With all its failings, the East India Company still remains5 in history as the most amazingly powerful trading concern which the world has ever seen. Like many other big propositions it began in a small way: but it acquired for us that vast continent which is the envy of all the great powers of the world to-day. And it is important and necessary to remember always that we owe this in the first place to the consummate6 courage, patience, skill and long-suffering of that race of beings, the intrepid7 seamen8, who have never yet received their due from the landsmen whom they have made rich and comfortable.
Among the Harleian MSS. there is a delightful2 phrase written by a seventeenth-century writer, in which, treating of matters that are not immediately concerned with the present subject, he remarks very quaintly9 that “the first article of an Englishman’s Politicall Creed10 must be that he believeth in ye Sea etc. Without that there needeth no general Council to pronounce him uncapable of Salvation11.” This somewhat sweeping12 statement none the less aptly sums up the whole matter of our colonisation and overseas development. The entire glamour13 of the Elizabethan period, marked as it unfortunately is with many deplorable errors, is derived14 from the sea. With the appreciation15 of what could be attained16 by a combination of stout17 ships, sturdy seamen, navigation, seamanship, gunnery and high hopes that refused persistently18 to be daunted19, the most farsighted began to see that success was for them. Honours, wealth, the founding of families that should treasure their names in future generations, the acquisition of fine estates and the building of large houses with luxuries that exceeded the Tudor pattern—these were the pictures which were conjured20 up in the imaginations of those who vested their fortunes and often their lives in these ocean voyages. The call of the sea had in England fallen mostly on deaf ears until the late sixteenth century. It is only because there were some who listened to it, obeyed, and presently led others to do as they had done, that the British Empire has been built up at all.
Our task, however, is to treat of one particular way in which that call has influenced the minds and activities of men. We are to see how that, if it summoned some across the Atlantic to the Spanish3 Main, it sent others out to the Orient, yet always with the same object of acquiring wealth, establishing trade with strange peoples, and incidentally affording a fine opportunity for those of an adventurous21 spirit who were unable any longer to endure the cramped22 and confined limitations of the neighbourhood in which they had been born and bred. And though, as we proceed with our story, we shall be compelled to watch the gradual growth and the vicissitudes23 of the East Indian companies, yet our object is to obtain a clear knowledge not so much of the latter as of the ships which they employed, the manner in which they were built, sailed, navigated24 and fought. When we speak of the “Old East Indiamen” we mean of course the ships which used to carry the trade between India and Europe. And inasmuch as this trade was, till well on into the nineteenth century, the valuable and exclusive monopoly of the East India Company, carefully guarded against any interlopers, our consideration is practically that of the Company’s ships. After the Company lost their monopoly to India, their ships still possessed26 the monopoly of trading with China until the year 1833. After that date the Company sold the last of their fleet which had made them famous as a great commercial and political concern. In their place a number of new private firms sprang up, who bought the old ships from the East India Company, and even built new ones for the trade. These were very fine craft and acted as links between England and the East for a few years longer, reaching their greatest success between the years 1850 and 1870. But the opening of the Suez Canal and the enterprise of steamships27 sealed their fate, so that4 instead of the wealth which was obtained during those few years by carrying cargoes28 of rich merchandise between the East and the West, and transporting army officers, troops and private passengers, there was little or no money to be made by going round the Cape29. Thus the last of the Indiamen sailing ships passed away—became coal-hulks, were broken up; or, changing their name and nationality, sailed under a Scandinavian flag.
The East India Company rose from being a private venture of a few enterprising merchants to become a gigantic corporation of immense political power, with its own governors, its own cavalry30, artillery31 and infantry32, its own navy, and yet with its trade-monopoly and its unsurpassed “regular service” of merchantmen. The latter were the largest, the best built, and the most powerfully armed vessels33 in the world, with the exception only of some warships34. They were, so to speak, the crack liners of the day, but they were a great deal more besides. Their officers were the finest navigators afloat, their seamen were at times as able as any of the crews in the Royal Navy, and in time of war the Government showed how much it coveted35 them by impressing them into its service, to the great chagrin36 and inconvenience of the East India Company, as we shall see later on in our story.
THE EAST INDIA HOUSE.
(By courtesy of Messrs. T. H. Parker Brothers)
From being at first a small trading concern with a handful of factors and an occasional factory planted in the East in solitary37 places, the Company progressed till it had its own civil service with its training college in England for the cadets aspiring38 to be sent out to the East. It is due to the Company not only that India is now under the British flag,5 but that the wealth of our country has been largely increased and a new outlet39 was found for our manufactures. The factors who went out in the first Indiamen sailing ships sowed the seed which to-day we now reap. The commanders of these vessels made their “plots” (charts) and obtained by bitter experience the details which provided the first sailing directions. They were at once explorers, traders, fighters, surveyors. The conditions under which they voyaged were hard enough, as we shall see: and the loss of human life was a high price at which all this material trade-success was obtained. Notwithstanding all the quarrels, the jealousies40, the murders, the deceits, the misrule and corruption41, the bribery42 and extortion which stain the activities of the East India Company, yet during its existence it raised the condition of the natives from the lowest disorder43 and degradation44: and if the Company found it not easy to separate its commercial from its political aspirations45, yet the British Government in turn found it very convenient on occasions when this corporation’s funds could be squeezed, its men impressed; or even its ships employed for guarding the coasts of England or transporting troops out to India.
It is difficult to realise all that the East India Company stood for. It comprised under its head a large shipping46 line with many of the essential attributes of a ruling nation, and its merchant ships not only opened up to our traders India, but Japan and China as well. And bear in mind that the old East Indiamen set forth47 on their voyages not with the same light hearts that their modern successors, the steamships of the P. & O. line, begin their journey.6 Before the East India Company’s ships got to their destination, they had to sail right away round the Cape of Good Hope and then across the Indian Ocean, having no telegraphic communication with the world, and with none of the comforts of a modern liner—no preserved foods, no iced drinks or anything of that sort. Any moment they were liable to be plunged48 into an engagement: if not with the French or Dutch men-of-war, then with roving privateers or well-armed pirate ships manned by some of the most redoubtable49 rascals50 of the time, who stopped at no slaughter51 or brutality52. There were the perils53, too, of storms, and of other forms of shipwreck54, and the almost monotonous55 safety of the modern liner was a thing that did not exist. Later on we shall see in what difficulties some of these ships became involved. It was because they were ever expectant of a fight that they were run practically naval56 fashion. They were heavily armed with guns, they had their special code of signals for day and night, they carried their gunners, who were well drilled and always prepared to fight: and we shall see more than one instance where these merchant ships were far too much for a French admiral and his squadron.
These East Indiamen sailing ships were really wonderful for what they did, the millions of miles over which they sailed, the millions of pounds’ worth of goods which they carried out and home: and this not merely for one generation, but for two and a half centuries. It is really surprising that such a unique monopoly should have been enjoyed for all this time, and that other ships should have been (with the exceptions we shall presently note) kept out7 of this benefit. The result was that an East Indiaman was spoken of with just as much respect as a man-of-war. She was built regardless of cost and kept in the best of conditions; and all the other merchantmen in the seven seas could not rival her for strength, beauty and equipment. It was a golden age, a glorious age: an epoch in which British seamanhood, British shipbuilding in wood, were capable of being improved upon only by the clipper ships that followed for a brief interval57. They earned handsome dividends58 for the Company, they were always full of passengers, troops and valuable freight; and, although they were not as fine-lined as the clipper ships, yet they made some astounding59 passages. They carried crews that in number and quality would make the heart of a modern Scandinavian skipper break with envy. The result was that they were excellently handled and could carry on in a breeze till the last minute, when sail could be taken in smartly with the minimum of warning.
The country fully25 appreciated how invaluable60 was this East India service, and certainly no merchantmen were ever so regulated and controlled by Acts of Parliament. To-day you never hear of any merchant skipper buying or selling his command, nor retiring after a very few voyages with a nice little fortune for the rest of his life. But these things occurred in the old East Indiamen, when commanders received even knighthoods and a good income settled on them, for life, as a reward of their gallantry. Those were indeed the palmy days of the merchant service, and many an ill-paid mercantile officer to-day, wearied of receiving owners’ complaints and no thanks, must regret that his lot8 was not to be serving with the East India Company.
When we consider the two important centuries and a half, during which the East Indiamen ships were making history and trade for our country, helping61 in the most important manner to build up our Indian Empire, fighting the Portuguese62, the Dutch and the French, privateers and pirates, and generally opening up the countries of the East, it is to me perfectly63 extraordinary that the history of these ships has never yet been written. I have searched in vain in our great national libraries—in the British Museum, the India Office, the Admiralty and elsewhere—but I have not been able to find one volume dealing64 exclusively with these craft. In an age that sees no end to the making of books there is therefore need for a volume that should long since have been written. Many of the story-books of our boyhood begin with the hero leaving England in an East Indiaman: but they say little or nothing as to how she was rigged, how she was manned, and what uniforms her officers wore.
I feel, then, that I may with confidence ask the reader who loves ships for themselves, or is fascinated by history, or is specially65 interested in the rise of our Indian Empire, to follow me in the following pages while the story of these old East Indiamen is narrated66. In a little while we shall have passed entirely67 from the last of all surviving ocean-going sailing ships, but during the whole of their period none have left their mark so significantly on past and present affairs as the old East Indiamen. I can guarantee that while pursuing this story the reader will find much that will interest and even surprise him: but9 above all will be seen triumphant68 the true grit69 and pluck which have ever been the attributes of our national sailormen—the determination to carry out, in spite of all costs and hardships, the serious task imposed on them of getting the ship safely to port with all her valuable lives, and her rich cargoes, regardless of weather, pirates, privateers and the enemies of the nation whose flag they flew. And this fine spirit will be found to be confined to no special century nor to any particular ship: but rather to pervade70 the whole of the East India Company’s merchant service. The days of such a monopoly as this corporation’s trade and shipping are much more distant even than they seem in actual years: but happily it is our proud boast, as year after year demonstrates, that those qualities, which composed the magnificent seamanhood of the crews of these vessels, are no less existent and flourishing to-day in the other ships under the British flag that venture north, south, east and west. The only main difference is this:—Yesterday the sailor had a hundred chances, for every one opportunity which is afforded to-day to the sons of the sea, of showing that the grand, undying desire to do the right thing in the time of crisis is one of the greatest assets of our nation.
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1
epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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imposing
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| adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的 | |
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grandeur
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| n.伟大，崇高，宏伟，庄严，豪华 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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consummate
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| adj.完美的；v.成婚；使完美 [反]baffle | |
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intrepid
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| adj.无畏的，刚毅的 | |
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seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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quaintly
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| adv.古怪离奇地 | |
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creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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salvation
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| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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glamour
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| n.魔力，魅力；vt.迷住 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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persistently
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| ad.坚持地；固执地 | |
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daunted
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| 使（某人）气馁，威吓( daunt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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conjured
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| 用魔术变出( conjure的过去式和过去分词 )； 祈求，恳求； 变戏法； （变魔术般地） 使…出现 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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vicissitudes
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| n.变迁，世事变化；变迁兴衰( vicissitude的名词复数 )；盛衰兴废 | |
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navigated
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| v.给（船舶、飞机等）引航，导航( navigate的过去式和过去分词 )；（从海上、空中等）横越；横渡；飞跃 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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steamships
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| n.汽船，大轮船( steamship的名词复数 ) | |
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cargoes
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| n.（船或飞机装载的）货物( cargo的名词复数 )；大量，重负 | |
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cape
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| n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风 | |
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cavalry
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| n.骑兵；轻装甲部队 | |
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artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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infantry
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| n.[总称]步兵(部队) | |
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vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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warships
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| 军舰，战舰( warship的名词复数 )； 舰只 | |
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coveted
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| adj.令人垂涎的；垂涎的，梦寐以求的v.贪求，觊觎(covet的过去分词)；垂涎；贪图 | |
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chagrin
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| n.懊恼；气愤；委屈 | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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aspiring
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| adj.有志气的；有抱负的；高耸的v.渴望；追求 | |
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outlet
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| n.出口/路；销路；批发商店；通风口；发泄 | |
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jealousies
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| n.妒忌( jealousy的名词复数 )；妒羡 | |
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corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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bribery
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| n.贿络行为，行贿，受贿 | |
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disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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degradation
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| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
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aspirations
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| 强烈的愿望( aspiration的名词复数 )； 志向； 发送气音； 发 h 音 | |
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shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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redoubtable
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| adj.可敬的；可怕的 | |
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rascals
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| 流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人 | |
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51
slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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brutality
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| n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮 | |
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perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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shipwreck
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| n.船舶失事，海难 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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dividends
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| 红利( dividend的名词复数 )； 股息； 被除数； （足球彩票的）彩金 | |
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astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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invaluable
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| adj.无价的，非常宝贵的，极为贵重的 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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narrated
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| v.故事( narrate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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grit
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| n.沙粒，决心，勇气；v.下定决心，咬紧牙关 | |
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pervade
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| v.弥漫，遍及，充满，渗透，漫延 | |
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