'History of the Indian Navy. (1613-1863).' [‎574] (593/622)

574
HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY.
of the defunct Service. The 46 Bombay Gazette " wrote :—
" The Service has been a hardworking and ill-paid one. It has
produced distinguished officers in every part of a naval service—
as navigators, warriors, surveyors, diplomatists. It deserves
well of its Queen and country, and we trust that it will receive
what it has so well merited." The 46 Bombay Times," also,
after a brief sketch of its history, spoke the funeral oration of
the Service in the following eloquent terms:— 44 Though the
esprit de corps of the Indian Navy has been severely tried
during the last two years by the uncertainty of its fate, the
Service has maintained its discipline to the last. But not alone
in its purely combatant character has it covered itself with
honour. In the advancement of every branch of naval science, in
arduous and minute surveys, the Indian Navy has been
unrivalled. The Officers have done more, in proportion to
their numbers, than any other Service in the world. Many of
them, from their intimate knowledge of native affairs and
character, particularly in Persia and Arabia, have rendered
important political services, and filled important political
appointments. The Service expires, not by the hand of an
enemy, nor from any want of vitality in itself, but in obedience
to that highest law which has ever governed its members, the
public good. It may, with confidence, entrust its memory to
the keeping of those whose defence has ever been its pride as
well as duty, and while no tinge of jealousy mingles with its
thoughts of that honourable service, to which the guardianship
of the shores of our Indian Empire is now confided, its officers
proudly believe, and are entitled to believe, that the honour, the
lives, and the properties of their fellow-countrymen in India,
were as safe in times past in their keeping as they will be in
that of their brethren of the Royal Navy. The hauling down of
the Indian Jack closes an era in our Indian Empire. Revolu
tion stays here, for there is nothing more to revolutionize.
The Service expires too soon for the interest of science, perhaps
for the interest of our country, but not too soon for its honour
able and lasting mention in our national annals."
The Officers of the Indian Navy, on their part, could recipro
cate the feelings of regret on the disruption of ties that had
bound their Service for two centuries to the city, whose noble
and almost unrivalled harbour will, doubtless, at some future
time, render her the Capital of the East. Many were the
kindnesses they had received at the hands of her Merchant
Princes, and strong the friendships they had formed with her
citizens, and the Officers, civil and military, of their old home,
the Presidency The name given to each of the three divisions of the territory of the East India Company, and later the British Raj, on the Indian subcontinent. town of Bombay.
From the retrospect of Indian history, from the time of the
formation of the first factory An East India Company trading post. at Surat and the acquisition of
Bombay, to the suppressi on of the great Mutiny, the Indian Navy