from India or China was for a subaltern £95, and for a general officer £234, to say nothing of directors and governors and their families, and that these ships usually carried from twenty to thirty passengers, we may conclude that this also was a considerable source of revenue.
Then captains were permitted to own the dunnage used for the protection of homeward cargoes, which they supplied in the form of stone and chinaware, canes, bamboos, rattans, sapan-wood, horns, nankins, etc. All of these goods might in those days be bought at very low prices in India and China, and under the monopoly of the East India Company, they sold at very high prices in London. Most of this "dunnage," however, came to the captains in the form of presents, known in the fragrant language of the Far East as "cumshaws," from admiring Indian and Chinese merchants.
Naturally all of the cargoes were well dunnaged, so much so, indeed, as finally to attract the attention of the benevolent Court of Directors, who deemed it expedient to restrain the zeal of their captains in this direction by issuing an order that "as dunnage has been brought home in the Company's ships far beyond what is necessary for the protection of the cargo and stores, occupying tonnage to the exclusion of goods, or cumbering the ship, the court have resolved that unless what is brought home of those articles appears absolutely and bona fide necessary for and used as dunnage, the exceeding of such requisite quantity shall be charged against the tonnage of the commanders and offenders." This dunnage business had been progress-
