Conditions of Trade Experienced by English Merchants in Burma in the Seventeenth Century

When in January 1755 George Pigot took over the governorship of Fort St George from Thomas Saunders, two things were obvious regarding the Company’s position in Burma. They are: firstly that the Court of Pegu would never sign a treaty, and secondly that the Negrais station would never be of any use commercially, save indirectly as subsidiary to a main station at Bassein. The paragraph relating to Negrais in the Directors’ letter of March 25^th, 1757, came up for consideration by the Madras Council on April 25^th, of the following year. Fort St. George never had its hands free to attempt seriously in Burma the role which it had so lightly assumed in planting a settlement on the island of Negrais. Lavine had been instructed to take Antonio with him as interpreter, and in order to hoax the English, a royal letter had been entrusted to Antonio for delivery at Negrais.