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 officers from having any authority over their men, while pledges as to pay were often broken.

When the Company first received Bombay from the Crown, the royal troops in the island were invited to remain in the Company’s service on the same rank and pay, on the condition that they might resign when they pleased—­a condition that made discipline impossible.  The greater number of them accepted the terms.  Two years later, a company was sent out under Captain Shaxton to fill vacancies.  Shaxton was evidently a man of good abilities and position; one who had been trained in the stern military school of the civil wars.  He was to be a factor in addition to his military command, and if, after trial, his qualifications would admit of it, he was to hold the office of Deputy Governor.  The men were engaged for three years.

By the time he had been two years in Bombay, Shaxton found that, under the penurious rule of the Company, efficiency was impossible, while the two European companies maintained for the defence of the island could only be kept up to strength by filling the vacancies with natives.  Four years later,[3] a mutiny broke out, in which Shaxton supported the demands of his men.  They complained that a month’s pay, promised to them on engagement, was due to them, and claimed their discharge, as their time of service had expired.  President Aungier behaved with prudence and firmness.  He pacified the men by granting their demands, and brought the ringleaders to trial by court-martial.  Three of them were condemned to death, of whom one, Corporal Fake, was shot, and the other two pardoned.  Shaxton was then brought to trial, found guilty of some of the charges, and sent to England for punishment according to the King’s pleasure.

Two years later a troop of horse was formed, and sent out under Captain Richard Keigwin, who was to command the garrison on a salary of L120 a year.  Keigwin was a man of good Cornish family, who had entered the King’s navy in 1665, and taken part in Monk’s memorable four days’ battle against the Dutch in the following year.  When St. Helena was recaptured from the Dutch (1673), he had distinguished himself in command of the boats that made the attack, and was left as Governor of the island till it was taken over by the East India Company.  As a reward for his services, the Company made him their military commandant at Bombay.  Two years later again, the Company, in a fit of economy, reduced their military establishment to two lieutenants, two ensigns, and one hundred and eighty-eight rank and file.  The troop of horse was disbanded, Keigwin was discharged from the service, and thirty soldiers, who had been detached to Surat to defend the factory against Sivajee,