BOMBAY -1664-THE OCCUPATION OF BOMBAY BY ENGLISH -AS PART OF DOWRY

CHARLES 2 OF ENGLAND ; RECEIVED BOMBAY AS DOWRY WHEN HE MARRIED PORTUGUESE PRINCESS KATHERINE IN 1661

Catherine of Braganza, Queen of Britain, wife of Charles II

In November 1664, the island of Bombay passed from the Portuguese to the English. The English had for years been anxious to gain a station on the Konkan coast. [In 1625 the Directors proposed that the Company should take Bombay. Accordingly, in 1626, the President at Surat suggested to the Dutch a joint occupation of the island, but the Dutch declined, and the scheme was abandoned (Bruee'a Annals, I. 273). In 1640 the Surat Council brought Bombay to notice as the best place on the west coast of India for a station (Ditto, I. 366), and, in 1652, they suggested that Bombay and Bassein should be bought from the Portuguese (I. 472). In 1654, in an address to Cromwell, the Company mentioned Bassein and Bombay as the meat suitable places for an English settlement in India (I. 488). In 1659 the Surat Council recommended that an application should be made to the King of Portugal to cede someplace on the west coast, Danda-Rajpuri, Bombay, or Versova (Ditto, I. 548). Finally, at the close of 1661 (7th December), in a letter which must have crossed the Directors' letter telling of the cession of Bombay, the President at Surat wrote (Ditto, II. III) that, unless a station could be obtained which would place the Company's servants cut of the reach of the Moghal and Shivaji and render them independent of the overbearing Dutch, it would be more prudent to bring off their property and servants, than to leave them exposed to continual risks and dangers. It was its isolated position rather than its harbour that made the English covet Bombay. Then and till much later, Bombay harbour was by many considered too big. In 1857, in meeting objections urged against Karwar on the ground of its smallness, Captain Taylor wrote (27th July 1857), ' Harbours can be too large as well as too small. The storms of 1837 and 1854 show us that Bombay would be a better port if it was not open to the south-west,, and had not an expanse of eight miles of water to the south-east.' Bom. Gov. Rec. 248,of 1862-64, 29, 30.] In June 1661, as part of the dower of his sister Katherine, the King of Portugal ceded the island and harbour of Bombay, which the English understood to include Salsette and the other harbour islands.


  [According to Captain Hamilton (1680-1720), 'the royalties appending on Bombay reached as far as Versovt. in Silsette.' (New Account, 1. 185). This does not agree with other writers and is probably inaccurate.] In March 1662 a fleet of five men-of-war, under the command of the Earl of Marlborough, with Sir Abraham Shipman and 400 men accompanied by a new Portuguese Viceroy, left England for Bombay. Part of the fleet reached Bombay in September 1662 and the rest in October 1662. On being asked to make over Bombay and Salsette to the English, the governor contended that the island of Bombay had alone been ceded, and on the ground of some alleged irregularity in the form of the letters or patent, he refused to give up even Bombay. The Portuguese Viceroy declined to interfere, and Sir Abraham Shipman was forced to retire first to Suvali at the mouth of the Tapti, and then to the small island of Anjidiv off the Karwar coast. Here, cooped up and with no proper supplies, the English force remained for more than two years, losing their general and three hundred of the four hundred men. In November 1664, Sir Abraham Shipman's successor Mr. Humfrey Cooke, to preserve the remnant of his troops, agreed to accept Bombay without its dependencies, and to grant special privileges to its Portuguese residents.

KATHERINE AND CHARLES 2 -ANOTHER PHOTO
[ Cooke renounced all claims to the neighbouring islands, promised to exempt the Portuguese from customs, to restore deserters, runaway slaves, husbandmen, and craftsmen, and not to interfere with the Roman Catholic religion. Trans. Bom, Geog. Soc. III. 68-71. These terms were never ratified either by the English or by the Portuguese, Anderson's English in Western India, 53. According to Mr. James Douglas, Kolaba Point or Old Woman's Island was at first refused as not being part of Bombay. It and 'Putachos,' apparently Butcher's Island, seem to have been taken in 1666. Fryer's New Account, 64.] In February 1665, when the island was handed over, only 119 Englishmen landed in Bombay.[ The details were, the Governor, one ensign, four Serjeants, six corporals, four drummers, one surgeon, one surgeon's mate, two gunners, one gunner's mate; one gunsmithy and ninety-seven privates, Bruce's Annals, II. 157.] At the time of the transfer the island is said to have had 10,000 Inhabitants and to have yielded a revenue of about £2800 (Rs.28,000). [Fryer's New Account, 68; Warden in Bom. Geog. Soc. Trans. III: 45, 46.]


The cession of Bombay and its dependencies was part of a scheme under which England and Portugal were to join in resisting the growing power of the Dutch. A close alliance between the English and the Portuguese seemed their only chance of safety. In 1656 the Dutch had driven the Portuguese from Ceylon. They were besieging the English at Bantam and blockading the Portuguese at Goa; ' If the Dutch took Goa, Diu must follow, and if Diu fell, the English Company might wind up their affairs.' [Bruce's Annals, I. 522;Baldaeas in Churchill, III. 545.] The scheme was ruined by the looseness of the connection between the Portuguese in Europe and the Portuguese in India. The local Portuguese feeling against the cession of territory was strong, and the expression of the King's surprise and grief at their disobedience failed to overcome it. [The King of Portugal to the Viceroy, 16th August 1663. Trans. Bom. Geog. Soc. III.67] Bitter hatred, instead of friendship, took the place of the old rivalry between the Portuguese and the English. [ Besides soreness at being ' choused by the Portugels' (Pepya' Diary, Chandos Ed. 155) the English were embittered by the efforts of the Jesuits to stir up disaffection in Bombay, and by the attempt of the Portuguese authorities to starve them out of the island by the levy of heavy dues on all provision-boats passing Thana or Karanja on their way to Bombay. Bruce, II. 175, 214. Of the relations between the Portuguese in India and the Portuguese in Europe, Fryer writes (New Account, 62), ' The Portuguese in East India will talk big of their King and how nearly allied to them, as if they were all cousm-germans at least. But for his commands, if contrary to their factions, they value them no more than if they were merely titular.] Without the dependencies which were to have furnished supplies and a revenue, the island was costly, and, whatever its value as a place of trade, it was no addition of strength in a struggle with the Dutch. The King determined to grant the prayer of the Company and to hand them Bombay as a trading station.


On the first of September 1668, the ship Constantinople arrived at Surat, bringing the copy of a Royal Charter bestowing Bombay on the Honourable Company. The island was granted ' in as ample a manner as it came to the crown,' and was to be held on the payment of a yearly quit-rent of £10 in gold. With the island were granted all stores arms and ammunition, together with such political powers as were necessary for its defence and government. [Bruce's Annals, II. 199. The troops which formed the Company's first military establishment in Bombay numbered 198, of whom five were commissioned officers, 139 non-commissioned officers and privates, and Sixty-four hat-wearing half-castes or topazes. There were twenty-one pieces of cannon and proportionate stores. Ditto, 240.] In these three years of English management the revenue of the island had risen from about £3000 to about £6500. [The details are given in Warden's Landed Tenures of Bombay, 8]