Page 184 - INDIANNAVYV1

CHAPTER V. —

1759—1790.

Loss of Gombroon—Operations against Hyder Ally's Seaports—Capture of
Tannah and Death of Commodore Watson—Commodore Moore's Action with
the Shumslier Jung—Desperate Action between the ' Ranger' and Mahratta
Fleet—Affairs in the Eed Sea and Persian Gulf—Operations against Kharrack
—The Bombay Marine at the Siege of Bussorah by the Persians—A Retrospect
of the Bombay Marine— Construction of the Dry and Wet Docks at Bombay
Services of the Bombay Marine during the War with France and Hyder Ally.
THE year 1759, rendered memorable as that in which the
Company acquired by conquest, in no small measure due
to the prowess of their Marine, the oldest of their settlements
in India, where they had hitherto only been tolerated as strangers,
was also signalized by their ejectment from one of the first
factories they had formed in the East, though it had long been
of so unprofitable a character as a trading entrepot, owing to the
anarchy and confusion of Persian affairs, that the loss scarcely
lessened the exultation of the Directors at the intelligence of
the acquisition of Surat. This was the capture of Gombroon,
or Bunder Abbas, in the Persian Gulf, opposite Ormuz, at which
the Company had continued to maintain a factory since the cap-
ture of the island in the year 1(322.
M. Lally equipped four ships, under Dutch colours, one of
which, the ' Conde,' carried sixty-four guns, and another twenty-
two, and employed a force of one hundred and fifty European,
and two hundred Native, troops, two mortars, and four battering
guns, to besiege the small and unfortified English factory. The
expedition was entrusted to the command of the Count d'Estaing*
^an officer who, later, attained some notoriety as the opponent
of Vice-Admiral Byron, in his victory off the island of Grenada,
on the 6th of July, 1779—and arrived oft" Gombroon on the
15th of October, when the ships began to batter the English
factory which was gallantly defended by sixteen of the Company's
seamen and some Sepoys, under Mr. Douglas, the chief agent.
* Count d'Estaing was on parole at this time, having been made prisoner by
Colonel Draper in his sally at the siege of Madras, on the 14th of March ; but to
hide this open breach of the rules of war, M. des Essars and M. Charjioy were
appointed nominal commanders.