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The Trade of the English East India Company in the Far East, 1623–84

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

D. K. Bassett
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Extract

Much has been written about British activities in the Far East, particularly in China, in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, especially by American historians. Dr. H. B. Morse's monumental Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China was first in the field and Professor E. H. Pritchard and J. K. Fairbank have been worthy successors. English scholarship on the subject is naturally somewhat older but, possibly for that reason, the work done has not usually been as detailed or thorough: an exception is Michael Greenberg's recent book, British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800–42. To find general surveys of Anglo-Chinese relations by British writers which extend back into the seventeenth century, it is necessary to turn to the books of A. J. Sargent and J. Bromley Eames. But as far as the seventeenth century is concerned historical research has been scanty. That Greenberg should have regarded a summary of events before the period with which he was immediately concerned as sufficient for his purpose was only natural. Fairbank's introductory chapters are more comprehensive but show greater interest in the attitude of the Chinese to external intruders than in the efforts of the East India Company to intrude. Sargent, as he himself acknowledged, was mainly concerned with the nineteenth century and his attempt to provide a historical background was very superficial. Eames paid considerable attention to early British contacts with China but was prone to errors of fact which make him unreliable.

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Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 92 , Issue 1-2 , April 1960 , pp. 32 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1960

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References

page 32 note 1 The term “Far East” is taken to include Siam, Cambodia, Annam, Tongking, China, Formosa and Japan. The material for this article comes from the records of the English East India Company preserved in the India Office Library, London. The series consulted included: (1) Factory Records (Java), vols.i–viii; (2) Original Correspondence Series (O.C.), nos. 1184–4919, contained in vols. 11–42; (3) Factory Records (China), vols. 2, 3, 4, 16; (4) Letter Books, i–vii; (5) Court Minutes, vols. 1–34.

page 32 note 2 Morse, H. B., Chronicles of the East India Company trading to China, 1635–1834, 5 vols., 1926–1929Google Scholar.

page 32 note 3 Pritchard, E. H., Anglo-Chinese Relations during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, 1929Google Scholar.

page 32 note 4 Fairbank, J. K., Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast, 1842–1854, 1953Google Scholar.

page 32 note 5 Greenberg, M., British Trade and the Opening of China, 1800–42, 1951Google Scholar.

page 32 note 6 Sargent, A. J., Anglo-Chinese Commerce and Diplomacy, 1907Google Scholar.

page 32 note 3 Eames, J. Bromley, The English in China (1600–1843), 1909Google Scholar.

page 33 note 1 The English calendar year in the seventeenth century ended on 25th March; thus 20th January, 1635 (O.S.), lay in what today would be 1636. In this article, the year has been altered to conform with modern practice, but the numbering of the day itself has not been changed. It must be remembered that the Dutch calendar, in common with that of most of Europe, was ten days ahead of that used by the English, e.g. 12th May, 1642 (O.S.), would be written by a Dutchman as 22nd May, 1642.

page 34 note 1 In February, 1623, twelve Englishmen were executed by the Dutch governor of Amboyna, after torture, on a charge of conspiring to seize the fortress.

page 34 note 2 The policy-making body of the English Company consisted of the governor, deputy governor, and twenty-four committees.

page 35 note 1 Pritchard, E. H., Anglo-Chinese Relations during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, pp. 50–1Google Scholar.

page 37 note 1 Both Pritchard and Eames show a related tendency to attribute English inactivity to the “severe competition and attack of the Dutch and Portuguese” (Pritchard, op. cit., p. 58; cf. Eames, , The English in China, p. 12)Google Scholar. As a generalization this statement will not bear examination because it is difficult to see why the English should have been deterred from voyaging to China by fear of the Dutch if they were simultaneously trading quite successfully in the East Indies—the very centre of Dutch power. The reluctance of the English directors to carry any Portuguese contraband goods on their ships cannot be interpreted as fear of the Dutch in general and this argument would not have applied had the English Company tried to trade with a Chinese port rather than Macao. It is true that English ships were seized by Dutch squadrons in the third Anglo-Dutch war (1672–74) but this was an isolated case and occurred after the English had established themselves in Formosa and Tongking.

page 39 note 1 The dispatch of the London to Macao in April, 1635, was the result of a private agreement between president William Methwold and Conde de Linhares during the negotiations which resulted in the Anglo-Portuguese Accord of the previous January. The Portuguese viceroy was anxious to carry contraband goods to Malacca and Macao and the Englishmen were glad of the opportunity to make a profit. The venture was quite a success but the directors decided to caution Methwold against similar undertakings in future lest the Dutch in Malacca Strait might seize the ship. Vide Foster, W. (ed.), English Factories in India, 1634–1636 (Oxford, 1911), pp. vii–xiGoogle Scholar; also Sainsbury, E. B. (ed.), Court Minutes of the East India Company, 1635–1639 (Oxford, 1907), pp. 120–1Google Scholar. In very much the same way and for similar reasons, president Francis Breton planned the ventures to Macao and Manila in 1644–45. Vide Foster, op. cit., 1642–1645, pp. x–xi, 165–6, 218 f., 249–253.

page 38 note 2 The reaction of the directors was even more adverse to the ventures of 1644–45 than it had been to the voyage of the London. Breton was compelled to explain that in the case of Macao “we never expected a continued trade thither, nor were licensed for more then that voiage”. Breton accepted the ban on voyages to Macao without regret but continued to press the advantages of a trade with Manila under the licence of the king of Spain. Vide Foster, , English Factories in India, 1646–1650, pp. 8–10, 80–1Google Scholar.

page 38 note 3 Op. cit., pp. 115, 141, 204, 231. The project of direct trade with Manila was revived in 1668 but nothing concrete resulted from the subsequent negotiations with the Spanish crown.

page 39 note 1 It is true that the adventurers of the English Company were depressed after the “Amboyna Massacre” and the Second and Third Joint Stocks and the three general voyages were more concerned to bring home their investments before abandoning the trade than to send out new stock. By the end of 1632, however, confidence was returning and, until the House of Lords rejected the Company's demand for the safeguarding of its monopoly rights in 1647, the adventurers pushed ahead. There was little difficulty in finding capital and in the early 1640s there was, on several occasions, an appreciable margin of unused stock at the Bantam presidency.

page 39 note 2 Court Minutes, 1633 and 1635, vol. 13, pp. 226–8, vol. 14, p. 27, vol. 16, p. 80.

page 39 note 3 In 1633, after several experimental voyages, an English factory was opened in Bengal; simultaneously, the Englishmen in India, particularly on the Coromandel coast, were undertaking a vigorous and successful expansion of their trade with the Persian Gulf; in the East Indies, the president at Bantam settled his subordinates at Banjermassin (1635) and at Palembang (1636). A decade later the president in India opened factories in Acheh (1643) and Pegu (1647) and in 1647 tried to establish commercial relations with Perak and Johore. In the East Indies, the spasmodic English trade with the west coast of Sumatra was replaced by a permanent factory at Silebar (1646).

page 40 note 1 Pratt, Peter, History of Japan, ii, p. 118 f.Google Scholar

page 40 note 2 Court Minutes, 13th March, 1632–33, vol. 13, p. 226.

page 40 note 3 Peter Pratt, op. oit., p. 131.

page 40 note 4 Company to Bantam, 29th February, 1635–36. Letter Book I, p. 85.

page 40 note 5 In 1644 Breton described the ship Hind as proceeding “for China” when in fact he meant Macao. Foster, W., English Factories in India, 1642–1645, p. 167Google Scholar.

page 41 note 1 Bantam to Company, 10th January, 1648–49. O.C. 2103, f. 3.

page 41 note 2 Cf. Pritchard, , Anglo-Chinese Relations, pp. 54–5Google Scholar.

page 41 note 2 Louvec, or Lauweck as it was usually called by English and Dutch factors, was situated north of Pnompenh, the distance between the towns being estimated by the Dutch as 3–4 miles. A Dutch mile was equal to 3 English miles.

page 41 note 3 Anderson, J., English Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1890), pp. 88–9Google Scholar. Vide also Hutchinson, E. W., Adventurers in Siam in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1940), p. 36Google Scholar.

page 42 note 1 Court Minutes, vol. 24, pp. 24, 26, 27, 34, 73, 124, 127, 129, 135, 157.

page 43 note 1 When the agent at Bantam, Quarles Browne, sought permission “to Trade for Japan and the Adjacent parts” in July, 1663, he intended to use his own ship and place the results of his exploration at the disposal of the directors. The funds of the Company were not involved in the undertaking. Vide infra, p. 27.

page 43 note 2 The sum underwritten for the New Joint Stock was originally £739,782 and until the autumn of 1658 the directors had no reason to suspect that the entire sum would not be paid in.

page 44 note 1 Thomson's unorthodox ideas had long been a source of irritation to the adventurers in the old joint stocks and general voyages. He had traded extensively to Virginia, Guinea, and the West Indies with a blissful disregard of chartered rights and in 1645 the East India Company was able to prevent him sending two private ships to India only by buying them from him. Thomson subscribed to the Company's Second General Voyage, which was set on foot after the rejection of the monopoly ordinance by the House of Lords in 1647, but this did not prevent him sending out a ship on his own account in 1648.

When the Assada Merchants came into existence in 1649, Thomson, who had had close connections with Courteen's Association, was one of the leading figures and it is significant that the proposals made by the Assada adventurers to the Company included a demand for the right to send ships to China and Japan if the East India Company declined to do so. When agreement was reached between the Assada Merchants and the Company in December, 1649, Thomson willingly subscribed to the resulting United Joint Stock, but between 1654 and 1657 he was engaged in a fierce controversy with governor Cockayne and his supporters as to the best means of carrying on English trade with Asia. Thomson was anxious to abolish the traditional limited joint stock monopoly, replacing it with a general freedom for all interested merchants, the Company exercising no more than a general supervision. One of the benefits which he claimed would result was the making of “further discoveries in China, Japan, etc.” While Maurice Thomson's ideas may not have endeared him to Cockayne and the members of the previous stocks and voyages whose interests he had damaged, his vigour and originality clearly found sufficient response among the new adventurers to win him the governorship in December, 1657. Court Minutes, 1644–1659 (Oxford, 1912–1916)Google Scholar, passim.

page 44 note 1 By June, 1659, there was only £1,900 in cash in the Company's coffers. Because of the unsettled political situation after the death of Oliver Cromwell in September, 1658, the directors had been able to call in only 50 per cent of the capital underwritten in the previous October. Together with a loan of £40,000, this gave the directors an effective capital of just under £400,000. Scott, W. R., Joint Stock Companies (C.U.P., 1910–1912), ii, pp. 129–130Google Scholar.

page 45 note 1 Particularly so when it is implied that the voyage marked a conscious step in the directors' plans to open trade with China. Cf. Pritchard, op. cit., pp. 66–7.

page 45 note 2 Browne entered the service of the Company in January, 1646, as purser of the Dolphin, was re-appointed to that post in October, 1647, and subsequently served as a factor in the Bantam presidency. From 1651 to 1656 he was the chief factor in Cambodia, returning to England in December, 1657. Once his accounts had been approved, he was selected as chief factor of the proposed settlement in Japan but was dismissed from the service of the Company in December, 1658, when the project collapsed.

page 45 note 3 Company to Bantam, 29th February, 1663–64. Letter Book III, p. 370.

page 45 note 4 Bantam to Company, 31st December, 1664. O.C. 3041, p. 4.

page 46 note 1 Quoted in the court's letter to Bantam, 30th June, 1663. Letter Book III, p. 267.