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5B HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY.

produced, and, at length, the King, by letters patent, dated
^7th of March, 1008, transferred the island from the Crown to
the Company. By this Charter, Charles granted the Port and
Island of Bombay to the London East India Company, " to be
held to the said Company and their successors of the Crown of
England, as the Manor of East Greenwich, in perpetuity and in
free and common soccage at a fee farm rent of ^£10 payable on
the 30th of September yearly at the Custom-house." With the
island were conveyed all stores and arras, and the Company
were empowered to make laws and take the necessary steps for
the defence and government of Bombay.*
Tinder instructions from the Court of Directors, the President
at Surat, Sir George Oxenden, took formal possession of Bombay
on the 23rd of September, 1008. Six years before, this energetic
and able officer had been appointed Director of their aftairs " at
Surat, and all other factories in the north parts of India, from
Zeilon to the Red Sea;" and he now proceeded with a fleet of
the Company's ships, accompanied by the squadron of men-of-
war despatched to India under the command of the Earl of
Marlborough, to take possession of Bombay. Sir George
Oxenden sent three members of his Council and Captain Young,
one of the Company's naval officers, as special Commissioners, to
accept the cession of the island, and, on the completion of the
transfer, the garrison, which had been strengthend by reinforce-
ments from England, entered the Company's service, as the
Bombay European Regiment, which became the nucleus of
their military establishment. Captain Gary, who had succeeded
Sir Gervase Lucas as Governor on his death, in May, 1007, was
now displaced by Captain Young, of the Company's Marine,
who became Deputy-Governor under the orders of the President
and Council at Surat, though he did not long retain the post.
In 1004 the Marine was afi'orded an opportunity of dis-
tinguishing itself. Sevajee,! the fVimous chieftain who
founded the Mahratta power in India, assumed the title
of Rajah on the death of his father, Shahjee, and, having
turned his attention to naval affairs, collected, according
to the account of the Company's factors at Carwar, a fleet
of eighty-seven vessels, manned with four thousand men.
* Bruce's " Annals," vol. ii., p. 200.
+ Sevajee was, according to Orme, Sir Thomas Roe, Bernier, and others, des-
cended from the Rajahs of Chittore, who trace their lineage from Porus, whom
Alexander overthrew in his famous invasion of India. The first time this prince
of freebooters came into conflict with the English was in the year 1661, when,
after assassinating the King of Beejapoor's general, and defeating his army, he
captured the town of Rajapoor, plundered the English factory, and refused to
release the Company's agents, whom he confined for two years in a hill fort, until
a ransom had been paid for them. Sevajee committed this act to revenge him-
self on the English, "n'hom he accused, and possibly with truth, of supplymg
shot and shell to his enemies while laying siege to Panala, from which he had
just escaped.