Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 205

OCTOBER, 1929 ]
PORT ST. GEORGE GOVERNMENT DEVELOPMENT
189
It was also their custom to cut down the pay of their servants when trade was slack. The Directors kept a paternal eye on their servants in India and sent out to them chaplains and books on theology. The chaplains often proved as keen traders as the factors themselves," though they did not always command the respect of their little flocks." Pietro della Valle, visiting Surat in 1623, gives a good picture of the life of the factory; while Mandelslo, coming fifteen years later, describes in praiseful terms the life of the factory community-"the strict order observed, the deference to the President, the collegiate life of the factory, the Common Table, with the Chaplain to say grace, above all the divine service held daily and on Sundays three times "-all of which made a profound impression on him.6
Usually the factors got lodgings and free board at the common table. The diet and sumptuary allowances to the President often far exceeded his salary; the three senior merchants next to the Governor, who constituted the Council, might live outside the factory, and got house and table allowances of their own. The servants of the Company followed from the beginning the Portuguese practice of private trade; and the Company itself supplemented their wages by granting them an interest in the trade, and in certain cases & share in the profits; and it always protested "not against private trading, but against excessive private trading." No official records of the Presidency have been preserved prior to 1670. Madra3 was till 1653 subordinate to the Presidency of Bantam in Java. In 1641, shortly after its foundation, the seat of the Agency was transferred from Masulipatam to this place, which became the chief English settlement on the coast. Andrew Cogan, the first Agent, was succeeded by Francis Day, the real founder of the settlement; but he took a good share in the erection of the Fort and the colonization of the place. The establishment consisted of three factors, and one assistant. “Neither Cogan nor Day is kept in memory in Madras) by statue, portrait or place-name. Not even the Secretariat Buildings in the Fort, the successor of the old Factory House, bear a tablet to commemorate the achievements of the joint founders of Madras."
The civil establishment slowly increased in importance and the Agency began to exercise real control over the other coast factories and the small Bengal establishments then recently started. The first direct communication between Madras and the Company at home occarred in 1642-1613 " in which the Agent and the Council acquainted the Court of Directors with the absolute necessity of giving a due equipment to the Fort." In 1651 orders were received not to add to the strength of the Fort, though the Agent stated that unless the Fort was strengthened their trade could noć be extended. Next year the representation was repeated in even stronger térms when & war with the Dutch appeared imminent. In 1654 the Directors reduced the civil establishment to two factors, and the guard to only ten soldiers. In 1658 all the factories on the Coromandel Coast and in Bengal were made subordinate to Fort St. George.
See also clauses 11 to 22 of the Commission and Instructions given to Streynsbam Master on the 16th December 1675, for the regulation of various officers from apprentices upwards. These fix the Madras Counoil at 6, the Agent, tho Book-keeper, the Warehouse Keeper, the Choultry Justice, the Mint Master and the Purser-General or Pay Master. "Diaries of Streynsham Master (1675-80): Indian Records Series -Ed. by Sir R. C. Temple; vol. 1, pp. 206-08.
This commission also fixed the position and succession of the chief factors in the subordinate settlements and gave special directions as to the housing of the Company's servants and their training in the mode of business followed in the country.
Master prepared an indictment of Langhorne, his predecessor in the Governorship, and his government under the title of "The Character of the Government at Fort St. George from 1672 to 1677", in which he complained of the infrequenoy of the meetings of the Council, the mismanagement of the subordinato factories, irreverence and disregard of religion on the part of the factors, the neglect and miscarriage of the Choultry administration of Justice, the entrusting of too much of the Company's investments in the hands ot Kasi Viranna (the chief merchant) and the useless disbursement of the Company's money. (See Diaries of Streynsham Master, vol. I, Introduction, pp. 64-66).
6 Hunter ; History of British India, vol. II (1900), p. 165. 6 H. D. Love, Vestiges of Ou Madras, vol. I, p. 62. 7 McLean-Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency, vol. I, p. 169.