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 force282 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.

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)

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The year 1697 was marked by attacks on the283 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 had284 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 England285 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 of286 the ninetee............