Contemporary manuscript records of the late eighteenth-century Company’s ships show them wearing a long pennant at one mast and a square flag at another. Each of the East Indiamen ships in a convoy would have its own distinguishing pennant. Sometimes this was flown at the main with a square flag at the fore, at other times you find a ship with the square flag at the mizen and the pennant at the fore. And a most elaborate code of signals both for day and night was provided for use between the flagship and the respective units.
[Illustration: THE EAST INDIAMAN “EARL BALCARRES.”
This fine ship was built at Bombay in 1815, and was sold out of the Honourable East India Company’s service in 1834. Her tonnage was 1,417, she carried 130 men, and was armed with twenty-six 18-pounder guns.]
Promotion in the Company’s own ships was by seniority, though in the case of the ships which the Company hired from private owners for a certain number of voyages, promotion depended rather on ability and influence. The East India Company were wont to appoint commanders to their ships before the latter were completed, in order that they might be fitted out under the captain’s personal supervision. Midshipmen had to be between thirteen and eighteen years of age. Pursers were appointed by the commander, subject to the approval of the Committee of Shipping. We have shown that if the pay in these ships was not great, yet the privileges were so lucrative that a commander could afford to retire after four or five voyages with a fortune that would render him independent for the rest of his life. What with being allowed to engage extensively in the Eastern trade, plus the amount of free space allowed them for this purpose on board, and the receipt of passage-money from the various officials who voyaged between England and India, a commander was remarkably unlucky if he had not made about £20,000 in his five voyages in that rank. In some cases his revenue amounted to about £6000 a voyage and even more. This is the figure for what he obtained by honest means. To this must be added in many cases that which he obtained by illicit trade, better known as smuggling. Lindsay mentions the instance of one commander within his own knowledge who in one voyage from London to India, thence to China and so back to London, realised no less than £30,000, this captain having a large interest in the freight of cotton and other produce conveyed from India to China. And, having examined the records of the custom-house, I can assure the reader that whatever a captain made legally he also made additional sums by stealth, to the loss of the nation’s customs.