In January 1702 /03, the Court of Directors in London confronted an unusual pair of bills of exchange drawn on their Calcutta agents. Both originated at Fort William, the Company’s seat in Bengal. Each was payable in London within thirty days of the arrival of named ships. Both bore the signatures of Nathaniel Higginson, esquire, and Coja Malleer Auwannoes, Armenian merchant. And both reflected large bottomry advances – one for twenty thousand rupees of coarse cottons at two shillings and six pence per rupee; the other for twenty-two thousand rupees of Patna “goods” valued under the same rate. Each bill carried a hefty fifty-five per cent bottomry premium .
To an eighteenth-century English eye, the sums were staggering. The first bill totaled £3,875 sterling. The second came to £4,262 10 s. These were not petty sums. They signified both the scale of Company operations in Bengal and the pivotal role Armenian merchants played in financing them.
But when the bills landed in London, they provoked heated debate. Directors questioned whether the goods in question had actually been shipped. The original contract (dated 21 January 1695) with Coja Panous Calender had stipulated that Populous printed cottons and other textiles be procured at Patna. The goods were to be delivered at the Calcutta factory at Hughli or Sutanati. In return, the Company was to provide bottomry bonds at fifty-five per cent premium, payable within thirty days of the voyage’s completion.
Yet the London Court could find no invoices or letters confirming arrival of those exact lots on the vessels Sidney or Josia. Without proof of shipment, the Court argued, it was not obliged to honor the bills of exchange. It simply could not pay nearly £8,200 on the strength of unsigned promises. The Directors declared that, absent clear evidence that the entire rupee amounts had been advanced, insured and safely delivered in Calcutta, the bills were unsupported.
Nevertheless, they left the door ajar. Should incoming ships from Bengal provide documentation – invoices, manifest entries and Council minutes attesting to Armenian procurement of the specified Patna goods – then the Court would relent. They promised to pay both bills with legal interest from their due dates.
This incident vividly illustrates the checks and balances in early Company finance. Even at a remove of thousands of miles, the London directors insisted on documentary proof. They held the purse strings tightly, demanding accountability before releasing funds. Yet they were prepared to trust local Armenian partners who, under contract, risked their own capital to procure goods and underwrote voyages against loss.
It also shows how the Company’s “bottomry” system functioned in practice. Merchants like Coja Malleer Auwannoes provided front-money to secure manuscripts of goods. In return, they received bottomry bonds – a kind of maritime mortgage on the cargo – at steep premiums reflecting the risk of sea transit. If the cargo arrived, they guzzled handsome returns; if it were lost, the Company bore the loss.
This episode underscores Calcutta’s early emergence as a financial as well as commercial hub. The presence of Armenian merchants in the Court minutes at Fort William signals their integration into the highest levels of colonial enterprise. They were not merely rug-buyers or diamond-traders. They were principal underwriters, guarantors of Company contracts, and signatories to bills that moved tens of thousands of rupees across the globe.
The London Court’s wrangling over these bills highlights the symbiosis between European capital and Armenian commercial acumen. It reveals Calcutta’s role as a crucible where finance, risk-taking and cross-cultural collaboration intersected, forging the early foundations of British India’s mercantile empire.
Source
Baladouni, V., & Makepeace, M. (Eds.). (1998). Armenian merchants of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries: English East India Company sources (Vol. 85). American Philosophical Society.
Arup K. Chatterjee 