The story
Born in 1743, John Forbes set sail to India in 1764 on board the ship Asia as a purser on the East India Company's service. After three years as a 'free mariner' and later 'free merchant', he established a business to trade Indian cotton. The company later expanded into ship brokerage, ship building and banking.
From Wikipedia’s article on Forbes (engineering company), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5