o<3 MONT'HLV. 
XXIII. 
COLOMBO, SEPTEMBER 1st, 1903. 
No. 3. 
PIONEERS OF THE PLANTING ENTERPRISE IN CEYLON." 
{Fourth Series.) 
JAMES, 8c GEORGE STEUART: 
SHIP COMMANDERS AND MERCHANTS; AND THE FORMER, M VSTER 
ATTENDANT OF COLOMBO :— 1817 TO 18G3. 
HE name of James Steuart, 
Master Attendant of Colombo, 
from 1825 to 1855 will always 
be an honoured one in the 
Annals of Ceylon. His pub- 
lished as well as private 
writings shew that he was 
an able and versatile man 
n dealing with public affairs ; his management and 
account of the Ceylon Pearl Fisheries for 27 years 
was judicious and admirable in every way ; and 
he laid the foundations of one of the most stable 
houses of Mercantile and Plantation Agency ever 
established In Ceylon. At the head of this Firm 
he put his brother George, who gave his name to 
"George Steuart & Co." in 1843,— James being 
prohibited, as a public servant, from holding any 
share or interest in the house he had founded. 
Mr. George Steuart was, like his brother, trained 
as a navigator, and we first hear of him at Trin- 
comalee in command of the ship " Valleyfield " 
in 1837, and at the time he was turned into a 
merchant he commanded the Ceylon Govern- 
ment's little stsamer the "Seaforth" of 300 tons. 
George Steuart was much more of the ship 
commander (the "skipper" and sailor), and less 
cultured than his brother James ; but he deve- 
loped into a very shrewd man of business ; and 
stucli to his firm almost continuously for a period 
of over 20 years, retiring in 1863, when he had accu- 
mulated what for him (an old bachelor) was a 
fortune. He was in fact much wealthier than 
his brother James, who was undoubtedly very 
badly treated by successive Governors of Ceylon 
— doubtless, from want of thought — until in 1855, 
Sir Henry Ward inadvertently drove the clever 
and worthy Master Attendant into retirement 
after 30 years' service on the very inadequate 
pension' of £367 per annum. 
But to begin at the beginning. Captain James 
Steuart was born in 1810, and Dover seems to have 
been associated closely with his early days. This 
fact and a great many more particulars we learn 
from a valuable volume of MSS. notes left behind by 
Capt. Steuart, and most kindly lent to us by Mr. 
Reginald John. These notes treat on a variety of 
topics in rather a desultory way ; but there are many 
autobiographical references scattered up and down 
the pages, and from one of these we learn that his 
father was a mariner before him, and owned as 
well as commanded a vessel (the "Hopewell,") 
which was hired by the British Government as 
an Ordnance Transport to convey ammunition 
from Dover to the Fleet blockading Boulogne 
whence Napoleon's Grand Army for the invasion 
of England was expected to issue. This was in 
1805-6-7, and James Steuart served as a lad of 
15 onwards under his father and learned naviga- 
tion. Being ambitious, however, of enlarged 
experience and of visiting the Southern Seas, he 
induced his father to get him taken on the whaler 
"Cumberland," 17th October, 1807, as a super- 
numerary ; and the MSS. before us give a long 
and interesting account of his experiences, His 
