According to Section 7 of the Navigation Acts in force from 1660, the master and 75 percent of the crew of a British-registered ship importing goods from Asia had to be British, thus restricting the number of lascars employed in European waters (i.e. those west of the Cape of Good Hope). Despite this restriction, between 1685 and 1714 it would appear that the number of lascars in Company ships was already higher than envisaged: each ship employed between 2 and 20. If one takes into account the Company Directive that a vessel of 100 tons required a crew of 18 men, and another 5 for every additional 50 tons, the number of lascars being shipped was quite considerable.

car labour in Europe-bound ships arisen? Initially, the need arose because of the high sickness and death rates of European sailors on India-bound ships, and their frequent desertions in India, which left ships short of crew for the return voyage. Desertions became more prevalent once sailors, attracted by better prospects, began to join the armies of Indian princes. Obtaining a fresh supply of English sailors in India was expensive, costing 50-70 percent more than sailors recruited in England. So, in order to bridge the labour gap, the custom of employing some lascars in predominantly British crews began. Another reason was war. During the Napoleonic Wars, for instance, conscription of British sailors by the Royal Navy was particularly heavy from Company ships in India. Lascars were therefore recruited in larger numbers to supplement European crews. Further, the requisition of Company vessels by the government as auxiliary ships led the Company's administration in India to allow private 'Country' ships to bring rice and other commodities to Britain. ('Country' ships, owned by British and Indian merchants engaged in the burgeoning 'Country' trade all over Asia, were crewed entirely by lascars and had not hitherto been allowed to come to Britain and break the monopoly of Company freighted ships.) Between 1799 and 1800, 20 such 'Country' ships left for London, increasing the number of lascars employed. The 'shipping interest' of the Company's chartered ships hated this and attempted to put a stop to it. As late as 1802 successive British governments forbade the employment of lascars on ships sailing west of the Cape of Good Hope, while in 1808 the EIC itself, possibly in response to the riot in 1806 between 200 lascars and Chinese sailors in Angel Gardens, Wapping, resolved that no lascars or Chinese were to be taken on Company ships. Despite this, because of the war-induced shortage, by 1813 six times more lascars were being brought to Britain as substitute crew than at the beginning of the century (in 1803, 224; in 1813, 1,336).

The British Library

Fort William, Calcutta, by George Lambert and Samuel Scott, c.1730. The painting is one of a set of six views commissioned by the Company for the Court of Directors' room at East India House in London.

With the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the 1814 Regulations introduced for the registration of ships built in India decreed that 'no Asiatic sailors, lascars or natives of any territories ... within the limits of the Charter of the East India Company, although born in territories ... under the Government of His Majesty or the East India Company, shall at any time be deemed or taken to be British sailors'. The Regulation is significant: it excluded Indian seamen from British citizenship for the purpose of the Navigation Acts, preventing the employment of all-lascar crews on ships bound for Britain. When the Company's Charter was renewed in 1813, faced with continuing agitation from merchants, Parliament stripped the EIC of its monopoly on trade with India. And it was free trade, coupled with steam power, that ultimately proved crucial for the employment of lascars. As trade expanded and India became increasingly central to Britain's global trade and economy, lascars became the mainstay of the labour force in British-registered ships bound for Europe. Yet lascars have not been granted the place they deserve in studies of British maritime history.

Conditions of lascar labour
Following the EIC directive in 1730, the Company's freighted ships began signing agreements with their lascar crews. Much valuable information has been obtained from one such surviving document: Articles with Lascar Crew on Tryal, 23 October 1746. Their employment package included a monthly wage of Rs 15 (£1 17s. 6d.) for the voyage from Calcutta to London, a weekly maintenance allowance of seven shillings each in London, pending a return passage to Calcutta, and a requirement to perform duties in London as directed by the Company. Finally, lascars were bound by a promise not to remain in England once a return passage had been arranged for them. Because of the nature of the Company trade, and the imbalance of exports from Britain against imports from India, lascars were forced to remain in England for long periods of time before ships were ready to take them back. Two important facts arise: the first concerns responsibility for the provision of their maintenance in England pending a return passage. Was responsibility ultimately vested in the Company or the owners of the chartered ships? As will be seen, this was to prove contentious, leaving lascars destitute. Second, the provision of a return passage and repatriation of destitute Asians became part of Company policy, and would endure. In time, successive laws made the policy stricter to prevent lascars settling in Britain.

Lascars were recruited in gangs through an intermediary, called the ghat serang, who occupied a position in the realm of Indian shipping akin to that of a labour agent, a lodging-house keeper and a money lender. The ghat serang made his own bargain with individual seamen for their services. The serang, who owed his job to the ghat serang, was responsible for lascar welfare and discipline, and wielded tremendous influence. The whole system was so riddled with corruption, as each in turn made his profit from bribes and commissions at the expense of the lascar, that the amount received by the poor lascar was reduced to a 'mere pittance'.