Austrian East India Company () is a catchall term referring to a series of Habsburg trading companies based in Ostend and Trieste. The Imperial Asiatic Company of Trieste and Antwerp () and Asiatic Company of Trieste or the Trieste Company () were founded by William Bolts in 1775 and wound up in 1785.
Establishment of the Company In 1775, the then 37-year-old Dutch-born British merchant William Bolts offered his services to the Habsburg monarchy government of Empress Maria Theresa, putting forward a proposal for establishing Austrian trade with Company-ruled India from the Adriatic port of Trieste in present-day Italy. His proposal was accepted.
The voyage of the Giuseppe e Teresa, 1776–1781 On 24 September 1776, Bolts sailed from Livorno in the dominions of Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, the younger son of the Empress, to India in command of a ship under the flag of the Holy Roman Empire, the former Indiaman Earl of Lincoln, renamed the Giuseppe e Teresa (also called Joseph et Thérèse or Joseph und Theresia). He took with him a ten-year charter authorizing him to trade under Imperial colours between Austria’s Adriatic ports and Persia, India, China and Africa, and from Africa and Madagascar to America.“Octroi de Sa Majesté l’Imperatrice Reine Apostolique, accordé au Sieur Guillaume Bolts, à Vienne le 5 Juin 1775”, Guillaume Bolts, Recueil de pièces authentiques, relatives aux affaires de la ci-devant Société impériale asiatique de Trieste, gérées à Anvers, Antwerp, 1787, pp.45–49. This enterprise required substantial capital, which Bolts sought in the Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium), and he brought in the Antwerp banker, Charles Proli, and his associates, the bankers I.C.I. Borrikens and D. Nagel.Franz von Pollack-Parnau, "Eine österreich-ostindische Handelskompanie, 1775–1785: Beitrag zur österreichische Wirtschaftsgeschichte unter Maria Theresia und Joseph II", Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgesichte, Beiheft 12, Stuttgart, 1927, S.24. Jan Denuce, “Charles de Proli en de Aziatische Kompagnie”, Antwerpsch Archievenblad, fasc.1, 1932, pp.3–64. Helma Houtman-De Smedt, Charles Proli, Antwerps zakenman en bankier, 1723–1786: een biografische en bedrijfshistorische studie, Brussel, Paleis der Academiën, 1983, Verhandelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België: Klasse der Letteren, no.108.
Colonisation of Delagoa Bay Over the next few years Bolts established factories on the Malabar Coast in western India, on the southeast African coast at Delagoa Bay in modern-day Mozambique, and the Nicobar Islands.Fulvio Babudieri, “Le vicende della ‘Compagnia Asiatica di Trieste’”, Archeografo Triestino, IV Serie, Vol.XLIX (XCVII della raccolta), 1989, articolo no.1130, pp.217–234. Michal Wanner, "William Bolts a Císařská asijská společnost v Terstu", Dějiny a současnost, 23/5, 2001, s.11–16; and idem, “Imperial Asiatic Company in Trieste—The Last Attempt of the Habsburg Monarchy to Penetrate East Indian Trade, 1781–1785”, 5th International Congress of Maritime History, Royal Naval College, Greenwich, 23–27 June 2008. John Everaert, "Willem Bolts: India Regained and Lost: Indiamen, Imperial Factories and Country Trade (1775–1785)", in K.S. Mathew (ed.), Mariners, Merchants, and Oceans: Studies in Maritime History, New Delhi, Manohar, 1995, pp.363–369.
His aim in establishing a factory at Delagoa Bay was to use it as a base for trade between east Africa and the west coast ports of India.Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA), Ostindische Compagnie (OIC), iv; cited in Sven H. Carlson, Trade and Dependency, Uppsala, Acta Universitatis Upsalensis, 1984, Studia Historica Upsalensis, No.138, p.112. He procured three ships to conduct this "country" trade, as trade by Europeans between India and other non-European destinations was called. During his voyage out he obtained Brazilian cochineal beetles in Portuguese Empire's Rio de Janeiro and transported them to Delagoa Bay, thereby predating the introduction to Bengal of this insect for the making of scarlet dyes and carmine. The Imperial flag did not fly for long over Delagoa Bay, as in April 1781 alarmed Portuguese authorities who claimed the place as their own sent a 40-gun frigate and 500 men from Goa to remove Bolts’s men, and to establish the presidio of Lourenço Marques (later renamed Maputo), an outpost that confirmed a permanent Portuguese presence there.Carl Wadström, An Essay on Colonization, vol.1, London, 1794, pp.187–195; B. Struck, “Österreichs Kolonialversuche im 18. Jahrhundert”, Völkerkunde: Beiträge zur Erkenntnis von Mensch und Kultur, Bd.III, 1 Jahrgang, 1927, S.184–193; Franz von Pollack-Parnau, "Eine österreich-ostindische Handelskompanie, 1775–1785: Beitrag zur österreichische Wirtschaftsgeschichte unter Maria Theresia und Joseph II", Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgesichte, Beiheft 12, Stuttgart, 1927, S.81–82; Alexandre Lobato, Os Austriácos em Lourenço Marques, Maputo, Imprensa de Universidade Eduardo Mondlane, 2000; Walter Markov, “L'expansion autrichienne outre-mer et les intérêts portugaises 1777–81”, in Congresso Internacional de História dos Descobrimentos, Actas, Volume V, II parte, Lisboa, 1961, pp.281–291.
Activities in India, 1776–1781 When it learned of Bolts’s venture, the British East India Company (EIC) instructed its officers in Bengal, Madras, and Bombay to “pursue the most effectual means that can be fully justified to counteract and defeat” him.24 December 1776, British Library, India Office Records and Archives, Bengal Despatches, VIII, ff.271-4; quoted in Sir Richard Temple, “Austria’s Commercial Venture in India in the Eighteenth Century”, Indian Antiquary, vol.XLVI, December 1917, p.279.
Still, in 1774 the EIC had ceded Banki Bazaar on the Hooghli River, upstream from Calcutta, to the Ostend Company or Austrian East India Company. This was still in Austrian hands in 1794, but the British eventually took it over, probably shortly thereafter.
Bolts took full advantage of Austria’s neutral status in the war between Britain and France, Spain, and Holland (1778–1783) that formed part of the struggle for American independence. The Company’s repeated acts of hostility against Bolts in India were the subject of urgent representations by the Austrian Ambassador in London, resulting in the sending in January 1782 of instructions from the Court of Directors to India, which ordered their officers in India not to give offence to "any subject of his Imperial Majesty".25 January 1782, British Library, India Office Records and Archives, Bombay Despatches, VI, f.297; quoted in Sir Richard Temple, “Austria’s Commercial Venture in India in the Eighteenth Century”, Indian Antiquary, vol.XLVII, April 1918, p.68.
Although when Bolt first arrived in India, at Surat, he was confronted with a wall of opposition erected by the East India Company, he soon made himself known to Hyder Ali, Nawab of Mysore and the strongest opponent of the English in India. He visited the Nawab at his capital, Seringapatam, where he was granted permission to establish trading factories in the Nawab’s Malabar Coast dominions at Mangalore, Karwar, and Baliapatam.Walter Markov, "La Compagnia Asiatica di Trieste", Studi Storici, vol.2, no.1, 1961, p.14.
Colonisation of the Nicobar Islands While Bolts himself was at Seringapatam, he sent the Joseph und Theresia to the Nicobar Islands, where she arrived in June 1778. There her captain, Bennet, took possession on 12 July. The islands were the focus of a Christian missionary effort of the Moravian Brethren, who visited from time to time from the Danish base on the Indian mainland at Tranquebar. In consequence of Bolts’s action, the Imperial company had established a trading factory on the island of Nancowery, headed by Gottfried Stahl who was accompanied by five other Europeans.Franz von Pollack-Parnau, "Eine österreich-ostindische Handelskompanie, 1775–1785: Beitrag zur österreichische Wirtschaftsgeschichte unter Maria Theresia und Joseph II", Vierteljahrsschrift für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgesichte, Beiheft 12, Stuttgart, 1927, S.45–47. Heinrich Sieveking, “Die Kaiserliche Flagge auf den Nikobaren”, Ostasiatische Rundschau, num.5/6, 1940, S.111-2. Gazzetta Universale(Florence), 15 Febbraio 1780; The Public Ledger (London), 13 December 1779; St. James's Chronicle, 18 January 1780; London Chronicle, 11 March 1780; Journal politique, ou Gazette des gazettes, Octobre 1779, Seconde Quinzaine. Danish authorities strongly protested against Bolts’s action in taking possession of the Nicobars, and in 1783 sent a warship to remove the Austrians.Walter Markov, “L'expansion autrichienne outre-mer et les intérêts portugaises 1777–81”, Congresso Internacional de História dos Descobrimentos, Actas, Volume V, II parte, Lisboa, 1961, pp.281–291.
Dispute between Bolts and Proli In spite of his many achievements since 1776, Bolts’s venture on the whole had made a loss, to the dismay of his Belgian financial backers, Charles Proli and his associates. Proli also disagreed with Bolts over the importance of the China market: Proli wanted to concentrate exclusively on that market, while Bolts urged the equal importance of India, as Austrian commodities such as mercury, lead, copper, iron, tin and vitriol could be sold there, in contrast to China where only Spanish silver dollars were accepted in return for Chinese products such as tea, porcelain and silk. While Bolts was still in India, the Proli group sent out two ships, the Ville de Vienne to Mauritius and the Prince Kaunitz to China, without informing him. In ignorance of Bolts’s purchase of another ship he also named Prince Kaunitz (after a prominent Habsburg statesman) the Proli group sent another ship of the same name to China independently of him.Guillaume Bolts, Précis de l’Origine, de la Marche et de la Chûte de la Compagnie d’Asie et d’Afrique dans les Ports du Littoral Autrichien, Liege, 1785, pp.17–8.
This action constituted a breach of the Proli's contract with him. Proli refused to honour the bills Bolts drew upon their bank while he was in India. They petitioned the Austrian imperial government to have Bolts charter transferred exclusively to them. The Proli group also seized the Joseph et Therese as security when the vessel returned to Livorno.Helma Houtman-De Smedt, “The ambitions of the Austrian empire with reference to East India during the last quarter of the eighteenth century”, Chaudhury Sushil (ed.), Merchants, companies and trade: Europe and Asia in the Early Modern Era, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, p.232-3. At an audience with Emperor Joseph II in Brussels on 28 July 1781, Bolt and Proli agreed to the transformation of their association into a share company, and in August Bolts surrendered his charters to the newly formed Imperial Company of Trieste and Antwerp for the Commerce of Asia (Société Impériale pour le Commerce Asiatique de Trieste et d’Anvers; SICATA). The new company was to send six ships to trade with China and India, two to East Africa and Mauritius, and another three to the Southern Ocean for whaling.David Macpherson, The History of the European Commerce with India, London, 1812, p.316.
Imperial Company of Trieste and Antwerp The Imperial Company of Trieste and Antwerp (SICATA) was opened to public subscription in August 1781 to raise, nominally, half its capital in one thousand shares. In fact, the company was seriously under-capitalized, as the other thousand shares held by the Proli group and Bolts were paid for by the nominal value of the assets of the former association.