As to the passengers’ baggage, Gentlemen in Council were allowed to bring three tons or twenty feet of baggage, two chests of wine being included as part of this baggage if returning to India. Their ladies were allowed to take one ton of baggage if proceeding with their husbands: but if proceeding to their husbands two tons. General officers were allowed the same as Gentlemen in Council, colonels were allowed three tons, but only one chest of wine, and so on down the scale. When a first-class passenger to-day goes aboard a liner he finds that his state-room contains everything that is required in the way of furniture: but had he lived in the days of the East Indiamen he would have to have taken on board a table, a sofa (or two chairs), and a wash-hand stand. This much he would have to acquire, and this much he was allowed. But in addition to bedding, sofa, table and two chairs, members of the Select Committee could take three tons of baggage, supra-cargoes two and a half tons and writers proceeding to China one and a half tons.
If there was no duty payable on the baggage it could be shipped at Gravesend: but if otherwise it went aboard at Portsmouth. No other articles than wearing apparel and such things as were really intended for the use of the respective passengers on the voyage, including “musical instruments for ladies” and books, were allowed to be taken as baggage.
The East India Dock Company, which we have seen was a subsidiary company of the East India Company, was governed by twelve directors, and the three dock-masters lived at the docks. Before the vessels were allowed to enter the dock they had to be dismantled to their lower masts, take out their guns, ammunition, anchors and stores while they lay at moorings. Before being permitted to enter, a report had to be made by the captain to the dock-master of the amount of water the ship was leaking every twelve hours for the previous three days. Whatever stores remained in her after coming into the basin had to be discharged before she was allowed to go into the inner dock. But all ships from the East Indies or China unloaded their cargoes within the docks, except in the case of the biggest ships, which had to unload some of their goods in Long Reach, so as to lessen the draught of water. Outward-bound East Indiamen used to load either in the dock or in the river below Limehouse Creek. Gunpowder was always unloaded before entering dock, and the Company’s servants would superintend the unloading of the cargoes when finally moored alongside the wharf. The goods were then taken away by the Company’s “caravans,” the tea being conveyed to the Company’s warehouses without being weighed at the docks.