Indian Antiquary Vol 47

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

Page 70

66
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
( MARCH, 1918
called the Vienne, which on her voyage from Pegu on account of the Imperial and Royal Asiatick Company established at Trieste, in order to supply its factory on the Nicobar Islands with stores, was forced by a storm to take shelter in Madras Road, after having lost all her Anchors ; excepting one, and having made a signal of distress, the crew of a . British ship which was there on guard boarded her, beat the crew, broke open several Chests of the Imperial Ship and caused her to run aground and to break in pieces.
The particulars of this new violence is contained in the annexed Piece, the proofs of which are not only in the possession of the undersigned, but advice thereof must have been already certainly received at the Company's India house in London. It will suffice to convince the Earl of Hillsborough of the necessity which the undersigned finds himself under to demand, in the name of his August Court, the punishment of the persons culpable, and reparation on the part of the Company, as well for the value of the Snow la Vienne, as for her Cargo, both of which were entirely lost upon this occasion through the unheard of conduct of a Ship's crew belongingto the Company who were on guard that day.
An Action as contrary to humanity as to the Laws of Nations leaves me no room to doubt but that it must have been committed without the knowledge and against the orders of their Superiors, but it is not the less of a nature to merit the most serious attention on the part of his Britannick Maiesty's Minister, whose equity is so well known. He will certainly see with concern how little a similar conduct on the part of the Commanders and Servants of the British India Company agrees with the sentiments which, on all occasions, he has charged the undersigned to make known to his August Court, on the constant amity of the King, and that after these repeated assurances founded on the strict reciprocal amity which so happily reigns between the two Courts, it was doubtless to be hoped in favor of His Majesty the Emperor's subjects and of his flag, that at least they should meet with the same reception and assistance in the possessions of His Britannick Majesty in India which is granted to all the other European nations in amity with him.
It is consequently with a perfect confidence in the justice of His Britannick Majesty that the undersigned has the honor of addresing himself again to his enlightened Minister to represent to him instantly the necessity, not only of causing complete satisfaction to be made for these insults offered to the Imperial and Royal flags in the East Indies, but for preventing in future, by giving such Orders as the King may think most proper to the proper persons, the repetition of similar acts of injustice and violence towards the Emperor's subjects and that the latter may, in case of necessity, find every reception and assistance that the British Flag and subjects have ever found so particularly in all the Territories of the Austrian Monarchy.
The undersigned in calling to my Lord Hillsborough's recollection the two preceding Memorials which he had the honor of transmitting to him on the 21st June and 13th September last, and of which the present may be deemed a continuation, cannot at the same time avoid offering to his Excellency the accompanying Piece No. 2 [88] a proof of what he set forth in the Memorial of the 13th September, on the almost hostile behavior on the part of the Directors of the India Company towards the Imperial subjects concerned in the fitting out the Ship under the Imperial Flag commanded by William Bolte, Lieutenant Colonel in the Imperial service and a subject of the Emperor and King. This Piece being. Copy of a notice published by the Governor General and Supreme Council of