Sat 1st Aug 1801
The Directors have complained to the Governor-General in Council of expenses incurred by them in funding employees’ children sent to England for schooling. The Directors have occasionally been required to pay travelling expenses to the lads to get them from London to their schools.
Every employee will in future have to give adequate security to the Company for foreseeable expenses. The same rules will apply as are promulgated for native servants proceeding to England. 29th July 1801
Sat 1st Aug 1801
The fishing monopoly at Broach is up for renewal for one year. The successful contractor will make quarterly payments to the Company starting 1st Oct 1801.
Sat 1st Aug 1801
A tremendous battle has occurred on the Nerbudda River between Sindhia’s army and the forces of Jeswant Rao Holkar, the two great Maratha chiefs.1 Four brigades of Sindhia’s 1st battalion together with 100 Rohillas under Capt Brownrigg and the artillery were opposed to Holkar’s 14 battalions of infantry, a huge force of cavalry and Rohillas and a substantial artillery.
The battle never evolved beyond artillery barrages. Holkar’s men retired after four hours and Sindhia was unable to pursue for want of cavalry. Sindhia lost two European officers and 111 local troops.
Sat 1st Aug 1801
The Company’s shareholders have discussed remunerating Sir Sidney Smith for his defence of Acre. He stopped French use of the port facilities to evacuate their army of Egypt and likely relieved the Company’s lands in India from invasion. T Jones outlined Smith’s exploits to show the extent of the Company’s debt to him.
Metcalfe opposed any award as unprecedented. Sir Stephen Lushington agreed with Metcalfe and suggested a sword or piece of plate would be more than enough. Several shareholders mentioned that the Company was not well-off just now. William Elphinstone thought if Smith is to be rewarded so should Sir John Douglas, who acted with equal distinction at Acre.
Sir John Day deplored the economising tendency of some shareholders. This is an appeal to liberality and justice. If we are shareholders of an unprofitable Company, we should trace the causes of loss and address them. On the one hand we waste hundreds and thousands of Pounds; on the other we close our hearts to compassion and justice. “economy …. The rickety and distorted bastard of our vices and our follies, not the legitimate issue of our wants – entangled in the meshes of its own subtlety, bewildered in the labyrinth of its own past discretions and profusions, is uniform and consistent in nothing”, he said.
Sat 8th Aug 1801
Smith Forbes & Co have admitted James Kinloch into partnership 1st August. The trading name will remain the same.
Sat 8th Aug 1801
The leading Agency House in each Presidency now (1801) is:
Calcutta – M/s Gardiner and Alexander;
Madras – M/s Harrington Burnaby and Cockburn;
Bombay – M/s Smith Forbes & Co.
Sat 8th Aug 1801
The Company is beginning to receive cadets who have been trained at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich.
This follows the assimilation of the King’s and Company’s armies. The first draft is appointed to the artillery and engineering corps.2
Amongst the new cadets arriving at Calcutta on the Dover Castle is Charles Brooke.
Sat 22nd Aug 1801
10th August 1801 - The Company is offering all land on Salsette for long lease. Buyers will have full rights to sell, bequeath or mortgage the land subject only to a fixed revenue payable annually to the Company. The amount of ground rent will equate with the former grain assessment (that part of the harvest that was due to the Company) and is payable in money or in grain. The exchange rate for grain production is 20 rupees per moorah of white rice and 15 rupees for black.3
The amount of assessment will be written in the Deeds and fixed in perpetuity. The value of the production applicable in the new leases will run for ten years certain. All increase in production during that time is for the enjoyment of the leaseholder.
Sat 22nd Aug 1801
9-month Bills of Exchange on London are for sale at 2/6d per rupee. The Company might unilaterally extend the term to 12 months by payment of 5% interest on the extension.
Sat 22nd Aug 1801
George Brown has been appointed Commercial Resident at Surat.
Sat 22nd Aug 1801
Charles Forbes, his wife and children have left for London.
Sat 22nd Aug 1801
Joao Elario, a seaman and native of Manila, has been executed at Calcutta for the murder of Capt Joseph George on the ship Marianne in January.
Elario’s body was afterwards hung in chains on the banks of Hoogly near the landing point from the anchorage, as a warning to other seamen.
Sat 22nd Aug 1801
The new Nabob of the Carnatic, Azeem al Dowlah, was enthroned at Madras by the Company’s Governor (Lord Clive) on 31st July. All the Company’s senior officers were in attendance but only Admiral Rainier and General Stuart were involved in the ceremony.
The Nabob then addressed a short speech in Persian to the Governor. The attendance of no other important Muslims is mentioned in the report. The Nabob was surrounded at all times by Company officers from the civil, judicial and military establishments. The copies of the new treaty were then exchanged. Rose water was sprinkled, betel nut was passed around, and the ceremony ended.
Sat 22nd Aug 1801
There has been an engagement between Zemaun Shah and his nephew Mahmood Shah near Kabul. Several of Zemaun’s supporters plundered his camp before joining the enemy. His forces were routed. He fled south to Kabul but found he could not protect himself there and continued his flight to Jellalabad.
The nephew entered Kabul to the acclaim of the residents. Mahmood Shah then sent pursuers who caught Zemaun on 6th June together with his Vizier Wusadar Khan and their families and baggage.
Mahmood Shah has control of Kabul and Peshawar. The Vackeels of Cashmere and Rotasgurh have also offered him their submission.
Sat 29th Aug 1801
The farm for the provision of arrack on Salsette is for sale at auction for three years from 19th Oct 1801. Terms will duplicate the previous contract.
Sat 5th Sept 1801
On 8th April the annual election of six new Directors of the Company occurred and the following were voted in for four years – Wm Bentley, Sir John Smith Burges, W Elphinstone, John Hunter, John Travers and Stephen Williams. All six resigned last year in accordance with the Rotation Rules.
The following six Directors resigned for this year in accordance with the same Rule – Wm Devaynes, Charles Grant, Sir Stephen Lushington, George Smith, Wm Thornton and Sweeny Toone of Keston.
David Scott was chosen as Chairman of the Company and Charles Mills as his Deputy.
Sat 5th Sept 1801
The Company has employed Mr Charles Favourque as its hemp-dresser in Bengal. He arrived at Madras on the Lord Thurlow last week.
Sat 5th Sept 1801
The merchants of Bombay acknowledge the valuable service provided to their trade by Capt Selby of the Company’s marine. He has been responsible for ensuring the safety of shipping trading to Surat by fighting off the pirates.
Sgd Bruce Fawcett & Co, Smith Forbes & Co, Alexander Adamson, Miguel de Lima e Souza, Pestonjee Bomanjee, Ramdass Manordass, Ardaseer Dady, Dorabjee Rustomjee Patel, Nasservanjee Monackjee, Hormusjee Bomanjee, Sorabjee Muncherjee.
The merchants of Surat, which trade is largely engrossed by Parsees, have also offered their thanks.
Sat 12th Sept 1801
We reported the victory of a small detachment of Sindhia’s army over the forces of Jeffwant Rao Holkar many weeks ago. Holkar retreated to Ujjain4 where he met another section of Sindhia’s infantry and the cavalry under Colonel Hessing. He attacked these units repeatedly until he drove them off and occupied Ujjain capturing Hessing at the same time. One of Holkar’s motivations to his men was an offer of 1,000 rupees for any European head that was brought to him – he collected eight in this battle.
Holkar seems to have the bigger cavalry. This will be a heavy blow to Sindhia as Ujjain is a rich city and an important source of grain and other agricultural produce. As at end August, Sindhia had called-in all his friends and was assembling an immense force to tackle Holkar.
Sat 26th Sept 1801
Four shares in the Bombay Insurance Society belonging to the late Harry Forrester Constable are for auction individually on 28th Sept at the office of Bruce Fawcett & Co.
(Constable was a lawyer of the Recorder’s Court and a Captain in the Bombay fencibles. He died aged 43 years after 28 years residence in Bombay)
Sat 10th Oct 1801
The Portuguese Viceroy at Goa has held a party for the British garrison to celebrate our recent military successes against Tippoo.
Sat 10th Oct 1801
The new treaty with the Nabob of the Carnatic has been delivered to him at Chepauk Palace by the Madras high officers and the Governor-General from Calcutta. It settles the succession at Arcot and puts the entire Carnatic into British hands.
The Nabob of Bengal (based at Moorshedabad) has met the Governor-General during his subsequent voyage up-river.
Sat 31st Oct 1801
Sindhia has administered another defeat on Holkar and driven him out of his capital, Indore. Holkar had earlier removed from Ujjain but before he left he dug-up all the floors of the merchants’ houses and found an immense treasure under many of them which he has taken away. Holkar lost 75 cannon and all his ammunition. He fled to Mahaser.
Colonel Filose, commander of the Portuguese battalion in Sindhia’s service, became delirious and killed himself. He is replaced by Capt Manuel de Bono Nato. Indore was given to Sindhia’s troops to plunder to revenge Holkar’s cruelty at Sindhia’s town of Ujjain. A part of the city was burned.
Sat 31st Oct 1801
The Asiatic Mirror reports that between 16th – 25th Sept ten Indiamen have sailed from India to London with rice cargoes.
Sat 14th Nov 1801
The Bombay Governor in Council has proclaimed that silver coins have become scarce and commerce is impeded. We have minted small gold coins which rank pari passu with the silver Rupee in value. These are legal tender for all sorts of exchange at Bombay, Surat and Malabar. The new coin is 92 touch, exactly like the Gold Mohur we minted in 1800 and 1801 at Bombay. 15 of these new coins weigh 1 Tola (11.66 grammes)
Sat 14th Nov 1801
Joseph Burne, printer of the Bombay Courier, died yesterday. The newspaper is hereafter printed by Alexander Grey and the other proprietors.
Sat 28th Nov 1801
Registration of Natives – Phinehas Hall has been appointed Registrar of Natives at Bombay. Any Indian employed by the Company or by private British residents, or who is a partner of a British resident, is subject to registration.
The registration is intended to reduce the ability of Englishmen to lend money to native Princes through nominees in the venal way practised in Madras.
Registration is already done in Calcutta but is to be extended to both Madras and Bombay Presidencies. It brings the native employee within the English legal structure created in India since 1783 and makes him amenable to our justice.
Any Englishman employing an unregistered native is subject on conviction to a fine of £500 and a forfeit of £100 to anyone suing for the same.
Sat 19th Dec 1801
The Governor-General has agreed another treaty with the Nawab Vizier on 10th November at Lucknow. The negotiation was conducted by the Governor-General’s brother Henry Wellesley and Lt Colonel William Scott.
The Nawab cedes half the province of Oudh to the Company producing an annual revenue of 13.5 million Rupees in commutation of the subsidy hitherto paid by the Nawab to the Company to enjoy our protection. The principal revenue–earning lands ceded are Chucklah, Chucklah-Corah, Chucklah-Etawa, Kurrah, Barielly, Asophabad and Keelpoory.
Henry Wellesley becomes Lt Governor of the new lands. Scott becomes Resident at the Nawab’s Court.5
Tues 22nd Dec 1801 Extraordinary
Scott has resigned the Chairmanship of the Company to take up a position at the Board of Control. John Robarts is expected to succeed him.
Sat 2nd Jan 1802
Our Indian army in Egypt is camped at Rosetta. It is now under the command of General Baird. The fall of Alexandria has provided them with good loot – a fleet of 100 merchant ships, two 2-decker warships, and three frigates. Some of the prizes had to be shared with the Ottoman forces. Within the town itself we found 101 brass cannon, 38 howitzers and mortars, 181 iron cannon and ammunition.
When the Porte learned of the recovery of his Egyptian provinces he freed 250 galley slaves and remitted all debts under 150,000 piastres, releasing the debtors from prison. The illuminations along the canal extended for 18-20 miles. Some of the palaces had over 20,000 lights in them.
The French requested to retain the antiquities they had discovered (Article 16 of the capitulation). This was refused and we have inherited them. Amongst them, a marble stone at Rosetta was found to be perfectly preserved - it has Coptic on one side, Greek on another and strange hieroglyphics on the third.6
Sat 9th Jan 1802
The Prince of Wales has disposed of the portrait that Sir Joshua Reynolds did of him. He never liked it and has now sent it to be displayed in Government House on Prince of Wales Island. It arrived 4th Nov 1801.
Sat 16th Jan 1802
Bombay Notice, 14th May 1801 - The King has granted a patent to James Rivett of Bombay to use the surname of Carnac and the right to display the arms of Carnac as recorded in the Herald’s Office, pursuant on the terms of the Will of the late General John Carnac of Bombay. From henceforth Mr Rivett will be known as James Rivett-Carnac.
Sat 23rd Jan 1802
On 29th Jan the Company will auction all the trees on Butcher’s Island for ready money. The trees are to be felled and removed within a month of purchase.
Sat 30th Jan 1802
Holkar’s army of 60,000 troops is dispersed and he is fleeing from Sindhia with no more than 7,000 – 8,000 men attending him. Sindhia is approaching Ujjain and will likely pursue Holkar into Hindustan.
Major Lewis Derridan, who is seconded to fight for Sindhia, was captured by Holkar’s men and had to pay 30,000 rupees to ransom himself but Sindhia reimbursed him afterwards.
Sat 13th Feb 1802
Passengers’ baggage on Indiamen sailing to London has become too bulky. A recent sailing had 63 tons of passenger baggage. In future passengers are permitted a bed, a sofa or two chairs and 2 – 5 tons of baggage depending on rank. One half of this allowance is permitted for accompanying wives, if travelling alone wives get 2/3rds. All baggage in excess of this allowance will be charged as freight at the Charter Party rate per ton.
Sat 20th Feb 1802
New Regulation of Lord Wellesley:
When the Governor-General visits Madras or Bombay, the Governor of those places is replaced by the Governor-General until he leaves. During such visits, the Governors only retain their judicial authority intact.
Sat 20th Feb 1802
The Bombay presidency is raising a loan. The advert is dated 18th Feb 1802. You can make your investments at the Treasuries in Bombay or Surat or to the Residents at Malabar, Anjengo or Basra. Minimum loan is 500 rupees – cash or Treasury Bills. A premium of 5% is available on all payments.
In return the Company will issue a new Promissory Note at 8% annual interest, payable twice yearly in cash (or in 15-month Bills on London at 2/6d per rupee). You can have the interest paid here or to London. The term is at least 18 months.
Sat 6th March 1802
The College of Fort William is offering courses in spoken Persian, Hindustani, Arabic and Bengali and in written Persian, Nagree and Bengali. It appears to be solely for British employees of the Company.
Sat 20th March 1802
HMS Virginie (Astle) was at Macau on 22nd Jan 1802 to convoy the homebound Company fleet. The ship is part of our force deployed for the occupation of Amboinya. Astle sent in a letter to Canton telling the Company’s Select that he was waiting outside.
When the fleet came out of the river they sailed straight passed the frigate although he fired several guns and displayed the convoy flag. He had to sail after the fleet to catch-up. He escorted them to Pulo Aor7 and then separated, plotting a course for Malacca.
Sat 27th March 1802
One of the main problems with Madras is that every year when the summer monsoon sets in, the open roadstead becomes too rough and all the shipping has to put out to sea. Commonly, the masters take their ships around the Cape to shelter on the western side of the peninsula. This leaves Madras unprotected.
In the war with France in 1783, the French had Trincomalee and complete protection from the summer weather whilst we had Madras and no protection at all. This disabled Sir Edward Hughes from effectively attacking the French fleet of Admiral Suffrein. Ceylon is now ours. We should make a dockyard at Trincomalee to fit-out and repair our ships. It is the only port on the eastern coast of India that will answer to our needs.
The second attraction of Ceylon is the fertility of the soil. The Dutch have previously brought seedlings of spices from Banda, where the best spices grow, and the Celebes and these have flourished around Ceylon. Cultivation can be continually expanded until Ceylon provides all of Europe’s spice needs.
The kingdom of Kandy occupies about a quarter of the island and produces all sorts of jewels – sapphires, rubies and topazes – indeed the King has one stone in his collection that incorporates the colours of all three of these jewels.
It is curious that, as a result of the war, the only useful harbour in West Indies (Trinidad) has been ceded to us by Spain and the only useful harbour in eastern India has been surrendered to us by the Dutch.
Sat 3rd April 1802
Notice 2nd April - Mariners residing in Bombay who have not covenanted with the Company may still become Captains, Chief Officers or some other capacity by licence. They require a certificate of good conduct from an owner, agent or commander of a ship registered at this Presidency. (there is a shortage of officers)
Sat 10th April 1802
The issue of Promissory Notes by Bombay Presidency has increased. The value Collected so far in the 1801/02 financial year is 2,746,201 rupees.
Sat 10th April 1802
The 8% loan that the Company advertised on 19th Feb has closed today.
Sat 10th April 1802
The Company’s salt pans at Mahalon on Caranja are being sold by public auction on 14th April at the Collector’s Office on Caranja.
On 20th April the lease on the ferry connection from Caranja to Bombay will also be sold by auction together with exclusive use of the boat presently used. Terms are three years certain commencing 1st May 1802. Apply to Richard Church, Caranja Collector.
Sat 10th April 1802
Anyone wishing to transfer funds to London may invest at the Royal Navy’s office in Bombay in return for 90-day Sight Bills on the Admiralty. Send your tenders to HM’s naval storekeeper at Bombay showing the sum available and the exchange rate expected. Tenders will be opened at noon on 13th April.
Sat 10th April 1802
James Henry Stevens is the present Editor of the Bombay Courier.
Sat 10th April 1802
With peace declared, the Company is disbanding the Bombay fencible regiment it formed under Colonel James Rivett-Carnac.
Sat 10th April 1802
HMS Penguin arrived at Mauritius from the Cape in January with news of the peace agreed between France and England. Most people believed the report but the prize-takers and merchants were displeased. Many people on Mauritius have been enriched by war and don’t want it to end. The Mauritians are like the English - having never seen the downside of war, they are willing for it to continue. The Governor has ordered a general illumination of the town (Port Louis) and, uniquely, has warned there is a fine of £50 for non-compliance. His fears were well justified. A large part of the commercial population displayed only a single horn-lamp with a single candle at their doors – the light was barely discernible.
Another celebration ordered by the Governor was a performance of the play ‘the Prisoner.’ The leading actor so travestied his part that the Governor ordered him gaoled for two days. Many of the British prisoners on the island took the opportunity of HMS Penguin’s presence to arrange their repatriation. Others left for the Cape on the American ship Portland. Some others are remaining on the island as they wish to come to India when a ship is available. However, their subsistence allowance of $0.75 per day from the colonial government has stopped with the peace. The commanders and officers of ships taken by privateers get $1.50 - $2 per day from the privateer owners but that payment is supposed to have also stopped.
Sat 10th April 1802
The Prince (Scott) sailed from Madras on 18th Oct 1801 in convoy of HMS Suffolk for Europe. She carried a cargo of French prisoners all reportedly on parole – 47 officers from the garrison at Pondicherry and the Frenchmen taken in the frigate La Chiffone and from the fort of Seringapatam. In addition there were 380 ‘other ranks’ who were confined below at night.
On 28th Oct a storm approached, the crew were ordered aloft to bring-down the sails and most of them were off-deck. The Captain was taking dinner with some of his officers, amongst whom were two of the Frenchmen, M/s Froment and van Ness. Suddenly a group of prisoners appeared, armed with knives and sticks and with the swords of the sentries who had been guarding the storeroom. The diners were overwhelmed and subdued. They discovered that the officers on watch had been taken and the whole crew was confined on the orlop deck.
The leader of the prisoners’ revolt was Pinaud. He said their carriage together with ‘other ranks’ was a breach of proper conditions and justified the officers’ own breach of parole. Dusk fell and no lights were permitted until the ship had drifted away from the convoy. Next morning the Captain estimated the ship was sailing NNE at 7-8 knots. He learned the prisoners had considered going to Mauritius or Reunion or Batavia and ultimately selected the first. All the officers’ servants were released next morning and permitted to provide service.
The Prince eventually made Mauritius on 20th Nov. They were visited by a French officer and invited to land on Cooper’s Island, about two miles from Port Louis. The present governor of Mauritius is Magellan.
The ships’ officers and crew were well cared for by the French and by the two Consuls on the island – Sir Charles Pelgrom, representing Denmark and Austria and Mr Stacey representing America.
Sat 17th April 1802
Sir William Pulteney has proposed closer trade links between London and India as envisaged under Clause 81 of the 1793 Charter. He says the use of India-built ships by British merchants would save money and British timber. By making all India ships call only at London, it would support the merchants of that port. He noted that the restraint on Indian country ships at London had diverted their trade to other ports.
The ministry says it is imperative to use Indian teak in ship construction for the navy. Earl St Vincent has been unequivocal on this subject. The supply of English timber is not restricted by building ships in India. The freight on such ships should provide a great saving to government. The best Calicut teak only costs 30 Rupees per covid. Coir from the Laccadives is 80 Rupees per maund. Malaya Dammer (a vegetable resin used as tar in Indian ship-building) is 25 Rupees per maund (same price as a single barrel of tar).
Lord Glenbervie said India-built ships should have their own register.
Addington seems agreeable to Indian ships being used in private trade - it creates more employment for British seaman although they will mainly be crewed with Lascars. Addington noted the Company had not provided the facilities it was required to provide under the 1793 Act (the opening of Indian trade to British merchants) and this allowed parliamentary intervention to wring concessions from the Company to private traders. The 1793 Charter renewal committed the Company to liberate private trade in India but the Directors have frustrated it at every turn and their decisions are always confirmed by the shareholders. As the Company is implacable and uncompromising, Pulteney made a motion that private trade to Asia be extended by legislation.
History - The first Charter gave exclusive trade to/from India to the Company for the purpose of raising money. Another Company also made the attempt and the two were later joined, whereupon all individuals were excluded from Asian trade as having inadequate capital. The Company then became sovereign over an extent of territory and fell into that inevitable trap of sovereign trade from which no advantage to anyone is derived. Fox had proposed removing control of the Company from the shareholders and vesting it in the government but that was thought to be unconstitutional. Instead Pitt placed the Company under the regulation of a Board of Control which was supposed to direct the Directors by censoring every dispatch sent to India by the Directors.
However the Board had no control over trade unless it affected territorial sovereignty. That was the state-of-play in 1793. It was notorious that great fortunes were made illicitly by employees of the Company (called ‘the nabobs’ in the British press) which they necessarily remitted to Europe through foreign bankers to hid their own venality. These illicit funds enabled the foreign countries receiving them (mainly Denmark and the Netherlands) to expand their own Indian trade to the overall national disadvantage of England.
At the 1793 renewal the Company was vociferously opposed to private trade. The Company’s attitude to private trade was always formally to repudiate it whilst the Governors of India, one after the other, requested greater facilities for private traders to remit their capital to England. In 1798 Wellesley told the Directors he had unavoidably allowed private traders to sent capital to England in India-built ships. No disadvantage occurred to the Company in the result but in 1799 the Directors expressly ordered the Governor not to do it again. They did not assign a reason. That year Wellesley was disabled from permitting it but in 1800 he imperatively needed to do so. The Directors made strong objections and it was clear they intended to cripple private trade in any way that worked. This is why the matter is now before parliament.
The trade of the Company is in two parts – the China trade which was solely commercial and the India trade which, as sovereign, it had always carried on to disadvantage. It was well known that the shipping chartered by the Company was inadequate for the full extent of available trade. Out of the whole trade of Indian goods imported to England, £4.3 millions was re-exported of which £2.2 millions was in the hands of foreigners. Obviously the Company’s commercial regulations leak like a sieve, or enforcement of them is partial, otherwise how could foreigners get such substantial access.
The ministry was not proposing a free trade to/from India but every attempt to loosen Company controls was treated as such. Thus British subjects were denied access whilst foreigners took a large share of the business prohibited to Englishmen. As a result of Company policy, the French port of L’Orient imported £2.5 millions of India goods in 1793. The war has since substantially reduced French trade with India but other foreigners (the Neutrals) still did it whilst British private merchants continued to be excluded by the Company.
The fact is that 30 Directors resolved to exclude the private British merchant from India trade and a Court of 250 shareholders upheld that decision. This act was completely opposed to the advice London receives from every returning Governor of the Indian Presidencies. Henry Dundas, who knows a thing or two about India, holds the same opinions as the Governors.
The Company’s response was threefold with a caveat:
1/ our capital is being increased by £2 millions and these extra funds will permit greater trade for the Company and less for the foreigners;
2/ We cannot do anything immediately until we have more capital. If we take it from our expenditure in other branches of activity, the existing level of British trade will be diminished;
3/ if individual British traders are encouraged, colonisation will ensue and the even tenor of Indian social life will be disrupted by foreign enclaves,
4/ and cave the dangers of permitting large numbers of Lascar crewmen to come to England
Pulteney says the Company has already warded against colonisation. No-one may go to India without a licence from the Company and no-one may own land in India except the Company. The Company says it is by the sacrifice of health of its employees in India that the present level of trade is maintained. It says it is well-known that the Indian climate is unsuitable for British people and they must return to recuperate after a few years. It would appear on its own argument that there is no danger of colonisation.
There would be no difficulty in providing ships with European crews now the war is over and Royal Navy manning is being reduced. It is also the case that fine timbers are available in India at remarkably low prices and the ships built there are of the highest quality and workmanship. Those tropical hardwoods would be welcomed in England where the repair of ships has become a more lucrative business than actually building them. Now we are at peace, we should secure the Indian trade before France makes a return to that market. Pulteney proposed a committee be formed to rigorously examine the situation and Jones seconded.
Pitt said Pulteney had elucidated the situation clearly. He referred to 1793 when the Charter had last been renewed. Prior to that renewal, private trade with India was held to be injurious to British national interests. The 1793 Charter recognised private trade for the first time and permitted it under restrictions. A stated tonnage was required to be provided by the Company for private traders and a mechanism for the Board of Control to adjust that tonnage was also provided. The private trade received no encouragement from the Directors but nevertheless expanded. The increase in 1794 was substantial and in each year since then there had been a slight increase. If private trade was promoted by the Company it would increase very quickly.
Pulteney had used Wellesley’s opinion to promote his argument. Wellesley had encouraged the trade. He had suggested using all the shipping engaged in the expedition to Egypt to carry private trade from India to London when they concluded their military duties. The Directors have agreed to that and in 1802 agreed to authorise the Governor to supply any deficiency in the needs of private traders to carry their goods home. Pitt thought it thus appeared that the private trade was being adequately well cared for until Wellesley’s plan is reviewed. It seems to show that the Directors are willing to assist the private trade. Dundas is an expert on India and he supports private trade too.
Addington said there was a polarisation of opinion, for and against private trade, and the best policy is to compromise in the middle ground between the contending views. Until 1793, the private trade was abandoned to foreigners and that was why L’Orient got so much of it. His main question was whether the Company had given the encouragement to private trade that it was required to give under the Charter. He thought they had not but they might do so in the future. This private trade makes use of capital accumulated by Company employees, civil and military, who invest their wealth either in Company debt paper or in private trade through the Agency Houses. The capital of employees has greatly increased in recent years.8
The private trader requires a licence from the Company which permits him to deal in all the range of fine goods and all the coarse goods (coffee, sugar, indigo, etc.) after the Company has made its own purchases of fine and coarse goods. The Company thus retains the best goods for its own trade. It also restricts trade in military stores like saltpetre to its own account. The Agency Houses of India can buy everything that a foreigner can buy. The only difference is that the foreigner needs no Company licence for his trade.
Addington thought, as a generalisation, that British private traders were not discriminated against and got as good a deal as foreign traders. The importance of Indian trade to England was for our merchants and for our navy. The Directors had assured ministers that they will encourage ship-building in India to take advantage of the low timber prices and labour rates. These ships will be supplied to England where timber has become ruinously expensive (the owners of British forests have cartelised themselves). There was a difference between the Governor-General and Directors on this – the Governor-General wanted India-built ships used for private trade whilst the Directors insist that British-built ships be exclusively used. This difference may be readily resolved by obtaining agreement between the parties to use the cheapest ships, wherever they were built.
Addington wanted to give this plan a chance before re-considering the rights of the private trade of India. He knew the private trade required little capital, involved little risk and produced great profits. The country should focus on retaining profitable business and allow foreigners the less-profitable business. The great attraction to promotion of private trade to India is that it would make London stronger as the exclusive emporium of Indian goods in Europe.
However Addington noted the Directors remained sceptical of the utility of increasing private trade. They said Lascar sailors would cause trouble in London and British traders would emigrate to India and disturb the natives by introducing their own religious and social habits. He thought both fears groundless but he conceded to the Company the right to form its own proposals for a permanent system which would make a basis for discussion.
Johnstone said the concession required of the Company had been mis-stated. It was said the ships that took the expedition to Egypt would suffice for the private trade from India to London in 1802 and 1803. The tonnage sent to Egypt was about 40,000 tons of which half had already returned to India; some other ships were merely local charters and uninvolved in the calculation and what remained would assuredly be inadequate for private trade. He wished to know if the Company was willing to provide other shipping for private trade.
Addington said the Company had agreed to everything it could to ensure adequate shipping was made available.
Johnstone said the plan for private trade has been agitated every year since 1798. It had been allowed in national desperation in 1796 but the Company says private trade will ruin its own business. This whole thing about private trade is just the latest manifestation of the differing interests of the Company and its employees. The staff in India want private trade to grow their own capital; the Directors in London do not for the same reason. The Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to think the private trade of India is merely a remittance trade, a means of transferring accumulated capital from India to England.
Johnstone disputed the minister’s belief that British and foreign traders were on an equal footing in trade. He said the British Agency Houses had a vast array of administrative requirements placed on them by the Company which never inconvenienced the foreign traders. Johnstone opposed colonisation because he feared the natives would learn how we derive our strength and become more ungovernable as a result. They are many and we are few. They might well seek to eject us if they discovered how to do it.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer said the Company would accede to stated terms but would preserve its legal rights.
Wallace characterised the debate as an attack on the Company’s monopoly. The House was being asked to approve a private trade, exclusive of the capital of the Company, which trade was to be brought home in private India-built ships. At present the Company monopolises the trade but private merchants, seeing the fabulous profitability of the monopoly wanted to share in it. This matter is already before the Board of Control but Pulteney has introduced it here and applied for the papers. It looks like an attempt to pre-judge the issue before the results of the Board’s enquiry are available. The Board is not empowered to investigate the Company’s trade but the Board distinguishes the trade of private Britons from the Company’s trade and believes itself authorised to examine the prospects of the former. The Directors see this as a purely commercial question which should not involve the Board (although they refer to the private trade as a matter of great national importance). He concluded that the House was the only forum that could properly resolve the matter.
Sir Francis Baring said the claim to private trade had been made by people who owe everything they own to the Company – like children contending with parents. Baring believed the Directors had been reliable trustees of British interests in Asia. He believed none of the Directors were involved in private trade. The 1793 Charter had sought to encourage export markets for British manufactures and 3,000 tons had been allowed each year. At that time the Directors had offered double if that would satisfy the private traders – they merely wanted to know the limits so they could plan accordingly. The Directors inevitably opposed the use of teak-ships with Lascar crews and preferred British oak-ships with British crews.
The private traders say, if they are indulged, they will capture the trade of foreigners in India and bring it to London. They conceive they would trade more cheaply than the foreigners. This is contentious. We have documents for some shipments that show British private trade is not cheaper than foreign trade – the reverse is the case.
The British merchants also argue that as private trade increases, foreign trade will diminish. The statistics do not support this argument either. The returns for 1799 and 1800 show the private trade increasing but the foreign trade nearly doubled in the same period and both these increases appear to be reflected in diminished Company trade. It is highly arguable that our private trade does not interfere with foreign trade but is taken from the Company’s trade.
Baring also objected to the use of teak ships – the only people to buy large timbers in England is the Company (actually the ship owners who build to the Company’s specifications). The Navy Board offers too little to attract landowners into making the very long investments necessary to harvest large timber (the Navy buys its timber in the Baltic). If the Company stops buying large timbers, no-one will replant the forests and domestic timber will become unavailable in this country. The Company disagreed with Wellesley on this point. The Company always sought to promote the export of British manufactures whenever the natives of India could be induced to take them (even at prime cost).
Metcalfe said that an illegal private trade had existed for years under foreign flags. It was run by Englishmen in India through their connections in London. Austrian, Danish, Tuscan and Genoese ships were used for the trade and, on one memorable occasion, he recalled there had been 50,000 tons of foreign shipping at Calcutta pursuing this private trade. It was only controlled in war by British warships and the Company’s Governor of St Helena who interdicted the trade and confiscated some ships.
Baring observed that Wellesley had been uninformed about India until he got there and he evolved his opinion about private trade within two weeks of arrival. He thought the Governor-General had been imposed upon by certain residents in India who induced his recommendation to the Directors. It is a Chartered right of the Company to insist that no ships be used in Indian trade that are not Company ships.
Dundas did not go so far as Wellesley – he just noted that parliament should discourage British capital being brought home in foreign ships. Baring said the Company’s Directors were principled men and did not act from self-interest. Pitt’s 1793 Act certainly gained important advantages for the Company but he did not like to hear MPs talk of the ‘spirit of the Act’ when the words were precise and clear. This private trade is a backdoor whereby the Company is being divested of its advantages in trade, advantages this House has guaranteed by Charter. The attack was being made by people who owe their fortunes to the Company and to the opportunities they receive from that employment. Baring noted that Charters were commonly disrespected in the British system - a capitalist had recently proposed to establish a new National Bank to rival the Bank of England - perhaps the Charter of the City of London would in future be amended as well, he mused.
The private traders say the Company always objected to teak ships but in point of fact the only two ships that the Company actually owns are both made of teak (they are the Company’s warships. The trading fleet is all chartered shipping, mainly from London ship owners)
Baring concluded by saying that the ministerial approval of this motion was so opposed to the future prospects of the Company that he had been selling off his stock and in the these two weeks had disposed of £20,000.
William Dundas produced papers to suggest that both the private and Company trade had increased of late years. He denied Baring’s suggestion that only one or the other could survive. He noted that at the time Wellesley had been persuaded to recommend opening trade to private merchants, there had been 50,000 tons of foreign shipping at Calcutta and if he had not opened trade to private merchants, everything that season would have been shipped back to Europe in foreign bottoms (he later said the 50,000 tons of shipping was a more recent occurrence noted in the latest accounts of the Company). He concluded by noting that teak was approved for ship-building by the Navy and the Company had offered to ship back to London whatever quantities of teak beams and planks were needed.
Metcalfe spoke again. He said Britain should not exclude foreign shipping from India entirely. Our Navigation Laws have involved us in disputes with every country in Europe and with the Americans and the subject will be discussed in detail in the peace talks. Our decision will influence the likely duration of the peace.
Jones said the situation of the Company, and particularly its debts, required an enquiry. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says the Directors have given every encouragement to private trade but it did not appear to extend to that particular trade envisaged in the 1793 Act. This matter is merely a grievance of the Company’s employees against their employer.
Tierney said Charters are not immutable. The paramount concern is for the interests of the British people as a whole. When the Legislature grants or renews a Charter, it represents the people in achieving a balance of interests. But he did note that the judicial arrangements in India, made subsequent to the Charter, were not found to be sufficient cause to amend the Charter itself but were made the subject of separate legislation. The 1793 Act was clear and competently drafted. That Act left the monopoly with the Company subject to two restrictions:
1/ that the profits of the Company be limited and, when they exceed that limit, the public shares in the excess, and
2/ the provision of 3,000 tons of Company shipping for the imports and exports of the private traders.
The only basis, on which the Legislature might interfere, was if the Company had mismanaged its business and affected the public interest. Tierney said there were about 300 people in the whole country who supported the Company’s view - 250 shareholders supported it and 40-50 others had signed the petition. Apart from them, there were no men of commerce who wanted to disturb the existing arrangements. He had already noted the reluctance of parliament to amend Charters mid-term. The persons who promote the free trade measure are invariably Company employees. They had the usual rights of Englishmen but not to particular favours. They say their trade benefits the public and threaten all sorts of disaster if they are denied.
Pulteney has called Dundas and Wellesley to his support and their opinions carry great weight but Dundas was the author of the measure on which this debate is grounded. Dundas had been wrong in 1793 and there was no particular reason to suppose he is right now. Some of his prophecies were far from fulfilment. Does anyone remember the assertion that the Company would pay £500,000 into the public revenue each year or that, by the end of 13 years, the Company would have an extra £18 millions in its treasury, after paying all its debts (both originating with Dundas)?
Tierney spoke again, His concern was to maintain the master/servant relationship that should exist between an employer and its employees. It appeared to be the ‘shipping interest’ amongst the Directors (those Directors and Shareholders that owned and operated ships chartered to the Company) that promoted the private trade of the employees.9 Once an amendment of a Charter is done, there would be a precedent for doing it again and again. Any argument against monopoly, and generally they are all about ‘cheapness’, would cause another amendment.
Would the private traders confine themselves to the port of London as the Company reliably did? This House will receive applications for free trade in India from Bristol and Liverpool and the Irish ports and they will all have to be admitted.
Can these 300 petitioners really bring all the benefits they say they can? The private trade has already increased from £800,000 in 1793 to £2 millions today. The evils of excessive colonisation were a genuine evil to be guarded against. Free trade will worsen that situation.
We have a huge army in India. What would the commanders think of these arrangements - would they see them as tending to their advantage or not?
The free traders talk of advantages to the mother-country but which country is that? A major part of the advantages would accrue to British merchants in India. This motion will transfer a large part of British ship-building industry to India and all this country would get is the repair business - a trifling amount, he thought. Increasing private trade is too great a concession to properly ask of a Company protected by this Legislature under Royal Charter.
Lord Glenbervie disagreed with Tierney about the freedom of parliament to amend the Charter. The Company had departed from the strict construction of its 1793 Charter as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had already indicated. The Legislature might reasonably emulate the Company in this respect. He did not think there was a likely future shortage of British timber nor that India-built ships were inappropriate to British trade. It is not a matter of cheapness – teak ships were fully equivalent to oak ships. The thing is that, once private trade is legally approved, there can be no telling what will happen. We have procured an indulgence from the Company in respect of private trade for the next two years. This is a great advantage to the private merchants with which they should be satisfied for the time being until it is clear how the measure affects our other interests.
Sir William’s motion was then negatived.
Sat 24th April 1802
Clauses 81, 87, 89, 93, 94 and 103 of the Charter are reprinted in a Bombay Government notice advertising the terms of private trade for the 1802/03 season. These are the clauses permitting a licensed private trade in India.
The freight rates payable by private merchants under this dispensation are contained in separate Indian Regulations and are onerous. The Company’s terms require all trade to be settled long before shipment and no speculations are possible. Private shippers may pay freight in advance or use the Company’s capital and pay a surcharge on delivery at destination. The fee includes high storage costs in the Company’s warehouses and high insurance costs as well as high interest on the loan. Security for the trader’s performance of his contract is required.
The underlying attitude of the Company appears to be that it is granting a favour and that its regulation will increase the private merchant’s prices as much as possible. It warns private traders it will confiscate their securities if they do not precisely perform. It can hardly be said to encourage private trade.
Sat 1st May 1802
The commercial effects of peace are apparent from an article in the Madras papers that refers to the arrival of the French brig La Paix with a cargo of sundries for sale. She is the first French ship for many years.
Sat 8th May 1802
A large increase in the issue of Promissory Notes at Bombay has occurred in April this year. 5,797,506 Rupees were subscribed in 1801-02 and the balance outstanding on all issues in this Presidency is now 11,213,916 Rupees.
Government has paid off Promissory Notes up to 1793/94 year and the outstanding balance post-dates that year. The issue that has attracted most investor attention is the current 8% note.
Over 3 million Rupees of 8%s were sold in April alone.
Sat 22nd May 1802
A year ago the Company sent its two armed cruisers Intrepid (Roper) and Comet (Henry) to the Paracels to survey those dangerous shoals and islands but nothing more has been heard from either ship. We fear the worst.
Sat 22nd May 1802
The French corvette Adele (16) has arrived at Mauritius from France. A group of officials boarded her and ordered the Captain to deliver his dispatches. He arrested the group and detained them whilst he took the dispatches ashore and delivered them to the Governor. He then returned on board and liberated the officials.
The ship brings news of the peace which has been ill-received by the Mauritian merchants. It also reports a force of 3,000 soldiers with a new Governor are on their way to restore Republican virtue to Mauritius. France requires Mauritian exports to be sent in future only to Toulon and Marseilles.
The corvette then left Mauritius for the Seychelles to revive that Colony.
Sat 29th May 1802
Frederick North, Governor of Ceylon, has built a lodge overlooking the pearl fisheries. He intends to live there throughout the harvesting season.
Sat 29th May 1802
The natives of the Celebes (primarily Bugis) have attempted to remove the Company from their islands.
On 1st August last year the Company’s frigate Swift engaged and dispersed 33 large proas. This fleet had landed 1,200 natives and some brass cannon at Amurang, near the tip of the northern peninsula, and was threatening the Company’s settlement.
By its dispersal, the Company’s factories on Celebes have been saved.
Sat 29th May 1802
The Persian ambassador to the Bombay Presidency, Khaleel Khan, arrived on 27th May from Bushire on the Governor Duncan. Duncan is away. The ambassador will be entertained by the Deputy Governor, James Rivett-Carnac.
Sat 29th May 1802
4th May was the anniversary of the fall of Seringapatam, the defeat of Tippoo and our receipt of much of his wealth and territories. The Governor-General gave a breakfast to 700 prominent people of Calcutta in celebration of the event and Government House was opened to their inspection.
The Governor-General wore Tippoo’s Star & Jewels which were taken by our army and gifted to the Governor-General by decision of the Court of Directors.
At Madras Presidency the Governor gave a ball and supper to the British residents in celebration of the same event.
Sat 12th June 1802
The Company is asking investors to lodge their Promissory Notes in its Treasury, whereupon it will automatically pay the interest in Bills on London.
Sat 12th June 1802
Petition – In the summer monsoon we live in temporary huts on the Esplanade. In winter we remove into rented accommodation in Bombay. This year we found all the accommodation in Bombay has been filled as warehouses for cotton or is used to compress bales of cotton. You should not give cotton better housing than you give us.
The increasing wealth of Bombay is causing an increase in population. This is not surprising. These extra people are serving the needs of commerce – that’s why they have come here. They should not be made homeless.
The Company has commenced the territorial arrangements necessary to attach Salsette to Bombay as one settlement. This will make Tannah an attractive emporium for the goods of the North (Surat etc – the source of Mahratta cotton). Please move the cotton warehouses and presses to Tannah to take advantage of its better location. All the cotton you send to China could be loaded in the north of Salsette. This will leave the Bombay accommodations available for us in future as in the past.
Sgd 24 Bombay residents.
Sat 12th June 1802
The Nabob Vizier of Oudh, on the advice of the Governor-General, has appointed Gore Ousley as his Aide-de-Camp.
Sat 19th June 1802
The Bombay Treasury is open for the receipt of money in exchange for 9-12 month Bills on London at the rate 2/6d per Rupee. The Bills pay 5% per annum. Governor Duncan will close this subscription without notice once the necessary (but undisclosed) amount of funds has been received.
(NB – this is in addition to a concurrent advertisement for loans of 1,000+ Rupees to buy the Presidency’s Promissory Notes paying 8% interest)
Sat 19th June 1802
Preferred Cadets for the Company’s military service take the Royal Military Academy course at Woolwich at the Company’s expense before being received in India for the artillery or engineers.10
Cadets for the marines, infantry or cavalry do not need qualifications – they just need Certificates of Appointment issued by the Directors.
Sat 19th June 1802
The Proprietors of the Bombay Courier have bought a complete font of Arabic characters to add to the English and Gujerati fonts they presently use. They offer to print books, pamphlets or advertisements in all three languages.
Sat 19th June 1802
One of the Company’s MPs in the House of Commons has introduced a motion to incorporate Bencoolen within the Madras Presidency. Bencoolen is one of the earliest factories and predates the creation of Presidencies in India.
The Company appoints employees to work at specific factories or Presidencies, they cannot be transferred from place to place because of the seniority qualification for promotion. Under the Company’s present system, if Bencoolen is closed, the employees are effectively deprived of work. The Company wishes to reduce Bencoolen to a mere out-station because it can now achieve the purposes of the settlement by cheaper means.11
To avoid dismissing the redundant staff, the Company has solicited parliament to pass an Act incorporating the Bencoolen staff in Madras Presidency. This Presidency has lately increased in size due to the cessions of Tippoo and the arrangements with the Nizam. These additional lands will require regulating and the ex-Bencoolen staff might be advantageously redeployed in this new employment without much affecting prospects of promotion at Madras. The Bencoolen staff will retain their ranks but will be entered in the employment lists below the people already in the new territories from Madras in that same rank. Those wishing to resign their employment will be pensioned according to the salary attaching to their rank, without adjustment for the salary attaching to their former office. The continuing factory at Bencoolen will be privatised and administered by and responsible to Calcutta.
The Company is trying to economise. One successful initiative is to privatise all the little trading stations around Sumatra like Padang and Tappanooly. They will in future be operated by resident private merchants who buy Company protection, generally 30-40 sepoys and a gunner. This exposes them to occasional attack by French privateers during war, should it recommence, but the initiative of private commerce has caused the cultivation of spices in these little island bases that were formerly only available from the Dutch Moluccas (Celebes). These spice saplings were taken during the brief British occupation of the Spice Islands and planted in most of the Company’s territories. A harvest of spices will make the bases richer and more capable of self-sustainment than they were under the Company’s monopoly.
Sat 19th June 1802
The Parsee, Hindu and Muslim prisoners who are convicted in Bombay courts are commonly transported to Penang or the Andamans to work off their sentences. There is always a need for labour in those islands and its cheaper than imprisoning them. The few serious criminals are executed.
Sat 19th June 1802
Mr W Dundas proposed the incorporation of Bencoolen in the Presidency of Madras. It had been first proposed by the Directors twenty years ago. Bencoolen was established for pepper trade. It costs £19,000 to maintain and produces £6,000 profits. The defeat of Tippoo and our occupation of Malabar has given the Company a monopoly on the finest pepper available. The Bencoolen supply is redundant.
The Company accordingly wishes to remove the staff from Bencoolen to Madras for economy, leaving the private merchants (‘unlicensed interlopers’ they are called) to fend for themselves. But the Directors do not want to entirely abandon Bencoolen as someone else might occupy it. They therefore petition that it be added to Madras.
Since Pitt’s India Act, and its promise of promotion by seniority, the ex-staff at Bencoolen have had an arguable claim to re-employment elsewhere when their factory was abandoned. It was accordingly proposed to bring those 12 Company employees to Madras.
The difficulty is that all Company jobs involve patronage and the Directors cannot simply transfer people without considering the financial implications on the transferred men and on the people at the place to which they are to be transferred. Penang was the obvious place to send these men but the existing staff at Penang would vociferously object. Neither could they be sent to Ceylon because jobs there were in the King’s gift (although the Company pays the bills). The cheapest solution from the Company’s point of view, and this is supposed to be a measure of economy, is to send them to Madras where there are opportunities for their employment in Tippoo’s ceded lands.
Tierney said expenses at Bencoolen had doubled in the last decade. The Company’s staff there should be able to retire on their capital. He opposed sending them to another Company post as it would alarm Company staff who might fear it could happen to them as well.
Sat 26th June 1802
Notice, 11th June 1802 - A quarantine hospital is established on Butcher’s Island for people suffering communicable diseases, particularly plague which generally arrives at Bombay from the Red Sea ports. No other people are to visit the island.
Sat 26th June 1802
The Governor-in-Council has suspended last year’s law (requiring parents of children sent to England for study to pay deposits against unexpected travel expenses to the academy). Any parent who has paid may bring his receipt to the Treasury for a full refund.
Sat 26th June 1802
The dry weather we have experienced this year will have a predictable effect on the grain harvests and on the subsequent health of the Indian community. The Company is slightly prepared for this. It will not tackle speculation which is admittedly too widespread, but it has created a public granary at Patna, a particularly poor area, for the preservation of the natives there. When these farmers’ crops fail they often come into town. We should identify means of employing them so they earn an income and can survive another year.
Sat 3rd July 1802
The army of Egypt is returning to Bombay. Several ships have arrived this week from the Red Sea bringing a battalion of native infantry, artillery and HM’s 84th Regiment. The 86th regiment is daily expected back. The 1st battalion of the 7th regiment of native light infantry is infected with the plague and is in quarantine at Alexandria until the symptoms abate.
Sat 10th July 1802
Letter from Capt Burnsides of the Clyde, 14th April 1802:
The market at Batavia is extremely good for Indian imports. Opium is $1,500 per chest and all sorts of Bengal cloth are selling at good prices too.12
Sat 10th July 1802
Holkar is restoring his finances by predating on the neighbouring native states. Sindhia has ordered General Perron to attack Holkar’s men whenever he can but they run away on the approach of an army and only attack defenceless towns and villages. The Grand Mughal says it is the will of Allah.
Sutherland, a cavalry officer seconded to Sindhia, has taken offence at something Sindhia or Perron said and has left camp for Agra with 100 horse. Colonel Collins has likewise left Sindhia. He got valuable presents on his departure.
Sat 10th July 1802
Peace in Europe seems to mean peace in Malabar. Tippoo’s government at Mysore has continually promoted dissent in the lands he ceded to the Company and we have constantly opposed these dissenters militarily (Tippoo’s cessions to the Company in 1791 totalled 21,589 sq mls which (added to the Company’s existing holdings in 1783 of 182,122 sq mls) is an increase of over 10%.
Since then we have got most of the rest of his lands but those additions have not yet been surveyed. Now with the publication of peace and the certainty that France will not be coming to his rescue, Tippoo seems to have acquiesced in his fate. Rebellion in the ceded province of Malabar is fading.
Sat 7th Aug 1802
Promissory Notes sold in Bombay this year now approach 6 million Rupees in value. It is several times more than was sought in previous years. Total Presidential indebtedness for Promissory Notes at Bombay now stands at 11 million Rupees.
The Company always sets the exchange and interest rates for its loans – not so the British Navy, they simply advertise for money in exchange for Navy Bills and ask tenderers to indicate how much they will loan and at what exchange rate. The controls of public money are more relaxed than Company money.
Sat 7th Aug 1802
James Smith left India in July 1802 and his interest as a partner in M/s Smith Forbes & Co ceased at the end of that month. Concurrently his brother William Smith joined the partnership and the name was reversed to Forbes Smith & Co. The continuing partners are Charles Forbes, James Kinloch and William Smith.
Sat 7th Aug 1802
The Danish ship Nancy has arrived from Europe and is selling a cargo of French wines and cambric and some garden seeds at the Danish warehouse in Bombay.
Sat 7th Aug 1802
The Company’s cruiser Mornington visited Rangoon in June and landed Lt Colonel Symes on a further mission to the Burmese government. He is returning to Ava.
Sat 7th Aug 1802
Several of the English at Rangoon are building ships in the river. About five ships have been completed this summer.
Sat 14th Aug 1802
Early in July two French ships arrived at Mauritius from respectively Bordeaux and Marseilles. A week later a frigate arrived with a new Governor and 300 troops. He says more troops are on the way.
Neither reports of the signing nor of the ratification of the definitive treaty of peace has yet been published on the island.
Sat 14th Aug 1802
A considerable quantity of specie has been imported to Calcutta on the Lady Burgess and the Baring. Much of it is for the government.
Sat 14th Aug 1802
Overstraaten, the Governor-General of Java, says infectious disease has reduced during the last three years as a result of draining the marshes surrounding Batavia. The Dutch are clever at that sort of thing. Not only has disease reduced but the Dutch have created huge new areas for arable development.
Sat 14th Aug 1802
The Royal Military College has occupied a large house at Great Marlow, Bucks, for the education of 100 students.
Thirty cadets will be the sons of officers who died or were wounded on H M’s service. They will be boarded, lodged, clothed and educated free.
Twenty cadets will be the sons of serving officers. They will pay £40 per annum for their education.
Thirty will be sons of nobles and twenty will be sons of Company employees. All candidates will require a good knowledge of the ‘three R’s’. Entrance is by examination and interview.
They will be instructed in both military science and languages. The Company’s cadets will study oriental languages. The maximum length of instruction is four years. The authority under which the College is established is the War Office.
Sat 14th Aug 1802
The Bombay Courier is now printed for the Proprietors by Moroba Damotherjee Prahboo of 7 Forbes Street.
Sat 21st Aug 1802
London, 1st Feb 1802 - John Forbes and Thomas Wilkinson, late of Bombay, with Thomas Redhead late of Calcutta and Henry Redhead late of Madras have formed a partnership in London called Redhead & Co.
They undertake not to involve themselves as principals in ship-owning or trade and offer their Agency service in London to export-import companies in India.
Sat 21st Aug 1802
The Indian rice that the Company shipped to London and sold in response to the bounties on grain totalled nearly 100,000 bags. This is the greatest import of anything from India in the history of the Company.
The Transport Board has chartered 50 ships to carry the 15,000 French prisoners back across the channel to France.
The death penalty for crimes has largely been abolished in America. They prefer imprisonment. This flows from the benevolence of their government.
Sat 21st Aug 1802
Letter to the Editor, 20th August - Two or three years ago we had a spate of ship fires in Bombay harbour that were traced to crewmen who did not want to go to China and, having received their four months imprest in advance, preferred to fire the ships and stay here to spend the money. It struck at our cotton trade which was consequently diminished. The Company resolved that problem by enacting law that seamen who had received their imprest, but did not subsequently sail, would work-off the payment in the Company’s docks or elsewhere.
Now Lowjee Family, Ardaseer and Anna are hurriedly loading cotton to make a quick voyage to China before the winter monsoon. These hurried circumstances will encourage a repetition of the previous arson. The Gunjava, which has just sailed for China, had a lucky escape in discovering an attempt to fire her cargo before it had gained a firm hold.
Our local insurance cover has been extended to commence ‘from the time the goods are shipped’ instead of the old ‘from commencement of the voyage’ so the shippers are not on risk any more – it’s the insurers, although they are charging no additional premium for the increased risk.
I think we should revive the previous law requiring alternative employment of sailors who do not sail as contracted.
Sat 28th August 1802
This week the Lydia Elizabeth (Bock) arrived from Batavia which port she left on 17th June. She says opium was selling at $760 cash per chest and cotton piecegoods had advanced 60% on last season. The Polly (Hitchins) sold its cargo at Batavia with great advantage too. The other ships at Batavia were a Dane King of Denmark (Agerberg), three Dutch, three Prussian and one Hamburg (all from Europe) and five English - Eliza, Crescent, Houghton, Madras and Friendship which all arrived via India.
Sat 4th Sept 1802
The export of grain from Bombay is allowed from 3rd Sept. Bombay is to be a grain emporium. People who have previously imported grain to Bombay may continue to do so or re-export it as their self-interest dictates.
Sat 11th Sept 1802
Bombay news:
On 20th July we accidentally shot the Persian Ambassador to Britain. He was Hadji Kaleel Cawn. He was making a formal visit to India and had been given quarters at Massagong near Bombay where a corps of Bengal Volunteers was sent to guard him. A dispute arose between our soldiers and the Ambassador’s servants. It became violent and ultimately involved firearms. The ambassador and his nephew Aga Mohamed Hussein came out with their attendants to quell the disturbance and they were both shot by our chaps. It was an accident. We thought they were servants as well. Four of the Ambassador’s entourage were killed and his nephew and five more servants were wounded.
A Court of Enquiry has been established at Bombay to investigate. Major John Malcolm, the Governor-General’s private Secretary, will chair the Enquiry. He is coming post-haste to Bombay. Lt Charles Paisley will be Secretary to Malcolm.
On 17th Sept Governor-General Wellesley issued a public apology for the death together with a response from the nephew Aga Hussein, merely saying he was recovering from his wounds and would reply later.
(NB – the late Ambassador’s nephew Aga Hussein eventually recovered and hosted an entertainment at Government House featuring Persian dancers, singers and fire-eaters.)
Sat 18th Sept 1802
Lord Glenbervie has asked parliament to enquire into the Company’s terms for granting of licences to people to trade in the East. The Company’s requirements are inscrutable, he says.
Sat 9th Oct 1802
India news:
Government Notice - Restatement of the British navigation law. This enacts that all trade imported to or exported from a British port (including colonial ports) by a British ship, requires such ships to have a British captain and 75% British crew. All coasting trade from a British port shall be done in British ships with British captains and entirely British crews. British fishing ships may have 25% foreign crews for the purpose of instructing the 75% British crew how to cure fish. Disobedience risks confiscation of cargo and ship.
Sir William Syer, Recorder of Bombay, has died after a short illness (this edition of the newspaper has a black border).
Sat 9th Oct 1802
There is a powerful body of Indian Agency Houses who assert their right to transport the surplus trade of India to England in India-built ships. They say freight on the 3,000 tons allowed to private merchants by the Company is far more expensive than freight on foreign or India-built ships.
They say the quantity of shipping space provided is adequate. They merely wish to export any of those goods that are not included in the Company’s investment. They are willing to permit the Company to control the timings of shipments so as not to interfere with the Company’s sales in London. They say the capital of the Company is inadequate to engross the entire Asian export market, which has increased beyond the Company’s ability to monopolise it. They object to the proscription on India-built ships trading to England.
They say, if the Company does not realistically address this matter, the trade will be driven further into foreign hands (as was the case before the war and will soon become the case again) and those ships will take the goods to Copenhagen, Hamburg and Amsterdam depriving London of the Customs duty. They note that no free merchant may reside in India without a licence from the Company, which licence controls the extent and nature of his permitted trade although foreigners are not similarly restricted.
The Company says allowing India-built ships (necessarily with Lascar crews) into London is contrary to the Navigation Acts. They say if permission was granted it would lead to the establishment of businesses in London specifically for this trade and would open Asia in the same way the West Indian trade has been opened, which would be inconsistent with the shareholders’ Chartered monopoly.
They say if the trade was allowed, it would lead to colonisation of Asia by Englishmen whereas it has been consistent Company policy to discourage colonisation to protect the culture of Indian natives.
The difficulty is in finding a way that promotes British trade in Asia without advancing the trade of the foreign factories along the coast. One possibility is permission to country ships, under the control of the Company, to carry this trade. That should satisfy both parties but the Company would have to moderate its freight rates to make it work.
Sat 16th Oct 1802
Before an Indiaman leaves London for India or China, the Captain and Purser must attend India House and the former swears an Oath of fidelity to the Company before taking leave of the Directors. The Captains receive last-minute instructions and the Pursers receive dispatches.
Wed 20th Oct 1802 Extraordinary
The Company’s Directors have discussed private trade to India. It has grown greatly in recent years. The permission to send Indian-built ships to London is revoked with the peace and the Directors are discussing the situation with the Earl of Dartmouth who is now President of the Board of Control. The Board is not supposed to interfere in the Company’s commercial affairs, but Dundas, who is trusted by the Directors, has been spearheading the introduction of private trade into India. The City bankers want a share of the trade-financing business and all the London merchants think Indian imports and exports can be greatly increased.
The Company takes its traditional view. Profits from the tea trade are actually sufficient for its commercial endeavours. Growth of Indian exports is inconvenient because the Company needs to match the quantity of British imports to ensure a balanced trade. The Company needs to establish its view that British imports to India cannot be increased – they are items for the expatriate British whose numbers it intends to keep constant. It knows cheap Indian exports of cotton and indigo would be attractive in London, but they would disrupt the existing trade in those commodities with America and Spain and that might attract those Liverpool and London Houses to look for alternative profits in India. If it can obtain general agreement in London for the position there is no realistic expectation of increasing British exports to India, it automatically avoids discussion on increasing the return trade - for no-one wants to increase Indian imports to London if it means exporting gold and silver to settle the trade balance, which will draw the attention of the City and ultimately the Ministry if not redressed. Thus exporting Indian goods to London will bring about the opening of Indian trade to all-comers.
There is a course of dealing established between the Company and the City which is based on mutual non-interference and helps each party to regulate its market in a predictable way. Therefore the Company will not stimulate Indian exports.13
Wed 20th Oct 1802 Extraordinary
On 7th Oct a battle occurred between Holkar’s army and the Peshwa’s. The latter was heavily defeated but managed to preserve its colours. Holkar deployed a immense cavalry (100,000 horse is reported in the paper!) and that decided the contest.
Sindhia’s infantry fought well for the Peshwa but was unsuccessful. The Peshwa has fled Poona leaving Jeffwant Rao Holkar in possession.
Sat 23rd Oct 1802
Paris, 20th June - The French government is expected to permit free trade to India. It recognises that the merchants are the best judges of commerce and they are, to a man, in favour of free trade. Its not just the merchants of the ports. The people of Lyons deplore the granting of exclusive privileges too. They say all the monopoly companies of the last century have lost money and failed and the English only maintain theirs by mingling the profits of territory with the profits of commerce. The most extensive trade France ever did in Asia was through private merchants at L’Orient during 1775 – 79.
The monopoly companies inevitably sacrifice their national interest to the personal interest of their Directors and staff. So far as manufacturing is concerned the monopoly companies only buy best quality and leave the inferior stuff alone but the private merchants find buyers for everything. They also import Indian produce at cheaper prices than monopoly companies.
Sat 23rd Oct 1802
Government Notice in English, Gujerati and Persian - A European or Indian translator of Marathi language is required to serve our new administration in Malabar.
N B - There was a young English chap doing it before (the late Arthur Forbes Mitchell) but he was poached by one of the Agency Houses.14
Sat 30th Oct 1802
The body of the Persian ambassador whom we killed on 20th July, has been embalmed and is being sent back to Bushire. The carrying ship Ravensbourne will be convoyed by the Company’s frigate Bombay. Some 70 Persians, part of his retinue, accompany the body. He will be interred at Najaf.
Sat 6th Nov 1802
To celebrate peace with France the 1st December has been declared Thanksgiving Day in India and Britain.
Sat 6th Nov 1802
A six mile canal has been dug behind Madras to provide a route for the introduction of local supplies to the town. It runs from Moodookrishna’s choultry to the north-west of Black Town and took only 9 months to complete. It is 40 feet wide and 12 feet deep. Two 60 foot roads have been built, one at either side. There are two drawbridges and 17 drains. It will be called the Lord Clive Canal. This should reduce the cost of local provisions at Madras.
Sat 27th Nov 1802
Notice, 23rd Nov - The exclusive fishing rights at Breach Water are for lease from the Company for 3 years. Apply to the Collector for details.
Sat 4th Dec 1802
The garrison of Bencoolen (Fort Marlborough) has returned to Calcutta in the Peggy (Adams). Colonel Clayton, Capts Gillies & Best and some 400 troops and camp followers were on board. They left Bencoolen on 6th Sept but took over six weeks to get back. This will likely elicit a protest from the free English merchants who remain at Bencoolen and are now unprotected at that port.
Sat 11th Dec 1802
The Governor-General issued new instructions for the private trade of India to/from England on 10th Nov. The advert is appended. It was published in English without Gujerati or Persian versions:
As much tonnage as the private merchants require will be provided to them by the Company. These ships will repeatedly be used for carriage of private trade. They will not be commandeered by the Company for any reason. They will depart throughout the sailing season. They must be registered in Bengal.
The Company reserves 1% of the cargo space to its own use for which it will pay freight of £10 10.0d per ton payable in 60-day Sight Bills on delivery at St Helena. Every ship must carry and deliver the Company’s dispatches to St Helena and London free of charge.
All Indian goods may be exported to England except piecegoods and saltpetre (which require a Company licence). No Chinese tea, raw silk or nankeens may be exported. British exports will be received in the Company’s warehouses in India and Indian exports delivered to the Company’s warehouses in London. They will be sold by the Company. The Company’s fee for landing, warehousing and selling private goods in London is 3% ad valorem.
No passengers may be carried without the Company’s licence.
Any British goods may be brought back to India except arms, ammunition and military stores. Ship owners are to employ as many British sailors as available and top-up with Lascars or natives of Asia or Africa. Ship-owners undertake to bring back all such Asians to India unless they are dead.
If private merchants cannot fill a ship, the Company will complete its lading with gruff goods on its own account.
Only properly registered traders in India are qualified to engage in this trade.
The ships will be built either in England or India and the Company will contract with the owners for eight voyages. The ships will be constructed in conformity with the Company’s present requirements for ships carrying gruff goods. Ships already built may partake in the trade but only for two voyages and provided they do not exceed the freight rate paid by the Company for similar ships. The Company will also sub-charter whole ships to private merchants at cost price.
All the ships that conveyed the Madras/Bombay/Ceylon army to Egypt may sail to London this season with private cargoes under the same terms as issued previously (the 3,000 ton arrangement)
Sat 11th Dec 1802
Byramjee Jamsetjee has cut his throat. He owned and operated a shop in Hummum Street and his business appeared moderately profitable. He was a diligent trader until a few days before his death when he sank into a depression.
Sat 18th Dec 1802
Rangoon is becoming an important ship-building port since the demise of Pegu. It gets fine timber down the river and is ideally suited to construct ships. Johnstone and Capt Roberts have just completed building theirs; Capt Wiltshire and M/s Grant and Bushby are still building. A Persian and an Arab are also laying down hulls.
Sat 1st Jan 1803
Notice – Charles Joseph Briscoe and Stephen Beaufort of Bombay have contracted with M/s Short & Short of London for Agency business. They will trade at Bombay under the style Short, Smith & Co.
(This is a subsidiary of Forbes Smith & Co created to partake in the increased private trade between India and London)
Sat 1st Jan 1803
This edition of the Bombay Courier contains a list of MPs returned to the 2nd parliament of the United Kingdom. The Irish parliament is merged in the British parliament and the country renamed as United Kingdom. There is also a list of the ships chartered by the Company for the coming season and their owners, etc.
Sat 8th Jan 1803
The Treaty of Amiens concluding war with France confirms British sovereignty over Ceylon. This gives us a monopoly of the valuable cinnamon trade which produces 5,000 bales a year. Cinnamon is popular in the German states which trade was formerly engrossed by the Dutch. Now we will be able to improve our connections with German merchants by offering cinnamon.
The evacuation of Amboinya and Banda required under the Treaty means we lose the monopoly of nutmegs, mace and cloves but all those spices have been transplanted to other British Asian possessions (as indeed has cinnamon). The mace saplings we imported into India are beginning to grow well.
Sat 8th Jan 1803
HMS Albatross has arrived at Calcutta with a large amount of specie for one of the British merchant banks.
Sat 8th Jan 1803
The new arrangements for private trade between London and India include some restrictions. The Company’s regulations are long and detailed. Principally the Company want the private merchants to take bagged sugar and saltpetre to London as ballast and one third of their lading will be in these commodities. There is a long list of fines and forfeits for a variety of acts that the Company feels may threaten its monopoly.
It also requires private merchants to build the necessary ships to a design fixed by Company regulation. They will be chartered to the Company for 8 voyages. The freight rates for all common Indian exports are fixed. The Company reserves the right to employ the ship on its first voyage on a trip to Calcutta, Madras etc to collect cargo for England.
Expressions of interest are required before 5th Feb 1803.
Sat 15th Jan 1803
Mrs Carnac, widow of the General, is leaving Bombay and selling off her lovely house in the Malabar Hills (called Breach Candy or Cambala) together with contents. It has an extensive plantation of dates and there are large mango and other fruit orchards. She will assist purchasers with a 50% mortgage if required.
Sat 29th Jan 1803
A trading house in London has circulated the opinion to its constituents that India-built ships, shortly to commence private trade to London, are most likely to be put up for sale in London once their cargoes are offloaded in view of the considerable enhancement of their value in Europe.
The West India merchants are very partial to teak-built ships and they are also considered suitable for Baltic trade. Three or four teak-built India ships have already been seen in London (prizes from the French) and were sold at auction for high prices. These however were 200-300 tons whereas the Company is necessarily assisting the British ship-building cartel and has required the new buildings to all be a minimum of 550 tons – too big for either West Indies or Baltic ports.
3% consols are at 69¼.
Sat 5th Feb 1803
The freight rate this year for private traders’ cargo to London on Indiamen is fixed at £7.10.0d per ton outbound to India and £17.10.0d homebound to London. Freight homewards on extra ships is set at £12 per ton.
Note
The effect of the cash shortage in London is revealed by the increased extent of issues of Promissory Notes in Bombay, probably in the other Presidencies as well. Normally Bombay sales total less than a million Rupees a year. In 1801/2 they totalled 6 millions and in 1802/3 they were 5 millions. This, together with the enormous hit on the Nabob of Oudh, has enabled the Company to ship over £1 million in specie to London, independent of the surplus derived from the favourable balance on the Far East trade.
Wed 9th Feb 1803 Extraordinary
The Company is re-advertising its request for loans. The present subscription is extended until 30th April 1803. Send multiples of 100 rupees and the Company will issue 8% Promissory Notes with interest payable half-yearly payable in cash or 12-month Sight Bills on London at 2/6d per rupee.
Payment may be in cash, Treasury Bills, Bills of Exchange or by transfer of any other form of Company debt. A discount of 2% is available on all these forms of payment; however, payment by transfer of the 6% loan notes will earn a 5% discount.
Sat 19th Feb 1803
Notice, 12th Feb 1803 - Wm Smith (the new entrant to the partnership) is obliged by family concerns to return to Europe. He has sold his interest in Forbes Smith & Co to the continuing partners Charles Forbes and James Kinloch. The business will continue as Forbes & Co
Sat 26th Feb 1803
The Portuguese ship Luconia (da Costa) has arrived at Calcutta from Manila with a large shipment of South American specie for individuals and Agency Houses in settlement of their trade balances.
Sat 5th Mar 1803
Lt Colonel P B Watson has lost a Company’s 8% loan note for 50,000 Rupees (c. £5,000 – a few year’s pay). The bond will be cancelled and a replacement issued after ten months.
Sat 5th Mar 1803
Lt Colonel Symes with his suite and the military escort have all returned from Ava to Calcutta on the Mornington.
Sat 5th Mar 1803
Sir Frederick North’s Proclamation of 29th Jan 1803 (published in the Madras Gazette of 15th Feb 1803):
Since Ceylon was occupied by England, I have tried to preserve friendship with the King of Kandy but his emissaries to British settlements create animosity to our rule. In March and April 1802 some merchants from Putelam, in the British part of the island, bought Rix $2,920 of areca nuts in Kandy. When they arrived at Cakanaculi the nuts were stolen from them under the authority of the King of Kandy.
Our investigation revealed the Putelam merchants had acted correctly and respectfully throughout and the theft was due solely to the venality of the King.
I sent a remonstrance to Kandy and in October 1802 received acknowledgement of the justice of my complaint and a promise of reparation. We agreed that the Putelam merchants should return to Cakanaculi to get their goods. They waited 35 days there before being told they should return again in January 1803 when they would be satisfied with a fresh supply from the new harvest.
At about the same time the King wrote me (14th Nov) that the original nuts had been sold and an equal quantity was being sought to compensate the merchants. I sent a local chap to Cakanaculi on 14th Jan 1803 as my Commissioner. That was the time the replacement nuts were expected to arrive there. He was told the nuts would be available in a couple of months. He replied that the time of delivery had already been fixed by the King and demanded monetary compensation. This was refused and bodies of Kandian troops began to assemble.
I determined to meet force with force and sent the King an ultimatum to that effect. In the interim I have ordered my troops in Kandian territories to exercise restraint, respect Buddhism and protect any people not in arms against us.
Sat 12th March 1803
The London partnership of Redhead & Co, which offers Agency services to Indian exporters, has admitted Josias du Pre Porcher to the partnership and wef 12th March 1803 will be known as Porcher Redhead & Co., East India Agents of Devonshire Square.
Sgd Thomas Redhead (late of Calcutta), John Forbes (late of Bombay), Thomas Wilkinson (late of Bombay), Henry Redhead (late of Madras) and Josiah du Pre Porcher (late of Madras)15
Sat 12th March 1803
The members of the Purvoe caste are litigating in the Recorder’s Court. A few months ago the Company auctioned their church to recover a debt and the buyer demolished the structure. The buyer is also a Purvoe and it is the other members of the sect that are suing him.
(the Recorder’s judgment is not published)
Sat 12th March 1803
Two British army units are converging on the Kingdom of Kandy to enforce the ultimatum in Governor North’s Proclamation. General MacDowell’s force has reached Kattadenia on the Kandian frontier whilst Lt Colonel Barbut’s force is marching from Trincomalee.
Sat 12th March 1803
NB - For several months there has been an exodus of British residents, sailing back to London from India. This week there are another 30-odd people going. Its whole families, not just individuals. The Editor of Bombay Courier merely lists the departing people by name but gives no hint of their reasons for leaving.
Sat 19th March 1803
A letter from Mauritius dated 8th Jan 1803 says the people deported from France and transported to the Seychelles have been causing trouble there. The natives complain the ex Prince of Hesse has been robbing the men and ravishing the women. All except a few quiet banishees are now expelled from Seychelles and have been sent to Malindi, East Africa.
Sat 19th March 1803
The British invasion of Kandy is progressing. General Hay MacDowell has written Governor North on 19th Feb that he has engaged and defeated Kandian armies at Galle, Gederah and Geriagamme. He expects to reach Katoogastotte tomorrow. He has no news from Lt Colonel Barbut’s detachment.
Sat 26th March 1803
The King of Kandy and his minister fled their capital after firing the palace and several temples. General MacDowell arrived 20th Feb and found the town deserted. He has put out the fires but most buildings are totally damaged. The palace was built of white chunam and had stone doorways.
The palace was immense and was comparable in extent to Seringapatam. In one room he found an enormous seated Buddha made of brass and two smaller Buddhas seated before it. The river flowing through Kandy is full of fish as the people are vegetarians. A herd of milk-white deer were found grazing in the palace grounds.
MacDowell reports that Kandy is one of the finest countries in the world. The valleys are full of fruit trees, the foot paths are numerous and well-trodden and the mountains are cultivated right to the summits.
Most of the houses are made of dried mud and raised off the ground by five feet. You ascend a short staircase to enter them. The richer houses are whitewashed and tiled.
The King removed his treasure when he fled and the army has no prize money. Very few valuable things have been discovered by the officers.
Sat 26th March 1803
The first 14 of the 10% Promissory Notes issued 1st August 1799 in respect of receipt of 143,490 Rupees have been lost and the holder Daniel Seton has applied for replacements.16
Sat 2nd April 1803
A naval expedition has returned to Bombay from the North (Surat etc) where it has been attacking pirate’s villages and destroying their boats. In an attack on the fort above Bate a European was seen amongst the defenders. It was supposed he was one of the 4-5 Frenchmen reportedly involved with the pirates.
Sat 16th April 1803
Our new Governor of Ceylon has visited some of the lands taken from the late King of Kandy. We have the whole island now. The King has fled and we are fixing a treaty with his former minister whom we have recognised as the chief of Kandy.
The headmen of the towns and villages in the Kandian territories have submitted to the Company. Some of the officers of the King have taken advantage of the truce offered to them and submitted to us as well.
Sat 16th April 1803
The Clyde (Slater) has arrived at Calcutta and reports the price of opium at Bencoolen and along the west coast of Sumatra is $700 per chest.
Sat 16th April 1803
Letters from St Helena of 10th Dec 1802 say the negroes and Malays on the island have become seditious and tranquillity is threatened.
Sat 16th April 1803
Reports from London say Lord William Bentinck is appointed Governor of Madras. He will be attended by W Dowdeswell as Private Secretary and Major H Monson as Aide-de-Camp.
Sat 16th April 1803
The Batavian Republican government has appointed a seven-man committee to report on the East India trade which the Dutch are about to recommence. The committee is comprised of Nederburgh the VOC’s lawyer, two civil servants, two Amsterdam merchants, a representative of the Surinam Society and a naval captain.
Sat 23rd April 1803
Government Notices:
The farm for collecting tolls to cross the Sion Causeway (that connects Bombay Island to Salsette Island) will be auctioned on 29th April for one year commencing 1st May. All people, animals, carts and carriages and cargo of all descriptions are liable to pay the toll. The Company’s civil and military officers are exempt from payment. Children are exempt. The successful bidder will be required to provide security for performance. He must pay the rent quarterly with the 1st instalment on 1st August. Any overcharging of customers will be fined at 50 times the overcharge and paid to the complainant. The requirement of Pass Notes to travel from one island to the other is ended except for people travelling to Salsette to take ship to the Maratha states. They are still required to obtain Passes. A policeman will stand duty at both ends of the Causeway to maintain Law & Order.
The monopoly on the ferry service to Tannah and Mandavim will be relet on 26th April. Apply to the Bunder Customs House for information.
(NB – both the above advertisements are in English and Gujerati)
Sat 23rd April 1803
Lost – a Malabari slave boy about 10-12 years old. Speaks Malabari, Persian and English. Answers to Edward or Cassuo. Wearing a green jacket with yellow collar, nankeen pantaloons and white waistcoat. Reward available.
Sat 4th June 1803
The Bombay Government’s issue of 8% Promissory Notes produced about 6 million Rupees in 1801-02 and 5.3 million in 1802-03. The total Presidency loan outstanding at end May is 15,121,182 Rupees.
Sat 4th June 1803
Lord William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, 2nd son of the 3rd Duke of Portland, will marry one of Lord Gosport’s daughters before sailing to India in Feb 1803 to assume the government of Madras.
Sat 11th June 1803
The Company’s extra ship Experiment, 549 tons, is available for private traders to ship goods to London. The freight rate is £11 per ton. The ship will sail for Europe as soon as she has a full lading. Send in your tenders before 24th June, ‘first come, first served.’ All other terms are the same as in our Notice of 11th August 1802.
Sat 18th June 1803
Bombay Government Notice, 17th June 1803 – Tenders are invited for the construction of a complete set of barracks for a European regiment within the walls of the fort, including officers quarters, regimental storeroom, guard room and hospital. Two securities are required to guarantee performance.
Sat 2nd July 1803
The Company’s Directors have given a grand dinner to Lord William Bentinck at the London Tavern on the eve of his departure for Madras.
Sat 16th July 1803
The monopoly for supply of arrack at Caranja is for sale on 25th July at Government House. The farm lasts for three years from 1st August. Conditions available from the Government Secretary.
(advert in English, Gujerati and Parsee)
Sat 23rd July 1803
India Gazette, Calcutta – The last Company opium sales produced an average of 1,350 Sicca rupees per chest but our goods are refused on the coast of Borneo, even when offered at only $650 Spanish. The chiefs there suppose our merchants are cheating them. They do not believe we paid the equivalent of nearly $600 per chest to buy.
One chest was sold in Malacca and a few more in Penang where the buyers were paying $750 –780 but at Batavia opium was selling only in barter for pepper (at notional values of $910 per chest and $13 per picul i.e. 70 piculs of pepper per chest). Our piecegoods are selling cheaper in the East than they do here. It seems peace has diminished the proceeds of trade.
Sat 23rd July 1803
Notice, 20th July – The Company is selling nine month Sight Bills on the Directors in London. The term may be extended unilaterally to 12 months with 5% interest paid for the extra period. Send your money to the Treasury before 10th August.
Sat 30th July 1803
The Governor-in-Council has extended the jurisdiction of the Company’s Courts at Salsette and Caranja to Bancoote and its dependencies.
All future disputes in Bancoote will be heard at the Company’s Court. An appeal to the Suddar Adawlut is available for Marathas.
Sat 6th August 1803
There was a general Meeting of Shareholders of the Company on 13th April at India House to elect six Directors to replace those obliged to retire by rotation. The six candidates approved by the Directors for office are Simon Fraser, Charles Mills, Thomas Parry, Abraham Robarts, George Tatem and David Scott (who has since excluded himself).
The five candidates put-up by the external (non-Director) shareholders are John Huddleston, John Bebb, John Inglis, Richard Chicheley Plowden and Thomas Reid. The ballot was huge with over 1,700 votes being received. The count lasted all night. The successful candidates were Fraser, Mills, Parry, Robarts, Huddleston and Plowden.
Thereafter the Court of Directors elected Bosanquet as Chairman and Robarts as vice-Chairman for the next year.
Sat 13th August 1803
The French people of Mauritius are divided into three groups.
The landed interest has been ruined by war. The costs of their estates and the maintenance of the slaves has continued but the produce cannot easily be sold with an English frigate cruising off Port Louis. They are uniformly against war.
The urban population of Port Louis on the other hand has drained the wealth of the island and remitted it for Indian trade. These investments ultimately end-up in Europe and impoverish Mauritius.
The third group is comprised of adventurers and speculators who operate both privateers and the slave trade with Madagascar. They get rich and poor in turns.
Sat 13th August 1803
There has been large imports of silver to British India this year. Our circulating medium should become more free. The Bengal indigo and cotton crops are good and a bumper harvest is expected.
Sat 13th August 1803
The garrison we left in Kandy has been massacred by the natives. It was comprised of HM’s 19th Regiment, the 51st Foot and the Malay Regiment.
They capitulated to the natives and obtained agreement for their evacuation to Trincomalee with their arms and ammunition but were cut down as soon as they exited the fort. Only a few officers survived.
The small garrison at Dambadenia is also under attack and a relief column is marching from Colombo.
Sat 20th August 1803
His Highness the Nizam Ali Khan, the Mughal’s Viceroy of the Deccan (based at Hyderabad), died on 6th August. He is succeeded by his son Sikander Jah.
Sat 20th August 1803
The French ship-of-the-line Marengo has arrived at Pondicherry with a fleet of 3 heavy frigates and a corvette. They disembarked the army officers and the wives of the naval officers, together with the money they had brought, and immediately put to sea again.
Wed 24th Aug 1803 Extraordinary
Castlereagh spoke in the Commons about the Company’s shipping. They charter 90,000 tons and employ 10,000 seamen. The Company routinely charters ships for six voyages as required by an Act of Parliament but many of the ships were useful for longer periods. These ships are huge (generally 800 - 1,200 tons with a few of 500 tons). They are intentionally built big to make them unsuitable for any other trade.
This was wasteful and better charter hires could be had if the ships were of a common design and size and if the number of voyages was increased. He wished to amend an Act of the 39th George III to accommodate these changes.
The Speaker said it would have to be considered by the House in Committee which could be done the next day.
Sat 27th August 1803
The Rev John Thompson’s School at Kensington near London offers board and education to the children of Company servants at six Guineas entrance fee and thirty five Guineas a year. Staying at school during holidays one Guinea a week. Single bed five Guineas a year. Bring your own sheets, towels and cutlery.
The general stream teaches English, French, Writing, Arithmetic, Latin and Greek. The Science stream teaches Book Keeping, Mathematics, Geography, Military exercise, Dancing, Drawing, Fortifications and Public Speaking. These special subjects cost one Guinea per quarter each.
We also offer Italian for two Guineas and Fencing for three Guineas. Etc.
Sat 3rd Sept 1803
The Company’s extra ship Huddart will shortly be dispatched to London. Private merchants wishing to ship goods should notify their requirements to government by 9th Sept. No tea, China raw silk or nankeen cloth may be shipped (the Company’s most lucrative China monopolies). If anyone applies for space and does not load their goods they must still pay the freight.
Sat 3rd Sept 1803
31st August – Forbes & Co has today admitted David Inglis as a partner of Charles Forbes and James Kinloch. The trading name is unchanged. Inglis was a Company employee – Assistant to the Collector at Surat.
Sat 3rd Sept 1803
M/s Walter Davidson and L A Davidson have arrived at Calcutta in early August on the American ship Governor Gilman. She is from Portsmouth, New Hampshire via the Cape and Madras.
Sat 17th Sept 1803
Lt James Rivett-Carnac has resigned as Aide-de-Camp to Governor Duncan.
Sat 24th Sept 1803
Major General Arthur Wellesley has commenced fighting Sindhia. He has captured Ahmednaggur. Sindhia’s men were allowed to depart with their arms. The property of the inhabitants was guaranteed by Wellesley. He has taken hostages for good performance of the agreement he has made but terms are unavailable.
Sat 24th Sept 1803
Lord Wm Bentinck has arrived at Madras and paid his respects to the Nabob of the Carnatic at Chepauk Palace. He has agreed to keep open house from 10 am – 12 noon on Tuesday and Friday mornings to permit visits of residents. Lord Clive has removed to Mowbray’s Garden until his departure.
Sun 25th Sept 1803 Extraordinary
The Company will charter teak-built ships of 300+ tons to carry private trade from India to London in the 1803/04 season. The ships will not return to India but will be sold in England. Ships must be three decks or two decks and a poop. They must be fit for the installation of cannon proportionate to their size. The hulls must be copper sheathed. All ships subject to survey. The crews must be two thirds European, if available.
The senior officers will all be permitted to return to India regardless of how they got here in the first place. The Captains will be permitted a private trade of 5% per registered ton. They may carry passengers on their own account. The cargo will be one third sugar or saltpetre or anything similar that is suitable for ballast. All cargo will be delivered into the Company’s warehouse in London. Send in your terms before 5th Oct.
The Company intends to give equal opportunity to its extra ships and to private ships to carry the private cargo of India to London, but if there is a Company ship and a private ship both calling for cargo, the Company ship will be loaded first. If Lascars are taken on crew, the ship owner is responsible for repatriating them. Freight will be paid in arrears at Bombay on production of a certificate of delivery from England. It is expressly agreed that the Company has no liability in General Average.
Sat 1st Oct 1803
27th Sept - The following articles are exempted from Town Duty (the tax paid by farmers to the Company to bring their produce into Bombay for sale) – Ghee, oil, turmeric, jageree (a coarse palm sugar), molasses, chillies and paun (all basic foods used by the natives). Also the duties on all food imports from Salsette and Caranja to Bombay are suspended.
Sat 1st Oct 1803
There has been an unexpected failure in the harvest at Salsette. The price of grain has risen. We hope someone will import some food for the relief of the residents.
Wed 5th Oct 1803 Extraordinary
Major General Arthur Wellesley has obtained a convincing victory at Ahmednaggur over the combined armies of Sindhia and the Rajah of Berar on 23rd Sept. It was a splendid effort by Wellesley who was out-numbered 10 : 1. He had to dig the enemy out of entrenched positions and contend with 100 cannon.
Actually in an earlier engagement he lost his cannon to Sindhia’s cavalry and had to send in the 7th native cavalry and the 78th regiment to get them back. 90% of our casualties occurred due to this and explain the unusually long British casualty list for an Indian battle.
Three quarters of Wellesley’s army were native troops and they fought well and coolly. The guns we captured were mostly good cannon – 76 brass and 22 iron. We got 3,000 bullocks, 50 camels and many other things.
Capt Grant of the Madras Infantry saw a European in Sindhia’s force and cut him off his horse. He is supposed to be Major Dovson, a German mercenary. Sindhia’s minister was also killed.17
Wed 5th Oct 1803 Extraordinary
In September the King of Kandy celebrated a religious festival. During the proceedings Major Davy of the Malay Regiment and Lieutenant Humphreys of the Bengal artillery were brought out and publicly executed.
Our native soldiers who had been captured in the late war were then brought out and their ears and noses cut off. They were then freed to return to us.
There is widespread insurrection against British rule throughout Ceylon and Governor North has declared Martial Law.
Sat 15th Oct 1803
The monopoly for the sale of tobacco in Bombay for 1st Nov 1803 – 31st Oct 1806 will be sold at auction at Government House on 25th Oct.
Sat 15th Oct 1803
General Lake defeated Sindhia’s troops at Ali Ghur in early Sept 1803. He was assisted by a British officer named Lucan, recently in Sindhia’s service, who directed Colonel Monson’s unit into the fort.
All British officers serving with Sindhia or holding commissions in his army have been ordered by the Governor-General to not advise Sindhia. They may not oppose British troops on pain of being charged with High Treason.
The commandant of the fort of Ali Ghur is a Frenchman named Pedron whom we have captured. He was the only European there. The French officer Perron escaped towards Agra with his body guard.
Tues 25th Oct 1803 Extraordinary
Calcutta, 26th Sept – General Lake has crossed the Jumna and taken Firozabad. The forts of Coorjah, Broach and Jalnapur have also been taken along with the port of Manickpatam. The French General Perron in Sindhia’s service, has resigned his appointment and applied for permission to pass through Company lands with his family and property to Lucknow. Becket and Fleury are accompanying him.
Lake reports “The army I fought on 11th Sept has dispersed. I expect Bourquain (aka Louis, a French regimental commander) and the other French officers in Sindhia’s service to surrender soon.”
General Lake continued to Delhi and took the Grand Mughal (the current representative of the House of Timur) under British protection. He says the iron cannon he has captured are European-made. The brass cannon are made in Muttra and Ujjain but all appear to follow European design. They have well-made elevating screws of the latest French design (i.e. Sindhia’s French officers are directing the manufacture or are in touch with their home country). The mortars and howitzers are the same – it is really a very simple and ingenious device and also doubles the firing rate of the gun. The gun carriages are also well-made and accord with French design.
Sat 29th Oct 1803
Notice, 29th Aug - The Governor-General requires all British subjects holding positions in the army of Sindhia, or any other Maratha Prince, to resign and report to the nearest British army post. They will receive the protection of the British government and their emoluments will continue to be paid by us. Should any Englishman remain in the service of a Maratha Prince he forfeits the Company’s protection. Those French or American officers in Maratha service who resign and report to us will likewise receive the same benefits.
We are at war with Sindhia and British officers continuing to serve any Maratha Prince are guilty of High Treason and will be treated accordingly.
Sat 29th Oct 1803
The French officers Perron, Geslin, Guerimaier and Bourquain in Sindhia’s army have surrendered to us and are being escorted to Calcutta.
Sat 5th Nov 1803
A three–volume book called Political and Commercial Strictures on the Comparative State of Naval Architecture in Great Britain and India has been published by A MacKonochie of Calicut. He owns a saw mill at Beypore. It includes an Address to Jacob Bosanquet, Chairman of the India Company, on the advantages of encouraging ship-building in India.
MacKonochie’s point is that oak from the Royal forests is becoming unobtainable and England will need to import timber. We will become like Spain. That was the conclusion of the Commissioners of Land in their 6th Feb 1792 report to the House of Commons and the situation since then has become worse. He wants to build ships in India for British use in Europe.
Sat 5th Nov 1803
The supporters of the King of Kandy have gone to the town of Batticaloa and politicised the towns people. Our Revenue Agent there, Joseph Smith, dispersed the crowds militarily and they sustained considerable loss. The 19th foot regiment has been actively clearing the north of the island. A lot of people are dying.
Many of our Malay regiment have been captured but a few escaped and have returned to Colombo with their women and children. The Ceylonese are a peaceful people – they should submit soon.
Then we will annex the whole island to the British crown.
Sat 12th Nov 1803
The American ship Ganges (Callender) has arrived Calcutta from Batavia which she left on 9th Sept 1803. At that time no French warships were there (a single French merchant ship was loading for Europe) and the renewal of war was unknown. Four 64-gun warships (without guns) had arrived from Holland to load coffee but so many of their crews were sick they could not depart. The Government Treasury at Batavia is empty.
Sat 12th Nov 1803
All the Bombay Presidency sub-offices (at Baroda, Broach, Malabar, Anjengo and Surat) are authorised to receive loans of minimum 1,000 Rupees from the populace. Subscriptions may be in Bombay Treasury Bills, Bills of Exchange (drawn on the Governor), Bills for Arrears of Salary (civil or military) and all other authorised Public Demands. The army is also requested to subscribe.
Loans of 100 Rupees minimum in cash are also solicited. All subscribers will receive 8% Promissory Notes in return.
You can get repaid here or in London at an exchange of 2/6d per Rupee.
Sat 12th Nov 1803
General Arthur Wellesley’s forces captured Berampore on 17th Oct and Affeerghur on 21st Oct. This completes the conquest of Sindhia’s possessions in the Deccan.
Sat 12th Nov 1803
All the French prisoners taken at Pondicherry recently have been embarked on the Matilda for Europe. The French squadron departed Pondicherry on 14th July and is thought to have gone to Mauritius.
Sat 19th Nov 1803
Company Notice - We have room for private cargo on the Huddart which has arrived and is supposed to leave for London soon. Put in you proposals for freight before 25th Nov.
Sat 19th Nov 1803
The Editor apologies for limited information about vessel movements. His paper is inter alia sent to subscribers in the neutral port of Tranquebar and any information in it could well become known to the French.
There is a Mauritian privateer off the Gujerat coast. The Editor wishes to protect the merchant shipping of India.
Sat 19th Nov 1803
General Wellesley has fought a hard battle with Sindhia’s main army on 23rd Sept at the Adjunta Pass in the Deccan (the Battle of Assaye). The battle raged for three hours. Ninety Maratha cannon were taken at the point of the bayonet. Our losses have been severe. Wellesley’s formal report is awaited.
We have occupied the province of Cuttack, having defeated the natives at Barrabati. It is a prosperous place. Military and Civil governors have been appointed. The fort of Agra, called the key to Hindustan, has been taken with 6,000 prisoners. The usual terms required by a Company army for capitulation is the surrender of all arms and treasure. The prisoners are then allowed to disperse.18
Sat 26th Nov 1803
Editor – it is six months since the last information from England (The Company controls the provision of Europe news via its ships and by exclusive use of the overland route). News sent overland takes 5-7 weeks.
The Editor occasionally publishes articles from the Courier du Bas Rhin, the Frankfurt Gazette and whatever papers the visiting ship captains care to give him but he prefers the London papers.
Sat 3rd Dec 1803
A report from Batavia of 5th Sept says the VOC has no opium and little money to buy supply. It offered $1,000 a chest but found no sellers. It can only increase the offer price by adding goods for barter as it has itself declared the export of silver illegal at Batavia.
Sat 3rd Dec 1803
A report from Mauritius of 26th Aug says a 74-gun warship with 3 frigates and 2 corvettes has arrived with 1,400 troops from France. Formerly there were 300 –400 troops in total on the island. The islanders have a militia of two artillery corps and several battalions of infantry. There are also some squadrons of light cavalry in the militia. In the harbour are French, American and Danish merchant ships and one of our ships from Calcutta. A further 1,200 troops are expected from France but the increased population has already strained the food supply and there is little money available for exchange.
The French officers from Pondicherry have advised the Mauritian Assembly that our Indian sepoys are fearful of Africans. Mauritius has a huge population of Madagascan slaves working the fields and an idea is forming that Negro battalions should be formed. There are 300 cannon in the island but only 150 have gun carriages.
The new Governor is General de Caen who is an Anglophobe. He arrived with Linois’ squadron from Pondicherry in mid-August.
As we have long occupied Pondicherry and sent the French residents to Europe, the Mauritius is still without independent French confirmation that a state of war again exists between our countries.
A French corvette visited Tranquebar on 26th Oct. It remained a few hours in the roads and then departed.
Sat 3rd Dec 1803
The dispersed Maratha units retiring from our armies (Lake in Hindustan and Wellesley in the Deccan) have united at Cassowly under the French adventurer Duderneg where General Lake engaged and defeated them on 1st Nov.
We captured their baggage and 70 guns. It was a costly victory and Lake only continued his pursuit because they still had so many cannon (the item that decides the outcome of battles in India).
On 29th Nov Wellesley followed-up with another battle on the plains of Argaum which has curtailed Maratha military power in India.
Sat 10th Dec 1803
A ship was built by the Company and launched at Beypur on 14th Nov. She is the Duncan (named for the Bombay Governor) of 350 – 400 tons. This is the first English ship to be built on the west side of India that has been entirely built of teak from the Company’s domains. Formerly we used teak from Bassein or the Maratha states. A large part of the iron, pitch and tar was sourced from the Malabar coast. The tar was wholly made from the wood chips and sawdust generated in construction. Teak tar is locally believed to be superior to Norwegian tar.
It is intended by the Company that this demonstration will encourage the Royal Navy to buy its stores from Malabar in future and become the first event in changing the habits of British ship-owners. The Company hopes to become the major supplier of ships to England.
Sat 10th Dec 1803
The Company’s army is re-organising its arrangements for prize-money. It takes too long to get paid. We want the men to get the money early so they fully enter into the spirit of things. In future every regiment will have a Prize Master who will administer the schemes, chase up the intermediaries and immediately distribute any available moneys.
Sat 7th Jan 1804
The Peshwa is facing a shortage of grain in his lands. There was a partial failure of the monsoon in 1802 and a more complete failure in 1803. The tanks are dry and the rivers are low. He has offered the Banians a duty-free transit for grain from Cullian through the Ghats to Poona. The merchants of Bombay are also invited to partake of this concession.
Sat 7th Jan 1804
Harford Jones is the Company’s Resident at Baghdad. He received a copy letter from Castlereagh, President of the Board of Control, to the Turkish Viceroy (Pasha) of Baghdad. Its in a box adorned with the Royal coat of arms.
The Pasha responded by sending Jones the insignia of the Order of the Crescent, 2nd Class, featuring a crescent and star in diamonds. The Pasha applied for this for Jones from the Porte last December upon receipt of Castlereagh’s letter.
The Pasha says he is concerting action with the Imam of Muscat against the austere Wahabis in Arabia who possess the shrines of Islam.19
Sat 14th Jan 1804
Notice - All the houses within 800 yards of Bombay fort are to be demolished. “You were all supposed to leave by 15th Dec but you are still there. You have one more month from 13th Jan whereafter the ground will be cleared.”
(in English, Gujerati and Portuguese)
Sat 14th Jan 1804
On 17th Dec 1803 a peace treaty was concluded between Major General Wellesley and the Vackeel of the Rajah of Berar. That leaves Sindhia isolated.
Sat 14th Jan 1804
The Company’s extra ship Tigris has arrived at Calcutta on 13th Dec bringing Mr GAC Plowden, writer.
Sat 28th Jan 1804
The Company has asked for some tax concessions on its trade:
The tax on imported porcelain is 109% but the Company, which is the only importer, has asked for it to be reduced to 50%. They import Chinese porcelain as ballast under the tea. The ministry was supportive and had included the new rate in its draft legislation but English domestic manufacturers found out and protested. To satisfy them, the ministry has revised the proposed import duty to 80%. If that is insufficient protection, the matter will have to go to the House for consideration.20
The importation of silk handkerchiefs from Bengal is prohibited but they are nevertheless widely available in England. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had approved a 25% duty ad valorem on Bengal silk handkerchiefs and had agreed to restrict the Company’s imports to a maximum of their average annual import over the last seven years. Now we are at war the ability to smuggle will be reduced. The duty will be suspended and prohibition again enforced.
Sat 28th Jan 1804
Madras Presidency has appointed Thomas Warden as its Collector in Malabar.
Sat 28th Jan 1804
General Wellesley has taken the fort of Gawilghur in early December. Most of the treasure and jewels had been removed but he got 500,000 Rupees of bullion.
Sat 4th Feb 1804
Notice in English, Persian, Arabic and Gujerati - The Bombay Government is promoting smallpox vaccinations for Muslims, Hindus, Parsees etc., but they are all more or less avoiding the procedure, particularly the Muslims and Nairs. We provide free vaccinations at Surat – its good for you.
Sat 4th Feb 1804
The JPs will be issuing liquor licences at the Sessions House on 16th Feb. The Company will continue to ban liquor licensees within the walled town. Only applicants for premises outside the wall may apply.
Sat 4th Feb 1804
The Officers of the army under General Lake that has defeated Sindhia’s army in the north are grateful for the rewards obtained in the actions and have publicly donated a service of silver plate worth £4,000 to the General on 21st Dec 1803.
Sgd Majors General St John and Fraser and a group of Colonels, Majors, Captains and a Lieutenant.
On 17th Dec Wellesley in the Deccan signed a peace treaty with the Rajah of Berar. It was ratified by the Governor-General on 9th Jan.
Sat 4th Feb 1804
The bounties paid on grain shipments to England during the recent shortage (largely paid to the Company) totalled £524,000.
Sat 4th Feb 1804
General Wellesley has reported the agreement of the Rajahs of Berar and Bhoonsla to the terms of his treaty of peace and friendship. He has forwarded their endorsed copies of the agreement to the Governor-General for his ratification. He also says Sindhia’s negotiators arrived in his camp on 23rd Dec to make similar agreements. He attributes their arrival to his Ultimatum to Sindhia’s vackeels Jeswant Rao Gurpara and Haru Punt Nana wherein he told them he would shortly withdraw from the armistice agreed 23rd Nov and recommence hostilities. The terms Wellesley got from the Rajahs were generous:
They cede to the Company in Orissa the province of Cuttack and its port of Balasore and all those lands west of the River Wurdah where the Rajah has formerly collected taxes jointly with the Soubah of the Deccan. Everything south of the hills and west of the river now belongs to the Company. The Soubah is to be compensated with some lands producing 400,000 Rupees of revenue to the south of the hills (as decided by the Company) and he (the Soubah) renounces all claims he might have on the ceded lands.
The Soubah engages never to employ Frenchmen or any other European or American nationals if their government is at war with England. Representatives of each party will reside in the capital of the other.
The Soubah recognises those treaties the Company has already made with several of his vassals. A list is given to the Soubah for information.
He agrees to renounce his treaties with Sindhia and the other Maratha chiefs and to never again assist them in war on the Company.
(This gives the Company the productive lowlands to the south of its possessions in Bengal)
Sat 4th Feb 1804
The East India Shipping Bill was discussed in the House of Commons. Sir William Pulteney, Prinsep and Johnstone objected it disadvantaged British ship builders and prevented competition. Castlereagh, Wallace and Charles Grant of the Company’s parliamentary interest, defended the Bill which was then passed.
Sat 4th Feb 1804
HRH the Prince Regent of Portugal has conferred a Knighthood in the Order of Christ on Miguel de Lima e Souza the well-known Bombay merchant. Governor Jonathan Duncan invested him with the award on 6th Feb at Govt House.
It was certified to the Bombay Government by Francisco Antonio de Veiga Cabral da Camara Pimental, the Viceroy at Goa.
The Order was created by King Dennis of Portugal in 1317 and confirmed by the Pope in 1319. In 1551 Pope Julius III vested the right to issue the award in the Portuguese Kings.
Sat 4th Feb 1804
An ambassador from the Pasha (or Bashaw, the Porte’s Viceroy) of Baghdad, Suliman Aga, has arrived at Bombay. He was given a reception, marked by all the minutiae of Eastern etiquette, on 18th Feb. In return, he gave some fine Arab horses to Governor Duncan.
His ship, Mustapha, had been laid-up at Basra prior to the voyage and had become the nesting place of a good many swallows. It sailed in the nesting season with the consequence that the adult swallows have followed the ship for the whole voyage.
They distinguish the ship in Bombay harbour by continually flying around it.
Sat 4th Feb 1804
About 10,000 Maratha cavalry and some Pindari infantry have passed the River Kristna and approached our lands in the Brinjaries. General Stuart engaged them in their camp at Hanamsagur, killed 2,000 and made another 1,000 prisoner. “I have taken all their baggage and 20,000 bullocks but they escaped with the horses” he reports. Four Frenchmen were discovered amongst them, of whom one was killed whilst the others escaped. Company losses were trifling.
Sat 25th Feb 1804
Notice 24th Feb – Private British merchants have adopted a practise of repeatedly changing the names of their ships. This creates confusion. We will not continually amend Certificates of Registry unless good reasons for changes are provided and then only after payment of double fees. (only in English)
Sat 25th Feb 1804
Ruttonjee Rustomjee has reported the loss of his 1803 Treasury Bill No 7300 for 1,000 Rupees. If the Bill remains unpresented after six months, it will be cancelled.
Sat 25th Feb 1804
Admiral Linois arrived at Bencoolen on 1st Dec with an 80-gun capital ship, 2 frigates and a sloop. He captured the Eliza Ann of Madras and the Countess of Sutherland of Calcutta. We burnt the Marlborough, Flora and Ewer to prevent his getting the advantage of their capture. Linois destroyed the Company’s pepper godown and its stock of 400 tons of pepper and left on 5th Dec towards Batavia.
He was reportedly joined by a Dutch squadron at Batavia on 15th Dec and is supposed to be cruising in the Sunda Straits. After he left Bencoolen, the Bugis and Malays landed and plundered the Company’s factory. Finally, the Sumatran hill people came down and took whatever remained.
Editor – our China fleet left Macau on 11th Jan. It would be difficult for Linois to work up to the Malacca Straits to catch them in time. He must have assumed the China fleet would depart via the Sunda Straits.
Sat 3rd March 1804
The Directors have instructed the Governor of Bombay to promote the import of Madeira wine to England by private traders. There is a general supposition amongst Madeira (and Port) drinkers that these wines are improved by exposure to the heat of a voyage across the equator. As a result wine carried to India and back around the Cape commands a higher price.
The freight from Madeira to India will be £4 per pipe (110 gallons) and £8 per pipe on the return leg (the Company equates two pipes with 1 ton for freight purposes). This will provide a harmless consumable for return cargo.
The Company expects private merchants to ship mainly cotton, indigo and sugar on the outward voyage to London.
Sat 3rd March 1804
General Arthur Wellesley sent a report (received 6th Feb at Fort William) stating he had concluded a definitive peace treaty with Sindhia and he requested the Governor-General to ratify it too. The terms are:
Sindhia cedes to the Company in perpetuity all his lands and forts in the Doab (between the Jumna and Ganges); all his lands north of Jeypore, including the Ranah of Gohud; Broach and Ahmednuggur and their dependencies; all the lands south of the Adjunti Hills including Jalnapore, Gandapore and the land between those Hills and the River Godavari.
Sindhia renounces all claims on the Company and its allies.
Assirghur, Buranpore, Powanghur, Duhud and their dependant territories are restored to Sindhia.
Sindhia’s family have long owned the Enaum of Doolpore, Baree and Rajahkerrah, all north of Jeypore in the Ranch of Gohud. Some of the lands ceded to the Company (above) were held in Jaghire by his family and his principal officials. The Company agrees that these awards of the Grand Mughal shall remain Sindhia’s but under Company protection.
It is the intention of this treaty that none of Sindhia’s family or principal officials shall suffer loss. The Company will pay them pensions or grant Jaghires at its option to a limit of 1.7 million Rupees per annum. It is agreed that Sindhia’s troops are banned from the above-named Enaum and Jaghires for any purpose (particularly collecting revenue).
Sindhia claims the Enaum of several towns and villages in the lands of Rao Pundit Purdhaun. Those towns and villages are restored to him but his troops are banned from entering them.
The Company has numerous treaties with vassals of Sindhia. These are all confirmed and Sindhia renounces all claims on those vassals and recognises their independence of him.
All war crimes are condoned.
The Peshwa’s rights to lands in Malwa is confirmed and the Company will mediate any disputes Sindhia has with the Peshwa.
Sindhia renounces all claims on the Grand Mughal and engages to not again interfere in his affairs.
Sindhia agrees to obtain Company consent before employing any Europeans or Americans in his service.
Ministers of each party will reside in the court of the other.
The Company has defensive treaties with the Subadar of the Deccan and Rao Pundit Purdhaun. Sindhia is invited to accede to those treaties. If so, the Company will provide him with 6 battalions of infantry and an appropriate amount of artillery. The costs of this force will be paid out of the revenues of those lands ceded to the Company in the opening article. Should he not accede, his refusal will have no affect on the other parts of this agreement.
Sat 3rd March 1804
There is a dispute between the Company in London and the wholesalers who attend its auctions. It devolves on the variety of allowances that the Company gives to major buyers. The confrontation commenced when the Company offered a shipment of tea and said it would not give the customary allowance on sale of 1 lb free per chest. The wholesalers are a cartel and unitedly declined to bid. The Company offered the lots three times but no sales could be made. The Directors were unwilling to have their decision questioned.
They withdrew the tea and tried again with sugar for which there is a larger number of wholesalers and the strength of the ring accordingly reduced. On 15th Sept Robert Thornton conducted the sugar sale and announced the 1 lb per bag allowance would no longer be available. All the usual traders abstained although the price fell to around 30/- or 35/- below its usual sale price. It was all eventually knocked down to some Jewish merchants whom the Directors had asked along to try their luck. After a few sales had thus been made and the Company had received £1,000 less than expected, Thornton called a halt and adjourned further sales to 19th Sept.
On that occasion the Company sent Devaynes to supervise the sale. He withheld the Company’s own sugar to limit its notional loss and offered the sugar of its ships’ officers (their privileged cargo). Those officers imperatively needed to sell the goods, pay off their loans and make up their accounts. Devaynes then encountered Godwin, a major sugar wholesaler and coincidentally a Shareholder in the Company. Godwin publicly demanded, in the name of the Company’s shareholders, that the sale be abandoned unless it was conducted in the usual way. Devaynes appeared to acquiesce and put up the first lot. Mr B Travers requested confirmation on the terms of sale before bidding commenced. Devaynes had to announce the allowance was not available. Travers protested the ‘encroachments’ the Company had been making at successive sales. He attributed the Directors’ motives to either poverty or greed.
He then addressed the assembled buyers from the floor of the auction room and read a Resolution of the Wholesalers Committee made in the City Coffee House on 17th Sept. They agreed the withdrawal of rebates was in violation of the usage of the trade; that the Company has a monopoly on Asian sugar and should act responsibly; that the trade will not sanction a potentially loss-making unilateral initiative, and that they would withhold their orders until the grievance was removed. He then asked Devaynes to adjourn the sale.
Some other wholesalers objected too - they were also Company shareholders.
Simpson told Devaynes that the tea wholesalers were so incensed they had obtained an appointment to interview Addington and would ask for his intercession. Devaynes then adjourned the sugar auction.
Sat 17th March 1804
The Directors have written to the Governor-General on 17th Aug 1803 concerning the new allowances for private traders to ship British manufactures and produce to India. This is complementary to the 3,000 tons of Indian exports allowed to England and concerns solely the return cargoes of British goods.
The freight rate in peacetime is £5 per ton on the Extra Ships, London to India and £11 per ton India to London.
Freight must be paid to the Company within two weeks of ordering space on the ship.
Wine from Madeira (consumed in astonishing quantities in British India) will cost £4 per pipe Madeira to India and £8 per pipe from India to London. In war time it will be £12 per ton for the return leg.
The Extra Ships will be allowed to stay at Madeira for two days for every 20 tons of cargo contracted for loading (cargo handling at Madeira is slow). If the stevedores fail to load at the rate considered reasonable by the Directors, the ship will leave with a part cargo but the prepaid freight on the unshipped goods will not be refunded.
When shippers sell their goods in India, if the proceeds of sale are paid into the Company (at Bombay, Madras, Calcutta or Penang), Bills on London will be given at the current rate. Shippers must deliver their goods for loading at least three days before sailing.
Sat 17th March 1804
The merchants of Calcutta have resolved to present a sword worth £1,500 to General Lake and another worth £1,000 to General Wellesley in respect of their services to British India in the late wars with the Maratha defenders of the Grand Mughal.
Sat 24th March 1804
Notice, 22nd March - The Governor of Bombay invites all the senior civil and military officers of the Company and members of the Agency Houses to a party at Parell (the Governor’s house) on 3rd April to celebrate victory over the Marathas.
Sat 24th March 1804
The Calcutta officials and merchants have celebrated the victories as well.
Strettell said the wars only took six months and have added greatly to British territory. Our ability to support England in the current contest with France has been improved. We have shut-out France from every chance she might have had to compete with our power in Asia and have subjected the House of Timur to our complete control.
C F Martyn said Lord Wellesley came to India when the Company was in crisis and required a Governor-General of vigilance and firmness. He had previously been 12 years at the Board of Control and learned the Company’s philosophy. He arrived May 1798 and immediately stirred the civil service into greater activity.
His first great stroke was rooting out the French influence at Hyderabad, influence that the Nizam claimed he was himself powerless to remove. In 1799 we placed an army in the Nizam’s lands at his expense and brought him under our protection. That strengthened the links between the Company and the Court of Hyderabad and allowed us both to obtain reciprocal advantages (we got the French advisers out of the Nizam’s court and the peaceful succession of his son to the government of his father).
The subversion of Tippoo’s rebellion and the conquest of Seringapatam caused the overthrow of the Kingdom of Mysore and gave us the Carnatic. That victory prostrated the most powerful native state in India which was then dismembered and made incapable of ever again amassing so much power.
Wellesley’s next great move was the assumption of the government of the Carnatic. Prior to that date, the Company shared the Carnatic with the Nabob of Arcot and our policies were constantly at odds. Since we assumed full control it has been well governed. It was only when we took Seringapatam and studied the archives therein that we found the two preceding Nabobs had been in correspondence with Tippoo (in violation of the Cornwallis’ Treaty of 1792) and had co-ordinated their pacific obstructions to our initiatives. Wellesley wisely took over the government of the Carnatic although faint-hearted MPs in London regretted the breach of the 1792 Treaty.21
His next act was the late Maratha War. We are still unaware of the causes of that war and must await its debate in parliament before we can know it. We condoned it from our trust and confidence in Wellesley. That war ended with the Treaty of Bassein whereby we pledged to protect the Peshwa and restore him to the full enjoyment of his rights and power at Poona whilst we took only as much land as was necessary to protect ourselves. It was a four-month war involving battles at Delhi, Assaye, Safwaree and Argaum. We conquered Candeish, the maritime provinces of Gujerat and Cuttack and the whole of the Maratha lands between the Jumna and the Ganges. More particularly we captured the keys (great forts) of India – the key to the Deccan and the key to Hindustan. And the peace treaty removes the last opportunity for France to interfere in India – we stipulated (and the Marathas agreed) that the governments of Malwa and Berar (the Maratha strongholds) would not employ the subjects of any power at war with England.
In 4-5 months the two most powerful Maratha states have been reduced to an unconditional dependence on British generosity.
Whilst these territorial extensions were being made, Wellesley also restored our public finances. 3-4 years ago the Company was in financial difficulty. Now we have paid-off a portion of our public debt and our public credit is much improved. With one or two years of peace it may be possible, instead of requiring assistance from England, for India to provide assistance to London. Whilst these two great wars of Wellesley have been expensive (in the Maratha War the Company deployed 54,918 men excluding garrisons and military stations), the trade and revenue of the Company has increased to pay for them and our payments to the troops were never in arrears. The Civil List of England has sometimes been 15 months in arrears but our Civil List in Bengal these days is paid by the 15th of the month after salaries fall due.
On top of these glorious military and civil achievements, Wellesley has displayed the finest patriotism, he has exalted the reputation of the Company.
This Address to Wellesley was signed by over 400 Englishmen (list of names in the paper)
Wellesley replied that the objects of the Maratha wars were:
1/ to secure the rights of the British government against usurpation, violence and rapine,
2/ to restore the authority of the Peshwa at Poona,
3/ to establish the Subadar of the Deccan in his hereditary rights at Hyderabad and
4/ to deliver the Emperor Shah Allum from the Marathas and their French advisers at Delhi.
Our support for the House of Timur will guard the less powerful neutral states from oppression whilst enlarging the resources of those states in alliance with us. We have admitted our vanquished enemies to defensive alliances to secure their unsupervised government of their own lands. The thrust of my policy is to direct the states of India towards peaceful development of their resources by providing for their external security.
Sat 31st March 1804
Notice, 30th March - The grain shortage at Poona, that has continued for 3-4 months (due to war), is affecting Bombay. An increasing number of refugees are arriving and the day-rate for labour in Bombay has collapsed. Government wishes to employ everyone who is capable of work. We will care for those who are incapable. When you see these people, advise them to go to the Town Engineer for jobs or the Superintendent of Police if unemployable. All the merchants should assist as well. (In English and Persian)
Sat 31st March 1804
Bombay has been celebrating the victory over the Marathas as well. On 22nd March at a meeting of the town’s English population, Threipland, the Company’s Legal Counsel in Bombay, gave the Address:
“We attacked the enemy in his own lands where he had the local knowledge and recognised the natural barriers and impregnable fortresses. All his advantages were fruitless when opposed by British troops. British officers inspired native soldiers with coolness and courage and overcame forces numerically superior to our own. The fugitive French, who had been exalted to the rank of Maratha chiefs, were revealed to be a thin reed on which to base a policy. Our force is irresistible. We are now able to befriend the Marathas without fear or jealousy.
“The French recognised India as the source of British power and attacked Egypt. They were defeated on their first attempt but the prospect of a renewed attempt remained so long as they had influence in India. Abercromby’s sacrifice and the victory of Aboukir were the first shots in the recent campaigns against the Marathas in India. We have now secured India to British rule.”
Sat 31st March 1804
The British residents of Moorshedabad (and the garrison at Berhampore) have addressed the Governor-General on 23rd Feb on his military successes too:
“The late war with the Marathas originated in political necessity forced upon us by French policy. France intended to make India a source of wealth for her war with England. France expected to find us vulnerable. She expected to receive full support from the Marathas.
“We had to cripple their resources and deprive them of the means to harm us. The Company set about it expeditiously. We assembled and equipped two large armies to attack north and south, in Hindustan and in the Deccan. We have won. We have taken those lands that allow us to better secure ourselves. The wealth of their productions will be added to our own.”
Sgd Colonels Watson, Becher, Sturt, Reed, Pattle etc.
Sat 31st March 1804
Calcutta Gazette Appointments, 25th Feb – Lt Colonel Scott is appointed the Company’s Resident at the Grand Mughal’s Court at Delhi; Colonel Collins is Resident at the Court of Lucknow; Josiah Webbe Resident to Sindhia’s Court and Mountstuart Elphinstone Resident at Berar.
Sat 14th April 1804
Notice, 13th April - Two Bombay Treasury Notes Nos 2254 & 2255 to totally 6,000 Rupees issued to M Honore Fauve, late in the military service of Sindhia, have been lost in the battle near Poona. If the notes are not presented in one year they will be assumed to have been destroyed and will be replaced.
Sat 28th April 1804
Manesty, the long-serving Company Resident in Basra, left Bushire for Teheran with an astonishingly rich escort suitable for King George himself. His retinue has 100 horses, 300 baggage mules, 60 camels and a multitude of servants and camp followers.
When on the move the procession travels in the following order. It is led by an elephant, several men on horseback who provide a constant supply of coffee and hookahs, some troopers, two of whom carry Union Jacks, nine led horses caparisoned in the Persian fashion, 12 running footmen, 2 gold and 2 silver sticks mounted, Manesty, the gentlemen of his suite (with a led horse before each), 40 Persian guards, the Sepoy guard, etc, etc.
He must be going to ask a favour. He arrived at Shiraz on 15th March and was met by the Minister attended by 1,500 horse and a huge crowd of townspeople. On 22nd March they paid their respects to the Persian King’s third son, about 13 years old, who gave a handsome reception.
Sat 5th May 1804
Outstanding Bombay Promissory Notes have slightly increased again at end April to 1.6 million Rupees. These are mostly 6% Notes. Repayments are apparently fixed. Every month 10,000 Rupees is discharged.
Sat 5th May 1804
The Company’s postal route from Bombay to Madras is via Poona, Meritch, Darwar, Harryhur, Chitteldroog, Bangalore, Seringapatam, Vellore and Arcot. Letters for Goa, Canara and Malabar are forwarded on the first part of this route too. It’s a daily service that sets out from Bombay at 6 pm.
The postal service to Tannah is twice weekly.
Sat 5th May 1804
The Captain of HMS Sheerness says some convoyed merchantman leave the convoy early. In England it is a criminal offence. Ships leaving a convoy may, by their capture, endanger the others, he says.
Sat 5th May 1804
The British ministry has made a Convention with Sweden. No details are provided except that it is a maritime convention – it is published to evidence that England has not been isolated by Europe.
Sat 19th May 1804
The Bombay government is selling some of the presents it has received from visiting dignitaries recently.
One horse and carriage from the late Persian embassy and the many gifts of the Vackeel of Sind, Mushlak Ram, comprising bolts of cloth and some shawls are all displayed and available for purchase from the Civil Pay Office on 21st May.
Sat 26th March 1804
The Company’s Directors have received an application from the General Officers of the Indian army to rescind our Order of 6th June 1798 whereby the General Officers were required to limit their holidays in Europe and return to India after a stated period. These officers and some others of lesser rank (all in the Bengal service) have also asked that the off-reckoning allowances be increased.22
The Directors disapprove of army officers combining for better terms of service which they consider to be subversive of their authority. We will look after you if you petition politely, they say. The Governor-General is to remind all officers of their high pay and financial opportunities and request they do not sow dissension in the service.
Those Lt Colonels who are temporarily in command of Indian regiments whilst the Colonel remains in Europe will be treated the same as Colonels of Regiments in India. Many of our Native Infantry regiments have two Battalions each commanded by a Lt Colonel. When the Colonel is away, the Battalions often perform separate service and each Lt Colonel acts a Colonel. Those Colonels will also share in off-reckoning.
Our decision is to share off-reckonings equally between commanders of all infantry, artillery and cavalry units. A list of retired Generals and Colonels will be made and they will all be struck off strength (21 officers affected). They will receive an annual allowance of £543.15.0d in lieu of off-reckoning in addition to their full- or half-pay. The remainder of the off-reckoning fund will be distributed amongst Colonels of regiments. If any of those Colonels remain in England after being ordered to duty in India, they will cease to receive the allowance and will be considered to have retired on their pay alone.
Sat 2nd June 1804
The Company has had a stroke of luck from an unexpected direction. A young lad named Rich came down from northern Scotland to attempt the cadetship examination. After two hours of examination it was discovered that he has already mastered Arabic and Persian and has some insight into other Oriental languages. The Company’s Librarian instantly advised Chairman Bosanquet who settled a valuable Bombay writership on the young man and sent him off to Lock, the Company’s Consul in Egypt, as Secretary.
Sat 2nd June 1804
Suliman Aga, the emissary of the Pasha of Baghdad, arrived at Calcutta on the Upton Castle on 28th April to see the Governor-General. Smith of the Bombay service was his aide-de-camp and Lt Stuart commanded his escort. He will stay at Chowringhee for the duration. The purpose of his visits to first Bombay and now Calcutta has not been announced.
Sat 9th June 1804
The Madras government has emulated Bombay in initiating a daily postal service between the Presidencies. Their messengers will use the same route to Bombay. Now the Maratha states are peaceful, we can travel the Deccan and Hindustan across India.
Sat 23rd June 1804
M/s Mitchell & Crawford owned the ship Fort William and chartered it to the Company in 1790 for a voyage to Madras. The owners wished to appoint Captain George Simpson to command the ship. The Company required a bond from Simpson and £1,000 per voyage from the owners to approve his appointment. The owners agreed. After the first voyage Mitchell sold his share in the ship to Donald.
A second charter party was made with the Company on 17th Sept 1792. The charter-party contained a covenant that neither owner nor master should sell any jobs in the ship or receive any money in respect of employment on the ship and that if they did it was money belonging to the Company to be paid with interest.
Simpson paid the owners £1,000 for his job as was required under the original charter-party but that first voyage was unprofitable and he did not offer to pay for the second voyage. After the second voyage Donald gave Simpson a parcel and refunded £1,000 which Simpson had paid for the first voyage asking him at the same time to resign the command.
The Company then commenced this action for the £1,000 paid to Simpson and cited the terms of the covenant in support of their demand. Donald said the payment was not to obtain the command but to resign it and he denied any knowledge of the previous arrangement between the Company and Mitchell. Simpson said he paid Donald £1,000 to get the job. Judgment for the Company.23
Sat 21st July 1804
Bombay Government Notice - The toll charged on pedestrians, vehicles and goods etc., using the Sion Causeway is abolished until further notice.24
Sat 21st July 1804
Notice, 28th June - H H Smith will open the Madras Boarding School at Vipery on 15th July 1804 to instruct youth in commercial and mathematical subjects by teaching English, Writing, Arithmetic, Geography and Navigation.
French and Dutch students also welcome.
10 Pagodas entrance fee, 8 Pagodas per month for young children and 10 Pagodas for older ones.
Drawing, Dancing and Persian also offered.
Sat 21st July 1804
James Douglas Richardson is a Bombay resident in the occasional business of lending money to visiting ship’s officers on the security of their providing their own Bill of Exchange (usually on their father or some other substantial relative in England) which he can use for collection in due course. (this is the business for which the Royal Navy gives a discount of 10% in addition to interest on the Bills)
William George Onesipherus Paul Mott was a teacher in HMS Concorde who knew of Richardson’s business and approached him for a loan of £20 secured on a Bill signed by William Strong, a midshipman on HMS Concorde, counter-signed by Captain Wood of the frigate, for that amount. Richardson thought Mott was Strong and Mott encouraged the belief. Richardson exchanged the Bill at 8 Rupees per Pound and gave Mott 160 Rupees. It later transpired that both signatures on the Bill were forged and Mott was arrested.
The Recorder’s Court Judge noted that forgery was a capital offence in England but asserted that English Law did not extend to India. It noted that law in England had developed onerous terms for the protection of property due to the peculiar nature and circumstances of the British economy. He sentenced Mott to prison for 2 years.
Sat 21st July 1804
HMS Rattlesnake and HMS Albatross have brought a large amount of specie from Madras to Calcutta. (likely confiscations from the late Maratha War in the Deccan).
Sat 21st July 1804
There have been some mopping-up actions following the dispersal of Sindhia’s and Holkar’s forces by respectively Wellesley and Lake:
Lt Colonel Don has taken the fort of Rampura on 16th May 1804. There were 1,100 defenders of whom about 50 were killed and many more wounded. The walls are at least 20 feet thick and 40 feet in places.25 The Company’s losses were 300+ wounded.
About 5,000 insurgent cavalrymen entered Bundelcund. A Company force sent against them was attacked, a few hundred of its men cut-off and their artillery lost. Five companies of Sepoys managed to retreat to the main camp safely. The insurgents then attacked Culpee and tried to cross the Jumna but were repelled by two Companies of Sepoys. Ultimately on 30th May Colonel Sheppard defeated them near Kutch and they returned from whence they had come.
Sat 28th July 1804
Obituary of the Nawab Mirza Mehedy Ali Khan Hushmut Jung Behadur, 51 years. He came to India from Khorassan twenty years ago and from 1785 – 95 was employed by the Company at Benares. He resigned on the abolition of the Residency of that province and assumed charge of the Company’s commercial interests at Bushire. In 1798 and 99 he rendered services to the Company that were so important he received the thanks of the London government. He later worked in Red Sea and Arabian Gulf ports in connection with our military expedition to Egypt. He then returned to Bushire and was eventually pensioned-off with a reversionary right in the fund to his two sons.
He was well-informed about Persian literature. His understanding of the root language allowed him insights into the old dynasties of the Persian Empire and often produced more persuasive opinions than the old Greek historians or more recent Muslim writers on whom the West commonly relies.
Sat 4th Aug 1804
196 English residents of Madras and 123 residents of Bombay have thanked the Governor-General for defeating the Marathas.
Sat 11th Aug 1804
Capt Edward Moor of the Company’s army has lost 3 Bombay Promissory Notes Nos 308, 310 and 311 of the 1801/02 issue for totally 60,000 Rupees and a copy certificate has been issued to him.
Sat 11th Aug 1804
Four important residents of Seringapatam have written to Major General Wellesley on 16th July thanking him for releasing them from their former government. They are Mir Hussain Faizee, Habeeb Ulla, Putu Baul Setti and Roshin Lalla. Wellesley replied that he was just doing his duty.
Sat 18th Aug 1804
A subscription has been commenced for the relief of famine at Poona, which seems to be a consequence of the late war. 20,000 Rupees have been quickly collected and sent-off as money or grain. The subscribers are all English or Parsee. There are no Hindu or Muslim names in the published list.
In the newspaper of 25th Aug, the Poona Resident replies that he cannot buy grain because it puts the prices up even more. He will apply the funds to buying vegetables and meat which are still in fair supply.
Sat 25th Aug 1804
James Gathorne Remington has been admitted a partner in Bruce Fawcett & Co on 1st August.
Sat 8th Sept 1804
A large number of new appointments have been made to administer the recently ceded or conquered territories. Most of the new appointments are judges or revenue collectors with a few political and commercial jobs. There are also many new cadets and writers arriving.
Tues 11th Sept 1804 Extraordinary
The brig Shannon has arrived from Basra and we have news from London up to early May. The invasion of England had still not occurred at that time.
Tues 11th Sept 1804 Extraordinary
W Elphinstone and Charles Grant have been appointed Chairman and Deputy Chairman of the Company
Sat 15th Sept 1804
From 9th Sept there will be a daily postal service between Bombay and Calcutta. It will pass through Hyderabad and Guntoor. Mail to all three places will be accepted.
Sat 15th Sept 1804
Stevens and Agnew, senior officers of the Company, have been charged in England with extorting 100,000 Rupees from the Zamorin of Malabar in 1795. Stevens was appointed administrator of Malabar and Agnew was the Company’s commercial agent for the province.
The Bombay President-in-Council had resolved to renew the leases of the Rajah and his Zemindars throughout Malabar and part of Stevens’ and Agnew’s job was to settle the value of these renewals. They required the Rajah to pay 100,000 Rupees as speed money. Six Indian witnesses were examined in India and their depositions corroborated the sting. It was also evidenced in a letter Stevens sent to his bagman Ayen Aya.
The original charge required amending after the evidence had been heard. The men had paid 15,000 Rupees of the speed money to the Company and the conviction referred only to the balance of 85,000 Rupees.
The punishment required by the British Act is to forfeit the bribe and to refund a similar amount to the Rajah. This was the award of the Court.
This prosecution was pushed through the Bombay Council by Governor Jonathan Duncan, who soon after took early retirement.
Sat 22nd Sept 1804
Bombay Government is soliciting loans of 1,000+ Rupees for 8% Promissory Notes again. A 2% discount is offered. Repayment will be in cash or Bills on London at 2/6d per Rupee.
Sat 22nd Sept 1804
The Salsette arrack monopoly is up for renewal for 3 years wef 1st October. Same terms as last time. Apply to the Collector at Tannah or to Bombay.
Sat 20th Oct 1804
The famine in Poona continues. Between 1st Sept 1803 and the present, the Bombay government has bought 414,000 bags of rice and contracted to buy a further 180,000 bags, delivery of which is awaited. The cost is 5 million Rupees (£600,000). In the same period the private sector has sent 408,000 bags to Poona. That is £1 million of rice. It is inconceivable that this extent of mercantile confidence and credit would have existed if our government was not in control of India.
This huge transfer of grain to Poona is having a deleterious effect on our own natives. We have 400,000 people in Bombay, Salsette, Caranja and Surat. Between 10,000 – 20,000 refugees are arriving from the Deccan each month since March. A good many of them are being treated in our hospital but they are so weak most of them die within a few days of admission. They are not sick just totally emaciated.
The Editor estimates that the presence of a British government in India has saved at least 100,000 lives in this famine.
Mon 29th Oct 1804 Extraordinary
Report on the Company’s examinations of language students by debates. About twenty students from all the Presidencies are involved. Debating topics are:
Hindi – ‘Sanskrit is the root language of India’,
Persian – ‘The poems of Hafiz are to be understood mystically’,
Arabic – ‘the study of Arabic gives insights into Persian grammar’ and
Bengali – ‘the translation of Sanskrit into popular language would promote civilisation’.
A further examination by debate in Marathi is planned. The students also study Nagree writing. This is all the work of Captain Paul Bosc who superintends the language school at Tripassore.
Sat 3rd Nov 1804
The Grand Mughal Shah Allam has caused the insignia of Mahee and Muratib (accompanied by the nobut) to be presented to General Lake. They were awarded on 14th Aug at Cawnpore. These are customary awards to the great officers of the Mughal Empire but have not previously been awarded to foreigners.
Sat 3rd Nov 1804
A detachment of Company troops under Lt Colonel Monson has suffered a rare defeat at the hands of Holkar’s cavalry. The battle continued for a month while Monson fought a rearguard action all the way back to Agra. He lost his baggage quite early, the local farmers recognised who was winning and declined to provision him and a few companies of Hindus deserted. Those of his sepoys who were captured and refused to desert to the enemy had their right hands amputated before they were released.
Whilst Holkar was chasing Monson across Hindustan, another Company unit under Colonel Murray captured Indore, Holkar’s capital city.
Sat 17th Nov 1804
Notice – the church is under repair. Divine service tomorrow is cancelled.
Sat 17th Nov 1804
The Baptist Mission in Bengal has now baptised 26 Indians. One is a Brahmin from Assam, formerly a travelling ascetic. It is hoped their talents will be useful in proselytising the natives.
The 1st Bengali Edition of the New Testament has been completely distributed and a 2nd Edition is in the press. It benefits from our better understanding of the language.
Several tracts have been translated into Hindi for distribution in Bihar and Oudh.
At Madras the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge at Vipery is having an unexpected level of missionary success.
Sat 24th Nov 1804
The Patriotic Fund is having its first success with the natives. The Maharaja of Baroda (at the head of the Gulf of Cambay in Gujerat), Anand Rao Guikwar Sena Khaskul Sunshair Bahadur, has donated 5,000 Rupees and his senior officials have subscribed a further 5,000 Rupees.
Sat 24th Nov 1804
The British relief effort at Poona has resulted in the distribution of between 2 – 8 Tice to each of over 300,000 natives. Unsurprisingly, the free distribution called forth previously undiscovered supplies of grain which are now selling at 6+ seers to the Rupee in the market.
Sat 8th Dec 1804
Notice - Captain John Matheson, paymaster to the troops at Poona, has died on 7th Dec 1804. He has been in the Company’s army in India for 13 years. His Estate will be sold by M/s Baxter & Mitchell and the proceeds sent to his next-of-kin.
Sat 8th Dec 1804
Holkar has besieged Delhi. He crossed the Jumna on 29th Oct. Lt Colonel David Ochterlony, the Company’s Resident, and Colonel Burns have defended the capital. The walls of Delhi are dilapidated but they seem adequate. The British garrison occasionally sortie out and spike Holkar’s guns. Holkar raised the siege quickly on the approach of General Lake and the Company’s army of Hindustan.
Mon 17th Dec 1804 Extraordinary
Colonel Monson has retrieved his reputation. He has been serving under Major General Frazer who is pursuing Holkar. In November at Deeg, Frazer was wounded and Monson took command. He achieved a complete victory over Holkar’s infantry and artillery and captured all his guns.
Reports have just arrived at Bombay from Broach saying Lake has defeated Holkar’s cavalry at Furrukabad as well. He caught up with them by a forced march of over 50 miles in a day and surprised them. All their baggage and camp equipment has been captured. The slaughter of men and horses was prodigious. This should signal the end of the Maratha insurrection on behalf of the Grand Mughal and the beginning of their submission to our rule. It will facilitate the establishment of the Company’s Raj over all India.
Sat 22nd Dec 1804
Notice – the church is repaired and will be open as usual tomorrow.
Sat 29th Dec 1804
Sir Edward Pellow has arrived at Madras in HMS Culloden, convoying the Company’s fleet. He is expected to take over from Admiral Rainier. He brought $500,000 in specie for the Company.
Sat 29th Dec 1804
The Hamburg-registered ship Juliana has arrived at Calcutta. The Hamburg merchant fleet sailed from Tonning this year to avoid the British blockade of the Elbe.26
Sat 5th Jan 1805
The management of the Bombay Courier has recently changed and the new Editor says he will provide a precisely correct register of official proclamations as well as the latest news from Asia and Europe. He is reliant on the good offices of visiting Captains for the provision of foreign newspapers.
Owing to our proximity to Basra we get the overland news before any other British port in India. We are endeavouring to get an assured supply of European newspapers via this route, he says.
Sat 12th Jan 1805
The Company is feeling the effects of the private trade. The Directors have issued an order of 27th June 1804 that when people living in India under licence of the Company return to Europe they are not automatically to be allowed to return to India. In future only those private people who can obtain a Certificate of Good Conduct from the Indian government before departure will be allowed back.
Sat 12th Jan 1805
Statement of the annual estimated costs and charges of produce and the nett profits on sales at the Company’s auctions in England in £ millions from March 1799 – Mar 1804:27
|
|
India goods |
China goods |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1799 1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 |
Costs & Charges 4.2 2.9 3.3 2.2 1.8 1.9 |
Nett profits 3.6 3.6 3.1 3.1 2.2 2.4 |
Costs & Charges 2.8 3.2 2.9 2.8 2.9 3.0 |
Nett profits 3.7 3.8 3.6 3.5 3.8 3.6 |
||
Sat 19th Jan 1805
A frigate named HMS Pitt has been launched from the Bombay dockyard. She is the first frigate built in India specifically for British service. HMS Fox is concurrently under repairs in the dock and her entire complement will transfer to the new ship.
At the same time four other fine ships have been built under the stimulus of the Company’s concession of private trade with England – Lovely Hannahjie, Margaret, Marchioness Wellesley and Clyde – they were launched from Bengal ports.
Sat 26th Jan 1805
The auction of Company’s agency opium on 14th Dec at Calcutta produced average chest prices of 1,687 Sicca Rupees for Bihar and 1,761 Sicca Rupees for Benares.
Sat 26th Jan 1805
One of the buildings caught by the Bombay government’s recent order to clear the ground for 800 yards around the fort (a defensive precaution) is the Our Lady of Hope church. It is a Catholic church built by the Portuguese. It has since been rebuilt on a new site far from the fort.
Sat 26th Jan 1805
The Margaret Elizabeth, ex Barlow, arrived Calcutta from Mauritius on 22nd Dec 1804. The Captain reports no less than 35 American merchantmen in Port Louis.
Sat 26th Jan 1805
The Company has laid a claim on the home government for £4 millions. It was tabled in House of Commons on 2nd July 1804.
Amongst the charges is over £3 millions for the capture of Ceylon. Another million is for the capture of the French and Dutch ports of India. A fifth million is for the aborted invasions of Mauritius in 1794 and Manila in 1797 and there is an additional amount for the maintenance of HM regiments in India beyond the numbers previously agreed.
All the claims include interest running from the date the disbursement was paid. The claim is reduced by a credit of £1.5 millions paid prior to 1st March 1804 leaving the nett claim of £4 millions.
The estimated costs of the Egyptian campaign to the Company are said to be £2 millions but it has been agreed not to make this claim yet.
Sat 2nd March 1805
Notice – the duty on import and export of slaves has been abolished along with the proscription on traffic of slaves through the port of Bombay.
It is not the Company’s wish to interfere with the practice of domestic slavery prevalent amongst the natives of India. We merely proscribe an international trade in slaves.
Sat 2nd March 1805
Bhurtpore 21st Jan - General Lake has not yet taken this place after a long and costly siege. Lt Colonel Maitland, two Captains, fourteen Lieutenants and a good many Other Ranks have been lost in repeated attempts to storm the breach in the walls. The mud forts of India are almost impervious to our cannon. When we occasionally cause a breach, the deep sand slows our assault.
A supply convoy that was sent to Lake was ambushed by Sikh infantry and cavalry but managed to beat off the attack and kill or capture a number of Holkar’s men.
By late February Lake had dispatched four separate columns to enter the breach but they either could not get across the moat or the breach was too steep and well defended. The loss of officers and men has been great and morale is a question.
On 25th Feb Ranjit Singh offered terms which were negotiated and modified to an acceptable capitulation. He has surrendered all the lands we gave him on the defeat of Sindhia, he will pay the Company 2 million Rupees by instalments and his son is given to us as hostage for good performance.28
Sat 9th March 1805
This year’s indigo harvest in Bengal will exceed 60,000 Maunds. It is as much as we grew in the last two years together. The Arabs have taken over 6,000 Maunds and appear to represent a new customer. The Persians used to buy indigo from the native traders in north India but the progress of war disrupted the overland trade route and they are now coming to Calcutta for supply. By sending our indigo by sea it should be landed in the Gulf at cheaper prices than either the Arabs or Persians have been able to obtain formerly. They should become our regular customers.
Sat 9th March 1805
The amount of ship-building in the Ganges has become huge. It is due to the Company’s concession of limited private trade to London. This has created an expectation that our teak-built ships will find ready buyers in London. It will become a new source of income for the ‘Garden of India’.
Sat 16th March 1805
At the fifth annual examinations at the Fort William College, Marjoribanks has won the prize for spoken Bengali; he came 2nd in written Bengali, 2nd in French and 5th in Persian. He received an honours degree.
Sat 16th March 1805
The recent treaty with the Marathas gives the Company the port of Gogo on the west coast of the Gulf of Cambay and its hinterland. Its 9 miles north of Peram island. The easy entrance to the port, the depth of water and its windward situation make Gogo an excellent port for our development. Even at low Spring tides there is 12 feet of water to anchor in. Fresh water is abundant. It is more sheltered than Surat and deserves to be the major port in the Gulf.
The Governor-in-Council hopes the mercantile community will take advantage of this valuable new facility.
Sat 16th March 1805
Bentinck, the Governor of Madras, has given a lavish reception to Major General Wellesley in recognition of his military services.
Sat 23rd March 1805
Bhurtpore fell to General Lake on 20th Feb.
Sat 23rd March 1805
Major General Arthur Wellesley’s advice to continuing officers of the 33rd Regiment of the Indian army on his posting back to England:
“….adhere to the system of discipline, subordination and interior economy established by our Colonel, the Marquis Cornwallis, and above all cherish and encourage amongst yourselves the spirit of gentlemen and soldiers”
Sat 30th March 1805
Notice, 22nd March – Purshottam Casidass was a Shroff in the Company’s Treasury. He was discovered to be stealing Pice (the least valuable coins which the Company does not rigorously check). He is dismissed and is never to be employed in any capacity by the Company again.29
Sat 30th March 1805
The Company’s main settlements and garrisons in the Bombay Presidency are at Broach, Baroda, Salsette, Surat, Kaira and Anjengo.
Sat 30th March 1805
The insurrection of the people of Kandy against Company rule is continuing and repeated fighting occurs throughout the south and east of the island where the Company’s government was thought to be strongest.
Sat 6th April 1805
Julius Nash, one of the two owners of the new Tavern in Apollo Street, has died and his liquors, furniture, goods and personal effects are for auction to satisfy his debts to Ardaseer Dady who financed the Tavern venture.30
Sat 13th April 1805
Harford Jones, the Company’s Resident at Baghdad, has been permitted by George III to wear the insignia of the Ottoman Order of the Crescent. The award was conferred on him by the Porte after British success in the Egyptian campaign.
Sat 20th April 1805
Joseph Barretto Jr of Bombay has produced the first volume of a Persian and Arabic Dictionary. The entire Dictionary will comprise two volumes.
He is asking for subscriptions to support the production cost. 20 Sicca Rupees per volume.
Sat 27th April 1805
Notice - The monopoly for operating the ferry to Caranja is for sale on 30th April. The farm will run for three years from 1st May 1805. Service is from Morah Bunder to Bombay and back. Contact the Caranja Collector for details.
Thurs 16th May 1805 Extraordinary
Detailed report of Lake’s success against Bhurtpore and Ranjit Singh’s capitulation.
Sat 25th May 1805
For sale 25th May – An ensigncy in HM 74th Highland Regiment. Well under the regulated price.31 Apply to E Spencer, purser of the Indiaman Worcester.
June, July, August and September copies of the Bombay Courier are all missing.
Sat 5th Oct 1805
All private merchants wishing to export goods to London in 1805/06 season should make application to the Company before Sunday 6th Oct (tomorrow) showing the type and quantity of goods for shipment. Freight must be prepaid in Bombay or security given here for payment in London on delivery. Agents making requests for tonnage on behalf of Principals must include the Principal’s confirmation of same. The peace rate for shipments to London is £5 per ton (war rate add £1.10.0d). The peace rate from London to Bombay is £11 per ton (war rate add £3 per ton). Madeira wine is freighted at £4 per pipe (about 10% of retail value).32 All goods exported to India must be marked and registered with the Company and may be inspected. Unregistered cargo will be confiscated. Cargo space is available on ‘first come, first served’ basis.
Sat 5th Oct 1805
Notice, 26th Sept - Cargo from ships seized by the Maratha pirates of the Gulf of Cambay has been found in the Bombay market. If anyone buys these things and brings them to Bombay for sale they risk their confiscation without compensation.
Sat 5th Oct 1805
The progress of the government road across Salsette has finally convinced native businessmen to invest in property on that island. The Company is selling the whole island leasehold. Indian businessmen have hitherto held back their capital but of late have been buying along the route of the road.
Sat 12th Oct 1805
The government of Penang is renovated. Philip Dundas, late of Bombay, is appointed Governor at £9,000 a year after his bid for election to the House of Commons.
Oliphant is 1st in Council. He is the Company’s warehouse keeper and gets 3% on all sales with a guaranteed minimum income of £4,500 a year. His assistant warehouse keeper gets 2% commission on sales with a guaranteed income of £1,500.
Alexander Gray is 2nd in Council. He is superintendent of the naval and military stores and gets commission on sales with a guaranteed £4,500 a year income. His assistant superintendent gets 2% commission with a guaranteed £1,500 a year.
Capt Norman MacAllister is 3rd in Council. He is CiC and gets £4,500 a year. He is also responsible for mooring and anchoring in the harbour and is the Collector of Customs. There are to be ten writers at £360 each a year and the establishment will cost £41,350.
The Judicial and police appointments will cost more and have not yet been filled.
Sat 12th Oct 1805
Sorabjee Muncherjee, the great Parsee merchant has died. During the recent great famine at Poona he fed 2,000 people daily.
Sat 19th Oct 1805
Four American ships have recently arrived at Mauritius from France bringing shipments of naval stores. The Governor, General Du Caen, has followed the practise of the previous war and merely gives an acknowledgement of receipt. The freight is prepaid.
Sat 19th Oct 1805
Pierre Paul Dubocque, the former admiral of Tippoo’s navy, returned to France where he was accused on arrival of using his Indian employment to spy for England. He was tried, convicted and executed.
Sat 2nd Nov 1805
The recently adopted plan of building ships in India for sale in London originated with Philip Dundas while serving as Royal Naval representative in Bombay. When he returned to England in 1803 he told his father of the advantages of teak ships. Here is an edited version of his report:
Teakwood is more durable than oak and protects the iron fasteners longer. If we ship teak timber to England, the high cost of freight payable to the Company will consume too much of the price advantage. We would do better to build the largest ships that Indian ports can produce and sail them to London for sale. Teak is widely available all along the coast of Malabar from Surat to Cape Comorin. Bombay is near to the teak supply and has the deepest port although the three available docks at Bombay are not very suitable for ship-building.
He commends ship-building be undertaken on Butcher’s Island or Colobah or Old Woman’s Island where docks can be built easily and the depth of water is adequate. Philip was Naval Superintendent when the Cornwallis was built at Bombay. She is 1,360 tons. Only the upper dock was suitable for the job and it had to be lengthened. We also had a problem buying large timbers for her. I had to send men up-country to buy trees one by one. There is also a good supply of teak from Pegu (in Burma) but I don’t know must about that trade. Bengal has no teak. Most of our straight timber comes from Travancore. All the ironwork and copper would have to be imported from London. Indian masts and yards are not as good as the European ones. Indian coir and hemp is satisfactory. It comes mostly from the Maratha states but we could grow it at Surat or on Salsette. We have an adequate supply of skilled carpenters at Bombay.33
Sat 9th Nov 1805
Tooke, the Company’s Agent at Constantinople, died 25th April 1805
Sat 9th Nov 1805
The Company has declared a dividend of 5¼% for the half-year ended 5th July 1805.
Sat 9th Nov 1805
Cornwallis has just come out to replace Wellesley as Governor-General but has regrettably died on 5th Oct at Ghauzepore. He will be replaced pro tem by George Barlow who has nominated George Udny as alternate during his absence and John Lumsden as third council member. Thomas Brown is Chief Secretary.
Sat 16th Nov 1805 Extraordinary
Notice, 15th Nov - The Bombay Governor-in-Council is raising a new 2-year loan to be called the 1805/06 10% Loan. Minimum subscription 1,000 Rupees; 10% interest. Payment may be by cash, Bills of Exchange, Treasury Bills, Certificates of Arrears (of salary or allowances) or any other Demand on Government.
These Promissory Notes will be exchangeable with Bengal Promissory Notes of the same tenor. Payment of principal and interest may be by 12 month Sight Bills on London or cash here in Bombay.
Sat 30th Nov 1805
The Directors have appointed Samuel Peach as President of the Select Committee at Canton in place of James Drummond.34
Sat 14th Dec 1805
Isaac Morler is appointed the Company’s Resident at Constantinople in place of Peter Tooke.
Sat 21st Dec 1805
The Burmese Viceroy at Rangoon took possession of the ship that used to be called Mornington before she was made prize. His officials made rafts loaded with incendiaries that they intended to place across the river to prevent the ship being removed from the Viceroy’s possession. Captain Gordon went up the river, boarded the Mornington and sailed her down-river and off to Penang.
Another detained ship called Betsy was left behind as her removal was thought contrary to the usages of neutrality. HMS Albatross has detained the ship Regina and sent her for adjudication to Rangoon, her captain says.
Sat 11th Jan 1806
Mon 16th Dec - an auction of the Company’s opium at Calcutta today produced average prices of 1,506 Sicca Rupees per chest.
Note - There is so much money sloshing around India from prizetaking, looting, unclaimed Estates and frequent windfall profits in the native states, that a regular feature of British Indian life is a succession of subscriptions to charitable works. Each of the Company’s frequent battles brings a request for Widows & Orphans donations; the recent smallpox eradication attempt (using cow-pox vaccinations) also. There are frequent lotteries for distributing loot taken from captured towns (one of Arthur Wellesley’s preferences over the formal prize system). Cornwallis’ death has produced a series of cash collections and one in today’s paper is for a statue and mausoleum.
The list of subscribers starts with the Bombay Governor Jonathan Duncan whose donation of 6,000 Rupees is unusually large. There are sixty more names below his in the list. Any subscription with a military flavour (and Cornwallis is remembered for reducing Tippoo’s influence in the Deccan) gets broad support from all military units – the officers have no choice, its an aspect of the high spending enforced on Company staff in India (all British imports are expensive and most new arrivals go into debt in their first year or two). This may inculcate a willingness to ultimately accept bribes. It seems to be a Company expectation of its staff that ‘when you are making it, you should spread it around’.
Sun 19th Jan 1806 Extraordinary
M/s John Ross & Co are appointed Agents to the Company in Malta.
Sat 1st Feb 1806
There is a contract existing between American and Dutch merchants whereby American ships are allowed to participate in the loading of colonial goods at Batavia for delivery at French and Dutch ports.
It was discovered by the English government in August 1805.
About 12-14 American ships are contracted. They all sail from Batavia to Europe via America where they appear to break voyage but in fact merely substitute the shipping papers. In this way one voyage appears documentarily to be two voyages and thus comes within the exception in our recent AngloAmerican treaty. The names of the vessels and their owners are known – it’s a group of merchants from Boston and Amsterdam behind the scam.
Sat 8th Feb 1806
First the Carnatic, and today the Bombay, Insurance Companies have notified their customers that unless their ships travel in convoy they will not be indemnified for war losses.
Sat 15th Feb 1806
The Company is selling the redundant presents received from the late Persian embassy. Last week it was the cashmere shawls and chintzes; this week it is a large Kandahar horse.
Sat 15th Feb 1806
The treaty we concluded with Dowlat Rao Sindhia on 22nd Nov 1805 has been ratified by that Prince and received at Bombay Castle on 10th Feb 1806.
Sat 15th Feb 1806
The Governor of Ceylon has proclaimed that there are many debtors in the prison of Colombo and their creditors are daily increasing their claims by the amount of subsistence required to be paid to maintain the debtors in prison.
The Governor accordingly enacts that the debtors are to be freed and their property distrained to the extent of their debts. The Colombo magistrate is to examine all people held for debt since last year or before, ascertain the facts of each case and then release them. No debtor is to be re-arrested for the same debt.
Creditors may seize property the debtors now have or which they may hereafter come to possess.
Sat 22nd Feb 1806
The treaty with Sindhia of 22nd Nov 1805 is published. Government recites the agreement we made on 30th Dec 1803 and approves it with the following additions:
Sindhia abandons his claim on the fort of Gwalior and the lands of Gohud but the Company cedes them to him for 1.5 million Rupees a year. Sindhia gets the lands south of the River Chumbal and the Company gets the lands north (with listed exceptions).
The Company pays Sindhia 400,000 Rupees a year and gives Baezah Bhye, his wife, a jaghire of 200,000 Rupees a year and Chumnah Bhye, his daughter, a jaghire of 100,000 Rupees a year.
The Company agrees to make no treaties with the Rajahs of Oudipur, Jodhpur or Kottah or any chief in Malwa, Mewar or Marwar and will not interfere in any agreements Sindhia makes with those chiefs.
The Company is now fighting Holkar. When we win, we engage not to give him any lands in Malwa or any lands south of the Chumbal and north of the Tapti.
Sat 22nd Feb 1806
The Company is sending £500,000 in silver to Bengal. It is shipped on HMS Thalia (Walker) on 27th Sept from Portsmouth. It weighs 55 tons and is contained in 500 chests each holding $4,000. It is believed to be the largest shipment of value ever sent to India.
Sat 1st March 1806
Country ships permitted to take cargo to London under the recent concession of the Company have been neglecting their lascar seamen. These people need board and lodging whilst in London, suitable winter clothing and medical treatment when sick. These items are falling to the Company to pay when payment should be the responsibility of the captains and owners of the country ships on which the lascars crew.
In future Captains will sign the charterparty with owners and the Company and will be jointly responsible with owners for the care of seamen and their return to India. Enforcement of the new terms will impact the captain’s ability to return to India which will be ended if he fails to care for his men.
Sat 1st March 1806
Two ensigncies in HM’s 78th Regiment for sale (the Regiment has been fighting Holkar and has vacancies). Apply Forbes & Co.
Sat 1st March 1806
M/s Parry Lane & Co of Madras and M/s Neil Gibbons & Co of Trincomalee will unite on 1st Jan at which time David Pugh will become a partner of the combined business.
Sat 1st March 1806
The Company has made a peace treaty in English and Persian with Jeswant Rao Holkar on 24th Dec 1805. General Lake’s articles are more British than the usual Company treaty – he refers repeatedly to the British Government and never the Company. The main terms are:
Britain agrees to stop fighting Holkar. We agree not to disturb Holkar’s title to his family lands in Mewar, Malwa and Harrowtee, south of the Chumbal River. We agree to return Holkar’s lands south of the River Tapti which we occupied but not those lands south of the Godivari or some named forts.
Holkar renounces his title to the places north of the Boondee Hills. He renounces all claim to Koonch in Bundelcund. If Holkar performs his agreement precisely, after two years, the Company will give Koonch in jaghire to Beemah Bhye, his daughter. Holkar engages never to employ Europeans in his army without the consent of the British government. He engages never again to employ Serjee Rao Ghautka (the Francophile adviser).
On the signing of this agreement Holkar may return to his lands (he has been chased away to the northwest) but his army must not plunder on the way.
(NB – the Company later returns Holkar’s family lands north of the Boondee Hills for sentimental reasons)
Note - It is usual at Company dinner functions to have a series of toasts, each one accompanied by a piece of popular music. There are commonly ten or more toasts during a dinner. Some toasts are ‘three by three’ requiring nine sips of wine.
In this edition, one such dinner is mentioned. The toast to the King is accompanied by ‘God save the King’; toasts to naval victors are accompanied by ‘Hearts of Oak are our Ships’; army victors, ‘the British Grenadiers’. The toast to the Court of Directors is accompanied by ‘Money in Both Pockets’.
Sat 12th April 1806
Whilst Barlow is acting Governor General, and with no prospect of having his job made permanent (its in the Prime Minister’s gift), he is getting a pet project approved:
Notice 11th April 1806 – the Governor-General invites a subscription to translate the Bible into Asian languages – Sanskrit, Bengali, Hindi, Persian, Mahrati, Gujerati, Orissan, Carnata, Telinga, Tamil, Singhalese, Burmese, Assamese, Bhutanese, Malay, Tibetan and Chinese. Many of these languages are Sanskrit derivatives.
The Dutch have already made a Singhalese Bible and Protestant missionaries in the Deccan have made a Tamil one. We have ourselves published a Bengali Bible. Three years ago Persian and Hindi translations were commenced and more recently Mahrati and Orissan versions commenced.
The Press is already operating. We estimate 1,200 Rupees per month for five years will suffice to complete the job.
The Sanskrit version will have the Greek original juxtaposed to assist classical scholars with an interest in linguistics.
The Far Eastern language versions will commence once we have the money. Tibetan should be easiest as the Catholics have already obtained an understanding of it. For Chinese translations we have the services of Joannes Lassar, who has been correcting correspondence between the Macau Government and the Chinese and is now resident at the Mission House in Serampore. Mr Lassar has already produced numerous woodblocks (in the Chinese style) of his translation.
Please send your donations to the Protestant Missionaries in Bengal, Mission House, Serampore or to the Treasurers of the Fund, Alexander & Co c/o the Bank of Hindustan.
(NB – at about the same time the Company resolved to establish nine Protestant chaplainries throughout its lands. Two will be in Calcutta and seven in the major military cantonments - Masulipatam, Vellore, Trichinopoly, Seringapatam, Malabar, Canara and one in the provinces lately ceded by the Nizam.)
Sat 26th April 1806
Samuel Manesty has returned to Basra after his embassy to Persia. No word of his negotiations is published but it might relate to Russian incursions in the north of that country.
Sat 26th April 1806
The Company’s import of specie to Calcutta has helped to restore the value of its loan paper which was drooping. The Company needs a link between the silver and paper currencies to maintain confidence. We hope the paper value will soon equal the silver value it supposedly represents.
With this aim in mind the Company is to open a bank at Bombay, under its guarantee, and the 500 subscriber shares (of 10,000 Rupees each) have been taken-up by the big merchants with alacrity.
There are none left to buy and they were not even advertised (in this newspaper) for sale. The capital of the Bank will accordingly be 5 million Sicca Rupees. This should bring an end to shroffage, the premium that silver bears to paper.35
Sat 3rd May 1806
Alexander Johnstone is appointed Chief Justice of Ceylon.
Sat 31st May 1806
The Bombay Government requires 100,000 Rupees and offers Bills of Exchange at 9-months Sight on London. The loan is valid for a year at 5% interest.
Sat 14th June 1806
Calcutta 17th May – a large amount of silver in several separate consignments, totally over 500 chests, has been delivered to the Company’s treasury here during the last week. HMS Blenheim is coming up from Madras with another 2 million rupees.
Sat 14th June 1806
The American Capt Tubbs has arrived at Batavia with a cargo of Turkish opium from Smyrna. We will observe its marketability with interest.
Sat 14th June 1806
In the Bombay Presidency’s Remembrance of Pitt is a comment “When it was thought expedient to make peace with France, Pitt resigned his office, and instead of a factious opposition to his successor, he countenanced his efforts in that experiment. The impossibility of a real peace with France ……” and “when he resigned the government in 1800 he had no other income except as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. He had to sell his estate in Hayes, Kent……”
Sat 28th June 1806
Surcouf, the Governor of Mauritius, has been recalled. He sold up all his interests on the island and collected 300,000 Rupees to take back to France with him.
Sat 28th June 1806
Colombo, 28th May 1806 – The former Dutch government legislated against Catholicism although it did not enforce its restrictive laws. There is a large Catholic community in Ceylon, apparently resulting from the earlier Portuguese influence. The British government permits their worship and full civil rights; Catholic marriages are allowed. This regulation takes effect on 1st June 1806.
Sat 28th June 1806
The loss of national heroes (Cornwallis, Nelson and Pitt) has not done Major General Arthur Wellesley any harm. Although his battles with Sindhia were costly he is an upcoming hero as a result of them and from the favourable treaties that followed those victories. He has been made Colonel of the 33rd Regiment (Cornwallis’ old regiment).
Sat 28th June 1806
The Company’s latest dispatches for India (loaded on the Belle for carriage through the Mediterranean and thence overland via Aleppo and Baghdad to Basra) have been taken in the Bay of Biscay by a French squadron out of Rochefort. The letters should have been sunk before the French boarded but, even if not, their loss will only briefly level the playing-field in respect of French intelligence about India.
Sat 12th July 1806
Wanted to buy, 8th July – The Company will buy 2,200 bales of Broach cotton and 640 Candies of Sandalwood (Bombay Candy = 588 lbs) for the China market. Payment in cash or our own Bills (into our Treasury at Canton but for sellers’ account) within two months of arrival at Whampoa or twelve months of our acceptance of your offer here (in the event the goods are lost en voyage). Partial offers acceptable.
Sat 12th July 1806
18th June – Advices from Purneah on our northern frontier say Nepal is in anarchy. The King has been giving unusual orders for some months, culminating in an instruction to gaol his principal officials. The executive officers asked the King to personally confirm his orders to the fallen officials.
He went with a small retinue to the gaol to do so where he was himself, together with his party of followers, executed by supporters of the gaoled men. The imprisoned officials were then released and fled.
The late King’s son by a favourite consort of inferior birth was the King’s choice to succeed him. That lad blinded those of his step-brothers who had better legal title but discovered he was not himself considered an acceptable replacement by the people - they prefer the King’s surviving nephew.
The favoured consort has disappeared like the ex-officials.
Sat 12th July 1806
Bombay Castle 5th July - Cadet Henry Pottinger, on the supernumerary list, has qualified in Hindi and is made an Acting Ensign until a vacancy occurs.
Mon 4th Aug 1806 Extraordinary
This edition is published solely to remind country traders of the 3,000 tons allowance for London which has not yet been fully taken-up.
Sat 9th Aug 1806
Government Notice - The Company will not loan any more gun carriages (against a deposit) for private funerals. In future it will sell them.
Sat 16th Aug 1806
Thomas Redhead has resigned from Porcher Redhead & Co, East India Agents of Devonshire Square, London, on 30th Sept 1805 due to ill health. The firm continues under the same style with continuing partners Josias du Pre Porcher, John Forbes, Thomas Wilkinson, Henry Redhead and Nathaniel Edward Kindersley.
Sat 23rd Aug 1806
The indigo harvest in Bengal this year is expected to be smaller than usual. The likely harvest in Benares has not been estimated.
During the last 2-3 years the sircars have been growing indigo in their fields and have established co-operative factories for its processing in Jessore, Kishenaghur and Burdwan and in many other places all over Bengal. This practice does not yet seem to have started in Bihar or the newly ceded district. It will increase the harvest and farmers must try to produce a better quality article to ensure good sales.
Sat 6th Sept 1806
The Company’s Chairman has defended the administration of India:
In other colonies, the British merchant is free to visit or live or work or trade but the Company has a monopoly over India and all Asia. This contradictory situation has encouraged many private British merchants to seek for access to eastern trade. They say that all Europe can trade to India but not English merchants. It is true and it cannot be helped.
The maritime countries of Europe explored the east and set-up trading posts, some before us. We only conquer those trading posts in wartime on which occasions our control of India is perfect. When we make peace we usually restore them. In wartime all the neutral states carry on Eastern trade with better prospects than either the Company or private British merchants. They do not have to pay war-risks insurance premiums like us. The costs of their crews and officers are cheaper. The Americans are particularly diligent in Eastern trade often acting in ways far beyond the intentions of our 1791 Treaty of Commerce and Amity with them. That allowed them a direct trade between Eastern ports and American ports. It was not intended that they should assume the carrying trade of Europe as they have in fact done, but this is not a problem for the Company to redress, it is a matter for the home government.
In the Company’s Presidencies little specie circulates and paper money is the chief means of exchange. In the interior of the country only specie is valued – factories, farmers and traders deal in nothing else. Most of the bullion we import to India is coined into Company’s Rupees and circulates in the interior. Some part of this is used for trade outside India and is lost to us. The cargoes of Indian goods bought by foreigners are sold in Europe and America, so their money comes in but does not go out.
Since a limited private trade was permitted in 1801 our own trade has diminished by 30% so this is not simply a matter of neutral countries creaming-off the business of India. Reducing the trade of neutrals may not increase the Company’s trade or indeed the private trade, if India became an unrestricted market to them.
This question is basically whether India should be treated as a British Colony or as a monopoly of the Company as hitherto.
Sat 20th Sept 1806
The late Company auctions of Indian cloth, dyes and piecegoods in London were poorly attended and prices have fallen 15-20% from previous sale. 1st quality indigo is now 13/- a lb and the cheapest quality is 5/-.
Sat 27th Sept 1806
The House of Commons called for Company papers concerning aspects of Wellesley’s administration of India and the Board of Control was unable to produce them. This new Liberal Whig administration is not trusted by the commercial adherents of the old. Wallace, Castlereagh and Addington said the Board of Control had to check the papers first in case something detrimental was contained in them. Ker said it is expensive to print volumes of papers that would be read by few and impolitic to teach our enemies how we administer India.
Ultimately the papers were ordered to be produced. Paul MP (an ex-India man from Lucknow) wishes to bring four charges against Wellesley – first involving the Nabob of the Carnatic, second involving Oudh, third the appointment of his brother Henry Wellesley and fourth the peace and war with the Sikhs at Bhurtpore. He says he already has evidence to support his charges but suspects the other papers he has called-for will provide information of further derelictions of duty. He particularly expected to charge Wellesley with appropriating about £100,000 a year for his personal use (the new palace, enlarged bodyguard, etc).36
The House of Commons is generally opposed to Paul’s initiative. Fox objected to the idea of impeaching Governors-General for pursuing general lines of policy. In those cases the better response was replacement of the Governor-General. Fox thought impeachment should be restricted to specific acts.
Sat 4th Oct 1806
The Collector of Surat is selling the monopoly for collection of transit dues on the River Tapti for one year (the river that serves the southern part of Maratha lands). Send in your proposals before 15th Oct.
Sat 11th Oct 1806
Simon Halliday, the naval storekeeper in Bombay, wants money for the Royal Navy. He is offering 90 day Admiralty Bills on London in settlement. Send in your proposals indicating available investment and preferred exchange rate.
Sat 25th Oct 1806
Major James Murray, an American soldier long in the service of the Mahratta chief Holkar, has died at Calcutta. He resigned his employment on the conclusion of the late wars in conformity with our requirement and was preparing to return home with a considerable fortune when he died. He was a delightful chap and an intrepid soldier. The American ships in the river have their flags at half-mast.
Sun 26th Oct 1806 Extraordinary
The many Extraordinary editions of late are due to an increased communication with India via the overland route, possibly connected with the change of administration in London and its greater interest in Indian affairs.
Sat 15th Nov 1806
Capt Basil Cochrane has permission of Sir Edward Pellow to assign all the Royal Navy’s victualling requirements for the India squadron to M/s James Balfour and Joseph Baker of Madras.37
Sat 29th Nov 1806
M/s Harvey Weathrall & Co have built the 500 tons Reliance at Calcutta for sale. Its for the China trade. Send your tenders to Bruce Fawcett & Co, Bombay Agents for the sellers.
Sat 29th Nov 1806
Colombo , 22nd Oct – two cartel ships are coming from Batavia to take away the Dutch population. After they have gone, for the duration of the war, there will be no further communication with Batavia. The ex-employees of VOC are welcome to remain. The other Dutchmen will not be protected after 1st Nov.
Sat 27th Dec 1806
Sadlier was a senior merchant in the Company’s commercial department in India. He sent £150,000 to Sir Stephen Lushington in London for investment. Lushington is a Company Director and a City banker. Customarily, 4% interest is payable by the merchant banker until the funds are invested in government debt paper but in this case, Lushington invested Sadlier’s money in his own Bank in the City and, over a period of ten years, regularly accounted to Sadlier, never charging for commission or services generally.
When Sadlier unexpectedly died, Lushington sent a bill to his executors for commission on the money he had invested for Sadlier. He charged his services at 1½% over the entire period and attached a bill to £2,250. The executors sued.
The Attorney General is acting in the unfamiliar role of defendant’s advocate. He said it was well known that all merchants charge commission on any money passing through their hands. The executors said that the fact Lushington had not made a charge revealed he did not intend to do so until very recently.
The Lord Chancellor who is hearing the case said lending money to oneself, paying it back and re-lending it to one’s partners could hardly quality for payment of a commission. If Sadlier had been asked to pay commission during his lifetime he would never have paid it. Lushington’s claim for commission was dismissed.38
Sat 20th Dec 1806
Shah Allum, the Grand Mughal, died in Delhi on 16th Nov. His eldest son Akbar is expected to succeed him.
Sat 3rd Jan 1807
The Bombay Presidency is raising a new 8% loan. The Notice is only in English. We will receive all outstanding Bombay Treasury Bills or Bills of Exchange drawn on the Bombay Governor (adjusted for outstanding interest) in subscription to the new loan. Army paymasters are to transfer their debts to this loan by issuing and submitting drafts on the military Paymaster-General. Subscriptions in cash or Bills will be received at par. Principal is repayable by 12 month Sight Bills drawn on London at 2/6d per rupee.
Sat 17th Jan 1807
On 17th Dec 540 chests of treasure each containing $4,000 silver dollars (over $2 millions), was delivered to Calcutta from London.
Sat 7th Feb 1807
On the evening of 22nd Jan a splendid entertainment was given at Madras to celebrate Melville’s acquittal by the House of Lords. The theatre was decorated by Chinnery who painted the transparencies which were illuminated to good effect. A gentleman favoured the company with new lyrics for the old song ‘Hearts of Oak’ which celebrated Melville as having equal statesmanship to Pitt and listing his deeds whereby he is known as the Seaman’s Friend.39 Melville was then toasted ‘three times three’
Sat 14th Feb 1807
Capt Burnsides of the Clyde has returned to Calcutta after a voyage to the East. He says opium is a drag everywhere. He could not sell any in Borneo and transferred 10 chests from his stock there to Malacca where he got only $800 per chest. He has nevertheless brought back a considerable quantity of gold dust and other bullion.
Sat 14th Feb 1807
Gilbert Elliot (Lord Minto), is appointed Governor-General of India. He is delaying his departure from London pending the arrival of his son (also Gilbert Elliot) from Palermo. Elliot Jr will command the frigate that brings Minto to India.
Sat 21st Feb 1807
Madras Presidency has permitted American ships to bring grain for sale until 31st Dec 1807. This will divert some of the American business that normally goes to Mauritius.
Sat 28th Feb 1807
The Calcutta merchants are having a problem with the cotton growers in the Upper Provinces. Those people keep themselves informed of the prices available in China (the principal market where Bengal cotton is preferred) and increase their own prices when they hear Chinese prices are up.
The native capitalists (the Shroffs) are enabled by this means to obtain a high return on their investment whilst we European Agencies are left with only the balance. Our recourse has been to send Agents with cash into the growing areas to buy the cotton before it is harvested.
As our Bengal trade increases, it is likely the Bombay and the new Malabar cotton sales will decrease.
Sat 7th March 1807
Auguza Jacob, owner of the Shah Pariah, presented the King of Ava with a unique sea shell and the King was so pleased he gave permission to Jacob to cut down 200 teak trees at Pegu. This is the finest cargo of teak ever shipped from Burma.
Sat 21st March 1807
The second annual auction of the Company’s opium at Calcutta in February produced average prices of only 997 Sicca Rupees per chest (less than $500).
Sat 28th March 1807
The Bombay Courier Editor has appointed Mr Joseph de Souza as agent at Poona. Subscribers in the Deccan may get their copy of the newspaper from him.
Sat 28th March 1807
A second frigate has been built for HM service in the dock at Bombay. It is named Salsette. Jamsetjee Bomanjee is the shipwright who built the ship. He has thirty years experience in ship building. He has a ‘74’ in course of construction which will fix his reputation for ever.
Sat 4th April 1807
The Bombay Government has so far raised 3.25 million Rupees on the 8% loan this year. It’s the first major borrowing since 1804. This takes the outstanding indebtedness of the Bombay Presidency under its Promissory Notes to 18 million Rupees.
Note - It has become apparent that American ship captains are more circumspect than hitherto. They used to arrive with news from Europe, the Cape and Mauritius but these days they all say they have come direct from Philadelphia or New York and have no news to impart. The Mount Vernon (Cheevers) is the latest American arrival to adopt this new procedure.
Sat 2nd May 1807
The Bombay Presidency has added another million Rupees of debt within the last month. Value of outstanding promissory notes is now 19 million Rupees.
Sat 9th May 1807
Notice – All the 6% promissory notes issued 1795-96 will be discharged on 4th May. All the 9% promissory notes issued Aug/Sept 1799 will be discharged at the same time.
Sat 9th May 1807
Notice - Dadabhoy Cowasjee Monackjee and Pestonjee Rustomjee have dissolved their trading partnership ‘Pestonjee & Ardaseer’ and invite suppliers and customers to settle accounts. Both partners will continue their old business separately from new premises.
Note - In April and successive editions since then, the Editor has been providing brief biographies of sitting MPs.
Sat 23rd May 1807
The Portuguese have re-established the office of Viceroy at Goa. A frigate left the Tagus in late October en route to Goa via Rio de Janeiro and is bringing the new Viceroy Dom Bernard, Conte de Sarzados.
Sat 6th June 1807
Another 100,000 Rupees of the 8% Promissory Notes has been issued this month.
Sat 6th June 1807
The belief in London amongst the Company’s ex-servants that wines are improved by the heat of a voyage across the equator has drawn the attention of the Company’s directors to this aspect of trade. In order to participate in these extra profits the Company has declared it will charge freight of £15 per pipe for the return carriage of Madeira from Bombay to London.
Sat 13th June 1807
On 25th May the Princess of Brazil frigate arrived at Goa bringing the new Portuguese Viceroy of Asia, Count Sarzedas Barnardo Jose de Lorena. The Company provides troops in Goa to act as the garrison.
On 7th June a great dinner was held to celebrate his arrival. They toasted the British and Portuguese monarchies and ‘may there never be a separation of the British and Portuguese nations’.
Sat 13th June 1807
Philip Dundas, Henry’s son and recently Governor of Penang, died on 8th April. Henry Shepherd Pearson has taken over pro tem.
Sgd Thomas Raffles, Government Sec’y.
Sat 13th June 1807
Notice, 2nd June - The Company has chartered two extra ships to replace those that have been lost. These new ships are stronger and more defensible than the old ones. We are accepting approved cargoes India to London at £30.10.0d freight per ton.
Sat 13th June 1807
Notice from Calcutta, 3rd June – Robert MacClintock has been eleven years in India. The last seven years he was first an assistant and later a partner in Alexander & Co. He is now setting-up his own business – receiving orders for purchase and/or sale of goods, shipping goods, sale & purchase of ships, houses, land, etc., procuring freight, arranging insurances and all other lines of Agency business. He will trade under his personal name and use Porcher Redhead & Co as London Agents.
Sat 20th June 1807
The Danish ship Elizabeth has arrived at Calcutta from Batavia which she left 11th April. The Dutch Admiral Hartsink was living ashore as his warships are laid-up for want of crews. The Elizabeth took an opium cargo to Batavia but the speculation was hardly successful – she got nominally $750 per chest but it was a barter trade paid mainly in Japanese copper.
Thurs 25th June 1807 Extraordinary
Lord Minto left Portsmouth on HMS Modeste (Elliot, Minto’s son Gilbert, later 2nd Earl Minto) on 16th Feb to take-up his new appointment of Governor-General of India. He arrived at Madras on 20th June with Muir, his Private Secretary, and Taylor his ADC.
Mon 29th June 1807 Extraordinary
The public executions of Haggerty and Holloway at Newgate for the murder of Steele attracted such a large crowd of spectators that thirty were killed in the crush and many more were maimed.
The bodies of the executed men, which are at the disposal of the King, were sent to hospital for dissection as has become possible under the new law.40
Sat 4th July 1807
A considerable sale of 8% promissory notes was made in June and another 2 million Rupees was collected. The total outstanding debt of the Presidency for promissory notes is now 21.3 million Rupees (over £2 million and Bombay is the smallest Presidency) of which nearly 7 million Rupees has been subscribed in this 1806/07 year
Sat 8th Aug 1807
George Chinnery has arrived at Madras on the Indiaman City of London.
Tues 1st Sept 1807 Extraordinary
The election of six Directors at East India House on 8th April caused 2,000 shareholders to turn-up to vote. Its just the usual annual election of those Directors who must retire by rotation. The successful six were Charles Grant, Sweeney Toone, William Thornton, George Smith, Campbell Marjoribanks and John Jackson. There are totally twenty-four Directors of the Company.
Sat 5th Sept 1807
The Company has abolished the taxes on production from the stone quarries of Salsette. The salt gabelle, the taxes on production of hay and ownership of date trees are also repealed wef 1st October 1807.
Sat 12th Sept 1807
Colonel MacQuarrie is invited to the court of Persia by the King.
Sat 19th Sept 1807
Notice 4th Sept - The Mahim ferry monopoly is for sale from 1st Oct 1807 – 30th Apr 1810. For conditions of the lease visit the Office of the Company’s Boat Master.
Sat 26th Sept 1807
The 10% ten year loan that commenced in July 1798 is due for repayment soon. You may have cash or Bills on London at 2/6d per Rupee.
Sat 3rd Oct 1807
Instructions to the Company’s Medical Board at Madras:
Medicines are permitted to European soldiers to a value of 20 cash per man per day. This covers all indents for aloes, alum, asafoetida, cardamoms, cinnamon, cloves, camphor, castor oil, gamboge, liquorice, musk, nutmegs, Patna opium, rhubarb, julep, pure nitre, senna, sulphur, Madeira, port, brandy and vinegar.
Purchasing in the bazaars is discontinued.
The Medical Board has certified that the strength and quality of Patna opium is now constant. You may indent for this from Bengal at the rate of Star Pagodas 5.33.60 per lb.41 When the Patna supply has been increased, all purchasing of other types of native opium will be disallowed.
Sat 10th Oct 1807
Proclamation, 22nd Sept - Arab and Persian merchants have been carrying on a smuggling trade from Bombay in slaves. Every European ship commander will in future make Oath before the magistrate that his ship carries no slaves before the Port Clearance Certificate will be issued to him.
The Resident Broker or Consignee of all Asiatic shipping will make a similar Declaration. If Indians are discovered being taken away, the fine is 500 Rupees per head which will be paid in full to the informer.
Sat 17th Oct 1807
Lord William Bentinck and wife are returning to London from Madras on HMS Pitt. (He was appointed by Fox’s Ministry of all the Talents and, now they are removed from office, he has to go as well.)
At the time of sailing Sir Edward Pellow changed the name of HMS Pitt to HMS Salsette - the name of the frigate we recently built and launched at Bombay. Concurrently, Sir Edward changed the name of our Bombay frigate Salsette to Pitt. This exchange of names is an attempt to confuse the enemy (such as the private ship owners previously did and were criticised for) should the French receive Indian shipping information and try to capture Bentinck.
Sat 24th Oct 1807
Before Bentinck left Madras on 26th Sept he revealed his instructions from Fox’s ministry to the merchants and residents:
To protect the free exercise of all religions.
To protect residents from robbery
To protect the persons and property of all residents by impartial laws.
To punish law violators, high and low.
To receive petitions from everyone and attend to reasonable complaints.
To treat native princes allied to the Company with good faith and respect.
To maintain obedience amongst the troops; recompense extraordinary services and care for them when they are old or sick.
To cherish the poor and hungry in times of public distress.42
Sat 31st Oct 1807
Alexander Adamson has died aged 62 years. He was a leading merchant of Bombay. His Will appoints Charles Forbes and Ardaseer Dady as his Executors but Forbes has renounced his appointment.
Sat 31st Oct 1807
The Persians are fighting in Afghanistan. They have won a battle at Kandahar and captured an Afghan leader whom they immolated on the field of battle.
Sat 31st Oct 1807
Calcutta, 25th Sept - Robert McClintock has left Alexander & Co. He says he does not wish to compete with the investments of his Principals.
He will join Mackintosh Fulton & Co on 1st Nov which will thereafter be called M/s Mackintosh Fulton & McClintock. The new firm will continue the policy of Mackintosh Fulton & Co and act strictly as Agents without indulging in commercial competition with its principals.
Sat 14th Nov 1807
The Indian Agency Houses are upset that Mauritius remains a French Colony after years of war. It is the base from which French privateers disrupt British shipping in the east. The merchants say the value of property already lost to the Mauritian privateers is more than adequate to finance an invasion of that island and nearby Reunion.
They are frankly suspicious how Mauritian independence has been maintained so long and wonder why government has not protected their trade better.
Mon 16th Nov 1807 Extraordinary
There are continuous lotteries operated by the Presidencies. The tickets are generally 100 Rupees each (more than double the English Lottery ticket). The prizes are equally lavish.
Sat 28th Nov 1807
An immense number of Persians are passing down Mesopotamia purportedly on a Haj to Mecca. They are led by one of the sons of Baba Khan and are approaching Baghdad. Unusually, for a pilgrimage, they have an artillery train of 50 cannon. We fear for our overland communications.
Sat 12th Dec 1807
Notice - Lt Eldred Curwen Pottinger of the European Regiment has died on 6th Dec.
Sat 12th Dec 1807
Richard Johnson, formerly of the Board of Trade, and Mr Pote, the former Commercial Resident at Patna, have applied for re-employment in the Indian Civil Service and will come out from London in September 1807.
Sat 2nd Jan 1808
Fraser and Shouldham, a couple of ex-soldiers in Calcutta, have been convicted of forging a 250 Rupee note of the Bank of Calcutta. The paper which the Company uses to print bank-notes is on sale in the local bazaar. They bought some, infused oil into the paper to make it more transparent then got a real 250 Rupee bank-note and traced it onto the oiled blank paper. They filled up the tracing in copper plate using a fine brush. They treated the back of the paper with slaked lime to draw off surplus oil and sun-dried it. Finally they added the signatures of the Bank Director and the entering Clerk and the document was complete.
The defects that caused their exposure were the absence of the word ‘entered’ on the form and the selection of the wrong Bank Director for signature. On a close examination it was apparent that the paper had not been printed on a plate. The defects were detected at the Bank and an enquiry commenced. In England this offence invariably merits a capital sentence but in India, as they are Europeans, it is less serious. They were convicted and imprisoned.
Sat 9th Jan 1808
Sir George Barlow, who has been administering the Indian government, is appointed Governor of Madras in replacement of Bentinck. Minto will assume the Governor-Generalship.
Sat 16th Jan 1808
The Government of Ceylon is selling £7,000 of Bills of Exchange 40-days Sight on the Paymaster General in London. Contact Bruce Fawcett & Co.
Sat 23rd Jan 1808
The writer Trevor J C Plowden has been made Assistant Collector of Customs at Calcutta.
Sat 20th Feb 1808
Sir Thomas Strange, Chief Justice of Madras, has directed the Jurors on 21st Jan in the cases of two soldiers presently serving away from Madras (Wm Cogan, guilty of murder, and Wm Smith, guilty of manslaughter).
From the evidence given in the hearings, it appears both defendants believed that the easiest way to get discharged from one of HM Regiments up-country was to commit a homicide. Strange says they have committed these despicable crimes simply to get back to Madras. These are not the first cases of this type, etc ….. Cogan was executed; Smith was imprisoned for a year.
Sat 27th Feb 1808
Wm Roxburgh is appointed Superintendent of the Company’s spice plantation on Sumatra.
Sat 5th March 1808
Bombay Government debt under its Promissory Notes has again increased in the last two months. Its now 26 million Rupees (c. £3+ millions).
Sat 5th March 1808
Between 1801 – 1807 we built 72 ships and brigs at Calcutta. They total 32,244 tons. At 31st Dec 1807 63 merchant ships are registered to the port of Calcutta. They total 23,745 tons and employ 245 European and 2,982 Asiatic mariners.
Sat 26th March 1808
The Company’s College at Fort William examined students in various languages and issued proficiency certificates in February. Oral examination and disputation was done this year in Hindustani, Bengali, Persian, Arabic and Mahrati.
Written examination was also undertaken in Nagree and Bengali.
Sat 9th April 1808
The Marquis Wellesley, on his return from India, bought Apsley House at Hyde Park Corner for £17,000 and is spending £6,000 on redecorations.
Hoseason, the Madras merchant who has also just returned from India, has bought the late Sir Stephen Lushington’s house in Harley Street for £9,000.43
Sat 7th May 1808
The indebtedness of the Bombay Presidency under its Promissory Notes at end April was just over 29 million Rupees.
Sat 21st May 1808
A list of Company charters for the coming season is published.
Leading members of the ‘shipping interest’ together with the numbers of their ships chartered to the Company are - Henry Bonham six; John Locke three; Richard Borradaile two; Robert Burrowes two; John P Larkins two; Andrew Timbrell two and Robert Williams two.
Sir Robert Wigram (formerly the major owner) is only chartering one ship to the Company this year.
Sat 25th June 1808
Our Bombay Promissory Notes are bearer notes and many natives are being defrauded. The Company has opened a Transfer Office to register genuine transfers of title. The fee is reasonable (56 Reas per 100 Rupees)
Sat 16th July 1808
There is a Cape Packet running between the Cape, Madras and Calcutta (Bombay gets the overland news). The one that arrived Calcutta on 22nd June at Calcutta took 11 days from Madras.
Sat 23rd July 1808
Government invites tenders for the provision of 1,000 bales of Mocha coffee CIF Bombay. The quality of the shipment will be subject to government approval.
Sat 6th Aug 1808
Cotton Bowerbank Dent has become a merchant at Pondicherry.
Sat 6th Aug 1808
Bombay Government borrowing on Promissory Notes has continued at a balance of 29 million Rupees but the take-up of the new 8% notes has been used to pay-down some old Notes and thus maintain the same level of indebtedness.
Sales of the 1806/07 Note have now reached 9.5 million Rupees.
Sat 20th Aug 1808
John Forbes retired from Porcher Redhead & Co on 31st Dec 1807. The business continues under the same style with partners Josias du Pre Porcher, Thomas Wilkinson, Henry Redhead and Nathaniel Edward Kindersley.
Sat 27th Aug 1808
A thousand recruits for the Company’s army are being raised in Scotland and will be sent out with the autumn fleet.44
Sat 3rd Sept 1808
Bombay debt on Promissory Notes decreased to 27.5 million Rupees last month.
Sat 17th Sept 1808
TJC Plowden has been made Deputy Collector of Customs at Calcutta during the absence of W Scott.
Sat 17th Sept 1808
Part of the Company’s stock of Travancore pepper will be sold on 10th October at auction in lots of 5 Candies each. Contact the Company’s warehouse keeper.
Sat 8th Oct 1808
The House of Commons Select Committee on India has reported the debt of the Company to Britain is assessed at £8.4 millions and the claims of the Company on England are £6.9 millions45 leaving a balance due to the British people of £1.5 millions.
Sat 15th Oct 1808
Notice, 12th Oct – country ships are still leaving convoy in conditions deemed unsafe by the Company. All country ships leaving Bombay will have to deposit 5,000 Rupees at the Customs House which will be confiscated if the convoy commander reports they have strayed.
Sat 12th Nov 1808
Notice, 8th May - Pybus & Co, the Bond Street Bankers, have admitted George Sulivan Marten, late of Madras, into their partnership and the firm will in future be known as M/s Pybus, Call, Marten & Hall.
“We charge no agency commission for receiving money, for Bills, for investing in the funds, for receiving dividends and all similar monetary transactions.”
Sat 19th Nov 1808
If the current rate of losses to French privateers continues, the Calcutta Insurance Offices will make convoy protection obligatory to preserve an insured’s cover. Another proposal is to charge an enhanced premium on an unconvoyed voyage but refund some part of it if no claim is made at voyage’s end.
Part of the problem derives from the joint-stock nature of the insurance offices themselves. They compete for business and are incapable of self-regulation.
Sat 10th Dec 1808
The Indiaman Travers (Colins), an extra ship, struck Exeter rock near Diamond Island and rapidly sank on 7th Nov. We got the women and children passengers into the long boat, then the gentlemen got in. Finally Lascars and Chinese entered to a total of 93 passengers. The others got-off in the cutter and jolly boat except 7 Chinese, 6 Europeans and 3 Lascars who declined to be saved without their baggage. After 90 minutes in the boats we saw the Earl Spencer (Heming) and were rescued. Diamond Island abounds in turtle. We hope the people who stayed behind were able to reach it.
Sat 24th Dec 1808
Notice – The death of Miguel de Lima é Souza has caused his commercial concerns to devolve on us. We will open an Agency house in Bombay on 1st Jan 1809 under the firm of de Souza & Co to promote our trade with Madras, Bengal, China and South America. Sgd Nicolao de Lima e Souza, Rozario de Quadros and Joao A Pereira.
Sat 24th Dec 1808
Starting 1st Jan 1809 the Company will be taxing road users to collect a fund for maintenance of the roads in Bombay. Carts will pay 5 rupees; every other vehicle will pay 10 – 20 rupees. Owners of riding horses will pay 6 rupees a year.
Sat 31st Dec 1808
Bombay Government Notice 30th Dec – All Europeans not working for the Crown or the Company are to report for registration with the Superintendent of Police, Charles Joseph Briscoe.
Sat 31st Dec 1808
In early December Sir Edward Pellow and a party of naval officers went to Sibpur to visit Jones’ factory. He makes hemp ropes and canvas sheets and has built a foundry with forges where he also makes screws and small metal objects. Pellow was satisfied with the quality of the products. They are useful naval stores.
Sat 7th Jan 1809
The new rates for pilotage in Bombay harbour are Fair Weather - 50 to 100 Rupees; Monsoon Season – 75 to 125 Rupees. The rates apply to all square-rigged ships, depending on size.
Sat 7th Jan 1809
All Company servants leaving India for London must in future submit ‘Certificates of No Outstanding Public Claims’ against them together with their applications for leave.
Sat 7th Jan 1809
The ship-owners and merchants of Bombay have eulogised Sir Edward Pellow’s administration of the navy. He is about to return to Europe. Sir Charles Forbes is their Chairman.
Between 1798 and 1805 insurance premiums Bombay to China and China to Bombay were consecutively 12, 10, 9 and 8% per voyage ad valorem whilst during Pellow’s command from 1805-1808 the premiums were 8% with a return for no claims of 3% (if convoyed) and 5% for a voyage warranted convoyed. During those three years 110 Bombay ships have traded to China under convoy and only 28 ships have sailed out of season (when no convoy was available).
The amount insured for the three seasons 1805/06, 1806/07 and 1807/08 was 53.7 million Rupees (c. £6.7 million) and the premiums paid on those exports were 3.6 million Rupees (£445,000). Losses due to capture were 493,000 Rupees (£61,000) whilst losses due to sea risks were 552,000 Rupees (£69,000). The gross profit of the local insurance societies was 2.5 million Rupees (£314,000).
These good results flow exclusively from Pellow’s insistence that merchant ships accept convoy.
(NB – pursuant on this meeting, the insurers combined to create a new policy requirement - any master who in future left convoy will be denied all cover for 18 months after the offence and would thereafter pay an enhanced premium with some part of it refundable for no claims)
Sat 7th Jan 1809
Our source of cheap teakwood in Burma is threatened by a party of 12 Burmese officials who have come down from Ava and put a 20% tax on all timber sales, cutch and stick lack. They did not seem to care when we built our ships at Pegu but now we are at Rangoon they are more aware of us.
Meanwhile in the river, Nathaniel Bacon’s 500 ton ship is ready for launching; the Company’s fine new ship will also launch next week and M/s Turner & Montgomery have a 300-tonner on the stocks.
The King of Ava has instructed the Viceroy of Rangoon to supply 2,000 men to fight in an upcoming war. Each man is to provide his own musket or pay a fine of $175 Spanish. The nature of these regional disputes is inscrutable.
Sat 14th Jan 1809
Calcutta Mirror, 23rd Dec - The Bank of Calcutta has elected new Directors on 15th Dec – Alexander Colvin, John Palmer, James Alexander, George Tyler, J W Fulton and Maharajah Sukmoi.
Sat 21st Jan 1809
Notice – The Company invites loans from the public in even hundreds of Rupees (minimum 1,000) and will pay 8% interest per annum. You can buy the scrip at the treasuries of Bombay, Surat or Anjengo. We accept Bills of Exchange (less 8% for interest over the period the Bill has to run to collection), Bills due from our Army, Bills for Arrears of Salary and any of our other Promissory Notes that pay more than 8% as well as silver. A discount of 2% applies – you pay 98 Rupees to receive a Promissory Note of 100 Rupees.
Sat 21st Jan 1809
The King of Kabul has sent an expedition against Kashmir, which province has formerly been a part of his own territories.
Sat 11th Feb 1809
Bombay Government Notice – there have been many complaints of army officers forcibly taking the postbags of the delivery riders and examining them.
This interference with the mails inconveniences the public. If it continues government will be displeased.
Mon 13th Feb 1809 Extraordinary
The Minerva has arrived from Basra with letters from Baghdad and Constantinople.
Sat 18th Feb 1809
Thomas Newnham was the civil servant deputed to be Commissary at Tranquebar after our army occupied that Danish port. The residents were initially irritated with England on account of the public and private losses they have sustained since our army’s arrival. Since then, for eight months, Newnham has done a good job of pacifying the Danes and they have now given him a letter of appreciation for ‘his mild government’.
Its signed by Hermanson the ex-Governor, Stricker the ex-CiC and all the important officers, clergymen and merchants. He has a similar letter from the French community in Tranquebar signed by Defoutes, Courbon, Gautier and Decolons. A third letter is signed by 96 native merchants of Tranquebar and its several dependencies.
Newnham is being transferred to Seringapatam.
Sat 18th Feb 1809
Penang, 7th Dec 1808 – Kimmoo v Lt Colonel T T Bassett:
Defendant was the commanding officer of the 20th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, stationed at Penang. Kimmoo, his house servant, accused him of assault and false imprisonment.
In 1807 defendant had the plaintiff flogged with the rattan on two or three occasions. Kimmoo complained to the Police Magistrate, a civil officer appointed by the Governor, who settled the dispute with an order that Bassett pay Kimmoo’s outstanding wages and discharge him.
Bassett then had Kimmoo flogged 20 times more and put him in the guardhouse for various periods totalling 3 months. On 18th Nov 1807 Bassett ordered Kimmoo onto parade with his regiment where two sepoys were to be flogged for disciplinary offences. After their flogging was completed, Bassett had Kimmoo tied up and lashed 100 times as well for alleging to co-workers that Bassett was a bad employer.
Bassett had several grounds of defence. He claimed a right to punish the servant under the Mutiny Act, 27th of George II, or the Articles of War framed under that Act, or by the Company’s native Articles of War which were framed in 1796 by Sir Robert Abercromby, or because the alleged offence pre-dated the Charter of Justice promulgated for Penang and pre-dated the establishment of a Court on the island. At the time of the alleged offences in 1807, Bassett said Penang was a military post subject to army law only.
The Court held that only soldiers were subject to military discipline and although the offences pre-dated the establishment of English Law on Penang, the Court would give damages albeit of a smaller amount than would be given in similar circumstances if the offence post-dated those laws.
This was the second occasion Bassett had been convicted of mistreating his servants. On the first occasion the damages awarded were $20. This time damages would be $150 with costs.
If it happened again the Court indicated it would award full damages.
Tues 21st Feb 1809 Extraordinary
HMS Discovery and HMS Diana were sent to Manila to rescue Capt Pakenham and the 150 crew of the HMS Greyhound which struck on a reef on 11th Oct 1808. The officers and crew had been taken to Manila arriving 24th Oct.
They were well treated throughout their ordeal and the officers were allowed freedom on their own parole. On their return voyage HMS Discovery carrying Pakenham’s crew was captured by two French frigates south of the Malacca Straits. HMS Diana escaped.
Sat 25th Feb 1809
Letter from Penang, 10th Jan 1809 - the Auspicious (Ferguson) arrived here from Macau bringing as passengers Capt Cumming of the Dundee, Mr Mrs Saunders and Mrs Metcalfe (wife of TT and sister-in-law of Charles).
Sat 25th Feb 1809
Capt Bligh, who was recently sent to Port Jackson (Sydney) as Governor, introduced some novel law in that Colony that was resented by the holders of the monopoly for the supply of alcohol (the New South Wales Corps, a unit of the British army providing the garrison of Port Jackson). This caused Colonel Patterson, the garrison commander and Lieutenant Governor of the Colony, to relieve Bligh of his governorship.
Bligh responded with a Proclamation that the New South Wales Corps’ was in a state of rebellion. Patterson sought to arrest Bligh who briefly disappeared but was found under a bed in full dress uniform.
The disturbances ceased on 27th Jan 1809 when Bligh agreed to return to England and Patterson ended martial law. Bligh in fact boarded HMS Porpoise and sailed to Port Dalrymple (Launceston) where his authority as Governor was still acknowledged. It seems Bligh was trying to ameliorate profiteering by the Army at Port Jackson in response to popular complaints. By July 1808 there were effectively two Colonies in New South Wales, one governed by Patterson and the other by Bligh. Major Johnstone of the NSW Corps has sailed to England to put his case to the CiC.
The Port Dalrymple Colony has thrived on seal-hunting but the market for seal-skins has been saturated with both British and American supply. Recently it has developed some sandalwood trade, supplying China from Fiji, but the Fijians became hostile and ate some merchants. Fijian commerce has since declined.
Sat 11th March 1809
The Bombay government has paid off some Promissory Notes and overall debt for these instruments at end Feb is down to 27 million Rupees.
Sat 11th March 1809
20th Jan 1809 – The Governor-General-in-Council has ordered that lotteries will be regularly conducted in Calcutta (there has been a continuous succession of lotteries in all the Presidencies for the last year). A Superintendent of Lotteries (John Adam) has been appointed to regulate them. The profits will be employed in improving the town.
The Calcutta Lottery is 4,000 tickets of 100 Sicca Rupees each. There are 36 prizes of 1,000 Rupees up, 1,440 prizes that payback your money and 4,524 blanks. Total prizes paid-out = 328,000 Rupees; total expenses and the fund for town improvements = 72,000 Rupees. In the unlikely event that we cannot sell all the tickets before the draw, we will increase the price to late buyers.
The Bank of Bengal will receive the money, pay the prizes and account to government. Harington & Co at Madras and Forbes & Co at Bombay will be lottery agents for those Presidencies.
Sat 18th March 1809
Directors’ letter of 8th Dec 1808 – People arriving in England from India may be unaware that it is now illegal in the United Kingdom to wear printed, painted or dyed calicoes or any type of silk garment. It is also illegal to use napkins with a coloured stripe in the weave. Any such clothes or napkins found in your baggage on arrival at London will be confiscated by the Customs.
Sat 25th March 1809
Lt Colonel Kerr of the 2nd Ceylon Regiment has court martialled Capt Charles Henry Steel for ‘conduct unbecoming an officer’. The Court considered the evidence and acquitted Steel. It objected to Kerr’s attempts to influence the testimony of young officers who were his prosecution witnesses.
When informed of the result Lt General Maitland, CiC Ceylon, published an order reprehending a document signed by all the officers of the 2nd Ceylon Regiment which he considered revealed a mercenary impulse. He ordered his words to be read before every regiment in Ceylon.
Sat 1st April 1809
Advertisement – J Mitchell & Co have received their China investment from the recently arrived Indiamen and offer fresh teas, sugar candy and nankeens etc for sale.
Sat 8th April 1809
Trevor John Chichley Plowden has been appointed Asst Secretary to the Board of Trade (Salt Monopoly).
Sat 29th April 1809
Thomas Malcolm has resigned from the Agency house of Leckie & Malcolm on 14th April 1809 and the business will be continued by John Leckie alone.
Leckie has just announced on 25th March that he is appointed Bombay Agent of the India Insurance Company of Calcutta to issue hull and cargo policies and pay claims in Bombay in respect of voyages from Bombay to Madras, Calcutta, China and Europe.
For Sale by auction - the commodious house and garden of Thomas Malcolm at Colaba. Abundant supply of good water. Well maintained. Plus the house contents including an 8-light chandelier, grand piano and usual furniture.
Sat 6th May 1809
A list of licence fees for commercial activities in Bombay is provided. They apply to money changers, warehousemen, butchers, bakers, shopkeepers, etc. A total of 51 types of licence are listed. Merchants selling the necessaries of life are exempt from fees. Five different licences for weighers and measurers are also shown.
A different fee structure is applied at Mahim.
Sat 20th May 1809
The Company wishes to buy silver bullion or specie. Deliver your treasure to the Assay Office before January 1810. Value will be fixed by the Company’s assay master.
Sat 20th May 1809
20th May - Nasserwanjee Jamsetjee has bought all the outstanding Bills in the possession of Darashaw Cursetjee and requests settlement.
A list of 47 European debtors is appended.
Sat 27th May 1809
22nd March 1809 - Admiral Bertie at the Cape has ordered a strict blockade of the French islands (Mauritius and Reunion)
Sat 3rd June 1809
The Bombay Presidency’s indebtedness under Promissory Notes has reduced to 24 million Rupees at end May.
Sat 3rd June 1809
22nd May - The Bombay Governor reminds all officers, civil, military or naval, that neither they nor their servants may borrow money from natives (a reference to Jamsetjee’s published small trading loans).
If they do so they will be removed from their posts or suspended.
Officers are also reminded they may not charge fees for their services.
Receipt of gifts is likewise illegal and will be deemed extortion.
Sat 24th June 1809
10th June 1809 - Admiral William O’Bryen Drury has announced a blockade of Java and the Spice Islands. He says it is targeted against Arab dhows trading to the Mauritius or Red Sea.
Sat 1st July 1809
Postage on European newspapers sent to India is no longer charged. The proclamation of 26th Dec 1808 is repealed. The relaxation has retrospective effect in respect of news received on the recently arrived Indiamen from London.
Sat 1st July 1809
Notice London, 7th Jan 1809 – Thomas and Henry Redhead and John Forbes have resigned from the partnership. The business will continue under the ownership of Joshua du Pre Porcher, Thomas Wilkinson and Nathaniel Edward Kindersley. Edward Fletcher, late of Bengal, joins the firm as partner. The firm Porcher Redhead is dissolved and a new name of Porcher & Co is assumed.
Sat 8th July 1809
The Bombay Presidency’s debt for Promissory Notes at end June is further reduced to 23.5 million Rupees.
Sat 22nd July 1809
Coffee remains expensive owing to a dispute between the Imam of Mocha, who has the buyers, and the Sultan of Aden, who controls the supplies.
Sat 29th July 1809
The new British blockading fleet at Mauritius and Reunion is comprised of a 50-gunner, 3 frigates, 3 sloops and a brig. They have arranged an exchange of prisoners and a cartel ship is being sent from India.46
Sat 5th Aug 1809
Bombay Presidency’s indebtedness under Promissory Notes has fallen to 22.4 million Rupees at end July.
Sat 5th Aug 1809
24th Feb 1809 - Don Mariano Fernandez de Folgueras, the Spanish Viceroy of Manila, has proclaimed the abdication of Charles IV and enthronement of Ferdinand VII (this is the first abdication).
He laments the French occupation of Spain and the ‘detention’ of Ferdinand in France and calls on all loyal Spaniards to rescue their King and restore him to the throne.
Sat 12th Aug 1809
George Smith MP has moved for an enquiry into the sale of civil and military appointments by the East India Company. Charles Grant seconded.
They say appointments are advertised for sale in the London newspapers and in 1800 the Directors had themselves opened an enquiry but this had been frustrated by ‘a superior power’, contrary to the wishes of a majority of Directors.
Grant said nevertheless, the Company had achieved occasional success – a clerk of the House of Commons had been given a Company appointment and sold it. Upon discovery, he was dismissed from the House and the appointment annulled, Grant believed. He said the Directors would welcome an enquiry.
He hoped that all the Members who were involved in the Company’s affairs (about 60 MPs) would exempt themselves from the enquiry. Smith suggested the names of several liberal MPs as potential Select Committee members. The motion was approved.
Sat 12th Aug 1809
First report of the army mutiny at Madras:
Barlow, the Governor of Madras, issued a Proclamation on 20th July 1809:
He ordered Major General Gowdie, commanding the Company’s Madras army, and Lt Colonel Innes, commanding at Masulipatam, to detach units of the Madras European Regiment for overseas service and they responded that their officers demurred. It is said that the officers suppose their regiment is to be disbanded (the officers themselves contrarily seem anxious about half-batta).
The Governor reminds the army of the principles of military discipline, their subordination to the laws of the country and the authority of the civil power. The Governor of Madras says the troops and their officers are generally loyal and the Governor-General will visit them very soon to confirm their fidelity. All officers are required to sign a Declaration confirming they will obey lawful orders.
Major Boles has circulated a seditious petition claiming his salary should not be unilaterally reduced and he has requested other officers to sign it. The Governor-General has tried to calm the officers without effect. The officers at Hyderabad wrote to the Governor-General that they would secede from the Company’s army unless their cash demands were met (Hyderabad is where Palmer & Co is imposing commercially on the natives with military assistance – its lucrative47). The force at Masulipatam imprisoned their CO and threatened to join the Hyderabad officers in secession. They have given the Governor-General a list of conditions to be met before they renew their loyalty.
The Company’s armies at Hyderabad, Masulipatam and Seringapatam have placed themselves under the authority of a committee and decline to receive orders from the civil authority at Madras.
Fortunately HM troops have remained loyal along with many parts of the Company’s own army including all the native troops. The Governor-General expects the mutineers to submit to him before it is too late.
Sat 12th Aug 1809
Shah Soojah al Mukh, whom Elphinstone has taken with him to Afghanistan, lacks the resources to establish his monarchy over the whole country. He is opposed by Mahmood who fortunately is equally poor.
Mahmood has obtained possession of Kabul whilst Soojah is in control of Peshawar. Meanwhile Atta Mohamed Khan is said to have 8,000 men marching from Kashmir, formerly a vassal state of Kabul, but whether he will support Soojah or Mahmood or has some other plan is unknown.
Sat 19th Aug 1809
1st Aug 1809 - David Scott & Co has opened an Agency in Bombay today. The business of William Shotton & Co is assimilated into the new firm and Shotton becomes a partner, as does Ardaseer Dady. A third Bombay partner will be named shortly.
Sat 26th Aug 1809
More on the army mutiny at Madras:
Signatures to the Declaration of Army Loyalty of 20th July are tricking into Calcutta – a list of signatories is published. Disloyalty is confined to Madras (Fort St George) regiments. Those declining to sign are to be removed from Company service.48
Sat 26th Aug 1809
The investigation into sale of jobs in India has identified one of the Company’s Directors, George Woodford Thellusson MP, as the man who gave three writerships to his relative J Alex Woodford (known in India House as the Emperor) which were sold for totally £10,175. Cadetships are also sold but they are less expensive – Bengal cadetships are worth £100+ whereas the same job in Madras (where the army is in rebellion over money) costs £250.
It appears the Royal Duke of Clarence (of the House of Brunswick) is a dabbler in the market for Indian cadetships through his chaplain Rev Lloyd. It is apparent that the cadetships, if not the writerships, are transferable and exchangeable. There are also sales of jobs on the medical establishment and for lawyers seeking access to the close shop in India. A market is made in these jobs by some City brokers.
The Company has long been aware of abuses in the patronage of jobs in India. After the last Charter renewal in 1793 it investigated sales of jobs in 1798 and introduced a new Oath for Directors whereby each swore not to sell jobs. On recommending an applicant, the Director further swears that he has not been bribed. Directors’ Oaths seem to be ineffective. More useful would be the application of the Company Bye-law that levies a fine of twice the sale price of a job but that has yet to be invoked.49
Sat 2nd Sept 1809
Bombay Presidency’s debt under Promissory Notes has fallen again and now totals 22 million Rupees.
Sat 2nd Sept 1809
The recent disturbances in New South Wales have caused the NSW Corps to be transferred to Ceylon. General Nightingale will take HM’s 73rd Regiment out in replacement. He is to be both Colonel of the Regiment and Governor of the penal Colony.
Sun 3rd Sept 1809 Extraordinary
The Madras army mutiny:
Some of the disaffected regiments in Madras Presidency have marched to Seringapatam and plundered the villages en route. The Governor-General is satisfied the disaffection does not involve the native NCOs and rank & file. He says it is restricted to the European officers and men. The Resident of Mysore (a Colonel) and CiC of that district (Lt Colonel Davis) ordered them back to their cantonments but they ignored the instructions.
The mutineers say government has unilaterally breached the terms of their commissions over half-batta. The Governor-General dispatched Lt Colonel Gibbs with a body of Mysore Horse and the 1st battalion of the 3rd Regiment of Native Infantry to prevent the men reaching Seringapatam. They attacked and dispersed the rebel column. During this action a sally was made by the garrison of Seringapatam but was driven back by the 5th Regiment of cavalry under Capt Bean of HM 25th Dragoons, who commands that Regiment. Many rebel Europeans were killed. The government troops had one casualty – Lt Colonel Gibbs - who endeavoured to negotiate a settlement under a flag of truce and was shot by a rebellious officer.
The Governor-General is shocked that European officers might oppose the civil authority, seize the public treasure under their trust, abandon their posts and march to unite with others rebels, plundering the dominions of the Company’s ally on their way. He hopes their fate will be a lucid warning to the remainder of the Madras army.
Sat 16th Sept 1809
The British parliament has passed an Act on 30th March 1809 permitting the importation of tobacco from anywhere. Britain is no longer receiving the Virginian supply. The Act is valid for two years.
Bombay Presidency can supply tobacco and merchants are invited to ship it to London on the Company’s ships. Note that the only pre-import processing permitted by UK Customs is stripping the leaves from the stalks.
Council suggests you make up your shipments in bales of 450 lbs.
Sat 16th Sept 1809
Madras army mutiny:
Another twenty signatories to the Governor-General’s Declaration have been received at Calcutta. It appears the officers’ mutiny is losing support. The Seringapatam garrison surrendered on 23rd Aug.
Sat 23rd Sept 1809
The Company is selling the grass on Salsette for turf. There will be an auction on 20th Oct at the Collector’s Office.
Sat 7th Oct 1809
Bombay debt on Promissory Notes at end Sept was 25 million Rupees.
Sat 7th Oct 1809
The former Governor-General Marquis Wellesley has been appointed British ambassador to the Spanish junta in Seville.
Sun 8th Oct 1809 Extraordinary
The Madras mutiny:
Governor-General Minto has investigated the army rebellion at Madras and decided it is too serious to pardon. He has made a small selection from a ‘great mass of iniquity’. Only officers in command of units will be court martialled. The larger the unit commanded the heavier the punishment if guilt is established.
A list of the officers selected for trial is attached. Every other officer involved in the criminality will receive a general amnesty. This amnesty is intended to perpetually annihilate all record of this incident.
The list of officers to be tried contains 3 Lt Colonels, 3 Majors and 16 Captains.
Sat 14th Oct 1809
The Viceroy of Portuguese possessions in the East (Goa, Diu, Damaun, Macau, Timor) has issued a Proclamation from Panjim Palace in Goa on 16th Aug:
Lt Colonel Fraser’s Regiment (HM’s 86th) is being withdrawn from Goa after three years service as garrison. He thanks the Colonel for his good service.
Sat 21st Oct 1809
The free mariner J P Inglis has arrived at Madras in the Indiaman Union.
Sat 4th Nov 1809
The debt on Bombay Promissory Notes rose to 26.5 million Rupees in October.
Sat 4th Nov 1809
31st Oct - The Collector of Salsette is selling the Company’s share of this year’s rice harvest on the island. The rice has not been harvested and interested buyers will be responsible for watching, harvesting and removing it.
Sat 4th Nov 1809
For Sale, 26th Oct – at the regulated price, an ensigncy in one of HM’s regiments. Contact Forbes & Co.
Sat 11th Nov 1809
The Residents that the Company appoints to various places around Asia (and most recently to the expatriated Portuguese Court at Rio de Janeiro) are usually serving Indian army officers. Capt David Seton of the Bombay army has long been Resident at Muscat but has just died and William Newnham of Bombay is appointed Executor of the Estate.
Sat 11th Nov 1809
A large community of Parsees reside at Surat and, together with a similarly large group of Hindus and some Muslims, monopolise the cotton trade of that town. About one hundred Parsees have just joined the other merchants in thanking Nathan Crow for his dedicated service as magistrate of the town. Crow is retiring.
Sat 11th Nov 1809
Some Portuguese ships have arrived at Calcutta from Rio and report the Brazil market continues to be glutted with British manufactures. Most of the goods that cannot be sold at cost are being diverted to the new markets at Buenos Aires and Monte Video but prices there are not much better.
Sat 18th Nov 1809
Government Notice - The sale of foreign liquor is increasing and the import duty will be doubled to 50% effective 10th Nov ‘to preserve the market for local products’, it says.
Sat 25th Nov 1809
The invasion of the French islands has commenced. On 21st Sept we captured Rodriguez and landed unopposed on Reunion. On 23rd Sept we agreed articles of capitulation with the French garrison of St Pauls on Reunion.
Sat 2nd Dec 1809
The indebtedness of the Bombay Presidency under Promissory Notes has increased to 29½ million Rupees during the last month.
Sat 9th Dec 1809
Advertisement – Pestonjee Rustomjee has opened a new shop in Hummum Street and filled it with the privileged tonnage of Wm Fisher, 2nd officer of the Northampton. A liberal selection of London goods is available along with some fine old Madeira wine.
Sat 9th Dec 1809
Calcutta, 28th Oct - Governor-General Minto has received Oaths of loyalty from all the officers of the Coast Army in Madras Presidency. He is satisfied the mutiny is over. He deplores rumours in Calcutta that dissent continues and says, if he could discover who was fomenting them, he would heavily punish him.
Sat 16th Dec 1809
Calcutta Notice, 22nd Nov - The Company’s extra ships Tottenham, Ocean and Devaynes (these are the only ships on which private merchants are permitted to send goods to London this season), which were to sail immediately to England, are detained and will now sail with the Company’s own ships in mid-January.50
Sat 16th Dec 1809
House of Commons, 6th June – Prendergast MP said the East India private merchants had memorialised him to complain that the rate of freight agreed by the Company with them, under the concession to ship private goods to London, had been unilaterally altered by the Company. He had complained to the Board of Control and the Company without effect. The original £14 per ton published in the Gazette of 25th Aug 1805 had become generally £30 – 32 per ton and recently £44 per ton.
The Board of Control says it is not empowered to interfere in the trade of the Company – it only regulates its political administration of territory. The Chairman of the Directors told Prendergast that he (the Chairman) was a private trader too and had been required to pay £47 per ton on his indigo!
These extra freight charges were apparently sanctioned in the Gazette by a notice of July 1807 which claimed retrospective effect back to the inception of the scheme. This notice set freight at £30.10.0d in 1804 and 1806 and £32.5.0d in 1805. Since then rates have been trending up to the present £44 per ton at which level the private merchants are unable to compete.
Prendergast thought, now we have contracted to settle the American merchants’ claims, that they would soon crowd every Indian port and our great India Agencies would discover a second more permanent ground for their inability to compete.
He noted that the Act requiring the Company to carry private merchant’s cargo did not mention ‘extra ships’ but the Company had unilaterally chartered such ships at horrendous rates in the off-season when heavy weather was a feature of every voyage. They were also leaky ships. As a result water-damage claims and insurance premiums were higher than usual.
Prendergast supposed, from the attitude adopted towards private merchants in the Presidencies, that the Company resented their trade, never consulted their interests, and by endless regulation made everything difficult for them. Whenever the Company launched one of its frequent military expeditions, the extra ships were commandeered to transport stores and troops and private cargo was thrown out to await the next ship.
Charles Grant for the Company said the Charter was coming up for renewal in 3-odd years and that would be the time to resolve the matter. He said £14 per ton was fixed in 1803 during the peace of Amiens but since then we were again at war and the operation of ships had become more expensive. He counter-complained that some of the extra ships were in the ownership of the Indian Agencies themselves and were chartered from them by the Company at £21 per ton but those same Agents demanded the Company accept their freight at £14 per ton. The application of the £44 rate occurred in 1805 when the private merchants wanted space on the Company’s regular ships and in 1806 when the rate was £47. Those merchants wished their cargoes to be carried in the Company’s splendid ships and they naturally had to pay the same rate as the Company. He thought the Company had been very accommodating to the merchants and had even permitted their trade in forbidden articles that infringed the Company’s monopoly.
Sat 16th Dec 1809
8th June - The Court of Directors has voted on a show of hands to recall any officer from India who is shown to have paid for his job. The objection was the incitement that payment gave them to recover their investment by malpractice in India. Some said it would be fairer that the parents of youths going to India should be bonded and their bonds confiscated if payments were discovered. This was unpopular.
Sat 23rd Dec 1809
Government advertisement, 16th Dec – a new solicitation for an 8% loan. Payment of cash, Company Bills, Bills for Arrears of Salary, etc., all qualify in subscription. Cash or bullion gets a discount of 2%; Mercantile Bills will be received at a premium of 3%.
Sat 30th Dec 1809
The de Souza family have fallen out over the division of the property of the late Maria and Francisco de Souza. Joseph de Souza has sued the other executors (Nicolao de Lima e Souza, Lourenco de Silva, Rozario de Quadros and Nicolao de Silva) in the Recorder’s Court in an equitable claim that has resulted in an Order for the sale of numerous houses in the fort and some pieces of land near Bombay, preparatory to distributing the proceeds
Sat 30th Dec 1809
22nd Oct – Malacca letters report the opium market there is stopped owing to the non-arrival of the Bugis this year. A month ago a fleet of 21 Bugis proas was sailing up the Straits for this port and for Penang when they encountered the French privateer Piedmontaise out of Mauritius. These proas are indistinguishable from the boats favoured by the local pirates; one has to recognise the crews not the boats. The French thought they were pirates and the Bugis could not make themselves understood to the French. They are brave and warlike people and, when the boats of the Piedmontaise attacked, they fought back wildly, obliging the French to withdraw with the loss of 2 seamen killed and 30+ injured. When the French withdrew the Bugis did likewise and returned directly to their ports of Rhio and Lingin.
Mr Keak, the Malacca trader who has most experience of the Bugis, has sent messengers to the Bugis King telling him of the mistake and asking him to send his people back but they are a proud race and say they will no longer visit British ports. A second fleet of 40 proas learned of the attack on arriving at Rhio and has not continued its voyage up the Malayan coast. Opium is now nominally $900 but if a sale is forced it sells for only $800.51
Sat 6th Jan 1810
The Bombay Presidency’s accumulated debt due to Promissory Notes approached 30 million Rupees at end 1809.
Sat 6th Jan 1810
Government Notice - People proceeding to England must pay a security deposit at the Company’s nearest Treasury in respect of the maintenance of any servants they are taking with them.
Sat 6th Jan 1810
We recently captured the French Colonel la Houssaye in a proa off the west coast of Sumatra. It appears his mission was to survey all the new plantations of spices that we have established on that coast. We suppose his survey was preparatory to an expedition being sent to destroy them.
Sat 27th Jan 1810
Our present convoying arrangements whereby a single warship, often a sloop (the smallest ship in the war fleet), escorts the Bombay merchant ships is thought to be no longer adequate. Recent French tactics in eastern seas have been to assemble their warships and privateers in fleets against which a single frigate would be of little use, let alone a sloop.
The convoy system has also been a cause of constant complaint by the merchants who dislike waiting for the availability of a warship and the slow progress of the voyage. The merchants feel that no convoy would be better and each ship can find its own way. To have a whole fleet of ships inadequately protected is a greater risk than to have numerous individual voyages, they say.
It is also the case that, with all ships arriving at destination more or less concurrently, the prospect of windfall profits by being first to provide supply of needed commodities is lost to the merchants. Thus the fun of trade is lost.
Sat 10th Feb 1810
11th Feb - All Europeans in Bombay who are not Company servants are required to register themselves with the Police within the next 10 days. This is an annual requirement in all Company-administered lands.
Sat 10th Feb 1810
Thomas Hugh-Davies is selling Bills on Madras Presidency for anyone interested in transferring funds to that jurisdiction.
Sat 10th Feb 1810
On 6th Feb the Charles Grant was launched from the Bombay dock. She is a teak-built ship of 1,200 tons and eminently suited for charter to the Company.
As soon as she was launched, the keel of another 1,200 tonner was laid down. It is becoming known in London that teak lasts twice as long as oak and our ships are consequently in demand in England. This promises great prosperity for the Bombay docks.
Sat 10th Feb 1810
In mid-January eight Company scholars graduated in the Oriental language examinations at the Fort William College, Calcutta.
Fry Magniac obtained passes in Arabic, Hindi, Persian and Bengali; Davidson in Hindi and Bengali; Innes in Persian and Hindi, etc. Three other graduates have elected to continue further studies.
Sat 10th Feb 1810
The Rev Claudius Buchanan, formerly of Madras, has given an interesting report of religious conviction in a sermon delivered at Bristol on 29th Feb 1809:
Abdullah and Sabat were Arabians, friends from childhood, who aspired to see the world. They travelled to Kabul where an Armenian merchant gave Abdullah a copy of his bible. On reading this Abdullah was persuaded of the superiority of Orthodox Christianity and apostatised. This is a capital offence in a Muslim country so he left Kabul for the area around the Caspian Sea where he knew there were some Russian Orthodox churches. He met-up with Sabat at the Muslim city of Bokhara and told what had happened to him, imploring his assistance on the grounds of their friendship.
Sabat was appalled and reported Abdullah’s offence to Morad Shah, King of Bokhara, who sent Abdullah to the execution ground, offering his life if he would abjure Christ. Abdullah declined. One of his hands was cut-off at the wrist but he seemed hardly to notice it, leaving the arm hanging at his side. The King offered a doctor’s service to staunch the blood-flow if Abdullah would recant but he remained silent, looking up at the sky, his eyes streaming with tears. He looked at me (Sabat) without any trace of anger. His other hand was then cut-off but he never recanted. The King was concerned for the respect that the audience was beginning to show Abdullah and had him quickly decapitated.
Sabat had expected Abdullah to recant and was consumed with guilt and grief at his death.
He thereafter travelled extensively himself and eventually arrived at Madras where the British Governor made him a Mufti in light of his great knowledge of the Muslim scriptures. This facilitated his travelling throughout southern India. On a visit to Vizagapatam he discovered an Arabic translation of the New Testament and, to honour his dead friend, he read this carefully and critically. The translation was poor and required his thoughtful reflection to adduce meaning. This progressively induced his own conversion to Christianity. He returned on foot (500 miles) to Madras where he made a public profession of his new faith and was baptised Nathaniel at 27 years of age.
He resigned his government employment and travelled in stages to Bengal where he joined the Company’s Language School as a translator of Arabic and Persian texts. He has now produced a book in Nabuti called Happy News for Arabia which relies mainly on texts that are jointly honoured by both Muslims and Christians. This sermon is drawn from the Preface to his book.
Sat 17th Feb 1810
Supreme Court Calcutta, 19th Jan – Reid v Ganges Insurance Company:
Radha Mohan Bonarjee shipped 40 chests of opium to Penang. The ship arrived on 10th April and remained 12 days but could only sell 30 chests. The shipowner’s agents at Penang, Forbes & Co, agreed to buy the balance of Bonarjee’s 10 chests at market price, contemplating a later voyage to the Pedier coast for pepper where they might dispose of the opium too. The ship sailed on 23rd April and was captured on 3rd May.52
Sat 17th Feb 1810
The Brinjaries of Madras, who supply grain of all types to the English army, have petitioned Gilbert, Lord Minto, on 19th Jan for help:
We are grateful for your enlightened rule that allows us to work everyday instead of supplying corvee labour for two or more days each week to the Rajahs who used to rule us. Since we came under your Raj our former rulers have cleared all the jungly lands for their own cultivation and we have nowhere to graze our cattle and no tanks to obtain water. They punish us for our support to you. Please take revenge.
We helped you to capture all Jumbo Dweepa (India) so you might bring peace and there have been no wars for a few years. The people from the North want to buy clothes and ornaments from us and we want to supply them but we need to increase our grain sales to finance the trade. Please make war immediately. We require 1 – 2 million Pagodas deposit and we will supply every grain you need at reasonable rates.
And another thing, we formerly flavoured our own food with sea salt but it has been scarce and we are asked to use mineral salt. This makes us unwell. Please resume the sea salt supply or you will have no Brinjaries to supply your grain.
Sgd Bojanaig, Matranaig, Dausoonaig, etc
Sat 17th Feb 1810
Lord Valentia, who spent a couple of years travelling India in about 1804, has published his Voyages & Travels to India, Ceylon, etc in three volumes. He says he interviewed the Directors about the opportunities for trade in the Red Sea. The Directors however thought there were no prospects of worthwhile trade in that Sea and were content to leave it to the Americans.
Having dismissed me, Valentia writes, they welcomed Mr Jacobs’ plan to trade with Abyssinia and offered him a licence, although it was fettered with restrictions. He took the sort of cargo that I had recommended and I expect him to report a successful voyage when he returns. He took a letter from King George III (there was a precedent by James I) and a present of habesh cloth.
King Ayto Galao told me he sought for specialists in irrigation, medicine and woodwork but these could not be sent on what was a commercial voyage.
I fear the Company has been neglecting a profitable area of trade and I hope they will not be permitted to close it to private merchants. I mentioned all this to Canning as I fear Company disinterest will permit access to the French and the Red Sea forms a route to India. He asked me to assist in the preparations for Jacobs’ voyage. The presents we selected were hand guns, satins, cut glass and fine British muslins worth totally about £1,400. There were also two cannon. We should offer our assistance and trade as Abyssinia is a Christian country.
Editor - the Company has routinely avoided Red Sea trade contending that navigational difficulties make it too dangerous.
Sat 24th Feb 1810
A General Court of the Company has received and considered the Report of the Select Committee into the sale of jobs in India. It notes with satisfaction that no Director was involved in that disreputable business. The Directors will in future interrogate candidates to ensure they have not paid. They will also require every applicant to have a certificate from a serving Director confirming the applicant is a fit and proper person for employment. The recommending Director is to state that he has not been paid for his recommendation. Directors are to report annually the numbers of writers, cadets and students who have applied to them during the prior twelve months. It will show how many succeeded and how many failed. The Company offers its thanks to Directors George Smith MP and Charles Grant MP for their invaluable services in House of Commons in settling this matter.
This meeting identified Director Robinson as the man who gave the cadetship to Castlereagh.
An order was made in the course of the meeting to expel from India all people identified by the House of Commons as having paid for their jobs.
The patronage of the Shipping Committee, which controls cadetships, assistant surgeons, free mariners, volunteers for the Bombay Marine and volunteers for the Bengal Pilot Service, will be examined by a Select Committee to advise and draft anti-corruption procedures.
All individuals commending applicants for vacancies to Directors will in future have to attend before the Court to present their recommendations and to swear they have not paid anyone.
The retrospective application of the new regulations is limited to 6th Aug 1806.
Sat 24th Feb 1810
The following employees were identified in the House of Commons report as having paid for their jobs and their employment contracts are rescinded:
Writers – Edward J Smith and Fry Magniac
Cadets – Thomas Kelly, George Barker, George Tenlon, John Samuel Williams, Braithewaite Christie, Thomas Maw, John Manson, Robert Manson, Thomas Locke.
Student – Henry Gardiner (for a Madras writership)
Others – Samuel Lewis who, having an Indian mother, sent a white friend named Philips to impersonate him at the Shipping Committee, is dismissed for fraud.53
Sat 24th Feb 1810
The Company’s anti-corruption measures had been advertised in the London Gazette and in an Edinburgh and Dublin newspaper. This complies with the legal requirement that the measures be advertised in all three countries. Few people read the Government Gazette and most Englishmen have never seen a Scottish or Irish newspaper – nevertheless, the Company has complied with requirements. The Directors had themselves passed a by-law requiring all their Regulations be posted in a public part of India House for the inspection of all and sundry but these anti-corruption rules were never published that way.
Shareholder Sansom argued that if the matter was litigated it would likely be discovered that the Regulations had never been properly communicated to the public and were consequently of no effect.
He said there was already evidence of Director Thelluson’s complicity in sale of jobs. Some people would conclude the Directors as a body were either stupid or corrupt themselves.
Sansom noted the Committee’s report mentioned that Shareholder Parry told Thelluson that large sums were paid for cadetships and Thelluson replied it was nonsense – they never cost more than £500! Should not this knowledge of the prices have prompted remedial action against Thelluson if the Directors’ really disapproved of sales?
On the other hand it was said that everyone knew that paying for jobs was clearly not a kosher way to obtain employment. The people who pay are as guilty as the people who receive.
Johnstone said there is corruption in the army. Many officers pay more than the regulation price for their commissions. Are they likewise to be discharged? Similar practices prevail in the engineers, artillery and marines. It was particularly obvious in appointments in the Anglican Church. In all these institutions it had not been thought necessary to introduce regulation.
Eventually the motion was voted and the shareholders were ten to one in favour of the new regulation with its retrospective effect.
Sat 24th Feb 1810
General Orders, 20th Feb – when native troops and camp followers are taken aboard ship for service overseas, the daily rations they are each entitled to are 3 lbs rice, 1 lb dhal, 1 lb of ghee and ¼ lb of salt.54
Sat 3rd March 1810
The Portuguese and English country ships from China and Manila via Penang have returned safely to Calcutta on 12th Feb convoyed by HMS Fox.
Sat 3rd March 1810
The expedition sent by Bombay Presidency at the Governor-General’s instruction to assist the Imam of Muscat in recovering some of his dependent ports from the Jowasimi pirates has been successful and the force has returned to Bombay.
Sat 3rd March 1810
The Company is considering convoying of merchant ships:
Calcutta private merchants sent a complaint to the Court of Directors of the Company. They want to trade their ships individually to get the greater profit that flows from their experience and commercial information but Sir Edward Pellow commended them, for the protection of what they already had, to sail in convoys.
The Calcutta merchants asked the Bombay merchants to join their protest but were refused. Bombay values convoys and the only losses sustained at that port were amongst unconvoyed ships. It was noted that some 80 Bombay merchants had seen fit to publicly thank Pellow for his convoy service.
One of the Company shareholders, Herriott, has asked if the Admiral’s version of events has been considered by the Directors. Pellow had commended the Governor-General to require the merchants to sail in convoy and this opinion had been adopted and followed in all the Presidencies.
The Calcutta merchants were disinclined to attend to this advice. They think Pellow should be cruising against the French and Dutch privateers, deploying his ships off ports and at the mouths of straits. Instead, they say, the East India war fleet of 15 ships lies idle in Madras roads throughout August – November 1807 awaiting merchant requests for convoy.
It was only when losses on the Calcutta registry reached an unacceptable level that the insurance offices, Agencies of the great Houses, pressed convoy on the Calcutta merchants and they submitted.
Edward Parry, who had been Company Chairman at the time of the Bengal complaint, had reconsidered the matter and now felt convoys are the best option. He denied the newspaper report that Pellow was recalled for insisting on convoys – he says Pellow asked to be relieved due to ill-health.
Sat 10th March 1810
Feb 20th – There is rebellion in Burma. The King at Ava has ordered a conscription of all male Burmese to fight the Thais. The commercial Burmese at Rangoon objected and rioted. All the foreign commercial houses except one have been looted and burned. The Armenians have suffered particularly badly.
Sat 10th March 1810
Notice – The Bombay Governor as received a letter from the Directors dated 2nd Oct 1809 indicating the approved freight rates for private merchants to/from London on the Company’s ‘extra’ ships in the last season are:
London to Bombay £9 per ton
Bombay to London £27 per ton
No-one shipped Bombay to London on a ‘regular’ ship but, had they done so, it would have cost £32 per ton.
Sat 24th March 1810
The Company imports Madeira wine but not from the island – it buys from British wine merchants based in London - Gordon Duff & Co, Murdoch Yuell & Co, Scott & Co, etc. Three ships have arrived at Bombay with consignments for sale.
These suppliers are the merchants who received a monopoly of Madeira wine production in 1808 to provide a means of Spanish repayment of British military costs in the peninsula.
(The private India merchants have been permitted this trade but they buy unbranded wine at Madeira itself)
Sat 24th March 1810
The Aberdeen Society for the Benefit of the Children of Deceased Clergymen and Professors of Scottish Universities has been formed to ameliorate the financial difficulties of the children of people in these commonly related professions.
They have always been only moderately paid and the rise in the costs of all provisions has put their standards-of-living back a century. Our Society was established in 1799 when this problem first became apparent. Prices since then have continued to rise. Bombay contributed £400 in Jan 1808. We are grateful. Please give more.
Sgd James Hogg, Manse of Skene Presbytery of Aberdeen
A list of new subscribers is attached. Send money to Forbes & Co
Sat 24th March 1810
The complaint of the Brinjaries to the Governor-General of a lack of sea-salt is also affecting Calcutta and Bombay. The Governor-General recently asked Bombay and Madras for salt shipments to Calcutta and he offered a certain fixed rate but relief has not been obtained and indeed the shortage is very apparent in Bombay.
Sat 7th April 1810
The recent fire at Rangoon started in the arrack shop of Mr van Hart. Heat burst some of the barrels and the alcohol spread the fire everywhere. 7,000 wooden houses were destroyed. Only the Portuguese church and four brick buildings belonging to foreigners survived. The Burmese officials say they will routinely ban the export of wood until the town has been rebuilt.
There is no suggestion that the fire is related to military conscription as previously reported but the King of Ava has sent an army of 30,000 to the island of Junk Ceylon (Phuket), captured it and sent all the inhabitants he could find to Pegu. The Thais are expected to take revenge.
Capt Canning of the Company’s service set out from Rangoon to Ava on 20th Dec on a mission to the King. He has not been heard from since.
Sat 7th April 1810
Lt Isacke is the officer, representative of the officers’ rebellion in Secundabad and elsewhere, who has been court-martialled for insubordination and cashiered.
Tues 10th April 1810 Extraordinary
The Directors have complained of recent army activities at Madras and have used the opportunity of the revolt to review the chain of civil and military command in a letter dated 15th Sept 1809:
We look after the Indian Army very well; we contribute to W&O plans; we pay you pensions until you die; you are better paid than any other army.
In June 1807 your Quarter-Master General Lt Colonel Munro was ordered by CiC Madras Sir John Cradock to provide tents and transport for the carriage of stores for the Native Regiments. Hitherto these services were arranged by the Commanding Officers of Corps who contracted them out to the private sector. The Governor-General noted that General Stuart had made a similar proposal in 1803. The proposal was approved and adopted by the Madras Army in May 1808.
In Sept 1808 the Commanding Officers of 5 Regiments of Native Cavalry and 23 Regiments of Native Infantry in the Madras Army jointly charged Munro with ‘conduct unbecoming an officer’ in insinuating in his report to Governor-General that the COs had been profiting from the contracts and were reluctant to forego them. In Jan 1809 Munro was arrested by Lt General MacDowell.
The Directors feel that a proposal, having received the approval of the Governor-General, cannot be subsequently queried by subordinate officers. The proper course of action to take for any of those aggrieved COs was to demand a retraction of Munro’s inferences, or failing that, the aggrieved officer’s own Court Martial. Army Officers have no authority or right to combine. They may act only in respect of their individual concerns. On the other hand, when a proposal has been considered and approved at the highest level of civil government, it is inappropriate for army officers to publicly criticise the civil administrators. That might bring the administration into public disrepute.
Munro’s report was ‘confidential’ and was placed in the official records of the government by the CiC. How it became public is unknown but clearly involved a breach of confidence by some high official.
We understand the Judge Advocate-General advised the involved officers that their acts are illegal and they have accordingly expressed contrition. We hope that is the case.
We now consider the conduct of Lt General MacDowell, our late CiC of the Madras Army. The General has indicated no intention of appealing to us but we suppose the papers we have are adequate to form a view as they contain his own public documents. MacDowell, having received the legal opinion of the JAG that any action would be an unwarranted attempt to control the acts of government, still arrested Munro and commenced to try him. He should properly have returned the complaints of his COs and indicated his displeasure to them. Our Governor-in-Council at Madras should have ordered him to do so - Munro’s proposals had been approved and MacDowell was ordered to implement them. There was no basis to Munro’s arrest and charge but MacDowell proceeded to do just that. When you (the Governor-General) required MacDowell to quit Madras, he published a General Order that was highly contentious. It severely reprimanded Munro although the JAG had advised MacDowell of his legal position and the aggrieved COs had withdrawn their protests. He alone still harboured resentment against an officer who was merely doing his duty.
The power of government at Madras is vested by Act of Parliament in the Governor-in-Council. The Council holds supreme civil and military authority subject only to the Governor-General at Calcutta and he in turn to the Directors at home. CiC Madras has no independent authority to initiate and conduct public business. When the Governor-in-Council ordered Munro’s release it was not open to MacDowell to query that decision in a publication of General Orders or rebel against the Governor’s legal authority. We approve your Orders expunging MacDowell’s publications from the public record.
MacDowell also protested his non-appointment to a seat on the Council. That non-appointment flowed from considerations for the territories subordinate to Madras. Whom we Directors appoint to Council is our business. CiCs are not automatically appointed to Council, it is a discretionary matter for us alone.
We also deplore MacDowell’s transmission to you of an exceptional memorial from some of his officers in Jan 1809 together with his approbation of it. Barlow, the acting Governor-General, wrote to MacDowell privately in May/June 1808 commending he repress an Address to Calcutta demanding parity of allowances with the Bengal Army. He initially complied but later forwarded the Address, signed by many COs, to the acting Governor-General demanding parity of allowances which was claimed as a right. He attached his own approval of it. This was inconsistent.
The COs complain that they are required to serve far from home; well, they knew that when they signed-on.
They say, after 22 years service, they can either return home in comparative poverty or continue serving in an unhealthy climate; well, the military allowances of the Indian Army are higher than any other army in the World. The necessaries of life are cheap in India; the highest ranks are open to them without purchase or expense, and the financial provisions after retirement are better than any other service.
They complain the abolition of the Bazaar allowance – this has been applied in all Presidencies and no-one else is complaining. It is required by the Articles of War that forbids Army Officers to raise a revenue off daily food supplies, effectively a tax on the incomes of the troops paid for the benefit of their officers. The bulk of this tax, when it was allowed, arose from sale of liquor. Intoxicating the men upon whom one relies to fight is clearly incompatible with an officer’s first duty.
The COs protest the abolition of full batta for themselves but this allowance has not been abolished. It is simply transferred from Officers commanding stations to Officers commanding corps; from mainly administrative jobs to men on active duty.
They complain that our Order to appoint army officers to pay offices has not been given effect at Madras. These orders are being introduced by the Governor-in-Council progressively, to preserve the regularity of public business.
They complain that officers of HM Regiments also receive commands at stations although they are detached from their Regiments to assume these posts. The general rule is that the benefits of command of stations will inure to officers of the Company’s army and deviations from the Rule should be reported.
They complain the abolition of the tent contract. They say in time of war the allowance is inadequate. That seems decisive although there may be an argument for continuing to pay it in peacetime. The Madras Army has been generally at peace and officers enjoying the benefits of the tent contract have had time to recoup any extra expenses they incurred during war. The main objection to the tent contract was its application to the entire army whilst, as a general rule, only some units of the army were in movement at any one time. We wish our officers in the field to focus their attention on the discipline of their men and not to the financial possibilities of their military operations.
They demand the same allowances as are paid to the Bengal Army officers. The differences in pay at each of the Company’s Presidencies derive from differences in revenue. Bengal was the first great possession of the Company. It is the seat of Indian government. The style of living in Bengal is adapted to its prestigious position. The revenue of Bengal has not yet been attained at other Presidencies. We believe all the officers of our civil and military establishments are well aware of this inequality when they apply for employment. Our Bengal revenue is not so great that we can raise Madras and Bombay to the same level. Any plan for equalisation will cause a reduction of emoluments at Bengal. Such differences as exist are limited to officers; the NCOs and privates are all paid more or less the same wherever they serve. It is also the case that opportunities for promotion in the Bengal Army are poorer than at Bombay or Madras as the former is more settled and the prospect of war reduced. If Madras officers can reasonably ask for equalisation of allowance, Bengal officers may likewise ask for equalisation of promotion opportunity. Then again the risk of death (and chance of promotion) is greatest in the cavalry, second greatest in the infantry and least in the artillery – should these inequalities be remedied as well? This is specious reasoning.
Staff allowances and other extras are different. These are conferred on individuals for merit and bear no relation to what others receive.
The unpleasant fact is that the Company needs to retrench. We spend more than we earn. Expenses, both civil and military, are being reduced everywhere or we will become bankrupt. We wish to continue the employment of as many as possible.
The COs complain that CiC Madras is excluded from a seat on the Council. Seats on Council are granted in accordance with need and merit. There is no compunction on the Company to appoint military officers to Council either in war or peace. There is no such thing as a military representative on Council. Do you suppose CiC England should have a cabinet post? The benefit of military advice is available to government without such formality. In any event, whilst the memorialists says a seat on Council will ensure their concerns are represented at the highest level, in fact all the complaints they make derive from proposals of CiC Sir John Cradock whilst he was in Council. It would appear superficially that representation merely brings army interests more fully before the Council which might then act either for or against the army’s immediate interests.
Finally the COs request a general Fund for the ‘off-reckonings’ of the army which they intend to use to equalise the perquisites of Colonels in each of the Presidencies. They say ‘off-reckonings’ increase Colonels’ pay in Bengal but decrease them in Madras. The purpose of the ‘off-reckonings’ is to provide a fund for the retired list of General Officers whose pensions are all equal wherever they served - it is manifestly a pension fund. On the average of the last three years each share in the fund has been worth £952 in Bengal, £1,294 in Madras and £1,458 in Bombay. If one averages the Bengal and Bombay ‘off-reckonings’ it produces £1,205 which is not markedly different from what Madras General Officers receive now. In any event, the officers benefiting from ‘off-reckonings’ are all resident in Europe and none have signed the memorial.
We conclude with our strong disapproval of army officers forming associations to negotiate with government over alleged grievances. We reprobated this in our letter of 20th April 1803 yet still the spirit of dissension continues. We have your interests under our constant attention. You may rely on it.
We expect the officers in return to place their duty to the Company and the Country above all other considerations. We reiterate that it will never be our intention to routinely admit military officers to the legislative process. There is no ‘representative of the army’ in our Councils. We have yet to receive MacDowell’s direct representations but we propose to lay this entire case before HM Government. Major Boles and Lt Colonel Capper have been suspended from duty. It is our belief they acted under the orders of MacDowell. They may return to duty. We approve the provisional appointment of Maj General Gowdie as CiC Madras.
Later the Directors received a copy of the Officers’ memorial. They reply to the Governor-General saying it is subversive of all legitimate government and continue:
The officers assert military privileges that form the basis of independent military power; they demand Council representation; they demand the replacement of the Madras Governor; they dictate to the Governor-General.
We now learn that Major Boles was one of the rallying points for disaffection. We had formerly supposed he acted under the orders of MacDowell. Suspend him again. We are happy to hear that the officers of HM Regiments have been well-behaved throughout this confrontation.
Sat 14th April 1810
Penang, 10th March – all the Cholia boats have left and sailed back to the Coromandel coast.
Sat 21st April 1810
Fallout from the sale of offices enquiry in the Commons:
M/s Smith and Fry Magniac of the Bombay civil establishment are ordered to hold themselves in readiness to depart for England.
Five Bombay army officers are similarly warned of imminent expulsion.
Sat 21st April 1810
3,000+ troops are preparing to leave the Cape on a military expedition.
The Cape market is glutted with British manufactures
Sat 21st April 1810
Three regiments of cavalry attached to Colonel Close’s army on the Nerbudda have mutinied. The officers were not involved. The discontent arose from the absence of help from the residents. The people of Bundelkund and Malwa are resentful and do not support us. Our occupying army is short of all sorts of food. The mutiny has been suppressed with energy and presence-of-mind by Colonel Close.
Gopal Singh has been plundering the country. He found a small detached column under Capt Wilson at Perirca, near Kokereti and defeated it but treated our men well and later returned them with a polite note. Wilson was superseded in command by Major Delamain who chased after Gopal but the insurgent force is mainly cavalry and escaped. While Delamain was chasing them, Gopal sent a detachment to circle back to Delamain’s cantonments and fired them. Capt Wilson’s bungalow was completely destroyed (he previously fired Gopal’s camp which earned a promise of revenge). Infantry reinforcements were sent from Adjighur but were too slow to be useful.
Gopal withdrew to Terowah where Major Morgan’s reinforcement attacked him and drove him back to the Paldee Pass. At the same time, a detached force of Gopal’s infantry again visited the cantonment and completed the destruction there. The British officers have lost most of their private possessions. While they were assessing their situation, Gopal visited Terowah, sacked the town and then destroyed it. This persuaded Colonel Martindell to send a regiment of cavalry which caught up with Gopal’s band of 600 and killed 250 of them. The rest dispersed towards the Jenna Pass. Major Leslie has taken a battalion in pursuit. We have now placed three regiments in the field against the residue of Gopal’s group.
Sat 28th April 1810
Retail prices of Company’s Madeira wine throughout 1810 are published by the Company’s Bombay Import Warehouseman. They indicate an intended increase of 10% between May and Dec. London market wines are already 5% more expensive than the direct country-trade supply.
Sat 28th April 1810
Villiers, our man in Lisbon, is replaced by Henry Wellesley. That gives the Wellesley family control of the Peninsular war. Henry administers Portugal; Lord Wellesley directs the junta at Cadiz and Arthur commands the Anglo/Spanish/ Portuguese army.
Sat 28th April 1810
Ships built in the Company’s domains and belonging to British subjects are to be allowed to carry Bengal cargo to London. The cream of the trade - indigo, piecegoods, raw silk and some other items - is reserved to the Company’s own ships. Suitable ships have to complete their lading before 31st May. (at 21st May only the Fairlie and Baring had been offered)
This concession is also extended to Bombay ships but a considerable number of restrictions and fees is promulgated. For example, carriage of a passenger merits a fine of £500 – the Company must maintain its control of who can come to the East.
Sat 28th April 1810
Charles Andrew Bruce arrived at Penang in March with his wife and two children to take over the Governorship. Colonel MacAllister and W E Philips form his Council. The Governors of Penang are always civil servants from Bengal Presidency. Thomas Raffles continues as Secretary to Government.
Sat 12th May 1810
Notice, 3rd May – Government has reason to believe some Europeans are buying land outside the boundary of this Presidency. All UK nationals and others holding British citizenship and all foreigners whatsoever are forbidden to invest in land. The Company’s magistrates and Collectors are to attend closely to land transactions. A Briton may only own land under the express sanction of the Company.
Sat 12th May 1810
Governor-in-Council Notice - Disputes have occurred between marines and sailors on the Company’s cruisers. In future sepoys (marines) will work the ship below, in hauling up and down cables, in hoisting in or out boats, water and provisions - in other words, in manning the tackle on all occasions.
They will draw and hand along water for washing the ship. They are to personally clean-out their own berths. They may wash clothes only at the times appointed for that ship. They may not be compelled to go aloft, to sweep the decks or perform menial duties.
Sat 19th May 1810
Notice - Government is preparing to contract with the four sons of the late Nabob of Broach. Anyone having pecuniary claims on the boys should submit them before 1st Aug whereafter all rights of claim will be extinguished.
Sat 19th May 1810
Allan Gilmore has resigned the partnership Fairlie Gilmore & Co on 30th May. The business will continue under partners Wm Fairlie, John Hutcheson Ferguson and David Clark as Fairlie Ferguson & Co.
Sat 26th May 1810
Notice –A new 8% loan is solicited by the Company’s Government.
Sat 26th May 1810
Madras news, 12th May – an expedition under Lt Colonel Fraser of HM’s 86th Regiment sailed last week to the South.
(NB - 4 French frigates and a brig left the Loire in early Dec, evaded our blockade and are thought to be coming to Mauritius.)
Sat 2nd June 1810
Bombay Presidency debt under its Promissory Notes jumped to 31½ million Rupees (c. £4 million) in May.
Sat 23rd June 1810
The Calcutta papers have reported that Bombay has insufficient ships to carry the annual cotton crop to China. They say we are chartering Arab tonnage to get our cotton to that market. Its completely untrue but several Calcutta ships have sailed around India expecting to find freight here. In fact we have more tonnage in harbour than can possibly be filled by our normal trade. The Calcutta ships that came here have now sailed away in ballast.
The effect of the misinformation has been to deprive Calcutta of her normal shipping capacity and caused an increase in freight rates from that port. At least it makes the Company’s offer to receive Indian goods for England look more reasonable at those immense freights they require.
That offer has just been extended from 31st May to 31st Aug.
Sat 23rd June 1810
HMS Minden, a 74-gunner, has just been launched from our new Bombay dock by Jamsetjee Bomanjee. This is the first ship-of-the-line built outside the mother-country. A few thousand spectators attended the launch. Teak is the finest ship-building timber on Earth. The frigates that we have previously built are admired by the Royal Navy. It is not just the wood; the Salsette sails are better wearing too. One Bombay-built frigate was frozen-up in the Baltic and sustained no damage. Their quality is starting to be recognised.
Sat 23rd June 1810
Charles Metcalfe has been appointed to succeed Mercer as British Resident at Sindhia’s Court. He set out on 19th May
Sat 23rd June 1810
The Hon George Elliot, second son of Lord Minto and Captain of HMS La Modeste, has married Eliza Cecilia Ness at Calcutta.
Sat 30th June 1810
A recital of the advertisement for the 8% loan. Send subscriptions.
Sat 30th June 1810
Trade with Amboinya is reopened and the Cape Packet and the brigs Ceres, Bee and Sally are departing from Calcutta for that destination.
Sat 30th June 1810
A long letter from the Directors is published:
The Directors have instructed that the grain captured in the wars in Malwa on 7th Sept 1808 (a contributing cause of the famine) is a droit of the Company as sovereign in India and they are not inclined to depart from this general rule.
They also say they do not automatically appoint military officers to Presidential Councils – they will appoint such officers as they deem suitable themselves.
They intend that no officer will in future be promoted to staff rank unless he has an understanding of Hindi.
“We confirm that the unauthorised emoluments of army officers from a tax on goods sold in military bazaars to their soldiers are in future to be accumulated in an account for our own disposal. You estimate the annual proceeds at 60,000 Rupees. Any officer discovered taxing his soldiers will be prosecuted.”
Sat 30th June 1810
29th June – Ardaseer Dady, doyen of the Parsee community at Bombay, died today aged 55 years.
Sat 7th July 1810
Bombay Presidency debt under Promissory Notes was 33 million Rupees at end June.
Sat 7th July 1810
The Company’s quarterly sale of English manufactures will be held on 16th July. Broad cloth, long ells and metals are for sale by auction to the highest bidder. 10% deposit on buying and the balance before clearing the goods. We promise not to make any more sales for three months. These goods may not be exported to avoid upsetting the Company’s other markets but you can sell into any of the dependencies of Bombay Presidency except Bushire and Basra.
Sat 14th July 1810
The American ship Donna Emilia (Dekoven) left New York on 27th Feb and has just arrived at Calcutta. She reports the prohibition on trade with England and France is being maintained in full force but New England merchants have developed a valuable alternative trade with Russia and Sweden in the Baltic and Spain in the Mediterranean. Dekoven says the profits on recent American voyages to Tonning (the new smuggling route to Schleswig and Hamburg) have been immense.
Sat 28th July 1810
Note - The social inferiority of the Editor of Bombay Courier to the Company’s staff is illustrated in this edition. He is obliged to print a two page complaint of Charles Keys, the Captain of the Bombay Marine, which has for its subject a recent book that mentions him uncomplimentarily.
Sat 4th Aug 1810
The Directors have replied on 9th Feb 1810 to the Madras Governor’s summary of 6th Sept 1809 concerning the mutiny by officers in his Presidency:
A mutiny commenced 1st May 1809 amongst the officers of the Hyderabad subsidiary force. We thought the orders you issued that day would recover the situation. We were surprised that so many officers rejected your offer to pardon them and overlook their offence. The rebellion involves both King’s and Company’s officers. They seduced the soldiery to turn their arms against their employers. They have signed and submitted a seditious paper requiring you to revoke your orders of 1st May 1809. They demand the restoration of the dismissed officers and an amnesty for all.
The garrison at Masulipatam commenced this rebellion; then Seringapatam and Hyderabad joined them. The greater part of the Coast Army combined to subvert your government by force of arms.
You must take decisive measures. Remove every officer who declines to give a written undertaking to obey your orders. We applaud the general loyalty of HM forces and those of our own army who have been submissive. We particularly applaud the native troops who were not seduced by their officers. We lament the necessity of your having to rely on native troops to oppose the mutiny of their officers. This shakes the foundation of our system of military control in India. We were glad to read in your letter of 26th July that all the dissident officers have thrown themselves on your mercy. We approve of your awaiting the arrival of the new Governor-General before awarding punishment.
Sat 4th Aug 1810
Lord Melville has visited the Bombay Indiaman at East India Docks on 26th March. Its a fine Indian teak-built ship. He is promoting the use of Indian-built ships in England.
Sat 25th Aug 1810
The island of Reunion surrendered to British forces on 8th July 1810. The interior of this island is more or less impenetrable and our aim was solely to secure the garrison and the persons of the Governor and Deputy Governor at St Denis.
To achieve this, we landed a good part of our force, took the outlying posts and were preparing our positions for an attack on the town when a trumpeter announced a parlez and an officer came to surrender the whole island by capitulation. Our preparatory leaflets had informed the inhabitants that English rule would restore commerce and make them rich. The French garrison will march out with their arms and baggage and full honours of war. They will lay down their arms on the beach and embark, as prisoners of war, for either the Cape or England. Colonel Susanne, the Governor, and his family are permitted to go to Mauritius. We had four men killed and a few others wounded.
Robert Townsend Farquhar is appointed Governor of Reunion and Capt Barry is Chief Secretary and Mayor of St Denis. Two prize agents are appointed, one for HM troops and the other for Company’s troops. They will liaise with the prize agent of the navy and stocktake and secure all public property. The Spanish silver dollar will be the currency of Reunion during our occupation.
Sat 25th Aug 1810
The French cartel ship Camille has arrived at Madras from Mauritius with 25 British and 50 Lascar Prisoners-of-War for exchange.
Sat 1st Sept 1810
Sindhia has taken a bold step. He is poor as usual and the British Raj is not permitting him to plunder his neighbours who are under its protection. His army has not been paid for months and is in a state of rebellion.
In late July, he paraded his regular infantry and, whilst they were drawn up, he surrounded them with his cavalry, ordered them to ground arms and plundered every last man. The infantry in Sindhia’s army carry their valuables on their person as a precaution, so they lost everything. We do not know if his European officers were shaken-down as well.
Afterwards the dissatisfied troops were turned-out of camp. He now relies solely on his highly mobile, and somewhat wealthier, cavalry.
Sat 1st Sept 1810
The French have held Mauritius since 1715. They now have about 30,000 slaves there. The main agricultural product is lately grain but they still have some excellent cotton.
The only reason Mauritian coffee has not been as profitable as it should, has been the existence of a native woodlice that kills off entire orchards.55 The Mauritian spices (transplanted cloves and nutmeg) are tasty and they have a good crop of cinnamon, originally from Ceylon. Indigo, pepper and cattle do not thrive.
The colony has not been self-sufficient to France. It costs the home government about 4 million Livres (£167,000) a year to maintain but they continue to hold it as it is their only base in Eastern seas. The costs of invading this island will be prodigious and the value of keeping it comparatively small. That is why the Company has long dissuaded the London government from acting. It now appears that London insists on its invasion. Sir Home Popham is said to be sailing here to command the expedition.
Sat 1st Sept 1810
Description of the New South Wales Colony.
Sat 8th Sept 1810
Notice - The Bombay government experiences inconvenience from receiving old claims on it. It makes financial estimating uncertain. In future, any claims not presented within two months of the date of performance of the subject-matter will be at risk of rejection and claims over four months old will be summarily dismissed.
Sat 8th Sept 1810
The American ship Superior (Roberts) has arrived at Calcutta. She left Philadelphia on 12th May. Roberts says a Presidential Proclamation was published just before he left permitting trade with England and her Colonies. It was recognised in Washington that this would cause an instant rupture with France.
Wed 12th Sept 1810 Extraordinary
Some people complain they were unable to subscribe to the recent 8% loan. The Governor of Bombay is pleased to re-open the Treasury for more subscriptions.
Sat 22nd Sept 1810
On 8th May the Company published the following advertisement in the London daily papers:
In response to parliamentary pressure, the Company has paid off the debts it incurred under decennial loans. A good many people who relied on the income from these bonds cannot find an equally profitable investment at home and have asked for our reconsideration. We have to say it was never the intention, or in the interest, of the Company’s shareholders to remit such a large amount of silver from India to London as dividends.
To provide a new opportunity for lucrative risk-free investments in India the Company invites all those, who have received our Bills in settlement of their previous investments, to return the Bills endorsed for the payment of principal on other debt at the same Presidency they had previously invested in.
Sat 29th Sept 1810
The fall of Reunion to us has animated the people of Mauritius. Reunion was an important source of food for them but they have their own supply and other alternatives and will not be entirely deprived by our act. They have 5,000 troops for their defence and about the same number of militia.
Sat 6th Oct 1810
Notice 1st Oct – Forbes & Co announce that James Kinlock resigned his partnership on 31st July. He is replaced by William Taylor Money (formerly the Company’s Superintendent of Marine) and John Stewart. The other continuing partners are Charles Forbes, Michie Forbes and David Inglis.
Sat 6th Oct 1810
The ordnance for the invasion of Mauritius includes a large number of Shrapnel’s new shells which are expected to be well-suited to deal with the French horse artillery, the most fearsome part of Mauritian defences.
Sat 6th Oct 1810
The people of the island of Ternate have applied to one of HM ships for protection. Ternate and Tidore (adjacent islands in North Moluccas), the Banda Islands (Seram et al) and Java itself are the sole remaining possessions of the Dutch in eastern seas.
Sat 6th Oct 1810
The Admiralty has offered to provide convoy to East India Company fleets all the way to India and back. Hitherto they have merely escorted the fleet through the Channel.
Sat 13th Oct 1810
The American ships that have arrived recently in India have come with no cargo except silver. We had hoped they would bring wine and brandy in view of the local shortage but those commodities are unavailable in America due to the restricted trade she has with Mediterranean ports.
Madeira wine is selling from that island at £56 per pipe owing to the small harvest last year and great demand in London. The Company has just sold off its stock of Madeira at Bombay. The London supply sold at 470 Rupees per pipe and the country trade supply direct from the island was 435 Rupees per pipe.
Sat 20th Oct 1810
House of Commons, 3rd June – Dundas (son of Melville) has reported on the financial difficulties of the Company. He says 1809 was a terrible trading year and the Company lost money. It was also an active year for wars in India which were expensive.
He recommends the Commons approve a 12-month loan of £1.5 millions to the Company to help it through this cash shortage. After a year the Company will repay the loan or explain why it cannot.
There are no expensive wars being fought this year and the Company’s investment in commerce has increased. The prospects for the future are bright.
The House was (as usual for India affairs) poorly attended and Dundas got his vote 77/10.
Sat 27th Oct 1810
Notice – the Company’s monopoly on the sale of tobacco, hemp and snuff in Bombay will be abolished on 31st October 1810. Thereafter importation is free to all, subject only to the Company’s duties of 3½% ad valorem tax, payable on all imports, plus 10½ Rupees per Maund on tobacco, 87 Rupees per Maund on ganga and 1 Rupee per pound on snuff.
A drawback of the tax (except the ad valorem charge) is available on proof of export. Regulations for this trade will be published shortly.
Sat 3rd Nov 1810
The Company’s Directors have discussed Robert Dundas’ recent motion in the House of Commons for a loan for the Company.
They say the debate did not do the Company justice. India had drawn an extra £4 millions from the Company’s London funds to fight recent wars. It had sustained several shipping losses to French privateers and heavy weather with the lost tea and silk cargo valued at £1 million plus. These losses put expenditure about £2 millions over income in 1809/10 and necessitated the loan. Dundas failed to mention all this.
The Directors suppose that the Company is never likely to be profitable when it has to fight wars – the costs of the war are borne by the Company whilst the soldiery get the benefits in extra pay and prize money in return for their risk.
The accounts of the Company to March 1809 showed funds in London were in surplus by about £4.8 millions which should be ample security to obtain House of Commons approval. The Directors agreed that Dundas’ statement of the Company’s case be reinforced to House of Commons by petition.
The House of Commons debated the loan requested on 31st May and Dundas has got it though. The Company has offered its stock-in-trade as security but Creevy said he had no confidence in its valuation. He said even Dundas’ gung-ho picture of the Company noted only a decrease in its deficit, not a profit. Dundas said he had the Directors’ agreement to meet some naval expenses that England would shortly incur in Eastern Seas and this assistance was valuable.
Sat 10th Nov 1810
On 16th Nov 1810 the Company will auction the lease on Breach Candy, its complex of bungalows, private apartments and outhouses, all on 30,000 Sq Yards of land. Ground rent is 150 rupees a year.
Sat 10th Nov 1810
M/s Hunter, Hay & Co of Madras have admitted John Hunter’s nephew William Simpson to the partnership. 22nd Oct 1810.
Sat 10th Nov 1810
The Regulations for the personal import of tobacco, snuff and ganga into Bombay are published. They apply to the native troops of the army.56
The knapsacks of all native troops entering Bombay are to be searched by an officer or one of the Customs House staff to ensure no dutiable commodities are brought in. The same restriction applies to the European soldiery and their families.
Sat 17th Nov 1810
The Governor-in-Council has published an Order on 10th Nov 1810 to C J Briscoe, the Superintendent of Bombay Police, requiring him to cease all his commercial activities. The Governor has been ordering Briscoe to do so since March 1808 but without effect. He now offers Briscoe a choice – resign the Superintendency or resign the commerce. A decision is required before end Nov.
Cap 52 of the 33rd George III requires all Indian civil servants involved in the Presidential Councils, the administration of justice or the collection of revenue to forego commercial activities. The law actually specifies only officers in Bengal, Bihar and Orissa but there is a recent letter from the Directors saying it is intended to refer to all British India.
Briscoe’s clerk has received a handsome reward for overlooking a conspiracy of the tellers in the Company’s Bombay Treasury to murder their new sub-Treasurer and restore a regular stream of illicit income. They have been in the habit of taking out 10,000 – 20,000 Rupees from time to time under the previous sub-Treasurer and investing it with the Shroffs in the Bazaar. It seems they are invariably successful speculators and the money is replaced after they have profited from it. The new sub-Treasurer Osborne stopped the practice by keeping the keys to the safe in his own possession. Under the previous Treasurer any one of 10-12 men might hold the keys to the safe which usually contained about $120,000 in silver and occasionally had $500,000+.
The two Treasury Shroffs indicted on this charge were paid 10/6d a week wages but there were records in other Court pleadings of actions against them for debts of thousands of Pounds. One of the short-term loan agents in the bazaar had an account with these Shroffs showing a balance due to them of over £10,000.
The tellers conspired to murder Osborne and restore their ability to withdraw funds from the safe but the assassins they employed were incompetent and got caught. They confessed the whole thing and identified one of the native Shroffs and the Clerk of the Treasury as their principals.
Osborne was appointed in summer 1809 and one of his principal duties was to reduce costs in line with the economies pressed on the Company by the home government. He did not attempt to put an end to many of the traditional perks of the Indian staff but he reprobated their taking the Company’s money down to the bazaar for investment. This was their big earner and a whole i