apprentices for seven years, after which time they were to be made writers,
if able to furnish the required security. The salaries they received from
the Company were only nominal. A Bombay pay-list of January, 1716, shows
us the official salaries at that time. The Governor received £300 per
annum. Next to him came eight merchants, who with him constituted the
Council, and received respectively, one £100, one £70, two £50, and four
£40 each. Below them came three senior factors at £30 each, three junior
factors at £15, and seven writers at £5.[1] The tale is completed by the
accountant and the chaplain, who received £100 each. A writer on entering
the service had to find security for £500, which was increased to £1000
when he rose to be a factor. The unmarried servants of the Company were
lodged at the Company's expense; the married ones received a lodging
allowance, and a public table was maintained. In fact, the Company treated
them as if they were apprentices in a warehouse in St. Paul's Churchyard,
and, when the conditions of their service are taken into account, it is
not surprising that there was a considerable amount of dishonesty among
them. These conditions apart, they were neither worse nor better than the
men of their time. As the original Company gained stability by the
incorporation of its upstart rival established in 1698,[2] which put an
end to a condition of affairs that promised to be ruinous to both, and by
the grant of perpetuity issued in the year following incorporation, there
was a gradual improvement in the quality of their civil servants. Though
no increase in the salaries of junior officers took place for many years
afterwards, the greater facilities opened to them, for trade, attracted
better men into the service, among them some cadets of good family.

Miserable as was the display of military incompetency at Carwar and on
subsequent occasions, it is hardly surprising when the condition of the
Company's soldiers is considered. The Company's policy was to keep
officers and men in a state of degrading subjection; to prevent the