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. The former existed to protect the latter, by suppressing both
local and nomadic pirates of all kinds, by convoying East Indiamen and
even carrying troops when necessary, and by performing other duties,
such as surveying, in addition to existing as a defence against any
aggressive projects of rival nations. 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 force was essential.
The Portuguese had their Indian Navy, consisting of large, ocean-going
vessels and small-draught craft for operating in shallow local waters,
the crews being composed of Portuguese, slaves and Hindoos. It was
therefore natural enough that the English should soon find it necessary
to fit out ships capable of meeting the enemy on a fairly even basis.
Furthermore, the Bombay trade had been so much interfered with by the
attacks from Malabar pirates that it became essential to build small
armed vessels to protect merchant craft. The result was that Warwick
Pett, of that famous shipbuilding family which had been building
vessels in England from the early Tudor times, was sent out in the
seventeenth century to Bombay to construct suitable ships. Local craft
were also employed, and very useful they were found in negotiating
shallow waters.[G]
Throughout most of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the East
India Company’s cruisers were kept actively employed in suppressing
the native pirates who roamed the Indian Ocean and attacked with great
daring and ingenuity. They hung about off the entrance to the Red Sea,
found a snug base near the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, strengthened
it with fortifications for the protection of themselves and their
shipping, and eventually moved to Madagascar, which was to be a famous
base for those notorious eighteenth-century pirates of European and
North American origin, whose names are familiar to most schoolboys.
[Illustration: THE “CAMBRIA” BRIG, RECEIVING ON BOARD THE LAST
BOAT-LOAD FROM THE “KENT,” EAST INDIAMAN, WHEN THE LATTER WAS BEING
BURNT.
(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)]
The year 1697 was marked by attacks on the Company’s ships, not
merely by pirates, but by the French. Three of these East Indiamen were
attacked, plundered and burned by pirate craft flying English colours.
Two more of the Company’s ships were captured by the French, so things
were serious enough. The matter was reported to England, and a squadron
of four well-armed ships was accordingly sent out to extirpate these
robbers of the sea. In fact, the pirate problem became so great that
by a mutual agreement the English, French and Dutch eventually agreed
to an arrangement for policing the Eastern seas for the purpose of
destroying their common foe. Thus the English looked after the southern
Indian Ocean, the Dutch were responsible for the Red Sea, and the
French for the Persian Gulf.
The English Indian Marine had sometimes to be strengthened by seamen
from the Company’s merchant ships, and very gallant fighters they
proved themselves to be. Arabian pirates roamed about over the whole
of the Indian seas, and having become emboldened with success actually
built more ships and formed what was in fact a navy of their own. Their
ships were well armed and their men were excellent both as seamen and
fighters, and as soon as ever the English men-of-war moved off, these
pirates, swooping down on coast or ship, would act as they liked.
After the occupation by the English of Bombay and that island becoming
a presidency, the naval force there developed under the name of the
Bombay Marine, under the command of an admiral, drafts of officers and
men being obtained from ships arriving from Europe. For years this
service had indeed fought against privateers, pirates, Portuguese,
Dutch and French, to defend both ships and factories of the Company.
In a smaller, but still an important, degree they had been called upon
also to keep out those interloping English ships which had no lawful
right to trade with India. Looking back through the first century
of the Company’s existence, its ships had captured the Island of St
Helena in 1601. Eight years later the _Solomon_ had defeated several
Portuguese ships. In 1612 the Company’s fleet had again defeated the
Portuguese fleet in India, and the year after this incident had been
repeated. In 1616 a valuable Portuguese frigate had been taken and the
Dutch severely defeated at Batavia. Four of the Company’s ships in 1619
and 1620 defeated yet another Portuguese fleet. The capture of Ormuz
in 1622 had been made by the Company’s fleet acting with the King of
Persia’s forces. In 1635 Bombay had been recaptured by the Company’s
fleet, but it was not till 1662 that England sent out men-of-war to
India for the protection of the Company’s interests. Therefore, during
its first sixty years the Company had to act both as merchants and a
naval power without any external aid, such as trade had a right to
demand.
If the Bombay Marine was distinctly a small service as regards numbers,
it was certainly very gallant, and many a fine incident bright with
bravery and daring belongs to its history. During the war with France
a number of ships belonging to the Bombay Marine were attached to the
Royal Navy on service in the waters that wash the coasts of India, and
rendered good service in this capacity. For although the real theatre
of war between England and France was not in the Orient, yet some
severe, if indecisive, engagements were here fought, and the Company’s
ships, if smaller in size, were a valuable form of assistance. About
the middle of the eighteenth century the Marine consisted of about
twenty ships, and these were essential for protecting the progress
of the mercantile East Indiamen, for without such convoys it was
impossible for those rich freights ever to have traversed the Indian
Ocean. It was the Bombay Marine, also, who made surveys of part of the
Arabian, Persian, the west coast of Media and other coasts, and all
this was to be for the benefit of navigation and trade generally.
By the beginning of the nineteenth century the Bombay Marine consisted
of a couple of frigates, three sloops-of-war, fourteen brigs, in
addition to prizes and vessels specially purchased for the service, and
a few years before that, when Napoleon was contemplating his big scheme
in connection with Egypt, which was to be the stepping-stone to India,
a naval force was sent from England to cruise in the Red Sea. But, as
everyone now knows, the Battle of the Nile prevented these vessels from
having any serious work to perform. And when eventually hostilities
were resumed, the Bombay Marine had to protect the trade in the Bay
of Bengal. This they did with such thoroughness that British merchant
ships were singularly free from capture. In spite of the opposition in
some quarters, and the prejudice against India-built ships, some of the
biggest vessels of the Bombay Marine were built in India, and excellent
craft they proved themselves to be.
One of the most interesting incidents connected with the Bombay Marine
during the early part of the nineteenth century was that in which the
_Mornington_ sloop-of-war figures conspicuously. The French privateers,
especially _La Confiance_ (of which we spoke on an earlier page) and
_L’Eugénie_, were most harassing to any craft navigating the vicinity
of the East Indian coast. The commander of the _Mornington_ was Captain
Frost, and he was determined to bring _L’Eugénie_ to book. For a time
the latter evaded him, and he then hit upon a smart idea. He succeeded
in altering the _Mornington’s_ appearance so that even her own builder
would scarcely have recognised her. In order to prevent any suspicion
of her seeming a warship, Captain Frost added to his ship a false
poop, so that she looked just like a country ship. He changed also
the painting of the hull and added patches of dirty old canvas to
the sails, and after a while she seemed to be anything but the smart
sloop-of-war which she really was.
When this transformation had been completed, the _Mornington_ took
up her position to cruise about the track where the French ship was
likely to be hovering, and before long the look-out aloft espied
the privateer. The _Mornington_ then continued her game of bluff
and altered her course as if she was anxious to get away from the
Frenchman. The latter, unsuspecting, began to work up towards the
English ship, and by sunset was getting quite near. After darkness
had fallen the _Mornington_ ran under easy sail, and presently the
Frenchman hailed, asking the ship’s name, ordering them to heave-to.
Too late the privateer discovered that he had been ensnared and fired
into the _Mornington_, mortally wounding a seaman and injuring the
running gear. Captain Frost now determined to injure the enemy’s
rigging and sails aloft, and thus cripple him to such an extent that
_L’Eugénie_ would not be able to get the windward berth. So chasing
him he blazed away at the Frenchman. It was an exciting chase and
lasted for three hours. So anxious was the privateer to escape that
she threw overboard guns and boats and spars as she went: but at
the end of this time the _Mornington_ had come up alongside and the
Frenchman’s captain hailed and begged the Englishman to cease firing
as they had surrendered. Very shortly the privateer became an English
prize, though she was found to be so crippled that she could not beat
to windward. But it was a great relief when the news reached India that
this mosquito craft had been taken away from any further possibility
of preying on the peaceful merchant ships; and by the irony of events
she who had formerly spent her time in attacking these trading craft
was now to become their protector, for the Government added her to
the service and the command was given to the senior lieutenant of the
_Mornington_.
The Bombay dockyard by the end of the second decade of the nineteenth
century was building such big warships as a ‘74 and ‘84 gun
line-of-battle ship, the latter being of 2289 tons. Other big warships
were also being constructed, and even those most conservative of
sailormen who had always believed exclusively in oak were able after
trial to concede that better ships than these Indian teak craft could
not be desired. And the men and officers were like their ships.
Continuously they seemed to be subject to service, and always they came
through it well. French and Dutch, pirates of the Indian Ocean or the
Persian Gulf, privateers of France, England or America, it was much
the same; the Bombay Marine had to do its work, being hurried here and
there to fight and conquer. And when the short intervals of respite
occurred these hard-worked people took up again their surveying duties
between those distant regions of the Cape of Good Hope and the Sea of
Japan and northwards to the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. At the close
of the Burmese War the officers and men of the Bombay Marine received
the thanks of both Houses of Parliament, for no fewer than five of the
Company’s cruisers had served throughout the campaign.
But the time was at hand for a series of changes in the Bombay Marine.
First of all we must call attention to the law passed in the year
1826 by which it was decreed that henceforth any naval force that
was sent out from England by his Majesty to the East Indies on the
representation of the East India Company’s Court of Directors, for the
purpose of hostilities against native powers, was to be paid for by the
Company. The Marine Board which controlled this Company’s naval force
consisted of the Superintendent, the Master-Attendant, the Commodore of
the Harbour and the senior captain. To be Commodore at Surat or in the
Persian Gulf, or Master-Attendant at Calcutta was also to enjoy one of
the plums of the service reserved for those who had served long years.
But after twenty-two years’ service an officer could retire with the
following pay:—
Master-Attendant and Commodore £450 a year
Captain of the First Class 360 “
Captain of the Second Class 270 “
First Lieutenant 180 “
If an officer were to retire after ten years’ service, owing to
ill-health, he was granted one-half of the above allowance. But except
from the cause of ill-health no officer was allowed to come home on
furlough under ten years.
During the year 1827 the whole condition of the Bombay Marine was
inquired into, and as a result the service was changed from a Marine
established purely for war purposes into something of a curious
character. The officers were embodied into a regiment called the
Marine Corps, and a regular packet service was established. The larger
warships of the service were made more efficient, new ships were
added, and a uniform approximating more to that of the Royal Navy was
sanctioned. Finally, from the 1st of May 1830 the Bombay Marine was
changed to the Indian Navy, and this in turn came to an end in the year
1863. Beginning as an adjunct of the East India Company it rendered
a varied and important series of services during a period extending
over two and a half centuries. 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.
And when at last this service was abolished, many were the indignant
outcries against such a step. However, it had long survived the
existence of the Company’s maritime service, both as regards India
and China, and a new order of things in India had already begun to be
inaugurated. The story of the East India Company’s navy, as distinct
from its maritime or mercantile service, is that of a comparatively
small force doing wonders for two and a half centuries, showing great
gallantry, enterprise, and enduring much hardship. Its last years were
conspicuously marked by red tape, yet the time had clearly come for
a change, and the last link was snapped that had connected the old
East Indiamen of historic memory with the period of steamships and the
modern men-of-war. Sentiment is an excellent thing in its way, and one
of the undoubted forces of the world, yet when it comes into collision
with efficiency it is not the latter which must give way. To-day the
Royal Indian Marine contains just as gallant and able a personnel as
in the past, and the name of Lieutenant Bowers of this service, who
died in Captain Scott’s expedition to the South Pole, will at once be
remembered.
FOOTNOTES:
[G] I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness in this chapter to Captain
Rathbone Low’s “History of the Indian Navy.”