Samuel Annesley of Surat

---

Samuel Annesley of Surat (c. 1658 – 1732) was the eldest son of a prominent Puritan and nonconformist pastor also called Samuel Annesley. He was best know as the President of the Surat Factory in the employ of the East India Company up until 1699 when he was dismissed under suspicion of dishonesty thereafter he became the leading independent trader in Surat. He was also the uncle of Charles and John Wesley and the source of a Wesley family myth that there was great wealth to be recovered from his estate.

Early Life

Samuel Annesley was born in 1658 (probably) in Cripplegate, London as his father was at the time Vicar of St Giles's, Cripplegate. He was employed by the East India Company in 1677 at the age of 19 and was trained on the operation of coin minting machinery. He was sent to Bombay to help in the establishment of the mint there. However, the war then being waged with Shivaji Bhonsle king of the Marathas meant that the mint was not set up and Annesley was posted to Surat a few months after his arrival in 1678..

East India Company Employee

In Surat Annesley was employed in the accounts department of the Company Factory and by 1681 he was deputy head of the department. In due course, he was promoted to the Second Seat at the Council board.

During the war between the Company and the Mughal Empire in 1688/9 (Child's War) the factors in Surat, including Annesley, were imprisoned and kept in irons. With the conclusion of peace he was confirmed in his post as Second Seat subordinate to the President Bartholomew Harris and given joint responsibility for reviving the Company's position in Surat, which had been badly damaged in the course of the war. This proved to be formidable task and the Company Directors in London were very critical of many of the steps that Annesley and Harris took to improve matters, the underlying suspicion being that they were enriching themselves at the Company's expense. Harris died in 1694 by which time the Company owed Rs 20,00,000, and shipments from Surat had become so small that the local traders were concerned that it was likely to fail, rumours of which were circulated by independent foreign merchants. Following Harris' death Annesley became President of the Surat Council.

In 1695 following the attack by the pirate Henry Every on the Mughal pilgrim ship Ganj-i-Sawa , Annesley and the occupants of the Surat factory were taken into protective custody. There was a popular feeling that the English merchants in Surat were either pirates themselves or in league with the pirates and there were loud demands that the Mughal Governor punish them accordingly. The Governor referred the matter to the Emperor Aurangzeb. Although the Emperor was at first inclined to punish the English he was in due course persuaded that all the Europeans (i.e. the English, the French and Dutch) in Surat should assume responsibility for suppressing piracy and by June 1696 the port was re-opened. During the period of protective custody however there had been a good deal of ill feeling in the English factory even extending as far as a plot against Annesley's life by some independent merchants.

Renewed pirate activity off the West coats of India, now by William Kidd, did not improve the standing of the English in Surat and the death of the relatively sympathetic Governor and his replacement by one who was much less so continued to put Annesley under pressure. John Gayer, who had been in India since 1694 as General (i.e. in charge of the Company's affairs in India) as well as Governor of Bombay, suspected Annesley's honesty and wrote as much to the Company Court in London in 1697.

By 1699 Aurangzeb was demanding that the foreign factors pay compensation for the losses caused by piracy or cease trading. They all claimed that it was not within their power to pay the guarantees but in the face of intimidation from the Governor of Surat, Annesley was preparing to do so when John Gayer arrived off the port in his well armed ship The Mary. Gayer conducted negotiations with the Governor for some days but as he did mot make any satisfactory concessions the latter threatened to assault the English factory. As the better prepared and armed Dutch had already given in to the Governor's demands, Annesley wrote to him on his own authority giving the security demanded. The French likewise submitted (but not before the Superior of the Jesuit Order had had holes drilled in his ears). While the formal documentation was being prepared the Company ship The Russell arrived from London bearing a letter from the Court of Directors addressed to the Second Seat (a man named Colt) appointing him President and consequently dismissing Annesley. Annesley himself understood that the real reason for his dismissal was Sir Josiah Child's belief that he was not "kind enough to the Armenians"

Annesley took his dismissal well and worked with his successor to achieve a smooth transition. However, the transition coincided with the arrival of the news from England that Company's monopoly on trade with the East Indies had been abolished and that a new trading company (the New Company) had been formed to compete with it. The Governor of Surat took advantage of the dismissal of Annesley and the establishment of the New Company and affected to believe that this was all a trick by the English to avoid their responsibilities under the guarantees. He therefore took the opportunity to subject the new President to further financial pressures.

Free Trader

In its attempt to supplant the Company, the New Company sent out an envoy Sir William Norris to obtain comparable privileges from the Emperor. Annesley appears to have offered his services to Norris but they were not accepted apparently due to Annesley's dubious reputation. From the time of Annesley's dismissal to at least 1708 the English Company factors were held in custody and prevented from trading. At first Annesley was not affected by this detention being no longer employed by the Company, but by January 1704 a decree was issued seizing his goods, which were alleged to be the proceeds of piracy, and he was forbidden to leave the city. However, it seems that Annesley was not actually detained and that at least some of his property was left to him as he continued to trade on his own account; in diamonds at least.

Claims against Sir John Child's Estate

In 1708, when the two companies (new and old) were merged, Annesley began a correspondence with the Court of Directors seeking rehabilitation. This he did by offering to help investigate the substantial amounts (Rs 1,50,000) that a local agent (Vanmalidas Parikh son of Bhimjee Parikh) had withheld from Sir Caesar Child, son of Sir John Child who had been Governor of Bombay when he first arrived in India. There was not any immediate benefit to Annesley of this effort but by 1713 the Governor of Bombay, Aislabie (who may or may not have been related to John Aislabie) was in Surat to investigate the case. By this time, however, Annesley was reluctant to assist in the investigation. In 1718 a Commission of Inquiry composed of four commissioners was set up. It met in Surat and took evidence from various parties including Annesley and the claimants. The Commission did not trust Annesley's testimony which was that the debt had been settled in part and dispensed with his assistance. They eventually found against the agent who was required to pay the Rs 1,50,000 owing. This he did not do for some years and eventually the Court of Directors bought the debt from Sir Caesar Child and settled the amount due with Parikh at Rs 28,571 (=4/21).

Relations with Samuel Wesley

In March 1713 Annesley decided to appoint as his agent in England his brother-in-law Samuel Wesley who was married to his sister Susanna Wesley. This seems like an odd choice as Wesley was a churchman and a poet and not very financially aware but it is likely that Annesley did not know him well as by this he had been abroad for 36 years. In any case Annesley wrote to Wesley giving detailed instructions as to the conduct of his affairs in England in which he implied that he still hoped to be reinstated by the Company. Unsurprisingly, Wesley proved unequal to the task of managing Annesley's affairs and it seems that he lost a substantial amount of his money and that Annesley considered that Wesley owed him the lost amounts. Annesley promptly cut off all contact with Wesley and all attempts to reconcile with him, which included a letter from his sister Susanna written in 1720, went unanswered. The Wesleys continued to hope for a reconciliation however and even went so far on one occasion to meet a ship returning from India in which Annesley was supposed to be a passenger.

Later Years and Death

Annesley continued to live and trade in Surat but over time his prosperity declined until in 1731 he was described as being "reduced to low circumstances" notwithstanding a settlement by the Company in 1728 of long outstanding claims amounting to Rs 36,150 (£5,000). He died in Surat on 7th June 1732. In his will he left his sister Anne and his nephew Annesley Fromantle £10 each and his sister Susanna, his brother-in-law Samuel Wesley and each of their children 1s each. Annesley's wife, of whom little is known, died the following year and in her will left to the maiden daughters of Samuel Wesley the amounts owed by the latter to her deceased husband. In death Annesley failed to forgive Wesley for the wrong he had supposedly suffered.

References

This article "Samuel Annesley of Surat" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Samuel Annesley of Surat. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.

---