The East India Company’s progress was anything but a straight, easy path. We must never forget that if it made big profits—and when examined these figures, taken on an average, are not so colossal as they seem at first sight—the risks and responsibilities were very far from insignificant. Quite apart from the difficulties out in India, and the absence of the invention of telegraphy thus making it difficult to keep a complete control over the factors and trade; quite apart, too, from the pressure which was harassing the Company from all sides—public opinion which grudged this monopoly: shipowners who wanted to raise the cost of hire: and Parliament which kept controlling the Company by legislation—there were two other sources of worry which existed.

The first of these was the continued insults by the press-gangs, and the consequent inconvenience to the East India Company and the great danger to their ships and cargoes. The second worry was the ever-present possibility during the long-drawn-out wars of losing also ships and goods by attack from the enemy’s men-of-war. In both respects the position was not easy of solution. On the one hand, it was obvious that the Company’s trade was likely to be crippled; but, on the other, the Government must come first in both matters. The navy was in dire need of men. All that it had were not enough. Men who had been convicted and sentenced for smuggling—some of the finest sailors in the country—were shipped on board to fight for the land that gave them birth. All sorts of rough characters were rounded up ashore and sent afloat by the press-gangs, but even then the warships needed more.

Now the crews of these eighteenth-century East Indiamen were such skilled seamen, so hardened to the work of a full-rigged ship, so accustomed to fighting pirates, privateers and even the enemy’s men-of-war, that it was no wonder the Admiralty in their dilemma overstepped the bounds and shipped them whenever they could be got. A favourite custom was to lie in wait for the homeward-bound East Indiamen, and when these fine ships had dropped anchor off Portsmouth, in the Downs, or even on their way up the Thames, they would be boarded and relieved of some of their crew: to such an extent, sometimes, that the ship could not be properly worked. I have carefully examined a large number of original manuscripts which passed between the Admiralty and the East India Company of the eighteenth century, and there runs through the period a continuous vein of complaint from the latter to the former, but there was very little remedy and the Company had to put up with the nuisance.

On the 21st of December 1710, for instance, the Company’s secretary, Thomas Woolley, sends a letter from the directors complaining to the Admiralty of the press-gang actually invading East India House, Leadenhall Street, one day during the same month, “on a pretence of searching for seamen.” As a matter of fact the press-gang had come to carry off the most capable of the Company’s crews, who happened to be present at that time. Very strongly the Company wrote complaints to the Admiralty that the press-gangs would board the East Indiamen lying off Spithead (bound for London) and take out all the able-bodied seamen they could lay their hands on. These men had to go whether they liked it or not, and the Company’s officers were indignant but powerless. But it added injury to insult that the press-gangs replaced the picked men taken out by “such as have been either unskilful in their duty or careless and refractory in the performance of it,” as one of the letters remarks. The Company therefore begged that no man might be taken out until the East Indiamen should arrive at their moorings, or at least till they came into the London river: for, they pointed out, the ships had very valuable cargoes on board, and this seizing of men exposed them to very great danger, it being often impossible to replace the men taken out.

When the Company’s ships at length reached the Thames, the directors would often send down hoys to meet them and to bring the goods up to London, where they could be placed on view in the warehouses to show the buyers before the sale opened. But the naval authorities had given the crews of these hoys such a fright that they refused to go even down towards the mouth of the river, fearing that the press-warrants, which were out, would be put into execution and they themselves would be sent to serve in the warships. These hoys were fore-and-aft-rigged vessels of about 40 or 50 tons, the crew consisting of a skipper and two men. Such craft were sloops—that is to say, practically cutters, the only difference being purely technical and legal—and were built for the purpose of carrying passengers and goods from one place to another along the coast or up estuaries, where ordinary lighters were not able to be taken with convenience or safety. The Margate hoy, for instance, was very well known to Londoners at this time.

But the need for naval seamen was so urgent, consequent on the wars, that the Admiralty had to go to even further extremities. They actually sent to sea a press smack with a naval officer on board, and this craft would cruise up and down the English Channel. On one occasion Captain Mawson of the Company’s ship Cardonell, homeward bound, was followed all the way from Portsmouth to the Downs by such a smack. And when the bigger ship brought up off Deal, Lieutenant Hutchinson, R.N., came aboard and used his best endeavours to take away every one of the Cardonell’s crew, with the exception only of the ship’s officers. The skipper of the merchantman naturally resented this very strongly, but offered to let Mr Hutchinson have most of his men provided the naval officer would supply him with others to take their place so that the ship might be safely brought to her moorings in the Thames. But it was no good. Hutchinson absolutely declined to make a compromise, and according to Mawson’s account behaved very rudely and, not content with the able seamen, carried off also the Cardonell’s second mate.

The only way in which this annoyance and danger could be overcome was for the Admiralty to issue what were known as “protections.” The holder of a protection was thus made immune from arrest by a press-gang. It was a document which gave the name of the man, his age, stature, stated whether he wore a wig or his own hair, and other particulars of identification. No man with this authorisation could be forced into his Majesty’s service, but it was valid only for three months or the period written thereon. There is preserved an original protection certificate in the archives of the Public Record Office, and it is a quaint document which must have been very keenly appreciated by its eighteenth-century owner. On the other hand, when the East India Company had lost some of their seamen by desertion, they would petition the Admiralty to allow naval men to be lent.

Every student of history is aware of the unfortunate friction which existed at this time between the officers of the Royal Navy and the officers of the Mercantile Marine. Happily in the present century this slow-dying spirit is almost extinct. In my volume, “King’s Cutters and Smugglers,” I showed what altercations used to arise, what petty jealousies existed between the officers of the Revenue cutters and those of his Majesty’s navy. The captains and officers of the East India Company were often indebted to the protection and assistance of naval officers, but the latter were often overbearing in the exercise of their duties, and despised any seaman who was not in the King’s navy. On the other hand, the East Indiamen’s officers most heartily disliked these gentlemen, and the insults from the press-gangs were too poignant to be forgotten easily.

As an instance, let us refer to the 14th of August 1734, when the East India Company complained to the Admiralty of what seems certainly a very high-handed action. It appears that the Company’s ship, the Duke of Lorrain, had arrived in the Downs on the previous Sunday, and her master, Captain Christopher Wilson, sent in a very indignant report to the Court of Directors to the effect that “the men of war at the Nore treated him more like an enemy than a Merchant Ship coming into Port in such weather as he had, it being very bad, they firing near Twenty Shott at his Ship, some of which came among the Rigging, might have been of dangerous consequence to the Ship, and to the Company who had a Cargo on board to the Value of Two hundred thousand Pounds. This action being what the Company did not expect from any of the Men of War, as the Captain of the Duke of Lorrain has assured the Court that he lowered his sails, and did what was safe to be done, they have commanded me to signify the same to you,” continued the Company’s letter to the Admiralty, “that so the Right Honourable the Lords of the Admiralty may be inform’d thereof.”

But if the East India Company thought it necessary sometimes to complain of the treatment at the hands of the Admiralty the former were none the less glad to have the assistance and protection of the navy in the time of war. There is a voluminous correspondence still preserved in which the Company write to the Admiralty asking for convoys of the East Indiamen both outward and inward bound. The French were very much on the qui vive, but unless the regular income of the East India Company were for the present to be stopped, and the entire Anglo-Indian trade suspended, the Company’s ships must go on their way. This could be done only with the assistance of his Majesty’s ships. In order to deal with this matter there was a special department of the Company designated the Secret Committee, which communicated with the Admiralty as to where the East Indian merchant fleet were to rendezvous and the convoy join them, the confidential signals to be employed, and so on. The following letter sent by the Company to the Admiralty on 12th December 1740 is typical:—

These convoys took the East Indiamen sometimes even from the Thames down Channel as far as Spithead. Sometimes they picked the latter up only at the Downs, escorting them for several hundred miles away from the English coast out into the Atlantic. These merchantmen were similarly met at St Helena and escorted home, the men-of-war being victualled for a period of two months. Even if an East Indiaman were able to arrive singly and run into the Hamoaze (Plymouth Sound) on her way home, having successfully eluded hostile ships roving off the mouth of the English Channel, it was deemed advisable for her to wait at Plymouth until she could be escorted by the next man-of-war bound eastward to the Thames. There were plenty of French privateersmen lurking about the Channel, and, at any rate about the year 1716, there were also Swedish privateers on the prowl in the same sea ready to fall upon any East Indiaman going in or out of the Downs.

One notorious Swede of this occupation was La Providence, of 26 guns. She was commanded by Captain North Cross. The latter was an Englishman who had been tried and sentenced to death for some crime, but he had succeeded in making his escape from Newgate, and had fled the country. He had crossed the North Sea and had obtained from Sweden letters of marque to rove about as a privateer. His crew were a rough crowd of desperate fellows of many nations, and this ship was very fond of lying in Calais roads ready to get under way and slip across the English Channel so soon as an outward-bound East Indiaman was known to be in the Downs. Now, in the month of November 1717, the skipper of La Providence was lying in his usual roadstead, and tidings came to him concerning one of the Company’s ships then in the Downs.

The privateer was kept fully informed by means of those fine seamen, but doubtful characters, who lived at Deal. They were some of the toughest and most determined men, who stopped at nothing. For generations the men of Deal had been the most notorious smugglers of the south-east corner of England: and that was saying a great deal. They were a brave, fearless class of men, but brutal of nature and always ready to get to windward of the law, if ever a chance presented itself. They handled their open luggers with a wonderful dexterity, for which their successors are even yet famous. But they were lawless to their finger-tips. So on the present occasion when the East Indiaman was in the Downs, one of these Deal men sailed his little craft across the strong tides of Dover Straits and brought the information to the privateer. The messenger asserted that the East Indiaman had nearly £60,000 on board in cash, so Cross got under way, averring that he would get this amount or “Loose his Life in the Attempt.” Whether he succeeded in his attempt I regret I am unable to say. As far as was practicable these East Indiamen were wont, in those strenuous times, to wait for a convoy, but there were times when they could not afford to wait till one of his Majesty’s ships was at liberty. On those occasions the ships would wait till they numbered a small squadron, and then voyaging together would resolve to run all risks. There is on record the case of a French squadron consisting of a “64” and two frigates arriving off the island of St Helena, where the East Indiamen were wont to call. The Frenchmen had come here in order to fall upon the homeward-bound fleet who would soon be seen. But the longboatB of one of these merchantmen was fitted out, and under the command of a midshipman succeeded in getting to windward of the Frenchmen unperceived and was able to give the approaching English ships warning of the danger that awaited them. Six of the Company’s fleet fell in with the enemy and kept up a running fight for several days, until they anchored in All Saints’ Bay. Here the French blockaded them, but it was to no purpose, for these merchantmen succeeded in escaping and reaching England in safety.

The Royal Navy assisted the Company’s ships in quite another manner as well. Often enough after enduring heavy weather in the Bay of Biscay or English Channel these East Indiamen would put into Plymouth and obtain permission from the Admiralty to obtain from the latter’s stores a new bowsprit, a new mast, or other spar, the Company of course paying for the expense. The royal dockyard also on the Medway was similarly found of great service, as, for instance, early in the eighteenth century, when the Company’s ship Hannover had the misfortune to run on to a sandbank whilst going down the Thames to the Downs. The ship thus suffered damage and was not in a fit condition to proceed to the East. Permission was asked and obtained for her to be taken into Sheerness, where the naval authorities could admit her into dry dock, warehouse her cargo, supply materials and repair the injuries that had been made.

So also on another occasion, in September 1720, the East Indiaman Goodfellow was lying at Gravesend outward bound. It was discovered at the last moment that unfortunately all the beer on board was spoilt, and since there was no time “to detain her till more can be brew’d,” the Company’s directors had to request the Admiralty victualling office to furnish the ship with 12 tons of beer at the Company’s expense. But the naval officials were not always so obliging as this. Towards the end of the year 1721 the East Indiaman CÆsar, outward bound for Mocha, had the misfortune to damage by friction one of her cablesC owing to the latter getting foul of the wreck of the Carlisle. Those were the days when cables were still made of hemp, and were always liable, except when special steps were taken, to injury when rubbing along foul ground. As she lay in the Downs, the CÆsar’s master, Captain Mabbott, asked the naval storekeeper at Deal if he would spare him a new cable in case another storm should spring up. Mabbott was by no means pleased when the storekeeper replied very properly that inasmuch as he had received no orders to oblige merchant ships in that manner, he was not able to comply with the request. However matters were eventually set right by the Company obtaining the Admiralty’s permission.

A voyage in an East Indiaman of those days was often full of adventure. After proceeding from the Downs the ship cleared the western mouth of the English Channel and then steered “W and to WSW.” It took three months to reach the Cape of Good Hope, and even then it was not too far south to fall in with French men-of-war. After calling at Spithead outward bound they were wont to sail through the Needles passage. The seamen were probably better situated in these East Indiamen than in any other merchant ship, but they were not allowed a soft time. They were kept at it with setting and stowing of canvas, spreading stuns’ls in fair weather or taking in upper canvas in heavy gales. There were plenty of guns on board to be served, so drill formed no small part of their duties. A seaman went on board with his sea-chest and his bedding, and in those rough, hard-swearing days, long before ever the sailor had his trade union, he was treated with no light hand. There is an instance of the way slackness was wont to be punished on board the East Indiaman Greenwich. This particular occurrence belongs to the year 1719 and happened when the watch had been called. As some of the men did not turn out as smartly as they ought, the boatswain took out his knife and cut down their hammocks, to their great discomfort and indignation. So infuriated in fact were the crew that they declined to go on the next voyage until the boatswain had been discharged.

Some idea of the kind of vessels which the Company were hiring for their service about the year 1730 may be gathered from the following list, which has been taken direct from the original official documents:—

It will be noticed that not one of these is really a big ship and that while the average is somewhere between 400 and 500 tons, yet not one exceeds 495 tons. The directors settled the size of ship required and the owners saw that it was supplied. The size of the crews will be seen to be very large, but this is explained not only because wages were low in those days and safety was a dominating factor—allowing plenty of men in each watch for handling sail—but because each ship carried about thirty guns, and though both broadsides would not be fired at once, yet even half those guns would necessitate a good number of the crew. At various dates during the eighteenth century, when the country needed ships, the Admiralty commissioned a number of these East Indiamen and also gave commissions in the Royal Navy to their commanders.

Those were the days, too, when merchantmen frequently obtained letters of marque for acting against the ships of a nation with which our country was at war. During the year 1739 Britain declared war against Spain, and so one comes across a document of that year in which the directors of “The United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies”—for this was the official style of the East India Company at that time—petition for “Letters of Marque or General Reprizals against Spain.” The request is made on behalf of their ship, Royal Guardian, 490 tons, 98 men and 30 guns; and for other vessels of their fleet. These were duly granted, and such stout, well-armed craft were able to render an excellent account of themselves against the foe. They were necessarily built of great strength, they carried so many guns, their crews were such seasoned men, and their commanders such determined fellows, that they formed really a most valuable reserve to the Royal Navy. They were not individually a match for the biggest of the enemy’s battleships, but none the less they were equal to any frigate and of far greater utility to the King’s service than any merchant liner would proportionately be to-day in the time of war.