Abstract
This article discusses the capture of a single ship in 1763, which involved an unusually complicated sequence of events that illuminates the distinction between piracy and privateering. The vessel in question was the frigate Tranquebar, which belonged to the Danish Asiatic Company – a trading company that, in the years 1732–1772, had a monopoly over Danish shipping in Asia. The episode involving the Danish frigate, which ended up in Portuguese hands after its capture by Maratha ships, raises questions about the nature of piracy and prize law in the context of international relations between maritime powers in times of change.
The scene of the action, sources and issues
The Danish Asiatic Company's frigate Tranquebar was on its way to Surat, north of Bombay (Mumbai), 1 to buy cotton, and then was due to sail on to the two Danish trading posts in eastern India – Serampore in Bengal and Tranquebar (Tarangambadi), south of Madras (Chennai). The ship never reached any of these destinations because, on 13 February 1763, it was captured by a large number of Indian sailors off the southernmost part of the Malabar Coast. A few days later, it was subjected to another seizure, this time by Portuguese sailors, who transported the frigate and some of the crew of 85 Danish sailors to the Portuguese trading post at Goa, where protracted legal wrangling between the Portuguese and the Danes began over the rights to the ship and cargo. However, before the Portuguese capture of the frigate, a small number (probably about 25) of the Danish sailors had been transferred to the Indian sailors’ vessels, which took them to a place near Bombay where one of the ship's two supercargoes, Herman Friderich Hinckel, was sent ashore to obtain the ransom demanded for releasing the sailors.
It is possible to follow the sequence of events in 1763 closely through two diaries, written by Hinckel and Andreas Hiernøe, respectively. 2 The latter resided in the Danish lodge at Calicut (Kalikut), a few miles from the place of the capture, from where the Danish authorities sent him to Goa to negotiate with the Portuguese. In addition to the two diaries, the case has left scattered remarks in the minutes of meetings kept by the Asiatic Company in Copenhagen, as well as in letters between Danish officials in India and the company's directors. 3 Furthermore, in the Portuguese National Archives, we have found a very interesting court document and other documents that shed light on the case of the detention of the ship from a Portuguese point of view. 4 In contrast, we know of only two Indian sources relating to the seizure – namely, references in books on Maratha history written by Indian historians. The first is by Surendranath Sen, who, citing Portuguese sources, writes that ‘in 1763, for example, the Peshwa's captains seized a Dutch ship off Anjidiv; they also took a Danish vessel, which was rescued later by a Portuguese squadron’. 5 The second is a statement by P. S. Pissurlencar: ‘On January 20, 1764 (Rajab 16) Madhavrao wrote a letter to the Viceroy demanding the return of Mardangad and the Danish ship that the Portuguese had carried off and to achieve this object, he appointed Janoji Dhulap’. 6
In the available Danish and Portuguese source material, the Indian sailors are referred to as ‘Marathans’, and this term will also be used in this article. The Maratha Empire was the largest Indian statehood in the eighteenth century and, around 1760, encompassed the bulk of the northern half of the Indian subcontinent. It consisted of many sub or vassal states, one of which had the stronghold of Gheria (Vijayadurg) on the Konkan coast as its capital. 7 The Maratha sailors who attacked the Danish frigate lived in this town.
The purposes of this article are, first, to show how this case provides an insight into various forms of power relations, alliance formations, and cultural encounters and clashes on both the national and the personal level, and, second, to make a nuanced contribution to the understanding of how piracy and privateering proceeded in this part of the world in the mid eighteenth century, including how differently the international guidelines for privateers and prize law could be perceived and complied with. Following an introduction on the Danish Asiatic Company and the concepts of piracy and privateers in the law of the sea in the eighteenth century, we offer a thorough presentation of the Danish and Portuguese versions of the capture of the frigate. The final part of the article mostly involves a discussion of the reasons for the actions taken by the parties involved and considerations of the cultural encounter between the powers in the specific case of the frigate Tranquebar. 8
The Danish Asiatic Company: the most successful Danish enterprise in the eighteenth century
Denmark had economic interests in India from 1620, when the first Danish East India company made an agreement with a prince in south-eastern India to lease a small area in order to establish a trading post, where it was possible to gather commodities from different parts of southern Asia and ship them to Denmark. 9 This small town – Tranquebar – was the nodal point of the Danish India trade up to the end of the eighteenth century and the centre of Danish administration in India until 1845, when the British bought the remaining Danish areas.
From 1732 to 1772, the Danish Asiatic Company had a monopoly on Danish trade in Asia (in practice, India and China). It was a joint-stock company – in some years with around 275 shareholders – but the Danish authorities, as well as many prominent businessmen, were closely involved in running the enterprise. Each year between 1732 and 1807, the company sent at least one ship to India and one to China. From China, tea was the most important commodity, while India, among other things, provided cotton fabrics (many in popular colours), silk, pepper and saltpetre. Most of the company's commodities were re-exported from Copenhagen, which resulted in large profits, especially in the second half of the eighteenth century.
The growing demand for Asiatic products prompted the company to establish three new trading posts in India in the 1750s. Colachel and Calicut were both situated in south-western regions with substantial pepper production, and Serampore, in Bengal, was at the heart of one of the largest centres for textile manufacturing. Both of the new lodges in the south-west declined after flourishing in the 1750s and 1760s. In contrast, Serampore developed into the most important Danish trading post in India at the end of the century. It was difficult for the Danish traders in Tranquebar to get the commodities they desired because of acts of war and increasing competition from the financially strong British East India Company.
Pirates and privateers: armed robbery at sea
In research on maritime power and warfare, a distinction is generally made between piracy and privateering. 10 Piracy has always existed in many parts of the world, although in several different forms. At one end of the spectrum, we find small attacks by people who normally live by fishing or farming but, in difficult times, supplement their usual income with quick money from plundering a vessel. At the other end, there are large, well-organized, well-equipped groups that systematically attack a significant number of vessels in certain waters. Unlike piracy, privateering was specifically linked to acts of war and strictly regulated by state authorities. It was a time-limited phenomenon, traceable from the late Middle Ages to 1856, when international agreement was reached to abandon these military operations because they hampered the sharp increase in world trade.
Privateering was at its peak during several major wars between European countries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when privateers – which could be considered seamen using temporary military auxiliary vessels – were seen as a cheap way for states to expand their military power. Clarification of the field of activity of privateers was given in around 1700. 11 This was done by legislation in individual countries, which stipulated that a ship could only participate in privateering when it had been granted a special permit by the state in the form of a letter describing what kind of ships the privateer had the right to seize and take to a port city, where a special court (consisting of judges from the state to which the privateer belonged) would determine whether it was a ‘good prize’ – that is, whether the seizure was legal. The confiscated vessels were primarily ships with cargo belonging to persons from the nation or nations with which the state was at war. When a privateer boarded a neutral ship and contraband goods (equipment that could be used for military purposes and was being transported to a port in a hostile state) were found, it was also permissible to seize that ship, regardless of who owned the contraband goods. If the judgement of the court of prizes was in favour of the privateer, the seized goods could be put up for auction, and the revenue was then divided between the shipowner and crew according to fixed terms of distribution. In many countries, a certain percentage also went to the king or the state. 12 It was also emphasized that a privateer was not allowed to take away any items before the court’s decision. And if the court deemed the seizure illegal, the privateer had to pay reasonable compensation. There were narrow time limits on the prize court’s actions. For instance, the first Danish law concerning privateering (a set of rules from 1710) pointed out that the court had to complete its examination within 24 hours, and its ruling had to be announced no later than a week after that. Despite the rather detailed set of rules, there was much room for interpretation in the prize courts – for instance, with regard to the rights of ships from neutral states and the notion of contraband goods. 13
The right to use the sea had been an important subject for discussion among jurists since 1609, when Hugo Grotius introduced the concept of mare liberum (the freedom of the seas) and wrote about piracy as an action that was hostis humani generis – ‘an enemy of the common interest of humanity’. This was followed by a debate between Grotius and John Selden on the open nature of territorial seas. 14 Also related to this debate was the discussion of a land's dominium maris (‘dominion of the seas’) along its coast. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Denmark and the Nordic countries advocated a criterion of maritime jurisdiction of four miles from shore, which would allow for fishing, while the Mediterranean countries and the Dutch Republic defined the coast of a country as the range of a cannon shot, which was finally consolidated in the idea of three nautical miles. 15 This principle is still applied, although the generally accepted limit today is 12 nautical miles.
Concerning piracy, two definitions are now in use. According to the United Nations, piracy consists of five elements: (1) a criminal act of violence and predation; (2) in international waters; (3) in a two-ship situation; (4) for private ends; (5) by the crew of private vessels. 16 The International Maritime Bureau uses a more inclusive definition: any attack on a ship for political or environmental reasons qualifies as piracy. 17
The capture of the frigate Tranquebar in 1763 involved two European states – Portugal and Denmark – with different colonial strategies in Asia. However, they were both low-profile, neutral states during the Seven Years War (1756–1763). 18 Portugal, a pioneer in the Asian trade adventure, was a colonial power in decline and struggling to maintain its last possessions in India, while Denmark's interests were restricted to international trade between Copenhagen and ports in different parts of the world. During several of the great wars between 1720 and 1800, Danish shipowners and captains managed to benefit from Danish neutrality and take on freight work, which in peacetime was carried out by ships of the belligerent powers.
Danish versions of the capture of the Tranquebar
We now turn to a more lengthy account of what happened to the Danish frigate and her crew on the Malabar Coast in 1763. As the Danish sailor Herman Friderich Hinckel wrote the most comprehensive account of the complicated chain of events, it is fitting to begin with his description.
The Marathans’ seizure through Hinckel’s eyes
As a supercargo, Hinckel was responsible for Danish trade during the voyage and, for this purpose, the Asiatic Company in Copenhagen equipped him with a negotiation ledger to enter goods and prizes. He also used it to make notes on the course of the trip. For instance, on 30 January 1763, he wrote that the crew had exchanged news with the men of an English ship near Ceylon. The Danish sailors were told that navigation along the Malabar Coast was quite dangerous because of piracy, as Maratha pirates had recently taken four or five small ships ‘from the English whose worth they may fear’. 19 However, the Danish captain, Johan Otto Rottwitt, thought that the southernmost part of the Malabar Coast was free from piracy. In his view, it was in due time to put the ship ‘in defensive position’ (that is, move all guns up on deck) when it was anchored at the Danish trading post in Calicut. This proved to be a miscalculation, for when the Tranquebar was a few miles south of Calicut on 13 February, 19 ships appeared on the horizon and soon positioned themselves around the frigate, which was fired on from all sides. Rottwitt saw no alternative but to strike the flag and surrender. 20
Some of the Danish sailors tried to resist the attack and four of them were killed. Rottwitt, Hinckel and several other members of the frigate's leadership were transferred to the Marathans’ command ship, while the pirates set about transferring the coffers and precious cochineal to their vessels – products that were to be sold at a large profit in Surat. The transfer of goods continued in the following days, when Hinckel, apparently the most linguistically gifted of the Danes, was asked to go over to the frigate and open the captain's and his own bureaus, which were then stripped of their valuables.
The treatment of the Danish sailors was beneath contempt. As Hinckel confided in his book, ‘they tore the garments off their bodies to near a shirt’ and marooned the Danes with only rice and water. On 14 February, Hinckel wrote that it was an ordeal to ‘be slaves to so diabolical and pagan a people’ but ‘for the present time there is no help to us but good patience’. Two days later, the Danish sailors received an even greater shock. The Maratha commander ‘came down to us … and proclaimed that we should all lose our heads’, and ‘we imagined this to be possible’ since these people ‘have no religion’ and therefore probably ‘no conscience either’. 21
When the commander sent his ‘lingo’ – his assistant and interpreter Seindersein – later that day to pick up Hinckel, the supercargo seriously feared for his life, but the commander just wanted to know if there was more cargo on the frigate than that discovered by the Marathans. When Hinckel was brought back to the commander an hour later, it was only a matter of keeping the man company. In the meantime, the commander had become heavily intoxicated, so the anxious supercargo found it wise to shower him with compliments. Not surprisingly, Hinckel was called for once more a few days later. Then, he had to entertain the commander with a flute, playing for two to three hours, and to give him some headache medicine.
Even though the threat of death was not carried out, the Danish sailors could by no means be certain, and these fears were reinforced when they were visited on 17 February by an English captain, who conveyed a request from the Danish authorities in Calicut to release the sailors. The commander then replied that ‘it was not possible to send us ashore, as his order was to take us to Gheria’. Hinckel noted that ‘there must be something else that we’ll probably get to know’ and added that the Marathans’ reception of the English captain was ‘conducted as a ceremony of greatest accuracy’. 22
The Portuguese capture and the stay in Gheria
A few hours after this meeting, a large ship and a small ship, which the Marathans assumed to be Portuguese, came into sight. Hinckel and the other Danes on the pirates’ main ship were ordered to go below deck and stay there until further notice. The next morning, they found that the Portuguese had managed to ‘recapture’ and sail away with the Danish frigate, which still had the majority of the Danish sailors on board – and this despite the fact that only a single shot had been fired during the confrontation between the Portuguese and the Marathans. 23
When the Marathans sailed on to Gheria, they proved combative. Hinckel noted that a two-hour battle with a fleet of Portuguese vessels – 60 to 70 small merchant ships, convoyed by two warships – led to the Marathans capturing no less than 12 vessels, which then followed to Gheria. The day after this show of force, the lingo Seindersein finally revealed why the 25 Danes who were still in the custody of the Marathans had not yet been released. He forced the Danes to sign a document stating that the Marathans would obtain 6,000 rupees when the ship came to Bombay. If the Danes did not, they would keep the Danes hostage until they died.
However, the lingo, who had previously been in service with the English and at least pretended to know a lot about the working procedures in Bombay, promised that he would ‘play tricks on the Marathans’ so that the Danes would not have to pay anything. The Danish sailors took advantage of this surprising opportunity and gave Seindersein and the commander's secretary a special consignment of 300 rupees – that is, the promise of payment of this amount when possible. ‘We expect that this present will help a lot with our liberation’, Hinckel noted. Hinckel also took advantage of the new situation by asking the lingo if it was possible to obtain some of the most important Danish ship papers, and was allowed to do so. 24
It is through Hinckel's account that we know something about Maratha politics in this case. It is difficult to know how Hinckel perceived the Maratha seamen's affiliations. However, it is clear that he very quickly realized that the Maratha seamen had a close connection with the local rulers in Gheria. If he did not know that from the beginning, he at least discovered it on 9 March, when the Marathans’ commander's brother, the regent and admiral of Gheria, came to visit the ship. 25 Hinckel appears to have only gradually realized that the regime in Gheria was part of a larger entity, and that the Marathans played a significant and ambiguous role in the region.
After their warm reception in Gheria, Hinckel had the opportunity to see again some of the valuable things that the Marathans had acquired. He was also asked to assess what the seized products (sailcloth, silk clothing, velvet, gold and silverware, mercury) would bring if they were traded in Europe. In this way, the Marathans got an idea of the possible resale values in Bombay. It elicited a sarcastic comment from the experienced Danish merchant: ‘If they were as foolish in their robberies as they are in trade, they would not have so much progress’. 26
However, the Marathans also knew how to use the Danes’ skills in other ways, and this led to an interesting shift in the relations between the two parties. The Maratha admiral had a severely weakened arm but hoped that the Danish doctor would be able to heal it. The doctor did what he could on daily visits to the admiral, whose arm was rubbed with an ointment. After a few days, many people began to come to the house where the Danes were living to complain about various maladies and aches and pains, and ‘the doctor had to give them something to be let off’. The Danish sailors were rewarded for their efforts. At his first medical consultation, the admiral gave them tea and sugar – ‘it was probably of our own, but a great present for us’ – and they were also promised daily food supplies ‘from his table’. A few days later, Hinckel was invited to visit the admiral, and his mother, sisters and three wives served him coconuts, sugar and milk. ‘I must confess that they treated me very nicely’, wrote Hinckel, who also praised the food – ‘chickens in curry, fish and good rice’ – that the family brought to the Danes’ house every day. At the request of the Danes, the house was provided with a table and several beds, so it was no longer necessary for them to sleep on the floor, and new clothes were also supplied. 27
Hinckel and the redeeming of the Danish sailors
On 15 March, after six days in Gheria, the seriousness of the situation returned when the lingo informed the sailors that the Maratha fleet was to go to a place near Bombay, taking the Danes with them, and they would only get their freedom after the payment of 14,000 rupees. As this was more than twice the amount they had previously accepted, the Danes protested vehemently, and Hinckel declared that the lingo would receive nothing of the gift promised to him by the Danes. The lingo replied that, for now, it was just a matter of putting a signature to a document, which he would submit to the admiral, and he assured the Danes that they would never have to pay the money. 28
Two days later, the Danish sailors were visited by two Brahmans who had been sent by the admiral and presented a demand for 50,000 rupees. The following day they came again, but the amount had been adjusted to 40,000 rupees; when they were once again met with Danish refusal, the sum was further reduced to 30,000 rupees. The Danes realized then that there was no choice but to sign. However, they did finally manage to get the demand reduced to 18,000 rupees.
On 23 March, the 23 captured sailors boarded a large ship with 26 guns to take them to Bombay. Immediately before their departure, as they were accustomed to as representatives of the Asiatic Company, they paid a farewell visit to the local ruler – in this case, the admiral – to thank him for ‘the proven kindness to us’. The admiral then acknowledged this by giving Hinckel eight rupees ‘to buy chickens and vegetables’. 29 The Maratha ships anchored a few miles south of Bombay, where Hinckel was ordered to enter the metropolis along with a Brahman to obtain 18,000 rupees, while the other Danes had to remain on their vessel. Hinckel and his travel companions were hoping for a loan from Bombay's British governor, Charles Crommelin, but his immediate reaction was disheartening. Hinckel put it this way: ‘He did not dare to fall out with those people [the Marathans] for the sake of other nations [in this case, the Danes], for he stood in friendship with them’. 30 This alludes to the fact that the British and the Marathans had had a trade agreement since 1739 and, in 1756, the two parties carried out a joint attack on the so-called ‘Angris’, who until then had practised piracy in Gheria. 31
However, Crommelin took good care of Hinckel, providing the supercargo with lodgings, food and drink, and new clothes. When Hinckel assured Crommelin that the Asiatic Company's board of directors would cover all the expenses that the governor might incur in connection with this matter, he was persuaded, after many days of reflection, to lend the Danes the sum requested. However, the bills of exchange would not be handed over until the Marathans’ messengers brought the captured Danes into the city.
A messenger was sent out to the Marathans’ fleet but returned to the governor's residence without the Danes and with a demand to send the bills of exchange first. The governor then became angry and refused to lend any money. Hinckel was thus obliged to procure bills of exchange from the governor in the town of Tranquebar instead, more than 1,000 kilometres away. 32 By good fortune, Hinckel received a reply from Tranquebar within three months. It gave him the right to draw 24,000 rupees on the Asiatic Company. Hinckel had, in addition to the 18,000 rupees for the ransom, requested 6,000 rupees for new clothes and other necessary expenses.
In the meantime, however, much had happened in and around Bombay. Hinckel had purchased the release of the 15 least valuable Danish sailors for a total of just 300 rupees, while several others had died and two had been released due to serious illness. At the beginning of August, there were only three men left in the care of the Marathans – Captain Rottwitt, his personal assistant and the other supercargo, Georg Christian Huulbech. Since the Marathans considered it likely that these three men would also die shortly, the ransom money was reduced to 4,000 rupees. Therefore, it was important for Hinckel to avoid the pirates becoming aware that he had suddenly got the opportunity to pay six times that amount.
Hinckel turned to Crommelin for advice. The governor did not hesitate and suggested that he leave Bombay as soon as possible because then the Marathans would think that the response from the Danish governor had been negative and Hinckel had therefore given up all hope of seeing his travelling companions again. Crommelin argued that this would undoubtedly lead the pirates to release the three remaining Danes without receiving the ransom money. Hinckel was probably surprised by this answer but, as he wrote in his notebook, he was also relieved at the prospect of getting away; however, he also wrote of his guilty conscience at leaving his fellow Danes behind. In mid September, he was given the opportunity to sail on an English ship to Madras and from there to Europe. But before the voyage, he issued a bill of exchange to Crommelin, who promised to use the money to assist the three Danes when they hopefully got out of captivity. 33 Two letters, written later on, show that they were released on 22 October, without payment of the ransom, just as Crommelin had predicted. 34
The Portuguese capture from Hiernøe’s point of view
As mentioned, the other main source on the capture was written by Andreas Hiernøe in Goa, where he had been tasked by the Danish authorities in Calicut to do what was in his power to return the frigate to Danish hands. In his lengthy ‘report ledger’, we find not only statements of what he saw, heard and thought, but also copies of many letters that he received or sent. Hiernøe was careful to write down everything of relevance – obviously to show his superiors that he had carried out his mission with care.
In the days after arriving in Goa on 16 March, Hiernøe held extensive talks with the Danish sailors who had ended up there because they stayed on the frigate during the capture. They told him that the Marathans left the frigate about two hours before the arrival of the Portuguese and, in the meantime, the Danish crew made sure to hoist the Danish flag to mark the nationality of the ship. When Hiernøe was at dinner on one of his first days in Goa with Colonel Landrazet, 35 one of the most prominent officials in the town, the Danish envoy received a different interpretation of the course of events. When pressed, however, Landrazet eventually had to admit that the Danes had raised their flag. But he pointed out that it was not on the flagpole, as was proper. Hiernøe replied that this was because the Marathans had shot down the flagpole. 36
The dinner conversation with Landrazet was the first in a long series of conflict-ridden meetings that Hiernøe would experience during the 14 months he stayed in Goa. However, what characterizes his description most of all is the feeling that the city's key players – the viceroy, the city council and the judge – all tried to obstruct him, while initiatives were repeatedly taken for actions that, in Hiernøe's view, were contrary to the principles of international law. 37
As early as 22 March, Hiernøe filed a protest with the viceroy that the ship was being unloaded and dismantled, for that should not have been happening until the city council had pronounced a sentence in the prize case. On 20 April, the Portuguese also began auctioning off the ship's cargo – not only meat, butter and other perishable goods, but also red wine and mercury, among other things. Once again, Hiernøe filed a protest – this time with both the viceroy and the judge – but to no avail. In late April, however, the judge complied with Hiernøe's request to question the Danish sailors. A Swedish soldier living in Goa took on the task of interpreter. But Hiernøe was once again disappointed: ‘It is really to deplore the tardiness … of the justice system’, he wrote on 14 May. The sailors had by then been called six times to make their depositions, but only one witness had been questioned. In the following days, however, the five sailors who were able to understand and speak Dutch had the opportunity to give their evidence. 38
It was not until 4 September – more than six months after the seizure and after most of the cargo and part of the inventory had been sold off – that a sentence was passed by the city council. 39 It found that the Tranquebar and its cargo were a ‘good prize’ for the Portuguese – that is, the seizure was a legal action. An appeal was immediately raised, but the Danes did not have much hope for a different result as the same men sat in judgement in both the first and second instances. Hiernøe and the mate therefore thought of sending most of the seamen to the Danish lodge in Calicut, as this would be cheaper for the Asiatic Company than to let all of them stay in Goa for many months. But as such an action could easily lead the Portuguese to believe that the Danes had given up their case, they agreed to allow all the sailors to remain in Goa for the time being.
In a letter to the governorate of Tranquebar, sent by ship on 16 September, Hiernøe admitted that he was having increasing doubts regarding the chances of regaining the frigate. At the same time, he hinted for the first time that it might be necessary to seek action in Europe for the ship and cargo. 40 During his last months in Goa, Hiernøe spent a lot of time collecting documentation that might be used in a lawsuit or perhaps an insurance case in Europe. In addition to the court file, there was a validation of the ship and the as-yet-unsold cargo, plus an account of what the auctions had raised. For Hiernøe, it was urgent to obtain this information before the Portuguese sent the frigate on a new voyage and a ship departed from Goa to Lisbon. Hiernøe now wanted to refer the matter to the King of Portugal.
After heavy pressure, the judge accepted a validation of the frigate by an English captain in November – a few months before it went to Mauritius, despite the court of appeal not having yet made its decision. But Hiernøe was unsuccessful in obtaining the other documents in time and, in a letter to the Danes in Calicut on 31 December, he wrote: ‘it seems that they are intentionally looking to stay with me so that the case cannot be sent to Europe this year [season]’. 41 At last, in mid April 1764, the council in Goa made its prize court decision in the court of appeal. As expected, the case went against the Danes. Shortly thereafter, Hiernøe boarded a ship to take him back to Calicut. The Portuguese ship bound for Lisbon had departed in February.
Hiernøe's report ledger has little information on what happened to the Danish sailors in Goa, 42 but we may suppose that they gradually left the town by signing on with different vessels that used this trading post on their voyages. However, Hiernøe noted that six able seamen and a ship's boy converted to Catholicism during their stay in Goa – perhaps hoping that this would benefit them in the future. This is in accordance with a list made by the local authorities of the 85 people who were admitted to the Catholic community in Goa between February 1763 and January 1764. Among them are at least four men with names that appear to be Danish. 43
The Portuguese version of the seizure of the Tranquebar
What arguments were put forward for and against the Portuguese claim of a good prize? To answer this question, we can examine not only Hiernøe's report book, but also a court document in the Portuguese National Archives entitled ‘Legal claim in favour of the Royal Treasure on the Danish ship Tranquebar, taken by the Maratha navy and this by the Portuguese’. 44 The author of the document is unknown, 45 but the sentence ‘The enemy [Marathans] seized the Danish ship on 13 February, this present year’ shows that it is a contemporary source. 46
With regard to what actually happened at sea 13–16 February 1763, the Portuguese source adds no information of importance to what is already known from the Danish reports. The juridical argumentation, however, helps us to understand the relations between these two non-hegemonic powers – Denmark and Portugal – as well as the Marathans from a different perspective. 47
Portuguese legal arguments
The text is a long justification of the Portuguese rights to the Tranquebar as booty of war. The author argues that the Marathans got the ship by an act of war, which they had the right to do according to international law, where the action was carried out by a sovereign authority regardless of whether the reason for the war was fair or not. 48 Likewise, the Portuguese were entitled to capture the Danish ship in a military attack against the Marathans. Portugal was not at war with Denmark, 49 and the seizure was not an act of hostility towards Denmark, as the Danes had lost ownership of the frigate to the Marathans because it had been in the possession of the people of Gheria for more than three days. Using the theories of Hugo Grotius, 50 the author also found that due to the non-belligerent relations between Denmark and Portugal, Denmark had no ‘natural right’ to take back the ship. In accordance with rights of international law (‘o direito de gentes’), the Danes had to proceed against Portugal if they wanted to regain the vessel. 51
Regarding the Marathans’ attack, 52 the author states that war cannot be waged without the authorization of povo livre (sovereign), for instance a king, and whoever acts without sovereign power is committing a crime of lese-majesty. However, he adds: ‘Who would say that the Marathan does not have sovereign power … receiving and sending ambassadors?’ According to Grotius it is formal relations (with ambassadors) that recognize the sovereignty of a country. Not admitting an ambassador is an offence; a conquered king cannot send ambassadors because he has lost his sovereignty to a superior power.
The author also notes that the sovereignty of a state or realm consists in the power of being able to act independently of another higher power. Continuing with this theme, he points out that the Maratha state acted with the legitimacy of a princely realm, and that it had autonomous power to enact laws in the name of the prince, although he was a vassal of the raja. It also had a political body and courts, and was able to draw up contracts, make alliances and declare war (for example, against the Moghuls). 53 In fact, the sovereignty of the Marathans was comparable to that of European states and, thus, it could arm a navy like any nation in Europe. Its power was recognized by the powers of Asia and Europe, which sent and received ambassadors according to international practice between sovereign nations. In light of this, it would be an insult if the acquisition of this ship were contested, and an affront to supreme and sovereign dignity. The author played a trump card by making some comparisons: no one today failed to recognize Holland, although the Dutch had been vassals of Spain, and nobody failed to recognize the Commonwealth led by Oliver Cromwell, although he was technically a usurper.
The author rejects all talk of the Maratha attack as an act of piracy because pirates were persons who attempted to obtain something without sovereign authority – for greed, robbing everyone indiscriminately. 54 But he notes that people in the Maratha state were entitled to set up privateering ships with the permission of the sovereign, ‘as is practised in all nations in Europe’. In this context, he saw the acts of Admiral Maratha Kanhoji Angria (1669–1729) as a sign of Maratha territoriality, while colonial powers might consider them acts of piracy. 55 All in all, justifying the Maratha action led the author to fully justify Indian policies in confronting European mercantilism. He defends the legality of Maratha acts, recognizing their status as being within the rule of law in an international context. He justifies the Maratha action against the Danish ship as an act of Maratha territorial defence. Therefore, the Marathans acted in good faith and according to the law of custom. 56
The Portuguese version in Danish sources
The Portuguese arguments were reproduced in a lengthy letter that Hiernøe wrote to the Danish governor, Peter Hermann Abbestée, in Tranquebar on 6 October. 57 Here, he rejected several of the points in the judgement by the city council in Goa. In particular, he concentrated his attention on the claim that the admiral in Gheria had to be regarded as a sovereign ruler who could wage war against whoever he pleased. In his opinion, this was completely wrong. Hiernøe admitted, however, that the admiral certainly did not act very loyally to ‘his master’ – the supreme leader of the Marathans – who had made peace with both the Portuguese and the English. The admiral attacked Portuguese vessels whenever he could, whereas he ‘with raison’ let the English ‘for whose great naval power he must at present fear himself … pass by’. 58
Of course, Hiernøe could not deny that the Danish ship had been at the Marathans’ disposal for three days, but this was not an argument for rejecting the Danes’ property rights. After all, the Marathans had fled before the Portuguese arrived at the ship, which by this time was flying the Danish flag. Moreover, it was striking that the Portuguese did nothing to subdue the pirates. They were apparently only interested in seizing the Danish frigate. Finally, Hiernøe countered the claim that the frigate was carrying contraband in the form of rifles and ‘other munitions of war’. They were to be used solely for the defence of the ship and Danish establishments in Asia. Hiernøe concluded that ‘the King of Portugal’ apparently ‘considers everyone who sails these waters and is not provided with his flag and passport as an enemy and their ship and cargo of good prize’. He did not believe that English, French and Dutch captains complied with these rules. 59
In his letter to Abbestée of 6 October, Hiernøe also mentioned that he had just written to Governor Crommelin of Bombay to hear how the British regarded the leader of the Marathans in Gheria. The response came on 27 November. Crommelin told him that Rodrajee Dulab was not considered a pirate but ‘a subject of the Marathans, by whose authority he maintains a fleet at Gheria, which attacks all ships and vessels it meets that do not take his pass excepting ours, being in alliance with us’. In addition, Hiernøe received an introduction to the political developments in the region in recent years. It appeared that, among other things, Colonel Landrazet, as Portuguese ambassador, had four years earlier concluded a treaty with the Marathans in their administrative capital, Poona (Pune). The Portuguese had then provided the Marathans with considerable military support in the form of 300 European soldiers in the siege of another Indian city. ‘I mention this to show you that the Portuguese couldn’t look upon these people as pirates’, Crommelin added. Moreover, he noted that the Dutch had also concluded a peace treaty with the Marathans. 60 The letter from Crommelin gives the impression that the Danish sailors and colonial officials were quite unaware of the current state of affairs on the Indian west coast. It was only the second time that the company had sent a ship all the way up to Surat, and the two Danish lodges on the southernmost part of the coast were only about 10 years old.
The parties in the conflict and their motives
The Marathans
Whether the Maratha sailors were robbers and pirates, as their European enemies claimed, or just trying to create a Maratha sea power 61 depends not only on the perspective taken by historians. 62 The documents we have discussed in this article show that, in the eighteenth century, the European powers were well aware of Maratha as a sovereign state, and did not hesitate to recognize it in their treaties. But one may ask: Up to what point did the Maratha sailors behave according to their own law? In the 1716 Ajnapatra (a royal edict on the principles of Maratha policy), it is stated that the main task of the Maratha navy was to patrol the coast. 63 The point under discussion in the case of Tranquebar is, however, if the merchandise on board was confiscated without authority in law and if the case was reported by the sailors to the Maratha government. 64 We can only partially answer these questions. The Danish sources do not address them in full. It was not relevant for Hinckel to write about these matters and, for Hiernøe, it was the relationship with the Portuguese and the law in relation to the ship and its contents that was the focus of attention. In fact, issuing passes and harassing and seizing foreign ships without passes, and taking them to the coast, were the main tasks of the navies that patrolled the Konkan coast, as a source of sovereign power for their countries. 65
The Maratha assault on the Danish ship might have happened in the context of a routine pass control. However, having occurred so far from the coast of Konkan, it casts doubt on the legitimacy of the Marathans’ actions and raises the question of whether they crossed the boundaries of state-controlled violence. Outside the Maratha sea borders, it was an act of predation. Besides, Hinckel's detailed report of what happened on 13 February tells us that the Maratha sailors fired many shots at the Danish frigate before boarding the ship. Such behaviour would not have been in keeping with a pass control. 66
The Danes
As mentioned, Hiernøe hoped for a more favourable decision in Europe than the findings of the council in Goa, and his view was strengthened by conversations with sailors from other states, especially Britain, who allegedly found that the local authorities could in no way have the court on their side. But was the case ever dealt with in Portugal? The few notices on the seizure in the archives of the Asiatic Company's central administration leave the distinct impression that the company's management chose to forgo this opportunity and instead get some compensation from the insurance company in London where the ship and cargo were insured. Judging by the minutes of the general meeting held on 29 March 1765, the company had by this time received an unspecified amount by this means. 67
More interesting, however, are two remarks in the board of directors’ book of resolutions. In the minutes of the meeting of 24 January 1764, we see that the accountant asked the Asiatic Company's president, Adam Gottlob Moltke, whether the treaties allowed the company to complain to the Royal Household in Lisbon about the ship and cargo, to which Moltke replied that this was ‘absolutely not’ a proper solution, as the company probably would gain nothing from it. And when, in the meeting on 8 January 1765, the board of directors decided to forward the files from Goa to the insurance company, it was agreed to inform the Danish consul in Lisbon that he was not to take any action in the matter ‘unless expressly requested by the company’. 68
One may question the resigned attitude of the company's management. However, it makes sense given that Moltke was not only the president of the Asiatic Company, but also effectively Denmark's prime minister, and in balancing the company's financial interests with state interests – which included keeping Denmark neutral in the wars that involved so many other states – the interests of the company had to give way; besides the successful Asiatic Company could afford the occasional failed expedition. So, what must have been deeply frustrating for Hiernøe was apparently just a minor annoyance for the company's management, which in the 1760s usually dispatched two or three frigates each year to destinations in Asia.
The Portuguese
Regarding the Portuguese, it seems plausible that the sailors just took advantage of the situation when they attacked the Danish frigate. There were two motives for keeping the ship: economics and politics. In a 1764 letter to the King, Viceroy Saldanha (1758–1765) congratulated himself on the profits from the ship: ‘The prize we took last year from the Marathans was a beautiful Danish ship that benefited over 200,000 rupees to the royal tax authorities, which was a great help to the arsenal’. 69 The capture of the Danish ship offered a possibility to consolidate the regional power of the Portuguese against the Marathans and their Danish competitors.
The seizure of the ship took place in the context of the absolutist reforms led by Marquis of Pombal, José I's first minister, in the Estado da India. 70 The Portuguese presence in Goa went back to the fifteenth century, but Portugal was perceived and described as a decadent entity by the eighteenth century. 71 Today, Portuguese national historiography assumes that Portugal was a weak power at that time. The Estado da India was a political-administrative entity that took part in a mixed economy along the Malabar Coast – a combination of relative military superiority and pillage was the main source of income for the enclave. 72 In the eighteenth century, the survival of the Estado da India depended on the successful interplay with local powers and the European powers.
In this context, it is interesting to read Pissurlencar's opinion on why the Marathans did not complain to the Portuguese about getting the Tranquebar back: ‘But the Poona court did nothing more than this. The reason for inaction is obvious. The Peshwa was to campaign against Haider Ali and he probably thought that the Portuguese co-operation in the task could be enlisted’. 73 With the capture of the Danish frigate, Portugal showed the Marathans that it was not willing to give up control of the sea. In front of the Danes, Portugal showed its strength in the face of direct European competitors. The Portuguese administration was interested in demonstrating the autonomy of its decision. This latter is a source of the international politics that find consensus with a large dose of pragmatism.
Conclusion
Ships have been captured by acts of war or piracy throughout history and in all parts of the world. What makes the seizure of the Danish frigate Tranquebar in 1763 more interesting than many other incidents is that (1) the ship was captured by people acting for two different states over the course of a few days; (2) the events were described in great detail from differing points of view while they were taking place; (3) and the resulting texts give an insight into international maritime law at the time, and how it could be interpreted and used.
The first of the three main sources, Hinckel's negotieprotokol, was written by a Dane who played a key role in the sequence of events. It describes many unpleasant episodes, but the colourful description gives a fascinating impression of the personal relations between some of the Danish and Maratha actors, and how these developed – especially in Gheria, where the Danish doctor treated the admiral and other local people, and Hinckel was invited to eat dinner with the admiral's family. Via daily contact with influential persons in Gheria, Hinckel became aware of ‘cracks’ in the Maratha society that could be exploited by the Danes. Especially striking is the lingo Seindersein's ambiguous attitude. Indeed, he stopped working for the Maratha leaders after arriving in Bombay. 74
Hiernøe's account, like Hinckel's, is marked by his place of sojourn and his task – namely, to wrench the frigate out of the hands of the Portuguese. In his opinion, they repeatedly broke the laws concerning privateering – for instance, by spinning out the prize case and auctioning off most of the cargo before the city council made its decision. Perhaps Hiernøe had in mind the Danish law concerning privateering, which obliged the prize court to pronounce judgement eight days at the latest after notification of the seizure.
From the Portuguese point of view, the understanding of the situation was quite different, as stated in the anonymous court document in the National Archives in Lisbon. The author of this text argued that the Maratha state in Gheria was to be considered a sovereign polity, even if it was a vassal state. Therefore, the Maratha seamen had the right to capture a ship from another state in the case of war and, in the author's opinion, the Marathans were at war with the Danes at that time. Furthermore, the Marathans had had the frigate in their possession for more than three days before it was conquered by the Portuguese. This meant that the Danes were no longer the owners of the ship. In other words, the Portuguese capture was not an act of war against Denmark. With reference to Grotius’s theories about natural rights, the author also claimed that the Danish authorities had no natural right to demand the ship's return. These arguments were totally rejected by Hiernøe, who, among other things, pointed out that the Marathans had left the frigate before it was seized by the Portuguese, and that the ship was flying the Danish flag at the time.
Behind the subtle juridical arguments were strong political and economic interests. For the Portuguese viceroy in Goa, it was of great value to demonstrate that the old colonial power still had ‘muscles’. Acquiring the large Danish merchant ship also opened up the prospect of a great increase in Goan trading profits, which would be a boon to the career of the viceroy. For the Danish Asiatic Company, the loss of the frigate – and the returns from its voyages – was merely annoying. The president of the company, who was also Denmark's de facto prime minister, decided that the matter should not be followed up with Lisbon. The interests of the Danish state were more important than those of the company. Moreover, the Asiatic Company could afford the loss of a frigate from time to time because most of its voyages to India and China brought back large quantities of commodities, which were sold at a considerable profit. As for the Marathans, political expectations of military cooperation from Goa against the Sultan of Mysore, Haider Ali, a new stakeholder in the region, restrained them for claiming the Danish vessel.
All in all, the comprehensive source material concerning the double capture and its consequences sheds light on a complicated sequence of events where macrohistory and microhistory are linked in many ways. On the macro level, it concerns profiling states, political alliances, and balancing political and economic interests. On the individual level, the story provides an insight into the controversies among the parties in the conflict. For example, one of the high-ranking Portuguese officers lost his post because he did not find that the Portuguese were entitled to retain the ship. The story also adds to the literature on the law and legal usage with respect to privateering – a field characterized by the fact that it was advantageous to be powerful when claiming one's rights.
Finally, each of the three comprehensive texts described in this article is an interesting source on cultural meetings and clashes. Most striking is the pronounced prejudices in the account of Hinckel, whose fear of being killed or maltreated by the Maratha seamen in the days following the capture was due to the fact that, among other things, they were not Christians and, accordingly, perhaps without a conscience. In contrast, it is worth noting that the Portuguese writer placed the head of the Maratha state and the governments in Spain, France and the Low Countries on an equal footing – even if it was in a juridical argument in favour of the Portuguese.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-ijh-10.1177_08438714241236113 - Supplemental material for The double capture of the Danish frigate Tranquebar in 1763
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-ijh-10.1177_08438714241236113 for The double capture of the Danish frigate Tranquebar in 1763 by Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz and Jørgen Mikkelsen in International Journal of Maritime History
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Supplemental material
Supplemental material for this article is available online (https//www.sa.dk/daisy).
Notes
Author biographies
Jorge Simón Izquierdo Díaz, PhD in Social Anthropology and PhD in Spanish. Independent Researcher. Has published on Danish colonial history.
Jørgen Mikkelsen, PhD in History. Archivist and Senior Researcher, Danish National Archives. Several works about urban and colonial history.
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