The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago

Excerpt

For most people, interest in the doings of our forefathers in India dates
from our wars with the French in the middle of the eighteenth century. 
Before then their lives are generally supposed to have been spent in
monotonous trade dealings in pepper and calico, from which large profits
were earned for their masters in England, while their principal
excitements were derived from drinking and quarrelling among themselves. 
Little account has been taken of the tremendous risks and difficulties
under which the trade was maintained, the losses that were suffered, and
the dangers that were run by the Company’s servants from the moment they
left the English Channel.  The privations and dangers of the voyage to
India were alone sufficient to deter all but the hardiest spirits, and
the debt we owe to those who, by painful effort, won a footing for our
Indian trade, is deserving of more recognition than it has received. 
Scurvy, shortness of water, and mutinous crews were to be reckoned on in
every voyage; navigation was not a science but a matter of rule and thumb,
and shipwreck was frequent; while every coast was inhospitable.  Thus, on
the 4th September, 1715, the Nathaniel, having sent a boat’s crew on
shore near Aden, in search of water, the men allowed themselves to be
inveigled inland by treacherous natives, who fell upon them and murdered
twelve out of fourteen who had landed from the ship.  Such an occurrence
now would be followed by a visit from a man-of-war to punish the
murderers.  Two hundred years ago it was only an incident to set down in
the ship’s log-book.  But all such outrages and losses were small in
comparison with those to which traders were exposed at the hands of
pirates.