Hampshire and the East India Company in the Eighteenth Century
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Proc. Hampshire Field Club Archaeol. Soc. 68, 2013, 169-177 {Hampshire Studies 2013) COUNTY, COMMERCE AND CONTACTS: HAMPSHIRE AND THE EAST INDIA COMPANY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY By JAMES H. THOMAS ABSTRACT Wight? Why were so many employees drawn to Hampshire and what impact did they have? The East India Company's eighteenth-century pro-What can individual case studies reveal about vincial impact was both extensive and profound. Its the relationship? relationship with the key seaboard county of Hampshire is examined and assessed via what the county and Company had to offer each other in terms of suppliesCOUNTY AND COMPANY and services, and via the links with, and impact upon, the Isle of Wight. That many Company employees wereHampshire and the East India Company had drawn to Hampshire and what individual case studies much to offer each other. A lengthy coasdine, can reveal are also examined. highly developed maritime experience and, consequendy, a recruitment pool of talented hands were just some of the features Hampshire THE BACKGROUND brought to the relationship. Christchurch, Cowes, Lymington, Portsmouth and Southamp- Economy and society in eighteenth-century ton offered convenient port facilities. There Hampshire were characterised by diversity, were ship building sites and skills aplenty, richness, strength and considerable change over timber supplies, well-developed overland com- time. The county (which during the eighteenth munications, extensive capital and labour. Naval and much of the nineteenth century included presence in Portsmouth, particularly strong the Isle of Wight) developed symbiotic rela- after the 1690s, meant that craft and materials tionships with the great contemporary trading could be loaned between the Company and ventures. The most notable of these was the the navy as and when need arose. Repair work Honourable East India Company, granted a and naval protection were provided for the monopoly charter in December 1600 and set to Company's vessels - Indiamen - though these become England's greatest commercial enter- conditions changed somewhat after the war of prise. With its own army, maritime service and 1739-48 (Thomas 1995,53).Eighteenth-century extensive bureaucracy, awarding pensions and England's maritime trade was threatened by pri- providing an asylum after-care service, as well vateers and foreign navies, particularly those as paying wages in advance to its sailors, it was of France, Spain and the United Provinces, instrumental in the British Empire's promotion. and by corsairs from Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis. Though well-served by historians, there is still, Exerting an impact out of all proportion to their nevertheless, much to be learnt about the size and synonymous with cruelty and slavery, Company's extensive and complex provincial corsairs were replicated in Eastern and Far relationships. This paper examines four key Eastern waters by Joasmi, Mahratta and Chaub questions in terms of the Company's relation- pirates, as well as those of the distant Sulu Sea. ship with Hampshire. What did Hampshire What went through the minds of the Angle- and the Company offer each other by way of sea's crew, outward-bound from Portsmouth, supplies and services? To what extent did the wrecked north of Goa and then captured and Company have a relationship with the Isle of enslaved by Angria's forces in 1738, can only be 169 170 HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY wondered at (Hackman 2001, 59). While co- supplies. Thusjeffery Cranbom was paid £94 8s. operation between the East India Company and in October 1706 for beef and peas supplied at the navy was essential, Portsmouth also became Portsmouth to the newly-built Company escort the Company's principal provincial depot, vessel Bombay which blew up the following The town's port facilities and well-developed year in an engagement with pirate chieftain overland communications system with London, Kanhaji Angria off India's Malabar Coast (BL especially after 1710, made it safer to load and B/48, 359; Hackman 2001, 19). The regularity unload passengers, and some outward-bound of Company fleet departures ensured rhythm cargo, especially silver, at Portsmouth, rather in terms of both demand and payment for than running the Channel's maritime gaundet. services rendered. Arboriculture was similarly The county's wealth ensured a ready supply encouraged, the Company needing timber for of investors, keen to see their money grow, ship construction and repair work in yards at seemingly inexorably, following tales of fabled Buckler's Hard, Bursledon and Gosport. Such wealth to be made in the distant East. a policy took time to become effective, however, For its part, the East India Company provided so that the Company, like the navy, was forced a welcome additional injection into Hampshire's to look further afield (Mackay 1965, 316, 320; economy, as did the other great contemporary Albion 1926, 194-5). Company demands trading ventures such as the Hudson's Bay, certainly helped to take up the slack of fluctuat- Levant and Royal African Companies, whose ing naval orders occasioned by war and peace. provincial impact awaits thorough examination. Nor was it just a matter of stimulating farming, Company passengers needed food, lodging arboriculture and shipbuilding. Other sectors and transport, as well as financial assistance of Hampshire's economy were also encouraged. though, for some, frustration and extra expend- Substantial Gosport brewer Henry Player was iture played a part. When William Hickey and paid £35 10s. in late October 1706 'for Beer Captain Henry Mordaunt, his long-suffering supplied the Bombay Frigot at Portsmouth' (BL travelling companion, reached Petersfield en B/48, 359). The village of Twyford, south route for Portsmouth in the early 1780s, Hickey of Winchester, produced small amounts of observed irately: linen for Company use between 1700 and 1730 (Ex inf. M. Gale). From Sowley ironworks near 'The Forty-second Regiment was marching into Lymington, where expanding demand in 1789 that town at the time we entered it, on their way led to recruitment of additional hands, came to Portsmouth, where they were to embark for iron supplies for the Company, some of it being India. The officers had engaged almost all the 'conveyed by water carriage to Reading, and horses in the place; and before we could procure there manufactured into iron wire' (Salisbury four, without which Mordaunt would never stir, Journal, 30 November 1789; Moore 1988, 34; it became dusk and began to snow. I, therefore, Warner 1793,1, 231). proposed staying where we were comfortably housed until the next morning...' (Quennell The Company also required financial 1960,313). sendees. Supplies of silver, whether for direct Company use in India, for various Company- Frustration apart, Company and county had backed mints or for use by diamond merchants, much to offer each other, whether in the form left via Portsmouth, often in great amounts. The of investment potential, status, respectability or storage and loading of silver became the most commercial and financial advancement. onerous of the local Company agent's manifold, Hampshire farmers responded positively to demanding, responsibilities. The port's absence demand, Portsmouth's regular market providing of banking houses, however, until Grant and much-needed last minute foodstuff supplies, Burbey opened their High Street establish- particularly fruit and greens. Farmers operating ment in October 1787, presented the Company up to thirty miles away from Portsmouth, as well with a storage headache. The solution, albeit as those on the Isle of Wight, were encouraged temporary, was provided by private residents. to expand production, given the opportu- In spring 1709 Captain Jeyes Seawell or Sewell nity of a non-naval source of income for their allowed the Company to store 20 chests of silver THOMAS: HAMPSHIRE AND THE EAST INDIA COMPANY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 1 7 1 in his house, receiving a quarter per cent commis- Company writer in December 1708 (BL B/49, sion in return (BL B/49,448,452,469,479-80). 335-6). In October 1711 William Ill's faithful In the dockyard church, dedicated to St Ann, is Huguenot military commander, Henry Ruvigny, a handsomely bound Bible having silver corners Earl of Galway, wrote to the Company from his and clasps, with a central plate stating that it residence at Rookley near Micheldever, support- was the gift of 'Jeyes Sewell'. It is rather moving ing Thomas Hall's case for employment. Having to think that part of his Company commission seen service under him in Portugal, Hall had now was used thus. Money-changing services, such as fallen on hard times and desired 'to be Employ'd those offered by High Street sword cutlers and in the South Sea, or the East India or African jewellers Zachariah and Company (Hampshire Company; I believe he will Serve very well in any Telegraph, 17 June 1811) brought more cash to of those Stations,...' (BL E/l/3: Earl of Galway Portsmouth. Foreign coins, frequently turning to John Ward, 6 Oct. 1711). In November 1721 up in loose change, presented some local enter- Charles Bulkley of Lymington and Thomas prising individuals with yet another opportunity. Bulkley, a London mercer, provided £2,000 Thus in April 1788 James Hunt endeavoured to security for relative John Bulkley to become pass off to local silversmith William Reid, 38 a Company writer (BL B/56, 120). Francis counterfeit pagodas, described in the Record- Colston of Froyle stood surety of £2,000 with er's case notes as 'an East India gold coin.' For Goodmans Field gentleman Richard Nicholson his troubles, Hunt was subsequently sent to New for his namesake son to go to the East as a 3rd South Wales for seven years (PCRO SF5/2). As Supra Cargo early in November 1726 (BL B/59, with the money, so Portmuthians similarly grew 120).