Might someone be able to give me a little education ? My question is in regard of my old Grandfather who went out to India in 1807, under the license of the Court of Directors [of the East India Company] as a free mariner. During the first 10 to 15 years there, he Captained several different Ships, in the Country Trade, some only for one voyage. My curiosity is - how did a Ship-owner select a Captain & Crew - i.e. how did he 'get the job' ? Was it only through Newspaper advertisements or was there some regulating body ? His final 15 to 20 years out there, he continually Captained one Ship - but he owned shares in that Ship, so that is easier to understand. Might someone help me with my curiosity ? Barbara Neish Bermuda

Hello Barbara I held off replying to this until I finished reading C. Northcote Parkinson's "Trade in the Eastern Seas 1793-1813", first published in 1937 and still in print - its available on Amazon in paperback at around $30 (I'm doing only a very rough currency conversion). From earlier posts you've made I assume you are referring to Captain James Neish and you evidently know a fair amount about his voyages already, but you might still find it interesting to get hold of a copy. The Country trade only takes up one chapter right at the end of the book, but you may learn more about what types of cargo they carried from particular ports and the sometimes dubious way in which cargos could be acquired or sold, the risk from pirates, and the background which might explain why he went to India as a free mariner rather than in the service of the East India Company. There is a bit on the ships themselves, which may or may not be of interest to you; though they were often "looked-down" on, Parkinson argues that Indian-built ships were at least as good if not better than many of their British-built counterparts in many ways. There is a good bibliography and it may be that one of the works cited there goes into more detail. Some of the older ones may even be on Google books. Country ships appear to generally have had British officers and Asiatic crews, and Parkinson isn't specific as to how either were recruited. Though the regular EIC career had its own peculiarities, I assume the crews of Country ships would have been recruited in much the same way as most 19th century merchant crews; that is, by word of mouth, locally at the home port (bearing in mind that it would be common knowledge on the waterfront as to which ships were loaded and due to sail soon), and added to at intermediate ports to replace men lost through death or desertion. As for the officers, who one would also expect to be well-informed, I expect it was a question of the master visiting the right ship owners regularly (armed with letters of reference if necessary) until a position became available. I don't know whether he would then have chosen his mates or whether they too would have been appointed by the ship owner. It is possible that Neish changed vessel so often because he was familiar with particular waters and/or a particular cargo, and so tended to sail on vessels going there, or maybe he was filling-in for someone else. To some extent I expect it depends on where he was in his career. I would expect a mate to change ships more often than a master, and a junior mate or master more than a senior one. Sorry not to be able to be more specific but since I haven't seen any other responses I thought something might be better than nothing! Cheers Piers -----Original Message----- From: mariners-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:mariners-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Barbara Neish Sent: 31 July 2011 00:58 To: MARINERS@rootsweb.com Subject: [MAR] Captain & Crew Might someone be able to give me a little education ? My question is in regard of my old Grandfather who went out to India in 1807, under the license of the Court of Directors [of the East India Company] as a free mariner. During the first 10 to 15 years there, he Captained several different Ships, in the Country Trade, some only for one voyage. My curiosity is - how did a Ship-owner select a Captain & Crew - i.e. how did he 'get the job' ? Was it only through Newspaper advertisements or was there some regulating body ? His final 15 to 20 years out there, he continually Captained one Ship - but he owned shares in that Ship, so that is easier to understand. Might someone help me with my curiosity ? Barbara Neish Bermuda ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to MARINERS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message

Further to my posting this morning, and to Barbara's response to me off-list, I've turned up some further information as to how the crews of "Country Ships" were recruited - at least in 1797. A legal case heard that year in the Court of Common Please (on Google Books at http://tinyurl.com/3u83hl3 ) suggests that it was usual for crews to be recruited by the master contracting with a person called a Serang (described in the report as "captain of an Indian Crew", whose position is usual described as Bosun) to provide so many men for a given voyage at such and such a rate per month. It was thus the Serang who did the actual recruiting for the bulk of the crew and no doubt he did not lose out financially by the arrangement.....