It must not be thought that even after that momentous change of 1834, when the “free traders,” as they were called, began to send their ships to India, the Company were freer of anxiety. It has already been shown that they were being badly defeated in the new competition. But this was not all. In the year 1816 the owners of thirty-four ships which had been engaged by the Company under the Act of 1799 for six voyages on a settled peace freight now complained that these rates were inadequate to meet the increased charge of outfit and repairs. For since the Treaty of Paris the cost and equipment of ships had gone up, and to an extent that could not have been expected. The long duration of the war, and the extraordinary price of articles of a ship’s inventory continued long after the cessation of hostilities: and therefore it was but natural that an improved rate should be granted for the remainder of the voyages.

And with the much larger number of men required for the bigger ships it was frequently found when lying in an Indian port that with “dead, run, or discharged” men a vessel had not the required number of crew in her that she ought to have. So now these East Indiamen were allowed to sail with less than their full complement. Great Britain had won her fights chiefly on the sea, yet for all that she was not abundantly blessed with seamen.

And then came the final change, which had really been foreshadowed by that event of 1814. True the East India Company had been bereft of their Indian monopoly, but China had been reserved to them. However, in 1832 the subject had to be faced again in Parliament. The mind of the public was distinctly adverse to the Company and its monopoly: too long it had been permitted to enjoy these privileges and keep back the stream of trade. Discontent increased both in vehemence and volume, and so at length the Company were powerless to hold on to their China monopoly. Private shipowners desired to trade with all parts of the Orient, and this desire had to be met. From the year 1833, then, the East India Company lost their exclusive trading privilege. And inasmuch as the free traders had done so much, and were determined to do more, it were useless for the Company to continue in commerce at all. Instead they became entirely a political body and permitted British subjects to settle in India. Actually the Company’s commercial charter came to an end in April 1834, and thereafter it proceeded to close its business as soon as possible.

THE EAST INDIAMAN “MALABAR.”
Built of wood in 1860 at Sunderland for Mr. Richard Green. Her tonnage was 1,350, her length 207.2 feet, beam 36.6 feet, depth 22.5 feet. She was copper fastened and her bottom sheathed.

[Larger image]

For a Company that had always relied for its success on protection from competition, paying high prices for its ships, and being squeezed very tightly by many of its servants, it could not be expected that when the free traders introduced their voyages to China and a strong, sensible spirit of competition that this ancient but decaying Company could hold its own. The new blood would be too vigorous, the enterprise would be irresistible, and in any case the Company would be doomed to further humility. No other course, therefore, was possible than to submit to what had come as the result of the advance of time. In a word, that East India Company which had ruled the Eastern seas for so long now resolved to get rid of the whole of their fleet. Some of these were condemned and some were bought up by those new aspirants to Eastern wealth. Some of these old “tea-waggons,” as they were nicknamed, were broken up for their valuable copper fastenings, and the rest were sold, not at once, but after they had completed their voyages to India and China.

One of the very last of the Company’s ships to make the voyage to China in the employ of this ancient corporation was the Elizabeth, which sailed from the Thames in the spring of 1833, arrived in China in January 1834 and left there in March. From there she proceeded to St Helena, where she arrived in June, and then crossed the Atlantic, arriving in Halifax the following August. Probably this was the very last of the Company’s ships to leave China. I have examined her log-book and have been able to verify the dates, but what happened after she reached Halifax I cannot find out. Probably she was sold there. But, at any rate, there is a sentimental interest attached to her voyage, and the following few abstracts from her log may form a connecting link with the last voyages of a fleet whose inception dates back to the time when Elizabeth was on the throne.

The log opens on 23rd May 1833 with the usual details of getting the ship ready for sea and taking aboard cargo in the Thames. It ends on 3rd September 1834, when the last of the cargo had been landed at Halifax. Her master was John Craigie, and, as was the custom at this time, the manuscript log-book is prefaced with a page of black-faced print which read as follows:—

“The Honourable Court of Directors of the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies have ordered me to send you this log book, in which pursuant to your Charter-party, you are to take care that a full, true, and exact account of the ship’s run and course, with the winds, weather and her draught of water at the time of leaving every port, and all occurrences, accidents and observations, that shall happen or be made during the voyage, from the time of the ship’s first taking in goods, until the time of her return, be duly entered every day at noon, in a fair and legible manner. And that the officer commanding the watch from eight o’clock till noon, do, before he dines, sign his name at length to every day’s log so entered....”