The Mughal Ships, the English East India Company, and the Biggest Pirate Heist in History

By the time of the Mughals, we observe the advent of the Englishmen to the Mughal court, seeking trade privileges from the reigning emperor. Ralph Fitch was the first Englishman to visit the court of Akbar (r.1556-1605 CE), bearing a letter from Queen Elizabeth. He lived in Agra and Fatehpur Sikri and compared them to London, noting that both were larger than the latter. William Leeds, an English diamond expert was employed by Akbar for verification of diamonds that the emperor possessed or bought. An English merchant named John Mildenhall came to the court in 1599, looking for trade opportunities. All of them came to the Mughal court before the formation of the English East India Company which was established on 31 December 1600 though a royal charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603). The significance of the charter lies in the fact that it provided monopoly to the company to trade with the East Indies for the duration of 15 years. Later another major charter was issued in 1609 by the first Stuart King of England, James I (r.1603-1625) which gave monopoly to the company to trade in the region indefinitely. A year before this i.e. in 1608, William Hawkins, a representative of the East India Company and the commander of the first company ship that anchored at Surat, arrived at the court of Akbar's son, Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) to obtain the emperor's permission to build a factory at Surat. However, this could not be achieved, owing to Portuguese hostility towards the English at the Mughal court. The Portuguese arrived in the Indian Ocean in the late 15th century. In 1498, Vasco da Gama reached Calicut (modern-day Kozhikode) and the Portuguese successfully established dominance in the Indian Ocean. The Mughals were powerful on land, and the Portuguese enjoyed superiority at sea. The Mughals lacked a strong naval system. The cartaz (permit) system that the Portuguese introduced had to be issued to the Mughal ships too which ensured the safety of their ships by the former. Therefore, when William Hawkins came to Jahangir's court, seeking commercial privileges, he was denied on account of Portuguese pressure. 

However, things changed when in 1611, British Admiral Middleton defeated the Portuguese navy near Bombay and in 1612, the Portuguese navy at Surat was defeated by British Admiral Thomas Best. These developments in favour of the British emboldened Jahangir to allow the English to erect a factory at Surat in 1612. In 1615, another significant incident happened when Sir Thomas Roe, an ambassador of James I in 1615 arrived at Jahangir's court and stayed till 1618. His embassy helped in gaining emperor's permission to trade and build factories not only in Surat but now in several different parts of the empire. Thus, by 1619 the English established factories at Baroda, Ahmedabad, Broach on the west coast and these factories along with the one at Agra were brought under the supervision of the president and council of the Surat factory. 

By the 1620s, English merchants in Surat expressed an interest in obtaining Bombay Island and its splendid natural port, which was then almost unused, from the Portuguese and establishing it as a secure base for their commercial interests. In 1661, King Charles II of England married Catherine of Aragon, and the marriage settlement included the grant of Bombay. In 1668, the company leased Bombay from the king for a sum of ten pounds annually. Gerald Aungier was appointed as the first governor of Bombay. In 1687, Bombay took over as the company's west coast headquarters, replacing Surat. The population of Bombay and its trade began to flourish and by the early 18th century, it rivaled Surat as the leading port of commerce and trade in western India.  

However, till the reign of the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb (r.1658-1707), Surat continued to be one of the major Mughal port cities and any attempts by any European power to undermine its status or disrupt Mughal commercial activities would not go unnoticed, no matter how powerful they were at sea because the Mughals were a formidable power in South Asia. When the Portuguese were a major sea power in the Indian Ocean, they made a grave mistake in 1613 by capturing Rahimi, a large pilgrimage ship, owned by the mother of Aurangzeb's grandfather, Jahangir. Jahangir's farmans or imperial orders issued thereafter adversely impacted the Portuguese operations in medieval India. Likewise, when John Child was the English governor of Bombay, he advocated for a more aggressive policy in India and accordingly, in order to put pressure on the Mughals to check the trading activities of unauthorized English private traders in India, he seized 80 Indian ships sailing to Surat in 1688. Aurangzeb in turn issued a range of farmans, instructing his local officers to capture all English trading missions. The Siddi, the Abyssinian sea lord who was Mughal tributary was ordered to attack Bombay. Most of the island was seized, barring the city and its citadel. The English soon realized that they were not yet in a position to displease a major power in Asia. So, they desperately tried to negotiate and offered to pay reparations in order to secure the imperial favour once again. John Child was fired from the company, and he was sent back to England at the behest of Aurangzeb. 

However, the grand Mughal Emperors though were adept at dealing with European trading companies, yet they were more concerned about the uncontrolled European piracy in the Indian Ocean. Aurangzeb held the East India Companies responsible for it and that some corrupt British officials profited from piracy ventures and targeted ships laden with treasures. In the year of 1696, an English pirate named Henry Every who formerly served in the British royal navy as an officer and after his retirement, worked as a licensed slave trader for the Royal African Company, captured the Ganj-i-Sawai, the largest ship in the Mughal fleet when it was returning from Mocha port to Surat, carrying royal and elite pilgrims and treasure worth 5.2 million rupees. Every was very well-acquainted with the fact that the vessel made its annual trip to Mocha from Surat every year at the same time along the same route for the Muslim pilgrims to perform haj and while returning, at Mocha, the merchants traded in Indian goods. Seizing it meant hitting the jackpot. The Ganj-i-Sawai, even though protected by its eighty guns, failed to provide any robust resistance. The captured high-born women were raped for three days, and the goods were plundered. When the ship reached Surat, the atrocities provoked public outrage across the empire because it was a pilgrim ship, carrying numerous pilgrims to Mecca who were attacked, and this was considered sacrilegious. Women were raped and tortured multiple times and these women belonged to the royal household and the Mughal bureaucrats.      

Aurangzeb ordered a set of farmans. The trading operations of the East India Company in five principal ports were shut down. The governor of Surat seized the East India Company factory and imprisoned all the British merchants, administrators and other occupants. The emperor granted a permission to Siddi Yaqut Khan, a Mughal tributary and coastal chieftain and his fleet to attack on Bombay, but the strong fortifications of Bombay saved it from any major destruction. The English East India Company again attempted to make negotiations in order to save its operations in India. The company agreed to provide seaborne protection to every Mughal ship and to find Every and his accomplices and the Mughals were to be given 350000 pounds or 69 million dollars in compensation. His accomplices were hunted down eventually and 6 of them were executed, however, Every remained uncaught. This was the biggest pirate heist in history!