With respect to the armament of these ships, James, the famous naval historian, in commenting on that incident in which Commodore Dance beat off the French Admiral Linois (already related in another chapter), says that each of the Indiamen under Dance carried from thirty to thirty-six guns apiece, but the strongest of them was not a match for the smallest 36-gun French frigate, and some of these East Indiamen would have found it difficult to avoid yielding to the 22-gun corvette. Speaking of these East Indiamen, he says: “Some of the ships carried upon the main deck 26 medium 18-pounders, or ‘carronades,’ weighing about 28 cwt. and of very little use: guns of this description, indeed, have long since been exploded. Ten 18-pounder carronades on the quarter-deck made up the 36 guns. Others of the ships, and those among the largest, mounted long 12 and 6 pounders. No one of the crews, we believe, exceeded 140 men, and that number included Chinese, Lascars, etc. Moreover in fitting the ships, so much more attention had been paid to stowage than to the means of attack and defence, that one and sometimes two butts of water were lashed between the guns, and the decks in general greatly lumbered.”

The fact was that the old East Indiamen had to go about their work under very trying conditions. They could not be built of more than a certain tonnage for the reason that shipbuilders were not equal to the task. Within their limited size of about 140 feet on the keel a very great deal had to be got in. First and most important of all, the ship must be able to carry a large amount of cargo. Without this she would not be of service to the East India Company. Secondly, she carried passengers and a large crew. This meant that the designer’s ingenuity was further taxed to find accommodation for all. Then, although she had to be strong enough to carry all her armament, yet she had to make as fast a passage as she could with safety and caution. In short, like all other ships she was a compromise, but the real difficulty was to combine space, speed and fighting strength without one item ousting the other. To-day the designer of our merchant ships has a difficult problem; but he has not to consider so much how his ship would fare in an engagement, but how he can get out of her the greatest speed combined with the maximum amount of room for passengers and cargo. He has to work on all sorts of data obtained from actual experience of years and experiments made in tanks with wax models. But the designers and builders of the old East Indiamen were tied down to the frigate type and bound by convention. There was very little science in shipbuilding, and practically all that they could do was to modify very slightly the models which had been in vogue for so many generations. If they had been in possession of greater theoretical knowledge, if they could have been allowed to eliminate all thought of the ship being a fighting unit, we should have seen, no doubt, the clipper era appearing some years before it actually did. It is easy enough to find fault with the old East Indiamen for their clumsiness, but it is much more just to remember the conditions which were handicapping the designers and builders of those times.

CHAPTER XXI
THE “WARREN HASTINGS” AND THE “PIÉMONTAISE”

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 last captured, yet the engagement none the less remains to her credit, since the fight lasted for four hours and the enemy was compelled to haul off several times during the action. The incident, in fact, affords an excellent example of the readiness for hostilities which was so marked a feature of the old East Indiamen. James has happily preserved to posterity a full account of this, although in some instances he has not always done full credit to the gallantry and determination of these merchant ships. And I shall make no apology for availing myself of his detailed story.

The Warren Hastings was a vessel of 1200 tons, was armed with 44 guns, and her crew consisted of 196 men and boys. She was therefore in size, in armament and crew a distinctly formidable ship, her commander being Captain Thomas Larkins. On the 17th of February 1805 she left Portsmouth bound for China. This was one of the most historic years in the whole history of the sea, and a few months later the Battle of Trafalgar brought matters to a crisis. It was obvious that in consequence of the eventful times no ship, not even an East Indiaman, could dare to begin a voyage unless special precautions had been taken to render her as fully equipped against a French frigate as both money and the ship’s own limitations would permit.

THE “SIBELLA,” EAST INDIAMAN, 721 TONS.
(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)

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