The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c17.28

Language: English

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This remonstrance shows that English opinion in India was not in those days adverse to the seizure of unlicensed ships but held it as a lawful exercise of sovereignty of the sea. Three years later, on 27 February 1668-69, Captain William Norgrave was given the following instructions: 'Wee have appointed you upon the *Hunter* to transport Mr. George Bowcher to Callicut; to whom wee have given instructions to direct you to examine all vessells for English passes, you shall meet with in your going downe; and such as shall be found to have none, belonging to any port of the Mallabarr coast, to be secured and brought up to Bombay especially such as may belong to Allee Rajah or the Moores of Burgora, Cotta, Durmapatam or Billiapatam, or the natives of Porcat, taking great care in your acts of seizure, you govern yourselfe and men with that moderation, discretion and conduct as to discharge yourselfe with courage and reputation and with that uprightness and faithfulness as to forbeare yourselfe and prevent your men from purloyning or embezzling any of their goods etc., a full return of all things being intended backe to the owners when wee shall receive satisfaction for the severall wrongs done us from those places.'² In this case the English authorities did not intend anything but what they considered just retaliation. The instructions of Sir John Gayer were generally lenient but did not repudiate the principle on which the Portuguese and the Dutch were acting.

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On 28 May 1695, he told Captain Leonard Edgecombe: 'If in your passage out or home you meet with any country ships demand to see their passes and if they have none threaten them hard what you will do to them if you meet them without again but let them by no means be abused by you or any of your ships company but if you find any English on board them that have not our orders for being there take them (away)'.¹ But Governor Boone upheld the prevailing practice when he detained the *Shibar Khanderao* belonging to a subject of Kanhoji Angria. In defence of his action he wrote to Angria: 'Concerning the Shybar Canderow belonging to Trimbuckjee Meggee, you write that his goods and those of the Surat merchants are stopt; as Trimbuckjee is an inhabitant of this place and has his warehouses here, and allways takes my pass for said Shybar, and this year without said pass pretended to go to sea, how could it be permitted? In the same manner all the merchants of Surat take my pass to carry on their trade, and if their goods were laded in this Shybar, why was not I acquainted therewith? The vessells and their cargos that sail without a pass, both the Portuguese and you make prizes of, as you well know;

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and when this vessell was taken without my pass, it was on the same penalty, but I am not yet determined to do so'.² Thus it is clear that the practice of controlling the navigation of the Arabian Sea by the maritime powers of Western India had been by common consent recognised as a lawful act, and although the greed and cupidity of naval officers had frequently led to misuse of the custom, there is no doubt that it originally arose from a much-felt need. The coast was in those days infested by numerous pirates. They could and did frequent the ports in the guise of inoffensive traders and assumed their true character on the high seas when a suitable opportunity occurred.³ Such practice could to a certain extent be stopped by the issue of passes to genuine merchants, and the price demanded for these safeguards does not seem to have been very high. From the Portuguese *cartazes* granted to Maratha merchants it appears that the Goa Government demanded 20 Xerafins for each hundred *Khandis*⁴ of the cargo carried by the vessel. The price of an English pass varied according to the distance of the destination;

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'the fee for a pass from Broach to Surat was 4, from Goa 2 and from Cambay 3 or 4 Rupees per 500 Candy’.¹ It was demanded in return for the service rendered by the government concerned to traders in general by policing the sea, and the payment was made without much demur, as Henry Grose tells us: ‘Towards defraying the charges of this marine, the company required of all the vessels trading in those seas, those of the other European nations excepted, to take the passes of the Bombay Government, for which they paid a small consideration, at which I never heard the least murmuring, the merchants being duly sensible not only of the benefit their trade received from the English protection, but that this contribution was far short of the cost of it’.² How much Angria or the Peshwa’s officers usually demanded for their passes we do not know,³ but there is no reason to suppose that the price was excessive for no complaint of that nature has come down to us. From the meagre references made by Portuguese and English writers to the naval practices of the times it appears that the Maratha fleet generally gave convoy to merchantmen sailing from their ports. Evidently, the purchasers of the Angria’s pass also received a good return for their money.