"After the second day we landed all our forces, taking the opportunity of the tide.... We got them all on shore, and marched up the country, without molestation; only now and then the castle would let fly a shot or two, which did us small damage. We attempted to march the army down to their shipping, and to set them on fire; but when we came within a mile of the place the land was all swampy, and so very muddy by the spring tides flowing over that we could not proceed. On our retreat they galled us very much by firing from the castle, we being obliged to come near the castle walls to take our forces off again. Here the gallant Captain Gordon was slightly wounded again.... I question whether there were a hundred men in the castle during the time of the siege...."
"We drew off our forces on the 18th April, and went up to Bombay to repair our frigates and take care of our wounded men, of whom we had a considerable number."
In no way discouraged by the failure, Boone at once set to work to prepare for a fresh attack on Angria. This time it was determined that Kennery, within sight of Bombay harbour, should be the object of attack, and all through the monsoon preparations were made.
[1] Galleywats, or gallivats, were large rowing-boats with two masts, of forty to seventy tons, and carrying four to eight guns.
[2] In a letter, three years later, on the conduct of military officers, it is stated that "Stanton was drunk the time he should have gone upon action at Carwar."
[3] Bombay Consultations, 22nd January, 1718.
The Company's civil servants--Their comparison with English who went to America--Their miserable salaries--The Company's military servants-- Regarded with distrust--Shaxton's mutiny--Captain Keigwin--Broken pledges and ill-treatment--Directors' vacillating policy--Military grievances-- Keigwin seizes the administration of Bombay--His wise rule--Makes his submission to the Crown--Low status of Company's military officers--Lord Egmont's speech--Factors and writers as generals and colonels--Bad quality of the common soldiers--Their bad treatment--Complaint against Midford-- Directors' parsimony.
It may be useful here to consider the difference in the men sent out, by England, to the East and West Indies during the seventeenth and part of the eighteenth centuries. To the West Indies went out representatives of the landed gentry from every county in England. Charters were obtained from the Crown, conferring estates, and sometimes whole islands, on men of ancient families. Slaves were cheap, and sugar cultivation brought in great wealth; the whole machinery of English life was reproduced in the tropics--counties, parishes; sheriffs, rectories, tithes, an established church, etc. The same causes that sent the Cavaliers to Virginia, sent a smaller migration to the West Indies. At the Restoration, the men who had conquered Jamaica for Cromwell were unwilling to return to England. Monmouth's rebellion and the expulsion of the Stuarts produced a fresh influx. But, whether Cavaliers or Roundheads or Jacobites, they came from the landholding class in England. The evidence may still be read in old West Indian graveyards, where the crumbling monuments show the carefully engraved armorial bearings, and the inscriptions record the families and homes in England from which those whom they commemorate had sprung.