'History of the Indian Navy. (1613-1863).' [‎14] (33/622)

14
HISTORY OF THE INDIAN NAVY.
E.s. per
Mensem.
1 Assistant Comptroller and Agent for Transports
1 Assistant to the Superintendent
1 Draughtsman . . . . .
1 Persian Interpreter to Commodore .
500
400
390
200
Total per Mensem
Making a monthly difference of
Or a year's reduction amounting to .
7 ,083
9,032
. 108,384
And this retrenchment was effected in what Sir Charles Met
calfe denominated a 44 pet service." It would have puzzled that
eminent statesman to have stated in what respect, and by
whom, it was petted, and the officers certainly would gladly
have dispensed with such a pignus amoris.
For many years not a single vessel was added to the Service,
which passed through one of the periodical crises which were
continually menacing its existence, until, forty years later, the
evil hour struck when the coup-de-grdce was given by Sir Charles
Wood. A feeble effort was made to keep the Service from
expiring from inanition, when, in 1834, a schooner of 157 tons,
called the 4 Mahi,'* was launched at Bombay, and the Court
sanctioned the construction of two cutters, to replace two patta-
mars condemned, which received the names of 4 Margaret' and
6 Nerbudda.' The Court having, at length, resolved to con
tinue the Service, proceeded with that intention to effect its
transformation into a Steam Marine. With this object they
gave orders for the construction of two steamers, one in London
and the other in Glasgow.
In 1834 a Committee, presided over by an officer of the
Indian Navy, was appointed for a singular though important
inquiry. Vice-Admiral Sir John Gore, Commander-in-chief on
the Indian station, being of opinion that Bombay harbour had
seriously deteriorated since the dates of his first visits in 1789 and
171)1, wrote lengthy letters to the local Government, dated the
20th of December, 1833, and the 17th of January, 1834, draw
ing attention to certain facts, indicative, in his opinion, of this
deterioration, and suggesting measures to arrest the progress of
the evil, and also the construction of a basin from the Flagstaff
Bastion to the southern extremity of the dockyard wall. The
Governor in Council, accordingly, appointed a Committee of
six members, presided over by Captain R. Cogan, and in-
* The 'Mahi' and the 4 Nerbudda,' as also the old brig 4 Taptee,' received
their names from rivers which flow into the Gulf of Cambay. The proper name
of the first-named stream is the Mahe. Mahe is also the name of the principal
island of the Seychelle group, so called after M. Mahe de la Bourdonnais, the cele
brated Frenchman. The word Seychelle, it may be mentioned, is derived from
M. Moreau de Seychelle, an officer of the French East India Company. The
group consists of about a dozen small islands, of which the principal are Mahe,
Praslin (named after a French Minister), and La Digue (called after a French
ship) and several rocks and islets. There is also a French settlement on the
Malabar Coast called Mahe.