I. GENERAL FEATURES
IN a previous chapter I have insisted on the essential stability of the main lines of Indian agriculture during the last three centuries: the position in regard to Indian commerce is entirely different, and in order to realise its nature and volume in the time of Akbar, we must put out of our heads almost everything we have learned regarding its features at the present day. The revolution is all the more remarkable for the reason that the general course of trade had remained substantially unchanged for at any rate more than a thousand years: Gibbon’s mordant aphorism that “the objects of oriental traffic were splendid and trifling” is in substance as applicable to the sixteenth as to the second century of our era, but such epithets are ludi- crously inappropriate to the piece-goods and machinery which India now purchases, or to the food-grains, oilseeds, and fibres with which she pays her debts. The change in question occurred after Akbar’s death, and it is no part of my present purpose to trace its causes and development, but its occur- rence must be borne continuously in mind if we are to arrive at a correct appreciation of the facts by which our period is characterised.
In the sixteenth century India, taken as a whole, exercised an effective demand for certain limited classes of foreign goods, and she was able to pay for them by exporting a variety of her own products. The list of foreign goods in demand has been given incidentally in the last chapter; of the principal articles, three may be classed as necessaries, three groups consist of raw material, and the remainder must be described as luxury goods pure and simple, their object being to minister to the tastes of the upper classes of the popula- tion. Two of the necessaries are gold and silver, which may claim this description on account of their use in coinage, though a large proportion of the supply was used only for display : taken together they formed much the most important item in the list of imports, and the maintenance of the supply was a definite aim in the regulations enforced on the coasts and frontiers of India. The other head in this class consists of animals, principally horses, which were required in large numbers under the prevailing military system. Here too the element of luxury was not entirely absent, for serviceable horses were bred in the north of India, and the imports thither from Persia and Arabia to some extent served the purposes of display ; but in the kingdoms of the south there were practi- cally no local sources of supply, and the maintenance of the trade was essential to the security of the States concerned. The groups of materials are—first, the raw silk required for the Indian industry ; second, the metals—copper, tin, zinc, lead, quicksilver—the deficiency of which has been noticed in the last chapter ; and third, the ivory, coral, amber, and other products required for the artistic handicrafts. The list of imported luxury goods is longer : all kinds of precious stones, costly textiles such as silks, velvets, and brocades, spices, perfumes, and drugs of all descriptions, the miscellane- ous articles usually described as China goods, European wines, African slaves, and practically anything that could be called a rarity or novelty whatever the country of its origin. In payment for these imports India sent out her various textile fabrics, pepper, and a few minor spices, certain dyes of which indigo was the most important, opium and other drugs, and a variety of other articles of less account. She was eager to sell every kind of produce, and her insatiable appetite for the precious metals rendered trade a simple matter for customers who came with money in their hands.
The means of transport show a change not less marked than that which has occurred in the commodities trans- ported. On land there were of course no railways, and there were no metalled roads ; there were the river routes in the north, and, apart from them, goods were trans- ported, mainly on pack animals, to the nearest point at which water-carriage became available. On the sea there were numerous small ships and a few of larger size, but none comparable in capacity with even an ordinary cargo boat of the present day. Whether small or great, the sea-going vessels depended solely on the winds, and not merely their speed, but their direction, was governed by forces entirely beyond human control. Harbours had not yet been created or transformed by engineering skill, but were located wherever the conditions permitted, and most of them were closed for a considerable portion of each year. Man had not begun to interfere seriously with nature, but was still in the stage when he must accommodate himself to the opportunities she provides.
In regard to the organisation of sea-borne trade, the sixteenth century was a period of unstable equilibrium, and in order to understand the conditions prevailing at its close it is necessary to go back to the year 1498, when Vasco da Gama sailed round the Cape of Good Hope. He found the Indian Seas from Madagascar to the Straits of Malacca practically in possession of the Moslem merchants, who owned and managed most of the ships and also took an important share in the trade on land. Traders of other classes could hire space on these ships for cargo, and could travel with their goods, but they had practically no influence on the shippers other than what was derived from their demand for cargo-space, except in the cases where they owned ships for themselves. Such cases were comparatively rare : from the accounts given by Barbosa and Varthema I gather that the Moslems controlled practically all the ships on the Malabar coast, the great majority of those plying from the Gulf of Cambay, and a large share of those on the Coromandel coast and in the waters of Bengal. Whatever numbers might be owned by Bengali, Coromandel, or Gujarati merchants, the predominance of the Moslem interest is beyond dispute, and the result is seen in the remarkable uniformity which prevailed in nautical matters right round the shores of the Indian Ocean.
The Moslems had spread along these shores as merchants, not as conquerors, and they accommodated themselves readily to the conditions of the localities where profitable trade was to be had. On the eastern coast of Africa, where there was no civilised government, they established settle- ments of their own; but where, as in India, they found an existing civilisation, they settled under the protection of the authorities, and acquired a privileged position owing to the fact that they could make or mar the trade of a particular port; merely by staying away they could ruin the local merchants, and, what was probably more important, they could cause serious loss to the administration, which depended on the port dues for a large part of its revenue, or to the Governor, if he had farmed the customs for his private benefit. At the end of the fifteenth century their position in the Indian seas was firmly established, and there were no signs of the advent of any dangerous competitors. It is unnecessary for my present purpose to enter into details regarding the organisa- tion of sea-borne commerce by the Moslem merchants. Its essential feature was the concentration of business on the west coast of India, particularly at the Malabar ports, of which Calicut was then the most important. The produce of the Far East was not as a rule carried direct to the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea, a process which involved a long and sometimes dangerous voyage; the ships from Pegu and Malacca came to Calicut or some neighbouring port, where cargoes for the further voyage were made up, consisting partly of Indian goods which had been brought down the coast, and in the same way goods brought from the Red Sea were landed there for distribution in various directions. Malabar was thus the entrepôt for almost the whole trade of the Indian seas, and was a commercial centre of the first importance.1
This situation was transformed by the appearance of the Portuguese in Indian waters. The Arabs did not take their ships round the Cape of Good Hope, and were thus limited to two sea-routes for the trade with Europe, one through the Red Sea, the other through the Persian Gulf, both of which were subject to interference from the policy of other countries. Goods sent by the Persian Gulf had to be carried overland through Syria, and at the end of the fifteenth century this route was practically closed by the Turks. On the other route goods had to be taken across Egypt; this line remained open, but the transit dues charged by the Egyptian Govern- ment were exceedingly heavy and involved high European prices for Asiatic goods. Portugal was at this time the most enterprising nation on the sea, and the decision was taken to attempt to secure the Eastern trade by opening up a route entirely independent of other nations, and bringing produce to Europe in Portuguese ships. Commerce was not, however, the only motive underlying this decision: the capture of the Indian trade would be a serious blow to the Moslem States, at that time regarded as the enemies of Christendom, while the enterprise would afford opportunities for missionary effort in the countries with which trade was to be carried on. This combination of religious and commercial motives is the key to the activities of the Portuguese during the sixteenth century, and much of their conduct which is inexplicable from the trader’s point of view finds an excuse, though not always a justification, in the missionary zeal by which the rulers of the country were distinguished.
As has been said in a previous chapter, Portugal did not aim at establishing an Empire on land. Her policy was to dominate the Indian seas, and this required only a sufficient number of fortified harbours to afford shelter for the fleets and to maintain the supply of fighting-men. These necessary harbours were rapidly acquired, in some cases by force, in others by negotiation, and within a very few years the new power was firmly established from Mozambique to Malacca. The next step was to regulate the course of commerce, which had hitherto been practically independent of political control: trade on certain routes, and in certain goods, was declared a State monopoly, and carried on for the benefit of the King of Portugal or his nominees; outside these limits private shipping was allowed to ply, provided that a licence had been taken out and paid for, but unlicensed ships were treated as prizes of war, and sunk, burnt, or captured as circumstances might determine. The administration was, however, exceedingly corrupt when judged by modern standards: the high officers were as a rule concerned only to make money as quickly as possible, and consequently the practical working of the regulations was more elastic than is suggested by their terms; perhaps it is not too much to say that under Portuguese domination Indian merchants could carry on almost any trade they wanted to, provided they understood how to set to work, and were prepared to pay the sums demanded for the privilege.
The Moslem ship-owners were by no means disposed to submit to these regulations, but they were not able to fight the new-comers on equal terms, and they accommodated themselves to the position in various ways. For one thing, they altered their routes, and Barbosa tells us that ships from Malacca were occasionally diverted to the Coromandel coast because their owners dared not face the Portuguese on the other side of India, while those which went west avoided the coast and took the outer passage through the Maldiv Islands, in spite of the danger of shipwreck in those waters.1 In many cases, again, the Portuguese rules were accepted, and we find Indian ships sailing under licences granted by them to various places, in particular to the pilgrim ports on the Red Sea. Where, however, the conditions were favourable, the Moslems of the coast maintained a species of irregular warfare, and treated the Portuguese ships precisely as the Portuguese treated theirs. Contemporary writers describe this conduct as piracy, and they show that it constituted a very great danger to shipping, particularly on the Malabar coast, on parts of which the “pirates” were most firmly established; one of them, indeed, went so far as to imitate the system established by the Portuguese, and issued his own licences for trade, licences which are said to have been accepted even by Portuguese subjects. The Moslems therefore had by no means been driven off the seas, and they continued to conduct much of the maritime commerce, sometimes by licence, and sometimes in defiance of their competitors. By the end of the sixteenth century the power of the Portuguese had been very greatly weakened through a variety of causes into which it is unnecessary to enter; it was shortly to collapse before the Dutch and the English, who were now preparing to secure a share in the direct Oriental trade, but this event lies just outside my period, during which the commercial domination of the coasts was shared between the Moslems and the Portuguese.1
It will be noticed that none of the great Indian States played any part in this struggle for the seas. They were essentially continental powers, and while they appreciated the benefits of foreign commerce, and the revenue which it brought to their seaports, they did nothing to protect it on the way. Akbar sent ships from Gujarat to the Red Sea, but they sailed under licence from the Portuguese. The sea-borne trade of Vijayanagar was placed practically in Portuguese hands by the Treaty of 1547, while the Deccan kingdom of Bijapur appears to have been content to quarrel with the Portuguese on land, and in any case could scarcely have hoped to drive them from the ocean. The Zamorin of Calicut did what he could to protect the “pirates,” some of whom paid him tribute, but he too was unable to stand against the Portuguese in open warfare, and apart from his clandestine activities the merchants of the country could look to no protector, but were dependent on their own resources.
[Illustration: The Chief Seaports in Indian Waters]
II. THE PRINCIPAL INDIAN SEAPORTS
The actual position of Indian sea-borne commerce at this period can be described most clearly by taking each port, or group of ports, in turn, and indicating the relations which it maintained with other portions of the sea-board. Much of this ground will be unfamiliar to students knowing only the commerce of the present day. We shall not meet the names of Calcutta, Bombay, Madras, or Karachi, which now handle so large a proportion of the trade of India, or of Rangoon, Singapore, Hong-kong, Sydney, or Cape Town, in the wider Eastern seas ; in their place, we have to deal with a longer list of ports, many of which are now of very slight importance, while of some even the names have disappeared from modern maps. The position of the Indian seaports is indicated on the map illustrating Chapter I., while the sketch on the opposite page shows how they lay with regard to the ports of other countries. The nature and size of the vessels which sailed from these ports will be discussed in a subsequent section : for the present, it must suffice to say that they fall into four classes—Portuguese carracks, pilgrim ships sailing to the Red Sea, ordinary sea-going merchant vessels, and small coasting craft. In terms of the system of ship measurement prevailing at the time, carracks were from 1500 to 2000 tuns,1 pilgrim- ships varied from 500 to 1500 tuns, ordinary merchant vessels rarely exceeded 400 and averaged probably less than 200 tuns, while coasting craft were of all sizes from about 60 tuns downwards.
Starting from the north-west of India, it is evident from the lie of the country that there must always have been a seaport somewhere near the mouth of the Indus, but the location has varied with changes in the river’s course, and perhaps with other causes of whose nature we are ignorant. The port of Daibal or Dewal, which was familiar to the early Arab geographers, had by this time disappeared, but its name survived in the form Diūl, or Diūl-Sind, which was commonly applied to the whole region, and occasionally to the particular harbour in existence at the end of the sixteenth century. The usual name of this harbour was Lahari Bandar, and it was situated on one of the mouths of the river, in direct communication by water with Tatta, Multan, and Lahore.1 Lower Sind (Tatta) had recently come under Akbar’s rule, and Portuguese trading representatives were established in friendly relations with the Mogul officials at the port. The exports consisted of cotton goods, indigo, and a variety of country produce, carried either westwards to Persia and Arabia, or southwards along the coast of India; imports were of the usual type—metals (particularly silver larins from Persia), spices, and a variety of luxury goods for distribution in the cities served by the Indus and its tributaries. I have found scarcely any indications that sea-going vessels were at this period owned by local traders. The port was awkwardly situated with regard to the monsoons, and while it was visited occasionally by ships on the Ormuz route, most of its traffic appears to have been conducted by coasting boats to Persia and to the Gulf of Cambay.
Passing southwards from Sind, we come to the group of Cambay ports which, taken collectively, were at this period the most important in India. Surat, Broach, and Cambay itself were the largest, but several others were open; all were under the more or less effective rule of the Mogul Empire, and while the Portuguese traded with them extensively, they were not established in force within the Gulf, but dominated its shipping from their fortified posts at Daman and Diu. This arrangement was effective from their point of view. The navigation of the Gulf was dangerous for large ships, and it was usual to load and discharge at Diu, Gogai, or some other convenient roadstead, whence flotillas of small boats could go as far as Cambay, through the shallow water at the extreme north of the Gulf. Diu is situated at the southern point of Kathiawar, Daman faces it on the mainland, and holding these two posts in strength the Portuguese could maintain an effective watch over the shipping which entered the Gulf, and could enforce their system of licences without reference to the Mogul authorities on land. Provided with licences, or occasionally defying the Portuguese, ships from this coast sailed west and south, carrying on trade with Arabia, Africa, and the Straits of Malacca: they exported to these markets large quantities of textiles and miscellaneous merchandise, and brought back metals, spices, and luxury goods of all descriptions. There was in addition an important passenger traffic, the only one which has to be taken into account at this period. The Gulf ports, and particularly Surat, were the starting-point of the pilgrim-route to the holy places of Arabia, and large numbers of travellers from India made this journey every year; it is probable that many of them carried goods for sale in order to meet the expenses of the later stages of the pilgrimage, and in any case the traffic in passengers and merchandise was closely interconnected.
The Gulf had at this time no direct trade with Europe. The Portuguese loaded their homeward fleet at Goa or further south, and Cambay goods for Portugal, together with provisions and other merchandise for the whole west coast, were carried down to Goa in fleets of “frigates,” small coasting boats which could be propelled by oars.1 A fleet of these frigates, which was known as the kafila (caravan), might consist of as many as 300 boats, and usually two or three fleets sailed in each year: they were escorted by fighting vessels, but this precaution did not always ensure safety, for the " pirates " watched eagerly for this opportunity, and were occasionally able to destroy or capture a substantial number. The kafila was a prize worth fighting for. The cargoes included large quantities of piece-goods, indigo, and various other articles for foreign markets, besides wheat and other provisions, and most of the necessaries and comforts required by the Portuguese population.1
Going south from the Gulf of Cambay, we should expect to hear next of Bombay, but at this period the name was almost unknown to European writers, and the harbour was of no commercial importance.2 Three ports, however, must be noticed on this part of the coast—Bassein, lying just north of the island of Bombay; Chaul, a short distance to the south; and Dabul, now known as Dabhol, a small port in the Ratnagiri district. Bassein was in the possession of the Portuguese; its trade was not large, but as has been mentioned in the last chapter it was a shipbuilding centre of some importance. Chaul, also held by the Portuguese, had the silk industry to which reference has already been made; it had thus a connection with China, and it carried on a direct trade with the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, but most of its silk goods were probably consumed in India. Dabul was not actually in Portuguese hands, but traded with Ormuz and Mocha, and Jourdain noted that it owned nine sea-going vessels.
Next, we come to Goa and Bhatkal.1 Before its conquest by the Portuguese, Goa had belonged to the Deccan, while Bhatkal had served Vijayanagar, and had consequently enjoyed a very considerable trade; the Portuguese, however, obtained by treaties and other means a practical monopoly of the Vijayanagar trade, and Bhatkal appears to have declined, as we hear little about it at the end of the century. Goa, on the other hand, was a port of the first importance, and as an entrepôt occupied, along with Cochin, to a great extent the place formerly held by Calicut. Local exports were not great, but produce from a large part of India and from some adjoining countries was brought here to be made up into cargoes for distant destinations, or to be distributed along the west coast, and foreign imports were in like manner distributed from this centre over almost the whole coast-line of Western India. Local trade had been important while the Empire of Vijayanagar remained intact. Goa had then enjoyed the bulk of the luxury trade, and, what was still more profitable, commercially as well as politically, the import of horses for the southern kingdoms; the fall of Vijayanagar had however reduced the luxury trade to small dimensions, horses were not at the moment in very great demand, and at the end of the century Goa depended mainly on its business as an entrepôt.2 The foreign trade of Goa and Cochin (for, as we shall see, the two ports were worked on a single system) followed four main lines—to the Far East, Persia and Arabia, Africa and Europe. The first destination of the East-bound ships was Malacca, the Moslem town in the Straits which had been one of the earliest acquisitions of the Portuguese. The ships carried textiles and other Indian merchandise to this market, and loaded for the return voyage spices, gold, and miscellaneous articles usually described as China goods—porcelain, lacquered ware, camphor, and various drugs and perfumes. Spices were the primary object of this branch of commerce : Sumatra and Java furnished pepper, cloves came from the Moluccas, mace and nutmegs from the island of Banda, and the quantities of these goods required to supply the whole of Europe and a large part of Asia made up in the aggregate a trade of sub- stantial volume and very great value, when judged by the standards prevailing at the time. Gold could be obtained from Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and Celebes, while China and Japan supplied a large variety of goods not obtainable else- where. In addition to the commerce with Malacca and the Spice Islands, the Portuguese sent a few ships farther afield. Pyrard describes this adventurous voyage in some detail. The ships from Goa sold their cargo at Macao, the port for Canton, and reloaded with China goods for Japan. In Japan they sold these goods mainly for silver ; then returning to Macao, they invested the silver in China goods for Malacca, where they concluded the circle of operations by buying spices for India. The whole voyage took about three years, and was " reserved " as a monopoly by the Portuguese authorities —that is to say, the privilege of taking a ship to China and Japan was granted, or more usually sold, to a grandee anxious to undertake the highly speculative enterprise.
Trade to Persia and Arabia centred in Ormuz, which was held in strength by the Portuguese, and where all goods were trans-ferred to smaller vessels for the voyage up the Persian Gulf. The chief articles brought to India from this part of Asia were coined silver in the form of larins, pearls, horses, and silk goods, while cotton cloth was the staple of the export trade. With the Red Sea the Portuguese had at this time comparatively little concern : the principal ports—Aden, Mocha, and Jidda— had come under the power of the Turks ; the first named was decayed, and ships from India discharged their cargoes at either Mocha or Jidda, but the Portuguese did not ordinarily pass the Straits. For the African trade they had an important fort at Mozambique and other stations at Sofala (farther south), Mombasa, Magadoxo (on the Somali coast), and else- where. These ports received Indian textile goods, spices, and provisions for the Portuguese inhabitants, while they exported ivory, amber, ebony, slaves, and especially gold. Gold was the real foundation of the trade with Sofala and Mozambique. This part of the coast was at the time commonly identified with Ophir, whence King Solomon had drawn his supplies, and in any case the quantity available was very great when judged by the standards then current. Mozambique was one of the most profitable centres of the Portuguese administration, and trade with it was " reserved " by the authorities at Goa on the same lines as the voyage to China and Japan.
Lastly, we come to the trade with Europe. A fleet sailed for India each year from Lisbon ; it consisted of four or five carracks and perhaps some smaller vessels ; it was not allowed to call anywhere except in case of need, and it arrived at either Goa or Cochin according to the weather experienced on the voyage. These fleets were conducted mainly for the profit of the Government, and carried on the King’s account only coined silver, but private merchants were allowed to send out other goods, chiefly metals and articles of luxury. The annual return fleets were smaller, because losses by shipwreck were heavy, and there were usually no vessels fit for the voyage in reserve ; thirty-three carracks sailed from India in the ten years 1590-1599, of which only sixteen reached Portugal in safety. Carracks which had reached Goa took on board part of their cargo at that port, but ordinarily completed their loading at Cochin ; those which had arrived at the southern port loaded there, goods from Goa being forwarded in coasting boats. Part of each ship was reserved for pepper, which was shipped on account of the State, but the remainder of the space could be secured for private merchandise, and over- loading was one of the causes which contributed to the frequent losses of ships on the homeward voyage.
South of Goa lay the various Malabar ports between Mangalore and Cape Comorin, of which Calicut and Cochin were the most important. Cochin was definitely Portuguese, and was second only to Goa in importance as an entrepôt, while it was the headquarters of the export trade in pepper. Calicut may be regarded as the centre of opposition to the Portuguese, and it was in this neighbourhood that the Arab " pirates " had their principal strongholds. The Malabar ports differed from those of Cambay in furnishing for export practically no goods of local manufacture : pepper was the chief product, and by far the most important export, and with this exception their local trade may almost be described as retail. About this period we hear of the Moslem shippers of these ports chiefly as endeavouring to send ships to the Red Sea without obtaining licences from the Portuguese ; the endeavours bulk largely in the chronicles, but they do not represent a large volume of commerce, and much of the local activity related to the coasting trade, which brought grain and other provisions from the east coast, and distributed the various products of the coco-palm.
At the extreme south of India the Portuguese dominated the coast of Ceylon with a fortress at Colombo, but they were not on friendly terms with the people of the interior, and had much difficulty in maintaining their position. The island exported cinnamon and some precious stones, while India supplied it with provisions and clothing. The Indian ports facing Ceylon were apparently of little importance, and the first noticeable place on the east coast is Negapatam, where the Portuguese had a representative, but did not claim to exercise political authority. This port and others as far to the north as Pulicat carried on in the aggregate a substantial volume of trade: they exported piece-goods to the Straits, and received thence spices and various “China goods”; Pegu took piece-goods, yarn, and opium, and returned chiefly gold, silver, and precious stones, and there was also a consider- able coasting trade with Bengal in one direction, and with Ceylon and Malabar in the other. Farther north again is Masulipatam, at this time the chief port of the kingdom of Golconda; it was an important place in 1590, trading with Pegu and Malacca as well as with other parts of India, and its commerce was shortly to be extended largely by the establishment of a Dutch agency, which developed a valuable business, importing spices, metals, and luxury goods, and loading textiles for the Far East.
North of Masulipatam there is a long stretch of coast on which we read of no important trade, and then we come to the harbours of Bengal. The names of these as given by contemporary writers are confusing, and the precise position is not altogether free from doubt: I have examined it in Appendix C, and here it must suffice to say that at this period there seem to have been three principal ports, Satgaon-Hooghly, Sripur, and Chittagong. The first of these was situated some way up the Hooghly river: Satgaon was the old port, but had silted up, and Abul Fazl tells us that Hooghly, about a mile distant, was the more important, and that it was the resort of Christian and other merchants. As a matter of fact it was largely a Portuguese settlement, though not under Portuguese administration: the inhabitants included numerous outlaws who had fled from Portuguese jurisdiction and formed a community of their own, living at peace with the officers of the Mogul, but accustomed to prey upon his subjects. Sripur was situated on the Meghna, close to Sonargaon, which was at this time the eastern capital of Bengal; 1 its site has been washed away, but the language used regarding it by Fitch and by the Jesuit missionaries shows that it was a place of great importance. As I have indicated in Chapter I., Chittagong was at this period probably outside the limits of the Mogul Empire and subject to Arakan, but here the Portuguese outlaws appear to have done very much what they pleased, and to have shared in the piratical enterprises for which the inhabitants were famed. The commerce of these ports was important: through the waterways of the Gangetic delta they were in easy com- munication with a large part of Bengal, and with Northern India as far as Agra: they exported textiles and large quantities of provisions (rice, sugar, etc.) and other country produce, and imported silver and other metals, spices, and miscellaneous goods from Pegu and Malacca as well as from other parts of India.
The general result of this survey of the coast may be stated in a very few words. The chief outlets for the produce of the country were (1) the Cambay ports, (2) Bengal, (3) the Coromandel coast, and (4) the Indus, the order in which I have given them indicating my view of their relative import- ance. To these must be added the Malabar coast with its valuable speciality, pepper, while lastly we have Goa as the great centre of collection and distribution in connection with the trade with distant countries. The next step is to review the position in the foreign seaports with which this trade was carried on.
III. THE PRINCIPAL FOREIGN PORTS IN THE INDIAN SEAS
In the last section we followed the coast of India as far eastwards as Chittagong. Beyond this port there is a stretch of coast-line which during our period belonged to the kingdom of Arakan and was of very slight commercial importance. The next kingdom, Pegu, had a much larger trade, which centred in three ports, Cosmin which was somewhere near the present Bassein, the Pegu river as far as the city of the same name, and, farther to the east, Martaban at the mouth of the Salween. The inhabitants of the country appear to have taken very little share in the foreign sea-borne trade, which was carried on by the Portuguese and by Indian Moslems ; the former had agencies at the ports, but I gather that up to the end of the century they had not made good a claim to territorial authority. The main lines of trade ran to Malacca and Achin, to Bengal, and to the Coromandel coast, but there was also a direct connection with the Red Sea. Malacca and Achin supplied spices and China goods ; India furnished textiles, dyed yarns, and some drugs, particularly opium ; while the Red Sea sent European cloth and other luxury-goods. Merchants came to Pegu mainly to obtain gold, silver, and precious stones, the form of incense known as benzoin or benjamin, metals, and a variety of minor com- modities, while there was a potential, if not an actual, export of shipbuilding materials from Martaban ; apart from Indian textiles and opium, the country did not need imports very urgently, and Caesar Frederic insists naively that merchants lost on the goods they brought and looked for profit entirely to those which they carried away. At the end of the sixteenth century the trade of Pegu was disorganised as the result of the series of wars to which reference has already been made, and the description which has just been given applies to the normal position rather than to our precise period.
The next portion of the coast is Tenasserim, concerning which there is little contemporary information. It is true that Varthema purports to give an account of it, but he places it somewhere north of the Coromandel coast in India, and it is possible that he confused the names of Tenasserim and Orissa. Barbosa tells us that in his time there were Arab and " gentile " merchants, owning ships and trading to Bengal and Malacca, and that the volume of commerce was considerable. Caesar Frederic, writing after the middle of the century, makes little of the trade with the exception of the export of an intoxicating liquor known as nipa. Fitch mentions only the export of tin from Tavoy ; and it may perhaps be inferred that the trade of this coast was of small volume, but that it furnished an important contribution to the limited supplies of metals which reached India.
We now come to Malacca, situated in the Straits between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula. As a commercial centre Malacca was a creation of the Moslem merchants, and before the arrival of the Portuguese was the entrepôt of the entire trade between the Indian and the China seas. Barbosa wrote that it “is the richest trading port, and contains the greatest merchants, and the most extensive shipping and traffic that exists in the whole world.” The population was cosmo- politan, and besides the wealthy Moslem merchants, we hear of Chettis from the Coromandel coast, and of natives of Java and various other islands, being settled in the town. There were practically no local products, and even food was for the most part imported : the importance of the place consisted in its being the centre of exchange for goods from China, Siam, and the Islands, with those from India, Arabia, and Europe. At an earlier period the Chinese had been accustomed to take their ships as far as the entrance to the Red Sea and the head of the Persian Gulf, but they gradually curtailed their voyages, and in the fifteenth century they ceased to come even as far as the Malabar coast ; the reason for the change is unknown, but we may assume that Chinese and Moslems alike found that commerce could be carried on most conveniently at the central market of Malacca, and that the trade settled down on these lines. As we have seen in the last chapter, ships from China occasionally reached the Coromandel coast even in the later years of the sixteenth century, but these visits were clearly exceptional ; the bulk of the Chinese ships reached Malacca in the autumn, discharged their cargo there, and returned with merchandise which had been brought from the Red Sea, India, and the islands of the Archipelago. The ships from Western India arrived somewhat earlier, as they had to pass Ceylon before the opening of the monsoon, and they left Malacca on their return voyage about the end of December. Meanwhile smaller vessels brought the produce of Pegu, Siam, Cochin China, Java, Banda, Borneo, and the Moluccas, so that a great variety of goods changed hands in this central market.
It was inevitable that the Portuguese should aim at securing a place of such commercial value, and they occupied it forcibly in the year 1511, and organised much of the trade in their own interests. The importance of Malacca was maintained throughout the century, but owing to the fiscal measures of the Portuguese and to the severity with which they were enforced, its monopoly gradually passed away, and other centres of exchange came into competition with it as time went on; the early English merchants found that Bantam, on the western coast of Java, was a great centre for the purchase of Chinese products, while Achin, at the north-west point of Sumatra, was also of considerable importance, and was definitely hostile to the Portuguese pretensions. The distribution of trade had thus been widened, but its essential nature remained unchanged, and a share in it was the chief lure which brought the Dutch and the English into the Indian seas. The effect of their advent lies, however, outside the period now under consideration, during which Indian commerce with the Far East was conducted either through Malacca or through the neighbouring ports which had entered into competition with it. Malacca and its neighbours offered collectively one of the principal markets for Indian textiles, and also received substantial quantities of provisions and other goods, while their contribution to India’s needs included spices, raw silk, gold, and a long list of commodities, nearly all of which come under the head of luxuries.
As regards the countries lying east of the Straits of Malacca, it must suffice to say that the Portuguese were established at Macao on the coast of China, at agencies in Japan, and in the principal islands of the Archipelago. Some way eastwards of Macao we meet the Spaniards settled in the Philippine Islands as an outpost of their American dominions, and thus pass beyond the limits of the authority of the Portuguese.1
The Spanish trade in the Pacific Ocean had at this time little direct concern with India, though as has already been mentioned Indian textiles found their way to the coast of America ; indirectly, its interest lies, I think, in the fact that it brought silver from Mexico to Asia, and so contributed to maintain the supplies on which India drew. Australia was still unknown to Europeans, and the limits of trade in this direction appear to be marked by the Portuguese settlement in the island of Timor.
Passing from Malacca across the Indian Ocean, we come to the coast of Africa. There were practically no signs of civilisation in the country now known as South Africa : ships from Europe occasionally put in at some point on the coast and obtained provisions from the inhabitants, but the first place which was a regular centre of trade was Sofala. From this place northwards to Cape Gardafui the commerce of the country had been developed by the Moslem merchants, who had established trading stations in suitable localities, independent of the native inhabitants, but usually in friendly relations with them : the most desirable of these stations had, however, been seized by the Portuguese, and the bulk of the East African trade was at our period firmly in their hands. As has already been indicated, gold was the most valuable product of the country, but there were also supplies of such luxury-goods as slaves, and of materials like amber, ebony, and ivory for the Indian luxury-crafts. Imports from India consisted mainly of the needs of the Portuguese stations, which could obtain comparatively little in the way of local supplies, and were dependent on the ships for much of their food and all their clothing ; so far as I have been able to ascertain, the country itself took scarcely anything except beads, which were manufactured in Gujarat, and the small quantity of textile goods required by such of the inhabitants as had begun to wear clothing.
The Portuguese power was much less in evidence in the Red Sea. The occupation of Aden had indeed been one of the objects of the policy intended to secure complete control of the European trade, and the port was for a time in VI COMMERCE 217
Portuguese hands, but they had failed to hold it, and at the end of the century the Arabian coast was definitely under the domination of the Turks ; Portuguese ships did not at this time usually enter the Red Sea, but they enforced the licence-system from their bases in India, or occasionally by means of fighting fleets sent to the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb. The Indian ships did not pursue their voyage as far as the Gulf of Suez, but landed their cargoes at some port on the coast, where they were met by caravans as well as by vessels coming from the North. The location of this port of exchange, called the " staple " by contemporary writers, varied from time to time ; about the year 1600, Aden was almost deserted, and trade centred either at Mocha which lies inside the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, or farther north at Jidda, the port of Mecca.1 The trade from the North was valuable rather than extensive ; merchants from Cairo, Constantinople, and various places in the Levant brought fine stuffs of wool or silk, and some metals, particularly coined gold and silver, but the volume of shipping was not great, and the season of trading was narrowly deter- mined by the prevailing winds. Indian ships were more numerous ; they brought a variety of piece-goods, as well as indigo and miscellaneous produce from India, and spices and other merchandise from farther east, while in addition they carried what was for the period a very large number of passengers, on their way to the sacred places in Arabia.2 The opposite coast of the Red Sea contributed gold, ivory, and slaves, the Abyssinians in particular being in much demand, while Arabia itself furnished the market with horses, coffee, madder, and certain drugs and perfumes.
The coast of Arabia from Aden to Muscat was then, as now, of little commercial importance. Muscat was held by the Portuguese, but at this period their principal strength in these seas was located at Ormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. This was the usual terminus of sea-going ships, the trade to Basra being carried on in smaller boats, and Ormuz was thus the " staple " of the Gulf as Mocha or Jidda was of the Red Sea. There was very little local trade, for the settle- ment was on a barren island and obtained even its ordinary provisions from the mainland, but much valuable merchandise changed hands. India and the countries farther east sent textile goods, spices, and other commodities in demand in Persia and as far as the Mediterranean, and the ships carried back coined silver in the form of larins, horses, dried fruits, and such luxury-goods as Persian silks and carpets, while the pearl fisheries at Bahrain on the opposite side of the Gulf also found their market among the merchants visiting the place. From Ormuz eastwards to Sind the coast was inhospitable and infested by pirates, and thus we have accomplished the peregrination of the Indian seas, which began at the mouth of the Indus. To complete our survey of the sea-borne commerce of India it remains only to take into account the trade with Ceylon and the smaller islands lying in the Indian Ocean ; its volume was not great, and it was conducted mainly by coasting craft. We have still to follow the land frontier, which is, however, of much less interest than might be inferred from its geographical extent.
IV. TRADE ROUTES ON THE LAND FRONTIER
So far as can be judged from contemporary accounts, the merchandise passing the land frontiers of India was of small importance at this period ; the routes open to trade were few, and long intervals elapsed between the passage of succes- sive caravans. On the north-east there was a caravan route to China, but apparently it was not in regular use. Sir Thomas Roe was told in 1615 that a caravan went to China yearly from Agra,1 but a few years earlier its departure was regarded as doubtful, and when in 1598 Father Hieronymus Xavier was planning a missionary journey, he decided not to take this route, though “some people” said it was open at the time, but to make for Kabul, whence the road to China was “worn” by the feet of merchants. We may perhaps conclude that there was some intercourse by way of the Brahmaputra valley, but that the stream of commerce was irregular and its volume very small. From the Brahmaputra to the Khyber Pass I have not come across any traces of a through trade- route: Abul Fazl tells of various commodities reaching India from the North, but most of them appear to be Himalayan products, and probably the trade with Tibet was of even less importance than is the case at present; while Finch notes that there was no passage for caravans from Kashgar to Kashmir, though a certain amount of merchandise was carried by porters. Practically, therefore, there were only two regular routes on the entire frontier—from Lahore to Kabul, and from Multan to Kandahar. Kabul was a large com- mercial centre, and a meeting-place for merchants from India, Persia, and the countries to the North, while it lay on the route from India to the main caravan-road between Western China and Europe: Kandahar was the doorway from India to the greater part of Persia, and both routes carried a consider- able volume of traffic when judged by standards appropriate to the conditions prevailing at the time.
These conditions were inconsistent with the passage of any really heavy traffic as the term is now understood. Con- veyance was effected by means of pack-animals, as the roads were not fit for vehicles, while the danger of theft and violence was usually too great to permit of the passage of small or unprotected convoys. Merchants were therefore accustomed to wait at the recognised starting-points until a sufficient number had gathered to form an effective caravan, one which would be able to resist attack, and they might have to wait for a considerable time. Thus the roads did not carry a steady stream of traffic: they were usually, I take it, empty, but at long intervals a large body of animals might pass. Manrique for instance tells us that, having missed a caravan at Multan, he found he would have to wait six months for the next. Fortunately for him, a nobleman with a large following was setting out for Persia, and he was able to join this party, but it is clear that ordinary mercantile caravans were few and far between, as indeed was commonly the case in large parts of Western Asia at this period.
Some idea of the journey to Kabul can be obtained from the account of the missionary Benedict Goez, who travelled by this route from Lahore to China. He started with a caravan of about 500 men. There were alarms of thieves between Attock and Peshawar: after passing the latter place they found it necessary to obtain a guard of 400 soldiers; and while going through a pass they had to clear the high ground of marauders, who were accustomed to roll stones down on caravans. The party was on one occasion attacked, and many were wounded, but eventually they reached Kabul, where they halted because " some of the merchants would go no farther, and others durst not, being so few." Goez, however, made up a party large enough to travel, and pursued his journey: we need not follow him farther, but he was by no means at the end of his adventures. The other route leading from Multan to Kandahar was followed a few years later by two English merchants on the affairs of the East India Company. They joined a caravan two stages beyond Multan, where it was waiting for an armed guard, and the party proceeded in safety as far as a fort maintained for the protection of travellers. No supplies were available on the route, and the inhabitants were throughout on the watch for an opportunity to steal, while the captain of the fort extorted blackmail from the travellers he was appointed to protect. From this fort the road was apparently safe for seven marches, but at the next post they were delayed for three days settling the amount of the commander’s black- mail. After this they came to a pass where many caravans had been cut off, and again they paid blackmail, this time to the inhabitants. One more fort was passed, where again money had to be paid, and then they reached Kandahar. At this point the caravan broke up: the most dangerous part of the way had been passed, while the country ahead was so desert that only small parties could hope to find fodder and water sufficient for their needs. In the year 1615, when this journey was made, the sea route to Persia was closed by war, and the Kandahar road was consequently crowded; the number of camels passing in a year from Lahore was reported to be from 12,000 to 14,000, which would carry a total load of perhaps 3000 tons, including baggage and pro- visions for the journey as well as merchandise. In ordinary times, however, the number of camels was barely 3000, so that the total load would be about 600 or 700 tons; much of the road was desert, and supplies would account for a considerable portion of the total.
Other accounts of similar journeys present the same picture of delays, anxiety, blackmail, and occasional attacks; and these are accounts of caravans which reached their destination, not of those which were destroyed on the way. The scope for this method of transit was thus strictly limited to goods of high value in proportion to their bulk, and promis- ing a very large proportionate profit at their destination; the traffic was not negligible, but it may be questioned whether it bore a larger proportion to the sea traffic of the time than the land trade of India bears to the sea trade at the present day.
V. THE DIRECT TRADE WITH EUROPE
The description of India’s foreign commerce contained in the preceding sections aims at conveying only a general idea of the direction in which the principal commodities were carried, and it requires to be supplemented by an examination of the data which are available to indicate the volume of the flow. Before, however, we enter on this inquiry it may be worth while to turn aside for a moment in order to set out the causes which led to the development of the direct trade by sea with Western Europe, a subject in regard to which various misconceptions are prevalent, among them the idea that the foreign merchants were attracted by the lure of India’s wealth. It is, I think, true that in the fifteenth century the Indies, in the widest sense of the term, were popularly supposed to be full of gold, silver, and precious stones, and it is probable that this idea influenced some of the individuals who took part in the early adventures to the East. Individual adventures, however, counted for very little: the new commerce was developed, not by individuals, but by States or powerful corporations, actuated by motives regarding which there is no room for uncertainty. The King of Portugal first, and later the Dutch and English Companies, sent ships to the Indian seas with the definite object of making money by trade: it was known that certain goods which commanded high prices in Western Europe were obtainable at low prices in the East; it was hoped that the Indies would be ready to buy many of the special products of Europe; and each seafaring nation in turn set to work to secure the largest possible share of this potentially important commerce.
The goods which Western Europe required from the Indies in the fifteenth century may be described shortly as spices and drugs: most of them were wanted in quite small quantities, but an exception must be made in regard to pepper, the use of which was widespread notwithstanding the high cost of transit, and there is really very little exaggeration in the statement that pepper is the historical foundation of the direct trade between India and Western Europe. To understand the intensity of the European demand for spices requires some knowledge of the social life of the time. Much meat was eaten in the more northerly countries, but under the prevailing system of agriculture animals could be killed for meat only in the summer and autumn, and provision for the rest of the year was made by preserving meat killed when it was in season. This was effected in two ways, by salting, or by “powdering” : the latter process involved the use of a large quantity of mixed spices, and its importance may be gauged by the frequency of allusions to “powdered” meat in the English literature of the time. To this extent spices may almost be described as necessaries at this period, but the necessary demand was largely increased by the taste of consumers: practically every kind of food—meat, poultry, game, fish, fruit, and even bread —was flavoured in a way which would now be condemned as barbarous, and which can be realised only by a study of books on domestic management published before the culinary revolution that began in England in the reign of Charles II. The market for these spices was thus considerable when judged by the standards of the time, and in England at least it was organised at a very early period. The beginning of the London Company of Grocers was the Gild of Pepperers, which was in existence in the reign of Henry II., and in 1345 the membership was limited to “pepperers and spicers,” names which tell their own story.1 The range of their interests in the fifteenth century may be gathered from the fact that in the year 1447 the Company was entrusted with the super- vision of trade in “all sorts of spices and merchandise,” including aniseed, cummin, pepper, ginger, cloves, mace, cinnamon, and cardamoms, in addition to “all sorts of merchandise, spices and drugs in any wise belonging to medicines.”
Towards the end of the fifteenth century the goods required for this trade from the Indian seas were, as has been said in a previous section, obtained chiefly by way of Egypt. The transit was long and costly. A cargo might be made up on the Malabar coast, partly of local pepper, partly of other spices and of drugs, brought from Malacca or farther east; it would be transshipped at Aden or Mocha, then unloaded in the Gulf of Suez, and carried by land and water to the Mediterranean coast, paying very heavy duties for the passage across Egypt. Here it would pass to the Italian traders and be transported to Venice or Genoa, whence it might be sent farther west by sea, or might be taken by land over the Alps, and then down the Rhine to Antwerp, at that period the chief distributing centre for Western Europe. The trade therefore offered obvious attractions to Portuguese enterprise: there was the hope of large profit, which would be obtained at the cost of their own enemies the Venetians, and of the enemies of Christendom farther east; and there was also the prospect of sailing into unknown seas and opening a road for the propagation of the Christian Faith. Commerce, however, came first, and from the outset we find the Portu- guese commanders negotiating for trade; it is significant that their first open quarrel with the Moslem merchants at Calicut arose in connection with pepper, and that their determination to establish themselves at Cochin was based in large part on its facilities for supplying this commodity. When a few years later the Portuguese introduced their system of granting licences to Indian traders, spices were specifically excluded, and pepper in particular remained a royal monopoly; as late as the year 1585 the contract made for the fleet sailing from Lisbon provided for the annual import of 30,000 quintals, or say 1750 tons of pepper, an enormous quantity when judged by contemporary standards of commerce.
While Portugal was developing this trade round the Cape of Good Hope, Spain was obtaining spices from the Eastern Archipelago by way of America, and as early as 1527 we find an Englishman named Robert Thorne writing of this “new trade of spicery,” and pointing out that it would be most profitable if the Emperor would follow the example of the King of Portugal and “become a merchant.” Portugal, however, retained the principal position in the European market, especially in regard to pepper, which came mostly from India and was not within easy reach of the Spanish trade, and until political difficulties arose the prices charged in England were not such as to excite complaint. Pepper came to Lisbon in bulk, and Dutch and English merchants purchased it there for distribution to the chief consuming markets of England, Flanders, and Germany. The subjection of Portugal to Spain threatened the continuance of this trade. The Dutch were at war with Spain, the port of Lisbon was closed to their merchants, the price of pepper rose to a very high level, and the decision was taken to send ships to the sources of supply. At first, however, the Dutch did not come to India for pepper, but obtained it along with other spices from Java and Sumatra; their fleets were able to maintain themselves against the Portuguese, and by the end of the century their trade with the Archipelago was established. Their relations with India developed somewhat later: they found that they could bring from Europe no merchandise readily saleable in the Spice Islands, and that Indian piece- goods were the recognised medium of the trade, and con- sequently they established factories 1 in India as subsidiaries to their principal business, the supply of pepper and other spices to Europe.
The motives which brought English traders to the East were essentially similar to those which actuated the Dutch. England was at this time bitterly hostile to Spain. The English had seen the Dutch excluded formally from the Lisbon trade, and they apprehended that a similar prohibition would be applied to them: the price of pepper in England rose seriously; and the first step taken was to organise a series of companies to secure direct trade in Eastern products by way of the Mediterranean. This measure was not completely successful, and when at the end of the century the Dutch, having now obtained command of the market, raised the price of pepper to an exorbitant figure, the English merchants replied by founding the first East India Company. The Letters Patent granted to the Company were drawn in general terms. The objects of the enterprise were stated to be the honour of the realm, the increase of navigation, and the advancement of trade in merchandise; with these objects permission was granted to trade between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan, wherever “trade or traffic of merchandise” might be had, and the experimental nature of the first voyages was expressly recognised. A more clearly defined statement of the initial objects of the Company is contained in the preamble to the Laws and Ordinances framed in 1601, where it is affirmed that the first voyage was set out towards the islands of Sumatra, Java and the neighbourhood with the intention of trading for pepper, spices, gold and other commodities; while the current view of the enterprise is explained concisely in the sentence with which Purchas introduces the narrative of the first voyage: “The merchants of London, in the year of our Lord 1600, joined together and made a stock of seventy-two thousand pounds, to be employed in ships and merchandises, for the discovery of a trade in the East India, to bring into the realm spices and other com- modities.” That statement contains the whole truth. The English, like the Dutch, went to the East to buy spices; they first tried Java and Sumatra, and it was owing very largely to the difficulties experienced in opening trade at ports already occupied by competitors that the Company decided on a trial of the Indian mainland, and directed one of the vessels of their third voyage to make for Surat.
Thus the ships of three nations in succession came to the Indian seas in quest mainly of spices. They brought, however, merchants keen to establish trade, and the basis of commerce was quickly extended as the possibilities of the markets became known. So far as India itself was concerned, the export side of the business presented few difficulties, for Indian merchants were in general very ready to sell; on the other hand, there was no large or stable market in India or neighbouring countries for the goods which could be brought from Europe, and after constant disappointments with trial consignments the lesson was learned that trade with India could be effected only by exporting silver. William Hawkins, after two years’ stay at the Mogul Court, wrote that “India is rich in silver, for all nations bring coin and carry away commodities for the same; and this coin is buried in India, and goeth not forth”; while a few years later Terry said that “many silver streams run thither, as all rivers to the sea, and there stay.” This need for exporting silver was a serious obstacle to trade, for the European governments of the period were dominated by the theory that the value of foreign com- merce was measured by the amount of the precious metals brought into the country, and were exceedingly unwilling to let coin be sent abroad. It is unnecessary for my present purpose to discuss either the fallacy of this theory or the important truths on which it rested ; the theory was there, and merchants dealing with India had to take it into account. The English Company was authorised by its charter to carry a certain maximum amount of silver on each outward voyage, but was required to conduct its business in such a way that at least the same quantity should ultimately be returned ; and while the latter condition could be complied with by sales of Indian goods in other European countries, the limitation of the amount to be carried out was a serious handicap ; much of the interest in the early correspondence of the Company’s merchants turns in fact on their systematic investigation of the markets to see what commodities could possibly be sold in order to supplement their limited stock of silver. The methods by which the difficulty was eventually met lie outside our period, but its existence requires to be clearly realised : at the end of the sixteenth century India was exceedingly ready to sell her produce, but would take very little except silver in ex- change ; there was no market for European goods among the masses of the people, while the upper classes cared for little but trifles and novelties, and tired of an article by the time it was offered for sale in quantity.
VI. THE VOLUME OF FOREIGN COMMERCE
We must now turn to the quantitative aspect of the commerce which has been described in the preceding sections. It is not possible to arrive at definite numerical conclusions regarding either the weight or the value of the goods entering or leaving Indian seaports, but sufficient data are on record to enable us to form a general idea of the volume of sea-borne trade, and to realise the extent of the change which has resulted from the development of the business of transporta- tion. In order to understand these data it is necessary to take into account the influence of the seasonal winds ; regular sailings are now so familiar that we are apt to forget their novelty, and assume that a ship can travel whenever and wherever the owners choose, but in the days when vessels were propelled by the wind their course was determined by the season rather than by choice, and in Asiatic waters one round voyage a year was the general rule. The conditions governing navigation at this period may be illustrated by the course of commerce on the west coast of India. The south- west monsoon set in, as it still sets in, about the beginning of June, and until its strength abated no sailing vessel would attempt to leave or enter port ; the contrary winds rendered departures physically impossible, and while ships from the west would be carried towards India, they were much more likely to be wrecked on the coast than to succeed in entering one of the few harbours which offered protection at this season, so that from May to the beginning of September the ports were entirely closed.1 The season for commerce came when the force of the monsoon weakened, and ships from the west could venture to approach the coast, but the time for arriving was by no means unlimited ; during the autumn the winds work round gradually from south-west to north, and it becomes increasingly difficult for a sailing-ship to reach the more northerly ports, so that if time were lost the chosen market might prove to be unattainable. The northerly winds were, of course, favourable for departures, but here again time was important : sailing-ships could not travel against the south- west monsoon, and consequently they had to clear from India sufficiently early to get round Ceylon if going east, or the Cape of Good Hope if going west, before the next monsoon should set in. On the west coast, then, the busy season lasted from September to January so far as westerly trade was concerned, while that with Malacca continued until April. Other coasts had in the same way seasons of their own, and since the ship-owner had to consider both the time of departure and the time of arrival, the period available for any particular voyage was determined within narrow limits ; if he started too late, he could not hope to arrive, or at least to arrive in time to make the return voyage.
A few other examples may be given of the way in which the course of commerce was regulated in accordance with the seasons. The carracks for India had to leave Lisbon before Easter ; if they were late in starting they might be unable to round the Cape of Good Hope, and in that case they would have to return to Europe to wait for the next year. If they rounded the Cape in good time, they sailed northwards between Africa and Madagascar, waiting until the monsoon should diminish, and then took advantage of the last of it to carry them across the Arabian Sea to Goa. There was, however, a risk of northerly winds setting in and making this course impossible, and consequently, if, as some- times happened, they were delayed in rounding the Cape, they struck straight across for Cochin, giving up the call at Goa. They thus reached India in September or October, and they had to start back almost as soon as they could be loaded in order to pass the Cape before the next monsoon should set in ; if they were late, they had to take shelter at Mozam- bique, and lose the best part of a year, with very great risk of losing the ships as well. In the case of the Red Sea traffic, April was the best time for passing through the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, so ships from India sailed about March ; May and June were the busy months at Mocha or Jidda, wherever the staple was located, and the return ships commonly sheltered off the island of Socotra until the monsoon was sufficiently weakened to make it safe to start for India, where they hoped to arrive in September. As regards the Bay of Bengal, Caesar Frederic tells how the annual export of piece- goods from S. Thomé (Madras) to Pegu was carried in a single ship, which used to start on the 6th September : sometimes, however, the ship was delayed in order to get a full load, " and if she stay till the twelfth, it is a great hap if she return not without making of her voyage " ; the wind might change to the east before the ship reached Pegu, and as no further change could be expected for three or four months, the ship would have to go back to S. Thomé, carrying her cargo still on board. In the same way we may read of ships " missing the monsoon " and being detained for long periods at Malacca or Macao or other Asiatic seaports ; throughout these waters the season was the dominating factor, and a vessel which could not sail in the proper season had to lie rotting in harbour till the next season came.
In these conditions it is comparatively a simple matter to ascertain the volume of shipping on any particular route, since, if our authorities tell us, as they frequently do, the number of ships sailing in the season appropriate to that route, we know the total of its trade for the year, provided that we can estimate the carrying capacity of the ships employed. In the sixteenth century as now the unit of capacity was the shipping ton, but this unit has varied in magnitude in the interval, and the only statement which is generally applicable to both periods is that the shipping ton is a unit of capacity and not of weight ; it must be thought of in terms of cubic feet and not of pounds avoirdupois. The comparison of shipping tons recorded at different times is a matter of much uncertainty : I have dealt with it in Appendix D, but for the present purpose it is best to confine our attention to the unit in common use at the close of the sixteenth century, and in order to avoid confusion I speak of this unit as the tun, reserving the modern spelling, ton, for the unit in use at the present day. European writers of our period meant by a tun a space available for cargo of about 60 cubic feet ; when they wrote, for instance, of an Indian ship as of 200 tuns burthen, they meant that in their judgment it would hold about 12,000 cubic feet of cargo. Their statements are of course estimates ; they did not measure the ships 1 whose size they noted, but most of them knew their business well, and the round figures which they give can be regarded as trustworthy within reason- able limits.
The merchant vessels employed in Indian seas may be described under four heads—carracks, pilgrim ships, ordinary Indian ships, and junks, but some account has also to be taken of fighting vessels of the galley type, and of the coasting craft, which occasionally travelled outside Indian limits. The carracks were the largest. Linschoten records that the ships composing the fleet in which he sailed from Lisbon ranged from 1400 to 1600 tuns; Pyrard a little later says that in his time they ranged from 1500 to 2000 tuns, and while carracks of smaller size are recorded, we may take the average capacity at about 1800 tuns for the European route, and somewhat less for the voyage to China and Japan. Pilgrim ships of about 1000 tuns were known to ply between India and the Red Sea as early as the fifteenth century, and Pyrard, writing of our period, recorded that some ships—but very few—approached 1000 to 1200 tuns. In the year 1612, when Sir Henry Middle- ton exacted reprisals from the Indian ships in the Red Sea, he laid an embargo on the Rahimi (1500 tuns), the Hasani (600 tuns), and the Muhammadi, all belonging to Surat: he gives the size of the last named as 150 As tuns, but from the measure- ments made by Captain Saris she must have been nearer 1500 tuns, and I think the figure 150 is a mistake. Other ships noted at the same time were the Salamati of Diu (450 tuns), and the Kadiri of Dabul (400 tuns), so that we may take the pilgrim ships as ranging between 400 and a maximum of 1500 tuns.
The carracks and the larger pilgrim ships far exceeded in size the ordinary trading vessels employed in Europe at this period ; the fleet controlled by the Levant Company in the year 1600 consisted of 30 ships averaging 175 tuns, while the average of the 57 “ large ” ships built in England in 1596– 97 was less than 200 tuns,1 and the greatest of them was below 400 tuns in capacity. These small boats, as they would be called to-day, were fit to make long and arduous voyages : the first fleet sent out by the East India Company included ships of 300 and 260 tuns ; the French expedition on which Pyrard sailed consisted of one ship of 400 and one of 200 tuns, while David Middleton in 1607 started from England in the Consent of 115 tuns, and returned with a cargo loaded in the Molucca Islands. It is no matter therefore for surprise that the ordinary Indian merchant vessels were very much smaller than the two special classes which have been described, and which were designed for traffic of an exceptional nature ; the arithmetical average of size of all the Indian sea-going ships (other than pilgrim ships) recorded at this period in the works of Purchas, Linschoten, Pyrard, and Jourdain lies between 180 and 190 tuns, and even this is probably an exaggeration.1 The figures given by these authorities are, as has been said, estimates, but estimates made by experienced men, and it appears to be reasonable to take the average size of ordinary merchant vessels at about 200 tuns in cases where there are no indications that larger or smaller ships were employed on a particular route.
The word junk means properly a ship of the distinctive Chinese build, with bow and stern shaped alike.2 At the period under consideration junks reached India very rarely, but they were regular visitors at Malacca and Bantam. Jourdain says the junks from China were of 300 tuns or upwards, while various writers in Purchas mention junks of different sizes from 400 down to as little as 30 tuns ; on the average, therefore, their capacity did not differ very greatly from that of the Indian ships.
The use for commercial purposes of galleys and similar fighting vessels 1 was at this time exceptional. Their dis- tinctive feature was that they could be propelled by oars, and in addition to the armed forces they carried crews of slaves or prisoners for this purpose. So far as I know, the Turks and the Portuguese were the sole owners of galleys in the Indian seas. The former had two or three of them stationed in the Red Sea ports, but outside those waters employed them only for fighting ; the Portuguese had perhaps a dozen in regular use, and they were ordinarily employed with the fleets of smaller vessels against the “ pirates ” of the west coast, but occasionally one or two of them were used to carry provisions to Malacca or Colombo, or even sent to Europe with pepper when the number of carracks available did not suffice. They ranged in capacity up to about 800 tuns, and Falcao takes 550 tuns as the average size.
Lastly, we have to consider the coasting craft, which occasionally took part in foreign commerce to Ormuz, the Red Sea, Pegu, and a few other places. Their capacity is rarely mentioned, but the largest I have read of was 60 tuns, and probably 30 or 40 tuns would be a fair average ; since, however, the larger ones would probably be employed for the longer voyages, we may for our present purpose take them as averaging 50 tuns each. Their names are numerous and confusing, because they varied from coast to coast, and we read of jelbas off Arabia, terradas in the Persian Gulf, proas on the Malabar coast, and so on ; but they served similar purposes, and so far as I can gather none of them was larger than the limit of 60 tuns which I have given.
With these particulars as to the capacity of the ships employed, we can attempt an estimate of the volume of trade on the various routes from India. Beginning on the west, the size of the direct traffic to Europe can be readily ascertained. From 1590 to 1599, 33 carracks and no other vessels left India for Europe,1 and taking the average size at 1800 tuns, we have an annual capacity of about 6000 tuns.
Taking next the east coast of Africa, we know that the commerce with Mozambique was reserved for the State or its nominees, and that Sofala and other ports carried on their trade with India through that centre. About two ordinary ships seem to have sufficed for Mozambique. I have not found details of the traffic with the more northerly ports and Socotra, but it was, if anything, on a smaller scale, and 1000 tuns will be a liberal estimate for the entire coast.
As regards the Red Sea trade, we know that it was con- centrated at a single port, and Jourdain records that in the year of his visit about thirty-five sail of ships, great and small, came to Mocha from all places, while only two or three small ships came to Aden. All of these ships did not come from India ; the number given includes vessels from Suez, Muscat, and the neighbouring coasts as well as those coming from Pegu, Malacca, and Sumatra. In the two seasons when Sir Henry Middleton operated in these waters, one-third of the vessels named by him came from places other than India ; he was not concerned with the ships from Suez or the neigh- bouring coasts, so that his experience indicates that India’s share of the total may have amounted to about twenty vessels in all. Downton gives particulars of the ships intercepted in the year 1612 ; these included all the Indian pilgrim ships and a variety of others, the former aggregating more than 4000 tuns, and the latter ranging about 200 tuns each. On these data the total Indian " tunnage " to the Red Sea may be put at less than 10,000, say 5000 at most for pilgrim ships, and probably not more than 4000 for the larger number of ordinary merchant vessels.
I have found no data for the volume of Indian trade with the Arabian coast and Ormuz at this period. Most of the commodities brought from Persia were valuable rather than bulky, and very few tuns would be needed to convey the total imports of coined silver and silk fabrics ; the horse trade, of course, required space, but it was less extensive at this period than formerly ; and having regard to the lists of commodities, I should be disposed to infer that the total “ tonnage ” was substantially less than that going to the Red Sea. If, then, we allow 10,000 tuns we shall run no risk of understatement, and we may conclude that after reckoning minor items, such as the traffic with Ceylon and other islands, the total trade of India with the countries on the west was less than 30,000 and probably not more than 25,000 tuns.
On the other side of India we have to consider the trade to Pegu, Malacca, Java, and Sumatra. Trade with Pegu was temporarily disorganised, but we can infer its normal extent from the statements of Caesar Frederic and Fitch. Pegu expected one “ great ” ship yearly from S. Thomé, and another from “ Bengala ” (which I take to be Sripur), and these seem to have been the principal events of the commercial year, but a number of smaller vessels also came from the Bengal ports and the Coromandel coast, the voyage being open to coasting craft provided the seasons were observed, and the figure of 5000 tuns will be an ample allowance for all vessels, “ great and small,” going to the Pegu seaports and to Tenasserim.
The Indian trade to Malacca must be considered under two heads, the through voyages and those which terminated in the Straits. The principal through voyage was that from Goa or Cochin to China and Japan ; it was reserved by the State, and Pyrard says that “ two or three ” ships started yearly, while I gather from Portuguese accounts that occasion- ally a single carrack was employed, and that in any case the vessels were of exceptional size. We may estimate this traffic at about 3000 tuns at the outside. The only other through voyage appears to have been that to the Moluccas ; occasionally, at least, a galleon was employed for this purpose, and the voyage may be reckoned at 1000 tuns. As regards the ships plying only to Malacca, we have to take account of those coming from both the west and east coasts as well as Bengal. An idea of the volume of the traffic to Goa and Cochin can be formed from the fact that in the year 1598, when the presence of a Dutch fleet rendered it necessary for the homeward merchant ships to sail in company, the convoy consisted of two ships from China, two ships loaded at Malacca, and two junks; excluding the ships from China, which we have already counted, this would represent barely 1000 tuns. There was at this period little traffic to the west coast other than that in Portuguese hands, and even if the Portuguese convoy was on this occasion below its ordinary strength, the total traffic to the coast cannot have exceeded 3000 tuns. On the east coast there was one ship to S. Thomé, and I gather it was of exceptional size; probably there were also ships to Negapatam and Masulipatam, though I have found no definite record, while an indefinite number plied from the ports of Bengal, carrying among other commodities such bulky goods as rice. In the absence of precise data, we may put the total of this traffic at 10,000 tuns in all; I do not think it can have been so large, but I am anxious to avoid under-statement. On these figures, the total volume of traffic between India and Malacca and beyond would not be more than 17,000 tuns. Regarding the competing port of Achin, we are told that during the busy season the harbour contained sixteen or eighteen sail, some from Pegu and Siam, the rest from Gujarat, Malabar, Calicut, and Bengal; the number belonging to each locality is not stated, but probably the bulk came from India, and we may put the total Indian trade of this port at about 3000 tuns. I have not found a similar record for Bantam, but Jourdain, who stayed there some time, wrote that every year “3, 4, 5, or 6” junks came from China and were 300 tuns or more in size, and on this basis we may perhaps take 2000 tuns as the maximum volume of trade between India and Java, including local produce but allowing for part of the China cargo going to other destinations.
We thus reach a total of 27,000 tuns for the trade of India with the countries lying to the east; I think this is an over- estimate, but in any case, taking east and west together, and reckoning the commerce with the islands on both sides of the peninsula, the total volume of Indian foreign trade was probably less than 60,000 tuns of the period, which are, speak- ing very roughly, equivalent to from 24,000 to 36,000 net tons of the present day. The annual net tonnage leaving India with cargo in the three years 1911-14 exceeded $6\frac{3}{4}$ millions,1 and while there are many uncertainties regarding the detailed estimates I have offered, I believe that the contrast between these totals represents with substantial accuracy the change which has taken place since the time of Akbar, and that the volume of shipping has multiplied at least two hundredfold. The description which has been given of the general course of trade indicates that the contrast in regard to value must be much less marked ; low-priced goods were shipped very rarely, and the average value of a tun must have been much higher when cargoes consisted of piece-goods, spices, and raw silk, than in these days when food-grains, oilseeds, and raw materials occupy so large a proportion of the space. It is not, however, possible to make even a rough estimate of this average value ; practically the only information available consists of stories of the enormous losses resulting from the wreck of a particular vessel, and such statements are so obviously liable to exaggera- tion that it is not worth while to reproduce them. India’s foreign commerce consisted of what we should now call an exceedingly small volume of comparatively expensive goods, but in order to form a just idea of its value it is neces- sary to discriminate between the prices of commodities before and after transport. The addition to export prices required to cover the cost and risk of transport was very great, and the essence of the business was to deal in those commodities in which the difference in prices afforded an adequate margin, a margin very much wider than any modern merchant can hope to secure. Some interesting information on this topic is given in Mun’s Discourse of Trade. He shows that the annual needs of Europe in spices, indigo, and raw silk could be obtained in the East Indies for about £511,000, while if the same quantities were purchased at Aleppo they would have cost £1,465,000, or, in other words, that the value would almost have trebled between the Indies and Aleppo; and further on he gives figures to prove that goods bought in India for £100,000 and brought to England by sea would be worth over £492,000 on arrival. Such figures as these help us to understand the way in which merchants estimated their profits; we read of goods being disposed of “at four for one,” or even higher proportions; and it is not unreasonable to conclude that successful business in the Indian seas meant at least a doubling or trebling of the price paid at the point where goods were taken on board, while an even larger factor might be essential in the case of distant voyages. It must not, however, be assumed that these high profits on the turnover meant a high average rate of profit on the business. A merchant looked for a price of perhaps four for one if his venture was successful, but this return covered outlay, interest, and risk of loss. The items of outlay and interest were high because of the time occupied in transit; the risks from weather, enemies, and pirates were literally enormous, and in the case of the longer voyages a large proportion of the capital invested brought no return at all. We have seen that in the course of ten years sixteen carracks out of thirty-three were lost between India and Portugal, so that, taking hulls as well as cargo into account, more than half the original value of the exports disappeared. On the route from India to Japan, owners were satisfied if two ships out of three completed the outward voyage, and losses were equally frequent on the homeward journey, so that out of nine vessels starting on the three years’ enterprise, four might be expected to return. On the shorter routes traversed by Indian ships the risks were less, but they were nevertheless substantial; Pyrard’s narrative of his stay in the Maldiv Islands shows that those waters were death-traps; the Portuguese chroniclers record frequent captures of richly-laden ships by the “ pirates ” on the coast ; and we must assume that Indian vessels were sometimes wrecked, though it was nobody’s business to record the fact.
Apart from maritime dangers, there was the risk that goods might prove unprofitable at their destination. The markets were exceedingly narrow ; the arrival of a single ship might convert scarcity into glut, and the commercial correspondence of the period contains frequent references to the uncertainty of business. Thus a merchant at Masulipatam complains that precious stones are too dear to invest in “ because the ship of Arakan did not arrive this year.” Local markets responded immediately to the appearance of customers, and another merchant writes that “ upon the arrival of our ships all com- modities do rise forty or fifty per cent.” Another merchant complains that the local market had become overstocked with cloth, owing to unexpected arrivals ; another writes that their stock was not in great demand, though “ it had been gold ” if it had arrived a little earlier ; and speaking generally there were good grounds for the sententious remark made by John Gurney in Siam that “ for these country commodities, quantity by others may breed gluts which may disappoint purposes.”
In these conditions it is impossible to make even a rough estimate of the net profit obtained by India from foreign com- merce. There is no doubt that successful merchants were wealthy men ; we hear of the successes but not of the failures, and while we may be sure that a profit was made, we may sus- pect that, as happens in most highly speculative business, the average rate was not high. A large proportion of the profit was concentrated in the hands of the Portuguese ; they received all that was earned by the direct trade with Europe, China and Japan, Malacca, Ormuz and Mozambique, and they levied heavy charges—either in licence-fees or in bribes—on as much of the remaining trade as came within their reach ; 1 the profits of Indian merchants consisted of what was left.
VII. COASTING AND INTERNAL TRADE
As has been explained in a previous chapter, the conditions of transport in India in the sixteenth century were such as to induce merchants to send their goods by water rather than by land, and these conditions operated with peculiar force on the western coast, where the country is difficult, and even now no direct railway exists from Karachi to Bombay or from Bombay to Mangalore. The coasting trade was therefore of much im- portance on both sides of India, but its organisation was not uniform ; on the east coast small boats appear to have plied more or less independently throughout the trading season, but on the west the danger from the " pirates " was so great that practically the whole of the traffic was conducted under convoy. Each year when the monsoon weakened, the Portu- guese sent out to the north and to the south of Goa fleets consisting of from ten to twenty armed " frigates " or rowing boats, usually with one or two galleys in support ; these fleets patrolled the coasts, attacked the " pirates " in their harbours, and from time to time escorted convoys of merchants’ boats between Cochin and Goa, or between Goa and the Cambay ports. Merchants waited for the opportunity of escort, and so we find that practically the entire season’s trade between Cambay, Goa, and intermediate ports was con- ducted in large convoys which sailed two or three times in the season between September and May ; the convoys, which were known as kafila or caravans, were not wholly dependent on the winds, because the boats composing them could be rowed, and their time of starting was regulated according to circumstances, the needs of Goa being probably the deter- mining factor. The Cambay convoy consisted commonly of from 200 to 300 craft, which might aggregate from 8000 to 10,000 tuns, making the annual traffic each way something between 20,000 and 30,000 tuns ; the volume was therefore great, but the figure given is not unreasonable if we consider that the convoys brought a large proportion of the goods which were exported from Goa or Cochin, and also of the needs of all the Portuguese settlements, including wheat and pulse, oil and sugar, furniture and miscellaneous goods. The protection of these convoys was by no means complete, and losses were occasionally heavy ; in the year 1608 Finch heard of the capture by " pirates " of a ship and three boats from Ormuz, of sixteen boats out of twenty-five from Cochin, and of thirty boats bound for Diu, and the Portuguese chronicles contain frequent references to similar disasters.
The convoys between Cochin and Goa were conducted on the same lines as those from Cambay, but were not so large, and appear to have aggregated about 10,000 tuns in the course of a season. The third convoy on this coast was of a somewhat different nature ; the ships coming from Malacca and the east were usually joined somewhere off Ceylon by coasting boats from Bengal and the Coromandel coast, and the whole fleet was convoyed by armed vessels to Cochin. I have not found data of the volume of shipping which arrived in this way from the eastern side of India, but it was certainly considerable, the trade in rice being particularly important. Nor have I come across any record which gives a precise idea of the volume of the trade passing up and down the east coast. One Portuguese writer says that early in the century he had seen 700 sail loading rice at Negapatam,1 and perhaps this may be taken as an indication of exceptional activity ; from such imperfect descriptions as exist, I should be inclined to infer that the ordinary volume of traffic was not so great as on the west coast, but its extent must for the present remain uncertain.
With regard to inland waterways, little need be added to what has been said in preceding chapters. Full use was made of the river systems of the Indus and Ganges, as well as of the network of channels in Bengal, and the rivers were undoubtedly the principal highways of Northern India. They were not, however, equally convenient at all seasons of the year ; the strength of the flood and the direction of the wind were important factors, and it is probable that the traffic was to a large extent seasonal. The seasons dominated the land routes also ; traffic was practically at a standstill during the rains, and was reduced to small limits during the hot weather, when fodder and water were difficult to get, so that we find an English merchant at Surat complaining that there were four hot and four wet months, " in which time there is no travelling and therefore unfit for commerce." A striking illustration of the influence of the seasons is given by Tavernier in discussing the alternative routes from Surat to Agra. The western road through Rajputana was in his time the more dangerous of the two, owing to the attitude to travellers adopted by the chiefs and tribes, but it was nevertheless preferred by merchants whose time was limited ; lying through sandy country with few rivers, it could be traversed directly the rains ceased, while the safer eastern road through Malwa was impassable for nearly two months owing to the heavy soil and the frequent obstacles presented by rivers still in flood. The ordinary traveller therefore would prefer to stay in Surat till the country had dried up, and then pursue his journey through Burhanpur and Gwalior, but a merchant who took this course could not return to Surat in time to sell the goods which he brought from Agra before the shipping season was over, and on the upward journey therefore he faced the greater risks of the western route. Later in the season the position was reversed ; there was then little fodder or water to be had in Rajputana, and in the absence of special reasons travellers from the north naturally chose the road through Malwa, which presented fewer difficulties.
Allowing for the influence of the season, and for the varying degree of security in different parts of the country, inland trade was governed, as it is governed now, by differences in the level of prices, but since costs and risks were much higher the difference in prices had to be much greater to induce traffic to flow. The possibilities of trade at this period are indicated by the fact that when access to the Persian Gulf was closed by war, spices for Persia were carried right across India from Masulipatam to Kandahar, and various other illustrations might be quoted to show that valuable goods might be moved in small quantities for very great distances. The effect of the existing limitations was more obvious in the case of bulky goods such as grain, the trade in which was concentrated in the hands of the tribes known as Banjaras. I have found no contemporary accounts of their activities, but some details are given by later writers such as Mundy and Tavernier, and if we may assume that they are applicable in substance to the period with which we are dealing, we can form some idea of the bulk which could be moved. There might be about 10,000, or even 20,000, pack-oxen moving six or eight miles a day, and as each animal would carry something like 3 cwt.,1 the total load would be from 1500 tons upwards. This is undoubtedly a large amount, being equivalent to the weight which could be carried by three or four ordinary goods trains at the present day, but such movements were not frequent ; it is obvious that such large herds could be provided with fodder and water only during a few months of each year, and if we take their speed into account, we shall find that an entire season’s traffic would be equivalent to an amount which a railway could carry over an equal distance in less than a week. India had thus developed a system of internal transit which, like her sea-going trade, was a remarkable achievement for the period, but which becomes insignificant when compared with modern results. Bearing this difference in mind, we may attempt to summarise the main currents of internal trade. As regards Northern India, the outstanding fact is that there was nothing corresponding to the great export of food-grains, oilseeds, and raw cotton of the present day. The country to the south was sparsely populated and was ordinarily self-sufficing, while the difficulties of the road would usually suffice to prevent the movement of such goods to distant Gujarat : the main traffic down the Ganges consisted of salt from Rajputana, while textiles and indigo were the most important commodities on the Indus. Bengal, on the other hand, had an important trade in produce. Provisions of superior quality were moved in the direction of Agra, sugar was supplied by sea to “all India,” that is to the western coast, and rice was carried in the same direction, as well as to Ceylon and even to Malacca. On the other side of India, Gujarat was not self-supporting: it had a large urban and seafaring population to provide for, and it imported food-grains largely from the north and east, rice from the Deccan, wheat and other grains from Malwa and Rajputana. It was doubtless this latter trade which attracted Sir Thomas Roe’s attention on his journey up the Tapti valley to Burhanpur, and its existence indicates that the sparsely- populated regions of Central India had a substantial surplus for disposal. I have been unable to find indications of a similar outflow from the interior farther south: the Western Ghats presented very serious obstacles, and della Valle remarks that goods and baggage were more frequently transported upon men’s shoulders than upon beasts’ backs, while we know from various sources that provisions for the coast towns were brought from long distances by sea—wheat from the Gulf of Cambay, and rice from Bengal and the Coromandel coast. On the other side of the peninsula the export of rice was more important, but I have found no indication that it came from any great distance inland, and taking India as a whole, it does not appear that there was anything approaching to a general system of distribution of agricultural produce by land, although such a trade existed in particular localities.
One other point requires notice in connection with the internal commerce of the country. At the close of the sixteenth century forces were just coming into existence which subsequently led to a marked rise in the prices of various staples, and to a large development of trade. In dis- cussing the decay of Portuguese commerce about the year 1610, Pyrard assigns a prominent place to the new competition of the Dutch; they appear to have been exceedingly expert in buying and selling, and their entrance into the market raised prices considerably, so that, according to this writer, “what formerly cost the Portuguese one sol now costs them four or five.” Writing a few years later, Sir Thomas Roe attributes a similar result to the appearance of the English merchants ; in his final letter to the East India Company (written in 1618) he insists that India had no grounds for complaint of the English trade, for " we have raised the price of all we deal in," and he goes on to point out the danger of continued competition with the Dutch, and to urge that it should be avoided by dividing the Eastern trade between the two nations. His apprehensions were well grounded, as appears in the history of the years which followed, and the rapid penetration of the country by foreigners competing for an increasing variety of its products resulted in a development of very real value to producers ; but at the period which we are considering, this development had scarcely begun, and the inland commerce of the country was the result of forces which had been working for an indefinite period. I can offer no estimate of its volume ; it was certainly very small when judged by modern standards, but looked at from the contemporary standpoint it represents a very substantial achievement.
VIII. THE ORGANISATION OF INDIAN COMMERCE
The large volume of commerce which has been described in the foregoing sections was carried on by a comparatively small number of castes or races, the members of which had specialised in this direction, and I believe it is correct to say that there was less trading than now on the part of men not belonging to these particular fraternities. The three most prominent communities in the literature of the time are the Moslems of the seaboard, the banians of Gujarat, and the chettis of the Coromandel coast. I have already outlined the peculiar position held by the Moslems in the Eastern seas : we meet them at all important places on both sides of India, sometimes as shippers, sometimes as pirates, sometimes as merchants on land ; and these occupations were by no means mutually exclusive, for Pyrard tells us that the pirates of the Malabar coast became good merchants, going hither and thither to sell their goods, at the season when their harbours were closed by the south-west monsoon. The Moslems made no claim to sovereignty in the Indian ports, but at the same time they commonly held a privileged position, maintaining cordial relations with the local authorities, and enjoying, if I am not mistaken, more freedom than was granted to the ordinary inhabitants: their connections with foreign countries must have given them an unusually wide outlook on affairs, and in the seas between Africa and Malacca they may almost be described by the epithet cosmopolitan. The banians of the cities of Gujarat were more definitely localised, and were much more completely subject to the authorities, but they travelled freely by land and also by sea, and we read of them as established at Bantam, at the Red Sea ports, and in other distant places. The third community, the chettis, had not, I think, spread to the countries to the west of India, but they were well known in the Straits and the Archipelago, and their characteristics were so familiar on the Indian coast that “chetti” was the nickname commonly applied in Goa to those Portuguese who demeaned themselves in the eyes of their fellows by entering openly on a commercial career.
I have found no distinct notice of the trading races of Northern India at this period, but I think it is safe to assume that they were those whom we know at the present day. They were reinforced by Persians and Armenians, whose particular business was the overland trade westwards through Kandahar, and whom we meet in India as travellers, not settled for long in any one city, but going from one place to another until they had sold their goods and obtained what they needed for the return journey. Jews were established at Cochin and other places in the south, but they are also met with on the roads in the interior; Europeans were occasionally to be found engaged in private ventures,1 and it may be fairly said that inland, as well as on the coast, commerce was distinctly of a cosmopolitan character. In some respects indeed foreign merchants had advantages over natives of the country. A house, and still more a family, served as a hostage in the hands of the local authorities, who might have to be propitiated by occasional cheap loans or by sales under cost, and whose displeasure, if unhappily it were incurred, would be manifested in the traditional ways, ways of which the memory still survives. A stranger on the other hand did not risk more than the merchandise in his possession at the moment; in some cases he was protected by the prestige of his country; and at the period which we are considering, the demand for foreign curiosities was so great that the administration was disposed to favour the class of men most likely to maintain the supply. Sir Thomas Roe advised the East India Company, “you shall be sure of such privilege as any stranger, and rights when the subject dares not plead his,” and I think the phrase may be taken as an accurate summary of the position in the greater part of India.
It is important to bear in mind that at this period there was in India no settled code of commercial law applicable to subjects and foreigners alike. The former were governed by the law of the land, which, as we have seen, depended largely on the individuality of the officer who applied it: foreign merchants on the other hand were treated with due regard to the international position of the State to which they belonged, and they commonly attempted to secure more or less formal treaties or agreements defining the conditions on which they might trade, and settling the particular rates at which customs duty should be charged. The negotiation of such treaties is a familiar incident of the early history of the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English settlements, but I do not think the system was invented by European merchants; the privileged position held by the Moslems a century earlier at Calicut and other places seems to have been the result of similar, though possibly less formal, engagements between the authorities on one side and the merchants acting as a body on the other, and the conditions which prevailed in Asiatic waters render it probable that such agreements were the regular practice.
The distribution over a large area of the members of a few trading communities was obviously favourable to the develop- ment of business organisation, and this result is particularly noticeable in the matter of exchange. Very soon after the first English merchants arrived in Surat, we find them making use of the existing facilities for remitting money by bills, both locally as between Surat and Broach, and over greater distances as between Surat and Agra ; but the system was not confined within the limits of India, and when a party of merchants was sent to Persia they were instructed to obtain bills in Agra either on Lahore or on Ispahan, and were provided with a letter of credit enabling them when in Persia to draw bills either on England or on Agra as might be convenient. I have found no contemporary description of the actual working of this system, but I think it may be assumed that the main features were identical with those described half a century later by Tavernier. According to him, a merchant requiring money to buy goods for Surat could obtain it on giving a two-months’ bill on that town at any place as far up the country as Agra ; east of Agra, as at Dacca, Patna, or Benares, he would give a bill on Agra, where it would be exchanged for a bill on Surat. The charges were, as Tavernier says, “ high enough,” ranging from 1 or 1½ per cent at Ahmada- bad to 6 per cent at Benares and 10 per cent at Dacca,1 but he points out that the risk was substantial, as the bill would not be met if the goods were stolen in transit : the charges were therefore inclusive of the risks of transport as well as of the current rate of interest. Tavernier adds that the rates might rise by 1 or 2 per cent when local chiefs were interfering with commerce and endeavouring to force it into particular routes for the sake of the transit dues, and that this nuisance was specially common on the road between Agra and Ahmadabad. He mentions further that at Surat advances could be obtained in the same way on goods des-patched to Ormuz, Mocha, Bantam, and even the Philippine Islands ; in this case the rates charged were much higher (16 to 22 per cent for Ormuz, and still more in the case of the more distant ports), but again they included insurance against shipwreck and piracy, and these risks were, as we have seen, ordinarily very great.
The existence of this system of credit, extending over a wide area and quite independent of political limits, has been read as indicating a high level of commercial morality, and it would be possible to quote the evidence of some con- temporary observers in corroboration of this view. It would be equally possible to give quotations on the other side, depicting Indian merchants as influenced by no considerations of conscience or honesty ; but I think it would be useless to set out the evidence at length because its true interpretation is obvious. Indian merchants, like those of all other nations of equal experience, had developed a conventional morality of their own ; they recognised certain limits within which their activities should be confined, and within these limits they could be trusted by foreigners as well as by their own community. The foreign merchants had also their own con- ventions, but their conventions differed from those which they met in India : sometimes they were agreeably surprised when an Indian merchant abstained from taking an advantage which they would have regarded as legitimate, but at other times they found that Indians would do what they would not have done themselves. Indian conventional morality in matters of commerce was not, and is not, perfect ; its merit lay in the fact that it provided a system under which commerce could be effectively carried on, and like other such systems it was substantially fair to every one who knew “ the rules of the game,” though strangers who tried to take a hand had com- monly to pay somewhat dearly for their experience, and some of them have recorded their resulting impressions for the benefit of later generations. The value of these impressions lies rather in the testimony they afford as to the quality and capacity of Indian men of business. In the sixteenth century, as at the present day, they must be ranked as merchants in the highest class. European visitors sometimes described them as superior to the Jews, and this evidence is conclusive to any one who appreciates the position held by Jews in the markets of the period; perhaps it is worth while to quote on this point the appreciation offered by Tavernier, whose wide experience made him an exceptionally competent judge. “The Jews engaged in money matters in the Turkish Empire are,” he says, “usually considered to be exceptionally able, but they are scarcely fit to be apprenticed to the money- changers of India.”
AUTHORITIES FOR CHAPTER VI
SECTION 1.—The position of the Moslem merchants at the beginning of the sixteenth century can best be realised by a study of Barbosa, Varthema, and the early hooks of the Decadas. Whiteway gives a useful summary of the growth of the Portuguese power. For changes in the routes of commerce due to the attitude of the Portuguese, see Barbosa, 353, 358, and Pyrard, translation, i. 279. The best account of the Malahar pirates is in Pyrard, translation, i. 438-447; they are mentioned by all writers of the time, hut Pyrard had exceptional opportunities of ohserving them. The statement that Portuguese subjects took licences from a pirate is in Hay, 831 ; it comes from a Portuguese source, and is therefore prohahly true, since it is derogatory to the national pride. The grant of licences to Akbar’s ships is mentioned in the Decadas, e.g. X. i. 441, and also hy Moslem chroniclers, e.g. Elliot, History, v. 403 ; the terms of the Portuguese treaty with Vijayanagar are in Sewell, 186. The relations of the Zamorin with the Portuguese on the one hand and the pirates on the other bulk largely in the later Decadas.
SECTION 2.—An account of Lahari Bandar will he found in Purchas, I. iv. 49. The only statements I have noted of vessels helonging to that port are Purchas, I. iii. 273 (" a small hark of Sind “), and idem, 307 (” a small sail “). The Camhay ports are descrihed hy almost all writers of the period : for the kafila, see in particular Pyrard, translation, ii. 245, and for examples of losses by pirates, Finch in Purchas, I. iv. 21. For Chaul, see Linschoten, c. 10, and Pyrard, translation, ii. 259 ; for Dahul, see Jourdain, 198. The clearest account of the commercial activity of Goa is perhaps that given hy Pyrard in his second volume, hut the later Decadas should he read hy any one who wishes to know all ahout it, and also ahout Cochin. For the voyage to Japan, see Pyrard, translation, ii. 175 ff. The conditions prevailing in the Red Sea are best described in Jourdain, 74 ff. ; those at Ormuz and on the east coast of Africa must he gathered from the later Decadas. An instance (not the only one) of the identification of Mozam- bique with Ophir will he found in Purchas, II. vii. 1022 ; Milton, in Para- dise Lost, writes of " Sofala, thought Ophir.” For Ceylon, see Pyrard, translation, ii. 140 ; the Xth and XIIth Decadas give long accounts of the fighting on the island. For the Coromandel trade with Pegu, see Purchas, II. x. 1718, 1733, 1739. References to the Bengal ports are given in Appendix C ; the position of the Portuguese residents can be learned from the missionary narratives in Hay, 728 ff.
SECTION 3.—Descriptions of the ports and trade of Pegu, given hy Caesar Frederic, Balbi, and Fitch, will be found in Purchas, II. x. 1716 ff., 1625 ff., 1737 ff. ; see also Hobson-Jobson, under “ Cosmin,” “ Syriam,” and “ Martaban.” For Tenasserim, see Barbosa, 369, Purchas, II. x. 1712, 1741, and Hobson-Jobson under “ Tavoy,” “ Tenasserim,” and “ Nipa.” The classical account of Malacca is that of Barbosa, 370 ff. ; the curtailment of Chinese navigation is dealt with in Yule, Cathay, i. 83 ff. For Bantam as a competing centre of trade, see Jourdain, 308 ; and for Achin, Purchas, I. iii. 123, 157.
The conditions prevailing in South Africa are noticed by various travellers, e.g. Purchas, I. iii. 149 ; the nature of the trade farther north is indicated in Barbosa, 233 ff., and Pyrard, translation, ii. 224 ff., as well as in occasional references in the Decadas. For the Red Sea, see Jourdain, 77, 103, 353, and the narratives of Sir Henry Middleton and Downton in Purchas, I. iii. For Ormuz, see Fitch in Purchas, II. x. 1731, Barbosa, 260 ff., and Linschoten, c. 6.
SECTION 4.—The references to the north-eastern route are Roe, 97, Hay, 798, Ain, translation, ii. 172, 280, 312, and Purchas, I. iv. 434. Kabul is described by Monserrate, 617 ; Manrique’s experience is in c. lxxi. The journey made by Goez is in Purchas, III. ii. 311 ; that of the English merchants in Purchas, I. iv. 519.
SECTION 5.—The European side of the matters dealt with in this section may be studied in Cunningham, Thorold Rogers, Heath, Epstein, and Scott. Thorold Rogers (V. c. xvii.) writes pungently regarding the style of English cookery which rendered spices necessary ; readers who wish to know more of this subject will find a full description in a little book called Health’s Improvement, by Thos. Muffett, corrected and enlarged by Christopher Bennet, published in London in 1655 : incidental references will also be found scattered through the Paston Letters.
The motives and conduct of the Portuguese enterprise are clearly set out in Whiteway. The figures given for the export of pepper are taken from Xth Decada, ii. 121 ; Garcia da Orta (367) points out that little of it was consumed in Portugal, and gives the ultimate destination. Thorne’s pamphlet will be found in the second volume of Hakluyt. For the Letters Patent of the English Company, see Purchas, I. iii. 140 ff. ; for the Laws and Ordinances, Stevens, 198 ; and for Purchas’s own account, I. iii. 147.
The quotations as to the flow of silver to India are taken from Purchas, I. iii. 221, and II. ix. 1470. The efforts to sell English goods in India can be read of in the early volumes of Letters Received.
SECTION 6.—The influence of the seasons on commerce is mentioned by most writers of the period : Lancaster’s memorandum on the voyage from Europe may be consulted as an example (First Letter Book, 136). The course of the Portuguese carracks is given by Pyrard among other writers (translation, ii. 196 ff.). The season for the Red Sea is discussed in various places, e.g. Xth Decada, ii. 170 ; the case of the S. Thomé ship is taken from Purchas, II. x. 1716.
References to the history of the shipping ton are given in Appendix D. For the size of carracks, see Linschoten, c. 1., Pyrard, translation, ii. 180, Purchas, I. iii. 159 ; for pilgrim ships, Major, 27, and Purchas, I. iii. 308 ; for contemporary European ships, Oppenheim, 168-9, Purchas, I. iii. 8, 147, 224, and Pyrard, translation, I. xv.; for junks, Jourdain, 316; and for Turkish galleys, Xth Decada, ii. 170. I have arrived at the number of Portuguese galleys by counting the despatches recorded in the Xth and XIIth Decadas; their size is referred to in Pyrard, translation, ii. 180, and Falcao, 205.
The number of carracks sailing for Europe is obtained from the annual records in XIth and XIIth Decadas. Pyrard (translation, ii. 148) refers to the reservation of the trade to Mozambique and some other ports. For the Red Sea, see Jourdain, 77, 103, and Purchas, I. iii. 260 ff.; for Pegu, Purchas, II. x. 1716; for Malacca, Pyrard, translation, ii. 173, Xth Decada, i. 212, 214, and XIIth Decada, 121; for Achin, Purchas, I. iii. 153, and for Bantam, Jourdain, 316.
Mun’s “Discourse of Trade” is in Purchas, I. v. 734 ff. The rate of casualties on the Japan route is quoted from Maffeius, Select Letters, 7. The narrowness of markets is a very common topic; the illustrations given are from Letters Received, ii. 59, 84, 112; iii. 84.
SECTION 7.—Pyrard, translation, ii. 245 ff., gives a brief account of the kafila on the west coast; they are mentioned by various other writers, and their movements can be studied in greater detail in the Decadas. Finch’s statement regarding losses is in Purchas, I. iv. 421; the reference to trade at Negapatam is taken from Hobson-Jobson (s.v. “Xerafine”).
References to the seasons for land travel are Letters Received, i. 298, and Tavernier, 24. The overland trade in spices is mentioned in Purchas, I. iv. 520; the Banjaras are described in Tavernier, 26 ff., and Mundy, ii. 95. For the Ganges trade, see Jourdain, 162; for that on the Indus, Purchas, I. iv. 485. The export trade of Bengal has been referred to in previous sections; for the import into Gujarat, see Ain, translation, ii. 239, and Roe, 88; for traffic on the Ghats, see della Valle, 292.
For the rise in prices at the beginning of the seventeenth century, see Roe, 480, and Pyrard, translation, ii. 203.
SECTION 8.—The versatility of the Moslem traders is stated by Pyrard, translation, i. 447. For banians abroad, see Purchas, I. iii. 166, 263; for chettis, Barbosa, 373, and Linschoten, c. 30; for Armenians and Persians, Roe, 439, and for Jews, Purchas, I. iii. 232. Roe’s statement regarding privileges is on p. 467.
For examples of commercial agreements, see Letters Received, iv. 28, and Purchas, I. iv. 458. The fullest account of the exchange system is in Tavernier, 23-25; it is mentioned frequently in Letters Received, e.g. i. 25, ii. 228, 266. Tavernier’s appreciation of Indian men of business is on p. 18.
Notes
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kafila is given on page 423 of Hunter’s The Indian Empire (edition of 1893), where it is stated that “ a single fleet of Portuguese merchantmen sailing from Goa to Cambay or Surat would number as many as 150 or 250 carracks.” At this period there were certainly never more than 10 carracks in Indian waters at one time : I have found no record of a carrack entering the Gulf of Cambay; and it is practically certain that if a carrack had ever got into those treacherous waters it would have been unable to get out. Sir William Hunter was misled by an error in the reference which he quoted without verification, by which “ carracks ” were substituted for “ frigates,” and the capacity of the fleet was consequently multiplied about forty-fold.
and efficient administration, which in the circumstances of the time would have found fresh outlets for its commercial energy, but the Portuguese power was decadent, and the fall of Vijayanagar did much to hasten a collapse which was already impending.
A trace of this period may be found in the English word “calico,” which is almost certainly derived from Calicut. Cotton goods were not made at Calicut in any quantity, but Calicut was the port from which they were shipped for Europe, and it gave them the name by which they became known in the West. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Barbosa (p. 281), writing of a place which he calls Tana-Majambu, says there was “ a right good haven, with a fair trade ”; but in his scale of epithets the word fair means very little. In Hobson-Jobson the name is interpreted as Thana-Bombay, but Mr. Longworth Dames, in his translation of Barbosa (i. 152, note), suggests that the second portion most probably indicates Mahim, which is situated at the north of the island of Bombay. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎