In furthest Ind : $b The narrative of Mr Edward Carlyon of the honourable East India Company's serviceGrier, Sydney C.
General
In furthest Ind : $b The narrative of Mr Edward Carlyon of the honourable East India Company's service
Grier, Sydney C.
British -- India -- Fiction; East India Company -- Fiction; India -- Fiction
In the early days of the East India Company, its relations with its
_employés_ were of a kind which seems very strange to modern ideas.
Those in its service were expected to work at starvation wages, a
usage which dated probably from the time when the Company (like others
of its kind) was a mere association of adventurers for purposes of
trade, each man investing what he could spare in the general fund, and
receiving in return board and lodging and a small sum as pocket-money,
until, on the termination of the adventure, the profits could be
equally divided. Applied to a permanent undertaking, and to men who
had no property to invest, but depended for their livelihood on what
they could earn, this system was certain to break down, and the
natural result was that the Company’s servants made use of the
information they gained in their official capacity to engage in trade
on their own account. The Company looked askance at this, but it was
impossible to prevent private trading so long as a writer was forced
to serve for five years for £10 a-year (about £30 of our money), and
even a full merchant earned only £40 a-year. This
penny-wise-and-pound-foolish policy was, nevertheless, persisted in,
with the natural consequence that while the Company’s servants grew
rich by means of private ventures, the Company’s own trade barely paid
its expenses.
APPENDIX IV.
OLD AND NEW GOA AND MODERN GOA.
The Goa of our days is not that known to the visitors of the
seventeenth century. The quarter which they called Old Goa has
disappeared from the earth, and the splendid city of New Goa is the
Old Goa of to-day. Its greatness began to decay with the decline of
the Portuguese power in India, and the removal of the government to
Panjim, nearer the mouth of the river, completed its ruin. Dr Claudius
Buchanan, who visited it in 1808, describes it as a city of churches,
but observes that there were seldom any worshippers besides the
officiating priests. Since his day matters have gone steadily from bad
to worse, and the population, thinned by pestilence and emigration, is
now scarcely that of a small village. Churches and public buildings
alike have fallen into decay, and the ruins are fast being overspread
by the growth of tropical vegetation. Panjim, the “New Goa” of to-day,
is about three miles from the mouth of the river, and enjoys the small
remains of the state and commerce which once made Goa the chief city
of the Indies.
APPENDIX V.
THE FRENCH AT SAN THOMÉ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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