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East India Company Correspondence

The administrative correspondence of the English East India Company between its London court and its Asian factories, held at the British Library within the India Office Records and Private Papers as IOR/E/3, Correspondence with the East, 124 volumes covering 1602 to 1753, and as the IOR/G Factory Records, of which the Surat and Bombay subseries carry the golden-age piracy material for roughly 1690 to 1725.

From1602To1804Also writtenIOR/E/3; Correspondence with the East; East India Company Letter Books; IOR/G Factory Records; Factory Records: Surat; Factory Records: Bombay; India Office Records correspondence

The administrative correspondence of the East India Company survives at the British Library, within the India Office Records and Private Papers. IOR/E/3 is catalogued as "Correspondence with the East", 124 volumes, 1602 to 1753. IOR/G, the Factory Records, is forty subseries arranged by factory or region, from IOR/G/1 Anjengo to IOR/G/40 Miscellaneous. For golden-age piracy the window is roughly 1690 to 1725, and the load-bearing files are taken to be Surat and Bombay. IOR/B, the Court Minutes, belongs beside it.1

The six subseries

The subdivisions of IOR/E/3 decide what a reference means: volumes 1 to 71, Original Correspondence, 1602 to 1712; 72 to 81, Duplicates; 82 to 83, Triplicates; 84 to 111, East India Company Letter Books, 1626 to 1753; 112 to 121, Drafts of Despatches, 1703 to 1753; and 122 to 124, Despatch Books of the Court of Managers, 1704 to 1708.2

In practice the Original Correspondence holds what London received from Asia and the Letter Books what London sent out. Direction has to be settled before content is quoted, because the same episode is narrated with opposite interests on either side. The duplicate and triplicate sequences exist because letters went home by different ships against loss at sea.

The Surat volumes

IOR/G/36 is "Factory Records: Surat", 125 volumes, 1622 to 1804; IOR/G/3 is "Factory Records: Bombay", 31 volumes, 1669 to 1710; IOR/G/19 covers Fort St George. Four Surat volumes carry the crisis years. IOR/G/36/5 is catalogued as consultations covering 1 January to 31 December 1696. IOR/G/36/94 holds copies of letters despatched to 1 January 1696, IOR/G/36/95 those despatched through 1696 and 1697. IOR/G/36/112 holds letters received for January to September 1695 and January to December 1696, which leaves the final quarter of 1695 unrepresented, the weeks when news of the Ganj-i-Sawai reached Surat. Whether that is a loss or catalogue shorthand cannot be settled without the volume.3

Two items in the catalogue

Item-level description for the 1690s is thin but exact. IOR/E/3/50 ff 257-58 is catalogued as "News of pirates, reported by Francisco do Passos Varella, commander of the Alma Sancta, Surat", 13 November 1694; a deposition about French pirates taken at Bombay six days later sits a few folios on. IOR/E/3/92 f. 257v, within Letter Book 9, is a letter of 23 July 1696 to the General and Council of India at Bombay on the Company's offer of a reward for capturing Captain Avery of the pirate ship Fancy. A Letter Book entry is an outbound instruction from London: within roughly ten months of the taking, the Court of Committees was buying Every's capture with corporate money.4

What the letters carry

A piracy-relevant letter reports sightings of pirate vessels, losses of Mughal and country shipping, convoy arrangements, and instructions on how to answer the Mughal authorities. The steady content is the most useful: the attrition of the Mocha and Red Sea trade, and the hostage diplomacy in which Company servants stood as security for European sea robbery. Sir John Gayer, the Company's General in India, was detained at Swally and confined into 1709; whether that was Mughal reprisal for piracy or the work of Sir Nicholas Waite of the rival English Company is contested, and the Archive carries it so.

The 1684 wall

The published editions stop short of the piracy window: Danvers and Foster reach 1617, William Foster 1669, Charles Fawcett 1684. Nothing exists for IOR/E/3 or the Surat and Bombay factory records after 1684, so everything later must be read in manuscript or commercial facsimile. Madras is the exception: the printed Records of Fort St George cover the window in Diary and Consultation Book volumes for 1686 to 1727 and Despatches from England for 1686 to 1723.5

The Company as a party

This correspondence is exculpatory by design. From late 1695 the Company stood under suspicion at Surat of collusion with English pirates, and its officers wrote knowing their letters might be produced in their defence in London and before the Mughal authorities at Surat; after 1698 two rival English companies were accusing each other of the same thing. Statements of the Company's innocence are advocacy. The framing is commercial: pirates enter when they damage trade or cost money, and the class is almost silent on articles and shipboard politics, except where a captured or surrendered man was examined. A designation of piracy in these papers is an interested party's word for a man, not a finding of fact. Where this correspondence is the only witness, the judicial records and non-English material are the check on it.6

What this source cannot yet give is a documentary anchor for the story it is usually cited to support: no letter about the confinement of the Surat factors, the indemnity, or the convoy undertaking is fixed to a shelfmark here, and because the correspondence of 1690 to 1725 has never been indexed for piracy, nobody can say how many piracy references it holds.

What the evidence does not settle

Piracy references in the 1690 to 1725 correspondence

  • How many piracy references this unindexed correspondence contains is unknownUnverified

Catalogue coverage for the 1690s

  • Item level catalogue coverage for the 1690s is thinUnverified

IOR/G/36/5 date range

  • IOR/G/36/5's catalogued date range does not match its scope note

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. The East India Company's administrative correspondence is held at the British Library within the India Office Records and Private Papers, principally as IOR/E/3, catalogued as Correspondence with the East, 124 volumes covering 1602 to 1753, and as IOR/G, the Factory Records, an assemblage of forty separately numbered subseries arranged by factory or region from IOR/G/1 Anjengo to IOR/G/40 Miscellaneous, with IOR/B, the Court Minutes, as the adjacent class recording the London decisions the letters transmit. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archival catalogue records: IOR/E/3 Correspondence with the East, British Library, India Office Records and Private Papers (SRC006-001); East India Company Factory Records, IOR/G (SRC006-017); IOR/B Court Minutes (SRC006-021)
  2. IOR/E/3 divides into six catalogued subseries whose boundaries determine whether a document is inbound or outbound: volumes 1 to 71, Original Correspondence, 1602 to 1712; 72 to 81, Original Correspondence (Duplicates), 1602 to 1709; 82 to 83, Original Correspondence (Triplicates), 1626 to 1704; 84 to 111, East India Company Letter Books, 1626 to 1753; 112 to 121, Drafts of Despatches, 1703 to 1753; and 122 to 124, Despatch Books of the Court of Managers, 1704 to 1708. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archival catalogue record: IOR/E/3 Correspondence with the East, subseries breakdown, British Library, India Office Records and Private Papers (SRC006-001)
  3. The factory side of the cluster runs to IOR/G/36, Factory Records: Surat, 125 volumes, 1622 to 1804, IOR/G/3, Factory Records: Bombay, 31 volumes, 1669 to 1710, and IOR/G/19 for Fort St George, and within the Surat series IOR/G/36/5 is catalogued as consultations covering 1 January to 31 December 1696, IOR/G/36/94 and IOR/G/36/95 as copies of letters despatched to 1 January 1696 and for 1696 and 1697, and IOR/G/36/112 as copies of letters received for January to September 1695 and January to December 1696, a scope note that leaves the last quarter of 1695 unrepresented. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archival catalogue records: IOR/G/36 Factory Records: Surat, especially IOR/G/36/5, IOR/G/36/94, IOR/G/36/95 and IOR/G/36/112 (SRC006-002); IOR/G/3 Factory Records: Bombay (SRC006-003); IOR/G/19 Factory Records: Fort St George (SRC006-018)
  4. Two catalogued items show the granularity the class can reach: IOR/E/3/50 ff 257-58 is described as News of pirates, reported by Francisco do Passos Varella, commander of the Alma Sancta, Surat, dated 13 November 1694, with the deposition of Jonas Haun of Flushing about French pirates at Bombay, dated 19 November 1694, at ff 261-64 of the same volume; and IOR/E/3/92 f. 257v, within Letter Book 9, 1688 to 1697, is a letter of 23 July 1696 to the General and Council of India at Bombay recording the Company's offer of a reward for capturing Captain Avery of the pirate ship Fancy. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archival item records: IOR/E/3/50 ff 257-58 (SRC006-005); IOR/E/3/50 ff 261-64 (SRC006-020); IOR/E/3/92 f. 257v, Letter Book 9 (SRC006-004)
  5. No calendar or published edition exists for IOR/E/3 or for the Surat and Bombay factory records after 1684, the printed editions of Danvers and Foster, William Foster and Charles Fawcett reaching only 1617, 1669 and 1684 respectively, so that material must be read in manuscript or in commercial digital facsimile; the Madras side is the exception, being printed in the Records of Fort St George series, whose Diary and Consultation Book volumes cover 1686 to 1727 and whose Despatches from England cover 1686 to 1723. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Research guide and printed record series: East India Company records, published editions, Global History and Culture Centre, University of Warwick (SRC006-008); Records of Fort St George, Madras Government Press (SRC006-008)
  6. The correspondence is exculpatory by design, because from late 1695 the Company stood under formal suspicion at Surat of collusion with English pirates and its officers wrote knowing their letters might be produced in its defence in London and before the Mughal authorities, and after 1698 two rival English companies were accusing each other of the same thing; the framing is commercial, so pirates enter the record only where they damage trade or cost money, and a designation of piracy in these papers is a claim by an interested party rather than a finding of fact. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Archival correspondence and modern scholarship: IOR/E/3 and IOR/G/36 correspondence and consultations, British Library (SRC006-001, SRC006-002); Robert C. Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War against the Pirates, Harvard University Press, 1986 (SRC006-012); Ashin Das Gupta, Indian Merchants and the Decline of Surat, c. 1700 to 1750 (SRC006-013)