No More Learning

Papers, 1825, XXIV, 147.
2 Idem, 1821, XVIII, 242.
• Idem, 1824, XXIII, 43.
• Idem, 1821, XVIII, 229.
>


## p. 138 (#174) ############################################

138
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
Accustomed to attach implicit belief to all the assertions of the former,
she dared not, if she was able to make herself heard, deny that by
becoming sati she would remain so many years in heaven, rescue her
husband from hell, and purify the family of her father, mother and
husband; while on the other hand, disgrace in this life, and continued
transmigration into the body of a female animal, would be the certain
consequences of refusal.
In this state of confusion, a few hours quickly pass and the widow is burnt before
she has time even to think on the subject. Should utter indifference for her husband
and superior sense enable her to preserve her judgment, and to resist the arguments
of those about her, it will avail her little,--the people will not on any account be
disappointed of their show; and the entire population of a village will turn out to
assist in dragging her to the banks of the river, and in keeping her down upon the
pile. Under these circumstances nine out of ten widows are burnt to death.
Ewer then urged that the sacrifice was more frequently designed to
secure the temporal welfare of the survivors than the spiritual benefit
of the widow or her husband. The son had no longer to maintain his
mother; the male relatives, as reversioners in default of male issue,
came in for the estate which the widow would have held for life; the
Brahmans were paid for their services, and were interested in main-
taining their religion; the crowd attended the show with the savage
merriment exhibited by an English crowd at a boxing match or a
bull-bait. Sati was indeed recommended by the Shastras, but was
not hinted at by Manu, or other high authorities which prescribed
the duties of a widow. The recommendation, too, where found in the
Shastras, was addressed to the widow and not to her relatives. It was
no part of their duties to persuade or force her in the matter. The
unhappy victims themselves were uneducated and unacquainted with
the Shastras. What the government was really doing was authorising
the sacrifice of widows by their relatives. The custom, too, might almost
be called local. In the years 1815-17, 864 satis had been performed
in five districts of Bengal--Burdwan, Hughli, the Jungle Mahals,
Nuddea and the suburbs of Calcutta, while in the same period only
663 took place throughout the rest of the empire including the holy
city of Benares, in which only forty-one sacrifices of that nature were
performed, although its population was almost exclusively Hindu,
and it was a place where every meritorious act was of double value.
Regarding standing orders Éwer wrote:
It appears to me that if the practice is allowed to exist at all, the less notice we
take of it the better, because the apparent object of the interference of the police is
to compel the people to observe the rules of their own Shasters (which of themselves
they will not obey) by ascertaining particular circumstances of the condition of
the widow.
The police enquiries, he added, opened the wic'est door to extortions.
Even if such interference in some cases induced compliance with the
1 Cf. Bernier, op. cit. pp. 313-15 (ed. Constable).
1


## p. 139 (#175) ############################################

AMHERST'S HESITATION
139
rules of the Shastra, the oincial attendance of the daroga stamped
every regular sati with the sanction of government; and authorising
a practice was not the way to effect its gradual abolition. Whenever
“illegal” satis had been prevented by the police, no feeling of dis-
satisfaction had been excited. He believed that the custom might be
totally prohibited without exciting any serious or general dissatis-
faction.
Ewer's views received a trenchant endorsement from Courtney
Smith of the nizamat adalat, who on 2 August, 1821,' recorded in
a judgment that the government, in modifying sati by their circular
orders, had thrown the ideas of the Hindus on the subject into complete
confusion. They knew not what was allowed and what was interdicted,
and would only believe that we abhorred sati when we prohibited it
in toto “by an absolute and peremptory law”. They had no idea nat
we might not do so with perfect safety. In forwarding to government
the returns of 1819–20 Smith urged that the toleration of sati was a
reproach to British rule, and that its abolition would be attended by
no danger. It could be abolished by a short regulation somewhat in
the style of the regulation of 1802 against the sacrifice of children at
Sagor. To interfere with a vigorous hand for the protection of the
weak against the strong was one of the most imperious and paramount
duties of every civilised state, from which it could not shrink without
a manifest diminution of its dignity and an essential degradation of
its character among nations.
Similar protests came from other officers and from other parts of
India. On 14 September, 1813, Lushington, a Madras magistrate,
informed his government that except to a few necessitous Brahmans
who “received a nefarious reward for presiding at this infernal rite",
a
the prohibition of sati would give “universal satisfaction".
It is not surprising that, although such representations as these were
accompanied by others of a soothing nature, the directors were ill at
ease. On 17 June, 1823, they thus addressed the government of
India:
You are aware that the attention of parliament and the public has lately been
called to the subject. It appears that ihe practice varics very much in different
parts of India both as to the extent to which it prevails and the enthusiasm by
which it is upheld. . . . It is upon intelligible grounds that you have adopted the
rules which permit the sacrilice when clearly voluntary and conformable to the
Hindu religion. But to us it appears very doubtful (and we are confirmed in this
doubt by responsible authorities) whether the measures which have been taken in
pursuance of this principle have not tended rather to increase than to diminish
the practice. It is morcover with much reluctance that we can consent to make the
British Government, by specific permission of the suttee, an ostensiblc party to the
sacrifice; we are averse also to ihe practice of making British courts expounders
and vindicators of the Hindu religion when it leads to acts which not less as legis-
lators than as Christians we abominate.
i Parl. Papers, 1823, xvn, 67.
2 Idem, p. 63.


## p. 140 (#176) ############################################

140
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
They would not then press this reasoning, but the matter must be
further considered. They would co-operate in any measures which
“your superior means of estimating consequences may suggest”. 1
But the government over which Lord Amherst presided was
"unwilling to abandon the hope that the abolition of suttee might
at some future period be found safe and expedient”. They based this
hope on the fact that they had remarked already "that the more
general dissemination of knowledge among the better informed Hindus
themselves might be expected to prepare gradually the minds of the
natives for such a measure". 2
The allusion here is clearly to the campaign against sati led by the
Brahman reformer Ram Mohan Roy, mentioned in the last chapter.
When in 1818 some Hindus had petitioned against the orders which
the government had issued restricting the practice of sati, Ram
Mohan Roy had produced a counter-petition which contained these
passages :
Your petitioners are fully aware, from their own knowledge or from the authority
of creditable eye-witnesses, that cases have frequently occurred when women have
been induced by the persuasion of their next heirs, interested in their destruction,
to burn themselves at the funeral pile of their husbands: that others who have been
induced by fear to retract a resolution, rashly expressed in the first moments of
grief, of burning with their deceased husbands have been forced down upon the
pile and there bound with ropes and green bamboos until consumed with the
fames; that some after flying from the flames have been carried back by their
relatives and burnt to death. All these instances, your petitioners frankly admit,
are murders according to every Shaster as well as to the commonsense of all nations.
Ram Mohan Roy, at grave personal risk, endeavoured to stop satis
by tracts and other methods of dissuasion. He obtained support from
some of his fellow-countrymen, but was bitterly opposed by the
orthodox school under Raja Radha Kanta Deb. 3 So fierce were the
feelings aroused that for a time the reformer went about in fear of his
life and had to be protected by a guard. 4
In July, 1828, Amherst was succeeded by Lord William Bentinck,
a reformer by temperament, who had been governor of Madras
when the Vellore mutiny occurred and had now been instructed by
the directors to consider definite measures for the immediate or
gradual abolition of sati. After careful enquiry, within a year of
taking office, he decided to put an end to the practice in British
territory without delay, against the advice not only of Horace Hayman
Wilson, the leading Orientalist of the day, but also of Ram Mohan
Roy. With some qualms and careful explanations he recorded his
determination in an elaborate minute which he placed before his
1 Parl, Papers, 1824, XXIII, 44-5.
° Idem, 1825, XXIV, 153-4.
3 Peggs, op. cit. p. 89.
4 Parl. Papers, 1825, xxiv, 11; O'Malley, op. cit. pp. 342-3; Dutt, Literature of Bengal,
pp. 143, 147.
5 Cf. Kaye, Life of Metcalfe, 11, 172-3.
6 Statement of the directors to the Privy Council (unpublished).


## p. 141 (#177) ############################################

BENTINCK'S ACTION
141
>
council. He had elicited the views of fifty-three officers, mostly
military, of whom twenty-four were in favour of immediate abolition,
and fifteen principal civil servants, of whom eight held the same view;í
he had also received two reports of the nizamat adalat with the
unanimous opinions of the judges in favour of abolition, and returns
of satis in 1827–8 exhibiting some decline of numbers.
“If this diminution”, he wrote, "could be ascribed to any change of opinion
upon the question, or the progress of civilisation or education, the fact would be
most satisfactory, and to disturb this sure though slow process of self-correction
would be most impolitic and unwise. But I think it may be safely affirmed that
though in Calcutta truth may be said to have made a considerable advance among
the higher orders, yet in respect to the population at large no change whatever has
taken place, and from these causes at least no hope of abandonment of the rite
can be rationally entertained. ”
H. H. Wilson, then secretary of the Hindu college (Vidyalaya),
considers it a dangerous evasion of the rcal difficulties to attempt to prove that
satis are not "essentially a part of the Hindu religion”. I entirely agree with him.
The question is not what the rite is but what it is supposed to be, and I have no
doubt that the conscientious belief of every order of Hindus with few exceptions,
regard it as sacred.
Bentinck went on to observe that both Wilson and Ram Mohan Roy
considered that abolition would cause general distrust and dissatis-
faction. They considered that the practice might be gradually sup-
pressed by increasing checks. By far the greater number of satis,
however, occurred among the unmartial inhabitants of Bengal and
after enquiry he had concluded that abolition would cause no trouble
in the army. He observed that the judges of the nizamat adalat
were unanimously in favour of it, and laid before his council the draft
of the necessary regulation, concluding with the following sentences:
The primary object of my heart is the benefit of the Hindus. I know nothing so
important to the improvement of their future conditions as the establishment of
a purer morality, whatever their belief, and a more just conception of the will of
God. The first step to this better understanding will be the dissolution of religious
belief and practice from blood and murder. I disown in these remarks or in this
measure any view whatever to conversion to our own faith. I write and feel a
legislator for the Hindu, and as, I believe, many enlightened Hindus think and
feel. Descending from these higher considerations, it cannot be a dishonest ambi-
tion that the government of which I form a part should have the credit of an act
which is to wash out a foul stain on British rule, and to stay a sacrifice of humanity
and justice to a doubtful expediency; and finally I may be permitted to feel deeply
anxious that our course shall be in accordance with the noble example set to us by
the British Government at home, and that the adaptation, when practicable to
the circumstances of this vast Indian population, of the same enlightened prin-
ciples, may promote there as well as here the general prosperity, and may exalt
the character of the nation.
Charles Metcalfe, the most prominent of the governor-general's
councillors, while noting his concurrence, observed that he was not
without apprehension that the measure might possibly bc “used by
i Statement of the directors to the Privy Council.


## p. 142 (#178) ############################################

142
SOCIAL POLICY TO 1858
the disaffected and designing to inflame the passions of the multitude
and produce a religious excitement”, the consequences of which,
once set in action, could not quickly be foreseen. But if the measure
were not made “an engine to produce insurrection” in the early
period of its operation, it would not cause danger later on. His fears
or doubts were as to the immediate future and were not sufficiently
strong to dissuade him from joining heartily “in the suppression of
the horrible custom by which so many lives are cruelly sacrificed”. 1
On 4 December, 1829, sati was declared by Regulation xvii to be
illegal in the Bengal Presidency and punishable by the criminal courts.
Persons assisting a voluntary sacrifice would be decmed guilty of
culpable homicide; but those convicted of using violence or compul-
sion or assisting in burning or burying a Hindu widow in a state of
stupefaction or in circumstances impeding the exercise of her free
will, would be liable to sentence of death. A similar regulation was
passed in Madras on 2 February, 1830. In Bombay Sir John Malcolm's
government repealed that clause in their regulations which declared
"assistance at the rites of self-immolation not to be murder". 2
On 19 December, 1829, a petition of remonstrance was presented
to Bentinck signed by "several thousand persons, being zamindars,
principal and other Hindoo inhabitants of Bengal, Bihar, Orissa etc. ”
On 14 January, 1830, the petitioners were informed that their remedy,
if any, lay in appeal to the Privy Council. They did appeal, asserting
that the obnoxious regulation interfered with their “most antient and
sacred rites and usages" and violated "the conscientious belief of an
entire nation". Abuses, if any, which might have arisen could be
effectually prevented by a proper attention to Hindu opinion. They
“wholly" denied, however, that such abuses existed. The regulation
infringed the sacred pledge to keep inviolate the religion, laws and
usages of the Hindus which was manifest throughout the whole tenor
of parliamentary legislation. In reply the directors summarised the
history of the past and stated their own unanswerable case. It was
supported by petitions which Ram Mohan Roy had brought with him
to England and had presented to parliament on behalf of his followers.
The appeal was dismissed by the Privy Council in the presence of this
true-hearted and courageous man; and no trouble whatever resulted
in India. For years sati continued in the Panjab until the fall of the
Sikh Empire. In the Rajput states it gave way gradually to British
insistence combined with spread of the knowledge among Rajput
ladies that such things were not done in British territory. 4 Sati has
been performed in our own time;5 and the circumstances which
>
3
1 Kaye, Life of Metcalfe, 11, 194.
? Parl. Papers, 1831-2, IX, 354.
Unpublished papers preserved in the India Office.
• Article by E. J. Thompson, Edinburgh Review, April, 1927, pp. 274-86; and Suttee
• O'Malley, op. cit. p. 346; Thompson, Suttee, chap. ix.
P. 106.


## p. 143 (#179) ############################################

SATI ABOLISHED
143
attended the case at Barh in the Patna district of Bihar in November,
1927, show clearly that the rite, from its sacrificial character and
appeal to belief in metempsychosis, 4 still has power to thrill crowds
of Hindus with reverence and sympathy. It has numbered among its
victims women who have faced an agonising death with courageous
self-devotionº in firm faith that they were answering the call of religion
and honour, and in distaste for a life which offered no prospect of
happiness. But it has also unquestionably brought about the murder,
in circumstances of revolting cruelty, of many a helpless widow, of
girls on the very threshold of life. Reviewing its history in British
India from 1789 to 1829, observing the apparently small proportion
of its victims to the general population even in Bengal, and the passive
acceptance of abolition when at last abolition came, it is difficult to
avoid the conclusion that a wrong keynote was struck at the very
beginning which reverberated dismally through after-years, that
Brooke, Ewer, Courtney Smith and other subordinate officers were
right, that governors and councillors were wrong, and that Bentinck
put an end to years of degrading, lamentable and unnecessary com-
promise. At the same time we must remember that Bentinck himself,
in his great minute, expressly exonerated his predecessors. “I should”,
he wrote, “have acted as they have done. "
Tod, Rajasthan, 1, 635. Cf. The Times, 5 February, 1929.
5
· Lepel Griffin, Ranjit Singh, pp. 66–7; Kincaid and Parasnis, History of the Maratha
People, 11, 301-4.


## p. 144 (#180) ############################################

CHAPTER VIII
THE COMPANY'S MARINE
The history of the Company's Marine commences in 1613, when
a squadron was formed at Surat to protect the East India Company's
trade from the constant aggressions of the Portuguese and the pirates
who infested the west coast of India. Included in this squadron were
the Dragon and Osiander, commanded by Captain Best, who ulti-
mately broke the marine predominance of the Portuguese at Swally
in January, 1615. At that date the Company's naval forces comprised
these two English ships and ten armed grabs or gallivats, which may
be held to have formed the original nucleus of the Bombay Marine.
This small force gradually increased during the first half of the seven-
teenth century, and during that period was engaged in a practically
continuous and on the whole successful struggle with the Company's
adversaries in India. In 1669, after the transfer of Bombay to the
Company, a further development took place; the construction of
small armed craft at Bombay, for the protection of the Persian Gulf
and Arabian Sea trade, was commenced, among them being two
brigantines built by a descendant of the Elizabethan shipwright,
Phineas Pett; and in 1686 the whole marine establishment was finally
transferred from Surat to Bombay, the marine stores being housed in
Bombay castle and the ships anchored in Bombay harbour. After this
date the Company's sea-forces were officially styled the Bombay
Marine; an officer was regularly appointed “Admiral” every year;
while a supply of men for both upper and lower decks was maintained
as far as possible by drafts from England. The Marine suffered to some
extent from the lawlessness and insubordination which marked the
end of the seventeenth and the early years of the eighteenth centuries.
Two vessels, the Revenge and Hunter, played an active part in Keigwin's
rebellion of 1683;2 disease and financial embarrassment were re-
sponsible for reductions of the strength of the force; while desertion
was so frequent that in 1724 it was decided to keep the pay of all
scamen two months in arrears.
In 1716 the Marine comprised one ship of 32 guns, four grabs with
20 to 28 guns, and twenty smaller grabs and gallivats, carrying 5 to
12 guns apiece. This force made an unsuccessful attempt to seize
Gheria (Vijayadrug), the stronghold of Angria, in 1717; and in the
following year made a fruitless attack upon Kenery (Khanderi) island,
under the command of Manuel de Castro, whom the president,
Charles Boone, much to the annoyance of the English personnel, had
1 Cf. Hobson-Jobson, s. vv.
2 Strachey, Keigwin's Rebellion, pp. 38-9.


## p. 145 (#181) ############################################

THE BOMBAY DOCKYARD
145
appointed Admiral of the Fleet for the occasion. Co-operation with
the Portuguese seemed fated to end in disaster, for in 1722 a joint
expedition by the Bombay Marine and a Portuguese land force against
the fort of Alibag was badly defeated, owing largely to the mistakes
and malingering of the Portuguese viceroy and his general and the
poor quality of the Bombay troops. Commodore Mathews of the
English Navy participated in this action with four English ships,
which had been dispatched by the Home Government in 1721 to
assist in clearing the Eastern seas of European pirates. A contem-
porary writer gives an amusing description of Mathews's choleric
treatment of the Portuguese authorities after the failure of the ex-
pedition, of which the only creditable feature was the bravery dis-
played by the officers and seamen of the Company's Marine. During
the first three decades of the eighteenth century the antagonism of
the Portuguese, the Marathas, and the Sidi of Janjira obliged the
Bombay Council to improve the strength and status of the Marine;
a pension scheme for the widows of office. s and seamen was instituted;
several new vessels were purchased; and the crews of the Company's
trading vessels were freely borrowed for the manning of their warships.
Consequently by 1735 the annual expenditure on the Marine had
increased to nearly two lakhs of rupees, and the fleet comprised seven
large warships and a variety of gallivats and smaller vessels. 2
From the earliest years of the Company's possession of Bombay,
a marine establishment ashore, distinct from the force afloat, was
maintained under the direction of the Commodore of the Marine,
and included, among other officials, a storekeeper, a paymaster and
a purser marine. The last-named was concerned with supplies of all
kinds to the ships and indented for their cost by a monthly bill on
the paymaster, who had "the charge and direction of watering and
ballasting the Company's vessels and of purchasing what timber and
coir were wanted for their service". An important step was taken in
1735, when the Bombay Council decided to transfer their shipbuilding
yard from Surat to Bombay, and brought thither with it Lavji
Nasarvanji Wadia, the Parsi shipbuilder, who had been foreman of
the Surat yard. His first duty was to select a site for a dockyard, the
only dock available at that date being a mud basin, which filled and
emptied with the tide. The first dock, constructed on the site chosen
by Lavji, and known to-day as the Upper Old Bombay Dock, was
eventually opened in 1754. A second dock, the Middle Old Bombay
Dock, was completed in 1762; and a third, the Lower Old Bombay
Dock, in 1765. For the next forty years these three docks were the
boast of Bombay and the wonder of travellers like Grose (1750), Ives
(1758) and Parsons (1775). Lavji Nasarvanji, who served as master-
builder from 1735 to 1774 and was succeeded in office by his two
1 Downing, History of the Indian Wars (ed. Foster), pp. 63-5.
• Bombay City Gazetteet, 11, 277.
CHIVI
10


## p. 146 (#182) ############################################

146
THE COMPANY'S MARINE
grandsons, made continual additions to the Company's fleet, and the
reputation for strength and seaworthiness of the teakwood ships built
by him and his grandsons was so widespread and so well deserved
that the office of master-builder remained in the hands of the Wadia
family until 1885, when the work of construction and repair was
entrusted to an English chief constructor, trained in the royal dock-
yards, with a staff of European assistants. The most notable member
of the family was Jamshedji Bomanji, who, between 1793 and 1821,
built several line-of-battle ships and frigates for the Royal Navy,
besides war vessels and other craft for the East India Company.
During his tenure of office he witnessed the completion in 1807 of a
fourth dock, the Upper Duncan Dock, and the construction in 1810
of an outer or repairing dock, the Lower Duncan Dock, both of which
were named after Jonathan Duncan, who was governor of Bombay
from 1795 to 1811. 1
Meanwhile the Marine, which in 1740 comprised a hundred
officers and about two thousand seamen, who were chiefly English
but occasionally deserters of other European nations, had commenced
to lay the foundation of its subsequent reputation. In December,
1738, Commodore Bagwell, in command of four cruisers, heavily
defeated Sambhaji Angria's fleet at the mouth of the Rajapur river;2
in 1739, after the fall of Bassein, Captain Inchbird of the Marine
negotiated a treaty with the Marathas ;; and in 1756 a fleet of ten
ships, under the command of Commodore James, co-operated with
a royal squadron under Vice-Admiral Watson and a military force
under Clive in a second attack upon Angria's fort of Gheria. The
operations on this occasion were wholly successful; the fort was cap-
tured on 13 February, 1756; and the piratical chief of the Konkani
ceased from that date to figure in the politics of Western India. On
the outbreak of the Seven Years' War, Commodore James (who
subsequently became governor of Greenwich Hospital) added to his
reputation by capturing a French vessel in 1756 and carrying her as
prize to Bombay, and by voyaging round the coast of India in the
height of the south-west monsoon, with the object of proving that
communication between the eastern and western coasts of India was
possible at all seasons. This feat of navigation, which enlarged the
views of the authorities as to the potential value of the Marine, proved
doubly advantageous to the English; for the commodore not only
brought to Bengal the earliest news of the outbreak of war with
France, but also lent the services of five hundred of his seamen co
Watson and Clive, for their attack on Chandernagore in March,
Bombay City Gazetteet, 11, 283 and n. ; Campbell, Bombay Town and Island Historical
Materials, 11, 194 sqq. Cf. Low, Indian Navy, 1, 174-5.
* Low, op. cit. 1, 107. Cf. Forrest, Bombay Selections (Home Series), 11, 72-4.
3 Low, op. cit. 1, 114.
4 Idem, 1, 132 599.
5 Madras Public Dispatch to the Company, 6 June, and Public Consultations, 3 May,
1757


## p. 147 (#183) ############################################

MARATHA SEA-FIGHTS
147
>
1757. 1 During the struggle between France and England, the Bombay
Marine was employed in co-operating with the Royal Navy in various
engagements off the Indian coasts, and in earning the title of “The
Police of the Indian Seas” by hunting the pirates of Western India
and the Persian Gulf. It also laid the foundation of the present Marine
Survey of India in 1772, when Lieutenant Robinson, in command of
a schooner, a ketch and a patamar, managed to explore and chart
the coasts of Kathiawar, Sind and Mekran and a certain part of
Arabia and Persia. 3
In 1774 the Bombay Government, in pursuance of the agreement
made with Raghunatha Rau, determined to invade Salsette and take
Thana by storm. This action was carried out on 28 December, 1774,
by a Bombay force under General Gordon and a squadron of the
Bombay Marine under Commodore John Watson, who was mortally
wounded on the third day of the siege. Later on the Maratha War
gave rise to another affair in which the reputation of the service was
signally maintained by the Ranger, a small vessel commanded by
Lieutenant Pruen, which was attacked in 1783 by a Maratha fleet of
eleven ships, under the command of the Peshwa's admiral, Anandrava
Dhulap. The Ranger, which was carrying several military officers as
passengers, fought against these unequal odds until nearly every
officer and seaman aboard was either killed or dangerously wounded,
and being at last overpowered, was carried off to Vijayadrug, whence
she was subsequently restored to the Company. 5 In 1780 the Marine
formed part of Sir Edward Hughes's squadron in the operations against
Hyder Ali; two years later Commodore Armytage, in command of
the Bombay and other ships, helped to capture Rajamandrug, Kun-
dapur, Mangalore and other places on the Malabar coast; while
vessels of the Bombay Marine rendered good service in 1796 at the
capture of the ports of Ceylon. In the pauses of the warfare engen-
dered by the march of political events the Company's ships continued
to harass their ancient foes, the pirates, and fought several engage-
ments, of which the most noteworthy took place in 1797 between the
Vigilant, commanded by Lieutenant Hayes, and four large vessels of
the Sanganian pirates. The Vigilant was suddenly attacked while
crossing the Gulf of Cutch on a political mission, but managed after
three hours' desperate fighting to drive off the enemy with heavy loss.
In consequence of the steady growth of the Marine, the eighteenth
century witnessed various administrative changes in the dockyard
establishment. In 1739 the post of Marine Paymaster was abolished,
his duties being transferred to the Purser Marine, and about the same
date a Superintendent of Marine was appointed on a salary of £220
a year. The establishment over which he presided consisted at that
1 Low, op. cit. 1, 138. But cf. Hill, Bengal in 1756–7, III, 157.
. Cf. Hobson-Jobson, s. v. • Low, op. cit. I, 185 $99.
Cf. vol. v, p. 257, supra.
• Low, op. cit. I, 158. • Idem, 1, 202.
3
10-2


## p. 148 (#184) ############################################

148
THE COMPANY'S MARINE
date of eight commanders, one of whom was styled commodore,
a purser marine in charge of accounts and victualling, a master-
builder, and other heads of departments. To these were added in
1754 a master attendant, who twenty-three years later (1777) ranked
as second senior officer of the Marine and acted as assistant to the
superintendent for the control of port-dues and the sail-making and
rigging establishments. In 1778 the office of Superintendent of
Marine was abolished in favour of a Marine Board, advocated by the
court of directors, which was not immediately constituted and only
functioned for a short time. In its place the post of Comptroller of
Marine was created in 1785 and was held in rotation by the two
junior members of the Bombay Council, who were expected merely
to exercise general supervision over the various officers of Marine and
secure obedience to the policy of the directors, while all executive
orders relating to daily marine and dockyard administration were
issued by the governor in council.
The valuable service rendered by the Bombay Marine during the
second half of the eighteenth century was largely responsible for a
revision of the Marine Regulations by the court of directors in 1798.
Relative rank and retiring pensions were conferred upon the officers
of the service, and the privilege of private trading, which had till then
been allowed to all members, was formally abolished. The duties of
the Marine were now defined to be (a) protection of trade, (b) sup-
pression of piracy and general war-service, (c) convoy transports
and conveyance of troops, (d) marine surveying in Eastern waters.
A Marine Board was established, composed of a civilian superintendent
as president, a master attendant, a commodore and two captains,
these four appointments being reserved for the four senior officers of
the Marine. The remaining personnel at this date consisted of thirteen
captains, thirty-three first lieutenants, twenty-one second lieutenants
and thirty-seven volunteers. The regulations of 1798 were amended
by the issue in 1814 of a warrant of precedence in India, by the pub-
lication in 1820 of new regulations as to uniform, and by the tem-
porary abolition of the rank of commander and the provision of
additional captains' appointments in 1824. Later on, in 1827, a
royal warrant was issued, conferring upon Marine officers equal
rank, according to their degrees, with officers of the Royal Navy,
within the limits of the East India Company's charter; by the issue
of an Admiralty warrant empowering Bombay Marine ships to fly
the Union Jack and pennant; and thirdly by an order that the
appointment of superintendent, as head of the Marine Service, should
i future be held by an officer of the Royal Navy. Finally, in 1830, the
title of the service, which included at that date twelve captains, nine
commanders, fifty-one lieutenants and sixty-nine midshipmen, was
altered to that of "the Indian Navy”. 1
1 Low, op. cit. I, 213 599.
of


## p. 149 (#185) ############################################

MARINE REGULATIONS
149
The principal administrative changes after that date consisted in
the appointment in 1831 of a Controller of the Dockyard in super-
session of the master attendant, the institution in 1838-9 as an
integral branch of the Marine of a steam-packet service for the carriage
of mails to Egypt; the gradual substitution of steamers for the old
teak sailing vessels;' and successive alterations in the numbers of
the service, which was officially declared in 1847 to consist of eight
captains, sixteen commanders, sixty-eight lieutenants, 110 midship-
men, fourteen pursers and twelve clerks, fourteen masters and twenty-
one second masters. The post of Superintendent of Marine disappeared
in 1848, the holder at that date being styled Commander-in-Chief of
the Indian Navy; and the broad pennant of the Indian Navy, which
had till then been identical with that of the Royal Navy, was super-
seded by a red flag with a yellow cross and the East India Company's
cognisance of a yellow lion and crown in the upper corner nearest the
mast. On the assumption by the crown in 1858 of direct rule in India,
the title of the Indian Navy was changed to that of Her Majesty's
Indian Navy; and in the following year the duties of the Controller
of the Dockyard, which also included the administration of the port
and other duties now performed by the Bombay Port Trust, were
limited to the commercial work of the port, while his dockyard duties
were transferred to a dockmaster, now known as the staff officer. In
1863 a new code of regulations was issued; the name of the service
was once again changed to the Bombay Marine; and the recruitment
of European seamen was prohibited, their places being taken by
Indians belonging to the seafaring classes of the western coast
descendants, in fact, of the coast pirates with whom the Marine waged
so fierce a struggle in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The war services of the Bombay Marine continued during the first
half of the nineteenth century. It shared in the Egyptian campaign
of 1801, helped to guard the Bay of Bengal from French aggression
in 1803, assisted at the capture of Mauritius in 1810, and participated
in the conquest of Java in 1811. In 1813 it was employed against the
Sultan of Sambar; in 1815 it blockaded the piratical strongholds of
Cutch and Kathiawar; it assisted in the attack on Suvarndrug and
Madangadh during the third Maratha War; and it practically ex-
terminated piracy in the Persian Gulf in 1819. The siege and capture
of Mocha in 1820 offered the opportunity for a fresh display of prowess
a
on the part of the Marine;: in the following year four ships under
Captain Hardy, Commander Stout and Lieutenants Dominicetti and
Robinson reduced the Ben-ibu-Ali Arabs to submission; and in 1826
Commodore Hayes and other officers of the Marine received the
thanks of parliament for their “skilful, gallant and meritorious
1 Cf. Hoskins, British Routes to India, pp. 193 899.
Low, op. cit. 1, 310 599,
• Dodwell, Founder of Modern Egypt, p. 60; Low, op. cit. 1, 299 sqq.


## p. 150 (#186) ############################################

150
THE COMPANY'S MARINE
exertions” against Ava. Between 1830 and 1863 the Indian Navy
was on practically continuous service in India and the Persian Gulf.
The power of the Beni-yas Arabs was broken by Captain Sawyer of
the Elphinstone in 1835; in 1838 the Indian Navy provided a blockading
squadron at the mouth of the Indus; it served under Admiral Maitland
in the Persian Gulf and at the capture of Aden in 1839; it co-operated
with the Royal Navy during the China War of 1840–2; the officers
and crews of three vessels under Commander Nott fought at Miani
and Hyderabad (Sind) in 1843. The Company's vessels carried
troops to Vingurla during the insurrection of 1844-5 in the Southern
Maratha country; in 1846 the Elphinstone (Captain Young) shared in
the capture of Ruapetapeka (New Zealand); during the siege of
Multan in 1848–9 the Indus flotilla was provided by the Indian Navy;
its vessels captured Bet island in 1850, played an important part in
the second Burma War of 1852, suppressed piracy on the north-east
coast of Borneo in the same year, and helped the Turks to defend
Hodeida in 1856.
On the outbreak of war with Persia in 1855, the sea forces were
drawn entirely from the Indian Navy, with Rear-Admiral Leeke in
command and Commodore Ethersay of the Company's service as
second. Bushire was taken in 1855 and Muhammarah in 1857—the
latter operation, which had to be carried out under great difficulties,
evoking from the governor-general in council a well-merited eulogy
on the judgment, skill and discipline shown by all ranks. The Indian
Navy distinguished itself during the military operations in South
China and at the seizure of Perim island in 1857; it provided naval
brigades for service ashore during the Mutiny, while Captain Jones
of the Indian Navy held the Arab tribes of the Persian Gulf at bay
during the same grave crisis. The tale of the active war services of
the Bombay Marine forces ends with the China War of 1860, when
the attack on the Taku forts was led by the Coromandel, commanded
by Lieutenant Walker.
The organisation of the Indian trooping service in 1867 sounded
the knell of the Indian Navy as a fighting force. The officers' cadre
was then enlarged to include twelve commanders, ten first, eleven
second, and seven third officers, and 109 engineers. One resident
transport officer was appointed from the service. Ten years later
(1877), however, in consultation with Captain (afterwards Admiral)
Bythesea, the Indian Government effected a radical reorganisation
of their naval establishment. The Bombay service was amalgamated
with other marine establishments in India, under the title of Her
Majesty's Indian Marine, the combined establishments being divided
into a western division concentrated at Bombay and an eastern
division at Calcutta; and the duties of the service were declared to be
(a) transport of troops and government stores, (6) maintenance of
station ships in Burma, the Andamans, Aden, and the Persian Gulf


## p. 151 (#187) ############################################

THE INDIAN MARINE
151
for political, police, lighting and other purposes, (c) maintenance of
gunboats on the Irawadi and Euphrates, (d) building, repairing,
manning and general supervision of all local government vessels and
launches and all craft used for military purposes. In 1878 a naval
constructor was appointed from England for the first time, and this
was the prelude to the retirement in 1885 of the last of the Wadias,
whose connection with the dockyard as master-builders had lasted
without a break for one hundred and fifty years. In 1882 the appoint-
ments of Superintendent of Marine at Bombay and Calcutta, which
were included in the reorganisation scheme of 1877, were abolished
in favour of a single appointment of director, to be held always by an
officer of the Royal Navy with Bombay as his headquarters, assisted
by a deputy, chosen from the Indian Marine and stationed at Cal-
cutta. The anomalous position of the officers and crews of the Marine,
who were not subject to the provisions of the Naval Discipline Act
and Merchant Shipping Act, was regulated by the passing of the
Indian Marine Service Act, 1884 (47 & 48 Vict. c. 38), which enabled
the governor-general in council to legislate for the maintenance of
discipline; and simultaneously the post of assistant secretary to the
Government of India (Marine Department), which had been created
in 1880 and held by Admiral Bythesea, was replaced by that of
assistant director of the Indian Marine. An Admiralty warrant of
the same year (1884) sanctioned the use by ships of the Indian Marine
as ensign of a blue flag with the Star of India in the fly, and as marine
jack of a union jack with a narrow blue border. Finally in 1891 the
title of the service was once more altered to that of“The Royal Indian
Marine” by an order in council, which also provided that officers
of the service, with the titles of commander, lieutenant and sub-
lieutenant, should rank with, but junior to, officers of the Royal Navy
of equal rank, and should wear the same uniform as the latter, with
the exception of the device on epaulettes, sword-hilt, badges and
buttons, and of the gold lace on the sleeves.
This retrospect may fitly conclude with a brief notice of the Naval
Defence Squadron and of the later progress of the Indian Marine
Survey. The former, which was established at Bombay in 1871 for the
defence of the Indian coasts, consisted in 1889 of two turret-ships and
seven torpedo boats, commanded by officers and manned by crews
of the Indian Marine. In 1892 the squadron, which had been increased
by the purchase of two torpedo gunboats, was placed under the com-
mand of an officer of the Royal Navy, while the other officers were
chosen partly from the Royal Navy and partly from the Royal Indian
Marine. The crews comprised both bluejackets and lascars. In 1903
the squadron was abolished, and the defence of India by sea was
entrusted wholly to the Royal Navy.
The history of the survey during the nineteenth century opens with
the establishment in 180g of a Marine Survey department in Bengal,
a


## p. 152 (#188) ############################################

152
THE COMPANY'S MARINE
which charted the east coast of Africa as far south as Zanzibar, the
Persian Gulf and other seas, before it was abolished in 1828 during
Lord William Bentinck's administration. The work of the depart-
ment, however, was considered sufficiently important to be carried
on between 1828 and 1839 by two vessels, which explored the coasts
of Africa and Socotra, the Maldive and Laccadive islands, and the
mouth of the Indus. After 1844 comprehensive surveys were con-
ducted on the Jehlam and Indus rivers, in the Gulf of Cutch and
other parts of the west coast of India, in the Bay of Bengal, on the
Pegu coast and the rivers of Burma, and in Malacca and Sumatra.
In 1861 the control of the Indian Marine Survey was transferred to
the Admiralty, but seventeen years later (1878) it was again organised
in Calcutta as a department of the Indian Marine. The headquarters
were transferred from Calcutta to Bombay in 1882, and a year later
it was decided to reserve the appointments of surveyor in charge and
his senior assistants for officers of the Royal Navy and to fill the junior
officers' grades from the Royal Indian Marine. From 1894 the senior
assistants' appointments were also thrown open to the latter service.
Since its first establishment the Royal Indian Marine has performed
much valuable work in the charting and delineation of the coasts of
India, Burma, the Persian Gulf and Africa, besides materially ad-
vancing scientific knowledge of the fauna of the Indian seas.


## p. 153 (#189) ############################################

CHAPTER IX
THE ARMIES OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
It was not for many years after its incorporation that the Company
of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies found it necessary
to employ military forces to protect its possessions and its interests,
but guards of peons, undisciplined and armed after the native fashion,
were enrolled in its factories, from the time when these were first
established. These peons could hardly be regarded as soldiers, and
were employed rather to add to the dignity of the Company's officials
than for purposes of defence. Later in the seventeenth century pro-
vision was made for the defence of the larger factories by the main-
tenance at each of a small body of European soldiers, under an ensign,
and a “gun-room crew"supplied by the Company's ships, to work the
guns of the factory.
In 1662 King Charles II sent out a small force to defend Bombay,
which was part of the dowry of his queen, but the Portuguese did not
vacate the factory until 1665, by which time the force had suffered
severely from the climate, and numbered, besides Captain Henry
Cary, who commanded it, only one ensign, four sergeants, six corporals,
four drummers, ninety-seven privates and some details, including
two gunners and a gunner's mate. In 1668, when the king leased
Bombay to the East India Company, its garrison consisted of twenty
commissioned and non-commissioned officers, 124 privates and fifty-
four Topasses, or half-caste Portuguese, and this force eventually
became the nucleus of the ist Bombay European Regiment. ' In 1711
the garrison of Madras consisted of 250 European soldiers and 200
Topasses, and in 1748 various independent companies were embodied
as a regiment, afterwards the ist Madras Fusiliers, in which Robert
Clive received his first commission as an ensign. 2
It is generally believed that Dupleix, in his war with the English
Company on the east coast, was the first to employ Indian sepoys
trained in the European manner, but this was not so. The French
settlement of Mahé was founded in 1721, near the English settlement
of Tellicherri, on the west coast, and it was here, in hostilities which
lasted from 1721 to 1729, that the term sepoy first appears as the
name of a military force in European service. They were condottieri,
whose loyalty was not always above suspicion, but they had some
knowledge of European methods of war, for a French royal officer
described them as well trained. 3
1 Foster, Factories, 1668-9, p. 67; Malabari, Bombay in the Making, pp. 188–97.
• In 1748, G. B. Macleson, Lord Clive, p. 33.
• Dodwell, Sepoy Recruitment, pp. 2, 6, 7.


## p. 154 (#190) ############################################

154
THE ARMIES OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
Dumas, the predecessor of Dupleix, first employed on the east
coast sepoys from the west coast. În 1744 the council at Pondichery
considered the company of sepoys to be hardly worth its pay, but the
outbreak of war with the English Company obliged them not only to
retain it, but to obtain another company from Mahé. 1 The French
capture Madras in 1746, and the English Company was obliged to
turn its attention to the organisation of a force for the defence of its
possessions. In 1748 Captain Stringer Lawrence of the 14th Foot,
the "father of the Indian Army", arrived at Fort St David, then
temporarily the Company's principal factory on the east coast, with
the king's commission as major, to command all the Company's
troops in the East Indies. He embodied the Madras European
Regiment and enlisted 2000 sepoys, “at first scarcely better disciplined
than common peons”, who were organised in independent companies,
out his activities were arrested by his capture by the French. Admiral
Boscawen, who arrived at Fort St David with orders to assume the
command both at sea and on land, sent him to attack Ariancopang,
near Pondichery, where he was taken and was detained until the
Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, concluded in October, 1748, led to a cessa-
tion of hostilities and the restoration of Madras to the English Com-
pany. The organisation of the Company's forces then proceeded; the
sepoys were placed under an English commander and the "gun-
were superseded by two companies of artillery from
England, one at Fort St George and one at Fort St David. Lawrence
was granted leave to England, and his task was carried on by Robert
Clive, now a captain. His great feat of capturing and defending Arcot
in 1751 was performed with 200 European soldiers and 300 sepoys,
and the conduct of the latter proved how greatly their military spirit
had improved under Clive. The quality of Eastern troops always
depends largely on the character of those by whom they are led.
Lawrence returned from England, and the hostilities between the
two Companies continued in India, though their countries were at
peace. In September, 1754, a squadron of six ships under Admiral
Charles Watson, with the 39th Foot (Primus in Indis) under Colonel
John Adlercron, and a detachment of Royal Artillery, arrived at
Fort St George, and in the following year Clive, who in 1753 had
gone to England for reasons of health, returned with the king's com-
mission as a lieutenant-colonel, and assumed charge of Fort St David
as governor. Late in 1756 he was obliged to proceed to Bengal, in
order to recover Calcutta, and the troops which accompanied him,
or joined him later, consisted of detachments of the artillery, of the
39th Foot under Major Eyre Coote, and of the Madras and Bombay
European Regiments, and a force of sepoys from Madras; and he had
also at his disposal the Bengal European Regiment recently enrolled
1 Dodwell, op. cit. p. 5.
· Idem, p. 8.
Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, II, 447.
room crews
a
3


## p. 155 (#191) ############################################

ORIGIN OF THE PRESIDENCY ARMIES
155
by Major Killpatrick, and a force of Bengal sepoys. His campaign
in Bengal will be noticed later.
In 1757 the Seven Years' War broke out, and the two Companies
were again involved in hostilities in India. The war had not been
unforeseen, and the Madras Council was fully aware of the risk which
it ran in detaching so large a force, with its best officer, to Bengal, but
the plight of that presidency admitted of no delay. In June, 1758,
the French, under Lally, captured Fort St David, and in December
occupied the Black Town of Madras and opened the siege of Fort
St George, but were obliged to retreat on the arrival of a British
squadron in February, 1759.
Till then the sepoys had been organised in independent companies.
But the important development of organising them in battalions was
now introduced. The English Company had decided on the measure
before war broke out, but had had no opportunity of accomplishing it.
Lally's siege had provided further evidence of the difficulty of con-
trolling independent companies, and early in 1759 Lawrence presided
over a committee, whose proposals provided for a sepoy force of 7000
men, formed into seven battalions, each consisting of a grenadier com-
pany and eight battalion companies, each company commanded by a
subadar, with a jamadar and a due proportion of non-commissioned
officers. Each battalion was commanded by a native commandant,
but its training was the care of two British subaltern officers and three
sergeants, and three inspecting captains were appointed to supervise
the training of the whole force, which was the real foundation of the
Indian Army as it exists to-day. 2
Clive's victory at Plassey, and the deposition of Siraj-ud-daula,
established the Company as the predominant authority in Bengal,
and the maintenance of its power required a respectable military
force. The 39th Foot was recalled to Europe, but all ranks were
permitted to volunteer for the Company's service, and five officers
and about 350 men were transferred to the Bengal establishment, the
officers receiving a step in rank. : The two companies of the Bombay
European Regiment and the detachment of the Madras European
Regiment were also transferred to Bengal," and a few battalions of
sepoys were raised, to each of which were posted two officers from
the European Regiment.
The armies of Bengal, Madras and Bombay now developed in-
dependently. Communication between the three presidencies was
difficult and tedious, and each was confronted with dangers which
necessitated a rapid increase in and improvement of its armed forces.
In Bengal the outbreak of war between the Company and Mir Kasim,
his massacre of 2000 sepoys at Patna, and of about two hundred
Britons there and elsewhere, and his alliance with the Nawab-
1 Innes, Bengal European Regiment, pp. 15, 16. • Love, op. cit. 11, 566.
• Idem, 11, 513.
• Innes, op. cit. pp. 69, 70.


## p. 156 (#192) ############################################

156 THE ARMIES OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
Wazir of Oudh and the Emperor Shah 'Alam against the Company
led to a great expansion of the Bengal army, and Clive, during his
second term of office in Bengal, which ended in 1767, reorganised
both the army and the civil administration. In the Madras
Presidency the wars with the principality of Mysore, and in Bombay
the Maratha wars, lasting from 1775 to 1782, lcd in like manner
to great increases in the presidency armies. Thus, in Bengal the
number of sepoy battalions rose from one in 1757 to nineteen in
1764. The native ranks in each battalion consisted of a commandant,
an adjutant and ten companies, two of which were grenadiers, each
company commanded by a subadar, with three jamadars, and con-
sisting of five havildars, four naiks, two tomtoms and seventy sepoys.
Each company had its own stand of colours. Besides these sepoys,
there were on the strength of the Bengal army in 1765 four companies
of artillery, twenty-four companies of European infantry, a troop of
hussars, and about 1200 irregular cavalry. After the conclusion of
peace the hussars were dismounted and incorporated with the
European infantry, all the irregular cavalry, except 300, were dis-
missed, the European battalion, 1600 strong, was augmented and
formed into three single-battalion regiments of nine companies each,
and each consisting of 731 rank and file with the same establishment
of officers as a king's regiment of the line, and three more battalions
of sepoys were raised. Clive then organised the Bengal army in three
brigades, each consisting of a troop of irregular cavalry, a company
of artillery, a battalion of European infantry, and seven battalions
of sepoys. In the Maratha War six sepoy battalions from the first
brigade were ordered to the West of India, but six new battalions
were raised to take their place in Bengal, and several battalions
trained by British officers for the Nawab-Wazir of Oudh were
incorporated in the Bengal army.
In 1780, in consequence of the defeat of Colonel Baillie and the
invasion by Hyder Ali of the Lower Carnatic, the Bengal Government
increased its military establishment by raising the strength of each
sepoy battalion to 1000 and dividing it into two battalions of five
companies. A major commanded each regiment, a captain each
battalion, and a lieutenant each company.
During the war in the Carnatics the Bengal Presidency assisted the
Madras Presidency with both European and native troops, and in
1785 the Bengal army was reorganised. Each of the two-battalion
regiments of sepoys was amalgamated into a single-battalion regiment
of ten companies, and the army was divided into six brigades. Each
of the three European battalions was divided into a two-battalion
regiment, allowing one European battalion to each brigadę,& the
1 Innes, op. cit. pp. 229, 230.
3 Broome, Bengal Army, p. 431.
5 Vol. v, p. 284.
2 Williams, Bengal Infantry, p. 5.
4 Idem, pp. 533-40.
• Inncs, op. cit. p. 280.


## p. 157 (#193) ############################################

RECRUITMENT OF OFFICERS
157
other troops assigned to each brigade being a company of artillery,
with lascars, and six battalions of sepoys. These orders remained in
force until 1796.
In 1765 the Madras establishment of seven battalions of sepoys was
increased to ten battalions, each 900 strong, a captain, a lieutenant
and an ensign being posted to each battalion; and in the following
year, when the Northern Circars (Sarkars) fell into the Company's
possession, eight new battalions were raised there.