The grounding of the St. Jacob and subsequent death of its Danish crew in Mughal custody took place in 1640 off the coast of Pipli in Bengal in present-day Odisha.

After a successful voyage to Bantam and Makassar, the Danish yacht, St. Jacob, initiated a return voyage to Masulipatnam; however, St. Jacob got caught in a storm and was driven towards the coast of Bengal. Its crew tried to save the ship, yet to no avail, and as the local Mughal faujdar, Hadi Gayas, denied the ship any assistance, St. Jacob consequently ran aground. The surviving Danes reached the coast, where they allegedly were poisoned by Gayas, causing 16 men to die within 3 days.

The grounding of St. Jacob was such a severe blow for the Danish East India Company that it became the immediate casus belli for the Dano-Mughal War.

Background

In 1616, the Danish East India Company was founded, and after a successful expedition to India in 1620, it established the colony of Tranquebar. Afterwards, Danish ships were regularly sent to India.

The St. Jacob On 6 October 1635, the ship St. Anna and the yacht St. Jacob received a sea passport () for sailing to the East Indies, and on 19 October, the ships departed from Denmark. On board St. Anna was the governor of Tranquebar, Roland Crappé, while his successor, Bernt Pessart, was aboard St. Jacob. The ships transported goods valued at 17,000 Danish rigsdaler and had an additional 33,000 Danish rigsdaler in liquid capital.

Voyages to Makassar The ships arrived at Tranquebar on 2 and 3 September 1636, and St. Jacob quickly became involved in the intra-Asian trade. Already in 1636, St. Jacob, together with Charitas, initiated a voyage to Makassar on Celebes.

In 1640, St. Jacob initiated a voyage to Makassar and other places on the Sunda Islands. After a successful voyage to the port of Bantam, St. Jacob went to Makassar. Here, it received a delegation from the sultan of Makassar, Malikussaid, consisting of the Mullah, Mumin, his entourage of 50 men, and valuable goods. St. Jacob now initiated a return voyage to Masulipatnam with a valuable cargo.

Grounding

Trying to save St. Jacob However, during its voyage, St. Jacob got caught in a storm and was driven towards the coast of Bengal in present-day Odisha. Here, the ship got in danger of grounding, and the crew tried to save the ship by lowering its two anchors off Pipli, though the hawsers snapped, and the anchors were consequently lost. Afterwards, cannons were used in the anchors' place, although to no avail.

Local interference Meanwhile, at Pipli's shore, some merchants from Masulipatnam offered to assist St. Jacob, which Danish author Asta Bredsdorff asserts could have saved the ship. However, the local Mughal faujdar, Hadi Gayas, denied the ship any assistance and denied it access to enter Pipli's port. Instead, he set up a tent on the coast to watch the ship ground, when it became clear that this would be the ship's destiny. Subsequently, St. Jacob was smashed to pieces in the surf zone, and whatever cargo washed ashore was thereafter seized by Gayas as flotsam.

Casualties and fate of the survivors 27 men died as a result of the grounding, and none of the cargo, which consisted of pepper, was recovered. The majority of the Danish crew survived and, after exhausting efforts, managed to reach the coast, where they were sheltered by the Mughal government in a nearby house. Here, they were offered lots of food and water, to which they soon after got sick and claimed their food had been poisoned by Gayas. In any case, 16 men died within 3 days.

Escaping Danes The captain of St. Jacob, Nicolaj Samson, managed to escape and later reached Tranquebar in a boat after many difficulties. According to Asta Bredsdorff, this is the only information known about the Danish survivors. Although, according to Danish colonial historian Kay Larsen, it is possible that a couple of others escaped too. This possibility is given as a fact by American historian of Southeast Asia, Kathryn Wellen.

Makassarese delegation Meanwhile, Mullah Mumin died in Bengal, and his properties were too, either destroyed or seized by the Mughal government. Meanwhile, his entourage was imprisoned and transported to Medinapur, and the Danish factory at Balasore was forced to give 3,000 rupees to the local Mughal Nawab, Siaraskhan, for their release, which eventually happened.

Aftermath

Estimated losses

Bernt Pessart estimated the cargo on the ship at 150,000 Danish rigsdaler, although historians put this at 70,000 Danish rigsdaler. The loss of the ship itself, including the cannons, was estimated at 20,000 or 25,000 Danish rigsdaler. Additionally, the Makassarese losses totalled 70,000 Danish rigsdaler, which Sultan Malikassaid demanding that the Danes pay.

Economic consequences The grounding of St. Jacob was a severe blow for the , and the incident, together with Mirza Mumin's assault on the Danish factory at Pipli, had wideranging consequences: The ship's cargo was indispensable for the Danish factory in Masulipatnam, as it was to repay the debts from merchants in the city; nevertheless, these debts could now not be repaid, which left the Danish factory in such a comprehensive embarrassment that the Danes had to abandon it. Additionally, the creditors in Masulipatnam demanded that Pessart be imprisoned.

Casus belli for the Dano-Mughal War

Although Dutch records suggest that St. Jacob's cargo was seized because of Danish debts, the Danes viewed the seizure as a tyrannical act and the behavior of Hadi Gayas as robbery. The Danes consequently saw it as reasonable to demand the unpaid compensation, and did so for both the cargo and ship; however, the losses were hard to replace, and the demands were never met, as the Danes could not negotiate the return of the remaining cargo. According to German historian Stephan Diller, the Danish demands for compensation were highly excessive and were merely intended to save the D.E.I.C. from its economic difficulties. Nevertheless, as the demands could not be fulfilled, the Danes were now forced to use extreme means. Accordingly, in 1642, Pessart declared war on the Mughal Empire, which was indirectly attributed to Siaraskhan. As such, the grounding of St. Jacob has been seen by historians as the immediate casus belli for the Dano-Mughal War.

Later demands for compensation Danish demands for compensation continued afterwards: already a couple of years after, in 1644, the new governor of Tranquebar, Willem Leyel, launched his privateering campaign against the Mughal Empire with compensation from hostile Mughal actions as the primary goal for the campaign. Consequently, the grounding of St. Jacob, particularly the poisoning of the surviving Danish crew, was mentioned in his manifesto justifying the war. Continuing later upon the creation of the Second Danish East India Company in 1670, King Christian V of Denmark sent a letter to the Mughal Empire, requesting compensation for Mughal seizures, including that of St. Jacob.

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