Everyone in these Indiamen had fought splendidly against heavy odds. The commodore had fulfilled his part as well as the difficulty of the situation allowed him. Soldier and sailor alike had done their level best. How did the East India Company eventually consider this forlorn fight? It may be said at once that, in spite of the result, the directors showed their appreciation of their servants by presenting each of these three captains with the sum of £500, whilst the rest of the officers and men were also handsomely rewarded. The captain of the _Astell_ received a pension of £460 a year from the East India Company, whilst the officers and crew were presented with the sum of £2000 between them. It is said that one of the _Astell’s_ seamen, a man named Andrew Peters, nailed the pennant to the maintopmast-head and was killed as he was on his way down: and the _Astell’s_ colours were shot away no fewer than three times.
To show their appreciation of the _Astell’s_ fine defence the Admiralty granted the ship’s company protection from impressment for three years. But even all this exhibition of approbation must have been unable to wipe out from officers and men the miserable recollection of having been compelled to yield to the nation’s deadly enemy.
It must not be thought that even after that momentous change of 1834, when the “free traders,” as they were called, began to send their ships to India, the Company were freer of anxiety. It has already been shown that they were being badly defeated in the new competition. But this was not all. In the year 1816 the owners of thirty-four ships which had been engaged by the Company under the Act of 1799 for six voyages on a settled peace freight now complained that these rates were inadequate to meet the increased charge of outfit and repairs. For since the Treaty of Paris the cost and equipment of ships had gone up, and to an extent that could not have been expected. The long duration of the war, and the extraordinary price of articles of a ship’s inventory continued long after the cessation of hostilities: and therefore it was but natural that an improved rate should be granted for the remainder of the voyages.
And with the much larger number of men required for the bigger ships it was frequently found when lying in an Indian port that with “dead, run, or discharged” men a vessel had not the required number of crew in her that she ought to have. So now these East Indiamen were allowed to sail with less than their full complement. Great Britain had won her fights chiefly on the sea, yet for all that she was not abundantly blessed with seamen.