The Old East Indiamen

The first decade of the nineteenth century had been very unfortunate for the East India Company. There had been the losses of those ships already mentioned, owing to disasters a...

We have seen something of the lives of the officers and men in the Company’s ships at sea: we desire now to learn more of their conditions of employment—what was their uniform,...

We alluded on an earlier page to what were known as “separate” voyages. In the year 1612 the owners of the different stocks joined together and made one common capital of £740,0...

Although the expedition of those three tall ships related in the previous chapter had been commercially such a dismal failure, it had shown that James Lancaster was the kind of...

Bombay had been first so called by the Dutch, meaning Good Bay. Owing to its spaciousness, excellent depth of water and other facilities it was well designated. By the end of th...

At 6.30 A.M. in these East Indiamen the crew began to wash down decks, and an hour later the hammocks were piped up and stowed in the nettings round the waist by the quartermast...

There was a fixed rate of passage-money, and it was thought necessary to forbid the captains to charge passengers any sum above that specified for their rank. These were the res...

It is only by examining the official correspondence which passed between the Company’s servants and themselves that we are able to get a correct insight into the lesser, though...

I want in this chapter to call your attention to a very gallant English captain named James Lancaster, whose grit and endurance in the time of hard things, whose self-effacing l...

It must not be thought that even after that momentous change of 1834, when the “free traders,” as they were called, began to send their ships to India, the Company were freer of...

In order that the East Indiamen might be able to make themselves known on the high seas to the British men-of-war, a special code of signals was accustomed to be arranged by the...

We have made reference during the course of our story to the grave risks which were run by the mercantile East Indiamen in regard to pirates and privateers. It will now be our d...

The joint stock arrangement, as distinct from the separate voyages, which had been instituted in 1613 worked very well: and after the Restoration the practice of buying and sell...

The East India Company had recovered from their period of desolation. They had set their house in order, had been granted a further extension of their monopoly, were opening up...

Now, before we proceed with the further voyages and trading of these Indiamen, we shall find it very interesting if we attempt to paint the picture of the building of these ship...

The East India Company’s progress was anything but a straight, easy path. We must never forget that if it made big profits—and when examined these figures, taken on an average,...

On the 20th of February the two ships were ready for sea. “We went all aboord our ships, shot off our ordnance, and set sayle to the sea toward England, with thankes to God, and...

Another pirate who was a thorn in the flesh to the East Indiamen was a man named Jean Lafitte, who was born at St Malo. This man was no stranger to the Eastern seas. He had been...

One of the most gallant duels which was ever fought between a merchant ship and a man-of-war is that which occurred in the year 1805: and though eventually the former was at las...

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 o...

In this volume I have to invite the reader to consider a special epoch of the world’s progress, in which the sailing ship not only revolutionised British trade but laid the foun...

When once it was realised how wonderful was Portugal’s good fortune in the East, the nations of Europe one and all desired to enjoy some of these riches for themselves.

Within human experience it is a safe maxim, that if you keep on continuously thinking and longing for a certain object you are almost sure, eventually, to obtain that which you...

these straits either going or returning, “except upon great occasion incident” with the consent of at least four of Fenton’s assistants. But a conference had decided that it wer...