THE EAST INDIAMAN “EARL BALCARRES.”
This fine ship was built at Bombay in 1815, and was sold out of the Honourable East India Company’s service in 1834. Her tonnage was 1,417, she carried 130 men, and was armed with twenty-six 18-pounder guns.

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Promotion in the Company’s own ships was by seniority, though in the case of the ships which the Company hired from private owners for a certain number of voyages, promotion depended rather on ability and influence. The East India Company were wont to appoint commanders to their ships before the latter were completed, in order that they might be fitted out under the captain’s personal supervision. Midshipmen had to be between thirteen and eighteen years of age. Pursers were appointed by the commander, subject to the approval of the Committee of Shipping. We have shown that if the pay in these ships was not great, yet the privileges were so lucrative that a commander could afford to retire after four or five voyages with a fortune that would render him independent for the rest of his life. What with being allowed to engage extensively in the Eastern trade, plus the amount of free space allowed them for this purpose on board, and the receipt of passage-money from the various officials who voyaged between England and India, a commander was remarkably unlucky if he had not made about £20,000 in his five voyages in that rank. In some cases his revenue amounted to about £6000 a voyage and even more. This is the figure for what he obtained by honest means. To this must be added in many cases that which he obtained by illicit trade, better known as smuggling. Lindsay mentions the instance of one commander within his own knowledge who in one voyage from London to India, thence to China and so back to London, realised no less than £30,000, this captain having a large interest in the freight of cotton and other produce conveyed from India to China. And, having examined the records of the custom-house, I can assure the reader that whatever a captain made legally he also made additional sums by stealth, to the loss of the nation’s customs.

These ships would go out of their voyage to call at foreign, English, Irish and Scottish ports, or to meet with smuggling craft at sea in order to unload some of their goods stealthily, and that was why the Company were so particular in inquiring into the deviations made during the passage. It speaks very little for the honour of some of these captains that, in spite of such handsome remuneration from one source and another, they were always ready to go out of their way to earn a little more by dishonest methods that would bring themselves, their ship and the Company into disgrace. But it is never fair to judge men except when taking into consideration the moral standard of the time: and the less said about the eighteenth and early nineteenth century in this respect perhaps the better. Might was right, and honesty in commerce was a rare virtue. Of course, the mere existence of this trade monopoly was in itself an unhealthy influence, breeding jealousy, corruption, greed and avarice. And this seems to have permeated the Company’s service generally, not merely afloat, but ashore. But a better type of man of good family and high character entered the Company’s service in the nineteenth century. This, and the rigorous determination of the Company and of the Board of Customs, made smuggling practically non-existent in these East Indiamen.

Let us pass now to a more pleasant subject and see how these ships were worked at sea.

CHAPTER XVIII
LIFE ON BOARD

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 quartermasters. At eight o’clock was breakfast, and then began the duties of the day.[E] The midshipmen slept in hammocks also, but the chief mate and the commander were the only officers in the ship to have a cabin of their own.