East Indiamen: Fake Gun Ports, Bought Commands, and the Pulo Aura Bluff

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From its royal monopoly in 1600 until 1834, the British East India Company controlled trade between England, the Cape of Good Hope, India, and China, and its East Indiamen were the largest merchant ships regularly built anywhere. At 1,100 to 1,400 tons, with two accommodation decks and a tumblehome hull that kept the weight of upper deck cannons near the centerline, they were built like warships. During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars they were painted in Royal Navy colors with fake gun ports, and in 1795 the Navy bought two still on the stocks at Deptford, renamed them HMS Weymouth and HMS Madras, and rated them 56 gun fourth rates.

Captains bought their commands for 8,000 to 10,000 pounds, a post they could resell or will to heirs, and earned it back through 50 tons of free outbound freight and 20 tons inbound, clearing 4,000 to 12,000 pounds a voyage on a ship chartered for only four round trips. Some of the finest ships were built of teak in India. Without chronometers, the Arniston wrecked near Cape Agulhas in 1815 with 372 lost, and the 1755 wreck of the Doddington, later looted with explosives, helped drive the 2001 UNESCO convention on underwater heritage.

The Exeter captured the French frigate Médée in 1800.
At Pulo Aura in 1804, Commodore Nathaniel Dance formed his merchant ships into a battle line and Admiral Linois's French squadron retreated.
In 1795 the General Goddard captured seven Dutch East Indiamen off St. Helena.
Doddington survivors spent seven months on Bird Island in Algoa Bay before building a boat from the wreckage.
The last reputed East Indiaman, the teak built Java of 1813, ended as a coal hulk in Gibraltar and was broken up in 1939.

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