Indian Antiquary Vol 45

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 76

68
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[APRIL, 1916
purpose to stay longer here, thereby to suffer any ways the loss of my right, as heretofore in Mr Vincents and Mr. Littletons time, by their ill tricks. Should itt not be your Honor &ca pleasure firmly to settle me, according to my request in the forementioned paper, I am compelled, through discouragements and matters of very great import to the Honble. Company to go home upon the Loyall Adventure, desiring copy of the Consultation and what elce here on Register that relates to mee. The oppressions and Tyranies over me in India have been so many that I cannot (pay] for so long a Voyage as I am inclined. I entreat your Honor &ca upon this weighty occation, which so much concernes the Right Honble. Companies interest, therefore to pay me my Sallary and Chamber rent. I never doubted the first, because it was absolutely promised me, with other encouragements, till further orders from England about me, and that your Honor &ca also please to put in such provisions aboard as in such cases some others has had, that I may not be subject to the abuses of any belonging to the ship I embarque on, nor want necessary refreshment at Sea. If the Right Honble. Company disapproved of these disbursements (as I know they will not) on my account, I will oblige myself to have itt deducted out of my arrears, which is considerable, all which I leave to your speedy consideration and determination, remaining, Hon ble. Sir &ca &ca, Your most humble Servant, JAMES HARDING. Madras, 6th October 1687.
The explanation, promised by Harding to be produced " next Consultation day" does not appear, nor did he sail for England that year. He is next heard of in August 1688, when he petitioned the Fort St. George Council to be allowed to go home in the Bengall Merchant, and “'twas granted him, provided he pay 26 Pagodas according to the Right Hon ble. Companyes possitive orders.":53 After this date Harding's name disappears from the Company's Records until December 1691, when at a Consultation held at Fort St. George, there is a note of the readmission of a "James Harding" into the Company's service.54 As the only other Harding, who has been traced among the Company's servants in the period 1670 to 1690, is a sea Captain, the remark presumably applies to the dismissed "senior merchant," but as there are no copies of Consultations for the year 1691 at the India Office, details regarding the entry are unobtainable. Neither does Harding's name occur in any later Consultations noted in the Madras Press List. If he returned to England in the Bengall Merchant in 1688, it seems strange that there is no mention either of any enquiry into his conduct, or remark as to his reinstatement, or petition on his part for redress of grievances. It seems more probable that he remained in India and died immediately after his readmission to the Company's service. Neither his will nor any allusion to his concerns has been discovered, and his end therefore, is as unsatisfactory to his biographer as his personality must have been to these compelled to share his company.
To chronicle a career like Harding's may seem an unnecessary waste of time. But there is ample justification for perpetuating his memory and that of other unimportant subordinate servants of the East India Company in the seventeenth century. The vicissitudes of such subordinates form intensely human documents, and give an accurate picture of English society in India in those days. The cletails unearthed in the course of tracing the life of any one individual, though often uninteresting and irritatingly prolix, yet throw considerable light on the Companys system of government and on their methods of dealing with their officials. And, as regards the "Worthy " whose inglorious actions have just been reviewed, so little has hitherto been printed regarding the Bay" factories of 1670 to 1700 that any additional matter extracted from original sources should be of value to the student of the history of the English in Bengal. 3 Fac:ory Records, Fort St. George, Vol. V, p. 174.
54 Judras Prons List.