Ships named The CarnaticThe name Carnatic Coast was applied to the southern part of the east coast of India. It includes part of the modern state of Karnataka. From this the name was then applied to a number of ships owned by European powers. It is documented that James Cree, son of John Cree (formerly John McMahon), was Fifth Mate of an East Indiaman named The Carnatic in 1795. Three ships of the East India Company bore the name Carnatic: the first was of 758 tons and was chartered in 1786 and 1787. The second was of 1169 tons, built in 1778 and in service on the China run until 1802. This was therefore the Carnatic in which James Cree sailed. The third was built in 1808, of 82 tons, and was in service until 1820. Other ships with the name were: a 74-gun Ship of the Line, HMS Carnatic, built by the EIC for the Navy and launched in 1783 at Deptford (1); a Manilla Ship of the same name sailing the Indian Ocean in 1770 owned by an Armenian merchant Shaumir Sultan; and a French East Indiaman called the Carnatic that was captured by the British in 1795 - one of the richest prize ships ever captured by the Liverpool privateers. |
(1) The E.I. Co. was constantly helping the Admiralty with both money and ships. In 1779 they offered a bounty for the raising of 6000 seamen, and not content with this built three 74's, the Ganges, Carnatic and Bombay Castle, at their own expense. (The Blackwall Frigates by Basil Lubbo, pub. James Brown & Son, Glasgow, 1922.) |
The new East IndiamenThe ship James Cree sailed in was the East Indiaman of 1169 tons, launched in 1787. She was one of three of a new class of East Indiamen of over 1000 tons burthen built specifically for the China trade. She was 132 feet long, 40 ft. 6 in. broad and of 1169 tons registered burthen (2). C. Northcote Parkinson wrote: Indiamen of the new type began soon to multiply. Three more had, in fact, been put in hand even before the Nottingham reappeared in London River (3). The three Indiamen mentioned above were built in 1787 and were the Carnatic, Ceres and Boddam. The Carnatic was of 1069 tons registered burthen and the Ceres, at 1180 tons, was the largest of the three. |
(2) (3) Trade in the Eastern Seas 1793-1813 by C. Northcote Parkinson, Cambridge University Press, 1937. p 168. |
|
The Carnatic East Indiaman was employed on the China run and made six voyages there over the period 1786 to 1802, each round trip taking about eighteen months. Documents relating to this ship are held at the British Library (4):
CARNATIC... Built by Randall, launched 1787, 3 decks, 4in bottom, length 163ft 2in, keel 132ft 7˝in, breadth 40ft 8˝in, hold 16ft 4in, wing transom 24ft 6in, port cell 28ft 3in, waist 3ft 8˝in, between decks 6ft 6in & 6ft 4in, ports 14 middle & upper, deck range 91ft 4in, 1169 tons.
|
(4) Access to Archives catalogue at The UK National Archives web site. The actual holdings of the British Library include Journals, ledgers and pay books of the Carnatic relating to the period 1786 to 1802. Sight of these should confirm James Cree's position as Fifth Mate in 1795, especially the following:
Carnatic: Journal IOR/L/MAR/B/165D 19 Oct 1793-19 Feb 1796 |
|
Further information, including the names of the owners and some officers is available from Hardy and Hardy's Register of ships (5):
East India Commanders of the Regular Ships with their Order of Rank
|
(5) A register of ships, employed in the service of the Honorable the United East India Company 1760-1810 by H and C Hardy, London, 1811. The register lists ship's officer's for each voyage down to 4th Mate. James Cree, being a Fifth Mate, is not mentioned. |
The first two voyagesThe first voyage was under Captain Corner. The Carnatic set sail from England to China on 29th January 1788, and returned on 28th July 1789. Eighteen months or more was a typical length of the return trip to China (6). Her owner (or principal owner) at that time was Gilbert Slater, Esquire. Captain Corner was also commander during her second trip in 1791 to 1792. On her second voyage to China, Captain Corner brought back the first examples of two varieties of camellia: During this period the British were rapidly expanding their trade in southern China, and ship captains were encouraged by wealthy British horticulturists to bring back plants for their gardens. Two C[amellia] japonica cultivars, ’Alba Plena’ and ’Variegata’, are of particular note. They were brought back to England m 1792 by Captain Connor of the East-India Merchantman Carnatic, and were illustrated in Andrews’s Botanical Repository in 1792. The great enthusiasm for growing C. japonica from the end of the Eighteenth Century through most of the Nineteenth Century can really be dated from the importation of these two cultivars.(7) For her remaining four voyages to China, the owner of the Carnatic was John Jackson. The master was Captain James Jackson for three trips and Horatio Beevor for the sixth and last trip. On the Carnatic's third and fourth voyages, during the years 1793 to 1798, the ship's assistant surgeon (and on the second voyage, surgeon), John Milne, wrote a series of letters on the diseases that prevailed on board. These were published in book form in 1803. The book throws interesting light on life aboard the Carnatic, but unfortunately for our purpose, his book is mainly about matters relating to his work as ship's surgeon and he does not mention the names of any officers (8). |
(6) The European magazine, and London review Volume 16, Philological Society, Vol. 16, August 1789. (7) The Chinese Species of Camellia in Cultivation by Bruce Bartholomew (Connor is an error for Corner.) (8) Some account of the diseases that prevailed in two voyages to the East Indies, in the Carnatic East-Indiaman, during the years 1793 to 1798; together with observations and medical remarks, in a series of letters to John Hunter, M.D., F.R.S., by John Milne, London, 1803 |
James Cree, Fifth MateThe third voyage of the Carnatic covers the time when John Cree wrote that his son James was Fifth Mate. The lists of officers we have seen only go down to Fourth Mate so we have not confirmed his presence but it seems fairly certain that he was on this voyage. According to John Milne's account, the Carnatic left Gravesend in December 1793. She was then moored at Portsmouth for about four months and eventually left on 2 May 1794. After passing the Cape of Good Hope in the depth of winter she arrived in Madras on the 12 September 1794. Sailing on the 13 October she reached Penang in ten days and stayed there for a week. She passed through the Straits of Malacca on 8 November, finally arriving in China at the latter end of December 1794 when, Milne reports, The surgeon died suddenly and the whole duty of the ship was to be entrusted to me. On the return voyage the Straits of Malacca were passed at the beginning of May 1795 and St Helena was reached on 31st August 1795 after having been almost five months at sea... About the middle of November [1795] we arrived in the River Shannon, after a passage of seven months and a half from China... We remained in Ireland almost a month... writes Milne, About the middle of December we sailed in company with two frigates, and arrived in Long-reach [on the Thames] towards the end of the month, after a voyage of upwards of two years... The date of mooring was the 28 December 1795. If James Cree was indeed Fifth Mate of the Carnatic on this her third voyage, and there seems no reason to doubt his father's statement that he was, it seems that James was in Ireland when his father John Cree died in London. Ironically, since the ship's record states that she was in the River Shannon, he would have been but a short distance from Ennis, County Clare, his father's ancestral home and probable birthplace. |
|
The fifth voyageThe Carnatic set sail for her fifth voyage on New Years Eve 1798. Maritime traffic was such that ships on the main trade routes frequently sighted each other and report of these sightings were sent to London. A report in the Naval Chronicle tells us that on 18th April 1799, The following outward bound East India ships have arrived safe at the Cape of Good Hope, viz. the Margaretta Ann, Oak, Hillsborough, Taunton Castle, Carnatic, and Bangalore (9). |
(9) The Naval chronicle, Volume 2, edited by James Stanier Clarke, Stephen Jones, John Jones. p 166. |
The sixth and final voyage of the CarnaticThe National Maritime Museum has a painting Ships of the East India Company at Sea by Pocock dated to 1803, which includes the Carnatic East Indiaman near the end of her last voyage in 1802. This painting has the alternative title 'Ships of the East India Company at Sea' but was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803 as 'The Hindostan, G. Millet[t], commander, and senior officer of eighteen sail of East Indiamen, with the signal to wear, sternmost and leewardmost ships first'... It is believed to represent the convoy under George Millett, as commodore, during their return voyage from China early in 1802. The 'Hindostan', in the centre, was a large East Indiaman of 1248 tons, built in 1796 to replace a previous vessel of the same name that had been sold to the Navy... Eleven of the other vessels in the convoy depicted here are known to have reached their moorings in England between 11 and 14 July 1802: the 'Lord Hawkesbury', 'Worcester', 'Boddam', 'Fort William', 'Airly Castle', 'Lord Duncan', 'Ocean', 'Henry Addington', 'Carnatic', 'Hope' and 'Windham'. The other ships have not been identified but are also presumed to have done so. (10) |
(10) These extracts are from the detailed notes about the painting on the National Maritime Museum web site. It is not possible to identify which ship is the Carnatic. The ship in the foreground is indentified as the Hindostan which, at 1248 tons, was even larger than the Carnatic. |
The Carnatic and John CreeFamily legend handed down the the descendants of John Cree's heirs says that an East Indiaman called the Carnatic was the main vehicle through which John Cree made his fortune and is the ship depicted on the coat of arms which he was granted after his return to England. It is documented (in John's will) that his son James was "Fifth Mate of the Carnatic." Of the many ships bearing this name we have established that the only one that James Cree could have served on is the the East Indiaman of 1169 tons, launched in 1787. He would have sailed on the third of the six voyages which this ship made to China, and possibly also on earlier voyages. It is clear the John Cree made his fortune as a "free merchant" in Dacca, that is, one who was not trading under the auspices of the East India Company but independently. It is clear that John had no connection himself with the Carnatic East Indiaman, since it was launched in 1787 and John had returned to England in 1784. It seems likely that at some time in the past, the mention in John Cree's will of his son James being Fifth Mate of the Carnatic has been embroidered into a legend linking the Carnatic to John Cree's fortune. The true facts are more complicated but no less compelling and show John Cree as involved in the events that led to one of the most famous trials in English history, the impeachment by Parliament of Warren Hastings. |
It occurs to me that, since the Carnatic was launched in 1787, the financing and building must have been taking place in 1786 when John Cree was applying for armorial bearings showing a ship which family tradition holds was the Carnatic. Is it possible the John Cree was a partner in the financing of the ship (on which his son James Cree was later to sail as Fifth Mate)? The East India Company did not finance such ships itself but normally relied on private finance. I imagine that John Cree was rich enough to be involved in this. His experience as a shipowner and a merchant in the East India trade would make it an attractive proposition for him. He is not listed as an owner but he had motives for staying out of the limelight where the East India Company was concerned. |