The quarrels, intrigues, and self-seeking that had been so disastrous a feature during the tenure of office of Child, Waite, and Gayer were abhorrent to him.

He was a zealous servant of the Company, whose interests he did his best to promote with the inadequate means at his disposal.

In coming up the coast he had touched at the places where the Company had factories, and by the time of his arrival in Bombay he had fully realized that the pirate question demanded serious treatment.
Bombay was then an open town, only the factory being fortified.

Soon after receiving Bombay from the Crown, the Directors had ordered it to be fortified, but had refused to employ skilled officers, because "we know that it is natural to engineers to contrive curiosities that are very expensive." The only protection to the town was such as was afforded by a number of martello towers along the shore.

Nineteen years before Boone's time the Muscat Arabs had made a descent on Salsette, ravaging, burning, and plundering as they pleased, killing the Portuguese priests and carrying off fourteen hundred captives into slavery.