Book Title: Indian Antiquary Vol 58
Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications
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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[ OCTOBER, 1929
The Governor or Agent was the First Member of the Council, the Book-Keeper was the second, and the Ware-House Keeper and the Customer were the other two members. The duties of the Customer were to receive customs, rents and other taxes; he also exercised magisterial functions. "His office has been continued uninterruptedly to the present day remain. ing now under the designation of the Collectorate of Madras and the Sea Customs."8 The Council, consisting of four members, met every Monday and Tuesday at eight in the morning; it passed orders on all matters concerning the factories and the servants of the Company. The Secretary kept a diary of the proceedings and consultations; and a copy of it was sent to the Company each year, "together with a general letter reviewing the proceedings; while in reply a general letter was received each year from the Court of Directors." The diaries and letters have been preserved either in India or in England. The Members of Council were then designated as merchants, the others under them being graded as factors, writers, and apprentices. In addition to the mercantile establishment there was a chaplain on £100 a year, who read prayers daily and preached on Sundays, and also a school-master on £50 a year, who taught the children of the inhabitants of the White Town. "The ordinary administration of justice was, as above mentioned, conducted by the Collector of Customs, and as Magistrate in the Black Town he sat alone. Europeans were tried by the Governor and Council in the Fort with a jury of 12 Europeans. In the White Town the public peace was maintained by the Agent (Governor) as Commander of the Garrison. In the Black Town it was kept by an Indian public officer known as the Pedda Naick. In the early days of the settlement twenty Indian servants described as ' peons' sufficed to keep the peace. Subsequently however the number was increased to fifty. In return for such service the Pedda Naick was granted certain rice fields rent free, as also petty duties on rice, fish, oil and betel-nut. The office of Pedda Naick was hereditary."9
In 1661 Sir Edward Winter, a member of the then triumphant Cavalier Party, was ap pointed Governor. He quarrelled with his Council, alienated the native powers and conse quently produced a set-back in trade. In 1665 he was superseded on the ground that he had indulged in too much private trade, and made second in Council, while one Mr. George Foxcroft, a London merchant, was made Governor. The latter quickly discovered that Winter was indebted to the Company in several matters and asked him awkward questions regarding them. Winter resolved on the bold expedient of usurping the Governorship. "It was not difficult for an ardent Royalist (like Winter) to discover a pretext where a Puritan (as Foxcroft was) whose sympathies had been till lately Cromwellian, was concerned." He alleged that the language of the new Governor was treasonable to the English Crown, and with the aid of the Commander of the Garrison and other friends, he arrested and imprisoned Foxcroft and himself assumed the Governorship. "From this time Sir Edward Winter found himself in a situation, which, if loyal to the Crown, was decidedly mutinous with reference to the Directors. It is not known that any trade was carried on for the benefit of England, and it was only in 1668, when Mr. Foxcroft had been detained for over two years as a prisoner, that he yielded to a royal mandate sent out by Commissioners specially appointed for the investigation of the matter. Mr. Foxcroft was now restored and Sir Edward Winter retired to Pulicat and other places. The Directors in 1669 sent out Sir William Lang. horne with six commissioners to investigate the whole of this transaction; and their report
8 Manual of the Madras Presidency, vol. I (General and Political), p. 164. In 1870 the Madras district was separated from the Chingleput district and placed under the same officer as the Sea-Customs, with the designation of Collector of Madras and Sea Customs. The Collector has been since relieved of his charge of sea-customs.
9 Madras Manual, vol. I, p. 162. In February 1651 the Company presented a petition to the Council of State in England, praying that as they had long been without proper authority to enforce obedience in the English subjects within their limits, powers might be given under the Great Seal to them and to their Presidents and Councils in India to enforce obedience on all Englishmen in their limits according to English law. See Charters relating to the East India Company, 1600-1761, by J. Shaw, (1887), p. v.
