[1] Galleywats, or gallivats, were large rowing-boats with two masts, of forty to seventy tons, and carrying four to eight guns.
[2] In a letter, three years later, on the conduct of military officers, it is stated that "Stanton was drunk the time he should have gone upon action at Carwar."
[3] Bombay Consultations, 22nd January, 1718.
CHAPTER V
THE COMPANY'S SERVANTS
The Company's civil servants—Their comparison with English who went to America—Their miserable salaries—The Company's military servants— Regarded with distrust—Shaxton's mutiny—Captain Keigwin—Broken pledges and ill-treatment—Directors' vacillating policy—Military grievances— Keigwin seizes the administration of Bombay—His wise rule—Makes his submission to the Crown—Low status of Company's military officers—Lord Egmont's speech—Factors and writers as generals and colonels—Bad quality of the common soldiers—Their bad treatment—Complaint against Midford— Directors' parsimony.
It may be useful here to consider the difference in the men sent out, by England, to the East and West Indies during the seventeenth and part of the eighteenth centuries. To the West Indies went out representatives of the landed gentry from every county in England. Charters were obtained from the Crown, conferring estates, and sometimes whole islands, on men of ancient families. Slaves were cheap, and sugar cultivation brought in great wealth; the whole machinery of English life was reproduced in the tropics—counties, parishes; sheriffs, rectories, tithes, an established church, etc. The same causes that sent the Cavaliers to Virginia, sent a smaller migration to the West Indies. At the Restoration, the men who had conquered Jamaica for Cromwell were unwilling to return to England. Monmouth's rebellion and the expulsion of the Stuarts produced a fresh influx. But, whether Cavaliers or Roundheads or Jacobites, they came from the landholding class in England. The evidence may still be read in old West Indian graveyards, where the crumbling monuments show the carefully engraved armorial bearings, and the inscriptions record the families and homes in England from which those whom they commemorate had sprung.
In the East Indies nothing of the kind was possible. The acquisition of land for agriculture was out of the question. Trade was the only opening, and that was monopolized by the Company. Except as a servant of the Company, an Englishman had no legal status in the East. The chief profits went to the shareholders in London. If at the end of twenty-five years or so a Company's servant could return to England with a few thousands made by private trade, he was a fortunate man. Private traders and a few of the governors were alone able to make fortunes. The shaking of the pagoda tree did not begin till after Plassey. The result was that the men who went to India were of a totally different class from those who went to America and the West Indies; they were young men from small trading families in London, Greenwich, and Deptford, or from seaport towns like Bristol and Plymouth. Among them were some restless and adventurous spirits who found life in England too tame or too burdensome. For such men India was long regarded as a useful outlet. "If you cannot devise expedients to send contributions, or procure credit, all is lost, and I must go to the Indies," wrote William the Third, in bitter humour, at a desperate crisis in his affairs. Fryer tells us (1698) how the Company had entertained Bluecoat boys as apprentices for seven years, after which time they were to be made writers, if able to furnish the required security. The salaries they received from the Company were only nominal. A Bombay pay-list of January, 1716, shows us the official salaries at that time. The Governor received £300 per annum. Next to him came eight merchants, who with him constituted the Council, and received respectively, one £100, one £70, two £50, and four £40 each. Below them came three senior factors at £30 each, three junior factors at £15, and seven writers at £5.[1] The tale is completed by the accountant and the chaplain, who received £100 each. A writer on entering the service had to find security for £500, which was increased to £1000 when he rose to be a factor. The unmarried servants of the Company were lodged at the Company's expense; the married ones received a lodging allowance, and a public table was maintained. In fact, the Company treated them as if they were apprentices in a warehouse in St. Paul's Churchyard, and, when the conditions of their service are taken into account, it is not surprising that there was a considerable amount of dishonesty among them. These conditions apart, they were neither worse nor better than the men of their time. As the original Company gained stability by the incorporation of its upstart rival established in 1698,[2] which put an end to a condition of affairs that promised to be ruinous to both, and by the grant of perpetuity issued in the year following incorporation, there was a gradual improvement in the quality of their civil servants. Though no increase in the salaries of junior officers took place for many years afterwards, the greater facilities opened to them, for trade, attracted better men into the service, among them some cadets of good family.
Miserable as was the display of military incompetency at Carwar and on subsequent occasions, it is hardly surprising when the condition of the Company's soldiers is considered. The Company's policy was to keep officers and men in a state of degrading subjection; to prevent the officers from having any authority over their men, while pledges as to pay were often broken.
When the Company first received Bombay from the Crown, the royal troops in the island were invited to remain in the Company's service on the same rank and pay, on the condition that they might resign when they pleased—a condition that made discipline impossible. The greater number of them accepted the terms. Two years later, a company was sent out under Captain Shaxton to fill vacancies. Shaxton was evidently a man of good abilities and position; one who had been trained in the stern military school of the civil wars. He was to be a factor in addition to his military command, and if, after trial, his qualifications would admit of it, he was to hold the office of Deputy Governor. The men were engaged for three years.