East India Company ship

“ During this time he took several surveys and rendered some services to the East India Company, which were officially acknowledged; but in 1793 his ship was seized partly on the ground that he was carrying contraband and partly because he was infringing the East India Company’s monopoly. ”

“ That no Ship or Vessel engaged in Private Trade under the Authority of this Act shall be permitted to clear out from or be admitted to Entry at any Port or Place within the United Kingdom, or Limits of the said Company's Charter, until the Master or other Person having the Command of such Ship or Vessel shall have made out and exhibited a true and perfect Manifest of the Cargo of such Ship or Vessel, to such Person or Persons according to such Form, and subject to such Regulations as now are 6r hereafter may be prescribed by any Act or Acts passed or to be passed for that Purpose. ”

“ The Indian Navy evolved from the Bombay Marine. It is not necessary to recapitulate the history of the East India Company and the rise of its mercantile fleet: it is sufficient to state that with the establishment of factories on shore and the passing and repassing of valuable freights over seas frequented by hostile ships some sort of local force282 was essential. ”

“ The East India Company rose from being a private venture of a few enterprising merchants to become a gigantic corporation of immense political power, with its own governors, its own cavalry, artillery and infantry, its own navy, and yet with its trade-monopoly and its unsurpassed “regular service” of merchantmen. The latter were the largest, the best built, and the most powerfully armed vessels in the world, with the exception only of some warships. ”

“ It is difficult to realise all that the East India Company stood for. It comprised under its head a large shipping line with many of the essential attributes of a ruling nation, and its merchant ships not only opened up to our traders India, but Japan and China as well. ”

“ Altogether they had owned during that period twenty-one able ships, and by the year 1621 the Company owned not less than 10,000 tons of shipping, employing as many as 2500 seamen. When we consider that even as late as the year 1690 the whole population of England was less than 5,500,000, and that of this number the seafaring people were a very small figure, it is obvious what this great East India Company meant to the country, with its wealth, enabling large sums of money to be spent in wages to seamen, workmen and factors. ”

“ THE COMPANY’S NAVAL SERVICE Primarily, of course, the East Indiamen were built fitted out and manned for the purpose of trade: but owing to circumstances they were compelled to engage in hostilities both offensive and defensive. The result was that these ships figured in more fights than any essentially mercantile ships (as distinct from pirates, privateers and other sea-rovers) that have ever been built.
It is necessary at the outset to distinguish carefully between what became known subsequently as the Indian Navy and the Company’s merchant ships. ”

“ It had combated the hostility of the Portuguese and Dutch in those early days when the English Company was struggling to get a secure foothold in India. It had made history along the Persian Gulf, it had inflicted punishment on privateers and pirates, it had protected the mercantile East Indiamen, it had assisted the British navy wrestling with the French foe in the Orient. The Company’s cruisers were, in fact, excellent fighting ships for their size, commanded by gallant officers and well manned by able crews. ”