants and civilians alike, in excellent humour. Agent victuallers were well on the way to ruining the finances of the Presidency.27 War meant profit from contracts supplying the army with mules and warlike stores, and high interest on loans to government – or to the enemy, even though the British government had made that illegal.28 Paul Benfield entertained lavishly in the palatial splendour of his house on Choultry Plain, enjoying the fruits of years of fraudulent activity, his stable of fine Arab horses at the service of his guests.29 Thomas shared in a small way in the fruits of war. In order to meet the great demand in India for metals, the directors had introduced new regulations increasing the commanders’ privilege to forty-two tons of lead, iron and steel. They could now include twenty-one tons of copper, previously a prohibited item.30 His wines and glassware found a good market amongst the greatly increased military and naval personnel on the coast. Arriving in Calcutta on 15 December Thomas found the Europe captains complaining of desertion of their seamen and artificers. They had appealed to the Board to take action to prevent naval lieutenants seducing their men from their duty and asked for an occasional guard to arrest any suspects. The Board agreed, provided the men were lodged at the commanders’ expense, but could not grant their remaining companies exemption from the press.31 Once he had his private trade in the agent’s hands Thomas was free to go to see his brother. He found William’s house full of people who had proved inadequate in the aggressive moneymaking hothouse of Calcutta. William was a sidesman at St John’s church and appeared to devote all the hours not taken up with his arduous work as Accountant-General caring for others. Mary supported him, but this and her duties to her ever-growing family left little time for diversion for this pretty young woman. They now had four daughters, the two youngest named after Warren Hastings’s wife Marian.32 William’s official work was very demanding. The revenues had all been used up by the military and by the Company’s servants acting as agents to procure bullocks and supplies, and any surplus funds had been sent to Fort St George and Bombay. Hastings’s one goal was to leave the sub-continent in a situation where Britain could progress successfully towards supremacy and fear no enemies. He subordinated everything to that aim, including his own fortune. He had cast around in desperation to collect as much money as possible, ultimately seizing the territory of the rajah of Benares, Chait Singh,33 and forcing the agents of the Begums of Oudh to pay up by fair means or foul.34 The Court had written to Warren Hastings and the other Presidencies expressing its ‘earnest hope that nothing has been done, on the part of the GovernorGeneral and Council of Bengal, to occasion uneasiness to, or affect the

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The Darkest Years 143 property of Rajah Cheyt Sing [sic], or to degrade him; as we wish to observe the strictest justice towards all the Native Powers of Indostan, but especially towards those who are, directly or indirectly, connected with the East India Company’.35 The Company had expressed concern at William’s estimates of the probable resources and disbursements for the year 30 April 1781–1 May 1782.36 They felt it was absolutely necessary to conclude peace with the country powers but until then the Governor-General and Council must pay the army and provide the land and sea forces with every assistance. The Carnatic was priority, but every area had to have supplies. William felt the whole family would benefit from a sea voyage and decided they would sail with Thomas to Bombay when he received his despatches.37 News of Haidar Ali’s death reached the Presidency late in December. There was little to celebrate. Tipu would not be an improvement on his father. He was known to hate the British, especially since they had failed to support Mysore in 1772 despite the conclusion of a treaty of mutual support with the Madras Council. General Sir Eyre Coote was about to leave for the coast with reinforcements, the sepoy army following by land. It was known that the ageing de Bussy was on his way to the coast to command the French land troops and support Tipu Sultan. On Warren Hastings, Mr Dance was mainly concerned with hanging on to the few healthy European seamen he had left. Sir Edward Hughes was desperate for men and requested the Bengal government’s assistance in procuring 300 European seamen from the East Indiamen and the country ships.38 The government cooperated and ordered fifteen men to be pressed from each Indiaman. Thomas instructed Nathaniel to send all the men up to Calcutta to avoid the press the moment news of the approach of men of war reached his ears. Accordingly, on the arrival on 3 March of HM ships St. Carlos and Southampton, Mr Dance sent all the seamen up to town in the longboat, leaving only twenty Lascars on board. But on 21 March a lieutenant from the St Carlos appeared without warning and pressed fifteen of his men, leaving only thirty-five Europeans of whom five were sick. A week later the ship’s company attempted to weigh the small bower anchor to moor more securely as the new moon was likely to bring bad weather, but they were so weak they had to give up the attempt. As Mr Dance recorded in the log, they ‘could not heave a lead’ let alone raise an anchor. They signalled for assistance but there was no response. On the following day, twenty-six coolies came on board from the shore and helped to service the cables, very welcome as the weather was squally with thunder and lightning for many days and nights. Towards the end of April, Captain Larkins ­embarked with his brother and family.

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144 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner *** At about the time Warren Hastings arrived in the Hooghly, Nassau was sailing down the Malabar coast with Sir Richard Bickerton’s squadron transporting reinforcements for the troops attacking the few forts occupied by Tipu Sultan. When the fleet reached the Mirzee river it came under fire from a small fort at the entrance. The boats of the fleet successfully delivered the heavy guns and military stores to the Company’s troops on the opposite shore. During the night, under heavy enemy fire, Nassau’s longboat assisted in transporting the troops across the river. They took the fort and a dockyard where a large ship, almost completed, was on the stocks. The squadron carried on down the coast to Onore where they anchored the same day. Very heavy fire during the night from the great guns of the fort indicated hostilities were in progress. Nassau’s company managed to land heavy guns and men under rocket fire and began bombarding the fort which returned a brisk fire. Tipu had returned to the east coast on hearing of his father’s death, and the Bombay army took the opportunity to mount a counter offensive. On 4 January, several East Indiamen and ships of war arrived bringing reinforcements under Brigadier General Mathews. On Sunday 6 January, the General gave the order to storm the fort and the English flag soon appeared, all the ships’ guns joining in the salute. The squadron continued down the coast and on 15 January Nassau came to off the entrance to Cundapore river. At midnight, she manned all her boats and sent them over to the transports to assist in landing troops. Bombay Grab and HMS Intrepid got close inshore to provide covering fire while the troops were landed and formed up on the beach. They were soon in possession of several forts along the shore to the south of the river. Nassau received orders to continue down the coast and on arrival at Anjengo found orders from the Governor and Council at Bombay to proceed to Joanna to pick up Hanoverian troops. By mid-February she was short of water but they failed to find a watering place off the African coast. Captain Gore held a consultation of his officers. All agreed that they had sufficient provisions, that the liquor was still good and as it was the rainy season they would have enough water. But they decided they were not sufficiently supplied and victualled to reach Joanna and should make the best of their way back to Bombay. They broke up the hencoops to provide wood for a fire to set the still operating and made up the water ration with rainwater.39 On 22 May, they made Socotra where they watered and bought several bullocks. There they learned that the Hanoverian troops had been taken off Joanna by Brilliant.

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The Darkest Years 145 After ­consultation with his officers, Captain Gore decided to return to Bombay where Nassau arrived on 9 June to find that neither Brilliant nor the Hanoverian troops had arrived.40 She had struck a rock at Joanna on 28 August 1782 and become a total wreck, with great loss of life. On 22 July, John saw Warren Hastings arrive from Bengal in strong winds with pouring rain. She had had a tedious passage down the east side of the Bay of Bengal, south of the Equator and westward as far as 68°E longitude before heading northeast to Bombay. Her ship’s company was so weak they could not carry a press of sail to keep her off the coast, and fearing the men would not have the strength to weigh the anchor, Thomas had given the order to cut and run. Thomas’s priority was to get Warren Hastings into dock as she had been leaking badly for most of the passage. She was hauled into the outer dock and on 18 August the sheathing was stripped off on the larboard side. There was a patch which appeared never to have been caulked though all the rest of her bottom was in a very good condition. The Parsi Wadia family’s shipyard was impressive, its facilities exceeding those of the leading merchant shipyards on the Thames.41 David Scott, the richest and most influential man in Bombay, would have lost no time inviting the brothers to Grove House on Malabar Point, ‘the healthiest and pleasantest spot in Bombay’.42 The inhabitants of the poor relation of the three Presidencies rarely had the ear of anyone connected with the centre of power in Bengal, though Scott was known to and respected by the Governor-General.43 Scott was not the Governor or Member of Council. He was a partner in the Agency House of Scott, Tate and Adamson, one of several which had flourished in recent years by investing private individuals’ funds in trade, mainly to the eastern archipelago and China. The Bombay government was indebted to Scott personally and to his subscribers to the tune of £400,000. Over excellent food and wine, David Scott would have pressed his radical views on the man with the ear of the Governor-General. William would have been familiar with some of his arguments, which were shared by at least one leading private merchant in Calcutta.44 The devastation caused by the present war was experienced in Bengal, Bombay and Madras alike. Trade was annihilated, industry and manufacture languishing or even dying. Bengal’s specie had drained to Britain and China, the currency of Madras exhausted proportionately. The private traders’ credit had enabled the Company to continue trading, yet the merchants’ situation was very serious. They held one and a third million pounds sterling in Company bonds which discounted at 50%. The only means of getting their money back to Britain was by financing other European companies’ exports from India to Europe, a practice

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146 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner

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Plate 6:  David Scott, first Baronet of Dunninald, acquired a fortune as a free merchant in Bombay, becoming one of its real rulers. On his return to England, as a friend of William Pitt and Henry Dundas and a director, then Chairman, of the Company, he wielded great power.

the Company had come down hard on during the war. The merchants had found an outlet for their surplus funds by lending to the Chinese merchants at Canton, only to find it was illegal. The British merchants and their Indian and Parsee associates had had their fingers seriously burned. David Scott saw their salvation in an alliance between the private traders like himself and the Company. Since the acquisition of the Bengal revenues the Company exported very little from Britain: goods took up only a quarter of the ships’ tonnage; the rest was in ballast. Nor would the Company allow the commanders to use the rest. Scott believed the

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The Darkest Years 147 Company and the private merchants in India needed one another. He envisaged a triangular trade in the future. Private merchants were better equipped to seek out markets for Europe goods in the East. He believed the Company should hand over the Britain to India trade to merchants like himself, allowing them to use the Company’s ships at very attractive rates of freight. The merchants would fill up the ships with British manufactures that the British firms were now having to send out on the European companies’ ships. The merchants would not dump the goods in India but barter them, so increasing their value. Scott and his fellow merchants believed China was the market of the future. The British were now consuming eighteen million pounds of tea annually, though only half was imported into Britain by the Company. Scott believed the private merchants should be allowed to export the products of Gujarat and Malabar and Bengal to the eastern islands and Canton and hand over the proceeds to the supercargoes to finance the tea imports to Britain. The war with Tipu Sultan had disrupted the Malabar trade, but once peace was restored 45 the pepper and sandalwood of Malabar would find a good market in China. Such a trade would provide all the civil and military servants in India with a channel to remit their savings to Britain and bring to an end the drastic devaluation of the Company bonds in their hands. Scott was sure that if the trade were properly handled Leadenhall Street could become the emporium of Asiatic trade, but the Company was blind to everything but its own monopoly. With Warren Hastings repaired and fit for sea, Thomas received his despatches and William and his family embarked with him on 8 September. Off Ceylon they encountered Sir Richard Bickerton’s squadron on its way to Bombay to avoid the turbulent weather soon likely to break on the Coromandel coast. The news from the coast was mixed. The army had successfully retaken Cuddalore in June, but at great cost. The French had landed 3000 troops under the veteran general de Bussy, while Sir Eyre Coote, the great British general, had died on arrival at Madras. Suffren had arrived on the coast to support de Bussy’s defence and in spite of the weakness of his force he had managed to inflict severe damage on the British fleet, forcing Sir Edward to fall back on Madras. News of the signing of the preliminaries of peace in Europe in January arrived on 23 July, and de Bussy agreed to a truce. But the war with Tipu Sultan had not ended. Warren Hastings arrived at Culpee at the end of October, followed next day by Nassau. The Company had responded to Warren Hastings’ and his Council’s pleas for more troops and there were fifteen East Indiamen at Kedgeree and Culpee. The very sickly season in the Hooghly had reduced all the crews to a very weak state. Although Sir

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148 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner Edward had pressed a large number of men at Madras, the situation of the fleet was so desperate he had sent a ship up to Bengal in June with the specific purpose of pressing still more men.46 It brought news of the hasty conclusion of peace with Tipu by the Madras Council in March 1784 following the surrender of Mangalore. Nassau was stationed for China but Captain Gore grasped the opportunity offered to take saltpetre to Bombay. There he would be able to pick up a cargo of cotton for Canton and possibly call at ports down the Malabar coast for pepper and spices en route now that the war was over. He was hoping to make enough money to retire after this voyage. Nassau reached Bombay on 6 June. John found the Governor and Council and private merchants incensed by their shabby treatment at the hands of Fort St George. Anxious to bring hostilities to an end as soon as possible and get back their prisoners, the Governor and Council had pursued only their own interests, disregarding those of either Bombay or the Company. On the surrender of Mangalore to Tipu, the Madras Council had sent their negotiators there post-haste and signed the Treaty of Mangalore in March. Bombay benefited from the restoration of Calicut but their hopes of restoring their old factories at Onore and Carwar were dashed. The future of trade on the Malabar coast looked bleak. Nassau weighed on Wednesday 4 August. She sailed by the eastern passage and four months later anchored at Whampoa where Captain Gore hoisted the broad pennant as senior commander. Twelve British East Indiamen were at anchor, reflecting the increasing popularity of tea in Britain. But there was an equal number of large Dutch, Danish and French Indiamen. They had returned in huge numbers in 1783 with the end of hostilities.47 Their total tonnage was about double that of the British ships.48 The smuggling trade in teas was flourishing more than ever before as customs and excise duties in Britain increased.49 Amongst the foreign ships was a new phenomenon: the fine coppered ship Empress of China of about 300 tons, Captain John Green, of New York, was the first ship from the United States of America to arrive at Canton. She had sailed from New York at the beginning of November via the Cape Verdes, Cape Horn and the Society Islands. From there she had headed for 20°N latitude and run down it to the China coast, arriving two months before the Europe ships with a large quantity of ginseng and silver. Her English supercargo and an American called Shaw were to remain at Canton. Two other American ships were expected: one with an ex-British East India Company commander; another, whose commander, Captain Lyard, had sailed with Cook, was to touch en route at the northwest coast of America as far as 40°N latitude to barter for furs.50

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The Darkest Years 149 It was not the most fortunate season to enter the China trade. All trade was stopped, all communication with Canton halted. For the previous week there had been a complete standoff between the Europeans and the Chinese officials. The cause was a tragic accident that had occurred a week earlier, the sort of incident that the Europeans always feared. During a gun salute by the country ship Lady Hughes, Captain Williams, three Chinese in a chop boat lying alongside her were so badly injured their lives were in danger.51 Tension persisted all night as everyone awaited the outcome. Their worst fears were realized when news went round that one had died. The severity of Chinese law was widely known.52 The poor unfortunate gunner had not waited to find out his fate. He had fled. The principal Chinese officials, accompanied by the Security Merchants, had gone to see the Chief of the British Company’s Council, William Pigou, at the factory to request that the person responsible be sent to Canton for questioning. They intimated that they recognized that it was an accident so did not consider it to be a capital offence. However, memories were long. Many years earlier in similar circumstances a poor Frenchman had been lured out of his factory on a pretext and publicly strangled. Pigou insisted that the examination take place in the English factory, especially as, the gunner not being found, a substitute would have to be produced according to Chinese law. Shortly afterwards a second man died. The officials returned and Pigou impressed on them that he did not have, nor ever had had, authority over the country ships. George Smith, the surpercargo of Lady Hughes, was the man they should approach. Pigou offered to mediate between him and the Chinese on the matter. Puanquequa pointed out that only high officials, of too high a standing to come to the factory, could carry out the examination. The person produced would be taken by force from the factory to Canton. The Council held firm. Late that night the Chinese returned and agreed to hold the examination in the factory. In return they requested that George Smith agree to remain in Canton for three or four days. The following morning, 27 November, the Council learned that George Smith had been decoyed from his factory, seized and taken to Canton by soldiers with drawn swords. Alarm spread through all the European factories. According to Chinese law every superior was responsible for the actions of his subordinates. It followed that they considered Pigou ultimately responsible for the actions of all the British. The situation was critical. Chinese soldiers manned barricades, cutting off all paths to the Quay; all intermediaries between Europeans and Chinese – linguists, merchants, compradores – had fled, their factories deserted. The Hoppo suspended by order all communication between the factories and Whampoa.

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150 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner Two British ships’ boats were at Canton. The President and Council sent them down to Whampoa against the Hoppo’s order with instructions to all ships’ captains to send up their pinnaces manned and armed. The returning boats pushed their way through the guard boats, holding their fire, even though fired on and men wounded. Late in the evening a mandate from the Fuyeuen Sume of Canton was handed to the supercargoes informing them that Mr Smith had agreed to write to Whampoa to demand the gunner, on whose arrival Mr Smith would be released. Until the gunner appeared troops would be positioned to prevent retreat downriver. The Canton Governor summoned a representative of each nation in an attempt to separate them from the British but they pointed out that what had happened to the British could happen to them all. They had therefore taken steps to protect the British and if necessary take them to their ships. Smith had written to Captain Williams asking him to send up the gunner and not to go off with his ship, but the linguist charged with delivering the letter had lacked the courage to hand it over at the last minute. Pigou and Council then wrote to Captain Mackintosh of Contractor, ordering him to go down to Lady Hughes and tell her commander that the Chinese government had formally demanded that the man who fired the gun that killed a Chinese be produced for trial at the Tribunal of Justice. They expected Captain Williams to comply immediately as the safety of all the British at Canton was at stake. Captain Mackintosh was to prevent Captain Williams, by any means he thought proper, leaving Whampoa. Only junior members of the British Council attended a meeting the following day with a military officer at the Cohong Factory as the Chief was afraid he would be seized if he left the factory. They were informed that they had two days to produce the gunner, otherwise all provisions would be stopped, trade would cease and the ships not permitted to return to China. Pigou was not to leave Canton. The Council sent further orders to Captain Williams but on that same evening, 30 November, Captain Mackintosh returned to Canton with ‘the unfortunate Gunner’ and a pleading letter from Captain Williams to do their best for the poor old man. Once the gunner had been surrendered things began to get back to normal. Lady Hughes sailed the next day and on the following day the trade embargo was lifted. On 8 December, the Anchasze, the Provincial Judge, summoned two representatives from each nation and all the Hong merchants to his presence. He reminded everyone of the Emperor’s beneficence in allowing the Europeans to trade and how displeased he was at the delay in delivering up the gunner. He stressed how moderate he was to demand only one life for the two dead Chinese and

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The Darkest Years 151 that they must submit to the Emperor’s decision. They heard later that the gunner had been strangled at about the time of this meeting. The whole incident had cast all the Europeans into gloom and despondency, especially the Chief Supercargo and Council. It had highlighted their personal danger to an extent often suspected, and the threat to the whole trade on which the Company now depended. It had emphasized that any innocent man could be strangled should a similar accident occur. Never was an alternative to trading at Canton to obtain the produce of China more needed. Manila and Mindanao had not materialized, and Alexander Dalrymple’s dream of developing an entrepôt at Balambangan to attract China goods had come to nothing. The Company had chosen a factor from Benkulen in preference to Dalrymple as governor, and he had exploited the natives to such an extent they had chased him and his council into the sea. *** After several worrying years, in the summer of 1780 William signed his first contract to build his own ship, naming his eldest son as commander, and Thomas took over the command of the ship bearing the name of a man much admired by the family. John saw more action, this time on the Malabar coast, while both sons suffered privations as the British navy held its own against a brilliant French admiral and maintained control of the Bay of Bengal. Bombay, the least important Presidency, seemed set to lose the little standing it had as a result of the hastily negotiated peace. In China, John found the European companies’ ships enjoying great success meeting the soaring demand for tea in Britain by illicit means. But yet another crisis triggered by the death of a Chinese reminded all Europeans of the personal danger they faced in trading at Canton. Notes   1   2   3   4   5   6

BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 26 Jan 1780. Ibid., 26 May 1780. Ibid., 16 June 1780. Ibid., 23 August 1780. Ibid., 23 August 1780. This was a pre-emptive act to prevent the Dutch carrying Russian marine stores to the French and Spanish following the formation of the League of Armed Neutrality by Russia and the Baltic states. The League’s aim was to deprive Britain of essential supplies. See Rodger, Command of the Ocean, pp. 347–8.   7 Rowan Hackman, Ships of the East India Company (Gravesend, 2001), p. 112.

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152 Notes to Chapter 7

  8   9 10 11

12 13 14

15

16 17

18 19 20 21 22

Taken in 36°28′N latitude, 15°20′W longitude. The East Indiamen were Gatton, Royal George, Hillsborough, Mount Stuart and Godfrey. The escorts HMS Ramillies and HMS Southampton and five West Indiamen managed to escape. All were taken to Cadiz where the East India Company refused an offer from the captors to purchase any of their ships. They were eventually converted into fifth rates or Register ships for the Spanish bullion trade from Central and South America. Rodger, Command of the Ocean, p. 347. BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 22 February 1781. Ibid., 15 May 1781. The eighth by-law prohibited directors from spending money on ships without the consent of the General Court. Ibid., 25 April 1781. John E. Barnard, Building Britain’s Wooden Walls, The Barnard Dynasty, 1697– 1851 (Oswestry, 1997), pp. 50–1: he leased the latter from the Bridge House Estates. According to Nathan Dews’s map, History of Deptford (1884), this was the site of the original East India Company shipyard. Based on the cost of building Sulivan East Indiaman, built by Barnard at the same time as Warren Hastings: BL, APAC, MS Eur., D1051/1, Tradesmen’s bills for equipping Sulivan. J. Cotton, A Review of the Shipping System of the East India Company to the Proprietors of East India Stock, 1 August 1799. David MacGregor, Merchant Sailing Ships 1775–1815 (London, 1985), pp. 182–3. He had initiated what was by then universally acknowledged as the best method of seasoning: fastening the outside and inside planks with bolts, leaving the tree-nail holes open for air until ready for caulking. His other improvements comprised 4 in. bottoms; capstans fitted with an iron spindle, paul head and catch pauls; centrally hung rudders with round heads to work in a circle short of the underside of the keel so as to require no rudder coat. BL, APAC, MS Eur. D1051/1, p. 6, Tradesmen’s bills for equipping Sulivan: John Cunningham charged Robert Williams £5 per ton ‘for driving 7 tons 13 cwt. and 3 qurs. of new filling nails and 1 ton of old into the bottom and wales’. See Randolph Cock, ‘The Finest Invention in the World: The Royal Navy’s Early Trials of Copper Sheathing, 1708–70’, Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 87, no. 4 (November 2001), pp. 446–59, n. 26. Most naval ships were coppered by this time. This was common practice among recruits. See BL, APAC, MS Eur. E/4/449, f. 180. BL, APAC, B/97, 17 Aug 1781, p. 302; when Thomas Larkins took the oath at the India House he would have worn the uniform introduced earlier that year: blue coat with light gold embroidered lapels and yellow metal buttons bearing the Company crest, white waistcoat and breeches. BL, APAC, MS Eur. D/1051/1, papers of Sulivan. The Company made up the difference between the peacetime rate of 26s and the rate demanded. BL, APAC, L/MAR/B/9A-B, Journal of Warren Hastings, the source of all information concerning the voyage unless otherwise stated. Warren Hastings was transporting the 101st regiment with wives and families to Madras. BL, APAC, L/PS/1/9, Minutes of the Secret Committee 11 April 1782–9 April

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Notes to Chapter 7 153 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45 46 47

1782: 18 and 19 April 1782. Ibid., 4 April 1782. Ibid., 5 June 1782. Rodger, Command of the Ocean, pp. 356–7. BL, APAC, L/PS/1/9, Minutes of Secret Committee, 29 August 1782. Joseph Price, Five Letters from a Free Merchant in Bengal to Warren Hastings, Esq., Conveying Some Free Thoughts on the Probable Cause of the Decline of the Export Trade of That Kingdom and Outlines of a Plan for Restoring It (London, 1777; reprint London, 1783), chapter 10, II, 1. Bowen, Business of Empire, pp. 211–12 and note 91; Holden Furber, John Company at Work (Cambridge, MA, 1948), pp. 18–20. Hickey, Memoirs, vol. 3, pp. 98–9. BL, APAC, B/97, p. 252; H/22, f. 161, Thomas Larkins’s private trade goods, 1783. BL, APAC, Z/P/552, Index to Bengal Public Proceedings, 28 October 1782. One was called Marian, the other Apolonia. P. Spear (ed.), Vincent Smith, Oxford History of India (Oxford, 1958), pp. 515– 7, note on Chait Singh of Benares and the Begams of Oudh. In 1775 Chait Singh’s allegiance was transferred by treaty from Oudh to the Company. The Begams were the mother and grandmother of the Wazir of Oudh. See Dodwell (ed.), British India, pp. 295–304, for a full discussion of the case of Chait Singh and the Begams of Oudh. BL, APAC, L/PS/1/9, Minutes of the Secret Committee, 26 April 1782. Ibid., 11 April 1782–9 April 1806, Letter to Bengal 9 July 1782. BL, APAC, FWIHC, vol. X, p. 175: William was absent for the recovery of his health. BL, APAC Z/P/553 Index to Bengal Public Proceedings, 11 December 1782. BL, APAC, Extracts, 28 September 1781: the Committee of Shipping advised the owners of several ships to buy an apparatus for distilling salt water to produce freshwater. Brilliant was built by Sir William James, a director of the Company, at Barnards. She was to remain in India. The docks were ingeniously designed. The dry dock had three divisions and three pairs of strong gates so that three ships of the line could be repaired at the same time or at separate times. It was so arranged that the outermost ship and the middle one could go out and others replace them without inconveniencing the workmen employed on the innermost ship. See C. R. Low, History of the Indian Navy (London, 1877), 2 vols, vol. 1, pp. 270–2. Bulley, Bombay Country Ships, p. 181. See C. H. Philips (ed.), The Correspondence of David Scott Director and Chairman of the East India Company relating to Indian Affairs 1787–1805 ( London, 1951), 2 vols, vol. 1, Introduction, p. xi. See BL, APAC, H/434, Letters from George Smith to Henry Dundas, 1781–6. July 1783. Hickey, Memoirs, vol. 3, p. 132. BL, APAC, H/434, George Smith to Henry Dundas, 16 February 1783, ff. 15– 30. George Smith observed twenty ships loaded at Canton: ten British, three French, three Dutch, two Swedish, two Danish, with an estimated average of

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154 Notes to Chapter 7

48 49 50 51 52

900,000 lbs each, i.e. 18 million pounds. As the British ships were only half the size of the European ships, the latter carried far more than the British. Morse, Chronicles, vol. 2, pp. 85–95. Ibid., p. 117: by 1784 the duty on tea had risen to 106%, on Bohea as high as 127.5%. BL, APAC, L/PS/1/9, Minutes of the Secret Committee, 4 November 1783. The following is based on Morse, Chronicles, vol. 2, pp. 99–109. See Bulley, Free Mariner, p. 99, for some aspects of the Chinese criminal code.

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Eight THE DOMINATION OF TEA

JOHN ARRIVED home in August 1785, four and a half years after sailing from the Downs, to find everything had changed. He was probably prepared for the sad family circumstances. News of his father’s death must have reached St Helena where Nassau had anchored in May. At the Jerusalem everyone regretted the passing of this kindly, reliable man, who was respected by all for his skilful seamanship. Heartening news from Calcutta lifted the family’s spirits at this sad time. William’s wife had at last given birth to a son. He had been christened Warren Hastings after his godfather and was the idol of a doting father. Thomas was a businessman. He had had Warren Hastings’s bottom coppered at great expense.1 Before his death William had purchased an Admiralty prize2 which had been refitted at Barnard’s as an Indiaman and named Clinton.3 Thomas renamed her Dover and tendered her to the Company before sailing for China, leaving the management of affairs in the hands of his mother, Christian, until his return. John found changes in the Company no less momentous. In the months following the brothers’ departure in 1782 the various Indian wars and the rising costs from losses and delays in shipping had brought the Company close to financial collapse.4 For two years the Company’s government – or misgovernment – of India had dominated Parliamentary business, generating three bills and bringing down successive administrations. A change of government aborted the first bill. The second passed the House of Commons in December 1783 but was rejected by the Lords. It proposed replacing the Court of Directors by a Commission appointed by and responsible to Parliament. Opposition mounted against this attack on chartered rights and the acquisition by

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156 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner politicians of the valuable Company patronage.5 The day after the bill was passed to go into committee the King intervened, declaring that anyone who voted for the bill was not only not his friend but would be considered by him as an enemy.6 The bill was defeated on second reading and on 11 December the King dismissed the government. The twenty-four year old son of the great Chatham, William Pitt, untainted by the shifting and unnatural coalitions of the previous few years, became First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer. He received unstinting support from the country and from Parliament and cooperation from the Court of Directors and the General Court. They had been taken to the edge of the abyss and did not wish to look into the chasm again. Pitt’s India Act of 1784 allowed the directors to retain the patronage and left the Company free to conduct its commerce, but created a Board of Control to supervise the Company’s political and diplomatic activities. The Governor-General’s powers in his own Council and over the other Presidencies were increased.7 John was fully occupied with family affairs. He had to help his mother, Christian, to pay tradesmen’s bills and call in share capital to meet them. Thomas’s eldest son, William, about to embark on a career in the service, needed his uncle’s help. Captain Richard Pierce, the senior commander at this time, had offered young William the fifth mate’s berth on Halsewell. The captain intended to give up the sea after this voyage, and was taking his two elder daughters and their young cousins to Bengal to make good marriages. Halsewell sailed from the Downs on New Year’s Day 1786 in good weather with a northeast breeze but before she was clear of the coast the wind shifted round to the south with a great deal of snow. Late on the evening of the 3rd, there was the most violent southerly gale many people ever remembered. It increased to a hurricane in the early hours of Wednesday with a heavy rolling sea. Disasters were reported all along the south coast. Early on the morning of Thursday 5th, the wind came round to the south again and blew a severe gale all night, causing general devastation amongst shipping and boats. Rumours of the tragic wreck of a large ship began to filter through at the weekend and the newspapers announced on Tuesday 10th, that Halsewell had been lost off the Dorset coast.8 Anxious relatives and friends of those on board soon thronged the corridors of the India House. Henry Meriton and John Rogers, second and third mates, had survived and come straight up to London on the Sunday. John knew them both. From them he learned that they had had to cut Halsewell’s masts by the board on the third day. They had reached Berry Head but decided to head back to Portsmouth under jury rig for repairs. On the

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The Domination of Tea 157 evening of Thursday 5th, the violent gale had forced them to anchor, but the ship drove relentlessly towards the shore. At 11pm, the weather had cleared to reveal St Alban’s Head only miles away. John knew the spot well: the great grey shoulder of the Head, topped by a little squat chapel, jutting out from the rest of the high cliffs of the Isle of Purbeck. Halsewell had struck at two o’clock in the morning and broken in two. Many had risked their lives plunging into the blackness. Meriton and Rogers were among the lucky ones washed into a quarriers’ cavern where they managed to scramble on to a ledge. Captain Pierce had resigned himself to await his fate, sitting in the roundhouse with an arm round each of his daughters. In the early hours of the morning the men clinging on to the narrow shelf in the cavern had heard the screams as the waves closed over the stern part of the ship. The local quarrymen had risked their lives in the snow the following morning, dropping a rope over the edge of the cliff and hauling up the half-dead survivors one by one, some dying as they were being lifted to safety. After a long climb to the nearest farmhouse the survivors received warmth and food. William was not among them. Over the following weeks the sea cast up its sad flotsam on to the shore of the wide bay between Christchurch and Poole.9 William’s body was not found. For years the Court of Directors had been pressing the government to reduce the tax on tea, but it had risen even more to help meet the costs of the American war. Following the India Act, as the price of the directors’ acquiescence in the Company’s reduced powers, the duty was reduced from 119% to 12.5%. This dealt a mortal blow to those huge European East India Company ships with their British owners and captains who thrived on importing tea to Europe and selling it to smugglers for the British market.10 Anticipating a trebling of its imports of tea from 6000 tons to 18,000 tons annually,11 the Shipping Committee drastically revised its shipping requirements: it decided it would need three sets of ships, thirty in each set.12 Only eighty were in service or building, so leave to build was given to the owners of the next eight ships in turn. Each year since the conclusion of the American war, the Court of Directors and the managing owners had clashed over the freight for the season.13 Taking advantage of the shortfall in tonnage caused by the reduction in the tea duties, the managing owners, under their leader Robert Preston, demanded a much higher freight than the directors considered reasonable. Anthony Brough, a Liverpool shipowner who had been trying to break into the Company’s shipping monopoly for some time, now made a dramatic bid to undercut the freight demanded. He offered to supply eighty ships, forty of which would be available for the following season, saving the Company £150,000 in freight.14 After

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158 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner a while, the directors proposed terms so discriminating that Brough dismissed them as ‘unjust, invidious, illiberal’.15 The following day he published his second plan, saving the Company £260,000.16 The Company finally took up six of his ships as extra ships for one season. Anthony Brough published his criticism of the Company, which was again in the process of petitioning Parliament for a subsidy. He questioned whether at a time when the country was burdened with an enormous national debt from the war, public money should be advanced which would perpetuate abuses and enrich the few. He reminded the Court that as long ago as 1772 the Company’s own Surveyor of Shipping had said that ‘China goods might be brought home at £20 per ton, Coast and Bay £22 …’17 and pointed out that the Danes, Dutch, French and Swedes imported tea at a freight of £9 or £10 per ton cheaper than the Company. Brough inveighed against the ‘unauthorised, unchartered monopoly’ of the Thames builders and the London owners who were hand in glove with some of the directors. They built ships on what terms they pleased and exacted the most exorbitant freightage, to the incredible loss of the East India Company. Brough’s attack emboldened the Court to advertise publicly for ships to be taken up for four voyages, a measure unheard of since the beginning of the century. Tenders stating the terms and conditions the ships would be let at were to be given in at any time on or before 3 February 1786.18 Francis Baring, a director, inflamed the owners’ indignation by claiming in a publication that the India trade could not support the high freight as long as there was any competition with foreign countries.19 He believed the Company owed a duty to its constituents and to the public ‘to make a total reform’.20 The majority of managing owners supported their chairman, Sir Robert Preston, in urging the Court to consider the effects of these criticisms on the public’s perceptions. Were people generally aware that the Company owed the owners huge sums in unpaid freight? Did they know how much capital was tied up in the shipping? Could they grasp the effect on their business of the speculators whose actions were sanctioned by the Court? The owners’ credit was being injured. They could not find people to buy shares in ships which were actually on the stocks. The owners reminded the public that they had supported the Company in hard times. Now they looked to the Court to restore confidence and ‘prevent any doubts concerning the security of a large property now afloat’.21 The Court’s response was brief and to the point. They simply suggested that the owners submit their tenders by the given date, 3 February, otherwise the Court would be forced to go ahead on the tenders offered.22 The managing owners had no alternative but to comply. They

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The Domination of Tea 159 tendered all the ships built by the Court’s orders, any now building authorized by the Court and those returning from India, on the same freight and terms as the previous season. Coppering Warren Hastings had cost so much it was impossible to hire her at so low a price. Christian tendered her at £26, £27, £28 and £29.23 The Court held firm, resolving on 16 March to take up the ships of the old owners to China, provided they would let their ships already built at £23, now building and building hereafter at £22.24 No doubt to Christian and John’s relief, Sir Robert Preston failed to get the Court to pass a motion banning the employment of copper-bottomed ships on the grounds that fitting the copper plates was ‘injurious to the hull’ and too expensive. Such a measure would affect the new, more progressive owners.25 Sir Robert was more successful in his efforts to eliminate by-law number thirty-nine: a fifth voyage was from now on considered as having the same preference as the previous four, to the advantage of the old owners.26 The Larkins family no doubt welcomed this development. Following its advertisement, the Court had engaged four ships, totalling 3000 tons for four voyages but without bottom rights; they required a further 9800 tons. The various branches of the shipping interest closed ranks. Edward Fiott could not get any river yard to build his ship and resorted to Itchenor.27 Brough opted to build his in the north.28 Captain Tanner agreed verbally with Randall and Brent to have his ship built in their yard at Rotherhithe, but when he went along to see how the work was progressing he found nothing had been done. Randall was forced to confess that ‘he and Mr Brent had pledged themselves, jointly with others, not to build for those who tender at the reduced freight’.29 Captain Tanner admitted defeat and wrote to the Company to inform them that he could not fulfil his contract.30 But he protested and the Court passed the case to the Company’s solicitor. The leaders of those involved in providing the Company’s shipping called an extraordinary meeting of the General Court to get the proprietors’ support for the freight they demanded.31 Their hand was strengthened by Bearcroft’s opinion, delivered in the intervening period, that there was insufficient evidence that the action of the owners and builders constituted a conspiracy in restraint of trade.32 Thomas arrived home in May 1786 in time to attend the meeting on 28 June. Those connected with shipping had taken advantage of the Company’s addition to its capital stock of £800,000 to increase their votes and they turned out in force.33 A motion was put asking the Court of Directors to reconsider their resolution not to give the old Owners £24 per ton freight and ‘whether under any possible regulations or conditions ships built by the present owners can be afforded at so low a rate’.34 The motion was put

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160 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner to the ballot and carried by an overwhelming majority of 362 to 94.35 The most determined attempt yet to reduce the Company’s enormous shipping costs therefore ended in the surrender of the Court and their acceptance of £24 to China for the season 1786/7.36 Events unconnected with business affected the family more closely. In August Mary Larkins arrived from Calcutta on Dutton with her youngest daughter, aged three. William had suspected her of having an affair with a military officer and sent her back to Britain with only the smallest allowance and instructions never to attempt to see him or communicate with him. Warren Hastings had returned to Britain in 1785 on receiving the details of the India Act to find the great orator Edmund Burke bent on gaining parliamentary support for his impeachment. William Pitt’s view that Hastings’s treatment of Chait Singh had been ‘beyond all proportion exorbitant, unjust and tyrannical’ sealed the ex-GovernorGeneral’s fate.37 John had more pleasant things to occupy him. He married Mary Ann Samson, daughter of his father’s old Dover friend Captain Samson. A few months later he was preparing to sail to the East. The Company hired Dover in 1786 for one voyage to China direct. John was not so lucky. Warren Hastings was stationed for Bombay. Before he sailed on 13 April 1787, John promised his fellow commanders in the Society of East India Commanders at the Jerusalem a hogshead of claret on the birth of his first child.38 Warren Hastings was a faster ship now she was coppered. On her latest voyage Thomas had won a wager that she would complete the passage from Canton to Britain in four months three days.39 She had a very quick passage to Bombay where she anchored on the last day of July 1787. Fast though she had been, her consort, General Elliott, Captain Preston, arrived three days earlier, sufficient time to get his private trade investment on to the market. John managed to sell only two-thirds of his investment. He decided to send what remained on a country ship to Bengal where the market was flourishing. John found all the leading men in government and the Agency Houses concerned about the trade down the Malabar coast. Peace with Tipu had brought no benefits for Bombay. Even the few crumbs the Bombay government had managed to glean from the Treaty of Mangalore had proved illusory. Although Calicut had been reinstated as a factory under the Bombay Presidency, Tipu prevented valuable products reaching the factory.40 He had destroyed the town, the fort and the wells at Onore and put an embargo on Company ships loading at Mangalore. This contravened a clause in the Treaty of Mangalore, tantamount to a declaration of war, but the Bombay government had neither the resources

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The Domination of Tea 161 nor the political nerve to renew hostilities. Lord Cornwallis, who had taken up his position as Governor-General of Bengal in October 1786, saw as his first duty preventing Bombay’s government embarking on any more military adventures. He took very seriously the principal objectives expressed by William Pitt in the introduction to his India Act: ‘The first and principal objective would be to take care to prevent the (Indian) Government from being ambitious and bent on conquest.’41 His second duty was to end the corruption that had persistently moulded Bombay’s policy in the private interest. In his view, here was a President and Council, with full panoply, costing the whole of the revenues of Benares and Bihar, which could not fill two ships a year for Britain. It was time the Court stopped looking at it simply from the point of view of their patronage and jobs for their kinsmen and asked themselves, ‘what is Bombay for?’ He believed the west coast was valueless and consequently the Presidency should be reduced to the status of a small factory, with another at Surat. Henry Dundas, at the head of the newly constituted Board of Control, took quite the opposite view. He had been advised for years, ever since he became involved in Indian affairs, by George Smith, a free merchant in Calcutta with a thorough knowledge of eastern trade. Smith had presented Henry Dundas with a detailed financial plan to eliminate the need for paying for the tea with silver.42 Now Dundas was benefiting from the years of experience of David Scott who had returned to London to manage the metropolitan branch of his Agency House. Scott believed he would be better placed in Britain than India to take advantage of the great surge in British exports which had been in process since the end of the American war and to lobby for Indian shipping to take over the Britain to India and India to China trade. Both Smith and Scott saw huge potential for the private traders and the Company arising from the doubling of the tea investment. Payment for all the tea could not come solely from silver. It must come first from enormously increased exports of metals and manufactures from Europe to India where they would be exchanged for Indian products. These were mainly raw cotton from Gujarat, the fine black pepper and sandalwood of the Malabar coast and Bengal opium, which was in great demand in the eastern archipelago and China. Scott intended putting up for election to the Court of Directors in order to carry on from within the Company his battle against the blind adherence to monopoly which he believed would end in London losing its position as the leading European port for Asian produce. George Smith shared his views. Both Scott and Smith also recognized Bombay’s important strategic position in relation to the two great Indian powers: the Marathas to the north and Mysore to the south.

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162 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner

Map 8:  Topographical map showing the main division of territory in India in 1765

The Malabar coast may be closed to the Bombay ships, but the Agency Houses were doing very well. John learned that exceptional numbers of country ships had sailed to China earlier in the season with one and a quarter million pounds worth of cotton ‘from the northward’. The Bombay government’s treasury, however, was empty. There was no cargo for Warren Hastings or General Elliot. August passed, then September. John approached the Council about the possibility of freighting his ship since they had no cargo, and it was not a suitable season for sailing to Europe. He proposed filling up Warren Hastings with cotton for China,

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The Domination of Tea 163 anticipating that the supercargoes would welcome the extra tonnage to send tea back to Britain. The Council accepted his suggestion with relief as it would save them the expense of keeping Warren Hastings on demurrage until the sailing season. John paid part of his receipts from his private trade sales into the Company’s treasury in exchange for certificates drawn on the Court of Directors. He agreed to pay the cost of his cargo of raw cotton into the Canton Treasury when he had sold it, plus his expected profit, in return for bills drawn on the Company in London.43 On 19 October Warren Hastings was off Java within sight of Krakatoa. It was too late in the season for the passage up the China Sea so John steered a course for Borneo. They skirted the east coast as they sailed up the Macassar Strait, recording their position from Greenwich by lunar observation and by watch, and sailed through the Sulu Sea and out into the Pacific Ocean. What an opportunity! Here was John, in the family’s ship, freighted privately as far as Canton, with nothing to prevent him and his officers indulging their ambition to explore the Pacific Ocean. It was not completely unfamiliar. In his log John compared the positions of islands sighted in previous voyages with what he now computed from lunar observations and his timepieces. They followed an easterly course until at 136°E longitude, 6°26´N latitude they sighted islands about four miles to the north, when they hauled off northwest. These were the Pellew group of islands where Antelope Packet had been wrecked in 1783. A canoe came after the ship with twelve men ‘much painted about their bodies a great quantity of hair on their heads the features of the face quite Malay’. Everyone on board Warren Hastings hailed them and waved their arms to come alongside but they seemed to be fearful and held off.44 On 9 January they sighted the island of Formosa. Warren Hastings ran up abreast of Danes Island after a good passage on 20 January. Only once, when a seaman struck the boatswain’s mate and threatened to strike the boatswain did John resort to the lash. Most of the shipping had left Whampoa but John learned that there had been a record thirty-three country ships at anchor during the season. Two ships had arrived via the northwest coast of America with a cargo of sea-otter pelts. They were commanded by Captain Portlock and Captain Dixon, both of whom had sailed with Captain Cook. John had met them both at the Cape when Resolution and Discovery called there in 1780 and heard how the natives of the northwest coast of America had been keen to exchange their furs and pelts for metals and knick-knacks. Captain Portlock of King George was leading an expedition licensed by both the South Sea Company and the East India Company to establish factories at convenient places along the northwest coast of America. They

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164 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner were then to cross to the Asian coast to seek out a trade, especially with Japan and the nearby islands. The British government welcomed any attempt to find new markets for British manufactures but the East India Company was very suspicious of this ‘back door’ entry into its preserves. The possibility of reopening a trade with Japan after nearly 200 years swayed them, but the directors insisted that the ships should not trade to the south or west of Canton. Both commanders used the healthy and abundant island of Hawaii as a rendezvous and a base for refreshment. They were the first ships from Europe to call there since Captain Cook’s murder. The natives had recognized Nicholas Portlock and others who had been with Cook and welcomed them, swarming over the ships. In the crowd was the chief who had killed Cook, a man in poor health whom they had helped by filling a smelling bottle he carried about and sniffed at. Both ships had sailed from there to Cook Inlet, arriving during the summer of 1786, then sailed south to Prince William Sound. There they had been amazed to find Nootka, Captain Meares, on an expedition organized by one of the leading Agency Houses in Calcutta. He and all his crew were ill from the scurvy. Captain Portlock was very angry at what he considered an interloping voyage. Captain Meares had no charter and no licence from the South Sea Company for which he, Portlock, had paid dear. He learned from Captain Meares that another ship, the Captain Cook, sent by the Bombay Agency House Scott, Tate and Adamson, had been there the previous year. All three expeditions had similar aims and instructions. King George had returned to the Sandwich Islands to refit then sailed back to Prince William Sound and Nootka Sound for more furs, returning once more to the Sandwich Islands. There they learned that Queen Charlotte had called and gone on to Canton where the two commanders were eventually reunited. Captain Portlock’s sea otter skins fetched only $50,000, a third of what he asked, because the market was glutted. It would have been even less but the supercargoes wished to be as generous as possible according to the Company’s agreement with the expedition’s promoter.45 John found tension had once more dominated the season at Canton. There were now thousands of European seamen at Whampoa, most of them British. The Company had responded to the commanders’ requests for increased powers to control the seamen whose aggressive behaviour threatened to bring the trade to an end. The Commodore had been given special powers to order a guard boat to patrol the European anchorage and the river, the officer in charge empowered to send any seaman indulging in violent behaviour on board the Commodore to be dealt with by a court of commanders.46 John learned from his fellow commanders that there had been a serious mutiny on board the East

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The Domination of Tea 165 Indiaman Belvedere, Captain William Greer.47 It had begun with a small incident late in the evening of 1 December, typical of the minor affrays so common in the boredom of the protracted stay at Whampoa. A noisy seaman had refused to obey the chief mate’s order to be quiet and had torn the officer’s shirt, for which he had been confined in irons. The people had been sullen and hung about all morning, and suddenly at 1pm they had surged up from the gundeck armed with handspikes and marlin spikes and rushed the quarterdeck, freeing the prisoner. When the officers armed themselves the people took possession of the gundeck, threatening to murder any officer that came down and to blow up the ship rather than surrender the prisoner. The Commodore, Captain Dundas, sent help immediately and several officers secured the magazine and the gun room, announcing that they had orders to kill any man who tried to enter.48 The Commodore then summoned all the East India commanders on board his ship, Earl Fitzwilliam. They agreed each of the eighteen ships should send a boat, manned and armed, on board the Belvedere.49 The rebellious ship’s company resisted for some time, but eventually the ten ringleaders were secured and taken on board Fitzwilliam. From there they were distributed around the different ships and put in irons. The supercargoes and commanders all agreed that it was a very serious incident. Sixteen commanders formed a court on Earl Fitzwilliam to try the men. Central to the debate was whether to send them to Britain to take their trial according to the law or inflict immediate and severe corporal punishment publicly. The enquiry revealed that there had been no cause for the mutiny: the defendants pointed to no ill usage by the commander or officers; only one pleaded drunkenness; none offered any excuse for his behaviour. It appeared that the men felt that as they were on board a merchantman the due punishment would not be inflicted. Most likely only the prompt despatch of armed boats had prevented the mutiny spreading like wildfire among the 3000 British seamen. The commanders felt that the consequences of the mutiny could have been so serious that severe and immediate corporal punishment should be inflicted on the ringleaders as a warning to others. The Court ­sentenced the prisoners and delegated the supervision of its enforcement to Captain Dundas.50 At 7am on 24 December seamen on Belvedere unrigged the longboat and made a stage on her. They rowed her over to the Commodore where Berry and Lilly, the ringleaders, were taken on board and strapped up. Slowly the boat progressed round all the eighteen ships of the fleet. The ships’ companies lined the bulwarks in silence as the two men received their sentences: Berry a hundred lashes, Lilly seventy. At noon the other

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166 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner eight prisoners were brought from the Commodore to Belvedere to receive lesser punishments. By the time John heard about the incident the commanders’ selfcongratulation on dealing quickly and effectively with the threat to the trade had given way to unease at the prospect of damages being awarded against them on returning to Britain. The commanders had for some years been concerned that they lacked legal authority to punish their men.51 In the aftermath of the crisis the commanders were concerned that they had exceeded their orders and urged the Select Committee to write to the Court of Directors and ask them to give them their backing.52 John took great pains getting his cotton up to Canton. Everything was very carefully weighed off Warren Hastings and the exact weight recorded in the gangway book, which tallied exactly with the weight recorded on shipping the cotton at Bombay. Three of his people were in every chop boat transporting the cotton upriver. In February John discovered that the cotton delivered to his factory in Canton fell far short of the amount he had no doubt was loaded into the chop boats. His books were proof that theft had taken place in the boats during their passage to Canton. It was obvious what had happened. The chop boats always stopped at the Hoppo House during the night, and the customs men gave the seamen grog to send them to sleep. John had undertaken to pay two lakhs into the Company’s treasury. He appealed to the Select Committee, laying himself before them as a British subject, looking to them for justice as the representatives of nation and Company.53 Despite every precaution on his part his cotton was 731 peculs 15 catties short, representing a loss of about 12,183 Spanish dollars, exceeding £3000. The supercargoes who were consigned to inspect the cotton could not believe their eyes. They tried to locate the deficiency and found at last that most bales had been shortened by a foot and resewn so well that they were indistinguishable from the Bombay bales. At a consultation the Committee decided to appeal to the Hoppo for redress. He received their deputation very sympathetically and promised that John would receive the amount of his loss. A month later the Hoppo ordered the Hong merchants jointly to make good the loss, which was assessed at $8000.54 On 14 March John shipped his private trade on board. The Committee warned the commanders not to be tempted to load too much tea in the belief that the owners would not be answerable for loss since the ships were sailing out of season. The owners would be as answerable as if the ships had left before the charter party date, 11 February.55 They had a good run, sighting Bangka on 30 April. Since larger ships had been employed in the China trade, several had gone aground in the ­shallow

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The Domination of Tea 167 Bangka and Lucepara passage. Opinion was beginning to favour the Macclesfield Strait, discovered by Macclesfield in 1699. Captain Lestock Wilson had tried it out in Carnatic a couple of years earlier and reported to Alexander Dalrymple, whom the Court had appointed as hydrographer.56 John decided to try it out himself. The following day Warren Hastings struck a reef. The cutter was manned to go out and sound and found it to be an extensive shoal about two miles long lying nearly north–south. Warren Hastings lay on an arm extending from the middle southeastwards about five miles from Gaspar Island. She lay easy, making very little water. The next morning they got her off. They suspected there was another shoal between the ship and Gaspar. On his return to Britain, John wrote an account of the passage for Alexander Dalrymple who published it at the East India Company’s charge in 1789 and sent copies to the Select Committee at Canton.57 *** The year 1784 was a watershed in the lives of the Larkins family and the Company. The founder of the family business died while the Company at last ceded real control to the government. The import duty on China tea was slashed, making it henceforth the determining factor in the Company’s commercial business. The provision of shipping was reorganized and expanded to bring back the teas. Men who had long viewed with envy the favoured monopolist providers of the Company’s shipping made a determined bid to get a share in the lucrative business. Despite winning a few skirmishes and getting a small foothold in the bastion of monopoly, they were defeated at the first major battle as the shipping interests closed ranks to support the old owners in the General Court. How to pay for the tea occupied the minds of the directors and the government. An alternative to exporting silver from Britain had to be found. David Scott, until recently the financial power behind the Company’s Presidency at Bombay, had now returned to London and had the ear of the new power at the Board of Control, Henry Dundas. They both saw Bombay as an important source of commodities which would earn silver in China, creating a triangular trade. On the other hand, Lord Cornwallis, charged with ending corruption, was intent on relegating what he saw as a venal, self-serving Presidency to a subordinate settlement. The Company’s need for silver for tea stimulated private enterprise on the opposite side of the globe. Following in Cook’s tracks, enterprising expeditions sought goods on the northwest coast of America and carried them to China, rousing the Company’s suspicions. While expressing gratitude for the silver thus obtained, the

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168 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner directors warned all-comers not to trespass on their privileges in the eastern seas. John entered into the spirit of private enterprise to benefit from the rage for tea, freighting his own ship and, no longer restricted by the southwest monsoon, took the eastern passage to Canton and carried out a useful survey of an alternative route through the islands on the way home. Notes   1 BL, APAC, B/100, 19 January 1785, p. 799: Captain Thomas Larkins requested leave to copper Warren Hastings and use tar produced from sea coal to cover the plates of copper instead of black woad [sic], signifying that the owners ‘mean to drive such additional bolts of copper as shall be thought necessary by the Company’s surveyors’. See also L/MAR/C/324, Marine Letters to the East India Company, p. 325.   2 She had been built at Bordeaux in 1779 for the French navy and named L’Esperance. On 30 September 1780 she was captured by HMS Pearl and added to the British navy. After the war, in 1784, the Admiralty had put her up for sale.   3 BL, APAC, B/103, 6 September 1786, p. 544: a Mr Margetson must have been temporarily managing owner of Clinton as the minutes record that Thomas Larkins ‘has had assigned to him Mr Margetson’s right in the ship Clinton and proposes to change her name to Dover’.   4 C. H. Philips, The East India Company 1784–1833 (Manchester, 1940), p. 46. The Company’s debts rose to £8m by 1784. BL, APAC, H/434, George Smith to Henry Dundas, 30 November 1785, f. 207: he estimated the bonded debt at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras and arrears of pay to the troops at £8m. Pritchard, Crucial Years of Early Anglo-Chinese Relations, p. 212: the Company’s commerce had declined from £4.5m in 1770 to £3.4m in 1783; its debts amounted to £10.3m.   5 Sutherland, East India Company, pp. 398–404.   6 Ibid., p. 405, and Connor Cruise O’Brien, Edmund Burke (abridged edition, London, 1997), p. 172.   7 Sutherland, East India Company, p. 404. Lawson, East India Company, p. 124. Holden Furber, Henry Dundas, First Viscount Melville 1742–1811 (London, 1931), p. 57: Dundas believed that India should be governed in India.   8 H. Meriton and J. Rogers, A Circumstantial Narrative of the Loss of the Halsewell (London, 1786).   9 The bodies were interred and those identified recorded in the Christchurch Priory register. 10 Smugglers from Jersey and Guernsey smuggled an estimated 1.2m pounds of tea into the western coast while the French and the ‘Hollanders’ smuggled 7 or 8m pounds of finer teas into other parts. In addition, there was extensive smuggling by India commanders and other independent smugglers. In all, it was estimated that by 1784 6m pounds entered the country legitimately and 12m illegitimately.

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Notes to Chapter 8 169 11 Bruce, Historical Plans for the Government of India (London, 1793), p. 300. 12 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 8 November 1785. 13 For a full discussion of the dissension over freight, see Philips, East India Company, pp. 82–7 and Sutton, Lords of the East, pp. 29–36. 14 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 7 December 1785 and L/MAR/C530, p. 240, 25 January 1786: Brough wrote to every director, enclosing details of his tender. At his request the Committee of Shipping provided him with contracts giving full specifications. 15 Anthony Brough, Considerations on the Necessity of Lowering the Exorbitant Freights of Ships Employed in the Service of the East India Company (London, 1786), p. 42. The directors offered to employ a few of Mr Brough’s ships for one voyage only; they would reduce the freight agreed subsequently if they employed others at a lower freight; if they employed others subsequently at a higher freight, they would not give him any more. 16 Brough, Considerations, p. 43. 17 Refers to evidence before the Committee of Secrecy of the House of Commons, 1772. 18 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/530, p. 240, 20 January 1786. 19 V. T. Harlow, The Founding of the Second British Empire 1763–1793 (London, 1952–64), 2 vols, vol. 2, p. 492: Mr Baring of John and Francis Baring & Co. worked closely with the large Agency Houses in India, collecting remittances and providing finance. 20 Brough, Considerations, p. 14. 21 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/530, p. 320 of 25 January 1786, Appendix 580–1. Thirtytwo managing owners signed the letter to the Court. 22 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/530, 27 January 1786. 23 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 8 February 1786. 24 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/530, 15 March 1786, p. 257: Committee of the whole Court. 25 Ibid. He claimed coppering added £100 to the cost of a one sixteenth share. 26 Ibid. 27 Hartwell, built by Crockenden. 28 Earl of Wycombe was built by Smallshaw and Rogers in Liverpool, Lord Walsingham by Jacob Preston in Great Yarmouth. 29 C. Northcote Parkinson, Trade in the Eastern Seas 1793–1813 (Cambridge, 1937), pp. 175–6. 30 Ibid., p. 176. 31 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 14 June 1786. 32 Ibid., 23 June 1786. 33 Philips, East India Company, p. 83, notes 1 and 2: the old shippers increased their power in the General Court; and p. 47, the Company had to ask Parliament’s permission to increase its capital stock by £800,000 in 1786 and £1m in 1789. 34 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/530, p. 285 of 28 June 1786. 35 Parkinson, Trade in the Eastern Seas, p. 176. 36 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/530, pp. 287–9 of 5 July 1786. 37 O’Brien, Edmund Burke, pp. 183–7. 38 NMM, SMS/1, Society of East India Commanders’ betting book, p. 21, 7 March 1787.

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170 Notes to Chapter 8 39 Ibid., p. 7. 40 BL, APAC, H/434, ff. 231–48: George Smith’s letter to Henry Dundas of 12 March 1786 describing his passage up the Malabar coast. No pepper, sandalwood, cardamoms, timber or plank were available there. Tipu’s policy seemed to be to force the British to withdraw by rendering Calicut useless. 41 William Cobbett, Parliamentary History, vol. XXIV, pp. 1085–100, quoted in Nightingale, Trade and Empire in Western India, p. 8. 42 BL, APAC, H/434, pp. 15–30, letter from George Smith to Henry Dundas, 16 February 1783. 43 BL, APAC, P/342/8, Bombay Public Proceedings, 9 July to 3 December 1787, p. 1080. He paid R10,495 into the Bombay treasury and agreed to pay R17,640 for 687 bales of cotton at R40 per candy, plus R186,260, his expected profit, into the Canton treasury. 44 Warren Hastings’s position at noon that day was 136°36´E by the watch and 136°16´E by observation, latitude 8°27´N. 45 The promoter was Richard Etches. See Tim Flannery (ed.), Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner (Edinburgh, 2000), pp. 77–89 and Harlow, Second British Empire, vol. 2, pp. 420ff. 46 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 5 January 1787. 47 Edward Fiott’s ship, built at Itchenor, launched 1786. William Greer served as first mate on Nassau with John in 1778. 48 BL, APAC, L/MAR/B/332A. 49 BL, APAC, G/12/88, Canton Consultations, 21 December 1787 and 15 December 1787, letter from Captain J. Dundas to Henry Browne and Supercargoes. 50 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 2, pp. 146–8. 51 Rodger, Command of the Ocean, p. 493: the legal limit, for the navy as well as the merchant service, was twelve lashes. Guildhall Library, MS 31376, Society of East India Commanders, no. 11, 27 June 1781: the Society petitioned the Court asking for their support in obtaining legal authority to punish. 52 BL, APAC, G/12/88, Canton Consultations, 21 February 1788. 53 Ibid., 20 February 1788 and Morse, Chronicles, vol. 2, p. 149. 54 Geowqua, Warren Hastings’s security merchant, should contribute the most, $3000; Shy Kinqua and Eequa, the purchasers, $1500 and $1000 respectively; and five others $500 each. The supercargoes protested, claiming that Geowqua should pay it all. His boatmen were notorious for this type of robbery, due mainly to his inattention and lethargy. 55 BL, APAC, G/12/88, Canton Consultations, 4 February 1788. John had 116 chests of Hyson, 13,309 pounds of turmeric and sixty tubs of quicksilver. He also had chinaware, 535,332 pounds of black teas and about 21,000 pounds of cassia, rattans and sticklac, nankeens and raw silk. 56 His official title was Examiner of Sea Journals, but he was effectively the Hydrographer. 57 Account of the Passage of the Warren Hastings, Captain John Pascall Larkins, by the Macclesfield Strait on East of Bangka 1788. Lestock Wilson asked permission to try it out again in Vansittart; she sailed on 25 March 1789, probably as a result of John’s report, and was wrecked in the Gaspar strait on 23 August 1789 with no loss of life.

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Nine DIVERSIFYING: BRAHMINS AND CONVICTS

JOHN ARRIVED back in Blackheath to find Thomas already a seasoned managing owner of three ships. He had taken over the family business from his mother, Christian, and was building on his father’s foundations. With the completion of a voyage to China Dover had handsomely repaid the outlay on her refitting. Thomas now sold her to government contractors Camden, Calvert & King for use as a transport and bought Royal Admiral from Sir Richard Hotham, who was withdrawing from ship ownership. She had completed her four voyages but Thomas hoped to hire her to the company for a fifth and employ her profitably in other ways. Warren Hastings was stationed for Bengal and Madras for the season 1789/90. John’s previous voyage had not been profitable and as he began to get his private trade investment together conditions were discouraging. The Society of East India Commanders wrote to the Court about this time expressing concern at their poor prospects. They were not complaining about the privilege itself, which at £7000 to £8000 had produced good returns till now.1 The problem was that the markets were flooded with goods brought in by foreign ships, often equal in number to those taken up by the Company. Many of these were officered and commanded by Britons, often ex-Company. The native merchants negotiated with them for prohibited goods, too.2 In 1788 David Scott had been elected as a director of the Company. As part of his campaign to fight monopoly from within its stronghold he had harangued his fellow directors and written pamphlets demonstrating the stupidity of the commanders being forced to smuggle out British manufactures which were not competing with Company exports. He had succeeded in getting a relaxation of the rules, so that the commanders and ­officers

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172 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner

Disclaimer: Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook. To view the images on this page please refer to the printed version of the book.

Plate 7:  Park House, Cresswell Park, Blackheath, a house leased by Thomas Larkins from 1787 until his death in 1794. He owned or leased other houses in Blackheath.

Plate 8:  Point House, West Grove, Blackheath, where William Larkins lived from 1794 until his death in 1800.

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Diversifying: Brahmins and Convicts 173 could fill up any spare capacity in the hold freight free.3 John took advantage of this development, applying to the Court to ship goods in addition to his privilege and promising to deposit the proceeds in the Company’s treasury in Bengal.4 Most of the commanders bought the privilege of their junior officers and craftsmen. Commanders with no money to invest could always sell their privilege to the London agents of the Indian Houses of Agency. This was the only means by which they could supply their Indian businesses with British manufactures, including capital equipment such as cotton screws.5 John was probably also approached by merchants and manufacturers who were keen to make use of his privilege to ship goods to India on a sale or return basis, which could earn him a profit while protecting him from loss.6 War with Tipu Sultan was brewing and the Company had been encouraging individuals to take out silver to Madras, an opportunity John probably grasped to make a profit.7 He had a fair number of passengers, men and women, in addition to military officers, but his charges were not excessive.8 Thomas’s eldest son and namesake was very keen to go to sea. He sailed with his uncle as midshipman while his cousin, William Larkins Pascall, signed on as captain’s servant. Both lads were coming up to fifteen and would be good company for each other on their first voyage. Throughout April detachments of HM 73rd and 76th regiments and Company recruits embarked with their officers and some wives, a child and a few servants. Warren Hastings sailed late, at the beginning of May 1790: several Indiamen had already left carrying troops to Madras and Bengal. Regulations on board ship had become much tighter in recent years. Captain Larkins rigorously followed the weekly routines and recorded them in his journal.9 Cleanliness was essential if the soldiers and recruits, in their cramped conditions, were to remain healthy and avoid typhus and scurvy. The officers examined all the soldiers’ clothing weekly and issued them with soap. Equal attention was paid to keeping the ship clean and free from fungus: the orlop was smoked and White’s air machine activated; windsails were dropped down the hatchways and the lower deck scraped and cleaned with vinegar. They kept the still working to ensure a continuous supply of drinking water. As Warren Hastings approached the latitude of Trinidada, John issued each recruit with a pair of shoes, a pair of flannel drawers and a jacket for the cold latitudes. When Warren Hastings put into Madras for water John heard that the war with Tipu Sultan of Mysore had begun about the time he was setting sail from Britain. Though Lord Cornwallis was determined to abide by Parliament’s wishes that the Company should not wage war, he had

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174 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner soon realized that the machinations of the Madras Council left him no option. He had chosen to befriend the Nizam and had not had to wait long for Tipu to realize that this meant eventual war against him. The sultan had pre-empted the British attack by invading Travancore. Governor Hollond of Madras had delayed preparations for war and tried to convince the Governor-General it was not necessary, probably because he was bribed by Tipu.10 Cornwallis condemned the Madras government for betraying their allies, failing to prepare their defences and disobeying his orders. He now ordered the Council to make all funds available for the war effort, including money set aside for payment of the nawab’s enormous debts. He had quickly to persuade the Nizam and the Marathas that their interests dictated an alliance with Britain and concluded treaties with them as the war clouds gathered. After some early successes the army had suffered reversals in the Carnatic, but the news from Malabar was good: General Abercrombie, heading the army of Bombay, had retaken the ports previously occupied by Tipu. After disembarking some troops, Warren Hastings sailed for Bengal. John went straight up to Calcutta to organize the sale of his investment and to see his brother. He found William working as hard as ever. Warren Hastings had impressed on his friend John Macpherson, who succeeded him as Governor-General temporarily, the importance of keeping William Larkins. While waiting to sail for Britain in February 1785 Hastings had written, ‘You know my affection for Larkins but you cannot know his public worth as I do. It was he who put the books of the government in order when they were many years in arrears, and he has kept them in order since. If you lose him you will never retrieve your loss.’11 John found Lord Cornwallis totally dependent on William, who was determined to stay in India until the Governor-General left. Privately, William was an embittered man, full of hatred and determined to seek revenge on his estranged wife and her suspected lover. Warren Hastings and Marian had begged him to forgive Mary but he was adamant. Now in ill health and totally bereft by the death of the son he had idolized, he showed no affection for his daughters. Lord Cornwallis treated him with great kindness and affection – he could not have been kinder if he had been his father – and he had succeeded in obtaining a substantial increase in William’s salary so that he should at least be free of financial cares. Towards the end of the year, rumours were circulating among the India commanders that they might be required to transport native troops to the Carnatic. Sepoys had always refused to travel by sea, but their respect and affection for Lord Cornwallis was so great that they overcame their prejudices and religious customs and agreed to a sea passage as

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Diversifying: Brahmins and Convicts 175 he needed to get his troops to the Carnatic in time for the campaigning season.12 Captain Peter Douglas, commander of Queen, stationed by the directors to go on to Bombay, aired his views without inhibition. He denied the Governor-General’s powers over the Indiamen, declaring for all to hear that had his ship been one of those likely to be commissioned he would have disobeyed the order and refused to go.13 John’s friend from his first voyage on Nassau, William Hickey, had arranged to travel on Queen to Bombay to recover his health. John persuaded him to sail on Warren Hastings instead, as he feared Queen would be redirected. Shortly afterwards Captain Larkins received orders to prepare his ship to transport 400 sepoys and their officers to Madras, with their followers and baggage. Douglas was told to prepare Queen to transport 300 bullocks to Madras. Any hesitation in carrying out this order or failure to attend to the beasts’ welfare during the passage would result in the loss of his command and his despatch to Britain as a prisoner.14 In the first week in November all the Indiamen at Culpee fired a nineteen gun salute as Lord Cornwallis passed in HM Vestal on his way down the coast. Francis Leigh, first mate, was on board getting the ship ready to receive the sepoys. The cabins in the steerage were knocked down and water for the sepoys was loaded. Brahmins filled the water casks, sealing each one to ensure that the water drunk by the Hindu Brahmin sepoys was not defiled. Similar care had to be taken with their victuals. The sepoys’ religious customs precluded their consuming any victuals dressed on board, so dried fruits, sweet meats and grains were prepared by Brahmins on shore and put into casks which were sealed in a similar way to the water casks. An extra five days’ supplies were loaded in case of delay, though the passage from Bengal to Madras at this time of year usually took only six days. John and his friend William Hickey were both ill when they boarded the ship. John had been suffering for some time from a complaint in his bowels and was hoping to benefit from the sea air. They found the sepoys already on board, and five British officers were installed in the cuddy, all with their hookahs. John did not allow smoking on board his ship but as they had already been there several days he decided to allow them to continue and did not comment. The sea was as smooth as glass. Hindus particularly were very fearful of the ‘black ocean’ so this was an advantage. There was nothing frightening about it. Unfortunately, the light winds and frequent calms made for a very slow passage. All the supplies had run out completely by 9 January and John and his officers were anxious about the possible reactions of the sepoys. They need not have worried. They bore their deprivation with complete resignation; not a murmur of complaint passed their lips.

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176 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner

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Plate 9:  In the possession of the Pennell family are these two silver urns inscribed as follows: Presented by order of the Governor General in Council of Fort William in Bengal, to Richd. Pennell Esqur, commanding the ship Hawke, in the Service of the United Company of Merchants, of England, trading to the East Indies. In testimony of the Service which he has rendered to the Company (whose Interests are essentially promoted in conciliating the Hindu Soldiery to Expeditions by Sea) in the great care & attention with which he executed the Orders of Government A.D.1791 In ­accommodating [sic] in his Ship a Detachment of Native Volunteers, from Bengal to Fort St. George, to reinforce the Army engag’d under Earl Cornwallis, in the War between the East India Company and Tippoo Saltuan [sic].

When Warren Hastings anchored in Madras road on Tuesday 11 January they found only Hawke, Captain Pennell, had arrived carrying sepoys and stores. Lord Cornwallis himself was pacing the beach impatiently, speeding up the despatch of the masulah boats to hasten the sepoys’ disembarkation and see that they were fed and watered. Once the troops were ashore, Captain Larkins saw that fifty-two chests

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Diversifying: Brahmins and Convicts 177 of treasure were safely carried over the famous three surfs of Madras, and the remainder of the sepoys’ baggage followed. William Hickey went off to stay with an old acquaintance while John rented a house in the fort. When William called on his friend he was alarmed to find him not only still very ill from the recurrence of his bowel complaint, but, more serious from William’s long experience of the climate, he had entirely given himself up for lost. William chivvied and cajoled him in an attempt to engender a more positive attitude and was pleased when Warren Hastings was given her despatches. By the time Warren Hastings sailed other East Indiamen had arrived – William Pitt, Earl Fitzwilliam and Rodney – but Lord Cornwallis was desperately anxious to see Queen with the bullocks and Prince William Henry with military stores, without which he could not leave for the field. Warren Hastings had an exceptionally quick passage, arriving in the Hooghly on 30 January. The two friends went straight up to Calcutta, where John rented a house in town. William kept his eye on him and when John’s health did not improve he persuaded him to stay with him in his house on the Esplanade which was in a much healthier, quieter position and had the advantage of lovely views and every comfort. William made sure he took the right medication and followed a strict diet, and under the care of William’s delightful Indian mistress, whose happy disposition and love of fun endeared her to all William’s European friends, John’s health slowly improved. By the time he received his despatches in March he was almost back to normal. On 12 April Warren Hastings was back at Madras. The tide of war seemed at last to be moving in the Company’s favour. Lord Cornwallis’s campaign had been dogged and largely successful and he had taken Bangalore. Tipu Sultan lost the Malabar coast and access to the sea and to the passes which had enabled him to descend swiftly on the Carnatic and Madras. The prospects for both the Company and the commanders were much brighter. However, John’s health, which had improved during his stay in Calcutta, deteriorated to such an extent during the passage home that he handed over the command to Mr Leigh. News of his brother’s poor health must have reached Thomas by a ship ahead of Warren Hastings. He obtained the Court’s permission for John to leave his ship when she reached the Downs.15 On his return to Blackheath early in October 1791 John found Thomas concerned with finding a profitable voyage for Royal Admiral which had returned from China in June and was now a dismantled ship. The Company was taking up several dismantled ships for a sixth voyage to bring back sugar and saltpetre from Bengal and tea from China.16 Large merchant ships were also needed to transport convicts to New

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178 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner South Wales. East Indiamen were favoured by government not only because of their capacity but because their commanders and officers were used to transporting large numbers of men on distant voyages. These officers were believed to be ‘a very superior class of men’ and more humane than the general run of masters and mates of merchant ships.17 Thomas probably tendered through the agency of Camden, Calvert & King who had acted as agent for the four ships sent in 1790, one of which was a Company’s packet, another a regular Indiaman which had completed her four voyages. Thomas also tendered Royal Admiral to bring back teas from Canton, which the Court accepted early in 1792.18 Young William Pascall Larkins was rowed out to join Royal Admiral as midshipman in mid-April. Hoys loaded with supplies clustered round the ship lying in mid-stream off Gravesend. On the main deck William found the familiar hammocks and guns had all disappeared. Carpenters were still busy finishing off the convicts’ berths, double stacked along either side of the hull, four berths to six square feet. A wide walkway extended the whole length of the deck as far as the petty officers’ accommodation in the steerage. Basic bedding for 350 convicts was being distributed round the berths. Over the next few days three craftsmen for the settlement, a miller, a master carpenter and a cultivator, joined the ship with twenty privates and a sergeant destined to join the newly formed New South Wales Corps in Port Jackson. They were a rough looking lot, lower forms of humanity than the Company recruits who had travelled out on Warren Hastings in 1791. Soon boats began to arrive bringing the convicts from the hulks at Deptford. Many of them looked quite respectable, but some were obviously hardened criminals and the presence of the evil-looking soldiers was heartening. No sooner were the convicts on board than they were escorted below and shackles clamped on their legs. Camden, Calvert & King were slave contractors and were well supplied with leg irons joined by a nine-inch rigid bar which severely inhibited movement. On 14 May William’s kinsman Thomas Larkins, managing owner, came aboard with Captain Bond and the naval surgeon-general, who was to remain aboard to ensure that the scandalous inhumanity and neglect which had resulted in the high mortality of the second fleet were not repeated. After paying the ship they and the senior officers enjoyed a celebratory dinner, drinking to a peaceful voyage and, no doubt, to Thomas’s latest addition to the family, a boy baptized David Scott. The following day Royal Admiral weighed anchor and sailed round the North Foreland. With the red and white pennant of the convict ship fluttering from her mainmast she began her lonely voyage.19 Security was tight until the shores of Britain disappeared from view, but then the soldiers were deployed under arms, and the convicts were

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Diversifying: Brahmins and Convicts 179 brought up on deck to take the air and exercise. While they were on deck the officers supervised the ‘smoaking’ of the prison rooms: fires were lighted and gunpowder exploded. Oil of tar was used liberally to resist putrefaction and destroy vermin and insects. On 13 July several convicts were suspected of conspiring to take over the ship. Captain Bond responded without hesitation. Nine convicts were seized and sentenced to be flogged. The whole ship’s company and all the convicts were witnesses as each in turn was triced to a grating and received three dozen lashes under the naval surgeon’s supervision. After that, discipline was tightened and punishments were for minor offences only. One convict managed to get on deck one night, milk the cow and drink the milk, an indulgence which cost him twelve lashes. As Royal Admiral ran down her easting in the boisterous, cold southern ocean, the fear of mutiny faded as lassitude, swollen limbs and spongy gums indicated that scurvy was becoming a problem. The sick list reached sixty, including a few invalids suffering from fever and dysentery. One died before they arrived at the Cape but three more died after landing. The rest were taken to the hospital. Three weeks later Royal Admiral sailed and soon afterwards everyone’s spirits rose when a convict gave birth, the first of four before they arrived at Port Jackson. Less happy tasks soon occupied the surgeon: scurvy reappeared and the sick list rose alarmingly to fifty-four. Worse than scurvy was ‘a dangerous fever’ which gained hold and spread among the convicts, claiming the lives of one male and one female convict. By the end of September the sick list had risen to sixty-nine. Births, deaths and baptisms had to be dealt with on the same day. After reaching a maximum of 44°27´S latitude, on 1 October they sighted Van Diemen’s Land and the first child born within sight of land opened its eyes. Royal Admiral stood into harbour and anchored in Sidney Cove at 10.30am on Sunday 7 October. David Collins, Governor Phillips’s secretary, recorded that ‘the Royal Admiral’s passage from the Cape had been the fastest so far, only five weeks and three days from port to port. She brought in with her a fever which had been much abated by the extreme attention paid by Captain Bond and his officers to cleanliness, that great preservative of health on board ships, and to providing those who were ill with comforts and necessaries beyond what were allowed for their use during the passage.’ The following day was very busy. As soon as the boats took the convicts off to the shore preparations for the second stage of the voyage began: the vacated prison rooms were smoked then scraped and cleaned, sprinkled with vinegar and whitewashed with quicklime and water. The boatswain supervised the ships’ maintenance and repainting, and the

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180 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner sails were repaired. Strangely, Captain Bond and his officers had difficulty in preventing the seamen running, probably to continue shipboard romances enjoyed during the long voyage. A settlement of convicts could hardly be compared with the affluent inhabitants of Calcutta but Captain Bond and his officers managed to sell £3600 worth of goods, leaving £750 worth to be disposed of by Governor Phillips later. Shops were opened up to dispose of the private trade goods, a significant portion of which was wine and spirits. Captain Bond had secured a licence for selling porter, but spirits were sold under cover of it with unfortunate consequences. Several settlers behaved with great impropriety, and rioting and drunkenness prevailed for as long as the sales lasted. Royal Admiral had brought out government stores for distribution on arrival but they fell short of adequate: the rancid oil was inedible and had to be used in place of candles, the men’s apparel wore out within weeks. The women’s allowance included the means to repair their clothes which consisted of ‘one cloth petticoat, one coarse shift, one pair of shoes, one pair of yarn stockings; one hat; one pound of soap; a quarter pound of thread, two ounces of pins; six needles; one thimble; and one pair of scissors’.20 Just under four weeks after anchoring in Sidney Cove, Royal Admiral took her departure from North Head and headed north along the coast surveyed by Captain Cook. Light winds kept down her speed for a few days but eventually she found a moderate trade. Royal Admiral was navigating seas barely charted, frequented only by whalers, but Captain Bond had on board charts which featured information discovered by Cook. On the last day of November they sighted two small, low islands ‘bearing E13N and E18.30N’ about four to five leagues distant. At 5.30pm they saw several rocks from the masthead and breakers extending from east to north by west. Others lay from northwest to southeast and they supposed them to be the termination of the reef off the northwest end of New Caledonia. Captain Bond noted confidently that this was ‘a new discovery and of singular importance’. The northwest ‘extreme’ was in latitude 18°04´S, longitude 162°42´E; there was no doubt that it stretched from the northwest end of Caledonia to the situation he had noted. At the end of his log he recorded the sighting in more detail: On look-out for reef as Captain Cook’s account of seeing no end to the breakers had alarmed me, and hauled a degree to westward to give it a good birth [sic] keeping a good look-out. At daylight we discovered to the eastward two small islands about four leagues to windward and presently after detached lumps of breakers here and there straggling rocks above the water stretching away to the north-west. Bore up and run along the reef at about five miles distant at seven we could plainly see a long low

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Diversifying: Brahmins and Convicts 181 weedy island at about four leagues to the eastward of the breakers. At eight we were abreast the NW extreme over which the sea broke furiously the point being open and exposed to the easterly swell it appeared from the point to be of considerable breadth and seems made up of islets, rocks etc above and under water there may possibly be clear passage through but necessity would scarcely warrant so rash an undertaking it is the most dangerous shoal I ever beheld and the water so very smooth owing no doubt to its eastern extent that a ship might be on the reef presently with the best look-out. I have ascertained the longitude of its NW point by a very good Arnold’s TK whose rate agrees with our lunar observations as nearly as possible its NW extreme. Lays in lat. 18°4´, longitude 162°43´E. I have no doubt that it extends to the NW point of New Caledonia.   From the masthead the extremes of the shoal from SEbE1/2E to N1/2E the North West end formed a point the breakers appeared from thence to run considerably to Eastward the southernmost Island ESE the northernmost NEbyN in extent from NNE1/2E to NE, Variation 9.53´E.21

Four days later, a brisk trade, blowing hard with much rain, was carrying Royal Admiral at good speeds towards the island of Santa Cruz and Queen Charlotte Island. The Captain and officers decided the islands were erroneously laid down in the charts as their longitude by their timekeeper and lunar observations was reliable, and yet they passed over the position as laid down in the charts without seeing them. By 11 December the winds were lighter but the heavy rain continued and it was very gloomy. At 2pm on the 15th they sighted two islands to the northward. They could not weather them so they bore up and passed them to the eastwards about six miles distant. Captain Bond wrote an account of the islands, which did not appear on his charts. ‘They are both very low and covered with trees amongst which the Cocoa Nut tree was very conspicuous, they appeared circular and of no great extent they seemed joined by a reef, none of our eastern charts having them down. I take them to be a new discovery and have named them accordingly Baring’s Isle in honour of Mr Baring, the present Chairman of the Honourable Court of India directors. It was rather unlucky that the sun was not visible the whole day but the latitude and longitude I have laid them down in is sufficiently correct either to find or avoid them. Lat 5.35N Long 168.13E Variation 10E.’22 The boisterous weather continued, with fresh gales, squalls and rain. At 11pm on 16 December they saw a light on the lee shore bearing northwest by north. They wore immediately and made sail to the southward. They found they could not weather the land so bore up and ranged along the eastern coast of above twenty small islands lying nearly southby-east and north-by-west by compass. They appeared all connected by reefs and ledges distant from one another from one to six miles.

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182 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner They are well covered with trees and full of inhabitants we distinguished them very numerous on the sandy beach. They are very low and dangerous a ship in thick weather might run on the reef without seeing land on either side. I was at first inclined to think these islands were seen by the Scarboro’ in her passage to Canton23 notwithstanding the difference of 4° of longitude but from the course we steered after leaving them and not seeing the other island to the NNW makes it impossible so we are no doubt the first discoverers. I have named them the Muskitto Group. Lat from 7°20´ to 7°47´N Longitude 168°23´E Variation 10E.24 On Monday 7 January 1793 at half-past five in the morning they sighted the island of Tobago Xima. Their observation at noon showed that they were in latitude 21°57´N. Captain Bond noted that all the charts wrongly place Little Tobol due east of Tobago Xima, while it is actually two miles to the south-southeast. The charts had also placed both of them too far to the north.25 The weather calmed down from Monday 17 December and three weeks later, on Monday 7 January, they sighted the southeast point of Formosa which Captain Bond also found erroneously laid down in the charts. When Royal Admiral arrived at Whampoa on 14 January, just within her charter party limit, she found Sulivan from Bombay already at anchor. William Pascall Larkins must have been keen to meet up with his cousin Thomas Larkins, sixth mate of Sulivan, and discuss their experiences. *** Eleven thousand miles away Britain was in the grip of a gloomy inevitability awaiting the commencement of hostilities with revolutionary France. The Paris Convention’s decree of November 1792 promising help and fraternity with all peoples struggling to be free had finally dispelled the myth that the French revolution would not affect Britain. The prospect of war hung like a black cloud over the debate on the renewal of the Company’s charter. For twelve months, delegations from the shipowners and builders of Glasgow, Liverpool and the outports, the manufacturers of Manchester, Paisley and Exeter and the tin and copper mine-owners of Cornwall and Anglesey had been resident in London lobbying Members of Parliament and directors to get a share of the Company’s exclusive trade. David Scott’s associates, the agents of the Houses of Agency in the metropolis, had been pressing for the Indian private traders to take over the outward and homeward trade between Britain and India. Everyone knew European traders were carrying on a substantial trade between India and Europe financed by Company

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Diversifying: Brahmins and Convicts 183 s­ ervants as a channel to remit their fortunes while the British merchants in India were excluded.26 Henry Dundas was determined to keep the India to Britain trade in the Company’s hands in order to bring home the Indian revenues, but he was undecided whether or not to open up the Britain to India trade. In the event, the government declared war on France on 9 February and William Pitt put Henry Dundas in charge of prosecuting the war. Mr Dundas expedited the debate on the renewal of the charter, appeasing the various pressure groups by sops. He increased the export of metals and required the Company to make room available on its ships for the merchants and manufacturers.27 In the autumn the members of the family were reunited. William Larkins Pascall and Thomas arrived in the Downs together on 21 August. They found John a happy man. He had recovered his health and had given up the sea for ever. His wife had completed his happiness by presenting him with twins. In October, William arrived home on Earl Talbot and settled at Blackheath near his brothers. Despite being dreadfully afflicted with ‘the stone’ for some years he had kept to his decision to remain in India until Lord Cornwallis returned.28 He had left his daughters in India. Both Thomas and John had been saddened by the severity of the attacks on Warren Hastings, whose trial in Westminster Hall was still underway. Although the trial no longer attracted the richest and most powerful in the land, the charges filled the newspapers and were constantly before the public. William had not escaped. As Hastings’s accountant and friend he was attacked in the House of Commons as part of the general campaign to discredit Hastings. Lord Cornwallis had stoutly defended his Accountant General. In a letter to the Chairman of the Court of Directors the Governor-General had said ‘I cannot sufficiently express my obligations to Mr Larkins for his zeal in the public service. I wish those who attacked him in the House of Commons had half his patriotism.’29 Despite his poor state of health, William was called to the Bar of Westminster Hall by the prosecutors of Warren Hastings. Although it was only the 123rd day of his trial for impeachment, it was in its seventh year. The end was in sight at last. Sure of an acquittal, Hastings’s defence team had closed their case, but on Lord Cornwallis’s return to Britain they obtained an extension. Almost as many spectators crammed into the hall to hear the ex-Governor-General of India’s testimony as had attended the opening session and both Houses were present in force. Lord Cornwallis’s contribution was brief and entirely favourable to Hastings. Although Warren Hastings had bemoaned William Larkins’s absence in India throughout the trial, as he knew his testimony would be favourable, now his greatest wish was to get the business

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184 Thomas Larkins, Commander and Managing Owner over as quickly as possible. The prosecutors assumed the defendant now doubted Larkins’s support and jubilantly decided to call him for the prosecution. William answered all counsel’s questions with composure and firmness. He had only a slight recollection of the circumstances on which he was questioned and said so. Over several days he stressed that though much of the money in question was in Hastings’s name in the books, the former Governor-General had never touched it. He had in fact borrowed at high interest to help those in need. William said he had had difficulty in persuading Hastings to spend one moment attending to his own affairs. In thirteen years he had never known Warren Hastings do anything designed to further his own interests.30 William’s testimony for the prosecution confirmed Hastings’s acquittal, which was declared shortly afterwards. Sadly, Thomas did not live to hear the good news. The family had not enjoyed being together for long before he became ill. Fortunately, Manship, on which young Tom had signed up as fifth mate, had not yet left the coast when his father died on 2 March 1794, in his forty-ninth year, and was buried at Greenwich. Thomas proved to be a fitting successor to his father as manager of the family business, taking advantage of the government’s requirement for transports to carry convicts to Australia and the Company’s need for large ships to bring the teas back from China. He successfully provided the younger members of the family with employment, leading, in one case, to gaining valuable experience in navigation. John’s health failed as a result of a protracted illness while on government service in the Bay of Bengal, forcing his early retirement from the sea, but his recuperation was cut short by his brother’s illness. With Thomas’s early demise John was thrust into the position of managing owner and head of the family. Notes   1 This was an honest admission. See for example Bowen, Privilege and Profit, p. 25, Table 2, Private Trade of William Hambly 1780.   2 Guildhall Library, MS 31376, Society of East India Commanders’ memorial book.   3 BL, APAC, H/400: on reading a report of a Special Committee at a Court of Directors to consider how to improve the Company’s commerce, 19 August 1789, the directors resolved that there was no need to change the commanders’ and officers’ privilege, but commanders could fill up all surplus tonnage freight free with goods (except woollens, copper, military and warlike stores) provided ample room remained for recruits, on condition the proceeds were deposited in the treasury on arrival at the port. Merchants and servants in

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Notes to Chapter 9 185

  4   5

  6   7   8   9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18

19

India could fill up tonnage on the return passage at a reasonable freight. Philips, East India Company, p. 72, and BL, APAC, Charters, 10, 10 April 1788. BL APAC B/110, 9 April 1790, p. 484. Gedalia Yogev, Diamonds and Coral, Anglo-Dutch Jews and Eighteenth Century Trade (Leicester, 1978), p. 71: respondentia loans were very common as these were repayable, plus an agreed interest, only if the voyage was successful. The merchant himself bore the risk and insured the amount of the loan Parkinson, Trade in the Eastern Seas, pp. 206–7, estimates the average value of goods exported in the commanders’ and officers’ privilege trade at £120,000 per annum between 1784 and 1790. John Evans, The Gentleman Usher, the Life and Times of George Dempster 1732–1818 (Barnsley, 2005), p. 226: in 1791 Captain Hamilton Dempster took out to Madras on Rose £4500 in silver dollars and goods valued at £10,000. Hickey, Memoirs, vol. 4, p. 12. John accommodated his passengers ‘upon much easier terms than any other commander ’. BL, APAC, L/MAR/B/9E, log of Warren Hastings, 1 March 1790–1 November 1791. Dodwell, History of India, vol. 5, p. 335. Bovill MS, Hastings to Macpherson, 3 February 1785. Bowen, Business of Empire, p. 47, n. 71: Cornwallis had first persuaded highcaste sepoy volunteers to travel by sea in 1789 when they were transported to Benkulen. Hickey, Memoirs, vol. 4, pp. 1–2. Ibid., p. 5. BL, APAC, B/113, 28 September 1791, p. 484. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/532, p. 936, Appendix 2821: at a Court of Directors on 10 March 1790, it was resolved that ships that made the fourth voyage the repairing voyage could run three more voyages. The Court recommended the suspension of the thirty-ninth by-law at the next General Court to encourage the owners to do a good repair. From that date ships would be able to go to India on the fifth voyage but only to China on the sixth. See Bowen, Business of Empire, pp. 244–5, for directors’ policy of broadening the range of imports from Bengal in the last two decades of the eighteenth century as domestic demand for textiles flagged. House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1812–13, VIII, 20. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/531, Committee of Shipping, 16 March 1792: she was hired at £15 per ton with half freight for surplus tonnage on condition that she carried 95 men, twelve guns and was dismantled as much as possible consistent with safety. Thomas agreed to pay up to a quarter of the cost arising from damaged teas. She was to be loaded in preference provided she arrived at Canton before 15 January 1793. The Company would pay demurrage up to seventy days after this date at £20 16 8d. per day; £200 per month for ship expenses would be advanced at Canton as usual and she would receive the usual impress. If she did not arrive by 15 January 1793 she would be out of the Company’s service until 15 Nov 1793. BL, APA, L/MAR/B/338F. Royal Admiral’s log is one of the earliest convict ship logs to survive.

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186 Notes to Chapter 9 20 E. W. Bovill, ‘The Convict Ship’, Mariners Mirror, vol. 40, no. 2 (May 1954), p. 126. 21 This was primarily for the information of Alexander Dalrymple who urged the commanders and officers to provide detailed reports of any significant features. 22 The name remains. 23 An extra ship taken up to load teas in Canton in 1788 after depositing convicts at Port Jackson. 24 The name remains. 25 Tobago Xima being actually 22°N latitude, longitude 121°4´E, Little Tobol 21°57´N at least fifteen leagues distant from the southeast point of Formosa. This was also placed erroneously, as they had determined by a good chronometer and good observation. Vele Rete SbW from the southeast point four or at most five leagues: 21°54´N latitude, 121°00´E longitude. 26 Furber, Melville, p. 77 and BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/26: letter from David Scott to the Court of Directors revealed that foreign private traders were clandestinely engaging in trade between Europe and Bengal to the tune of 10,000 tons per year. It came into Dundas’s hand too late to influence his decision. 27 3000 tons of space annually at a reduced freight of £5 per ton outward and £15 per ton homeward. 28 Hickey, Memoirs, vol. 4, p. 239. 29 Cornwallis Letters, vol. I, p. 305, according to the Bovill manuscript. 30 Ibid.

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Part IV JOHN PASCAL LARKINS, ESQ., MANAGING OWNER

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Ten COMPETITION AND CONFLICT

JOHN’S RESPONSIBILITIES were wide-ranging. William was an ­invalid, with slender financial resources, though the Bengal government’s repeated recommendations in his favour persuaded the Court to reward his efforts and enable him to live comfortably in West Grove, Blackheath, near the rest of the family.1 Susannah now looked to John to help those of her children who wanted a career in the service and his own wife’s kinsmen, John Brook Samson and Henry Morse Samson, depended on him to advance their careers.2 Everything depended on John’s continuing the successful management of the family’s ships. His first task was to apply for permission to build on Royal Admiral’s bottom, although she was employed as a dismantled ship on her seventh voyage fetching saltpetre and sugar from Bengal.3 Since the drastic reduction of duties on tea, imports had increased year on year. For several years everyone concerned in the provision of shipping had been locked in a debate on the most appropriate size of ships to provide for this new development. Most of the owners, builders and suppliers defended the status quo while David Scott wanted to see a large fleet of small ships of about 500 tons. Gabriel Snodgrass favoured larger ships on grounds of economy and conservation of timber, and the few large ships hired by the Company in 1786 had strengthened his case: they had brought home twice as much tea as an 800 ton ship. With the commencement of war early in 1793 government lent support to those favouring large ships which could be converted to men of war and in the autumn the Court came to a decision. Sixteen ships from 700 to 800 tons and one of 1200 were needed annually from India, fifteen large ships of about 1200 tons from China. The fleet should in future

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190 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner comprise two and a quarter sets of the larger size, or thirty-six ships; and two and a half sets of the smaller, or 40 ships. Extra, smaller ships were to be taken up for single voyages as required to make up tonnage.4 The general feeling in the Court was that even larger ships were needed for the China trade to ensure that they could bring back any surplus cargo. In December the Directors resolved that 1400 tons was ‘most proper’ for China ships, but that they should be tendered at 1200 tons.5 John intended to be amongst the first to build a ship of the largest class specifically for the China trade.6 On 14 May 1794 Royal Admiral’s owners approved him as the new managing owner7 and on the same day he wrote to the Court of Directors giving details of the dimensions and scantlings of a ship of about 1400 tons to be commanded by Captain Essex Henry Bond. The Court accepted his proposals immediately, recommending she be built with iron knees and a five inch bottom.8 Her keel was laid shortly afterwards at Barnard’s so that she would be ‘in frame’ for the statutory eighteen months before launching in November 1795. At the same time John took the lead in fighting for the owners’ rights. Warren Hastings had returned in late summer and John tendered her as usual. Apart from the enormous expense of coppering her, Thomas had spent a considerable sum on repairing Warren Hastings in late 1789 on the eve of her fourth voyage in the expectation that the Company would soon extend a ship’s life to six voyages. Just prior to John’s sailing in her in the summer of 1790 the Court issued a Standing Order putting the sixth voyage on a par with others, as important as the first or the fifth.9 Early in November 1794 John was alarmed to hear that the Court were not taking up ships for a sixth voyage. Messrs Dent, Buggin and Mitford, also affected, signed the letter John wrote to the Court pointing out that the signatories had all spent large sums on the repairing voyage, the fourth. Since the Court’s resolution extending the number of voyages to six, they fully expected the ships to be considered as established bottoms to be taken up in rotation according to the old established custom in wartime of time of arrival at St Helena.10 They appealed to the committee of managing owners for support and on the same day nineteen owners signed a second letter to the Court stressing that the ‘ancient and established custom of taking up ships in rotation’ was fundamental to the interests of both Company and owners. They relied on the Court to employ ships on the sixth voyage as regularly as on any other.11 Soon afterwards Warren Hastings was taken up and stationed for the Cape and China. Two years into the war with France the Admiralty found that they had been over sanguine in their estimate of the future strength of the

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Competition and Conflict 191 fleet. At the beginning of February 1795 Henry Dundas wrote to the Chairman of the Court stating that ‘in the present exigency of affairs a great and immediate addition to the naval strength of the kingdom is of infinite importance. That this consideration led (him) to suggest to His Majesty’s servants the propriety of turning their attention to the large ships in the service of the Company, which from their size and construction can speedily be converted into very useful ships of war.’ On 10 February 1795 John was one of several managing owners who went to meet Dundas at his invitation. He explained that the navy would soon be seriously short of ships. Many of the ships constructed during the great building program undertaken during the American war had been launched after hostilities had ceased. On the outbreak of war in 1793 the navy had been well stocked, but now more ships were needed in less time than they could be built. Dundas appealed to the owners to release some of the large ships being built for the Company’s service. Thomas Newte wrote to the Court stating the owners had waited on Dundas who had expressed the wish that all the large ships should be used for public service, but as they have engagements with the Company ‘to whom those ships actually belong’ they felt they could only treat with Government through the directors.12 Within a few days everything was resolved. The owners agreed to hand over five ships of the largest class and nine of the regular class for naval service.13 The Court immediately endorsed the owners’ decision and gave them leave to build in the ships’ room. The Court assured the owners that any ships taken up to replace them in the meantime would be hired for one voyage only.14 Four weeks later the General Court unanimously resolved to empower the Court of Directors to raise 3000 men to man the ships at the Company’s charge, estimated at £57,000.15 In July Mr Dundas asked the Court of Directors if sufficient tonnage could be made available in September to carry troops to the West Indies from Great Britain and Gibraltar. The same day the Directors made fourteen ships available. The question of the high freight charged by the shipowners smouldered away, flaring up from time to time. Henry Dundas had entered the lists soon after the renewal of the Charter, expressing his view that ‘the freight respecting the shipping now in the employ of the East India Company should be settled once for all on a fair and equitable footing’.16 John Larkins would have realized that the old system was doomed when David Scott became Deputy Chairman in 1795. It was common knowledge that bringing down the rate of freight was his prime aim, one strongly supported by Charles Grant, elected to the Court unopposed in 1794. Both men had been incensed the previous October when the directors had caved in abysmally to the demands of the shipping

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192 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner ­ irectors, agreeing to pay £35 5s per ton instead of the £31 4s the direcd tors had first agreed on. In a strongly worded dissent Scott and Grant expressed their disgust at the devious means employed by the shipping directors, failing to give notice of a meeting at which such momentous issues as the freight would be discussed, and taking the vote when directors were temporarily out of the room.17 Scott warned the Directors that the Company would be bankrupt if they continued to pay out such large freights and persuaded them to pass a resolution supporting his motion to introduce a system of fair and open competition in the provision of the Company’s ships. No attempt at reform had so far dented the massive shipping phalanx in the General Court. A meeting of the independent proprietors of East India stock was called for Thursday 16 April at the Crown and Anchor tavern where two active campaigners succeeded in getting the meeting’s approval of the directors’ resolution. They all agreed that the existing ships should be employed during their lives but they deplored the alarming increase in freight which had ‘materially checked and prevented the import of the manufactures and production of our Oriental Territories into Great Britain’. The general consensus was that the ‘mode of building ships for the service of the East India Company . . . by fair and open competition . . . is equitable, judicious and economical and that it ought to be carried into effect’.18 By the end of 1795 John could sense that public opinion was beginning to swing in the reformers’ favour. On 20 November the Court pressed the managing owners to give in a tender for as many voyages as remained for each of their ships for up to six voyages, specifying the exact freight in peace and war. They hoped this would end their differences of opinion. John Larkins’s name headed the managing owners’ reply explaining that the rate of freight in their tenders was determined by last year’s freight with additional freight from the increase in prices and the increase in insurance.19 The end game in the fifteen-year struggle between the Company and the managing owners had begun. Thrashing out the terms on which those ships presently in the Company’s service should be employed for the rest of their active lives, which was what both Company and owners wanted, began. A tender to the Court from a shipowner in Bengal for 16,000 tons of India-built shipping at £12 per ton in peace, £16 in war, from Bengal to Britain, £4 per ton back, put pressure on the managing owners to reduce their prices.20 After asking for clarification on a few points the owners drew the Court’s attention to the problems they faced in carrying out its wishes. The owners felt that what the Court required of them was unreasonable. Building and fitting out costs were rising all the time so it was impossible to estimate the freight for the next fifteen years. And how could

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Competition and Conflict 193 they state a specific amount of freight in wartime when they had no control over their ships’ activities? Their charter parties required them to obey the Company’s governments’ orders both at home and abroad. Ships were frequently ordered to deviate from their normal trading routes, adding up to a year or more to their voyages. The cost of insurance could rise and fall dramatically: they reminded the Court that it had risen to 40 guineas between 1778 and 1782. Recently it had already risen from 12 guineas to 16 guineas and was now 20 guineas. What if Spain entered the war? The present rate would probably double. The managing owners finally decided to propose to the Court that together they should estimate a peace freight plus an additional freight depending on prices prevailing on 1 September annually.21 In mid-December the Directors resolved that the estimated peace freight should be permanent; the war freight should apply only to the present voyage and the freight for future voyages would comprise the peace freight plus the war contingencies of the time.22 In mid-December the owners agreed to offer their ships at £46 11s to Bengal for the coming season. They proposed to the Court that together they should work out a permanent peace freight and declared themselves ready to submit to a Select Committee of the Court of Directors all differences on the subject of freight. The Committee of Shipping had already come to a resolution that they would pay £41 12s 10d per ton to Bengal for ships hired for the coming season. Faced with deadlock the Court determined to advertise and resolved to invite tenders for 800 ton ships at a peacetime freight of £21 10s to China and Bombay, £22 10s to Bengal and Benkulen and £23 to Madras and Bengal. The advertisement would state that successful ships tendered would be taken up for six voyages certain and that in future all ships taken up on advertisements would be for six voyages. Thomas Newte wrote immediately to the directors on the owners’ behalf. He assured the Court that the owners were anxious to reach a settlement and agreed with the terms but they needed clarification on some points. The Court unanimously accepted the managing owners’ agreement to the terms with an additional pound per ton for the present voyage only.23 Over Christmas and New Year John had time to study the terms with his fellow managing owners and early in January 1796 they met David Scott and the directors and reached agreement on a permanent peace freight of £21 10s for the smaller ships for Bengal.24 Everything ended amicably. David Scott was satisfied as this would produce a saving of £186,316 on the current season and he was sure the peace freight would drop even more as new ships were tendered under competition. John

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194 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner and the other owners thanked Scott for acting so liberally towards them and after the business was settled they joined all the directors at the London Tavern for dinner.25 Scott told the owners that the directors had given them £1 10s per ton more than ships built in war by the new shippers, and much more than for ships built in peace, as a favour and to shake the Court clear of their monopoly. The owners were quick to remind him that the difference between the offers of the old owners and the new owners equalled the cost of the command. The managing owner of a new ship being tendered could sell the command for £10,000, which enabled him to undercut the old owners by that amount. If that sum were taken out of the equation there was no difference between the offers. On 3 February 1796 a motion embodying the agreed proposals was put to the Court and passed unanimously.26 The shipping proprietors in the General Court fought a rearguard action for a few weeks but on 10 March the proprietors resolved to accept the new system of open competition.27 The proprietors were not prepared to give their assent to the new system which, by ending the owners’ customary right to build on the bottom of a worn-out ship, thereby automatically deprived the commander of his customary right to succeed to the command of the replacement. They were keen to protect the commanders from unscrupulous owners and were concerned that the change in the system should injure the commanders as little as possible. They moved that the pay, allowances and privileges of the captains and officers be clearly defined. The directors reviewed at length all the commanders’ present sources of income. Everyone recognized that the profitability or otherwise of the various privileges had changed over time. Passage money outward for all Company personnel, civil and military, was now regulated and very moderate, but there was no limit on the amount a commander could charge homeward. Wealthy Britons returning to home with their families were willing to pay handsomely for comfortable accommodation. The privilege of 56½ tons of cargo space outward could now be exceeded by any commander on application to the Court. Some relaxation was possible on the rules governing prohibited goods: tin, copper, naval and warlike stores, woollens and bullion. On renewal of the Charter in 1793 the Company had undertaken to export more British copper and tin, but the Company could withdraw in favour of the commanders. Similarly, on the return passage most of the imports, Bengal raw silk, saltpeter, nankeens and cotton wool and yarn, were now permitted to any individual, so there was no reason why the commanders should not participate in this trade. The China captains took up the

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Competition and Conflict 195 thirty extra tons homeward to bring back mainly teas, but custom duties and charges cancelled out any profit for the India commanders. The profit on flints taken out to Canton by the commanders was not worthwhile. Everything comprising chinoiserie, so fashionable in Britain a few decades earlier, was no longer of interest to the Company, so restrictions could be removed, but China raw silk should still be prohibited to the China ships. Importing chinaware as a flooring for the teas was no longer worthwhile. Most profitable was the privilege allowed to the Bombay/China commanders to hire their ship from Bombay to Canton, at little more than the daily demurrage charged by the owners, and fill up with cotton. Few of the monetary privileges were any longer worthwhile. The £3150 allowed in certificates now brought in only 1¾% and the ¼% for diamonds was of no use as the Company was overstocked. Few China commanders now availed themselves of the privilege of taking out £3000 in silver to exchange for gold, or India commanders the £2000 in amber or precious stones. The directors concluded that the commanders’ advantages were now limited to the investment outward, the port to port trade and passenger fares home. The question now was: how could the directors ascertain what was the average profit in order to arrive at a figure for compensation for those commanders whose careers were terminated by a change in the system of which they were the victims? It was very difficult to come to a conclusion. Successful commanders were not in the habit of broadcasting their profits. There were also many variables: a man’s natural business instinct and acumen; his interest and connections which enabled him to raise large sums on credit and attract the wealthiest passengers returning with their fortunes from India. After much consultation the directors concluded that the commanders made on average between £2000 and £5000 per voyage. They decided to make available a sum of £400,000 for compensation which would be distributed on a sliding scale according to the number of voyages commanders had completed: the maximum for those who had made only one voyage, none for those who had completed four voyages. New commanders would pay a fee of £500 per voyage, which would bring in £20,000 per annum and eventually offset the debt.28 The directors’ debate, lasting several weeks, hinged mainly on the other wish expressed by the great majority of proprietors in the General Court: the prohibition of the sale of commands, a practice outlawed in the original charter of 1709 and repeatedly over succeeding decades.29 The owners and commanders had successfully defied all these attempts ever since and it remained a dead clause in the charter party, ignored by everyone. At last, opening up the provision of shipping to competition

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196 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner had succeeded where all legislation had failed. Who would be prepared to pay £10,000 for a command which would lapse at the end of the ship’s life? A command would still have some value: the general consensus was about £3000. Most of the directors were happy to leave things like that; anyone of worth could raise this sum on credit. It would provide a reasonable bonus for the part-owners who would no longer leave the sale to the managing owner, but require him to show the price as a credit in the accounts. The directors opposed to prohibiting the sale of commands pointed to who was pressing for this policy: it was the old owners who had successfully defied the ban for decades. And the reason for their demand? They knew such a ban would operate against the new owners, forcing them to raise their prices while they themselves continued to find ways round the ban. After all, an old owner in the General Court had said that if commands were allowed to be sold he could tender at £3 per ton less. A much reduced price of a command would serve a useful purpose: a personal investment might add responsibility to the service and security for the owners. A commander’s emoluments merited some initial outlay. If buying a command were outlawed then the commanders should be required to pay part of the freight. The problem then might arise that if the purchase of commands continued surreptitiously the commander would be doubly taxed. The directors felt they must bear in mind the reason for the prohibition of the sale of commands in the first place. As clearly stated in the Court minutes of 1765 it was ‘to prevent a practice of much disorder and mischief to the Company by rendering all merit and long service of sea officers of little avail as to their preferment’. As no measures had prevented the sale of commands the Court had over the decades introduced rules to ensure that only those who were fit ever obtained a command. The Court had never sought to impose individuals on the owners by regulation and so had passed rules to exclude the absolutely unfit. Eulogisms expressed about the commanders in every quarter suggested these rules had worked. The general feeling was that interest and influence could not be eliminated, therefore forbidding sale of commands would not be effective. Nothing could discredit the Company more than passing rules that it could not enforce. None of these arguments dented the resolve of a great majority in the General Court which in October 1796 passed unanimously a resolution requesting parliament to prepare a bill enabling the Court of Directors to administer oaths to both commanders and owners against the practice of buying and selling commands.30 John could now rest assured that the new ship building on the bottom of Royal Admiral in Barnard’s yard would be employed for at least six

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Competition and Conflict 197 voyages. This gave him a breathing space. In future he would have to compete in the open market. The owners were no longer protected by the ‘hereditary bottom’, their ‘customary right’ to replace a worn out ship. John’s immediate concern was keeping his expensive ships fully employed. Natural disaster came to his aid. Poor harvests in 1794 and 1795 had caused widespread hardship and bread riots had erupted throughout the country. Repressive measures could stem unrest in the short-term but government realized positive steps must be taken to improve the people’s lot. William Pitt had asked the Company to bend its efforts to get rice from Bengal.31 More than twenty-five ships had been taken up for Bengal and Madras to fetch rice in the autumn of 1794. David Scott, now Chairman, grasped the opportunity to further his aim of getting a share of the trade for Indian shipping: he urged the Governor-General to load country ships and send them to Britain with rice.32 Late in 1795 the mood of the country turned ugly. The need to lay in stocks of grain became even more imperative. The Company hired seventy-six ships, forty-six of which were to call at Bengal or Madras. The Court of Directors used the powers voted by the General Court to hire extra ships when required. They took up ships from ports in every part of the country, from Liverpool and Whitby, Bristol and Plymouth, Newcastle, Whitehaven and South Shields and ordered twenty-seven ships to be sent home from India with rice.33 John was able to hire out Royal Admiral for an eighth voyage as a dismantled ship.34 The family benefited, too. John Samson had sailed as third mate on Warren Hastings in May 1795 for China. In the summer of 1796 William Pascall Larkins sailed as fourth mate on Royal Admiral to Bengal and Madras and Thomas Larkins, junior, sailed as fourth mate on Airley Castle, Captain John Esplin, to Madras. As fifth mate of Manship, Captain Lloyd, on his previous voyage, Thomas had had a chance to show he could take responsibility. The day after she arrived at St Helena on her homeward passage, HM Sceptre, Captain Essington, arrived to convoy the fleet home. He brought news of the French capture of Holland, renamed the Batavian Republic, together with the Dutch fleet in January. It was known that the Dutch governor at the Cape was not yet aware of this development and Governor Brooke of St Helena proposed that the English East Indiamen support the naval ship in an expedition to take the Cape where there was a large Dutch East India fleet preparing to sail. Captain Lloyd was among five India captains who felt that the importance of the enterprise merited breaking the Company’s instructions to avoid conflict and offered their ships’ services. The arrival of a naval packet from the Cape with news that the Dutch fleet had already sailed forced a change of plan. Those English East Indiamen already

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198 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner manned and armed for the expedition were instead sent to cruise for the Dutch fleet. Over the following eleven days seven large Dutch ships and their rich cargoes were captured. Captain Essington decided they should be towed back to Britain. Although Thomas had not seen action, he was sent on board Houghly with a prize crew while Manship took some of the Dutch prisoners. In the event, Houghly proved unmanageable and had to be burned. Captain Bond had appointed Henry Samson to the third mate’s berth on his new ship, already stationed for St Helena and China. On the first day of May 1797, John and Captain Bond made their way to Mrs Barnard’s yard at Deptford. The huge ship on the slipway ready for launching created a great deal of interest. The knees supporting the deck beams were not made of timber, but of iron. The cook room, sheep pens and hog sties were all on the upper deck.35 Above all, at 1518 tons she was the largest ship ever built in Barnard’s yard and the largest ever built for the Company’s service. She was named Walmer Castle.36 The Court’s instructions to Captain Bond and Captain Drummond, commander of Glatton, were to sail to Amboyna in the Moluccas before proceeding to Canton.37 No English Company ship had sailed to these islands, which produced the most valuable spices in the world, for nearly two centuries. Over the decades East India commanders sailing by the eastern or Pitt’s passage, and English country captains spying out the area in prahus, had skirted these fabled islands under the baleful glare of the Dutch Governors.38 The name ‘Amboyna’ festered deep in the Company’s psyche. It was there that the torture and massacre of ten English Company servants by the Dutch in 1623 confirmed Dutch undisputed rule over this remote region and her hegemony of the spice trade. Walmer Castle and Glatton arrived in the road of Amboyna in January 1797 to find several naval and Bombay Marine ships. The French conquest of the Netherlands in January 1795 had alerted the British government to secure strategic Dutch ports in the East Indies.39 The Cape was secured only two months after the abortive expedition of July 1795 and Admiral Rainier had been busy carrying out this policy to the eastward. Once Trincomalee was safely in British hands, ensuring refuge for the fleet in the Bay of Bengal during the northeast monsoon, the Admiral had turned his attention to securing the route to China. The Dutch governor at Malacca had surrendered the port to one of his officers with little opposition. Admiral Rainier himself had headed eagerly with his squadron to the Moluccas where he had found the Dutch governor completely cut off from the administration in Batavia and in no position to resist the British naval force. Amboyna, the centre of clove production, Banda, where nutmeg growing was concentrated,

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Competition and Conflict 199 and Timor had all surrendered with little trouble. The Admiral had found himself the possessor of the largest stock of the most valuable spices in the world.40 Only when the squadron sailed north to Ternate had they met serious resistance, which continued, and there had been an uprising in Ambon. Admiral Rainier had left his squadron to go to Canton to seek help from the returning Indiamen. It was evident that the two large, well-armed East Indiamen had been sent to Amboyna in the expectation that they could lend their powerful weight to the British naval force, but in Admiral Rainier’s absence the commanders continued on to Canton. There Captain Bond learned that the Admiral had arrived at Macao in December 1796 to convoy the first China fleet home with a view to returning via Amboyna. He had sailed off alone in high dudgeon at the Secret and Select Committee’s41 refusal to agree to his suggestion that the homebound Indiamen should call at Amboyna to support an attack on Ternate and its dependencies ‘for the King’ and hinted darkly at ministerial displeasure at their lack of cooperation.42 John sold Warren Hastings on her return in 1797 for breaking up and the following year tendered two ships, each for 800 tons. According to the new system, his sealed tenders were deposited in a locked box, which was opened three days later in a Court of Directors and the tenders read out. Both tenders were amongst the lowest and so both were accepted.43 As required by the new regulations John submitted a full list of all the nine owners.44 He contracted for one to be built at Barnard’s, the other at Thomas Pitcher’s at Northfleet. The increasing presence of Indian ships in the river continued to alarm the diehards among the owners. Inspired by the success of the country ships which had taken rice to Britain and filled up with light, valuable Indian products, the new Governor-General, Lord Wellesley,45 took up country ships in large numbers and freighted them to British merchants to carry the surplus stocks of Bengal to London. The ‘shipping directors’, whom David Scott called ‘ships’ husbands under the nose’, persuaded the Court in 1798 to send out instructions to the Governor-General to terminate the practice. An exasperated Henry Dundas recognized that a few powerful directors would take every opportunity to undermine the new competitive system. He believed a higher authority was needed to secure its survival. He had reminded his friend David Scott as early as April 1798 that in his opinion ‘the Shipping question could only with certainty (be) settled in Parliament’.46 Dundas introduced the Fair and Open Competition Bill in July 1799 and it received the Royal Assent on 12 July.47 The ship building at Barnard’s was nearing completion and was taken up for Madras and China. John wrote to the Court of Directors

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200 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner on 24 September 1799 presenting John Brook Samson for the command.48 She launched at 818 tons just before Christmas as Earl St Vincent in honour of Admiral Jervis who had won a great battle two years earlier off Cape St Vincent. She sailed in the spring of 1800. By July Britain was sweltering in temperatures more familiar in Bengal than in Blackheath. No rain fell from 4 June until the third week in August.49 At least the prospects for a good harvest held hope of bringing relief to the poor, who were suffering from the great rise in the price of bread as a result of recent poor harvests. Those hopes were dashed when September brought torrential rains which in a few short weeks flattened the crops. Never before had there been such a bad prospect as to corn. Throughout the autumn and winter months the Court took up extra ships for Bengal to fetch rice and50 ordered Lord Wellesley to send India ships back with rice, too.51 The shipping directors, William Elphinstone, StephenWilliams and Joseph Cotton, kept a vigilant eye on the Governor-General’s operations. David Scott, Henry Dundas and Lord Wellesley had each been working to a similar end, to bring the surplus produce of Asia back to the Port of London in British ships, but for different reasons. Henry Dundas simply wanted the British people to benefit from the Indian empire. David Scott wanted the British merchants in India and their agents in London to derive the greatest advantage. Lord Wellesley subordinated everything to his desire to drive the foreigners out of India and establish British hegemony all over the subcontinent. To this end he licensed large numbers of country ships to bring home surplus exports but angered directors by allowing the merchants to reduce freights and by sending East Indiamen back half empty.52 The Court forced the government’s hand by taking up 10,000 tons of shipping in small ships of 500 tons, not for a single voyage, but for six voyages, committing the Company to an expenditure of £300,000 per annum in peacetime and £500,000 in wartime.53 The Court also managed to take up five large Indiamen for eight voyages. The spectre of the teak-built Indian ships dominating the Legal Quays had been successfully postponed for some time to come.54 In the spring of 1801 John responded to the Court’s advertisement by tendering two ships of 1200 tons.55 They were third and fourth in order of cheapness.56 He informed the Court that he was building the ships for his nephew Thomas, who had just been appointed to his first command, and Captain Dance.57 If only one of his ships were accepted he would withdraw the ship intended for Thomas. John was anxious to help his deceased brother’s old friend Nathaniel who had fallen on hard times. He was one of the victims of the new system of open competition. Although he had completed four voyages as commander, and so was

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Competition and Conflict 201 not eligible for compensation from the fund, he had failed to make a profit from his private trade. Lacking good connections he had enjoyed none of the advantages the directors pointed to in the summing up of their enquiry. He was not in a position to raise large amounts of credit to invest. He had served all his voyages as commander in Lord Camden, stationed for Bengal where it was difficult to obtain goods which would sell well at the Company sales. He had not had the opportunity to benefit from the port-to-port trade. Lacking influential friends, Nathaniel had not attracted any wealthy passengers returning with their fortunes to Britain. He had been reduced to applying for charity from the Poplar Fund.58 Both John’s tenders were accepted. He contracted for one to be built at Barnard’s, the other at Pitcher’s. John became increasingly anxious about developments at Barnard’s yard. Unrest in the Thames yards had been growing as inflation and the price of bread rose. Open confrontation between the workers and Frances Barnard began in July 1802 and by the end of the month the caulkers were on strike. The Navy Board needed to keep up its shipping programme and the government needed East Indiamen to go to China to fetch the tea. The Board sent twentyfive caulkers from the Royal Dockyard at Deptford to work on the naval ships then building at Barnard’s Deptford Green Yard. A great crowd of striking sawyers and caulkers gathered near the yard gates. They appeared so threatening that though Frances Barnard managed to get twelve men from the Thames police and twelve from Union Street, the Royal Dockyard men refused to go into her yard, claiming they feared for their lives. The Navy Board and the government guaranteed sufficient civil and military assistance to ensure the men’s safety, at the same time threatening with dismissal any caulker from the royal dockyards who refused to go into the merchant yards. Over a hundred caulkers refused and were consequently discharged from the Royal dockyards for refusing to go to Barnard’s and other Thames merchant yards to refit East Indiamen stranded by strikes.59 This did not end the trouble. As late as 21 August about a hundred river caulkers overpowered the porter guarding the gate at Barnard’s Grove Street yard and forced the caulkers from Chatham working on HM Sceptre to come ashore. Dudman closed the gates to win time and appealed for help but the strikers forced the bar and carried several of the caulkers off toward Deptford in a riotous manner.60 Meanwhile there were more tenders to prepare. John offered to build an 800 ton ship in the Port of London at £22 13s 6d per ton peace freight.61 This would produce a very low return for the owners: £24 a ton would bring in only 5%, but he knew there would be competition at

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202 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner even this low price. Tenders in recent years had been reduced to such a low level that the situation had become untenable.62 It was time to stand together and impress on the Court that the whole basis of the shipping system rested on a false premise. Eighteen managing owners of ships sailing that season reminded the Court that the peace freight agreed in 1795 had been based on prices for building in 1792. Since then prices had rocketed; inflation had risen to a height unknown in living memory. They selected for purposes of argument five articles which comprised two-thirds of the expense of an East Indiaman. The cost of building had risen from £12 10s to £20; copper from ten-and-a-half pence to sixteen pence; cordage from £36 10s to £70 a ton; masts and yards had more than doubled from £740 to £1800; salt from £5 17s to £10 per tierce. The prices of all the other less important items had risen proportionately. The managing owners showed that in the ten years since the base year for establishing the peace freight prices had just about doubled and they begged relief.63 *** On his return to London in the first few days of 1803, just over twenty years after his father had proudly taken over the command of the first new Warren Hastings, Thomas stepped aboard his ship of the same name. By his side was his new wife, Harriet le Gallais, whom he had married in Calcutta the previous year and brought home on Comet, his first command. At 1356 tons Warren Hastings (2) was one of the impressive fleet of large ships built specifically for the China trade. A month earlier Earl Camden, 1271 tons, had been launched at Pitcher’s. John could congratulate himself on having backed the winning horse. China tea was undoubtedly the Company’s, and the government’s, staple for the future. He now had three China ships. He had launched the latest two ships just in time: there would be no additions to the China fleet for some years. After much discussion Earl St Vincent at the Admiralty had at last convinced government of the need to limit competition among the contractors for large timber. The Navy Board had been permitted to negotiate an agreement with the Surveyor of the East India Company for a reduction in the dimensions of Company ships.64 The Company agreed to limit the size of its ships to 800 tons for five years. John was at last in a position to ensure employment for his family dependants. John Brook Samson was now assured of at least six voyages as commander of Earl St Vincent. Henry had sailed as commander of the Company’s despatch vessel Telegraph in 1801 but would need a ship for a permanent command on his return. Nathaniel Dance had chosen

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Competition and Conflict 203 William Pascall Larkins as his first mate on Earl Camden and both the Collingwood boys had officers’ berths on Warren Hastings. A family friend in the Court of Directors had offered his gift of a writership to Susannah’s son John Pascall, and John’s own son Thomas showed an inclination for the sea. Times were much more difficult since the introduction of the new shipping system. Instead of finding £10,000 for each officer to purchase a command as formerly, it was necessary to invest up to £45,000 in building a ship.65 As David Scott told a correspondent who approached him to obtain a command for a friend, ‘I might as well propose to make him Archbishop of Canterbury as captain of a ship’.66 John had proved himself to be fully capable of advancing the interests of members of his large family and managing the family business. He recognized that the Company’s future prosperity depended on the China tea trade and was amongst the first to build large ships to meet the need expressed by the directors. John proved adept at taking advantage of the various opportunities which arose for keeping his ships profitably employed. He and Thomas numbered amongst what David Scott termed ‘the more respectable shipowners’ and there was evidence of liking and respect between Scott and the Larkins brothers. Thomas had christened his youngest child David Scott and Scott expressed the view to a friend that John Pascall Larkins Jr, whom he helped in a small way, showed promise of being as nice as his uncle. However, while accepting the need for change in the shipping system that Scott fought for unremittingly, as an active participant in the powerful body of managing owners John strove to obtain the best possible terms and took the lead when he felt the Company was treating them unjustly. John adapted quickly to the new system of open competition, successfully tendering ships required by the Company at the lowest price. While primarily concerned with providing employment for his many family dependents he did not forget his brother’s old friend Nathaniel Dance, rescuing him from penury by providing him with a ship. Notes   1 BL, APAC, B/262, 1 July 1795, p. 342: Resolved unanimously that in consideration of the recommendations repeatedly given by the Bengal Government in favour of the assiduity and abilities of Mr. William Larkins … and the Court being convinced of his extraordinary merit and exertions he be presented with the sum of Fifty Thousand Sicca Rupees (about £5000).   2 Henry Morse Samson and John Brook Samson were probably John’s brothersin-law, but the author has been unable to verify their relationship.   3 On 2 August 1787 the Court of Directors made a Standing Order prohibiting

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204 Notes to Chapter 10

  4   5   6   7

  8

  9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

ships greater than 800 tons sailing to Bengal. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/531: on 13 November 1793 this was dispensed with in the case of Royal Admiral. Ibid., Appendix 14, 1 October 1793, Thomas Larkins and three other owners offered four ships for a seventh voyage on the same terms as for the sixth. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/531, p. 610, 10 October 1793 and L/MAR/C/531, p. 651, 26 March 1794, Court of Directors’ opinions. Peter Auber, Analysis of the Constitution of the East India Company, and of the Laws passed by Parliament for the Government of their Affairs (London, 1826), p. 655. BL, APAC, B/121, 6 May 1794, pp. 110 and 121. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/531, Appendix 1528 of 14 May 1794: the owners and their holdings were: Jonathan Henniker, 1/16th, Richard Gray 1/16th, Augustus Brown 1/8th, L. (sic) P. Larkins and W. Etty, executors to Thomas Larkins, 11/16th. L/MAR/1/36, Extracts, 13 August 1786: following a dispute over the bottom rights of Duke of Grafton the Court required every managing owner to produce proof of consent of the majority of the owners before applying for leave to build. Disputes had become quite common. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/531: Committee of Shipping resolved John Pascall Larkins should lay before the Court the proposed scantlings of a new ship; replied 16 May 1794, detailed in appendix 1530 and BL, APAC, B/119, 21 May 1794, p. 151; approved B/119, 21 May 1794, p. 156. Court of Directors’ Standing Order of 10 March 1790. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/531, Appendix 1635 of 2 November 1794. The other signatories were Dent, Buggin and Mitford. Ibid., Appendix 1636, 3 November 1794. Ibid., Appendix 1745, p. 865: Henry Dundas to the Chairman and the Court of Directors 9 February 1795. Brian Lavery, ‘Warships as Indiamen’, Les Flottes des Compagnies des Indies, Cinq journées, pp. 31–9. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/531, Newte and Fraser to Ramsey, 31 March 1795, p. 975: names ships delivered to government and requests the Court will issue orders for new ships to be built in their room according to the resolution of 12 February 1795, ibid., p. 865. Auber, Analysis, 13 March 1795, p. 665. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/531, p. 568, 3 April 1793, Henry Dundas to the Court of Directors. For a comprehensive discussion of the protracted struggle between the Company and the shipping interest see Sutton, Lords of the East, pp. 29–36 and Philips, East India Company, pp. 80–7. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/531, 24 October 1794, Dissent of David Scott and Charles Grant, p. 651. Philips, East India Company, p. 85 and BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/531, Appendix 1755. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/531, 20 November 1795, William Ramsay to the owners and the owners’ reply. Ibid., 23 November 1795, Princep to Sir Stephen Lushington. Ibid., Appendix 1870 of 25 November 1795. BL, APAC, B/122, 18 December 1795, p. 1047 and L/MAR/C/531 pp. 2821ff. BL, APAC, B/122, pp. 1084–8.

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Notes to Chapter 10 205 24 BL, APAC, B/122, 3 February 1796, p. 1226 and Auber, Analysis, pp. 656–7: the competitive system was adopted by the Court. 25 Philips, Correspondence of David Scott, vol. 1, no. 61, p. 54, Scott to Alexander Adamson, 11 January 1796. The London Tavern was to the directors what the Jerusalem was to the Commanders. 26 BL, APAC, B/122, p. 1226. 27 Auber, Analysis, p. 656. 28 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/532, pp. 1155–9, summary of all the circumstances relating to the commanders’ situation and the decision on compensation. 29 Ibid., pp. 1110–18, debate in the Court of Directors on proposal to prohibit the sale of commands by law. 30 Ibid., p. 1243. 31 Philips, Correspondence of David Scott, vol. 1, no. 82, p. 72, n. 3: Secret Committee Minutes, iii, 25 June 1795. 32 Bowen, East India Company, p. 50, n. 83: 35 Geo.III c115, June 1795, enabled the Company to take up India-built ‘proper ships’ to ensure that sufficient tonnage was available for the shipment of cargo from Asia. 33 Ibid., p. 51 and n. 88, Chairman Stephen Lushington was concerned that everyone should be aware that the idea, ‘highly delicate and important in its nature’, had originated with ministers. 34 Extra ships were usually, though not exclusively, chartered for a single voyage, the vast majority to meet the emergencies posed by failure of the harvests after 1794. 35 See note 8 and also BL, APAC, B/119, 21 May 1794, p. 156: Walmer Castle was to conform to the same standards as laid down for Foulis and Belmont. John was probably concerned that with all this weight raised up she was not sufficiently broad, as he obtained permission to increase her breadth by 6 in. so that she would measure 43 ft 6in. from out to out of a 5 in. plank. 36 1416 tons, the estimated tonnage based on the original scantlings, was increased by the subsequent extension of the width. Both Farrington, Ships’ Journals, and Barnard, Wooden Walls, give the figure 1460, though Hackman, Ships of the East India Company, usually a very reliable source, gives 1518. 37 Glatton, 1432 tons, was launched from Wells at Rotherhithe on 23 May 1796. 38 Keay, Honourable Company, p. 356: Captain Thomas Forrest sailed up the Gilolo Channel and on to Mindanao in a ten ton prahu so as not to excite Dutch suspicion. 39 The exiled ruler of the Netherlands, William the Stadholder, appealed to the VOC to surrender to the British rather than cooperate with the French. 40 Rodger, Command of the Ocean, p. 523: Rainier made £300,000 on the East Indies station. 41 In 1793 three supercargoes forming the Secret and Superintending Committee took over from the Select Committee in Canton to put into operation the expected benefits from Lord Macartney’s embassy to the Emperor. The embassy failed and the Committee reverted to the Select Committee. 42 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 2, p. 291, Admiral Rainier to Richard Hall, President in 1796 of the Select Committee and the Secret Committee, Canton, complaining of his predecessor Henry Browne’s inattention to the needs of his fleet. 43 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/532, Appendix 2453, 8 August 1798. His earlier bid,

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206 Notes to Chapter 10

44

45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

65 66

in March, was refused. John Pascall later transferred the other ship to Henry Bonham. She was launched at Pitcher’s yard as Kent on 10 February 1800. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/532, Appendix 2453 of 8 August 1798. They were: Thomas Wilkinson, John Thackerah (sic), Sir John Henniker, Bart., Michael Pearson, J W Quinton, Messrs Brown, Wilkinson & Co., John Allen, William Syms, Henry Edmeads. Richard Colley Wellesley, Lord Mornington, 1st Marquis Wellesley, was Governor-General of India 1798–1805. Philips, Correspondence of David Scott, vol. 1, no. 129, p. 124, Henry Dundas to David Scott, 6 February 1798: ‘if the little faction at the India House go on to tease in the manner they have done I believe I shall favour them with a bill in Parliament’. Act of 39 Geo.III c. 89. BL, APAC, B/129, 24 September 1799, p. 589. Philips, Correspondence of David Scott, vol. 2, no. 304, p. 281, Scott to Wellesley, 28 August 1800. Ibid., no. 314, p. 293, Scott to Wellesley, 7 November 1800. Ibid., no. 316, pp. 294-5, Scott to William Pitt, 24 December 1800. Philips, East India Company, pp. 108–9. Philips, Correspondence of David Scott, vol. 2, no. 261, p. 251, Scott to Wellesley, 15 April 1800. Philips, Correspondence of David Scott, vol. 2, no. 386, p. 355, Scott to Wellesley, 9 October 1801. Philips, East India Company, p. 113. The Legal Quays were between London Bridge and the Tower of London. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/533, pp. 1803–4, 21 May 1801: Susannah Collingwood was one of the thirteen owners; and pp. 1803–4, Appendix 3059, 25 May 1801: John Pascall was one of very few managing owners who had to find part-owners. Sole owners were: Richard Lewin, John Woolmore, Peter Everitt Mestaer, John Atkins; partnerships: Thomas and George Wilkinson; Easterby and Chapman. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/533, Appendix 3068. Thomas sailed on Comet extra ship for Bengal in September 1801. BL, APAC, B/263, 1797–804. Roger Morris, The Royal Dockyards during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (Leicester, 1983), p. 125. Barnard, Wooden Walls, p. 69, John Dudman’s account. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/533, John Pascall Larkins to James Coggan, Appendix 3570, 1 December 1802. Philips, Correspondence of David Scott, vol. 2, no. 438, p. 410, 8 October 1802 and no. 443, p. 413 of 29 December 1802, David Scott to George Silver. BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/533, Appendix 3534, p. 2947, comparison of prices in 1792 and 1802. BL, APAC, E/1/238 Miscellanies, f. 233, 2 April 1802: Mills and Roberts to Lord St Vincent. Also, PRO ADM 106/2230, of 8 February 1803 and Morris, Royal Dockyards, p. 82: an embargo was placed on building 1200 ton ships. Concurrently the Company agreed to consult at any time on the proposal to build a ship of the line and a frigate annually at Bombay. Philips, Correspondence of David Scott, vol. 2, no. 475, p. 444, David Scott to Joseph Stratton, 12 November 1804, no. 438, p. 410 and no. 443, p. 413, David Scott to George Silver, 29 November and 28 December 1802. Ibid., no. 475, p. 444, David Scott to Joseph Stratton, 12 November 1804.

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Eleven AN EVENT UNIQUE IN THE COMPANY’S HISTORY

NATHANIEL DANCE, with William Pascall Larkins as first mate, had already sailed on Earl Camden before Thomas returned on Comet.1 The Chairs had backed John’s efforts to get Nathaniel on his feet by offering him one of the most profitable voyages: Bombay and China. In a bid to get a share in the profitable trade exporting Gujarati raw cotton to Canton, the Company stationed four large China ships annually for the west coast Presidency and China.2 Any part of the Company’s allocation that it could not fill was auctioned in Bombay by public notice among the private merchants there, the commanders being allowed to participate. When Captain Dance went ashore to the Fort in Bombay on 17 May 1803 he found a far more confident and prosperous community than that which he and Captain Larkins had met exactly twenty years earlier. The basis of this newfound prosperity could be seen all around. Towering above the roofs round the docks were the tops of the cotton screws which compressed the raw cotton into bales. Of the leading inhabitants whose hospitality Nathaniel enjoyed, the most important was Charles Forbes, whose great mansion stood in a street named after him. He fulfilled the role played earlier by David Scott as banker to the government, paying the Company’s advances to the producers and weavers in the cotton producing areas.3 For more than a decade the threat of demotion from a Presidency to a commercial factory, with sub-factories at Surat and Tellicherry, all subordinated to Madras, had hung over the heads of the Bombay merchants and government. Henry Dundas had eventually succeeded in convincing Wellesley that the Company’s commercial viability depended on the rich cotton producing areas to the northward of Bombay. The

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208 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner

Map 9:  The cotton producing area of Gujarat in western India

Governor-General was, however, deaf to pleas to keep Malabar. He was disgusted by the private merchants’ exploitation of those ports since 1793 for their own profit, resulting in a grand rebellion of the rajahs.4 Following the death of Tipu Sultan during the capture of Seringapatam in 1799, Wellesley had removed the Malabar coast from Bombay’s government and handed it over to Madras, forbidding the Bombay merchants to trade there. But economic forces were already at work undermining Malabar’s prosperity. American ships carried Sumatran pepper all over the world, drastically reducing the demand for Malabar pepper, but

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An Event Unique in the Company’s History 209 the growing demand in China for raw cotton from the northward more than compensated for this declining trade. However, appalling conditions in the cotton producing regions based on the rivers Tapti, Narbada and Mahi, with their ports of Surat, Broach and Cambay, limited production. Spurred on by the private merchants the Bombay government had seized their chance in 1799 and annexed Surat.5 Control of the city enabled them to monitor the quality of the cotton before it left the port, but throughout the region anarchy and chaos reduced the peasants to subsistence production. The Marathas caused havoc on a regular basis as they ranged round collecting their chaut, a quarter of the revenue of the territory, the traditional Maratha levy in areas under their control, by fair means or foul. Petty rulers survived by bribery and other devious means. Along the coast pirates inhabited every creek, preying on the boats bringing the cotton from Broach and all the ports to the northward. What cotton survived was full of soil and leaves, exasperating the Chinese buyers. The native merchants begged the Bombay government to intervene but Wellesley refused to allow any action that might stir up a war with the Marathas. Late in 1802 the Marathas began fighting amongst themselves. Governor Duncan of Bombay grasped his opportunity, using the threat of a possible French landing in Gujarat to win Wellesley’s approval for expansion by the Presidency. Within a couple of weeks of Captain Dance’s arrival the government of Bombay was well on the way to controlling all the cotton producing areas, acquiring sufficient territory of its own to meet its expenses.6 The Bombay Marine had carried out a severe reprisal on pirates in response to a particularly costly attack on the boats bringing the cotton down to Bombay. There was every prospect that future production would be greatly expanded and the cotton brought from the northern ports would be free of dirt and rubbish. Plans afoot to build the first naval ship in the Bombay dockyard would also boost the economy.7 Bombay’s lowly position as the neglected poor relation among the three Presidencies was about to be reversed. But the cost of achieving this position of strength to the northward had crippled the Bombay government financially. Only huge loans from Forbes & Co and Bruce, Fawcett & Co had enabled the government to carry out its aggressive policy.8 Now there was no money left to buy cotton to supply the Company’s share of Earl Camden’s cotton cargo for Canton, or that of the other three annual Bombay/China ships. The government was forced to let the Company’s whole share of the cargo space in the four ships to Forbes & Co.9 All the Houses of Agency had grasped the opportunity presented by the peace to send to Canton far more of their own ships, carrying almost double

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210 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner the amount of cotton sent in 1802.10 Captain Dance had no money to invest in his share as commander of Earl Camden’s cotton exports to Canton.11 On arrival at Whampoa on 2 October 1803 Captain Dance found his old friend’s son, Captain Thomas Larkins, commander of Warren Hastings (2), which had dropped anchor at the end of August. Rumours of the renewal of war with France had caused mounting anxiety among the commanders preparing their ships for sailing in the early weeks of 1803. On 8 March rumour had crystallized into near certainty when the King told Parliament that ‘as very considerable preparations were carrying on in ports of France and Holland, he had judged it expedient to adopt additional measures of precaution for the security of the kingdom’.12 Immediately, naval officers had begun pressing men out of the Indiamen. Commanders of various ships wrote to the Court asking that they approach the Admiralty to give orders for the men to be returned to avoid the expense of detaining the ships and to order the impress officers not to press men employed on the Company’s ships.13 A few days later Warren Hastings’s hundred and thirty-five men were included in the Court’s request to the Admiralty for protections for the ships so that they could proceed and for the men already obtained to enable them to travel safely to their ships overland or by water.14 The government was aware of the extraordinary expense attending the outfit of ships of the 1802/3 season between the end of the war and His Majesty’s message on 8 March. In August the Act of 43 Geo.III, c.137 authorized the Company to make additional allowances to certain owners to meet these costs. Captain Dance and Captain Larkins found seventy ships at anchor at Whampoa: sixteen British Indiamen, twenty-five country ships, twentythree Americans and four from Europe. The Court’s usual instructions to commanders prohibiting importing opium on the Indiamen were more earnest than usual following information that some Turkey opium had found its way from England to China. They referred to a new Edict of 1799 and warned the commanders that they would be ­dismissed if opium was found on board their ships.15 However, the trading community soon realized that little had changed: government officials were still the chief purchasers and conveyers of the drug. The commanders found that the country ships were dealing in opium far less at Whampoa, but activity at Macao had increased. It mattered little to the Select Committee in Canton where the sales actually took place. The opium, grown under Company monopoly in Bihar and sold at auction to private merchants in Calcutta, was brought to China by the country ships. All the silver from its sale found its way into the Company’s

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An Event Unique in the Company’s History 211 treasury in Canton, contributing significantly to the tea investment.16 Bombay cotton provided the other major contribution to the supply of silver, though for the first time Bengal cotton was imported at Canton. It was of a better quality than that from Bombay, finer and free from soil and rubbish.17 Thomas had brought the usual items from London: flints, Prussian blue, and smalts,18 all used in the porcelain trade, rabbit skins, cloth cuttings, quicksilver and silver watches. Neither he nor Nathaniel had been in a position to invest in private trade goods on their own account. The commander of Royal George, Captain Timins, who had served as Nathaniel’s third mate on Lord Camden in 1786/7, appears to have purchased their privilege, and that of Captain Farquharson.19 On his arrival at Whampoa, Thomas rented a factory in Canton, furnished it with items from the ship and set about buying a return investment. There was no shortage of funds. The Select Committee followed the Company’s orders to lend the commanders money on very generous terms as an encouragement to ship as much tea as possible. The Company encouraged the commanders to ship as much tea as possible by allowing the commanders thirty tons extra privilege provided the commander ‘shall not have refused any of the Company’s Cargo’ but the total privilege was not to exceed ninety-nine tons. Almost immediately this was exceeded with the permission to load dunnage up to 2.5% of the chartered cargo. 20 The greater part of Thomas’s homeward investment was in black teas.21 Some of his fellow commanders were in business in a big way. Captain Archibald Hamilton, acting on behalf of members of his family, shipped well over £5000 worth of teas on Scaleby Castle, an India built ship in the licensed trade returning to Britain, as well as on his own ship, Bombay Castle.22 When Thomas went down to his ship he heard that his second mate, Robert Rankine, had had a brush with Captain Hamilton over mooring when Bombay Castle dropped down below the second bar on 12 December.23 Thomas gathered that when Bombay Castle came down from Whampoa two days earlier Hamilton suspected his anchor was too near Warren Hastings’s flood anchor. He unmoored and carried a hawser to Warren Hastings to hang the ship whilst they weighed their anchor which they found had hooked Warren Hastings’s cable. He hailed Warren Hastings and told them it would be necessary for them ‘to stick out a little of their flood cable’. Rankine, in charge, evidently knew it was all stuck out slack underfoot but did not say so. He preferred to be awkward and answered contemptuously that Bombay Castle had got itself into the mess and it could get itself out of it. He must have known he was speaking to the captain as the Bombay Castle’s colours had been

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212 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner flying all day. It was all very public as most of the ships had come down. Within minutes the incident had mushroomed into a major incident with Rankine telling Captain Hamilton he ‘could always find him’ and Hamilton reporting Rankine to the Select Committee for unofficer-like behaviour. Captain Hamilton passed to Thomas an apology for Rankine to sign, but he refused. There was no avoiding an enquiry. The Select Committee invited Captain Dance, as commodore, Captain Farquharson, Captain Moffat and their first mates, Captain Meriton and Captain Browne to form a Court of Enquiry. Captain Hamilton called as witnesses the commander and fourth mate of Henry Addington, the nearest ship to Warren Hastings and Bombay Castle at the time of the incident. Both men supported Hamilton’s version of events. The Court then called in Rankine, who refused to answer the charge. He simply asked if Captain Hamilton was his superior officer. The members of the Court were unanimous in believing that he was. Rankine then asked them whence he derived his authority. They believed from the Court of Directors. Had the Court any papers to show this, Rankine wanted to know? It was a moot point. With a few words Robert Rankine had attacked a foundation stone of the Company’s shipping system, catching the Court of Enquiry right off its guard. They ordered him to withdraw. All agreed that Rankine’s behaviour towards Captain Hamilton had been very improper, as was his refusal to answer the charge made by the Court to which all had delegated their powers. They felt justified in immediately suspending him, but considered he might have been misled in the attitude he assumed. The Court decided to give him another opportunity to apologize. On one point all were agreed: ‘Were ideas similar to those of Mr Rankine relative to the commanders or officers of one ship being independent of those of another in the Honourable Company’s employ to prevail that very respectable service could no longer exist and good order and discipline be entirely subverted.’ The Court of Directors’ attention should be called to this point so that some regulations should be formed that ‘may efficiently connect every person in their Maritime service and render them responsible for their conduct to each other’. The Select Committee considered the report at a consultation on 30 December.24 They were in complete accord with the findings of the Court, but felt Rankine should be given another chance to apologise. If he persisted in his attitude the Select Committee would direct the President of the Court to suspend him from his station until the Honourable Court’s pleasure should be known.25 Rankine having again refused to apologize, on 5 January 1804 Captain Larkins mustered the

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An Event Unique in the Company’s History 213 company of Warren Hastings and formally removed him from his station as second mate.26 The ensuing reorganization enabled Thomas to promote his kinsmen: John Carlton Collingwood, who had served with Thomas as fourth mate on Comet, was raised to the position of second mate and Carlton Collingwood, midshipman, became fifth mate. *** As the ships prepared for the passage home, not knowing whether or not war had been resumed between Britain and France plagued the commanders. No convoy had appeared so far and it was unlikely that it would do so at this late stage. It was known that Woodford had sailed with the last East Indiamen to leave the Downs shortly after 6 May, but she had not arrived. By the end of the year the commanders concluded that there was a state of war and that Woodford had been taken. If so, the French would know all the intelligence and the danger would be greatly increased. Which route to take and how to organize the fleet in the event of sailing without convoy dominated the commanders’ and supercargoes’ conversation in the factory. The Select Committee considered the despatch of the fleet on 12 January.27 It was an awesome responsibility. In view of the changed situation they could not follow the Secret Committee’s instructions to send the ships home singly.28 The closest they could get to the Secret Committee’s wishes was to follow their instructions of 10 May 1790 when war with Spain was likely: to detain the fleet to await convoy until the end of January then despatch it. The cargoes of the whole fleet amounted to over £7 million.29 It would be not only a Company but a national disaster if such a valuable fleet were lost. The discussion hinged mainly on how to get the fleet safely from the China Sea into the Indian Ocean. The Committee estimated that by now the Dutch force at Batavia would be strong, possibly strengthened by a French force. Any delay would favour the enemy and increase the returning fleets’ difficulties by forcing them to round the Cape in winter. This would be especially dangerous now that it was in enemy hands. The British had delayed handing back the Cape: news of the delay would have reached the Dutch at Batavia and led to their strengthening the Strait of Bali, rendering the passage between Borneo and Java very dangerous. If the whole Dutch squadron remained in Batavia road, the Straits of Sunda would be equally dangerous. The Straits of Malacca seemed the best choice from every point of view. An American captain had arrived with intelligence that at the end of November and beginning of December no additional force

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214 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner had arrived at Mauritius and there was no enemy force in the Straits of Malacca or off Pula Auro. The latest intelligence, though not very recent, indicated that Malacca and Penang were both in British possession and the authorities there were aware that hostilities had probably been resumed.30 The government of India had therefore been alerted and would have prepared to defend those settlements against a Dutch or French attack. The commanders of the Indiamen were very familiar with the Straits and they could convoy the country fleet whose captains were constantly importuning the Committee to find protection for them. Water and supplies would be available there and the ships might find convoy as far as St Helena. The commodore would get information there on the enemy’s movements. If he heard that a large enemy force was cruising in the Bay of Bengal the fleet should return via Acheh and the strait of the commodore’s choice. Above all he should avoid beating for one or two months off the Cape in the foul season. The Select Committee consulted only the senior commanders to prevent the crisis becoming too public: Captain Dance, who, as the most senior commander, was commodore; Captain Willson, Captain Farquharson and Captain Meriton who had great experience of the China trade. Most of the commanders deferred to the latter’s views. He felt that the primary consideration was avoiding rounding the Cape in foul weather, which meant sailing not later than the beginning of February. Captain Willson agreed but suggested sailing a week later in order to arrive just after the foul weather set in, when the enemy cruisers would have run for port. Captain Farquharson dismissed as a myth the danger of rounding the Cape in foul weather – ‘a mere fantom in the minds of enervating and prejudiced men, a bugbear to frighten old women and young children’. He claimed to have sailed round the Cape more often in winter than summer and never been affected by wind or weather. As for whether to sail together or divide, Henry Meriton argued convincingly for a single fleet. It would form a powerful force in reality, even more so in appearance, preventing any part of an enemy fleet capturing an Indiaman. Captain Meriton came down strongly in favour of the decision to sail by the Straits of Malacca. The only danger he envisaged was when approaching the Straits from Pula Auro. Rounding the Cape with such a large and valuable fleet before the bad weather set in he felt was the first consideration, as the ships would be separated in the stormy weather and would be picked off singly. The other senior commanders agreed with him with the exception of Captain Farquharson who was alone in proposing a divided fleet, sailing at different times, by an eastern passage.

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An Event Unique in the Company’s History 215 The Committee were determined to send the whole fleet by about 25 January so that it would pass the Ladrone by 1 February at the latest. They informed the leading men in the country trade of this, unusually divulging the route, too, so that they would pass the information on. Two days later all doubt was ended with the arrival of Ganges, Captain Taylor, a fast-sailing brig, with despatches from Bengal and the Secret Committee of the Court of Directors dated 7 May 1803 announcing the renewal of the war.31 Unless the Batavian Republic asked the French to withdraw, which was highly unlikely, this meant war with Holland too, and the Select Committee were told to order the immediate capture of French ships and possessions. All Dutch property and ships were to be detained, and the settlements occupied in trust to be returned if Holland became neutral. The Secret Committee’s order to the Select Committee to pursue such measures as they thought fit to protect the property under their charge lifted a heavy load off the supercargoes’ shoulders. Captain Taylor informed the Committee privately that an eighty gun ship was on its way to join the Admiral in the East Indies station, and Bombay Frigate,32 Teignmouth and three armed East Indiamen were cruising off the Sandheads. The French had no force whatever in the Straits of Malacca but a French frigate was on its way to Batavia. As the Select Committee was on the point of retiring, Woodford’s packets were delivered; they contained no new information. The Committee agreed to hire for $2000 Captain Taylor’s fast-sailing brig Ganges to sail with the fleet. She was to look into Pula Auro and precede the fleet into the Straits, then go ahead to carry despatches to the Governor-General. The Committee addressed a letter to the Admiral, to be carried by the Commodore, begging him to provide convoy or at least desist from pressing men from the Indiamen. Lt Fowler RN, who had arrived in Canton with some of his crew after being wrecked, was sent on board Earl Camden. As commodore, Captain Dance instructed all the commanders to exercise the great guns and small arms once. Both Earl Camden and Warren Hastings were considerably better armed than John Larkins had originally envisaged. The Court had responded to his own suggestions for arming his two ships nearing completion the previous autumn by recommending a much heavier armament. These comprised ten eighteen-pounder carronades, which they wished to make uniform throughout the fleet, on the upper deck, four feet long and not less than fourteen-and-a-half hundredweight. On the main deck was a battery of twenty-six eighteenpounder guns, six feet long with chambers, and weighing not less than twenty-six hundredweight. 33

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216 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner The foremastmen frequently went aloft and manned the topgallant yards: if the ships had to get up speed to escape from the enemy, it would be necessary to set all possible sail as quickly as possible. On 3 February Warren Hastings weighed and passed Macao in company with several Indiamen and country ships and anchored at Lintin. When dawn broke on 6 February Thomas and his officers were alarmed to find Warren Hastings alone apart from Rolla34 and a country ship. They had missed the commodore’s signal that he intended going out during the night and the whole fleet had passed without anyone being aware of it.35 Warren Hastings made all speed and soon sighted Ganges brig working to windward looking out for them. Soon the sixteen Indiamen and eight country ships came into view, all topsails lowered as they waited for Warren Hastings to join them. Strong gales carried the ships down the China Sea under a press of sail in squally, blustery weather which frequently scattered the fleet. On Sunday 12 February Thomas took advantage of a few hours’ clear weather to hold divine service. Two days later the fleet was approaching the latitude of Pula Auro, the traditional departure point for ships entering the Malacca straits. Captain Larkins gave the order to clear the ship. If the enemy were going to show themselves, this was the most likely place. During the afternoon of Tuesday 15th, Commodore Dance gave the signal to sail in close order to the southward and closely observe his motions during the night. At daylight the lookout on Warren Hastings saw land to the southward and the officer of the watch signalled the Commodore. By 8am the island of Pula Auro could be clearly seen lying west-half-north about eight or nine leagues distant. An hour later Royal George, Captain Timins, signalled the Commodore that there were five strangers to the southwest. Soon afterwards Royal George, Coutts, Bombay Castle and Alfred passed Warren Hastings chasing to the southwest, and the Commodore signalled Warren Hastings to relay signals between him and the chase. He followed this up with a signal to Royal George to hoist pendants and to make the Admiralty signal to the strangers. Warren Hastings relayed Royal George’s response that the strangers were ‘suspicious’. The Commodore signalled the fleet to heave to on the starboard tack and at noon he made the signal with a gun to call in all cruisers.36 At 1pm on Wednesday 15 February Royal George signalled the chase was an enemy. Warren Hastings obeyed the Commodore’s signal to the fleet to form line ahead and keep in close order while Lt Fowler in Ganges brig passed to and fro directing the country ships to take up a station on the lee bow, keeping the Indiamen between them and the enemy. At 4.30pm the Commodore made the signal to show no lights at all in the night,

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An Event Unique in the Company’s History 217 to keep hammocks up and the people at their quarters. The company on Warren Hastings, every man standing silent at his post, could see the strangers clearly outlined against the western sky: the large bulk of a warship of 64 or 74 guns, two frigates, a corvette and a brig. They knew the powerful armament of the warship could cause devastation among the fleet before the Indiamen’s relatively small guns could be brought to bear on her. It remained to be seen if Henry Meriton’s assessment that the fleet was ‘respectable in reality’ as well as in appearance was correct. All through the night Captain Larkins and his ship’s company lay to in the line of battle watching the enemy wearing and standing into the fleet. Three of the Indiamen were burning lights, contrary to orders, possibly to fool the enemy that they were warships. Captain Larkins kept his post on the quarterdeck with his chief mate and the purser. Every other man was at his quarters. Twenty hands were allocated to the braces and rigging lines in case the commodore ordered the ships to change course. Ten men were stationed on the poop ready to take up small arms if necessary. The men and boys were ready to man the light room and powder room and carry powder to the guns.37 At 7am they received Commodore Dance’s signal to form line ahead a cable and within the hour they saw the strangers hoisting French colours, the warship raising a rear-admiral’s flag. The Commodore signalled the fleet to form order of sailing, two cables distant, and to steer a course under easy sail. The enemy edged towards the fleet. By 1pm on 16 February Captain Larkins could see that the enemy was making to cut off the commodore’s rear. He did not have to wait long for the commodore’s response. Dance signalled the fleet to tack and bear down and engage in succession. First to engage was Royal George, followed by Ganges and Earl Camden, all flying blue ensigns and pendants.38 The enemy’s armament was directed on Royal George but she held her fire until she could engage more nearly. The other Indiamen were close behind her and after about half an hour’s action Royal George signalled for immediate assistance and the enemy ships were hauling their wind and sheering off to the eastward. The Commodore made the signal for general chase and on Captain Larkins’s order the company on Warren Hastings joined in pursuing the enemy. Thomas was concerned that the India fleet was getting dangerously far from the mouth of the Straits, but after two hours the Commodore made the signal to tack and the fleet headed southwest. At sunset they could still see the enemy making to the eastward. Details of the action filtered through slowly to Warren Hastings. Royal George’s problems had been exacerbated by Ganges East Indiaman raking her starboard bow, leaving her exposed to the enemy’s fire while

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218 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner she struggled to get clear of her. She then made signal for immediate assistance. Two of Royal George’s men had been injured, one dying of his wounds at 5pm. Ganges brig now left the fleet and headed up the Straits to seek convoy. For two weeks the fleet made slow progress up the Straits in squally weather with heavy rain, thunder and lightning, anchoring and weighing repeatedly. On 28 February, in hot, sultry weather, two sail appeared from the north which proved to be HM Albion and HM Sceptre seventy-four gun ships out of Malacca, alerted of the fleet’s approach by Lt Fowler, sent ahead by Captain Dance in the Ganges brig. The naval ships escorted the fleet to Malacca where they learned that the enemy they had attacked and seen off was the French East Indies fleet under Admiral Linois. The ships were Marengo, Admiral Linois, a seventy-four gun line of battle ship, two frigates, Belle Poule and Semillante, of forty and thirty-six guns, the twenty-two gun corvette Berceau (called a sloop in the British navy) and a sixteen gun Batavian brig, Aventurier. At daylight on 18 March the fleet anchored at Point de Galle, Ceylon, where the India fleet was assembling for Europe, and dropped off the country ships. Captain Dance persuaded the men-of-war to escort the Indiamen as far as St Helena where they anchored on 9 June. News of the China fleet’s great triumph in engaging a powerful French squadron and putting it to flight, unique in the Company’s history, had out-sailed them. The fleet arrived in the Downs all together on 8 August 1804 and the commanders and officers were greeted on their arrival in London with general acclaim. Commodore Dance’s display of cool nerve and courage was judged equal to that of the best naval commanders. From being a poor, redundant commander petitioning the Company for relief from the Poplar Fund, Dance was now a wealthy man and a national hero.39 The Court of Directors presented him with 2000 guineas and a piece of plate worth 200 guineas. All the commanders received 500 guineas and a piece of plate, the officers sums between £150 and £50, but Dance was also granted a pension.40 Ill health forced him to ask the Court’s permission to resign his command, which the directors accepted, assuring him that should his health improve he could command any ship in the Company’s service. In the light of his illness the directors increased his pension to £500 per annum ‘as the Proprietors wanted to show their gratitude’.41 On 28 August Thomas joined all the other commanders at the Jerusalem for a special dinner held by the Society to celebrate the India fleet’s unique victory. Captain Nathaniel Dance and all the commanders and officers in the victorious fleet were wined and dined, and a portrait of Captain Dance commissioned.

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An Event Unique in the Company’s History 219

Plate 10:  Captain Nathaniel Dance, commodore of the China fleet which came under attack by the French East Indies squadron off Pula Auro in 1804, stands in front of a painting depicting the battle in which his fleet was victorious.

Although John Larkins had enabled Nathaniel Dance to have another chance to make a living by his private trade, his lack of credit prevented his taking full advantage of the good voyage the directors had allocated to him, Bombay/China. Bombay’s importance was increasing with the Chinese demand for cotton and the Company’s need for silver, and the Presidency’s aggressive policy to bring the cotton-producing regions

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220 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner of Gujarat under its control added momentum to this. The motor for all these developments was the seemingly limitless demand for tea in Britain, requiring huge fleets to carry the valuable cargo safely back to the Thames through seas made dangerous by the renewal of the war. The Select Committee in Canton felt the burden of responsibility of deciding on the least dangerous route for the fleet returning without the usual protection of a naval escort and Captain Dance found himself in the unenviable position of having to carry out their orders. Faced with an imminent attack by the powerful French East Indies fleet Captain Dance gave orders for a pre-emptive strike, earning for himself not only the wealth which had up till then eluded him, but national acclaim. Notes   1 The first of the Bombay and China ships had sailed even before Earl Camden was launched. BL, APAC, E/1/238, Miscellanies, 22 December 1802: Ocean, Captain Patton, was to call at the Cape of Good Hope and pick up troops to take to Madras before going on to Bombay. Bombay Castle, Captain Archibald Hamilton, had sailed on 23 December 1802.   2 The directors reserved three-fifths of the tonnage on each ship for the Company, allowing the commander to fill up the remaining two-fifths on his own account, paying only the freight, provided he deposited the proceeds in the Canton treasury. BL, APAC, H/729: David Scott to Lord Dunsinane, 20 December 1796; Philips, Correspondence of David Scott, Scott to Lord Dunsinane, vol. 1, no. 100, p. 91: Scott expressed the belief that the commander’s profit from a Bombay/China voyage was near £10,000; Price, Five Letters, p. 129: the value of a commander’s cargo from Bombay to Canton ‘often exceeds the amount invoice of the Company’s goods sent on the same ship. It is seldom less than £10,000 and often as much as £30,000.’ See also Bowen, ‘Privilege and Profit’, passim.   3 Bulley, Country Ships, p. 190.   4 Nightingale, Western India, pp. 73–127.   5 For a thorough discussion, see Nightingale, Western India, chapter 5, ‘The Shackles of Gujerat’, pp. 128–74 and chapter 6, ‘The Thrust to the North’, pp. 175–214.   6 Bulley, Country Ships, pp. 178–9: between 1803 and 1805 the Houses of Charles Forbes and Bruce Fawcett lent the Bombay government £2.5m.   7 See chapter 10, note 63 above and Morris, Royal Dockyards, p. 82. The frigate Salsette was laid down in 1803.   8 Nightingale, Western India, p. 220.   9 See Nightingale, Western India, p. 215. 10 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 2, pp. 389 and 401. Bulley, Bombay Country Ships, p. 114 and BL, APAC, E/4/1019 f. 548. 11 Bowen, Privilege and Profit, p. 16, note 100. Captain Archibald Hamilton’s Parsee associate Pestonjee Bomanji procured on his behalf a large cargo of

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An Event Unique in the Company’s History 221

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18 19

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cotton and saw to its transport and screwing into bales. Captain Timins probably had an agent at Bombay who bought cotton on his behalf and loaded it on Earl Camden. C. Northcote Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas 1793–1815 (London, 1954), p. 204. BL, APAC, E/1/238, Miscellanies, f. 952, 11 March 1803. Ibid., p. 950, 16 March 1803. Morse, Chronicles, vol. 2, pp. 344–6, Appendix M: Edict to Prohibit the Sale of Opium, Canton, 2 December 1799. BL, APAC, E/1/239, Miscellanies, f. 29, 4 April 1803, Court of Directors to Thomas Larkins, 24 April 1803. Morse, Chronicles, vol. 2, p. 365: according to the Select Committee, it was ‘the principal source whence we draw our Supplies of Bullion for Bills upon Bengal’. The demand at that time was 3000 chests on average. To make up the investment the eighteen Indiamen brought a total of nearly two million dollars in bullion and goods amounting to almost one million pounds, the major part in woollens. The woollens and metals, apart from lead, were sold at a loss, but the Select Committee favoured those Hong merchants who bought most woollens with the largest tea orders. See Morse, Chronicles, vol. 2, pp. 198, 268 and 298. A type of silica glass coloured deep blue with cobalt oxide, or pigment made by crushing this glass, used for colouring enamels. BL, APAC, G/12/146, Canton Diary, 28 August 1803, Captain Timins received certificates in the names of Captains Dance, Larkins and Farquharson: in each case the total sum was 12,539 dollars, half payable in 90 days, half in 365 days, below the maximum permitted £3150 per commander per ship. Morse, Chronicles, vol. 3, the second officer of Surat Castle sold his privilege to his commander for £40 per ton. Morse, Chronicles, vol. 2, p. 365: the Select Committee allowed Captain Graham and officers of Wyndham and Captain Saltwell and officers of Lord Duncan £8000 per ship for the provision of a homeward investment. BL, APAC, G/12/146, Canton Diary, 28 August 1803: also green teas with nankeen cloth, raw silk and silk piece goods, Cassia and cassia buds, some chinaware, tortoiseshell, soft sugar and sugar candy and pepper, cloves and twelve precious nutmegs, part of a cargo from Amboyna which had sold at a huge profit in Canton. Black teas were now considered as ballast since the Company no longer required porcelain to be imported as a flooring for the teas. After the reduction in duties in 1784, green teas had become most popular, but as duties were gradually re-imposed to meet the costs of war demand for black teas rose. NMM HMN/37, deliveries by Punqua for Captain Hamilton for Scaleby Castle, December 1802. BL, APAC, G/12/145, Select Committee Proceedings, 21 December 1803, f. 106. Ibid., f. 116. Ibid., f. 120. BL, APAC, L/MAR/B/9H, Log of Warren Hastings. B/140, ff. 1220–1, 28 December 1804: ‘Resolved that Mr. Robert Rankine, late second mate of the Warren Hastings be suspended the Company’s service for the space of one

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222 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner

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36 37 38

39

year from this day and that his late voyage in the above ship be not considered a complete voyage to and from India in the Company’s service as second mate and therefore he be not permitted to proceed in a higher station on his next voyage than such to which he may appear eligible under the Court’s Regulations by having performed a complete voyage as third mate.’ In fact he sailed as first mate of Marchioness of Exeter in the season 1805/6 and ended his career as captain of Union. BL, APAC, G/12/268 Select Committee Consultations, Canton, 12 January 1804. Ibid. BL, APAC, L/AG/1/6/23, Commercial Ledger, f. 117 of 7 August 1804: Warren Hastings was returning with over £106,000 worth of cargo for the Company, of which over £100,000 in teas, the rest in raw silk and nankeens. The captain of Jahangir country ship, who had alerted the Committee to the possible renewal of hostilities in July, had handed to the governors at both Malacca and Penang a copy of the same intelligence that he had given the Select Committee. Addington declared war on France on 16 May. Of the Bombay Marine. BL, APAC, E/1/128, f. 598, 4 September 1802. BL, APAC, G/12/145, Select Committee Consultations, 7 December 1803. Rollo arrived from Botany Bay with the crew of HM Porpoise cast away on an unknown reef, Lt Fowler, commander, and five convicts trying to escape on Rollo. The captain delivered them to Lt Fowler as the first naval officer met with. The Committee decided that Lt Fowler should return to England on Earl Camden together with the five convicts under Marine guard in the same ship as himself. Colonel R. St. J. Gillespie, ‘Sir Nathaniel Dance’s Battle off Pula Auro’, Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 21, no. 2 (1935), pp. 173–5: in his official report to the Court of Directors, Captain Dance mentions that Rollo failed to see his signal, but made no reference to his friend’s ship. L/MAR/B/138L, journal of Exeter, Henry Meriton: the whole fleet comprised Earl Camden, commodore, Warren Hastings, Cumberland, Warley, Alfred, Royal George, Coutts, Wexford, Ganges, Earl of Abergavenny, Henry Addington, Bombay Castle, Hope, Dorsetshire, Ocean, Lord Castlereagh Indiamen; Shah Nisera, Jahangir, Minerva, David Scott, Ardecir, Neptune, Canon and Gilwell country ships and the brig Ganges. A signal with a gun differed from the same signal without a gun. NMM, HMN/33, Captain Hamilton’s Station and Quarter book. According to the log of Ganges, Royal George and Ganges hoisted blue ensigns and pendants, the rest red colours with no pendants. Captain Dance made no mention of this in his official report. There were strict rules and penalties for the flying of pendants by merchant ships. BL, APAC, B/139, 15 August 1804, pp. 647–52 and 5 September 1804, p. 767. The Court presented him with 2000 guineas and a piece of plate worth 200 guineas. Captain Timins’s gallantry was rewarded with 2000 guineas. With the profits from his private trade and his reward, Captain Timins was able to retire from the service and become a managing owner. Thomas and the other India commanders received 500 guineas and a piece of plate valued at 50 guineas.

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An Event Unique in the Company’s History 223 Lt Fowler was presented with a sword. 40 Ibid., p. 823. 41 Ibid., p. 1176.

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Twelve THE FORTUNES OF WAR

CAPTAIN THOMAS Larkins needed a good voyage to turn the small capital he had made from the sale of his teas to good account. He was none too pleased to hear that Warren Hastings was stationed as the annual ship for St Helena, Benkulen and China for the season 1804/5, not a voyage likely to generate much profit in private trade. Thomas’s spirits were not lifted by the bad weather, which scarcely let up from coming afloat in November. After leaving Gravesend they were exposed to extreme cold. Reports of gales and damage to shipping came in from Sheerness, Margate and Guernsey and there was ‘much distress at the Nore’. To add to Thomas’s problems, while they were lying in the Downs a great gale of wind from the westward caused Warren Hastings to trip her anchor and she drifted on board Abergavenny, striking her on her starboard bow and carrying away the cathead and anchor stock. She then rebounded and drifted past but the damage warranted putting into Portsmouth for repairs. Thomas faced the prospect of being held back until the next convoy.1 The seamen, very superstitious by nature, did not like mishaps like that at the beginning of a voyage.2 They brought bad luck. Snow and sleet froze the night watches as the Indiamen sailed round to Portsmouth under convoy of the frigates Magicienne and Weymouth.3 The rest of the fleet headed for the Motherbank to take in troops while Warren Hastings sailed into dock. The atrocious weather continued while repairs were done. When completed Warren Hastings was directed to Cowes road to wait for convoy. Soon after she arrived Thomas was surprised to be joined by Royal George and shortly afterwards by Wexford and Henry Addington, other ships in the fleet. He heard that they had lost the convoy within twenty-four hours and, following

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The Fortunes of War 225 Commodore Clarke’s orders, had hung back, burning blue lights and firing guns to renew contact but without success. They had then proceeded down Channel, passing the Isle of Portland, only to be embayed off Chesil Bank. Abergavenny had been well ahead of the fleet, almost at Start Point, and had not responded to several signals.4 When foul weather drove the fleet to return to seek shelter in Portland road, Abergavenny was the last to sail round Portland Bill. In attempting to cross the deadly Shambles shoal on the ebb, she had been forced back on to the rocks by the wind veering to eastward and struck repeatedly. Captain Wordsworth had devoted all his manpower to pumping and not signalled distress until too late. Loath to abandon his ship, he staked all on beaching her on Weymouth sands but at 10pm she had sunk. Many of her company and soldiers and their wives climbed the rigging to escape from the rising water but most of them drowned with their commander.5 The fleet finally got away on 17 February 1805 and Warren Hastings parted company to sail to St Helena.6 East Indiamen were exempt from the law passed in 1803 making convoy compulsory for merchantmen.7 After spending September and October at Benkulen, which was recovering from an attack by Admiral Linois’s squadron the previous year,8 Captain Larkins sailed north to Penang to look for convoy down the Straits of Malacca.9 Sailing into the road on 24 November he found his kinsmen Captain Henry Morse Samson and his chief mate William Larkins Pascall in Earl Camden, which had been on convoy duty. She had left Portsmouth with the April convoy and on arrival in Bombay on 11 August she had been taken up by government to help convoy Bombay Castle, Henry Addington, Royal George and Wexford, which had been loading a bumper cotton cargo at Bombay since June. Admiral Sir Edward Pellew, Commander-in-Chief of HM naval squadron in the eastern seas, was hard pressed to meet all the demands on his small fleet. He was forced to employ three ships in the blockade of the Isle de France to satisfy the Bengal merchants and commanders who complained endlessly about the privateers which issued out of the islands every season to cruise off the Sandheads to prey on the country trade. Fortunately, the Admiralty had asked Sir Edward to buy ships in India and he had been on a shopping expedition. He had bought two Bombay country ships when they returned from China, three Bombay Marine ships and Sir Edward Hughes.10 The capture of Brunswick East Indiaman on 11 February off Galle on her passage from Bombay to China had infuriated Pellew. He was convinced Captain Grant had put his private trade interest before that of the Company and the owners. She should have waited at Bombay for the convoy he was preparing, but her capture had at least alerted him to the presence in the area of Admiral Linois in Marengo.

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226 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner Admiral Pellew ordered Sir Edward Hughes and Earl Camden to convoy the valuable China ships as far as Penang. On 26 and 27 August Earl Camden took in seventy-one men from the other four ships. They sweated in the humid Bombay heat, slinging twenty forty-two pounder cannonades with their carriage slides on to the gun deck where they were fitted by dockyard workers. Twelve twenty-four pounder cannonades were mounted on the upper deck while carpenters prepared ports to receive them. All the men then returned to their own ships while shot, water and provisions were loaded. In the first three days of September 166 Royal and Company European and native officers, NCOs and privates of the artillery and infantry embarked. The fleet of China ships and several country ships under convoy of Sir Edward Hughes and Earl Camden had run out of Bombay harbour on 3 September, forming two divisions. On 25 September the fleet anchored at Penang where five of His Majesty’s fleet were riding with five of the Company’s ships stationed for China direct and several country ships.11 On 1 October Earl Camden received from all the ships 277 troops, marine battalions and Fencible regiments, who had joined the China ships for the passage to Penang. HM Russel arrived on 2 October and the following day Sir Edward Hughes proceeded down the Strait convoying the four Bombay China ships followed next day by several naval vessels. On her return passage Earl Camden could not get away from Diamond Point in Sumatra. With sickness amongst the crew and troops as high as seventy and the native troops’ rations insufficient, after consultation with his officers Captain Morse decided to return to Penang. Three days later they arrived to find HM Rattlesnake, two Bombay Marine cruisers and Devayne still there with others. On 13 October Dorsetshire and Ganges, both bound to China, arrived with HM Dedaigneuse. They had all sailed on 26 October, four weeks before Warren Hastings arrived. Warren Hastings failed to find convoy down the Straits of Malacca but she arrived safely at Whampoa where Thomas found forty-one American ships, more than ever before. They usually brought plenty of silver and ginseng with valuable furs picked up en route on the northwest coast of America. This season one ship brought an additional cargo which the India captains viewed with some alarm: she had called at the South Seas islands of Fiji where she found vast virgin forests of sandalwood. Her cargo amounted in value to more than £16,500.12 The Fiji sandalwood greatly undercut the price of the Mysore and Canara sandalwood which had for some years been a mainstay of the commanders’ private trade and the country trade. Thomas found his pepper was worth very little, both that loaded for the Company and his own private trade investment.13 Although the Company’s cargoes continued to sell at a loss

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The Fortunes of War 227 in China, the products brought in the country and private trade more than provided sufficient silver for the tea investment. The Indiamen had brought no silver to Canton. The balance of trade was tipping in the Company’s favour. The range of goods in which the commanders and officers could trade to advantage was contracting by the year. Teas, at least, were still profitable. There appeared to be no limit to the rise in demand in Britain.14 The Company’s ships were loading well beyond their chartered tonnage, even beyond their tons burthen. Warren Hastings was heavily laden with teas. All the extra seamen taken on for the outward passage had been distributed among the other ships, according to instructions, leaving only 138 men, not sufficient to man all the guns.15 Captain Larkins had four of his eighteen pounder guns on the main gun deck and four of his eighteen pounder carronades struck and consigned to the hold, and the ports sealed up. She was at the second bar with Dorsetshire, Ganges and Surat Castle, the last of the ships of the season, on 24 March 1806.16 No naval vessels had arrived to escort them. For the second time Captain Larkins faced sailing without convoy. When the small fleet reached the latitude of Pula Auro they sighted two ships which proved to be HM Harrier and Sir Edward Hughes, sent by Admiral Pellew to look out for them.17 The convoy escorted the Indiamen as far as Penang, from where they sailed under convoy of Sir Edward Hughes on 7 June. Two days out of Penang Ganges became rather leaky and Sir Edward Hughes parted company to escort her to Bombay for docking. The remaining three ships kept company following a south-westerly course, but in foul weather a few days later Warren Hastings became separated from her consorts. Captain Larkins knew that Mauritius presented the greatest danger. No attempt to take the island had yet succeeded. As Warren Hastings approached the longitude of the French stronghold, Thomas kept her well to the south, but at half-past seven on the morning of 21 June the look-out sighted a strange vessel to the southwest, standing to the southeast. She appeared to be a long but low vessel, sailing under treble-reefed topsails and courses. Captain Larkins gave orders to hold Warren Hastings’ course, making as much sail as the wind would allow, steering west-by-south with a very strong breeze from northeast-by-east and a large sea. About nine o’clock the stranger tacked and stood towards Warren Hastings’ quarter, letting out the reefs of her topsails. Captain Larkins ordered the topsail reefs to be let out and the ship cleared for action. After half and hour the stranger set her top-gallant sails, main and foretopmast sails, and at ten showed a blue ensign and pendant. Captain Larkins responded by hoisting his colours and made the private signal,

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228 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner which was not answered. The strange vessel gained on Warren Hastings very fast and Thomas prepared the ship to ensure there would be nothing to distract his ship’s company from their quarters. He ordered the mainsail to be hauled up and all the steering sails and stay sails to be taken in, leaving only the principal sails for manoeuvring. Every member of the ship’s company was at his quarters awaiting the expected attack. When the stranger was about a mile away she hauled down the blue ensign and hoisted French colours.18 The French ship opened fire, which Warren Hastings returned and after about a quarter of an hour the enemy pulled ahead. She tacked and came down again so close Thomas feared the yard-arms would lock but she sheered off again. This attack left Warren Hastings badly damaged aloft and several men killed and wounded. Before the crew could make the necessary repairs the enemy came down again and the encounter was longer than before, but still Warren Hastings’s guns would not allow the enemy ship to lie alongside. The fourth attack left the Indiaman completely wrecked aloft but still her main gun battery kept the enemy off. Only the French ship’s superior sailing capacity gave her the edge. Then the enemy backed on to Warren Hastings’s larboard quarter and there was nothing Captain Larkins and his company could do to shift her from a position of such advantage. She caused havoc, shot through the mizzen mast and reduced those manning the quarterdeck and poop carronades to one man. Suddenly the mizzenmast fell, blocking up every gun on the upper deck, and a series of disasters followed which brought Warren Hastings’s resistance to an end. After consulting his officers, Captain Larkins struck at ten minutes to five. The battle had lasted for four and a half hours. Seven of Warren Hastings’s company were dead, including the purser and four officers, and nine men were wounded. Captain Larkins prepared for what he assumed was the normal practice on surrendering a ship.19 He waited on the quarterdeck to receive the victorious commander of the frigate, placing his sword on the capstan near to hand. Warren Hastings, lying ungovernable to windward of the frigate, suddenly fell off with the force of the sea. The frigate bore up to avoid her, the action causing her main topsail to fill and shoot her instantly on board Warren Hastings’s larboard bow. The two ships became entangled, falling alongside each other and crashing alarmingly in the high sea. The French crew, furious and maddened by liquor, poured on to Warren Hastings. Several, armed with poignards and muskets, pikes and pistols, swarmed over the quarterdeck. They pushed Thomas through the cuddy and roundhouse on to the stern balcony and into an inner cabin where only the cramped conditions prevented him and two officers being murdered. Thomas was then dragged along the deck

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The Fortunes of War 229 and ordered to jump on board the frigate. The two ships were rolling ­horribly and as he prepared to jump he was wounded in the side from behind by a poignard. Forced to jump, Thomas managed to land on the channels and was hauled aboard by a French officer and led below where the surgeon dressed his wounds. In contrast to the behaviour of the French officers of what proved to be the French frigate La Piémontaise, Thomas received great hospitality from the residents of the Isle de France where he and the rest of the prisoners disembarked on 7 July. The officers received a meagre allowance with which to buy their food, while the men were imprisoned. A month later, on 6 August, Thomas and his officers embarked on America, an American ship bound to the United States. *** Captain Larkins and his officers arrived at Deal on 14 June 1806, a year after Warren Hastings struck to La Piémontaise. A further six months passed while the Committee of Shipping enquired into the circumstances of Warren Hastings’s capture. Not until New Year’s Eve did the Court acquit Thomas and John Pascall Larkins and the other owners of Warren Hastings ‘of all imputation of neglect or misconduct’ in respect of her loss.20 At the same time the Court expressed its pleasure at Captain Larkins’s bravery and good conduct in defending his ship by presenting him with 500 guineas to purchase a piece of plate, and rewarded the rest of the ship’s company proportionately.21 A week later they announced that Warren Hastings’s separation from her consorts Dorsetshire and Surat Castle was accidental.22 The General Court endorsed the directors’ decisions, only one member dissenting.23 Pieces of plate were of little use to a man with a wife and a growing family to support. Thomas’s officers joined their commander in thanking the directors for the reward but pointed out that they had lost a great deal by the capture and had been put to a very heavy expense for passage money back to Britain.24 While capable of generosity to those who met with ill fortune in their service, nothing would move the directors to go against the ancient maritime custom ‘freight is the mother of wages’. A ship’s owners and commander were responsible for the safe return of a ship’s cargo. Thomas’s repeated requests for relief and applications to be placed on the Poplar Fund were refused as ‘not within the meaning of the regulations’.25 Before sailing in 1803, Thomas had paid the £30 subscription to the Society of East India Commanders but hoped his membership would be brief.26 Against all the odds he must have harboured hopes of a quick fortune and early retirement. He had promised to provide the members of that ‘most excellent of clubs’ with a hogshead of claret when he left the sea.27

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230 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner

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Plate 11:  The Hon. East India Company’s Ship ‘Warren Hastings’, Captain Thomas Larkins, 34 guns and 135 men, and the French Frigate ‘La Piémontaise’, 48 guns and 385 men, at the beginning of the Action, June 21st, 1806 at 10 minutes after noon. Whitcomb Pinxt Plate 12:  Situation of the Hon. East India Company’s ship ‘Warren Hastings’, Captain Thomas Larkins, and the French Frigate ‘La Piémontaise’ on the second attack, about ¼ before 2p.m., June 21st, 1806. Whitcomb Pinxt

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The Fortunes of War 231

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Plate 13:  Situation of the Hon. East India Company’s ship ‘Warren Hastings’, Captain Thoms Larkins, and the French Frigate ‘La Piémontaise’, when fallen on board each other, about 5p.m., June 21st, 1806. Whitcomb Pinxt Plate 14:  The situation of the Hon. East India Company’s Ship ‘Warren Hastings’, Captain Thomas Larkins, and the French Frigate ‘La Piémontaise’, after the action, when the two ships were clear of each other, about ¼ before 6p.m., June 21st, 1806. Whitcomb Pinxt

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232 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner At least the Court’s decision gave John the right to build a ship in the room of Warren Hastings, to be commanded by Captain Thomas Larkins. The Court allowed him to bypass the rule that a ship should be eighteen months on the stocks by using timber of the fall of 1806.28 He expressed the hope that the Court would take into consideration his nephew’s ‘misfortunes and disappointments’ and offer him ‘an early nomination to Bombay and China’, reminding the Court of the family’s long services. John contracted with Perry, Wells and Green at Blackwall, one of the largest yards building Indiamen and naval ships for the Navy Board, to build his new ship.29 He and his nephew watched the launch on 6 September 1808 of their third ship named after the family’s hero, Warren Hastings. Though the directors were unmoved by Thomas’s appeals for financial aid, they were not blind to his need for help and recognized their debt to a member of a family which had served the Company loyally for over sixty years. The directors proved even more generous than Thomas had dared to hope: the Chair awarded him the best voyage of the season, Bengal and China. In the despatches brought back in 1804 by Commodore Dance the Canton Select Committee had reported the success of Bengal cotton at Canton in the previous season. This opened up the prospect of an entirely new, and what might well prove to be significant, addition to the provision of the China tea investment.30 As Warren Hastings (3) was approaching the Hooghly in mid-July 1809, Thomas saw a ship which seemed strikingly familiar. He asked the pilot to go within hailing distance. Everyone was on deck: soldiers, crew and passengers, the sailors manning the rigging. All eyes were on the stranger. According to a witness, John Shipp, when she came within hail Thomas bellowed through his speaking trumpet, ‘What ship are you?’ ‘The Warren Hastings. What ship are you?’ ‘The new Warren Hastings.’ The shouting of both ships’ crews was so deafening Thomas was able to succumb to his emotions. He could not have said another word. With Warren Hastings (3) anchored in Diamond harbour, Thomas was able to get in touch with his younger brother, John Pascall junior.31 He learned that his old ship had been purchased as a prize at Mauritius in the name of a Danish company and retaken by a naval ship at Serampore.32 John Pascall junior probably acted as his uncle’s agent in repurchasing her and she was now on her way to London. The younger man was probably also instrumental in buying on his uncle’s behalf a fine teak ship of 676 tons burthen while she was on the stocks and named Larkins.33 She loaded with cotton for Britain and sailed on 20 September 1809 about the same time as Warren Hastings (3) sailed for Canton.

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The Fortunes of War 233 On 28 August 1810, Warren Hastings (3) arrived back in the Downs with most of the fleet and proceeded to Long Reach where she awaited her turn to enter the new East India Dock at Blackwall.34 Earl Camden had been selected for the honour of being the first ship to be admitted to the Dock when it opened in August 1806 for her gallant action against the French fleet. Unfortunately, Captain Henry Morse Samson had missed the tide and a fair wind by delaying too long in Long Reach.35 Warren Hastings (3) was dismantled to her lower masts, and her anchors, masts, spars, cables, water casks, guns and gunpowder were loaded into various craft.36 Thomas’s health must have been very poor as he wrote to the Court enclosing a certificate from ‘an eminent physician’ stating that Captain Larkins’s health was such, ‘chiefly owing to the severe wound he received’, that he needed to stay in England for two to three years.37 The Court permitted him to resign his command for the ensuing voyage. News that Earl Camden, Captain Samson, had been completely destroyed by fire in Bombay harbour between midnight and 1am on the night of 23 July disrupted John’s plans. The fire had broken out in the gun-room and had raged so fast through the ship that it had been impossible to extinguish it. Fortunately, the crew had managed to get into the boats, so no lives were lost. The floating mass of fire, a magnificent spectacle, had drifted up the harbour, but as she had been the innermost ship, to leeward of all the others, she had not posed a hazard to the shipping. Her crew had watched helplessly from the boats as the flames consumed their chances of being paid for the voyage.38 John Larkins applied to the Court of Directors to build a new ship in her room. The restrictions on building large ships imposed in 1803 had now lapsed and John submitted plans for a ship of 1200 tons. The Company’s charter was due to come up for renewal in 1813 and the advocates of opening up the trade had already begun their campaign. A pall of doom hung over the defenders of monopoly. Few believed the Company’s privileged trade would emerge from the negotiations intact. Only the outbreak of war had warded off a major revision of the Company’s charter twenty years earlier. The British government’s prime aim was to get British manufactures distributed as widely and in as great quantities as possible and Britain’s superior position in the world now made this possible. The navy had systematically attacked and conquered the French and French-dominated Dutch strategic strongholds: the Cape of Good Hope in 1806, the Isle de France and Bourbon in 1810, Amboyna and the Moluccas and Java in 1811. Spain’s transfer of loyalty to Britain had opened up the South American ports to British commercial enterprise while the whalers and the fur traders of the

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234 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner northwest coast of America had made world trade truly global. India was far more attractive as a market for British goods in 1813 than in 1793. Wellesley’s aggressive policy in India had brought large, productive areas under British hegemony, and the Moghul Emperor’s submission to British rule in 1803 had lent the conquests legitimacy in the eyes of the other Indian rulers. Of these, only the Maratha confederacy posed any threat to British supremacy, but endemic internal fighting sapped its strength. To the north, Lord Minto39 had secured the weak points in British India’s boundaries by diplomatic missions to Persia and Afghanistan, while Ranjit Singh had been confined to the Punjab. Yet the Company’s privileges still shackled British and Indian shipping while the Americans took over the role of carriers of the world’s goods and the Europeans would renew their activities at the peace. The merchants, shipowners and shipbuilders of the outports and British India were demanding the same rights as the Americans and Europeans. The Indian trade was the main focus of those demanding the end of monopoly. The agents of all the interests involved were already installed in London near the centres of power. The industrial barons of Scotland and the north of England and the shippers of the outports squared up to the metropolitan East India shipping interest and the woollen cloth interests of the southwest, represented by the factors of Blackwell Hall. The Indian shippers and Agency Houses40 demanded a share in the trade, and they were on far more secure ground now, as the present system was patently not working.41 There was now general agreement that if Britain’s exports were to increase, monopoly must end. Those demanding the opening up of the trade pointed out that a company holding a powerful trading position did not need to innovate to adapt export lines to ‘the taste and accommodation of the people of Asia’; but it would be surprising if the ingenuity of private traders did not adapt commodities to suit the taste of all the different people with means to buy them.42 As for the failure of British exporters to take up the tonnage made available in the charter of 1793, excessive freight rates were the reason: ‘cheap freight, expedition and economy of private trade’ would change all that.43 On 6 May 1812 the House of Commons heard petitions from all those sections of society who had benefited from the Company’s privilege. Thames shipbuilders, boatbuilders, shipwrights, caulkers, sawyers, joiners, ropemakers; ship plumbers, glaziers, sailmakers, mastmakers, blockmakers, gun carriage makers, merchants of London and owners of ships all stressed that their large, expensive establishments and great numbers of apprentices were at risk. The petition of the managing owners and part-owners of Indiamen pointed out that their ships were

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The Fortunes of War 235 built under the direction and inspection of the Company’s agents specifically for its service.44 The ships were completely unsuited to any other trade and if the Company ceased to hire them the owners would sustain huge losses. The owners reminded the House that this would also affect ‘great numbers of valuable and meritorious officers’. If these man left the sea to find other means of supporting their families the state would be the loser, as all their nautical skills and talents would be lost. The petitioners brought some impressive statistics to the Members’ attention: there were at the present time 115 ships of 1400 down to 500 tons burthen, amounting to more than 115,000 tons, valued at £6,000,000. These ships were much better equipped, manned and capable of resisting an enemy than any other trading vessels. They reminded the House that there had been instances when East Indiamen had engaged French ships of the line with effect. On various occasions they had been of service to the government, especially in India where they had contributed to the conquest of the enemy’s settlements. On 21 May 1812 the members of the Society of East India Commanders flocked to the Jerusalem in response to a public advertisement to attend a meeting chaired by Captain the Honourable Hugh Lindsay, a commander for nearly twenty years. Their aim was to convince the members of the House of Commons that opening up the India trade would not benefit the British manufacturer.45 The privilege of 2500 to 3000 members of the ships’ companies amounted to 3000 tons freight free. They exported as much as was available and this was frequently more than the market would bear, resulting in the bankruptcy of some commanders. As for China, there was no market there for British manufactures and the Chinese prohibited export of much Chinese produce: only tea, nankeens and raw silk were allowed. The commanders had tried all the goods available and dealt only in tea now. No petitions or memorials could any longer hold back the tide of liberalization which had been encroaching on the Company’s privilege incrementally. The Charter Bill was ratified and received the royal signature on 13 July 1813. As expected the India trade was opened up completely: ships could trade direct from the outports as well as from London. Regulations contained in a bill admitting India shipping to British ports was being considered by ministers early in 1814. The major Thames shipbuilders joined together to plead that ‘a contravening or equalizing Duty may form part of the proposed Bill, thereby affording us that protection which the present depressed state of shipbuilders throughout the kingdom, so imperatively calls for’, but were not successful.46 The Company retained its privilege as sole importer of China tea into Britain. This suited John well. Lord St Vincent’s embargo on ­building

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236 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner large ships had caused a shortage of tonnage to loom in the China trade in the season 1805–6. In response Parliament had supplanted the Act of 1799, limiting the number of voyages to six, to allow additional voyages if a ship should prove seaworthy.47 Walmer Castle was completing her eighth voyage and might well be accepted for a ninth. John was able to go ahead and build in the room of Earl Camden and hire her replacement to the Company without the usual competitive tendering. The new ship, to be named Marquis Camden, 1200 tons, was well on the way to completion at Pitcher’s yard.48 She would provide employment for Henry Morse Samson and subsequently for John’s own son Tommy for as long as he required. John Brook Samson had made a sufficient fortune to retire so William Larkins Pascall could take over the command of the Earl St Vincent if she was accepted for a seventh voyage. She could then be sold for breaking up. Larkins should prove an asset as an extra ship and Warren Hastings (2) was a speculative investment which John could keep if the Company was willing to hire her, or sell on. Warren Hastings (3) would provide ‘fighting Tom’ with employment until he retired. On 9 June she sailed for Madeira, Bengal and Madras.49 The Company continued to bring back the revenues of Bengal in the form of exports from India, but its major requirement outward was transport for recruits and civil personnel, and military and naval stores. Thomas’s table was quite different from usual. Dr T.F. Middleton, the newly appointed Lord Bishop of Calcutta in the diocese of Bengal, part of the Church of England, was accompanied by his wife and daughters. The Reverend Henry Lloyd Loring, one of the three archdeacons appointed to the diocese, and the Reverend James Bryce, Dissenting Minister of Calcutta, also enjoyed Captain Larkins’s hospitality.50 Ladies outnumbered the gentlemen at the captain’s table. The day after leaving Madeira a recruit’s wife gave birth to a son. There was no shortage of professionals to christen the child who was ceremoniously named Larkins Hastings, indicating that Thomas must have impressed everyone with his good humour and humanity. Towards the end of November Warren Hastings (3) anchored in the River Hooghly. The voyage had taken its toll of the ship’s company and Thomas was concerned that his crew was so reduced by desertion and death that his ship might be in danger. With his defeat by Piémontaise still fresh in his mind, he asked Captain Pyke of Phoenix to accompany him on board HM Leda to consult Captain Sayer on the possibility of his men being pressed. Pressing men out of the Indiamen in India had been one of the chief bones of contention between the Company and the Admiralty for years. Mortality rates were high on the eastern station and the Indiamen were the only source of supply of good seamen. As

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The Fortunes of War 237 part of the investigation into the extraordinary losses of ships in 1808 the Committee of Shipping had examined the ledgers of all the ships which had returned since the renewal of war in 1803 to discover how many men had been impressed in India.51 The numbers revealed a depressing increase, from less than one tenth of a ship’s company to a little more than one fifth in the last complete year. The Admiralty responded with decisive action. Their new regulations listed the number of men in the Company’s ships of 800, 1200 and 1400 tons, indicating their position and stating precisely which should be protected, and the number which may be impressed on a ship’s arrival in the eastern seas within the limits of the Admiralty command. The Company instructed their commanders to keep a register so that naval officers visiting the ship subsequently would be aware of the numbers pressed.52 Though Captain Sayer assured him he would not press his men, Thomas stressed that if his men were to be taken he would rather they were taken before he left Bengal as he could find men to replace them only in the Hooghly. If he lost them after leaving the river his ship would be distressed. Captain Sayer reiterated his assurance that he did not intend pressing Thomas’s men. Warren Hastings (3) sailed down the coast and arrived on 24 February in Madras road where HM Minden and Africaine frigate were riding with a great many country ships. The following day a lieutenant from HM Minden came on board Warren Hastings (3) and pressed fourteen men, reducing her company to 107 men, forty-three short of her full complement. Thomas set about trying to replace them without delay but it was impossible to find European seamen at Madras. He wrote immediately to the Secretary to the Marine Board at Fort St George asking him to bring Warren Hastings (3)’s situation to the attention of the government of Madras. As commander he would not feel he was fulfilling his duty either to the owners or to the Company if he proceeded with so many men short of charter party requirements.53 It was not until 4 March, as Warren Hastings (3) was about to sail, that Thomas received a reply. The government did not consider it necessary to bring Warren Hastings (3)’s case to the notice of the senior naval officer as only the established quota of men had been taken.54 Thomas immediately authorized James Morris, notary public, to draw up a legal document protesting against the commander of HM Minden and all those acting under his authority for the impressment and loss of men sustained by Warren Hastings (3) and for all consequences accident and damage which may accrue and which may be in any manner imputable to the diminution of the number of her men.55 Just before Warren Hastings (3) was due to sail, a boat which came alongside to take off the

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238 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner shore people accidentally cast off leaving twenty-five Lascars who had been working on the ship for some time still on board. It was their ‘own fault’ Thomas briefly recorded in his log. It was also a lucky coincidence considering his diminished crew, though Lascars employed in harbour as lumpers would be of little help at sea. The Madras Council did not agree that it was their ‘own fault’. During the passage home the ship’s company heard of the peace with America. As the fleet approached the English coast at the beginning of August the commodore spoke an American schooner from Portugal and heard that the allied armies were in Paris and Napoleon had absconded. By the time Warren Hastings (3) was hauled into the import dock on 5 September, Napoleon was well on his way to his final abode on St Helena. Soon after she was discharged Warren Hastings (3) was taken up for a voyage to Madras and Bengal. In the middle of January a letter summoned Thomas to appear before the Committee of Private Trade to justify his irregular behaviour at Madras on his previous voyage. The committee’s report had been read at the latest meeting of the Court of Directors and was now lying on the table for consideration.56 It detailed several instances of Thomas’s deviation from orders and instructions on his latest voyage, sufficiently serious to warrant the loss of his command. The Committee, however, recommended he be suspended for a year, and the owners be asked to present another commander.57 Thomas had to justify his actions to the Committee before the report came up for discussion at the meeting of the Court the following week. Thomas had not yet managed to make up for his misfortunes of the previous few years, the loss of his ship and consequent ill health. He had a growing family to support. This was no time for bluster and pig-headedness for which ‘fighting Tom’ was known. His reply to the Committee expressed contrition and asked for leniency, especially in view of his sorry financial state. Whatever reasons he gave they did not influence the Committee’s view that he had shown neglect and disobedience ‘highly censurable’ and deserved the Court’s ‘severest displeasure’. From this point of view they felt it necessary to recommend the full punishment that the government of Madras had warned him he would be subjected to. However, taking into account the ‘meritorious, correct and gallant conduct’ Captain Larkins had shown on several occasions they suggested to the Court a mitigation of the punishment and they unanimously recommended that he be suspended for one year. The Court took an even more lenient view. The general view was that the sentence of a year’s suspension should be commuted to a mulct of £1000 to be paid before Captain Larkins was sworn into the command of Warren Hastings (3) and that he be reprimanded by the Chairman. The wording of the

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The Fortunes of War 239 Committee’s report was altered to this effect and the question put to the ballot. A majority voted in favour. Thomas paid his fine immediately and two days later, on 19 January, a very humbled commander made his way to Leadenhall Street. He stood facing Charles Grant, presiding in the imposing red silk chair framed by an elegant arch surmounted with the gilded Company arms and flanked by paintings of the presidencies. In the presence of the full Court Charles Grant delivered a severe reprimand to one of the Company’s greatest heroes.58 *** There was no peace in India. Every Indiaman bound to Bengal was filled to capacity with troops needed to deal with the Pindaris, Maratha mercenaries who rampaged throughout the central area. Death from disease and desertion kept up the constant demand for reinforcements. During the first half of March 1816 over 250 officers and men, including fifty liberated deserters, embarked on Warren Hastings (3) at Gravesend, with up to fifty wives and children.59 There was never any love lost between King’s troops and East India crews, and maintaining good relations tested any commander’s leadership. The King’s officers were only too quick to resort to the lash to maintain discipline amongst their own men. On an earlier voyage, the brutality of an officer in charge of the King’s troops had triggered Thomas’s quick temper. He had protested that ‘he would not have his quarterdeck converted into a slaughter house, nor the ladies on board disgusted with the sight of the naked back of a poor screaming soldier, every time they came upon deck’.60 The riots in Britain which triggered the banning of public meetings, suspension of habeas corpus and prosecutions for blasphemy and sedition had probably made the King’s officers on the present voyage nervous. The gangway was soon the scene of marathon punishments. The cries of babies entering the world and soldiers being flogged succeeded one another with ludicrous regularity. On the third day after sailing two soldiers received fifty lashes each. A week later a son born to a soldier’s wife was christened. Since the example of the two poor wretches had not had its desired effect, on 11 April a private received one hundred and fifty lashes, two others twenty-five each. Another baby was born and this, followed by the ceremony of crossing the Equator, temporarily restored a feeling of well-being. But the birth of a stillborn child cast a shadow which deepened as more floggings took place. One morning two soldiers were punished: one received three hundred lashes for striking a commanding officer, another two hundred for disobeying orders. Even if the women and children did not witness this prolonged

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240 John Pascall Larkins, Esq., Managing Owner and bloody ritual, the men’s groans and screams would have penetrated every corner of the ship. Occasionally Thomas, after consulting his officers, felt constrained to resort to corporal punishment but it was limited to theft, the great enemy of a harmonious ship’s company, and was always minimal. Thomas was commodore of the small fleet comprising Asia, Captain Tremenheere, and Marquis of Ely, Captain Kay, both very experienced commanders, and both bound, like Warren Hastings (3), to Madras and Bengal. The three ships communicated constantly by telegraph and compared their longitude by chronometer daily. All the navigating officers continued to take observations and as they sailed up the Mozambique Channel all three commanders believed their chronometers had gained. They based their suspicions on the fact that according to their chronometers the ships were on the longitude of the Europa Rocks at noon on 25 June, and if the time was correct they would certainly have seen them. Thomas noted in his journal that the observations of all three ships were possibly more accurate than the chronometers. A month later they sighted St Thomas Mount and anchored in Madras road where they found the government of Madras fully occupied with the campaign against the Pindaris who were rampaging throughout the Northern Circars, destroying villages, raping and pillaging, secretly aided by the Marathas. Lord Hastings was busy making treaties with many minor heads of state in preparation for his inevitable struggle with the Marathas, the only remaining Indian power which could consider challenging British supremacy. *** Captain Thomas Larkins sailed on one more voyage. Nearly twenty years earlier, in great hopes of soon making a competence, he had promised his colleagues at the Jerusalem a hogshead of claret when he left the sea. Yet on his return from Bombay and China in the spring of 1821 he retired without having made sufficient money to provide a comfortable life for his family. He called together several of the commanders who had been at Canton with him the previous season and drafted a memorial to the Court of Directors bringing their attention to the fact that the enormous charges the Company imposed on the captains’ private trade precluded their making a profit. The Company’s charges amounted to 33% on their gross sales, so that they had to make a profit of almost 60% before they could even recoup the sum they had laid out to purchase the teas.61 Everything was against them. The markets in India and China were poor, and there was now no market in Europe for anything

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The Fortunes of War 241 Chinese apart from tea. The teas were expensive to buy but sold very cheap in Britain. The commanders claimed they would be ruined unless the Company remitted the duty. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. ‘Fighting Tom’, legendary hero of the service, retired into penury and oblivion. *** Captain Thomas Larkins’s hopes of making a fortune from his private trade and retiring from the sea after a few years were dashed by his enforced unemployment following the loss of his ship, poor health and the shrinking opportunities to turn his privilege to account. John Larkins faced similar problems with the loss of two of his ships. In each case the Court of Directors, while adhering to the rules, bent them as much as possible to help members of a family which had served the Company well for over half a century. The Company’s exclusive trade was being eroded by a variety of forces at home and abroad, exposing both commanders and shipowners to greater competition. The opening up of the trade between Britain and India attacked the very foundation of the Company’s raison d’être, but John Larkins had prepared well for the shift to the China trade by building the large ships required for bringing home the teas. Notes   1 Parkinson, Trade in the Eastern Seas, p. 306: convoys were reorganized after the resumption of hostilities in 1803, after which the first sailed in February.   2 Both ships were lost.   3 Royal George, Henry Addington, Earl of Abergavenny, Bombay Castle, Wexford and Ocean.   4 Captain Wordsworth had been keen to get away and sail a single ship to reach Calcutta ahead of the Bengal ships in the hope of getting a better price for his investment. See Cumming, Earl of Abergavenny, CD.   5 See Ed Cumming, Interactive CD, The Three English East Indiamen Wrecked off the Dorset Coast.   6 As a single ship she was open to great danger. John had written to the Court on 25 September 1804 proposing to additionally arm her, at his own expense, as he had Walmer Castle when she was similarly stationed in 1803. He mounted ten extra eighteen-pounder carronades and employed twenty additional seamen for the voyage outward: the Company agreed to pay ten guineas for each seaman, his wages and a shilling a day diet money, advancing £20 per man two months after the ship’s departure from England.   7 43 Geo.III c.57, section 6.   8 On 3 December 1803 Admiral Linois and his squadron arrived off Bencoolen where they took two prizes, burned three other ships and several warehouses

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242 Notes to Chapter 12 containing pepper, rice, opium, camphor and spices.   9 Acquired by Captain Light, a country trader, Penang had failed to come up to expectations as an entrepôt of the eastern seas. In recent years the Admiralty had developed it as the base of the navy’s East Indies fleet and an arsenal for building naval ships was under construction. 10 Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, pp. 260–1. Sir Edward Hughes was built in Bombay by the Company in 1788, bought by the Admiralty in 1803 and converted into a thirty-eight gun frigate at Portsmouth. 11 Ibid., p. 278. A squadron under Trowbridge and Pellew had arrived at Penang on 23 September 1805 and awaited the division from Bombay under Sir Edward Hughes and two ships from Bengal. 12 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 3, p. 4. 13 Ibid., p. 5. 14 Ibid., p. 28: in 1805 the Company’s ships loaded 23.75 million pounds of tea of which 1.25 million pounds comprised the bulk of the commanders’ and officers’ privilege trade. 15 BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/1-2, f. 34: the Company would not pay the expenses of the extra men on the return passage. 16 Surat Castle, Captain David Ibister, 1150 tons, was built in Bombay in 1788 for John Innes. She had been employed in the Bombay to China country trade until 1806 when she was taken up for the passage from China to England. She continued to be employed by the Company in the England to China trade until 1817. 17 Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, p. 291. 18 Naval Chronicle, vol. 16, 1806: Captain Thomas Larkins’s account of the action with the French frigate La Piémontaise to the Court of Directors taken from the St Helena Gazette and the French official account of the capture of Warren Hastings by Captain Epron. 19 All the following information is based on Captain Thomas Larkins, Commander, A Statement of Facts that transpired subsequent to the Honourable Company’s Ship Warren Hastings striking to the French Frigate La Piémontaise (London, 1807). 20 BL, APAC, B/144, 31 December 1806, p. 1086. 21 Ibid.: the Court presented the rest of the ship’s company with £2000 to be distributed proportionately from £150 for the first mate to £7 for each seaman. 22 Ibid., 7 January 1807. 23 BL, APAC, B/145, 16 April 1807, p. 39; Auber, Analysis, pp. 674–5: the new shipping system introduced in 1796 and embodied in the country’s laws in 1799 had ended the customary right to build on the bottom of a worn out ship, but preserved the custom of replacing a ship which was lost, provided the commander or the first officer survived and no blame was imputed to them. The decision rested with a committee of the Court of Directors, but their resolution had to be confirmed by a ballot of two-thirds of the Proprietors at a General Court. Only then was it possible for a managing owner to build a ship in the lost ship’s room to provide continued employment for her commander, or, in case of his decease, her chief officer. 24 BL, APAC, B/145, 9 April 1807, p. 12. 25 BL, APAC, B/145, 11 November 1807, p. 832. 26 Guildhall Library, MS 31376, Society of East India Commanders’ Memorial

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Notes to Chapter 12 243 Book, 2 March 1803. 27 NMM, SMS/1, Society of East India Commanders’ betting book, p. 22, 2 March 1803. 28 BL, APAC, B/144, Letter from John Pascall Larkins to the Court of Directors, 13 January 1807, p. 1113. 29 Banbury, Shipbuilders of the Thames, pp. 139–42: the Wells family were major builders of Indiamen and naval ships from the mid-seventeenth century. For a few years after 1798 they were partners in the Blackwall yard. 30 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/534, f. 2402, 31 August 1804: the Court dispensed with the Standing Order stating that ships greater than 800 tons should not navigate the Hooghly. 31 John Pascall Jr by this time held an important position at the Bengal Board of Trade. 32 Thomas Addison, Journals, Naval Miscellany, vol. I, 1902, p. 369. 33 She was launched as Louisa by Hudson, Bacon, Harvey and Weatherall on 17 November 1808. 34 Designed by John Rennie, the new Dock incorporated the old Perry’s Basin, constructed in the 1790s, including the masthouse erected in 1791. 35 George Pattison, ‘Shipping and the East India Docks, 1802–28’, Mariners’ Mirror, vol. 49, no. 3 (1963), pp. 208–12. 36 The chests of tea were unloaded in chops of 600 chests; the number of chests, the name of the chop, the kind of tea and the ship were all recorded by Customs and Excise officers assisted by Company clerks. The chests were then loaded on to wagons, covered by tarpaulins and locked, and transported in convoy under armed guard along the newly constructed East India Dock Road to one of the Company’s bonded warehouses. 37 Committee of Private Trade, minutes 1810–11, vol. 51, 3 October 1810: considered a letter from Captain Thomas Larkins referred to them from the Court. 38 As Earl Camden had been in service for six months since sailing from Gravesend they were entitled to only one month’s pay: the men received two months’ pay before sailing, and their families received one month’s pay for every six months’ service. 39 Governor-General of India 1807–12. 40 There were twenty-four Agency Houses round London. 41 Administrative and military costs combined had almost doubled while receipts from sales of Asian goods in England had decreased and the private trade allocation had not been taken up. Philips, East India Company, p. 124: the Indian debt rose from £18m in 1802 to £32m in 1808, by which time the home treasury was almost exhausted. 42 ‘East India Monopoly’, Edinburgh Review (November 1812), p. 476, quoted in Barber, British Economic Thought, p. 134. 43 Ibid. 44 Journals of the House of Commons, vol. XXIII, Petitions respecting the India Company’s charter, pp. 49–50, 6 May 1812. 45 The commanders passed a resolution which formed the basis of a petition, signed by 345 commanders and officers, presented to the House of Commons and the House of Lords in January 1813. 46 Wells, Wigram & Green, Daniel and Samuel Brent, Frances Barnard Son

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244 Notes to Chapter 12

47 48

49 50

51 52 53 54 55 56

57 58 59 60

61

& Roberts, Peter E. Mestaer, Curling Cox & Co., to the Rt Hon. Vansittart, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 18 January 1814, and E. G. Barnard, William Pitcher, Daniel Brent, Wm Curling Jnr and James Hill to Rt Hon. Earl of Liverpool, 30 June 1814. Barnard Papers, copies in author’s possession. 43 Geo.III, c.57, section 6 and Auber, Analysis, pp. 660–1, Act of 50 Geo.III, c.86, authorized ships to be hired for more than eight voyages provided they proved fit on repair. Within a few weeks the Court granted John permission to build a ship for the season 1812/13 in the room of Earl Camden. His dimensions and scantlings were for a roomy vessel of 1257 tons with good headroom in the roundhouse and between decks. Thomas and his officers were able to buy pipes of madeira wine, which improved greatly by the round trip, as part of their private trade port to port and homeward. A clause in the Charter of 1813 provided for ‘benevolent persons’ to be allowed in the Company’s territory to ‘communicate to its population the blessings of useful knowledge, and moral and religious improvement’. Known as the ‘pious clause’, this was a victory of Charles Grant and the ‘Clapham Sect’ and overturned the secular policy pursued by the Company since its foundation. BL, APAC, L/MAR/1/23: the figures for 1809 were incomplete, as not all the ships’ logs had been handed in. Regulations issued by the Admiralty, 19 March 1810 (see Appendix 2). BL, APAC, P/244/44, Madras Diary, ff. 688–95, 17 March 1815. Letter from Captain Thomas Larkins to E. Smalley, Secretary to the Marine Board. Ibid., E. Smalley to Commander of the ship Warren Hastings, 4 March 1815. Ibid., protest of Captain Thomas Larkins, 4 March 1815. Ibid., resolution of Governor in Council at Madras, 17 March 1815: the Secretary to write to the Secretary at the India House asking him to lay before the Court of Directors Captain Larkins’s protest and his letter to the Secretary to the Marine Board. BL, APAC, B/162, 12 January 1816, p. 937. The Minutes of the Committee of Private Trade have not survived, so the nature of Thomas’s transgressions is not known. BL, APAC, B/162, 19 January 1816, p. 965. BL, APAC, L/MAR/B/9-O, Log of Warren Hastings (3), 20 January 1816 to 7 July 1817. They were part of the 17th HM Regiment of Foot, HM 24th Regiment of Foot and Dragoons. Quoted in the Bovill manuscript in the family’s possession. Radical Members of Parliament had attacked the culture of flogging in the army, a peculiarly British practice, many times over the previous four years but the House favoured the retention of this severe punishment. Guildhall Library, MS 31376, Society of East India Commanders memorial book.

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Part V THE NEW WORLD DISORDER

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Thirteen THE MACHINERY OF JUSTICE

JOHN PASCALL Larkins, who had managed the family business for a quarter of a century, had died in August 1818. In his will John expressed his regret at not having provided more adequately for his children.1 However, as managing owner of nine ships in the Company’s service between 1793 and 1818, he had provided a living for several members of his extended family. Henry Morse Samson took over the management of Larkins & Co.’s remaining ships: Marquis Camden, Warren Hastings (2) and (3) and Larkins. John’s own son, always called Tommy by family and friends, had been sworn in to the command of Marquis Camden in August 1816.2 Just married, he joined the Society of East India commanders and in time-honoured tradition promised to provide a hogshead of claret to celebrate the birth of his first child.3 He was only twenty-two years old, three years short of the minimum age for a commander according to Company regulations, but lying about one’s age was in the tradition of the family and of the Company’s maritime service generally.4 Nevertheless, his ship had the reputation of being one of the smartest in the service.5 On 23 January 1821 Thomas was at Portsmouth on his second voyage commanding Marquis Camden, one of the six ships bound for Bombay and China, with 200 Company recruits and their commanding officer, the only passenger, on board. The Court’s instructions required its commanders to take observations by the lunar method, a practice no longer rigorously followed as chronometers became more reliable.6 On Marquis Camden the longitude by chronometer only was entered on most days. The committee investigating the loss of Cabalva, 1200 tons, on a rocky island near Mauritius in 1818 had been struck by her ­officers’ inability

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248 The New World Disorder to take lunar observations and their general ignorance of good navigational skills. They concluded that the relevant section in the mates’ examination should be extended to include working time for correction of chronometers and taking angular distances. Perhaps this was the reason why Captain Larkins invited one of his midshipmen, John Miller, who showed great promise as a navigator, to come to his cabin every day at noon to ‘work the time’ and compare the chronometers with him, for which Miller was very grateful.7 Tommy, as he was known throughout the service, ran a highly disciplined ship. He did not believe in delegating his authority. Every order, to officers and men, was accompanied by an oath. Most India commanders valued flogging as part of their armoury in dealing with troublemakers. For Tommy the lash was more the first line of defence. He did not conform to the accepted procedure for deciding punishment: holding the culprit prisoner while a court of enquiry comprising the four sworn officers, presided over by the purser acting as judge advocate, decided on what punishment they should recommend to the captain. Tommy always presided as judge and jury, simply taking his officers’ opinions. Usually, he would tell a man immediately on being arrested that he would be flogged the following day, and the number of lashes he would receive. Conversely, he paid great attention to the comfort of the ship’s company and rewarded those who did well.8 At sunset one evening as Marquis Camden approached the Cape, a dangerous situation suddenly flared up. The captain of the forecastle, a powerfully built man called Lynch, appeared on the quarterdeck in response to the order to ‘stand by the hammocks’ without his shirt. When the chief mate rebuked him for showing such disrespect, he answered insolently. Later, when he appeared in his shirt, the chief mate ordered him to go to the poop and told the master-at-arms to put him in irons. Lynch refused to go and struggled with the master-at-arms, escaping and running forward. Tommy, his physical match, grabbed hold of him while three seamen came to Lynch’s aid, one continuing defiant even when the captain put a gun to his chest. All the officers rushed to arm themselves from the rack in the steerage while the order to turn out all hands and ‘beat the roll for the soldiers’ brought the whole company on deck. Captain, officers and non-commissioned officers faced a hostile crew and recruits, ready to shoot any man who stepped over ropes drawn across the gangways. In the light of lanterns gratings were rigged and Lynch secured after a severe tussle. On Tommy’s orders the boatswain and his mates administered seven dozen lashes. Lynch’s three supporters were tied up in turn, two receiving six dozen lashes, the third five dozen.9

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The Machinery of Justice 249 On 22 May 1821 Marquis Camden reached Bombay where the captain exchanged Lynch for a carpenter. The news at Bombay was not encouraging. Tommy learned that the Gujarati cotton crop had failed in 1820, but even if it revived this season, the signs were that cotton was no longer the big money earner in Canton. The Chinese were growing more, Bengal cotton was in great competition and cotton shipped out by the private trade from Britain was reaching China. The general view seemed to be that Malwa opium provided the only means of making a profit. Many of the Bombay merchants were turning to it and it was rumoured that William Jardine, the Bengal opium merchant, had arrived from Canton in the previous year.10 Malwa opium was a very tempting investment, but the possible consequences of its being discovered on board a Company ship were too alarming to contemplate. While Marquis Camden was at Whampoa in 1819, a small boat from Essex East Indiaman had been stopped and searched on its way up to Canton by the Customs, who had seized an earthen pot containing ten or twelve pounds of Malwa opium. Only an immediate payment of 6000 dollars to Manhop, the ship’s security merchant, had bought the minor mandarins’ silence, and the seizure had not reached the ears of the higher authorities. India commanders dealt in opium, but they shipped it to Canton on country ships. Tommy invested in cotton, sandalwood, olibanum and elephants’ teeth.11 Marquis Camden sailed with Charles Grant, Captain Scott, which was carrying convicts for the Company’s settlement at Penang. On the passage Tommy meted out several floggings, one very severe to a seaman who refused to come down from aloft after answering back to be ‘started’, another common practice on board Marquis Camden. After leading the officers a merry dance up and down the mainmast, foremast and jib stays, the man was put in irons. The following day a court of enquiry was held after which he received the five dozen lashes Tommy had promised him on being arrested. Tommy decided to put into Penang to deliver up a deserter who had hidden himself on board ship the day she left Bombay.12 On arriving in the road sheltered between the island and Province Wellesley, they found riding the frigate HMS Topaze of the East India Squadron, Admiral Sir Henry Blackwood Commander-in-Chief. The commander of HMS Topaze received a letter dated August 13 1821 on board Marquis Camden at Pula Penang or Prince of Wales Island. It read: Sir, I take the liberty of riting you these lines to let you no that thare is 20 men wish to volunteer for to take the new ship13 home to England for the uasage we have had in the Camden, his Disgrace to the Country 4, 5, 6,

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250 The New World Disorder 7 Dozen of Lashes at a time starting most cruelty. My name his Charles Bonamy. I was shipmate with young Mr Blackwood in the favourite Captain Robertson it his is wish to write to him or his father Admiral Blackwood. I hope Captain Richardson that you will send a Offercers on board to take us out - thare is 20 fine seamen ready for you. I have been 20 years in the Navay, but this Searvice beats all young Mr Blackwood Promised me if I should come out hear to rite to him, and he would take me long with im - the Captain Discharge the Captain of the forecastle at Bombay after he gave im 7 Dozen lashes - has good a man has aney in the ship So no more at present from Your Humble Servant. Signed Charles Bonamy - late Captain of the forecastle of His Majesty’s Ship Favorite. On the envelope: For the Commandg. Offeicer on board HM Ship Topaze.14

On 18 August Topaze’s barge drew alongside Marquis Camden and Captain Charles Richardson was piped aboard. Thomas acceded to the naval commander’s request to muster his ship’s company. Captain Richardson found assembled ‘a very stout seamanlike set of men’, only four short of her full complement. Nineteen men volunteered for HM service but Captain Richardson received only thirteen because he ‘thought that number would not distress the ship, and yet as many as ought to be taken’. In the captain’s presence he read to the crew a paragraph from Charles Bonamy’s letter to the effect ‘that four, five, six and seven dozen lashes at a time were given by Captain Larkins’. One said that he had received ‘Six dozen lashes at one punishment’ and James Brown, another seaman, said he had received ‘five Dozen lashes at one time, which treatment they declared was the cause of their wishing to leave the ship’. Captain Larkins admitted that all this was correct.15 The Admiral’s secretary sent Charles Bonamy’s letter and Captain Richardson’s report to the Governor in Council requesting that he bring all these letters before the councillors and acquaint them that: deeming such an unauthorised extent of Punishment to be most prejudicial to both His Majesty’s and the Honourable Company’s Marine as it is also in violation of the rule of both services, His Excellency purposed submitting this case to the Lords of the Admiralty, and in the meantime he wishes this reference to be made to the Government of the Island in order that it may be apprised of such irregularity existing in one of the Honorable (sic) Company’s ships and use their influence or power to instantly check it.16 On 6 September Marquis Camden sailed into the bay of Singapore. Tommy had passed to the southward of the island of Singapore when

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The Machinery of Justice 251 sailing through Singapore Strait into the South China Sea, but he had not sailed round to the northward of the island to the town of Singapura. In the distant past, before the Portuguese, and later the Dutch, had forcibly directed trade to Malacca, Singapore had been a great emporium. Now it consisted of only a cluster of atap huts on a point of land backed by a hill near the western end of the bay.17 Thomas Stamford Raffles had taken possession of Singapura two and a half years earlier. Government shared his fear that Britain possessed no piece of ground between the Cape and Canton where fresh water and supplies could be obtained. The Dutch controlled every strait linking the Indian Ocean and the China Sea: Malacca, Sunda, Allas and Bali. For over thirty years the British and Dutch governments had measured up to each other to obtain control of the Straits of Malacca but the British had been preempted at every turn. Since the peace, when all Dutch possessions were returned to Holland, the Dutch had increased their hold on the eastern archipelago by taking possession of unoccupied ports and making treaties of monopoly with natives. They had excluded the British India trader from every port east of the Straits of Malacca and Sunda and virtually succeeded in re-establishing an empire and system diametrically opposed to British commercial interests.18 Captain Larkins found the port of Singapore completely free, with no duties or restrictions on its commerce and every encouragement and protection for individual enterprise and the general merchant. The trade was already extensive.19 Tommy no doubt took the opportunity offered by this burgeoning market to stock up on produce for China in case the rumours of diminishing demand for cotton at Canton proved true.20 As expected, when he dropped anchor at Whampoa on 4 October. Tommy found there was a glut of cotton on the market and a consequent fall in the price.21 The Select Committee were more concerned about the depression in the price of Bengal opium caused by increasing importation of Malwa opium in Portuguese ships. Turkey opium, taken straight up to Whampoa in American ships, exacerbated the situation. The whole opium market, which now underpinned the Company’s financial stability, not to speak of Britain’s finances, was under attack. Of more immediate concern for everyone was the latest stoppage of trade. A seaman from Emily, an American ship, had been charged with causing the drowning of a boat woman during an altercation over the price of a jar of olives. The Security Merchants were so tied up with the case of Emily that the Select Committee could not get them to discuss the trade with the Company. The trial was held on board Emily on 6 October and the man found guilty, but the American captain refused

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252 The New World Disorder to give him up and the Chinese authorities were reluctant to seize him from the ship. On conclusion of the trial the ship’s supercargo was threatened with being held as hostage for the sailor’s surrender and Emily’s security merchant and linguist were put in chains and carried off to prison.22 In the midst of this crisis the Select Committee had to turn its attention to a request from the Governor and Council of Penang to look into the charge of excessive punishments meted out by Captain Larkins on board Marquis Camden. They explained that enquiring into the charges would have subjected Marquis Camden to serious delay.23 The Committee instructed five senior commanders of the season to look into the business.24 The commanders did not appreciate this intrusion into their affairs by the navy. Their meeting was fairly brief and their conclusions amounted to a rebuff to the naval moralizers. They quickly decided that as Tommy had furnished the Penang government with all the relevant information there was no point in calling him. The commanders then considered the aims of their enquiry: how to attain the objects of the investigation without prejudicing discipline on board Marquis Camden. As the commanders explained in their report to the Select Committee, to carry out a thorough enquiry they would need to examine the officers and some of the crew, which would necessarily bring to public notice that the commander’s conduct was under investigation. The general feeling would be that the Select Committee’s action was reprehensible. Finally, Marquis Camden had most of her voyage yet to complete and, following recent regulations, she was being sent back a single ship. A public investigation might be ‘highly prejudicial to good order and discipline’; this in turn might necessitate further severity to re-establish good order and proper respect for authority, which the steps taken by Captain Larkins had probably already achieved.25 The commanders sent their report to the Select Committee with a suggestion that an investigation be deferred until the completion of the voyage, when no serious consequences would ensue. The commanders also suggested that as Captain Larkins had admitted that his punishments were severe, he might be recommended to be more lenient. The Select Committee’s acknowledgment was brief: they were in complete accord. They asked the committee of commanders to inform Captain Larkins of the same. On the day the commanders considered Captain Larkins’s case, the seaman from Emily was surrendered to the Chinese authorities. The Hong merchants repeatedly assured the Europeans that he would receive a fair trial, but two days later, contrary to the practice of the Chinese code, he was tried behind closed doors by the provincial judge.

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The Machinery of Justice 253 It was generally believed that he had confessed, and that his confession with a record of all the proceedings would be referred to Peking for the Emperor’s final judgment. The whole community was stunned on the following day to hear that the wretched man had been peremptorily strangled at 5am on the common execution ground. It was thirty-seven years since the poor gunner from Lady Hughes had been treated in this manner and everyone despised the Americans for barbarously abandoning a man serving under their flag. Their failure to stand up to the Chinese mandarins would make every European’s task more difficult when similar situations arose in future, as they undoubtedly would.26 After some weeks refitting the ship, Captain Larkins sent John Miller with six picked men, all armed, on board Merope, a small opium ship commanded by Captain Parkyn, a lieutenant in the Royal Navy on half pay. Her agent, James Matheson, had asked Captain Larkins to send help in case the Chinese carried out their threat to take the opium, in which Tommy had a large investment, out by force. Merope sailed through the Boca Tigris without incident and, after dropping Tommy and James Matheson off at Macao, where the latter had a house, she cruised round the islands, anchoring off Lintin or the Ladrones waiting for smugglers to come down from Canton. On their first visit to Linton they witnessed a brawl between some Chinese and a group from HM Topaze. Violence escalated to such a degree that an officer on board the frigate fired warning shots and sent boats manned and armed to the seamen’s aid. Two Chinese were killed in the succeeding affray. The Viceroy instantly ordered the Hong merchants to demand that the President, James Urmston,27 surrender the ‘foreign murderers’, ignoring, as always, the President’s plea that he and his committee had no authority over a king’s ship. The Viceroy was adamant. Two lives had been lost, so two must be surrendered.28 Tommy and his fellow commanders and officers met the Select Committee and Captain Richardson to consider the best way of dealing with the situation with a view to keeping open the trade: they had had enough of stoppages to trade this season. The Select Committee agreed that some of the officers of the Indiamen should present an account of the occurrence addressed to the Viceroy at the City Gate.29 The following day, 21 December, the Viceroy replied that he would send a person to Lintin to investigate. Captain Richardson agreed to this, but said he would not send the wounded ashore, nor would he allow a judicial enquiry on board his ship. The Whampoa magistrate sailed to Lintin on 22 December, announcing before his departure that the Chief of the nation would be held responsible if the wounded were not sent ashore or if Topaze sailed

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254 The New World Disorder

Map 10:  The estuary of the Pearl River and the approach to Canton

before the affair was settled. The Select Committee declared that this was inadmissible, on which the Viceroy stopped the trade and ordered Topaze not to come higher up the river. He issued an edict in which he expressed the view that it was impossible to separate the men of war from the trade since they were sent to Canton to protect the trade. A copy of the edict was sent to the commodore of the Indiamen in order to elicit the commanders’ support, but they recognized this as a ruse to drive a wedge between them and the Select Committee and the navy and returned it. Urmston now prepared for the situation to worsen. He ordered the India commanders to man their boats and send them up to Canton

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The Machinery of Justice 255 to transfer the Company’s treasure to Whampoa. This operation completed, the commodore ordered the commanders to exercise the great guns. For a few days Marquis Camden’s crew were at quarters, exercising the guns frequently and keeping in close touch with the commodore. HM Topaze moved from Lintin to Macao and, as expected, the Viceroy declared he held the Chief responsible. Early in January 1822 word reached the Select Committee via the Hongs that after examining papers connected with past incidents the mandarins decided that the case of the gunner of Lady Hughes in 1784 was a suitable precedent. Urmston acted immediately: all Britons were ordered to leave Canton. On 10 January Tommy and the other commanders at Whampoa received orders to send manned boats up to Canton to evacuate the whole factory. The personnel were barely installed on the various ships at Whampoa when the Select Committee decided the situation was so serious the ships should leave the river and informed the Viceroy that they were quitting China. The decision threw the commanders into confusion. After consultation they approached the government via the Hongs for permission to ship goods before departure. The Viceroy’s decision brooked no further discussion. They would not be allowed to ship ‘a thread of silk or the down of a plant’ until the ‘foreign murderers had been delivered up’.30 The ships dropped down to the second bar. Three days later an edict withdrew the placing of personal responsibility on the President, but the trade embargo continued. The Select Committee decided firmness was the best policy. They refused to accept the edict’s terms and asked for permission to pass the Bogue. This was granted and on 24 January Marquis Camden brought up at Chuenpi along with the rest of the fleet. There were Bombay and Bengal country ships still with cotton on board. On 3 February Topaze moved up to Chuenpi where she received a mandarin who took a full statement which satisfied him. On 8 February HM Topaze sailed. The chief obstacle to trade was now removed but it was not until 24 February, when the ships should have been arriving off Pula Auro, that the fleet received orders to return to Whampoa. Marquis Camden remained at Chuenpi as Tommy had received orders from the Select Committee that she was to remain another season. Ten days later she sailed and on 3 April she dropped anchor in Singapore harbour where Tommy could purchase betelnut, sandalwood and a variety of produce from Britain, India and the archipelago to take back to China. On 1 September 1822, Marquis Camden dropped anchor once more at Whampoa. A month later a great fire began, raging a mile and a half to the north of the foreign factories. On 2 November, the commodore ordered the officers on board the Company’s ships at Whampoa

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256 The New World Disorder to man boats and send them up to Canton. They arrived early the following morning to find the whole of the foreign factories blazing. The men sweated in the heat to remove bales from the British factory but by nine o’clock they were forced to abandon the building. The flames spread to Mowqua’s hong on the other side of Old China Street and as the fire spread quickly along the shops in Hog Lane it was evident the Company’s warehouse would go. By mid-afternoon everyone had to embark in the boats as even the open ground in front of the factories was too hot, and it was evident that all the factories would be a total loss. The men from the ships still had to guard the smouldering ruins and the following day the contents of the treasury were loaded on to the boats and transported under a strong guard to Whampoa.31 *** Even before Marquis Camden sailed on her next voyage in the last week of March 1824, bound to Bombay and China, Captain Larkins was having trouble with his officers.32 Fowler, a twenty-one-year-old midshipman, was the first offender and continued to be the main thorn in Tommy’s flesh. While at anchor off Cowes he wove a web of lies which persuaded the commanding officer to grant him a permit to leave the ship, upon which he deserted. The police found him dead drunk in low company and brought him back on board insensible. The commanding officer disrated him immediately on Captain Larkins’s orders. The senior officers and warrant officers complained about the behaviour of the midshipmen throughout the passage to Bombay.33 Fowler particularly would not keep out of their berths. Captain Larkins breathed fire and brimstone, even threatening them with birching if he had any more complaints. This had no effect on the midshipmen, who even flogged one of their servants. Although the victim was removed from them they managed to beat him again. One evening Fowler and his mates went in search of some sugar for their tea. It was late and the hatches were all closed. The gunner refused Fowler’s request for the gun-room key, commenting that midshipmen were not to be trusted in the gun-room. In the heated exchange that followed the gunner called Fowler ‘a damned insolent puppy’ on which Fowler reminded the gunner that he had been only a mate on the last voyage. This was enough for the gunner. He reported the exchange to Captain Larkins who invited all the witnesses to come to his cabin and enquired into the incident in the presence of his first mate, William Morgan. Their evidence confirmed the truth of the gunner’s report and Captain Larkins sent Fowler below, threatening to flog him. The following morning, on

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The Machinery of Justice 257 Captain Larkins’s instructions, Morgan ordered all the midshipmen to go to the Captain’s cabin. Captain Larkins ordered the gunner to tie Fowler up and told the Master at Arms to take Fowler’s breeches down and give him two dozen lashes with a birch rod. This appears to have silenced Fowler at last. But John Miller, now fifth mate, proved an irritant on more than one occasion, though Tommy had befriended him on the previous voyage. He appeared to be unaware when silence was a virtue.34 On 20 May, Captain Larkins thought Miller, the officer forward, was taking too long shifting over the lower studding-sail and shouted, ‘Come bear a hand, Miller.’ ‘We are making as much haste as we can,’ Miller responded. ‘There’s no occasion for making any reply,’ Thomas cautioned. Shortly afterwards Jackson Sparrow, third mate, an officer who had sailed in Marquis Camden in 1819, was setting the lower studding sail on the larboard side on Captain’s orders. He asked Miller, who was on the starboard side, to send round more men. Miller asked if he was to knock them off getting the lower boom fore and aft and Sparrow said yes. Captain Larkins hailed Miller and desired him to send them round immediately, reminding him that when he was given an order by an officer on the quarterdeck he was to obey it without an answer. Miller found silence very difficult. ‘I must answer when it is necessary.’ Captain Larkins then called Miller aft on the booms and repeated his order. ‘Not another word, sir,’ adding, ‘When an order is given, Mr Miller, execute that order without making any remark.’ Miller was then saying something about the reply he had been making. Captain Larkins said, ‘I require no answer,’ to which Miller responded, ‘I shall answer when I am spoken to,’ or words to that effect. ‘Hold your tongue, sir.’ Miller made the same reply, as he did three or four times after Captain Larkins repeated the order, on which the Captain ordered him to leave the deck. Thomas gave Miller every chance to make concessions but nothing could convince him that he had done wrong. Miller’s conduct was therefore entered in the log book. Some time later, in the roundhouse, Thomas expressed the opinion that it was a pity that a young chap like Miller should be so long below and idle. He said he believed he should order him to do duty, but not on deck. During a long spell of bad weather everyone was needed to lend a hand. Thomas called Morgan up to the poop and desired him to order Miller to attend with four hands of the first and morning watches. Miller returned the answer that he

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258 The New World Disorder would obey immediately provided he was to do duty as before in the ship. Captain Larkins sent to enquire whether Miller intended to obey or disobey the order, to which he received the same answer as before. On 23 June 1824, Marquis Camden anchored in Bombay harbour with twenty-three on the sick list. Thomas immediately hired men to go on board and assist in the ship’s work. He was anxious to arrange for several stallions he had brought from Britain in his private trade to be transported ashore. Miller gave Captain Larkins a letter addressed to the Government in Bombay but Thomas refused to take it. As the dispute with his fifth mate was obviously not going to pass without notice, Thomas decided to take the initiative. On 30 June, he wrote to the senior commander of the Indiamen in harbour, Captain Montgomerie Hamilton of Dunira, stating the charges he intended to prefer against his fifth officer for disobedience of orders and mutinous conduct and asked him to call a committee of enquiry. Captain Hamilton informed the government who ordered Henry Meriton35 to appoint a committee comprising commanders and officers of the East Indiamen at the port and to request Captain Larkins to inform him of the charges.36 The enquiry began at the Marine Office on Monday 5 July. Present were Captain Hamilton, Captain Drummond, commander of Castle Huntly, with his first and second mates, and Lt James Robinson, the Marine Judge Advocate. They considered in turn the two charges preferred against Miller: the first, for having on 19 May refused to desist from answering Captain Larkins when repeatedly ordered to be silent; the second, for having on 27 May refused to attend the relieving tackles on the gun deck when ordered to do so. The prosecutor, Captain Larkins, and the prisoner, Miller, interrogated the witnesses in turn, members of the committee interrupting infrequently to verify a point. At the end of the proceedings that day Miller was granted leave to remain on shore until the enquiry resumed the following week.37 At 10am on Saturday 10 July, Miller’s address was read. He was fully aware that the first duty of every subordinate on board ship was respectful obedience to his superiors; that the safety of all vessels depended on strict observance of nautical discipline; that it was incumbent on a junior officer to set an example to the men to establish the good order and conduct of the whole crew. He felt his silence might be interpreted as a wish to be independent, utterly incompatible with his station. The charges against him arose from a misconception, not wilful error: from his anxiety that, as the ship was rolling considerably, leaving the boom might endanger it; that he felt it his duty to point out to Sparrow the work on which the men were engaged before he, Miller, carried out the order. And there was no evidence that he ‘iterated’ his remark to Captain Larkins. On

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The Machinery of Justice 259 the second charge, he assumed Captain Larkins’s order to quit the deck when in execution of his duty implied complete suspension of duty until further orders. The log book insertion ‘Miller, fifth officer, when under confinement, was ordered by Captain Larkins to resume his duty and attend the relieving tackles in the gun-room’ was not true. He was never ordered to resume duty by Captain Larkins or anyone else. He, Miller, therefore informed Morgan that he felt himself incapacitated from doing duty at that time. He felt that he would have been liable to censure had he, notwithstanding an order to suspend him given before three-quarters of the ship’s company remaining unrepealed, gone on to perform duty. The committee exonerated Miller on both charges. On the first charge they felt that Miller’s answer to Captain Larkins was of a nature warranted by the general custom of the service. He was therefore acquitted of having refused to desist answering Captain Larkins when repeatedly ordered. On the second charge, the committee concluded Miller was justified in giving the answer he did under existing circumstances and that Captain Larkins was not authorized to give the order. The Governor in Council confirmed the committee’s opinion and directed Miller to be restored to duty.38 In the midst of all these proceedings Thomas was surprised to learn that the gunner, the boatswain and one of his own servants had been permitted to come ashore without his being informed. Short as he was of men to work the ship Thomas was incensed that he was paying dear for labour while his own people were enjoying themselves ashore. He wrote immediately to Morgan stating it was a positive order that no one should leave the ship without his permission. He accused his commanding officer of ‘errors of judgment’ not consistent with conduct acquainted with his duty. The issue of lime juice against his wishes also rankled with him: he felt ‘excessively aggrieved’ and knew the doctor was complicit. Morgan’s reply was spirited. As commanding officer he felt authorized to send men ashore and declared he ‘will do so on every ship without I have my commanding officer’s orders to the contrary’. He could not understand so much oppression against those very men ‘on whom we look up to carry on duty with vigilance when the situation requires’.39 Fowler was as good as his word when he commented to someone on leaving the captain’s cabin after his birching, ‘I have now got a hand upon Captain Larkins which I shall make use of and make him pay.’ It was not until towards the end of July that he wrote to the Governor in Council at Bombay informing them that on 31 May 1824 he was unjustly treated merely for telling the gunner he was gunner’s mate last voyage.

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260 The New World Disorder For this he had received by order of Captain Larkins two dozen lashes in the presence of all his messmates and several others belonging to the ship, a proceeding he felt ‘seriously degraded and disgraced’ him. He had made a report to government the preceding Monday via Captain Larkins but as he was put to the mast that same day he believed the captain had omitted to forward his letter.40 He asked for an investigation. On 27 July 1824 Henry Meriton presided over the enquiry at the request of Government. He called Fowler and Captain Larkins and persons indicated by them and listened to all the evidence.41 His assessment was that of a seasoned commander, an excellent leader of men, one who was firm, hard when necessary, but just and wise. It amounted to a censure of Thomas’s behaviour rather than that of Fowler. He felt Captain Larkins should have removed Fowler from the midshipmen’s berth and caused him to do duty on the poop or in the mizzentop so as to have kept him under the authority of the bo’s’n. This would probably, after a short time, have resulted in Fowler’s asking Captain Larkins’s forgiveness. On the subject of flogging midshipmen, personally Captain Meriton had always greatly reprobated it. He had served on ships where this was done, but as a commander he could never have either ‘degraded myself or a midshipman by inflicting such punishment’. But he was led to the belief that Captain Larkins inflicted this punishment as it was deserved by Fowler for his abuse to the gunner and to deter the midshipmen generally from repeating disorderly conduct. He concluded that he believed Captain Larkins to be greatly censurable for resorting to the hard measure of flogging. Although this had been administered only with a birch rod the disgrace was most painful and he hoped and trusted that Captain Larkins would be admonished to refrain from such improper practices in future. The Governor in Council informed Captain Larkins that he had received the report of the proceedings with the minutes of the enquiry, which would be brought to the notice of the Court of Directors. They added that Fowler should be permitted to return to Britain on one of the East Indiamen in harbour. Fowler went home on Cambridge, Captain Barber. As the time approached for Marquis Camden to receive her despatches, Thomas was faced with a serious shortage of officers. William Morgan, his chief officer, was seriously ill, one of his midshipmen had left the ship and Miller was not likely to exert himself more than necessary. But worse was to come. On the eve of sailing he received a letter from his fourth mate, Anthony Forbes, informing him, ‘I from this day resign their service, my discomfort being such as I cannot bear – leaving the ship tomorrow.’ Without losing a moment Thomas wrote to the

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The Machinery of Justice 261 Governor in Council, enclosing Forbes’s letter, pointing out that his fourth mate was under a solemn engagement to proceed the voyage and his leaving would greatly inconvenience the ship, which was on the eve of departure for China. He added that Forbes was greatly indebted to him as he had paid Forbes the whole of his privilege money. He asked the Board to refuse permission to Forbes to resign and stated that he had written to his fourth mate and forbade him leaving.42 On 10 August, the pilot boarded Marquis Camden. The same day the Governor in Council confirmed Thomas’s action: Forbes must not be allowed to leave the ship.43 Forbes pre-empted any action by leaving the ship without permission. The Governor in Council informed the police and desired them to find the deserter and order him to return to his ship.44 Shortly afterwards the Council reported to the Superintendent of Marine that Forbes had been discovered and had given security to the Senior Magistrate of Police that he would appear when required. They asked Henry Meriton’s advice on the best course to pursue.45 The Superintendent of Marine grasped the opportunity to deliver a blow to a man whom he held in the utmost contempt. He stated that as Forbes had left the ship without permission, either of the Board or of Captain Larkins, he was a deserter and could not with propriety be received on board Marquis Camden again. Forbes should be directed to go to Britain at the first opportunity at his own expense.46 Thomas sent on shore five of his seamen to the Police Office for various offences: mutinous language, desertion, drunkenness. They were all flogged and mulcted of one month’s wages. On 11 August, Marquis Camden got underway with her diminished number of officers and a sick list of fourteen, but after only ten days at sea Miller was again being too free with his tongue. Sparrow complained through Fox, then commanding officer, that Miller had attempted to strike him and had ‘made use of language unbecoming an officer and a gentleman and such as is subversive of all discipline’. In Captain Larkins’s opinion this was mutinous in the extreme. Before taking evidence from witnesses he called Miller before him in the presence of Fox and Sparrow and asked him, in view of the extreme shortage of officers, if he would continue to carry on the duty of fifth officer as his exertions were required to carry on the duty of the ship. At the same time he told him frankly that he would prefer charges of mutinous conduct against him at the earliest opportunity. Only then did Captain Larkins interrogate those present at the time the provocation took place. Most witnesses gave similar accounts: they had heard Miller speak angrily to Sparrow and call him a thief and saw him going into Sparrow’s cabin in a temper. One described how Miller had snatched a pillow in a violent passion, twice calling Sparrow

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262 The New World Disorder a thief and had doubled his fist at Sparrow. They had pushed against each other threateningly but Miller had then said he would not demean himself by striking the third officer. Sparrow had ordered Miller out of his cabin but he had refused to obey. Sparrow then asked him if he would be still if he remained. On 30 August, Marquis Camden made a brief stop at Malacca before sailing on to Singapore where she remained for a week. Her log states only that Captain Larkins took in rattans for his private trade to China, but the port was already a flourishing mart for opium and it is unlikely that Thomas did not deal in the drug. With her sick list up again at twenty-three, Marquis Camden sailed, in two weeks arriving at the Asses Ears. She brought up off Lintin on 22 September. The opium store ships were now a permanent feature. Several of the country ships now unloaded not only opium but all cargoes here, obviating the ritual of the measurage, and avoiding payment of port charges, presents, and all those extraneous charges the Chinese imposed at will. The opium ships, Eugenia and Merope, had remained at the anchorage at Lintin for most of the time since they were despatched from Whampoa by the Chinese authorities in 1822. Eugenia had returned from a successful cruise to the northeast, selling opium up the coast in exchange for sycee. Merope, managed by James Matheson, had now sailed on a similar cruise.47 Three days later Marquis Camden made sail and anchored at Whampoa. After confining Miller to his cabin Thomas went up to Canton though he was never away for longer than three days at a time, and on the days he returned to the ship he always remained on board overnight. The court of enquiry into Miller’s behaviour was held on 11 October, Captain Walker of Macqueen presiding, assisted by the first mates of Dunira and Duchess of Atholl. Their conclusions could not have been very condemnatory as Miller was made third mate following William Morgan’s death by drowning. Thomas’s problems with his officers had reached the ear of the directors before Marquis Camden sailed up the River Thames. At a meeting of the Committee of Shipping on 29 April 1825 a letter from Bombay of 1 November 1824 was read concerning charges preferred by Thomas against Miller; and a complaint by Fowler, midshipman, of his having received ‘improper punishment’ by Captain Larkins’s orders.48 At their meeting on 8 June, the proceedings held at Bombay on 28 July 1824 relating to Fowler’s complaint were laid before the committee.49 Two weeks later a letter from Miller was read, asking the Committee to enquire into Captain Larkins’s reasons for not giving him a certificate of good conduct.50 The Committee resolved that a letter be sent to Captain Larkins, enclosing a copy of Miller’s letter and asking for a reply. They

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The Machinery of Justice 263 decided that all papers relating to all charges preferred by Captain Larkins against various officers of Marquis Camden be laid before the Committee. At the meeting the following week the Committee confirmed Thomas’s action in refusing a certificate to Miller. At the same time they referred the Bombay letter relating to Fowler’s flogging to a committee of commanders51 and ordered that Captain Larkins should be furnished with a copy of the proceedings of the investigation which took place in Bombay into Fowler’s punishment.52 The committee of commanders brushed aside Henry Meriton’s strictures in one phrase: ‘possibly some other mode of punishment, considering the age of the Young Gentleman, might have been adopted with equal efficacy’. Otherwise they came down heavily on Thomas’s side, concurring ‘in the opinion of Mr Meriton, Superintendent of Marine at Bombay, that the conduct of Mr Samuel Fowler has been extremely reprehensible’. However, ‘as it appears that Captain Larkins observed a due regard to the privacy of the punishment, they do not consider the infliction of it in that highly degrading and disgraceful light that Fowler views it’. They brought extra ammunition to Thomas’s defence, pointing out that this form of punishment for midshipmen was not unusual in the service or even in the navy ‘when the nature of the offence merits undue severity’. The Committee of Shipping expressed its strong disapproval of a Court of Enquiry proceeding to report on the case of Fowler in the absence of the complainant and his witnesses and that on Fowler’s return the investigation of the case be prosecuted.53 *** Though John Pascall Larkins had been defrauded of a substantial part of his fortune he had provided his son Thomas with the means to earn a good living: the ship Marquis Camden. Opportunities for commanders to build up in a few years a sum sufficient to retire had diminished considerably but the removal in recent years of all restrictions on the number of voyages a ship could make in the Company’s service ensured that Thomas would have employment during his working life. At twenty-three years of age and with only two voyages as a sworn officer in the Company’s service, Thomas had neither experience nor maturity to help him manage a large company of officers and men. This was possibly the underlying cause of his poor relations with his officers and amongst the officers themselves and the consequent frequent recourse to the Company’s judicial process. It is evident that the universally respected Superintendent of Marine at Bombay did not approve of the way Captain Larkins handled his officers and men. The

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264 The New World Disorder proceedings reveal how thoroughly and how fairly all participants were treated. Every effort was made to allow complainants a full opportunity to make their case and no one was censured in his absence. While dealing with all these problems, most of them of his own making, Thomas had also to keep his ship and company operational in the deteriorating conditions of the trade at Canton, bedevilled by the clash of cultures and the dominance of the illicit trade in opium. There is no evidence that on this front he failed. ­

Notes   1 According to the Bovill manuscript he had entered into partnership with someone who had defrauded him and reduced his fortune considerably.   2 BL, APAC, B/163, 14 August 1816, p. 425.   3 NMM, SMS/1, Commanders’ betting book, p. 132, 2 October 1816.   4 His father had claimed he was twenty-three when actually twenty-one years old when he applied to be second mate of Nassau. His uncle claimed he was twenty-eight when only twenty-six when applying for a first mate’s berth on Triton. Thomas stated his birth as 30 December 1789 when he was actually born in 1793, but he had performed four voyages to India so he did not lack the necessary experience in navigation.   5 Robin Craig, Ann Nix and Michael Nix (eds), Chronometer Jack: The Autobiography of the Shipmaster John Miller of Edinburgh (1802–1883) (Caithness, 2008), p. 14. John Miller served as midshipman and officer under Tommy Larkins on Marquis Camden for five years.   6 Incorporated in a change to the 63rd clause in the commanders’ instructions. This required them ‘to take lunar observations whenever practicable, observing the variation of the compass by Azimuths and Amplitudes, finding the longitude by double Altitudes’. All the findings were to be entered in the log book and all journals, ‘specifying the longitude according to the calculation of himself and all sworn officers’.   7 Craig et al., Chronometer Jack, p. 19.   8 Ibid., pp. 15–16.   9 Ibid., pp. 16–17. 10 Bulley, Country Ships, p. 151. Opium from Malwa was cheaper than that from Bengal, partly because it was of inferior quality, partly because the Company charged a duty on its Patna and Benares opium, over which it had a monopoly of production. 11 Olibanum is an alternative name for frankincense. 12 Marquis Camden’s surgeon also wanted to call at Penang as he put down many cases of disordered bowels among the seamen and officers to infected drinking water. Commanders’ reasons for putting into ports, especially those where opium could be obtained, had to be sound. 13 A naval ship being built at Penang. 14 BL, APAC, G/34/80, Prince of Wales Island Consultations, f. 277. Craig et al., Chronometer Jack, p. 21: John Miller states that twenty men signed the letter.

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Notes to Chapter 13 265 15 Ibid., Captain Richardson’s report, f. 275. Rodger, Command of the Ocean, pp. 492–4, notes that flogging was in decline in the navy. 16 BL, APAC, G/34/80, Prince of Wales Island Consultations, f. 272. 17 Noel Barber, Singapore Story: From Raffles to Lee Kuan Yew (London, 1978): description of Singapore by Captain Ross, p. 24. 18 BL, APAC, IOR, G/35/50, Stamford Raffles to Secretary to Government, Holt Mackenzies, Calcutta, 20 December 1819. 19 Asiatic Journal, 1822, p. 208, quoted in Bulley, Country Ships, p. 148, n. 207. During the previous year over 130,000 tons of shipping had brought large quantities of tin, Indian and British piece goods and exported almost 1000 tons of sugar. 20 Gold, Banka tin, spices, pepper, camphor, betelnut, rattans, edible birds’ nests, Tripang, tortoise shells and pearls all found a market in China. 21 BL, APAC, G/12/22, Canton Consultations, 11 September and 23 September 1821, f. 58. 22 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 4, pp. 12–13. 23 BL, APAC, G/12/22, Canton Consultations, 23 October 1821, f. 56. 24 Ibid., 8 October 1821, f.31. 25 Ibid., letter from the commanders to the Select Committee, 25 October 1821, f. 70. 26 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 4, Appendix X, p. 26. 27 James Brabazon Urmston was knighted in 1824 for his conduct in the Topaze affair. 28 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 4, p. 19. 29 What follows is based on Morse, Chronicles, vol. 4, Appendix Y, pp. 27–41. 30 Ibid., p. 36. 31 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 4, pp. 64–6. 32 Captain Larkins’s kinsman Thomas Collingwood sailed as purser, a position he first held in Warren Hastings (3) in 1819/20, on this and all Marquis Camden’s remaining voyages. 33 The following account is based on BL, APAC, P/346/7, Bombay Public Proceedings, 2 August 1824, f. 4293. For John Miller’s personal account of his service under Captain Larkins in Marquis Camden, see Craig et al., Chronometer Jack, pp. 13–41. 34 Ibid., 10 July 1824, f. 3046. 35 Captain Meriton was wounded when his ship Ceylon was taken in 1811. His long service and excellent character, skill and experience were rewarded by his appointment to the post of Superintendent of Marine at Bombay, which he held until 1825. 36 BL, APAC, P/346/7, Bombay Public Proceedings 30 June 1824, f. 2795. 37 When the members reassembled on Wednesday 7 July, a letter was read from Miller asking that he might have until the following Saturday afternoon to prepare a defence, to which the members agreed. 38 BL, APAC, P/346/7, Bombay Public Proceedings, Marine Judge Advocate to Government forwarding Minutes of the Proceedings held at the Marine Office, Bombay, on 7 July 1824 by order of Henry Meriton, Superintendant of Marine, 10 July 1824 and 14 July 1824, f. 3046. 39 BL, APAC, L/MAR/B58E, journal of Marquis Camden, 31 December 1823 to 15

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266 Notes to Chapter 13 June 1825. 40 BL, APAC, P/346/7, Bombay Public Proceedings, 19 and 25 July 1824, f. 4142. 41 Ibid., 27 July 1824, f. 4144 and 2 August 1824, f. 4293, reported in Council 11 August 1824. 42 BL, APAC, P/347/8, meeting of Governor in Council, 11 August 1824, f. 4363. 43 Ibid., f. 4364. 44 Ibid., f. 4365. 45 Ibid., 25 August 1824, f. 4541. 46 BL, APAC, P/347/7, f. 4721. 47 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 4, p. 93. 48 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/39, Committee of Shipping, f. 40, 29 April 1825. 49 Ibid., f. 161, 8 June 1825. 50 Ibid., f. 196, 21 June 1825. 51 Ibid., f. 218, 29 June 1825. 52 Ibid., f. 242, 6 July 1825. 53 Ibid., f. 248, 13 July 1825. Fowler does not appear anywhere in the Company’s records after the enquiry at Bombay.

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CONCLUSION

THE DIRECTORS resolved as early as June 1825 to hire the China ships on short-term contracts ending in 1834, a clear indication that they expected the Company to lose its monopoly of the tea trade at the renewal of the Charter in 1833.1 Marquis Camden spent the final years of her service with the Company stationed for St Helena, Bombay and China, calling en route either at Penang, Malacca and Singapore, or at Singapore only. She entered the East India Dock for the last time as a Company ship in May 1834, at the end of her tenth voyage.2 Tommy Larkins’s world was completely different from that of his grandfather, William. Only once, twenty years earlier, at the start of his career in the Company’s service as midshipman in Warren Hastings (3), had Thomas visited Bengal. He had never called at Madras or any other port on the east coast of India. When Captain William Larkins entered the service in 1746 the French and English companies were engaged in a life and death struggle on the Coromandel coast to obtain the main staple of their trade with the East, Indian textiles. His grandson would have been hard put to it to recall the name Compagnie Française des Indes, or what the letters VOC stood for. Taking advantage of disaffection in Bengal, the English company had acquired this rich region with its prized silks and fine cottons just at the moment when tea was overtaking them as the most profitable import from the East. Tea had dominated Tommy Larkins’s whole career. As commander of a 1300 ton ship, Captain Thomas Larkins had few problems navigating the oceans of the world. The British navy controlled all the main sea routes. He had never feared an attack by French warships or privateers issuing out of Mauritius or waiting off Pula Auro,

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268 Conclusion or by Dutch warships cruising in the Strait of Sunda and off the Cape of Good Hope. The British owned all the ports on the route from Britain to China. Tommy would barely have recognized the problems his grandfather faced in navigating his much smaller ships. William had depended on a continuous estimate of the distance covered, taking into account currents and leeway, to estimate his east-west position. His sons had been forced to acquire the skill of taking lunar distances with a sextant, covering page after page with mathematical calculations necessary to determine the longitude of the ship. On his first command Thomas had the benefit of a chronometer to check his computation but twenty years after his death his son still found the laborious lunar method most reliable. When Tommy assumed his command chronometers were sufficiently reliable for him to ignore the Court’s exhortations not to depend on them entirely and within a couple of years the ships’ logs provided space only for readings of chronometers. By the time the Company withdrew from trade completely in 1834 Tommy and his fellow commanders carried accurate chronometers which correctly indicated their longitude. William had never known the benefits of the barometer to warn him of an impending typhoon in the China Sea, though his nose was probably just as reliable a predictor in his later years. William never sailed further east than Manila. Tommy and his contemporaries had all the oceans at their service. Captain Cook and his fellow explorers had opened up the Pacific Ocean and the whalers had familiarized the maritime community with its possibilities. Tommy’s contemporaries regularly sailed to the northwest coast of America and across to Canton or from Canton to Halifax and Quebec. More professional, responsible cartographers, building on the work of Alexander Dalrymple and James Horsburgh, had produced reliable charts, putting safety before profit. Captain Tommy Larkins might have been appalled to hear of the poor standards of cartography and limited navigational aids prevalent in his grandfather’s day, but he would have envied the secure professional world he had enjoyed. Once William Larkins was on the bottom rung of the ladder of the Company’s maritime service he could be sure of advancement culminating, with the help of an influential friend and the family’s financial support, in a command. Custom as strong as regulations ensured that he had a ship to command until he wished to retire. Tommy would not have recognized this secure, predictable world. Open competition had pulled the rug from under all the officers’ feet. He was fortunate in having a father who owned Indiamen, and who was fortunate in getting his ships’ tenders accepted. Colleagues with greater experience and navigational skills than Tommy’s had fallen by the way for lack of such connections.

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Conclusion 269 Tommy would also have envied the commercial advantages of his grandfather’s privilege of private trade in the days when the East India Company had a monopoly of importing and exporting goods between England and the East. In William’s time three or four voyages had been sufficient to enable a commander with business acumen and money to invest to retire and live a gentleman’s life, or become a managing owner or banker. By the time Tommy assumed a command such rewards had long been confined to those with huge amounts available for investment. Tommy’s generation of commanders had to continue working for as long as their health permitted. Cousin Thomas, long-time officer and commander in the Company’s service, lionized for gallantry in defending the Company’s property, had never succeeded in making a substantial profit from his privilege of private trade. In 1831 he applied to the Court of Directors to be granted a pension from the Contingent Poplar Fund.3 The Committee of Shipping recommended to the Court that he be granted £180 per annum.4 Both grandfather and grandson were frequent visitors to Bombay, but the intervening years had wrought enormous change. William Larkins had helped to support the small, second class Presidency harassed by a range of predatory pirates and lacking the revenue producing territory that Bengal enjoyed. Tommy’s uncle had died expecting Bombay to be reduced to a subsidiary settlement subordinate to Madras. Neither of these men would have recognized the thriving metropolis of western India, fuelled by raw cotton and opium, that Tommy visited in the last five years of his service with the Company. He found British ships from all round the United Kingdom anchored in its magnificent harbour, unloading the manufactures of Britain, giving the lie to the commanders’ claim during the Charter debate in 1813 that India would absorb no more imports from Britain. British naval ships no longer slid off the slipways in the renowned docks, but small, lightly structured opium clippers suited to swift passages up the China Sea kept all the shipwrights busy. In Captain William Larkins’s day, East Indies naval squadrons frequently had to retreat to the Hooghly at the onset of the northeast monsoon for lack of a safe haven in the Bay of Bengal, thereby losing the initiative in struggles with the French fleet. Every October they had sailed round to Bombay to refit in the famous dockyard. His sons anchored off the wooded island close inshore to the coast of Quedah at the northern end of the Straits of Malacca. Penang provided a haven for naval ships and, as a free port, attracted the shipping of the Arabian Sea and the eastern islands. In Tommy’s day the renamed Prince of Wales Island and its associated mainland Province Wellesley had ­ developed

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270 Conclusion into a thriving naval base and dockyard where naval ships were repaired, and new ones built of Burma teak. Chinese settled in increasing numbers to apply their commercial skills to developing the island as an entrepôt. In William’s day, Dutch Malacca was the queen of the eastern seas, the magnet which attracted trade from all over the eastern archipelago. During the whole of his career at sea England and the Netherlands were at peace, ensuring a friendly reception when he needed water, supplies or ballast, or the produce of the Malay peninsula to sell in Canton. Holland’s enmity in the later phase of the American revolutionary war and her weakness in the succeeding decade changed all that. Captain Tommy Larkins’s world was dominated by the Company’s and the government’s need to be sure that the Straits of Malacca were secure. After the signing of the Treaty of London in 1824, Tommy anchored in British owned Malacca harbour. The British government had relinquished Benkulen in the rationalization of economic and strategic spheres of influence, which gave the Netherlands control of Sumatra, Java and the eastern islands, and Britain control of the route from India to China. None of Tommy Larkins’s forebears in the Company’s service had visited Singapore. In his final voyages, Tommy found Raffles’s creation overtaking Penang as the entrepôt attracting shipping from all over the world. The aborted dream of an entrepôt in the eastern seas witnessed by Captain William Larkins at Manila, Mindanao and Balambangan, had been fulfilled at a much better location: the tip of the Malay peninsula. Opium was the motor in Singapore’s quick rise to eminence. Raffles had rightly predicted that the port would benefit from the great demand for opium amongst the islands of the eastern archipelago. Opium was discharged at Singapore by country ships from Bengal en route to Canton but stringent rules prevented the commanders and officers of Indiamen joining in the profits of this trade. When Tommy Larkins was at Singapore in 1830 McQueen Company ship was in harbour. The purser attempted to carry opium from Bengal to Canton in the hope of reversing his desperate financial position. His commander discovered the opium and had already acted to get it put ashore at Singapore before the Resident demanded the same.5 Throughout William Larkins’s career with the Company, the commanders’ smuggling activities were the sole source of infringements of its monopoly of the export of goods to the East. In Tommy Larkins’s day, masters of British ships, direct from England, loaded with British manufactured cotton goods and cotton yarn, received licences from the Resident to continue to China. This enabled them to compete with the Americans, who had for decades

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Conclusion 271 loaded British manufactures in England and sailed direct to China.6 The presence of Singapore, the world’s mart, made a mockery of the Company’s claims to a monopoly of trade from England to China. Strangest of all to Captain William Larkins’s eyes would have been the scene familiar to his grandson as he sailed up the estuary of the Canton River from the Ladrone. The peak of Lintin was the landmark the masters of country ships looked out for. In Lintin road they discharged their opium into receiving ships, or opium marts, before continuing up to Whampoa. Captain Tommy Larkins was under strict orders not to anchor anywhere near the large fleet of country ships off Lintin or on the western side of the estuary at Kumsingmoon, a popular anchorage with the country commanders in the southwest monsoon. In the Typa were large numbers of Portuguese and Spanish ships unloading the drug for Macao.7 The amount of opium imported rose to ever increasing heights. From 1825 the receipts from the drug financed the whole of the Company’s tea investment.8 Imports of Malwa opium exceeded those of Bengal opium from 1828. Malwa was cheaper than Bengal opium and the only way the Company could compete was by keeping the price of Bengal opium down. The price of Malwa opium dropped back sharply in 1830 and from that time sales rose while profits fell. By 1830, 18,760 chests were imported, but by 1832 this had risen by another 50% to 27,240.9 The Company’s commanders surveyed the opium operations from a distance. Each Agency House had its storeships, which remained permanently at anchor. The Houses’ country ships brought the opium from Bombay and Calcutta to the marts. Opium ‘clippers’ made their appearance: smaller ships of between 240 and 370 tons replaced the large country ships built to carry the bulk cotton cargoes. They made ever faster passages from Calcutta to Canton, up to four in one season. The steamship Forbes arrived at Lintin towing Jamesina from Calcutta in April 1830. A large fleet of fast oared boats – faehae, or centipedes – distributed the opium from the marts to the various buyers. During a prolonged embargo on trade in the season 1829, the Indiamen were prevented from going up to Whampoa for several months. The beneficial effect on the crews’ health of being kept out of the river until the summer was over was so marked, the Court ordered the commanders to adopt this habit. Various anchorages were surveyed to find the best for shelter from storms and for protection during the southwest monsoon. Castle Peak anchorage at Capsingmoon and the anchorage ‘within the North-West Point of the Island of Hong Kong’ afterwards known as Hong Kong harbour were found suitable. In 1830 all the ships were kept in Hong Kong harbour until mid-September, with consequent great improvements in the men’s health and sobriety.

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272 Conclusion Right up to Tommy Larkins’s final years in the service, silver still formed part of the Indiamen’s outward cargoes, though there were many years when imports at Canton paid for the teas.10 After 1824 all exports of silver ceased. William and his son and nephew would never have believed the day would come when the balance of trade tipped in Europe’s favour and Indiamen would ship Chinese silver back to Europe. Opium succeeded where woollen cloth, lead and any number of ‘toys’ had failed. Returning to England in his final voyages Tommy brought back the large, crude, heavy lumps of ‘sycee’, to the mortification of the Chinese. The scene at Canton in the final years of the Company’s monopoly would have been equally strange to William. When he began his service with the Company the supercargoes travelled out with the ships to conduct the trade at Canton. Not until he was near retirement did they form a single council residing during the season at Canton, all migrating to Macao at the end of May after the last of the ships had sailed and the books were closed. Only officials representing the various European companies took up residence at Canton during the shipping season. By the time William retired, the Company was waging war against stubborn free merchants like George Smith who continuously resisted the rule that the only British who could reside in Canton were Company employees, and refused to leave. Over time the Agency Houses by-passed Company regulations by adopting the ruse of getting their agents accredited to fictional posts so that by the beginning of the nineteenth-century ‘consuls’ representing various European countries were resident at Canton. By 1833 they had abandoned this fiction: British firms made up of British subjects outnumbered the Company’s employees. Tommy Larkins was one of many commanders who chose to work with these agents. William Jardine was grateful to him and others whom he called friends for selling their privilege to him to allow him to trade directly between England and Canton.11 In one respect the Company ended its trading life as it had begun: searching for outlets for English woollens in ‘the manifold islands of Japan and the northern parts of China and the regions of the Tartars next adjoining’ and to trade at ports near the production of fine silks. Tommy witnessed one development which spanned seventy years to his grandfather’s times. In 1832, for the first time since William Larkins had arrived at Whampoa to find Onslow up the coast at Ningpo, the Company followed in the Agency Houses’ wake to sound out the prospects of reaching markets in northeast China. The directors ordered that Lord Amherst should be sent up the coast on a voyage of reconnaissance covertly ‘to ascertain how far northern Ports of this Empire may

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Conclusion 273 gradually be opened to British commerce’ and to get an idea of the ship’s reception by local merchants and government officials.12 Lord Amherst carried some English products and was to sound out local merchants regarding obtaining tea and silk. She sailed to Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai, calling at ports of Korea and the Loochoo Islands on her return passage. Her voyage showed that the Chinese people were not opposed to increased intercourse with British traders.13 The prospect of making a good profit from their privilege of private trade diminished as the decade came to a close. The commanders had addressed various petitions to the Court of Directors between 1824 and 1826, pointing out that the Company’s policy of making cheaper and better quality teas available to the public reduced the commanders’ profits on their investments while throwing the Company’s duties on a larger capital. The commanders could not share in the greatly increased importation of teas as their privilege was fixed, but they were subject to loss as the increase was accompanied by cheaper prices.14 In twenty years the net profit to a commander had fallen from over 100% to under 30%, while the amount paid in charges had fallen by only a few percentage points.15 Marquis Camden sailed in a fleet of thirty-four ships to China in 1826, bringing back nearly forty million pounds of tea, ten million more than in 1826, but the commanders were the poorer.16 Tommy’s generation were destined to work into their old age. The writing was already on the wall when Tommy returned from China in July 1829. A deep sense of foreboding pervaded the Jerusalem Coffee House at the prospect of the Company losing the privilege of importing tea from China. Commanders and officers viewed the generally depressed state of shipping in the world with pessimism. Many commanders and officers streamed into the Jerusalem on 12 October 1830 and drew up a petition to the Court of Directors, throwing themselves on their mercy.17 They pointed out that the carrying trade to all parts of the world was in a depressed state, precluding their finding employment. They asked the Court to protect them by requiring any ship hired out and home from Bengal to be navigated by a commander and officers in the service.18 The commanders were not to be left in suspense for long. Only a month later Charles Grant became President of the Board of Control and immediately told the Chairs that the Company’s monopoly of the China tea trade would cease on the renewal of the charter.19 The Court had for a long time been dominated by the private trade interest which had problems of their own and had little knowledge of, and even less interest in, the plight of the maritime service.20 As early as May 1829, deputations had descended on Parliament from all the major towns and petitions demanding the opening of the China

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274 Conclusion trade poured into Westminster from all over the country.21 Only the disruptive effects of successive dissolutions of Parliament over the Reform Bill had prevented the functioning of the Select Committee appointed to investigate ‘the affairs of the Company and the trade between Great Britain and China’. Just before Captain Larkins sailed for China in 1832 this Committee was reconstituted and started its work while a sullen Court of Directors awaited its fate.22 Everyone accepted that the directors had fulfilled their duty to provide Great Britain with good quality teas at a reasonable, stable price. The Government had made a profit of £1m annually, enabling it to offset the enormous expenditure on the Indian account.23 Soon after Captain Tommy Larkins arrived in England in May 1833 the Charter Bill was debated and passed in a very thin House. The Company was to continue to administer India, which everyone agreed it did well, and once they had been guaranteed a dividend of 10.5% the proprietors did not oppose the ending of the Company’s commercial activities. The commanders and officers assembled at the Jerusalem in September following the passing of the India Bill to continue their campaign for preferential treatment. Captain Tommy Larkins may have attended the meeting, but he was a survivor. He was prepared to try his luck in the new world which would follow the withdrawal of the Company’s monopoly of trade with China. As many of the splendid 1200 ton Indiamen went under the hammer Larkins & Co. not only kept Marquis Camden but purchased Orwell. Tommy assumed command of Orwell and continued in the China trade in the new competitive world. On arrival at Whampoa, Tommy would have recognized many of the ships which anchored alongside Orwell: Reliance, Thomas Coutts, Earl Balcarras and Berwickshire .24 At Canton he would have yarned and drunk with several old friends, who had for some time included William Jardine and James Matheson. Orwell was still trading at Canton in March 1839 when Commissioner Zexu Lin arrived with full powers from the Emperor to bring an end to the opium trade. He gave the foreigners three days to turn over all their stocks of opium. The British chief at Canton ordered all the country ships to give up their stocks, pledging the British government would fully compensate them. Thousands of chests of opium were burnt, bringing an end to the trade between Britain and China at Canton. Six months later the first shots were exchanged between British warships and Chinese junks at Kowloon after which the British warships sailed up the China coast and took Chusan in 1840. The following year a powerful British naval and military force arrived off the China coast to impose a trade sought by peaceful means almost two and a half centuries earlier.

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Notes to Conclusion 275 Notes   1 Philips, East India Company, p. 287.   2 Captain Larkins stood down in the 1826/7 season, naming Gilson Fox, his chief mate, as commander.   3 BL, APAC, B/184, 1 June 1831 p. 182 and 27 July 1831 p. 421.   4 BL, APAC, B/184, 14 December 1831, p. 704: eighteen directors agreed that he had no claim to the benefits of the Fund as he had exceeded by five years the period limited by the sixth clause for presentation of his petition but ‘in consideration of his former services and his present distressed condition a pension of £180 per annum be granted’.   5 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 4, p. 60.   6 Ibid., p. 186.   7 Ibid., p. 326.   8 Ibid., pp. 118–9, import/export trade figures for 1825.   9 Ibid., p. 341. 10 I am indebted to Huw Bowen for the following: after 1760 no silver was hipped by the Company to Canton in 1763, 1766–7, 1772–5, 1777–84, 1790, 1792-4 and 1801. 11 Negotiations, Charter 1833 ….. (open shelves). 12 Morse, Chronicles, vol. 4, p. 332. 13 Ibid., pp. 332–3: the voyage of Lord Amherst. 14 Guildhall Library, MS 31376, Society of East India Commanders memorial book, no. 66: tea imports for the year 1827 exceeded those of 1826 by just under 1,000,000 lbs. 15 Ibid., memorial to the Court of Directors enclosing a comparative statement of tea investments in the years 1806 and 1826 of three commanders, drawn up at Canton on 12 November 1827, signed by four commanders comprising a committee appointed by the commanders of the China ships of the season. 16 The China fleet of 1826 exceeded by about one third the number despatched annually during the final years of the Company’s trade. 17 Guildhall Library, MS 31376, Society of East India Commanders memorial book: the Society appears to have dissolved itself and reformed as a Friendly Society, as the former conducted no business after November 1828. No. 68 of 28 November 1828, the last entry, is a model of a letter to members stating that the Committee of Friendly Union at the last General Meeting suggested applying to Parliament for incorporation. 18 BL, APAC, L/MAR/C/781, Appeals to the Poplar Fund. 19 Philips, East India Company, p. 289. 20 Ibid., p. 277. 21 Ibid., p. 289. 22 Ibid., p. 287. 23 Ibid., p. 288. 24 Captain John F. Timmins, managing owner, launched the 1500 ton Reliance in 1830 for Captain Charles Timmins.

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Appendix I AT A COURT OF DIRECTORS OF THE UNITED COMPANY OF MERCHANTS OF ENGLAND, TRADING TO THE EAST-INDIES, HOLDEN DECEMBER 24, 1760

The Court of Directors of the United Company of Merchants of England, Trading to the East-Indies, considering how far it may be proper to reserve to themselves several Articles for the Trade of the said Company, and desiring to give all due and fitting Encouragement to the Commanders and Officers of Ships employed in their Service, do hereby declare as follows: That the Court do reserve to themselves the Exportation of Bullion, Cloth and all Sorts of Woollen Goods, Copper, Iron, Lead, Steel, and Warlike Stores, for the sole Use and Account of the Company, except as is hereafter mentioned. The said Court do allow the Commanders and Officers of Ships in their Service, to Export the following Quantities of Tonnage respectively in any Sort of Goods, except as above reserved for the trade of the Company, provided the Ship is let for 499 Tons. And if she shall be let at a greater or lesser Burthen, then they shall be allowed a greater or lesser Quantity of Tonnage in proportion, viz. Tons Feet* Tons Tons Commander   56   20 Third Mate    3 Fourth Mate    2 Chief Mate    5 Purser    3 Fifth Mate    1 Second Mate    4 Surgeon    3 Boatswain    1 Gunner    1 Carpenter    1 *40 cubic feet equalled one ton They do allow the above-mentioned Persons to invest one half and not more of the said Tonnage so allowed them in Iron, Lead, or Steel. That in case the Commanders and Officers of China Ships, and they only, are not able to invest so far as the Amount of the under-mentioned Sums ­respectively in Goods according to the above Regulations, the Court will then permit them to carry out Bullion to make up that Amount, viz.

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278

Appendix I

Commander £3,000 Third Mate £150 Fourth Mate £100 Gunner   £50 Chief mate   £300 Purser £150 Fifth Mate   £50 Carpenter £50 Second Mate   £200 Surgeon £150 Boatswain   £50 And the Commanders of China Ships are hereby allowed further to carry out separately to the Amount of Three thousand Pounds in Bullion for the Purchase of Gold, but the Court do hereby declare it to be their Meaning and Intention, that the whole Quantities of Goods and Bullion, as well as the Coral and other Articles hereafter mentioned, so to be carried out, shall not exceed the Allowances of Tonnage made to each Person, as above-mentioned respectively. And the Commanders and undermentioned Officers of Ships in the Company’s Service are allowed to invest the following Sums in Coral, Amber, Coral Beads, Amber Beads, Pearls, Emeralds, and any sort of Precious Stones, they producing an Invoice of the Amounts upon Oath, and paying the same Duties to the Company, and Consulage or Commission in India and China as the Traders in these Articles pay for the same, and on all Exceedings of these Allowances of Tonnage they shall further pay Freight to the Company for the same, viz. Commander  £2,000 Second Mate £400 Fourth Mate £300 Purser   £300 Chief Mate     £500 Third Mate £300 Surgeon £300 The above Tonnage and Allowances are for the proper Use and Account of the aforesaid Persons, and they are not on any consideration allowed to dispose of their own or make use of the Privilege of any other Person whosoever, unless the Court shall at any time think proper to dispense with the same. The Court do reserve to themselves the Importation of the following Goods, for the sole Use and Account of the Company. And the Commanders and Officers are prohibited Importing any of those Articles, excepting on the Conditions and under the Limitations as hereafter mentioned. Muslins, Callicoes, and all sorts of Goods and Merchandize made or mixed with Cotton, or Silk or Herbs, of what Denomination soever: Carmenia Wool, Cotton Yarn, Raw-Silk of all Sorts, Tea of all Sorts, Coffee, Cowries. Redwood, Turmerick. Cotton Wool, Pepper Black or White, Saltpetre They do allow the Commanders and Officers of Ships in their Service to Import the under-mentioned Quantities of Tonnage respectively, in any Sort of Goods, except as above reserved for the Trade of the Company, under the following Limitations. To the Commanders and Officers of China Ships, viz. Tons Tons Commander   38 Fourth Mate    2 Chief mate    5 Fifth Mate    1 Second Mate    4 Boatswain    1 Third Mate    3 Gunner    1 Purser    3 Carpenter    1 Surgeon    3 To the Commanders and Officers of other Ships, viz.

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Appendix I 279             Tons Feet Tons Feet Commander 30   32 Fourth Mate    1   24 Chief Mate   4 Fifth mate   32 Second Mate   3    8 Boatswain   32 Third mate   2   16 Gunner   32 Purser   2   16 Carpenter   32 Surgeon   2   16 They paying the Customs, and to the Company two per cent. Warehouseroom, and a Duty of Five on the Gross Amount at the Sale, excepting as follows, viz. Arrack, of which four Leaguers are allowed for each one Hundred tons the Ship is let for, they paying the Custom and Excise, and to the Company Two per cent. Warehouse-room, and Six-pence per Gallon thereon, and upon what exceeds that Quantity two Shillings per Gallon. China-Ware, Cabinets, China Fans and Pictures, China Images and Pictures, Japan Ware, Lacquer’d Ware and Screens, in China Ships, and them only, four Tons for each one Hundred Tons the Ship is let for, they paying Four per cent. Warehouse-room on China and Lacquer’d Ware, and on the other Articles Two per Cent. Warehouse-room, together with the Custom, and Five per Cent. Duty to the Company on the whole, and on all Exceedings to pay Thirty Pounds for each Ton, and so in Proportion for a greater or lesser Quantity. China-Ware, Cabinets, China fans and Pictures, China Images and Pictures, Japan Ware, Lacquer’d Ware and Screens, not in China Ships, two Tons, they paying Warehouse-room and other Charges the same as the China Ships, and on all Exceedings to pay Thirty Pounds for each Ton, and so in Proportion for a greater or lesser Quantity. Rattans, two Hundred Bundles for each one Hundred Tons the Ship is let for, they paying the Custom, Two per Cent. Warehouse-room, and the Duty of Five per Cent. to the Company, and on all Exceedings to pay Ten Shillings per Bundle as far as one Hundred Bundles, and all further Exceedings to be forfeited. And the Court do also permit the Commanders and Officers to bring home any of the Articles above reserved for the Company’s Trade, excepting such as may be limited or prohibited by the Commanders Instructions, they paying the Customs, and to the Company Two per Cent. Warehouse-room, Five per Cent. Duty, and Fifteen per Cent. Indulgence, upon the Gross Amount thereof at the Company’s Sale; also excepting as follows: Callicoes and other Piece Goods not to exceed five Hundred Pieces of any one Species, they paying the Customs, Two per Cent. Warehouse-room, Five per Cent. Duty, and fifteen per Cent. Indulgence, and on all Exceedings above that Quantity Thirty per Cent. on the Gross Amount at the Company’s Sale. Tea by the China and Bencoolen Commanders and Officers, and them only, one and a half per Cent. on what the Ship is let for, they paying the Customs, Two per Cent. Warehouse-room, and Five per Cent. Duty on two Hundred Weight Part thereof for each one Hundred Tons, and on the Remainder the Customs, Two per Cent. Warehouse-room, five per Cent. Duty, and Fifteen per

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280

Appendix I

Cent. Indulgence, and on all above that Tonnage Thirty per Cent. on the Gross Amount at the Sale. And the Court do declare, that in case the Ship does not in the whole exceed the several Quantities of Arrack, China Ware and Lacquer’d Ware, Rattans, Callicoes and Tea, no charge shall be made for any particular Person’s exceeding, provided that such Person is in the whole within his limited Proportion of Tonnage as before-mentioned. All the above Articles are to be included in, and reckoned as a Part of the Tonnage allowed as before-mentioned, and in case of any Exceeding in the said respective Tonnage so allowed, the Court of Directors will charge a further Duty over and above all other Duties of Forty Pounds for each Ton, and so in Proportion for a greater or lesser Quantity. The Commanders and Officers shall be at Liberty to pay all or any Part, of the Produce of their Outward-bound Adventure into the Company’s Cash, either in India or China, for which they shall have Certificates granted them on the Court of Directors, at the usual Rates of Exchange. Signed: Robert James, Secretary.

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Appendix II [ESTABLISHED BY?] THE RIGHT HONORABLE [SIC] THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS OF THE ADMIRALTY, RESPECTING IMPRESSMENT FROM THE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S SHIPS

Regular ships, with their tonnage: 1200 tons* To be protected from impress: Fifth and sixth mates, if in the character of gentlemen     2 Midshipmen, being all young gentlemen     7 Principal petty officers, boatswain, gunner, and carpenter, with their servants, who are to be landmen or boys     6 Tradesmen: Armourer Sail-maker Cooper Carpenter’s mates Cooper’s mate Caulker’s mate

1) 1) 1)     8 2) 1) 1)

Quartermasters ) Boatswain’s mates ) altogether      12 Gunner’s mates ) Master at Arms, if an old soldier     1 Captain’s steward ) Ship’s steward ) Captain’s cook ) Ship’s cook ) Commander’s servants ) if not seamen    10 Chief mate’s do. ) Second do. do. ) Third do. do. ) Surgeon’s do. )

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282

Appendix II

Number, of all descriptions, to be specially protected, until the return of the ship to Europe   46 [800 ton ship   44] Impressible: Number of men which may be impressed from the remaining part of the crew of each class of ships, including such as may voluntarily enter for His Majesty’s Service   18 [800 ton ship 10, 1400 ton ship 20] *Where numbers differ for 800 and 1400 ton ships they are specified. Numbers for extra ships of 500-700 tons were much reduced Source: Charles Hardy: A Register of Ships employed in the Service of the Hon. the United East India Company, from the year 1760 to the conclusion of the commercial charter … with an appendix and supplement (London, Parbury, Allen, 1835)

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

A  PRIMARY SOURCES MANUSCRIPTS: 1  British Library Additional MSS: 45579: Journal of Deptford by Blechynden, Richard, midshipman Asia Pacific and Africa Collection: East India Company Records: B/ Minutes of the Court of Directors 75–263 E/ Miscellanies 1/128, 238–40 4/1019 G/ Factory Records G/12/ China consultations: 22, 84, 88, 145-6, 264–8, G/32/ St. Helena consultations: 19 G/34/ Prince of Wales Island consultations: 80 G/35/ Straits Settlements’ Consultations: 50 H/ Home Miscellaneous series: 18–22, 434 L/AG/ Accountant General’s records: 1/6/11–23 L/L/ Legal Adviser’s ­records: legal opinions on commanders: 6/1 L/MAR/ Marine Department’s records: 1/3, 4, 36 L/MAR/C/ Marine Department’s records concerning shipping: 1, 39, 324, 530–534, 781 L/PS/ Minutes of the Secret Committee: 1/9 P/ Proceedings of the Presidencies in India Bengal Public Proceedings: 1/19 Bombay Public Proceedings: 21, 341, 346-8 Bombay Select Committee Proceedings: D/49

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284 Bibliography Madras Public Proceedings: 21, 341, 346–8 Persian Gulf Proceedings: Neg. 4921 Private papers: MSS Eur. D/1051/1 E/4/449 2  Other repositories Guildhall Library MS 31376: Memorial Book of the Society of East India Commanders National Maritime Museum (NMM) NMM HMN/33 and 37 Hamilton collection SMS/1 Society of East India Commanders betting book POC/1f Pocock papers THS/12/2 Essex Record Office D/Dru, B/11-20: Papers of Samuel Braund

B  PRINTED SOURCES 1  East India Company records V/27/220/6 By-laws printed in 1774 FWIHC: Fort William – India House Correspondence and Other Contemporary Papers Relating Thereto (Public Series), 21 vols (Delhi, 1949–85): vol. IV: 1764–1766, ed. C.S. Srinivasachari (New Delhi, 1962); vol. V: 1767–9, ed. N.K. Sinha (New Delhi, 1949); (Select and Secret) vol. VI; 1770–2, ed. B. Prasad (New Delhi, 1960); (ed.), vol. VII, 1773–1776, ed. R. P. Patwardham; (Secret and Select Committee), vol. XIV: 1752–1781, ed. A. Prasad (New Delhi, 1985) 2  Parliamentary sources Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons Journals Cobbett William, Parliamentary History of England (vols 31–36, 1797–1820, London, 1818–20) 3  Contemporary correspondence, memoirs and printed books, ­arranged alphabetically by author or subject where author not known Auber, Peter, Analysis of the Constitution of the East India Company and the Laws passed by Parliament for the Government of their Affairs… (London, 1826) Boxer, C. R. (ed.), Dutch Merchants and Mariners in Asia 1602–1795 (Netherlands, 1988) Bruce, John, Historical Plans for the Government of India (London, 1793) Bulley, Anne, Free Mariner, John Adolphus Pope in the East Indies 1786–1821 (London, 1992) Carnall, G. and Nicholson, C., The Impeachment of Warren Hastings: Papers from a Bicentenary Commemoration (Edinburgh, 1989) Compton, Herbert (ed.), A Master Mariner, being the Life and Adventures of Captain Robert Eastwick (London, 1891)

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Bibliography 285 Dodwell, Henry (ed.), Warren Hastings’ Letters to Sir John Macpherson (London, 1927) Flannery, Tim (ed.), Life and Adventures of John Nicol, Mariner (Edinburgh, 2000) Foster, Sir William (ed.), A. Hamilton, A New Account of the East Indies (London, 1930), 2 vols Foster, Sir William (ed.), Letters received by the East India Company from Their Servants in the East 1602–1617 (London, 1896–1902), 6 vols Horn, D. B., English Historical Documents 1714–1815, vols 10, 11 (London, 1967) Horsburgh, James, Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies, China, New Holland, Cape of Good Hope, and the Interjacent Ports; compiled chiefly from Original Journals at the East India House (London, 1809 and 1811), 2 vols Ingram, Edward (ed.), Two Views of British India: The Private Correspondence of Mr Dundas and Lord Wellesley, 1798–1801 (Bath, 1970) Keale, R., The Trades Increase (London, 1615) Knox, Robert, An Historical Relation of Ceylon (Glasgow, 1911) Low, C. R., The History of the Indian Navy, 1613–1863 (London, 1877), 2 vols Madden, A. F. and Fieldhouse, D. (eds), Select Documents on the History of the British Empire and Commonwealth (London, 1982–1991), 11 vols Malleson, C. B., History of the French in India from the Founding of Pondicherry in 1674 to the Capture of the Place in 1761 (London, 1868) Meriton, H. and Rogers, J., A Circumstantial Narrative of the Loss of the Halsewell (London, 1786) Philips, C. H. (ed.), The Correspondence of David Scott, Director and Chairman of the East India Company, relating to Indian Affairs 1787–1805 (London, 1951), 2 vols Spencer, Alfred (ed.), Memoirs of William Hickey, 7th edition (London, 1923), 4 vols Stavorinus, Jan Splinter, Voyages to the East Indies (London, 1798), 3 vols Verner, Coolie and Skelton, R. A. (eds), John Thornton, The English Pilot, The Third Book (London, 1703) Staunton, George Thomas, Britain and the China Trade 1635–1842. Selected and with a new introduction by Patrick Tuck (London, 2000)

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286 Bibliography Bulley, Anne, The Bombay Country Ships 1790–1833 (Richmond, 2000) Chauhuri, K. N., The East India Company: The Study of an Early Joint-stock Company, 1600–1640 (London, 1965) Chauhuri, K. N., The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company 1660– 1760 (Cambridge, 1978) Chauhuri, K. N., ‘The English East India Company in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in Companies and Trade, eds L. Blusse and F. Gaastra (Netherlands, 1981) Chaudhuri, Nirad C., Clive of India (London, 1975) Clarke-Kennedy, A. E., Stephen Hales (Cambridge, 1929) Crowther, Sir Geoffrey, Sinews of War (Oxford, 1939) Daggett, Charles, Diving for the Griffin (London, 1990) Dodwell, H. H. (ed.), The Cambridge History of India (Cambridge, 1929), 5 vols Embree, Ainslie, Charles Grant and British Rule in India (London, 1962) Evans, John, The Gentleman Usher, the Life and Times of George Dempster 1732–1818 (Barnsley, 2005) Farrington, Anthony, A Biographical Index of East India Company Maritime Service Officers 1600–1834 (British Library, 1999) Farrington, Anthony, Catalogue of East India Company Ships’ Journals and Logs 1600– 1834 (British Library, 1999) Foster, Sir William, England’s Quest of Eastern Trade (London, 1933) Fry, Howard T., Alexander Dalrymple and the Expansion of British Trade (London, 1970) Furber, Holden, Henry Dundas, First Viscount Melville 1742–1811 (London, 1931) Furber, Holden, John Company at Work: A Study of European Expansion in India in the Late Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, MA, 1948) Furber, Holden, Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient (Minneapolis, 1976) Gill, Conrad, Merchants and Mariners in the 18th Century (London, 1961) Gordon, Stewart, Marathas 1600–1818, New Cambridge History of India, II, 4 (Cambridge, 1987) Graham, G. S., Great Britain and the Indian Ocean: A Study of Maritime Enterprise, 1800– 1850 (Oxford, 1967) Grant, Robertson, Chatham and the British Empire (London, 1946) Greenberg, Michael, British Trade and the Opening of China 1800–1842 (Cambridge, 1951) Gupta, Ashin das, Malabar in Ancient Trade 1740–1800 (Cambridge, 1967) Hackman, Rowan, Ships of the East India Company (Gravesend, 2001) Hamilton, C. J., Trade Relations between India and England 1600–1896 (Calcutta, 1919) Harlow, V. T., The Founding of the Second British Empire, 1763–1793 (London, 1952– 64), 2 vols Haudrère, Philippe (ed.), Les Flottes des Compagnies des Indes 1600–1857, Cinques Journées Franco-Britanniques d’Histoire de la Marine, Service Historique de la Marine (Paris, 1996) Jenkins, E. H., History of the French Navy (London, 1973) Keay, John, The Honourable Company (London, 1991) Lawson, Philip, The East India Company (London, 1993) Lewis, Michael, The History of the British Navy (London, 1957)

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Bibliography 287 MacGregor, David, Merchant Sailing Ships, 1775–1815 (London, 1985) Malcolm, Sir John, Life of Robert, Lord Clive: Collected from the Family Papers Communicated by the Earl of Powys (London, 1836), 3 vols Marshall, P. J., Bengal, the British Bridgehead, Eastern India 1740–1828, The New Cambridge History of India, II, 2 (Cambridge, 1987) Marshall, P. J., The Impeachment of Warren Hastings (London, 1965) Marshall, P. J., East India Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1976) Masterson, Daniel M. (ed.), Naval History: The Sixth Symposium of the U.S. Naval Academy (Wilmington, DE, 1987) Minchinton, W. E., The Growth of English Overseas Trade in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1969) Morris, Roger, The Royal Dockyards during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (Leicester, 1983) Morse, H. B., Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China 1635–1834 (Oxford, 1926), 5 vols Mui, Hoh-cheung and Lorna H. Mui, The Management of Monopoly: A Study of the East India Company’s Conduct of its Tea Trade 1784–1833 (Vancouver, 1984) Newman, Aubrey (ed.), Lucy Sutherland: Politics and Finance in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1983) Nightingale, Pamela, Trade and Empire in Western India 1784–1806 (Cambridge, 1970) O’Brien, Connor Cruise, Edmund Burke (abridged edition) (London, 1997) Padfield, Peter, Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind (London, 1999) Parkinson, C. Northcote, War in the Eastern Seas 1793–1815 (London, 1954) Parkinson, C. Northcote, Trade in the Eastern Seas 1793–1813 (Cambridge, 1937) Parkinson, C. Northcote, Britannia Rules (London, 1977) Philips, C. H., The East India Company 1784–1833 (Manchester, 1940) Prakash, Om (ed.), ‘European Commercial Expansion in Early Modern Asia’, in An Expanding World: The European Impact on World History 1450–1800, 10 vols, vol. 10 (Aldershot, 1997) Pritchard, Earl H., The Crucial Years of Early Anglo-Chinese Relations 1750–1800 (Illinois, 1936) Richards, D. S. (ed.), Islam and the Trade of Asia (Oxford, 1967) Richmond, Sir H. W., The Navy in India 1763–83 (London, 1931) Rigby, Nigel and Pieter van der Merwe, Captain Cook in the Pacific (London, 2002) Rodger, N. A. M., The Command of the Ocean, a Naval History of Britain 1649–1815 (London, 2004) Rodger, N. A. M., The Insatiable Earl (London, 1993) Singh, S. B., European Agency Houses in Bengal 1783–1833 (Calcutta, 1966) Smith, Vincent (ed.), Percival Spear, Oxford History of India (Oxford, 1958) Staunton, George Thomas, Britain and the China Trade 1635–1842 (London, 2000), selected and with a new introduction by Patrick Tuck Sutherland Lucy, The East India Company in Eighteenth Century Politics (Oxford, 1952) Sutherland Lucy, A London Merchant (Oxford, 1962) Sutton Jean, Lords of the East, the East India Company and its Ships (London, 1981 and 2000)

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288 Bibliography Vincent, Rose (ed.), Pondicherry 1674–1761 (Paris, 1993) Yogev, Gedalia, Diamonds and Coral, Anglo-Dutch Jews and Eighteenth Century Trade (Leicester, 1978) 2  Articles Bovill, E. W., ‘The Convict Ship’, Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 40, no. 2 (1935). Bowen, H. V., ‘“So Alarming an Evil”: Smuggling, Pilfering and the East India Company 1750–1810’, International Journal of Maritime History, vol. XIV, no. 1 (2002), pp. 1–31. Bowen, H. V., ‘Privilege and Profit: Commanders of East Indiamen as Private Traders, Entrepreneurs and Smugglers, 1760–1813’, ibid., vol. XIX, no. 2 (2007). Boxer, C. R., The E. G. R. Taylor lecture for 1972 and also the Annual Lecture of the Society for Nautical Research 1962, ‘The Dutch East Indiamen, their Sailors, their Navigators and Life on Board 1602–1795’, Mariners’ Mirror, vol. 49, no. 2 (May 1963, reprinted 1972). Cock, Randolph, ‘The Finest Invention in the World: The Royal Navy’s Early Trials of Copper Sheathing, 1708–70’, Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 87, no. 4 (2001), pp. 446– 59, n. 26. Cook, Andrew S., ‘Alexander Dalrymple and John Arnold: Chronometers and the Representation of Longitude on East India Company Charts’, Vistas in Astronomy, vol. 28 (1985), pp. 188–195. R. P. Crowhurst, ‘The Voyage of the Pitt – A Turning Point in Eastern Navigation’, Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 55, no. 1 (1969), pp. 43–56. Gillespie, Colonel R. St J., ‘Sir Nathaniel Dance’s Battle off Pula Auro’, Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 21, no. 2 (1935). Jones, Ken, ‘John Lloyd (1748–1818): An Adventurous Welshman. Part I: The Ancestors, the East India Company and the Early Voyages’, Brycheiniog, vol. XXXIII (2001), pp. 59–92. Jones, Ken, ibid., Part II, vol. XXXVII �������������������������� (2005), pp. 67–118. Jones, Ken, ibid., Part III: ‘Personal Life and Private Trade’, vol. XXXVII (2005), pp. 45–78. Jones, Ken, ibid., Part IV: ‘Captain John Lloyd and Breconshire 1796–1818’, vol. XXXIX (2007), pp. 61–111. Labey, Captain G. T. and Captain R. K. H. Brice, ‘History of the Bengal Pilot Service’. Lloyd, Christopher, ‘Mutiny of the Nereide’, Mariner’s Mirror, vol. 54, no. 3 (1968), p. 246. May, W. E., ‘The Logbooks Used by Ships of the East India Company’, Journal of Navigation, vol. 27 (1974), pp. 638–663. 3  Unpublished university thesis Parker, James Gordon, ‘The Directors of the East India Company, 1744–1790’ (University of Edinburgh, 1977) 4  Other Cumming, Ed, Interactive CD, The Three English East Indiamen Wrecked off the Dorset Coast

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GLOSSARY

Sources for the definitions below are drawn mainly from the following: Nautical and navigational: The Country Life Book of Nautical Terms under Sail (London 1978) Indian: various, particularly: C. A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire, The New Cambridge History of India (Cambridge, 1988), II, 1; Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Clive of India (London, 1975); Anne Bulley, The Bombay Country Ships 1790–1833 (Richmond, 2000) Terms pertaining to the shipyard and the ship: Boom spar for stretching out the foot of a sail Booms deck between the mainmast and the foremast Cuddy dining saloon extending the full width of the ship entered from the quarterdeck and giving access to the roundhouse Deadlights wooden shutters put up on the great cabin windows to keep out the sea in rough weather Forecastle fore part of upper deck Great cabin cabin beneath the roundhouse Ground tackle anchors and cables connecting them with the ship Gunwales uppermost plank on a ship’s side Larboard left hand side of ship looking forward (now port) Mizzenmast rearmost mast

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290 Glossary Mould loft ­ Poop Quarter Quarter gallery Ratlines Roundhouse Ship’s boats Shrouds Starboard Steerage Steering sails Studding sails Topgallant sails Waist

large floor in the shipyard, usually painted black, on which full-size light battens representing the ship’s timbers are laid out to provide patterns for the shipwrights roof of the roundhouse, creating the uppermost deck at the stern part of a ship’s side towards the stern small gallery on each of a ship’s quarters horizontal ropes connecting the shrouds to form ladders cabin extending full width of the ship at the stern, the captain’s official station on board, with access to a stern gallery, open until the end of the eighteenth century in order of size: long boat, pinnace, cutter, jolly boat, yawl ropes from the mastheads to the side of a ship right hand side of ship looking forward area on the main deck before the great cabin providing accommodation for officers and crew alternative term for studding sails sails set on spars rigged out from the yards to increase the spread of sail sails attached to a mast above the topmast part of the ship between the quarterdeck and the forecastle, usually open until late eighteenth century

Nautical terms: Articles of War Bear up Chase Clear for action

the disciplinary and legal procedures by which the military and naval forces of Great Britain (and the East India Company) were bound to change course to make ship run before the wind vessel being chased and the act of chasing hoist out all boats, remove obstacles from the guns, secure all items on board, spread protective netting to catch debris

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Glossary 291 Drive Leeward Pay Road Shorten (trim) sail Sound Stand on Stand off and on Warp Wear Windward

to be forced to leeward by wind and sea or to run before a gale away from the wind, the sheltered side to daub any surface to protect it against wind, weather or water; usually with tar, pitch, tallow, sulphur, resin or turpentine a designated anchorage take in lesser sails and adjust yards to improve the set of the sails to find depth of water and nature of bottom by sinking a cylinder of lead with tallow in a recess to which specimens might attach (‘arming’ the lead) to continue on course towards a chosen goal sail alternately away and towards the land to move a vessel by heaving on a fixed rope or warp; the rope itself put a vessel on the other tack by sailing round in a semi-circle towards the wind

Navigational terms: Amplitude Azimuth Variation

the angle a celestial body rises or sets north or south of the prime vertical the bearing of a celestial body horizontal angle between the magnetic and true meridians

Indian words: Bania (banian) Bunder Cajan Dastak Diwan Diwani Dubash

general term to depict the Hindu mercantile class custom house palm leaf thatch a pass the financial minister of a Moghul province or Indian state the financial control of an Indian state an Indian factotum for, for example, a European administrator or merchant

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292 Glossary Durbar Farman Gallivat Ghat Grab Hadj Hadji Masulah boat Nawab Nayar Nizam Patamar Pindari Prahus Shroff Subah

a court of a native ruler in India or a levee at such a court an order fast shallow-draft boat propelled by many oarsmen used off the Malabar coast stairs or passage leading to a river medium-sized, well-armed ship on European model used by Indians and Europeans on the Malabar coast pilgrimage to Mecca pilgrims, past and present, to Mecca deep-hulled boat used in inshore waters on the Coromandel coast deputy or viceroy of the Moghul emperors the Hindu warrior caste-cluster of Kerala the title of the ruler of Hyderabad shallow draft boat used in inshore waters and rivers irregular horsemen attached to Maratha armies; later became military plunderers in the Deccan native boats employed in the eastern seas dominated by the trade winds and monsoons money changer a province of the Moghul empire; also a contraction (usually used by the English) of subadah, the governor of a Moghul province

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INDEX Apart from the main entry, the English East India Company is referred to as EIC throughout the index Abercrombie, General 174 Abrolhas Shoal 122 Acapulco galleon 97, 98 Aché, Comte d’ 82 Acheh (Acheen) 2, 23, 25, 108, 214 Aden 49, 50   Gulf of 49, 50 Admiralty, Lords of 119, 124, 202, 225, 236 Afghanistan 234 Africa/African 1, 39, 40, 41, 141, 144 Agra 3 Agulhas Current 31, 41 Allen, John 86, 88 Amboyna 3, 198–9, 233   Ambon 199 America/American/U. S. A. 1, 10, 62, 125, 148, 157, 191, 208, 213, 226, 229, 238   ships at Whampoa 148, 210, 226, 251    via northwest coast of America 130, 148, 163, 226, 234 Amoy 273 Amsterdam 110 Anambas Island 94 Andaman Islands 127 Anglesey 182 Angria 17, 48, 63, 64   Canoji 47   Tulaji 47, 63   Colaba Fort 48 Anjengo (see EIC/­administration/­ overseas/factories) Annam 97 Anselme, Captain Abraham 47 Anson, Admiral George 97, 98 Apularia, Island of 23

Arabian Sea 6, 269 Arcot (see Clive, Robert) Armenians 44 Ascension Island 32 Asses Ears 262 Attinga 59 Augustine 57 Auro, Island of 23 Babelmandeb 49   Point 49 Bab Island 49 Baet 46 Bait-al-Fakir 49 Baker, Sir William, MP 36 Balambangan 151, 270 Balasore 4, 30, 113 Balouchis 46 Banda Islands 3, 198 Bangalore 177 Bangka 166 bania(s) 60 Bank of England 7 Bankes 81, 85, 87 Bantam 2, 4, 5 Barber, Captain 260 Baring, Francis 158, 181 Baring’s Isle 181 Barlow, James 38 Barnett, Admiral Curtis 25 Baroda 3 Barwell, Richard 124 Bassas da India 41, 42 Batacarang Point 93 Batavia 5, 82, 86, 93, 99, 198, 213, 215 Batavian Republic 197, 215 Bell, Joseph 48

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294 Index Benares 142, 161 Benfield, Paul 123, 142 Bengal (see EIC/overseas/Presidencies; EIC/trade)   Bay of 25, 63, 87, 128, 41, 45, 198, 214, 269 Bengal Club (Squad) 90, 118 Benkulen 5, 80, 82, 83, 151, 193, 224, 225, 270 Berry 165 Berry Head 156 Bickerton, Sir Richard 141, 144, 147 Bihar 27, 99, 109, 161, 210 Bills of Exchange 111 Blackheath 171, 177, 183, 189, 200 Black Hole 65 Black Pagoda 25 Blackwall 36 Blackwell Hall 37, 234 Blackwood, Admiral Sir Henry, RN 249, 250 Board of Control (see Government, British) Boca Tigris (The Bogue) 65, 253 Bohras 46 Bombay (see also EIC/overseas/ Presidencies) 6, 43, 44, 45, 60, 64, 145, 160, 162, 267, 269, 271   Bunder (Custom House) 44   Bunder Quay 44, 207   Dock/dockyard (see also Parsi; Wadia) 44, 60, 145, 209, 269   Fort 44   Harbour 5, 43, 47, 50, 52, 63, 64, 141, 226, 233, 269   Mendham’s Point 43   Old Woman’s Island 43 Bonamy, Charles 250 Bond, Captain Essex Henry 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 190, 198, 199 Borneo 163, 213 Boscawen, Rear-Admiral 42, 43, 87 Boulogne 21 braces 25,113 Brandt, Governor 130 Braund, Benjamin   2nd mate of Montfort 33, 36 captain of Boscawen 37–52

Braund, Samuel 36, 37, 44, 54, 61 Braund, William 37 Brazil 39, 51   Bay of All Saints 51   Rio de Janeiro 140 Brest 125 Brett, Captain RN 48, 50, 51 Bristol 197 Broach 3, 209 Brooke, Governor 197 Brough, Anthony 157, 158, 159 Browne, Captain 212 Bruce, Fawcett & Co. 209 Buggin, Barrington 190 bullion (see silver) Burke, Edmund MP 160 Burrowes, Captain 20–28, 37, 46, 47, 48 Bussorah (Basra) 46 Bussy, General Charles de 68, 76, 77, 94, 95, 105, 143, 148   controls Deccan 55, 56, 62   controls east coast 64, 81   taken prisoner 87 Buxar 109 Cadgone Bay 25 Calcutta (see also EIC/overseas/ Presidencies) 26, 27, 112 Calicut 1, 59, 65, 148, 160 Cambay 209 Camden, Calvert & King 171, 178 Canary Islands 38 Canton (see also EIC/­overseas/ factories; Supercargoes) 68, 83, 95, 199, 255   European trade at (see also trade/ EIC/commanders and officers)    compradore 72    Emily affair 251    Hongs/Hongists (Security Merchants) 67, 95, 97, 166, 252, 253    Lady Hughes affair 149–51, 253, 255    linguists 252    mandarins 69, 70, 96, 253     opinion of Europeans 69     measurage, port and other charges 262     Topaze affair 253–4

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Index 295 Canton River (see Pearl River) Cape Agulhas 31, 32, 40, 41, 122, 130 Cape Bank 40, 114, 130 Cape Comorin 55, 57, 141 Cape Horn 148 Cape of Good Hope (Cape of Bona Esperanza) 1, 22, 29, 30, 31, 32, 39, 40, 52, 63, 84, 111, 112, 124, 130, 140 163, 179, 190, 197, 198, 213, 214, 233, 248, 251, 268 Cape St Vincent 200 Cape Verdes 22, 140, 148   Porto Praya 140 Capsingmoon 271 Caranja Hill Carnatic 56, 99, 108, 109, 143, 167, 174, 175, 177 Carwar 148 Cathay (see China) Cavite 97 Ceylon 147   Point de Galle 218 Chait Singh 142, 143, 160 Chanda Sahib 55, 57 Chandernagore 8, 73, 81, 86, 112, 113, 123 Channel (English) 21, 38, 62, 139, 225 Chapel Valley 81 Charles I 4 Charles II 4, 5 Charter Acts   1793 183, 233   1813 233, 235, 269   1833 267, 273, 274 charter party 21, 193   armament 83   manning 28, 29, 236   times for leaving Asian ports 113, 127, 166 charts 22, 83 Chatham (see Pitt, William, the Elder) 156 Chesil Bank 225 China (Cathay) (see also EIC/trade; opium)   Emperor’s Edicts (1755) 69–70, (1799) 210 China Sea 83, 93, 94, 97, 163, 213, 216, 251, 269

Chinsura 8, 29, 86 Chittagong 6 Christchurch 157 Christmas Island 82 Chuenpi 225 Chusan 70, 97, 274 Clarke, Captain William Stanley 225 Clavering, Colonel 123 Clive, Robert (later Lord) 57, 61, 86–7, 90, 103, 109–10, 112   and diwani(see also EIC/ administration/overseas/ Presidencies/Bengal) 87, 109   and jagir 104   appointed Commander-in-Chief and Governor of Bengal 104   attacks Chandernagore 73   attacks Gheria 63–4   captures fort at Arcot 56   commands troops sent to aid Calcutta 66, 72–3   defeats Siraj-ud-Daula at Plassey 73   orders EIC ships to attack Dutch ships 86 cloves (see spices) Cochin 1, 49 Coconut Day 45 coffee (see also supercargoes) 6, 38, 44, 48 Colaba (see also Angria) 48 Collingwood, Admiral Lord 110 Collingwood, Carlton 203, 213 Collingwood, Captain Edward, RN 110 Collingwood, John Carlton 203, 213 Collingwood, Susannah (see Larkins) Collins, David 179 Colombo 1, 5, 141 commanders and officers (see also EIC/ maritime service)   advance hydrography 83, 167, 180–2   authority over other ships’ ­personnel questioned 212   constitute courts of enquiry 51, 71, 113, 164, 212, 248, 252, 256, 258, 259–60, 262, 263   effects of open competition in ­tendering on 194, 203   elected to Court of Directors 110

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296 Index   pay and conditions of reviewed 194–5   ‘perpetuity of command’ 5, 7 9, 89, 105, 268   price of command 79, 86, 98–9, 105, 194, 196, 203   qualifications 122, 196, 248, 268   receive compensation 121, 195   receive orders from Presidencies 44, 45, 47, 98, 174–5, 193   rewarded for defending Company property 218, 229 Comoro Islands 38, 42 Compagnie des Indes (see East India companies/foreign) convicts 178, 179, 180, 249 convoy   East Indiamen as 44, 45, 47, 59–60, 214, 216   East Indiamen exempt from naval 225   naval escorts for East Indiamen 21, 30, 37, 50, 73, 80, 87, 90, 128, 130, 140, 199, 213, 218 Cook, Captain James, RN 122, 130, 148, 162, 164, 180 Cook Inlet 164 Coote, Lt-Col. Eyre (later General, Sir) 87, 143, 147 Cork 73, 79 Cornish, Rear-Admiral Samuel RN 97, 98 Cornwall 182 Cornwallis, Lord Charles 1st Marquis and 2nd Earl 161, 173–4, 175, 176, 177, 183 Coromandel coast 4, 24, 25, 28, 29, 54, 57, 61, 83, 141, 147, 168, 267 Cotton, Joseph 200 Cowan 46 Cowes 256 Cox, John 51 Crabb, Richard 54 Crabbe Boulton, Henry 37 Cromwell, Oliver 4 Crown and Anchor Tavern 192 Cuddalore (see EIC/factories/Fort St David)

Culpee (see Hooghly river) Cumming, Captain George 62, 64, 66, 71, 79 Dalrymple, Alexander 83, 97   appointed hydrographer to Company 191 Dampier Strait 83 Dance, Nathaniel 202, 203   captain of Earl Camden 202, 209–18   captain’s servant on Clinton 63   first mate on Warren Hastings 159, 164   granted pension 218   midshipman on Clinton 79   private trade 210, 211   resigned command 218   victim of open competition 200–1 Denmark/Danes (see East India ­companies, foreign) Danes Island 66, 71, 94, 163 Day, Francis 4 dastak 6, 8, 103 Deal 38, 229 Delagoa Bay 31, 32   St Mary’s Island 31 Delhi 109 demurrage (demorage) 118, 120, 163 Dent, William 190 Deptford 20, 36, 138, 178, 198, 201 Dhaka 27 Diamond Harbour 232 Diu 1, 45–6, 51 diwan (see EIC/administration/­ overseas/Presidencies) Dixon, Captain Dogger Bank 94 Douglas, Captain Peter 175 Dover 19, 33, 52, 62, 85, 160 Downs 38, 54, 61, 73, 79, 105, 110, 119, 124, 130, 155, 156, 177, 183, 213, 218, 224, 233 Drake, Captain Richard 54, 79, 90 Drake, Dawson, Governor of Manila 97, 98 Drake, Francis 1 Drake, Roger, Governor of Fort William 72

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Index 297 Draper, Colonel William, later Brigadier-General 81, 96 Drummond, Captain Charles 198, Drummond, Captain Henry Andrews 258 Duncan, Jonathan, Governor of Bombay 209 Dundas, Henry, 1st Viscount Melville 161, 163   campaigns to keep Bombay as Presidency 161, 207   oversees conduct of war 183   President of Board of Control 161   promotes India built ships to Britain 200   requests Company ships for navy 191   supports open competition in ­tendering 191, 199 Dundas, Captain James 165 Dunkirk 21 Dupleix, Jeanne 55 Dupleix, marquis Joseph Francois de 27, 28   governor of south India 55   recalled 62   supports Chanda sahib’s claim to Carnatic 55 Durand, John 107 Eastern passage (see Pitt’s Passage) 83, 198 East India Companies, foreign   Danish 28   Dutch, Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC) 2, 5, 28. 29, 82, 83, 267   French, Compagnie des Indes 8, 27, 28, 267   Ostend (later Swedish) 8 East India Company, English (EIC) 2, 4–5, 36   administration, home (India House/ Leadenhall Street) 7    by-laws concerning shipping 7, 9, 107, 122, 138, 159    Chairman/Deputy Chairman 54, 121, 239    Committees

    Private Trade 238 Secret 84, 213, 215 Shipping 19, 37, 61, 62, 137, 138, 157, 193, 262, 269      Court of Directors/directors 7, 19, 24, 27, 30, 37, 61, 95, 103, 107, 238, 268     allows more voyages 137, 159, 189, 190, 193, 197, 200, 236     and open competition in ­tendering ships 7, 9, 159, 192–4     approves transfer of ships to navy 191     decides shipping requirements 189–90     empowers Chairman to buy ships 138     hires ships 137, 159, 200     limits numbers of ships 9, 105, 119, 120     limits size of ships 61–2, 202    General court (proprietors) 7, 9, 61, 103, 104, 118, 121, 159, 191, 192, 194, 196, 218    Master Attendant 62, 90    Solicitor 159    Surveyor of Shipping 62, 90, 107, 158, 189, 202   overseas    Presidencies     Bengal, Fort William; (see also Robert Clive; Warren Hastings; Lord Cornwallis) 6, 26–7, 103, 112–14, 174, 236     and diwan 87, 109–10     council of four Supervisors 120, 123–4     Fort William 26–7, 57, 112, 236      corrupt servants 109      retaken by Clive 72–3, 113      surrendered to Siraj-udDaula 64     Governor-General 120, 156     Supreme Court of Judicature 120, 124    East coast, Madras (Fort St George) 20, 57, 69, 82–3, 96, 97, 125, 141–2, 176–7, 200, 236    absorbed Malabar 208

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298 Index                           

and nawab’s debts 108 bankrupt 111,141 besieged by French 81–2 involved in local wars 111 Presidency re-established 54 relieved 87 restored to Company 43 strengthened 56 surrendered to/ransacked by French 28    Treaty of Mangalore 148, 160   West Coast, Bombay (see also Bombay) 5, 37, 38, 43, 44, 47, 48, 50, 52, 58, 60, 63, 64, 65, 96, 125, 141, 144, 145, 148, 160–63, 174, 175, 207–9, 225, 226    and Treaty of Mangalore 148, 160    annexes Surat 209    status as Presidency threatened 161, 207, 269    Prince of Wales Island (Penang) 250, 252, 267, 269, 270    factories     Anjengo 57–9, 65, 144     Benkulen (Fort Marlborough) 5, 80, 82, 83, 84, 151, 224, 225, 270     Canton (see Canton; supercargoes)     Fort St David (Cuddalore) 28, 29, 43, 54, 55, 81, 147     Gombroon 3, 43, 46     Mocha 44, 47, 48, 49, 50, 55     Surat 4, 5, 45, 59, 60, 65, 207, 208     Tellicherry 48, 49, 59, 60, 65, 207   maritime service (see also commanders; Society of East India Commanders) 19, 48, 104, 109, 120, 122, 178, 196   shipping (see ships/East Indiamen/ managing owners)   trade (see trade/EIC) East India Dock 167 Elephant Island 60 Elizabeth I 1, 2 Elphinstone, William 200 Esplin, Captain John 197

Essington, Captain RN 197, 198 Ethiopia 42 Evans, Evan 38, 42, 50 Exeter 182 False Bay 130   Simon’s Bay 130 False Cape 32 False Point 25 farman 3, 4 Farquharson, Captain James 211, 212, 214 Faruksiyar, Emperor 27 Fernando Loronha 73 fever (see sickness) Fiji 226 Fiott, Edward 159 Firando (Hirado) 9 Flint, James 69, 70, 88, 96 ‘flux’ (see sickness) Foochow 273 Foot, John 21, 22 Forbes, Anthony 260, 261 Forbes, Charles 207   Forbes & Co. 209 Forde, Colonel Francis 81, 86, 87 Formosa 163, 182 Forrester, Captain Bernard 86, 88 Fort Marlborough (see EIC/ Presidencies/factories) Fort St David (see EIC/Presidencies/     factories) Fort St George (see EIC/Presidencies/     factories) Fort William (see EIC/Presidencies/     factories) Fowler, Lt RN 215, 216 Fowler, Samuel 256, 257, 259, 260, 262, 263 Fox, Gilson Reeve 261 France/French (see also ships/ French naval, East Indiamen) 21, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 42, 57, 60, 99, 112, 118, 121, 124, 125, 126, 130, 137, 141, 209, 210, 215, 233, 267   Paris Convention 182 Francis, Philip 123 Franklyn, Benjamin 125

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Index 299 Frederick II 89 Frederick Hendrick shoal 93 French Island 66 Fulta 61, 64 Gama, Vasco da 1, 59 Ganges 25, 27, 29 Gaspar Island 167 General Association 82 George III 90   accession 89–90   recalls Parliament 119   intervenes in legislative process 156 Gheria 47, 60, 63, 64 Gibraltar 191 Glasgow 182 Glover, Captain Alphonsus 37, 47, 50, 51 Goa 1, 2, 60 Gold 90, 195 Gombroon (see EIC/overseas/factories) Gore, Captain Arthur 120, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 138, 139, 144, 145, 148 Government (British) 110, 112, 124, 183, 198, 201   House of Commons (Parliament) 119, 183    attacks Hastings 160    Parliamentary Secret Committee 120    Parliamentary Select Committee 120 (1773), 274 (1832)   and East India Company    hears petitions supporting ­continued Company privilege 234, 235    legislates to limit independence of 110, 156     Act instituting competition in ship tendering 199 Act awarding allowances to ­managing owners 210     India Act establishing Board of Control 19, 156, 161     Regulating Act 124 Govindpore/Govindpur 27, 112 Grant, Charles, junior 239

Grant, Charles, senior 191, 192 Grant, Captain James Ludovic 225 Gravesend 20, 54, 63, 104, 178, 224, 239 Greenwich 36, 163, 184 Greer, Captain William 127, 129, 165 Griffin, Captain John, senior 113 Griffin, Commodore Thomas 28, 29, 30 Griffin, John, junior 113 Grove House 145 Guinea 38   Current 39 Gujarat 3, 4, 5, 9, 45, 147, 161, 209, 220 Guns   East Indiamen 20, 28, 46, 47, 51, 71, 82, 83, 84, 138, 215, 225   gunpowder 20, 26, 72 Haddock, Edmund 37, 39, 41, 44, 50 Haidar Ali 111, 118, 141, 143 Hainan 97 haj/hajis 3, 44, 45 Halifax 268 Hall, John 104 Hall, Thomas 19, 20, 33 Halley 22 Hamilton, Captain Archibald 211, 212 Hamilton, Captain Montgomerie 258 Hanoverian troops 144, 145 Hanslapp, Captain Robert 25. 28, 30 Harris, Captain Francis 69 Hastings, Francis Rawdon, 1st Marquis and 2nd Earl of Moira, Governor-General of Bengal 240 Hastings, Warren 155, 174   Governor-General of Bengal 120, 142–3, 145, 147   impeachment 160   opposed by Supervisors 123–4   trial 183 Hawaii 130, 164 Hickey, William 175, 177 Holland 2, 82, 83, 197, 215, 233, 251, 270   Batavian Republic 197, 215   Treaty of London 270 Hollond, Governor of Madras 174

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300 Index Holwell, John Zephaniah 65 Hong, Hongist, hong (see Canton) Hong Kong 271 Hooghly 4, 112   River 6, 25, 26, 28, 86, 236, 269    Braces (sandheads) 25, 113, 225     Eastern Brace 113    Culpee 26, 56, 60, 112    Diamond Harbour 232    Ingeli 29, 57, 60, 123    Kedjeree 29, 116    Rogues River 27 Hope, the 36, 37, 74 Horsbough, James 268 Hotham, Sir Richard 119, 121, 171 Houses of Agency (see also individual Houses) 9, 145, 160, 162, 182, 209, 234, 271, 272   clandestine trade 9 House of Commons (see Government, British) Hughes, Sir Edward 128, 141, 143, 147, 148 Hutchinson, Captain Norton, RN 66 Hyde, John 105 Hyderabad 55, 63, 81, 99   Nizam 55, 81, 111, 174 Île de France (see Mauritius) impress 20 impressment 51, 83, 88, 143, 148, 236   Admiralty regulations limiting 236   protections from 210 India Act (see Government, British) India House 7 Indian Ocean 11, 50, 59, 82, 84, 91, 213, 251 Ingeli (see Hooghly River) Ireland 62 Isfahan 3 Isle of Dogs 36 Isle of Preparis 126 Isle of Purbeck 157 Isle of Wight 88 Itchenor 159 Jackson, Captain George 96, 97 jagir (see Clive, Robert)

James I 3 James Bay 81 James Lines 81 James Town 100 James, William (later Sir) 59, 63 Japan 1, 4, 5, 83, 164, 272 Jardine, William 249, 272, 274 Jask 3 Java 3, 82, 93, 163, 213, 233, 270   Java Head 92 Jekyll, Captain, RN 87 Jedda 50 Jerusalem Coffee House 20, 33, 103, 105, 110, 121, 137, 155, 160, 218, 235, 240, 273 Joanna (Comoro Islands) 38, 42 Jourdain, Sulivan and de Souza 108 Juggernaut (White Pagoda) 25 Kay, Captain Brook 240 Kasimbazar 6 Kedgeree (see Hooghly river) Keeling Islands 82 Killpatrick, Colonel James 69 Knight, Captain RN 48 Knock Sands 105 Konkan 59 Korea 273 Kowloon 274 Kumsingmoon 271 Kutchuk Island 127 Labourdonnais, Mahé de 26, 28, 56 Ladrone Islands/Ladrones 72, 215, 253, 271 Lagos 87 Lally-Tollendal, Count 81, 83, 87, 89, 99 Larkins & Co. 247, 274 Larkins, Christian 19, 155, 171, 198 Larkins, David Scott 178 Larkins, Harriet (née le Gallais) 202 Larkins, John Pascall junior 203, 232 Larkins, John Pascall senior 11, 12, 69, 79, 151, 156–7, 173   birth 69   and Macclesfield Strait 166   1st mate on Nassau 138–141, 144–151   2nd mate on Nassau 124–130

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Index 301   3rd mate on Lioness 122   Captain’s servant on Lord Camden 111   commands Warren Hastings(1) 160– 167, 173–177   death 247   freights Warren Hastings(1) 163   managing owner 184, 189, 190, 192, 197, 199–200, 201, 202, 203, 207, 219, 232, 233, 236, 241    and open competition 192, 193    releases new ship to navy 191    upholds owners’ rights 190   marriage 160   midshipman on Triton 119   private trade 160, 163–6, 173   transports sepoys to Madras 175 Larkins, Mary (née Harris) 142, 160, 174 Larkins, Mary (née Samson) 160 Larkins, Susannah 126, 189, 216 Larkins, Thomas junior 12, 237, 240, 241, 269   4th mate on Airley Castle 197   5th mate on Manship 184, 197   6th mate on Sulivan 182   application for relief refused 229   commander of Comet 200, 207   commander of Warren Hastings(2) 208, 207, 210–18, 224–229   commander of Warren Hastings (3) 232–3, 236–8, 239–40   commands Dutch prize 198   memorializes Court of Directors 240   midshipman on Warren Hastings (1)173   private trade 224, 227, 240, 241, 269   receives pension 269   retirement 240   severely reprimanded by Chairman 238   surrenders to French frigate ­commander 228   threatened with loss of command 238 Larkins, Thomas senior 11, 19, 62, 73, 89, 120, 121, 138, 151, 160, 207   1st mate on Triton 119   2nd mate on Pacific 111

           

2nd mate’s servant on Clinton 63–5 3rd mate on Hardwick 104 5th mate on Albion 90–99 berth on Dutch prize 104 commander of Lioness 121–4 commander of Warren Hastings (1)139–143, 145–7, 151, 155   death 184   managing owner 171, 177–8, 190, 155   marriage 110, 111   midshipman on Clinton 79, 88   private trade 120, 124, 211 Larkins, Thomas (Tommy) 12, 203, 236, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274   censured by C-in-C East India ­squadron 250   commander of Marquis Camden 247– 56, 256–62   enquiry into his excessive ­punishments 252   exonerated by committee of ­commanders 263   judged ‘greatly censurable’ 260   lends armed men to opium smuggler 253   prefers charges against 5th mate 258   private trade 251, 255, 258 Larkins, Warren Hastings 155, 174 Larkins, William 156–7 Larkins, William junior 79, 126, 145, 147, 189   appointed writer to Bengal 119   praised by Warren Hastings 174   appointed Accountant-General, Bengal 142   appointed sub-accountant, Bengal 123   gives evidence at Hastings’ trial 184   marriage 123   Lord Cornwallis 183 Larkins, William senior 11, 36, 52, 61, 62, 73–4, 79, 89, 90, 97, 98–9, 104, 105, 110, 115, 125, 131, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271   1st mate Boscawen 37, 40–52

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302 Index                        

1st mate Durrington 54–61 1st mate Royal Duke 62–73 2nd mate Salisbury 20–33 appeals to Court of Directors 105 commander of Albion 90–98, 104–5 commander of Delaware 80–90 commander of Lioness 105–10 death 155 in danger of losing command 105 managing owner 122 marriage 19 private trade 19, 27, 32, 50, 52, 57, 60, 62, 68, 90, 97, 98–9, 107, 119 Lascars 20, 25, 28, 50, 237, 238 Law, Jaques 57 Lawrence, Colonel Stringer 55, 81   receives surrender of French 57   and attack on Manila 96 Lea, River 36 Leadenhall Street 7 Leicester House 90 Leigh, Captain Francis 175, 177 Lema Islands 65 Lennox, Captain John 128, 130 Levant Company 2 Lewin, Captain Richard 107 Lilly 165 Lindsay, Hon. Hugh 235 Linois, Admiral C. A. Durand de 218, 225 Linschoten 2 Lintin 216, 253, 255, 262, 271 Lisbon 32, 107 Liverpool 157, 182, 197 Lizard 80, 90, 91, 138 Lloyd, Captain John 197 Lloyd’s 137 London Tavern 194 London, Treaty of (see also Holland) longboat (see ships/East Indiamen/boats) Long Reach (see Thames) Long Sand 105 Loochow Islands 273 Lorient 121 Louisbourg 87 Lowe, Captain Benjamin 44 Luanda (St Paul’s Island) 32

Lucepara Island 93, 167 Luzon 97 Lyard, Captain, RN148 Macao 1, 65, 88, 95, 96, 199, 210, 216, 253, 255, 272   Typa 271 Macassar (see also Strait(s)) 5 Macclesfield Bank 65, 72   Strait 167 Mackintosh, Captain William 150 Macleane, Lauchlin 124 Macpherson, Sir John 74, 124 Madagascar 30, 41, 42, 82, 129 Madeira 107, 119, 137, 236 Madras (see EIC/overseas/ Presidencies/Fort St George) Mahi River 45, 209 Malabar coast 1, 3, 9, 46, 47, 49, 54, 57, 59, 64, 141, 144, 147, 148, 151, 160, 161, 162, 174, 177, 208   Hill 60, 141   Point 145 Malacca (see also Strait(s)) 1, 5, 65, 127, 198, 214, 218, 251, 262, 267, 270 Malay peninsula/archipelago 2, 4, 5, 65, 108 Manchester 82 Mangalore 49, 60, 141   Treaty of 148, 160 Manila 96, 97, 98, 151, 268, 270 Mann, William 38, 48, 49, 50 Manna Point 84 Mantle, Captain, RN 48 Marathas 5, 47, 63, 64, 81, 111,161, 174, 209, 234, 239, 240   Peshwa 63, 64 Marlow, Captain, RN 125, 126 Martanda Varma 59 Martyr, Captain William 105 Maskelyne, Nevil 122 Master Attendant 62, 90 Masulipatam 4, 55, 81 Matheson, James 253, 262 Mathews, Brigadier-General 144 Mauritius (Île de France) 26, 43, 59,82, 111, 118, 125, 129, 140, 141, 214, 227, 232, 247, 267

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Index 303 McKenzie, Lt RN 51 Meares, Captain 164 Mecca 3, 44, 45, 50 Mediterranean 21 Meriton, Henry 217, 258, 260, 261   2nd mate of Halsewell 156–7   Captain of Exeter 214   Superintendent of Marine, Bombay 263 Mexico 97 Middle Ground 37, 51 Middleton, Dr T. F. 236 Miller, John 248, 253, 257, 258, 259, 260, 261, 262, 263 Mindanao 96, 97, 98, 151, 270 Minto, Lord, Governor-General of Bengal 234 Mir Jafar 73, 90, 103, 109 Mir Kasim 103, 109 Mitchell, Francis 38, 41, 42 Mitford, Captain John 105 Mocha 44, 47, 48, 49, 50, 54 Moffat, Captain William 212 Moghul (Empire, Emperor) 4, 56, 57, 109, 234 Moluccas 1, 2, 3, 65, 198, 233 Monopin Hill 93 Monson, Colonel 123, 124 Morgan, William 256, 257, 259, 260, 262 Morris, James 237 Morse, Nicholas 27, 28 Motherbank 224 Mozambique 1   Channel 41, 240 Muhammad Ali Walajah, nawab of Carnatic 108, 123 Mullah Ali Shah 46 Munden’s Point 81 Munro, General 125 Murshidabad 27 Muscat 141 Muskitto Group (of islands) 182 Mysore 111, 137, 141, 143, 161, 173 Nairne, Captain Fasham 113 Nalton, John 72, 73 Napolean 238

Narbada (River) 45, 209 Navigation Acts 4 Navy Board 202, 232 nayar 57 Negapatam 26 Netherlands (see Holland) New Caledonia 180, 181 Newcastle 197 Newfoundland 21 New Holland 92 New South Wales 177–178,   Corps 178   Port Jackson 179   Sidney Cove179, 180 Newte, Thomas 191, 193 Nicobar Islands 127 Ningpo 97, 272, 273 Northern Circars 81, 109, 111, 240 Northfleet Hope (the Hope) 36, 37, 74 North Foreland 38, 46, 178 O’Brien, Captain, RN 73 Ogden, James 113 Old Woman’s Island 43 Onore 148, 160 Opium 210, 253, 262, 269, 270, 271, 274   Bengal 83, 108, 161, 248, 251, 271   Turkey 210, 251   Malwa 249, 251, 271   store ships 262, 271   clippers 269, 271 Orissa 25, 64, 109 Ormuz/Hormuz (see also Portugal/ Portuguese) 1, 3 Orves, Rear Admiral Comte d’ 140, 141 Oudh 109, 142 Pacific Ocean 163, 268 Paisley 182 Palambang Point 93 Papal Bull 1 Paris 238 Parker, Captain Hyde 98 Parkyn, Captain RN 253 Parmasang Hill 93 Parsi(s) (see also Wadia) 44, 145 Pascall, Henry 111

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304 Index Pascall, William 60 Pascall, William Larkins 236   1st mate on Earl Camden 203–218, 25   3rd mate on Walmer Castle   4th mate Royal Admiral 182, 197   captain of Earl St Vincent (1)   captain’s servant on Warren Hastings (1) 173   midshipman on Royal Admiral 178–82 Patna 6, 27, 29 Peace of Utrecht 8 Pearl River 65, 271   Boca Tigris (The Bogue) 65 Pedro Branco rock 65 Peisley, Richard 38, 48, 49, 50 Peking 88, 253 Pellew Islands 163 Pellew, Sir Edward, RN 225, 226, 227 Penang/Pula Penang 214, 226 Pennell, Captain Richard 176 Perry, John 36 Persia/Persian 2, 3, 4, 43, 44, 46, 234 Persian Gulf 43 Peyton, Admiral Edward 25, 26, 28 Philippines 83, 98 Phillips, Governor 179 Pierce, Captain Richard 156, 157 Pigot, George (later Lord) 81, 96, 97, 99, 122, 123 Pigou, Captain Peter 105, 107 Pigou, William 149, 150 Pindaris (see also Marathas) 239, 240 Pirates/Piracy   of Baet 46   Sanganian 46 Pitt, William (the Elder), later Earl of Chatham 9, 62, 89, 90, 156, 160, 161, 183, 197 Pitt, William, the Younger 183, 224   becomes Prime Minister 156   supports Warren Hastings’ impeachment 160 Pitt’s Passage (eastern passage) 83, 198 Plassey, battle of 8 Plymouth 21, 105, 138, 197 Pocock, Rear-Admiral George, RN 81, 83, 87, 88, 89 Point Palmyras 25, 30, 31

Pondicherry 8, 26, 27, 43, 55, 56, 87, 89, 99, 123, 125, 126, 128 Poole 157 Poplar 62, 74, 105 Poplar Fund 201, 229 Port Jackson 178, 179 Portland, Isle of 225   Bill 225   Shambles 225 Portlock, Captain Nicholas163, 164 Porto Praya 140 Portsmouth 21, 69, 121, 125, 138, 139, 156, 224, 225, 247   Motherbank 224 Portugal/Portuguese 1, 2, 3, 4, 32, 43, 45, 46, 49, 65, 251, 271 Preston, Captain Robert 160 Preston, Sir Robert 138, 157, 158, 159 Price, Joseph 113 Prince of Wales Island 214, 226, 249   Province Wellesley 249   East India Squadron 249 Princes Island 72, 93 Prince William Sound 164 Puanquequa 149 Pula Auro 2, 214, 215, 216, 227, 255, 267 Pula Dimar 94 Pula Pisang 65 Pula Taya 93 Pulicat 26 Punjab 234 Purling, Captain John 69 Pyke, Captain John 236 Quallett, Captain James 79, 80 Quebec 87, 268 Quedah 269 Queen Charlotte Island 181 Quilon 57 Raffles, Sir Thomas Stamford 251, 270 Rainier, Admiral 198, 199 Rajapore 48 Randal & Brent (see also shipbuilders/ shipyards) 159 Ranjit Singh 234 Rankine, Robert 211, 212

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Index 305 Raymond, Sir Charles 118 Red Sea 3, 4 50 Ricardo, Captain, Bombay Marine 59 Richardson, Captain Charles, RN 250, 253 Roddam, Captain RN 87 Roe, Sir Thomas 3 Rogers, John 156, 157 Rogues River 25 Rotherhithe 20, 36 Rous, Captain Thomas Bales 109, 114 Royal Navy (see also convoy)   in Bay of Bengal 8, 20, 25, 29, 43   in eastern seas 26, 43, 84, 141, 198, 249, 267, 269 Rumbold, Sir Thomas 128 Sadras 60 St Alban’s (Aldhelm’s) Head 157 St Augustine’s Bay 32, 41, 46, 63 St Helena 32, 72, 267   approaching in wartime 80–1   Bankes 81, 85, 87   James Bay 81   James Lines 81   James Town 100   Napoleon imprisoned on 238 St Mary’s Island (Azores) 31, 32 St Paul, Island of 82, 91   Luanda 32 St Thomas Mount 123, 240 St Vincent, Jervis, John, Earl 202 Salabat Jang 81 Samson, Brook   captain of Hardwicke 1761/2 103 Samson, Henry Morse   3rd mate on Walmer Castle 198   captain of Earl Camden 225, 226, 233   captain of Marquis Camden 236   commander of Telegraph 202   managing owner 247 Samson, John   captain of Hardwicke 1757/8 85, 86 Samson, John Brook   3rd mate of Warren Hastings (1) 197   captain of Earl St Vincent (1)199, 202   retires 236 Sandheads (see also Hooghly River) 25, 113, 225

Sandwich Islands 169 Sanganian 46 Santa Cruz 181 Saunders, Thomas   Governor of Fort St George 55   commissions Clive to attack Arcot 56 Sayer, Captain 236, 237 schroff 60 Scotland/Scottish 21, 234 Scott, David (later Sir) 193, 207   banker to Bombay government 145   campaigns for open competition in ship tendering 191, 192   Chairman 197   Deputy Chairman 191   elected director 171   furthers Indian shipping interests 182, 197, 200   Grove House 145   moves to London 161   Scott, Tate & Adamson 145   views on ship size 189   views on trade 146–7 Scott, Captain Hugh 249 Scott, Tate & Adamson (see also Scott, David) 145, 161 scurvy (see sickness) Selam Island 82 Serampore 8, 232 Seringapatam 208 Severndrug 63 Shambles 225 Shanghai 273 Shipbuilders/shipyards   Barnards 138, 155, 190, 201   Blackwall 4, 36, 232, 233   Stanton & Wells 20   Thomas Pitcher’s 199, 201, 236   West’s 90, 105 Shipp, John 232 ships/shipping, English East Indiamen   armament of 83   as convict transport 177–80, 249   as convoy (see also convoy)    of country ships 44–5, 47–8, 59–60, 214, 216    of East Indiamen 225, 226   as troop transport 191

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306 Index   boats    cutter 85    jolly boat 42, 56    longboat 42, 45, 47, 49, 50, 72, 84, 93, 143, 165    pinnace 42, 66, 82, 150    sloop 44    yawl 25, 37, 40   dismantled ships 189, 197   managing owner(s) (husband(s))/ part-owners 1, 19, 20 36, 37, 54, 79, 86, 118, 120, 190, 191, 192–4, 199    and ‘hereditary bottom’ 5, 7, 89, 105, 111, 122, 157, 191, 233, 236    and sale of commands 79, 98–9, 118     support prohibition of 194, 195–6    combine to limit shipping stock (see also EIC/home/Court of Directors) 61, 105    freight demanded by 7, 9, 118, 120, 138, 157, 158, 191–2    petition Court to retain custom of hiring ships in rotation 190    receive allowances to meet increased costs 210   naval actions    attack forts on Malabar coast 144    attack and repulse French East India naval squadron 216–18    capture Dutch East Indiamen     in River Hooghly 86 off St Helena 197–8    cruise for French privateers 215    support Admiral Pocock’s fleet 83    support attack on Manila 96–7    participate in retaking Calcutta 66, 72–3     the siege of Pondicherry 125–6    oversupply of 9, 61, 89, 104, 115, 118–19    shipping stock in 1812 235    taken up in rotation 190    transferred to navy 191, 225   ships and boats, India built and other (see also individual ships)

   admitted to Britain 226    Bombay Marine 44–5, 47, 59–60, 209, 225     destroys Haidar Ali’s fleet 141     joint naval attack on Gheria 63, 64     joint naval attack on Moluccas 198    country ships 9, 27, 29, 44, 50, 83, 108, 149, 197, 199, 209, 210, 225, 226, 235, 249, 262, 270 bought into Royal Navy 225 in licensed trade to Britain 211   ships    American 148, 210    Danish 94, 140, 148    Dutch     merchant 23, 30, 38, 93, 94, 148     naval 213    French     East India 25, 26, 83, 148     naval 26, 28, 93, 125, 130, 137, 140, 141, 217, 218, 225, 228, 229, 267     privateers 225    Spanish 137, 271    Portuguese 271    individual ships: East Indiamen/British     Admiral Watson 113     Airley Castle 147     Albion 90–98, 104–5     Alfred 216     Antelope Packet 163     Asia 240     Belvedere 165, 166     Berwickshire 274     Bessborough 126     Bombay castle 211, 212, 216, 225     Boscawen 37–43, 52, 54, 62, 69, 90, 138     Britannia 32, 52, 59, 109, 110     British King 107     Brunswick 225     Cabalva 247     Caernarvan 66, 69, 72     Cambridge 85, 86, 260     Castle Huntley 258

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Index 307                                                                                                                                                                                    

Charles Grant 249 Chesterfield 63 Clinton 63, 65, 79, 140, 155 Colebrooke 130 Comet 202, 207, 213 Contractor 150 Coutts 216, 274, Delaware 64, 66, 79, 80–82, 84–5, 89–90 Denham 63 Derby 47 Devayne 226 Dolphin 42 Dorsetshire 226, 227, 229e Dover 155, 171 Duchess of Atholl 262 Duke of Albany 121 Duke of Dorset 86, 88 Dunira 258, 262 Durrington 44, 54–7, 59–62, 112 Dutton 160 Earl Camden 202, 203, 207, 209, 210, 215, 217, 225, 226, 233, 236 Earl Fitzwilliam 165, 177 Earl of Abergavenny 224, 225 Earl of Holderness 70 Earl St Vincent 200, 202, 236 Earl Talbot 183 Edgecote 88 Essex 96, 97, 98 Ganges 215, 216, 217, 218, 226, 227 General Elliott 160, 162 Glatton 107 Glatton 125, 198 Godolphin 57 Griffin 70 Halsewell 156, 157 Harwicke 85, 86, 104 Hawke 176 Heathcote 49 Hector 63 Henry Addington 212, 224, 225 Horsenden 104, 105 Houghton 20, 22 Kent 30, 31, 32, 33 Larkins 232, 247 Lioness 105–14, 119–24, 131, 137

                                                                                                                                                                           

Lord Amherst 272, 273 Lord Camden 111, 201, 211 Lord Holland 113 Macclesfield 167 Macqueen 262 Manship 184, 197, 198 Marlborough 25, 29, 30, 31, 66, 72, 73 Marquis Camden 236, 247–63, 267, 273 Montfort 25, 29, 30, 32, 33 Nassau 124–30, 138, 139, 144– 48, 155, 175 Neptune 107 Northampton 42 Onslow 71 Osterley 97 Phoenix 236 Pitt 83, 99 Prince of Orange 42 Prince William Henry 177 Queen 175, 177 Reliance 274 Rodney 177 Rolla 216 Royal Admiral 171, 177–90, 196, 197 Royal Charlotte 114 Royal Duke 62–73, 79, 89 Royal George 86, 87, 95, 211, 216–18, 224, 225 Salisbury 19–32, 37, 38, 46, 49, 80 Sandwich 69 Scarborough 182 Sir Edward Hughes 225, 226, 227 Southampton 125–30 Sulivan 182 Surat Castle 227, 229 Sussex 41 Telegraph 202 Thomas Coutts 274 Triton 644, 105, 119 Valentine 125, 126 Vansittart 107 Walmer Castle 198, 236 Walpole 44, 47, 63, 66 Warren 37, 38, 47 50, 51, 52 Warren Hastings (1) 139–47, 155,

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308 Index 159, 160–7, 173–7, 178, 190, 197, 199     Warren Hastings (2) 202–20, 224–8, 229, 232, 236     Warren Hastings (3) 232–3, 236– 8, 239, 240     Wexford 224, 225     William Pitt 177     Woodford 213, 215    ships, country, mainly India built     Captain Cook 164     Drake ketch 47, 48     Eugenia 262     Ganges brig 215, 216, 218     Lady Hughes 149, 150, 253, 255     Merope 253, 262     Nootka 164     Queen Charlotte 164     Scaleby Castle 211     Sir Edward Hughes 225     SS Forbes 271     St Helena 125     Surprise sloop 83     Teignmouth 215    other     Brilliant (built at Barnard’s for Sir William James) 144–145     Jamesina (built in Bridport) 271     King George 163    ships, RN     Africaine 237     Albion 90, 91, 93, 94, 95, 98, 104, 105, 115, 218     Centurion 98     Colchester 73, 87, 88     Cormorant 125     Coventry 125     Dedaigneuse 226     Discovery 130, 163     Dunkirk 32     Harrier 227     Harwich 25     Intrepid 144     Jamaica sloop 32     Leda 236     Magicienne 224     Medway 25, 29, 139     Milford 21

                                                                       

Minden 237 Norfolk 98 Norwich 32 Preston 25 Rattlesnake 226 Resolution 130, 163 Rippon 87, 88, 125, 126, 128 Ruby 48 Russel 226 Rye 21 Sceptre 197, 201, 218 Southampton 143 St Carlos 143 Sir Edward Hughes 225 Sybille 130 Syren 48 Tartar 48, 50, 51, 52 Topaze 249, 250, 252, 253, 254, 255     Vestal 175     Weymouth 224     Winchester 25     Yarmouth 88    Bombay Marine     Bombay Frigate 215     Bombay Grab 64, 44, 144     Britannia 59     Guardian 59, 60     Restoration grab 47    French, naval     Aventurier 218     Belle Poule 218     Berceau 218     La Piémontaise 229     Marengo 218     Sémillante 218    American     Emily 251     Empress of China 148    Spanish     Cobadonga 97, 98     Santissima Trinidada 98    Dutch     Houghly 198 Shiraz 3   wine 46 Siam 4 sickness

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Index 309   fever 22, 23, 26, 28, 60, 93, 94, 129, 130, 140, 179   ‘flux’ and ‘bloody flux’ 94, 140   scurvy 23, 24, 25 30,31, 81, 93, 94, 129, 130, 140, 164, 173, 179    anti-scorbutics 81, 82, 129, 140    turtles as cure for 25, 72, 82   typhus 173 silver 1, 2, 4, 9, 20, 25, 44, 46, 48, 49, 50, 52, 62, 66, 82, 90, 94, 97, 104, 105, 111, 148, 161, 194, 195, 210, 226, 227, 255, 272,   sycee 262, 272 Simon’s Bay (see also False Bay) 130 Singapore (Singapura) 10, 251, 262, 267, 270, 271   Harbour 255   resident 270   Strait 251 Siraj-ud-Daula 64, 73 Skottowe, Captain Nicholas 95 Slater, Captain Gilbert 79, 90, 105, 122 slave(s) 80, 82   individual 60   on pepper plantations 82, 84 Smith, Captain John Smith, Captain Thomas 25, 28, 31 Smith, George 149, 150, 161 Smith, James 129 Smith, Nathaniel 67, 79, 88, 103, 111 Snodgrass, Gabriel 120, 138, 189 Society of East India Commanders 121–2, 131, 160, 171, 218, 229, 235, 247 Society Islands 198 Socotra 40, 81, 144 Sombrere channel 127 South America 122 South Shields 197 South Sea Company 163, 164 Spain/Spanish 90, 96, 97, 233, 271 Sparrow, Jackson 257, 258, 261, 262 Spithead 21, 37, 114 Srirangam 57 Start Point 225 Stavely, Richard 80 Steward, Captain Gabriel 107, 108 Stewart, Captain John 121

Straits of   Babelmandeb 49   Bali 213   Bangka 166   Macassar 186   Magellan 1, 2   Malacca 10, 28, 65, 72, 93, 127, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 225, 251, 268, 269, 270   Sunda 213 Stuart, Prince Charles Edward 21 Stuart 38, 84 Suffren, Pierre André de St Tropez (le Baillie) 140, 141, 147 Sulivan, Laurence 104 Sulu 97   ruler of 97   sea 97, 98, 163 Sumatra 5, 11, 79, 80, 83, 93, 127, 226, 27 supercargoes 38, 43, 48, 49, 69–70, 71, 252, 272   Canton 88   Chief (President) at 149–50, 255   Council at 95, 149, 272   courts of enquiry 241, 242   Select Committee of 166, 199, 210, 212, 213–15, 232, 251, 252, 253, 254, 255 Surat (see EIC/overseas/factories) Surveyor of Shipping (see EIC/administration/home) Sweden/Swedes/Swedish 8, 65, 94, 158 Tanjore 108, 123 Tanner, Captain 159 Tapti River 45, 209 Tartars 1, 272 Taylor, Captain 215 Tellicherry (see EIC/overseas/factories) Ternate 198 Thames (River) 10, 21, 36, 37, 145, 220, 234, 262 Tientsin 88 Timins, Captain John Farr 211, 216 Timor 199 Tipu, Sultan Fateh Ali 143, 144, 147, 148, 160, 173, 174, 177, 208

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310 Index Tobago Xima 182   Little Tobago 182 trade (commanders and officers/ privilege) 5, 9, 19, 20, 26, 27, 30, 44, 64, 68, 70, 80, 90, 93, 99, 120, 121, 123, 124, 142, 148, 171, 180, 207, 225, 269, 272   commodities traded within eastern seas 68, 70, 90, 95, 97, 107, 142, 161, 163, 194, 195, 207, 211, 249, 272   abuse of 118, 121   commanders buy junior officers’privilege 173, 211, 261   illicit 79, 107–8   petition Court of Directors on diminished value of privilege 273   privilege reviewed 194–5   prohibited goods 121, 142, 194   relaxation of rules 173, 194   sell privilege to Agency Houses 173, 272   tonnage allowed 90, 277–280   unprofitability of 235 trade, EIC (includes trade within the eastern seas) 1, 2, 5, 9, 44, 45, 65, 66, 82, 84,194, 208–9, 210–11   exports:    copper 194    iron 49, 50, 55, 59, 161    lead 20, 272    naval and warlike stores 29, 194    silver 2, 4, 20, 25, 45, 49, 52, 66, 94, 104–5, 111, 194, 272    steel 49, 50    tin 194    woollen cloth 49, 194, 272   imports    coffee 6, 38, 4    cotton(s), (raw, piece goods, textiles) 3, 6, 8, 27, 55, 249, 269     Bengal 3, 6, 8, 27, 44, 74, 194, 211, 248, 267     Gujarati 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 27, 44, 45, 60, 66, 148, 161, 162, 194, 207, 209, 211, 249

   nankeens 194    saltpetre 3, 6, 8, 27, 28–9, 60, 99, 148, 189, 194    sandalwood 9, 59, 65, 66, 147, 161     of Fiji 226    silk(s) 3, 6, 27, 43, 194, 267, 273     Bengal 29, 43     Chinese raw 6, 43, 71, 97, 195     Chinese wrought 7, 272     Persian 7, 43    spices 2, 3, 44, 48, 49, 50, 59, 65, 82, 97, 148, 198, 199     cardamoms 60     cloves 2, 198     mace 2     nutmegs 2, 3, 198     pepper      black of Malabar 5, 6, 9, 57–8, 60, 65, 82, 208      Sumatran 2, 5, 65, 82, 84, 208    sugar 3, 189    tea 8, 9, 69, 70, 74, 83, 90, 95, 99, 120, 147, 148, 161, 178, 195     imported by European ships 180     increasing popularity in Britain 189     purchase by supercargoes 42, 83     smuggling 8, 9, 148, 157, 167     tax on 9, 148, 157, 167 Tranquebar 108 Travancore 59, 174 treasure (see silver) Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle 37   of London 270 Tremenheere, Captain Henry Pendarves 240 Trial Rocks 92 Trichinopoly 56, 57 Trincomalee 128, 141, 198 Trinidada, Island of 22, 23 Trou Jolie, Captain 125, 130 Turkey Company 2 Typa 271 Urmston, James (later Sir) 253, 254, 255 Van Diemen’s Land 179

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Index 311 Vansittart, Henry 103 Verelst, Henry 110, 112, 114 Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie, VOC (see East India Companies, foreign) Vernon, Vice-Admiral Sir Edward 125, 128, 129 Vindoora, John 71 Vizagapatam 81 Wadia 44, 145 Wake, William 47, 51, 52 Walker, Captain 262 Wandiwash 87 Watson, Admiral Sir Charles 63, 64, 72, 73, 112 Wedderburn, Captain Henry 113 Wellesley, Richard Colley, Lord Mornington and 1st Marquis 234   fails to reduce Bombay to factory 207   ordered by Court to take up country ships 200   takes up country ships 199 Western Approaches 21

West Indies 21, 191 Westminster Hall   London 183   anchorage in St Augustine’s Bay 63 Weymouth 225 Whampoa Island and anchorage(see also Canton) 54, 65, 66, 69, 94, 148, 149, 150, 163, 164, 165, 182, 210, 211, 226, 249, 251, 255, 256, 271, 272 Whitby 197 Whitehaven 197 White Pagoda (see also Juggernaut) 25 White’s air machine 173 Willett, Thomas 80, 81 Williams, Captain 149, 150 Williams, Stephen 200 Willson, Captain George 85, 86, 214 Wilson, Alexander 80, 81, 82 Wilson, Captain Lestock 83 Wilson, Captain William 83 Wolfe, General 87 Wood 46 Wordsworth, Captain John 225 Worth, Captain John 22

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WORLDS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY

T

his book covers every aspect of the East India Company’s trade during the final century of its commercial life as the focus moves steadily eastwards, driven by Britain’s unquenchable thirst for China tea. The whole spectrum of the trade, physically and temporally, unfolds through the careers of three generations of an important East India shipping family. Starting as second mate in Salisbury in 1746, William Larkins gained a command, then entered the powerful circle of managing owners who monopolized the supply of the Company’s ships. His sons and grandsons followed him, all playing a significant part in the wider struggle to establish Britain’s political supremacy in India and dominance of the China Sea trade. From the end of the eighteenth century liberalization eroded their power and wealth: they had to compete in the provision of the Company’s ships, while the virile free merchants in the eastern seas finally broke down the Company’s privilege of trading between Britain and the east. The last member of the Larkins family to serve the Company adapted to the prevailing conditions following the Company’s withdrawal from trade in 1834, carrying British manufactures to China and bringing back tea, boosting his earnings by investing in smuggled opium. JEAN SUTTON is a maritime historian, author of the highly

acclaimed Lords of the East, the East India Company and its Ships (1981, second edition 2000). Cover illustration: Ships at anchor in the European anchorage off Whampoa Island near Canton. With permission of the Martyn Gregory Gallery, London. C OV E R D E S I G N : S I M O N L OX L E Y

an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF and 668 Mt Hope Ave, Rochester NY 14620, USA www.boydellandbrewer.com This content downloaded from 128.104.46.206 on Mon, 15 Apr 2024 20:31:25 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms