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.

    161/522 (page 143)
    AND ISLAND. 143 myself bound in gratitude and I will briefly inform what material occurs till I leave this place or the world.^ One reason why the early years of the eighteenth century were 1/02 was only formal. So strong had been the rivalry between the two Companies and so opposed were the private interests of their servants that for several years^ though outwardly hid, dis- trust and rivalry continued fresh and active. Though 1702 is the date of formal amalgamation, opposing interests were not united till 1708. During these six years (1703 - 1708) occasional skirmishes at the outposts sometimes grew so warm that there was danger lest the war should be renewed. As the instructions from home to live in peace and quietness were positive, neither party ventured ; openly to disobey them. Sir Nicholas Waite, who had pertina- 1 cioLisly endeavoured to prevent a union and to persuade the i directors of his own Company that it would be to their detriment, 1 as soon as he heard that his remonstrances were unheeded and that I a union would certainly take place, wrote and assured the directors ^ of his resolution ' to obliterate all past heats ’ and to hold ; friendly intercourse with Sir John Gayer and his Council. The : communications between the two Chiefs and their Councils never I went beyond formal civility. There was constraint on both sides ; I nor did either place any reliance upon the good dispositions of the I otherJ Probably neither party understood its owui circumstances, : certainly not the circumstances of the other. The difflculty of : arriving at a complete agreement was enhanced in India by the rival interests of their servants which gave rise to incessant bicker- ] ings. At last the representatives of the two Companies consented : to appeal to the Earl of Godolphin, Lord High Treasurer of England, s wTo after a most patient investigation of the questions in drspate published on the 29th ol September 1/08 his famous award. From ; that date the two Companies became in fact as well as in style . ‘ The United Company of Merchants of England trading to the : East Indies.’ ^ Fact Dkry^s'o? ICot n07. 4W -wf’ 3 Anderson’s English in Western India (1854), 176. Chapter I. History. Union,