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.

    57/522 page 39
    AND ISLAND. 39 Before leaving Bombay (February 1670) the Governor decided to make use of a resident on the island a Portuguese by name Simao Serrao, a man well read in the civil and imperial laws and one who- by his experience and practice in the laws and customs of the Portuguese was ably qualified to do the Company effectual and good service in discovering their just right and privilege. The Deputy Governor was to make use of Simao as occasion presented for the common benefit, rewarding him as he shall merit and the Council deem convenient.^ He also decided that the Company’s proposals concerning the building of wharfs docks and cranes being a work of time should be reserved to future consideration. As to the suggestion that the Company should make Bombay a free port for five years he desired the Council seriously to consider whether this grant would answer the end the Company aimed at and bring trade to the port, and if so whether considering the smallness of the Company’s quick stock in India and the great charge they were at in raising the fortifications they could afford to make the experiment.^ At Surat the affairs of Bombay continued to engage President Aungier’s attention. The Surat Diaiy for 28th October 1670 details a consultation on letters received from Bombay. After serious debate it was resolved that the Deputy Governor and Council’s proceedings touching the altering the price of rice, raising a breastwork upon the wall of the fort, and setting up the gates, be approved ; that Bobert Kirby, now carpenter of the ship Oxinden, be ordered to repair to Bombay for the service of the Company’s ; affairs there ; and that certain idle bricklayers be turned out.^ On the 10th January 1671 the President resumes in a letter to i the Court of Directors : Now we are on discourse of your island [ Bombay, we humbly recommend to you certain rude proposals ' which have offered themselves to our thoughts tending as we I hope to render the colony useful in some measure to England, i and in a condition to bear its own charge. We entreat you to { receive these proposals under your debate and what part thereof [ you shall in your wisdom determine worthy to be put in practice, ] please to strengthen us with sufficient power or instructions i that your orders may be the more fully obeyed. Your ships George and Charles—the former whereof we expect suddenly from Queda and the latter now lying in on freight for Persia—are weakly manned, having lost most of their men by mortality. These we have supplied from Bombay. Hereafter for the better manning of your shipping, as also the brigandines or frigates to be built and the hoys, we humbly propose that it would be necessary to require all the Commanders of the shipping you send to these ports to bring out supernumerary men according to their respective c burthens at the owner’s charge; that so they may leave some spare Bombay Consultation, 12tli February 1670, Surat Fact. Diary 1 of 1660-1696. ^ Bombay Consultation, 6th February 1670, Surat Fact. Diary 1 of 1660-1696. 3 Surat Consultation dated Swally Marine, 28th October 1670, Surat Fact. Diary 1 of 1660- 1696. Chapter I. History. Portuguese Legal Kemembrancer, 1670. Should Bombay be a Free Port, 1670. Aungier’s Proposals for Bombay, 1670,
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