Topass (Topass, Topass Seaman or Topas) was a term used by the British Merchant Navy for the man who acted as an interpreter for a group or gang of

Lascars A lascar was a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, British Somaliland, or other land east of the Cape of Good Hope, who was employed on European ships from the 16th century until the middle of the 2 ...

or South Asian seamen on British vessels since at least the mid nineteenth century. Usually the topass came from the Luso-Asian communities, such as those from Goa and Bombay, and could speak English (and often Portuguese) to pass on instructions to a group of sailors and to report back or mediate between Lascars and the European crew. Topaze Indo-Portuguese was a term applied in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

by the British East India Company in the eighteenth century to describe

Luso-Asians Luso-Asians (Portuguese: ''luso-asiáticos'') are people whose ethnicity is partially or wholly Portuguese and ancestrally are based in or hail primarily from Portugal, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. They historically came under the ...

- usually from the Portuguese territories in the Indian subcontinent, or formerly Portuguese territories such as

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. One of the first references to them is in the British Anti-piracy campaign of 1756 when 300 Topaze Indo-Portuguese on the British ships ''Kent'', ''Kingfisher'', and ''Tiger'' captured the fortress of Geriah on 14 February 1756.

References

{{reflist Merchant navy