EAST INDIAMEN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 78, 29 September 1938, Page 8

EAST INDIAMEN

A MATCH FOR WARSHIPS

There was a time when the provision of guns for merchant ships apparently raised problems less difficult than those of today, and many a merchant ship was prepared to put up a stiff fight against privateers, which swarmed during the long wars between this country and France, says the "Manchester Guardian." It is true that some merchantmen were entirely dependent on convoy, but the ships of the East India Company could fight even when not convoyed, and sometimes took the offensive themselves. Clowes (in his "Royal Navy") writes that "there were several actions in which British merchantmen repulsed the attacks of powerful French frigates or privateers, and one or two in which they captured French ships through mistakes on the part of the latter. The British East Indiamen were formidablelooking ships at a distance, with the appearance of frigates or small vessels of the line. They were usually well commanded, had disciplined crews, and invariably carried a light armament of such guns as 9-pr. carronades or 12-pr. long guns." , ~,,, ... There seems to have been little difficulty in making them carry much heavier armaments; in 1778 Paul Jones was using' an East Indiaman which as her sides were high carried on her lower deck six long, old-fashioned 18-prs.; on her main deck eighteen 12-prs., and on her forecastle and quar-ter-deck eight 9-prs." In 1794 two large French privateers were ignominiously driven off by the East Indiaman Pigot, and in 1800 the Medee, a French 36-gun frigate, struck to two East Indiamen.