ABSTRACT
In return for his passage money, a passenger was given accommodation which varied according to the amount paid. Official passengers, those in the Company's service, that is to say, together with officers going to serve with the King's troops in India, paid an amount fixed by the regulations and proportioned to their rank. The actual position and size of their cabins was in some cases laid down. Unofficial passengers had to settle with the captain, or more often the purser, both the sum they were to pay and the accommodation they were to have. In a ship carrying many passengers, the later arrivals had to purchase cabin space from such inferior officers as were willing to give up their own proper accommodation. It must here be emphasised that what the passenger bought was not so much a room as a portion of the deck. Cabins were not solid and permanent structures. As in ships-of-war, they were made so as to allow of being struck in a few minutes when the ship cleared for action. In peacetime they were made with light wooden frames and panels, each with a wooden door and lock ‘very complete’. In time of war they were formed by canvas screens, fixed to the beams above and laced down to battens nailed to the deck. The comers were defined by uprights or stanchions, to one of which a canvas-panelled door was hung. To strike such a cabin as this, it was only necessary to unlace the canvas at the foot, roll it up and secure it to the beams overhead. Again, with such light structures, it was a simple matter to vary their size, adding to one and taking from another.
