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504 HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY.
at Calcutta, under the presidency of the late Right Hon. Holt
Mackenzie, to inquire into the whole question of the Service.
The Committee's labours extended over the years 1829-30, but
it would appear, by the eighth paragraph, that they only
examined two oflScers of the Marine, and their ignorance of the
duties and utility of the Service is glaringly displayed, in the
seventh paragraph; in which they state, " neither are we aware of
any service for a ship-of-war in the Red Sea." Considering
that the exports from the Bombay Presidency to ports in the
Red Sea, were of the annual value of twenty-four lacs, and that
the trade from Calcutta and other places was of an equal value,
this is an extraordinary statement to have emanated from a
committee of financial experts, who, possibly, could not be held
to apprize at their correct value the prestige attaching to the
presence of ships-of-war in that important inland sea. A
sumniary of Britisli relations with Mocha and other places i:i
that part of the East, which we shall lay before the reader later
on, will show the fallacy of the conclusions at which the Com-
mittee arrived, and upon which the Government wisely declined
to act. Those conclusions were the abolition of the Service
and the employment of a squadron of Royal Navy ships,
although they were fain to allow in their third paragraph, on
the showing of Admiral Gage, that the Navy could not do th3
work at less expense. Perhaps the key to the hostility that
always existed in the Supreme GoA^ernraent towards the
Service, may be ascribed to the fact that a minor Presidency
enjoyed the honour of having the Indian Marine under its
orders, though this was due to the circumstance that Bombay
harbour was the only port which could be employed as the
head-quarters of a naval service, and so it had remained since
the Company first acquired the island by cession from the
Crown. We will now take leave of this Report of the Finance
Committee, as its essential recommendations were not acted
upon, and Sir John ]\lalcolra refuted its mis-statements and
lame deductions in an able Minute.
In the year I80O, Captain Thomas Tanner—whose name has
so frequently appeared in these pages as one of the most eminent
and scientific officers in the Service, one who was as ready with
his sword as with the " pen of a ready writer," or the sextant
of a practised observer—laid the Service under a debt of gratitude
to him, by founding, under the auspices of the Bombay Govern-
ment and the Court of Directors, the Pension Fund, for giving
annuities to officers' widows and children. For the trouble he
incurred, and the skill he displayed, in drawing up the tables
and making the arrangements, the officers of the Service
presented Captain Tanner with a piece of plate of the value of
one hundred guineas.
The year 1830 was memorable for two events—a trial for