Factory Records: Cape of Good Hope

The Cape of Good Hope series does not follow the pattern, form and character of other Factory Records series. It chiefly comprises letters from the Agents to the East India Company and copies of the Agents' own correspondence. The existing Agency correspondence in G/9, the Court Minutes B and Accountant General's correspondence in L/AG/29/1/14 indicate that the Agents wrote a fairly regular quarterly 'packet' of letters of the Company's Secretary in London. These letters reported the ordinary business transacted there on behalf of the Company in the previous months. If necessary, special separate letters on particular subjects were sent to the Company immediately. Duplicates and triplicates of some letters and packets are to be found in the same or different volumes. The volumes and additional papers include a number of letters addressed to the Secret Committee which display secrecy markings (particularly on shipping and intelligence). It is unusual to find Secret letters of this period amongst general correspondence - they would normally have been placed in the Political and Secret sub-fonds L/P& S. The Agent also sent quarterly and annual copies of the Agency's accounts to London. Some Agency accounting records - a cashbook, wastebook, ledger and journal are in G/9/2-5. Others were copied into the Company's main books of account and the originals destroyed. Again, unlike other Factory Records, there are no consultations (or proceedings) for the Cape of Good Hope Agency, in either the Cape Factory Records G/9 or in the related Proceedings sub-fonds P, because the Cape Agency had no council similar to other East India Company factories or settlements. However, there are two documents called 'diaries of transactions' at the Agency 1808-1809 in G/9/9, which may be the remnants of the 'day-books' that the Agents were directed to keep. These documents are probably the closest relations to the 'diaries' in other factory record series. Unlike letters to the Company from India in E/4 and the copies of enclosures or accompanying attachments in F/4, the Agents' letters to the Company, and the Company's draft reply were not apparently sent to the Board of Control for approval. The letters from the Agents to the Company are similar in form to the incoming Indian letters in E/4, in that paragraphs are numbered in reply to numbered paragraphs of Company's despatches. There are Board of Control papers in the early volumes. Some are marked as Henry Dundas' papers (for example, Lieutenant Henry Pemberton's proposal to the Company to establish a supply station in the eastern Cape, 1785). Dundas, as President of the Board of Control (Home Secretary, 1791-94 and Secretary of State for War 1794-1801) took a keen interest in the strategic importance of the Cape and its value to India. The disparate volume of extracts (G/9/9A) is similar to another volume of extracts from Accountant General's correspondence (L/AG/29/1/14) and may also have originated in the Accountant General's department. Additional Cape documents recently appended to the series as G/9/25-26 lay previously unsorted at the end of the Factory Class G. They include some letters which fill gaps in the main sequence of letters in G/9/1,6 and 7; some duplicate letters in the main series and some earlier letters to the Secretary, before the Agency period. The first volume G/9/1 contains some oddments relating to the Cape before the Agency was established there, placed in the series possibly because they could not conveniently be placed elsewhere, but are of uncertain provenance. The Cape of Good Hope Factory Records had originally been arranged into roughly four sub-series, with one additional disparate volume on its own. Additional papers form a new sixth sub-series. The internal arrangement of volumes in G/9/1-9 is confused: papers between 1795 and 1823 roughly overlap in two sequences, G/1-5 and G/6-9. The reasons for this arrangement are not clear, but the result is an overlapping mix of Agents' secret and non-secret letters as well as copies of correspondence from the same year often bound in different volumes, making the flow of correspondence difficult to follow. G/9/1-5 Letters from the Agent at the Cape to the East India Company Secretary and Secret Committee; copies of letters received at and copies of letters sent from the Agency, 1795-1823 [earlier papers 1773-74; 1785]. These volumes mainly contain original letters with some enclosures from the Agents to the Company Secretary, some secret letters to the Secret Committee and copies of letters received at and sent from the Cape - all bound in the same volumes. The first two volumes contain miscellaneous letters and documents which relate to earlier Company interest in the Cape before the Agency's establishment: covering letters from the Dutch Governor at the Cape requesting the forwarding of mails to Amsterdam, 1773-74; Lieutenant Henry Pemberton's proposal to the Company for a supply station in the eastern Cape together with two water-colours of the Cape, with a nautical chart of Krom Bay (1785) and some stray correspondence of unknown provenance. Extracts from G/9/9A cover letters in G/9/1-5 and 7-9. There is a gap in the sequence of letters between 1829 and 1836, but some extracts of the missing letters survive in G/9/9A. Additional Cape documents in G/9/25 contain duplicates of some letters in G/9/1,2 and 4. G/9/6-9 are letters from the Agent at the Cape to the Court of Directors, Secret Committee and Secretary, 1794-1831. These volumes contain originals and duplicates of letters from the Agents to the Company's Court of Directors, the Secret Committee and the Secretary. There is a gap in the letters between 1829 and 1836. Extracts of some correspondence from G/9/6-9 have been copied into G/9/9A to 1831. Originals of some letters in G/9/6 have been found in L/P& S/19. G/9/9A comprises extracts of letters from the Agent at the Cape to the East India Company in London, 1808-31. This is a disparate volume of Company's extracts from the Agents' incoming letters in G/9/1-9; and from some letters which no longer survive. This volume of extracts is similar to a volume of extract paragraphs from Company despatches to the Cape (and other places) in L/AG/29/1/14, and probably also originated in the Accountant General's department. The exact use of this volume is uncertain. G/9/10-17 Copies of letters received at the Cape Agency 1808-1836 are volumes that could be described as one side of the parallel series of copies of the Agents' 'home correspondence'. The volumes mainly consist of regular consignments of copies of correspondence which accumulated in the course of the Agency's activities at the Cape of Good Hope. They were sent by the Agents to London to a record of the work of the Company's representatives, and the proper conduct of its affairs or as background to matters in the letters. Many packets in G/9/10-17 and 18-24) include a title page, 'Letters Written' or 'Letters Received' and a brief 'index' to letters in the packet. However, these 'indexes' are no more than a list of references to the page or folio number in a packet, with details of 'to whom' or 'from whom', the date and a minimum of detail on the subject of the letter. The correspondence comprises copies of letters received at the Cape Agency, from various places, (except from the Company in London): the governments of Bengal, Madras, Bombay, St Helena, Mauritius, the Agents at Mauritius and Rio de Janeiro, the Select Committee of Supracargoes at Canton, and locally, from the Governor of the Cape and Colonial Secretary, the Admiral commanding the Cape Station, Comptroller of Customs, commanders of Company ships, individual company servants and Cape residents. Copies of letters received and sent during the first Agency period 1794-1803, were bound into the same volumes of letters to the Company in G/9/26, G/9/1-5 and some others are located in L/P& S/19. G/9/18-24 are copies of letters sent from the Cape Agency, 1808-26. These volumes could be described as the other side of the corresponding parallel series of Agents' 'home correspondence'. They consist of copies of letters sent from the Cape Agency, to various places, (except to the Company in London, - with the exception of two strays at the end of G/9/23): to the governments of Bengal, Madras, Bombay, St Helena, Mauritius, the Agents at Mauritius and Rio de Janeiro, the Select Committee of Supracargoes at Canton, and locally, from the Governor of the Cape and Colonial Secretary, the Admiral of the Cape Station, the Comptroller of Customs, commanders of Company ships, individual company servants and Cape residents. Copies of letters sent during the first Agency period, were bound into the same volumes of letters to the Company in G/9/1-5, G/9/26 and some others have been located in L/P& S/19. G/9/25-26 are additional letters and secret letters from the Agent to East India Company 1778-1816. These two boxes of Cape of Good Hope documents which lay unsorted and unlisted at the end of the Factory Records class G, have been added to the original Cape Agency series. They are similar to papers in G/9/1,4,6 and 7, comprising some duplicates and some new material not found elsewhere. G/9/25 contains documents predating the Agency, on the attempt made by Richard Lewin (a Madras government official) to set up an agency at the Cape in 1781. Originals of some of the letters in G/9/26 are in L/P& S/19. Unfortunately, gaps and destruction render the Cape of Good Hope series incomplete. Letters from the Agents to the Company are fairly regular from 1794 to 1828 (G/9/1-5 and 6-9) but there are no similar letters between 1829 and 1836. Only some extract paragraphs have survived in G/9/9A. There are also no surviving copies of the Company's despatches to the Agency, except for some extract paragraphs in L/AG/29/1/14. These gaps cannot unfortunately be filled by resorting to the original Company's despatches to the Cape Agency, or to the copies of the Agents' original letters to the Company in the Agency's own archives, because they have not survived either. Records of the 'weeding' programme of 1858-60, 1867 and 1877 show that a quantity of Cape Agency invoices, journals and ledgers for 1811-13 were earmarked for destruction. Parts of these accounting records would have been copied into the Company's main account books in L/AG/1/1 and information from the originals may not have been lost entirely. The volumes and papers comprise the most substantial surviving original records of the Cape of Good Hope Agency. They are invaluable for the study of the East India Company's activities in this part of the southern hemisphere, Company policy towards the Cape and throw much light on the development of the colony's early trade. If used in conjunction with the central sub-fonds of East India Company records and other related series noted above, the records provide a comprehensive account of the Agency at work from 1808 until the Company ceased its trading function and the Agency was wound up in 1836.

The East India Company's Agency at the Cape of Good Hope was situated at Cape Town in South Africa. The Company's Agency was established in 1793 when the Company's Secret Committee appointed John Pringle the first Agent at the Cape. For the first two years of the Agency's existence (1793-95), the Cape Agent acted under instructions from the Secret Committee. When war broke out between Britain and Holland, Pringle was not recognised by the Dutch administration and withdrew to St Helena in 1794. At St Helena he assisted Sir George Elphinstone in planning the Royal Navy's attack on the Cape. After the capture of the Cape in 1795, Pringle resumed the Agency (under the direction of the Company's Secretary) until 1804 when the Cape was returned to Dutch control. After the Cape was occupied for a second time in 1806, Pringle was re-appointed Agent. Under the guidance of two further Agents the Cape Agency continued to 1836, two years after the Company's trading function ceased. The Company's interests at the Cape were then transferred to commercial agents in Cape Town, who were its representatives until 1858. The Cape of Good Hope Agency was never a 'factory' like other East India Company establishments in India and South East Asia. From 1795 until 1803, and from 1808 until 1836, the Cape Agency functioned as the largest service and supply point within the Company's trade area. Unlike most of the Company's other establishments, the Cape Agency had the additional attraction of being strategically located on the sea-route to India and conveniently placed within a British administered possession and later colony. The Agency was the only Company establishment anywhere in southern Africa. The Agents were mainly concerned with obtaining supplies for the Company's ships, its settlement at St Helena and for obtaining and regulating the supply of Company goods imported from India and China to the Cape. These were all subsidiary to the wider trading affairs of the Company.

Like other Factory Records series, the Cape Agency's records consist of documents of widely differing provenance. Most traces of the exact provenance have been lost, but some evidence remains. The Committee of Correspondence and the Secretary were the key Company officials responsible for the control of the Cape Agency from London. Most of the original letters from the Agents were addressed to and replied to by the Company's Secretary. It is known that the Secretary's clerks conducted the correspondence with the Canton Factory and St Helena government. Neither, (in common with the Cape Agency), were full-grown Company establishments as in India or the Far East. The Cape Agency, St Helena and China's correspondence was dealt with in a similar way to 'home correspondence', which was under the control of the Secretary. There are also letters present within the Cape of Good Hope series which were sent by the Agents to the Company's Secret Committee. The Political and Secret Department records L/P& S have been designated the location for surviving Secret Committee and Committee of Secrecy documents. The Secretary, as clerk to the Secret Committee, would probably also have been responsible for the custody of its records. It is therefore likely that the bulk of the records in the Cape of Good Hope series were in the custody of the Secretary. The original 24 volumes of the Cape of Good Hope Factory Records are made up chiefly of letters which arrived in London as individual packets and which were bound in a rough chronological order in approximately 1880. In the late 1960s they were given the India Office Records Factory Records class and series classification G/9. The additional boxes of previously unsorted Cape material were added to G/9 as new items G/9/25 and 26 in 1993. In the course of the recent new listing of these records, the volumes and additional material were foliated, except G/9/1, G/9/6 and G/9/9A, which had previously been paginated and have been left that way to avoid confusion. G/9/15, which had been 'missing' after 1919 was found in July 1993. It had been incorrectly labelled and bound as one of the volumes of the Sumatra Factory Records.

Unrestricted

There are many other India Office Record sub-fonds and series which are related to the Cape Factory Records. : A/2 and V/1 (Cape trade regulations); B (the central record of matters concerning the Cape Agency discussed by the Company's Court of Directors); D (Agency establishment matters centrally controlled by the Company's Committee of Correspondence); E/1-2 (further correspondence of Agents and Agency employees with Secretary and Secret Committee strays in 'home correspondence'). The general business transacted between India and the Cape Agency India in E/4 and P; With St Helena in the St Helena Records in G/32 and for China in the Canton Factory Records in G/12 and R/10. The Board of Control records in F/1-2 and L/P& S illustrate the Board's interest and role in the affairs of the Cape Agency. There are miscellaneous documents of varying provenance relating to the capture of the Cape in 1795 in the Home Miscellaneous sub-fonds H. Documents on Agents' employment and covenants are in J and O/1. A number of accounting records in the L/AG sub-fonds feature the Cape Agency. Most Cape Agency account books were copied into the Company's larger 'General' ledgers in L/AG/1/1 in summary form. Most important is the Accountant General's extract paragraphs from despatches for the Agency in L/AG/29/1/14, which includes the only copy of instructions from the Company to the Agent in 1807, important details on the accounting procedures and financial state of the Agency. Breaches of the Company's Charter at the Cape, dealt with by the Agents are in L/L and L/F/1-2; marine matters and marine charts and surveys of the Cape undertaken during the Agency period in L/MAR and X; the supply of horses and Cape wine for military establishments in India are in L/MIL/5. The Political and Secret department records L/P& S include letters from John Pringle as Agent and one from the Secret Committee to the Agent and illustrate the reciprocal military assistance between India and the Cape. References to the post 1836 commercial agency at the Cape may be found in B, E/1, E/4, L/F/1-2, L/P& J/1 and L/P& S/3.

J Geber, 'The East India Company and Southern Africa: a guide to the archives of the East India Company and the Board of Control, 1600-1858', (PhD thesis, UCL, 1998) includes a new calendar listing of G/9/1-26; M Arkin, John Company at the Cape: a history of the Agency under Pringle, 1794-1815, based on a study of the ''Cape of Good Hope Factory Records'', in Archives Year Book for South African History II (1960), pp. 176-344; M. Arkin, 'Supplies for Napoleon's Gaolers: John Company and the Cape-St. Helena trade during the Captivity, 1815-21' in Archives Yearbook for South African History I (1965), pp. 269-330; M Arkin, Storm in a Teacup: the later years of John Company at the Cape, 1815-36 (Cape Town, 1973); J Geber, 'The English East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope and the Cape of Good Hope Factory Records 1773-1836', South African Archives Journal 36 (1994), pp. 54-64.