The Story of Madras

by Glyn Barlow

It was usual for several ships to sail together, for mutual protection; and passengers had reason to congratulate themselves when they were eventually landed safe and sound at Madras. It can be readily imagined that the sight of a vessel of the Company approaching in the distance caused a stir of excitement amongst the residents of Fort St. George. There were no telegraphs from other ports to give previous notice of a vessel's prospective arrival; and the fact that a ship was at hand was unknown until her flag[3] or her particular rig was discerned in the distance, or until one of her guns gave notice of her approach. The comparative regularity, however, of the winds in Eastern seas caused 'seasons' in which vessels might be expected; and when a season arrived, the look-out who happened to be on duty on the Fort flagstaff must have been particularly alert. Ay, and there must have been much hurrying to and fro in the streets of White Town when the signal had been given and the news had spread that the sails of a Company's ship had been sighted, and while the vessel, perhaps with several consorts, came nearer and nearer, till at last the anchors were dropped and salutes were exchanged between ship and shore.

[3] 'The flag displayed by the Company's ships bore seven horizontal red stripes on a white ground, with a St. George's Cross in the inner top corner.'—Love.

There was good cause for excitement. The ship brought letters from home—perhaps after several months of no news at all. There were the private letters that told the news about near ones and dear ones; there were the official letters that decreed appointments in the Company's service and promotions and penalties, and dealt with the Company's business; and there were the 'news-letters'—the old-fashioned predecessors of the modern newspaper, which were written by paid correspondents, whose duty it was to give their clients news of London and of England and of Europe. The news was often astounding, and was sometimes extraordinarily behind-time. For example, the Company's employees in India were still professing loyalty to the Most High and Mighty King James II nearly a twelvemonth after that monarch had fled to France and had been succeeded by William and Mary; and the employees at Madras were surprised indeed when a ship arrived one day from England with the belated news.

The salutes have been fired, and the vessel has been surrounded by a flotilla of surf-boats and catamarans. The commander and the passengers are being rowed ashore, and the Governor with his Councillors, dressed all of them in their smartest official attire, are waiting on the beach outside the Sea-Gate of the Fort to bid them a hearty welcome. Amongst the passengers there are probably some youths who have been posted to Madras either as apprenticed 'writers' or as military Cadets; and perhaps there is a senior employee who is returning to India after the rare event of a holiday in England. Possibly too there are some ladies, either wives of employees who have been willing to accompany or to follow their husbands to the mysterious East—or, as was not infrequently the case, young ladies who, with the consent of the Directors, have been shipped out to India by their parents or guardians or on their own account, in the hope that companionable bachelor employees, pining in their loneliness, will jump at the chance of matrimony.

SURF-BOAT

The surf-boat comes nearer and nearer; and when it gets among the breakers there are feminine screams of terror. The alarm is not without cause; for at one moment the boat is being balanced on the top of a heaving wave, and the next it is almost lost to sight in a foaming hollow. The excitement in the tossing boat is tremendous; but it is brief; for there are only three or four breakers to be negotiated, and in less than a minute a curling wave has caught the boat in its clutch and hurls it with a thud into the shallows. Naked coolies rush forward and lay hold of its sides, lest the backwash should carry it seaward again; and, with the help of the next wave, they manage to haul the boat a little further on shore, and the passengers are able to disembark—splashed, perhaps, but safe and sound.

When the greetings are over, the Governor leads the way into the Fort, where a general meal is served and the news is told and the exclamations of surprise are many. In the evening there is a banquet, and after the banquet, 'when the gentlemen have finished their wine,' and have rejoined the ladies, the stately dances of the period are 'performed;' and it is not unlikely that before the assembly breaks up, some, if not all, of the newly-arrived young ladies have received and have accepted offers of matrimony; and it is possible that two or more gallants have had a serious quarrel about this young lady or that, and even possible that, out of the Governor's sight, swords have been drawn in her regard.

On the morrow the unloading begins; and for many days a fleet of surf-boats is busily engaged in bringing ashore the broadcloths and other English wares which the Company will be able to sell at a large profit—not forgetting the barrels of canary and madeira and other luxuries that have been imported both for private consumption and also for the general table in the Fort. And when the unloading is over and the ship has been overhauled after her long voyage, the surf-boats will then be engaged in carrying to the ship the calicoes and other Indian wares that are to be exported to England for the Company's profit there.