2 - Bombay and ‘the Gulphs’

Summary

ON 29 JULY 1748 invited guests streamed over the new ship built for Captain Benjamin Braund in the Blackwall Yard, an island of industry amidst the marshy wastes where the River Lea flows into the Thames. From their vantage point high above the river they looked out over the Isle of Dogs to Greenwich, Deptford, Rotherhithe and St Pauls dominating the distant mass of the city. To the east the river snaked away across thirty miles of low-lying ground to the Hope and the Thames estuary. The East India Company's presence was everywhere. Only a few years after the yard opened in 1612, the date on the inside wall, the Company acquired the lease and began building its own ships. The Company's arms decorated the outside wall. The Company's motto, ‘God be My Good Speed’, encircled the rim of the great bell which regulated the lives of the 235 men employed by 1618. The Company had developed the yard into the biggest shipbuilding complex in England, with a wet dock, three dry docks and several building slips. In the dark days of the mid-seventeenth century the Company had found the overhead costs too great for its declining trade to bear and had leased the yard to private owners. John Perry, the present lessee, was a part-owner of the new vessel.

William must have made a good impression on Benjamin Braund on his previous voyage, as he had invited him to sail as his first mate. Samuel Braund presided over the launch of his new ship, one of seven of which he was managing owner, making him one of the most powerful managing owners of ships chartered by the Company. Present was Sir William Baker, MP, Ropemaker General to all Company ships built at Blackwall, and a shareholder in several of Samuel Braund's ships. He and William Braund, the managing owner's brother, were both directors of the East India Company. Henry Crabbe Boulton, formerly Paymaster to the Company and at present clerk to the Shipping Committee, two prominent iron masters, a Blackwell Hall merchant and several other suppliers of East Indiamen numbered amongst the twenty owners.