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MAY, 1922]
A FACTOR'S COMPLAINT FROM PORAKAD IN 1665.
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A FACTOR'S COMPLAINT FROM PORAKAD IN 1665. BY SIR R. C. TEMPLE, BT.
[MR. WILLIAM FOSTER has drawn my attention to the accompanying, rather amusing complaint about a cat and some pigeons belonging to a couple of English factors stationed at the little isolated factory of "Porqua," that is, Porakâd on the Travancore Coast, near Alleppey, in 1665. It was addressed to the President at Surat at that date, Sir George Oxenden and it is of value as showing the condition under which the servants of the East India Company had to pass their lives in India in the early pioneer days. Something of the kind prevailed in Upper Burma in our own time, in the first years of its occupation during the Third Burmese War in 1885-9, for I well recollect a petition to myself in Mandalay about 1888, which began-" Whereas my hen has a habit of laying its eggs on other people's gardens, and whereas X has kept my hen's eggs and refuses to deliver them up, I pray the Court to order X to give up my eggs to me."
As Mr. Foster's forthcoming volume of English Factories in India contains full details of the factories mentioned in the letter now reproduced, as well as accounts of the individuals who figure in the story, I have only added such brief notes as are necessary to elucidate the text.]
RIGHT WORSHIPFULL &CA., MY HONOURED FRIENDS.
Our last unto you was dated the 9th November last Per the Royall Charles, since whose dispeed wee have nothing of generall businesse worth your notice, and if there were, this con veyance is not very convenient to write any such matter, nay, am heartily sorry that I am forced to make use thereof, and allso that I must trouble you with so unseemly a matter, which you will find in these insuing lines, allthough there hath been no want in me to present the same, but now to my great greife am able to hold no longer.
The letter I sent you last yeare to the President was occasion'd upon the like story that this now is, the sending whereof Mr. Harrington knew very well, and might, if he had been minded to have written likewise. Therefore, whereas you say in your last to this factory you wonder that Alexander Grigbie mentioned nothing of Mr. Harrington, the reason was because he was well and would not write himselfe, vizt. upon the 29th May last, being the Kings Coronation day, at which time I was extreame ill. Yet, about 4 a clock in the afternoon I went out into our Balcony, where wee commonly dine, at which time I found said Mr. Harring,ton looking upon a Silver hilted sword that he had newly made, and sitting down, I called to my servant for a boule of Congee (rice and water boiled together), which to this instant is my cheifest lickuor, and seeing them merry, had a desire to participate of their mirth, and began to drink to a Portugall that was in the company in my said liquor. Mr. Harrington, turning towards me, falsely accuses me that in those words I dishonoured him, he imagining that whereas I spake to the aforesaid Portugall, I had asked him to sell his sword, allthough all they that stood by knew and testified that there was no such word spoken; yet there was no perswading him.
To be short, he said I was what he pleased to call me, and strikes at my beare head with his naked sword, I having nothing to defend my selfe but my boule of Congee. Yet, by Gods mercy I had no hurt, only a small cutt' upon the backside of the finger on the left hand,
1 John Harrington, who had been put in charge of Porakad factory c. 1661. He and Grigsby had been previously stationed at Old Kâyal, near Tuticorin. (Information from Mr. Wm. Foster).
2 Hind. kanji, Tam. kanji, water in which rice has been boiled, invalid 'slops,' gruel-used by sick Europeans in India.
