Dates of Letters/Accounts Included Where Available, Quite a Few Folios Are Undated

Thomas Bowrey

·  This document contains notes from papers of Thomas Bowrey, and two books related to him.

·  Dates of letters/accounts included where available, quite a few folios are undated.

·  Perhaps the key merchants he was connected with where James Wheeler (at Madapollam) and Robert Master (at Madras).

Biographical Information

See mainly: Sir R.C. Temple, The Papers of Thomas Bowrey, 1669-1713 (London: Hakluyt Society, 1927)

General Introduction, pp. xvii-xviii.

Bowrey was born about 1650, went to East as an interloper in 1669. In 1672 was at Masulipatam and Pettipollee, and in 1674 in Balasor, all on the east coast. In 1675 was at Junkceylon on Malay peninsula, went to Hugly 1676, later to Persian Gulf. In 1682 Madapollam, in 1684 Batavia, returned to Madras the same years. At Madapollam again 1685. Then went back to Acheen in Sumatra, from there to Batavia and then finally back to Madras. In 1686 he was in Cuddalore and Porto Novo and then sailed to Borneo, returning to Madras. Almost immediately afterwards sailed to Porto Novo and across Bay of Bengal to Junkceylon, back to Madras 1687 and remaining there a while before going to Tranquebar. He had now been wandering about the Bay for 18 years and arranged to go back to England but had to postpone the trip as he got into trouble with the Havildar or Governor of Porto Novo, ‘out of which he escaped with much to worry himself and the English Council at Madras’. Sailed again for Acheen and then to Bengal for third time. On 4 October 1687 his ship was wrecked off Madras but having procured a new one he went to Porto Novo, again back to Madras, and once again to Achin where he was met by Dampier. From Achin he went to Bengal and Madras, from where he sailed to England 20 October 1688 in the Bengal Merchant.

pp. xviii-xix:

We know little of his life in England other than the fact he was a proprietor of East India stock in late 1690s, settled in Wapping with his wife (and also Cousin) Mary Gardiner. Also made a series of ‘proposals’ regarding the ‘South Seas’ (here meaning the South China seas/Southeast Asia) in early 1700s. Clearly involved in lots of different ventures, was part-owner or owner of various vessels, owned lots of property, counted Elihu Yale, Daniel Defoe and chief merchants of the EIC in London, Bengal and Madras among his correspondents.

What we do have however is almost a full account of the life of one of Bowrey’s ships, the Mary Galley, from the contract for building her to her final end (captured by French privateers).

Temple, Bowrey Papers, Part II: The Story of the Mary Galley

·  Gives the story of one of Bowrey’s ships he owned and fitted out (he wasn’t commander here) when in London, early eighteenth century. Temple describes that there is effectively a full record of the ship’s life, from the invoices for its building to the closed accounts at the end of its voyage.

Section starts with a lovely plate of the ship (plate 7), facing p. 113, drawn up by Mr G.S. Laird Clowes ‘from the dimensions and other particulars contained in the Bowrey Papers’.

pp. 114-115:

Built between May and July 1704 on the Thames under supervision of Captain Joseph Tolson. Sailed in October 1704. Sailed from the Cape 26th Jan 1705 to Bencoolen, reached there 23 April, and went on to Bengal and Padang. Reached Batavia in July. Left there September ’05 and arrived Calcutta in November. Stayed until February ’06, returned to Batavia, went back to Calcutta via Madras, where she stayed from 16 – 24 October, going to Calcutta again 14 November. Left Calcutta in January 1707, apparently bound for Batavia, then joined a Dutch home-bound fleet later in the year. Reached the cape March 1707, stayed until 20 April. Sailed in the same convoy, seeking the Dutch coast via the Northern passage past Ireland and the Shetlands. The commander intended to put in somewhere on the east coast (Newcastle) but met with French privateers, and Tolson was captured. Ship then sailed to Jutland but again met the French and was captured August 1707 and taken to Dunkirk.

p. 119:

‘Bowrey as a merchant was naturally precise in matters of account, and his private account book has fortunately survived. It is indexed and carefully kept up, though to modern ideas it is an extraordinarily laborious proceeding to get at his financial position at any given time therefrom. Here and there is a summary of the case as regards a particular account at a particular date, and it must be supposed that this was the method by which merchants at that period surveyed their financial position from time to time. Bowrey does not appear to have framed an annual statement of his affairs, such as I have known other personages of former days to draw up of their “fortune.” In one case that has come to my knowledge, not only was a careful summary drawn up annually, but also quinquennially, through a long series of years.’

Temple says he was always a prompt payer and organised man.

p.120:

Amongst ship Mary’s papers we have Bowrey’s sailing instructions and trading instructions including cargo lists. Also there are some letters from Bowrey as to secret trade orders; there are, unsurprisingly, obscure according to Temple.

pp. 125-128:

Bowrey met Richard Wells of Rotherhithe, a shipwright, at Jerusalem Coffee House in March 1704 and made an agreement with him to build a ship 79 feet 2 inches long and 21 feet 6 inches broad. Its cost was to be £732. 5s and a piece of silver plate to the builder costing £30. There is some dispute over the tonnage of the ship – it was credited in the papers as 170 tons, roughly. There were apparently a few different ways of calculating the tonnage of a ship in this period – in the 1680s one ‘freight ton’ was usually equivalent to 40 cubic feet or thereabouts. An act was passed in 1694 under which the tonnage of English merchant ships was to be obtained by multiplying the length of keel by the breadth and again by the depth in the hold, and dividing the product of that by 94. There were even, still some uncertainties about this method. If you work it out for Bowrey’s ship, you only get 141 tons.

Beautiful little plan of the interior of the ship drawn by Bowrey, facing p. 129.

Details of the construction of the ship, pp. 130-138.

pp. 138-139:

Bowrey clearly was personally supervising construction of the ship.

He had various other subscribers in the ship and its cargo: himself owned ½ , George Jackson 1/12, Thomas Hammond 1/12, Joseph Tolson 1/6, Elias Grist 1/24, Richard Tolson 1/24 and Elias Dupuy 1/12. Ship was valued at £3000 and cargo at £3000, making a total of £6000 as the capital of the owners. She was to be employed on a voyage to India as a separate stock ship. Each subscriber was to deposit 25 per cent of his subscription in to the Bank of England and ‘deliver such Noats’ to Bowrey ‘for the use of this Intended voyage’.

pp. 141-42:

Unfortunately, his fellow owners were rather slow in doing this and Bowrey seems to have had some difficulty raising money to equip the Mary, having paid for the building of the whole thing himself. Captain (Joseph) Tolson was to have four per cent commission on the gross sale of cargoe at the return of the ship in England, and 10 pounds per month wages.

p. 157:

Cargo for first voyage included:

-  8 Groce Scisars Guilded £36. 18s. 0d

-  1 ½ Groce Glass Hafted Knives Plain Blades 13.15.6

-  Glassware 188.3.5

-  Beer in Bottles 26.1.0

-  Beer in Cask 37.9.0

-  Wine 24.17.3

-  Cheese 11.10.0

-  Iron Guns 28.8.11

-  Anchors 53.9.10

-  Lead 248.0.0

-  Rashes 25.13.0

-  Hatts 9.1.6

-  PS 8 [pieces of 8] 253.1.5

-  Glass Hafted Knives Guilded Blades 34.0.0

-  Shauls 9.0.0

-  License &ca. Charges 199.16.4

This obviously doesn’t add up to £6000, but £4080 after charges, so I’m not sure what Bowrey did about the fact he’s valued the cargo at £6000 and everyone else had invested accordingly?

pp. 202-216:

Loads of correspondence between Tolson and the owners while the ship was in home waters on its way out to the East.

pp. 217-218:

Some of the instructions given to Captain Tolson were extremely complex. They foregrounded Bowrey’s apprehensions of interference from the East India Company and contained directions for guarding against obstructions by its agents in India.

The main instruction letter very detailed. The ship was first to go to Bengal, then sail for the Maldives, then sail for Batavia by 11th January 1706. Then there were elaborate directions as to the methods of trading to be followed. From Batavia, at the end of March 1706, Tolson was to proceed to Gombroon, and also Muscat. Bowrey also says it will be convenient on this latter leg to call at Sumatra or Malacca on way back from Batavia to Persian Gulf. These instructions superseded ones provided earlier. The letter alludes to ‘Secret Trade Instructions’ mentioned before. There is also a return to the exhortation to be ‘very frugall’. In a postscript, Tolson is given orders not to stay in India longer than the end of February 1706.

But, by the time Tolson had received this, he had already done his own thing and ‘gone his way quite independently from the path laid down for him’. P. 218.

p. 224:

Bowrey also entrusted Tolson with a number of letters for delivery to various friends and acquaintances in India.

253-56:

Letter from Tolson home from Calcutta, December 12 1705:

‘Heare I received your Letters, but as yett I doe not find any Reason to beleive that I shall have any Evill treatment from the Government. Wee have sold our Cargoe, Most of it to his Honour Shelldon, soe that he being my friend I doe not feare any Examination of my Affaires. I have had some proposalls with his Honour to Come heare Againe, which Beleive I shall, and then, without your orders to the Contrary, God willing, I will Returne for Europe. I hope to bee in A Condition by that time to Purchase a Cargoe of 40,000 Rupees, and if the best of our Judgment may be safe to follow your Instructions in our Returne to Europe, I shall give All due Respect to them; but if any way more safe, you may Depend that I will use my Endeavours to Come safe. And I hope to make all the Gentlement Concerned Gainers by the Voyage, soe that I hope none will be forward in Insureing, for I doe Value the safe Returne of the Ship Equall with my Life, and will as soone as Loose one as the Other.’

‘My Intent is to Come home with the Dutch fleet, soe that I hope to Depart this Place 12 Months hence. I am verry Likely to Come by a Verry bad market for the Glass ware, itt being A Verry dead Commodity.’ (p.255)

‘The Cargoe I brought heare [from Batavia] Amounts to 50,000 Rupees and upwards, all which and more is to goe back in my ship, according to our Contracts with his Honour Sheldon and others, soe that my securety neaver goes out of my Hands, and you may Depend never shall.’ (p. 256).

Bowrey Papers in IOR

Mss Eur D 782

Account by Capt Thomas Bowrey (c1650-1713), sailing master and free merchant in India 1669-88, describing his experiences in Bengal, Madras, Ceylon and the Malay archipelago. Published by Sir R C Temple in `Hakluyt Society', ser ii, vol xii (1903-05).

Beautiful volume, published in 1905 by Hakluyt Society as ‘A Geographical Account of Countries Round the Bay of Bengal, 1669-1769’, edited by R.C. Temple.

Some absolutely lovely drawings of buildings, people, ships and animals. Spends a lot of time discussing the Coromandel Coast and various places that he traded to in southeast Asia.

If you write an account of Bowrey, would be useful to link his trading activities with what he says here about each place he has visited.

See below:

Thomas Bowrey, A Geographical Account of the Countries Round the Bay of Bengal, 1669-1679 (Edited by Sir Richard Carnac Temple, Cambridge, Hakluyt Society, 1905).

Good account of his life and career, pp. xxiv-xxix, but not as extensive as in the ‘Bowrey Papers’ Temple volume, notes above. It tells us that in 1684 he was bound to Batavia in a vessel belonging to Mr James Wheeler of Madapollam – Bowrey’s papers reveal Wheeler was probably his primary associate.

Volume has some interesting info on commercial relations with the Company at Madras: on coming back from Batavia, they offer to buy his ‘Burneo Pepper’ for 20 pagodas per candy but Bowrey refused to accept less than 23. Later, he buys a ship from the Company from 40 pagodas, it ‘haveing Layd in this Factory a Considerable time in a Creaze rotten condition’.

Reasons for him not leaving for England the first time in 1687 (on the Shrewsbury) are given in a series of letters, explaining his trouble with the ‘Avaldar’ (Havildar) of Porto Novo. Pp. Xxx-xxxviii.

As well as his English-Malay dictionary that he is famous for, in his will it turns out he bequeathed two manuscripts, one containing a description of the coast of Africa to the EIC, and one containing a description of the coasts of America to the South Sea Company. Bowrey died March 1713. P. xliv.

List of charts and other works that Bowrey published is pp. xlviii-xlix.

Bowrey Papers in the IOR

Mss Eur D1076

Accounts, correspondence and legal papers of Capt Thomas Bowrey (c1650-1713), sailing master and free merchant in India 1669-88, concerning his business ventures.

·  f.17: Bowrey hires a small ketch to trade rice from Bombay to Muscat, 1680. Called the Dispatch. Unfortunately loses the main mast in a storm on the way, forced to go back to Goa to repair. On the way there they were attacked by two Malabar grabs – the account of John Dunaway describes how several of the crew including Bowrey had to row in a small boat to shore in the dead of night to escape the Mallabar attackers before they boarded the ketch. 23 December 1680.