Volume 1

Materials towards a statistical account of the town and island of Bombay in three volumes.

  • Bombay Presidency
Date:
1893-1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Materials towards a statistical account of the town and island of Bombay in three volumes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    160/522 (page 142)
    Chapter I. History. Union of the Companies, 1704, Bombay, 1706. Then we were all carried before the governor. Here we were again asked who was General and who President to which we answered as before. The seal was again shown to the governor. What else passed there was in Moores, which William Mildmay did not understand. Therefore John Brangwin gives a deposition apart. But Usher Beag (Asa Beg) was ordered to put a guard upon the General (Vanmalidas refusing to be his security) and came home with us in the coach to see it done, and ordered fifty men to follow him to the factory. To this we can make oath.—(Signed) William Mildmay, Secretary, and John Brangwin, Senior f actor.^ In spite of the advantages secured by the union of the two Companies affairs in Surat were far from prosperous. In June 170 J and again in Januaiy 1704 the Directors called on their Councils in Surat and in Bombay to consider how best the whole trade could be centred in Bombay : Whether the merchants might not by some means be united to come and take up their residence in Bombay, or whether the transfer could be effected in any other way.- On the 4th June 1703 they wrote regarding Bombay:, We will grudge no tolerable charge to make every part of the island defensible against any invasion, and to render it healthful,, and invite inhabitants to reside on it.^ In spite of the Directors’ efforts life in Bombay seems to have been by no means agreeable. Two years later (January 1706) in a letter to the Court, Sir N. Waite the Deputy Governor of Bombay, gives the following details of the island: We are only eight covenant servants including the Council and but two that write, besides two- raw youths taken ashore out of ships, and most of us often sick in this unhealthful depopulated and ruined island.^ Three months- later (18th April) he continues: We are now seven on the island and some of us greatly indisposed, and but six commission officers two of which often sick, and under forty English sentinels, a parti- cular true state of BombayJ Three weeks later (9th May) he writes : We are six including your Council and some of us often sick. It is morally impossible- wdthout an overruling Providence to continue longer from going under ground if we have not a large assistance.® Nine months later (23rd January 1707) he moans: My continued indisposition and want of assistance in this unveryhealthful island has been laid before the managers and your Court. Yet I esteem 1 Surat Consultation dated 26tli ]\Iay 1704, Surat Factory Diary 3 of 1701 - 1704, 153 - 155. Forrest’s Home Series, I. 267 - 268. 2 Directors to Surat and Bombay, 12tli January 1704, Compilation of Standing Orders, Vol. I of 1715 - 1721, 109. ^ Directors to Bombay or Surat, 4th June 1703, para. 39, Compilation of Standing Orders, Vol. 1 of 1715-1721, 141. Sir Nicholas Waite to the Court, Bombay Castle, 31st January 1706, Surat Fact. Diary 2 of 1699 - 1707, 396. 5 Sir Nicholas Waite to the Court, Bombay Castle, 18th i^pril 1706, Surat Fact. Diary 2 of 1699- 1707, 397. ® Sir Nicholas Waite to the Court, Bombay Castle, 9th May 1706, Surat Fact.