Chapter 26 - Asia 1813-1823

Sat 5th June 1813

Sir Charles Forbes has been elected one of the MPs for Beverley in Oct 1812. He will enter parliament in the next session.

Sat 12th June 1813

Governor Nepean in Council has ordered that in future all troop transports are to be equipped with two life buoys when used to transport the Company’s men.

Sat 19th June 1813

The Company’s Arabian commerce has been quite desultory since the Wahabi insurrection at Mecca and Medina.1 The area has long been part of the Ottoman Empire and the Turks sent a force from Egypt to reconquer it last year.

They entered Jeddah and Mecca unopposed and have sent an expedition against Taif, which is the only place the Wahabis still hold. The Wahabi chief Saud and his son Abdullah, who was Governor of Mecca, both abandoned the Holy City on the Turkish approach. The Turks have appointed Pashas to Jeddah and Mecca.

Mohamed Ali, the Pasha of Egypt, is leading the Ottoman forces and is at Mecca but is planning to march to Loheia, Hodeidah and Mocha to ensure those towns are settled and that all Arabia will again submit to Constantinople.

We expect our trade will resume its usual proportions once tranquillity is re-established.

Sat 26th June 1813

The British government of Java is blockading the Sambas River in west Borneo using two of the Company’s cruisers HCS Aurora (MacDonald) and Teignmouth. There is a successful group of pirates based somewhere up this river whom we have difficulty in attacking as the river is too shallow.

A large junk evaded our blockade and entered the river but was caught by the boats of the Aurora cruiser. A sudden squall from the land prevented the junk from escaping. Her captain is Malay and there were 400 crew aboard. She carried a cargo of gunpowder and shot and had a team of engineers to advise the pirates on artillery matters.

The containment of these pirates should mitigate the effects of piracy on our Borneo coasting trade. Raffles’ Java government is assembling a flotilla of shallow-draft boats to make a further attack.

Sat 26th June 1813

The fever on Java continues to affect our troops. It is particularly prevalent at Banca Island where we have had to remove the garrison to a new well-drained location.

Sat 26th June 1813

The Company forced the holders of 8% loans to receive back their investment or transfer their funds into the new 6% loan. Many overseas investors found their investments had been transferred unauthorisedly by their Indian agents.

They threatened to make Indian Promissory Notes a matter for parliamentary debate. This is not the time. The Company has now agreed to pay the overseas investors 8% for the period of the original Promissory Note’s validity.

Sat 26th June 1813

Lt Henry E Pottinger was Governor Nepean’s supernumerary aide-de-camp. He is now confirmed as sole aide-de-camp.

Sat 3rd July 1813

The ministry has told the Secret Committee of the Company (three Directors) that it intends to declare free trade to India in the renewed Charter and has identified ports at which the trade may be handled – Bristol, Cork, Dublin, Glasgow, Hull and London are mentioned. The China-trade will continue as the Company’s monopoly at London only.

Sat 3rd July 1813

Britain proscribed the trade in African slaves to its people in March 1807. It was extended to all slaves in May 1811. Those laws were applicable to Ceylon since 1st January 1812. The Admiralty Court at Colombo is now hearing a case involving the sale of Singhalese children to Arabia. The defendants are three British subjects and three foreigners – a man from Mocha, Ahmed Carsim Patcherin, who is an officer on an Arab dhow Johan Banny, a Malay Muslim priest from Malacca and a Malabar Lascar. The Britons are two Muslim merchants from Galle and a Burgher who has taken the Oath of Allegiance to George III.

A similar case occurred at Calcutta a few years ago which Sir William Jones heard. In his Judgment, Jones held that the export of children for profit was a despicable crime.

Mocha is a great slaving market in the Ottoman empire. It handles much of the business from the African east coast (Zanzibar) and Madagascar.

The Johan Banny entered Galle harbour in January 1813 at a time when considerable shortage and famine was affecting the area. Many children were willing to do anything to get food. Badgammegey Simon is a pauper who led children to the ship. Fifteen were found on board. Etc.

Sat 10th July 1813

Calcutta, 10th June - Three Filipino Christians have been convicted of murdering a Chinese merchant in Calcutta. The one who ordered the death blow has been hanged.

Sat 10th July 1813

Probolinggo, Java 18th May – Two British army officers were visiting the Chinese headman near this town when word came that a party of 300 Muslims had descended from the hills onto a nearby village and taken it in the name of the Prophet.

The officers went to that village to investigate; the Muslims charged and the party fell back upon a small group of houses which they defended with only slight success.

A slave was sent to Probolinggo to call reinforcements and by next morning we had 150 men assembled for a counter attack. This failed and we had to abandon the area. The two army officers were later found murdered. The Chinese headman and local landowner Han Ki Ko and his relative Ong Tiong Tiong were also killed. Ong Tiong Suey was injured. The Chinese were very helpful.

Another detachment was sent the next day and dispersed the Muslims.

Sat 10th July 1813

The East India trade:


Sat 10th July 1813

The new Governor-General is Lord Moira. He is the acting Grand Master of the Masonic Lodges of England on behalf of the Prince Regent. The Friendship No 3 Lodge which Farquhar, General Bradford and Bayford attend, voted on 10th Dec to donate £100 towards a Masonic Medal to be presented to Moira at his farewell Masonic dinner on 16th Jan before he departs England to assume the government of India.

Every Lodge in Britain is expected to follow this example and accordingly the sum raised will total £20,000. Moira has a reputation amongst all the European Lodges for the benevolence and perfection of his Masonic practice.

Sat 17th July 1813

The market at Mocha, apart from slaves and coffee, also supplies gum Arabic, aloes, frankincense, myrrh, senna leaf, madder root and alkali.

Mon 19th July 1813 Extraordinary

USS Constitution (Bainbridge) has captured HMS Java (Lambert) off the Brazilian coast. The British frigate was too extensively damaged to be made prize and was burnt on 1st Jan 1813. The British naval officers were disgruntled by their situation and declined to provide any information but there appear to have been about 400 crew.

Lt General Hislop, who is travelling out to India to take command of the Company’s army, was a passenger on board HMS Java and was captured along with Major Walker and Captain Wood of his staff. The warship was carrying a cargo of copper sheet for the lining of a new 75-gun capital ship currently under construction at Bombay.

Mon 19th July 1813 Extraordinary

The Company has chartered 20 Extra ships for the 1813 season. They are all smaller than the Company’s Indiamen – generally 500 to 600 tons – but with three 700+ tonners amongst them.

On 20th Jan the Company held an extraordinary Court to brief shareholders on developments in the renewal of the Charter. Inglis told the meeting that unless the ministry’s plans were changed, the loss of business to London would have national significance.

Shareholder Weybridge said ministers had been overly influenced by the torrent of petitions from the country. All those petitioners were from greedy people without any understanding of Asian trade. Weybridge said Pitt and Melville completely understood the Company’s situation – how can these present officials hold a different view. He became distraught and was unable to continue speaking.

Davis said he knew Indian trade. He had made four voyages there and had been both a merchant in Indian goods and a broker of them in the City. He knew what he was talking about. Transferring the China trade from London to the outports would injure London without advantaging the outports. It was notorious that for many years the exports from England to India had been excessive and unprofitable. People used to say the freight was too high; now they said it was too low. A ship that is suitable to bring back sugar and pepper from the West Indies was entirely unsuitable to perform the same function in East Indies. The merchants in the outports have no idea what they are asking for.

Several of the Company’s ship captains, in consideration of the losses they were making on privileged tonnage, applied to Minto at Bengal for draw-backs and Minto said ‘you are all speculators and must pay the price of imprudence’.

When the Earl of Buckinghamshire,2 was Governor of Madras in 1795, as Lord Hobart, a ship named Rodney (Carruthers) arrived with cargo for Madras and Calcutta. Orders awaiting the captain at Madras required him to dispose of the Bengal cargo there and return to London. The Captain put an extra £8,000 of British manufactures into the Madras market and collapsed the prices of all English imports. Lord Hobart suggested a Lottery would be the best way of converting the goods into money – he should remember that (Buckingham is in favour of a free trade in Indian goods).

This is the danger we face. If several markets in Asian goods are opened, one at each outport, we will have some goods expensive and others cheap depending on local conditions. This will encourage speculators who always disrupt markets at the merest whiff of opportunity.

Another problem is smuggling. The Company has professed its monopoly restrains smuggling but the ministry received advice from the Commissioners of Customs and Excise who told them that there is already more smuggling of India goods in the Thames than there could ever conceivably be if the trade was opened to the outports.

Last year Dundas told the Directors that £181,000 of private goods were imported from India in 1793; after the loosening of the monopoly (in 1798) £881,660 was imported privately to London. Since then war has diminished trade and no useful statistics are available but Dundas relies on this earlier growth to establish the case for free trade.

The great Indian Agency Houses complain against the burgeoning trade of American ships using London capital to buy and sell in India. Those Agencies say their own capital has now increased to the point that they can themselves finance all the private trade to England. The Agents all deplore this advantage we allow the Americans over our own maritime traders. They say the choice for monopolising this trade is with either the Indian Agencies or the Americans. They feel the country should have no doubt whom to support.

At present goods are sent from Calcutta to America on Bills from Calcutta drawn on London. We are financing the trade of a competitor to the detriment of our own ships and merchants. The underlying concept of the Navigation Acts was to give British merchants the carrying trade of British colonies. In fact the Americans are not importing Indian goods to any great degree – they are re-exporting them to central and south America and to our own colonies in West Indies.

The parliamentary Select Committee of 1809 proposed to levy a double duty on American ships exporting from India. That would have entirely solved the problem. Gallatin3 has told the American Congress that their government gets $1 million a year from duties levied on their merchants’ trade with India and we are at war with America.

In 1809-10 season the Americans exported 6.8 million Rupees worth of Indian goods while British private merchants exported 7.4 million Rupees. American trade will soon exceed ours if it does not do so already.

British exports to Asia have increased fivefold since last Charter renewal. In 1798 we imported goods into India to a value of 1.8 million Rupees. By 1802-3 that had doubled to 4 million Rupees. It was 7.7 million Rupees in 1805 and 8.9 million Rupees in 1807.

Our exports to China in 1794 were £600,000 but in 1803 they were £1.3 million and we were told all along that China-trade was hopeless.

In 1793 Dundas offered us a deal – take his terms or surrender the Charter. We had no answer for him. But now we have investigated the subject more clearly and have identified the complaints we should have made then and will certainly make now.

The crews of Indiamen are almost exclusively provided by crimps. They supply the worst sort of sailors. If the trade passed to the private merchants the quality of sailors would improve – they would be Lascars with families in India who would not desert the ship. At present the crews of Indiamen, when they desert, are immediately identifiable because there are no other poor Europeans in India. If we see a poor European, we know who he is and repatriate him.

Sat 24th July 1813

On 6th Jan 1813 the Company’s shareholders reconvened their meeting to discuss the state of play with the ministry over Charter renewal. Buckingham wrote to the Secret Committee on 24th Dec 1812 that the ministry wanted to open India to the exports of Britain from all the outports but was agreeable to restricting imports from India to London. British manufacturers responded that access to the export trade without access to the return cargoes for import was insufficiently profitable to them.

British merchants reject the Company’s argument that restricting trade to London mitigates smuggling. They say the China-trade can also be opened and answer the Company’s defence of that part of its monopoly (protection of the British revenue and solicitude for the Chinese) by asserting that proper regulation at outports is all that is necessary to establish the opened trade on a firm and secure foundation.

The ministry was satisfied that the private merchants had established their case for opening the trade to ports other than London, with the exception of the tea trade. The Customs officials had confirmed they anticipate no undue effect on smuggling and, if there was, it could be dealt with by harsher penalties. The Channel has always been a location of smuggling because of easy communications with the French coast. If there is an increase, we can deal with it.

The ministry is willing to legislatively limit the number of King’s troops sent to India at the cost of the Company.

The Company replied that the tea-trade was fundamental to the Company’s continuance. The profits from tea fund the Home Charges. If there was smuggling of tea at the outports, it would not just be a loss of revenue to the government but it would reduce the ability of the Company to inter alia pay its dividend in England with the obvious ramifications on the share price.

Once the private traders get to India they will be able to organise a tea supply without going to China. They can buy at very reasonable prices from the Chinese coasting trade that operates throughout Asia and no doubt those skilled Chinese traders would soon adapt their shipments to precisely suit English requirements.

The Company believes the ministry has collapsed before the private merchants and a major effect of the proposed change will be to increase speculation in Indian trade.

Sat 24th July 1813

Charter debate, 23rd Jan. The Americans derive an immense advantage from our welcome of their trade in Asia. It was partly due to their indefatigable efforts as traders and partly to the immunity that neutrality in war gives them. The fact was that the Americans could hardly obtain trade advantages if there were not Company’s factories throughout the East that had drawn the production of valuable crops and minerals to them from their hinterlands.4

The only valid reason the Directors have adduced for continuing the monopoly has been the hazard to the China-trade that would arise if it ended. Adam Smith, who is a proponent of free trade, agrees on the difficulty of preventing smuggling. Napoleon has shown us that even burning the contraband and executing the smugglers does not prevent it. Trade always finds a way.

The ministry has hardly considered this subject – it has only adduced that some regulation may be needed in the Thames – unless they tacitly intend to extend the application of the Manifest Act to Asia. In that case, the idea of validating a ship’s lading in Asia before departure is extraordinary. At present, one sails the seas and buys what one likes, where one likes – we are only concerned for the quality and price and the export duties at the port of loading. Is England willing to place Customs Officers throughout Asia to ensure Manifests are properly completed? Simply opening the trade of Asia without some such measure is absurd.

It has taken the Company decades to build its power in India to the point it can assert its commercial will in the ports and enforce a system of trade on the merchants. The great Agency Houses of India employ the finest and most reputable merchants but the small traders were up to all sorts of tricks (i.e. the recent cases of arms to China and slaving at Ceylon). The fact is that everyone in Britain knows the Company is wealthy and some large part of that wealth emanates from trade. This encourages all sorts of speculators to trade East and, once arrived, they will endeavour by hook or by crook to obtain a part of the most lucrative trades no matter what regulations are enacted to restrain them.

R Grant said we should not experiment on India. We have been fighting a war for twenty years to prevent precisely the same sort of speculative development in England – the settling of a new liberal French-style Constitution on the British people. If we are willing as a nation to fight against such innovations and maintain the status quo why do we adopt different tactics towards Asia?

In 1784 Pitt said that it was impossible to transfer the government of India from the Company to the ministry because it raised so many Constitutional difficulties. Pitt subsequently renewed the Charter in 1793 for a further 20 years and ignored the Constitutional derogations.

In 1802 Melville observed that the foundation of the Company’s power in India was a grant from the Grand Mughal. Although the Mughal’s political power has ended, he remains titular sovereign of India and the Company has acted as his representative in exercising the government of India. It has made war and peace. If it is replaced by the ministry it will be the replacement of an authorised government by an unauthorised one.5

Melville has conceded that the prosperity of India is unknown in the surrounding territories which are still oppressed by venal government and continuous quarrels. The ministry is motivated by the loss of European trade to British outports and is solely concerned to provide some other market to British manufacturers and importers - it has not thought about the matter at all. When we enquire into the details of the ministry’s plan we are given no answer but told that we should be satisfied with their decision.

As regards smuggling, it is notorious that the Customs is incapable of preventing it in the Thames, the river of the capital city of the country – how can they contemplate preventing it in Asia. Our difficulty is a great number of merchants who have formerly made their profits in trade with Europe are now shut out of that market by Napoleon and want the alternative of India.

Horace Twiss said the inability of the Customs to protect the British revenue was well evidenced by the huge exportations of gold that had occurred from England when the British gold price fell below the European price. Trade in bullion and specie is legislatively regulated but it went on unrestrainedly.

Melville introduced a limited free trade in 1793 and it had grown under the Company’s control into a valuable trade. In the first year it was £81,000, in the fifth year £800,000 and in the tenth year £3 millions. This was free trade under the Company’s supervision whereby the Company obtained some advantage for its trouble.

Ministers have referred to the licensed trade that was introduced by Wellesley when Governor-General. That was at a time when the funds of the Company had been applied to war in Hindustan and the Deccan (the Maratha Wars) instead of commercial purposes and it required financing through inter alia the sale of trading licences. A good number of the petitions for free trade to Asia also beg for the reform of parliament and the emancipation of the Catholics. One might suspect that the ministry, being unwilling to grant those other requests, feels it least threatening to itself to grant free Asian trade.

We issued Orders-in-Council, France responded with Decrees, we indiscriminately seized American property, now we are at war. America first sent Jay to negotiate and we compensated the Americans. The 13th article of Jay’s treaty permitted American trade to India. We conceded that because we needed American intermediaries to carry our manufactures to Europe. Dundas required the Directors to construe the 13th article liberally. Other states claiming the same privileges could not then be denied on the grounds of political conformity. We are hoisted with an MFN argument that we have formerly used only to our own advantage.

Formerly, when the Company had cashflow problems, the ministry turned to the Royal Exchange – now it turns to America. The power of trade is so great that, despite the Non-Importation Act, we sent more goods to America than we had before its enactment. 18 months ago we knew that the privateering interest in America was pushing that country into war with us – the letters of marque were issued concurrently with the Declaration of War.

The Americans bring silver to India which is very welcome but we might bring it ourselves if we chose to do so.

The Indian production of cottons and indigo for export was solely an initiative of the private traders. These trades were encouraged as the means of maintaining remittances from India to London. They support the Company’s monopoly.

If the ministry is really intent on opening Asian trade it must first agree a satisfactory compensation scheme for us before the King’s government assumes the government of India. We must have security for the stock value and the dividend. It is farcical to suppose that Asia might be opened to free trade but not China. There is a vibrant Chinese coasting trade between China and the eastern islands from India to Japan that is completely beyond our control. Really the Company and the ministry both have the best interests of England in mind in continuing the monopoly.

Trower said the cry of ‘no monopoly’ that the ministry had stirred-up amongst the people was as ludicrous as the cry of ‘no Popery’ every time the Catholic question was discussed. This is simply the case of one group of capitalists seeking to evict another group from the Indian market.

Bosanquet said India is an inexhaustible mine of wealth and it is the foundation of the wealth of England. We grow cotton, indigo, silk, spices, coffee and sugar quite apart from the mineral wealth we extract – gold, silver, salt, saltpetre, etc.

Grant noted the popular Petitions to parliament all suppose a great increase in British exports to India is in prospect once the monopoly is removed. There were two existing types of trade - the officers’ privileged trade and the Company’s own trade. The officers’ trade had been greatly increased by the Warehousing Act of 1798 but they had not profited from it. Indeed the real basis to the growth of officers’ trade was the growth in the expatriate population in India (privileged tonnage is used to ship European wines, salted meats, fashions and leatherware for the expatriate community). It was not something that could grow disproportionately to the expatriate population. In any event, this trade was an imaginary increase so far as British manufacturers were concerned for had the foreign population of India stayed in England they would likely have still consumed about the same quantities of British goods. We are talking of a trade worth on average about £3.5 millions annually. The only new article added to the usual British exports to India over the last 22 years was cochineal and that came from the West Indies not England. There is no pressure from the native traders to have a greater supply (they buy English imports from the Agencies and the Company). Those native traders should know the Indian market better than the manufacturers of Sheffield and Birmingham.

Some people say it is the high price of freight that the Company charges for use of cargo space on its chartered fleet that is the cause of diminished trade. That must be wrong as the Company’s officers pay no freight on their imports but they are still unable to extend sales.

The exports of India to England and America have increased from £181,000 in 1793 to £1,791,000 in 1810 but in 1811 they had fallen to £100,000. Right now there is £500,000 (42,000 bales) of Indian cotton and £1.1 million of indigo in the Company’s London warehouses that cannot be sold. How is the free trade going to develop these markets? American exports from India run at about £3.5 millions annually and that only started with the French Revolution.

Grant then produced a letter of Lord Wellesley’s dated 1810 stating that opening Indian trade would be disastrous. He said the commerce of the Company could not be severed from its political interests. They were interwoven.

Hume (who is the sole shareholder arguing for free trade) said the quantity of unsold Indian cotton in the Company’s warehouses was only half a year’s supply. It would soon be sold. He said the Company’s profit on trade had to be adjusted for duties. The Company charged itself 6¼% ad valorem on woollen imports and 10% on everything else and this revenue of about £2.6 millions was transferred to the territorial account. This should actually be a reduction from the Company’s commercial profits but co-mingling of accounts caused it to be recorded separately. Deduct the duty from the Company’s trading profits and it becomes a loss-making commercial venture. Hume said this illustrates a mischief in the Company’s way of accounting.

R Jackson noted that the Company’s capital had been exhausted by its diversion to territorial purposes. This was another reason for separating the two interests.

A private Indian merchant told the meeting on a previous day that he could always have taken 5,000 more tons on extra ships had he needed to do so but the volume of trade did not warrant it. Contrarily the Chairman told a Commons Select Committee that he admitted a want of tonnage for private trade but said the shortfall was not due to anything the Company had done.

Davis said he was a private exporter of Indian goods and had never had difficulty in obtaining all the tonnage he needed.

Hume said the comparison of today’s situation with 1783 was wrong. Fox had sought to assume the control of all the Indian patronage whereas the present ministry merely wished to take away the Company’s commerce which it had all along claimed to be the source of its repeated losses. He thought it wonderful that the Company so resolutely declined to part with the loss-making aspect of its business.

Inglis wondered if Hume was attacking the patronage of the Directors and assured him that, even without the commerce, they would still have the patronage. Inglis said it had been the capital and loans of the Company that had permitted the acquisition of control of India and the commercial endeavour was an inseparable part of the territorial endeavour.

Weybridge’s resolution was then passed with Hume the sole dissenter.6 Jackson objected to a passage in the resolution that admitted a loss on Indian trade but Inglis thought it was worded in a sufficiently guarded way to be acceptable.

Sat 31st July 1813

The Bank of Bengal has reported a bad year. The dividend set by the Directors on 3rd July was 7½% being 1½% less than any former year.

Sat 31st July 1813

Thakurdass Narrondass died 26th June aged 56 years. He was the principal Bombay agent of the great Hindu firm of Gopaldass Manordass. He was born in Benares and came to Bombay in 1792. He managed Gopaldass’ offices at Surat, Poona, Bombay and Madras.

On 28th July Nemchand Amichand, the main broker of Forbes & Co, also died.

Sat 7th Aug 1813

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Sat 14th Aug 1813

The Edinburgh Review No 40 has obtained a copy of the papers printed by the Company respecting Charter renewal. This subject is sunk in obfuscation. A Select Committee of the Commons once wrote it had been ‘fatigued into such a despair of ever obtaining a competent knowledge of the transactions in India, that they were easily persuaded to remand them back to that obscurity, mystery and intrigue out of which they should never have been forced upon public notice, but by the calamities arising from their extreme mismanagement.”7

Well, the Review has penetrated the ‘obscurity, mystery and intrigue’ by first assuming that there are three parties involved in the matter – Britain, the Company and the Indian people.

The Company’s advocates assert a right to Indian territory and its exclusive commerce. They say the right derives from the sovereignty they have obtained over the native states. As a sovereign power they question the right of the British or any other Legislature to interfere in their internal affairs. This audacious opinion neglects the fact that the Company is itself a creature of the British Legislature.

The essential first step in this Sisyphean task of Charter renewal is to bring the Company’s advocates to a sense of reality.

The Directors secondly note that they have been deemed competent to administer India in the past and there has been no change that might influence their ability in the future.

In this way abuse is perpetualised on the basis of custom.

Their third general argument is that experience (in the slightest degree) is better than speculation, they being experienced and Legislators (and the merchants they represent) being speculators.

Once this much of the onion has been peeled away, they come to the merits of their case. They hold that opening the trade of India would produce no national advantage because they have themselves already tried every commercial prospect and neither the import nor export trade cannot be increased beyond its present extent. This opinion excites surprise amongst the mercantile community of Britain that our country with its wealth can do so little business with a nation of 60 million farmers.

Trade occurs when one country with a surfeit of production finds another with a surfeit of production, and those surfeits are different and complimentary – we speak of real trade, not the predatory version.

It is said the machine-made piecegoods of England now rival the piecegoods of India. If it is so, why are there high import duties on Indian cloth? Indian production is not limited to cotton, we have just stimulated the production of that fibre by providing a demand for it. We might also grow an almost endless variety of other products had we the interest to do so. One example is indigo which we have made into a staple of the Indian economy. This product was ignored by the Company and was developed, almost against the Company’s wishes, by a group of private merchants seeking for a product that would provide a means of remittance from India to England.8

In a letter to the Board of Control of 13th Jan 1809 the Company’s Directors attributed the cause of the insignificant level of trade to inter alia 16 years of war. Contrarily, in their Third Report of 25th March 1802, the Directors stated their conviction that it was impossible for the British Legislature to increase the trade with India in time of peace!

We also note the late Lord Melville’s famous letter of 30th June 1801, concerning the liquidation of the Company’s debts, which allows a 30% reduction in the Company’s gross trade due to peace (i.e. the Company’s recognition that war secures international trade to England and increases the Company’s share of it by removing the competitors). Nevertheless, it is now said to be war that diminishes Indian trade. The British experience throughout this great war, except for one year, has been a steady increase in exports as we alone engross the supply of colonial and manufactured goods to Europe.

On the subject of Indian imports, the Company has repeatedly told us that Asian people will not buy British goods; that the great variety of things that Europeans enjoy cannot be adapted to Asian tastes. We will refer to our first Orientalist, Henry Colebrooke, who privately printed and circulated a book at Calcutta in 1794 on the agriculture and commerce of India. The section on agriculture was later printed in England and was well received. The section on commerce was so dismissive of the Company’s monopoly as to be deemed unprintable and it remains out of print. In it, Colebrooke notes the Company says it sells as much as possible. It says refined metals are unwanted whilst metal ore and woollens are already over-supplied and sold at a loss. It says India is too hot most of the year for woollens to have a market and neither Hindus nor Muslims can use metalware made by infidels. The Indian belief is actually captured in the works of Manu where it is written ‘the hand of an artist, employed in his art, is always pure; so is every vendible commodity when exposed to sale’ and in several other similar sayings. Colebrooke was even advised by some priests that woollen cloth can be purified by exposure to air whereas all other forms of cloth require washing. Colebrooke noticed many Indians walked the streets of Calcutta in the rainy season in woollen broadcloth as it gave better protection than the local cloth. He thought if the import market was exposed to competition the price of British cloth would fall and the Indian market in the rains and winter would increase. He also noted that Indians liked china pots and plates and used a vast quantity of metal vessels and implements, and he was unable to comprehend why the Company found such difficulty in developing its captive market.9

Mr Bazett, who was engaged in the principal Agency House at Calcutta since 1788, gave evidence to the Select Committee on India in 1806 that he was ‘convinced that, if the British merchants of India were allowed to export their produce in India-built ships, and to load those ships without Company interference, exports to England would be greatly extended’. Henry Fawcett (of Bruce Fawcett & Co) of Bombay said something similar. Had the Company held the monopoly of trade with North America its policies could never have permitted that market to reach £12 millions annually as it has done for the last several years under the private trade.

The Company points to the limited extent of interest by private merchants to take-up the 3,000 tons of space they offer on the Company’s Extra ships annually, and says this establishes that there really is no extra business to be had. The private merchants say the endless regulation, potential penalties and extraordinary expense of shipping goods by Extra ships was the reason few private merchants were willing to take the chance.

The freight rate on Extra ships was exorbitant but space was often unavailable and private merchants had to ship on regular ships at an even higher freight rate. They also pay a 50% insurance surcharge for war risks. There is compelling evidence, by comparison of what government pays on Botany Bay ships and troop transports, to suggest the freight rate out and back should never exceed £5 per ton either way. In a few (rare) instances, private merchants had paid over 10 times that rate to the Company. Compare these rates with the cost of commodities – sugar for example costs £30 - £40 per ton – and the importance of the freight rate is revealed.

The Company also points to the speculative nature of the early trade to South America and the serious losses that many merchants encountered. It says it wishes to protect traders from their own greed. Really? Merchants are not like politicians – they do not repeat the same mistakes over and over again. They do not need the Company’s fatherly guidance.

The Company’s next defence is that frequent contact between private British traders and Indians would make the country ungovernable. The natives would be influenced by our attitudes and opinions - they would learn to protect themselves at law and become litigious. Increasing numbers of British speculators would destroy all orderly commerce. All that the Company has done to bring about the submission of the natives and their toleration of our rule would be jeopardised, the Directors say.

This is an absurd proposition. The Indian people have been subjected for centuries to the oppressive rule of the Mughals and there is not one instance of the Hindu population rising against the Muslims. The numbers of Mughal supporters in India is vastly greater than the number of Britons. It looks more probable that the Hindus did not oppose the Mughals because there were so many of them. Now the Company asserts they do not oppose the British because there are so few of them.

Numbers are in fact irrelevant. The battle of Plassey that gave us our territorial foothold in India was won by 900 Europeans and 2,000 sepoys against an Indian army of 60,000 men. The Muslims were initially most numerous in the Indus and Ganges river valleys and they were rarely found in the Deccan until the Muslim kingdoms of Beejapore and Golconda were founded by a handful of people. It was not until the reign of Aurengzebe that Muslims became numerous throughout India.

The fact is that the Indians who are most closely connected with us are the residents of the black towns of Cuddalore (south of Pondicherry), Madras and Calcutta. These people serve in our residences and offices and maintain our towns and have extensive daily contact with us. Has this made them more disposed to revolt than others? On the contrary, they are under the immediate eye of government and have proved to be unlikely to protest against us. We merely have to treat these people fairly, to repress the bad elements and protect the innocent, and we assure ourselves of their co-operation. If the Company believes the people have to be protected from the injustice of private traders it merely has to enforce existing law to achieve the desired result. In fact the Select Committee of 1783 heard evidence from Philip Francis detailing the Company’s oppressive acts in the Pergunnahs and Aurangs towards farmers, weavers and salt workers and none of these groups rebelled against those institutionalised injustices.

The Company develops this argument into an intent to prevent British colonisation of India. They say their monopoly depends on their authority. The people must fear the Company for it to successfully obtain a revenue from them. Warren Hastings wrote in his Review of the State of Bengal that the correspondence files of the Company’s Board of Trade are filled with complaints against private merchants – they pay advances to weavers (to capture their production) that are greater than the Company’s own advances to those people. The Company’s view has always been that obtaining the goods cheap was more important than developing trade. It routinely pays advances to producers to secure their production at fixed rates irrespective of the market. Hastings’ Review ends with ‘commerce can only flourish when it is equal and free’.

One of the most instructive of the Company’s acts involves the opium monopoly at Patna that is operated by a few of its servants. This was unable to compete with the quality and quantity of production by the Nabob of Oudh and the Rajah of Benares. In those states there were no advances to farmers or disturbances between the factors. The production of opium in native states was open to competition and it thrived. How did the Company deal with this robust competition? It sent an army and put a stop to it militarily, permanently in the case of Oudh and temporarily in the case of Benares, which production was later permitted to drive the expansion of the Company’s own monopoly at Patna.

The Company’s rule in India is oppressive. The Hindu is required to submit to a degree that does not occur to the nationals of European countries. The Company’s Collectors are spread throughout the country and enjoy a degree of power that is unknown in Europe. The private merchant’s business is rendered unprofitable by endless regulation. The Company is sovereign and despotic. The caste system is utilised to keep the low caste people down and anyone rising above that level is taxed to the limit. By collecting the wealth of India to the Company and its employees, the people remain poor and Company control is thought to be better assured.

In 1768 Calcutta wrote a declaration of policy to Madras – ‘we depend upon you to discourage foreigners. You must convert as much of the revenues into manufactures as possible for shipment home and you should invariably outbid the private traders in this. This should attract sellers to you in preference to them and will cause only a slight increase in prices. You shall prevent the Cuddalore weavers from producing any of our assortments for others; extend this restriction generally and make it permanent’.

The great commodities under Company control are raw silk and piecegoods of silk and cotton. The Company claims no formal monopoly on these products but the market in them is not free. The Company has numerous means of interfering with the manufacturers until they understand that they must obey verbal instructions – this is the Company’s means of informal monopoly.

The only sure remedy for this abuse is to remove the Company from trade entirely and leave it solely with the government of India. We should have recognised the impolicy of combining government and commerce from the fate of the Dutch possessions in India.

There remain many questions:

There were two great investigations into the Company in 1772 and 1782 at which time the reputation of the Company in England was appalling. Then Pitt gave the Company a form that screened its activities from parliament by the institution of the Board of Control.

Burke noted that when British employees of the Company squabble, their complaints inter alia reveal the misery of the natives, but when the staff are all in agreement, the natives are said to be likewise content. All the anecdotal evidence suggests the Indians are poor and oppressed. Colebrooke’s book says Bengal is exhausted. It had historically been one of the richest countries in the world, engrossing all the trade coming down the Ganges and receiving all the trade going in the other direction.

Since our assumption of sovereignty it has become beggarly.

Sat 21st Aug 1813

Shipping arrivals Batavia – the Chinese brig San Hin Cheo (Kiong Saing) from Banjer Masina 13th June with a cargo of sundries.

Sat 21st Aug 1813

The Indiaman Lord Melville arrived Madras in early August bringing Sir William Rumbold and his family.

Sat 21st Aug 1813

House of Commons 23rd March – Castlereagh moved a series of Resolutions concerning the Company that are to be debated on 30th March. They are:

Sat 21st Aug 1813

Raffles at Batavia is sending the Dutchman Wardenaar and the Englishman Ainslie to Japan in the Company ship Charlotte & Mary in an attempt to reopen that old trade. They are accredited by Raffles as Trade Commissioners. They sailed at end June 1813. The ship carries a valuable cargo of the type of goods that have previously sold well in Japan.

Due to the war, the Dutch at Batavia have not been able to have their Japan-trade for the last 4 years and their Resident at Nagasaki has been isolated for that period. Japan has previously been a good market for the products of Java and the Dutch have taken return cargoes of copper and camphor.

On this occasion Raffles has required the Commissioners to also take a selection of British manufactures to test the market.

Sat 21st Aug 1813

Our appointee to the Sultanate of Palembang has been relieved of responsibility for the tin mines on Banca Island. We have experienced some difficulty with native chiefs on Banca who expect a part of the revenue from tin sales.

The mines will now be directly administered by the Company and their management from Palembang is ended.

The port of Banca has been renamed Minto. Capt Court of the Madras army is appointed to the command of the Banca garrison. The Company ship Indian is sailing to Banca in late June. It will collect the tin production and take it to China for sale. It also carries a rich cargo shipped by the Company itself.

Sat 21st Aug 1813

There is an immense teak forest at Blora in the lowlands between Semarang and Surabaya on Java. Teak is always in great demand for its hardness and ideal suitability for ship-building – it is used in the framework. Early summer is the season for felling. The Company has assumed the ownership of Blora teak and has felled double the quantity of former years.

Sat 28th Aug 1813

The Bombay Courier’s Editor for the past seven years has resigned. He is receiving adverse attention from the new Governor Nepean (never a supporter of a free press) and has become anxious.

He intends to focus his efforts on trading to more quickly acquire a competence with which to retire to England and rejoin his wife and growing family.

Sat 28th Aug 1813

R Thornton has presented the Company’s Petition for renewal of its Charter to the House of Commons on 26th Feb. Castlereagh allowed a debate to be set down for a fortnight hence. Buckingham, the President of the Board of Control, is thought too confrontational and the debate will be moderated by Castlereagh. It will be based on a series of Resolutions.

The debate came on on 22nd March. Castlereagh introduced the topics he thought required consideration by the House:

He said our Eastern empire has a population and area that is several times greater than Britain. The House should take care to ensure the happiness of so many people. He said the Eastern empire was unique in the World’s history for being such an extensive empire governed by so few people. At least 50 million Indians are ruled by 1,600 British officials. The Company is the most efficient administrator of territory on the planet. He respects and admires the Company and hopes no-one will take a contrary view.

The Company has recently permitted some private trade to impinge upon its monopoly. 3,000 tons of cargo space are reserved each year for private traders’ use. The Company loses £500,000 by the arrangement and the private traders say they lose as well (they have to give several months notice of their tonnage requirements and the ships might be diverted to other duties at any time).

The Company has issued as many loans in London as it can service; it has been unable to buy gold or silver from England for many years and the combined effect has been to throw the Company on the capital market of India for its commercial funding. Loans in India require high interest to attract investment. This is the resource that the Company can command to engross the trade of Asia wherein live the preponderance of the world’s population. An increase in the Company’s capital would indubitably presage an increase in its trade, particularly with China. The legislative alterations effected in 1793 and 1802 indicated the ease with which the Company’s trade could be increased but even more can be expected.

One difficulty is patronage. It would be possible although inconvenient for the British government to assume the government of India but that would add an immense amount of patronage for the minister to distribute at a time when we have been slowly reducing domestic patronage. An increase in patronage is conceived by the liberal MPs to be a threat to the Constitution.

Castlereagh believed the sense of the House would oppose a continuation of all the liberties that the Company presently enjoyed. The Company is willing to consider revision of its Charter but some disagreements remain.

He thought the China tea trade should continue as a monopoly of the Company as the Chinese had since 1760 created their own monopoly to trade with ours. All the other trade of the Company should be opened to competition. He proposed the trade be opened to all British subjects using British ships of 350+ tons. All the ports of Asia and Britain should be opened to this trade.

He wished to reserve all the trade in Asian piecegoods to the Company because those products compete with our own national production and must be heavily taxed. That made them the target of smugglers and to minimise their smuggling he feels the Company should continue to monopolise their import to Britain.

Castlereagh noted that the British government’s revenue from the Company’s trade was worth £4.4 millions annually of which £4 million is raised from the duty on tea and $400,000 for all the other goods. The huge revenue on tea united the Company and the country against smuggling. The tea duty is high because people are willing to pay it. If smuggling increased we may have to vary the rates of duty.

In fact there is an existing supply of smuggled tea from America. During peace, when the trade of Europe is restored, there is a supply of tea available from Sweden, Denmark and Ostend. We already have tea smuggling but it is limited in extent. When smugglers are caught, their ships are routinely confiscated, and that confines the trade to small boats – it is manageable.

The Company fears that opening the Asian trade will cause a torrent of emigration to India.

American trade to Asia had to be welcomed as they brought silver to exchange for their purchases which is something no British merchant can do.

Sat 18th Sept 1813

George Chinnery’s assistant Eugene Bonnefoy, has won the Calcutta lottery first prize of 100,000 Rupees.

Sat 18th Sept 1813

The French are publishing opinions about British trade. A book On India by M Rubichon says as soon as Italy was occupied by the French, and England was unable to import Italian silk, she started importing Indian silk. He says when Spain was occupied by France, and England could no longer receive Spanish indigo, she likewise commenced the importation of Indian indigo. He says when the Continental System prevented England importing European grain, she started to bring rice from India. He says when Russia became England’s enemy and no longer supplied Russian hemp, the British started importing the Indian variety. He says when America declared war and threatened the supply of cotton to England, she again imported the Indian equivalent.

If the British wish to destroy the commerce of their own West Indian colonies, they can import sugar and coffee from India too, he notes.

The commercial benefactor of British woe in war is invariably India and she is required to produce only sufficient for the British demand and no more. To go further would be to hazard the capital of the speculators to over-production and falling prices.

Sat 18th Sept 1813

Two ambassadors from the King of Burma at Ava have arrived at Calcutta for discussions.

Sat 18th Sept 1813

The Company has sent in a long petition to the House of Commons concerning the renewal of its Charter:

Bombay and St Helena were granted to the Company by Charles II. William III sold us the right to exploit Asia for £2 millions. In 1702 the two Companies permitted to trade east were united. On 29th Sept 1711 the King limited his power of recovering the monopoly to a parliamentary refund of the money. The business went well until the renewal of 1773 (the first renewal since acquisition of territory) when parliament interfered to regulate the Company.

When we came to India we found the Mughal owned everything and had given rights to a variety of people called chiefs or zemindars who inserted themselves between the Mughal and the farming population. As a result no man had clear title to his land or his production. Then we came and fixed the rent of land and gave the farmers certainty of title. Added to this innovation is our establishment of honest Courts of Law that guarantee the natives always get a fair deal.

We deny that the tranquillity of India is maintained militarily. It is due to our superior moral influence. If any Tom, Dick or Harry can come to India, our moral influence will be lost. No British immigration to India is appropriate except in a way regulated by us. If immigration is not restrained we will have not only speculative capitalists disrupting our commerce but adventurers joining and assisting the armies of native Princes.

Our army has repeatedly provided service to the British government. We pay for it and for the British regiments seconded to serve in India. Whenever, Britain is at war with another European country we use our army to occupy that country’s possessions in Asia and deny them their colonial trade except such part of it that ships through London, pays our taxes and conforms to our re-export rules. We sent a large force to Egypt in 1801 to assist the British army in its war with France. After the failure of the peace of Amiens, we occupied all the French, Dutch and Danish settlements and have only been partially compensated for our costs.11

Our China trade has operated for little more than a century. The Chinese are peculiar - it takes years to get to know them. Now we sent 46,000 tons of shipping every year and maintain a large establishment there to manage the business. We have to adapt our trade to comply with the Chinese mercantile system.

At last Charter renewal we had an issued capital of £5 millions. Since then we have added £1 million more capital. At the time of last renewal, we had sundry debts of £7 millions incurred in defending British interests in Asia. These debts were funded by loans raised in India (Promissory Notes) with repayment either in India or by Bills on the Directors in London. Since 1807 we have paid-off £10,902,924 on loans raised in India and have a balance of £26 millions outstanding. We have also invested £1.4 millions in 3% consols and £3 millions in the 3% reduced, which together comprise the security on a London loan of £2.5 millions raised last year. This loan was necessary to discharge Promissory Notes sold in India that were repaid in London. The value of Bills issued for settlement in London that have not yet been presented to us for payment, is $2,202,000.

The land revenue we received in India in 1793 was £8 millions. The land revenue we receive now is £16 millions a year. Unfortunately the civil and military expenses of our government have also increased.

The profit of our trade in 1793 was …. illegible … We have to pay interest on all these loans and pay the creditors of the Nabob of the Carnatic £910,000 a year. These payments come from our funds in London. … illegible ….

We have conducted wars in Asia on behalf of the King in London and expect to be repaid for those costs. These total £2,294,420.

And we petition to be continued in all our rights and privileges etc.

Mon 20th Sept 1813 Extraordinary

The Committee on Indian Affairs has been examining witnesses at the bar of the House.

Cooper lived in India for 15 years. He says the Indians will not buy British goods. He thinks they will not buy them even if India is converted to Christianity (its not a Hindu or Muslim religious requirement). He said the Christian missionaries are generally harmless and make few converts but if our religion is forced upon India it will have a pernicious tendency. He was concerned by a recent meeting at the London Tavern which resolved to ‘eliminate superstition’ in India and introduce the population to Christ. He understood about 400 copies of British newspapers went out to India with each fleet and reports of these missionary proceedings would likely stir discontent. Grant (one of the Company’s leading men in House of Commons and a devout Christian) was irritated by Cooper and berated him until he withdrew.

Lord Teignmouth12 was then called and he thought there would be no difficulty in converting the heathens. He said Christian missionaries had been active in India for 19 years and had translated the Holy Books into local languages and distributed them. There was no suggestion of any disapproval from the Muslims or Hindus.

Warren Hastings gave evidence on 30th March. He said free trade would ruin the Company, disturb the peace of India and provide no benefit to England. The Indians are easily led and conform themselves to our stronger character. If they are exposed to the influence of British speculators they will become ungovernable. Any discontent in India would encourage the neighbouring states to intervene militarily and we might lose everything. The Indians have everything they need and do not buy luxuries. They are simple people with few wants. They have remained unchanged since we first went there.

Hastings had warned against permitting British people free access to India at the time of the last renewal. The situation is still the same. When Hastings was resident in India, the missionaries Schwartz and Fernando had been proselytising the natives. Fernando claimed to have converted a Hindu. Another missionary, a Catholic, co-habited with several natives who all seemed ignorant of Christianity.

Colonel Monroe worked in India for 32 years, mainly in Malabar and along the Coromandel coast. He said the Indians are diligent in their own religion. English immigrants to India would be ignorant of local customs and cause trouble. He said all the British private traders who travel into the interior of the country cause disputes with natives. It was always preferable to sell British goods in the British ports and let the natives carry them into the interior themselves. Whenever private merchants attempted to sell in the interior there were arguments.

Sir John Malcolm said he joined the Company in 1783 and lived at Mysore for 9 years. He had conducted 13 political missions and met most of the native princes. British culture was different and Indians did not subscribe to our views. The more British immigration to India the more trouble there will be.

Mon 20th Sept 1813 Extraordinary

Rickards, late of the Governor’s Council here in Bombay, has been elected MP for Wootton Basset.

Sat 25th Sept 1813

The Company is holding its quarterly sale of woollens and metals on 15th Oct at the Import Office. It’s the same stuff as all the previous sales.

Sat 25th Sept 1813

The subscription for the Russians in their fight with Napoleon’s grand army has now extended to include donations from numerous Parsees but no Hindus or Muslims have contributed. Bombay has collected £2,600 so far (it rises to £4,000 by year end and is then discontinued).

Sat 25th Sept 1813

Moira has arrived at Calcutta. He was brought here on HMS Stirling Castle, the ship commanded by his friend and fellow Mason Sir Home Popham.

Sat 25th Sept 1813

Raffles has sent an expedition under Lt Colonel Watson to suppress the pirates at Sambas River. It is a joint operation of naval and military forces. They entered the river in boats on 25th October and called on the Sultan to surrender and hand over the Pangarang Anom and his pirates. The Sultan had gone on holiday and the demand was received by the Pangarang in person. He did not reply.

The river approach to the town is protected by batteries. We carried two by assault and some others were then abandoned. We killed about 150 enemy including the Sultan’s brother, the Pangarang’s eldest son and 12 other chiefs but the Pangarang himself escaped. We lost 8 soldiers and some officers were wounded. We captured 31 small brass cannon, 36 iron cannon, 6,000 round shot and 26 barrels of gunpowder.

Sat 2nd Oct 1813

The Marquis Wellesley has considered the resolutions before parliament for the renewal of the Company’s charter. He needs to back-pedal from his pro-free trade views when Governor-General:

He told the House of Lords that our government of India arose initially from our commercial enterprise and was subsequently reinforced by our military conquest. It is the nature of power in India that one dominates both commerce and the people. Any new principles introduced by Charter renewal must recognise this basic history.

The new science of political economy asserts doctrines that are discordant with the Company’s government of India. Economics was now sufficiently understood to have become scientific and persuasive. To apply economic principles to India required the creation of substantial commercial and financial records of our experience in that country. We should be careful not to willy nilly apply our understanding of European economics to India until we are confident that the same rules apply. He thought this disabled every British commentator from opining whether commerce and sovereignty should be separated.

In practice he thought the Company’s system works tolerably well. It is not right to say the Company loses money trading this or that commodity and therefore these items may be opened to general competition. Every trader knows that one has to continually deal, even if occasionally unprofitable, and this is sometimes the case with the Company. If it lacks total control it will collapse. The trade of India is essential to the Company to carry-on the trade with China. Everyone recognises that the China-trade is fundamental to the Company’s organisation, but few understand that it depends on the Indian trade. Until recently the Company had to export bullion for tea. Now it exports Indian cotton and opium for tea. Formerly the balance of trade was against us and we topped-up the balance in silver, now it is in our favour and we export that balance from China in silver.

Wellesley thought every other Governor-General took the view that the Company’s present policies were correct and it would be foolish to meddle with them.

He thought India was not an unchanging country. More than a million Sepoys had passed through the Company’s service over the years and been influenced by our organisational methods. These concepts were percolating through Indian society which is becoming aware of the importance of discipline and the power of concerted action.

He thought the Indians would inevitably come to value British manufactures sooner or later, independent of the Company’s system of government.

He had personally recommended the relaxation of the monopoly in 1800 but had recognised the danger of unrestricted access to Europeans. He had upheld the law that required Europeans to have a Company licence to visit India, to leave when their licence or employment ended, and to be punished for the misdemeanour of staying-on. Can the Company enforce that on rich influential merchants from London and Birmingham, he wondered?

Few Englishmen know that English Law does not extend to much of the interior of India. It is true that it applies to all Englishmen in India but when they are up-country our enforcement is uncertain. When an English resident trader goes into the interior, the Company invariably requires a bond of him as a condition of his licence to travel and this bond requires the trader to acknowledge and submit to the Company’s courts. Such bonds may not be legal in England but they are commonly used in India and are respected by the British residents.

The proposed free trade of India will cause Europeans with little or no previous experience of India to travel all over the country and there must be endless disputes. It would be impossible for the Company to bond them as it has hitherto done. The orderly conduct of trade would be threatened by speculators. Self-interest, quick profits and greed would characterise trade which would become onerously one-sided and sordid. The English name will be humiliated and we will start to lose what we have gained. The Asian trade will be assumed by greedy men in armed ships and anarchy will result. A trade in arms and ammunition will arise.

It will be impossible to prevent free ships venturing to China (“we were blown off course”, etc.) The carefully maintained prices of British goods at Canton would be destroyed, making tea more expensive.

All the operations of the Company hang together and one cannot change one without causing knock-on effects elsewhere. Its highly unpredictable and our best course is not to meddle in it.

Buckingham complained that Wellesley had been appointed a member of the Commons Select Committee two years before but had seldom attended the meetings and now offered his doubts publicly. He should support the resolutions. Its unfair. Does he not know that all the merchants want the China-trade opened? Once that is conceded, it is only necessary to identify a way of doing it.

Buckingham thought Wellesley’s fantasy about the evils of speculators was misplaced. The parliamentary Select Committee intends to preserve the Company’s monopoly as it is presently, and had so written to the Directors, but had not given its opinion on the means of doing so.

The sole valid concern of Wellesley, Buckingham thought, is the extension of the exports of India to British outports which he presumes to involve a danger that is not extant in London. When Wellesley was himself Governor-General in 1800 he had written that it was the trade of foreigners that was more difficult to control rather than the trade of Britons – why does he now allege a difficulty?

Buckingham predicted that the British population of India would remain the same whether the trade was freed or not. The big Agencies already engross its entire extent.

Grenville said Wellesley’s concern to control foreigners was easily met, if parliament shared it, by making India a colony of England and bringing it within the existing exclusive trading arrangements adopted for our overseas possessions .

He thought it was impossible for a sovereign to trade profitably. Wellesley said the Company had lost £6 millions from trade and the only part of its commerce that was profitable was that part it derived beyond the limits of its sovereignty (in China). This was the best argument for separating the sovereignty from the commerce.

In 1784 the political power of the Company was put under the supervision of the Board of Control but the commercial power remained with the Directors. The Company is the only merchant in England that does not present clear accounts. The Directors say this is due to its mixed character. The first step is to sever the accounts of territory and commerce. No free trader can compete with a Company that can draw on its revenue from a huge country to finance its trade.

The Company’s way in commerce was well illustrated by the Indian weavers. It prepaid the weavers and thereby engrossed their production for export. By giving them the money before they had earned it, they were effectively enslaved to its contracts. It has extended that form of predatory financing to other productions. In India such free trade as exists is a barter trade, the exchange of this for that, whereas the Company introduced trade finance and skimmed a profit off the worker. People wonder how the Company can continue to lose money on both imports and exports but the fact is it makes a huge profit out of its domestic production by this financing mechanism, using the territorial revenue.

Liverpool said the starting point for any discussion of the Company’s charter must be the happiness of the Indian people. He thought that the Company since 1784 had greatly increased the happiness of India by establishing the principle of individual property rights. This principle had not existed in India previously.

Sat 9th Oct 1813

Advertisement – the owners of the Indiaman Carmarthen require funds and offer Bills in exchange. Enquiries to Forbes & Co.

Sat 9th Oct 1813

The Provincial Grand Lodge at Madras13 and the Masters of six of the subsidiary lodges at that port (Brethren Babington, Compton, Ellis, Hadow, Higginson, Vaughan and Edward Watts) and numerous other masons in India have sent an Address to the past Acting Grand Master of England (Moira) via the Provincial Grand Master in India.

“We masons were unjustly accused of leaguing against the King and Church and we thank you for publishing that, amongst the highest members of our Order, are the Regent and his brothers. To ‘fear God and honour the King’ is the foundation of Masonry.

“We thank you for uniting the Grand Lodge of Scotland with the English Order. The Madras masons are united with the English Lodges and have 13 subsidiary Lodges in Asia. We pray the Almighty Architect will keep you safe.”

Moira replied:

“….. the mystery of our fraternity and the basis of freemasonry is cultivating people by precept and example. So long as we uphold this aim I shall be proud of my superintendence over the immense body of freemasons under the Grand Lodge of England. Our Constitution is the only security against any set of individuals conducting nefarious designs in secret. Your strict adherence to its terms is laudable.”

Sat 9th Oct 1813

General Sir Barry Close has died. When we ultimately overthrew the House of Hyder Ali of Mysore and substituted our own nominee, Barry Close was the man chosen by Lord Wellesley to advise the young prince. His services as Resident at Mysore were highly valued. He received his knighthood from Lord Buckingham (then Lord Hobart), now President of the Board of Control, who liaised closely with him as Governor of Madras.

Sat 16th Oct 1813

Angus Bruce has been charged with the murder of Bebee Anna at Nagpore. On 11th April 1813 Bruce came home and took 15-16 Rupees from his room to pay the milkman’s bill. He then gave the change to his Indian wife to replace inside the house. At that time there was a cookboy in the kitchen and Bebee Anna was sweeping the forecourt.

A few hours later Bruce wished to count the money received from the milkman and it was found to be missing. He interviewed the soldier performing duty at the house entrance and confirmed no visitors had arrived or left. He went to the kitchen, seized the boy, accused him of theft and hit him a few times - the boy slipped from his grasp and ran away. Bruce then seized Anna, pulled her into the house and accused and beat her too. She was then sent away to her son’s house in poor condition with bruises and a broken arm. She died about a week later. Anna was 84 years old and had many relatives - they unitedly complained and Bruce was arrested.

The defence produced three relatives of Bruce’s wife who said the old woman said she had been falsely accused and had gone to the kitchen and beat herself sustaining the injuries from which she died. Two European residents of Nagpore gave evidence of Bruce’s good character. He was acquitted.

Sat 16th Oct 1813

The drought in Bengal earlier this year delayed sowing of indigo and it is feared the crop will not ripen in time. It is the lower provinces that are worst affected.

Sat 16th Oct 1813

The London Morning Chronicle of 19th April has discussed Charter renewal:

There are three contending plans.

The introduction of more Indian woven cloth to England under the private traders is thought to be timely as the French have recently invented a flying shuttle that will make their weaving machinery more efficient.

Sat 16th Oct 1813

Sir John Malcolm has continued his evidence to the Select Committee of the House of Commons on India:

We have treaties with the most important states – The Nizam of the Deccan, the Sultan of Mysore, the Peshwa, Sindhia, etc – but no connection with many small states. The big states eventually might be induced to buy our manufactures but it will take time.

India produces fine tanned leather which is worked-up into excellent gaiters, gloves, artillery harnesses and the like. India also has a sophisticated brass industry. India has no wool and our woollen goods should find a welcome market there amongst those who can afford to buy. It gets cold in the winter. Many Company servants give gifts of woollen cloth to their Indian friends and these are always well received.

Malcolm noted that there are many Christians in India but they are mostly found in the old French and Danish possessions.

Sat 16th Oct 1813

HMS President arrived at Portsmouth 22nd April with $500,000 in gold dust and silver bullion from Calcutta. It required 9 wagons to carry the bullion to the Bank of England.

Sat 23rd Oct 1813

Sir Charles Forbes MP spoke in the debate on Charter renewal. He told the Commons in May 1813 that he had lived in India for 24 years and the Indian people wanted British manufactures and only lacked the capital to buy them.

Unfortunately the preponderance of Indians were poor but he thought we should expect an increase of both import and export trade.

Sat 30th Oct 1813

House of Commons – Castlereagh has prepared a new list of Resolutions for Charter renewal and circulated it to MPs, at the same time calling for the House to go into Committee to consider it. The ministry needs to overcome or subvert the Company’s MPs who form a large party. Several Company MPs complained they had no time to read the Resolutions. Grant said the Directors had only learned of the new resolutions that morning.

Castlereagh would brook no delay. He said it is only the 3rd Resolution that had been substantially changed – by the time we get to that, you will all be familiar with the changes. Canning supported Castlereagh.

Robinson said the new 3rd Resolution introduced a licensing system for people going to India. The licences are to be issued by the Board of Control. He thought it was novel and required deep consideration.

Castlereagh said if the Directors need more time he would reluctantly concede it to them. General Gascoigne said the Company’s strategy for months had been to delay parliamentary discussion, principally by introducing an endless debate on everything, most particularly the introduction of Christianity to India, and MPs should not permit it to continue any longer. Lushington (the ex-Company Chairman) was then appointed Chairman of Committee.

Lushington was predictable. The cause of the widespread cry for free trade in Asia was the loss of British markets in continental Europe and America due to war. The Company was being punished by ministers for the consequences of their own initiatives. Free trade in Asia will not provide profits to British factories. The Indian people are too poor. They are bound by their traditions.

There was much talk about the honour of the British trader but all over the world except Asia it could be seen that British dominion had introduced misery and ruin to the indigenous people. In north America we had fought the indigenous natives and driven them into the last of their forests whilst we exploited the natural resources – now we plan the same for India.

The Company is already exploiting the resources of India at great speed:

The ministry characterised the attitude of the Company’s Directors as the attitude of monopolists not sovereigns. They deprecate the possibility of rising costs although that is the sure evidence of increasing wealth of the Indians.

Philips MP argued that the Company was sovereign in India. Britain expects her allies to trade with her. Is India an ally? If so, the Company should permit our trade.

He expostulated – “What would we say to that sovereign who asserts he will not trade with us because ‘you are a set of piratical ragamuffins who, if once admitted, will proceed to lay our villages in blood, and carry off our children. You come here stained with a vile traffic that you carried on for centuries without shame and did not give it up without a struggle.’ We might find this objectionable from the Tsar of Russia or the Emperor of China but this is what we hear from the gang in Leadenhall Street. They exclude the British trader from India whilst including the American trader and those gentlemen called ‘second chop English’ in India. Their argument lacks merit.”

Philips thought the argument against unregulated British emigration to India was also flawed. The Company’s real concern is that it is taxing the Indian of his last dollar and, if other predators are admitted, it will get less revenue – that is why it foresees insurrection resulting from our traders emigrating there. It may also be concerned to have people beyond its control observing what it does. Perhaps they will report the realities of Indian life to London newspapers.

The only genuine difficulty is the revenue raised from commercial monopolies – on salt, various spices, timber, opium and (effectively) on all the staple crops. That is an instance of commerce and territory becoming co-mingled.

Ponsonby thought the government of India should be assumed by parliament. He subscribed to the opinion that all people everywhere sought the same conditions for existence and there was no special case to be made to exempt India. If England had only discovered India today we would have no doubt about the form its government should take – we are merely accommodating ancient and obsolete practices to suit the Company. Is there an MP present who would propose the Company’s form of government for the West Indies?

The Company’s argument about the immutability of the Hindu character jarred with its intended promotion of Christianity in that country.14 At most he would allow 6-7 years as a sufficient period for the Company to wind-up its commercial activities and open the trade.

Robinson said the case against open British emigration to India had been based on comparison with the experience of Spanish emigration in South America. The rapacity and avarice of the Spanish settlers towards the indigenous peoples had shocked the world. India is not solely British. Once peace breaks out, the colonies of France, the Netherlands and Denmark will be restored and foreigners from those countries might act as the Spanish have done in South America.

Sat 6th Nov 1813

The Military Paymaster General of Madras employed Cyprian Rodrigues and Manas as writers (clerks) until May 1810 when they were both dismissed for negligence.

Having become familiar with the forms used by the Paymaster and the signatures of the officers signing them, the couple launched a scheme to forge an Abstract of the pay of Capt C H Keating, 1st battalion, 22nd Regiment of Native Infantry. The couple employed Eliapen, an ex-servant of one of the army officers, to collect 96 Star Pagodas of salary on behalf of Keating. Next month they made another Abstract and collected another salary.

Having succeeded twice, they extended their scam to the pay of another officer. Lt J S Watson was selected and Eliapen was sent for his salary. He was instructed to say, if he was recognised, that Watson and Keating lived together. These two salaries produced about 150 Pagodas a month whereas locally-employed writers earned about 5 Pagodas each a month.

This continued for two years.

Ultimately the couple became careless. One of the Pay Abstracts was seen to have an error in it which brought it to the attention of the Auditor General’s department and an investigation revealed there was neither a Capt Keating nor a Lt Watson serving in the Company’s army. The two writers and Rodrigues’ grandfather Granna Pragassan were all convicted along with Eliapen in July 1813.

Sat 6th Nov 1813

Minto’s portrait has been delivered to Java by HMS Hussar. All the Company’s senior government officers and the old Dutch VOC officers attended at the Council House to meet the picture.

It is sent in response to a pleasant Address the Dutch officers sent to Minto previously. They are grateful that Minto granted them liberal rights after the British occupation of Java.

Sat 6th Nov 1813

Rickards, a long-term India resident who recently obtained a seat in parliament (Wootton Basset), has spoken in the Commons debate on Charter renewal.

He said the Indian natives are so poor they are tied to the land to maintain their existence. In the immediate vicinity of the great towns it was different, but over most of India the natives are all subsistence farmers. No profit from agriculture can accrue to the native farmer because of the high proportion of his production that is taken as tax. In all the Muslim lands the tax was 50% of production. It was less in Hindu states. It was occasionally the case that the farmer, the nominal proprietor of the land, had less income that his labourers who generally received the equivalent of 3d (1½ anna) per day for their work. The only chance for the ryot to amass some capital was by mortgaging his share of his production but failure to repay the mortgage risked the loss of title to his land and extinction.

This revealed a problem. The Company’s revenue was dependent on the farmer’s production. Tax could only be reduced if other revenue streams could be identified and tapped. This was the specific task of Cornwallis when he was sent out as Governor-General. The source of new revenue that he identified was commerce. To improve the Land Tax receipts, Cornwallis inserted the Zemindar between the farmer and the Company and introduced the ‘free Zemindar state’ in Bengal but the Company, as the replacement of the Mughal, required its half and the Zemindar wanted his share too. In many cases Rickards said Bengal farmers received less than 10% of their production.15

This onerous system was nevertheless extended to Madras Presidency where it was called the Mootadary system. To the Madras tax was added a collection fee because the Presidency farmed its tax collection. This caused the natives of Madras to prefer their former lot under Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sultan to that under the Company. They voted with their feet. Subsequently a great number of farms came onto the market for sale by creditors and the ownership of land, both in Bengal and Madras, was increasingly transferred to foreign capitalists in the towns. The old farmers become labourers on their own land or left for better prospects in other states. This bare subsistence made a large and peaceful class prone to allurement by any adventurer who came along promising relief.

The Company had promoted the use of new land for farming but its productive ability was less than the fertile land already in use. The value of new land consequently fell and seizing the ownership of it through the Courts (by Writs of Fi Fa preparatory to action) ceased to be a profitable way of securing agricultural loans. Capitalists were being exposed to risk of default on their mortgages. Their response was to imprison landlords for non-payment of debts. This encouraged them to importune their relatives and friends for the funds we required. It may be deduced from this that the system we operate in India is unjust and inhumane, Rickards said.

Opening Indian trade would draw forth capital and the value of agricultural production would increase with demand. Rickards thought there was no other way to relieve the farmer and preserve the country. Continuing the Charter on its present monopolistic terms would be a disaster, he thought. The Company’s allegation that Indian trade could not be increased was refuted by the activities of the Americans and our own private traders.

Rickards was loudly cheered by the other MPs.16

Sat 13th Nov 1813

Coonverjee Ruttonjee, Nasserwanjee Rustomjee & Co have bought the privileged tonnage of Capt George Williamson of the Indiaman David Scott and will sell the goods on 17th November opposite Admiralty House - beer, port, brandy, gin, claret, champagne, fruit liqueurs, ham, cheese, boots, glass, hats, hosiery, perfume, stationery, guns, saddles etc (a typical inventory of privileged tonnage)

Sat 13th Nov 1813

House of Commons, 15th June 1813, Charter renewal:

Horner said parliamentary regulations to establish the moral tone of the government of India were useless. In 1794 we passed a resolution that the Company should never again fight a war of aggression but in fact it had been more or less continually at war with one or other of the native states. These conflicts were commenced by the Company on trite and frivolous grounds – commonly an alleged insult of some sort.17

Horner thought the sovereignty of India should be explicitly given to the Crown. Bruce said the Company had never claimed the sovereignty of India but merely the property in its territorial acquisitions. Horner said all the Company’s land conquests should be Crown property. Tierney said the Charter permitted the Company to raise fleets and armies and to make conquests - all the Company’s lands in and around India must be the Company’s property, he thought. If it is the British Crown that is sovereign in India, there should be a delegation of sovereign powers by Britain to the Company. It is unmentioned in the Charter – where is it?

Creevey said government by merchants was anomalous and continually put the Indian civil service into embarrassing positions. They only act to make money. The fundamental problem with India was this union of government and commerce. He thought the Company’s Directors never considered a duty to the Indian people, they only thought about cadetships and writerships for India and supercargoes and warehouse jobs in their ports – the common sources of patronage, which jobs they gave mainly to shareholders and powerful families. A large minority of the shareholders were elderly ladies, who inherit their shares or act as nominees for their husbands. Their two over-riding concerns were to get the dividend on which their lives were financed and to find employment for sons and nephews. These people are unlikely to take a mature view of the Company’s role as sovereign - they see their investment as a financial thing.

On the other hand, the Directors are only concerned with the opinions of those shareholders who are current or former employees because they all act in combination at meetings and must be satisfied.

Castlereagh said the Company’s large debts gave them some protection from invasive parliamentary acts. We need them to service their loans and pay their dividends to avoid social and financial disorder.18 It is true the Company has not paid the £500,000 every year as was agreed in the 1794 Charter but they have an excuse – they sent an army to Egypt and more recently occupied many French and Dutch Asian colonies. These were costs which the Company expected Britain to contribute to and appeared to represent a set-off.

The main thing to bear in mind, Castlereagh thought, was that the monopoly applied to half the world and the trade potential of Asia was, by several orders of magnitude, greater than the Company’s existing capital or staffing could ever contemplate developing.

Castlereagh asked MPs to recollect that renewing the Charter did not put India beyond parliamentary oversight for 20 years – we have the Board of Control to inspect and modify Company initiatives as appropriate. If the British government, in its relations with other powers, finds it necessary to modify the powers of the Company it will certainly do so regardless of any apparent conflict with Charter terms.

In respect of trade, the Company is able to borrow almost without limit and can make immense investments whenever it chooses to do so. It could easily crush the private trade if it were not for the Regulations that protect private traders. One of these Regulations requires the Company to keep its funds from territory, commerce and political initiatives all distinct. It cannot legally co-mingle its capital – money from territory is used by territory, from commerce by commerce. It was thus that the loss-making nature of the commerce had been brought to light. The Commissioners for India, sitting in the Board of Control, are the people who check for abuse of the Company’s territorial capital.

As regards the exclusive trade with China, the British people are already in receipt of a handsome indemnity for that lost opportunity in the Customs revenue on tea. The commerce with China was subject to the rules of Chinese culture and was not well-understood by foreigners. The Chinese had created a monopoly of their own fifty years ago to confront the monopolies of the western nations. This revealed the advantage of uniting all our trade with China under one Company. In that way, we obtained advantages by negotiation that might not be available to a body of merchants each with different interests.19

Rickards, the long-term India resident, said he did not wish to question the Company’s accounts but he found it peculiar that they never progressed their commerce year by year. They have increased their territory every year and the number of people under their government was now 50-60 millions. Their territorial revenue must have increased proportionately but their commerce stood still, and the people remained poor.

At the same time, a river of retirees return to this country each year with immense personal resources. He thought this revealed a radical defect in the Company’s administration and he identified that defect as the onerous land tax.

A second defect was apparent from the Company’s own accounts. He had perused the Bombay Presidency accounts and found commercial charges in the political account. He noted the estimates of profits made by Directors to the House covering the last 17 years had varied from £21 millions to £2 millions. It suggested that nobody really knew the Company’s financial position. The only consistent fact was that they were drawing a handsome income from India every year. Their remittances and advances, which imperatively must be solidly profitable, had produced a loss of £3 millions on the accounts.

He noted the charges for maintaining St Helena, which is a provisioning base for the Company’s shipping, were in the nature of a commercial expense but appeared in the political and territorial accounts. He concluded that the Company’s commercial losses are strewn throughout the three accounts and are effectively concealed. In fact the Company’s trade was continued by borrowing in London and using revenue in India. The Company acts in a determinedly inscrutable way and the only means of throwing some light on the prospects for Asian trade is to open the trade and see what happens. Following political arrangements in London (the Company itself would never have allowed it) we permit the Americans to trade in Asia and they return each year in increasing numbers – clearly they find it profitable. We should do the same.

One part of the Company’s commerce that was fairly well-understood was the production of woven fabric in India. Rickards noted the circumstances of the Indian weaver was scarcely distinguishable from slavery. They are in perpetual financial bondage to the Company’s employees who provide the cotton to their looms and buy it back as fabric at fixed low prices which set the value of their labour at almost zero. Should these people wish to protest their conditions, they must Petition the Company which metes out its justice through those very servants who create the intolerable conditions.

A report from Madras Presidency of July 1804 showed the private merchants there procured their supplies of Indian produce from the Company’s employees. Those employees, when their Indian workers refused to supply on the low terms on offer, prevented the workers leaving the Presidency and demanded fees of thousands of Rupees for their resignation from employment. This willing use of coercion equates India with the workhouse.

Sovereign power at Bombay was once used to confiscate all cotton that was not offered at the standard value and was not required by the Company. This is what monopoly does to an economy. In Gujerat the Company’s officers settled the price to be paid for cotton. When the farmers attempted to smuggle their supply elsewhere and get the market prices, the Company’s army was employed to prevent them. This ended the farming of cotton in Bombay and transferred it to the adjacent Maratha states.

There are many monopolies operated by the Company – its not just salt and opium. In every case the producer appears to get the Company’s fixed price but he has to share his profit with the Company’s officers supervising the monopoly.

Rickards continued his appalling catalogue of robbery for two hours and ended with a strong recommendation that, if the Charter must be renewed, it should be for the shortest practical period – not more than ten years.

Lushington for the Company said there had been occasional abuses in Indian commerce but they were years ago and had all been corrected. He wanted a 20-year Charter.20

Whitbread said the trade should be opened. The Charter is about to expire. Trade should be removed from the Company’s monopoly before renewal. The Company had no claim to compensation for buildings it had erected for trade or for the loss of profit by its sub-monopolists (the auction rings) in London.

Marryat said all monopolies were injurious to trade. He adduced the example of the Cadiz Company which had monopolised the trade to Spanish South America. When the Spanish government recently decreed that trade open, a great expansion of commerce followed, and the Cadiz Company profited more than the private traders who competed with it.

In Asia we have been in possession of Java for over a year. In that period the Company has sent out two ships to Batavia. Had trade been opened, there should be no doubt that the extent of shipping sent out by private merchants would have been a hundred times greater than the Company’s effort.

The House then voted. A substantial majority of MPs wished the Company retain its monopoly for another 20 years and for the China-trade to continue closed to private merchants.

Sat 20th Nov 1813

HMS Hussar has arrived from Java with news that we have reinstated the government of Palembang. The Sultan knew nothing until our army landed and secured all the principal places. The government that Major General Gillespie established on our first invasion of Palembang is restored.

Sat 20th Nov 1813

Minto has completed handing-over the government of India to Moira and will leave for England with his family later this month.

Sat 20th Nov 1813

Calcutta - The shipbuilder Smith has launched two ships from his yard. The Earl of Moira is 610 tons and the Susan is 520 tons. The former belongs to Capt Kemp and the latter to Capt Collingwood.

Sat 20th Nov 1813

Moira held his first durbar on 25th Oct and several representatives of native princes did homage to him. Amongst them were the vackeels of the Nizam, of the Nabob of Moorshedabad, of Sindhia, of the Peshwa, of Rajah Nain Singh and of Jugguset. There were also emissaries from Burma and Aceh. Several other ambassadors were presented.

Sat 20th Nov 1813

The House of Commons resolutions for Charter renewal appear to be a complete victory for the Company. It gets a 20-year renewal, monopoly of China-trade and the Indian trade is opened only a little more than at present.

British merchants can take ships of 350+ tons to Asia for trade and use the outports for discharge on their return. They have to get a licence from the Company first and the terms of issuance are not published but it is said that every application (and any Company objections) will be seen by the Board of Control. Any exports of silk, human hair or raw cotton from India will still have to come to London, pass through the Company’s warehouses and be sold at the Company’s auctions (to ensure full collection of the payable duty).

The Company’s territorial revenue, nett of collection costs, will be used to maintain the army, pay interest on the Company’s debt and pay for the civil and commercial establishments in Asia. Any remaining balance will be applied to the Company’s investment in India, remittances to China for the Company’s investment there and to service Indian debt.

There follows the formulaic arrangements for debt:

The Company’s receipts in England from sale of its goods (and its share of the sale of privileged and private tonnage) will be applied to settlement of Bills of Exchange, repayment of debt (excluding principal on bond debt) and on interest and the commercial charges of the Company, to payment of the 10% dividend, to payment of ½% dividend after the fund earmarked for that is exhausted, to reduction of debt in India or the bond debt in England.

When the Company’s debt in India is reduced to £10 millions and the bonded debt in London is reduced to £3 millions, any surplus revenue and trade profit will be applied to paying down all its public funds. Any surplus still remaining will be paid into the national Treasury without interest and applied as parliament directs. It will form a security for the capital of the Company and the payment of 10½% dividend. Should this sum reach £12 millions, any excess will be shared 1/6th by the Company and 5/6ths by the country.

The Company will maintain proper accounts in all its territories showing receipts, expenses, debts and assets in each of the territorial, political and commercial branches of its operations.

Governors and CiCs in all the Company’s Presidencies will be nominated by the Company and approved by the King and Board of Control.

The 25,000 British troops in India will continue to be paid by the Company and their number will not be increased unless the Company asks for it.

The Anglican Church and the education of natives is to be encouraged but the natives are not to be coerced into apostasy.

Hertford College (academic) and Addington College (military) and their staff are to be controlled by the Board of Control.

Sat 27th Nov 1813

Moira has appointed the recently arrived Sir William Rumbold as Chamberlain of his establishment in Calcutta.

Sat 27th Nov 1813

The Recorder’s Court in Bombay has allowed a Writ of Fieri Facias to be issued on the property of Nicolao de Lima e Souza, Joao Antonio Pereira and Balcrusta Govindjee. A large number of pieces of land and buildings are for sale to create a fund for settlement of any judgment debt.

Sat 4th Dec 1813

The detention of officers and men at Mauritius by the French has given rise to a requirement that the pay of soldiers whilst prisoners-of-war be fixed. This is the first occasion after 20 years of war that the matter has come up.

As the Company promotes by seniority it will sometimes occur that an officer is promoted whilst imprisoned. Officers get the pay and half-batta of their rank if imprisoned ashore in India. If afloat in India or ashore or afloat in Europe he gets the pay only and no batta.

Sat 18th Dec 1813

In April 1813 Mrs Tadman opened a boarding school at Bombay for girls 4 – 14 years and boys under 10 years. All students are instructed in reading, writing and arithmetic. The girls are also taught needlework. The school has been well-patronised and Mrs Tadman now invites new entrants for the January term at 35 Rupees per month for board, education, supervision and laundry.

Sat 18th Dec 1813

Bombay Presidency is the only Presidency to issue a dram of spirits, free of charge, to each of the European troops daily. It has also been feeding them at Company expense. The equalisation of the King’s and Company’s armies that is required by the ministry ends this support. HM regiments will in future buy their own food and drink.

When fighting for the country, each man will be provisioned with a daily ration of 1½ lbs fresh meat, 1 lb of salt meat, 1½ lbs of rice, 2 ozs salt, 2 drams of spirits and 4 lbs of firewood.

Sat 18th Dec 1813

Teak ships are superior to oak ships. The Turkish government ship at Basra was built of teak 70 years ago by Nadir Shah. It was recently in dock here in Bombay for a thorough survey and not one of her timbers required replacement. Our own merchant ship the Hercules was built of teak here in 1763 and operated for forty years without structural problems. After she was captured by the French in 1805 we lost trace of her.

Teak contains an oil that inhibits worm and preserves iron whereas oak is acid and corrodes iron. Oak ships need replacement after 10+ years if they are to withstand the stress of weather. By that time they are only fit as hulks and prison ships. The land-owners of England, who control the supply of oak timber, say teak is too heavy but our comparisons here suggest they are about the same weight. They also say teak splinters more than oak (the cause of most injuries from broadsides) but that is equally fallacious in our experience. In fact the reverse is the case.

The ship-builders of Calcutta are constructing a teak ship-of-the-line which they intend to sail to London and show to the Admiralty. Lord Melville is a strong supporter of India-built teak ships. He has approved a plan for Indian shipbuilders to share the navy’s requirements with England – we get to build some ships here and we send the teak for them to built the remainder there.

Our Bombay Parsee shipbuilders should take note.

Sat 1st Jan 1814

Walter Davidson is a Grand Juror in the first Sessions to be heard by Sir Edward Hyde East, the new Chief Justice of Calcutta. He is a partner in M/s Hogue Davidson of Calcutta, owner-operators of the ships Swallow (330 ton), Maria (430 tons) and Radnor (455 tons) which were all built in 1813. The business also owns some older vessels. Davidson has legal training and also assists at Courts Martial.

The Judge mentioned to the Jurors inter alia that other judicial officers had told him Perjury and Forgery are common offences in Calcutta.

Sat 1st Jan 1814

An advertisement is circulating in Calcutta for the Oriental Times, a new newspaper that is about to start publication.

Sat 1st Jan 1814

On 10th Dec, Minto returned to England on HMS Hussar, which is commanded by his relative George Elliot.

Sat 8th Jan 1814

The Company’s government of Ceylon intends to licence about 150 boats to conduct pearl harvesting at Aripo for 30 days commencing 20th Feb 1814. Interested boatmen and divers should assemble at Condaatjie by 10th Feb. The pearl banks open this year are Kooda Paar and parts of Chivel Paar.

The Company’s procedure will be to sell the specialised fishing boats. Make your bids in Star Pagodas (the gold coin of Madras). Specimens from the pearl banks were examined last December and a survey certificate is attached. Contact James Sutherland, Superintendent of Pearl Fisheries, at Colombo for more information.

Sat 1st Jan 1814

The masters of the three Masonic lodges - Star in the East (the premier Lodge of Bengal), Freedom & Fidelity (Moira’s lodge) and Industry & Perseverance - and 120 of their members assembled at Government House in Calcutta in early Dec 1813 to advise Moira of their respect and gratitude for his safe arrival.

They wish that freemasonry will be strengthened and extended under his government. Moira told them that operating a secret society placed an onerous burden on the office-bearers to ensure that benevolence and charity infused all their acts.

The deputation then visited Lady Moira’s drawing room and made a welcome address to her as well.

There is a French Lodge at Chandernagore, les Francs maçons, which sent a welcome address to Moira to which he replied in French “I will do what I can to soften your fate. I visited Mauritius en route for Calcutta and was satisfied with the way the Port Louis Lodges work.”

The Calcutta lodges then celebrated the anniversary of St John and attended at St John’s Church together with the band of HM’s 24th infantry regiment. The Rev Dr Ward, grand chaplain of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Calcutta (just formed by Moira), gave a sermon on St John 15; 17 –‘these things I command you – that ye love one another.’

Sat 15th Jan 1814

Letter from Rangoon – the government at Ava previously pledged to limit its import duty to 12% ad valorem but the local Governor of Rangoon has hinted he will charge an extra 2%. There are now 18 ships in harbour from the main ports of India. They came in reliance on the pledge of fixed import duties.

Sat 22nd Jan 1814

The Company’s charter expires in March this year.

Sat 22nd Jan 1814

A list is printed of 20 ships totalling 10,000 tons that have been built in 1813 at Calcutta.

Sat 29th Jan 1814

The dependencies of Bombay Presidency are Kaira, Broach, Salsette and Surat.

Sat 29th Jan 1814

The farm for operating the four ferry services - to Mahim, Tannah, Caranja and the stopping service to Colgon, Mandwim, Thull, Ravance and Allibag – is for sale by auction. Service to commence on expiry of the current licence on 15th Feb. Send your proposals to the Treasury.

Sat 29th Jan 1814

HMS Hussar (Elliot) has arrived Madras with the ex-Governor-General and another relative, J E Elliot. The frigate will load £80,000 of bullion which private British merchants of Madras are sending to London.

HMS Stirling Castle (Home Popham) has also loaded bullion at Madras for London. It belongs to the Company. He will sail to Trincomalee via Pondicherry and then convoy the home-bound fleet of Indiamen.

Sat 29th Jan 1814

Dutch law has been preserved in the Moluccas as a term of the capitulation made with the VOC. Under Dutch law, all transfers of property require a tax of 9% ad valorem be paid before the transfer is legally recognised. The transfer document also needs stamping and that costs something more.

An interesting dispute has just been settled by our ‘court’ at Amboinya that deftly circumvents this onerous tax. The ownership of the property in dispute was not legally transferred but the court legalised it by ordering the revenue officer to register a transfer and deduct the costs from the judgment sum.

Sat 29th Jan 1814

As a general rule no jokes against the English are published but this week the Editor could not resist an item from Bojapore:

One night a horse was stolen from our camp. 6-7 sices (horse-attendants) who slept with the horses failed to detect the theft until they awoke. Fortunately the horse and thief were caught and the horse owner wished to ascertain how the theft had been accomplished without disturbing the sices.

The thief could speak neither English nor the dialect of the native troops but demonstrated his method – first I do this, then I do that – until he was seated on the horse, whereupon he galloped off again.

Sat 29th Jan 1814

Fiji is one of the places to buy sandalwood and beche-de-mer for the Canton market. A Bombay ship has just returned from there with the distressing news that several of the crew, whilst ashore, were eaten by the residents.

Sat 29th Jan 1814

The charter has been renewed on good terms for the Company. It gets continued sovereignty over its present and future territories in Asia. It gets the exclusive trade of China and a monopoly on tea (and military stores to certain places). These terms to cease after three years notice and refund of the debt the country owes to the Company.

After 14th April 1814 any Briton can trade to/from Asia. The names of English ports opened for Asian trade will be notified by Orders-in-Council. Private shipping will require a licence from the Company. Licences to/from the principal Indian ports will be always granted; licences to non-Indian ports in Asia require special conditions. The Board of Control will also licence voyages to anywhere between India and Japan, north of Australia. No private ships under 350 tons allowed. All cargo to be manifested (there are numerous other trading conditions).

The Charter also requires separate Company accounts for territorial, political and commercial affairs. Many rules are made for terms of service of Company employees. Offences of forgery and counterfeiting of coins to be punished by no more than transportation (it is a capital felony in England).

Sat 5th Feb 1814

The Bank of Bengal has declared a first half dividend of just over 8.8%

Sat 5th Feb 1814

In 1801 the natives were permitted to retail arrack in Calcutta. Since then, they have opened innumerable shops but none of the premises provide seating – the shops sell the arrack to take away. In fact customers stand around the doorway drinking and invariably become troublesome to passers-by.

Over 20,000 gallons of this stuff is consumed monthly in Calcutta. The arrack they sell is 25-30% proof but they add other ingredients to increase intoxication. Over half the people brought before the magistrates are more or less drunk at the time they commit their offences.

Now the foreman of a Grand Jury, George Cruttenden, has brought the matter to the attention of the new Chief Justice before the Court started to hear cases. 64 arrack shop-keepers have petitioned for assistance in regulating their customers and Cruttenden presented their petition with a plea for judicial help.

The judge is new. He told Cruttenden to make his case to the executive who had responsibility for maintaining law and order in town.

Sat 5th Feb 1814

Java Proclamation, 22nd Oct 1813:

The old Dutch government proscribed private trade in spices, wild nutmegs, mace and in opium. These commodities were reserved as VOC monopolies.

It is the policy of British government to promote free trade and Minto promised this to the Javanese in his Proclamation of 10th Sept 1811.

The British provisional administration of Java has repealed all the restrictive laws. You may now trade in all these commodities provided you bought them from the Company. This Proclamation is to be translated into native languages and posted at Batavia, Semarang and Surabaya.

Sat 5th Feb 1814

The Ceylon government has arranged with Calcutta that all persons sentenced to transportation from Ceylon will be sent to the Company’s possessions. Ceylon has direct shipping links with Java and the Moluccas but not New South Wales. If the Company needs more settlers in Australia, Ceylonese convicts may be sent via Calcutta.

Sat 12th Feb 1814

Government Notice, 4th Feb – The 9th article of the Treaty of Bassein between the Peshwa and the Company provides that all food, all cloth and clothing and all live animals for food or transport pay a duty on being imported from the Peshwa’s domains to the Company’s lands, except those goods belonging to the Company’s subsidiary force (provided to the Peshwa for his protection).

It has become apparent that soldiers are using their military authority to personally import these items to Bombay Presidency from Poona without paying duty. To avoid paying duty in future, they will be required to show a pass signed by the Commandant or Brigade Major of the Poona brigade or the Commandant or deputy Adjutant-General of the subsidiary force that certifies that the goods are for the use of the army or belong to army personnel.

Sat 12th Feb 1814

The Penang Court commenced its second sessions on 2nd Dec. The Governor, the Recorder and W E Phillips sat together to hear the cases. Several prisoners were tried for the murder of a Chinese farmer and acquitted.

Sat 12th Feb 1814

The Europeans and Burghers of Jaffnapatam (Gerrit Frankend, Thomas Nagel et al) have eulogised William Coke, puisne judge of the Supreme Court and member of the governing council, on 30th Sept 1813 on the occasion of his return to London.

They thank him for mitigating the corruption, vice and abandonment of character that has prevailed at Jaffnapatam, by his impartial administration of justice. The disorder had arisen from ‘violent and lawless bodies of men who infest the district’. Come back soon.

Sat 19th Feb 1814

A meeting of Company shareholders in London has agreed to require the Directors to obtain government approval that Property Tax on dividends will be paid from the Territorial Revenue and not by individual shareholders.

They have linked the concession to their agreement to sanction an increase in the salaries of Directors.

Sat 19th Feb 1814

HMS Bucephalus has arrived Portsmouth 10th Aug 1813 with $1 million in silver from India and China. She has convoyed the Indiamen on their homeward voyage.

Sat 26th Feb 1814

A copy of the 125 clauses of the new Charter, granted in the name of George III, is shown – it takes effect from 10th April 1814.

Sat 26th Feb 1814

Java, 1st Jan 1814 – the Dutch system of farming the revenue has been abandoned in Java on the assumption of sovereignty by England. Only the ports of Batavia, Surabaya and Semarang are open for international trade for Javan and Maduran produce.

Customs Houses are built at the three ports. Collectors are appointed. All imports and exports must be sent to the Customs House wharf in first instance.

The other minor ports are open to native coasting ships and British-registered ships. 10% ad valorem duty is charged on all imports. An extra 15% ad valorem is charged on goods imported in non-British ships except those of natives or neighbouring states in alliance with the Company.

Bengal opium, bullion and gem stones are free of import and export duty.

Spices, wild nutmegs and mace may be imported if they have been bought from the Company.

Export duty is 3%. Export of arrack to New South Wales is prohibited (the Company supplies liquor to Australia)

A 5% surcharge on the declared amount of duties is allowed to the Collector for weighing and measuring. Port Clearance certificates will be issued only after all Customs dues have been settled.

Committees will be appointed in the ports to publish Prices Current.

Anchorage fees are $10 for every 100 tons. Ships registered at non-British ports pay $20 per 100 tons.

Sat 19th March 1814

The 2nd annual sale of the Company’s opium occurred at the warehouse in the Old Fort of Calcutta on 22nd Feb.

1,922 chests of Bihar and 462 chests of Benares were sold, the former at average prices of 2,032 Rupees and the latter at 1,997 Rupees. Bidding for the Bihar supply was brisk with prices rising from 1,800 to 2,220 Rupees.

Sat 19th March 1814

Dr Ainslie of Madras Presidency has returned to Batavia from his mission in the Charlotte and Mary to Japan. He is a botanist and has recently published the Materia Medica of India. He was sent by our Java government on advice from the Dutch. The Japanese allow the Dutch to send one ship a year. The party was three months in Japan. The Dutch member of the party was allowed to stay. The rest returned with cargoes of copper and Japanware.

Sat 19th March 1814

Richard Brown our Superintendent of Tin Mines on Banca has been murdered along with his Dutch assistant. Some Muslims imprisoned his detachment of soldiers from Amboinya with the apparent intention of selling them in the slave market at Billiton, a nearby island. They took Brown and the Dutchman into the forest, tied them to trees and stabbed them.

Sat 19th March 1814

Warren Hastings has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Oxford for his extensive knowledge of literature, arts and sciences. A large crowd was unusually warm in its appreciation and an orchestra played.

Dr Phillimore, Professor of Civil Law, presented the degree and eulogised Hastings in a fine Latin speech.

Sat 2nd April 1814

The Company has advertised its latest quarterly sale – woollens, iron, copper, window glass etc. They promise not to sell any similar goods until the next quarterly sale. Purchases may be exported to an other part of India or the Persian Gulf.

Formerly the Company reserved the Gulf trade in European staples to itself but under the new Charter terms it has withdrawn from that business. It however continues to close the Gulf market to private ships from England whose supply would undersell the Company’s supply from India. Nothing may be sent by British ships to China.

Sat 2nd April 1814

The Company’s Directors have been discussing the salary increase that the shareholders have approved (the Company pays Income Tax on the dividend; the shareholders approve a salary increase).

One said the pay-rise should be dated from 1st April (laughter). Another said people complain about patronage but the Directors have to give the jobs to someone and that is always likely to be their friends whom they know and can vouch for - its not really corruption. Look at the China factory – the names of the writers and officers at Macau are the same as many of the Directors. Increasing the Directors’ pay is small beer compared with their incomes through family members.

When Fox tried to seize the patronage of the Directors for the ministry, it was valued in total at £350,000 a year. Writerships now costs up to £3,000 but taking a modest valuation of $2,000 each and assuming a low value for a cadetship at the price of an army commission (although they are often £500), the 770 writerships and 4,423 cadetships awarded in the validity of the last 20 years Charter produced an immense value.

The Board of Control received patronage equivalent to 2 Directors; the Chairman and deputy Chairman also each had a double patronage; all the other Directors had a single patronage. That made 28 shares between the Board and the 24 Directors amongst whom the patronage was distributed – its nearly £5,000 a year for each share.

Another source of patronage is the selection of ships for charter. Ship owners generally reckon a Company charter, if it can be bought, is worth £500 per ship.

Then there is the appointment of barristers and solicitors to India.

The Directors also appoint the staff of India House, the Company’s warehouses, the two colleges, etc.

Formerly the Directors received a commission from British manufacturers whose goods were selected for sale in Asia but they professedly abandoned that a few years ago.

The political administrators of this country are paid less than the Directors although their duties are often more onerous and time-consuming.

He thought wealthy men were better rewarded with honours than more money.

Lushington said £300 a year (the Directors salary at present) is not worth as much today as a few years ago (due to inflation of the paper money supply). The Company’s business had grown immensely in turnover and complexity in recent years.

The comparison of Directors’ and ministers’ incomes was flawed as it excluded the patronage of the latter. Melville in the last two months of his service as First Lord of the Admiralty appointed Captains to naval service in which they each made £10,000 - £20,000 (freighting bullion and share of prize money). On that basis should Melville receive no salary? The Auditor of the Exchequer also has the disposal of many profitable jobs.

Shareholder Lowndes said he had spent decades trying to penetrate the mystical workings of the Company but his questions were always laughed-at. If the Directors’ salaries are increased, it will start a new round of corruption and he intended to sell his shares (laughter). He knew that people were queuing-up to become Directors and the salary was clearly more than ample. The matter of patronage had made the Company odious to the people – jobs in India should be distributed fairly.

Grant said Directors who had sons found the patronage advantageous but not all Directors had sons. Of 30 Directors he had known, only 18 had relatives serving in the East.

The meeting finally approved the appointment of a committee of fifteen (quorum of five) to look into the patronage of the Directors.

Sat 9th April 1814

The Admiralty and Board of Trade are persuaded that shipping to/from the East will in future have to be convoyed in the same way as shipping to/from the Baltic, West Indies or Mediterranean.

This will proscribe single ships from making the voyage. All free traders will have to accept convoy to preserve their insurance cover. The possibility of windfall profits from bringing your goods to market before the others will be lost. This will unfortunately be a blow to the nascent free trade that has just been granted.

The Bombay Courier for April, May and the first half of June is missing. No reports of the invasion of France are available.

Sat 18th June 1814

The House of Commons is still unhappy with East Indian trade. They continued to debate it on 2nd and 3rd Dec 1813:

American merchants are better served than British merchants. The Americans can trade to Asia in ships of any size and take their Asian purchases to anywhere in the World. They do so largely on British credit provided in London but that is no advantage to the generality of British merchants, only the bankers.

An Act was passed last session for the renewal of the Company’s Charter which provided for a heavily regulated British trade with India and numerous limitations from which foreigners are exempt.

The restrictions do not protect the Company’s trade – no British merchant is going to bring indigo, sugar, pepper, etc., to the rigged market in London when he routinely gets a better price at Amsterdam, Rotterdam et al. What is going-on?

The effect of these arrangements must be an increase in American trade at the expense of our own. It is well-known that more East Indian goods are sold at Hamburg and Copenhagen than in England. The Americans (and when the war ends, the Dutch, Danes, French and Swedes) will be buying direct whereas British merchants will have to bring their cargoes to a British port first and pay British tax before re-exportation.

Castlereagh agreed on the propriety of extending all Indian trade to British merchants. He would exclude a free trade with British colonies, where a different commercial system was followed. When it is apparent that British merchants are being disadvantaged by the arrangements, they will be reviewed and changed. At present international trade is not competitive - the Americans have no European trade to speak of and no prospect of getting any until they make peace with us. It’s the same with the Europeans.

Until that time, it is our fundamental national policy to bring all goods to London and make this city the emporium of world trade. By creating a market in all the world’s products here in London, we attract all the world’s business. This benefits our banking and insurance markets. The availability of every staple commodity here and the finance to trade in it, is the basic intention that British policy over the last twenty years has been shaped to achieve. It’s a one-stop shop.

On 3rd Dec, the second day of debate, Charles Grant arrived and asked that any further discussion on East Indian trade be postponed until the Company could consider and present its position.

Fawcett said if British merchants have unfettered access to Asia they will take those goods to West Indies and South America and destabilise our markets there. A direct supply from Asia would at least partially be reshipped from Cuba and South America to British colonies where it would undersell the London supply of several commodities.

Finlay said British domestic manufacturers are unconcerned by competition – there isn’t any – its only the raw cotton, indigo, etc that is competitive and there is no market for that outside Europe.

Castlereagh then agreed to postpone the Bill.

Sat 18th June 1814

Notice, 14th June 1814 – people who have obtained a licence from the Directors to reside in India under the new Charter terms are also required to register with the Company’s Judiciary in India giving the following particulars – name, nationality, year of arrival in India and town of intended residence.

Sat 18th June 1814

London, Dec 1813 - There are two groups populating the Masonic world – the free-masons of England and the free-masons under the Constitution of England. They have been separate for a century since Sir Christopher Wren’s retirement as Grand Master. In 1717 a Grand Lodge was revived with some novel provisions that caused proponents of the previous arrangements to withhold their agreement to membership. The two groups became contentious but both have prospered and now have branches throughout the world.

Today, the Duke of Kent is the Grand Master of the English group (the ancient group) whilst the Duke of Sussex leads the ‘new’ Constitutionalists.

On 25th Nov 1813 this schism was ended by an Act of Union, signed by both Royal Dukes at Kensington Palace. This was primarily the work of the Duke of Kent once he took over as Grand Master from the Duke of Athol. The two Royal Dukes have been aided by three Commissioners. The principles, traditions and practices of the ancient group have been fully preserved and Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, Earl of Dublin, Knight of the Garter, Field Marshal of England, Governor of Gibraltar, etc., is the new Grand Master of the combined masons. A poem has been published for the occasion:

Mountains may fall and rocks decay,

And isle on isle be swept away,

But Masonry’s primeval truth,

Unbroke by force, unchanged by time,

Shall bloom in renovated youth

And energy sublime.

-

The Mason worships God on high

And feeling in his heart the flame

Of Holy love to all the same,

To all who pure in heart and life

Seek to be safe from Worldly strife

The door shall open fly.

-

We do not look to form a sect

But all the varying creeds respect,

That may from conscience flow.

To the Great Architect alone

Their truth and purity are known

And not to man below.

-

The Christian, Turk and Jew may be

Linked in the bonds of Masonry.

Etc.

A Grand Assembly of the united Masons was held on the Day of St John the Evangelist (27th Dec). The Grand Lodges of Scotland and Ireland were invited to come. About 1,000 Masons attended, all wearing black with white gloves and aprons, and wearing their Masonic regalia.

Sat 25th June 1814

Some Balinese boats were caught and arrested for importing goods into Java without a Company licence. The Rajah of Bali responded by arresting some English ships which he sold to compensate his merchants. Now the government of Java has sent an Expedition of about 800 men to Bali under General Miles Nightingale to instruct the Rajah. It departed Batavia in late March.

Sat 25th June 1814

The Admiralty is sending a piece of plate to Jamsetjee Bomanjee for his care and diligence in building the capital ship HMS Minden for the Royal Navy.

Sat 25th June 1814

Major Munro has given evidence to a Select Committee in London on the population of the districts ceded to Madras Presidency several years ago. The Company’s census shows the figure at about 2 millions with 10% more men than women. The villagers say it has always been unequal like that.

At first we thought the difference might be explained by female seclusion - its practised by some sects, both Muslim and Hindu, but the difference extends to every caste in the district, some of which do not seclude their females.

We re-checked a sample and a few villages were found to have equal populations but the preponderance had a surplus of males. Dr Price contrarily advises that males are likely to die younger than females. It’s a paradox.

In Europe the natural statistic is about 20 females to 19 males, a 15% difference to the new Madras Presidency figures.

Some field officers speculate that in times of adversity a family is more likely to preserve a son than a daughter. They also say an older child will inevitably be favoured over a young one in time of famine, particularly if the infant is female. In India it is common for all domestic labour, vegetable growing and watering, harvesting and spinning etc., to be done by women - so they are absolutely fundamental to the economic prosperity of the village.

It is also suggested that the absence of war in the last few years may have preserved more males than usual but this does not correspond with the villagers’ information (that ‘it has always been like that’).

Munro notes that the funeral rites that admit a deceased to the afterlife must be performed by a male child. It seems possible that some selection against females is operating in the native states of the Deccan.

Sat 2nd July 1814

At Surabaya the market for opium is so good we are selling it out of the holds at £1,300 a chest. There is no delivery risk at all! There is a demand for hookahs, hookah snakes and fine tobacco.21

Note:

The Recorder’s Court at Bombay frequently issues Writs of Fieri Facias to plaintiffs seeking to recover money from debtors. There are two in the edition of Sat 9th July 1814 and commonly one in other editions. They distrain the landed property and buildings of the Defendant which the Sheriff then puts up for sale before the action for debt commences.

Sat 9th July 1814

Governor Farquhar of Mauritius has left that island for Reunion – he is in dispute with the Mauritian Judiciary over slavery.

Sat 9th July 1814

Calcutta – Moira’s friend, Sir William Rumbold, has been made a JP and Commissioner of Police for this city.

Sat 16th July 1814

The 15% import duty on British goods and manufactures to Goa and Macau and the other Portuguese ports has been levied by mistake. Under the Anglo-Portuguese commercial treaty of 19th Feb 1810 it should be 5% as was previously levied. The Prince Regent at Rio has decreed the 5% rate is to be used.

Sat 23rd July 1814

The Editor has commended his readers to subscribe towards the costs of a statue of the Duke of Wellington in commemoration of his exploits in Spain.

This induces a reader to comment that “the large sums raised by public subscriptions in 1805 and 1806 for statutes of Cornwallis, Lord Wellesley and Pitt and in 1808 for a statue of Capt George Hardinge produced no statues”.

If we wish to be patriotic, he says, we would do better to donate our money to the widows and children of deceased soldiers.

Sat 30th July 1814

The Company has published its weekly storage costs for private goods imported to England. It is a term of the private trade that goods must be stored and sold by the Company. Storage is generally £2 - £4 per bale or bag per week. All the spices are 1 - 2% ad valorem per week.

Sat 6th Aug 1814

Lt Henry E Pottinger ceased to be an Aide-de-Camp to Governor Nepean on 1st Aug.

Sat 6th Aug 1814

Calcutta, Financial Dept, 1st July 1814 – subscriptions are invited for a new 6% loan. Payment may be in cash, Company Bills, Bills for Arrears of Salary, all sorts of Company Promissory Note and any other authorised public demand. Minimum subscription 1,000 Sicca Rupees.

The Company may make repayment and discharge the Notes at any time without notice by paying cash or Bills on London at an exchange of 2/6d per Sicca Rupee payable 18-months Sight. Purchasers will give 2-months notice of intention to sell. Interest after such notice until sale and repayment is reduced to 5%.

The Note interest of 6% is payable 6-monthly in arrears in cash or 12-month Bills on London. Holders of Bombay 8% Notes may be paid-off or transfer into the new Loan. The Commissioners of the Sinking Fund are qualified to buy these Promissory Notes.22

Sat 6th Aug 1814

Michie Forbes ceased to be a partner in Forbes & Co on 31st July.

Nadir Baxter ceased to be a partner in Baxter Ferrar & Co wef 31st July.

William Crawford ceased to be a partner in Bruce Fawcett & Co on 1st Aug

David Malcolm was admitted a partner of Shotton Calder & Co wef 1st Aug.

Sat 6th Aug 1814

Capt Peter Brown of the Charlotte has received a piece of plate worth 100 guineas from the officers of the 78th Regiment whom he took to Bali for our recent invasion.

Sat 6th Aug 1814

Juggernaut, 22nd June – The machine has been travelling since 19th June and is about half a mile from its starting point at the temple. Only one woman has so far devoted herself to the wheel and it was a shocking sight. More people have been trampled by the crowd than have been killed by the machine.

There are some exceptional fakirs here – one chap has filled his eye sockets with mud, another has tied his foot to his neck, a third has a pot of burning charcoal resting on his belly.

Sat 6th Aug 1814

The half-yearly dividend of the Bank of Bengal was paid early July. Its 500 Rupees per share, equivalent to 10% of the Bank’s capital.

Sat 6th Aug 1814

The expedition to Bali has succeeded without firing a shot. The Rajah submitted to us on our arrival and surrendered two hostages for his future good conduct.

Sat 13th August 1814

The Grand Mughal Soudat Ali Khan died on 11th July. He was put on the throne by Sir John Shore in Jan 1798. His succession was opposed by other members of the ruling House and we had to remove him from Lucknow to Calcutta and later Benares for his own safety. The Company procured £40,000 a year from his brother to fund the Mughal’s lifestyle. He had many wives and myriad children - the identity of his replacement is not yet decided.

Sat 13th August 1814

The interest on India debt in London is guaranteed by the British government under the new Charter. To ensure the guarantee is not invoked, the Board of Control has proposed the Company amass a fund by issuing Bills on Bengal here in London. Alternatively the Board of Control suggests the Company fund the new free trade in Indian exports by issuing the appropriate amount of Bills on London in India and taking settlement in London. Either way the Company would amass capital in London with which to pay the bank charges. The Company is deeply opposed to both proposals.

Sat 27th Aug 1814

Notice – the Company is offering a three year licence to operate the stone quarry at Byculla. Apply to the Bombay Governor-in-Council before 7th Sept indicating how much rent you will pay.

Sat 27th Aug 1814

The army off-reckonings in Bengal Presidency for 1808 totalled 334,925 Rupees. These moneys are available as pensions to retired Generals, Colonels and commanders of regiments. 37,462 Rupees was paid-out to 8 retired Generals in England. The balance of 297,463 Rupees is carried forward.

In Madras the figure for 1808 was 280,438 Rupees of which 33,300 Rupees was paid-out to retired Generals at the same rate

At Bombay the sum is 82,462 Rupees of which 29,040 Rupees was paid-out.

Sat 27th Aug 1814

Two English ships sailed from the outport of Bristol at end April for Asia. They are the first private ships licensed to trade in Asia under the new Charter.

Sat 17th Sept 1814

The British inhabitants of Patna under the leadership of Abraham Welland, Wm Moorcroft, G Neville Wyatt and Capt Roughsedge have given an Address to Moira who is passing through.

They congratulate the Governor-General that the great Kings of Europe are restored to their legitimate authority and peace is upon us.

It is signed by every British merchant and army officer in Patna - Duncan Campbell, H Douglas, J R Elphinstone, Francis le Gros, J Miller, Hubert Cornish, A MacKenzie, Robert Mitford et al totally 57 names.

Sat 17th Sept 1814

India House, 5th April – Sir Hugh Inglis has resigned from the Direction of the Company. It’s a rare event but no reason is assigned. Lord Melville is to return to the Board of Control from the Admiralty as part of the ministerial changes following peace.

The Directors are still discussing the proposed salary increase offered by the shareholders. The Directors’ salaries were doubled in 1793. Twining opposed the salary increase – we are giving away too much power. The only advantage I have received from my directorship is a writer’s job for my grandson.

The salary increase was then voted and rejected.

Sat 15th Oct 1814

The new Charter introduces a measure of free trade. It is effective from 10th April 1814. It excludes travel to the domains of the Emperor of China and excludes trade in tea.

It permits any British merchant to trade in Indian goods to North and South America, except British colonies in America, and with Madeira, Canary Islands, Cape Verde Islands, St Helena and the Cape of Good Hope.

The area from the Indus in the west to Malacca in the east (plus Bencoolen and its dependencies and any islands in northern hemisphere currently administered by the Company) forms the Company’s reserved area and subject to its Regulations.23

The subsidiary legislation for the free trade is shown in this edition. It applies the Company’s warehouse duty of 4% ad valorem and sets a tariff of Customs duties i.e. all the Company monopolies in India are taxed ad valorem at 50+% if imported to India viz. pearls and precious stones 50%, Chinaware 100%, glass 90%, most piecegoods 50%, manufactured copper 50%, cotton 50%, hair 50%, tanned leather 50%, Japanware 50%, lacquerware 50%, processed tortoise-shell 50%, feathers 40%, etc.

Appended to the Warehouse charges and Customs duty is a list of Company charges for the management of private goods landed in India – 1 - 4% ad valorem on bagged or baled goods and 2 - 7% for goods shipped by weight.

Sat 22nd Oct 1814

The total tonnage of ships being built and used on the new free trade route from Calcutta to England is about 30,000 tons or ten times the permitted amount under the old arrangements. There will no doubt be price fluctuations until London is able to digest these new imports on a regular basis.

Sat 29th Oct 1814

Indian cottons are selling well at India House in expectation of a renewed trade with France. The best Sea Island cotton is 3/- to 3/3d a pound and the other varieties proportionately less.

The ministry has stopped paying the bounty on refined sugars but this will only temporarily slow the market now that Europe is re-opening to our trade.

28,000 bags of Indian rice imported by the ships’ officers as privileged tonnage has been offered at auction and only 2,000 bags sold at 22/- to 26/- each. Brazil rice was unsellable and Carolina rice was moving very slowly albeit at 50/- a bag. The sales of all Indian spices are attracting lower prices.

Sat 29th Oct 1814

Colonel Taylor continues to promote the Suez route between India and London – he says it is quicker and cheaper. The British government prefers Venice, Constantinople, Aleppo, Basra and Bombay as it has regular dispatches for the first two stops. Taylor’s quick alternative is Bombay, Suez, Cairo, boat to Rosetta, overland to Alexandria and by ship to Messina/Malta and London. That should generally be a two-month journey compared with over three months on the Mesopotamian route.

We used to consider Red Sea navigation dangerous but we now have good charts. It is a no-brainer.

Sat 5th Nov 1814

General Nightingale’s expedition obtained the submission of the Rajah of Bali without firing a shot. He then sailed to Macassar where that Rajah was made of sterner stuff. His resistance ended on 7th June and a garrison has been placed in the fort to ensure he makes the right decisions in future.

Capt Phillips is appointed Resident of Macassar and will advise the Rajah.

Sat 12th Nov 1814

House of Commons, 4th April - With Castlereagh’s absence from the House of Commons, the Company is in difficulty in controlling its destiny. Castlereagh usually fronts the Company’s demands/defences to parliament but he is in Europe settling the terms of peace.

The India Shipping Bill has come-up for debate. It makes India-built teak ships available in England – it is a great bit of business for India but a disaster for the Company’s shipping interest and the owners of forests, often the Royal Family. The MPs are all for it.

At first the Company’s MPs managed to divert it into a Committee where it languished for several weeks but the promoters of Indian ships (Melville et al) kept asking questions and are pushing for its passage. The Company says these ships are too good. They need so little repair they damage London’s ship-repairing business. If our ship-repairing industry shrinks we will be less able to repair ships in future. Instead of self-sufficiency and improvement we will become dependent on foreign assistance.

A second line of Company response relates to manning. India-built ships will be delivered with Indian crews. They will diminish the employment prospects of the British Tar.

Sat 12th Nov 1814

The Company is still discussing Directors’ pay. Shareholder Howarth thinks the shareholding qualification to become a Director should be raised from £2,000 of shares to £4,000 to better align the Director’s capital and interests with the Company.24 He wants them to resign their directorships if they receive a public appointment. He wants an Attendance Book kept so the number of days they visit India House and the number of Meetings they attend is known. He wants all this information to be available to shareholders so they have some sense of the efforts of their executives

Sat 26th Nov 1814

A great fire consumed part of Penang on 27th Sept. It broke out in front of the Muslim mosque and spread throughout the area occupied by Chinese, Armenian and Pulicat merchants. Several warehouses were burned and damage is estimated at 500,000 Rupees.

The great fire of 1812 consumed the European quarter, this one has destroyed the native quarter.

Sat 26th Nov 1814

Moira has gone up the Ganges on tour and is now at Lucknow. Whilst he is away, Thomas Stanley, a lawyer admitted to practice here, is suing his client James Smith for libel and James MacKenzie, who produces the Calcutta Times newspaper, for publishing it. Smith’s libel was to say Stanley received funds on his (Smith’s) behalf and kept them.

This successful litigation of Smith’s is mentioned but not elucidated. It appears Stanley was disbursing Smith’s damages to him bit-by-bit on application.

In February, young James Smith gave Stanley the conduct of his defence in an equitable action before the Calcutta courts. Stanley employed Ferguson as Counsel. Smith has not yet accumulated much capital and Stanley was doubtful of getting his fees but did his best. On conviction, Smith gave way to an intemperate burst of passion against Stanley. It seems all his capital with Stanley was consumed by the costs and party costs of the unsuccessful defence.

The prosecution-side in the libel case however forgave Smith, as he is young and inexperienced, and focused their disapproval on MacKenzie, the editor and publisher of Calcutta Times, who should have known better.

Smith’s defence is a long rambling biography and the Court declines to hear it. His 46 witnesses are likewise dismissed without a hearing.

Strettell, the Counsel for MacKenzie, says the Editor published the article when he was told by Smith that he had commenced an action in the Calcutta supreme court for recovery of his money from Stanley. The Judge said that would have been a proper course for Smith to pursue but he preferred revenge and publicity. Smith got 6 months whilst MacKenzie was fined 100 Rupees and bound-over to keep the peace for a year.

Sat 3rd Dec 1814

Nepal and Tibet:

General Gillespie attacked Kalunga, one of the frontier fortresses of the Rajah of Nepal towards Srinigar, but was repulsed and killed in the assault. In another assault, the fort walls of Nalagur were bombarded. They are pukka-built (sun-dried brick) and our cannon balls passed through like timber but eventually we brought down a corner and the Ghurkhas then asked to surrender.

During the Mughal Raj the Indian frontier with Nepal was at Jellalgur in Purnea. When we last marked our territorial limit on that frontier in 1796 we placed it 40 miles north of Jellalgur. The Company has always held that a country’s border is the limit of its cultivation. It was Queen Elizabeth’s directions that British colonisation should not impinge on cultivated lands but be built on vacant or abandoned land. In this case India under our stewardship has expanded its cultivation into unused lands to the north - it is an aspect of our superiority. Our immediate northern neighbours are called the 24 Rajahs, a group of village chiefs who occupied each river valley. Beyond them are the Nepalese. The Mughals had occasional border conflicts with the 24 Rajahs but never disturbed the Nepalese. In these remote mountain fastnesses the people pursue the Hindu religious ideal in a state of peace and innocence.

The Ghurkhas are a small tribe based to the west of Nepal that has a history of encroaching on and assimilating the lands of its neighbours. In 1776 a disputed succession in Nepal caused one candidate to solicit Ghurkha aid. Upon his success that year, as payment, he allowed the Ghurkhas to seize the lands of the Rajah adjacent to Purnea who was a tributary of the Company and under its protection. This elicited a stiff letter from Warren Hastings but the Ghurkhas completed their conquest before replying, alleging their opponent had been a troublesome chap.

A freebooter named Smith had set-up at Nautpur in the district in 1773, funded by a House of Agency in Calcutta, and developed a valuable business in timber, indigo farming and saltpetre mining. He builds boats, carriages and agricultural implements and employs over 500 men. The local people have come to trust him and have made him their magistrate. He obtains his labour during famines when the Indian people more readily sell their children. He gives the kids board and lodging and, when they are old enough, they work in his farms and factories. He was a popular employer and the worst punishment he meted out was to dismiss people from their employment with him. After he died his woman became the ruler of the estate.

Meanwhile the Ghurkhas had encroached all the way from the Almora Hills in the west to Barhumpooter in the east, adjacent to the frontiers of our provinces of Rohilcund, Oudh and Rungpur.

In 1776 Sir Robert Barker notified Clive that the district was a treasure house of gold, ivory, cinnamon, musk and firs suitable for masts. This appears to have been an exaggeration but the fir trees are real and valuable.

The route from Bengal to Tibet and China passes through Bhutan which is only visited by Jesuits (‘they go everywhere’ says the Editor). The Company sent two missions to the Teshoo Lama at Lhasa – one led by Bugle in 1774 and another under Turner in 1783. Turner published an account of his travels but the first well-known British visit was by General Kirkpatrick.

In 1782, the Ghurkhas penetrated to Degarchen in Tibet and plundered that base of the Teshoo Lama. He escaped and petitioned Peking for help. That caused the Kien Lung Emperor to send a Chinese army into Tibet. Cornwallis whilst Governor-General received letters from the Chinese Amban at Lhasa notifying him of the approach of the Chinese army and its purposes. He also received a plea for help from Kathmandu but maintained a strict neutrality. The Chinese pursued the invaders to Kathmandu and negotiated Nepali and Gurkhali submission to China as vassals.25 Tibet was already a Chinese client. Thus it was that the Company obtained a common frontier with the Chinese Empire.

But what was not reported to Peking was a reversal of Chinese military fortune whilst outside Kathmandu. The Ghurkhas fell back on Kathmandu and the Chinese were precipitant in following-up, allowing the Ghurkhas to spring a trap. They turned and attacked the Chinese General’s camp obtaining sufficient advantage to bring him to terms. This ‘forlorn hope’ was the work of ex-Sepoys of the Company’s army who still wore their old red jackets. It caused the Chinese General to report somewhat plausibly that he had been attacked by the British and it formed the basis to the complaint made to Macartney in 1794 by the same General after his return to Peking.

The Teshoo Lama then went on a tributary mission to Peking and died whilst there or en route. His brother the Sumhur Lama became doubtful of the cause of death and fled to Nepal bringing the contents of the Tibetan national Treasury with him. The Ghurkhas heard about the length of his baggage train and sent an army to Kathmandu to plunder it in 1785. And so it has gone on.

During the last ten years, we have had Ghurkha raids on the border villages every harvest-time and people have been killed. All these villagers are under our protection. The Company’s representatives remonstrated with the Ghurkhas but they were implacable. The attacks last year were as bad as ever. Now we are going to fight them. The King of Nepal is a young Ghurkha named Bueem Sena. He can raise an army of 12,000 from all his widespread settlements but in the vicinity of Kathmandu his maximum force is 4,000.

We are sending Major General Marley with a force of about 6,000. They will march through Muzufforpore to the frontier and continue to Kathmandu.

Another force is near Dehra Dun and around the headwaters of the Jumna where they will deal with the Nepalese in that area. Colonel Ochterlony is replacing the late Major General Gillespie and is at Ludhiana. He will besiege Nallaghur and open a route to Umeer Singh Thappa’s base near the headwaters of the Sutlej River. The fort at Nallaghur has a garrison of only 100 men but we will require artillery to destroy the walls and gain access and that is difficult to arrange in a mountainous region. Horses are unequal to the task of dragging guns up these hills and the Company must rely on elephants to get the 18-pounders into position.

A third army is assembling at Benares under Major General Wood. Their objective is the town of Ghurkha to the west of Kathmandu.

Sat 3rd Dec 1814

The Company’s ship Prince Regent left Calcutta on 10th Nov on a voyage to Amboinya to collect this year’s spice harvest and transport it to London.

Sat 10th Dec 1814

The Company’s new 6% Promissory Note has been well received and all previous Promissory Notes are now being determined and will be paid-off on 2nd Feb 1815.

Sat 10th Dec 1814

Our government of Ceylon has made a Proclamation detailing several murders done by people we say are subjects of the King of Kandy. This sort of Proclamation usually precedes a military strike.

Sat 17th Dec 1814

Mr L Magniac has arrived at Calcutta on the Indiaman Phoenix. He is one of the new Writers.

Sat 17th Dec 1814

The Fourth Calcutta Laudable Society has been opened by five Calcutta businessmen (Alex Colvin, George Cruttenden, John Palmer, John Fulton and John Fullerton). It provides insurance on peoples’ lives and will run for several years. It differs from a life assurer in having a tiny management staff and not retaining any profits. The whole of customers’ payments, less the management charge, are invested in government paper and the dividends etc re-invested so the client’s Estate may expect a good pay-out on making a claim. The payout is currently 4,000 Rupees per share. It is also possible to loan against the Society. Investors become members of the Society – it’s a Mutual. Alexander & Co is the manager and charges the Society 200 Rupees a month as service fee.

Customers buy shares in the Society at prices that increase with age. They pay one year’s fees up front. It’s the same fee for men and women. They must declare their age, that they are in good health and have already had smallpox or are protected by the cowpox vaccination. A certificate of Good Health may be required from your Doctor. The investments are held in the names of the five Directors with dividends payable to Alexander & Co.

The Third Society will close one year after the Fourth commences. Investors in the Third are welcome to transfer their investments to the Fourth.

Sat 17th Dec 1814

Calcutta – 3,000,000 Rupees in gold and silver coin is coming down river from the Nawab Vizier of Oudh as part of the subsidy due to the Company from him. Over the next month we should also receive the silver proceeds of China-trade at Calcutta. These receipts will facilitate the discharge of the 6% Promissory Notes in February and will relieve the Calcutta merchants of the cash shortage that has limited their trade for the last several months.

Sat 17th Dec 1814

Ten Ceylonese merchants from Mahara who visited Kandy for trade were arrested and seven were executed. The three mutilated survivors have just returned to Colombo and reported their story.

Governor Brownrigg has proclaimed this was an act of barbarity and says the protection of British subjects is his primary duty. All residents of British territories are warned not to visit Kandy. On the other hand the merchants of Kandy are assured that they will be well-treated in the Company’s domains and should continue their trading visits.

The King of Kandy is upset with the Company, most recently because his minister (Chief Adigar) defaulted and fled to Colombo where we are protecting him.

Sat 24th Dec 1814

Bombay Presidency Notice - The next quarterly sale of the Company’s stocks is set for 16th Jan 1815 at the Import Office – it’s the usual mix of woollens, metals, window glass, wines and tools.

Sat 24th Dec 1814

The Company hopes to prevent the return of Java and the Spice Islands to the Dutch until it can get some assurances for the future business of our trading stations in the islands. Our administration is more efficient than the Dutch and revenue in the ex-Dutch Colonies is now adequate and increasing. Large areas of formerly uncultivated land have been ploughed and farmed since we assumed the administration. Crime has diminished and the gaols are empty. The ownership of property is protected and everyone is happy and making money. All the warehouses are over-stocked with our goods and imports have slowed but are steady. Bills are selling at 4/3d per Spanish dollar (paper currency) or 75 cents Spanish (for silver)

Sat 31st Dec 1814

The Prince Regent has published a Patent of Precedence for the Government of India. Its an English caste system – Governor-General, Lord Chief Justice, Bishop of Calcutta, Council members, puisne Judges and then the whole civil establishment of the Company are listed down the hierarchy of ranks. This arrangement follows the English form with wives of officials similarly ordered. It makes Calcutta society even more strictly hierarchical than previously.

Sat 7th Jan 1815

Advertisement – Forbes & Co are authorised to issue policies of the Canton Insurance Company on the hulls and cargoes of all British ships at or from Bombay to all ports and on Portuguese hulls and cargoes at or from Bombay to Canton, Lisbon and Rio.

Sat 7th Jan 1815

Nepal War - Our second siege of Kalunga failed to produce a breach but the Ghurkhas themselves abandoned the fort on 30th Nov. They returned our dead without stripping them of their possessions which is unusual and suggests they may be amenable to negotiations. We found nearly 100 dead Ghurkhas in the fort and many injured men whom we are treating.

The next fort to be reduced is Ramghur. It is 12 miles distant and 5,000 feet above our camp on the Sutlej. Ochterlony is commanding there and reportedly having a hard time. He has had 45 dead returned to him from an outpost he could not sustain. The Ghurkhas are skilled and courageous fighters. Both their defensive and offensive arrangements are admirable.

Sat 14th Jan 1815

Calcutta, 20th Dec - The value of cargo shipped from Calcutta to London between Aug – Nov 1814 is nearly 13,000,000 Rupees. This is a response to the terms of the new Charter opening a ‘free trade’ to British ports.

The effect at Calcutta of the removal of £1½ million from local exchange has been a dramatic shortage of circulating currency. This is revealed by various financial statistics – the Company’s 6% promissory notes are selling at 14% discount, cash is earning 1¼ - 1½% per month on deposit and private Bills are offering 2-3% per month. We need Chinese silver.

Sat 14th Jan 1815

Letter from the Directors, 21st June 1814 – Several British investors in Agency Houses in India have lost their capital as a result of the bankruptcy of their selected Agent. The Company accepts responsibility only for investments made in its own Indian debt paper. We are advising the resident British population so our position concerning investments in Agency Houses will be widely disseminated.

Sat 14th Jan 1815

The Governor-General has belatedly declared war on Nepal on 20th Dec. At first it appeared we would be able to subdue the Nepalese in the usual way but they fight better than the Hindus and Muslims we are used to dealing with. It is also the case they are in the mountains and it is difficult to get our artillery into position against them. It is the Company’s use of artillery that assures our easy victories.

The Declaration is for the information of those native states in alliance with the Company. The Nepalese have common frontiers with the Sikhs and the Nawab Vizier of Oudh as well as the Company. The Nawab is our ally and the Sikhs are under our protection. Nepalese incursions have occurred at Purnea, Tirhoot, Sarun, Goruckpore and Bareilly as well as between the Jumna and Sutlej Rivers in the protected lands of the Sikhs. We have remonstrated against Ghurkha occupation of Indian villages and farms without effect.

Recently a new encroachment in the Tuppah of Nonnoar resulted in the death of a Nepalese official Soubah Luchimgir and we opened negotiations to settle the line of the frontier. During these discussions the Nepalese seized another tract of nearby land – an act of injustice and bad faith. We nevertheless instructed our Commissioner Young to include the newly seized lands in the negotiation. The Nepalese argued that we had agreed the Tuppah of Rotehut was theirs in 1783 and the Tuppah of Nonnoar formed a part of that fief. In fact these Nonnoar lands were expressly reserved to the Company in the 1783 treaty and the Nepalese clearly recognised that by not entering Nonnoar for 30 years. They have now violently re-entered Nonnoar which seems to accord with our long experience of their system of gradual encroachment.

They have also sought to fix responsibility on us for the death of their Soubar at Nonnoar. He died whilst in the lands of the Rajah of Biteah whom they demand be punished. They justify their encroachments as indemnity for his life. In fact it is our information that the Soubar was leading an incursion into the Rajah’s lands and died in an affray.

Sat 21st Jan 1815

The following eight freemasonry Lodges are active in India – Star in the East, Industry and Perseverance, True Friendship, Humility with Fortitude, Marine, Moira, Oriental and Aurora. They recently celebrated the festival of St John the Evangelist in Calcutta.

Sat 4th Feb 1815

The Admiralty has awarded Jamsetjee Bomanjee Lowjee a piece of plate in recognition of his skill and diligence in superintending the construction of the capital ship HMS Minden.

He replied 19th Oct 1814 ‘since building the Minden I have built two more capital ships – Cornwallis and Wellesley’.

Sat 4th Feb 1815

The Ghurkhas are proving better able to fight than any of our previous enemies in India. Four companies under Capt Sibley were isolated from the main body of troops and boldly attacked by a large Ghurkha force on 1st Jan. They were driven into a river and lost about 220 of their 300 men.

Sat 4th Feb 1815

Colombo, 10th Jan - Our Ceylon government has declared war on the King of Kandy. They say they are friends of the people of Kandy and only wish to punish the King. They say representatives of five Ceylonese provinces have asked for military intervention against Kandy. The Company will now send an army to capture the King. It will be instructed to respect private property. The religion and temples of the Buddhists will not be damaged. Only people opposing the army’s progress will be attacked.

Sat 11th Feb 1815

6th Feb – Forbes & Co has admitted Thomas Allport and William Ashburner into the partnership.

Sat 11th Feb 1815

The newly installed Bourbon King Louis XVIII has appointed Desbassins to be Governor of Pondicherry. He left France in mid-August.

Sat 11th Feb 1815

Umeer Singh has sustained a defeat outside Ramghur. He sallied out against our besieging force and was severely beaten. We now hold the stockades in front of the fort. Its nice to have a partial success to report after so many defeats. The Ghurkhas have caught many of our elephants (essential for moving cannon into the mountains) and taken an ammunition train.

Sat 18th Feb 1815

The Act allowing non-British built ships to trade to/from Asia has been extended to cover voyages commencing before 1st Jan 1816. The Company is responsible for this trade. Under the new extension, its responsibility for repatriating distressed Asiatic seamen is transferred to the ship-owner.

Sat 18th Feb 1815

HMS Halcyon is going to Batavia with the news that Java and its dependencies are returned to the Dutch in the general peace agreement in Europe.

Sat 18th Feb 1815

The Company has licensed five private ships – Minstrel, Moira, Francis, Eliza, General Stuart - to sail from England to India between 5th June – 27th July 1815.


Sat 18th Feb 1815

The import and town duties on jewels, pearls and made-up jewelry brought into Bombay is abolished from 17th Feb.

Sat 18th Feb 1815

An Act has passed parliament in London validating various taxes in the Indian Presidencies with retrospective effect. Amongst them is the wheel tax which was commenced 30 years ago. Those people who knew the Company had no legal right to levy this tax and withheld payment will now have to pay thirty years of arrears – you can’t beat City Hall.

Sat 18th Feb 1815

Half Pay is payable to officers from Ensigns to Lt Colonels and Regimental Quartermasters and Surgeons. It is just increased 20 – 35% as of 8th Aug 1814.

Sat 18th Feb 1815

Sir George Barlow, the Governor of Madras and before that briefly acting Governor-General, has been accused in the House of Commons by Marsh MP (on the information of M/s Thomas Parry, Maitland and Evans) of interfering with judicial process in the cases of those British merchants and army officers involved in the scam over the Nabob of the Carnatic’s debts.

Marsh says unaccommodating Judges and prosecutors were substituted for amenable officers before the cases could be heard. After some discussion Marsh agreed to postpone his motion until next session.

Sat 4th March 1815

Castlereagh has told the House of Commons that Ceylon has become an integral part of the British empire. The Dutch have ceded Ceylon to us by treaty. It is one of the keys to India and will not be returned. Likewise Castlereagh expected that the Cape would also remain British in light of its significance as a provisioning and watering base on the route to/from India. He thought some satisfactory compensatory arrangement could be made with the Dutch.

Sat 4th March 1815

HCS Magnet (Vine) has taken the Aglaise ex Abercromby en route from Seychelles to Mauritius with a cargo of 132 Madagascan slaves. It has brought-in the ship to St Denis, Bourbon (Reunion). Seventy of the slaves had been chained by the legs to a long chain and 22 of them had injured ankles. They were found in a deck of 3 feet in height, each seated between the legs of the next.

The ship belongs to Salmon, a Company lawyer, who has obtained the grant of one of the Seychelles group of islands which he uses to warehouse slaves prior to shipping them to Reunion. Whilst in Salmon’s depot, the slaves are taught a few words of Creole French in order that they might more easily pass for old slaves and evade the new British regulations against slavery (Farquhar is preventing replacement of slaves in the Mauritian farms to encourage the planters to employ freemen, but Reunion continues its old style economy).

Capt Suzor of the Aglaise says there is a group of Company employees involved in the supply of slaves to Bourbon.

Sat 4th March 1815

R Thornton, the Company’s Chairman, has resigned and fled from England. He is said to have speculated in the funds and made great losses. Inglis resigned as Chairman very recently but his reasons were not published.

Sat 4th March 1815

General Ochterlony’s army is in difficulty. After two months of war, they have penetrated about 12 miles into Nepalese territory. The mountainous terrain slows the movement of artillery on which we imperatively rely for superiority. The Ghurkhas are absolute masters of mountain warfare – they make their trenches so deep, our shot is ineffective.

Major General Martindell’s army is also stopped at Nahun awaiting for reinforcements.

General Marley’s army is at Baraghuree, confronted by a considerable number of Ghurkhas.

The Nepalese created a diversion at Tirhoot where they made a sudden descent, plundered many villages and withdrew.

The Company is sending regiments from the Madras and Bombay armies to prevent our invasion stalling.26

Sat 11th March 1815

Nepal War – we have collected and incorporated a corps of 3,000 irregular troops who were all formerly farmers in the districts seized by the Ghurkhas. We are deploying these men behind Ghurkha lines to disrupt their communications. They appear to have been instantly effective and several Ghurkha posts have been abandoned for want of provisions.

We are having great success against Ghurkha positions with the new Shrapnel shells.

Tues 14th March 1815 Extraordinary

The Board of Control has approved a number of Company pensions that had been left pending Charter renewal - £5,000 a year for life to Lord Wellesley; £4,000 a year for life to Warren Hastings; £20,000 to the Estate of the late Lord Melville, etc.

Sat 18th March 1815

Ceylon Government Gazette, 17th Feb - We have sent a retributive force to invade Kandy and liberate those ‘long-suffering’ people. We have published a Proclamation to the people of Kandy:

“Some people of Malabar, both Hindu and Muslim, have protested against our rule.27 The Company has a list of names of the dissenters. These people have become subjects of the King of England and the Company. So long as they are tranquil we will protect them. As British subjects they have duties towards us. If they oppose us they are not only our enemy but are traitors, subject to legal punishment. Submit to our government and you will not be hurt.”

Our war aim is the liberation of the Ceylonese people. We cannot negotiate with the King because he might kill our messengers – we have to fight him.

We captured the King with two of his wives at Dombera. We have also caught his mother and 36 other female relatives together with an immense amount of treasure. D’Oyly is an old resident of Kandy and has agreed to represent the Company in negotiations with the King’s previous minister.

We now proclaim the end of the Kingdom of Kandy. All the chiefs of the surrounding hill country have come to us and submitted. Those lands are subsumed into the British Empire and the residents are now British subjects.

We thank God for a successful invasion of Kandy and for securing the entire country to us in forty days without any loss to the Company’s army. The oppression of the old government is at an end. Ceylonese trade and prosperity will increase. Most prisoners-of-war will be released.

Sat 25th March 1815

The Company’s army units serving with the Persian army are leaving Teheran on their return to India. They will march via Shiraz to Bushire for the sea passage back. We plan to release Mohamed Nubba Khan from prison in Shiraz on the way and bring him back here. He was the ambassador who visited India recently and was Minister to the Prince of Fars.

We like him and cultivated his friendship as a rare contact with a powerful officer in the Persian government. The presents he took from here and his money, jewelry, horses and slaves have all been confiscated by the Prince to settle government debts in Fars. Even his harem was entered and his wives’ jewelry seized. He was kept in prison while the Prince checked that all his valuable possessions had been surrendered. Khan feared that after that time he would be killed and, the suspicions being valid, he bribed the guards with a large ruby and escaped to our Resident at Bushire who has given him British protection.

Khan told our Resident that the Prince of Fars has taken three times the debts of his province. As Nubba Khan is now indebted to us for his life he should become a useful contact in the Persian government.

Sat 25th March 1815

Our expedition to Nepal is suffering from cold. The main camp is under 6” of snow and some camp followers have died of exposure. Ochterlony is persevering in the west. Reinforcements from all over India are marching to Gorruckpore.

Sat 1st April 1815

On 2nd March, Governor Brownrigg of Ceylon met with the King of Kandy’s former minister (D’Oyly’s friend) and chiefs of the various dependencies of Kandy. A treaty has been agreed establishing the Company’s government at Kandy and the Union Jack was flown from the King’s palace for the first time.

We have proclaimed that the Malabari King Wikrame Rajah Singha has ruled unjustly and is deposed. He, his family and their posterity are forever excluded from the throne. All male members of his family are declared enemies of the Kandy government. They are banished and will be killed if they return.

The former rights, privileges and powers of the subsidiary chiefs (about twenty of them) are affirmed. The protection of persons and property is affirmed. The religion of the Kingdom is Buddhism. Local institutions will be respected and maintained. All forms of torture are outlawed. No chief may execute a sentence of death without the Company’s approval.

Subject to the preceding stipulations, the Chiefs may administer their lands as they chose. Molligodde is the (acting) first chief.

The terms of the treaty we have imposed were then read in Singhalese by Abraham de Saram.

Non-Kandian people are subject to the Company’s law. The British garrison is subject to army law, not civil law.

The revenue of the country will be collected for the people by the Company’s agents. The Governor undertakes to facilitate the trade of Kandy with the other British provinces of Ceylon.28

Sat 8th April 1815

D’Oyly has been appointed British government agent in the Kingdom of Kandy in recognition of his help in replacing the King.

A conference has settled the division of power and wealth amongst the district chiefs. Mampiteye Bandara is appointed ruler by their common consent. Kandy now comes under British administration.

Sat 8th April 1815

Northampton Mercury, 6th Aug 1814 – Russian expansion to the east has arrived at the Pacific coast. The north-east of Siberia is inhabited by a tribe called Chukchi. They have been in more or less continuous war with the Koryakes who people the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk. The Koryakes submitted to the Russian Commissioner Banner and now the Chukchi have done so as well.

They are both hunting tribes. They come to the Russian posts every year to trade their furs for tobacco, iron and other goods. Many of them have been baptised into the Orthodox Church. Russian expansion is now expected to cross the Bering Straits and enter northern Canada to link with the stations of the Russian American Company.

Sat 15th April 1815

W. Manning, the Chairman of the Bank of England, has written to Sir Charles Forbes, formerly a leading Bombay trader, on 4th Aug 1814 acknowledging receipt of £4,000 from the people of Bombay towards the relief of the Russian people. This acknowledgement results from Forbes’ public revelation to the House of Commons that he could find no-one to receive the donations.

Sat 15th April 1815

The Ghurkhas have been using poisoned arrows against our forces in the foothills. We never use poison, we use Shrapnel’s grenades - they are barbarians. The hilly nature of the country and the skilled use of stockades gives the Ghurkhas an equality with our superior technology. These people are short but strong.

Sat 15th April 1815

Governor Farquhar of Mauritius has written to the Edinburgh Review concerning an article the magazine published in issue No 41 on the slave trade:

“After we captured Mauritius, HMS Eclipse (Lynne) was sent to Tamatave on the Madagascan east coast and obtained the capitulation of Roux and his group of French settlers there. One of the terms of capitulation was our guarantee to protect all private property. Roux then declared to us that 868 Africans were the property of the French residents at Tamatave. We checked this and they seemed to have good documentary title. Later we advised all the French that we would withdraw our garrison from Tamatave and, to avoid the consequences of the hatred of the natives, the French should remove to Mauritius or Reunion. We gave them passports to do so. We did not expect them to ship slaves to the islands now they are under British administration.”

Sat 22nd April 1815

The Company has procured the Ship Letter Act from Parliament setting the postage rate from London to India at 6d per ounce. This is for the sea voyage – the inland postage is extra. The Company’s own internal letters continue to be carried free of charge. These changes take effect on 10th October 1814. The legislation was enacted adroitly on the last day of the parliamentary session and hardly anyone in the country was aware of it until the Post Office announcement.

The 6d rate applies to letters sent via the Post Office in one of the licensed private ships – their service is infrequent and irregular. If you deliver your letters to India House for postage they will be sent on an Indiaman at 13.2d per letter.

On 10th Oct, we (the Editor of the unidentified newspaper this is recited from) made a check of the numbers of letters accumulated at India House since the last ship (29th July) and there were approximately 50,000 letters there, representing 2½ months of private correspondence or say 20,000 a month. On the assumption they are all one ounce letters and include the inland postage then the ship charge of 6d per letter and the Captain’s 2d commission per bag makes the post office service to India worth over £1,000 a month. The Company’s service is much more expensive.

The London Agency Houses dealing in India goods belatedly petitioned the Treasury requesting a chance to present their case to the Commons before the Act became operative. No answer was received and the Act has now commenced.

Sat 22nd April 1815

Ochterlony has taken Taraghur. He managed to get a couple of 18-pounders up the hills to within 850 yards of the walls and fired off 700 rounds over the next two days with no appreciable effect. Next morning he saw the Ghurkha garrison had withdrawn in the night and he took possession of the place discovering the walls to be 17 foot thick masonry. We will have to build a road system through these hills if we are to deal with more forts like Taraghur and bring the Nepalese into submission.

Fortunately the effects of our pressure are beginning to be felt by the Nepalese. A steady trickle of deserters is coming-in to our camps. They report ill-usage by Umeer Singh. We are being nice to them in the hope they will tell their friends to stop fighting. So far about 200 have come over. Their action suggests a quicker and easier way of ending this war in a satisfactory manner.

Sat 22nd April 1815

Batavia, 7th April – there is a dearth of silver in this market. Last July and August we were selling opium at $2,300 a chest but now its down to $1,300 and selling only slowly. Coffee is $6.50 – 8.00 and pepper $9, both cash per picul.

Sat 6th May 1815

The five licensed free-trade ships direct from England to the Company’s domains are expected daily. They are Minerva (Richardson) and Ocean (Lindsay) for the sub-continent and Duke of Wellington, Semarang and Orpheus for India and Penang.

Sat 13th May 1815

Batavia – opium has risen to $1,500 a chest but there are few buyers owing to the dearth of silver. We are accepting Dutch Bills of Exchange at 40% discount for our sales. It will be very profitable eventually but ties up capital for long periods.

Sat 13th May 1815

Mahomed Ali Pasha, the Porte’s Viceroy of Egypt, has defeated the Wahabi army of Faisal bin Saud on 15th Feb 1815 at Turabah and killed 4,000 of them. Faisal is the brother of Abdullah bin Saud. The Turkish forces are advancing on the Wahabi stronghold and appear likely to soon extinguish this rebellion.


Sat 20th May 1815

The island of Bourbon (Reunion) has been returned to the French. It has no potential as a naval base for France and we did not want to be associated with its slave economy. Our Regiment of Bourbon is transferred to West Indies.

Sat 27th May 1815

The Company’s government of Ceylon is selling the prize goods captured in the latest invasion of Kandy. They will be publicly auctioned on 15th Sept. They comprise gold, silver and ivory items and bolts of cloth.

Sat 27th May 1815

The China fleet normally arrives in India from London at about this time of year but it is delayed. The crews protested at Gravesend against the reduction of wages that the ship owners unilaterally fixed on them due to peace with America and the declining freight rates. This delayed their departure.

Sat 27th May 1815

Ochterlony has reported from Futtighur that he has obtained a signal victory over Umeer Singh and his Ghurkhas. It was about 15th April. He sought to cut off Malown from the other nearby forts, this caused the Ghurkhas to sally-out and a general engagement ensued. Both sides had heavy losses but we captured several members of Umeer Singh’s family which makes it a victory.

Sat 27th May 1815

The Manila galleon this year is the San Fernando. She left San Blas on the Mexican west coast in January with $3 million in coin and bars. She was expected at Manila in late March. Two of the Company’s cruisers are at Manila but the Governor has prohibited the export of silver until the San Fernando arrives. We have 2,500 bales of piecegoods ready for sale at Manila. It equates with three year’s supply to that market.

Mon 5th June 1815 Extraordinary

Kemaun, 27th April – Colonel Nichols has captured Almora and agreed a Convention with the Nepalese for their evacuation from this province.

Sat 10th June 1815

Futtighur, 14th May – Ameer Singh Thappa has surrendered to us all the Ghurkha forts west of the Jumna. He is permitted to retain his arms and colours and retire across the Gogra into Nepalese territory. We managed to strike a few blows against him sufficient for his commanders to propose peace to him.

He pressed them to endure until the rains when the British army would be unable to operate in the hills. They were impatient and came-over to us straight away leaving Thappa with a few hundred men. He had no choice but to submit.

Sat 10th June 1815

London agents handling India trade have petitioned the ministry concerning the exclusion of American trade from British ports in Asia (as is rumoured to be a term of the Treaty of Ghent concluding the War of 1812). They fear this will benefit the French, Danes and Dutch who have settlements in India. The ministry agrees.

An Order-in-Council has been quickly drafted to accompany the Treaty across the Atlantic. This Order unilaterally accords MFN status to American trade in British Asian ports.

Sat 17th June 1815

The Ottoman Viceroy of Egypt and Arabia, Mohamed Ali, has succeeded in driving the Wahabis from Mecca and Medina and the Red Sea ports. The obstacles to trade, both by land and sea, that these followers of Saud caused have been removed. He has captured their great inland capital Turabah and entirely dispersed them. This campaign has lasted for two years. Ali will now return to his capital (Cairo).

Throughout these two years his government in Egypt has continued to function smoothly; tranquillity throughout the country has been maintained.

It’s a marked difference to the previous government of the Mamelukes. The Beys divided every 50 miles of the river Nile into fiefs for numerous Arab Sheikhs who were continually at war with each other. During those times the reigning Bey could seldom leave Cairo. Law & Order was maintained only along the river banks and inland was anarchy. Travellers were routinely stopped and robbed. It is now possible to cross the country unarmed in safety. Under the Mamelukes anyone in European dress was sure to be reviled; now our wealth assures us of offers of accommodation and transport.

Britain has just sent two huge hydraulic machines to Ali and some military engineers are installing them on the banks of the river. They are to improve the irrigation of the flood plain in the dry season. Its our gift to the Viceroy to keep his friendship.

Sat 17th June 1815

The Company has contracted with the Board of Ordnance in London to supply the entire British national requirement of saltpetre from India.

Saltpetre was a monopoly of the Company, and a banned substance for private shipment until the renewed Charter allowed its carriage to the free traders.

Under this agreement, the Company will engross most of the Indian supply contractually and continue to monopolise saltpetre to its own profit.

Sat 1st July 1815

Bombay 28th June – James Robert Reid is made a partner of John Leckie & Co.

Sat 8th July 1815

There was an interesting confrontation at Jiheend on 19th March when 1,200 Sikhs, whom we have hitherto considered the finest fighting men in India, were defeated by 400 Ghurkhas. The Nepalese came down to the Sikh positions in the night, waited for the moon to go down and assaulted the stockade, killing 250 of its 300 defenders whilst concurrently attacking the remaining Sikhs in their camp and firing it. Dawn revealed the Sikh survivors to be dispersed over 2-3 miles of country whilst the last of the Ghurkhas could be seen ascending the mountains with their loot.

Sat 8th July 1815

The King of Kandy is in ‘close confinement’ and his kingdom is now opened to us. Lt Malcolm and a party of Company soldiers have ascended Adam’s Peak. They used the route of the Caltura River valley to Talabula where they met many pilgrims. The monks tried to discourage Malcolm’s armed party from ascending further, averring the sanctity of the Peak, but they were ignored. Malcolm had to climb over two hills to get to the foothills of Adam’s Peak itself.

The summit of the Peak is surrounded by a stone parapet and in the middle is a large ironstone rock with the famous footprint of the Buddha on it. The footprint is protected under a small wooden roof. The party fired off a feu de joie of three volleys on arrival which shocked the Buddhist pilgrims.

Sat 15th July 1815

Bombay, 12th July – Capt Francis F Staunton is permitted to go to China for six months.

Sat 22nd July 1815

The Bombay merchants have asked the Governor to permit them to petition the House of Commons protesting the postage charged by the British government (using private ships) and Company (using its fleet) on their letters. A meeting of the British inhabitants is set for 27th July in the Court House.

The Madras merchants have already made their petition. They have voluminous correspondence with their Agents and constituents. They say they have all along been paying postage on their letters to/from England. The new additional charges are unreasonable. The captains of private ships have become reluctant to carry mail as the penalties in the new Law are onerous. This makes the provision of the government 6d service uncertain and difficult of performance.

Sat 12th Aug 1815

John Forbes Mitchell retired from the partnership of Bruce Fawcett & Co on 31st July.

Sat 12th Aug 1815

Nathaniel Edward Kindersley has retired from the London Agency House Porcher & Co of 9 Devonshire Square on 14th Feb. Joseph du Pre Porcher, Edward Fletcher and James Alexander continue the business in the same name.

Sat 26th Aug 1815

James Gathorne Remington, the precedent partner of Bruce Fawcett & Co, is returning to London on the Bombay. The Parsees gave him a splendid party at Lowjee Castle. The Governor and all the important Generals and merchants attended. Lt Alexander G Forbes of the Pioneers has got 3 years leave of absence from the Indian army and is going with him.

Sat 26th Aug 1815

A Portuguese ship has arrived at Calcutta from Pernambuco with a cargo of silver dollars. It should revitalise our trade. Specie was scarcely procurable since last December and could only be had by depositing government securities and paying a huge interest. Now its available at 7-8% p a. The discount on Bills has fallen by 10%.

Sat 2nd Sept 1815

James Dinwiddie Ll.D. has died at Islington. He was long a teacher at the Mathematical School in Dumfries, Scotland. He later lectured extensively on science whereby he came to the notice of Lord Macartney and was selected to join the Embassy to China. He was put in charge of the mathematical instruments that were taken as presents to the Emperor.

On his return from China he came to India and lectured on botany at the Fort William College. He accumulated a competence during his Asian tour and returned to Britain to enjoy his leisure.

Sat 30th Sept 1815

Smith Rickards & Co have opened in London as Agents for Indian trade. James Smith used to be with Forbes Smith & Co of Bombay; Robert Rickards was a Company servant in Bombay; William Bridgman is our London contact and John Forbes Mitchell has just left Bruce Fawcett & Co of Bombay to join us.

We have the support of John Forbes of Fitzroy Square and his nephew Charles Forbes MP, precedent partner of Forbes & Co of Bombay. We have offered a partnership to Charles Forbes at any time he likes to take it.

Thurs 26th Oct 1815 Extraordinary

The Bombay Governor has passed a new Revenue Regulation, No. 14, in conformity with instructions received from the Directors. Britain wishes to increase her exports. All ad valorem duties on British goods imported or Indian goods exported to/from Britain by Indiamen or private ships are modified.

British exports: All British woollen yarn and cloth and all British metals are to be imported here free of duty. All sorts of ships’ stores made in Britain 2½%; all European produce except alcohol 5%. Wines continue to pay the 1805 rate of duty.

British imports: indigo exporters get a drawback of the usual British duty which will be deducted from the Company’s production tax. So do exporters of wool, cotton, sunn29 and hemp. Exports of saltpetre will get a partial drawback on local taxes to reduce the effective British import duty to 2½%.

As regards the production of British-dependent states in India, the total duty payable on wool, cotton, etc., including transit dues and export duty may not exceed 5%.

Apart from these exceptions, the Company’s inland tax, transit tax and sayer tax30 continue to apply in British India.

All trade in foreign-registered ships continues to be taxed at the old rates.

Sat 28th Oct 1815

There is a Company bye-law that no person can become a Director unless he has resided in England for a continuous period of two years. Its one of the measures introduced sixty years ago to defeat Clive’s employee takeover.

John Lumsden will qualify in July 1816 after 36 years in the Bengal civil service. He served in the political, revenue, judicial and commercial departments of the Company and spent his last 7 years on the Supreme Council.

Mitchie Forbes is also seeking for a place on the Company’s Board. He spent 15 years in India, first in the revenue department at Madras then in private commerce in Bombay.

Sat 28th Oct 1815

The American ships Triumph, Unity, Galatea and Sydney have arrived at Calcutta with 600,000 Rupees worth of silver for trade.

Sat 4th Nov 1815

The Mowrah Distillery is discontinued from 30th Nov. The indulgence to Parsees to distil their own spirits is also discontinued. Tenders are invited for the operation of ten stills for one year. Mowrah spirits will attract duty of 50% on the prime cost of the article. The stills belong to Cursetjee Monackjee who requires to be paid a rent of 553 Rupees per month by the successful tenderer.

The successful bidder will pay the Bombay Collector on 1st of each month.

Sat 18th Nov 1815

The British parliament has empowered the Company to remove from its monopoly trading area any persons, not being British or Indian citizens, who do not have the consent of the Company to their residence. Such people are to be served with a notice of expulsion. If they fail to leave promptly, they may be brought before an appropriate civil or criminal court and, on the evidence of any credible witness that they are aliens and have been served with the notice, they are to be remanded in custody and returned to their supposed place of origin. Appellants have 20 days to give notice of appeals and their cause lapses after three years.

Sat 25th Nov 1815

The Calcutta merchants are planning to reduce the acreage under indigo in Bengal. Indigo production is also undertaken on the coast but that is supposed to be quite limited and is not involved in these plans. It appears the great Agencies are concerned that the end of the war will cause the resurrection of the Spanish supply which was formerly preferred in Britain. Even without Spanish competition, we are producing too much indigo ourselves.

Prior to 1814 Bengal produced 74,000 Maunds annually which was considerably more than Europe requires. This had been apparent by the increasing stock levels in the Company’s London warehouses. In 1814 all the Bengal factories increased their acreage and production last year was 102,524 Maunds. The increase has continued and the estimated crop this year will be at least 120,000 Maunds although there is no corresponding increase in consumption. In 1814 the European market was again re-opened to British trade but the extra sales were only 15,500 Maunds while the imports from India in the same period inevitably and considerably exceeded the extra sales. Prices at the Company’s London sales have fallen and in May 1815 were 50% below the prices of May 1814.

The difficulty with indigo in India is the same as with sugar in West Indies. The trade requires an investment in processing equipment which is unique to indigo and cannot be adapted for any other known use. The farmer investing in indigo production is thus induced to fight for his share without reducing his production – a price war ensues, bankruptcies result and only the richest survive.

The Calcutta merchants are offering loans to indigo farmers as an inducement to them to withdraw from the business. The fund will come from the farmers themselves who are invited to pay 5% of their gross annual produce into it. The Agency Houses themselves will contribute a fifth of their annual commission on indigo sales. The compensation offered will be 80% of the appraised value of production of the farm. All the farms surrendering in this way will cease planting indigo.

The value of indigo farms that are expected to be abandoned is estimated at 18 million Rupees and they produce 16,000 Maunds of indigo a year. It will take the fund 3½ years to pay-off this number of farms. The organisers hope that the remaining indigo farmers will recognise the trend of events and decrease their acreage voluntarily. The organisers have assessed the highest predictable demand for our indigo in Europe at 75,000 Maunds which requires the elimination of at least a quarter of present production. They want a legislative proscription on new or revived factories.

Sat 2nd Dec 1815

Four local employees of the Bombay Collector have been convicted without trial of embezzlement of the Company’s revenue. An advertisement in the newspaper says they are dismissed and no Company formation may employ them again.

Sat 2nd Dec 1815

R Smith MP has moved in the House of Commons on 13th June that we retain Banca for its tin mines and give Cochin or some other equivalent to the Dutch. This proposal is intended to form part of the arrangements we are making with the House of Orange to subsidise their re-establishment. The £1 million cash paid in compensation already is just for the Cape and Demerara.

Thurs 28th Dec 1815 Extraordinary

Restatement of the Housing Rate:

A tax on houses erected on the Island of Bombay was enacted on 6th Sept 1815 to finance the costs of policing the Presidency and cleaning/ maintaining the streets. All Houses of Worship and temporary structures are exempt. All houses will be assessed for their rental value and 5% of that assessment is payable annually as tax. Bonded collectors will be employed to collect it and will be paid salaries instead of a percentage of the take. There is provision for the seizure and sale of the goods and chattels of any delinquents.

1816 - Whole year's newspapers missing.


1817 - Whole year's newspapers missing


During the last two years, which papers are missing in the British Library copy, the volume of shipping in Indian ports has immensely increased and the destinations of voyages have become more varied. It’s the peace dividend and the result of political initiatives in London. There are now ships departing for Greenock, Liverpool and other British outports as well as Danish and other European and American ships leaving for ports in their home countries.

Regrettably the absence of papers for these two years means all details of the proceedings at Vienna that have so far been settled for the future shape of Europe are unavailable.

Sat 3rd Jan 1818

Non-Company opium imported to Bombay Presidency will pay a duty of 12 Rupees per Surat Seer (c. 2 lbs). Smuggled opium will be confiscated and disposed of - two thirds to the Company and one third to the informer.

(This Notice is published in English only. It is targeted at the Maratha supply of opium from Malwa)

Sat 3rd Jan 1818

Hutton & Co has opened an Agency House at Calcutta. We co-operate with Forbes & Co of Bombay and Smith Rickards & Co of London. Our partners are Thomas Hutton formerly of Hutton & Forbes of Penang and Thomas Allport formerly of Forbes & Co Bombay. The Company’s Indian agent is Nowrojee Sorabjee.

Sat 3rd Jan 1818

Sir John Malcolm is at Ujjain negotiating with Holkar. Holkar’s army totals about 11,000 cavalry (Mahratta Horse) and a similar number of infantry. The Madras army obtained a signal victory over Holkar on 21st Dec. A quarter of our engaged force was killed or wounded but we won eventually.

The Rajah of Berar has been captured by a British force near Nagpore and his troops have dispersed. There remains only a corps of 3,000 Arabs in his palace, armed with matchlocks, who agree to withdraw once they are paid their arrears of wages.

We have negotiated peace with Sindhia at Gwalior. The Treaty we made with him on 5th Nov 1817 refers to the Pindaris whose activities have spread throughout India. It obliges both parties to fight and disperse Pindari units wherever they are found and capture their leaders for prosecution by the Company. As Pindaris are removed from the lands they have usurped, the territory will be returned to its former owner. If the previous owner cannot be found, title passes to Sindhia.

A British officer will be seconded to each of Sindhia’s army units. To fund the army, Sindhia agrees to renounce the money the Company pays him, his family and ministers and apply it to military costs, to be disbursed by the seconded British officers.

Sindhia also renounces for two years the tribute he receives from Jodpore, Boondee and Kotah. He engages to prohibit his officers from recruiting Pindaris into their ranks. The Company agrees not to interfere in Sindhia’s dependencies of Malwa or Gujerat. On conclusion of the war on the Pindaris, the Company undertakes to extensively increase Sindhia’s domains.

The Company assessed this treaty as progressive although there are doubts whether Sindhia can perform all his undertakings against the other Mahrattas. Nevertheless, if we can keep him docile while we deal with Holkar and the Rajah of Berar, it will be worthwhile.

The Marquis of Hastings (Moira) and CiC of the Company’s army, is at Sikundra near the Jumna, with 10,000 men.31

Sat 10th Jan 1818

The Grand Jury selected for Sessions of the Bombay Court now has half its members supplied by Captains from the Company’s army. Many cases involve drunkenness and violence by soldiers from the European regiments.

Sat 10th Jan 1818

Letter to the Editor, 8th Jan – I left India a few years ago and have just returned. While I was away peace returned to the World and a free trade was established from Britain to India. The effects of peace were apparent in England from the great reduction in the costs of everything. Before I left India the costs of British goods sold here had increased greatly due, it was said, to the war. Common necessaries were sold at a 50% increase on the sale price of the ships’ officers who imported the goods. Now there is peace and trade is flourishing and free, I assumed the prices would have declined, at least to their former levels, as they have in England.

In fact, they have increased in India even more. It appears the competitive mechanism that assures low prices in England does not operate in India in spite of a supposedly free trade.

The ships’ officers are suffering from free-trade competition and occasionally sell their goods at cost or even less, but local retail prices continue to increase. Privileged tonnage is sold in two ways – either the officers sell outright to the local merchant who assumes title and sells for his own benefit; or the officers supply their imports to the merchant on commission basis whereby the shop-keeper pays for the goods and takes his commission as he makes sales.

There are two related factors that should be considered. Firstly, under the Company’s monopoly the cost of freight was enormous but now it has become a trifling amount; secondly, the population of Europeans in India, who comprise the market for these imports, has steadily increased year after year.

It appears the British merchants of India are frustrating the natural tendency of the market by operating cartels. Sgd Anon.

Sat 17th Jan 1818

Letter to the Editor – Anon’s letter deserves a reply. The ships’ officers only bring the finest British goods to the Indian market – Gibson’s saddles, Hoby’s boots, Bicknell’s hats, Smyth’s perfumes and all those other suppliers who sell their goods at the highest prices on their assertion of superior quality. These famous suppliers command high prices. Until consumers become willing to shop around and buy competing goods which are available here at lower prices but are not so prestigious, they will continue to pay high prices.

Had Anon been a wine drinker he would know that port, brandy and claret are cheaper here than England because they avoid the high British import duties.

The things that makes imports expensive in India are the enormous rents required for shop properties and the cost and number of servants who all live in the European style here.

Our Bombay shop-keepers do not buy direct from England because it ties-up their capital for a year when they have other uses for it. If the order costs £12,000 that is $1,080 in interest per year that is lost and must be recovered from buyers. This is another reason why British goods are expensive here.

The shipping agents who act for the ships’ officers in placing goods on commission with local shop-keepers always requires 35% of the CIF cost of goods as his commission. He says some beers and wines have short shelf-lives and arrive in unmarketable condition. He has to protect himself.

It is also true that the shop-keepers themselves choose to deal in the prestigious goods that this market prefers and this discourages the shipping agents from asking the officers to buy cheaper less-famous brands.

When the first ships from England arrive in May there is always a strong demand for the goods of their officers and those chaps cannily hold-out for high prices. The value of May deliveries from the officers of Indiamen is commonly £80,000. In Oct the Extra ships arrive with about £20,000 more goods. By that time the May delivery has been sold.

Last year the traders got 35-40% advance on their imports in spite of the activities of free traders. However goods sent to the bazaar – iron, steel, lead etc – sold at a 25% increase over cost. Formerly bazaar investments were worth 60-70% profit to the officers. This is because the free trade is not competing with the prestigious goods of the ship’s officers but has focused on metals and similar items. Should the consumers in the Indian market change their preference from prestige goods to unbranded goods, there will be a dramatic fall in retail prices. If there is any skulduggery going on, it does not involve local shop-keepers.

Sgd a Bombay Shop-keeper.

(and another long and similar letter in the same edition)

Sat 17th Jan 1818

Isaac Morier, the Company’s Resident at Constantinople has died.

Sat 24th Jan 1818

Holkar has made peace with us and agreed treaty terms on 6th Jan. Malcolm negotiated for the Company. Holkar accepts our protection and will live at Rampura or Mindpura under a small British force. He concedes to the Company his right to negotiate with his neighbouring states. He may make no alliances without Company approval. He accepts a British Resident at his court who will supervise him. He will employ no Europeans or Americans without Company approval.

The tribute and revenue paid to him by the Rajputs (of Oudipure, Jaipore, Jodpore, Kotah, Boondee, etc) will be forwarded to the Company. He has ceded some land to us. He will discharge all his army except 3,000 horse who must co-operate with the Company. He expressly repudiates the supremacy of the Peshwa over him. He agrees to co-operate with us against freebooters. The Company undertakes not to interfere with his family or subjects.

Sat 24th Jan 1818

The Peshwa attacked Mountstuart Elphinstone, the British Resident, and his small guard on 6th Nov at his court in Poona. Elphinstone had no cavalry and only one European battalion and three native battalions but he successfully beat-off the Peshwa’s men.

The Company had formerly suspected the Peshwa was the guiding hand directing the combined forces of the Mahrattas against it and Elphinstone made a pre-emptive attack, before the Peshwa could better defend himself. This led to his signature on the Treaty of 18th June 1817 ceding large tracts of territory to the Company, several forts and his acceptance of a Company Resident at his Court.

This act of Elphinstone was applauded throughout British India but caused the Peshwa to feel resentment.

The Peshwa’s attack ensued on 6th Nov near Poona in which 2,800 Company troops defeated the Peshwa’s army of 25,000 and secured his submission. The Directors are satisfied and have offered Elphinstone the Governorship of Bombay.

Sat 24th Jan 1818

The East India Ship-Owners Bill had its third reading on 4th July 1817.

A former Act of Parliament caused competition amongst ship owners wishing to charter their ships to the Company. In one year the Company experienced a reduction of charter hire of £138,000 due to the gradual inroads made by private ship-owners into the Company’s market.

Last year, to ensure they got the business, the Company’s shipping interest (a related party of Shareholders and/or Directors) quoted a very low price and they have made losses. This Bill is moved to permit the Company to pay the ship owners more than it contracted to. It will enable them to recover their profitability.

Grant said building ships had become more expensive. The Bill was passed.

Sat 14th Feb 1818

Advertisement - The Company seeks for silver for the reduction of its debt. The Treasury is open to accept silver either for 12-month Bills on London at 2/6d to the Bombay Rupee at ¾% per month interest or at 5% per year if held locally.

Sat 14th Feb 1818

Parry has rejoined the Madras partnership of Pugh & Breithaupt on 1st Jan which will henceforth be known as M/s Parry Pugh & Breithaupt.

Sat 14th Feb 1818

The Wahabis are again being chased around Arabia by Ibrahim, the Pasha of Egypt & Arabia, and by Autumn last year had been forced back into their stronghold – the fortified town of Deriah (now Riyadh). Abdullah bin Saud’s latest rebellion appears to be on the verge of failure.

Saudi followers are still strong at sea - they have a fleet of 25 dhows and 15 battillas that act like privateers in the Gulf. They have just captured five large cargo ships at Assetto.

Meanwhile our friend Jaffir Ali Khan, who came as Persian ambassador to British India, has died at Shiraz on 2nd Dec. He was the son of Hussain Ali Khan, the famous Nawab of Masulipatam.

Sat 14th Feb 1818

The Rajah of Jodpore has submitted to us. He signed a treaty with us on 6th Jan. No details are yet available.

Sat 14th Feb 1818

One of the family of the ex-King of Kandy (‘the Malabar usurper’ in the newspaper) has returned to the highlands and has successfully politicised the residents thereabouts to revolt. Our army is acting against him but the terrain is unsuitable for artillery and he moves more quickly than we can. Some of the rebels are offering submission if we exempt them from execution or banishment.

Sat 14th Feb 1818

Governor-General’s General Orders for 9th Dec – the war with the Pindari outlaws is peculiarly widespread. They seem to have a multitude of separate cavalry units that pop-up all over India. To encourage the troops to better efforts, the Governor-General allows units taking prizes to monopolise the value i.e. the army will not receive the prize money as a whole but it will be disbursed to individual companies in respect of their own conquests. However, all captured horses, that conform with the Company’s requirements as to size etc., will be taken into Company service and unit commanders will immediately pay prize money for them to the captors.

Sat 21st Feb 1818

Letter from the Company Directors, 3rd July 1817 – the proprietor of a new newspaper ‘Spirit of the Times’ has our permission to send his newspaper throughout India free of postal charges for six months. He’s a friend.

Sat 21st Feb 1818

Kurreem, the Pindari chief at Poona, died recently and his son Namdar Khan assumed the leadership and immediately sent in his surrender to Colonel Adams.

Sat 21st Feb 1818

Notice 7th Jan - Madras has stopped minting the Star Pagoda, fanams and cash. The former currency is replaced by the silver Rupee of 165 grams silver plus 15 grams of alloy. This brings Madras into line with the other Presidencies. As Madras has the huge Kolar gold mines within its Presidency, it will continue to mint gold coins but they will in future be valued in Rupees.

Sat 21st Feb 1818

The Directors have announced the end of their 5% bonds wef 31st March 1818 from which date the bonds will earn 4%. Take your original bonds to the Company for alteration before 20th Feb. If you fail to do so, we assume you are selling and you will be paid-off on 31st March.

Sat 21st Feb 1818

Calcutta is selling 6-month Bills on London at 2/6 per Sicca Rupee or 3-month Bills at 2/5½d.

Sat 21st Feb 1818

The opium auction last Sat 14th at Calcutta attracted good prices of 2,200 up to 2,630 Rupees per chest (c. $1,100 – $1,300).

Sat 21st Feb 1818

The Bank of Bengal continues to be highly profitable. It has just announced its 18th half-year dividend of 12½%, the highest pay-out in ten years of trading.

Sat 21st Feb 1818

An interesting claim has been heard in the London Court of Chancery arising out of the debts of the Nabob of the Carnatic. He borrowed 5,000 Pagodas from Peter Davison in 1797 and gave his bond to pay 12% annual interest until repayment. Davison sold the bond to Cassel who sold it to Masery who sold half of it to Lancer on the latter’s return to England.

Lancer obtained the agreement of Balfour, the Madras-based defendant to this action, to send the interest to him in London. Balfour said he could pay only 3% interest, as a British Court of Equity would never approve a 12% interest rate which is statutorily illegal in that country. Balfour said he had nothing to do with the original deal with the Nabob whereby the Company had obtained title to his lands and appointed Commissioners to assess his debts for payment by the Company. He obtained title to disburse interest on the bond at a latter time and he would apply the Commissioners’ usual interest rate to this bond that they had applied to the Nabob’s other unpaid bonds – that was 3%.

The plaintiffs, Raithby and others, claimed the principal of 2,500 Pagodas and interest of 12% since 1797. The Lord Chancellor gave them their claim in full but declined to make an order for costs saying he had given enough already.

Thurs 26th Feb 1818 Extraordinary

General Smith has beaten Gokla’s forces at Ashna on 22nd Jan. We killed Gokla and bought his body into camp and burned it. We also captured the Rajah of Sattara and his family. The Peshwa was there but escaped. We expect the rebellion in the Deccan to soon come to an end.32

Sat 14th March 1818

The Americans are all over Asia and providing their usual diversified services. There is a huge advertisement in this edition for passengers on the coppered 600 ton Horatio (Bunker) sailing from Bombay for Mauritius and New York. Contact the Bombay Agent , Nowrojee Nasserwanjee.

Sat 28th March 1818

The Directors have sent an explanatory note to the Governor-General concerning the effect of two recent enactments - 53rd George III Cap 155 and 57th George III Cap 95. These are applicable to European and American shipping and should not be enforced on the existing Arab trade with Ceylon and India.

Sat 28th March 1818

Elphinstone, our Resident at Poona, held a durbar at which the shastris accepted his presents, an indication of their submission to our rule and repudiation of the Peshwa’s former rule. This is a great advance in our position in the Deccan and will irritate Bajee Rao and the remaining groups that oppose us.

Most of the Indian Muslims have abandoned the struggle with us and the Peshwa himself can rely on only 3,000 – 4,000 Arab soldiers.

Sat 28th March 1818

Mullah Firoz bin Kaus, the chief priest of the Parsees at Bombay, has a copy of the old Desatir – a long-lost collection of the writings of 15 ancient Persian prophets commencing from the time of Heraclitus to the time of Zoroaster (Zerdusht) and beyond to the fifth Sasan. It is considered to be the revelation of God. The language of the Desatir is not Zend, Pahlevi or Deri and has often baffled our scholars.

The Bombay Parsees obtained their copy from Isfahan about 44 years ago and use it to establish a calendar to fix their festivals and holy days.

The last known reference to the book was by the Parsee Behram Ferhad at the time of Emperor Akbar’s reign. An English translation has been made by Firoz and will be published by subscription shortly.

The Bombay Governor has undertaken to buy 100 copies and the other subscribers are thoroughly international – it seems to have evoked widespread interest. It will be published in two volumes at 35 Rupees.

Sat 28th March 1818

E Gardner, our Resident at Kathmandu, has sent an interesting specimen to the Asiatic Society and another to Dr Wallach of the Botanical Gardens at Sibpur. It is Daphne Cannabina (known as Lokta in India – it is later identified as Daphne Papyracea) from which excellent paper may be made.

Sat 4th April 1818

4 British merchants have left Penang for Aceh where they propose to establish business. The King of Aceh has been fighting a civil war for 35 years and few people are interested to invest in his country whilst he is in charge.

The new investors are bringing the son of Syed Hassan of Penang, a successful Arab-Malay businessman, as pretender to the throne and, if they can successful enthrone him, stand to profit substantially from their support.

Sat 4th April 1818

The British government has permitted direct trade between India and the Mediterranean, a trade that was formerly monopolised by the Americans. During the war, they developed markets for sugar, coffee, nankeens, pepper and cassia lignea (Kwai Peh in Cantonese – an inexpensive type of cinnamon) at both Gibraltar and Malta. Gibraltar is a free port and does not even have a Customs House let alone Customs duties.

Formerly British trade in India-goods to the Mediterranean was done via London but was too expensive. Sugar is always sellable in the Levant provided it is dry and only lightly-coloured. Pepper sells well throughout the Mediterranean and rice is popular in Spain.

The Company has appointed Wm Cozins & Co of Gibraltar as its Agent . This is the Gibraltar branch of the AngloSpanish trading house Coles Cozins & Co of London.

Sat 11th April 1818

Our cotton trade seems to have fallen prey to speculators. The Mirzapur Bazaar prices have risen greatly. Banda, Kutchura, Furneal, Hatrass and Dass qualities are all more expensive. This is a trade staple in which we compete with the American slave-grown supply and price is fundamentally important. Fortunately, the stock at Mirzapore is increasing, suggesting sales are slow and the market is resisting the speculative attempt.

Stock is now 160,000 Mirzapore maunds (c. 15 million pounds). It appears it was the Company’s army that had a role in the sting by commandeering the wagons used to transport cotton from the farms to the river. This gave the speculators grounds to anticipate a quick profit. They overlooked that sales at Canton have been slow – the merchants in China report stock-on-hand of 78,000 bales (23.5 million pounds). Now the war in the Concan and Deccan is coming to an end transport to the river will again become possible and we hope to see a reduction of price.

Sat 11th April 1818

Malthus, a teacher at the Company’s academy at Haileybury, identifies an irrational cause to British territorial greatness. When England was expelled from France, we found America; when we were expelled from America we found India. Malthus concludes from these examples that there is ‘an unknown force’ that maintains our sources of revenue.33

It is like the story of Vishnu assuming human form and requesting a grant of land the size of an arrow’s flight. When the request was granted, he shot his arrow the length of the sub-continent. In the same way, our handful of buildings in a few coastal ports has been transmuted into command of the entire country.

India is not a British colony; the Company administers it directly. Every year 30-40 young writers are sent out to learn and assume the task of government. This is not a casual selection. They are sons (or the sons of friends) of Directors who have an inside knowledge of India and an interest in its development. They are inspired, persevering and diligent chaps who decorate our administration. There is no irruption of low-born merit into India, indeed the unrestricted access of Englishmen to India would be disastrous for the natives. The ministry would like to get control of our Indian government and we pay an enormous tax to placate them. Indian patronage is the perquisite of a privileged few and we must make extraordinary endeavours to ensure that those we send out are properly qualified.

Our early administration was by a handful of Englishmen working through local officers. In 1765 we got Bengal etc., and had to consider the administration of justice on the Bengalis. At first we concerned ourselves with criminal justice but abuses in the native courts required we assume the civil jurisdiction too and that occurred about 1790. The early English adventurers to India were a venal acquisitive lot who predated on the land and the greater their numbers, the poorer the country became. Then the French Revolution unleashed a torrent of democratic criticism with harrowing descriptions of Indian conditions.

The first ministerial attempt to take a share was 10 years after Clive obtained Bengal (7th George III Cap 57) and was solely to get some of the revenue. The restraint on English people coming to India tended to ensure that those who came did not intend to reside here long – they came for the money and for the prospect of returning to England with wealth and consequent prestige. Some few recognised the harshness of our rule and tried to ameliorate India’s burden and this reached its zenith with the administration of Cornwallis who promoted on merit (only the civil officers; the army continued to be promoted on seniority). Later Wellesley commenced the College at Fort William which has become a repository of Asian philosophy and English principles. His purpose was to remedy the deficiencies of the civil service by spreading an understanding of Indian languages, customs and philosophy. It had appeared at that time that the civil service, with a few exceptions, was a collection of commercial agents – travelling salesmen on elephants. Nowadays the names of the ranks of civil servants – writers, factors and merchants – are no longer exclusively commercial. Most of the Company’s servants are now employed collecting revenue, settling disputes and maintaining order – they need no commercial knowledge at all. Adam Smith’s charge that the Company forgot its sovereignty in its pursuit of commerce is not maintainable in the 19th century.

The events of the last twenty years in Europe have shown us that a nation can combine towering success in arms overseas with oppression and impoverishment at home. Political aggrandisement may be bought by expending private happiness – suffering is splendid, we are ‘doing our bit’. War and Treaties are the foreign trade of glory which, like the foreign trade in wealth, has become pre-eminent in our political purposes.

Three year’s attendance at Haileybury was required of all officials appointed to the Bengal civil service. This venture was hardly welcomed by the Directors who suspended it and, on protests being made, revived it as a language school. For the other qualifications, they opined that England was the proper place to acquire them. The Board of Control took the part of the Directors but, as Wellesley was powerful at the time, the ministry struck out most of the Directors’ complaints, leaving only the complaint of cost. Etc

(the complete article continues over several pages of newspaper)

Sat 18th April 1818

Notice, 3rd June 1814 Republished – the Governor requires a daily report of the names and descriptions of all Europeans and Americans arriving at or departing from Bombay. Officers of the Company’s army and the British army are exempt. All persons arriving or intending to depart will report to the Town Mayor in the fort. Arrivals will also provide their local address. This applies to people ordinarily resident in Bombay, Salsette, Caranja and Elephanta. Any European found without a Bombay passport will be arrested. A reward of 10 Rupees will be paid to informers who report vagrant Europeans.

Sat 18th April 1818

Ellepolla, the native at Kandy who is leading the local chiefs in their rebellion against our rule, has been revealed to be the secret assistant of the ex-King. He fled before we could arrest him but his lands and treasure have been confiscated and he is publicly proclaimed a traitor by the Company. He has forfeited the Company’s protection and may be killed on sight. A reward of 1,000 Rupees is payable to whoever brings him in.

We have difficulty with the Kandian rebels as they remain in the mountains where our form of artillery warfare is difficult to accomplish. We are able to subdue the Kandian populace by the presence of our army but, when our soldiers leave, the rebels reassert themselves.

Madras Presidency is sending reinforcements to Colombo in the transports Grant, Jessye, Minden, Pascoa and Perseverance. They will be based in the new barracks on Slave Island.

Latest news from Colombo says Ellepolla may not be a relative of the ex-King but a former Buddhist monk who is a protégé of Kepittipola, the ruler of Ouva. There are two other Kandian chiefs supporting Kepittipola’s insurrection and we are offering 1,000 Pagodas for the arrest of each of them. We are offering a tariff of rewards starting at $500 Rix for an ordinary official up to the 1,000 gold Pagodas for a chief.

The difficulty is that the rebels have the support of the people. Indeed they are able to quickly assemble thousands of supporters in almost every part of the country. Fortunately they are not skilled in war and use spears and arrows to fight against us. Only a few of our chaps have been hurt. The people of the rich provinces like Kornegalle provide our opportunity – they have much to lose and are unwilling to risk all. Our troubles are in the more marginal provinces where everyone is poor.

Sat 25th April 1818

The port of Calcutta has published a list of ships on its registry as of Jan 1818. There are 165 ships totalling 58,000 tons and they employ 1,000 Europeans and 7,000 natives.

Sat 9th May 1818

The Governor of Madras has transferred the sovereignty of the former Dutch possessions to J A van Braam, the Dutch King’s authorised representative, in a ceremony on 31st March 1818. We have continued our government of Java etc., while the Dutch resolved their domestic problems but now they are ready to receive back their colonies.

Sat 9th May 1818

The costs of the extensive war with the Mahrattas has reduced the Company’s revenue sufficiently for the Governor-General to authorise a new loan.

On 4th April he called upon the community to subscribe in sums of 1,000 Rupees or more (970 Sicca Rupees). There is a 3% discount on purchase and 10% interest is payable up to 30th June 1819 when the new notes will be merged into the 6% loan. It will be popular with employees for a year and bridge the Company’s shortfall in revenue.

The Company employs Commissioners at Calcutta to buy its own stock and manage the price as Pitt has shown it to be effective. Its also called a Sinking Fund.

Sat 16th May 1818

Bombay, 16th May - James Ritchie and John Robert Steuart have admitted James Finlay & Co of Glasgow and H J & R Barton of Manchester into the partnership. The firm continues in the style Ritchie Steuart & Co.

Sat 23rd May 1818

Ibrahim, the Pasha of Egypt and Arabia, has besieged Deriah, the stronghold of the Wahabis in Arabia and Abdullah bin Saud has reportedly fled.

Sat 23rd May 1818

The latest war in the Deccan is over and the army is being disbanded. Elphinstone is appointed British Commissioner to apportion the lands taken from the Peshwa. James Grant is appointed Political Agent to the Rajah of Satarrah. Henry Pottinger is made Collector at Ahmedabad and Henry Robertson has the same job at Poona.

A new road is to be built connecting Bombay with Poona reducing the distance by 18 miles. The old road via Panwell will be abandoned.

Sat 23rd May 1818

The Dutch factory at Surat is re-opened by B C Verploegh as deputy to van Braam. Baron J C G van Albedyell is to manage the factory – ship’s captains are advised he is to receive the same honours as a British chief.

Sat 6th June 1818

The government bank has announced that interest on late payments due to Madras government will in future be 10% per annum.

Sat 13th June 1818

Lt General Floyd, Colonel of the 8th dragoons, has died in London of gout of the stomach. His regiment, being based in India, is one of the most lucrative in the gift of the King. It is conferred on Lord Edward Somerset.

Sat 20th June 1818

Now John Williams, the Collector of Salsette & Caranja, has died, the island is transferred to the Northern Concan district and will be administered by Marriot at Tannah.

Sat 27th June 1818

Government Gazette, 4th June - During May 4,495,635 Rupees of silver were imported to Calcutta.

Sat 27th June 1818

Sir Thomas Raffles has arrived at Bencoolen to take up his new job as Governor. He has been travelling through the interior of Sumatra and is well-informed of its commercial potential.

Sat 27th June 1818

The Rajah of Nagpore has escaped from us. We caught him but he swapped clothes with a sepoy and marched out of our camp unnoticed. He has gone to Hurree Fort where he has 4,000 troops armed with matchlocks.

We are not too worried about his escape as we have reduced most of the Mahratta forts but the assistance he received from our sepoys is a matter for concern.

Sat 4th July 1818

The Company’s Financial Department is inviting sealed bids to operate the Bombay mint. Details from the assay-master at the mint. Submit bids on 22nd July.

Sat 4th July 1818

Major Jardine’s detachment has occupied Nandurbar on the Malwa border. It is sited on the Tapti River a hundred miles upstream from Surat.

Sat 4th July 1818

The Company wishes to possess the Danish colonies in India – Tranquebar etc. Denmark is willing to exchange them for Puerto Rico but it is unclear if Ferdinand will agree (Puerto Rico is nominally Spanish).

The British government, on behalf of the Company, has offered Denmark £4 millions for the Indian ports. Negotiations continue.

Sat 11th July 1818

Indian Gazette, 15th June - Capt Briggs, who has been on a diplomatic mission to the Deccan for the Governor-General, has acquired the late Peshwa’s treasure. It amounts to £½ million.

Sat 11th July 1818

Hume, the Company shareholder and MP, has queried the Company’s Directors about high costs in Madras. The Company says its own commerce is loss-making but in Madras the usual necessaries of life cost from 10 - 37% more than at Calcutta or Bombay.

He also queried Director Huddlestone who is accused of cowardice in Wilkes’ History of Mysore. The offence occurred 34 years ago. Huddlestone said he knew of the allegation and would refute it on Oath before the next election (he is a candidate). There were two English witnesses – Sir George Staunton and another, but Wilkes published his book only after they had both died.

Sat 8th Aug 1818

Bullion imported to Calcutta in June 1818 was valued at 3,196,803 Rupees

Sat 8th Aug 1818

Bombay 8th Aug - John Cartwright has been appointed the Company’s Agent at Constantinople in place of the late Isaac Monier.

Sat 15th Aug 1818

Notice, 1st Aug - Luis Francisco da Silva and Francisco Antonio de Carvalho have been admitted to the Bombay partnership of Sir Roger d’Faria & Co.

Sat 5th Sept 1818

Kapitipola, the chief of the Ceylon insurgency in the highlands of the Kingdom of Kandy, continues to avoid our detachments and expeditions.

Sat 5th Sept 1818

The merchants of Calcutta have thanked Hastings (Moira), the Governor-General, for confronting the insurrections in the Deccan and elsewhere.

“The residents of the Maratha states are all poor people and easily incited by promise of plunder. At an early stage in the war, the Peshwa and the Rajah of Berar both reneged on their treaty obligations to the Company and joined the opposition. They were encouraged by the early successes of the Ghurkhas in Nepal and assumed a mobile war with us in inaccessible country would be successful for them too. We have shown them that, in time, our reach extends everywhere. The sieges of Poona and Nagpore have revealed their numerical superiority is insufficient to shake off our yoke. We congratulate you on bringing new lands under the Company’s rule.”

Moira has taken the opportunity of this fulsome praise to deny aggrandisement and explain, blow by blow, how the war came to occur, in his opinion. Its in the Indian Government Gazette of 4th Aug and is intended for the European audience:

We have changed the rulers of those states that would not work with us. We have elevated the prince of Bhopal and the two major Maratha kings - Sindhia and Holkar. Our main object was to suppress the influence of the Pindaris and deny them the sources of their former income. They were formidable because they amassed 25,000 – 30,000 horsemen and pursued a form of mobile war that made it difficult for us to bring them to battle. The Pindaris were an ungovernable part of Sindhia’s army. They willingly adopted the projects of Ameer Khan. My policy was to deter Sindhia and Ameer Khan from countenancing Pindari activity by diminishing their territorial power and increasing that of their neighbours.

My particular concern was my treaty obligation to Sindhia that obliged the Company not to invade the western provinces (the Rajputs). Had the Pindaris been able to enter the Rajput states they might have conceivably united with Ameer Khan and become formidable. To avoid the treaty obligation, I accused Sindhia of inciting the Pindaris to invade us – that effectively brought any obligations the Company might have had to him to an end. I had a second argument – that Sindhia the year before had assisted the Peshwa to subvert the Company’s authority in the Peshwa’s domains. Finally I had prisoners who told me Sindhia had promised to join the Pindaris. These Pindari prisoners provided me with Sindhia’s letters to a foreign power offering his co-operation against us. I returned them to him unopened in his own Durbar. I did not need to break his seals because I already had the gist of it in the intercepted letters of his underlings.

The fact is we have to work through these local governments so we told him we would require a new Treaty to mitigate the risk of his known treachery and in this way obtained his agreement to annihilate the Pindaris. Thus the Company obtained via Sindhia, a right of protection over the Rajput states and Rajput agreement to deny the Pindaris any succour.

As regards Ameer Khan, I had to act decisively. I told him central India had to be tranquillised. If he helped us, we would guarantee his possessions to him; if he refused, we would attack him, disband his armies and tranquillise the land ourselves. I had surrounded him with three armies and he had no hope of succour from his erstwhile friends. In this situation, he submitted in early November.

Concerning Holkar’s people, since his death his lands have been ruled by his widow during the minority of young Holkar. She could not control the Sirdars and asked me for help. I did not burden her with a subsidy or a garrison – I just agreed a defensive alliance but she lost control of the Sirdars who marched to the aid of the Peshwa. The widow expostulated with her advisers and was executed in spite of our armies surrounding Holkar’s lands.

The Rajah of Nagpore was similarly misled and attacked our Resident. We eventually had to remove him from the throne. In fact we discovered the intrigues of the Peshwa extended to almost every Court in India. I told the Peshwa I knew what he was planning and offered to forget the past if he would secure the future. He blamed his agents. Soon after we learned he proposed to raise an army to confront Trimbukjee’s rebellion but we already knew that uprising was financed by the Peshwa. One may wonder what purpose he really had in mind for this army and who he was proposing to attack.

We surrounded him in his capital. He had previously agreed in the Treaty of Bassein to provide us with 5,000 cavalry but had never performed that agreement. We now insisted he transfer sufficient land to us to support such a force.

With hindsight it is apparent it was the Peshwa who organised this widespread revolt against us – it was intended to destroy our power in India. But we had already neutralised Sindhia and Ameer Khan when the Peshwa tried to murder Elphinstone, our Resident, and issue the call to civil war. He had only Holkar and the Rajah of Nagpore to rely upon. Both of these recognised an obligation to perform the orders of the Peshwa, their master. The Peshwa advanced his army to the River Warda but instead of finding the army of Nagpore he found us waiting for him. He was now out of his own lands and the possibility of his removal from sovereignty of the Poona dominions arose. We had no-one of his stature to replace him – it had to be one of his family who enjoyed the approval of the Maratha princes. The territories of Bajee Rao, the former Peshwa, are held by us; Holkar has lost two thirds of his lands in his successive attempts to diminish our power. We gave that land to the Rajahs of Kotah and Boondee and to other Rajput chiefs whose strengthening was our policy (less that part necessary to provide a revenue for our garrisons in the area). Our purpose has been to divide the country into more equal princedoms that will fear each other and thus maintain the peace.

It was then I was informed that Sindhia had told the Pindaris that if they could approach to Gwalior, he would break his treaty with us and join them. I placed an army between the two parties and Sindhia backed down.

It is unsurprising that those native princes who have been dispossessed of their lands should resent us. We occupy new lands each year, unite the country and bring settled government, not because we are acquisitive as they say in London, but because we have no choice. And each new acquisition brings us into contact with new neighbours who might be equally resentful of our proximity. The recent struggle with the Marathas has given the Company a western frontier on the Indus. Thank Heavens. Between the Indus and Calcutta there are now only states bound together with us by a common purpose. Maratha power is broken. We no longer care what Sindhia does or thinks – we have surrounded his lands with powerful fiefs through which we can control him whenever we wish to do so. Those fiefs were raised to power by the extra revenue from additional lands they received from us – they owe us. I hope Sindhia realises that his continuing existence depends on his co-operation with us. The remaining independent states all wish to be feudatory to us – they implore our protection.

We have not conquered this vast territory. On the contrary the native rulers have attacked us and been defeated. It is thus that the country has come under our control. This is why the Rajputs solicit our hegemony. It is to save them from the interminable wars of their rulers. We are largely unconcerned with the internal government of states in alliance with us. We seldom interfere with their culture and traditions.34 Lands which have repeatedly been battlefields are once again coming under the plough. We are here for the money and we support production and the increase of wealth – ours, yours, everybody’s.

Sat 5th Sept 1818

The new Commercial Exchange has been opened in Calcutta. By bringing all transactions under one roof, it should regularise the trading of Company and commercial paper and make prices more uniform.

At end July the sale of the ship Bombay Trader and her cargo of opium and cassia was held in the new Exchange. Everything sold and the opium got a very good price.

Sat 12th Sept 1818

Calcutta, 11th Aug to the Indian Presidencies – all subscriptions to the new loan are to be stopped from the date of your receipt of this advice.

Sat 12th Sept 1818

London, 21st April – the Company has elected six new Directors, the old ones going out by rotation. Richard Chichely Plowden is in, Hugh Lindsay is out, etc. The new Chairman and deputy are James Patterson and Campbell Marjoribanks.

Sat 12th Sept 1818

House of Commons, 15th May – Howarth MP spoke in a debate on India. In 1784 Lord Melville introduced some resolutions concerning our policy in India. One was that we should not extend our Empire by conquest. That resolution became law in 1793. Strangely, if one compares the map of British India done in 1784 with the map today, one finds the area under our control has ballooned. How did that happen?

The Pindaris are a group of Indians that do not farm and prefer to descend on the sown at harvest time and take what they need. From this they have evolved into a group of mounted predators living a Mongol-type life in the heart of India. The Pindaris abound in northern India. The Company declared war on them but has actually been fighting all the various arms of the Maratha Confederacy – the Peshwa, Holkar, Sindhia, Rajah of Berar etc. – on the evanescent assertion it is those Princes who sustain the Pindaris. The Governor-General is leading 100,000 men in these numerous separate assaults. He has occupied the capitals of Holkar, Sindhia and the Peshwa. He is not managing the shop at Calcutta.

Howarth has called for details of all the Company’s treaties since 1804 and sight of the correspondence relative to our relations with the various parties we are attacking.

Canning, for the ministry, said he would provide what he could. HM Government had no idea why the Company was fighting Berar, but had some information on the other wars. Concerning the Peshwa, we were treating him with respect and attention when he suddenly and unprovokedly attacked us. Canning said the Pindaris held no territory of their own - they are almost nomadic. They suddenly attacked the lands of the Company and/or its allies and that required a response. Our Indian administration is composed of good people, pacific and forbearing, but we have to confront those who disturb our peace.

Sat 19th Sept 1818

Colombo, 15th Aug – Kapitipola’s rebellion seems to be ending. He has exhausted his capital and the people in his heartlands do not want to pay any more. He appears to have withdrawn from those areas that we can police.

Thurs 29th Sept 1818 Extraordinary

There is a new Regulation for foreign trade in India. Countries with their own possessions in India and who are at peace with Britain may enter any British Indian port and trade. In war time they need a Company licence to export grain, saltpetre and military stores.

Countries without Indian possessions but at peace with Britain may enter Bombay, Madras, Calcutta or Penang for trade. Same restriction in wartime.

Foreign ships taking Indian exports must take them to their home country. The coasting trade of India is ours. They may enter the river at Calcutta only for trade, refreshment or repairs.35

Thurs 29th Sept 1818 Extraordinary

The Company’s ‘market fees’ in Bombay are revised. The costs of policing and cleaning the town are increasing and the administration needs more income. There is already a quarterly assessment and collection of rates but ‘market fees’ relate to temporary stalls in the night markets.

All shops and stalls in Bombay pay a tax to the Company called ‘market fees’. The rate for the present is 5 Rupees per night for every 10 sq yds occupied and 1 Rupee per night for each additional sq yd. There is a fixed tariff for permanent shops annexed to the Regulation.36

Sat 10th Oct 1818

Ceylon is more tranquil. Communications between Colombo and Batticaloa are reopened. People are returning to Kandy but we do not allow them back unless they bring a weapon to surrender – that is the evidence we need to establish genuine submission.

Sat 17th Oct 1818

One of the interesting things in judicial practice at Bombay is the immutability of identity of the jurymen – they are always more or less the same 19 people - local senior traders and army officers.

Sat 31st Oct 1818

Calcutta Journal, 2nd Oct - The William Petrie sailed from Calcutta to the Persian Gulf and amongst its passengers was a Muslim and his wives. On arriving at Muscat the ship was boarded for inspection by one of the Company’s revenue cruisers and the wives were then said to be slaves bought in the Calcutta market.

The Company imperatively needs to restrain publicity of slavery within India. The women were disembarked at Bushire and when the ship returned from Basra they were put back on board for the return voyage to Calcutta.

Sat 14th Nov 1818

The late Walter Ewer owned an estate called Bantongon near Bencoolen on Sumatra. Its about 10 miles from Fort Marlborough. He bequeathed it to his sons John and Walter but the Company has claims on him and has got a judgment at Calcutta incumbering the Estate. The heirs have been obliged to put the property up for auction at Calcutta on 23rd March 1819. The title deeds are issued by the Company and may be seen at the office of the Company’s solicitor.

The interesting thing from a commercial viewpoint is the spice saplings that Ewer planted over 2½ acres of the property. About 2,000 nutmeg saplings will be ready for transplanting in a year. All the clove trees, of which there are a considerable number, are flourishing.

Sat 14th Nov 1818

Deriah (Riyadh) fell on 10th Sept 1818. Ibrahim Pasha, son of the Porte’s Viceroy of Egypt, encircled the town and attacked from all sides. The Wahabi followers of Abdullah bin Saud were defeated. The town was razed to the ground. Abdullah and five other rebels leaders were sent off to Egypt on 18th Sept to Ibrahim’s father Mohamed Ali Pasha.

The remaining members of the House of Saud will be detained at Medina until the Viceroy’s pleasure is known. This will likely bring an end to the Wahabi rebellion in Arabia.

At about the same time the Utoobee family which governs Bahrain voluntarily submitted to Constantinople.

Sat 28th Nov 1818

Kapitipola’s entire family have been captured near Narangamme. We have his younger brother, his wife, mother and grandmother, two young sons and a large number of personal attendants. That should give him pause.

We have captured some minor rebel leaders and their public executions are eroding the spirit of resistance amongst the people - Ceylon should be pacified soon. The regiments of Madras volunteers that were intended for Ceylon are likely to be diverted elsewhere – perhaps the disturbances in Sumatra.

Sat 28th Nov 1818

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, newly appointed Governor of Bencoolen, is visiting the Danish settlement at Serampore, near Calcutta. He is said to be visiting missionaries there and will return to duty in a month.

Sat 5th Dec 1818

The Company’s doctor at the Baghdad Residency is John Hine. He is unwell and has permission to return to England for three years.

Sat 5th Dec 1818

Ceylon Government Gazette, 19th Nov - Kapitapola and his henchman Pelime Talawe have been captured.

We have executed several other rebel chiefs – Ellapola was publicly beheaded outside the Bogambera tank at Kandy on 27th Sept. He was convicted by court-martial and sentenced to hanging but he himself requested beheading. We used a Maratha sword but it broke on the first stroke and separation took a little longer than usual. All the monks turned out to watch and a good many residents too. Under the former law of Kandy the body should have been left to the dogs but we are civilised people and buried it.

One of the rebels named Kiwulgedera had an inflammatory paper – it said ‘our country is invaded by the English with people from Ouva who will kill us and take our property. All the other countries have submitted to them. We must collect our people and fight. The alternative is to kill ourselves.’

The captured rebel chiefs will be tried by courts-martial.

Sat 5th Dec 1818

London, New Times 30th June – The Company has contracted with the City’s copper importers for 1,000 tons of tough-cake copper at £193 a ton. Last year they bought the same quality copper in slightly less quantity and paid £100 per ton.

Sat 5th Dec 1818

The Company held a quarterly shareholders’ meeting on 17th June. The half-year dividend was confirmed at 5¼%.

Hume enquired about St Helena. In 1814 it cost the Company £79,000 to run the island; in 1817 it was £173,000. He had been told the increase related to new circumstances (Napoleon). The Chairman said he had an undertaking of the ministry to repay any extra expenses the Company incurred as a result of the ‘new circumstances’.

Sat 26th Dec 1818

India Gazette, 30th Nov - A while back, we placed the son of Syed Hussein, an opulent Penang merchant, on the throne of Aceh in order to bring an end to the constant warmongering in that province. Recently Hussein’s right hand man Abdul Rahim visited Pedier and stabbed Tunku Pikier to death. Rahim and his entourage were then killed and dismembered by the Tunku’s guards. Their body parts are on public display.

It was then asserted that King Hussein had paid Rahim $10,000 to murder the Tunku as he was thought to have a claim on and threaten the Aceh throne. Arising from all this, our man Hussein was dethroned by an act of the people and the original King restored. The natives prefer their own man but the Penang chap has considerable resources and our support. He may yet prevail.

Sat 26th Dec 1818

The Company’s native Bombay army was first formed in 1747 and has grown incrementally since then. The regiments are composed of Hindus, Muslims, Jews and Christians. Generally the Hindus are of the lower castes. The Jews are very competent and disproportionately get promotion to non-commissioned and commissioned ranks but tend to become heavy drinkers in old age. The Bombay sepoys are better sailors than the men in Calcutta – they are generally willing to serve overseas and readily went to Egypt in 1800.

They show their abilities best under hardship, When General Mathews’ army was captured by Tippoo in 1782 they displayed extreme fortitude. Up until 1803, several detachments of Bombay sepoys were captured at sea by the French and imprisoned on Mauritius. They were continually tempted to change sides but in fact it was some of the European prisoners-of-war that defected, not the sepoys.


Sat 9th Jan 1819

The Notice of 3rd June 1818 is recited – the Governor requires a daily report of all Europeans arriving or departing by sea or land from the Presidency. All arrivals will report to the senior Police Magistrate in the Fort specifying their intended address.

This is applicable to ordinary residents going to or returning from Salsette, Caranja, Elephanta etc.

Any European found in the Presidency without a passport will be arrested.

The Company’s civil and military employees are exempt.

A 10 Rupee reward will be paid for information about any European disobeying this Regulation.

Sat 9th Jan 1819

Notice, 1st Jan – Arratoon Apcar has admitted his brother Gregory into his commercial agency and will henceforth trade as M/s Arratoon & Gregory Apcar.

(NB – their father Joseph is 68 years old and frail – he dies in April. He has been a leading Armenian merchant at Bombay for 20+ years)

Sat 9th Jan 1819

Colombo, 28th Nov 1818 – The Governor and CiC of this island, Lt General Robert Brownrigg has issued a Proclamation:

The Ceylonese could not endure the harshness of Wikrame Rajah Singha, the King of Kandy, and sought our help to depose him and his family. We did so and incorporated Kandy into the British Empire under our protection. We provided a mild government but some troublemakers rebelled in October 1817. We expected the Kandians to be grateful but the very people we raised to power in replacement of the ex-King rebelled against us. We have had a year of conflict which has reduced Kandy to absolute poverty…….

(next page and next few issues missing)

Sat 27th Feb 1819

The Rajah of Nagpore who escaped from us last year is now commanding a small army of Arabs and Pathans in the Maha Deo Hills.

Sat 27th Feb 1819

Calcutta, 4th Feb – the money market is deranged. Ten days ago the Company’s 6% paper was selling at 7½% discount. That has now improved to 2¼% discount. Money in the bazaar has dropped from 18% annual interest for loans secured on government paper to 8% today. The cause is three-fold:

When the interruption of cotton supply is overcome, the large harvest this year will absorb much of the excess silver.

Sat 27th Feb 1819

Reports from Malwa suggest the clean-up of the Maratha rebels is continuing and we now have the whole coast of India from Cape Comorin to Jigat either in our direct possession or under our control.

Sat 27th Feb 1819

Madras Courier, 9th Feb – The return of the Dutch has occasioned friction with our settlements. The colonial Dutch appear to be as hostile to British trade as the Dutch at home are. Local shipping trading to Dutch ports is required to raise the Dutch flag and to carry Dutch passports. They sent a military force to Palembang on Sumatra and evicted our garrison which they sent to Java. They have tried to assert control over the Malacca Straits but the Queen of Kedah obtained the control of it during their absence and will not willingly relinquish it.

Sir Stamford Raffles is leading an expedition from Penang to Aceh to reinstate our appointed King Hussein. A second expedition is outfitting at Penang but its destination is not revealed. The Dutch are incrementally re-occupying all the little ports they held before the war. A force of 15,000 troops is coming from Holland to recover their former grandeur.

Sat 27th Feb 1819

29th Jan - David Ochterlony is made Resident at Delhi; C T Metcalfe becomes Secretary to the Political and Secret Department and private secretary to the Governor-General.

Sat 13th March 1819

The period customarily allowed to occupy the Governorship of Bombay is almost expired and the London papers are speculating on Sir Evan Nepean’s successor. He himself hopes to stay for another 12-15 months but patronage does not work like that.

Canning at the Board of Control has suggested that one of the civil or military men who distinguished themselves in the recent Pindari Wars would be a good choice. Usually the Board of Control and Directors negotiate and the Board makes the announcement but Canning has unilaterally proposed the choice of Elphinstone, Malcolm or Munro and left the Directors to select from these. The Chairman likes Elphinstone best, then Malcolm but will submit to a ballot. If it comes down to seniority, which is a feature of the Company’s military organisation, it will be Malcolm for Governor of Bombay.

Sat 20th March 1819

Hugh Elliot has been succeeded by Lord Walpole as Governor of the Madras Presidency.

Mountstuart Elphinstone is to replace Evan Nepean as Governor of Bombay.

Sat 20th March 1819

HMS Phaeton arrived Bombay on 21st Oct with £250,000 of bullion.

Sat 3rd April 1819

The Poway Estate on Salsette is for sale. It contains the villages of Poway, Trinidad, Compree and Sankey - about 800 persons. The land is suitable for sugar cane and rice farming. The owner Dr Helenus Scott holds title in perpetuity from the Company on a quit rent of 3,094 Rupees per annum. There is a dwelling house, a distillery and a sugar refining building. Apart from hill-land there is about 1,000 Beegahs of cultivatable land.37

Sat 3rd April 1819

M/s Mackintosh Fulton & McClintock traded at Calcutta until 30th April 1809 when Lachlan Mackintosh retired. It continued to trade under the same style until Robert McClintock retired when the partnership was dissolved.

John Williamson, Fulton Eneas Mackintosh and James Calder have now taken over this Agency business and renamed it as Mackintosh & Co on 1st March 1819.

Robert McClintock will recommence in Agency business at Calcutta separately as a sole proprietor. He has been trading in India for 23 years. He will make loans, discount bills and issue cheque books. He does not intend to issue bank notes.

Sat 3rd April 1819

The Dutch have closed Surabaya and Semarang to trade except by special licence. All the international maritime trade is now done at Batavia for economy and control. The import duties work out at nearly 20%.

All European manufactures and piece goods are selling at half-price. A Dutch fleet of 4 capital ships and 6 frigates is based there.

Sat 3rd April 1819

The Nabob of Bednore, Sahib Ghulam Muideen, arrived at Marseilles on 6th Nov 1818 en route to Paris and London. He sailed from Madras to the Red Sea and took the alternative overland route to Alexandria.

This is the first Indian Prince to visit France since Tippoo’s son in 1788 and he is in fact a near relation of Tippoo. The purpose of his visit to France is not published but in London he will interview some Company’s Directors and the Board of Control to discuss a matter on behalf of some native princes.

Sat 3rd April 1819

The Ministry is opening British ports to Indian trade one by one. They use Orders-in-Council to legalise the trade. The latest addition on 1st Nov 1818 is Leith which is now permitted to import Indian goods direct.

Sat 10th April 1819

On 4th Feb 1819 Sir Stamford Raffles, as Agent of the Governor-General, made a treaty with the Sultan of Johore and the Tomongong of Singapore whereby the British flag was planted on the ruins of this ancient Hindu City of the Lions on 31st Jan. It is located at 1 degree 16 minutes North.

Major Farquhar, our Resident at Malacca, will transfer to command the new possession once he has taken a holiday in England (Madras Presidency Regulations permit holidays between postings and Farquhar is on the Madras staff).

The trade route to China via Malacca Straits is only 5 miles off Singapore and Capt Ross of the Company’s Marine Service has just done a survey of the sea approaches and declared them excellent. The anchorage has 4 – 7 Fathoms of draught over a soft muddy bottom and is protected from the wind from the north and south west – it’s a port for all seasons, day and night. Between the town and the bay to its west is a creek that the native boats use – it looks suitable for ship-repairing. East of the town is a sandy beach that extends 2½ miles to the point - it will make a good defensive place for a battery. Fresh water, fish and turtle are abundant.

The native population is small and mainly Chinese. They are excellent farmers.

Raffles’ timing for this new settlement is good. He has acted most expeditiously in confronting the exclusive policies of the returning Dutch. It will attract business in watering and provisioning the passing maritime traffic and on that base we can build a low-tariff entrepot. We needed some such place to attract the trade in spices etc back to us. It will also tend to prevent Dutch attempts from Malacca to monopolise the Straits and its one more safe port on the route to China.

Sat 10th April 1819

Government Gazette, 18th March – Six Sepoys from the Bengal Army who deserted our service and joined the Marathas in the late war under Appa Sahib have been tried by court-martial, convicted and sentenced to be blown apart at the mouth of a cannon.

Sat 17th April 1819

The defences of Singapore are being built and Malays are flocking in for work. The town is sited on the east side of a newly discovered river suitable for boats of up to 10 feet draught. We have declared all trade free of duty for the time being.

The Dutch Resident at Malacca had two small ships watching our proceedings and, as soon as we landed troops, one of them sailed away reportedly to call the Admiral from Batavia to deal with us. We expect the Dutch will seek to disrupt our proceedings if they get a chance.

With our own nominee ruling Aceh and our strong hold on Bencoolen, our interests in this area are improving. Raffles actually surveyed Carimon first but Singapore is better. It will be easier from there to issue passes to the Bongesses for the voyage up the Straits. The Bongesses have long tried to get up the Straits to Aceh and Penang but the Dutch always stop them and force them to trade at Malacca due, they say, to the absence of passes on their boats.38

Sat 24th April 1819

Notice, 16th April - The Parsee merchant Pestonjee Ponchajee had two sons by his first wife – Nourojee and Ruttonjee - and two sons by the second – Jamsetjee and Sorabjee. The two pairs of sons have been in dispute over the apportionment of their father’s Estate. It has now been settled by arbitration.

Sat 24th April 1819

The main clause in the treaty that Raffles made with Sultan Mohamed Shaw provides for an annual payment of $5,000 to the Sultan as the legitimate ruler of Singapore in return for which he permits the Company to build a town and a fort for its protection. It seems we hold Singapore by a lease not a cession.

This will disappoint the politicians but the merchants will not mind – its halfway to Shangri-la (China).

Sat 1st May 1819

The Hibernia (Atkinson) has just completed a coasting voyage from Madras and all intermediate ports. It arrived Bombay 24th April and will sail for Penang in mid-May. For freight or passage contact Nasserwanjee Cowasjee Pitty of Meadow Street.

Sat 1st May 1819

The blacks on the frontiers of our Cape Province keep taking our cattle and the Governor has enlisted every third man in the Colony into an armed militia.

The Royal Africa Corps, which protects the frontier, has experienced several deaths from these attacks – it sends off a force in pursuit and, at no great distance from our settlement, they find themselves unexpectedly surrounded by thousands of spear-shaking natives. Few of our men survive.

Sat 1st May 1819

Calcutta Journal, 9th April - India is not getting the prices it expects for its goods. Cotton has been selling to the free trade in India at about 8d per pound but at Liverpool it sells for less than that. We fear we are about to be squeezed.

The only chaps laughing are the occasional lucky traders, like the American captain of the Malabar who bought in Bombay at 8d and sold in Boston for 20 cents (c. 1/-) but that cargo was re-exported to Liverpool and sold six weeks later at 7¼d. The other people laughing are the issuers of Bills – they gets theirs whatever happens in the market.

Coffee is also marked down to the same extent as cotton.

A shipment of Java cotton that cost the high price of $37.50 per picul (due to the new taxes at Batavia) was sold in London at various prices between 12d – 14d per pound (average $29 per picul)

Indigo and rice are also expected to be down but there have been no recent sales.

Sat 8th May 1819

The Fatteh Alvadood (Richardson) has arrived from Bangkok with a cargo of sugar which sold for $7 per picul. Richardson reports the Thais are still hostile to us. The King lives entirely secluded in town but is the sole merchant for the entire country. All commercial matters are delegated to a Chulia merchant who has the King’s confidence and speaks a little foreign language, something the King declines to learn.39

The seat of government has been moved from Yuthia to Bangkok, which is a small island where the King has erected a new palace and a huge temple. There is a complete lack of elevated land and most of the houses thereabouts are built on stilts along the river bank. Some people live on boats. The population is mainly Chinese with minorities of Thais and Malays, both Muslims and Christians.

Official policy towards us foreigners seems to duplicate the Burmese at Rangoon – Richardson was required to land his guns from the ship at Pakenham, a village 5 miles below the river bar, and warp up the river. Bangkok is 30 miles from Pakenham and the King’s palace is half a mile from the anchorage. Ships seldom go further up the river. Although the policy towards us is the same as towards the Burmese, the Thais do not get along tranquilly with their neighbours. Tavoy, Mergui and Phuket have a long history of changing ownership depending on the fortunes of the two respective Kings.

The killing of cows is forbidden in Thailand, even chickens are protected. They are quite troublesome people and none will trade with us until he gets a licence from the King. The Thais make their own gunpowder but they are always interested in our guns and that is a staple of our trade. They also buy Indian satin and silks but they are dabblers in trade and prefer enjoying themselves. One has to wait 3-4 months to conclude business. Some ships from Bombay and Madras have visited this year and several Americans too. Christians are tolerated but not protected.

The area around Bangkok was ceded to the French in Louis XIV’s reign but he was too busy with European problems to attend to it. It remained neglected until the Thai King resumed ownership and made it his capital. Since 1788 there has been little trade done by us except an annual ship from Surat that took kincobs (woven cotton cloth containing interwoven gold or silver threads) and returned agala wood, sapan wood, beeswax and precious stones.

The whole river valley floods annually and this is the source of Thailand’s great fertility – rice and sugar are produced in immense quantities.

Sat 8th May 1819

The Dutch have complained to London about Singapore. They say they have a prior treaty between their former Batavian government and the Sultan of Johore that prevents him ceding territory to other Europeans. They dispute the validity of our treaty ceding Singapore. The matter is being discussed in London.

Sat 15th May 1819

Asiatic Mirror, 21st April - The Nepal government seems to be in difficulties. Rooder Bur Saab, the fine Nepalese administrator and General is dead. He was the brother of Beem Saab Choutra, who was the man who planned and executed the raid on Lhasa whereby the Ghurkhas claim to have seized and brought away Tibetan property worth 15 million Rupees. That was the event that brought them to international notice and funded their expansion to the banks of the Sutlej.

Sat 22nd May 1819

The Commercial Bank has been established at Calcutta by Joseph Barretto Sr and Jr, L Barretto, J Calder, J da Cruz, J W Fulton, E MacIntosh, J Melville and Soorjee Kumar Takoor. The bank manager is MacIntosh & Co.

Sat 29th May 1819

Notice Calcutta, 1st May – MacIntosh & Co have admitted James Baillie Fraser to the partnership. The continuing partners are John Williamson, James Calder and Fulton Eneas MacIntosh.

Sat 22nd May 1819

The Redwing sailed from Portsmouth in early December 1818 carrying Arbuthnot to St Helena. The purpose of his visit is unknown. The Redwing is one of the Company’s twelve new mail packets that are to provide a mail service for the Post Office. They sail from Chatham, Portsmouth and Plymouth. Seven ply between England and St Helena and the Cape and the other five ply between St Helena and the Indian Presidencies.

Sat 22nd May 1819

Our monopolisation of the spice trade before the Dutch returned has not profited us as much as we expected. Spices are selling at such reduced prices in London that a large consignment has been sent back to India for local consumption.

In mid-May 22,000 lbs of nutmegs and cloves arrived from London at the Bombay Customs House.

Sat 22nd May 1819

The Company has set a limit of six on the number of barristers it licences to come to Madras to act at the Supreme Court. Two of them will always be the Company’s prosecutor and the Master in Equity.

Sat 29th May 1819

Notice, Calcutta, 1st May – William Fairlie resigned his partnership in Fairlie Fergusson & Co on 5th Feb. The continuing partners are John Hutchison Fergusson, David Clark, Peter Peterson, John Melville and John Smith who will henceforth trade as Fergusson Clark & Co.

Sat 29th May 1819

Calcutta Journal, 4th May – the Postmaster General here is being criticised. The Caledonia brought London mails to him on Tuesday. He delivered a few to his friends on Wednesday and some others on Friday and Saturday. He is still holding the rest. These letters contain news of Prices Current, they contain Bills and orders of the merchants. Their prompt delivery to all addressees would ensure that no one business gets an advantage over the others.

Notes sent to the Calcutta PMG enquiring after expected letters were returned with the advice that he was resting.

It has long been known that the postmen are permitted to take letters home in the evening supposedly for delivery the next day. Letters that cannot be delivered are legally required to be held in the Post Office at night. This misbehaviour has been going on for years. We protested to Sir Francis Freiling in London but he declined to act on private complaints. Now the Journal has published the Calcutta PMG’s scam, he should take notice.40


Sat 5th June 1819

John Stewart retired from the partnership of Forbes & Co on 31st July 1818.

Sat 5th June 1819

London, 1st Jan 1819 - Robert Rickards retired from the partnership Smith Rickards & Co on 31st Dec 1818 and David Deas Inglis (formerly of Forbes & Co) was admitted. The continuing partners are James Smith, William Hay Leith, John Forbes Mitchell and William Bridgman Sr and Jr. The company continues trade commencing today under the style Smith Inglis & Co.

Sat 5th June 1819

Calcutta, 10th May – the 3rd Tontine is being established 1st July 1819 for a five year term. The managers are George Cruttenden, Robert McClintock, Walter Davidson, George Mackillop and John Small.

The 1st Tontine was established on 1st July 1815 for 7 years. It was restricted to investments in government paper and the fund has now accumulated 530,000 Rupees and is increasing at about 30,000 Rupees per quarter but this low rate of interest (c. 22% a year) is unattractive.

The managers of the 2nd and 3rd Tontines were accordingly permitted to invest in either public or private securities as they saw fit. This flexibility is expected to make them more profitable. Profits are distributed to surviving investors at the end of the period.

A book has been opened at Calcutta for intending subscribers to the 3rd Tontine. One share is 2,000 Rupees. Late payments attract pro rata interest at 12% per year. Payments may be in cash or by acceptable drafts. Madras and Bombay residents are welcome to participate. On closure of the Tontine on 30th June 1824, each subscriber must prove by sworn affidavit the continuing existence of the life assured. Failure to satisfactorily prove existence entails forfeiture. The fund will be distributed to qualifying subscribers on 1st Jan 1826.

Contact the 3rd Tontine Secretary John Bethune Inglis in Calcutta or Arbuthnot de Monte & Co in Madras or Shotton Malcolm & Co at Bombay.

Sat 5th June 1819

Treasury, 31st Dec 1818 – The Lords Commissioners agree to permit the import of East Indian rice duty free provided shipments are made in good time to arrive in England before the end of the year. Ports approved for rice imports are London, Bristol, Hull and Liverpool.

Sat 5th June 1819

Ghulam Mindon Sahib, the vackeel of the Nabob of Bednore, has arrived in England for discussions with the Regent. He travelled by the Red Sea/Egypt route. He dresses in the Persian fashion, is about 36 years old and is accompanied by Dr Ramsey as interpreter.

Sat 5th June 1819

T Hooke, the Accomptant-General of Mauritius, has arrived under arrest in England. He was sent back by General Hall the CiC of the island on that soldier’s allegation of faulty accounting but was released on arrival by an order of the Secretary of State.

Sat 5th June 1819

The Regent in his Address to parliament has assured the Lords and Commons that the war in India with the Marathas was forced upon the Company by aggression. The Company says it was a war on the Pindaris who destabilised settled provinces and prevented the Company’s receipt of its usual revenue. Indians would probably say it was another joint Muslim/Hindu attempt to throw off the British yoke.

The Americans, Dutch, French and Danes all accuse us of holding India for our own benefit – they think we should share access better. The Regent says it was not an expansionary move by the Governor-General – our accession to new territory and revenue was merely incidental. Indian manufacturing, commerce and trade since the war are flourishing.

The Indian CiC Hislop is criticised for executing the Killedar (Governor) of a fort in the rebellious provinces. The Talnair fort (commanding the Tapti River giving access to southern Malwa) was one of several that were agreed to be surrendered to us in our Treaty with Holkar. When we arrived at Talnair the Killedar declined to surrender although Holkar’s commissioners demanded he do so. We had no artillery with us and Hislop was unwilling to wait for a battering train so we assaulted the place. We lost some good men and summarily executed the Killedar in revenge.

Sat 19th June 1819

Haarlem Gazette, 14th Jan 1819 - The English, who now have good information on Java as a result of their provisional government of the island, say the Javanese will throw off our (Dutch) yoke. Their opinion derives from a belief that British colonial administration is better than Dutch and will be missed by the Javans now we are reasserting our system.

Raffles spoke eloquently about freeing the people but he employed 100 unpaid gardeners on his Estate. In fact he abandoned the Javanese to the rapacity of their chiefs. All his measures were provincial and none had effects throughout the island. When we recovered the island we discovered the great disparity between British reports of Java and the actuality on the ground.

The rule of law had been repeatedly proclaimed but Javan prisons were full of people who had neither been charged nor convicted. Freedom of commerce was repeatedly asserted but the actual economy was incumbered with an immense monopoly embracing all those import and export commodities whose supply was under the British Company’s control. The Company used its financial power to depress the prices of agricultural production and provide a market for speculators. The prices farmers now receive for their produce are double what was paid under the Company’s provisional government.

The Moluccas represented an area where we had acted heavy-handedly but the British twice had the administration of these islands and never sought to alleviate the lot of the inhabitants. Unlike Java, Dutch laws were left untouched for the duration of British management of the islands. The people of Amboinya did not rebel to obtain admission to the British empire – they have always resented Europeans in their islands and rebelled successively against the Portuguese, Dutch and British as each in turn administered the place. The English Company’s government is all form and no substance.

Sat 19th June 1819

In 1811 Minto sent an expedition to Java to occupy that island for Britain. We conquered Batavia, Semarang and Surabaya and took over the place. Raffles set-up a government that has since been a great source of wealth to Britain. It was found that a few of the Sultans near the coast had submitted to the Dutch but some 5 million people in the interior (Jog Jakarta) were independent. Raffles made treaties with many of the Chiefs of these independent peoples.

The tin mines on Banca and Billiton Islands were inevitably desirable to the Company and Raffles sent an expedition to Palembang, the Sultan of which province owned the islands, to negotiate their transfer to British rule. We occupied his capital and, in return for the tin, we gave back his possessions, recognised his sovereignty and protected him (the usual Company deal).

The post-war agreement for the return of Dutch possessions that the Dutch had held in 1803 did not affect Banca because the Dutch had never held it (they had factories at Palembang and on Banca but had not formally annexed either territory). Castlereagh however gave Banca to the Dutch in exchange for Cochin. Raffles protested on behalf of the Sultan to whom he had guaranteed protection. There is already distrust of Europeans in Asia due to treaty breaches and Raffles wished to avoid Britain being further stigmatised in that way.

Bathurst declined to present the correspondence between Britain and the Netherlands in the Commons saying the restitution of colonies was still incomplete. He was of the view that Raffles should have extracted a pledge from the Dutch commissioners, who were recently sent to recover their possessions, that they would honour the agreement Britain made with the Sultan. It was the duty of the man-on-the-spot, nothing to do with us, Bathurst said.

Raffles contrarily thought he could hardly modify the over-riding agreement that had been made at Aix-la-Chapelle between the British ministry and the Dutch government. It seems the ministry overlooked the two types of native ruler they were dealing with in Java – those that had submitted to the Dutch prior to our occupation and those, like the Sultan of Palembang, who were independent of the Dutch and merely tolerated a Dutch presence for trading purposes.

The development is bad news for Raffles. In any dispute as to whether he or the minister erred, there can be no doubt as to the result.41

Bathurst’s second argument was that the ministry appointed Raffles as Lieutenant Governor of Bencoolen but this high rank was merely to publicly affirm ministerial support. He was in fact the Commercial Resident of Bencoolen, nothing more. He no longer had political authority. Raffles’ Protest should therefore be considered as the Protest of a Commercial Resident and of no political significance. Effectively, Raffles had no authority to Protest.

Lord Holland said the British government should try to maintain good faith. It should respect its treaties. We had exchanged protection of Palembang for the possession of Banca. Now we were withdrawing our protection, what of Banca? Raffles had one idea, whilst the ministry had another and has actually traded the island to the Dutch for Cochin. There appears to be an underlying carve-up of Asia upon which these local treaties appear like icebergs floating on the surface. It will be apparent to Asian Kings that agreements made between European countries to which they are not privy will always outweigh their bilateral agreements with any single European country. They will discover that our agreements lack certainty and are consequently unreliable.

Bathurst said Holland’s construction was wrong – we had acknowledged the Sultan’s sovereignty over Palembang in return for Banca. It went no further. Now the Dutch were succeeding us on Java, it was up to them to assume the responsibilities we had assumed towards the Sultan.

Liverpool said the Treaty of Paris, which dealt with the return of colonies, was unconditional. Britain could not request the Dutch to receive back their colonies on conditions. It has long been established in International Law that conquest gives sovereignty. In occupying Palembang and Banca we had conquered them and might reasonably hold them in perpetuity. Liverpool said this is the correct approach to be adopted by the ministry. As regards the Dutch factory on Banca prior to 1803, that was a trading post and fell short of the requirements for a colony. The Treaty of Paris contained a specific clause on Banca. It was because the island was not considered as a Dutch Colony before 1814. We swapped it for the perpetual sovereignty of Cochin. There remains only our duty to the Sultan to discharge.

Sat 26th June 1819

In view of the Company’s accession to territory in Maratha lands pursuant on the Pindari War, the Directors require Marathi to be taught at the Fort William College. It wishes to appoint linguistically-qualified subalterns to regiments garrisoning those lands.

Sat 26th June 1819

The treaty that the Dutch made with the Sultan of Johore long ago, and upon which they rely to dispossess Britain of Singapore, has been sent from Batavia to Holland. A copy has been sent to the Company at Penang.

Sat 3rd July 1819

The Calcutta Times, 8th June – The Nabob of Lucknow, probably the richest of the Indian rulers that are tributary to us, has declared his independence of the Grand Mughal at Delhi. He does not acknowledge Viceroy status but has assumed a royal title himself. He issues coins in the name Shah Zemaun (King of the Earth). This is a public blow to the Mughal although his authority has long been nominal.

Sat 10th July 1819

Raffles is leaving Bencoolen for Singapore with a small fleet of warships and three companies of native infantry. He will relieve the existing garrison.

Sat 10th July 1819

Constantinople, 26th Dec – The Pasha of Egypt has brought Abdullah bin Saud to the Porte. Saud’s mufti and treasurer are also on the brig together with a heap of treasure plundered by the Wahabis from Mecca. The prisoners were loaded with chains and drawn through the streets to the divan. They were asked a few questions and then incarcerated in Bostangi Pasha’s gaol.

Some days later the Porte held a celebration at the old Seraglio to mark his victory in Arabia. The prisoners were beheaded at that time. Abdullah’s daughter has assumed the command of the Wahabi insurgents.

Sat 21st Aug 1819

A return of the Indian army has been made, distinguishing the King’s regiments from the Company’s and distinguishing Europeans from natives:

King’s

-

Company’s

-

Company’s

-

-

Irregulars

-

Invalids and Pensioners

Total Indian Army

Cavalry

Infantry

Artillery

Infantry

Native Cavalry

Native Infantry

Native Artillery

Native Cavalry

Native Infantry

-

-

-

-

4,692

17,858 =

4,583

3,120 =

11,011

132,815

8,759 =

7,659

17,082 =

-

5,875

-

-

-

22,550 Europeans

-

7,703 Europeans

-

-

152,585 Indians

-

24,741 Indians

-

5,875 Indians

-

213,454

Sat 28th Aug 1819

Calcutta Journal, 28th July - One of the Dutch factories that Castlereagh agreed to return to the House of Orange is Padang but Raffles has delayed doing so. He is using whatever comes to hand to induce the Dutch to be more co-operative. He says he will retain Padang until a satisfactory arrangement for Palembang is reached. Raffles was first told to restore Padang in 1817 and it still has not happened. At first it was the Dutch who delayed saying they had insufficient troops to garrison the place.

Raffles public objection is the protectionist policy of the Dutch. We like free trade whereas they are publishing high tariffs that discriminate against cargoes in British ships. He needs to restore his reputation with the London ministry.

Sat 4th Sept 1819

Last year Du Puy, the Dutch officer sent to assume the government of Padang, failed to receive the place from Raffles due to some unusual conditions. He returned to Batavia and a complaint was sent to Amsterdam and thence to London from where it has made its way back to Calcutta.

Raffles is ordered to surrender Padang to the Dutch. This is a victory for Raffles’ many enemies. Amongst whom he can now number Castlereagh. Since Minto’s departure Raffles is unprotected in India.

Tues 7th Sept 1819 Extraordinary

The Company petitioned parliament in 1802 and again in 1815 to permit it to pay more to the ‘shipping interest’ (those Directors and Shareholders who charter their ships to it for trade and warfare). It said on each occasion, after the declaration of peace, the market for naval stores and equipment was deranged and the ship owners were unable to profit from their charters with the Company. Parliament enacted on each occasion that the charterhire rates be increased.42

To enable the Company to fix rates that were workable for itself and the shipping interest, Cap 83 of George III has been enacted on 5th June 1818. It consolidates into one act all former acts controlling the Company’s hire of ships. It is specifically enacted to enable the Company to pay more to the owners of the Atlas, Bridgewater, General Harris, General Kyd, Herefordshire and Vansittart, who could not be sufficiently recompensed under existing legislation.

The Company will advertise the specifications of ships it requires for India and China. The charters will be guaranteed for six voyages and may be extended if the ships remain in seaworthy condition. Tenderers will submit sealed bids. The parties may vary the peace rate for charter adding additional charges relative to war. Master Attendants will provide annual lists of the various costs of building and equipping ships for the Company’s service. The lists will be used to adjust the charter rates according to the national state of peace or war. The Company is empowered to charter ready-made ships. The ship owners are partially released from liability for negligence or misconduct in cases where the ship is lost after completing four voyages.

Sat 11th Sept 1819

A list of the Company’s Territorial Debts at the three continental Presidencies in India in Pounds Sterling at 31st Jan 1818:

-

6%s

8%s

9%s

Non-Interest

Bearing Debt

Total

Bengal

26,268,352

13,444

-

-

3,938,125

-

Madras

2,358,183

17,600

-

-

821,344

-

Bombay

432,188

-

80,831

-

254,070

-

Total

29,058,723

31,044

80,831

-

5,013,539

34,184,137

Notes – Total debt includes £314,161 passed to the Commissioners for the Sinking Fund in Calcutta for purchase of Company securities.

- The temporary 10% loan in April 1818 to conclude the war with the Marathas raised £1,413,460 which will be transferred into the 6%s in June 1819.

Sat 18th Sept 1819

Letter to the Editor of Oriental Star - The situation at Palembang has changed. On the return of the Dutch they arrested the British merchants in the town and sent them to Batavia.

A few days later the population rioted, apparently at the direction of the Sultan Mahomed Badureddin, and forced the Dutch into a defensive position from whence they escaped in the night to the boats and sailed down-river to the ships. They then left for Batavia and Banca where they await a response to their request for a Dutch military expedition against the Sultan.

For the interim Palembang is independent of any European influence.

Sat 25th Sept 1819

The newspaper Editors in Calcutta are discussing freedom of the press. The Calcutta Journal Editor (the lawyer Buckingham) says, since the office of Censor of the Press was abolished at Calcutta, Indian Editors enjoy the same freedom as in London. He singles out the Editor of the India Gazette (the formal government paper) and criticises him, and by implication others, for self-censorship.

All the other Editors deny this.

The discussion started in August when the Governor-General revised the Company’s rules for newspapers. The changes were circulated to Editors for ‘their education and guidance’. Editors are now personally accountable for everything they publish in contravention of the Company’s Rules.

The Calcutta Journal’s editorial on the Governor-General’s initiative, based on the abolition of the Censorate, seems to assume that all censorship is thus ended, in contradiction to the precise terms of the circular.

The Bombay Courier Editor published an article commending the Calcutta Journal’s Editor to atone for his confrontational stance by meekness. The Bombay Courier was then accused by the Calcutta Journal, on the basis of some previous articles, of supporting freedom of the press. Its totally unfounded. We applaud freedom and are completely satisfied with the permissions in our licence. We defer to and co-operate with the Company, says the Bombay Courier Editor.


Sat 25th Sept 1819

Syed Hussein, our nominee for King of Aceh, has been ordered back to Penang but our merchants say the Aceh people still prefer British rule.

Sat 25th Sept 1819

Calcutta Journal, 27th Aug - There is a report from Burma dated 1st Aug saying the King died on 5th June at Ava after a reign of 38 years. His grandson has been made King. The new King has a brother – the Prince of Tonghoo - who was expected to seize power. He with his entire family were arrested, sealed into red sacks and thrown in the river. This form of execution is reserved for royalty only. Tonghoo’s Estate is estimated to be worth 1.8 million Rupees.

Another leading figure in the Burmese Royal Family is the Prince of Prome, uncle of the new King, who was also suspected of treason. He was imprisoned, tortured and ultimately strangled. His Estate is reportedly larger than Tonghoo’s and is being distributed amongst the army officers to preserve their loyalty as well as may be. Prome had a small fleet of armed river boats, the crews of five of which were implicated in treason, but they have been pardoned and banished.

The Prince of Prome’s son-in-law Mah Au Woodi was also arrested and imprisoned but avoided further inconvenience by voluntarily divorcing his wife and resuming his former position of commoner. He will now have to receive and perform the commands of his younger brother Kau Ra Woodi Mah who is still married into the Royal Family. Another Prince and one of the ministers have also been executed.

Altogether about 1,400 members of the nobility have been killed and it is rumoured some 10,000-odd disaffected troops have also left.

Once the King’s approaching death was foreseeable, the contents of the army’s armouries were transferred to the Royal Palace arsenal.

Sat 25th Sept 1819

Calcutta Journal, 28th Aug - The rains were late this year and the landowners at Allahabad and Cawnpore were hoarding rice in expectation of increasing prices but the recent heavy rainfall across the country have assured us of a good harvest. The stored rice at Allahabad and Cawnpore is coming onto the market at very little more than the usual prices.

Sat 9th Oct 1819

The Governor of Bombay Evan Nepean has extraordinarily booked passage to London on the free trade ship Albinia (Lynn) and not on a Company ship.

He will leave on about 1st Nov. His replacement is our ex-Resident to the Peshwa Elphinstone. He is expected to arrive a few days earlier.43

Sat 9th Oct 1819

The Company has chartered 13 ships, totalling 6,518 tons, to carry an army to the Persian Gulf under Major General Keir. It is paying the Indian ship owners an average 15 Rupees per ton per month. Mohamed Ali Khan, our old friend from Shiraz, will accompany the expedition as the guest of the CiC. The force will act against the pirate bases. Pirates have been predating on commercial shipping.44

Sat 9th Oct 1819

Paul Thisselle sailed the brig Hope from Penang to Rangoon with a crew of Lascars. On arrival on 6th Jan 1819 three crewmen applied to the Rangoon Governor for sanctuary saying Thisselle had killed a crewman on the previous voyage and was incompetent to command men. The Governor sent them back to the ship with an official to obtain their arrears of wages. Thisselle declined to pay until they completed the voyage.

The British Resident at Rangoon is Gibson and he advised Thisselle to make a gift of a two-barrelled shotgun to the Governor and also agree to pay the three men their outstanding wages to adjust the matter.

Thisselle visited the Governor and handed over the shotgun. He confirmed he had been tried and acquitted for the murder of a crewman at Penang. The Governor then had the crewmen’s spokesman chained and tortured but he refused to amend his evidence. The Governor was persuaded he was truthful and proceeded to Stage Two of his enquiry. He arrested Thisselle and chained and tortured him but without obtaining a change in his evidence either. Eventually all parties were released and returned to the brig on Thisselle’s agreement to pay the Governor 580 Ticals being the costs of his intervention.

Thisselle entered a formal protest against the Governor which was signed by five other ship captains then at Rangoon.45

Sat 16th Oct 1819

Buckingham, the Editor of the Calcutta Journal, who is in dispute with the Governor-General over the freedom of the press, is advertising in Bombay Courier for subscribers. It is unprecedented (at least since 1793 when the Bombay Courier started) for newspapers in one Presidency to advertise for subscriptions in another.

Sat 16th Oct 1819

House of Commons, 11th May – Sir W de Crespigny spoke on Ceylon.

We befriended the minister of the King of Kandy. The King repudiated him. We invaded and made a treaty with many of the King’s ministers, expelling him and establishing them as the government under our protection. The appointments we made to this new Kandian government were unacceptable to the people and brought on a revolution. The Company’s army again invaded, incidentally obliging Ceylonese residents to carry its baggage and stores. The Ceylonese objected to unpaid work and the insurrection intensified.

Goulburn said de Crespigny was wrong.

Forbes said Ceylon has been a war zone for all 1815 and most of 1816 – it’s a worthy subject for debate. He thought we might retain the coast if we stopped disturbing the interior but we seem incapable of restraint. The costs of war in Kandy have been prodigious in treasure and lives. The House should investigate, he said.

Wed 27th Oct 1819 Extraordinary

Territorial Dept, Calcutta 1st Oct - the Governor-General is raising another loan at all three Presidencies. Minimum subscription 1,000 Sicca Rupees.46 Outstanding Treasury Notes or the Company’s Bills of Exchange both qualify for subscriptions. Interest payable is 6%. When the Promissory Notes fall due for repayment, subscribers may opt for cash or 18-month Bills of Exchange on London at 2/6d per Rupee. The Notes may be extended up to 3 years at a reduced 5% interest.

Wed 27th Oct 1819 Extraordinary

Commercial Dept, London 23rd March 1819 – The Company’s rate in London for handling and storing private merchants’ cargoes from India is increased. A new tariff is published. The schedule published in October 1814 will cease in January 1820 when the new rate becomes effective.

At the same time the ½% ad valorem tax paid to the Accounts Office and the 10/6d per mille paid to the Treasury Office are both rescinded and replaced by ¼% ad valorem charge on all private goods.

Sat 30th Oct 1819

The Dutch are charging ½ Rupee per registered ton on shipping coming into Batavia for trade. Its unique. Dutch expenses in re-establishing themselves are high. There is a bloody insurrection at Macassar in the Spice Islands and a force of 1,500 troops has been sent to Palembang on Sumatra to suppress the Sultan.

Sat 30th Oct 1819

The recent shortage of wheat at Bombay is attributed to large shipments sold to Mauritius in recent months. The Bombay bakers are paying 120 Rupees per candy. There is supposed to be a large stock in the north but the state of the roads after the rains make it difficult to transport here.

Sat 6th Nov 1819

We declared a victory in the war with the Marathas months ago but large groups of Pindari cavalry were seen in Gujerat in September.

Sat 13th Nov 1819

Notice, 3rd Nov – Effective 1st Nov, the districts of Candeish, Ahmednaggur and Poona are annexed permanently to the Company’s Presidency of Bombay. The district called the Southern Mahratta Country is annexed until further notice. Chaplin is appointed Commissioner of the ceded territories. The military arrangements for these districts will remain unchanged.

Sat 13th Nov 1819

Sumatra, 12th Aug - The Company is moving to take advantage of the Dutch high tax regime on Java. All Customs duties at Fort Marlborough on Sumatra have been abolished and the Governor has applied to Calcutta for permission to abolish the import duties as well. The Company’s pepper monopoly at Bencoolen has been cancelled and Sumatran pepper is now freely bought and sold. The currency used in our Sumatran factories has been improved so the face value approximates the intrinsic silver value. The intention is to divert the coasting trade from Batavia and Semarang to British Sumatran ports.

Sat 13th Nov 1819

India Gazette, 25th Oct - Singapore is off to a flying start. It seems to have captured most of the business of Rhio (Riau) and the ruler of that port, Rajah Mordah, has left for Singapore followed by most of his merchants. Rhio is full of empty houses whilst Singapore cannot build enough.

Sat 27th Nov 1819

Notice, 25th Nov - The 9th article of the Treaty of Bassein released merchants from paying either Customs dues or transit fees on goods passing through the Mahratta provinces to the Company’s army at Poona. We have since conquered the Deccan and British merchants will be placed on the same footing as others. All goods passing through the old Mahratta states will pay the same duties whether they are being sent to our army or to other buyers.

Sat 27th Nov 1819

The Assessor of Wheel Tax in Bombay has a new supply of badges available to fix on your carts, whether they are drawn by bullocks, horses or men.

Every cart owner must buy a badge for ¼ Rupee and affix it to his cart before 1st Jan 1820. The badges are non-transferrable.

Sat 11th Dec 1819

The Regent has issued a warrant on 31st May establishing an Order of Precedence for the Company’s servants in India. Its in this year’s Bengal Almanac. Everyone from the Governor-General to the newest cadet is listed. This establishes their relative importance at all official functions and will doubtless influence their private lives as well. Merchants come between Advocates General and Masters & Commanders. Wives take rank in accordance with their husbands’ position unless they have precedence in England which overrules their husband’s job. Its a flexible caste system that allows promotions.

Sat 11th Dec 1819

The merchants of Benares monopolise the trade of the Ganges. That city is the centre of both religion and the monied interest. Every shipment up or down the stream is consigned to Benares. There is no way passed them.

Sat 18th Dec 1819

Calcutta Journal - One of the Company’s Collectors on Ceylon, James Agnew Farrell, required his local native headman to provide a bearer from his village to pull the Collector’s palanquin. The headman had no man available so the Collector required the headman to take up the task. After travelling a hundred yards or so the headman fell down. The Collector alighted and beat him whereupon he returned to his labour. A few ten yards further on the headman fell down again. Some villagers declared he was not fit for the task but the Collector gave him another thrashing. This did not cause the Headman to get up and after a few hours he expired. Whilst the man was dying, the local Magistrate passed by and the headman petitioned his help.

Both the Collector and Magistrate overlooked this complaint and prevailed on others, who were necessarily involved in recording the death etc., to also keep quiet. The circumstances were however well known amongst the Ceylonese and soon came to the ears of the Puisne Judge who told Governor Brownrigg. The Governor is about to return to England but the paper says the Magistrate was suspended from duty whilst the Collector was brought to Colombo. This is the first occasion in which we have had a senior Company official under threat of execution, the mandatory award, should he be found guilty of murder.

Farrell was tried by a special jury of senior civil servants in Ceylon. At the close of the prosecution case involving 20 witnesses, the Jury found the charge not proven. The Judge agreed and acquitted Farrell. “You are restored to your rank and station in society with unblemished record.”

An anonymous correspondent to the Calcutta Journal who protested the ‘crime’ of the Collector and the response of his peers in Court, has been excoriated by the British community. The Madras Courier Editor says there was no evidence of abuse of the Headman or of concealment of the ‘crime’ discovered in the investigation. He hopes Farrell will seek for punitive damages from the Calcutta Journal for libel.

Sat 18th Dec 1819

Lord Jocelyn has steered Chase’s Relief Bill through both Houses but the House of Lords amended it and he is now back in the Commons to get the amendment approved. He says he explained the bill previously and every clause is substantially true.

Canning said there is an Act of Parliament making loans to Indian princes illegal without the consent of the Presidency’s Governor-in-Council and Chase should have known it. Jocelyn says the payments to the Nabob of the Carnatic were for the ultimate benefit of the Company and that was why the House of Commons passed the Bill last time. Since then the House of Lords had removed the clause saying the loan was for the benefit of the Company and, without it, it was plainly contrary to law.

Warren supported the bill. The money was loaned with the knowledge of the Madras government and the Company had obtained an advantage from it.

J P Grant thought it was an injustice to the creditors, who had loaned £150,000 to the Nabob only to see it ultimately transferred to the Company’s benefit.

Jocelyn lost 45/16.

Sat 25th Dec 1819

One of the first acts of the new Governor Elphinstone has been to revise the Company’s censorship rules for newspapers in Bombay.

The Company no longer requires Editors to submit a copy of their newspaper to the government for approval before publication.

Sat 25th Dec 1819

Political Dept, 26th Nov – James Marjoribanks is appointed Agent to the Governor-General in Bundelkund, Saugur and the Nerbudda Territories.


Sat 1st Jan 1820

Notice – the Company’s cardamom monopoly at Malabar has provided a consignment for auction on 6th Jan. Conditions will be advised at time of sale.

Sat 1st Jan 1820

London, Notice 1st July – Robert Rickards, Eneas MacIntosh, James Law and Robert Dent have established at Agency at 15 Bishopsgate styled M/s Rickards MacIntosh Law & Co. We will handle your exports to England and your investments with care. Contact our Bombay Agent Wm Millburn for details.

Sat 1st Jan 1820

On 5th July 1819 the King of Ava died aged 79 years and his son and heir discovered a plot to usurp the throne by his uncles, the Princes of Prome and Tonghoo. They had laid explosives under the palace at Ummerapura but the heavy rains dampened the powder.

Tonghoo and his family were placed in individual sacks and drowned in the river in accordance with Burmese law. Prome was fettered and imprisoned and has since died. Some 700 co-conspirators at Ummerapura, and about 400 more in various principal towns have been extinguished and this appears to have been sufficient to avert a civil war.

The merchants of Rangoon generally supported the status quo and only three are known to have been executed. This limited fall-out from a change in sovereignty is attributed to Meda, the ex-Governor of Rangoon, who was brought to Ava and commended to the new King by the old shortly before his death.

Once tranquillity had been secured, the new King suspended the civil law and remitted the land tax and taxes on trade for three years. The present Governor of Rangoon, the greedy Mongshuizar, with whom we have to deal, went to Ava with 50,000 Rupees he had taxed off the merchants at Rangoon. He was not permitted to see the King, was stripped of his rank and titles notwithstanding his royal blood, and the money was sent back to the ‘donors’. The port charges at Rangoon have been reduced to 25% of Mongshuizar’s rate, which was the rate when the old King assumed the government. The foreign merchants have accordingly assessed the new King as humane and benevolent.

Sat 8th Jan 1820

A long list of coins that are current in various parts of the Company’s territories together with the appropriate exchange rates in this edition.

Sat 15th Jan 1820

Calcutta Government Notice, 7th Dec – the 6% loan we advertised in October is fully subscribed. All Treasurers are to decline any further investments.

Sat 15th Jan 1820

Calcutta Journal, mid-October - The Dutch port at Macassar in the Celebes, from whence the original trade in spices was conducted, has been invaded by the Bugis. The Dutch Governor has lost a leg and many others are injured. The Bugis people are formidable traders who range throughout South East Asia and have never submitted to any of the European powers. They object to having their spice supply enhanced in price by Dutch taxes.

It appears their invasion resulted from a Dutch attempt to influence Abu Bakr, the Sultan of Pontianak (Kalimantan). On their return after the war, the Dutch sought to re-establish themselves at Pontianak and drafted a Treaty for the Sultan to sign. He was able to prevaricate for many months but was ultimately induced to admit them to his territory, stipulating only that his son should succeed him.

The Dutch say Abu Bakr was corrupt and violent. He was loathed by the people of Macassar but had such a comprehensive grip on the strings of power that the only means of replacing him was by violence. Their opportunity arose when the Sultan went on tour of his realm. He travelled to the village of Beha, some 3 hours journey from Macassar, where a Dutch military contingent was able to surround him in late August and cut his communications with his supporters. That’s not all they cut - some 150 people were killed including Abu Bakr.

With the Sultan dead, the Dutch placed his brother on the throne contrary to their former guarantee. This was the cause of Bugis displeasure and the recent insurrection.

Sat 15th Jan 1820

At the recent AGM, George Tyler and J W Fulton retired by rotation from the Direction of the Bank of Bengal and are replaced by J Barretto and McLintock.

Sat 22nd Jan 1820

Notice, 17th Jan – requests for copies of government documents will in future attract a fee of 5 Rupees per one hundred words.

Sat 22nd Jan 1820

Bombay, 19th Jan - The ship Sarah (Norton) requires 20,000 Rupees to buy a cargo and will pay in 6-month Bills on Rickards MacIntosh Law & Co of London. She will sail about 1st Feb. Minimum subscription £200. Good chance to remit funds to London, etc. Her Bombay agent Wm Millburn will also accept private letters for London.

Thurs 24th Feb 1820 Extraordinary

Notice - Governor Elphinstone is going to Gujerat for inspection.

Sat 4th March 1820

Colombo, 5th Feb - The Company’s cinnamon monopoly on Ceylon is being supplied with inferior cinnamon by the farmers. Up to 200,000 lbs of the annual harvest is too coarse for the English market.

To preserve the home market and improve the profitability of the monopoly, the Company has decided to sell the inferior spice on restrictive terms and is offering a contract for three years commencing 1820 for between 100,000 – 200,000 lbs per annum. People offering to buy must be bonded in 2/- per pound (£10,000 – £20,000 annually) not to ship the spice anywhere west of the Cape of Good Hope - it can be sold only in Asia.

Sat 4th March 1820

Batavia Courant, 20th Nov – the Dutch military expedition to Sumatra to recover Palembang and the islands of Banca and Billiton has experienced reverses. First the expedition was unable to cross the bar of the Palembang River except on spring tides and hence had to wait for the new moon. When they crossed the bar, they found the Sultan had sunk posts into the river bed passed which the ships could not proceed. On the banks at that point were substantial raised batteries that opened fire on the ships as soon as they stopped moving.

The Dutch47 returned fire for 4 hours but were eventually compelled to fall back. The fleet has taken-up a blockade of the river whilst the troops have been sent back to Batavia for refreshment. Eventually the whole expedition returned to Batavia. The Dutch are disappointed but must collect more revenue before repeating the exercise.

In this respect the new high-tax regime has deterred the planters from bringing goods to town. It is supposed that agricultural production is leaking away to non-Dutch ports. Some American ships recently visited Batavia with silver to buy commodities but left without a lading.

It is the Muslims who are particularly aggrieved by the Dutch.

Sat 11th March 1820

Bombay, 10th March – a new periodical called Asiatic Journal & Monthly Register is to be published in London. It will contain all the interesting news of India. Subscribers pay 18 Rupees per annum to E C Anderson, the proprietor, for 12 issues. We already have subscriptions from senior civil and military officers.

Meanwhile the Calcutta Journal (whose Editor is in conflict with the Governor-General over censorship) has divided its paper into two sections dealing respectively with Asian and International news. It is to reduce postage payable by English subscribers who already know the International news. 5 Rupees per month for the Asian section.

Sat 11th March 1820

Bombay - The brig Countess of Loudan was sold at auction last week for 14,000 Rupees.

Sat 18th March 1820

Syf al Alum, whom we made King of Aceh, is the son of Syed Hussein of Penang. He has arrived at Calcutta for discussions with the Governor-General. He brings a retinue of 120 Malays.

Sat 25th March 1820

The Bengal Commercial Bank has appointed Wm Milburn as their Agent in Bombay. He reports to MacIntosh & Co, the managers of the Bank at Calcutta. The Bank will advance money on good security, discount Bills and negotiate the Company’s debt paper.

Sgd Joseph Barretto, Luis Joseph Barretto, Joseph Barretto Jr, John d’Cruz, Eneas MacIntosh, Edward Brightman, James Calder, John Melville and Soorjee Kumar Takoor, Directors.

Sat 1st April 1820

Letter from the Directors, 1st Sept 1819 – The proprietor of the Correspondent for India has requested the same indulgence we allowed the proprietor of the Spirit of the Times in our letter of 4th Feb 1818 and we also permit that newspaper to pass through the Company’s territories free of postage for 12 months.

Sat 1st April 1820

Notice, 18th March – No elephants or camels are in future permitted into the Island of Bombay.

Sat 1st April 1820

Madras Gazette, 18th March - The local firm of J de Fries & Co has failed.

Sat 8th April 1820

Bombay, 8th April - The new ship Sarah (Thacker) will depart for London on 7th May; stopping at Mauritius for disembarking passengers only. Comfortable accommodation and a doctor on the crew. Apply to Framjee Cowasjee.

Sat 8th April 1820

Penang Gazette, 23rd Feb – the Dutch are recovering their former colony on the island of Rhio and it has caused riots. As a result of the overwhelming fire power of the Dutch, the Bugis people (and other neighbouring peoples) have voted with their feet and some 500 of them have gone to Singapore, leaving a hundred-odd behind. They first obtained a temporary advantage over the Dutch, during which they plundered the Customs House. Rajah Kryan, the young ruler of the Bugis at Rhio, was killed.

The Dutch Governor asked Malacca for help and a small brig eventually arrived and shelled the Bugis quarter killing about 90 people. Their remaining boats were destroyed. We should not be smug about this but recognise that we are all resented by the traders we have displaced.

Sat 15th April 1820

Bombay, 3rd April – there are many stray dogs in Bombay. The Company is offering a reward of ½ Rupee for every carcase delivered to the police station.

Sat 15th April 1820

Bombay Castle, 16th Feb – Elphinstone, the new Governor, has passed in Council a new Regulation consequent on the last uprising of the natives in central and northern India (which is still sporadically continuing).

It empowers the Governor-in-Council to declare Martial Law during any war or civil unrest and thereafter to summarily execute (by hanging after Court Martial) anyone possessing arms.

It suspends the criminal jurisdiction of the courts during its validity. The possessions of any executed people will be confiscated to the Company.

Sat 22nd April 1820

Bombay, 8th April - The ship Ann (Thatcher) of 550 tons will sail for London soon. Space available for 200 tons of cargo. Passengers welcome (a doctor is on the crew). Apply to the Captain or Hormanjee Bomanjee’s shop.

Sat 22nd April 1820

The monthly pay of men in the artillery regiments has been adjusted wef 1st Jan 1820. Subadars get 24 – 42 Rupees pay and 7 Rupees batta; Jemadars 17 and 3 Rupees; Havildars 10 and 2 Rupees; Naiques 8 and 2 and Lascars 7 and 2.

Sat 22nd April 1820

The Portuguese port of Diu, 7th April – a large lion and lioness were killed near here a few days ago. Grain has become scarce and the numbers of beggars are increasing.

Sat 22nd April 1820

Calcutta, 29th March - The Editor of the Calcutta Journal has announced his retirement and the closure of his paper. He has been in conflict with the authorities and earned the enmity of our closed society.

Officers at out-stations are often embarrassed. They initially relish the Journal news reports only to learn later that the Editor is disapproved by the Governor-General. One has to take care not to disclose one’s opinions in India.

Sat 6th May 1820

Ceylon, 27th March – the pearl oyster banks at Aripo have been surveyed and only Modrogam Paar is suitable for harvesting this year. The approximate value of the harvest is estimated at 250,000 Rupees. Sales will be conducted on the beach as usual.

Sat 13th May 1820 Extraordinary

Regulation 2 of 1820 was enacted 10th May by the Governor-in-Council. Regulation 1 of 1818 enacted at Calcutta imposed a duty of 12 Rupees per Seer (2 lbs) on non-Company opium (opium manufactured outside its own territories but brought within its jurisdiction) but there is judicial doubt whether the terms are enforceable in Bombay. Regulation 2 removes that doubt.

This Regulation extends the Calcutta Act to Bombay, as follows:

Any opium imported to Bombay Presidency that does not accord with the terms of this Regulation will be confiscated and sold along with the carrying ship, boat, cart, camel etc - one third of the sale proceeds to the informer and two thirds to the Company. Informers must give evidence on Oath to the magistrate or collector who will issue a Warrant to any public officer or other trust-worthy person to enter ships, buildings and all sorts of private property, using force if necessary, to search for opium. He will place any seizures securely in the Company’s nearest warehouse. Claimants have ten days to register a claim before the magistrate. People found in possession of non-Company smuggled opium will have their opium confiscated and will pay double-duty on the quantity seized. Seizures of less than one maund or 500 Rupees value will be disposed of summarily in the Recorder’s Court or by the local magistrate. Seizures of more than one maund or over 500 Rupees will be dealt with on information in the Recorder’s Court or by suit in any Zillah Court.

The Regulation is also printed in Mahrati and Gujerati languages.

Sat 20th May 1820

The Company’s four Indiamen on the London/Bombay/China route will sail shortly from the Downs without any outbound cargo. The other four Indiamen for China (two via Madras, one via Penang and one direct) will leave England in early June.

Sat 20th May 1820

Died at Belfast in Nov 1819, the relict of Eldred Curwen Pottinger. Seven of her thirteen children are still living.

Sat 20th May 1820

Calcutta Journal - Some months ago in Amarowty two sepoys of Davis’ Reformed Horse paid a Shroff to send 300 Rupees to their families in Hindustan. The Shroff agreed to deliver the money, obtain a signed receipt and provide it to the sepoys within three months. After 4½ months the sepoys demanded the receipt or their money back.

The Shroff referred the matter to Dhunraj, the great banker in Amarowty, and he required the sepoys to wait a little longer. They declined, one thing led to another, and Dhunraj eventually had them beaten by his lowliest servant.

The sepoys complained to Capt R T Seyer of the 28th Regiment of Native Infantry, to which the Reformed Horse is attached. He is part of the garrison bestowed on the Nizam for his protection. Seyer ordered Dhunraj tied and beaten through the commercial part of the town by the two sepoys. Dhunraj offered them 10,000 Rupees to forego his punishment but they entered upon their duty enthusiastically. This caused all the other Shroffs and sowkahs to close shop. Business ceased and the Company’s income is threatened.

It appears to be an instance of martial law applied to commerce and illustrates a solution adopted by the Company’s army officers when far from the Courts.

(NB – on 9th May Seyer wrote to the newspaper that the law in Aurungabad is maintained by the Nizam, Nawab Sulabut Khan. The Nizam arranges for punishments, not the Indian army. That is Seyer’s complete public explanation of the news article. The Nizam is at this time already in arrears to the Company and is soon to be replaced. Capt Hugh Robison was later court-martialled on Seyer’s complaint he did not rectify the original report implicating Seyer. Robison is the same rank but inferior to Seyer in service. He was acquitted. Seyer’s friend Capt Tocker also complained Robison and secured his court-martial on similar subject matter. Robison was again acquitted, released from arrest and returned to duty.)

Sat 20th May 1820

A rare event. Sir George Barlow was a close advisor to the last Governor-General, then acted in that office himself and finally became Governor of Madras.

He has been voted a pension of £1,500 a year by the Directors as, after a lifetime in the Company’s service, he has amassed only a very small fortune.

The pension is to permit him to support the rank in society that the Directors feel due to a senior past employee.

Thurs 25th May 1820 Extraordinary

The new opium regulation again, in Gujerati only.

Thurs 1st June 1820 Extraordinary

The opium Regulation again, in Mahrati only

Sat 3rd June 1820

A correspondent from Southern India reports the Deccan is a wilderness. The villages appear desolate; their inhabitants few and wretched; the native government unpopular and the ryots unprotected.

On crossing the southern boundary of the Company’s domains, the contrast is shocking. Our Indians, though highly taxed, are cheerful and hopeful and agriculture is being extended in all directions.

Sat 3rd June 1820

Political Dept, 6th May – R H Hodgson has been appointed Assistant to the Resident at Kathmandu.

Sat 10th June 1820

On 2nd March the Directors appointed Wm Edward Phillips as Governor of Penang.

Sat 17th June 1820

Director’s letter, 7th Jan – Numerous wives of soldiers in the Indian army have come to England free of charge by acting as servants to fare-paying passengers. They are unable to return by the same means and have petitioned the Court for assistance to rejoin their husbands. These people have no claim on the Company’s funds. Advise the soldiery in India to make their own arrangements.

Sat 17th June 1820

Bengal Hurkaru, 18th May – the new builds Triton (187 tons) and Nerbudda (600 tons) were auctioned at the Exchange Rooms yesterday. Capts Templeton and James Nicoll were the successful purchasers at 25,000 and 73,000 Rupees respectively. These poor prices reveal the all-embracing effect of the general stagnation of our trade.

Sat 17th June 1820

Batavia, 7th March – the Dutch colonial government has been preparing another expedition to Palembang. This one will have mainly European troops and will number 4,000 men. They are being exercised and trained. The Dutch frigate Nassau is being cut-down at Semarang to be used as a floating battery in case the force meets the same defences as last time.

A French officer has gone over to the Sultan of Palembang and is assisting in the defensive preparations. English merchants have sold the Sultan 400 piculs of gunpowder but the Dutch say their invasion must succeed this time or they will die in the attempt. How the English merchants got 25 tons of powder passed the Dutch blockade of the river is a mystery.

A party of armed Malays from Palembang have landed on Banca to drive-out the Dutch garrison and reinforce the defence of the tin mines. They have already taken the southern side of the island. The Dutch have to act quickly but the only way the government can raise the necessary funds is to sell local productions and the market has been slow owing to the high tax regime that was instituted on the Dutch return. Tin, copper and spices are in slight demand and they rely on sales of those commodities for recurrent spending. The other thing that sells well in all seasons is opium – it has reached $1,600 a chest but is presently $1,500.

The Batavian government has since found that resistance to its taxes has united the Muslims and Chinese against them. They dare not send off the force to Palembang until domestic tranquillity is restored. The invasion is postponed.

The Sultan of Palembang remains determined to resist. He has sent his women and children into the hinterland. His men all dress in white (the colour of mourning) to display their dedication to win or die. He has obtained the support of the Bugis people who deplore European commercial antics and some 20,000 of them are reportedly willing to join the Sultan’s forces. The incidence of piracy around Sumatra has increased and the preferred targets are Dutch ships.

All this is good news for our new colony of Singapore. We are capitalising on the resentment felt towards the Dutch and profiting from it. Trade at Malacca has fallen off – the local coasting trade seems to be avoiding Dutch ports.

Sat 1st July 1820

Letter from Sholapore - Pig-sticking is a marvellous sport in the Company’s new territories in the Deccan. We found these animals are often residing in large family groups along the banks of rivers. When our cavalry arrived at Sholapore (where the Company’s garrison protecting the Peshwa is stationed) we sent out some chaps for survey and they took us to Seena about 10 miles away. To our joy we found about 30 pigs, completely unafraid of us. They are quite fast runners and swerve unpredictably which makes for tremendous sport. We killed three before breakfast and will return for the rest later.

Mon 10th July 1820 Extraordinary

The opium Regulation appears again, in Persian only

Sat 15th July 1820

The Blenden Hall (Greig), of 474 tons, will sail for England on 13th Aug. Passengers apply to M/s Remington Crawford & Co. A Doctor is on the crew.

(NB – the provision of ship’s doctors has become common on the passenger services between India and England but is unavailable for coasting and other Asian voyages)

Sat 15th July 1820

The Bheels are the hereditary police of the Mughal Raj. We have endeavoured to accommodate them in our new possessions in the Deccan and elsewhere but they subvert our commercial interests. They are active in Candeish, above and below the Ghauts, and in the settlements along the Godavary and Ahmednaggur river valleys. We sent agents to their chiefs and told them we are reliable, unlike the Peshwa or Nizam, but they claimed their hereditary powers.

We offered them the chance to quit their mountain bases and settle in the sown if they could establish the hereditary rights that they claimed but they are devoted to the rule of power and could not comprehend the benefits of agreement and compromise. They live almost naked and practise polygamy. They consider the mountains as their personal fiefs and hold the cultivator of the plains in contempt.

After several days of fruitless persuasion, we attacked them violently. A large force of foot and horse was put under our political Agent in Candeish. The Talookdars, who co-operate with the Bheels, were tried for their lives and punished or banished to distant parts….. next page missing.

Sat 15th July 1820

Government Notice of new Shipping Regulation of 31st May 1820 for immigration control – Some arriving crew members are deserting. Soldiers in our European regiments are likewise deserting to join the crews of visiting ships. The Governor-in-Council requires every ship arriving at Bombay to surrender its Log Book for examination.

Captains of all Company and country ships and other vessels at Bombay are to report to the Superintendent’s Office on arrival and present both the Log Book and the authorities for carriage of any passengers. Ships will in future obtain a Port Entry Certificate only after production of the Superintendent’s certificate that this procedure has been obeyed.

Captains of departing ships will deliver to the Port Inspector a list of crew and passengers showing all changes (deaths, desertions, illnesses) since departure from the originating port. No Port Clearance Certificate will be granted until this has been done.

If any European or American seaman is to be discharged at Bombay, or if any one of them deserts, immediate notice must be given to the Senior Police Magistrate. The Company will pay a reward of 8 Rupees for the apprehension of each deserter, which will be repaid by the ship owner or master.

Failure to immediately report the discharge or desertion of European or American seamen will result in a fine of 500 Rupees for the first offence and 1,000 Rupees for subsequent offences.

No new European or American seaman is to be signed-on articles unless he presents a written permission of the Superintendent or Town Mayor. Captains or ship owners employing deserters from HM’s or the Company’s service will be fined 500 Rupees for a first offence and 1,000 Rupees for subsequent offences.

Sat 15th July 1820

Bengal Hurkaru, 23rd June – James MacKillop resigned from the Bank of Bengal at the AGM yesterday and George Cruttenden was elected by a large majority as replacement.

Sat 29th July 1820

Bank of Bengal – this week’s rates for services:

Discounting private Bills

Discounting Company Bills of Exchange

Discounting Company salary Bills

Interest on loans on deposits

5%

4%

4%

½% p.m.

Sat 29th July 1820

Ceylon Gazette, 10th June – the insurrection in Kandy has not ended as hoped. The Governor has promulgated rewards for the arrest of some headmen who are interfering with our communications between Kandy and Trincomalee.

Sat 12th Aug 1820

The Caranja Ferry monopoly will be auctioned 21st Aug. It will commence from 1st Sept 1820.

Sat 26th Aug 1820

Proclamation, 9th Aug – Mocha and all other Gulf ports in the ownership of the Imam of Sana are under blockade. When our Resident Ramsey died at Mocha in 1817 he had already contracted to ship the Company’s coffee to Bombay. Lt Dominicetti assumed the acting Residency. The contract was with the shipowning brother of the pirate Mohamed Akil (who killed the Captain of the American ship Essex). He is the owner of the Deriah Beggi, the involved ship.

On the death of Ramsey, the ship owner no longer wished to perform his contract and Dominicetti arrested some people to encourage him. This caused several hundred Arab soldiers to take all the factory occupants before the Dola where they were roughly treated. In their absence the factory was plundered.

It is the British position that the Dola cannot take executive action against our nationals but must refer all such cases to the Imam. A squadron has been sent to obtain reparation. Hence the blockade.

Sat 2nd Sept 1820

Mocha is the original centre of the coffee trade. It was the last town in Yemen that the Porte abandoned to the Arabs, being the richest. He only disposed of it when he was short of cash and the Arabs offered money.

Since then it has been ruled by the Imam of Sana and has continued to be a cash-cow. The Dola appointed to command the town usually gets an annually renewable appointment. He delivers his accounts after the monsoon each year and the Imam then decides whether to extend him for a further year.

Sat 9th Sept 1820

King’s Bench, 28th March - Joseph Barretto of Portland Place, the Calcutta merchant and banker, lent £1,300 to Lord Viscount Torrington. When he asked for repayment he received written abuse. He says he was put in fear and requests the protection of the law.

Torrington says he would not have borrowed it if it had not first been offered. He says on the terms now demanded by Barretto he could have borrowed it from any money-lender in town.

Torrington had introduced Barretto to all the important people when he had been in Calcutta. He had obtained a Fellowship in the Royal Society for Barretto even though he was Eurasian. He had written to Lord Sidmouth endeavouring to get Barretto an introduction at Court and had given him every assistance in procuring a title and a seat in Parliament and had only been defeated because of Barretto’s skin colour. As a result of accompanying Barretto in London, he (Torrington) had been exposed to contempt and ridicule.

Judge Bayley was satisfied Torrington had not caused a breach of the peace.

Sat 16th Sept 1820

Married 9th Sept 1820 at St Thomas’ Church Bombay by the Reverend T Carr, Capt Henry Pottinger, Collector at Ahmednugger, and Susanna Maria, eldest daughter of the late Capt Cooke of HM’s 82nd Regiment.

Sat 16th Sept 1820

Letter from Rangoon, 18th Aug - All the information we get from Ava seems to indicate the new King is a mild and humane chap and friendly to foreigners. This might be a good opportunity to build the relationship between the governments of India and Burma.

His popular approval has increased with the discovery of a white elephant in the lower reaches of the Irrawaddy which is deemed to be a propitious sign.

Sat 23rd Sept 1820

The Company is intending an expedition against the Emirs of Sind. They govern the province beyond the Indus. The reasons for contention are unknown. The 8th Madras cavalry has just arrived at Malligaum where the army is being assembled. HM’s 67th Regiment will be involved.

Sat 30th Sept 1820

Piracy in the Persian Gulf persuaded the Company to send an expedition which has just returned. They found the pirate’s base was at Ras el Khyma which is close to and dominates the Straits of Hormuz. They occupied the town, destroyed it and its fort and returned.

Mon 2nd Oct 1820 Extraordinary

The new opium regulation again, in Gujerati only.

Sat 7th Oct 1820

Bengal Hurkaru, 6th Sept - An attempt was made at Kedgeree a few days ago to fire the ship Maitland