Merchants, Mediators and Mannerly Conduct: The East India Company and Local Intermediaries in the Western Indian Ocean 1700–1750

Abstract

On 30 November 1722, Henry Albert, the Agent of the East India Company’s factory in the port of Mocha, received a formal letter from his superiors in Bombay. In this letter, he was given permission to dismiss ‘Sheikh Haddy’, who had been acting as the Company’s broker in the city. Albert had been lobbying for this dismissal for some time, with his superiors now agreeing that the broker had proven himself ‘unfit’ for the Company’s service due to his ‘haughty and insulting nature’. William Phipps, the Chief of the Company’s Council at Bombay, gave Albert further instructions on who to hire instead, saying that he would not send another Muslim broker from Bombay, nor should one be hired at Mocha as they had proven ‘unfit for servants under a government of their own religion’. Instead, Phipps suggested, a local Banian should be appointed to the post in order to avoid similar trouble as the Company’s merchants had experienced with their former Arab appointee. All this was necessary, as none of the Mocha factory’s staff had ‘enough of the [Arabic] language to be understood’ should they call upon Mocha’s governor or other officials in the town or beyond. A decade later, the Company’s local broker, Khosrow, in the Persian city of Kerman died suddenly after a long tenure organizing the purchase of wool in the city, which was prized by local weavers along with the felters and hatters of London and Amsterdam. In order to protect Khosrow’s property for his family, the Company’s local Factor in the city, William Cordeux, was ordered to take possession of it and then hand it over to Khosrow’s family once it was safe from seizure by the local Khan. These two cases highlight the differing responses of the Company to