Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Anglo-Ind.) a former officer of an East india or other ship, aiming to start a new and luctrative life on land.

1813		Polyanthos (Boston, MA) Nov. 91: One class, consisted of reputable young men, by some called shippies, by others, birds of passage.* [footnote: The officers of East India or other ships].
1827		‘Journal of a Voyage from Calcutta to China’ in Qly Oriental Magazine June 239: There are two tavern’s at Macao, one close to the place where we landed, and the other about three hundred yards to the right, in a street leading to the ‘Campo,’ the first was filled with shippies, skippers, mates, &c. of country Ships.
1841		F.J. Bellew ‘Memoirs of a Griffin’ in Asiatic Jrnl & Mthly Register Apr. 248: Dirty table-cloths, well spotted with kail and mustard; prawn curries, capital beef-steaks, domestics of the cut of Rum-johnny, a rickety, rusty, torn billiard-table, on which, day and night, the balls were going, lots of shippies, and a dingy bed, were the leading features of this establishment.
1848		J. Kirkland Eerie Laird 82: The majority of candidates belonged to the class called Interlopers, or adveturers, who had gone out [i.e. to India] independent of the [East India] Company. Others, designated Shippies, were gentlemen of the sea, who aspired to laurels on land.
1858		G. Aberigh-Mackay From London to Lucknow (1860) 396: On Monday I rode to their camp with my friend the Quartermaster, and found the sailors enjoying a gala-day. [...] The ‘shippies’ are worked hard to perfect them in artillery-practice; and their dexterity surprises a novice.