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HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY. 173

the ' Hnnter,' fourteen guns." Only five years Inter succeeded
the first of the Company's cold fits of economy, for, in 1678,
the Court ordered the sale of all their armed ships, excepting
the ' Revenge,' and a few small craft to defend the fisheries of
the island. But Mr. Henry Oxenden declined to execute this
order, the impolicy of which received, in the following year, a
striking illustration, when the Mahrattas occupied Kenery, and
the Seedee seized the neighbouring island of Henery, thereby
placing Bombay almost in a state of blockade. Indeed, the
Bombay Marine, owing to the injudicious reduction, was inade-
quate for the duties it was called upon to fulfil, which now
included the protection of the trade of the Company and of
the Mogul in the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf. Powerful
hostile fleets swept these seas, having on board thousands of
desperadoes, who sailed under the flag of Smnbhajee, of the
Seedee of .Jinjeera, and other native semi-independent Powers
;
while pirates, Native and European, under leaders like Kidd
and Avory, became the dread of the Mercantile Marine and of
the seaboard of India and the P]asterii Islands. We have seen
that these latter defied the attempts to extirpate them not only
of the Company's Marine, and of the ships of war of Holland
and Portugal, but of a powerful Royal Navy squadron* employed
in those seas.
The larger vessels for the Company's service continued to be
constructed at Surat, and we find that, in 1735, when a ship
called the ' Queen,' was built, Mr. Dudley, the master-attendant,
was so pleased with the exertions of the Parsee foreman, Lowjee
Nusserwanjee by name, that he induced him and a few ship-
wrights to proceed to Bombay, where a small portion of the
site of the present dockyard, then occupied by the princii)al
oflicers of the Marine, the huts of the Lascars, and the common
gaol, was set apart for a building yard.
Constant references are made by old writers to the want of
timber for shipbuilding purposes, and so late as 1810, after the
first expedition against the Joasnii pirates at Ras-ul-Khymah,
iSir John .MaU;olm suggested that a prohibition should be issued
against the exportation of teak, though this proposal had for its
object rather the prevention of the construction of a new
piratical fleet by that maritime Arab community. On the
arrival at Bombay of Lowjee Nusserwanjee, this want of timber
led to some delay, but when arrangements were made for secu-
* The captains of these ships were not above engaging in business of a remune-
rative nature, for we find tliat three of them returned to, E nghmd witli full cargoes
of goods shipped by Sir Nieliolas Waite during his popularity witli the Nawab of
Surat, while the fourth, the ' Harwich,' was wrecked olf tlie coast of China. In
1769, a squadron, under the command of Sir Jolin Lindsay, consistnig of the
' Sta;;,' thirty-two guns, ' Hawk,' slooji, and' Aurora,' frigate. Captain Lee, having
on board as'purser. Falconer, the fomous sea-poet, sailed from Sjjiihead, but the
Sir John Lindsay cruised olf the Malabar
' Aurora' foundered with all hands.
coast until the arrival of Sir Eobert Harland's squadron in 177L