1498.
1600,
Dec. 31.
The first of the European nations to gain a footing in the peninsula was of course the Portuguese. In 1493 Bartholemew Diaz doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and five years later Vasco da Gama arrived on the Western or Malabar coast, and after a second voyage obtained permission to establish a factory at Calicut. His work was continued by Albuquerque, under whose care the Portuguese power in India was more widely extended than at any time before or since. To him it was due that Goa was made the chief centre of Portuguese influence, and that Ceylon became tributary to Portugal's king. It was not, however, conceivable that Portugal should long be allowed to enjoy the monopoly of this lucrative traffic; and competitors soon presented themselves from the maritime powers of Europe. Moreover, in 1580, Portugal passed under the crown of Spain, so that any encroachment on her East Indian trade inflicted also some damage on the detested Spaniard. In 1582 an Englishman, Edward Fenton, led the way by attempting a voyage direct to the east. The venture, however, was a failure, as was also a second attempt made by James Lancaster in 1589. Finally, a Dutchman, James Houtmann, sailed from the Texel in 1595, and presented himself as the first rival of the Portuguese by the establishment of a factory at Bantam in Java. But though thus distanced for a moment in the race for a new market the English speedily resolved to make up the lost ground; and in 1599 an association of Merchants Adventurers was formed in London with the object of prosecuting a voyage to the East Indies. In the following year they received a charter from Queen Elizabeth, and thus came into being the famous East India Company.
1607.
1611.
1612.
1628.
1651.
The two first voyages of the new Company followed the track of the Dutch to Sumatra and Java, but in the third the ships were driven by stormy weather into Sierra Leone, whence one of them under Captain Hawkins sailed direct to Surat, and found there good promise of opening trade. In 1609 Hawkins visited Agra in person and obtained privileges from the reigning Mogul, eldest son of the great Akbar; but his influence was soon undermined by Portuguese Jesuits, and he was fain to return with little profit. Two years later, however, an English vessel touched at Point de Galle, sailed up the Coromandel, or eastern, coast of India as far as Masulipatam and founded the nucleus of a factory at Petapolee, the germ from which was to spring the trade of England in the Bay of Bengal. The jealousy of Dutch and Portuguese had by this time risen so high that the Company was obliged to employ force against them. In 1612 Captain Best boldly attacked a superior Portuguese fleet in the Bay of Surat, and defeated it so thoroughly that the reigning Mogul disallowed the Portuguese claim to a monopoly of the trade, agreed to a treaty granting important privileges to the English, and consented to receive an ambassador from them at his Court. One formidable rival was thus crippled, but the Dutch were not so easily to be dealt with, more particularly since the troubles which followed on the accession of Charles the First in England left them little to fear from an armed force. The affairs of the Company began to languish, but fresh outlets for trade were none the less sought for. One factory was definitely established at Masulipatam, a second on the coast further northward, and finally, in 1640, a third was settled at Madras under the name of Fort St. George. This was the one gleam of sunshine at that period amid all the troubles of England at home and abroad. Then at last the cloud of the Civil War passed away; the power of England began to revive, and the Company addressed a petition to Parliament for redress of injuries received from the Dutch. Thereupon followed the Dutch war and the seven furious actions of Blake and Monk, which dealt Dutch maritime ascendency a blow from which it never recovered. A piece of unexpected good fortune, namely the recovery of Shah Jehan's daughter from dangerous sickness under the care of an English surgeon at Surat, procured for the Company free trade with Bengal. At the close of the Protectorate the Company had organised its markets into three divisions. A supreme presidency was established at Surat with special charge of the Persian trade, a subordinate presidency at Madras with control of the factories on the eastern coast and in Bengal, and a third presidency at Bantam for direction of the traffic with the Eastern Islands.
1660.
1661.
Then came the Restoration, and with it a new charter empowering the Company to send ships of war, men, and arms to their factories for defence of the same, and to make peace or war with any people not Christians. Authority was also granted for the fortification of St. Helena, which since 1651 had become the port of call on the voyage to India, and stringent provision was made for the maintenance of the Company's monopoly. The following year brought Bombay by dowry to the British Crown, and in 1662 Sir Abraham Shipman was sent out with four hundred soldiers to take possession and to remain as governor. These were the first British troops to land in India, but as there was a dispute with the Portuguese as to whether the word Bombay, as inscribed in the treaty of marriage, signified the island only or included its dependencies also, the poor fellows were landed on the island of Anjediva, near Goa, where they at once began to sicken. In 1664 they were transferred to Madras, in view of the war with Holland; but by the end of the year Shipman and a vast number of the men were dead, and when at last they landed in Bombay, in March 1665, the four hundred had dwindled to one officer and one hundred and thirteen men. Such was the first experience of the British Army in India.[235]
1668.
In 1668 Bombay, together with the whole of its military stores, was made over to the Company for a rent of ten pounds a year; and authority was also given for the Company to enlist officers and men for their own service, as well as to call in certain garrisons of the King's troops at Bombay and Madras to fill up vacancies. Further, in order to form a local militia, half-pay was granted to all soldiers who would settle on the island, new settlers were promised from England, and a rule was made that not more than twenty soldiers should return to Europe in any one year. The men and officers of the King's troops at once took service with the Company under its own military code and articles of war, and thus was founded the first military establishment in Bombay. The men agreed, it seems, to serve for three years only, which gives them an additional interest as the first English soldiers ever enlisted for short service. Having thus provided itself with men the Company proceeded next to the improvement and fortification of Bombay itself, and with such vigour that by 1674 no fewer than one hundred cannon were mounted for its defence. Finally, in 1683-84 the garrison was increased from four hundred to six hundred men, two companies of Rajpoots were embodied as an auxiliary force, and Bombay was made the headquarters of the Company in India.
1685.
The Company thus strengthened forthwith became ambitious. Hitherto it had addressed the native princes in terms of humble submission: it now assumed the tone of an equal and independent power, able to command respect by force of arms. It also equipped a fleet of twelve powerful men-of-war, which was first to capture Chittagong and then to proceed up the eastern branch of the Ganges to seize Dacca. Hostilities were precipitated by a quarrel between English and native soldiers in the bazaar at Hooghly, wherein the forces of the nabob of the province were defeated. The nabob, however, avenged himself by pouncing upon the British factory at Patna; and the approach of Aurungzebe caused the British to withdraw from Hooghly to Chuttamuttee, the site of the present Calcutta. Thus the war against the Moguls ended in the utter humiliation of the Company. The period of conquest was not yet come.