The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c17.22

c17.22

The English East India Company’s officers also issued passports and insisted on the trading vessels of the country buying them. Khafi Khan thought that the English behaved much worse than the Portuguese on the sea,² and the account left by Sir Thomas Herbert, who visited the East in the earlier part of the seventeenth century (his book was published in 1634), substantially corroborates the Muslim historian.³ But in the second half of the century their practice seems to have much improved. In 1672 Peter Johnson, Captain of the frigate *Revenge*, brought a Calicut merchant ship as a prize to Surat, as it had no English pass,⁴ and in 1675 the English factors of Broach warned the *Nakhodas* of some Malabar vessels that unless they provided themselves with English passes, their ships would be regarded as good prize if any English ship met them on the sea.⁵ But in the same year the Carwar factors had to remonstrate with their superiors at Surat for the leniency shown to those delinquents who refrained from procuring their pass. ‘The owners of ships at Batticola and at other ports hard by make their braggs that the taking of their vessells chances soe seldome and when Your Honour doth take them without a passe Your Honour doth only hinder them in their voyage by carrying them to Bombay and afterwards lett them goe. But Your Honour doth use them soe civilly there that they thinke their time very ill spent to desire a passe of us, and wee know that if Your Honour etc.’s vessells should but look out with a vigilent eye they would find a great many Batticola and other vessells that belongs to the adjacent places without any passe, how beneficiall this would be to the keeping up our Honourable Masters credit here in these parts, which hath bin much impaired now a late dayes as to this perticular wee leave the negotiation to Your Honour etc.'s serious consideration.'¹