My earlier study of the East India Company's maritime service, Lords of the East, the East India Company and its Ships (Conway, 1981 and 2000) dealt with the basic system by which the Company chartered the ships and men required to carry on its trade. A further book is needed to consider the various roles the service played in the final, turbulent century of the Company's commercial life. For most of the period from the 1740s to the 1830s the Company's ships were supporting the small royal naval force in the eastern seas in their struggle to achieve British supremacy in India. Concurrently, the maritime service advanced the knowledge of navigation and hydrography in the course of its expanding trade with China, conducted in restricted conditions in an alien culture.

Such a complex study over a long period requires a cohesive theme. I decided to follow the careers of members of the ubiquitous Larkins family, but was daunted by the genealogical aspect. Following publication of the second edition of Lords of the East I received a letter from a Geoffrey Bovill. He said he was descended from the Larkins who served in the Company's maritime service and asked me if I would write a book about them. His father had spent many years studying the India records and had written a book, which he had failed to get published. Geoffrey offered to allow me to use all his father's notes and the script. Although my theme differs greatly from that of his father, the notes, especially his abstract of every reference to members of the Larkins family in the Court Minutes and the family tree, have saved me months of research. I had many conversations with Geoffrey, a truly charming man, and sent him instalments of my script but sadly he died just as I completed it. His son Giles has continued the family's interest in my work and has generously supplied me with prints recording the battle between Warren Hastings and La Piémontaise and permitted me to reproduce them.

I am also greatly indebted to David Gordon-Steward for inviting me to view the ‘commander's packet’, containing all the information a captain of a Company ship required for a voyage, belonging to his forebear Captain Gabriel Steward, a colleague of William Larkins.