Thus, at last, the historic East India Company came to an end, its ships and men scattered or employed by other owners. No company in the world, no fleet of mercantile vessels can boast of such a long and adventurous story as this: no ships of commerce were so closely and continuously concerned in establishing political power in the East. For this reason the old East Indiamen sailing ships, whether of the seventeenth, eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, must always possess a unique interest for Britons generally, for Anglo-Indians in particular, and for all who take an interest in the world’s development. People ordinarily do not realise the full extent of their indebtedness to the ships and sailors of the past in respect of discovery, empire, power and wealth. Such men as worked the vessels which we have been considering in this volume were very far from perfect in respect of many virtues. But they are deserving of our great respect and admiration for their pluck, their endurance and their enterprise: for without them India would have been the possession of some other European nation.
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH
FOOTNOTES:
[A] Drake of course had previously encircled the globe in a voyage of twenty-six months, having set forth from Plymouth in 1577, though his was even more of a buccaneering expedition than that of Candish.
[B] The longboat carried by these East Indiamen measured from twenty-seven to twenty-nine feet in length.
[C] The East Indiamen of about the middle of the eighteenth century rode to fifteen-inch cables.
[D] The Spaniard is a treacherous patch off the north-east corner of the Isle of Sheppey.
[E] For some details in this connection I am indebted to Lindsay’s “History of Merchant Shipping,” as well as to an article in The Mariner’s Mirror, vol. i., No. 1.
[F] Mentioned in Captain E. du Boulay’s “Bembridge, Past and Present.”
[G] I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness in this chapter to Captain Rathbone Low’s “History of the Indian Navy.”