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 Surat, "to have a careful eye over the manners and behaviours of both young and old," and directed that" if any be found by excessive drinking or otherwise like to prove a scandal to our nation ... to use first sharp reprehensions, and if that do not prevail then inflict punishment, and if that work not reformation then by the first ship send him home with a writing showing the reasons thereof." That these instructions were necessary is abundantly proved by the frequent references to individual excesses. Numerous instances are given of men dying with "the flux" in consequence of "inordinate drinking of a wine called tastie (toddy) distilled from the palmetto tree."

Stern discipline was maintained on the ships to enforce the rule of decent living. The lash was unsparingly used, and in a letter included with the records of Middleton's voyage with which we shall shortly deal there is a statement which shows that a man suspected of theft was put to the torture to extract a confession of his guilt. Undue stress, however, must not be laid upon the irregularities which are revealed in the narratives of the early voyages. Something surely must be allowed for the ordinary frailties of humanity in men placed as these pioneers were in situations of extreme hardship and peril in strange lands to which the depressing influences of a tropical climate added an element of peculiar malignity. It must not be forgotten that with all their faults these simple seamen never hesitated to lay down their lives at the call of duty and that to their strenuous endeavour we probably owe the full measure of sovereignty we enjoy in India to-day, for if less courage and less energy had been displayed the Company's operations might easily have been diverted to more barren fields and the conquest of India left to other hands.