Colin Campbell (Swedish East India Company)

Campbell's Coat of Arms on Chinese porcelain in Gothenburg City Museum

In April 1731, the Riksdag (Swedish Parliament) approved the King's Charter giving the Swedish East India Company a monopoly of all Swedish trade with the "East Indies" (meaning any port east of the Cape of Good Hope ).[4] The Company was expressly forbidden to trade in any areas under the control of other countries (for example Britain and the Netherlands) without their permission, and the "privileges" which the Charter gave them amounted to no more than "the common rights of nature and peoples" (as one commentator said) but the riches expected were signalled by the Company agreeing to pay the King about 25,000 silver dollars per voyage.[5] And indeed the Company was successful, making the Directors (of which Campbell was one) very rich indeed. As only Swedes could be Directors of the Company, Campbell applied for naturalisation as a Swede (on 14 June 1731), and was raised to the nobility,[6] with a coat of arms recalling his Campbell ancestry and a motto of "Memento Deus dabit vela" (Remember that it is God who fills the sails).[7]

The first voyage of the Company was that of the Fredericus Rex Sueciae, which set sail from Gotheburg on 9 February 1732.[1] Colin Campbell was supercargo – carrying all the authority of the Company – to whom the First Captain, Georg Herman Trolle had to defer. There were a number of foreigners aboard the ship,[8] including the Second Captain, George Kitchin, Mr Baron, Chief Mate and Hindric Bremer, Second Mate, the Chief Carpenter, Mr Brown, Jack, the ship's boy, and Daniel Campbell, James Moir and Gustav Ross, all assistants to Campbell, who was the First Supercargo. The Second, Third and Fourth Supercargos were Mr Graham (also called Brown), Charles Morford and John Pike.[9]

Campbell also carried sea-passes and a passport which confirmed him as minister plenipotentiary to the Emperor of China, the Grand Mogul and other Asian princes – all issued in Dutch, in case they were stopped by that navy, which indeed they were.[10] He never made contact with the Chinese Emperor or the Grand Mogul. He did though establish a long lasting and profitable connection between Sweden and Canton.[6]

The voyage lasted 550 days, with a stay of 120 days at Canton.[11] In fact, the vast bulk of the Company's subsequent voyages went to Canton and only once or twice even approached the modern East Indies. She went by way of Norway, Cádiz and the Cape of Good Hope.[12] Thence she went to St Paul, the Straits of Sunda and on to Canton, anchoring on 19 September 1732, six and a half months after leaving Sweden.[13]

On the journey home, on 3 February 1732, they were stopped in the Sunda Strait by seven Dutch ships, whose officers refused to recognise the passes, evacuated the ship, put aboard a contingent of Dutch soldiers and ordered it to sail to Batavia, the headquarters of the Dutch. Only Colin Campbell was left aboard. At Batavia, the Governor General, Dirck van Cloon, examined Campbell's passes, apologised and allowed him to proceed on his journey, under escort, on 9 February.[14] Campbell had kept a diary/account of the voyage, but had destroyed it at the approach of the Dutch, in case they would think he had been spying, and in case they found out any commercially sensitive information. Campbell had studiously declined to provide any information on his cargo. He reconstructed the diary mentally years later, and its manuscript was published in 1996.[15]

They proceeded to Europe, stopping off at the island of Fernando de Noronha, off the coast of Brazil to replenish supplies and some recuperation from scurvy. On 7 September 1733, the Fredericus RS was once more in Gotheburg, eighteen months after it had departed.[16] Campbell immediately set out a catalogue of complaints against the Dutch.[6] A first dividend of 25% was declared for the shareholders of the voyage, followed by a second dividend of 50%. A very prosperous voyage, despite the Dutch.[17]

Over 20 subsequent voyages took place over the next 15 years, and Campbell grew rich, before paying off all his debts and dying in 1757.

• Cormack, Alexander, A. Colin Campbell 1686–1757. Merchant, Gothenburg, Sweden. His will – annotated. A Scoto-Swedish Study. Aberdeen 1960.
• Frängsmyr, Tore (1990). Ostindiska kompaniet: människorna, äventyret och den ekonomiska drömmen [The Swedish East India company: the people, the adventure and the economic dream] (in Swedish) (2 ed.). Höganäs: Wiken. ISBN 91-7024-653-X. Retrieved 19 July 2014.

• Kjellberg, Sven T. (1975). Svenska ostindiska compagnierna 1731–1813: kryddor, te, porslin, siden [The Swedish East India company 1731–1813: spice, tea, porcelain, silk] (in Swedish) (2 ed.). Malmö: Allhem. ISBN 91-7004-058-3. Retrieved 19 July 2014.

• Lindqvist, Herman (2002). Historien om ostindiefararna [The story of the East Indiamen] (in Swedish). Gothenburg: Hansson & Lundvall. ISBN 91-85023-02-7. Retrieved 19 July 2014.