INDIA HOUSE—THE SALE ROOM.(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)Larger image
INDIA HOUSE—THE SALE ROOM.(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)
Larger image
The Deptford yard, which the Company leased from the year 1607 and used for the next twenty years, was of the greatest assistance to the Company. The best merchant ships in the country there came into being, were fitted out, repaired on their return, resheathed and then sent to sea in excellent condition. It was true that the saving in building for themselves was to the Company’s great benefit; but, on the other hand, the yard with all this staff and detail was found in the long run to be so costly that it swallowed up too much of the capital, which could more profitably have been employed in hiring ships. It was seen also that even with the carefulness expended in the construction of the Company’s ships,the latter became worn out after four voyages: so at the end of twenty years it was decided to give up this expensive yard and to revert to the original custom of hiring vessels as required. Later on we shall see that this system developed in a curious manner, but for the present we must go back to see the progress which the voyages of these early East Indiamen brought about in the Eastern trade. It took four months to fit out these ships for sailing again to the East, and the refit was very thorough. A large magazine of warlike stores to the value of £30,000 was kept always ready, and this was really a very useful asset in the country, since in the time of necessity the material could be used by the English navy. Even in the year 1626, within a few months of the closing down of the shipyard, the Company were so enterprising as to erect mills and houses for the manufacture of their own gunpowder, obtaining the saltpetre from the East, which of course came home in their own ships. If ever monopoly was allowed to have its own way, surely it never had such good opportunity as was vouchsafed to the East India Company, with its own shipyards, victualling, and its own particular trade with full cargoes each way and a high percentage almost assured. We are accustomed in this twentieth century to bewail the existence of “corners” and trusts: yet these are as nothing compared with the privileges which the East India Company enjoyed and so jealously guarded through generation after generation, through two centuries and well into a third. And that meant more than was really apparent. The whole world had not been developed and opened out as it is to-day. Rather this exclusiveprivilege meant the granting of about half the world to a select few, and the democratic spirit of the twentieth century would instantly revolt against any such condition of affairs. It must not be thought that there were not those who protested even in the seventeenth century. Some did certainly protest—in a very forcible manner—by cutting in as interlopers. But it was a short-lived victory and had no lasting effect.
Itis only by examining the official correspondence which passed between the Company’s servants and themselves that we are able to get a correct insight into the lesser, though usually more human, details connected with these ships. In the last chapter but one we saw that the third voyage had been financially satisfactory. But there are a few sidelights which show that these voyages were not mere pleasure cruises. If this particular one earned 234 per cent. it was by sheer hard work on the part of the men and of the ships. Captain Keeling writes that he had, whilst in the East, to buy “of the Dutch a maine top-sayle (whereof we had extreame want) and delivered them a note to the Company, to receive twelve pounds twelve shillings for the same.” So also it was with men as with sails. Anthony Marlowe writes home to the Governor of the Company, under date of 22nd June 1608, from on board theHector, that during the voyage “there hath died in our ship two foremast men—Wallis and Palline: and two lost overboard, Goodman and Jones: also there hath died Dryhurst, steward’s mate, John Newcome, John Asshenhurst, purser’s mate, Mr Quaytmore, purser, and Mr Clarke, merchant.”
If there was ill-feeling ashore between the English and the Portuguese, and the English and Dutch, so all was not ever as happy as wedding bells in the English ships. One June day in 1608, during this third voyage, a violent enmity had broken out between Anthony Hippon, master of theDragon, and his mate, William Tavernour. Someone endeavoured to get them to make up their quarrel, but Hippon was obdurate, and “was heartened forward in his malice against the said Tavernour by Matthew Mullynex the master of theHector.”
And there is a further letter, dated 4th December 1608, which was sent by another of the Company’s servants named James Hearne, which again calls attention to theDragon’swant of sails, the ship then being at Bantam. There was no canvas procurable out there, “therefore,” he suggests, “one hundred pound more or less, would not be lost in laying it out in spare canvas in such a voyage as this.” And then he concludes his letter with a postscript, which shows that the life of a factor in the Company’s service ashore out in the East was not a lucrative occupation. “That it may please your worships,” he petitions, “to consider me somewhat in my wages, for I have served 2 years already at £4 a month, and in this place I am in, my charge will be greater than otherwise.”
We have already alluded to the setting forth of the sixth expedition under Sir Henry Middleton in 1607. Middleton was instructed to proceed to the west coast of India with the intention of obtaining from Surat Indian calicoes which would find a ready sale at Bantam and the Moluccas. Having set forth from England in the year 1610, he arrived at Aden,where he left thePeppercorn, and then with his flag in theTrade’s Increasesailed for Mocha, which is at the southern end of the Red Sea. No English vessel had yet thrust her bows into this sea, though the Portuguese had been there even during the previous century. And here theTrade’s Increase, which had received such an ovation when she was first launched at the Deptford yard, was to begin the first of her serious mishaps. Like many another ship that came after her, famous for unprecedented size, she was destined to be unlucky.
She was making for Mocha with the assistance of native pilots when she had the misfortune to get badly aground. She was a clumsy, unhandy ship, and it was natural enough that the natives who had been accustomed only to their smaller craft might get her into trouble. The incident occurred in November 1610, and the following account sent home by one who was on board her at the time may be taken as representative of the facts. “About five a clocke,” runs the account, “in luffing in beeing much wind, we split our maine toppe sayle, and putting abroad our mizen, it split likewise: our Pilots brought our shippe a ground upon a banke of sand, the wind blowing hard, and the Sea somewhat high, which made us all doubt her coming off ... we did what we could to lighten our ship, sending some goods a-land and some aboard theDarling... we land as well our Wheat-meale, Vinegar, Sea-coles, Pitch and Tarre, with our unbuilt Pinnasse, and other provisions which came next hand, or in the way, as well as Tinne, Lead, Iron, and other merchandise to be sould, and staved neare all our water.” The reference to the “unbuilt pinnasse” is explained by the fact that it was the custom of the Elizabethan and later voyagers to take out from home the necessary timber and planks and to build the little craft on board as they proceeded. This kept the men occupied and was a saving in wages, besides not involving the risk of losing such a craft before the end of the voyage was being approached. Such a top-heavy, cumbrous vessel as theTrade’s Increasewould need very careful “nursing” in a squall to prevent her from capsizing, and it is perfectly clear that the sudden luffing up into the wind to ease her was too much for the canvas that had already been considerably worn and chafed during the voyage across the Equator and round the Cape of Good Hope up to the Gulf of Aden.
After some anxious hours the ship was eventually got afloat again, but Middleton was taken prisoner by the Arabs. For a long while he was compelled to endure his captivity, but was eventually released and sailed for Surat, where he arrived with his ships on 26th September 1611, a great deal of valuable time having been lost. Here again he was unlucky, for a Portuguese squadron of seven ships was waiting outside. The Portuguese were now so indignant and jealous of the English interlopers that they were resolved to resist them to the utmost: otherwise it was obvious that the hard-won wealth of the East would before long slip right away. All the inspiration and enthusiasm of Prince Henry the Navigator, all the heroic voyages of the first Portuguese navigators to the East, all the capital which had been expended in building and fitting out their expensive caracks would assuredly be thrown into the sea unless the aggressive Englishmen, who had penetratedtheir secrets, were to be thwarted now with determination. The Portuguese were expecting Middleton’s arrival, for they had already heard of his being in the Red Sea, and now they were in sufficient and overwhelming strength to oppose him: for besides the big ships outside, there were nearly twice as many smaller craft waiting inside the bar. The Portuguese contention was that they alone had the right to trade with Surat: the English were not wanted and had no justification to be there at all.
Middleton’s position was that he had come out from the King of England bearing a letter and presents to the Great Mogul to put on a firm footing that trade which Englishmen had already inaugurated, and that India was open to all nations who wished to trade with her. But, of course, Middleton did not know at the time the incident which has already been mentioned in connection with Hawkins and the Great Mogul. When, however, the news presently reached him, it was to modify his plans entirely: there could be no good object attained in endeavouring to establish trade against the opposition of the Mogul and the Portuguese. The natives were clearly under the thumb of the Portuguese, and, however willing they might have been, no trade with them was possible.
So, after taking Hawkins on board, together with the Englishmen who had been left at Surat, a council was held and ultimately it was decided to return to the Red Sea so that he could there trade with the ships from India, since to deal with them in their own country was not practicable. This decision was carried out, and whether the traders liked it or not they were compelled to barter the goods whichMiddleton required to take farther eastwards to the Indian Archipelago as previously indicated. But meanwhile there had set out from England another expedition, consisting of the three shipsClove,ThomasandHector, under the command of Captain Saris, bound for the Red Sea, having previously obtained a firman, or decree, from Constantinople which would grant him and his merchants kindly treatment in the neighbourhood of Mocha and Aden. But on arriving at Socotra, Saris found a letter from Middleton giving warning of the treacherous treatment to expect. In spite of this, however, Saris found that the firman was respected, but eventually deemed it prudent to make for the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, where he met Middleton and agreed with him to engage in privateering the ships of India. If you had questioned these English seamen they would have replied unhesitatingly that they were merely engaged in trade by barter, and that as they had been prevented by circumstances from carrying on this direct with the Indian continent they had no other opportunity than to do it at sea. They had been sent out by the English Company to get the cloths and calicoes to exchange farther east and they were merely fulfilling their instructions. But in plain language there was little difference between this and robbery, or, at the best, compulsory sale at the buyer’s own price.
THE HONOURABLE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S SHIP “BRIDGEWATER” ENTERING MADRAS ROADS UNDER JURY-RIG AFTER ENCOUNTERING GALES OF WIND.(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)Larger image
THE HONOURABLE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S SHIP “BRIDGEWATER” ENTERING MADRAS ROADS UNDER JURY-RIG AFTER ENCOUNTERING GALES OF WIND.(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)
Larger image
But when all this “trading” was finished and theTrade’s Increasewent to Malay Archipelago, she was to bring to a tragic end her short and adventurous career. Middleton had gone ahead in thePeppercorn, and theTrade’s Increasehad been ordered to follow after. Unfortunately she neededsome repairs to her hull. It was customary before an East Indiaman left the East on her homeward voyage for the sheathing outside to be attended to, in order that she might make as fast a passage home as possible. But there were no dry docks out there, and very few anywhere, even in England or Holland. The practice, which lasted well into the nineteenth century, was to careen a ship if she required any attention below the water-line—her seams caulked, or her bottom tarred. This was done in the case of theTrade’s Increasewhilst she was at Bantam, where her sheathing was being seen to. But she fell over on to her side and became a total loss. One contemporary account states that whilst the repairs were being done “all her men died in the careening of her,” and that then some Javanese were hired to do the job, but five hundred of these “died in the worke before they could sheath one side: so that they could hire no more men, and therefore were inforced to leave her imperfect, where shee was sunke in the Sea, and after set on fire by the Javans.” This was towards the end of the year 1613. Another contemporary account states that she was laid up in the ooze, and was set on fire from stem to stern, having been previously fired twice, at the supposed instigation of a renegade Spaniard, “which is turned Moor.” She blazed away during the whole of one night, and her wreck was eventually sold for 1050 reales. When Sir Henry Middleton heard the news of the loss of his famous flagship, the pride of all the seas, he was so heart-broken that he died. Thus both admiral and flagship had perished: it had been a calamitous voyage.
As for Captain Saris, he had sailed to Japan inorder to establish a factory. Notwithstanding the opposition of the Dutch, who were as jealous of his arrival in the Far East as the Portuguese had been in India, the Emperor received him favourably and the seeds were sown for future trade with England which, to change the metaphor, were to prepare the way for the adoption of Western ideas by the Japanese during the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. Strictly speaking, Japan and China have nothing to do with India. But historically, so far as our present subject is concerned, they are to an extent bound together. Not merely did these first captains of the English East India Company sail thither, but, as the reader will see further on in this volume, a great deal of trade was done with those parts by the Company’s servants: and at least one interesting engagement took place on sea near by, in which the Company’s merchant ships distinguished themselves.
Notwithstanding the sad loss of the costlyTrade’s Increase, Middleton’s voyage had yielded to the Company a profit of 121 per cent. Captain Saris’s voyage had done even better still, earning 218 per cent.; but, as we have shown, this was not all earned by legitimate trade.
The journal of Captain Nicholas Downton of the homeward voyage of thePeppercorn(which you will remember had been built at the Deptford yard and went out in company with theTrade’s Increase) shows the kind of hardships which our sailors had to endure whilst earning such handsome profits for their owners. With thankful hearts this craft started back from Bantam, though it was to be no pleasant voyage. On getting under way Downton saluted the admiral by way of farewell. “I gave him 5shot,” he writes, “having no more pieces out nor ports uncaulked”—that is to say, he had prepared his ship for sea, having run inboard most of his guns and caulked up the ports. The ship had previously had her sheathing attended to, and all the stores were aboard. The meat was kept in casks, while the bread and corn were kept in a “tight room” in order to avoid the ravages of the cacara—“a most devouring worm,” as Downton quaintly calls it, “with which this ship doth abound to our great disturbance.” The drinking-water to the extent of twenty-six tons had also been brought aboard, where it was kept in casks. But as these were decayed, weak, rotten and leaky the crew were bound to suffer before they reached home. He did his best to make her what he calls “a pridie ship”—that is, a trim ship—but though this was her first homeward voyage she leaked like a basket through the trenail holes in the stern, owing to the negligence of the wicked Deptford carpenters, who had scamped their work. The result was that there were soon twenty inches of water “on our lower orlop.” Certainly the Company’s yard had not earned much real credit for the way they had designed and built thePeppercornand theTrade’s Increase.
And so this leaky, crank, badly built ship came fighting her way along over the trackless ocean, a continuous source of anxiety to her commander. Troubles often enough come not singly, and thePeppercornwas another unlucky ship. By sheer carelessness she and all hands barely escaped ending all things by fire at sea. “At noon,” says Downton, “our ship came afire by the cook his negligence, o’erguzzled with drink, digged a hole through thebrick back of the furnace and gave the fire passage to the ship’s side, which led to much trouble besides spoil to our ship.” The punctuation of this sentence needs no modification to show the short, sharp impressions jotted down by a choleric captain. The name of this “o’erguzzled” cook was Richard Hancock, and no doubt he had so undermined his health with drink, or had been so severely punished by his commander that he could not long survive, for he died shortly after one day at noon and was buried at sea.
But he was not the only careless member of the ship’s company. At least one of the watch-keeping officers was just as bad in his own sphere. “The 27th at 2 after noon we were suddenly taken short with a gust from the SE, which by neglect of the principal of the watch not setting in time, not only put us to much present trouble but also split us two topsails at once, and blew a third clean away.” The following month on the eleventh thePeppercornwas at midnight overwhelmed by heavy squalls which “split our main bonnet and fore course, whereby we were forced to lie a try with mainsail, the sea very violent, we mending our sail.”
The meaning of this may not be quite apparent to those unfamiliar with the ships of those days. The “bonnet” was an additional piece of canvas laced on to the foot of these square-sails. It had been long in use by the ships of the Vikings and the English craft of the Middle Ages, and continued to be used during the Tudor period and the seventeenth century. Even in the twentieth century it is not quite obsolete, and is still used on the Norfolk wherries and on some of the North Sea fishingvessels. It was such a canvas as certainly ought to have been taken in quickly if thePeppercornwas likely to be struck by a heavy squall, being essentially a fine-weather addition. And whenever it was unlaced the equivalent was obtained of putting a reef in the sail. To “lie a try” was a well-known expression used by the Elizabethan seamen and their successors: it meant simply what we mean to-day when we speak of heaving-to. The ship would just forge ahead very slowly under her mainsail only, being under command but making good weather of the violent sea of which Downton speaks, and allowing most of the hands to get busy with the sails, which had to be sent down and repaired.
They had barely begun to resume their voyage when, on the thirteenth of the month, thePeppercornbroke her main truss—that is to say, the rope which kept the yard of the mainsail at its centre to the mast. The main halyards also carried away and again the main bonnet was split, but this time the mainsail as well. The “main course,” says Downton, “rent out of the bolt rope”—that is to say, blew right away from the rope to which it is sewn—and so they were, owing to “want of fit sail to carry, forced to lie a hull,” which means that they had to heave-to again. Meanwhile thePeppercornwas still leaking away merrily. “This day again,” reads an entry in the journal a little later on, “by the labouring of the ship and beating of her bows in a head sea, whereby we found in the powder room in the fore part on the lower orlop, 20 or 24 inches water, which have so spoiled, wet and stained divers barrels, so that of 20 barrels of powder I do not now expect to find serviceable 2 barrels, besides all our match anddivers other things.” It would therefore have gone ill with thePeppercornif she had fallen in with a big, powerful Spanish ship on the high seas ready to blaze away at her.
It took thirty-six hours to get these sails repaired and new ropes spliced. This mending became in fact the rule rather than the exception. “Our daily employment either mending of our poor old sails daily broken, or making new with such poor stuff as we have.” There can be no doubt whatever that these ships were sent to sea with all too few stores to allow of accident. We have already seen that additional canvas could not be obtained in the East, except with the indulgence of some Dutch captain, who would naturally charge the English the full value of a new sail, and a bit more. One wonders, indeed, how often those London merchants realised how dearly these big percentages had been bought—how only the dogged determination of the captains and masters, the sufferings of the crews in the leaky, ill-found ships could provide fortunes and luxuries for those who stayed at home in ease. However, little though they knew it at the time, it was these ill-faring mariners who were really building up the foundations of England’s Eastern wealth and her Eastern Empire. Human lives in those harsh days were rated low enough, and a poor, common sailor was not slobbered over. He was merely one of the meshes of the big net cast into the sea to bring in large spoil to the financiers of that time. But it has always been thus, and the more long-suffering the seaman has shown himself, the more courageous and patient he has been, the more he has been treated with contumely by those very persons who haveobtained all that they possess through his achievements.
It cannot be supposed that these seventeenth-century Indiamen were on the whole happy ships. The captains feared mutiny all the time, and the men were compelled to live and work under trying conditions which were enough to break the spirit of any landsman. Downton’s journal shows this all too well. Take the following entries, which are sufficiently expressive:—
“July 2. Mr Abraham Lawes conceives he is poisoned for that his stomach falls away, and he hath often inclination to vomit, for he saith he was so at Venice, when he was formerly poisoned.”
Three days later Thomas Browning died, and on 27th July comes this entry:
“This day Mr Lawes died and is opened by the surgeon who took good note of his inward parts which was set down by the surgeon and divers witnesses to that note.” Similarly on 21st August: “Men daily fall down into great weakness”; and, again, four days later: “Edw. Watts, carpenter, died at midnight.” Under the twenty-ninth of the same month we find the following entry:—“Stormy weather, dry, the night past Thomas Dickorie died. Most of my people in a weak estate.” The last day of the month we read that “John Ashbe died by an imposthume at 7 o’clock after noon,” and other members of the ship’s company continued to die almost daily. An “imposthume,” by the way, is an abscess.
But thePeppercorn, though she had long since crossed the line, and was even now beyond the Bay of Biscay, was destined to suffer ill luck right to the end of her voyage. She ought, of course, to haverounded Ushant and then squared away up the English Channel. But as a fact Downton got right out of his reckoning. He rather imagined that his reckoning was wrong and suspected “all the instruments by which we observed the variation by.” The result was that he got farther to the north than he expected. He therefore ran right across the western mouth of the English Channel without sighting anything, so that eventually he found himself between Wales and Ireland—miles and miles out of his course. All too late he realised the mistake, so determined to put in to the nearest port. He thought of Milford, but as thePeppercornwould not fetch thither, he decided to run for Waterford in Ireland. He ran down to the coast, but when off the entrance a thick fog enshrouded the land, so he had to put out to sea once more, being able eventually to run into Waterford river when a more favourable opportunity presented itself. He had got his ship safe back into the Narrow Seas, but he had arrived a long way short of the River Thames and the port of London, and it would mean the wasting of further delay before thePeppercorn’srich cargo could be sold in the metropolis. But with what success this voyage concluded to the stock-holders we have already seen.
THE “HALSEWELL,” EAST INDIAMAN.(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)Larger image
THE “HALSEWELL,” EAST INDIAMAN.(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)
Larger image
Apropos of this voyage there is still preserved a letter written by Downton “aboard thePeppercornto the Right Worshipful the Indian Company in Philpot Lane, September 15, 1613,” in which this captain asks for “3 cables and other cordage of divers sizes, a set of sails, sail needles and twine, and some Hamburrough lines for sounding lines.” With regard to the bad land-fall which Downton made coming home, there can be no doubt that he had reason to suspect those crude, inaccuratenavigation instruments to which we have already called attention. In addition, of course, the early seventeenth-century charts bristled with errors. As for Eastern waters, the English skippers were much indebted to the charts which the Dutchmen had made for themselves, the Dutch at this time being the best cartographers in the world. There is at least one instance of a navigator of one of the English East India Company’s ships “finding it to be truely laid down in Plat or Draught made by Jan Janson Mole, a Hollander, which he gave to Master Hippon, and he to the Companie.” To this knowledge received by the Company were added the “plots” (i.e.charts) which their own masters of ships brought home at the end of every voyage, amended and added to as their experience dictated. We have already seen that it was compulsory for the master of every East Indiaman to deliver to the Governor of the English East India Company four copies of his journal and other “worthy” observations of his voyage within ten days of his arrival back in the Thames. The information thus derived was systematised, and as time went on and the voyages became more numerous still there was thus accumulated a number of invaluable sailing directions which were to be condensed into “Rules for our East India Navigations” by the famous John Davis of Limehouse, who had himself made no less than five voyages. The East India Company thus not only built its own ships at its own dockyard, victualled them from its own stores, but conducted its own hydrography department. It was therefore positively unique in its monopolies and self-dependence. England has never had any corporation like it: and it is pretty certain it never will.
Wealluded on an earlier page to what were known as “separate” voyages. In the year 1612 the owners of the different stocks joined together and made one common capital of £740,000. Until that year the custom had been for a number of men to subscribe together for one particular voyage out and home. This was found by no means satisfactory, for it meant there was too much rivalry and no co-operation. Before one voyage was completed another would be sent out, and it happened that out in the East several agents in their zeal to obtain cargoes for their ships would be found bidding against each other, to the great advantage of the natives and the loss of the English stock-holders. Then, again, it would also happen that the ship of one particular voyage might be lying empty at some Indian port waiting till her factor had obtained the spices and other goods destined for England. Meanwhile the factor of a second voyage hadhisgoods ready but no ship in which to send them home. Each “voyage” was thus a separate and distinct concern, declining to have anything to do with any other “voyage,” or group of adventurers. When, therefore, this practice came to an end, the unionmade for strength and did away with the ill feeling and waste of energy till then so noticeable. The first joint stock began in the year 1613 and ended in 1617.
During this period twenty-nine ships of the Company were employed, and by the end of the year 1617 eight had returned with cargoes, four had been either lost or broken up, two had fallen into the hands of the Dutch, and fifteen were still in the East Indies. When the new stock was undertaken, most of these ships still in India were taken over at valuation. The biggest East Indiaman craft at this time were theRoyal James, of 1000 tons; theAnne Royal, of 900 tons; andThe New Year’s Gift, of 800 tons.
The Master Hippon, of whom we made mention in the last chapter, had command of theGlobe, which set forth from England alone and made direct for the Coromandel coast (the south-east portion of India). He called neither at the Red Sea, the Nicobars, nor the East Indian Archipelago. His mission was to inaugurate a new sphere of trade, and in so doing he was laying the foundations of those rich commercial centres of Madras and Calcutta. His work was not easy, for the Dutch would not allow him to operate in their neighbourhood, but he left a little band of men near Masulipatam to found a factory, and then went on to establish other factories in the Malay Peninsula and Siam. In the year 1612 Captain Best had obtained from the Court of Delhi considerable privileges, including that of establishing a factory at Surat. This was to become the chief English station in India until the acquisition of Bombay. In establishing these factories, the English were but copying the example of the Portugueseand Dutch. They were essential as depots for the goods brought from home and the commodities which had been obtained from the natives, and were awaiting the arrival of the Company’s ships. In charge of these factories were the Company’s agents and their clerks. But it is well to bear in mind that these factories and factors were destined to undergo development. As a measure of precaution the former were in the course of time strengthened, and at a still later stage they became even forts, so that the agents and clerks developed into a garrison. And from a strictly defensive policy a more aggressive influence occurred which resulted in acquisition of territory as well as trading rights.
Captain Best had sailed from Gravesend on 1st February 1612, with theRed Dragonand theHoseander, and arrived in the Swally, the roadstead for Surat, on 5th September. Here also were the Portuguese fleet a few weeks later ready to thwart the English, but Best was ready for them, and eventually hostilities were inevitable. But Best had the true English spirit in him, and besides being an excellent leader of a trading expedition, he was also no mean tactician, taking advantage of tide and the proximity of sandy shoals. The result was that the English were victorious and the Portuguese admiral defeated. But this meant something more than was immediately apparent. In a word it was to have a considerable influence on the future Anglo-Indian trade, and so give a still greater demand for the Indian merchant ships. In order properly to realise the position, you have to think of a weak man over-awed by a giant. Another giant comes along and asks the weak man for certain favours. The latterreplies that he would be willing to make the concessions if the second giant could conquer the first, for whom the weak man has no real love. In the present instance the first giant is represented by the Portuguese, the weak man is the Great Mogul, and the second giant the English. The latter had been thwarted from trading with Surat by the Portuguese. What the Mogul had said amounted to this: “Defeat the Portuguese and I will give you and yours every opportunity to trade in my dominions: your merchants shall not be molested, the customs imposed shall be as light as possible, and if there is any delinquency by which my people shall in any way injure your men, I will see that the matter is soon set right and redress given. Your country shall be allowed to send its ambassador and reside at my Court—but you must first exhibit your strength by conquering the hated Portuguese.”
So Best’s victory succeeded as only success can. The mighty power of the Portuguese was now broken like a reed. They had been defeated on sea who prided themselves on sea-power. They had lost their prestige with the natives, who had had the first Europeans in awe. The whole of the Portuguese Indian system, which had amounted to piracy, oppression and native ruin, had been, in the words of India’s great modern historian, Sir Wm. Wilson Hunter, “rotten to the core.” It was now to receive its death-blow, and a new order of things was to follow. Instead of the previous opposition, the English were now allowed to open their trade and to start factories both at Surat and elsewhere, and the English East India Company obtained a most firm footing—not as interlopers doing the best they couldagainst Portuguese vigilance, but recognised by the Great Mogul as an important and powerful trading corporation. It was after these concessions had been made and various factories set up that the latter needed obvious protection both from the Portuguese and the pirates who were greatly harassing the trading ships. Thus on land the nucleus was formed of an Indian army: thus afloat the nucleus also was formed of the Bombay Marine, afterwards to be known as the Indian navy.
For the latter the Company’s Surat agent was compelled to do the best with local material, collecting native craft called grabs and gallivats and commanded by officers who volunteered from the Company’s merchant ships. As these craft, like all other local craft, were the most suitable for the conditions of the place, the Company was well able to patrol the Gulf of Cambay and protect the vessels loaded with merchandise. This Indian marine had come into being during the year 1613, and two years later consisted of ten local craft. In the same year arrived from England four of the Company’s ships, under Captain Keeling, with Sir Thomas Roe, who had been sent by James I. as ambassador to the Great Mogul, and the treaty with the latter was ratified.
So the voyages continued to be made between England and the East. There was still opposition on the part of the Dutch, who would occasionally seize the Company’s ships, and in the year 1623 this opposition reached its crisis in the notorious Massacre of Amboyna, when the English Company’s agent and nine more Englishmen were executed on a trivial charge. Nor were the Portuguese shipsswept from the Eastern seas. The sea-power was broken, but it still existed in its weakly condition, and nothing gave the English seamen greater pleasure than to meet any of their big caracks in the Indian Ocean or elsewhere and attack them. But the factors who had been installed at Surat were in no way deficient in enterprise. They were doing an excellent trade, not merely between England and India, but between India and Bantam. This was not enough: they were determined to open up commerce with the Persian Gulf.
Now this meant that trouble was inevitable. If the Portuguese had lost their hold on India, they were certainly just as strong as formerly at Ormuz and other parts of the Persian Gulf. To traffic, or to attempt to traffic, with this part of the Orient was certain to mean further conflict with the nation which had received so much injury from Captain Best. For most of a hundred years the Portuguese had been enjoying their monopoly up the Gulf. However, neither this nor the certainty of conflict could turn aside the ambition of the English East India Company. Their ships were sent from Surat with Indian goods, the Portuguese vessels opposed them, the victory went to the English, and thus once more, as it had been in the territory of the Great Mogul, so the result was to be in regard to the Persian trade. The natives realised that the English were worth listening to, and their prestige was raised to the height from which the Portuguese simultaneously dropped. Henceforth the English factors could bring from Surat their calicoes and take back silks. A little later Ormuz was destroyed—Ormuz which had been the seat of Portuguese supremacy in thePersian Gulf and the centre of its wealthy trade in that region—and thus once more the nation which had been the first of European countries to unlock the secrets of the East was told to quit. By the year 1622—a short enough period since the inauguration of the East India Company in London—the Portuguese had thus been driven out from those very places in the East which had been so dear to them and the means of so much wealth. By the year 1654 they had been compelled to agree that the English should have the right to reside and trade in all these Eastern possessions. It was a terrible blow to Portuguese pride, a grievous disappointment to a nation which had done so much for the discovery of the world, and enough to make Prince Henry the Navigator turn in his grave. But it was inevitable, for the reason that as the Portuguese had declined in sea-power, so the English had been rising ever since the mid-sixteenth century, though more especially during the latter half of Elizabeth’s reign. The call of the sea to English ears was being listened to more attentively than ever, and when that call summoned men to such profitable trade it continued to be heard through the centuries. Each success added zest and gave an increased enthusiasm. Men who wanted to see the world, or to increase their meagre incomes, or to get away from the narrow confines of their own town or village were eager to take their oath to the Company and go East, where a more adventurous life awaited them. But with the Portuguese it was not so. Most of their Latin enthusiasm had run out: they had begun well, but they had been unable to sustain. And the series of blows—the capture of their finest caracks, the revelation of theirEast Indian secrets, the colossal defeat of the Armada, the persistent and successful impertinence of English interlopers in India, the glaring proof that English seamanship, navigation, naval strategy, tactics and gunnery were as good as their own—this succession of hard facts tended to break their spirit, made them compelled to bow to the inevitable.Sic transit gloria mundi.
Between the years 1617 and 1629 the English East India Company had sent out no fewer than 57 ships, containing 26,690 tons of merchandise. In addition they employed eighteen pinnaces which spent their time trading from port to port in the East Indies. We have already alluded to the inception of the Indian navy by the Surat factory. As time went on this flotilla of local craft was strengthened by big ships sent out from England. But as this volume is not a history of either the East India Company or of the development of the Indian navy, we must confine our attention to the story of the Company’s merchant ships during the many years in which they existed with such marvellous and unprecedented benefit to India and the English nation. Those who are interested merely in the rise of the Indian navy will find the account in Captain Low’s volumes.
Now covetousness is a sin which is peculiar not merely to individuals, but to corporations and even nations. You may be sure that all this success on the part of the East India Company’s ships and of their trading ashore led to no small amount of jealousy and longing at home. It is true that the State had assisted and encouraged the Company in every way: for it was obvious that it was for thenation’s welfare generally, and in particular a fine support for the navy in respect of ships, men and stores. But the time arrived when the Company began to be pinched and squeezed by the power that hitherto had given only assistance. Covetousness was at the bottom of it all, but the actual opportunity had arisen over the capture of Ormuz, from which, it had been reported, a large amount of spoil had been taken. It was easy enough to invent some excuse, and this came in the year 1624 when the Company, understanding that the Portuguese were preparing a fleet against them in Indian waters, began to get ready a squadron of seven ships to leave England. When these ships were ready to sail, the Lord High Admiral of England, who happened to be the Duke of Buckingham, obtained from Parliament an order to lay an embargo on these ships, lying at Tilbury. A claim was made for a portion of the spoil supposed to have been taken at Ormuz and elsewhere. And in spite of protests the sum of £10,000 had to be paid before the ships were released. About this time, also, the Company were attacked in Parliament on three grounds: (1) For exporting the treasure of the kingdom, it being alleged that £80,000 had been sent out yearly in money: (2) For destroying the invaluable timber of the country by building exceedingly great ships, the timber being wanted for the navy: (3) For causing the supply of mariners to become injured by these voyages. The last item was certainly unreasonable: for, as a fact, about one-third, or sometimes one-half, of every ship’s complement consisted of landsmen, who went on board “green” to sea life. But as happens over and over again, even in our luxurioustimes, many a green-horn discovers after a while that the life of a seaman is just what really suits him: and it was so with these landsmen to a large extent. The service opened up a new career for them, and these fellows were to add to rather than diminish the country’s supply of sailors.
The ships were getting slightly more habitable and better built, though no very great change was taking place. How unseaworthy were some of the Company’s best vessels may be seen from a letter sent on 10th June 1614 by Robert Larkin, who murmurs bitterly of his craft, theDarling. “TheDarling,” he writes, “complaineth sore, but I hope to God she will carry us well to Puttam, and further tediousness I omit. But I wish to God I were well rid of my captainship, or theDarlinga sounder vessel to carry me in.” So also that big East Indiaman, theRoyal James, during the year 1617 sprang a serious leak, and the way in which this was stopped makes most interesting reading to all lovers of ships. Her commander at that time, Captain Martin Pring, wrote to the Company on the 12th of November of the year mentioned that about a fortnight before theRoyal Jameshad reached Swally—the port of Surat—“we had a great leak broke upon us in theJames, which in four hours increased six foot water in hold, and after we had freed it and made the pumps suck, it would rise thirteen inches in half-an-hour. It was a great blessing of God that it fell out in such weather, by which means we had the help of all the fleet, otherwise all our company had been tired in a very short time. The 9th, we made many trials with a bonnet stitched with oakum under the bulge of the ship, but it did no good. The 11th, webasted our spritsail with oakum and let it down before the stem of the ship and so brought it aft by degrees: in which action it pleased God so to direct us that we brought the sail right under the place where the oakum was presently sucked into the leak: which stopped it in such sort that the ship made less water the day following than she had done any day before from the time of our departure out of England.”
The device here employed was well known to the old-fashioned sailor, and designated “fothering.” Briefly the idea was as follows. In order to stop the leak a sail was fastened at the four corners and then let down under the ship’s bottom, a quantity of chopped rope-yarns, oakum, cotton, wool—anything in the least serviceable for the job—being also put in. If you were lucky you would find that after the first few attempts the leak would have sucked up some of the oakum or whatever was put into the sail, and so the water would not pour in as badly. This device certainly saved Captain Cook during one of his voyages after his ship had struck a rock and the sea poured in so quickly that the pumps were unable to cope with it. In the description given above by Captain Pring you will notice that he used his spritsail for this purpose. This was a quadrilateral sail set at the end of the bowsprit, but was abolished from East Indiamen and other ships in the early part of the nineteenth century. At first, you will observe, the bonnet—doubtless the bonnet of the mainsail—the use of which we described on an earlier page, was tried and lowered under the “bulge” (or, as we now say, the “bilge”) of the ship. “Stitched with oakum” means that the littletufts of oakum were lightly stitched to the canvas just to keep them in position until the suction of the leak drew them up the hole away from the canvas. When he says he “basted” the spritsail with oakum he means again that the latter was sewn with light stitches. This spritsail was lowered down at the bows till it got below the ship’s forefoot and then brought gradually aft till the position of the leak was reached, and then the oakum was sucked up with the happy result noted. This all reads much simpler than it was in actuality: and you can imagine that it was no easy matter getting this sail into its exact position while the ship was plunging and rolling in a seaway.
Eventually theRoyal Jamesgot over the bar at Swally, and a consultation was then held aboard her by Captain Pring and a number of other captains as to what had now best be done. One opinion was to careen her so as to get at the leak and caulk it. Another opinion was to “bring her aground for the speedy stopping of her dangerous leak.” But these captains had before their minds the recollection that theTrade’s Increasehad been lost whilst being careened, and another ship named theHectorlikewise: so they unanimously agreed that the best thing would be to put theRoyal Jamesashore, first taking out of her the merchandise. They were more than a little nervous as to how this big ship would take the ground, so “for a trial” they brought ashore theFrancis, an interloping vessel which they had captured. When it was seen that theFrancisseemed to take the ground all right and that she lay there three tides without apparent injury “and never complained in any part,” they put theRoyal Jamesashore also. Unluckily this was not with the same amount of success, “for she strained very much about the midship and made her bends to droop: which caused us to haul her off again so soon that we had not time to find the leak. Yet (God be praised) since we came afloat her bends are much righted and she hath remained very tight: God grant she may so long continue.”
When Sir Thomas Roe went out from England in the year 1615 to Surat as English Ambassador to the Great Mogul, he was accompanied by Edward Terry, his chaplain. The latter has left behind an account of his voyage to India, and though we cannot do much more than call attention thereto, we may in passing note that this setting forth shows how much valuable time was wasted in those days waiting for a fair wind. For these seventeenth-century ships had neither the fine lines nor the superiority of rig which was afterwards to make the East Indiamen famous throughout the world. The Company’s seventeenth-century ships were clumsy as to their proportions, they were built according to rule-of-thumb, the stern was unnecessarily high, the bows unnecessarily low. Triangular headsails had not yet been adopted, except by comparatively small fore-and-aft-rigged craft, such as yachts and coasters. The mizen was still of the lateen shape, but all the other sails were quadrilateral, even to the spritsail, which was suspended at the outer end of the bowsprit and below that spar. Above the latter on a small mast was hoisted another small squaresail, and then at the after end of the bowsprit (which was very long and practically a mast) came the foremast, stepped as far forward as it could go.
With this unhandy rig, the bluff-bowed hulls with their clumsy design and heavy tophamper could make little or no progress in a head wind. They were all right for running before the wind, or with the wind on the quarter: but not only could they not point close to the wind, but even when they tried they made a terrible lot of leeway. It was therefore hopeless to try and beat down the English Channel. Most seamen are aware that the prevailing winds over the British Isles are from the south-west, but that often between about February and the end of June, more especially in the earlier part of the year, one can expect north-east or easterly spells. The old East Indiamen therefore availed themselves of this. For a fair wind down Channel was a thing much to be desired, and a long time would be spent in waiting for it. As these awkward ships had to work their tides down the River Thames, then drop anchor for a tide, and take the next ebb down, their progress till they got round the North Foreland was anything but fast.
Of all this Edward Terry’s account gives ample illustration. He was a cleric and no seaman, but he had the sense of observation and recorded what he observed. It was on the 3rd of February 1615 that the squadron, including the flagshipCharles—a “New-built goodly ship of a thousand Tuns (in which I sayled) ... fell down from Graves-send into Tilbury Hope.” Here they remained until 8th February, when they weighed anchor, and not till 12th February had they weathered the North Foreland and brought up in the Downs, where they remained for weeks waiting till a fair wind should oblige them. On the 9th of March the longed-fornorth-easter came, when they immediately got under way and two days later passed the meridian of the Lizard during the night. With the wind in such a quarter these Indiamen would bowl along just as fast as their ill-designed hulls could be forced through the water, making a lot of fuss and beating the waves instead of cutting through them as in the case of the last of the East Indiamen which ever sailed.
By the 19th of May they had passed the Tropic of Capricorn and Terry marvelled at the sight of whales, which were “of an exceeding greatnesse” and “appear like unto great Rocks.” Sharks were seen, and even in those days the inherent delight of the seaman for capturing and killing his deadly enemy was very much in existence. As these cruel fish swam about theCharlesthe sailors would cast overboard “an iron hook ... fastened to a roap strong like it, bayted with a piece of beefe of five pounds weight.”