The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600-1750 1108669344, 9781108669344

Table of contents :
Contents
Maps
Acknowledgements
Maps
Introduction
Part I. Weakness and Adaptation
1 ‘A Boddy without a Head’: The Failure of an English Enterprise
2 ‘Soe Fayre an Opportunitie’: Madras and the Reconstitution of the Company
3 ‘Not as Absolute Lords and Kings of the Place’: The Success of an Anglo-Asian Enterprise
Part II. Subordination and Expansion
4 ‘To Be Determined by the Moor’s Justice’: Searching for Legitimacy in Mughal Bengal
5 ‘A Firm Settlement in This Place’: War, Negotiation and Imperial Integration
Part III. Limitations and Devastation
6 ‘The Malays Will Not Preserve ye Countrey Themselves’: Sumatra and the Failure of Suzerainty
7 ‘The Company as Their Lords and the Deputy as a Great Rajah’: The Making and Unmaking of an Imperial Power
Part IV. Empire
8 ‘The End of These Things Will Not Be Good’: Legacies of Empire in Mid-Eighteenth Century India
Conclusion: Rethinking the Origins of the British Empire in Asia
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600–1750

This is an important, revisionist account of the origins of the British Empire in Asia in the early modern period. David Veevers uncovers a hidden world of transcultural interactions between servants of the English East India Company and the Asian communities and states they came into contact with, revealing how it was this integration of Europeans into non European economies, states and societies that was central to British imperial and commercial success, rather than national or mercantilist enterprise. As their servants skilfully adapted to this rich and complex environment, the East India Company became enfranchised by the eighteenth century with a breadth of privileges and rights from governing sprawling metropolises to trading customs free. In emphasising the Asian genesis of the British Empire, this book sheds new light on the foreign frameworks of power which fuelled the expansion of Global Britain in the early modern world. david veevers is a Leverhulme Early Career fellow at Queen Mary, University of London. He has published articles in the Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History and the Journal of Global History, and won the Royal Historical Society’s Alexander Prize in 2014. He is co editor of The Corporation as a Protagonist in Global History, c.1550 to 1750 (2018).

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600–1750 David Veevers Queen Mary, University of London

University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314 321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06 04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108483957 DOI: 10.1017/9781108669344 © David Veevers 2020 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2020 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. ISBN 978 1 108 48395 7 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

For MJ

Contents

List of Maps Acknowledgements Introduction Part I 1

‘A Hundred Gates Open for Entrance’

‘A Boddy without a Head’

Part II

‘To Be Determined by the Moor’s Justice’

Part III

135

Limitations and Devastation

‘The Malays Will Not Preserve ye Countrey Themselves’ Sumatra and the Failure of Suzerainty

7

111

‘A Firm Settlement in This Place’ War, Negotiation and Imperial Integration

6

79

Subordination and Expansion

Searching for Legitimacy in Mughal Bengal

5

57

‘Not as Absolute Lords and Kings of the Place’ The Success of an Anglo Asian Enterprise

4

27

‘Soe Fayre an Opportunitie’ Madras and the Reconstitution of the Company

3

1

Weakness and Adaptation

The Failure of an English Enterprise

2

page ix x

177

‘The Company as Their Lords and the Deputy as a Great Rajah’ The Making and Unmaking of an Imperial Power

211

vii

viii

Contents

Part IV 8

Empire

‘The End of These Things Will Not Be Good’ Legacies of Empire in Mid Eighteenth Century India

Conclusion Bibliography Index

Rethinking the Origins of the British Empire in Asia

245

270 274 286

Maps

1 2 3 4

India Coromandel Coast Bengal Sumatra

page xiii xiv xv xvi

ix

Acknowledgements

The writing of a first book is both an end and a beginning. It is the end of a personal journey from student to academic but also the beginning of a new professional journey. For both achieving the end and in starting a new beginning, I have many people to thank. I had the immense satisfaction to pursue all three of my degrees in the School of History at the University of Kent, where I benefitted from a generous community of students and scholars. In particular, I’d like to thank Oliver Carpenter, Neil Calver and Don Leggett for providing a lively postgraduate community over the years, and Kenneth Fincham, Emily Manktelow, Pratik Chakrabarti and William Pettigrew for their time and support in developing my research interests. Kent provided full funding throughout the postgraduate period which allowed me to pursue my research even whilst raising a young family, for which I will be forever grateful. However, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Pratik Chakrabarti and William Pettigrew. Pratik not only supervised my MA and PhD dissertations but also taught me what it means to be a historian and the importance of academic integrity. I am forever in his debt and I hope that the book I have produced here is in some way a vindication of his willingness to mentor and supervise me over the years. One of the highlights of my career so far was the opportunity to have a beer and an authentic curry with him in Old Delhi itself. Similarly, William provided me with the opportunity to pursue postdoctoral research and has guided me through the post-PhD scholarly world not just as a boss but as a friend. His generosity has allowed me to travel the world and present and pursue my research from Japan to the Caribbean, and everywhere in between. Any professional success that I have achieved I owe in large part to him. But in many respects he taught me the most important lesson of all: family-life is instrumental to becoming a well-rounded academic. An especial thanks to my viva examiner, Margot Finn, who, despite her many enormous responsibilities, has always made time to offer advice, guidance and endless reference requests to an ambitious young academic such as myself. As a postdoctoral researcher at Kent, I was part of a tight-knit team of likeminded people, whom I am happy to say became not just inspiring colleagues x

Acknowledgements

xi

but inspiring friends. To Edmond Smith, Aske Brock, Liam Haydon, Emily Mann, Misha Ewan and Peter Good, thank you for widening my intellectual curiosity, but more importantly for indulging my Malbec habit, accommodating my fascination with monkeys, entertaining my bad puns, listening to endless stories about my children and sweating with me through various tropical conferences and speaking engagements. Their own research has left its mark on various parts of this book, and it is undoubtedly much richer for it. The Leverhulme Trust has been an amazing source of funding throughout my postdoctoral research, first as part of a £1m project on the role of England’s overseas trading companies in shaping the English constitution, and then in awarding me an Early Career Fellowship at Queen Mary, University of London. Needless to say, this book would not have been possible without such generous grants. At Queen Mary, I have been fortunate enough to settle in amongst a welcoming community of scholars, and I must thank Andrew Mandelson, Miri Rubin and Simon Layton in particular for their support. Finally, I would also like to acknowledge the patience and professionalism of my editor at Cambridge University Press, Michael Watson, as well as Emily Sharp, and of the anonymous reviewers whose insightful feedback made this a much better book. Of course, no book like this can be written without the love and kindness of family and friends, whose utter disinterestedness in the origins of the British Empire has always kept me grounded and provided a desperately needed worklife balance. To Richard and Vanessa for their ceaseless support; my sisters Simone and Michelle and their wonderful families who it has been a joy to watch grow; my parents Shirley and David who put up with a son who took his time before discovering what it was he wanted to do in life; to the best of friends Ben and Lucy who I have known since childhood and have allowed me to enjoy years of their friendship and unfailing positivity in the face of academia’s upsand-downs. As I sought desperately to finish my PhD thesis, my daughter Florence was born. The meaning she has brought to my life and the joy I find in every moment with her cannot be committed to words, but I hope that when she grows up she will read this and be proud of her father. Your love is imprinted in every word. And naturally, as I sought desperately to finish this book my son Henry, the grand finale, was born. His arrival gave me a renewed sense of purpose, and the innocence only a baby can possess allowed me to put the entire book into perspective. The last words must go to MJ, however. Not only this book, but my entire academic career would have been inconceivable without the love and blind faith (or in retrospect, utter naivety) of my wife, Jessica. Ever since I committed to becoming a historian at a pay-phone on a sun-baked street in Tenerife fifteen years ago, she has never wavered in her support, even when she discovered that,

xii

Acknowledgements

no, royalties on academic books will not make me rich. Despite pursuing her own challenging career in law and raising our family, she has kindly feigned interest in my obscure research findings and put up with my frequent globetrotting. She is not only an inspiration to our children but remains a constant inspiration to me every day. I dedicate this book entirely to her.

1 India

xiii

2 Coromandel Coast

xiv

3 Bengal

xv

xvi 4 Sumatra

Introduction ‘A Hundred Gates Open for Entrance’

For almost a thousand miles, the deep Godavari River snakes its way across the breadth of subcontinental India. As it descends from the Eastern Ghats towards the Bay of Bengal, it splinters and breaks into a number of tributaries to form a sprawling river basin, second in extent only to the Ganges. In the seventeenth century, the Godavari delta was an affluent commercial region of the sultanate of Golconda, a great south Indian Muslim state centred on the Deccan. The Qutb Shahi dynasty that had carved out its domain here in the early sixteenth century ruled over a culturally, politically and religiously diverse land that included a Hindu population speaking the native Telugu, governed by an Islamic Persianate elite, perhaps best illustrated by the adoption of a bi-lingual administration, with royal documents issued in both Persian and Telugu.1 Six miles from the Bay, the Godavari curves sharply before it empties out into the vast azure of the sea. Nestled on this lowland bend sat the town of Narsapur, famous for its ‘madapollam’ cotton piece goods that became the region’s principal export.2 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, this inevitably attracted the European East India Companies, including the Dutch Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC) and, from 1611, the English East India Company, seeking to partake in the lucrative textile trade.3 This was facilitated by the ponds of water which dotted the region, ‘where the washers were whiting of cloth’, as well as the town’s burgeoning shipbuilding industry which attracted Golcondan, Mughal, Siamese, Dutch and English merchants.4 By the mid-seventeenth century, Narsapur had emerged as an important centre 1 2

3 4

Richard M. Eaton, A Social History of the Deccan, 1300 1761 (Cambridge, 2005), p. 145. Vijaya Ramaswamy, ‘The Genesis and Historical Role of the Master Weavers in South India Textile Production’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 28, no. 3 (1985), p. 303. Chris Nierstrasz, Rivalry for Trade in Tea and Textiles: The English and Dutch East India Companies (1700 1800) (Basingstoke, 2015), p. 10 and p. 158. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘A Note on Narsapur Peta: A “Syncretic” Shipbuilding Centre in South India, 1570 1700’, Journal of the Economy and Social History of the Orient, vol. 31, no. 3 (1988), p. 307; Sir Richard Carnac Temple, ed., The Diaries of Streynsham Master, 1675 1680 (London, 1911, 2 volumes), Madapollam, 9 April 1679 (hereafter DSM).

1

2

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

of production and trade, home to perhaps some 10,000 people.5 As a frequent visitor to the region, the English merchant Thomas Bowrey observed in the 1670s that the ‘great Masse of riches these lands Enjoyed . . . caused the Christian Nations to Settle and trade here’.6 Despite being a relatively new element in Narsapur, the Dutch and English communities quickly established homes, estates and families in the town and surrounding countryside. When he passed through in the 1670s, the English agent of Madras Streynsham Master described it as ‘a very pleasant country’, noting the sheer number of Europeans who had put down roots and immersed themselves in the cultural, economic and political life of the region.7 The homes of the most influential Europeans lined the river bank, and by far the largest of these was that of Robert Fleetwood. His ‘faire great house’ was built of brick and sat amidst sprawling gardens, its status reflecting the fact that from 1671 this Englishman was both chief of the English factory and a Golcondan governor.8 Fleetwood had married Margery Winter, the mestizo or Eurasian daughter of an Indo-Portuguese woman and her husband, Sir Edward Winter, previously an agent of Madras further down the Coast. Together, the Fleetwoods produced a ‘Numerous’ multiracial family that filled the rooms of their sumptuous estate.9 This kinship group, crossing multiple ethnic, cultural and linguistic borders, enabled Robert Fleetwood to establish lucrative social and commercial networks throughout the Godavari delta. The ‘great house’, as both the home of an English chief and the residence of a Golcondan official, therefore stood as a symbol of the way in which the English Company was able to flourish within the carapace of powerful and affluent Asian states. This was best encapsulated by the visit of the Golcondan sultan himself, Abdul Hasan Qutb Shah, who, when passing through Narsapur in 1678, chose to stay at Fleetwood’s house. He was, one Company servant observed, ‘much taken with [the house], praising it severall tymes, and saying when he came next from Golcondah he would take up his residence therein’.10 As Fleetwood’s experience in the Godavari delta illustrates, the world of the Company servant in Asia was a culturally amorphous and politically entangled one. The overlapping loyalties and complex associations which bound English agents into local economic and political structures in Asia were not tenuous or 5 6 7 8 9 10

Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Rural Industry and Commercial Agriculture in Late Seventeenth Century South Eastern India’, Past and Present, no. 126 (February, 1990), p. 97. Sir Richard Carnac Temple and Thomas Bowrey, eds., A Geographical Account of Countries Round the Bay of Bengal, 1669 to 1679 (Cambridge, 1903), p. 109. DSM, 15 April 1679. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/1, ‘Concerning the Company’s Servants and Current Events at Masuli patam’, 1676. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/12, Major William Puckle’s Diary, consultation at Masulipatam, 13 December 1675. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/2, consultation at Masulipatam, 25 December 1678.

Introduction

3

marginal, either. Robert Fleetwood rapidly expanded his position in the Godavari hierarchy within a short space of time. In 1670, ‘without the advise of the Agent and Councell of Ffort St George’, Fleetwood had nonetheless ‘contracted with the King of Golcundah’ for the right to govern Narsapur.11 In exchange for an annual rent of 115 pagodas, Fleetwood’s government over the town allowed him possession of the territory encompassing the Company’s factory and ‘ye river by wch means he can ship of Goods without asking leave of any Governr or be stopt by them’.12 In this respect, Fleetwood became the Company’s Golcondan landlord at Madapollam. Capitalising on Narsapur’s prosperous revenues from cloth production, much of which was then sold to the Company, Fleetwood began to raise substantial sums from local merchants in order to invest 10,000 pagodas in trading ventures. These creditors included the political and mercantile elite of the region, such as the governor of Masulipatam Agha Jalal and his deputy, as well as the prominent Mughal merchant Mir Jamal Muhammad.13 Fleetwood had vessels built at the Narsapur shipyard and recruited English and Indian sailors to crew his trading voyages as far afield as Persia. His success in integrating the commercial and political worlds of Golconda and the Company at Narsapur soon emboldened him to expand. In 1672 he again ‘contracted’ with the sultan to purchase the rights to farm the tax of the neighbouring town of Veeravasaram, about eight miles north of Narsapur, for the sum of 300 pagodas. Within two years he was able to quadruple the revenue collected from the town, benefitting from the subsequent establishment of a new Company factory there that was no doubt largely facilitated by Fleetwood himself in his role as chief. By 1675 he had further ‘contracted with the King of Golconda for the Farme of severall towns and Lands’, acquiring two more territories to add to his growing fiefdom.14 Nestled in the Godavari delta and sustained through the patronage and capital of his transcultural networks, Fleetwood’s lucrative jurisdiction was a hybrid political construct born out of his duality as the English chief and a regional Golcondan official. The sultan of Golconda’s visit, then, was not just to the home of Chief Fleetwood of the English East India Company but to tax-collector Fleetwood, the increasingly powerful Golcondan official who had become ‘obliged to pay a greate Summe of money yearly to the [Golcondan] King’ and whose interests were being consolidated throughout the delta.15

11 12 13 14

BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/12, Major William Puckle’s Diary, consultation at Masulipatam, 28 July 1675. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/12, Major William Puckle’s Diary, consultation at Masulipatam, 13 December 1675. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/1, consultation at Masulipatam, 4 January 1677. 15 BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/1, consultation at Masulipatam, 28 July 1675. Ibid.

4

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

The experiences of Robert Fleetwood in the riverine worlds of Golconda demonstrate perhaps more than anything else that the acquisition and exercise of wealth and power by Europeans in Asia was achieved largely through blending together the often competing interests of the English nation state and its corporate arm in Europe with the more local and regional interests of Asian states and their elites. As English agents such as Fleetwood were drawn deeper into local systems of trade and structures of government, so too were their employers, whether willingly or otherwise. Witnessing the astonishing success of Robert Fleetwood in entrenching himself in the Godavari delta, the committees wrote to the governor of Madras from their headquarters at East India House in London, ordering him to investigate ‘the whole business of the Farmes’ to see whether the Company could acquire Fleetwood’s rights and privileges, and to make a report on whether their government over the territories would ‘tend to Our proffitt and advantage’.16 Having toured the various towns within Fleetwood’s jurisdiction, the chief of Masulipatam, Major William Puckle, concluded that they ‘would bee much to the Companys interest and advantage to rent’, and Fleetwood was duly ordered to hand them over to the Company.17 As a result of the thriving transcultural18 networks of its agent, the Company was now no longer just a foreign commercial organisation operating out of the Godavari delta but a legitimate cog in the wider Golcondan regime, exercising government over prosperous urban centres, collecting taxation from thousands of Asian subjects but also doing so in the service of the Golcondan sultan. As for Fleetwood himself, he was allowed to remain in possession of Narsapur, on account that ‘he could not easily remove his Numerous family’ from that town, and also because Major Puckle argued on his behalf that the retention ‘of the little village wherein he lives’ would not have been ‘prejudiciall to the Companys affairs’.19 And indeed Fleetwood and his ‘numerous’ family remained at Narsapur until his death the following year, when his widow Margery remarried another Company servant from the Madapollam factory, who himself then took over the government of Narsapur, ensuring its possession remained within the family.20

16 17 18

19 20

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/88, court of committees to Madras, 24 December 1675. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/12, consultation at Madras, [?] 1674. This book purposefully adopts ‘transcultural’ instead of ‘cross cultural’, the latter predomin antly referring to the interaction between contrasting cultures, as opposed to transcultural which more appropriately describes the merging of cultural practices, identities and values, a process studied in the following chapters. Nonetheless, historians have predominantly adopted these terms in an interchangeable manner. Dominic Sachsenmaier, ‘World History as Ecumenical History?’ Journal of World History, vol. 18, no. 4 (December, 2007), pp. 465 489. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/12, Robert Fleetwood to Masulipatam, Madapollam, 13 December 1675. Records of Fort St George, Diary and Consultation Book (Madras, 1910 1943, 85 volumes), consultation at Madras, 15 April 1679 (hereafter DCB).

Introduction

5

This book reconsiders the origins of the British Empire in Asia. It does so by challenging traditional understandings of European ‘expansion’ as a process which occurred against Asian states, whether through the projection of maritime force, aggressive commercial monopolisation or the carving out of independent, fortified jurisdictions just some of the usual suspects historians look to in explaining European success in Asia. However, rather than expanding at the expense of Asian ‘rivals’, this book reveals the ways in which the British Empire emerged gradually as a process of political and economic enfranchisement at the hands of Asian communities and their elites, who integrated individual Europeans into their commercial and social hierarchies and political structures, and empowered them and by extension their corporate employers with a dazzling array of rights and privileges. From the power to exercise judicial authority, tax subjects, build forts, trade customs free and govern jurisdictions, these constitutional concessions sustained and expanded the English Company’s presence at the heart of some of the world’s most powerful empires. In India, for instance, over the course of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries substantial centres of Company government and trade emerged in regions such as the Coromandel Coast and Bengal. And yet the mighty Mughal Empire, at the height of its power in this period, had no more room for an English ‘colony’ in its midst than England did a Mughal one. What the Mughals were willing to accommodate, however, was a subordinate and productive European presence that contributed to the economic vitality and political consolidation of the empire, whilst simultaneously acknowledging the sovereignty of the emperor and maintaining social and commercial ties with regional elites on both a personal and official level. The English East India Companies did not grow outside, or at the expense of, the Asian states that they came into contact with but rather flourished within the carapace of their expansive Asian hosts. In this sense, this book emphasises the Asian genesis of the British Empire. The following pages tell the story of how servants of the struggling and failing English East India Company eventually learned to abandon ineffective and unsustainable mercantilist strategies of force and monopoly in the early seventeenth century, and instead embraced the need to adapt to their cultural and political surroundings in Asia. After much fumbling about, individual Europeans eventually learned to cultivate the ties that unlocked commercial and political success in Asia, for themselves and their employers. They married into prominent Asian families, established expansive transcultural kinship networks, opened up crucial sources of credit and capital, maintained social and business partnerships with Asian elites, became part of local and regional commercial enterprises to acquire the knowledge, expertise and legitimacy to operate in the intricate and complex trading and diplomatic landscapes of Asia, and utilised their influence to obtain important political

6

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

offices and privileges for themselves and their families. Whilst such a degree of integration was often actively and even violently resisted by their corporate employers in Europe, concerned as metropolitan authorities always were with notions of ‘corruption’ and ‘going-native’, the eventual success of their servants on the ground pulled the Company’s official presence further into the affairs of Asian states and their communities both willingly and reluctantly and firmly entrenched them in the region, much to their advantage. Learning to accommodate the private ambitions of their servants by the later seventeenth century, the Company was eventually able to utilise their expansive networks to acquire and maintain large jurisdictions of its own in Asia, and particularly in India: governing cities, building fortresses, trading freely and enjoying the patronage of powerful rulers. By the early eighteenth century, the English Company emerged as the most successful European presence in Asia, and by far the largest trader in Asian goods. If this book is primarily about the Asian genesis of the British Empire, then it is of necessity also an exploration of the decentred nature of early modern empire, in which the national and imperial aims of European states in Asia were more often than not reshaped by the interests, demands and affairs of those on the spot who had to contend with, accommodate and even serve a broad range of non-European actors with the power to make or break them. Of course, the argument put forward by this book flies in the face of the almost sacred role ascribed to the West European nation-state in overseas expansion. Buoyed up by the dramatic examples of the Iberian empires in the Atlantic in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and the more modern dominance of the British, French and Dutch in Asia in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, historians have for many years accepted the strength and capabilities of the European nation-state to project itself as an almost incontrovertible truth, believing that European expansion overseas was the natural product of the expansion of the European state system itself, whether fiscally, militarily, technologically or ideologically.21 The centralisation of these resources and the conceptualisation of the state as an institutional monopoly over the means and uses of violence shaped the parameters by which we understand state formation and judge the capabilities of the state itself, in which Europe supposedly achieved a fiscal-military advantage which allowed it to overwhelm the non-European world.22 From this Eurocentric 21

22

Charles H. Parker, Global Interactions in the Early Modern Age, 1400 1800 (Cambridge, 2010), p. 15. Such arguments often adopt the European ‘military revolution’ thesis, and its supposed export overseas, see for example Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500 1800 (Cambridge, 1988), especially chapter 4. Charles Tilly, ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, in Peter B. Evans, Dietrich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skockpol, eds., Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 169 191; John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State,

Introduction

7

perspective, Europe’s East India Companies are often depicted as effective arms of this extra-European capability, applying lethal maritime force and superior capital organisation to monopolise Asia’s markets and conquer its most productive and fertile regions, as in the Dutch VOC’s colonisation of Southeast Asia’s archipelagos in the seventeenth century or the English Company’s territorial expansion in India after 1757.23 The centrality of the state and of national interests in determining the shape and form of overseas enterprises has thankfully begun to be questioned by historians as they recognise the substantial limitations of the early modern state. After all, Whitehall, the heart of the English state, employed hardly more than a thousand people in the seventeenth century, with government relying predominantly on ‘amateur, part-time and unsalaried’ provincial officials.24 The unstable fiscal-military dynamics of the English state also ensured that the projection of its power remained heavily circumscribed throughout this period, even in Europe, let alone further afield. From the disintegration of the army sent by James I to intervene in the Thirty Years War, to the financial extremities of Charles II which mothballed the Royal Navy and allowed the Dutch to sail up the Medway with impunity and burn the English fleet, the English state was simply unable to sustain serious projections of force.25 Lacking the means itself, the Stuart state outsourced overseas expansion to a range of constitutionally autonomous entities, ‘to make the risks and expense bearable’.26 Through the mechanism of the letter patent, the crown granted charters to corporations and proprietorships to nobles to colonise overseas territories or maintain commercial monopolies. Proprietary grants were used widely in the Atlantic in the seventeenth century, establishing colonies in Maryland, New York and the Carolinas, while charters set up corporations to maintain jurisdictions and monopolies elsewhere, notably the Muscovy Company in Russia, the Levant Company in the Eastern Mediterranean and, of course, the East India Company in Asia.27 It has even been argued that the latter was not just an arm of the English state from 1600 onwards, either, but acted as a body politic in its own

23 24 25 26 27

1688 1783 (London, 1989); Thomas Ertman, Birth of the Leviathan: Building States and Regimes in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1997). For a critique of Eurocentrism in this context, see Maxine Berg, ed., Writing the History of the Global (Oxford, 2013), p. 5. Mark Goldie, ‘The Unacknowledged Republic: Officeholding in Early Modern England’, in Tim Harris, ed., The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500 1850 (Basingstoke, 2001), p. 154. David Scott, Leviathan: The Rise of Britain as a World Power (London, 2013), p. 133; J. R. Jones, The Anglo Dutch Wars of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1996), pp. 174 177. Rupali Mishra, A Business of State: Commerce, Politics and the Birth of the East India Company (Cambridge, MA, 2018), p. 19. For an overview of many of these and the mechanisms through which they were developed, see William Pettigrew and David Veevers, eds., The Corporation as a Protagonist in Global History, c1550 1750 (Leiden, 2018).

8

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

right, ‘neither tethered to supposedly broader national histories, nor as an imitation, extension, or reflection of the nation state’, and indeed should be viewed as a ‘Company-state’ with its own sovereign power.28 Alongside proprietary grants and chartered companies also existed a host of private overseas initiatives, as L. H. Roper has recently emphasised, directed by ‘a cohort of aristocrats and merchants’ who planned, financed and launched numerous schemes of colonisation, monopolisation and exploration across the globe.29 Yet if these new avenues in research have made it possible to move beyond the narrow scope of the state when considering the origins of the British empire, they continue to place the overseas development of these various entities firmly within a metropolitan or European context, with English officials, ideas and domestic political and social currents centrifugally disseminating from Europe to determine English interests overseas. Figures representing City and court, men such as Maurice Thompson or the earl of Warwick, and the factional or commercial interests which dictated their overseas projects, loom large in any analysis of the subsequent development of the latter.30 When it comes to the East India Company, historians fetishise and privilege the role of crown charters as the decisive factor in its development overseas, with some emphasising the continuous need for Company leadership to petition the crown for new powers, often for each separate voyage to Asia, a dynamic which ensured ‘Company and crown worked together’.31 From this perspective, therefore, the development and growth of the Company in Asia was largely determined by national interests and the domestic forces of a faraway European metropole. Even those historians who have placed more emphasis on the Company’s independence from the state still depict it operating like a great ‘chain of command’ tying the various regions of Asia firmly to London, bound together with ‘institutional unity and unanimity’ through a ‘constant circulation of people, things, and documents’.32 The latter has been given particular attention as a tool for ensuring control and conformity by servants in Asia to their superiors in Europe. According to Miles Ogborn, as a long-distance bureaucratic institution, the Company’s reliance on writing and accounting meant that they acted as ‘forms of knowledge and power’, and the success in regulating these practices by the Company’s leadership created 28 29 30

31

Philip J. Stern, The Company State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India (Oxford, 2011), p. 6. L. H. Roper, Advancing Empire: English Interests and Overseas Expansion, 1613 1688 (Cambridge, 2017), p. 2. This is most evidenced in Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550 1653 (London, 1993). See also Roper, Advancing Empire, particularly chapters 2 4. 32 Mishra, A Business of State, p. 177. Stern, Company State, p. 11.

Introduction

9

‘social collectivity, order, and authority’ throughout its settlements, rendering those in Asia as obedient public servants carrying out metropolitan demands.33 However, one need only glance at the Company’s records to discover ‘a far more chaotic reality’, as Anna Winterbottom has termed it.34 Indeed, English crown charters, chains of command and institutional practices mattered more in the minds and actions of ministers, committees and shareholders in Europe, and did not reflect actual developments on the ground in Asia. In fact, the limited resources of the Company for much of the seventeenth century ‘deprived it of an overarching administration with a clear chain of command and a permanent base’, with servants largely left to their own initiatives to establish the Company in Asia.35 When one crossed the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean, wielding a charter from Charles II outlawing interlopers, for instance, meant very little to the Indian prince within whose sprawling jurisdiction interlopers lived, did business and received patronage and protection from elites. Although Philip J. Stern has pointed out that the Company’s development ‘rested in a complex amalgam of English charters, Asian grants, and its own deliberate and aggressive political behavior’, much less attention has been paid to how the Company negotiated, acquired and utilised these Asian grants, let alone at the very least attributing to them a significant place alongside their domestic English equivalents.36 And yet, as William Pettigrew has made clear, it was the ‘array of grants from Asian officials and rulers’ which actually made possible the Company’s ‘right to mint money, to trade without paying customs, and to set-up trading factories and forts, to exercise legal jurisdiction over its employees and a growing range of Company subjects, and to establish its rule over towns and settlements.’37 Charters from its domicile nation-state proved just one central strand in a sprawling web of non-European constitutional and judicial rights which allowed the Company to operate in Asia. The outer threads of this web, the multitude of grants, farmans and treaties offered by Asian states, elites and communities, proved more decisive in forming the overall shape of the web, anchoring the Company legitimately and securely within a diverse range of political and economic structures in Asia. However, when the Company’s leaders in London or indeed the crown itself directly dispatched ambassadors to Asian courts to obtain such grants, negotiations always ended in complete 33 34 35 37

Miles Ogborn, Indian Ink: Script and Print in the Making of the English East India Company (London, 2007), p. 72. Anna Winterbottom, ‘Company Culture: Information, Scholarship, and the East India Company Settlements 1660 1720s’ (PhD dissertation, University of London, 2010), p. 8. 36 Roper, Advancing Empire, p. 90. Stern, Company State, p. 6. William A. Pettigrew, ‘Corporate Constitutionalism and the Dialogue between the Global and the Local in Seventeenth Century English History’, Itinerario, vol. 39, no. 3 (January, 2016), p. 491.

10

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

failure, from Thomas Roe in the early seventeenth century to Sir William Norris at the turn of the eighteenth century.38 If the driving force behind the Company’s presence and growth in Asia in the early modern period was neither the English (and, later, British) state nor the corporate interests of Company leaders and shareholders in the English metropole, who or what, then, was capable of integrating the Company into Asian state and society on a scale that allowed for the negotiation and acquisition of this complex web of rights and privileges? The answer may be found by returning to the domestic English state, where historians have succeeded in reconceptualising the key agents of the state formation process. In the absence of a capable, centrifugal state in early modern England, state power was embodied, actualised and exercised by a range of provincial constituents, including urban elites, magistrates, parish officials and the gentry, all of whom were enfranchised by the communities within which they operated. Michael Braddick has argued that ‘the exercise of political power depended on the action of individuals’, revealing the crucial role of local office-holders and the social networks they established in English counties.39 Similarly, Phil Withington has reconceptualised early modern English state formation from the centralisation of government or force to the enfranchisement of a network of local corporations and their citizens, a process which eventually created a ‘city commonwealth’.40 Village office holders and borough officials blurred their private, provincial interests the acquisition of wealth, patronage for their families and the elevation of their social status with their more public roles as agents of state authority. Rather than create tension or conflict, the pursuit of parochial interests embedded and strengthened state power in the localities. In other words, the successful negotiation of their position in their local surroundings allowed provincial agents to successfully realise and maintain state interests the maintenance of order, social conformity, the extraction of revenue and local cooperation with government policies.41

38

39 40 41

For Thomas Roe’s embassy, see Colin Paul Mitchell, Sir Thomas Roe and the Mughal Empire (Oxford, 2001). There are no recent studies of Sir William Norris’s embassy to India, but for a published account of the manuscript sources, see H. H. Das, ed., The Norris Embassy to Aurangzib (Calcutta, 1959). Michael J. Braddick, State Formation in Early Modern England, c. 1550 1700 (Cambridge, 2000), p. 27. Phil Withington, The Politics of Commonwealth: Citizens and Freemen in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 266 267. This has sometimes been termed the ‘early modern power grid’. See Michael J. Braddick and John Walter, eds., Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society: Order, Hierarchy and Subor dination in Britain and Ireland (Cambridge, 2001), p. 39. See also Steve Hindle, The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, 1550 1640 (Basingstoke, 2000).

Introduction

11

If the domestic English state was embodied by a series of individuals and their local networks, this proved even more radically true of the English East India Company, in which its fleets, servants and settlements functioned thousands of miles from metropolitan authorities, and whose development took place in a temporal quagmire, where communications could take up to two years to go back-and-forth between London and India.42 Not only was the importance of those on the spot in Asia as the embodiment of the Company even more significant from a practical point of view, then, but their scope for determining Company interests and the direction of policy was dramatically skewered in their favour. The success of a voyage or the opening up of a factory depended almost entirely on those servants in Asia, their immersion in the regions they were based and the local connections that they forged.43 As Emily Erikson has noted in her study of the commercial networks of English Company captains, ‘the decentralized ports of the East reinforced the decentralization of the firm’.44 As captains and the supercargoes who accompanied them established their own private trading contacts throughout maritime Asia, they opened up new avenues and markets for the Company’s own trade. Similarly for the Dutch VOC, it was not Amsterdam but Batavia and Java which determined the policies and interests of the Company in Asia. Dutch settlements and their agents ‘remained the Company’s main actor in determining the principles of the Company’s legal system’.45 Even when the influence of the Hereen Zeventien (Gentlemen Seventeen) was felt in Asia, it was through patrimonial obligations and private networks of personnel.46 The prominence of individual Europeans pursuing private agendas in Asia is not a new topic of study, of course. Much has been written of the ‘corrupt’ practices of Company servants in amassing fortunes at the expense of the Company’s own trade, and indeed often with the Company’s own money, and therefore preventing the realisation of national and corporate interests.47 This strictly commercial analysis is almost always understood in terms of the 42 43 44 45 46 47

H. V. Bowen, The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756 1833 (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 152 154. Anna Winterbottom, Hybrid Knowledge in the Early East India Company (Cambridge, 2015), p. 32. Emily Erikson, Between Monopoly and Free Trade: The English East India Company, 1600 1757 (Oxford, 2014), p. 154. Kerry Ward, Networks of Empire: Forced Migration in the Dutch East India Company (Cambridge, 2009), p. 283. Julia Adams, The Familial State: Ruling Families and Merchant Capitalism in Early Modern Europe (London, 2005), chapter 1. Julia Adams, ‘Principals and Agents, Colonialists and Company Men: The Decay of Colonial Control in the Dutch East Indies’, American Sociological Review, vol. 61, no. 1 (February, 1996), pp. 12 28; Emily Erikson and Peter Bearman, ‘Malfeasance and the Foundations for Global Trade: The Structure of English Trade in the East Indies, 1601 1833’, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 112, no. 1 (July, 2006), pp. 195 230.

12

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

‘agency problem’, charting the struggle of the Company’s metropolitan authorities to regulate and subordinate their ‘wayward’ servants into honest, public servants of the Company and crown.48 But as this book hopes to show, far from an ‘agency’ problem, the integration of Europeans in Asia opened up channels of local political, financial and commercial authority on behalf of the Company, pulling them deeper into Asian state and society. The transcultural political actors who emerged as a consequence of the Company’s arrival in Asia from 1600 onwards, while clearly seeking to establish the interests of the Company in local regions, also entrenched themselves in their new surroundings on a private level, integrating into non-European political and social orders, marrying Asian women, establishing mixed-raced families and developing transcultural trading networks. The intermeshing of the corporate and national interests of the Company with the local and regional interests of servants served to blur and decentre the national and corporate parameters of the Company itself. Although metropolitan authorities the Company’s executive officers and shareholders, the crown and ultimately parliament resisted this process at first and sought to regulate and control the affairs of servants and the development of its settlements overseas, by the later seventeenth century the obvious success of the latter in entrenching the Company’s trade and presence across Asia turned this contested dynamic into a broadly accepted transnational strategy. Of course, this is only half of the story. This argument means little without understanding the nature of the Southeast Asian state system and the communities and elites that ultimately allowed individual Company servants to establish themselves and, by extension, their corporate employers, within their jurisdictions. Interestingly, despite the lack of attempts by historians to integrate Western and Asian historiographies of empire, research on both has taken a very similar path, and it is the hope of this book to conflate these as much as possible. Like the European state system, the massive imperial arc of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires have also traditionally been conceptualised as monolithic, centralised polities, ones that successfully harnessed the fiscal-military resources of the Eurasian landmass. ‘Buoyed by conquest and plunder’, declared one historian, ‘Akbar and his advisers built a centralizing administration capable of steady expansion’.49 When their imperial structures struggled or unravelled, the cause was often attributed to a gradual 48

49

Ann M. Carlos and Stephen Nicholas, ‘Agency Problems in Early Chartered Companies: The Case of the Hudson’s Bay Company’, Journal of Economic History, vol. 50, no. 4 (December, 1990), pp. 853 875; S. R. H. Jones and Simon P. Ville, ‘Efficient Transactors or Rent Seeking Monopolists? The Rationale for Early Chartered Trading Companies’, Journal of Economic History, vol. 56, no. 4 (December, 1996), pp. 898 915; Santhi Hejeebu, ‘Contract Enforcement in the English East India Company’, Journal of Economic History, vol. 65, no. 2 (June, 2005). John F. Richards, The Mughal Empire (Cambridge, 1993), p. 58.

Introduction

13

decentralisation of their powerful centres, for example the Mughal empire in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries following the imperial overstretch of Aurangzeb’s reign, and the repeated sack of Delhi in the following decades.50 In Safavid Persia, a state supposedly of ‘absolutist centralism’, decline is often attributed to the rebellion of provincial tribes and invasions ‘against the central areas of Iran’ by Afghan forces.51 Yet similarly to recent understandings of the decentred origins of the European state and imperial systems, new research has questioned these monolithic conceptualisations.52 This is especially the case for Mughal historiography, in which a shifting focus to regionalism and cultural history have broadened the debate away from macro-economic and structural history which tended towards centre-periphery or top-down approaches.53 And while the Ottoman state possessed a large central bureaucracy, Persia certainly did not, whereas Mughal India was somewhere in between.54 Despite these varying gradients of central control, all three empires were still forced to function overwhelmingly through networks of clients, allies and agents who both acquired and embodied state power throughout the vast regions of their empires. As one historian has recently described the Mughal empire in this period, it operated ‘more as a spider’s web in which strands were strong in some places and weak in others.’55 In fact, it has been argued that the Mughal empire was a powerful state specifically when it ‘mobilized and incorporated a network of actors who had their own locally rooted forms of political authority’.56 To function effectively, the Mughal regime had to create local political, social and economic networks of power across a plethora of different ethnic, religious and cultural groups.57 The diaspora of Armenian merchants from New Julfa in Safavid Persia, for example, were provided with the rights to establish commercial communities in most of the major port cities of Mughal India.58 More important 50 51

52 53

54 55 56 57 58

Ibid., chapter 12. Bert Fragner, ‘The Safavid Empire and the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Political and Strategic Balance of Power within the World System’, in Willem Floor and Edmund Herzig, eds., Iran and the World in the Safavid Age (London, 2012), p. 27. For the best survey on this revisionism, see Iqtidar Alam Khan, ‘State in Mughal India: Re examining the Myths of a Counter vision’, Social Scientist, vol. 30, no. 1 2 (2001), pp. 16 45. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘The Mughal State Structure or Process? Reflections on Recent Western Historiography’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, vol. 29, no. 3 (1992), pp. 291 321. Stephen F. Dale, The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals (Cambridge, 2010), p. 5. Munis D. Faruqui, The Princes of the Mughal Empire, 1504 1719 (Cambridge, 2012), p. 4. Jon Wilson, ‘Early Colonial India beyond Empire’, The Historical Journal, vol. 50, no. 4 (December, 2007), p. 956. Farhat Hasan, State and Locality in Mughal India: Power Relations in Western India, c. 1572 1730 (Cambridge, 2004). Sebouh David Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean: The Global Trade Networks of Armenian Merchants from New Julfa (London, 2011).

14

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

to the functioning of the Mughal world were the Arab and Afghan mercenaries that flooded the military marketplace and were often invited to settle in North India in large numbers.59 Similarly, alongside Armenian, Arab, Afghan and Turkish groups, the emerging eminence of Parsi merchant communities in Gujarat and Western India and other ‘portfolio capitalists’ shaped the cultural and commercial character of Mughal maritime society.60 As the empire’s borders expanded, it incorporated and utilised a host of highly autonomous and semi-independent actors, from the African Siddi naval power to the Rajput princes.61 It was this need to consolidate the state’s authority across the subcontinent by recruiting and utilising subordinate entities that provided the opportunities for English Company servants to pursue their ambitious economic and political interests within the Mughal framework, as opposed to against it. As J. C. Sharman has recently stated, the Company’s ‘entry into the empire was greatly eased by the permeable nature of the Mughal polity, which routinely shared and delegated sovereign prerogatives’.62 Detached from the English nation state, and far removed from the policies of corporate interests in London, Company servants willingly operated within the permeable and shifting structures of the Mughal system, allying with elites, consolidating business partnerships and upholding the authority of their new Asian suzerains, in exchange for substantial ‘sovereign prerogatives’, of a kind which expanded not just the immediate and local interests of servants on the spot but those of their employers in Europe, too. Asian elites and communities appropriated and recruited Company servants and their emerging transcultural networks for a host of benefits. Pondering why ‘a Potent Prince’ such as the sultan of Golconda had allowed the Dutch and English to establish such substantial coastal settlements at Pulicat and Madras, respectively, the English Company surgeon John Fryer observed in the 1670s that, as Golconda had few ships, ‘it is a Maxim among them to commit their Strongholds on the Sea-Coast to those they can call their Friends’. Not only did this free up the sultan’s own resources, Fryer noted, but it also placed the financial and human costs of maritime security squarely on the shoulders of the Europeans. Finally, he wrote, if ever a military threat 59

60

61

62

Kaushik Roy, ‘From the Mamluks to the Mansabdars: A Social History of Military Service in South Asia, c. 1500 to c. 1650’, in Erik Jan Zurcher, ed., Fighting for a Living: A Comparative Study of Military Labour, 1500 2000 (Amsterdam, 2013), pp. 81 114. Sanjay Subrahmanyam, ‘Of Imarat and Tijarat: Asian Merchants and State Power in the Western Indian Ocean, 1400 to 1750’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 37, no. 4 (October, 1995), p. 765. D. K. Bhattacharya, ‘Indians of African Origin’, Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines, vol. 10, no. 40 (1970), pp. 579 582; Robert C. Hallissey, Rajput Rebellion against Aurangzeb: Study of the Mughal Empire in Seventeenth Century India (Columbia, 1977). J. C. Sharman, Empires of the Weak: The Real Story of European Expansion and the Creation of the New World Order (Oxford, 2019), p. 84.

Introduction

15

materialised, the European fortresses would become ‘Places as sure Asylums of Retreat’.63 For Golconda, then, the European Companies were considered to be a key constituent of the state, with their integration providing tangible fiscal, military and defensive benefits. It was a process repeated across Asia in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries with the arrival of Company servants and ships. But it could also be a coercive process, as when the English Company failed to suppress European piracy in the Indian Ocean in the 1690s. In response, the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb seized the Company’s goods and imprisoned its servants, and then forced the governor of Surat, Samuel Annesley, to sign an agreement charging the Company with policing the pilgrimage routes to Mecca and keeping all Mughal shipping secure from pirates in the future.64 In effect, the Company had been bullied into becoming the empire’s maritime faujdar, or policeman.65 The meeting of these two historiographical strands, of an autonomous European presence of individual Company servants seeking to realise private and local interests, and of an Asian state system responsive to utilising local and foreign constituents to maintain political integrity, provides an opportunity to resituate the origins of the British empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries firmly within the carapace of the Asian state system. As a consequence, the argument presented here revises somewhat current thinking on the relationship between Europe and Asia in the early modern period. As expected, this has come a long way since traditional nineteenth and early twentieth century understandings of European superiority and dominance within the context of Asian ‘corruption’, ‘chaos’ and ‘decline’.66 However, with the collapse of European empires in Asia from the mid-twentieth century onwards, revisionist interpretations began to outline an ‘Age of Partnership’ between Europeans who needed Asian expertise and capital to succeed in trade, and indifferent Asian states and communities that were politically unconcerned with a barely visible European presence.67 But rightly dissatisfied with the absence of conflict in the relationship between Europe and Asia, by the end of the century historians began to move even further away from this revisionism to reintroduce tension into the equation, presenting a new 63 64 65 66 67

John Fryer, A New Account of East India and Persia (London, 1698), p. 43. John Keay, The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company (London, 1991), p. 188. Stern, Company State, p. 137. A representative example would be H. H. Dodwell, The Cambridge History of the British Empire: Volume 4: British India, 1497 1858 (Cambridge, 1934). Holden Furber, ‘Asia and the West as Partners before Empire and after’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 28, no. 4 (1969), pp. 711 721; Blair Kling and M. N. Pearson, eds., The Age of Partnership: Europeans in Asia before Domination (Honolulu, 1979); C. A. Bayly, Rulers, Townsmen and Bazaars: North Indian Society in the Age of British Expansion, 1770 1870 (Cambridge, 1983).

16

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

analytical framework of ‘contained conflict’ to describe the failure of Europeans to violently dominate markets and communities in Asia in the face of powerful Asian regimes that were more than capable of resisting them.68 Indeed, Sanjay Subrahmanyam described the period 1600 to 1750 as ‘long years of an uneasy jousting, of a jockeying for position, when no single party entirely gained the upper hand’.69 Ultimately, though, those who follow the ‘contained conflict’ approach emphasise the eventual accommodation Europeans and Asians reached through their drawn-out confrontations, if not necessarily learning to live peacefully side-by-side, then certainly to create a dialogue of interaction which functioned in a broadly stable manner. As Adam Clulow has shown in his study of the Dutch VOC in Tokugawa Japan in the seventeenth century, attempts to pursue the Company’s aggressive mercantilist strategies which had met with success amongst the archipelagos of Southeast Asia were utterly futile in the face of Japanese strength. As such, the Company had to accept a relationship of complete subordination, in exchange for which their presence and trade were ultimately tolerated by the Bakufu regime and its regional elites.70 Understanding the relationship between Europe and Asia in the years 1600 1750 as one of ‘contained conflict’ has been instrumental in two respects: revealing that the balance of power remained largely with the mighty Asian empires and not the generally weaker Europeans; and highlighting the dynamic of European subordination to Asian sovereignty. Whether as ‘cosmopolitans’ or ‘captives’, Europeans had a long history of being subordinated overseas to more dominant forces, a dynamic which often willingly or coercively subsumed them within non-European cultures.71 The often crippling military weakness of Europeans in Asia meant that ‘formal subordination to Asian great powers was the typical modus vivendi’, concludes Sharman.72 The dynamic of conceding European political autonomy to Asian elites in acknowledgement of the sovereignty of Asian rulers is crucial in understanding the process by which the English Company and its servants were able to integrate politically, militarily and economically into Asian empires and acquire the legitimacy and rights which enabled them to expand their interests so 68

69 70 71

72

Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India, 1500 1650 (Cambridge, 1990), specifically chapter 5; Om Prakash, European Commercial Enterprise in Pre Colonial India (Cambridge, 1998). Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Explorations in Connected History: Mughals and Franks (Oxford, 2005), p. 6. Adam Clulow, The Company and the Shogun: The Dutch Encounter with Tokugawa Japan (Chichester, 2014). Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World, 1600 1850 (London, 2002); Alison Games, The Web of Empire: English Cosmopolitans in an Age of Expansion, 1560 1660 (Oxford, 2008). Sharman, Empires of the Weak, p. 96.

Introduction

17

extensively. And yet, for those few historians who have looked carefully at this, it has been seen purely as an asymmetrical transaction: the complete acceptance of Asian authority over the European Companies without any commensurate benefit, other than merely tolerating their presence. For the Dutch VOC in Japan, subordination to the shogun appeared to consist of a ‘series of retreats by the weaker party and a shift to new ground’, with the Company gradually stripped of all its major rights and claims, so that the sole benefit of its submission was a not particularly profitable isolated commercial enclave, albeit free of European rivals.73 But this was not representative of the European presence elsewhere, and certainly not that of the English experience. In India, for example, acknowledging the authority of Asian rulers and the power of their elites over the English Company allowed servants to access a range of substantial benefits which ultimately enfranchised both their own private networks and the interests of their employers. From the right to build forts, exercise government, establish judicial bodies, trade customs-free and gain protection from enemies, subordination to Indian rulers opened up the kind of expansion utterly beyond the Company’s reach through violent confrontation. Much of this political enfranchisement was enabled and facilitated by the growth of the intricate personal and emotional ties which bound Company servants into mutually beneficial partnerships with those Asian elites who proved the gatekeepers to the highly prized rights and privileges the Company so desperately sought. Unfortunately, there has been a particularly stubborn strand of historical thought which insists on defining the English presence in Asia as physically isolated and culturally homogenous: a socially distinct group sitting defiantly apart from its surroundings, much of which has been teleologically projected back from the later nineteenth and twentieth century imperial-caste culture of the ruling British.74 ‘Even in the early periods when their numbers were relatively few and sometimes widely scattered, when communications with home were slow and when terms of uninterrupted service in India were very long indeed’, observed P. J. Marshall in his study of British society in India, ‘the British still did not merge into India. They saw themselves as a people apart.’75 Historians point to the emergence of the latereighteenth century ‘Nabobs’, Company servants seeking to make a fortune as quickly as possible in order to disassociate with their non-European 73 74

75

Clulow, The Company and the Shogun, p. 16. For instance, outside of their role as bibi or mistress, Indians warrant hardly any serious consideration in a new study on Britain’s presence in India over a 300 year period. See David Gilmour, The British in India: Three Centuries of Ambition and Experience (London, 2018), chapter 9. P. J. Marshall, ‘British Society in India under the East India Company’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 31, no. 1 (1997), p. 101.

18

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

surroundings and return home a nouveau riche.76 If there was any durable engagement at all, as one historian has observed, ‘the development of English societies in India was to a large extent inspired by social behaviour in the English metropolis’. In fact, ‘to go native was considered the worst possible behaviour by an Englishman’. As such, ‘it prevented a process of creolization in which Company servants might marry into the local community’.77 The idea of the English and later British presence as ephemeral and indeed even diasporic in Asia is, however, entirely at odds with what we know about their presence elsewhere in the world in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The weakness of the English overseas necessitated the reliance on several strategies of submission and integration with non-Europeans, not just to negate a lack of English military power but also to provide colonists and officials with access to local expertise, knowledge and resources, all of which were almost always absent upon arrival. For servants of the Hudson’s Bay Company, the intricacies of the North American fur trade in particular made assimilation into local indigenous groups fundamental if they were to learn the trade and access the necessary trapping skills and contacts. Company servants married indigenous women, utilised the skills of their new male kin and promoted their own metis or mixed-race children into the Company’s service.78 Some Hudson’s Bay Company forts became virtual family enterprises, a practice embraced by the Company for its success in expanding and protecting trade.79 In similar fashion, the Virginia Company regularly sent young English boys to live in Native American communities as a way to learn their language and customs, whilst they actively also sought to assimilate Native American women into their settlements through marriage to Company servants, a key diplomatic strategy that created kinship alliances with Indian elites. The best-known instance, of course, is the marriage of John Rolfe to Pocahontas, the daughter of Powhatan, chief of the Tsenacommacah Native Americans of the Tidewater region of Virginia, a union which brought an end to the war between the two in 1614.80 The possible advantages for the Virginia Company through this marriage alliance were so tantalising that another mission was sent from Jamestown to the chief in the hope of persuading him to marry another

76 77 78 79 80

On this unfortunately enduring narrative, see Tillman W. Nechtman, Nabobs: Empire and Identity in Eighteenth Century Britain (Cambridge, 2010). Soren Mentz, The English Gentleman Merchant at Work: Madras and the City of London, 1660 1740 (Copenhagen, 2005), p. 215. See Jennifer S. H. Brown, Strangers in Blood: Fur Trader Company Families in Indian Country (Vancouver, 1980). For an unrivalled study of these family enterprises, see Anne F. Hyde, Empires, Nations, and Families: A New History of the North American West (New York, 2011). See Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas, Powhatan, Opechancanough: Three Indian Lives Changed by Jamestown (London, 2005), especially chapter 7.

Introduction

19

daughter to the governor, Thomas Dale.81 Marriage into an elite family of the local community and the creation of transcultural kinship networks as a result of this became the key dynamic through which the English could break into existing circuits of trade and diplomatic influence in many parts of the world. The Japanese ‘Daimyo’ Matsura Takanobu was well aware of the centrality sexual relations and marriage played in his interactions with the East India Company servants in his province. When the Company’s ship the Clove arrived in his port, the daimyo went aboard to greet the English factors with four women, clothed in silk garments, ‘well faced, handed, and footed . . . very curteous in behaviour, not ignorant of the respect to be given unto persons according to their fashion’.82 The non-European strategy of tying company servants into the local social, political and commercial order, one that placed them within a subordinate position to local rulers, was highly successful. All of the English factors at Hirado had Japanese mistresses or wives, whom they lavished with expensive gifts, independent households and their own retinues of servants and slaves.83 As Alison Games notes, ‘the terms of relations [between English men and Japanese women] were shaped and dictated by the Japanese’.84 If the English succeeded in integrating into the regions they settled in as a way of creating fruitful relationships with local communities, those communities were equally successful in facilitating such ties as a means of achieving a degree of subjectivity over the newcomers. Although sexual and familial relations proved by far the most effective and substantial way for Europeans to break into existing circuits of trade, diplomacy and political power, the relationships which enabled Europeans to adapt and achieve a degree of assimilation into their local environs in fact varied greatly. In New England, where disease and rapid colonisation placed the English in a stronger position vis-à-vis the Native American polities in the region, the English still relied on cultural exchange and diplomatic alliances to tie themselves into local power structures. In the 1630s, the leaders of both Plymouth and Massachusetts hosted Native American chiefs and engaged in ceremonies of ritual and gift-giving based upon local customs that promoted a relationship of equality and friendship between the two communities.85 Even when the English colonial settlements began to expand by war, they could only do so within a complex web of intra-Native American alliances.86 Similarly, in 81 83

84 85 86

82 Games, Web of Empire, p. 131. Cited in ibid., p. 104. Derek Massarella, A World Elsewhere: Europe’s Encounter with Japan in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New Haven, CT, 1990). See also Anthony Farrington, ed., The English Factory in Japan, 1613 1623 (London, 1991, 2 volumes). Games, Web of Empire, 107. Jenny Hale Pulsipher, Subjects unto the Same King: Indians, English, and the Contest for Authority in Colonial New England (Philadelphia, 2005), chapter 1. Ibid.

20

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

the Mediterranean, where the English ‘were a vulnerable minority’, constantly open to falling foul of Catholic or Islamic authorities 3,000 British victims of piracy lay rotting in the dungeons of the Bey of Algiers in 1640 alone they adopted local dress and customs, disassociated themselves from their Protestant identities and very frequently underwent religious conversion in order to establish themselves in the complex commercial communities of the region.87 For Levant Company servants operating beyond Constantinople, they placed themselves under the authority of local courts, paid large bribes and made extravagant gifts to Turkish officials and maintained friendly social ties with city dignitaries. As James Mather has noted, ‘making money in this trading world called on Britons not to conquer its Ottoman rulers even had that been conceivable but to negotiate a place at their table.’88 Ingratiation was the order of the day, and the efforts of Company servants in the Levant facilitated the granting of a series of powerful privileges to them by the Porte, including the capitulations, an ‘imperial pledge’ which provided Company servants with a series of legal and commercial rights so cherished that, it was said, many of them slept with a copy under their pillows.89 Across the world in the early modern period, then, the weakness of the English presence necessitated the adaption of individual Europeans to local circumstances, as well as their accommodation of local systems of authority, and their pursuit and maintenance of social, cultural, familial, commercial, legal and political ties between themselves and the non-European elites and communities within which they hoped to establish a durable presence. And this proved no less the case in India perhaps more so indeed than elsewhere. The English adopted local customs and fashions, learned Asian languages and patronised a growing scholarship on Asian religion, medicine, history and science.90 In fact, more representative of Europeans in Asia in this period was their utter beguilement with the Indian subcontinent, as they sought to settle down and plant durable social, cultural and economic roots. The Frenchman Francois Bernier, visiting Bengal at the end of the seventeenth century, observed how the ‘rich exuberance of the country, together with the beauty and amiable disposition of the native women, has given rise to a proverb in common use among the Portuguese, English, and Dutch, that the Kingdom of Bengale has a hundred gates open for entrance, but not one for departure’.91 Captivated by their surroundings, Europeans frequently fetishised the Asian 87 88 89 90 91

Games, Web of Empire, chapter 2. James Mather, Pashas: Traders and Travellers in the Islamic World (London, 2009), p. 95. Ibid., p. 147. Winterbottom, Hybrid Knowledge; Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Europe’s India: Worlds, People, Empires, 1500 1800 (Cambridge, MA, 2017). Cited in Tirthankar Roy, ‘Where Is Bengal? Situating an Indian Region in the Early Modern World Economy’, Past and Present, no. 213 (November, 2011), p. 116.

Introduction

21

regions they found themselves in, often glorifying it as an open, tolerant, prosperous landscape, in stark contrast to their European domicile nations. The English interloper Thomas Bowrey, describing his comfortable life on the Coromandel Coast in the 1670s, observed that ‘all Forraigners, more Especially the English and Dutch, have great freedome here . . . and live Very pleasantly Upon the fatt of the land . . . in fine, it is a most delicate countrey for the Use of man, the Aire good and comfortable, and the land abounding with all Necessaries for the Sustainance of mankind.’92 Similarly, a Dutch visitor to Hugli marvelled at its ‘paved streets and pleasing walks with here and there stately Bengalese buildings, rich warehouses, dwellings and shops run by rich Moors, who have a flourishing trade in all sorts of merchandise’.93 It is little wonder that many Europeans genuinely sought to merge into local society, pursuing and maintaining expansive mixed-race families. Over half of marriages at Madras in 1700 were between European men and non-European women.94 And when official figures did become available in the later eighteenth century for births, more than half of baptisms at Calcutta were for ‘natural children’, meaning those that were of mixed-race.95 Of course, many of these were not the product of official relationships and political alliances but were merely the result of an entire spectrum of sexual liaisons.96 Encounters ranged from ‘long-term cohabitation to short-term sexual alliances as well as polygamous arrangements’, many of which ‘emerged as part of the masterservant contract’, as Durba Ghosh reminds us, ‘between many men and their [Indian] housekeepers, maidservants, and slaves’.97 Even those families that did emerge within a framework of Anglo-Indian ‘marriage’ were not always officially acknowledged, either by the European men that formed them or the Company itself.98 Nonetheless, whilst Anglo-Indian family formation differed from its European counterpart, its nebulous nature ultimately underpinned its utility in crossing multiple linguistic, racial and political boundaries. AngloIndian families proved to be powerful social sites of cultural exchange, commercial dynamism and political patronage, directly connecting the world 92 93 94

95 96 97 98

Temple and Bowrey, eds., Geographical Account, pp. 127 128. Cited in David William Davies, A Primer of Dutch Seventeenth Century Overseas Trade (The Hague, 1961), pp. 85 86. David Veevers. ‘The Contested State: Political Authority and the Decentred Foundations of the Early Modern Colonial State in Asia’, in William A. Pettigrew and Mahesh Gopalan, eds., The East India Company, 1600 1857: Essays on Anglo Indian Connection (Abingdon, 2017), p. 187. Durba Ghosh, Sex and the Family in Colonial India: The Making of Empire (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 39 40. See the Johnstones’ various encounters with Indian women in Emma Rothschild, The Inner Life of Empires: An Eighteenth Century History (Woodstock, 2011). Ibid., pp. 107 108. Margot Finn, ‘Anglo Indian Lives in the Later Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries’, Journal for Eighteenth Century Studies, vol. 33, no. 1 (2010), pp. 49 65.

22

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

of the East India Company servant with a much broader web of relationships, opening up pre-existing channels of credit, trade and influence that were otherwise beyond the reach of the Company as a national and corporate arm of the English state overseas. The nebulous nature of this early modern world of transcultural families, Anglo-Indian business alliances, transnational political associations and subordination to foreign sovereign powers has ensured that it remains obscure and largely hidden from the historian. The public records of the East India Company are incredibly extensive, even for the very earliest period in the seventeenth century. Historians have gravitated towards the detailed minutes of the court of committees (and later of the directors), extensive correspondence with the crown, volumes on its charters, giant tomes of orders and commands for its servants in Asia, all of which have provided rich and rewarding insights for generations of historians working on the English state and the British empire. But the very attraction of this vast archival mine has skewered our understanding of where agency lay historically within the Company, and the organisation and construction of this valuable depository in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries very much reflected contemporary conceptualisations of the nation state and the British empire: the victory of modern ‘order’ over early modern ‘disorder’, the control of the European ‘centre’ over the non-European ‘periphery’ and ultimately the triumph of bureaucracy over spatial and temporal chaos. It’s almost cliché now to say that the India Office Records are not just a colonial archive but by their very nature are themselves a product of colonialism.99 Naturally, the role of subaltern actors, of women, and of course the indigenous ‘voice’, is almost entirely hidden.100 To deviate from this manufactured representation of the past, and therefore shed light on the obscure and forgotten world of the English Company servant and their transnational experiences in Asia, this books privileges the factory records of the Company, those sources produced on the spot in Asia which recorded the dayto-day proceedings, events and debates which more directly shaped the development of the Company. In rich and often undistorted detail, the factory records reveal events as they unfolded: heated debates over metropolitan policies are depicted; they show initial reactions to emerging situations; they provide the fluid context of complex negotiations; ‘scandalous’ behaviour and events which they determined to keep from their employers in Europe are laid gloriously bare; and most valuably, they uncover an extensive social landscape 99 100

See the excellent contributions in Antoinette Burton, ed., Archive Stories: Facts, Fictions, and the Writing of History (Durham, NC, 2005). This wasn’t confined to colonial archives, of course, and non European sources similarly suffer from an intentional obscurity of important historical actors. See Indrani Chatterjee, ‘Testing the Local against the Colonial Archive’, History Workshop Journal, no. 44 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 215 224.

Introduction

23

of a variety of actors and groups who engaged with the Company and shaped its expansion in often major ways, from Indian princesses to Sumatran pepper farmers. This constellation of diaries and consultation books, memorandum, reports, council minutes, correspondence with Asian rulers, court proceedings, account books, protests, intra-factory communications and even ‘scandalous’ gossip all combine to provide an often unaltered and gritty peek into this amorphous world which drove and shaped the origins of the British empire in Asia in the years 1600 to 1750. This book follows a largely chronological narrative in uncovering the origins of empire. Part I depicts the gradual decentralisation of the English East India Company in Asia in the first half of the seventeenth century as the weakness of the English state and the strength of Asian elites created opportunities for the private transcultural networks of Company servants to increasingly determine its development in Asia. Part II is a study of the challenges faced by the Company in subordinating itself to the Mughal empire in Bengal in the second half of the seventeenth century, and the success of transcultural networks in acquiring substantial rights for the Company which facilitated its rapid expansion there. In contrast, Part III of the book switches its focus to Sumatra at the turn of the eighteenth century to highlight the significance of regional variations in the Company’s ability to expand from within the Asian state system, and the adoption of failed strategies of force and coercion by Company servants who were unable to acquire the rights and powers which they sought from Asia’s smaller polities. Finally, Part IV concludes the book by returning to Mughal India in the mid-eighteenth century to challenge traditional understandings of the emergence of a territorially expansive British presence out of the wreck of supposed Mughal ‘decline’. Instead, it emphasises the longevity of the Company’s growth from within a robust and dynamic Mughal framework, one that not so much fractured as accelerated its enfranchisement of subordinate groups such as the regional nawabs and the Company.

Part I

Weakness and Adaptation

1

‘A Boddy without a Head’ The Failure of an English Enterprise

Under the scorching sun of Madras in April 1654, raucous music and cheers wafted across the battlements of Fort St George, the seat of the English East India Company’s headquarters on the Coromandel Coast in India. The fort’s principal residents had gathered in the town of Madras for the wedding of a solider from the garrison, ‘at which was a Generall feast’. According to one party-goer, Councillor Henry Greenhill, ‘the day was continued with much Courtesy and Mirth’. However, as the evening crept in, the party moved inside the fort, where, according to Greenhill, ‘at night the Scaene strangley changed’. When the cooling evening breeze from the Bay of Bengal hit, the party began to feel the effects of hours of drinking in the dizzying Indian heat. The joviality of the day’s festivities gave way to drunken and disorderly behaviour, tension and even brawling, or, as one observer described it, ‘Gennerall hurlyburly’. Another member of the Madras council, John Leigh, arrived late to the wedding and was taken aback by the behaviour of some of his colleagues. ‘I came from walking abroad from the ffields in the evening’, he recorded in his diary, ‘Coming home in the twilight’. With him were a number of close colleagues, including Henry Greenhill’s son-in-law John Gurney and his brother Joseph Greenhill. On approaching the gate, they were startled by the booming of the fort’s guns, but hoped that it might possibly be the tidings of good news from England’s war against the Dutch. As Greenhill and company passed through the gate, they saw the president, Aaron Baker, drinking on top of the battlements and randomly firing off ‘7, 8 or 9 great gunns’, which he continued to do until nine o’clock at night. As amusing as the president’s drunken antics may have proven to onlookers, events took a more dramatic turn as the night wore on. Greenhill found himself being verbally accosted by the captain of the guard, and noticed that ‘the Garrison in Gennerrall heated with Strong drinke, ready to cut one anothers throats’. Then the president came down from the battlements to join the general ruckus, gathering the soldiers together and demanding to know ‘who was for the Company’, threatening ‘those that were not’ with expulsion. At this point, both Greenhill and Leigh sensed something sinister unfolding. Their suspicions were quickly vindicated when they spotted that both President 27

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The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

Baker and Captain Martin were ‘in the darke night with drawne Swords’. Suddenly, Greenhill, Leigh and their friends were seized and imprisoned, confined to the fort’s gaol, ‘the Grounds of all which’, Greenhill declared, ‘was a pretended conspiracie forged on us’.1 What is exceptional about Company servants ambushing and incarcerating each other is that, generally, it was not exceptional at all. Half a century after the Company arrived in Asia, its presence was driven by private interest, shaped by the absence of any regulatory control from England, and increasingly determined by local Asian elites and communities who sought to utilise the Company’s presence for their own interests. For the feud between President Baker and Councillor Greenhill had been about more than just drunken antics. Rather, it was the culmination of a wider struggle for power in the Madras region between conflicting Asian groups that both Company servants had become integrated into. Greenhill had been a councillor at Madras since its foundation in 1640, and in that time had established interests with the Right Hand caste, a social and religious demographic that distinguished itself from the Left Hand caste, a divide that manifested itself in city boundaries, ceremonial precedent and, most importantly, rivalling city patrons. Through his extensive Indo-Portuguese family, Greenhill had confederated with the leaders of the Right Hand caste as an important node in a vast commercial network with monopolies over everything in the region from rice to cotton. Amongst his partners were Seshadri Nayak, a member of a local dynasty who exercised government over several prominent towns up and down the Coromandel Coast, and Beri Timana, perhaps the most powerful Hindu merchant in the region.2 This network provided Greenhill with extensive wealth and social prestige, and he in turn provided it with the security his position as agent of Madras afforded. As Greenhill became rich and powerful, the Right Hand caste were awarded the agent’s support for privileges over their Left Hand rivals, including a beneficial boundary change which gave them control over the eastern half of the city.3 However, when Greenhill was superseded as agent of Madras in 1652 by the president of Bantam, Aaron Baker, the network’s position was potentially vulnerable in two ways. First, Greenhill would lose the powers and leverage as agent that he had used to facilitate the network’s monopoly; second, as the new president, Baker would seek to establish his

1

2 3

These events are reproduced more or less in full in BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/24, Henry Greenhill to Aaron Baker, Madras, 1 January 1655, and ‘Concerning the Imprisonment of John Leigh’, Madras, July 1654. Kanakalatha Mukund, The Trading World of the Tamil Merchant: Evolution of Merchant Capitalism in the Coromandel (Chennai, 1999), p. 70. For the emergence and rivalry of the two castes, see Niels Brimnes, Constructing the Colonial Encounter: Right and Left Hand Castes in Early Colonial South India (Richmond, 1999).

‘A Boddy without a Head’

29

own interests, ones that would inevitably encroach upon those of Greenhill and his partners. And that is, more or less, exactly what happened. Within two years, the Left Hand caste had recruited the support of the new president and his nephew, Anthony Baker. Led by Venkata and Kanappa, two Brahman brothers who also acted as the Company’s commercial brokers, the Bakers facilitated and invested in their expansive trade in child slavery between Madras and the Dutch settlement of Pulicat, thirty miles up the Coast.4 This included having the illicit trade ‘all husht up or slightly passed over’ whenever protests surfaced.5 As the Brahman’s Left Hand network expanded with the president’s support, the leadership of the Right Hand caste responded by attempting to discredit the authority of the Brahman’s powerful new ally. In an effort to undermine the president, Greenhill demanded that he compel the Brahmin brothers to repay a debt they owed to Seshadri Nayak.6 When Baker refused, it became clear that Greenhill’s political emasculation was threatening to sink the network’s fortunes. As patron of the Right Hand caste and the city’s wealthiest merchant, Beri Timana in particular felt that his position was under threat.7 Taking matters into his own hands, Timana marched into the council chamber in Fort St George and, according to Baker, declared that he would ‘turne mee out of my place, and come and sett in my Chayre’.8 Baker took Timana’s threat to depose him seriously, and immediately imprisoned the potential usurper.9 Seshadri Nayak responded in turn by marching into Madras with 500 soldiers, occupying the city and then inciting months of rioting against the Brahman’s growing influence, ‘in despite and Contempt of all the English power wee had here to resist them’, lamented Baker.10 Greenhill meanwhile launched a propaganda campaign against the president. Declaring him to be the puppet of his Brahman masters, Greenhill invoked the spectre of national interest and corporate loyalty to challenge Baker’s growing power. He charged Baker with becoming ‘swayed to our Nations and Masters exceeding dishonour and prejudice’.11 Baker in turn denounced the network, describing it as ‘the Agent, Mr. Gurney or Mr. Leigh, or any of their Servants . . . so linked and combined together’.12 Shortly after, the president ‘and other your Creatures’, ambushed Greenhill and the

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/23, John Leigh’s Declaration againt ye Brahmony Connapa regarding ye Choutry, March 1654. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/24, Henry Greenhill to Aaron Baker, Madras, 1 March 1654. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/23, Protest of Aaron Baker against John Leigh, Madras, 16 February 1654. Mukund, Tamil Merchant, p. 70. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/24, Aaron Baker to Henry Greenhill, Madras, 29 March 1654. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/23, John Leigh to court of committees, Madras, 20 March 1654. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/24 Aaron Baker to Henry Greenhill, Madras, 29 March 1654. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/24, Henry Greenhill to Aaron Baker, Madras, 1 March 1654. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/24, Aaron Baker to court of committees, Madras, 18 September 1654.

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The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

remainder of the network at the April wedding.13 By 1655, the Left Hand caste had achieved ‘an uncustomed height of honour’ across the region.14 The contest for power at Madras reveals a number of significant dynamics to England’s presence in Asia by the mid-seventeenth century. Perhaps the most important is that individual Company servants were becoming integrated into the local political, social, cultural and commercial landscapes at the behest of certain Asian constituencies who sought to expand their own interests. As Part I of this book will show, Madras did not materialise upon a tabula rasa, but was formed within a densely populated, economically vibrant and politically dynamic environment, shaped as much by existing currents of rivalry, opportunity and power-shifts as it was by the arrival of servants of the English East India Company. The Right and Left Hand caste divisions were not the product of Madras’ development, but rather Madras’ development was the result of a series of regional cultural and religious struggles between rival communities that drew in the new English presence and shaped the emerging structures of commerce and political authority at Fort St George. Second, the actual mechanics of the integration of Europeans into local Asian frameworks are also significant: marriage, patronage, the opportunity for commercial dividends and even the promise of social elevation all bound Europeans into local communities. A third point to make is the relative powerlessness of Company servants, even agents and presidents, at this early point in England’s presence in Asia. Baker may have been able to imprison his rivals, but he could only sit and watch powerlessly as Seshadri Nayak marched into the city with an army; similarly, Greenhill may have been able to acquire an advantageous boundary for the Left Hand caste, but he was powerless to compel the Brahmin brothers to repay their debts. Perhaps the most significant revelation about England’s presence in Asia by the mid-century was the relative absence of national interest and corporate authority in shaping events at Madras. The Company’s metropolitan authorities in London did replace Greenhill as agent with Baker in 1652 following rumours of his ‘corrupt’ dealings, including accusations of private trade. It also stepped in again after Greenhill ultimately succeeded in forcing Baker out as president in late 1655, demoting Madras from a presidency to an agency and dispatching a new agent from London. But these admittedly decisive shifts in the upper echelons of the settlement’s structure occurred years apart and rarely served to change the local political landscape. In fact, when London’s new

13 14

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/24, Henry Greenhill to Aaron Baker, Madras, 1 January 1655. The entire dispute, including letters, consultations and petitions, can be found in a later collection by the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, see BL, APAC, IOR/F/4/ 380/9587, ‘the Right hand Parties, or Principalls of the right hand Casts of Chinnapatam under Jurisdiction of Fort. St George, their humble Declaration’, Madras, April 1655.

‘A Boddy without a Head’

31

agent, Thomas Chamber, arrived at Madras to replace Greenhill, the deposed president successfully convinced him to keep him on as agent until his death two years later.15 The power struggle at Madras in the 1650s therefore serves to highlight the partnership between Company servants and Indian elites and the considerable power they exercised in developing the Company’s presence in Asia according to their own private interests. The appropriation and integration of the Company’s presence by Asian actors and communities by the mid-seventeenth century stood in stark contrast to the national and mercantilist interests which conceptualised and launched the English East India Company in 1600. For most of the reign of Elizabeth I, England had searched desperately for an alternative passage to the fabled lands of Asia, whose riches had been the coveted prize of many European nations for centuries. Those states that were able to claim a share in the region’s trade as middlemen, such as the Venetians, or indeed those that had found a way to monopolise it at its source, as the Portuguese successfully had, found their small countries rise to unthinkable heights of power and wealth.16 Silks, spices, porcelains and textiles of all varieties poured out of Asia, and for the impoverished and marginal England of Elizabeth I, the opportunity to transform the fortunes of her country to rival those of the continental Catholic powers was a tantalising one. And yet the aggressive monopoly of the Portuguese, with superior financial resources, shipping and colonial infrastructure, had made travelling to and from Asia via the now standard route round the Cape of Good Hope a perilous undertaking. Seeking a safer and more direct route to Asia, one that would undercut the Iberian powers, the English crown contributed funds to a series of ventures designed to open up a Northwest Passage to the riches of Asia, led by explorers and privateers such as Martin Frobisher, Humphrey Gilbert and John Davis.17 The expansion of English commerce had become a key national interest by the turn of the seventeenth century, as the crown, facing a slump in the cloth trade which had traditionally buoyed up royal finances, desperately sought both new revenues to sustain its conflict with Spain and new ways to deprive its enemy of its own sources of overseas wealth. And indeed from the 1580s onwards, the intensification of the crown’s involvement with expeditions across the Atlantic and into the Northwest Passage suggests the pursuit of a mercantilist doctrine of increasing the state’s wealth through harnessing the 15 16

17

BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/1/1, consultation at Verasheroone, 16 October 1655. For Venice’s role in Asia’s trade, see Deborah Howard, Venice & the East: The Impact of the Islamic World on Venetian Architecture, 1100 1500 (New Haven, CT, 2000); for Portuguese enforcement of its monopoly, see Roger Crowley, Conquerors: How Portugal Seized the Indian Ocean and Forged the First Global Empire (London, 2015). For a comprehensive account of their efforts, see parts 1 and 2 of Frederic Regard, ed., The Quest for the Northwest Passage: Knowledge, Nation and Empire, 1576 1806 (Abing don, 2013).

32

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

forces of commerce at the expense of its rivals.18 This is only part of the picture, of course, as in practice what historians refer to as early modern ‘mercantilism’ was more discourse and aspiration than an achievable political economy, especially considering the state’s weakness.19 For starters, the crown’s limited means meant that it was only ever partly responsible for the launch of these overseas initiatives, with a host of private associations and individuals, from Francis Drake to the Muscovy Company, far more involved than Elizabeth and the limited ships and money the crown could provide.20 Furthermore, these efforts met with only sporadic success: the majority of those explorers who set out to open up new routes to the East had to make do with the consolation prize of naming and claiming various Canadian and Arctic waterways, bays and islands for England, and Asia remained beyond the reach of the English; even the privateering war against the Spanish never came close to covering Elizabeth’s soaring costs.21 With the failure to find an alternative route to the East, and with the spectacular return from Asia round the Cape of Good Hope of a richly laden Dutch fleet, the crown encouraged a more direct intervention in the Asian trade. In 1599 Elizabeth I encouraged plans for the formation of a joint-stock corporation with a monopoly over the Asian trade, and responded positively when a petition was formally made in December 1600. The charter for this new enterprise was granted to a mere 215 ‘Knights, Aldermen and Burgesses’, most of whom were from the City of London itself.22 As suggested by the name of their newly chartered corporation, the ‘Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies’, these founding members comprised a socially homogenous, corporate community, bound together by their intent of furthering England’s mercantilist ambitions abroad.23 Indeed, many of the Company’s earliest commanders, factors and senior leadership were those explorers and privateers that had sought an alternative passage to Asia on behalf of the crown in previous decades, including John Davis and the commander of the Company’s very first fleet, James Lancaster. As Queen

18 19 20

21 22 23

A. Gonzalez Enciso, ed., War, Power and the Economy: Mercantilism and State Formation in 18th Century Europe (Abingdon, 2017). See the entries in Philip J. Stern and Carl Wennerlind, eds., Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire (Oxford, 2014). For instance, the crown only contributed two of the twenty five ships for Drake’s famous West Indies raid in 1585, and the Queen only took up £10,000 of the voyage’s £60,000 stock. See Kenneth R. Andrews, Elizabethan Privateering (Cambridge, 1964), p. 5. Paul E. J. Hammer, Elizabeth’s Wars: War, Government and Society in Tudor England, 1544 1604 (Basingstoke, 2003), pp. 168 169. BL, APAC, IOR/A/1/2, Charter granted by Queen Elizabeth to the Governor and Company of Merchants of London, Trading into the East Indies, 31 December 1600. See the excellent quantitative study of company directors in Aske Brock, ‘The Company Director: Commerce, State, and Society’ (PhD dissertation, University of Kent, 2016).

‘A Boddy without a Head’

33

Elizabeth I concisely summed up in a letter of introduction to any Asian ruler the Company’s first fleet made contact with, ‘out of the abundance of ffruit which some region enjoyeth, the neccessitie or wante of others should be supplied’.24 From its very conception then, the Company was conceived as an arm of the state’s ambition to create an effective mercantilist system that would provide England with an advantageous position in Europe.25 Thus when the Company dragged its feet in launching a second voyage to Asia, the Privy Council wrote on behalf of the Queen in 1601 to demand to know why the Company was ‘so slack in seconding their former voyage’, and subsequently warned them that ‘the honor of their own country’ was at stake.26 This new corporate community which formed within a national framework to serve the state was bound together by common ties, associations and interests. The Company’s original members belonged to the same Livery companies, often living in the same neighbourhoods, and frequently married into the same elite kinship groups.27 The intimacy and familiarity of the Company’s early membership can be seen in the first meeting of the court of proprietors, which consisted of just 132 members all told.28 From this small gathering, a dozen members were elected factors and sent out to Asia to establish a clutch of small trading factories often no more than mere houses in places such as Mocha in the Red Sea, Surat in India and Bantam on the island of Java. A fraternal dynamic reinforced the bonds between members and united the early Company together between Europe and the vastness of Asia, promoting corporate loyalty, transparency and obedience to one another. Take the example of Henry Polsted, a founding member of the East India Company. He belonged to the Merchant Tailor’s Company, and joined eight of his ‘brethren’ in investing £200 in the new Company. By 1604, he had married into the influential Farrington family, and joined his new father-in-law and fellow Company shareholder, Thomas Farrington, in investing in further trading voyages.29 The arrival of the Peppercorn in Asia in 1614 demonstrated the homogeneity of the Company at the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the promotion of national and mercantilist interest which shaped the structure of 24 25 27

28 29

Elizabeth I to King of Achen, 1601, in Clements R. Markham, ed., The Voyages of Sir James Lancaster, Kt., to the East Indies (New York, 1821), pp. 78 85 (hereafter Lancaster Voyages). 26 Mishra, A Business of State, chapter 1. Cited in ibid., p. 29. Peter Earle, The Making of the English Middle Class: Business, Society and Family Life in London, 1660 1730 (London, 1989), p. 192; Richard Grassby, Kinship and Capitalism: Marriage, Family, and Business in the English Speaking World, 1580 1740 (Cambridge, 2001), p. 271. Theodore K. Rabb, ‘Investments in English Overseas Enterprise, 1575 1630’, Economic History Review, new series, vol. 19, no. 1 (1966), p. 70. Edmond Smith, ‘Networks of the East India Company, c. 1600 1625’ (unpublished PhD, Cambridge, 2016), pp. 20 21.

34

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

the Company’s presence there. The ship carried a group of freshly elected factors travelling to their new factory postings, most of whom were the relatives or offspring of the big shareholders and powerful committees who decided policy from the Company’s headquarters. As they arrived at their respective destinations, the majority were already intimately acquainted with their peers ensconced there. Thomas Aldworth, chief of Surat, wrote of the new arrivals to his ‘Loving friend’ at Agra, Thomas Kerridge. He reported the arrival of Nicholas Downton, who ‘knoweth Nicholas’ at Surat, ‘and remembers his love unto him. Likewise Mr. Edward Dodsworth, one of the chief men, kin to Sir Thomas Smith [Smythe]’, the current governor of the Company in London. Aldworth concluded by noting that the new arrival ‘commends his love unto you, and has a letter and a token for you’. Kerridge replied shortly after, asking about the well-being of the other new arrivals, declaring his ‘love unto the whole company’.30 Such declarations of devotion were more than just the courteous conventions of polite correspondence. They were the expression of the bonds of trust and fellowship that fostered the social and corporate cohesion of the Company’s foundational years in the early seventeenth century and ensured that the national interest remained a key priority in the Company’s actions.31 Commitment to the interests of the Company’s domestic stakeholders and the English crown ensured that very few members sought to put their own ambitions or designs first, almost always being invested personally with at least the Company’s short-term profits and stability. As Nicholas Downton himself wrote to his ‘Beloved Friends’ in the court of committees in London on his way out to Asia on board the Peppercorn, his fellow passengers consisted ‘both of Nobility and merchants of London’, all of whom were personally invested in the success of every voyage made. Downton described how they recognised ‘with what great care, pains and charge this journey was set forth by the Indian Company’.32 As was the case for all on board the Peppercorn, Downton was personally obligated to a senior Company figure, in this case Sir Thomas Smythe, the governor of the Company who had appointed him to the senior post of ‘General’ of the Company’s fleet in 1614. Downton declared that he had not accepted this honourable position through ‘covetousness’, but rather for ‘the conceit I had of your love, with the 30

31 32

William Foster, ed., Letters Received by the East India Company from Its Servants in the East: Transcribed from the Original Correspondence Series of the India Office Records (London, 1896 1902, 6 volumes), Thomas Aldworthe to Thomas Kerridge, Surat, 22 October 1614; Thomas Kerridge to Captain Downton, Agmier, 22 November 1614 (hereafter LREIC). Mary Ann Clawson, ‘Early Modern Fraternalism and the Patriarchal Family’, Feminist Studies, vol. 6, no. 2 (Summer, 1980), p. 368. LREIC, Nicholas Downton, his opinion, what fit to be done for the time next ensuing, Road of Dabul, 24 February 1611.

‘A Boddy without a Head’

35

love of divers others [which] drew me . . . neglecting my own ends, applying myself wholly to yours’.33 The bonds which committed early Company servants to the corporate interest of their kin, masters and benefactors in London were enshrined in the Company’s Laws or Standing Orders, published in 1621. One of its most significant by-laws stated that each ‘Brother of the Company’ was to make ‘his Sonnes Free of this Society’ on their twenty-first birthday.34 This fraternal dynamic was exported to Asia, where Company houses and factories sought to replicate the court in London. The president of Surat boasted in 1616 that the servants under his charge were all ‘living together with mutual society of love and unity’.35 Something, then, had clearly gone terribly wrong in the intervening years between the ‘love and unity’ of the corporate body serving the interests of the crown in the early seventeenth century, to the influence of private interests in alliance with Asian elites that shaped the Company according to local demands. Yet it was no sudden transformation or jarring breakdown which conceded metropolitan control over the Company’s development to local constituents. Rather, a combination of the narrow interests pursued by Company and crown in Asia and the limited fiscal and military resources available to be deployed there meant that any attempt at centralising the Company’s presence and governance was unsustainable. A dogged adherence to fostering unwanted English cloth on Asian markets, a spectacular decline in investment, harmful domestic diplomatic intervention and ruinous intra-European conflict all exposed the fragility of corporate and national authority in Asia as the Company’s presence withered. As metropolitan authorities were unable to engineer a sustainable English presence in Asia, Company servants were drawn to finding and utilising local sources of commercial and political authority, integrating into pre-existing circuits of trade and patronage in Asia. As they did, they facilitated a process of decentralisation which, by the midseventeenth century, had undermined the corporate dynamic of Sir Thomas Smythe and his fellow merchants and nobles in London. In place of the fraternal brotherhood of the City elite that had conceived the ‘Company of Merchants of London trading to the East Indies’, there began to emerge competing networks of cosmopolitan merchants, multiracial families and hybridised ports which increasingly came to constitute the Company’s presence in Asia. As metropolitan authority faltered in Asia, a redistribution of power took place to those servants and their transcultural networks in South Asia. 33 34 35

LREIC, Captain Nicholas Downton to Sir Thomas Smith, Surat, 20 November 1614. East India Company, The Lawes or Standing Orders of the East India Company (London, 1621), p. 71. LREIC, A Commission or Instruction for our loving friends Edward Connock, Chief, Tho. Barker, George Pley, Edward Petus, William Tracy, and Matthew Pepwell, in the voyage and employment by God’s grace intended for Persia, Surat, November 1616.

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The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

The failures inherent in the Company’s role in pursuing the interests of the English state, as well as the limited resources available to it, were apparent from its earliest presence in Asia. This was Bantam on the island of Java in the Indonesian archipelago, where several Company servants were established at the end of 1602 by James Lancaster. Rather than cultivating fruitful commercial partnerships, Lancaster had attacked the crown’s Catholic enemies in Asia and preyed on Portuguese shipping in the Strait of Malacca, seizing a large carrack laden with Indian textiles.36 He exchanged his captured cargo at Bantam for a stock of pepper, the kind that had realised dizzying profits for the Dutch on their return to Europe in 1599.37 However, as England’s largest export trade slumped in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Company sought to compensate by opening new markets in Asia to English cloth, and despite a glimpse of the profits to be had in exchanging Indian textiles for Bantamese pepper, the Company’s leadership sought to ingratiate itself with the crown by committing to the sale of English cloth at Bantam.38 Unfortunately, as the Company servant Thomas Aldworth wrote in 1614, ‘English cloth will not sell; it was only brought at first by great men to cover their elephants and make saddles for their horses. But for garments they use none in these parts.’39 Very quickly the Company’s presence at Bantam became somewhat redundant as its trade shrunk, and servants there struggled to convince the Bantamese government to concede any significant privileges that would enable the Company to compete with other commercial groups.40 Bantam was a great international mart of almost 50,000 people, drawing in mercantile communities from across the world, including Persians, Portuguese, Arabs, Burmese, Malays and Gujaratis, all of whom had far more to offer than English woollens.41 Although Company servants were finally granted a site to build a permanent factory in 1613, the virtual monopoly of Chinese merchants in alliance with Bantamese elites prevented Company servants from expanding their meagre trade any further, a fact which delayed the opening of the factory

36 37 38

39 40 41

Peter Borschberg, The Singapore and Melaka Straits: Violence, Security and Diplomacy in the 17th Century (Singapore, 2010), p. 61. Lancaster Voyages, p. 99. As well as its other earliest factories, such as Surat. See William A. Pettigrew, ‘The Failure of the Cloth Trade to Surat and the Internationalisation of English Mercantilist Thought, 1614 1621’, in Pettigrew and Mahesh, eds., East India Company, pp. 21 43. Cited in F. J. Fisher, ‘London’s Export Trade in the Early Seventeenth Century’, The Economic History Review, New Series, vol. 3, no. 2 (1950), p. 157. D. K. Bassett, ‘The Factory of the English East India Company at Bantam, 1602 1682’ (PhD dissertation, London, 1955), p. 33. Kenneth R. Hall, ‘European Southeast Asian Encounters with Islamic Expansionism, circa 1500 1700: Comparative Case Studies of Banten, Ayutthaya and Banjarmasin in the Wider Indian Ocean Context’, Journal of World History, vol. 25, no. 2/3 (June/September, 2014), pp. 234 235.

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to as late as 1617.42 Unlike the Europeans, Chinese merchants integrated with their local surroundings, and many even converted to Islam as a way to access the famously religious court and acquire political influence. The result was the expansion of their presence at the heart of the city and its elite, with homes in an affluent district near the royal residence, the ownership of slaves, the management of sugar mills and the building of warehouses along the quay.43 Even the servants of the Dutch VOC complained that the Chinese were ‘carrying on a monopoly’ with the support of the Bantamese regents, who ‘seek opportunity to catch us and to get us in their power’.44 As the president of the English factory at Bantam, George Ball, complained, they were ‘driven to such a straight that we can sell to none but China men nor buy of any butt them, and Consequently forced to buy as they will sell and sell as they will buy.’45 Despite almost two decades of operation, one Company servant lamented to the court of committees in London that ‘the factory of Bantam is likewise bare and hath in it but small store of goods, which is and will be a great hindrance unto your Worships’ proceedings’.46 It’s little wonder that the Bantam authorities were unwilling to seriously consider any further English overtures for greater rights. It wasn’t until the Company was administered their first lesson in where power lay in negotiations with Asian states that they became conscious of the fragility of their position. Unable to sell English broadcloth, and frustrated at their inability to negotiate competitive rights with the regime, the Company seized Chinese shipping in Bantam harbour in 1619 as a way to pressure the government and break the monopoly of Chinese merchants. The resort to military force not only entrenched Bantamese resolve not to grant any further concessions to the English Company but caused President Ball’s expulsion from the Bantamese court and the virtual evacuation of the Company’s factory.47 But if the Company’s failure to adapt to local commercial practices and the attempt to use force in negotiations hadn’t spelled the doom of their presence at Bantam, the outbreak of conflict with the Dutch VOC guaranteed it. As the English Company vied with the latter in exerting their monopoly rights over the spice-producing islands of the Indonesian archipelago, a series of localised conflicts broke out between the fleets of both companies, culminating in a joint Anglo-Jakartan siege of the Dutch VOC factory-turned-fort 42 43 44

45 46 47

Bassett, ‘East India Company at Bantam’, p. 56. Hall, ‘Encounters with Islamic Expansionism’, p. 237. Cited in M. C. Ricklefs, ‘Banten and the Dutch in 1619: Six Early “pasar Malay” Letters’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, vol. 39, no. 1 (1976), p. 134. Cited in Bassett, ‘East India Company at Bantam’, p. 56. LREIC, Hirado to court of committees, 20 December 1617. Bassett, ‘East India Company at Bantam’, p. 57.

38

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there in 1619.48 However, as they were on the verge of capturing it, Jakarta’s suzerain, the ruler of Bantam, demanded the VOC fort should be handed over to his possession, purposefully scuppering the English Company’s only chance of gaining victory over their Dutch rivals.49 The Company’s use of force to intimidate the Bantam regime had proved to have catastrophic repercussions. Partly because of Bantam’s intervention against the Company in Jakarta, victory against the Dutch VOC slipped out of their grasp. The Company was severely drained of resources, with its trade disrupted and its shipping diverted to military purposes, much of which was subsequently captured by superior VOC naval forces. As a consequence, the satellite factories established by Bantam across Southeast Asia in the first two decades of the century were subsequently starved of goods, investment and materiel. Attempting to break into the Indian trade on the Coromandel Coast, one servant complained in 1618 that ‘our impotency, have allmost, and will I feare altogether, deprive us of the best part of this trade’.50 Factories at Siam, Cambodia, the Celebes, Borneo and Macassar went three years without a single English ship to supply them, so that servants at the latter place could not even buy rice to sustain themselves.51 Expelled from Bantam, with the rug pulled out from under them at Jakarta, and facing the near-liquidation of its starved and scattered factories, the Company sought the intervention of the English state to negotiate a resolution with the Dutch VOC as the only way to stave off total disaster. And while the crown did avert the destruction of the Company’s presence in Southeast Asia at the hands of the VOC, its solicitation led to the imposition of a diplomatic settlement in Asia that was concluded in Europe between the English crown and the states-general of the United Provinces. Predictably, this settlement sought to advance the interests of the English and Dutch states more than those of their respective Companies in Asia itself, reflected in the fact that on the English side negotiations were conducted largely by members of the privy council, with James I himself intervening to secure an eventual agreement.52 News of the signing of the Treaty of Defence of 1619 reached Company servants in Asia a year later. Predictably, the agreement was dictated as much by the exigencies of Dutch rivalry with Spain in Europe as it was by 48

49 50

51

For the outbreak of Anglo Dutch conflict in the ‘Spice Islands’, see Vincent C. Loth, ‘Armed Incidents and Unpaid Bills: Anglo Dutch Rivalry in the Banda Islands in the Seventeenth Century’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 29, no. 4 (October, 1995), pp. 705 740. Bassett, ‘East India Company at Bantam’, p. 55. William Foster, The English Factories in India, 1637 to 1641: A Calendar of Documents in the India Office, British Museum, and Public Record Office (Oxford, 1912, 8 volumes), Masulipa tam to court of committees, 15 August 1618 (hereafter EFI). 52 LREIC, Macassar to Bantam, 10 August 1617. Mishra, A Business of State, p. 214.

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Anglo-Dutch commercial entanglements in the Indonesian archipelago.53 Aside from creating a military alliance in Asia, in which the English Company and Dutch VOC were to contribute ten ships each to a ‘Council of Defence’ aimed at attacking the Iberian presence in Asia, the treaty also established a shared commercial strategy, with the pepper trade split evenly between the two Companies, and the English gaining a one-third share in the spice trade. As part of this joint arrangement, the English moved in to VOC factories and shared the financial upkeep of VOC forts.54 Although not technically a merger, the treaty nonetheless united the presence of both companies in Asia into a single joint operation for a stipulated period of twenty years. It was not, as one historian has concluded, ‘based on reality in Asia’, but rather ‘wishful thinking, or the considerations of European and global politics’.55 The reaction to it amongst the English in Asia was summed up in some dismay by Matthew Duke, who complained in frustration when he was ordered to dissolve his factory and move to Dutch Pulicat, that they should ‘have steered our own course and not to saile by another mans compas’.56 If its close association with the crown and the interests of the English state had caused problems for the Company’s development in Asia and specifically Bantam in the early seventeenth century, its new subordination to the power of the Dutch VOC proved ruinous. As per the terms of the treaty, English Company headquarters were transferred from Bantam to the VOC headquarters of what was once Jakarta but had been subsequently conquered and renamed Batavia.57 Forced to operate at the heart of VOC power, the English Company shouldered a burden far heavier than its limited resources could sustain, with few of the accompanying benefits. It is true that the Company had gained a guaranteed share in the highly coveted spice trade, but as this was now conducted from VOC factories and forts, English servants were left as passive spectators as their Dutch counterparts exerted their right to manage the trade for them, squeezing them out of dealing with Asian merchants and negotiating contracts for goods, and in the process, of course, the opportunity to create durable relationships with local elites. Naturally, the arrangement proved most harmful. At Pulicat on the Coromandel Coast, for example, the staggering cost of underwriting the Dutch military establishment there and the expensive expansion of Fort Geldria to which the English Company were 53 54 55 56 57

Alison Games, ‘Violence on the Fringes: The Virginia (1622) and Amboyna (1623) Massacres in Comparative Perspective’, History, vol. 98 (2014), p. 514. For the terms of the treaty, see Anton Poot, Crucial Years in Anglo Dutch Relations (1625 1642): The Political and Diplomatic Contacts (Hilversum, 2013), p. 84. Loth, ‘Anglo Dutch Rivalry in the Banda Islands’, p. 722. EFI, Masulipatam to court of committees, 13 October 1621. EFI, Agreement between the English and Dutch Presidencies at Batavia, 13 April 1621.

40

The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

forced to contribute far outweighed the poor investment returns gained by the English in allowing the Dutch to manage the cloth trade on their behalf. As one servant stationed there, Thomas Mills, remarked bitterly in 1622, ‘We carry the name but the Dutch have the gaines.’58 He was convinced that the union was a disaster largely due to the imbalance in wealth and power between the two companies: ‘The Dutch in their glorie laugh in their sleves att our present miseries . . . and of our small meanes att present . . . which is very true, and not in a tenth degree comparable to theirs.’59 In most cases, English servants were merely presented with a bill by the Dutch for the monthly costs of the factory, without scrutiny a practice that the English servants were convinced was open to massive abuse. Furthermore, the English Company’s substantial military contribution to the Council of Defence relied on a constant supply of munitions and weaponry, all of which had to be purchased from the VOC, mostly at Batavia. The Company’s contribution to the annual joint fleet sent out to attack Portuguese and Spanish shipping was approximately £10,000, the funds of which had to be found locally within Asia, an almost impossible feat considering the impoverished English circumstances.60 The maintenance of such a force ruined the protean factory at Hirado in Japan, from where the Anglo-Dutch fleet increasingly based itself for its proximity to Spanish Manila. Already perennially starved of goods or funds, Hirado’s chief, Richard Cocks, was forced to borrow at exorbitant rates from Japanese merchants to meet the English contribution.61 The herculean effort plunged Cocks and the factory into debt, with the result that the English presence at Hirado was written-off by the local Japanese mercantile community. Worse still, as the union deteriorated the English Company’s position commercially and financially, it served to dramatically expand the position of the VOC in Southeast Asia. The very first initiative VOC servants tabled at the Council of Defence was the conquest of the Banda Islands, a military expedition English members of the council rejected. Nonetheless, a Dutch force was dispatched and duly occupied the islands, wiping out at least 13,000 of the Bandanese population and complicitly involving the small English force that had established itself there in the conquest. As the VOC consolidated its hold over the spice-producing archipelago, the English dismantled their remaining forts and factories in the island chain.62 While the VOC expanded, financial disaster forced the English Company to abandon its costly subordinate factories scattered around Southeast

58 59 60 61 62

EFI, Pulicat to court of the committees, 29 September 1622. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/3/1, Pulicat to Batavia, 9 September 1622. Bassett, ‘East India Company at Bantam’, p. 63. EFJ, Hirado to court of committees, 31 January 1621. Loth, ‘Anglo Dutch Rivalry in the Banda Islands’, p. 726.

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41

Asia, and between 1622 and 1623 factories in Japan, Macassar and on the Coromandel Coast were closed.63 However, perhaps the most visible sign of the failure of the English state’s attempt to trample over local circumstances and impose a settlement on the Company which ruinously subordinated it to the policies of its erstwhile rival was the ‘massacre of Amboina’. In 1623, the claustrophobic Anglo-Dutch cohabitation in Fort Victoria on the island of Amboina led to the execution of ten English Company servants after accusations by their Dutch counterparts of a conspiracy to seize control of the fort.64 This incident sent shockwaves through Europe, and led to a long, acrimonious dispute between England and the United Provinces that shaped diplomatic proceedings between the two until at least the end of the First Anglo-Dutch War in 1654 when the Treaty of Westminster provided compensation for the family of those killed on Amboina.65 In truth, however, the Company had already sought to dissolve the union before news of Amboina filtered out across Asia. One of the very few attractions of the Treaty of Defence for English Company servants had been the prospect of using the superior power of the VOC to intimidate Bantam into conceding greater commercial and jurisdictional rights for the Company but this had utterly failed by the time of Amboina. As early as 1620, the Council of Defence had been successfully persuaded to institute a joint Anglo-Dutch naval blockade of Bantam, hoping to break the monopoly of the Chinese junks and undermine the position of several Bantamese elites, such as the ruler’s great-uncle Pengeran Arya Ranamanggala and his brother-in-law Pengeran Gabang, who had doggedly pursued anti-European policies and who dominated the ruler Pengeran Ratu as regents.66 Typically, however, the English Company simply lacked the shipping to support a permanent blockade of the port, repeatedly asking their VOC partners to cover their contribution.67 Rightly annoyed, the VOC simply paid lip-service to the idea of a blockade, and rather than strenuously enforce an embargo on the port, in fact appeared to be carrying on a clandestine trade with the Bantamese merchants.68 The Company’s new president of Batavia, Henry Hawley, was furious at what he saw as the blockade’s failure to ‘hinder Bantam in any passag or designe’, and described the VOC ships at Bantam as ‘scare Crowes to hinder the English from Tradeing and Resideing at Bantame Meerlie for the Support of Botavia’.69 Financially 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

Bassett, ‘East India Company at Bantam’, pp. 68 70. For the most recent account of the ‘massacre’, see Adam Clulow, Amboina, 1623: Fear and Conspiracy at the Edge of Empire (Cambridge, 2019). For the Treaty of Westminster, see Jones, The Anglo Dutch Wars, p. 101. Ricklefs, ‘Banten and the Dutch’, p. 130. Bassett, ‘East India Company at Bantam’, p. 67. EFI, Edward Heynes to Surat, aboard the William, 29 November 1623. Cited in Bassett, ‘East India Company at Bantam’, p. 73.

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crippled by the burden of carrying out a domestically imposed diplomatic arrangement, having been squeezed out of managing their own trade, forced to contribute to the expansion of VOC power and with little hope of succeeding in their main aim of forcing concessions out of the Bantamese government, both the committees in London and Company servants in Asia desperately sought a way to extricate themselves from the union. From 1624 onwards, servants at Batavia became convinced that the solution to the Company’s impending collapse resided with Bantam, and that a return must somehow be affected with the government there. As President Hawley proclaimed, they must ‘oppin the trade of Bantam’ and ‘being ther resetled our selves (if it so chanc) Will Indeavor. Yor. Reconciliation with the Pangran.’70 But the Company had become so weak that even an attempt to withdraw from Batavia, and carry out negotiations with the authorities at Bantam from outside the jurisdiction of the VOC, had ended in complete failure when disease, the monsoon and a lack of supplies cost one hundred lives and forced the Company’s small fleet back to Batavia six months later.71 The small band of survivors had no option but to continue their participation in the Council of Defence as they struggled to find a way to re-establish themselves at Bantam. A further attempt to negotiate with the authorities was opened when Pengeran Ratu matured as ruler and was able to exert a degree of authority over his dominant regents, especially his great uncle Pengeran Arya Ranamanggala. But if Company servants hoped that Pengeran Ratu might be more susceptible to the return of the English and welcome their presence back to the city, they were to be sorely disappointed. Their tentative overtures were rejected when the pengeran demanded that the Europeans must be the ones to officially seek a diplomatic agreement, rightly reflecting their position as supplicants in the face of Bantamese power.72 The blockade had barely been enforceable, and beyond a few captured Chinese junks the power of the pengerans and their alliance with the Chinese remained unchallenged. In the meantime, the Company’s presence in the region had virtually collapsed. Company servants showed a glimmer of adaptability when their next attempt to negotiate a return was conducted through Chinese intermediaries. Their influence helped soften the Bantamese position somewhat, when Pengeran Ratu made it known that the English Company could return but with none of the additional commercial or jurisdictional rights that they had originally pushed for before their expulsion in 1620, including the right to build a fortified warehouse. Although this represented a humiliating concession for the Company, who would be once again reduced to an unprivileged and uncompetitive group of merchants with almost no rights, the desperation of the English position forced President

70

Ibid., pp. 73 74.

71

Ibid., p. 74.

72

Ibid., p. 79.

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43

Hawley to accept these terms.73 In 1628, Company servants once again sailed from Batavia, and re-established Bantam as their headquarters in Southeast Asia. Finally, after three decades on the island of Java, English Company servants had learned that to succeed in Asia, they had to look not to national interest and European diplomacy but to the practices and expectations of local Asian powers. It had proved a bitter and hard lesson. The Company’s turbulent engagement with Bantam in the early seventeenth century was not the first lesson in European weakness overseas to be administered either to the Company in Asia or to the English more generally, of course. In the Mediterranean at the end of the sixteenth century, for instance, arguably the nursery for English overseas enterprise, they found themselves very much at the bottom of the pack, either as merchants, diplomats or soldiers. In the face of far more effective competitors, whether Venetian, Spanish or French, and operating within or against powerful and assertive empires and states, from the Ottomans to the Barbary corsairs, the English gave up all pretence of projecting force or even of pursuing rigid national interests. From learning several languages to converting to Catholicism or Islam, the Mediterranean forced the English to reckon with their powerlessness overseas and conform to the expectations of other groups.74 It was the same in the Atlantic, too. Repeated attempts to establish bastions of English power on the North American mainland either ended in disaster or survived merely by the skin of their nose. Sir Walter Raleigh’s attempt to plant a colony on Roanoke Island in 1585 was doomed through repeated attacks by Native American communities, forcing many colonists to return to England, while no trace remained of those left behind.75 Furthermore, its successor, the colony of Jamestown, was almost completely sustained through the charity of local tribes after its establishment in 1607. When relations turned sour between these and the English colonists, Jamestown was almost destroyed and briefly abandoned in 1610, with intermittent and devastating warfare embroiling the colony until 1614.76 But in Asia, too, the experience of Company servants in Japan brought into sharp relief their weakness in comparison to the Togkugawa regime even as they were struggling to establish Bantam as an outlet for English woollens. In fact, many of those who set up the English factory at Hirado in 1613 had been based at Bantam, such as John Saris, and were therefore beginning to form an Asianwide perspective of English vulnerability.77 The shogun granted trading rights, but these were curtailed by 1620 as the Company’s trade ground to a halt and 73 75 76 77

74 Ibid. Games, Web of Empire, chapter 2. James Horn, A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke (New York, 2010). Benjamin Woolley, Savage Kingdom: Virginia and the Founding of English America (London, 2007), pp. 260 261. Keay, Honourable Company, p. 53.

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the Japanese authorities were constantly forced to intervene and protect the English factory from Dutch attack. To survive, Company servants had to adopt Japanese customs and fashion, and subordinate themselves to local patrons for the few privileges that were granted to them.78 And yet the scale of the Bantam operation, the time invested in it, the significant losses incurred as a result of the failure to establish it as a national enterprise, and its diplomatic ramifications, all ensured that the eventual abandonment of English interests and a submissive return to the Bantamese regime left a far more profound impression on both the Company’s stakeholders in Europe and Company servants on the spot. It is difficult to say whether the English East India Company might have emerged free to prosper and expand after its damaging union with the Dutch VOC. Even as a new headquarters was re-established at Bantam in 1628, and Company servants moved forward with the harsh lessons of the past three decades at the forefront of their minds, challenging domestic thunder clouds were gathering to engulf the Company in new storms. When news of the reestablishment of the Company at Bantam reached President Richard Wylde at Surat on the west coast of India in 1629, he rejoiced that ‘ye remouveall to Bantam and from amongst ye Dutch’ would inevitably ‘give life agayne to their declyneing Accon and move a new Subscription to another stock’.79 The decline he alluded to was the beginning of the ‘crises’ decades which hit the Company in the 1620s and lasted until the late 1650s, strangling any prospect of the Company re-emerging from the debacle of the Dutch union to operate as a centralised corporate body capable of pursuing the English state’s interests overseas. The astonishing amount of capital required to fit out ships, recruit experienced merchants and purchase a profitable investment of goods had amounted to almost £3m between 1600 and 1630.80 This was a difficult enough level of financial investment to conjure by itself, but the expansion of the Dutch VOC, higher overheads and a financial crisis in Europe in the 1620s and 1630s led to even higher costs, and, most dangerously of all, much lower capital flows. As the court of committees informed Surat in 1643, the ‘badnesse of trade and scarsity of monyes are here, so is all Europe in little better condition, but in turmoyle . . . by which meanes monies are not procurable as formerly’.81 In fact, after 1630, the Company barely managed to invest more than £100,000 a year in the Asian trade.82 As investment declined and shareholders sold off their stock, the Company even had to resort to heavy

78 79 80 81 82

Games, Web of Empire, pp. 102 103. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/3/2, Surat to Bantam, 13 April 1629. Rabb, ‘Investment in English Overseas Enterprise’, p. 70. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/84, court of committees to Surat, London, 27 November 1643. K. N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company, 1660 1760 (Cambridge, 1978), p. 43.

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borrowing to keep afloat from 1624 onwards.83 As the president of Surat anxiously noted to London in 1639, the decline in investment led him to believe that the committees intended ‘totally to desert this Indian trade (whereunto wee were all readily prepared)’.84 But if the crisis had hit the Company’s presence in Asia hard, there were also wide-ranging repercussions at corporate headquarters in London. The disasters of the union with the Dutch VOC, when combined with the new economic crisis, meant that the court of proprietors, a body which comprised the generality of shareholders, had lost confidence in the executive court of committees. In 1635 a struggle for power played out in a contentious election, throwing the Company’s domestic governance into disarray, and opened the Company up to accusations of corporate mismanagement and abuse from the anti-monopoly courtiers that held influence over Charles I.85 One of these, William Courteen, was given permission by the crown to set up the Courteen Association to trade directly with Asia, breaking the Company’s long-cherished monopoly.86 Unknown to the Company, it was entering an extended period of contraction and recession that lasted for more than three decades. Whereas the Company had managed to fit out and dispatch fifty-five ships to Asia in the 1610s, this fell to about twenty in the 1640s and 1650s.87 Similarly, whilst the voyages of the first decade of the century realised an average 155 per cent profit, those between 1617 and 1622 had dropped to barely 12 per cent.88 Most damaging of all, during the constitutional turmoil of the British Civil Wars and the instability of the interregnum governments, the Company’s chartered monopoly rights were revoked, and Asia opened up to a flood of competing merchants and traders.89 Shipping from London to Asia had become so depressed that the Company even sold off its dockyards at Deptford and Blackwall.90 The impact upon the Company’s presence in Asia was even more severe and wide-ranging. The court of committees wrote to their president in Surat that, due to having ‘received many greate discouragements by losse’, they were ordering most of its subordinate factories, including Mocha in the Red Sea and Basra in the Persian Gulf, to be ‘immediately deserted and that our houses and all remaynes in each and

83

84 85 86 88 89 90

Edmond Smith, ‘The Global Interests of London’s Commercial Community, 1599 1625: Investment in the East India Company’, Economic History Review, vol. 71, no. 4 (2018), p. 1123. EFI, Surat to court of committees, 9 December 1639. Brock, ‘The Company Director’, pp. 128 129. 87 See Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, p. 170. Keay, Honourable Company, p. 113. Nick Robbins, The Corporation That Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational (London, 2006), p. 45. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, p. 178. William A. Pettigrew and Edmond Smith, ‘Corporate Management, Labor Relations, and Community Building at the East India Company's Blackwall Dockyard, 1600 57’, Journal of Social History, vol. 53, no. 1 (2019), p. 141.

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The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

every of those factories be sold and disposed of to the best advantage of the Company’.91 Abandonment of outlying factories was ordered on the Coromandel Coast, too.92 The mid-century proved to be years of corporate retreat in Asia, in which the committees and shareholders in London reduced their investments and scaled-down the Company’s infrastructure, their authority and control over the Company’s presence threatening to wither and dry up altogether. Developments on the Coromandel Coast in the mid-century bring into sharp relief the gradual decentralisation of the Company. Its first trading ventures on the Coast had realised fantastic profits. The voyage of the Globe, for instance, had raised £15,000 in capital and established a factory at Masulipatam in 1611, the chief port of the kingdom of Golconda. The factors purchased cotton goods which were then shipped for sale across the Bay of Bengal to the Siamese and Burmese markets. When the Globe returned to London in 1615, it realised a profit of more than 300 per cent.93 But such endeavours were unsustainable in the long term. As stakeholders in England struggled with higher costs and lower capital liquidity, they were increasingly limited in their ability to maintain investment on the Coast. Arriving at Masulipatam in 1618, its new chief, William Methwold, found the factory in a poor condition, ‘unwalled, ill-built and worse situated’.94 When the sultan of Golconda himself paid a visit to Masulipatam ten years later, he was entertained at the magnificent Dutch factory and presented with a sumptuous gift. When he arrived at the English factory, however, nothing could be offered. This diplomatic faux pas was compounded by the sultan’s tour of the factory, during which he expressed his amazement at the poverty of the place, especially as he had been told that the English Company ‘drove a trade for many milliones of pagodas’.95 The visible weakness of the English factory compromised the relationships servants needed to maintain with Masulipatam’s merchants and elites in order to conduct the commercial business necessary for the Company’s success there. The often substantial privileges acquired by the Company in Asia, such as custom’s-free trade and in some cases even the building of forts, were granted in the expectation that the Company would contribute to that particular community’s or state’s prosperity and security. At Masulipatam, far from contributing, the English factory became a strain on the local community, borrowing heavily and struggling to repay its debts. The factors at Masulipatam reported to Surat in 1623 that ‘They have done ther country butt little creditt in cominge heather’, as without capital or goods, they had become the 91 92 93 94 95

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/86, court of committees to Surat, London, 27 March 1661. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/86, Comission & Instructions Given to Mr Nicholas Buckeridge, London, 16 December 1663. Keay, Honourable Company, p. 64. EFI, Masulipatam to court of committees, 15 August 1618. EFI, Masulipatam to Persia, 14 December 1639.

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laughing stock of the port. ‘Wee are so poore that wee shame to thinke of yt’, lamented the chief, Francis Futter, ‘Wee looke out daly for a shipp’ for relief, he concluded.96 This increasing failure to perform the functions and services expected of the English factory caused a backlash amongst Masulipatam’s elite. The Golcondan governors of the port, Mahmud Taqi and his successor Mir Abbas, not only raised customs on the Company’s trade but also transferred their rights to ‘three Gentew committies’, a triumvirate of Indian merchants who were granted a monopoly over all trade there and refused to deal with the unreliable English Company.97 Soon, outright contempt for the English factory prevailed, and its Indian agents and merchants were harassed by the port’s kotwal or chief of police.98 In light of their untenable position, the factors decided to secretly abandon the factory in 1628. ‘Wee left Masulapatam’, the factors recorded, ‘our intents unknown to the Moores’, leaving behind a single factor to sell the factory’s furniture and porcelain, with a cook and two servants a fitting epitaph to almost two decades of English trade at the principal commercial port of the sultanate of Golconda.99 If the failure of the Company’s presence at Masulipatam can be ascribed to the weakness of English overseas enterprise in the early seventeenth century, it must also be partly understood within the context of the shifting political landscape of southern India at the time, and the comparative marginality of the Company within this. More than anything, the local conditions of the Company’s presence ultimately determined its long-term development within the various regions of Asia. Writing to his superiors at Batavia in 1626, two years before the departure from Masulipatam, the factor Thomas Mills reported communications he had received from Armagon, a town more than a hundred miles further down the Coromandel Coast. As Mill noted, ‘since my coming hither to Masulipatam, have received letters, both from the Naico, or Lord of that Country, and Merchants there inhabiting for that negotiation, earnestly soliciting our plantation; fairly promising such accommodation, and entertainment to our contentment’.100 This invitation by the nayak of Armagon and his elites is interesting not only for its enthusiasm for European settlement but in demonstrating that Asian communities and states were equally desirous to accommodate European Companies as much as the latter actively sought out such accommodation. The motive behind Armagon’s strong solicitations to the Company can only be understood in regard to the state formation process in southern India at the time. In the early seventeenth century, the dominant political force in the region, the Vijayanagara empire, had undergone a period of instability and 96 97 98 100

EFI, Masulipatam to Surat, 29 April 1623. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Masulipatam to Governor Mirpass, 26 September 1628. 99 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, consultation at Masulipatam, 27 September 1628. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Masulipatam to Batavia, 26 January 1626.

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The Origins of the British Empire in Asia, 1600 1750

imperial collapse following two centuries of expansion. The traditional structures of Vijayanagara hegemony unravelled following disastrous conflicts with the Deccani sultanates to the north, most notably that of Golconda, followed by a period of dynastic instability that divided the empire territorially. This process of political decentralisation quickened after 1614, when the empire’s regional governors, the nayaks, engineered a palace coup which triggered a series of wars of succession.101 It was the fiscal-military enfranchisement of Vijayanagara’s nayaks which provided the incentive for Armagon to invite the English factors at Masulipatam to resettle there, as it’s nayak underwent a process of state building that, as well as appropriating existing imperial structures, sought to create entirely new sources of economic and political authority.102 As the Company servant William Methold noted in the first half of the seventeenth century, Vijayanagara had ‘rent at this time into several provinces or governments held by the Naickes of that countrey in their owne right’. Furthermore, from amongst the strongest nayaks there had ‘arisen competititors for the crowne, unto whom the Naickes have adhered according to their factions . . . from whence hath followed a continuall civill warre.’103 It was within this context of newly emerging centres of authority and statehood that the Company began the gradual transfer to Armagon from 1626. The local nayak sought to expand his resources, not just in an effort to maintain his independence but to enlarge his own territories. When he invited the English to settle at Armagon, he did so in an attempt to acquire greater revenues and increase the commercial dynamism of his domain. ‘The Naico, or Lord of those parts’, reported the newly arrived Company servants at Armagon, ‘importuned our plantation within his authority.’104 As the town had already been burnt down three times, the nayak granted the Company the right to build a fort, a significant political concession which constituted the Company’s first fortified settlement in India. In return, however, the nayak demanded that the Company defend Armagon and provision his army with artillery.105 The English fort was also intended to act as a bulwark against ‘inland enemies to that Naig’.106 The state-building of the nayak had provided attractive opportunities for the Company to integrate itself at Armagon in a way not possible at Masulipatam. As one Company servant described the 101 102 103

104 105 106

Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Political Economy of Commerce: Southern India, 1500 1650 (Cambridge, 1990), p. 342. Burton Stein, ‘City and State in Late Precolonial Madras’, Studies in the History of Art, vol. 31 (1993), p. 211. William Methold, Relations of the Kingdome of Golchonda, and Other Neighbouring Nations, etc., printed in W. H. Moreland, Relations of Golconda in the Seventeenth Century (London, 2010), pp. 2 3. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, consultation at Masulipatam, 26 January 1626. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Armagon to Masulipatam, 27 May 1626. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/3 2/2, Bantam to court of committees, 28 October 1629.

‘A Boddy without a Head’

49

declining empire: ‘every naique is a king in his owne Country, and will attend the greate Kinge [the Vijayanagaran emperor] at their pleasure.’107 Unfortunately for the Company, their integration into Armagon coincided with a final attempt to re-unify the Vijayanagara empire. Even as they built their new fort in 1626, the Vijayanagara emperor, Rama Deva Raya, launched the first of a series of successful campaigns against the factitious nayaks whose autonomy and frequent rebellion had undermined his reign. ‘The greate King of the Gentewes is nowe in his wares growne soe powerfull’, observed one Company servant in 1629, ‘that hee hath conquered and regained all his formar dominions save only our Naige of this place.’108 The unexpected resurgence of Vijayanagara authority locked Armagon into an armed struggle which engulfed the region in war, disrupting trade and, fatally, spreading famine across the country. As the factors reported to Bantam, ‘this Naige stands uppon doubtfull tearmes wheather hee shall keepe his cuntry, for hee is a usurper and the true king [the emperor] doth daylie take from him and fellowes confederates’.109 Realising that they had subordinated themselves to the wrong polity, the Company sought once again to extricate itself from the region and seek a new establishment closer to the centre of the victorious Vijayanagara empire.110 However, their significant degree of integration into the nayak of Armagon’s territory made withdrawal difficult, and certainly risked a backlash from their suzerain who, more than ever, required their military contributions and flow of revenue. The English chief therefore launched a covert operation to smuggle the Company’s goods and personnel out of the country before the nayak could prevent them, a trick that had worked successfully ten years earlier at Masulipatam. In October 1639, the chief reported that ‘the Naique of Armagon takes notice of our intent to leave that place’, but, ‘he being now imployed in the warrs’, it was agreed that then ‘was a good time to get away our people’.111 If the failure of the Company to maintain its position at Bantam and Masulipatam in the second decade of the seventeenth century demonstrated the weakness of English overseas enterprise, the failure to make a success of their fort at Armagon in the third decade demonstrated the challenges of negotiating in shifting local landscapes. Not only had Armagon become politically untenable, as the nayak appeared on the cusp of destruction by the advancing armies of Golconda to the north and Vijayanagara to the south, but its commercial and financial prospects proved illusory. When Company

107 108 109 110 111

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Madras to court of committees, 20 September 1642. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/3 2/2, Armagon to Bantam, 20 August 1629. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/3 2/2, Armagon to Bantam, 25 June 1629. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Masulipatam to court of committees, 13 April 1638. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Madras to court of committees, 26 September 1642.

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servants arrived, they had reported the presence of plentiful cheap cloth for purchase.112 But within a decade Armagon’s chief, Francis Day, concluded otherwise. ‘I neede not tell you that Armagon is only Chargable’, he wrote in his report to his superiors in 1639. ‘The place affords nothing of itselfe, not soe much as a peece of whit Cloath . . . as for Merchants, how miserable poore they are.’ All of this, Day declared, ‘speakes loude in Confirmation of the misserey of the place’.113 The devastating wars with neighbouring states had reduced both Armagon itself and surrounding merchant communities to dire straits, dislocating the flow of capital and severely reducing textile production.114 None of this was assisted by the Company’s own rapidly deteriorating cashflow problem. Rather than create an entirely new source of capital and investment at Armagon as its nayak had hoped, the English were almost instantly forced to borrow extensively from local merchants in order to make cloth purchases. As repayment became more difficult, these ‘Clairmorous Creditors’ made any large-scale investment almost impossible, and soon the Company’s fort became a deficit presence in Armagon’s economy, exacerbating tensions with the nayak.115 When a ship from Bantam arrived with a supply of money, the factors complained that by the time they had repaid their outstanding debts, there was hardly anything left ‘for bare victuals’.116 When further borrowing from Indian merchants became untenable, the factors at Armagon were urged to try the Dutch at Pulicat for a loan.117 Compounded by the court of committee’s retrenchment and refusal to invest in adequate fortifications or even small cannon, the fort at Armagon, like the factory at Masulipatam, fell into disrepair and decay.118 So desperate were Company servants for supplies and money to remedy their situation, that when the interloper Captain Weddell arrived on the Coast in 1638 on behalf of the Company’s rival, the Courteen Association, far from preventing him from engaging in business there, they aided him in exchange for a small loan.119 The fort, which had at first appeared like a game-changer for the Company’s presence in Asia, capable of ‘secureing of the Companys both estate and servants lives’, had in fact quickly become a millstone of ‘so vast an expense’ around their necks, soaking up men, money and materiel.120 Looking over the accounts, Surat complained that the expense of the fort had become ‘of such waight and difficultie as we dare not resolve 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120

BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/3 2/2, Armagon to Bantam, 25 June 1629. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Armagon to Masulipatam, 27 July 1639. Tapan Raychaudhuri, Jan Company in Coromandel, 1605 1690: A Study in the Interrelations of European Commerce and Traditional Economies (Delhi, 1962), pp. 38 39. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Masulipatam consultation, 5 September 1639. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/3 2/2, Armagon to Bantam, 22 January 1629. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Masulipatam to Armagon, 24 February 1638. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Masulipatam to court of committees, 25 October 1639. EFI, Bond signed at Masulipatam by Thomas Clark and Richard Hudson, 31 May 1638. BL, APAC, IOR/G/36/84/2, Surat to Masulipatam, 3 December 1630.

‘A Boddy without a Head’

51

what yet to determine therein’.121 When the fort was abandoned in 1639, another relic had been created in the landscape as a testament to the limits of the Company’s presence in Asia in the early seventeenth century. As financial and constitutional crises continued to engulf Company leadership in Europe, its lack of investment in Asia and the inability to sustain or support its establishments either through goods, capital or shipping diminished the pursuit of national and corporate interests by its servants. Metropolitan authority had, in effect, retreated from Asia. Factory-by-factory, corporate leadership withdrew its presence, reneging on the ties and bonds which obligated servants to remain loyal and committed to domestic concerns and policies. Left in their tumbled-down factories at places like Masulipatam, to shift for themselves by peddling what little wares they could by whatever means necessary from selling the furniture to borrowing heavily from local merchants Company servants felt less and less obligation to their corporate masters in London. As early as 1634, Andrew Cogan of the Surat council was troubled enough by his subordinates’ lack of concern for pursuing orders sent from London to report to a friend on the court of committees ‘that most men looke Soe much to there particular as they forgett the general. Nay’, Cogan continued, ‘they forget themselves and that they are but servants, but on the contrary comfort themselves like pettye Kings’.122 Cogan was, in effect, describing a vacuum that was emerging in response to the collapse of ‘the general’ the corporate fraternity that had ensured obedience in Asia to metropolitan and national interests. And one sure thing about a vacuum is that it will eventually be filled. As the court of committees and the crown stepped back from Asia, its servants stepped in. The vacuum that existed across the Company’s presence in Asia by midcentury provided individual servants with boundless opportunities. Cogan’s description of ‘pettye Kings’ suggested that the opportunities seized by Company servants were commercial, enriching themselves as they took control of the Company’s policies in Asia. But more than anything, kings also acquired and exercised authority, and the struggle for power over one another, over settlements and for control of shipping, went hand-in-hand with the amassing of vast wealth and assets by Company servants in Asia. This process of corporate decentralisation was perhaps best captured by the factor Richard Hudson. As the new settlement at Armagon began to fail, the Company returned to Masulipatam and reopened its old factory there in 1632. After just a couple of years, however, it had become riven by factions, accusations and charges, and even violent struggles. When its chief charged Hudson with ‘corruption’, he pleaded innocence on the grounds that the lack of any central 121 122

Ibid. EFI, Andrew Cogan to ‘Worshipfull and my much honoured friend’, Surat, 24 December 1634.

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regulation or direction from London had effectively empowered Company servants to do as they pleased. ‘Att that time the house was altogether a monster’, he wrote in 1639 of the re-settled factory, ‘or a boddy without a head; each was his owne director’.123 This was most spectacularly evident in the struggle for ‘preheminence’, as the president of Surat termed it, between Henry Sill, chief of Armagon, and George Willoughby, president of Bantam, for control of the Coromandel factories.124 Despite the president of Surat’s judgement that Willoughby confine his jurisdiction to the Indonesian archipelago in 1630, he refused to do so, travelling to Armagon and seizing Chief Sill ‘by force of arms’, who he subsequently deposed, taking control of the fort personally.125 In response, President Rastell of Surat dispatched a fleet to Bantam ‘to arrest George Willoughby and his adherents’, the entire Bantam establishment being purged and replaced with servants loyal to Rastell.126 As violence and disorder engulfed the upper echelons of the fragile corporate hierarchy, with presidents and agents struggling over shrinking jurisdictional power and declining commercial opportunities, individual Company servants those Richard Hudson had described as self-proclaimed ‘directors’ moved to carve out their own domains. Yet whereas the committees in London had relied on diminishing European resources and investment to realise corporate interests, the selfproclaimed directors on the spot in Asia sought to draw on local commercial, cultural, political and even constitutional sources of authority in an attempt to realise their interests. In the process, the Company’s servants and their transcultural networks would become substantially enfranchised, transforming the Company’s development in Asia. Naturally, the shift in power from corporate and metropolitan authorities to servants and their networks proved a contested and conflicted process. For the committees and shareholders in London and the various presidents in Asia whose positions were derived from the strength of the corporate framework, such a shift was resisted and depicted as nothing short of corrupt and malfeasant behaviour, even, in many cases, outright criminal. The president of Bantam, to whom the servants on the Coromandel Coast were nominally subordinate, was concerned enough with this shift in behaviour to dispatch a new agent, Thomas Ivie, ‘to take charge of our Masters estate, and get in order there most distracted bussines in those parts’.127 As it turned out, his 123 124 125 126 127

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Richard Hudson to Masulipatam, 27 September 1639. BL, APAC, IOR/G/36/84/2, Surat to Masulipatam, 3 December 1630. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/14, Charges against George Willoughby and his associates, with their replies, 10 December 1632. BL, APAC, IOR/G/36/84/2, Commission and instructions from President Rastell and council at Surat to John Skibbow and John Bangham, 22 April 1631. EFI, Bantam to Surat, 16 August 1639.

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counterpart at Surat had done exactly the same thing, and they hoped the arrival of Andrew Cogan there would regain control over the factories on the Coast and bring them more thoroughly back into the corporate fold. As Ivie arrived from Bantam in 1639 and Cogan from Surat shortly thereafter, they converged on Thomas Clarke, the incumbent agent of Masulipatam. Clarke had been identified as patient-zero in the ‘corrupt’ landscape of the Coromandel factories. The agent had become almost entirely integrated into his local Asian surroundings following the rolling back of metropolitan authority: a cosmopolitan Englishman who laid down deep transcultural roots to fill the political and commercial vacuum in Asia. As agent of Masulipatam, Clarke was responsible for the Company’s affairs on the entire Coromandel Coast, directing investment, lading ships, distributing funds and supposedly regulating behaviour. But as Clarke’s corporate authority became undermined with the dislocation of the Company’s trade, combined with corporate leadership struggles in London and the crown’s withdrawal of the Company’s privileges, he drew upon other influential groups on the Coast to secure his interests. Soon after the establishment of the Company’s factory at Masulipatam in 1618, Clarke had married an Indo-Portuguese woman. Centuries of Portuguese colonisation in Asia and marriage with Indian women had created extensive Portuguese mestizo communities across coastal India, whom the Portuguese themselves considered more Asian than European.128 Though her name is not recorded, Clarke and his mixed-race wife had a son and namesake who would also go on to serve the Company on the Coast, and himself establish his own mestizo family. Fluent in both Dutch and Portuguese, Clarke was drawn in to lucrative local networks, providing him with access to the intra-Asian trade in cloves, through which he made the substantial sum of 30,000 pagodas.129 In fact, so synonymous were the Indo-Portuguese communities with enabling English private trade from the 1630s that to pursue the latter was to be ‘catholized’, which was, according to one servant, ‘a new phrase used by the private traders at Surat’.130 At a time when the Company was falling apart, starved of funds as its factories decayed, Agent Clarke had utilised his Asian networks to establish an incredibly wealthy private fiefdom at Masulipatam following its re-establishment after 1632. It was reported that he was ‘wayted upon’ by up to fifty servants, which, to one observer, was 128

129 130

For the emergence of this mixed race community in south India, see the still unrivalled Sanjay Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500 1700: A Political and Economic History (Chichester, 1993). For the tensions between Portuguese and ‘black’ Portuguese, or Topass, see Barbara Watson Andaya, ‘Between Empires and Emporia: The Economics of Christianization in Early Modern Southeast Asia’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 53, no. 1/2 (2010), p. 374. EFI, Andrew Cogan to Bantam, Masulipatam, 3 September 1639. EFI, George Willoughby to court of committees, on board the Great James, 2 August 1633.

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remarkable considering ‘wee are but servants at the best’.131 The reports of Clarke’s ostentatiousness are corroborated by the affidavit of Ralph Cartwright, who returned to London in 1639 from the Coast. He paints an even grander picture of Clarke’s position at Masulipatam. He was purported to have maintained a stable of ten horses, and was carried around on ornate palanquins. When Clarke left the factory, a trumpeter rode before him, announcing his arrival, accompanied by two flag-bearers, horsemen, soldiers and servants, ‘sometimes 40, other tymes 60, and at other times 80 servants’, according to Cartwright. Finally, although all servants were supposed to reside in the factory, Clarke ‘kept a house of his owne, where was a porter . . . and other slaves or servants’.132 There is perhaps no better personification of Cogan’s ‘pettye Kings’ in the 1630s than Thomas Clarke of Masulipatam: a new kind of Company servant that sought to expand their interests through their immersion into local social, cultural and commercial networks, eschewing their European connections. This dynamic was not confined to the Coromandel Coast, of course. The first permanent factories in Bengal at this time also developed like independent fiefdoms, relying more on their Asian surroundings than European national or corporate frameworks. Hoping to open up a channel to the fabled silk of Bengal, a group of servants were dispatched from Masulipatam in 1633 to set up a factory in the region.133 But like all early enterprises typical of the failure of the Company in this period, the first factory at Hariharpur, sitting on a gradually silting-up tributary of the Ganges in west Bengal, proved short-lived, unable to make serious investments and trapped in a cycle of debt, to the sum of 8,000 rupees by 1639.134 Like Masulipatam and Armagon, early English enterprise in Bengal was quickly strangled by failing corporate and national strategies and resources. But the situation was also compounded by the servants stationed in Bengal themselves, who, it would appear, utterly lost themselves to their new surroundings. In 1638 Masulipatam complained that they had not heard a thing from them for over six months ‘to any purpose’ and that the letters they had sent previously ‘did onlie fill paper and gave us noe satisfaccion in the Companies businesse’.135 What they were precisely up to in this time can be gleaned from the behaviour of their chief, Ralph Cartwright, who was discovered in bed with a married Indian woman in the building next to the factory. The nawab or governor of Bengal promptly fined Cartwright a thousand rupees

131 132 133 134 135

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Masulipatam to court of committees, 25 October 1639. EFI, Affidavit of Ralph Cartwright, London, 16 January 1639. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/15, Masulipatam to court of committees, 25 October 1634. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Masulipatam to court of committees, 25 October 1639. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/5, Masulipatam to Bengal, 28 May 1638.

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and ordered the Company’s factory to be pulled down.136 But the rupture in relations between the two did not last, and Masulipatam consistently complained that the Bengal factors had become utterly subservient to the nawab and his court. Amongst other things, they had spent what little money Masulipatam could send them on presents for the nawab and crewed his vessels with English pilots to navigate his trading ventures to Persia. ‘The Nabobs request unto you’, Masulipatam complained, ‘wee beleeve you proceeded too farr in your promise to furnish him’.137 Yet Clarke and Cartwright were merely representative of an increasing number of Company servants busily entrenching themselves within local transcultural networks of commerce and power. The accusations and charges which flew across the Bay of Bengal between Henry Sill at Armagon and George Willoughby at Bantam, for instance, had exposed the rapid growth of these networks amongst the ruins of the failing Coromandel settlements. As chief, George Sill helped to organise the private trade investments ‘for sundry Dutch and Englishmen’, especially the ‘Hollander Vesterman’. In partnership with the nayak’s governor, Raja Chetty, Chief Sill also established a monopoly over goods between Armagon and the Southeast Asian ports of Pegu, Rangoon and Tenasserim.138 The two also funded a small fleet of three ships to purchase textiles in Gingee for export, significantly undercutting the Company’s own attempts to purchase cheap cloth, although Sill himself maintained that the fleet was for the purchase of rice and grain.139 It was estimated that these networks and partnerships had yielded Sill a fortune of 80,000 rials, or approximately £20,000.140 The expansion of commercial interests on this scale was typically contested, however, and, as with many of his contemporaries looking to carve out their own power in lieu of corporate authority, Sill led a bloody trail in his wake, including the torture of an Indian competitor.141 The removal of Henry Sill, George Willoughby and Thomas Clarke did little to halt the enfranchisement of Company servants at the hands of regional elites. Their utilisation of local sources of commercial, cultural and political patronage put their networks of power beyond the reach of what were already 136

137 138 139 140 141

EFI, vol. 5, p. 36. For an account of this episode in the Dutch records, see also Guido van Meersbergen, ‘Diplomacy in a Provincial Setting: The East India Companies in Seventeenth Century Bengal and Orissa’, in Adam Clulow and Tristan Mostert, eds., The Dutch and English East India Companies: Diplomacy, Trade and Violence in Early Modern Asia (Amsterdam, 2018), p. 56. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/5, Masulipatam to Bengal, 28 May 1638. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/13, consultation at the Coast of Coromandel, 10 January 1633; and George Willoughby to Surat, 15 January 1633. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/14, Christopher Read to court of committees, 23 January 1633. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/14, Charges preferred by Willougby against Sill and Read, 15 Janu ary 1633. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/14, Christopher Read to court of committees, 23 January 1633.

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extremely fragile corporate hierarchies of regulation and authority. The Company itself was becoming increasingly shaped by non-corporate interests and forces, and so the enfranchisement of Company servants by the late 1630s had become systematic. Even as George Willoughby was forcefully sent back to Europe, he gave the Company a cryptic warning: ‘the evills in your India trade and servants are more then I or any honest man can suspect.’142 Perhaps the most influential product of this process of decentralisation was Francis Day. As chief of Armagon in 1639, he desperately sought a remedy for the lamentable state of his jurisdiction. After writing to Masulipatam for money any amount that might reverse their pitiful condition he had received a reply in July which he ‘with sorrow perused’. Essentially, there was no money. Every factory was struggling with debts and poor credit. No ships or treasure had come from London for some time, and trade had virtually ceased. When Indian merchants from the court of Golconda arrived at Masulipatam in 1637, they found not a single English ship to trade with.143 ‘I meete with discouragement sufficient’, an exasperated Day informed his superior at Masulipatam, ‘for now Expectations are frustrated in regard our friends’ at Bantam, who he had similarly been informed were ‘in the same predicament’.144 Much like his peers and predecessors over the past two decades, Francis Day similarly sought to take matters into his own hands. The chief of Armagon seized the political initiative in an attempt to formulate entirely new policies that would improve his position and status, establishing the commercial, cultural and political networks and relationships in the region that would hopefully prevent another lamentable failure like Masulipatam or Armagon. A mixture of the weakening of corporate leadership and the enfranchisement of servants on the one hand, and an integrative state formation framework in southern India on the other, presented Day and his colleagues with an opportunity to transform their presence and, by extension, that of their employer’s. Indeed, Day had laid the foundations upon which to launch an entirely new enterprise that might change everything for the Company. In July 1639, Francis Day set sail from Armagon and headed down the Coromandel Coast. When he returned to the fort a month later, he declared that he had ‘made a beneficiall discovery’, one that would reverse ‘our masters great Losses’. It was a place, he wrote, called ‘Medrasspatam’.145

142 143 144

EFI, George Willoughby to court of committees, on board the Great James, 2 August 1633. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/5, Masulipatam to court of committees, 14 February 1638. 145 BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Armagon to Masulipatam, 3 September 1639. Ibid.

2

‘Soe Fayre an Opportunitie’ Madras and the Reconstitution of the Company

‘That Common Arbitrator, time, hath now made a beneficiall discovery’, Francis Day reported to the new agent of Masulipatam, Andrew Cogan, in August 1639, ‘iff you shall please to imbrace such Large and secure offers which the Incloased Coppie of the firman granted by the Nague will Demonstrat.’1 During his four-week expedition from Armagon, Francis Day had travelled some sixty miles southward, landing a few miles north of the Portuguese settlement of San Thome on 27 July at the small fishing hamlet of Madraspatam. Here, he was met by the local nayak, who, after a brief negotiation, conceded to the dazzling privileges Day had alluded to in his report to Agent Cogan. These included the substantial grant for land to build a fort and the right to trade customs-free.2 After returning to Armagon, Day convinced the Company’s establishment to transfer to the new site at Madraspatam. Without approval and with very little resources, Cogan, Day and the Company’s servants on the Coromandel Coast dismantled the settlement at Armagon, crowded aboard the Eagle and Unity, and sailed down the Coast to Madras, where they arrived on 20 February 1640.3 They counted among their number eight covenanted servants, a surgeon, a gunner, twenty-five soldiers, about fifty marines and sailors, an assortment of carpenters and blacksmiths, and finally a European staff of servants including a butler, barber and cook.4 Despite landing with so few means at their disposal, the expedition erected makeshift bamboo shelters on the beach, and then set about building a fort. On 1 March 1640, Francis Day and Andrew Cogan plotted out a square structure of a hundred yards wide by the same long on the white-hot sand of the beach besides the fishing village, with four bastions, one at each corner. They christened it Fort

1 2 3 4

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Armagon to Masulipatam, 3 September 1639. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, ‘The firman granted Mr. Day for privileges in Medrasspatam by the Nague Damela Vintutedra’, 27 July 1639. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/17, Narrative by John Carter, Master of Pinnace Eagle of the accident which befell the vessel while riding in Madras Road, 12 March 1640. Ibid.

57

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St George, and by December the first brick bastion rose up from the sand, armed with eight iron guns.5 The foundation of Madras has cemented itself into the national imagination as one of those imperial vignettes from which many historians trace the origins of the British Empire in Asia. The image of a small band of Englishmen spilling out of their ships to build a fort on some foreign stretch of sand with very few resources to create a strong English base which blossomed as a safe haven for the surrounding native people ravaged by war and turmoil, not only evokes a traditional understanding of empire and Britain’s expansion across the world but is also typical of the supposed tabula rasa upon which European settlements and forts seemingly rose.6 Yet when this tidy little origins story is placed within the context of the Company’s failure to establish itself in Asia in the early seventeenth century, and the process through which Company servants in Asia appropriated authority to themselves and reshaped the Company’s presence according to local circumstances and interests, the foundation of Madras adopts new meaning for our understanding of Britain’s place in Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Indeed, Madras emerged as the product of the integration of Company servants into regional and communal networks of commerce, culture and patronage, especially amongst the IndoPortuguese, whilst Fort St George itself was conceived and sustained by local Indian elites as a way to stimulate economic growth and consolidate fiscalmilitary resources in their jurisdictions. Madras’ successful development into the Company’s most substantial settlement in Asia would have little to do with the crises-hit enterprises of the court in London and everything to do with new strategies of adaptation and integration nurtured by Company servants on the spot in India. Moving forward, Company servants learned to adapt to their constitutional surroundings and entrench themselves with local constituents in the face of what appeared to be the impending collapse of the corporate structure in the 1640s and 1650s. Despite his claim otherwise, Francis Day had not unexpectedly ‘discovered’ Madras during his voyage down the Coast in 1639. In fact, Day was returning to a region he had been in the process of establishing extensive links with for some time. The Dutch at their settlement of Pulicat to the south had spotted Day sailing down the Coast towards the Portuguese city of San Thome as early

5 6

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, ‘A relation of several passages since the founding of the Town of Madraspatam’, n.d. For the idea of Madras as an English ‘safe haven’ from regional turbulence, see Sinnappah Arasaratnam, Merchants, Companies and Commerce on the Coromandel Coast, 1560 1740 (Oxford, 1986), p. 65; M. N. Pearson, ‘Merchants and States’, in James D. Tracy, ed., The Political Economy of Merchant Empires (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 52 56; Mentz, English Gentle man Merchant, p. 9; or even more recently Stern, Company State, p. 20.

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as 1637.7 But this was only one of a number of voyages Day had made to the Indo-Portuguese communities and their environs at Mylapore, the latter of which included the neighbouring weaving and fishing communities of Madraspatam. These earlier visits, however, were not on behalf of the Company. As Andrew Cogan later reported to the court of committees, ‘the want hee [Day] was driven to in Armagon’ led him to begin trading privately with both the Portuguese at San Thome and, further down the Coast, with the Danes at Tranquebar. ‘What hee did to supply those wants’, Cogan continued defensively, must be judged alongside his acquisition of the grant for Madras.8 By the time Day had acquired the grant, he had conducted at least £500 worth of business with the communities ‘to the southwards’, mostly in calicoes.9 The thickening web between Company servants at Armagon and the Mylapore region in which Madraspatam lay was largely facilitated by the Indo-Portuguese diaspora on the Coromandel Coast which tied southern India’s maritime settlements together.10 Most of the principal ports on the Coast were home to significant Indo-Portuguese communities, and Masulipatam and Armagon were no exception. As chief of the former, Thomas Clarke, who himself had married into this cultural group, noted to Surat how prominent ‘The Portugalls in these parts’ were, and that ‘of latter daies there hath a great consort of them, mustezaies, and negroes made resort to this bunder [port]’.11 The various East India Companies considered them as crucial cultural and commercial brokers with local communities, as well as recruiting them as soldiers, sailors and labourers.12 Part of their success in entrenching themselves across Asia was that the Indo-Portuguese were not a homogenous group, and therefore were able to cross numerous cultural boundaries and adapt to a range of social environments.13 As one Company servant observed, ‘the great nomber is not of any single nation, but Topasses, Mestizos, &c: Converts’.14 7

8 9 10 11 12

13

14

Henry Davison Love, Vestiges of Old Madras, 1640 1800: Traced from the East India Company’s Records Preserved at Fort St. George and the India Office, and from Other Sources (London, 1913, 3 volumes), vol. 1, p. 13 (hereafter Vestiges). BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/5, Masulipatam to Surat, 14 October 1640. EFI, Masulipatam to Surat, 25 October 1639. The influence of Luso Asian culture beyond the Portuguese empire has been shown by Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, The Portuguese in the East (London, 2008). EFI, Masulipatam to Surat, 17 May 1638. For the value of brokers or ‘go betweens’ in the expansion of the Company and, later, the British empire, see Winterbottom, Hybrid Knowledge, particularly chapter 1; Simon Schaffer, Lissa Roberts, Kapil Raj and James Delbourgo, eds., The Brokered World: Go Betweens and Global Intelligence, 1770 1820 (Sagamore Beach, 2009). See for instance their integration into the Siamese state of Ayutthaya in this period: Stefan Halikowski Smith, Creolization and Diaspora in the Portuguese Indies: The Social World of Ayutthaya, 1640 1720 (Leiden, 2007). DCB, Major William Puckle’s Memorandum, 15 February 1676.

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When servants like Clarke married into Indo-Portuguese communities and raised multiracial families, they were able to tap into an expansive regional infrastructure of trade, finance and knowledge that predated the English arrival. Clarke had used these sources of wealth and patronage to establish his own lavish fiefdom. But Francis Day utilised this vast transcultural network to provide the English with the resources and capital to sustain a viable Company presence after forty years of failure. Not only had his commercial dealings with the communities around Madraspatam expanded considerably by the 1630s but Day also had a ‘mistris’ at San Thome and was ‘so enamoured of her’, hoping that his life with her would be ‘more uninterrupted and frequent’.15 Like Clarke, then, Day immersed himself within the Indo-Portuguese communities and utilised the knowledge and expertise these networks provided of the region around San Thome, Madraspatam and Mylapore to the south. Day, like many other Company servants, quickly came to appreciate its value as a complex of weaving settlements, enmeshed within a series of highly organised agrarian districts.16 Day himself had toured these locales and inspected the quality of the cloth being produced, which he considered far superior to anything further up the Coast. In fact, he estimated that they could be bought for upwards of 15 per cent less than the going market rate elsewhere, especially at Masulipatam and Armagon.17 Naturally, an expedition was launched from Armagon to settle Madras in 1640. Aside from the soldiers, labourers, butlers and cooks, the most important group that was brought on board the Eagle and Unity were ‘the Portuguezes and Mestizas’ who, one servant at Madras later observed, ‘came wth our people from Armagon’.18 If integration into local cultural networks had provided Company servants with the knowledge, finance and commercial contacts to utilise ‘soe fayre an opportunitie’ as was presented by Madraspatam to the south, the shifting dynamics of power in southern India also presented an opportunity to establish a successful presence at Madraspatam, much as the prospect had previously existed at Armagon. During the travels of various Company servants to the Madraspatam region, especially Day himself, contact had been made with the regional ruler, Nayak Darmala Venkatappa of the resurgent Vijayanagara empire. Attempts by Emperor Venkata III to re-unify the splintered territories had proved spectacularly successful but had also left the empire in an exhausted state. Combined with the threat of an encroaching sultanate of

15 16 17 18

Cited in Keay, Honourable Company, p. 69. Susan M. Neild, ‘Colonial Urbanism: The Development of Madras City in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 13, no. 2 (1979), p. 222. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Armagon to Masulipatam, 3 September. DCB, Major William Puckle’s Memorandum, 15 February 1676.

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Golconda to the north, the new Vijayanagara regime sought to consolidate its position by opening up new avenues of economic growth and fiscal-military resources. As vizier of the empire, Nayak Darmala Venkatappa was particularly responsive to utilising the casual presence of Company servants trading privately in his jurisdiction, and it wasn’t long before Day received ‘many kind invitation and larg priviledges by the Nague of Vincatadra’ for the Company’s settlement in his domain, ‘whose teritories lyes betweene Pullacatt and Santomee’.19 During his July 1639 visit to the region, Day ‘was entertained with much Honnour by the nayak himselfe’, and ‘Affter some parlay’, had ‘discourse’ with the ‘Mechants, Painters, and Weavers’ of the surrounding communities.20 When Francis Day returned to Armagon in the following month to report the gold-plated package of privileges offered by the nayak in his grant, the push by Company servants to find new opportunities for settlement can be understood alongside the considerable pull of regional rulers for new sources of revenue and security within the tenuous state formation process underway in the fragile Vijayanagara empire. To convince the court of committees that the new grant was not an exaggeration, Day’s superior, Agent Cogan, wrote to London to explain why the nayak was so willing to concede to customs-free trade and the significant grant of land to build a fort. ‘First, he desires his Countrary may flurrish and grow rich; which he Conceives it will by Draweige Merchants to him’, Cogan declared. ‘Secondly . . . the fort, being made strong, may bee able to defend his person on occasion against his insultinge Neighbours.’21 Cogan also explained the nayak’s demand that the Company open up certain specific commercial opportunities for him, including the provision of shipping to carry his servants ‘into the Bay Bengalla, to buy him Hawks, Apes, Parrats and such like bables’.22 The grant, therefore, did not prove a dazzling concession to English demands but acted rather as a contract of indenture, in which the Company’s new privileges were granted in exchange for exercising a range of subordinate roles, including stimulating economic growth, establishing military infrastructure and maintaining specific trading routes on behalf of the nayak and his regime. That the Company would be accepting a subordinate role within the nayak’s domain if it accepted the grant was picked up on by the wily President Fremlen at Swally in western India. He doubted the ‘unexpected successe and unparraleld kindnes in the Naigue’, and opined to London that ‘it was not probably that these his curtesies were so freely bestowed to gaine our freindship only’. But rather, Fremlen judged, ‘by our vicinity to secure himself from his neighbours growing greatnes and to have (when this fort should be erected) a safe place to retire into and theare by our assistance 19 21

20 BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Armagon to Masulipatam, 3 September 1639. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Masulipatam to court of committees, 25 October 1639.

22

Ibid.

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defend himselfe’.23 What would become the first successful Company settlement in Asia, then, was in fact an Asian initiative, facilitated by the willingness or even need of Indian states to integrate foreign constituents for a broad range of fiscal, military and commercial purposes. Company servants grasped such opportunities, and exploited the power vacuum within the Company to pursue them, but their success was determined largely by local elites who sought their own opportunities from such ventures. The nayak had agreed that Francis Day could take forty days to discuss the offer, upon which he returned hastily to Armagon to dispatch reports to Masulipatam on the ‘fayre opportunitie’. Agent Cogan was enthusiastic and declared in council his ‘resolve speedylie to send backe the saied Francis Daye for Madraspatam with horses suger and Cloves’ as gifts for the nayak.24 Cogan also dashed off letters to both Bantam and Surat for authorisation to launch an expedition to build a fort at ‘Medresspatam’. But the moribund state of the corporate hierarchy had paralysed the Company’s policymaking, and their superiors dithered and hesitated. Surat was anxious about the whole enterprise at a time when the Company was broke and scaling back all of its operations. In February 1640 they wrote to Cogan at Masulipatam, consenting to the withdrawal of Armagon but withholding authorisation for Day’s Madras expedition. ‘We must of force referr the whole accon’, they concluded, writing to London for direction.25 Cogan was exasperated at the Company’s impotence. When Day threatened to resign if an expedition was not put together as soon as possible, Cogan took Surat’s authorisation to withdraw from the settlement at Armagon as tacit approval of the Madras expedition, the truth of which he stretched beyond all credibility. When the court of committees in London finally responded to the Madras project as late as 1642, they withheld permission altogether and condemned the entire enterprise.26 But by then it was too late. The Company’s extrication from Armagon had not proved easy. The factors seized the opportunity of the nayak’s absence on campaign to defend his besieged territory as ‘a good time to get away our people’.27 By scratching together 2,000 pagodas to pay off some of their debt and ‘perswade the Creditors in Armagon to staye for their monyes a longer time’, the fort was stripped of goods and ordnance and its occupants, much as they had at Masulipatam, slipped away quietly.28 When the Eagle and Unity weighed anchor in the Madraspatam road in February 1640, Francis Day, Andrew 23 24 25 26 28

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Swally Hole to court of committees, 29 December 1640. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, consultation at Masulipatam, 5 September 1639. Surat’s letter is cited in BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Madras to court of committees, 26 Septem ber 1642. 27 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Madras to court of committees, 26 September 1642. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Masulipatam to court of committees, 25 October 1639.

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Cogan and the rest of the covenanted servants, alongside the soldiers, marines, labourers, cooks and Indo-Portuguese merchants and families, were all ferried ashore in catamarans.29 That this venture would rely predominantly on the patronage and support of surrounding Indian and Portuguese communities and elites was clear from the very beginning in the foundation of the fort and growth and government of the town of Madraspatam. The fort itself was plotted by Day and Cogan as a square structure of four bastions linked by a curtain wall, of a hundred feet in length by the same width. While this design was indeed modest, it still seemed ambitious for the small expedition and its lack of money or manpower, a fact which was compounded by the loss of both the Eagle and Unity in the following month from a storm, sinking their meagre provisions in the process.30 However, illustrative of the relationship between the Company and the nayak in these foundation years, the latter stepped in to offer the labourers and materiel required to begin construction, whilst simultaneously salvaging the shipwrecks and goods for the factors lost in the storm. This was made complicated by the fact that the Eagle had been swept away and wrecked in the territory of a neighbouring nayak, who demanded compensation for its recovery. ‘Our Great Nague’, reported Cogan, ‘hath paid the Nague of Allenberge the 500 rialls promised at our shipps first strandinge’, and even ‘sent his people to receive the cloves etc. and indeavour the recovery of the ordnance’.31 These remarkable diplomatic and financial efforts by the nayak paved the way for foundation work to begin on the construction of the fort by mid-1640. But such a capital-intensive project could only be sustained through a mass injection of cash, something the Company were both unwilling and unable to provide. Fort St George, as it would be christened by Day and Cogan, rose through the joint efforts of Company servants investing their own personal funds amassed through recent private trading initiatives, and the substantial credit made available by the Indo-Portuguese merchants and communities that both accompanied the expedition from Armagon and moved to Madraspatam on the invitation of Company servants. As the engineer of the Madras enterprise, Francis Day sought to bankroll the entire fort’s construction. As Cogan reported to Surat, Day had offered ‘freely to pay the Interest of all the monies that should be expended till the Forte was finished’.32 As the bill mounted, rising to some 1,500 Spanish silver dollars by the end of 1640 alone for just a single bastion, the interest was so crippling that it was not long before Day

29 30 32

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/17, Narrative by John Carter, Master of Pinnace Eagle of the accident which befell the vessel while riding in Madras Road, 12 March 1640. 31 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/5, Masulipatam to Surat, 14 October 1640. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Madras to Court of Committees, 20 September 1642.

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petitioned Surat to relieve him of the burden.33 With the work threatening to stall, Cogan made a special plea to Surat for assistance. ‘The accounts will show how deeply indebted this Agency is, and how much we need money both to clear ourselves and employ our workmen at Madraspatam.’34 Cogan calculated that it would take a further 6,000 pieces of eight to ‘compleat the whole work’.35 This staggering sum would be met by that crucial group, the IndoPortuguese. For if subordination to the nayak had enfranchised Company servants with new sources of political and constitutional authority, it would be the Indian and Indo-Portuguese elites and communities who would provide them with the financial and commercial resources to entrench themselves thoroughly on the Coromandel Coast in a way not possible before. In fact, the very construction of Fort St George is itself reflective of the contributions to the eventual success of the Company in Asia: one bastion was funded by a private Company servant, and the other three by local merchants and communities. English empire building was, quite literally, an Asian enterprise. One of the first policies launched by Day and Cogan at Madraspatam shortly after construction began on Fort St George was to expand and utilise the IndoPortuguese community from the core group of families who had accompanied them from Armagon. So integrated had Company servants become with this cultural group that when the expedition arrived at Madraspatam in early 1640, Day had been invited by the governor of San Thome to establish a factory within the town, under Portuguese government.36 Although this was rejected in favour of the nayak’s grant, the presence of this mixed cultural group at Madraspatam formed the backbone of the new settlement. As Fort St George took shape, the Portuguese built their own houses ‘upon this open Sand under the protection of the Gunns’, forming a community that attracted significant migration from other Portuguese settlements, especially neighbouring San Thome, barely three miles down the Coast.37 Maximilian Bowman, an interloper who traded between the Portuguese territories in Asia, noted how a lack of opportunities at San Thome and a ‘dearth of all provissions’ caused ‘many of the Portugall women to leave their husbands and families to runn to the English in Madraspatam ffor releife’.38 The president of Surat similarly informed London of ‘the many [Portuguese] men and weomen, who frequent the ffort so much’.39 The integration of the English with the Portuguese and mestizo communities in these first years of Fort St George’s construction led

33 35 36 37 38 39

34 BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/5, Masulipatam to Surat, 14 October 1640. Ibid. Vestiges, Masulipatam to Surat, 27 November 1640. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Masulipatam to court of committees, 25 October 1639. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/5, Masulipatam to Surat, 14 October 1640. Vestiges, Maximilian Bowman to Surat, St. Thome, 26 November 1646. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/18, Surat to court of committees, Surat, 27 January 1642.

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Cogan to describe how they ‘lived as friendly as brothers’.40 By November 1640, Cogan estimated that some 400 families ‘hasten to us in hopes of gaine’, consisting chiefly of Indo-Portuguese merchants and their families on the one hand, and communities of Indian weavers and dyers on the other.41 As the population of Madras expanded, key groups such as the IndoPortuguese developed vested interests in the protean settlement’s success, opening up new channels of credit and capital that eventually underwrote the fort’s construction, and even the city’s commercial operations. As at Masulipatam and Armagon, the chief dynamic of this integration was the social and cultural ties which bound Company servants to these communities, a fact which became far more systematic at Madras than any previous settlement. Francis Day had been hauled to Surat on charges of private trade in late 1640, and recalled to London to defend himself. Despite being censured by the court of committees for ‘the great wrong done to the Company by his practice of private trade’, Day was also recognised as being ‘well experienced in the trade on the Coast’, and dispatched back to Madras on the Hopewell in October 1641.42 Arriving at the partially constructed Fort St George in 1642, the Hopewell’s captain, Andrew Trumball, was shocked to observe the emergence of a transcultural elite who had consolidated their social, commercial and political control over the emerging settlement. Most of the approximately one hundred English soldiers, he noted, lived with Indian or mestizo wives, and while there were a far smaller number of Company servants in these early years, perhaps not exceeding eight or nine, they mostly followed suit, and those who were not publically married to Indian, Portuguese or mestizo women maintained households for mistresses and the children they had with them. These women were certainly from wealthy or connected families from the surrounding villages and communities, considering that those Company servants with the largest Indian and mestizo households were also the most powerful figures at Madras. Henry Greenhill, for example, part of Francis Day’s new council, ‘keepeth a gentlewoman, by whome hee hath had two children’. When Greenhill’s newly arrived third child was christened at Fort St George, the ceremony was met with a thirteen-gun salute, ‘with the powder paid for by him’, Trumball noted wryly. As the leader of this multiracial elite, Francis Day’s Indo-Portuguese family was maintained in the greatest splendour. Outside of the fort, he had built them ‘a very faire house with orchard and garden’, in which, it was reported, Day would frequently stay. The other members of the council, Thomas Winter and Thomas Penniston, both also maintained Indian households at considerable expense.43 40 41 42 43

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Madras to court of committees, 20 September 1642. EFI, Masulipatam to Surat, 14 November 1640. BL, APAC, IOR/B/20, court of committees, 22 October 1641. Vestiges, Declaration of Andrew Trumball, London, 18 September 1644.

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The formation of a transcultural community at Madras provided the settlement with local engines of dynamism and growth in the absence of any metropolitan and corporate support or investment. As Andrew Cogan concluded in 1643, as ‘no funds are likely to be available’ from London for paying off creditors and investing in new goods, they would therefore ‘borrow, if possible, enough money for this purpose from the Portuguese’.44 The networks of Anglo-Indian and Anglo-Portuguese family formation which opened up these avenues of credit and attracted affluent migrants to the region entrenched the new settlement in the local landscape and sustained almost all aspects of the Company’s presence, from the bastions of the fort to the houses in the town. The union of commercial resources with familial power came to define the settlement’s hierarchy and the policies pursued by servants there. This trend was most evident in the Cogans. At Masulipatam, Andrew Cogan had married a mestizo woman from the settlement’s large Indo-Portuguese community. From this union Thomas Cogan had a son, Richard, who served under his father at Madras. And like his father, Richard also married a mestizo woman who had migrated from neighbouring San Thome, raising an IndoPortuguese Catholic family at Fort St George.45 Although Richard resigned from the Company’s service to settle with his family at San Thome in 1648 ‘and goeth every day to Mass with his wife’ numerous Anglo-Portuguese families remained to transform the fledgling Madras community.46 In fact, within twenty years, it was estimated that half of Madras’ inhabitants were Indo-Portuguese, perhaps as many as 3,000.47 The number of Company servants remained minuscule in comparison, of course. By the mid-1640s there were perhaps no more than forty-five Company servants stationed across the Bantam agency, of which Madras was a part.48 But their incorporation into the expansive Eurasian communities amplified their influence and resources, and transformed them into an emerging regional elite. The union of the Company’s elite with Portuguese communities allowed servants to tap extensively into local networks of trade and credit. Cogan’s political prominence as agent of Madras, coupled with his and his son’s IndoPortuguese kinship networks, were essential in keeping credit flowing into Madras, both to fund the building of Fort St George and to maintain the private trade of Company servants. In fact, when Andrew Cogan sought to travel to Bantam to clear his name from charges of insubordination and private trade to the amount of £5,000, the two principal members of his council, Francis Day and Henry Greenhill, opposed him on the ground that they would be unable to raise further credit with the Portuguese, ‘because of the Agents respect with 44 45 47

EFI, consultation at Madras, 20 August 1643. 46 Vestiges, Madras to Surat, 9 October 1648. Vestiges, Madras to Surat, 17 January 1648. 48 DCB, consultation at Madras, 18 February 1676. Vestiges, vol. 1, p. 59, fn. 1, p. 63.

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those people’.49 This dependency was certainly acute. Cogan estimated that the Company’s servants had accrued somewhere in the region of 10,000 pagodas in interest on loans in the three years between the foundation of Madras and the end of 1642.50 By 1644, servants at Madras complained that ‘Interest hath bin ye bane of the Coast trade’.51 In the absence of specie from London, almost every cost had to be met from local sources. As they lamented to their colleagues at Surat, they were ‘being here driven to that extremity that private men were fain to lend the Company their monies to maiteyne the table and defray other petty expences’.52 The role played by migrating Indian, Portuguese and Indo-Portuguese mestizo communities in the growth of Madras was clearly considerable. The weakness of regulatory frameworks maintained by London had created opportunities for these groups to ingratiate themselves with ambitious Company servants to an extent that would have been less likely beforehand. And yet, if this dynamic sustained the Company on the Coast, it also allowed these foreign constituencies to create new opportunities for themselves. For instance, as significant creditors and wider kinship members Agent Cogan granted mestizo communities major social, cultural and commercial privileges at Madras which shaped its subsequent development into a thoroughly transcultural city. These included exemption from customs on imported goods for thirty years, the offer of land for ‘planting and building’, and, perhaps most considerable of all, ‘a Church and ffrench Priests allowed to encourage them’.53 When the breadth of these privileges raised some concern a few years later, Cogan’s successors noted that they were offered when the ‘Roman Catholicks of the Portugez Nation were invited hither upon our first settlement’.54 Cogan’s grant of land to build a Catholic church was particularly significant, especially in light of the fact that it remained the only place of worship within Madras until an Anglican church was built thirty years later. The Portuguese church was a small timber structure at first. Initially, priests from San Thome were brought in to provide services, but in 1642 Cogan sanctioned the permanent establishment of Father Ephraim, a French Capuchin friar. Ephraim dedicated the small timber church to the Apostle St Andrew, from where he provided for the spiritual wants of his increasingly large flock.55 Within its first few years, then, Madras began to represent the success of a new strategy pursued by recently enfranchised Company servants in Asia. In subjecting themselves to local rulers through the provision of a number of

49 50 51 52 54

EFI, consultation at Madras, 29 December 1642. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/18, Madras to court of committees, 20 September 1642. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/19, Madras to court of committees, 8 September 1644. 53 EFI, Bantam to Surat, 25 July 1642. DCB, consultation at Madras, 22 March 1679. 55 Ibid. Vestiges, vol. 1, p. 49.

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significant services, including driving economic growth and developing defensive fortifications, they had secured extensive privileges for a new settlement and trading opportunities. Furthermore, through integration with a number of key cultural groups, such as the transient Indo-Portuguese mestizos, Company servants had been able to entrench their new settlement into the landscape in a durable way, tapping into expansive networks of capital, investment and migration that ultimately produced a transcultural elite to govern and shape the Company’s presence. The biggest benefactors, of course, were Company servants themselves. The key order the court of committees had proscribed to Andrew Trumball when he was tasked with ferrying Francis Day back to Madras was to ‘hinder all attempts at private trade as much as possible’ at the new settlement.56 But even as early as late 1642, Trumball observed at Madras a flourishing commercial centre, in which the Company’s servants lived like the ‘kings’ described by Cogan so many years before. Day was one of four servants who controlled Fort St George as a powerful cartel. Thomas Penniston, Trumball claimed, was ‘by estimacion worth 80,000 ryalls’, or approximately £20,000. Similarly, there was Thomas Winter, worth £5,000 as well as the £2,000 in stock he had laid on the Hopewell for Persia; and finally Henry Greenhill, worth £3,000. ‘These foure gentlemen are all sworne brothers’, exclaimed Trumball, ‘and when they perceive they may benefitt themselves in any project, they passe an oath one to another to prosecute their intendments, and not dissent one from another untill their ends bee obteyned.’57 Trumball and his masters in London perceived this as evidence of corruption and private interest run rampant. But what they failed to comprehend was that the new strategy pursued in Asia as a result of the failure of the Company’s earlier national enterprises at places such as Bantam demanded an adaptive and integrative English presence to succeed. Indeed, the success of Madras was predicated upon the opportunities provided by and for individual servants to create lucrative commercial networks. These in turn opened up new avenues of investment, migration and credit, especially when such networks led to the formation of new transcultural families who assumed prominent roles within the city. Thus while the foundation of Madras was very much an Asian initiative, its development was to an extent driven by the skill and ambition of Company servants, taking to heart the hard lessons learned in the first half of the seventeenth century at places such as Bantam, Masulipatam, Hirado and Armagon. Unfortunately, leadership in Europe and even elements of it in Asia itself struggled to draw the correct conclusions from those spectacular episodes of failure. What appeared to be the rapid decentralisation of the Company’s

56

Ibid.

57

Vestiges, Declaration of Andrew Trumball, London, 18 September 1644.

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framework, particularly on the Coromandel Coast as Company servants in alliance with Asian elites appropriated the Company’s development there, was perceived as diverging considerably from corporate and national interests. As reports of the new fort at Madras gradually made their way to the other side of India, the authorities at Surat were aghast at what they considered nothing less than outright insubordination. When they heard that the second and third bastions had been built and that a curtain wall was begun to connect them by the end of 1642, they wrote to London in an attempt to avoid any suggestion of complicity: ‘Armagon was not deserted with intent to raise out of its Ruine a new charge unto you. But ere our letters arrived, The worke was begin by ffra. Day.’58 As constitutional turmoil and civil war gripped the British Isles, the court of committees were slower to react to events unfolding on the Coromandel Coast. When they finally did, they condemned Day and Cogan for a ‘very indescreete action to goe about the building of such a Fort when the Companies stocke was soe small’.59 Feeling as though the committees may have been looking a gift horse in the mouth, servants on the Coast made it clear that their broader intentions by the foundation of Madras were to finally anchor the Company’s presence in a meaningful and durable way, to the Company’s and the country’s benefit. ‘This Forte of yours, if your worshipps did butt followe this trade as it might be followed’, Cogan beseeched them in 1642, alluding to the total failure of the Company’s trade in the first half of the century, ‘or that you had but two or three small vessells to voyage it to and againe to draw trade hither, all your Charges woold bee bourne with advantage.’60 Francis Day was more direct in the service that they were providing the Company in establishing Madras. Writing that the new settlement would provide ‘soe fayre an opportunity for our masters proffitt’, he professed that his enthusiasm should not be mistaken for selfish interest, adding that ‘no privat regard to my owne Ends sways mee’.61 This was not remotely true, of course, but the private interest of Company servants in Asia was beginning to achieve more for the Company than the ruinous interests of shareholders for more dividends or the crown for new markets to dump old woollens. However, the court of committees felt too threatened by the usurpation of their authority in Asia to consider that the policies being pursued were better suited to the long-term success of the Company. Cogan was recalled to London to account for his insubordination before the court. In response, he proclaimed his sadness at their being ‘displeased with us for proceeding on this worke, it even breaks some of our hearts’. But underneath his humility, there was a 58 59 60

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/18, Surat to court of committees, 27 January 1642. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, A Meeting of the Committees Appointed to Hear Andrew Cogan’s Business, London, 13 May 1645. 61 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Armagon to Masulipatam, 3 September 1639.

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streak of defiance. At the end of the day, Cogan told them, bluster and fume as you like but ‘’Tis now too late to wish it undone.’62 The nayak and the communities within his jurisdiction had enfranchised and integrated Company servants on the Coast in a way that the court of committees or the English state were not capable of doing. What perhaps best highlighted the redistribution of power from metropolitan and corporate authorities in England to servants and their multiracial networks in Asia was Cogan’s startling revelation that he had taken it upon himself to restructure the hierarchy of authority on the Coast: ‘Wee now are and have byn a twelvemonth constant resident at Maddaras, and have made that the Cheife place for your other Factories to account to.’63 The designation of agencies, in this case from Masulipatam to Madras, had been the preserve of the court of committees. As recently as 1639, for example, they had detached the Coast from the Bantam presidency and placed it under the charge of Surat. But never before had a servant on the spot taken it upon themselves to transfer a seat of power. Unfortunately for servants on the Coromandel Coast who had developed and pursued such a transformative strategy, the continuing crises of the Company’s corporate framework threatened to strangle the whole enterprise in its infancy. Even as Cogan reported the successful migration of hundreds of affluent families to the settlement by the end of 1640, he noted anxiously that without considerable investment, a stable supply of specie and an adequate flow of shipping, ‘they must and will away againe’.64 After all, these were the major incentives that the Company brought to the negotiating table with Asian states, and made the integration of their servants with Asian elites so attractive. Individual Company servants could marry into powerful families, strike up private trading partnerships with elites and negotiate with sovereign rulers and their governors, but their influence and leverage came from their position as representatives of the Company and the potential prospects this held out to interested Asian parties who sought to utilise such useful maritime and commercial contacts. That opening up their doors to the Company and its agents might not actually be so useful to Asian elites was a constant anxiety for Company servants in this period. By 1643, servants at Madras were still exclaiming to their counterparts in Bantam that their situation ‘Tis like to be rather worse then better, unless you or our masters helpe us.’65 In 1645 the new agent, Thomas Ive, complained to the court of committees that they had not received letters, money or ships from London for many years: ‘you have totally forgotten us’, he fumed, ‘and doe intend to sett a period to this trade’.66 62 64 65 66

63 BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Madras to court of committees, 20 September 1642. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/26/5, Masulipatam to Surat, 14 November 1640. EFI, Madras to Bantam, 25 August 1643. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/19, Madras to court of committees, Madras, 1 October 1645.

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Madras was not alone, of course. The Company’s continuing crisis at home meant that most of the factories in Asia were starved of funds. For instance, when London finally dispatched money to Asia in 1643, there was only a single chest available for Bantam.67 Worse still, besides the Hopewell that had brought Day back to Madras, the settlement had yet to receive a single trading ship from Europe. By 1643, the Coast had run up debts to the tune of £10,000.68 Later that year, Day described to the court of committees ‘that devouringe canker of interest which hath impoysoned all the best indeavours of those that have the mannaginge of your estates’.69 As late as 1645, the agent was still begging for supplies, this time from his counterpart at Surat. ‘We must beseech you and the President at Bantam to provide us with shipping and monyes for the mainteninge of our Creditte, which now lyeth att stake with our Merchants.’70 If the private initiatives of Company servants, alongside the utilisation of local networks of capital and the pull of Asian rulers, all combined to bring Madras into existence, it could only be maintained in the long run by becoming a productive and dynamic presence in the regional landscape. The emergence of a transcultural elite fuelled commercial growth and generated substantial private wealth for individual servants and their kinship networks, much of which went to financing the massive stone bastions and stimulating manufacturing in the migrating weaving communities. And while this was enough to stave off the kind of stagnation and outright dilapidation which became evident at Masulipatam in the 1620s and Armagon in the 1630s, servants on the spot such as Day and Cogan were rightly anxious that the terms of the grant from Nayak Darmala Venkatappa demanded a far more transformative contribution to the regional economy and the fiscal-military strength of his regime. As Cogan complained to his counterpart at Surat, without ‘moneys to imploy our inhabytans of Madraspatam’ the Indian and Portuguese communities would undoubtedly ‘leave us, to the shame and dishonour of our nation’.71 Beyond a series of private trading networks and small-scale shipping to service these trade routes, Madras was in danger of remaining a parochial constituent of the Vijayanagar a empire, limited to its local environs and communities in the Mylapore and San Thome region. In fact, the new agent in 1645, Thomas Ivie, warned London that the failure to make a major investment in money and shipping at Madras soon would ultimately lead to the rescinding of their grant and as a result ‘the Losse of the Companies trade in the King

67 68 69 70 71

BL, BL, BL, BL, BL,

APAC, IOR/G/21/3/2, Bantam to court of committees, 9 December 1643. APAC, IOR/B/22, court of committees, London, 21 June 1644. APAC, IOR/E/3/18, Francis Day to court of committees, Madras, 30 August 1643. APAC, IOR/E/3/19, Madras to Surat, 8 September 1645. APAC, IOR/E/3/17, Masulipatam to Surat, 27 December 1640.

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[of Vijayanagar’s] dominions’.72 In subordinating themselves to the nayak in exchange for their privileges at Madraspatam, Company servants had tied themselves in to a demanding relationship of servitude. The consequences of failing to uphold these terms could be disastrous for the Company’s position on the Coromandel Coast. Adaptive and flexible in a way the corporate hierarchy had failed to be in previous instances, servants at Madras sought to mitigate the continued failure of the Company’s authority and resources in Asia by subordinating themselves deeper into local Indian frameworks of authority and power. It was a strategy that had served them well previously, when they moved deeper into Vijayanagara territory as Armagon faced collapse at the hands of the former’s invading armies. It was a move that was vindicated in 1642, when the servants at Madras received news that ‘The Naigue of Armagon is absolutely beaten out of all his Country’ by the armies of the Vijayanagara empire.73 But if the shifting political landscape in southern India provoked Company servants to seek deeper integration with the empire, the Dutch VOC had sought to capitalise on imperial divisions and the empire’s struggle against independent nayaks. Amongst other things, the Dutch at Pulicat used the opportunity to expand their fortifications without permission and gradually engross trade in the region, even to the exclusion of Vijayanagara merchants.74 Just a few years before, the emperor had sought to articulate his sovereignty over the East India Companies. ‘I have always understood’, Venkata informed the Dutch chief, ‘that Pulicat is our own town and that you are our merchants. So if anybody seeks to do harm to that town, it is our own loss.’75 The emperor therefore perceived the Dutch and by extension, the English as his vassals and subjects. Therefore, having consolidated his control over the refractory nayaks, Emperor Venkata III set about enforcing the subjugation of the Dutch. Having ‘subdued the whole of the neighbouring towns’, the emperor then led his army against Pulicat, demanding the surrender of the Dutch fort to his authority in exchange for a restoration of their old privileges and grants.76 When Pulicat refused, the town was blockaded, and their goods and right to trade were confiscated.77 The English servants observed the Dutch attempt to operate outside of regional frameworks of authority and sovereignty, and responded by adopting a contrasting strategy of integration and subordination. As the new imperial regime exerted its authority throughout the old Vijayanagara territories, the English servants at Madras formally subordinated

72 73 74 76 77

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/19, Madras to Surat, 8 September 1645. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Madras to Bantam, 20 September 1642. 75 Raychaudhuri, Jan Company, p. 46. Cited in ibid., pp. 43 44. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/19, Madras to court of committees, 8 September 1644. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/19, Madras to court of committees, 1 October 1645.

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themselves to the regime, partly in response to the Dutch predicament but also to mitigate the negative impact of a lack of investment and trade at Madras. The opportunity came when Nayak Darmala Venkatappa, who had offered Francis Day the original grant for Madras, rebelled at the succession of a new emperor, Sri Ranga Rayalu, in 1642. Andrew Cogan was anxious to demonstrate his loyalty to the new emperor, and was concerned that any delay in Madras’ submission might provoke the new ruler’s ‘Just displeasure’. Anticipating the criticisms of the committees in London in offering their settlements’ subordination to an Indian ruler, the agent asked rhetorically ‘what can you expect of fifty well and sicke men to defend your estate and Fort against the king’s power.’ The answer was simple: ‘wee have nothing more to trust unto then our civill Comportment and respect to the kinge and great ones.’78 Cogan had, in effect, articulated a new political framework for the Company, one in which its development overseas was not conditional upon the English state but upon more immediate Asian powers. He therefore dispatched four Company servants to visit the emperor at Vellore in 1645 to offer the city’s submission in the hope of acquiring ‘the reconfirmation of what was graunted . . . by the great Nague under whose protection formerly wee liv’d’.79 In return for their homage and the promise to assist the emperor’s general, Chenana Chetti, Sri Ranga granted an expanded set of privileges to the Company at Madras. Considering that the English had ‘built a ffort and brought trade’ to Madras, the emperor declared that he was granting new privileges ‘that you may be the better encouraged to prosecute the same and amplifie the towne which bears our name’. Although the key article in this new grant provided significant powers of judicial authority for the Company over Madras, at the same time it also aimed to bind the Company more deeply into the Vijayanagara state, declaring that the emperor would ‘retaine the towne in our protection . . . as long as the Sunn and Moone Endureth’.80 Unbeknownst at the time, however, neither of these were destined to endure for long. To the north, the sultanate of Golconda had been undergoing its own expansion, free of the contested dynamic of the nayak system which made centralising sovereign authority over the Vijayanagara territories particularly fragile. The rebellion of Nayak Venkatappa at the accession of Sri Ranga was the start of a bloody civil war in 1642 which threatened to undo the reunification of Vijayanagara. Whether the newly reconstituted state could have survived this challenge is unknown. In 1646, seizing the opportunity presented by civil strife, Golconda invaded the empire.81 Within the year, the emperor had fled to Mysore and his territories had been incorporated into the sultanate 78 80 81

79 Ibid. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Cowle from Zree Renga Raja, king of Vijayanagara, October 1645. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/3 2/2, Madras to Bantam, 21 January 1646.

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of Golconda by Mir Jumla. The latter ‘hath taken the Government of Pullicatte and St. Thome settinge the cuntry all in order as he goeth along’.82 For servants at Madras, having gradually adapted to subordination, there was only one course of action to take. In October 1646, the city subordinated itself to the Golcondan general Mir Jumlah with a tribute of brass cannon, ‘withall confirm’d, under the King of Gulcondahs great seale, all our former privilidges in ample manner as it was graunted unto us by the foresaid fledd Jentue king [the Vijayanagara emperor]’.83 Almost immediately the new Golcondan governor utilised Madras’ subordination and ordered the city to contribute gunners and troops to his siege of the Portuguese town of San Thome, in which fourteen Englishmen were eventually killed.84 As Madras was successfully steered through the shifting sands of state formation in southern India by integrating itself deeper with local networks and regional power structures, the East India Company itself teetered on the verge of collapse. When the committees struggled to send out just two ships to Surat in 1639, it accompanied these with a grave message for its servants in Asia. ‘Wee are fearfull how far wee shall be able to performe in this troublesome tymes’, they lamented, ‘when all trade and commerce in this kingdome is almost fallen to the ground through our owne unhappie divisions at home’.85 Following the expansion of the Courteen Association since 1635, parliament had granted prominent City merchants such as Maurice Thomson and Samuel Moyer licences to trade in Asia in 1645. Most disastrously of all, with the British Civil Wars in full swing, the king had allowed the Company’s patent to lapse in 1647, stripping it of its privileged position in the Asian trade.86 Conversely, as the fourth bastion of Fort St George rose up high from the sands of Madras in 1649, the Company was being torn down at home, and a special ‘Court of All freemen and Adventurers’ was even convened at the new East India House on Leadenhall Street to decide whether the Company had a future at all.87 By the early 1650s, if ships were sent out to Asia at all, they were usually financed and stocked by private merchants, sometimes in partnership with the court of committees, but more likely of their own accord. Even at home, the Company’s leadership found itself unable to control events. Despite the significant enfranchisement of Company servants in Asia, the collapse of the corporate structure continued to undermine entrenched settlements like Madras. In fact, as their authority diminished, the court of committees lashed out at the increasing autonomy of their servants in Asia to

82 83 84 85 86

Vestiges, Madras to Surat, 4 January 1646. Vestiges, Madras to court of committees, 9 October 1647. Vestiges, Madras to San Thome, 27 October 1646. EFI, court of committees to Surat, London, 27 November 1643. 87 Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, p. 179. Ibid.

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the total neglect of the corporate and national interests which originally conceived the Company. In 1654, the committees met at East India House to discuss ‘proposals for the better governing, settling and securing of the East India Trade’. The overthrow of the monarchy had not brought about a restoration of their chartered rights as some had hoped, and, despite a £40,000 ‘gift’ to Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector relegated the issue in light of his ‘Western Design’ and the war against Spain.88 The committees therefore met in desperate circumstances, hoping to agree on a proposal that would appear attractive enough for Cromwell to grant them their long-lost charter. The meeting was remarkable for the lengths the Company’s metropolitan authorities were willing to go to place national and corporate interests back in the driving seat in Asia, hoping to reverse what they perceived to be the dangerous new policy of relying on Asian sources of commercial and constitutional authority to shape the Company’s presence there. The solution they seemed to entertain was a much closer relationship with the English state, and the surrender of many of their original privileges that had previously been acquired from the crown. The committees proposed that their presidents, agents and chiefs should not be servants of the Company at all but rather ‘through the favour of His Highness qualified with the authoritye and style of a publicke person, and reside in those parts as an Agent from His Highness’. In effect, the settlements in Asia would be under the control of Republican governors. The court were actually willing to concede sixty years of constitutional autonomy from the Crown in order to prevent their interests in Asia from being ‘conceived to be only under the authority of some few private persons’. In proposing this extreme measure, East India House were admitting their inability to maintain or regulate their servants and settlements in Asia. Outsourcing this to the Protectorate, they believed, would create ‘more authority over the several traders and factors residing in India’. It was, they declared, ‘the only remedy that may be expected for regulating or preventing those great abuses that arise’ in Asia.89 In October, they petitioned the Lord Protector but he continued to hesitate, and deferred his decision.90 Without state intervention to shore up their withering authority, East India House resorted to punitive acts in retaliation for their servants’ independence on the Coromandel Coast. To the court of committees, Madras was the pinnacle of malfeasance and disobedience, and, for them, its success only confirmed such accusations. Aside from starving the settlement of shipping

88 89 90

See Chapter 3 for these developments. BL, APAC, IOR/H/40, Proposals for the better governing, settling and securing of the East India Trade, London, August 1654. BL, APAC, IOR/H/40, Petition of the East India Company to the Lord Protector, London, October 1654.

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and funds, the court consistently entertained charges against servants there, to their consternation. ‘There hath binn so many complaints of this coast’, Agent Cogan wrote to the president at Bantam, ‘that all that goes from hence meets with naught butt disrespects soe odious and deformed have our actions bin made’.91 Both Cogan and Francis Day had been charged with corruption and recalled to London to defend themselves at court.92 Edward Winter was similarly hauled up in front of the committees in 1652 and fined £800 for trading in rice and calicoes at Madras.93 But the most serious attempt by East India House to impose their authority over Madras came in 1655. The court of committees despatched the Three Brothers from London with a letter for the new agent, Henry Greenhill. ‘The maintenance of soe many debauched and wicked persons’, the letter declared, ‘hath not only been a great charge unto us, but by their unchristian-like living hath also brought a scandall to our nation and religion, and calls upon us for a reformation.’94 The letter ordered a reduction in the garrison of Fort St George from one hundred soldiers to just ten, to abandon all newly established factories in Bengal, to reduce the number of Company servants from fourteen to a mere three and, worse still, their joint salaries were not to exceed £60 a year.95 This was nothing short of an attempt to strangle the settlement before it could expand any further. The following year, the committees even considered selling Fort St George altogether, ‘with the comaund of the towne and all privilidges at Madraspatan’, valuing it at £3,000.96 But instead of re-establishing East India House’s authority over affairs in Asia, the ‘reformation’ actually exposed the weakness of such attempts. The proposals were largely ignored: Fort St George remained heavily garrisoned, the number of Company servants unchanged, and absolutely no one took a pay-cut, and while the factories in Bengal were abandoned, they were re-established the following year.97 Over three decades of crises and weakness had eventually unravelled the corporate structure entirely. All signs of a cohesive corporate culture of loyalty and obedience to national interests lay strangled on the London quaysides, alongside idle ships and empty hulls. On 14 January 1657, the court of committees made the momentous decision to hang up their coats and bring an end to almost sixty years of failed engagement with Asia. ‘It is resolved to appoint a sale to be held’, they declared, ‘of the island, customs, houses and 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

EFI, Madras to Bantam, 28 January 1644. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/17, Answer of Mr Andrew Cogan to Inquiries by Commissioners, n.d., 1643. BL, APAC, IOR/B/23, court of committees, 9 July 1652. CCM, court of committees, 12 January 1655. BL, APAC, IOR/B/25, court of committees, 12 January 1655. BL, APAC, IOR/B/25, court of committees, 14 October 1656. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/25, Madras to court of committees, 28 January 1657.

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other rights of the Indies’. The Company and all its possessions were now for purchase, and bills were ordered to be placed on the Royal Exchange ‘giving notice of this resolution’.98 And while this may have partly been a strategic move to force Cromwell’s hand into restoring the Company’s charter for a monopoly over the Asian trade, it’s hard to see how much longer East India House could have struggled on. The monopoly had been revoked, their trade from England had been commandeered by private merchants, their policies had been reshaped by servants in Asia and their authority had been appropriated by Asian rulers and elites. Perhaps the final insult was that the Company was valued on the Exchange at just £14,000. As one historian has noted, it was ‘not much to show for nearly sixty years trade’.99 When not a single ship arrived from Europe in 1656, the Company’s most senior servant in Asia, the president of Surat, lamented to his masters in London that ‘Wee cannot but imagine but you will have some care of your bussinesse and us.’ Servants such as John Spiller had the most to lose from new transcultural strategies pursued by individual servants in Asia. His pay and privileges were derived from East India House, and the dignity of his office and his authority as president relied on his successful implementation of Company policies and directives. But Spiller was fast becoming an old school servant, with few private connections to Asian constituents and a jurisdiction that remained largely defined by hollow corporate hierarchies and not integration with local political structures. Observing the decline of his position, the president informed London that the factory in Surat was ‘in soe meane condicion that little more then the name of government being left amonghst us, through want of authority to commaund better’. For Spiller, the presidency had become a shadow of its former self, incapable of limping on in its current state. He therefore concluded his letter with exasperated resignation: ‘Next yeare, if you break up all, wee hope you will have us in some remembrance, by sending out a small ship to transport your goods remaining and us for our countrey.’100 As the Company was put up for sale, its presence in Asia had fragmented into a series of autonomous and increasingly independent jurisdictions, with individual servants seeking to integrate themselves into local networks and communities, and, as a result, entrenching their particular factory or fort into local political hierarchies and authorities. Through marriage, partnership and migration, transcultural networks had opened up new channels of capital and resources for Company servants, establishing dynamic and expansive 98 99 100

BL, APAC, IOR/B/26, A General Court of Adventurers in the Fourth Joint Stock and the United Joint Stock, London, 14 January 1657. Keay, Honourable Company, p. 128. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/25, Surat to court of committees, 2 April 1656.

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transcultural communities and settlements, such as Madras. More significantly, such settlements looked to Asian power structures and jurisdictions for their political legitimacy, submerging themselves into local state formation processes for the kind of privileges and rights not procurable by London. These new foundations served to decentre the corporate structure in a way that transcended the parochial interests of metropolitan and national stakeholders for dividends and obedience by the mid-seventeenth century. As corporate investment dried up, and the ability to project national and corporate interests withered, the Company was becoming increasingly reconstituted in Asia. It was no longer a tightly knit corporation of London ‘Knights and Alderman’, bound together by their Anglican faith, their shared ‘love and amity’, or national or communal obligations and ties. In fact, the Company was hardly recognisable by 1657. Rather, it had become a Hobbesian nightmare: a patchwork of decentralised enterprises, each maintained by the ambitions of a transcultural commercial elite, as much Asian as English, Catholic as Protestant, private as public, familial as corporate, local as national.

3

‘Not as Absolute Lords and Kings of the Place’ The Success of an Anglo-Asian Enterprise

On 14 May 1658, the president of Surat opened a letter that had arrived overland from London. For Matthew Andrews, reading the contents of these dispatches from the governor and committees at East India House had become a melancholy affair. They were a mixture of exasperation and resignation. Each new letter spoke of fresh crises, evolving calamities and the ever looming spectre of abandoning Asia. But something was different this time. As President Andrews read the letter, he noted that it was addressed from the ‘Committees of the New General Stock’, and dated November 1657. Its contents were to have tremendous repercussions. ‘It having pleased His Highnesse the Lord Protector to give and graunt a new charter’, the letter began, ‘for the encorporating of an East India Company, excluding all others.’1 At long last, Oliver Cromwell’s dithering had ended, and he had finally restored the Company’s monopoly over the Asian trade on 19 October. More than that, for the first time ever, the Company was to be incorporated as a permanent joint-stock, providing its metropolitan authorities with a stable and consistent governing structure, with regular stocks and shares to underwrite their financial investments and expenses.2 This, they declared in their letter to Surat, ‘hath given such encouragement that the dropping trade of India is now againe reviving’.3 As dramatic as this sounded, the committees were not being hyperbolic. A restoration of the monopoly and the grant of a permanent joint stock finally provided the Company with stability and certainty, once again making it an attractive investment to England’s commercial and financial communities. The results were instantaneous: the new permanent joint-stock raised a record £786,000 in the six months following the restoration of its charter in 1657, an unprecedented amount, even in the heady days at the beginning of the seventeenth century.4 The marriage of constitutional stability in a new charter and financial security in the permanent joint-stock was set to reinvigorate the 1 2 3 4

EFI, court of committees to Surat, London, 9 November 1657. Stern, Company State, p. 21. EFI, court of committees to Surat, London, 9 November 1657. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/85, court of committees to Madras, London, 31 December 1657.

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authority and resources of East India House. Subsequently, in early 1658, the committees managed to fit and dispatch a fleet of thirteen ships to Asia, almost as many in a single year as had been managed over the past ten.5 From London, it appeared that the collapse of the Company was averted, and that the crises decades of the mid-century were ending. This was more than confirmed over the next four years, when the restoration of Charles II in 1660 led to the granting of a series of new charters, each one delegating more sovereign authority to the Company and providing its metropolitan authorities with a greater arsenal of constitutional tools with which to rebuild its shattered presence in Asia.6 For the first time since the early seventeenth century, the court of committees was set to become a major factor in Asian affairs. East India House had teeth once again. Perhaps the best illustration of the renewed sense of capability amongst the Company’s domestic leadership was in the transformation of their headquarters in London. For the first half of the seventeenth century, headquarters lived a rather ephemeral and ad hoc existence, in which the Company’s chairmen had usually hosted the courts of committees and shareholders in their private residences. For instance, the mansion of the indomitable Sir Thomas Smythe on Philpot Lane was used until 1621, and in 1638 the Company moved into the more modest residence of Chairman Sir Christopher Clitherow.7 This was on Leadenhall Street, and while Clitherow died in 1641, headquarters found a permanent home on the street with the lease in 1648 of the much grander Elizabethan mansion next door belonging to Sir William Craven, a merchant and Lord Mayor of London.8 In many ways, the failure to place roots down in the metropole in the first half of the seventeenth century reflected the Company’s uncertainty in Asia and its failure to place roots down there, too. But by 1661, ‘East India House’, as Craven House subsequently became known, was given a bold new ornamental renovation to reflect metropolitan ambitions in Asia. A surviving Dutch print shows East India House with sumptuous balustrades, intricately carved wooden maritime figures including fish, ships and sailors, and adorned in the centre of the frontage with two crests: the smallest representing the Company’s coat of arms, and a higher and much larger one of the English crown’s.9 It was a bold statement of national and corporate resurgence, and in many ways embodied a new centralising impulse that invigorated metropolitan authorities to gain back control of the Company’s development in Asia.

5 6 7 8

Keay, Honourable Company, p. 128. See Arnold A. Sherman, ‘Pressures from Leadenhall Street: The East India Company Lobby, 1660 1678’, The Business History Review, vol. 50, no. 3 (Autumn, 1976), pp. 329 355. William Foster, East India House: Its History and Associations (London, 1924), p. 5. 9 Ibid., p. 21. Ibid., p. 127.

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Before Cromwell’s incorporation of the Company into a permanent jointstock in November 1657, the governor and court of committees had been gripped by a divided and distracted leadership, in which elections regularly destabilised the governing structure and created multiple factions amidst a shrinking stock and collapsing trade.10 That all changed with Cromwell’s grant, in which a united and consolidated metropolitan authority emerged over the next couple of years. Experienced international financiers and merchants took the helm at East India House, uniting court, company and city into a dynamic national and mercantilist interest, one that promoted a more centralised vision and strategy for the Asian trade. One example was the new governor, Maurice Thomson, who held wide-ranging interests including in Virginian tobacco and the new Barbadian sugar economy.11 Alongside him sat the tax-farmer, slave trader and City merchant Sir Martin Noell, who, following the Restoration in 1660, also become an eminent courtier, taking a seat on the new king’s Privy Council.12 The majority of this new blood was also intimately involved in overseas enterprises in the Atlantic at the time, and brought their experiences and motives with them to the Asian trade.13 And, like in Asia, the Atlantic also witnessed an attempt by the English state to gain greater control over power and governance of colonies and trade there from mid-century onwards. This is perhaps best evidenced by the Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1660, both of which sought to bring Atlantic colonies more directly under English control by regulating colonial trade and placing the English metropole at the centre of commercial networks.14 Of course, this was only as effective as the state’s ability to enforce the Acts, which was notoriously limited in this period as it continued to struggle in concentrating fiscalmilitary resources overseas.15 Nonetheless, the Navigation Acts proclaimed the English state’s new intention to centralise its overseas enterprises and extract a greater degree of benefit in the process. The centralising impulses of the mid-century were largely down to the powerful revolutionary forces unleashed after 1649. The Civil War had developed greater resources of revenue and manpower for the state to utilise, as well as a need by the victorious but insecure regime to extract the obedience of the state’s fractured and constituent parts and the autonomous

10 12 13

14 15

11 Brock, ‘The Company Director’, p. 139. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, p. 115. Ibid., p. 163. For the huge variety of investments Company committees and shareholders made in various branches of English trade and overseas initiatives, see Smith, ‘The Global Interests of London’s Commercial Community’, pp. 1118 1146. Nuala Zahedieh, The Capital and the Colonies: London and the Atlantic Economy, 1660 1700 (Cambridge, 2010), p. 35. Michael J. Braddick, ‘Government, War, Trade, and Settlement’, in Nicholas Canny, The Oxford History of the British Empire: The Origins of Empire (Oxford, 1998), p. 294.

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Atlantic settlements became a prime focus of this process.16 Cromwell’s ‘Western Design’ to annex Spanish colonies in the Caribbean represented the state’s first direct involvement in the Atlantic, and it proved a powerful testament to the domestic state’s determination to set the agenda in future overseas enterprises. The actual conquest of Jamaica from 1655 brought into sharp relief the continued limitations the state operated under in attempting to project force overseas, with military setbacks and dogged opposition dragging the conquest out until 1670, but it set a precedent for the state’s involvement in the Atlantic, and after the Restoration in 1660 the new king, Charles II, inherited the centralising ambitions of his republican predecessors.17 The crown sought to strengthen support for the Church of England, curtail the freedoms of colonial assemblies, empower crown officials and create rituals of loyalty and obedience.18 The individuals who had participated in, and profited from, the state’s various projects to centralise political and economic power in the Atlantic now commanded an unprecedented stock in a newly empowered East India Company. The first attempt by metropolitan authorities to reinsert themselves back into the driving seat of the Company’s development in Asia came as early as December 1657, when the newly invigorated committees ordered six fully laden ships of 300 tonnes each to be sent to the Coromandel Coast, carrying £80,000 of stock, with a smaller frigate dedicated entirely to opening up a new trade route to China, with £8,000 in stock to begin with.19 When it was dispatched, this armada represented not just a revival of Company trade and investment but the literal projection of national and corporate authority over servants and settlements in Asia after many decades of retreat. Accompanying the chests of treasure on board were also letters of direction to all of the Company’s settlements, each of which was imbued with a braggadocio sense of command and determination. ‘We are’, they declared for the first time in many decades, ‘an East India Company and Corporated together, and ye Trade of India solely appropriated unto us.’20 To Madras, the new governor and committees abandoned all talk of selling the settlement, and replaced this instead with detailed and rigid intervention in the government’s structure and administration, appointing new posts and reassigning new roles ‘for the manadgment of soe much of the Cargo as wee Consigne to the Coast’. Agent Henry Greenhill’s grip on the city was diluted with the arrival of new servants 16 17 18 19 20

Carla Gardina Pestana, The English Atlantic in an Age of Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 2004), p. 1. For the military challenges posed by the conquest of Jamaica, see Carla Gardina Pestana, The English Conquest of Jamaica: Oliver Cromwell’s Bid for Empire (Cambridge, MA, 2017). Pestana, English Atlantic, pp. 213 215. CCM, minutes of the court of committees, London, 18 December 1657. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/85, court of committees to Madras, London, 31 December 1657.

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hand-picked by the committees and under direct instruction from the court. ‘That our business and affaires be the better carried on to our sattisfaction’, the letters carried on board the fleet declared, ‘wee have here enterttayned severall persons, and intend to dispers them into the ships wch wee now send.’ It was these new servants, and not the agent and his council at Madras, who were to oversee the massive stock on board, supervising the investments on the Coast, and returning with the ships back to London, ‘having had inspection into the Manadgment of their severall ships Cargos, they may all theire returns bee the better Enabled to give us such an Accompt of all things.’21 As became quickly clear to those entrenched servants and communities in Asia, the long-arm of East India House was once again reaching out across settlements after many decades of absence. In the absence of corporate loyalty and fraternal bonds, the new Company’s leadership was determined to reassert its authority through more formal, corporate mechanisms. In 1660 they curtly informed Surat ‘that all our ffactors . . . shallbe Subordinate’, and in doing so ‘shall yield all due obedience’.22 This ominous warning was manifested in a series of political and social hierarchies which they attempted to enforce across all of their settlements in Asia. For starters, the four jurisdictions of Madras, Bantam, Persia and Hugli were reduced to agencies, removing their autonomy and making them directly answerable to the presidency of Surat.23 And the latter, they declared, deliberately in stark contrast to the transcultural identities of their agents on the other side of Asia, should be ‘an Honour to Christianity, & to this Nation in those parts of ye Worlds, & may be able & knowing in Mannaging that Affairs.’24 The imposition by London of formal hierarchies of power over their settlements in Asia was galvanised by the continued enfranchisement of their servants and the ever-increasing integration of their settlements into local Asian cultural, social and political landscapes. For William Isaacson, the first Anglican minister at Madras, the divergence between national and corporate interests on the one hand, and local and transcultural interests on the other, was blatantly manifested in the spread of Catholicism throughout Company settlements.25 Isaacson had been appointed minister to Madras in 1647 specifically with the intent ‘to worke a reformation’ at a place considered by London and Surat to be debased, corrupt and worst of all blasphemous.26 East India House 21 23 24 25

26

22 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/85, court of committees to Surat, 29 October 1660. BL, APAC, IOR/B26, minutes of the court of committees, 23 December 1657. BL, APAC, IOR/B26, minutes of the court of committees, 7 January 1658. Concern over the Company’s lapse of Anglican enforcement in the seventeenth century has been noted by Penelope Carson, The East India Company and Religion, 1698 1858 (Wood bridge, 2012), pp. 7 17. Cited in Daniel O’Connor, The Chaplains of the East India Company, 1601 1858 (London, 2011), p. 85.

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consistently took aim at the Catholic church in Madras, ordering the expulsion of the French padres on a number of occasions. But the significance of the institution to the increasingly mixed-race Company families had entrenched it too far within the fabric of the settlement, becoming as essential as the bastions or warehouses. Isaacson was scandalised by the privileged position of the Portuguese church in the social and cultural rhythms of Madras. Writing secretly to the court of committees in 1660, he reported on the ‘preposterous’ arrangement in which the ‘Honble Company shold want a Church for the service of God in their owne Towne, when the Roman Catholiques have one that stands in the heart of the Towne.’ More scandalous than that, however, the Portuguese ‘have likewise a Churchyard to bury their dead; whilst wee are forc’t to carry our dead Corpses out of the Towne’.27 However, one of the reasons why the chaplain wrote secretly to East India House was that few at Madras shared his concerns, seeing the church instead as a fundamental feature of their familial, social and even commercial lives in the city. The Capuchin Church of St Andrews was indeed ‘the heart of the Towne’, and the Catholic families of the Company’s servants, whether Indian, Portuguese or mestizo, ensured that its influence spread to the settlement’s elites. In fact, when Isaacson attempted to gain signatures for a petition to East India House, demanding the expulsion of the Capuchin clergy, only a handful of servants put pen to paper, and even they quickly recanted. ‘By the encouragement of your present Agent’, Isaacson wrote scornfully to London, the Capuchin church ‘dare boldly performe their Idolatrous rites and Ceremonies.’28 For Isaacson, the patronage of the Catholic church at Madras by the Company’s most senior servants and their mixed-race families constituted a political issue. The presence of the church, in place of an Anglican one, and its patronage by Company servants, was perceived by the chaplain as the rejection of corporate and even national interests; in fact he went as far as to depict it as an act of resistance against metropolitan authority in Asia. The growth of the Catholic church at Madras had to be confronted, Isaacson insisted in a letter to the committees. ‘It will be necessary to send out your positive Commands like the Lawes of the Medes and Persians’, he counselled the court in 1660, ‘not to be altered or contradicted by any power in this place.’29 In effect, the chaplain urged London to wrestle decision-making and policy back from its servants, and to disenfranchise the Anglo-Indian partnerships which controlled their settlements in Asia. Such reports fed directly into the anxiety of the new corporate leadership that servants in Asia had strayed too far from national interests. ‘Manifest and make glorious your profession and Christian religion’, declared the new governor, Maurice Thomson, to servants in Asia, ‘living 27 28

Vestiges, William Isaacson to court of committees, Madras, 1662. Vestiges, petition to court of committees, Madras, 24 January 1660.

29

Ibid.

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honestly, soberly, and lovingly . . . in the manadgment of all our affaires.’30 But the integration of Indian, Portuguese and mestizo communities into the social, cultural and commercial landscape of Madras was too entrenched a power to be dismantled or disenfranchised. This was largely why the good chaplain’s petition lacked support and was sent entirely in secret. The transcultural networks that populated this landscape had too thorough a grip over the development of the settlement by 1660 to be challenged in any meaningful way without a dramatic intervention from East India House. With every passing year, however, the Company’s settlements and servants were immersed deeper into local social and cultural currents. The dominance of the Indo-Portuguese at Madras, for example, only increased following the occupation of neighbouring San Thome by the Golcondan regime in 1662. With the city’s incorporation into that sultanate, many Portuguese and mestizo families migrated to Madras to settle with their kinship groups. The city’s subsequent growth caused anxiety for the Dutch at Pulicat, who acknowledged the significant advantages to be derived from the expansion of IndoPortuguese residents in Company settlements. ‘Some of the richest Portuguese merchants’, observed Governor Laurence Pit after the Golcondan takeover of San Thome, ‘have gone to Madrespatam. This town in consequence is much overcrowded, and is being extended very fast.’31 So fundamental had these communities become to the very fabric of Madras that when Surat, on the initiative of London, sought to have the Catholic priests dismissed, Agent Chamber painstakingly laid out the potential consequences in 1661. If the Capuchin friars were sent away, he argued, ‘the Portugalls would leave the towne’. The result, he calculated, would be ‘a weakening to the Fort’, as well as the ‘dispeopleing of the towne’, which would have a considerable impact upon ‘trade and the Companies customes’.32 What he didn’t say, of course, was that most of the Company’s servants also had extensive Indo-Portuguese families for whom the Catholic church was a central pillar of their social lives, and patronised by every agent of Madras since St Andrew’s was established by Cogan in 1642. As the power of Madras continued to be shaped more directly by the Indian, Portuguese and mestizo networks and communities that had quite literally raised it into existence, so the political structure of the city continued to be largely determined by those servants able to utilise and exercise the authority they drew from such constituents. Thomas Chamber, like his predecessor Henry Greenhill, used the support of Indian elites, in particular, to sustain a regime consistently condemned by Surat and London as authoritarian and directly in violation of the principles of corporate governance. 30 31

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/84, court of committees to Hugli, 27 March 1658. 32 Vestiges, vol. 1, p. 197. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/14, Madras to Surat, 24 May 1661.

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Following accounts that Chamber governed without a council at Fort St George, the committees ordered him to ensure ‘that all matters bee debated and concluded of by Consultation and not as formerly singly by our Agent’.33 But rather than governing with servants sent out from London, Chamber relied on the support, guidance and resources of the Indian and IndoPortuguese networks that he had been integrated into during his time on the council of his predecessor, Greenhill. And like the latter, Chamber’s authority within Madras after becoming agent in 1659 was linked most acutely with one particular member of the Indian elite: Beri Timana. Unsurprisingly disapproving of Chamber’s rule, the Reverend Isaacson reported to London how ‘Onely the Agent and Timana, a blacke servant, are privy to all passages’.34 Timana had survived the contest against President Aaron Baker in the early 1650s to aid in Greenhill’s eventual victory in 1655. The remaining two years of the latter’s agency had allowed Timana and his Left Hand caste faction within the city to consolidate their grip on trade and government. Following Greenhill’s death, the partnership between Timana and Chamber would become just as deep and durable. For Chamber, this connection opened up vast channels of commercial, financial and cultural patronage. Indeed, as part of the Greenhill Timana network, Chamber had grown immensely wealthy. The commissioner William Curtis, who had been sent from London to inspect Madras in 1655, observed that Chamber ‘being a moneyed man, hee hath ingrossed as much Cloth for him selfe’.35 As agent, Chamber’s partnership with Timana provided a virtual monopoly over the textile trade on the Coromandel Coast, so much in fact that on the other side of the subcontinent the president of Surat became aware that Chamber’s private trading networks undermined the Company’s own purchase of cloth there. Roger Myddelton, newly arrived in 1659 to take command of the garrison of Fort St George, calculated that Chamber was worth more than £50,000.36 East India House, however, accused him of amassing twice that, ‘gained siruptiously and by indirect waies, as by the ingrossing of rice and other unfaithfull dealings’.37 In return, as Isaacson made clear, Timana was able to directly participate in the affairs of government, engaging with Company policy in a way that the corporate structure would have made unthinkable. Timana’s alliance with successive agents allowed him to maneuveur himself into a position of monopoly over commercial transactions, and in 1662, along with his business partner Kasi Virana, he was made the Company’s chief broker, 33 34 35 36 37

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/85, court of committees to Madras, 28 January 1661. Vestiges, William Isaacson to court of committees, Madras, 1662. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/24, William Curtis and John Chambers to court of committees, Madras, 27 December 1655. Vestiges, Roger Myddelton to his brother and sister, Madras, 12 January 1659. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/86, court of committees to Madras, 20 February 1662.

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responsible for overseeing all purchases at Madras, a position previously held by Timana’s rivals, the deposed Brahman brothers. Future investments, declared Chamber’s successors, were to be exclusively handled by ‘Timane, the Companies ancient broker, a person only experienced and to bee trusted at present in this extremity of time and great want of goods.’38 Despite the centralising impulse of the new corporate leadership after 1657, little headway was being made in reasserting their control over affairs in Asia in the face of such entrenched transcultural alliances and interests. In places such as Madras, sovereign power was derived through the grants of the Golcondan governors; political authority was legitimised through the offices and patronage of Indian elites; and commerce and trade were largely driven by expansive Indian and Indo-Portuguese communities that fuelled the cultural and religious nature of life within the city. The consequences for the Company’s development could be quite dramatic, as seen in Chamber’s refusal to reintegrate Madras into the corporate hierarchy. Rather, Chamber perceived Madras to lay more within the Golcondan hierarchy, whose legitimacy was derived from local power structures and not from Surat or London. As one resident of Madras reported to Surat in 1659, ‘all the businesse is man’ged by blackes and the Agents particular servants’, whilst new arrivals from London were excluded from this transcultural government, ‘soe much abused by the Agent’s not giving [them] any employment at all’.39 As agent of Madras, Chamber declared to Surat in 1662 that he had ‘noe Coequall to contend withall in what should be acted on this Coast and Bay of Bengalla’.40 As far as Chamber was concerned, decades of corporate decentralisation had left Madras ‘to graze in the world and shift for ourselves’.41 When the agent refused another request to dismiss the Capuchin friars, Surat demanded to know ‘who made you our Superiour?’ For President Andrews, whose political authority was derived from East India House’s restructuring of the agencies in Asia, Madras’ determination not to acknowledge the president’s seniority was a sign of rebellion. In 1662 Surat again questioned Madras ‘where you had the Authority to give us timely notice to be obedient to your orders’.42 Frustrated at the extent of their own disenfranchisement in the political structures of the Asian settlements, East India House lamented that the typical Company servant ‘manadge his owne private designs and Interest . . . to our greate loss’.43 The situation came to a head in March 1661, when the court of committees charged the president at Surat, along with Chamber at Madras and 38 39 40 42 43

BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/1/2, consultation at Madras, 4 August 1662. EFI, Jonathan Trevisa to Surat, Madras, 4 July 1659. 41 BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/14, Madras to Surat, 7 April 1662. Ibid. Vestiges, Surat to Madras, 15 December 1662. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/86, Perticulars to the Companies Demands against Mr Mathew Andrewes, London, 19 March 1661.

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his counterpart in Bengal, with disobedience and mismanagement and summarily dismissed all three at once from the Company.44 East India House was clearly set on reversing the decentralisation of the corporate structure and bringing the empowered transcultural communities back within an official hierarchical system. As they despatched a host of new senior servants from London to take command in Asia in the spring of 1661, they assured their new president of Surat, Sir George Oxenden, that ‘if any of our Servants shall ffight, or contest with your Authoritie, prove refractory, or not comply . . . you are at Liberty to dispose [of] them’.45 It was a far more aggressive metropolitan line than had been towed before. And yet, within just a few years, it was to create an unprecedented and violent backlash from the entrenched settlements in Asia that threatened to overwhelm the Company entirely. The Company’s strategy to re-centralise authority within the corporation exposes the lack of understanding metropolitan authorities had in regard to the transformation in Asia. The successful strategies pursued by servants there over the past three decades had certainly placed previously obedient servants in a primary position to seize private opportunities for wealth and power, but such entrenchment had also given rise to affluent, densely populated and fortified cities such as Madras which provided the Company with significant privileges in Asia and new channels of trade and investment. Yet East India House, obsessed with perceiving the integration of their servants and settlements in Asia into local communities and states as an ‘agency problem’, were determined, from the distance of 5,000 miles, to disentangle their servants’ private affairs from Company affairs. In doing so, they fundamentally misunderstood that establishing multiracial families with Indian and Portuguese women, converting to Catholicism, establishing alliances with local elites, launching new business enterprises and subordinating themselves to local sovereign authorities had all provided a durable and successful long-term presence for the Company. But in choosing to perceive these developments as malfeasance, as a corruption of national and corporate interests that needed to be broken apart and regulated in new political and social hierarchies, the Company’s metropolitan authorities undermined the very foundations of their presence in Asia in the later seventeenth century. One of the fundamental flaws of this strategy was to purge the leadership in Asia and replace it with candidates hand-picked in London by the court of committees. Such figures were summoned to East India House, where their allegiance to regulatory strategies for expanding metropolitan authority in Asia was demanded. In turn, these new leaders pledged their faith to the committees, 44 45

Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/86, Commission and instruction for Sir George Oxenden, London, 19 March 1661.

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promised to uphold the national and corporate interests, and were dispatched to Asia with a clutch of orders and instructions to guide them in reforming their selected settlement and stamping out ‘corrupt’ practices. And yet, the need to recruit experienced and capable new leaders meant that, almost always, these new figures had either only recently returned from Asia themselves, and were incentivised to return with the promise of greater perks, or, as was astonishingly more common, had only returned to London from Asia to defend themselves against charges of corruption. Either way, they were fully immersed in the local landscapes of Asian settlements, and not liable to become vehicles for enforcing regulatory frameworks along metropolitan lines. This was exactly the case for Edward Winter. He had come out to Asia with his brother Thomas, serving variously at the failed factories of Masulipatam and Armagon. As chief of the former from 1655, Winter maintained one of the most extensive Anglo-Portuguese networks on the Coromandel Coast, marrying an Indo-Portuguese woman at Madras and returning regularly with her to visit her kin there while chief of Masulipatam.46 The strong connection with his wife’s family was undoubtedly an emotional one but it was also extremely lucrative, and very shortly Winter had eclipsed even the agent, Thomas Chamber, in terms of his wealth and power. In fact, in 1658 Winter had amassed a small property empire in and around Masulipatam, with houses within and without the city, including a country estate in the riverside town of Madapollam, where he built an opulent brick mansion with gardens to house his wife and family, as well as a number of English interlopers who established themselves there under the protection of Winter but traded in India in violation of the Company’s new charter after 1657.47 He had even become a Golcondan tax official, renting a number of surrounding towns such as Viravasaram.48 When the Company’s own factory there had become so run-down that it needed replacing, the servants discovered that Winter owned most of the surrounding land himself, and were therefore forced to repair their existing factory.49 The zenith of Winter’s opulence came when, after Agent Chamber seized a 1,000 tonne ship belonging to Mir Jumla, the nawab who had obtained Madras’ submission in 1645 but who had rebelled against the sultan of Golconda in 1658, Winter purchased it and used it as a leisure yacht to travel up and down the Coast in state. In 1659, for example, Winter used it to travel ‘with his wife to Madrassapatam to visit his aged and Sick mother in law’.50 With the Company’s incorporation as a permanent joint-stock after 1657, East India House responded to reports of Winter’s extravagance by excluding 46 47 48 50

EFI, vol. 10, p. 43. EFI, George Bradshaw to Balasore, Madapollam, 10 September 1657. 49 EFI, vol. 10, p. 43. BL, APAC, IOR/G/36/84/3, Surat to Madras, 27 November 1658. EFI, Hugli to Kasimbazar, 25 February 1659.

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him in their corporate restructure, depriving him of his post as chief of Masulipatam. Winter was so well entrenched upon the Coast, however, and had derived most of his wealth and authority from his Indo-Portuguese networks and his renting of several prominent Golcondan towns that his position was not particularly affected. In fact, he was now free to adopt a more aggressive position against his commercial competitors within the Company, something he pursued rigorously. In 1659, Surat complained to Madras that Winter had undercut the Company’s trade at Masulipatam, and ordered Agent Chamber to ‘ceize uppon him and his estate, sending him home to England, there to answer these misdeamnours’. Surat justified this violent action by referencing the court of committees’ new strategy, explaining that in ‘respect the Companies commands and warrant that whatsoe’re you, or any other of their servants, act of this nature, they will beare them harmless (which are the words of their commission unto us and you)’. For Surat, they believed that the new charter meant that it was ‘insufferable that the power of a single person of the same nation should affront and impede the Companies affaires’.51 Much to London and Surat’s chagrin, however, Agent Chamber refused to act against Winter, as the two were close friends and partners, corresponding on a regular basis and concerned in each other’s affairs. So much so, in fact, that some of their personal enemies wrote to Surat to suggest that Winter and Chamber were planning ‘to keepe the Fort against all other English’, an ominous premonition of future events which seemed to suggest some sort of plan to seize Madras by two men resisting increasing pressure to conform to the new corporate hierarchies of power in the period after 1657.52 It was Chamber’s relationship with Winter that was the main line of attack which eventually led to his dismissal, as when the president of Surat made clear in 1659 when he notified Chamber that ‘Our masters will have little cause to approve when you take soe little care of their affaires when it appears plainly you favour others and your owne more then theirs’. How else, they continued, were they to explain Winter’s constant visits to Madras and his monopoly over all trade there? They warned that the ‘comission given to the President, comanded the priveleidges graunted them in their charter to be preserved’. In other words, the new corporate regime would no longer tolerate rival centres of authority within its settlements, and if Winter and Chamber refused to obey, they would be disenfranchised. ‘Soe in this new charter’, they concluded, ‘by the supreame authority of our nation’, all servants were to be regulated and conform to East India House’s authority.53 Yet despite the court of committee’s aggressive new regulatory regime, their treatment of Edward Winter exposed the way in which they were, after 51 52 53

BL, APAC, IOR/G/36/84/3, Surat to Madras, 11 August 1659. BL, APAC, IOR/G/36/84/3, Swalley Hole to court of committees, 30 September 1659. BL, APAC, IOR/G/36/84/3, Surat to Madras, 7 September 1659.

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decades of decentralisation, overly reliant on the entrenched positions of individual servants within local communities and power structures to serve their broader interests in Asia. As Surat mulled over the limited options available to the Company to bring Winter to London to account for his actions, they wrote to Masulipatam that ‘We are not ignorant of the sway that Mr. Edward Winter carries in your partes.’ As a Golcondan tax official and a member of an elite Indo-Portuguese commercial network with a private fleet of ships, Winter had to be treated as more than just an English servant. ‘We feare by force he will not be overpowered’, Surat advised the factors at Masulipatam, ‘you not being able to make so much.’54 Rather, it was Winter himself who ultimately decided to return to Europe with his wife and IndoPortuguese family to present his case before the court of committees in 1660.55 That within a year Winter would be appointed the new agent of Madras in place of the dismissed Thomas Chamber, and be knighted by the newly restored Charles II in 1661, portrays the dependence of East India House on such cross-cultural brokers who had succeeded in forging durable relationships with local Indian states and influential Portuguese communities. Like Francis Day and Andrew Cogan before him, Winter was able to leverage his expertise and networks to settle his dispute over private trade with the committees, and maneuverer himself into a position of indispensability with his command of affairs in Asia. He was also able to employ his considerable wealth to advance his cause, promising not only to invest the substantial sum of £2,000 in the new stock but also to pay a £2,000 bond in return for his appointment.56 The family networks which penetrated into the court itself were an increasingly significant aspect of managing servants’ relationship with East India House. For Winter, his brother Thomas, who had helped found Fort St George in 1640 and sat on the court of committees, managed to sway the vote in favour of his brother’s candidature for agent of Madras, despite ‘there being some objection against Winter’ from an understandably hesitant faction of the court.57 A special committee was even set up to assess Winter’s suitability, but in January 1662 he was officially appointed agent, and, after receiving a knighthood from the king, which transformed his IndoPortuguese wife into Lady Winter, departed for Asia in February.58 Agent Winter arrived at Madras in September 1662 with very strict instructions to formalise a new corporate hierarchy in which the Asian settlements were to be subordinated to corporate and national interests not vice versa, as had been the dynamic which brought Madras successfully into existence. 54 56 57 58

55 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/3 3/3, Madras to Bantam, 11 March 1660. CCM, minutes of the court of committees, 18 February 1662. CCM, minutes of the court of committees, 6 December 1661. CCM, minutes of the court of committees, 18 February 1662.

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Sir Edward’s commission from the court of committees bound him specifically to ensure that ‘noe native to have that power in any place that belongs to the Company’.59 It also outlined the new significantly expanded powers granted to the Company through a charter from Charles II in April 1661 which invested them with judicial authority over all English subjects beyond the Cape of Good Hope, and not just those in the service of the Company.60 For the first time in the Company’s history, East India House was able to order Sir Edward to force all English persons on the Coromandel Coast to ‘live within our towne of Madras under the government of you’.61 In doing so, however, the agent’s commission represented a spectacular misjudgement of the fundamental relationship between English settlements and the social and political landscapes in which they were situated, and which, for the past forty years, had largely legitimised and sustained them. However, as the very product of the transcultural dynamics of the Company’s presence in Asia, Sir Edward had little intention of disrupting Madras’ successful integration into local commercial and authority structures. On the contrary, from the moment he returned to Madras, Sir Edward sought rather to expand the participation of Indian and Portuguese partners in the Company’s regime there and in the process consolidate his own interests with local networks of power and legitimacy. The core of Agent Winter’s powerbase at Madras was formed around his large multiracial family. Along with his wife, Sir Edward had brought to Europe a number of his Indo-Portuguese family members. When he returned to Madras, these were augmented by many more of his English relations, so that the court of committees noted that the new agent departed for Asia with a sizeable entourage of ‘certaine persons, men and womenkinde’.62 Many of these were elevated to important positions at Madras, helping to consolidate Sir Edward’s control over both the administration and the cultural and commercial life of the city. For instance, amongst the large entourage from Europe was his brother, Francis Winter, whom the agent made supercargo of his vessels trading to Southeast Asia that virtually monopolised the market in private trade.63 Likewise, Edward Reade, who had married Sir Edward’s IndoPortuguese daughter Mary, was appointed to the lucrative position of pursergeneral of Fort St George.64 To the agent’s control of the fort was also added Richard Minors, previously captain of the garrison and then commander of the 59 60 61 62 63 64

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/86, court of committees to Madras, 20 February 1662. BL, APAC, IOR/A/1/22, charter granted by Charles II, London, 3 April 1661. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/86, court of committees to Madras, 20 February 1662. CCM, minutes of the court of committees, 18 February 1662. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, List of miscarriages & abuses from the Fort St George Bookes, Madras, 7 July 1665 to 28 August 1668. Sir Richard Carnac Temple, The Diaries of Streynsham Master, 1675 1680 (London, 1911, 2 volumes), vol. 2, p. 326, fn 5 (hereafter DSM).

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Leopard. Shortly after Winter’s return, Minors married his wife’s sister, with the agent describing him as his ‘brother-in-law’.65 So vast had Sir Edward’s kinship networks become, that in the 1660s it is difficult to identify Company servants not related to the agent in some manner. Even the settlement’s chaplain, Reverend Simon Smythes, was connected to the agent through his ‘marriage with a kinswoman of Sir Edward’.66 By 1665, Sir Edward had not only used his multiracial family network to secure his control of private trade but also to secure key political and military posts within the city itself. It was also under Sir Edward’s regime in the years 1662 to 1665 that Indian elites and their communities reached the height of their influence in the development of Madras. To be sure, as with all partners and allies, the agent sought to establish a dominant presence for himself and his family over these constituents at first, but once he was assured of his authority, Sir Edward became just as reliant as any Company servant on the patronage, support and resources of figures such as Beri Timana and Kasi Virana, and the Right Hand caste whom they represented. Following his arrival at Madras in 1662, Sir Edward viewed Timana’s monopoly over Company investments in textiles as a threat to his own private trading interests. Sir Edward rapidly sought to use the authority of his new position to force Timana to open his considerable networks up to the agent by having him arrested and staging a mock-hanging in the centre of Fort St George. The agent justified this dramatically violent behaviour to his brother Sir Thomas Winter by suggesting that Timana had bewitched him. When he fell ill in 1663, Sir Edward wrote, ‘I did threaten Timonah and put him under restraynt in the Fort, and in a very little tyme I began to amend.’ He concluded to his brother that he had no intention of actually killing Timana, because ‘I know him soe serviceable . . . for he is the onely person that takes off all [the Company’s] goods, when none others will, and secures all bad debts.’67 This show of force evidently succeeded, as Timana agreed to become the agent’s broker, as well as the Company’s. In partnership, Agent Winter and Beri Timana jointly governed the city, and, much like under Thomas Chamber, excluded most of the Company’s servants in the process. Even the council were sidelined in favour of Timana’s advice. One of its members, William Dawes, complained to a newly arrived servant from London how, barely ten years ago, Timana had been ‘a pittyfull one or two pagodas per mensam servant’, but in alliance with Sir Edward, he had grown into a position of almost undisputed power within the city by 1665.68

65 66 67 68

See reference to the dagh registars in EFI, vol. 11, p. 129. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/29, Sir George Foxcroft to court of committees, Madras, 26 Septem ber 1665. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, Sir Edward Winter to Sir Thomas Winter, Madras, 12 January 1665. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, William Dawes to Nicholas Buckeridge, Madras, 10 January 1665.

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In fact, the agent had ‘so farre intrusted him on all occasions’, an English resident of Madras reported in 1667, ‘that neither the Companies factors nor he that was the Second in Councell knew much of the Companies affaires, the chiefe transactions being privately managed by Tymonah and Sir Edward Winter.’69 By that point, Timana and his principle partner Kasi Virana were responsible for all of the Company’s investments, for collecting customs, for managing the mint and for running the city’s choultry or courts. Perhaps most importantly for the Company’s long-term development, Sir Edward also sought to confirm and, in some respects, deepen, Madras’ subordination to the Golcondan state. Even as Company and Crown in England looked to expand their authority over the settlements and servants in Asia through new corporate hierarchies and royal charters, Winter reinforced the latter’s continuing integration into Asian structures of political legitimacy and sovereignty. In 1664, for example, when war broke out between the Dutch VOC and the kingdom of Siam, the former enforced a blockade of Siamese ports and forbade the English Company from dealing with Siam through the terms of the Treaty of Westminster, which had ended the First Anglo-Dutch War in 1654 and in which both countries had agreed not to aid the enemies of the other.70 Despite this, when the king of Siam despatched an ambassador to his counterpart in Golconda, Winter not only allowed him safe passage through Madras but advised the ambassador on how best to avoid the Dutch during his journey. When Pulicat protested, invoking the treaty between their countries, Winter explained his actions through an articulation of Madras’ responsibility to uphold Golcondan diplomacy as part of the city’s subordination to the sultan. The English Company, he replied, was ‘not as absolute lords and kings of the place [Madras]’, but rather governed it on behalf of the sultan of Golcondah, and were therefore obliged to aid a ship ‘consigned to the King of Golquondah’.71 Such an understanding of the political foundations of the Company in Asia as essentially being situated within a local Asian political framework could not have been in greater contrast to how East India House perceived its presence there: as a constitutionally autonomous corporate arm of national authorities in Europe. And yet clearly, in prioritising Madras’ relationship with Golconda over the Dutch VOC, the obligations of Madras to the wider structures of Golcondan authority trumpeted the treaties agreed between European states in the distant corridors of metropolitan power. In fact, in justifying his extraordinary reliance on Timana to the court of

69 70

71

EFI, Affidavit of William Hutchins, London, 15 March 1667. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/15, Madras to Masulipatam, 16 April 1664. For the Dutch war against Siam, see Bhawan Ruangslilp, Dutch East India Company Merchants at the Court of Ayut thaya: Dutch Perceptions of the Thai Kingdom, c.1604 1765 (Leiden, 2007), p. 21. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/15, Madras to Pulicat, 25 April 1664.

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committees in 1666, Sir Edward argued that his friendship with the various governors and courtiers of the sultanate of Golconda made him an indispensable servant of the Company.72 Unsurprisingly, reports filtered back to London of Sir Edward’s consolidation of power over Madras, of the prominence of certain Indian elites, and of the ever deeper integration into the Golcondan state. The court of committees gradually realised that their agent’s protestations of loyalty and obedience during his brief return to London were more strategic than sincere. As early as 1663 it had become clear to them that rather than bring the Company’s settlements in Asia into a regulated corporate hierarchy promoting national interests, his agenda was in actual fact to preserve and even expand the transcultural dynamics of the Company’s presence there. In December they wrote to Madras to inform the agent of the ‘many and greate complaints’ they had received of his government. He had, they declared, acted ‘contrary to that trust which wee reposed in him’, including promoting family members to senior positions in their service, embezzling Company goods for use in his own private trade, arbitrarily dismissing servants from their posts and fostering ‘the Popish Religion’, which included failing to act when one servant ‘turned Moore’.73 The accusations illustrated the grip non-English elites continued to hold over the city. Naturally, the expansion of Sir Edward’s Indo-Portuguese family also ensured the privileged position of the Catholic church in Madras, an institution that had grown powerful through the protection and patronage of the Madras elite. In seeking to placate East India House’s disapproval, Sir Edward insisted that he ‘hath publiquely shewed his distaste against it, by banishing the towne two of their bishops who would have byn tampering with some who were baptised into our religion’.74 But what he neglected to mention is that these two Catholic clergymen were dismissed not for their religious affiliation but ‘because they could not nor would comply with him’, and were merely replaced by a more pliant bishop who was willing to concede to the agent’s increasingly absolutist control over Madras.75 The Company’s metropolitan authorities responded to Sir Edward’s locally orientated regime by deploying what was becoming a staple tool in their arsenal of centralisation: the despatch of hand-picked supervisors from London to root out perceived ‘corruption’ in the Asian settlements and reform and regulate social and political hierarchies. In 1664 the committees dispatched Nicholas Buckeridge to Madras as supervisor with a commission to uncover

72 73 74 75

Mukund, Tamil Merchant, p. 71. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/86, court of committees to Madras, 16 December 1663. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, Madras to court of committees, 12 January 1665. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/29, Sir George Foxcroft to court of committees, Madras, 8 September 1666.

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the ‘divers mismanadgments and misusages’ of their agent there.76 When he arrived, Buckeridge appointed himself second in council with the power to overrule the agent’s decisions with sufficient support from the rest of the council. Inevitably, the absolutist Sir Edward met this challenge to his authority with outrage. Sensing an opportunity to reclaim their position in the decision-making process, the council joined with the supervisor to undermine Sir Edward’s authority, cancelling his orders, reading his letters and collecting charges of abuse against him.77 ‘The Agent and the rest after that rate are nothing more then ciphers’, Sir Edward complained to the court of committees, and he especially had become an ‘Agent of wax, to bee moulded into what shape they please’.78 As Supervisor Buckeridge usurped Sir Edward’s power, he increasingly looked to his Indian and Indo-Portuguese networks to govern Madras and to consolidate his interests. ‘They are tyed together in a string’, he observed of the supervisor and his network of supporters, ‘So the Agent leaves them to doe their worke, and hee will doe his.’79 This involved granting Beri Timana and Kasi Virana the Company’s cotton investment, which they charged at an extortionate rate and split the profit with Sir Edward. The latter also largely conducted business outside of the council in an attempt to cut out the opposition of the supervisor entirely. As one frustrated member of the council reported to London at this time, Sir Edward, Timana and Virana ‘had the Government of your Towne of Madrasspatna’, and that ‘the people had such a feare of those persons . . . that no man durst adventure to come to make any proposals to deale with us.’80 Having largely failed to exclude Sir Edward and his Indian and IndoPortuguese allies from the Company’s government, Supervisor Buckeridge returned to London at the beginning of 1665 with a large dossier on all of the agent’s suspected crimes, as well as the so-called abuses of his transcultural regime. But even before he reached London, the court of committees had acted upon his reports and decided that nothing short of a new government, able to effect a dramatic intervention in the development of Madras, was required to make corporate and national interests supreme. Having learned their lesson from appointing an agent already entrenched in the cross-cultural landscapes of Asia, in 1665 they appointed Sir George Foxcroft as the new agent of Madras. A Puritan City merchant, Sir George had been a shareholder and director in the Massachusetts Bay and Levant Companies since the 1630s. However, he had little knowledge or experience of the East India Company, 76 77 78 80

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/86, Commission and instructions given to Mr Nicholas Buckeridge, London, 16 December 1663. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, Sir Edward Winter to Sir Thomas Winter, Madras, 12 January 1665. 79 BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, Madras to court of committees, 12 January 1665. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/29, Sir George Foxcroft to court of committees, Madras, 26 Septem ber 1665.

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and indeed had never set foot in Asia before.81 For the committees, Sir George’s value was in being untethered from the local power struggles of Madras or the obligations and reliance on Indian elites. In short, the new agent was to be an ambassador for the metropole, upholding the court’s policies and promoting national interests, integrating Madras firmly into a corporate framework. But as Sir George Foxcroft sailed into the Madras road on board the Greyhound in June 1665, at least one Company servant, the councillor Jeremy Sambrook, prophetically observed ‘that the Company may have cause to repent’. In a letter to his father in London, he noted that he ‘looked upon the Company as having bin especially overseen in . . . sending an Agent out that was never in India.’82 Events over the next three years were to vindicate Sambrook perhaps more than even he might have guessed. As was becoming standard practice, Sir George alighted onto the scorching hot sands of Madras brandishing a commission with sweeping powers ‘to affright ffactors in submission and obedience’, and ‘thereby inforce them to comply with him, into whatever hee required’.83 Sir George was to remove Asian participation in government, limit private trade, dismiss corrupt servants and assert Madras’ constitutional autonomy from surrounding communities and states. Roughly translated, the new agent was charged with nothing short of disrupting the Anglo-Asian networks through which Madras was shaped and rebuilding the settlement along new corporate structures of regulation and obedience to East India House. This began almost immediately. When Sir Edward handed over the keys to Fort St George, the new agent demoted him to second of council for six months while Sir George launched an enquiry into the disgraced agent’s government over the past three years. But after just a couple of months, Sir George concluded his investigation and reported to the court of committees that Sir Edward, Beri Timana and Kasi Virana had ‘joyned to defraud you’, and under their triumvirate a range of abuses of Company power and finances had been committed, including private monopolies in salt, rice and cloth, the embezzlement of funds and the exclusion of Companyappointed servants from the administration.84 Sir George decided to target the two ‘black merchants’, as he typically misinterpreted their role in the city, and stripped them of their position in Madras society and their power over the government. As such, Timana and Virana were removed from managing the choultry, and replaced with an English servant, the secretary William Dawes.85 81 82 83 84 85

John Coffey, John Goodwin and the Puritan Revolution: Religion and Intellectual Change in 17th Century England (Woodbridge, 2006), p. 48. Vestiges, Jeremy Sambrooke to Samuel Sambrooke, Madras, 11 July 1665. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/86, court of committees to Madras, 21 December 1664. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/29, Sir George Foxcroft to court of committees, Madras, 26 Septem ber 1665. Ibid.

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Although Sir George’s aggressive attack upon non-European agency undermined Timana and Virana’s participation in the city’s administration, it did little to dent their influence over the Indian communities within Madras that they governed, as well as the economic life of the settlement. The new agent soon realised that the triumvirate was fully entrenched throughout the city, and drew its support from a significant portion of the European and non-European communities, many of whom relied on them for patronage and income. ‘What influence Sir Edward on the one hand, and Timana and Verona had on the other’, Sir George complained to the court of committees, ‘hold up a combination against us.’86 In response, the agent took a harder line and removed the Company’s trade from Indian management altogether, divesting Timana and Virana of their positions as chief brokers responsible for directing European investment in the region. Although such a jarring intervention into the traditional transcultural dynamics of Company commerce at Madras immediately unsettled a broad spectrum of constituencies within and without the city, Sir George naively claimed a victory to London, declaring that he believed that ‘at length we broke the combination’.87 However, a more accurate assessment of the situation was that an English agent straight from Europe, with little experience of, and no relationship with, transcultural communities and networks in Asia, had unwisely threatened the fabric of cooperation, dependence and alliance between Company servants and the Indian and Indo-Portuguese communities which had come together to create the thriving metropolis of Madras. In doing so, Sir George had not so much reshaped the political landscape along more exclusively corporate and national lines, as he had set that fragile landscape ablaze. The ‘combination’ he had so erroneously claimed to have broken was in actual fact the fundamental dynamic of dependence on local actors and communities that early English overseas enterprise so desperately relied upon to establish a durable presence. But as it was stripped of authority and agency, the Anglo-Asian political community which had brought Madras into fruition stirred violently. The first rumblings came at the beginning of September 1665. The agent, Sir George Foxcroft, sat in the council chambers in Fort St George, tending to government business. He was surrounded by what had become a largely metropolitan administration. Next to the agent was his son Nathaniel Foxcroft, who had been appointed by the court of committees to sit beside him on the council. Also accompanying them fresh from London was Jeremy Sambrook, who similarly took up a seat on the council as warehouse keeper. And finally, to round the council out, was William Dawes, who Sir George had recently appointed head of the choultry in place of Timana and Virana. East India House

86

Ibid.

87

Ibid.

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had perhaps never possessed a regime in Asia that was so willing to implement corporate policies, and that, by and large, were free from local entanglements and connections. And yet, just as Sir George was utilising this unique mandate to tear down the government of Madras, the doors of the chamber burst open. Sir Edward Winter had forced his way in at the head of an armed ‘confederacy’ that included European officers of the garrison, Portuguese soldiers, Company servants and an assortment of ‘black attendants’, consisting of Indo-Portuguese merchants and Indian elites. Demanding to know their purpose, Sir George and Sir Edward exchanged ‘hott words’, according to onlookers. But when the agent stood his ground and refused to be intimidated, Sir Edward seemed to hesitate and, after a tense stand-off, backed down and rather humiliatingly decided to retire beyond the fort. However, when Sir George ordered the captain of the garrison to arrest Sir Edward, he hesitated, and although ‘after long demurr’ eventually imprisoned the ex-agent, after forty-eight hours he was released against the agent’s orders.88 Although the Anglo-Asian confederacy’s attempt to resist their disenfranchisement had failed, the agent’s inability to challenge or punish them in the wake of the attempted coup revealed the broad support or, at the very least, sympathy for resisting their disenfranchisement. When this became clear following Sir Edward’s release, with the majority of the English and Portuguese garrison throwing in their lot with the conspirators, the confederacy regrouped and on 16 September once again launched a coup de force, but this time they did not back down. In storming the council chambers, Sir Edward’s party shot dead William Dawes, and, after a violent struggle, seized Sir George Foxcroft, his son Nathaniel and Jeremy Sambrook. All three were confined to makeshift prisons in the fort and kept under strict guard by ‘above twenty Mooremen with their swords, targetts, Lances, and bowes and arrows’.89 With the fort under his control, Sir Edward set himself the task of figuring out ‘how to settle the Honourable Companys both civill and military affaires as that the like inconveniences for the future might be prevented’. This translated into usurping Sir George’s position by declaring himself agent and appointing his own council of loyal supporters, consisting, for the first time ever, of a mixture of servants and military personnel. Alongside these, Timana and Virana were restored to their offices, including head of the choultry and as chief brokers of the Company’s trade.90 Although the new or, in some respect, old administration sought to reintegrate the traditional cross-cultural governance of Madras, in the post-coup landscape it was to be a far more ruthless, exclusive regime, purged of any potential opposition or any faction that sought to uphold 88 90

89 Ibid. Vestiges, Jeremy Sambrooke’s depositions, London, 1671. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, ‘This is a true and Faithfull Copy of the Narrative of what hapned, published in Fort St George since the time of these Disasters’, Madras, 30 September 1665.

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what was perceived to be the narrow vision of the court of committees and their loyal representatives. Sir Edward’s new regime began by consolidating its military and political hold on the city. It ordered a purge of the English component of the garrison, suspecting their hesitation in disobeying their employers. As far away as Surat, Sir George Oxenden heard reports of how Sir Edward had expelled Madras’ English garrison ‘confiding altogether in his black Guards’.91 A visiting Spanish priest, Dominic Navarette, also observed what he called ‘a great contest betweixt two English governors’, relating how ‘The Portugueses were divided, some favour’d the one, and others the other. One got the better, and banish’d many of the Portugueses that oppose’d him.’ After purging those European troops who refused to ‘justifie his usurpation’, Sir Edward replaced them with loyal topazes, Indo-Portuguese soldiers from the mestizo communities Company servants frequently married into.92 As the imprisoned Sir George informed East India House in letters smuggled out of his cell in 1666, Sir Edward ‘fills the Fort with Portingalls in Liew of the English that are gone and in prison and dead’.93 With the military establishment subservient, Sir Edward’s confederacy turned on Company servants and Indian elites that failed to support the new regime. Sir Edward ‘did burne the faces, drub and otherwise punish’ those who ‘would not subscribe to comply with him and justifie his usurpation’, according to one prisoner, writing from his cell.94 Sir George similarly observed from his cell window how the new regime ‘cruelly and barbarously burnt and mangled and cut the bodies’ of those servants and merchants who opposed them, proceeding to have the survivors ‘disgracefully turned out of towne while they were sore with their wives and families, to shift for themselves’.95 Many more were seized and imprisoned, so much so that Sir Edward ordered the Company’s godowns to be converted into gaols.96 Alongside the political and military consolidation of the new regime throughout the years 1665 to 1666 was an attempt to articulate the legitimacy of the coup. From the moment the confederacy seized power, a narrative was constructed that was sent to London in the general letter at the end of September. Describing the events as a ‘revolution’, the narrative seized upon the puritan background of the Foxcrofts, and spun a careful yarn about the antiroyalist declarations of the agent and his son in council. They had supposedly used ‘severall seditious and treasonable words . . . against his now Majestie 91 92 93 94 95 96

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, Surat to court of committees, 26 March 1667. Cited in Vestiges, vol. 1, pp. 278 279. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/29, George Foxcroft to court of committees, Madras, 8 September 1666. Vestiges, Jeremy Sambrooke’s depositions, London, 1671. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/29, George Foxcroft to court of committees, Madras, 8 September 1666. Vestiges, Jeremy Sambrooke’s depositions, London, 1671.

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Charles the Second, King of England’ at the public table.97 The coup was therefore depicted as an attack on the ‘weight of treason against his Majestie’ which Sir George’s council represented.98 Yet this narrative proved little more than a retroactive justification of the violence deployed against opposition to Sir Edward’s confederacy, in which the first time the claim of treason against the crown was made was a month after the supposed offense had actually transpired. Sir George himself was more accurate in 1666 in describing the events as a ‘rebellion’, in which Sir Edward ‘became possessed of the Fort by . . . blood and murder’, and seized power for no other reason than ‘to nest himself in this Fort and not to obey any of your Commands’.99 At least to its victims, then, Sir Edward’s coup was a backlash against policies of centralisation pursued by East India House since the charter of 1657 provided them with the means to reassert their authority throughout the Asian settlements. In rejecting this attempt at corporate regulation, Sir Edward’s new regime was an attempt to resist what the reverend Isaacson had described as ‘Commands like the Lawes of the Medes and Persians’ emanating from London. Despite the blood-letting and tyrannical crack-down, Sir Edward’s conceptualisation of the coup as a ‘revolution’ commanded more support than opposition, especially from those groups who benefitted the most from the new regime, namely the Indian and Indo-Portuguese communities that East India House and Sir George had sought to exclude. This was demonstrated through the regime’s surprising longevity and its successful defence against repeated attempts to overthrow it from outside forces. In March 1666, for instance, the Greyhound, which had transported Sir George Foxcroft to Madras the previous year to assume his agency, returned from a voyage around the Bay of Bengal. After nine months unloading chests of treasure at the Company’s various factories in exchange for loading its hull with calicoes, saltpetre and spices from the factory warehouses, the ship’s purser, Benjamin Brond, ordered a return to Madras, ‘In hopes of getting a supply of men and what needful for the said shipp.’ When they landed at Madras, however, they were confronted with the shocking sight of Sir Edward’s military coup. The imprisoned Sir George managed to smuggle a letter out to Brond, ‘to advise me to try if I could draw the soulders off . . . and so to turne the tide’. Brond set to it immediately, coordinating with the remaining English soldiers to support his plan for taking back Fort St George for the Company. Brond was anxious, however, as his force numbered just sixteen men, along with perhaps no more than twenty of the English soldiers within the Fort who he was now secretly in 97 98 99

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, ‘This is a true and Faithfull Copy of the Narrative of what hapned, published in Fort St George since the time of these Disasters’, Madras, 30 September 1665. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/29, George Foxcroft to court of committees, Madras, 8 September 1666.

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contact with. But Brond believed that the element of surprise presented ‘a good opportunity for the prosecuting our intentions without bloudshed’.100 The entire plan hinged on Hugh Dixon, chief gunner of the fort. Brond had found it difficult to convince the other conspirators to risk their lives without Dixon’s involvement. But once this was forthcoming, Brond launched his plan in April. When Sir Edward and his council left the fort to go hunting, Brond gave the signal for the conspirators to enter through the gate and meet at Henry Greenhill’s old house. Once inside, the plan was to shut and secure the gate, liberate Sir George and the councillors from prison, and regain control of the fort. But, from the get-go, things went horribly wrong. Just as they came to the gate, Dixon ‘cried out of his wife and children, and if hee were killed, they would perishe’, and abandoned the expedition. With the clock ticking, Brond determined to carry on without the chief gunner. But when he reached the Greenhill house, the conspirators were dismayed by Dixon’s treachery. ‘All the cry was, that he came not in; wee might take [Fort St George], but cannot hold it without a very good Gunner.’ Although the sixteen sailors of the Greyhound stood with Brond, it was not enough, the other members of the expedition began to waver, and eventually the entire plot was betrayed by John Dunn, an armorer. ‘The next day myselfe, and 15 or 16 Englishmen more, [were] clapt into prison’, Brond wrote to the court of committees, ‘and the rest are in Irons in the Choultry, amongst severall Blacks that are accompted for Traitors against Sir Edward Winter.’101 Brond was able to pay his captors off with a substantial bribe of £5,000 and fled to Balasore in Bengal. The moment he was safe, he urged East India House to act: ‘I hope your honours will not passe by such murderers and usurpers of your Power.’102 Brond’s account of the revolution at Madras arrived in London alongside numerous other reports by way of Surat in 1667. Rumours abounded and circulated around Asia and back to East India House: a Catholic priest had stirred up a mutiny and now ruled Madras; Sir Edward had killed Agent Foxcroft and intended to deliver the town and fort up to the Dutch; Sir Edward had clapped all of the Europeans in irons and governed Madras through ‘his black Guards’.103 Despite not knowing the full extent of the situation, the court of committees understood Sir Edward’s coup as an unconstitutional usurpation of their authority. ‘The . . . Actions of Sir Edward Winter & his Compliances, hath very much troubled us’, the court declared in August 1667, ‘and wee cannot but feare, will in ye closures, bee to our great losse & damage.’104 Their initial response was to write to Madras to exhort Sir Edward to reinstate Foxcroft as agent. But, to prevent ‘further Acts 100 102 104

Vestiges, Benjamin Brond to court of committees, Balasore, 14 October 1666. 103 Ibid. Vestiges, Surat to court of committees, 26 March 1667. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/88, court of committees to Madras, 26 August 1667.

101

Ibid.

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of disobedience’, they also simultaneously gained a proclamation from King Charles II ‘requiring all persons to returne to their obedience’ to the Company, which they sent to their settlements in Asia.105 The full force of the metropole, of corporate and national interest, of committee and stakeholder, was being brought to bear on the transcultural confederacy that had defiantly anchored itself in Fort St George. Despite the gravity of the king’s proclamation, the response of Company servants in Asia illustrated the frequent failure to translate such lofty metropolitan declarations into actual mechanisms of subordination. For instance, despite the island still being a crown colony, Bombay, far from condemning Sir Edward’s coup, actually expressed its support for events there by disapproving of Sir George’s policies in the most colourful of terms. ‘Peacocklike, you pride yourself, never humbling your thoughts’, the governor of Bombay wrote to the imprisoned Sir George in 1668, ‘and by the Contemplation of your black feet, coloured by the foule patches of your former practices’.106 Henry Gary’s disdain for Sir George’s stance, which flew in the face of his office of royal governor, undoubtedly stemmed from the fact that he himself was from Venice and had a son who managed plantations in Goa, where he raised a Portuguese family. The influence his cosmopolitan life had over his political views came to the fore a few years later, when he himself took part in a rebellion at Bombay against the Company. He was then appointed ambassador by the coup’s leader, Richard Keigwin, and tasked with seeking the support of the surrounding Maratha communities to sustain the new regime in the face of metropolitan backlash.107 Such support within Asia legitimised Sir Edward’s regime further and even galvanised him to reject the king’s proclamation altogether. Despite confiding in London that ‘Wee were a long time allarumed with it came, and were sufficiently prepared to bare the Event’, Madras proceeded to disparage its provenance and ultimately dismiss the proclamation as ‘counterfeit’.108 Sir Edward returned the document to London for them to verify its contents, a tactic which he no doubt hoped might have earned his regime a couple of years’ respite. That is, however, had the court of committees not moved to act so decisively and overwhelmingly in the interim. In an unprecedented use of resources, East India House recruited and fitted out a small fleet of warships to recapture Madras in January 1668. The court instructed the fleet, which carried a sizeable contingent of new servants to replace Sir Edward’s regime, ‘to shew those wch 105 106 107

108

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/88, court of committees to Madras, 31 January 1667. Vestiges, Bombay to Madras, 8 June 1668. Henry Yule, ed., The Diary of William Hedges, During His Agency in Bengal: As Well As on His Voyage Out and Returned Overland, 1681 1697 (London, 1887 1889, 2 volumes), vol. 2, pp. 219 220 (hereafter WH Diary). BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, Madras to court of committees, 29 October 1667.

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are wth ye Mutineers, the great Inconveniences & Dangers, that they have themselves into, by persisting in such rebellious practises to Our Soveraign & disobedience to us.’109 In reinterpreting the coup at Madras as an act against national interest by invoking the language of mutiny, East India House was able to disguise its attempt to very violently wrest back control of power and authority in Asia from its servants behind a veil of justification. And indeed, although instructions were given to negotiate the city’s surrender, and to offer large bribes to the garrison for their defection, the expedition was, first and foremost, a military enterprise whose primary aim was to forcefully extract the submission of the settlements in Asia. The six warships which left Europe at the beginning of 1668 were equipped with the men and arms for a forceful seizure of Madras, and if Sir Edward refused to surrender up Fort St George, the expedition was directed to storm the city by land and sea.110 On the morning of 21 August 1668, the Rainbow and the Loyal Merchant, the vanguard of East India House’s war fleet, weighed anchor in the Madras road. Unaware, Sir Edward dispatched two of his councillors to row out and enquire as to the purpose of their arrival. As Charles Proby and Edward Lock pulled aside the anchored ships, they were immediately seized by marines and confined on board the Loyal Merchant, where they were shown a commission from King Charles II for the submission of Madras. The intimidation proved effective and they ‘did yeald all reddie obedience’, according to Joseph Hall, one of the primary commissioners sent out by the Company. Proby was then ordered to write a letter to Sir Edward confirming the king’s commission and urging the agent to submit. When they promptly received a reply from the fort encouraging them to come ashore, the imprisoned Sir George managed to smuggle a letter to the commissioners ‘that Sir Edward would make prissoners of us’. Despite this, Joseph Hall, John Bridger and Matthew Manwaring carried the king’s commission ashore in the evening and met Sir Edward and his relative, the minister Simon Smythes, in the fort. Demanding that they both yield to the king’s commission, Smythes began disparaging its terms and questioned its authenticity. When the commissioners asked to see Sir George and the other gaoled servants, Sir Edward refused unless they released Proby and Lock from the Loyal Merchant. The tense meeting was eventually broken up when Sir Edward promised to consider the commission and give his reply in the morning. But when the commissioners made their way back to the shore, it had become too dark and the surf too rough to row back to their ships. Anxious, they returned to the fort and requested accommodation for the night. Sir Edward undoubtedly grinning ear to ear furnished them with a room and, as it soon transpired, an armed guard, which was set on the door. As Sir

109

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/88, court of committees to Madras, 24 January 1668.

110

Ibid.

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George predicted, they had indeed been made prisoner, and it became quite clear that Sir Edward and Smythes had merely been stalling when they interrogated the commission, knowing that within a matter of hours the commissioners would be cut off from the rest of the fleet and stranded at Madras.111 Fortunately for the commissioners, it became clear the next morning that Sir Edward and his confederates were simply seeking the maximum leverage from which they could secure favourable terms of surrender. The servants at Madras understood full well that a war fleet could not be discarded the same way as a royal proclamation. The court of committees had spectacularly demonstrated that their new resources and power following the 1657 charter could materialise into a physical manifestation of their authority in a way that allowed them to dramatically intervene in affairs in Asia. But if Sir Edward’s yielding up of Madras to the commissioners the following evening revealed the increasing ability of metropolitan authorities to exercise a degree of authority over their servants in a way not possible before, the response of the commissioners to Sir Edward’s conditional demands for his surrender also illustrates the way in which, by the later seventeenth century, locally driven interests heavily shaped by powerful Asian elites had effectively become the most significant stakeholder within the Company. When Sir Edward expressed his concern ‘that, in case they delivered the forte, they might be Imprisoned and their Estates seased on’, according to the commissioner, Joseph Hall, ‘Our Answer was that there persons should be free without any Molestation, to remaine there, or to transport themselves for Urupe, without any let or Molestation.’112 In fact, not a single person was to be punished for the three year ‘rebellion’ at Madras, despite the many deaths and dislocations it had caused. Even Sir Edward himself was allowed to remain at Madras, expanding his trade and family, the latter a powerful presence in the city until his return to Europe in 1672. Only to Sir George, who was reinstated to power as the first governor, did this seem utterly beyond reason. Questioning the concession to Sir Edward which allowed him ‘to transport himself and his Estate into any part of India’, and effectively come and go as he pleased from the Company’s jurisdictions, Sir George warned London that ‘as it hath already begot troble to us and prejudice to you, so it is likely to doe more’.113 The Company’s terms to the ‘mutineers’, as the court of committees defined them, were undoubtedly mild. However, it was difficult for a man like Sir George Foxcroft, who had spent very little time in Asia beyond a prison cell anyway to understand the significant transformation to England’s presence in Asia which had taken place since the early seventeenth century. Following the 111 112

The commissioners’ arrival is narrated in BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, Joseph Hall to court of committees, Madras, 8 December 1668. 113 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/16/1, Madras to court of committees, 6 October 1668.

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failure of initial attempts to establish durable settlements at places such as Masulipatam and Armagon, compounded by the weakness of the Company’s financial and constitutional footing in Europe and Asia, servants pursued new strategies to integrate themselves with surrounding communities and networks, even so far as politically subordinating the Company to local elites and regional rulers in an effort to create a durable presence. This dynamic led to the emergence of new prosperous and populous Company settlements but it also anchored them firmly within transcultural contexts, giving rise to expansive multiracial families and influential Asian elites that dominated the Company’s presence in places such as Madras. These powerful new stakeholders in the Company’s development opened up desperately sought for financial and commercial opportunities but also monopolised political authority and, when necessary, could deploy violence to secure their interests. This was the transcultural landscape that a newly invigorated East India House had sought to challenge and regulate after 1657. But as the substantial backlash to such policies demonstrated in the form of Sir Edward’s ‘rebellion’ or ‘revolution’ at Madras, the depiction by metropolitan authorities of this dynamic as either an ‘agency’ problem or as the spread of ‘corruption’ or as a form of ‘malfeasance’ or ‘disobedience’ towards them was a fundamental misunderstanding of the vital role Anglo-Asian constituencies played within the Company’s successful presence in Asia by the later seventeenth century. To an extent, East India House’s lenient settlement of Madras in the period after the coup in 1668 was a begrudging acknowledgement that even the most transgressional manifestations of such transcultural alliances had to be accommodated if the Company was to move forward. By dispatching warships to regain control of Madras, the court of committees signalled that it would no longer tolerate the total monopolisation of power by its servants in Asia. But in allowing Sir Edward and his confederacy to remain ‘unmolested’ and free within its settlements, the court also signalled its reliance on the powerful Asian forces which they had cultivated, and the political, cultural and commercial assets which such sources could provide the Company with. For this very reason, Beri Timana and Kasi Virana were reconfirmed in their positions at the head of Madras’ various civic, legal and commercial institutions, with their control consolidated in the years of Sir Edward’s regime. ‘We have thought it a point of wisdom in respect of the main business of investment’, Sir George wrote to the court in November 1668, portraying the utter reliance of the Company on Indian elites, ‘for the present to waive any former matters and to encourage them.’114 Following Timana’s death, his son and brothers, in partnership with Kasi Virana, monopolised all trade within the city, and were

114

Vestiges, Madras to court of committees, 12 November 1668.

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similarly employed as the Company’s chief brokers for all of their commercial investments.115 In fact, when Virana died suddenly in 1680, Madras’ trade came to a standstill for a full year as the merchant community adjusted to the vacuum left by his absence.116 Leniency and even restitution for the Anglo-Indian rebels who had usurped the Company’s power at Madras were not the only concessions East India House made in an effort to reconcile these resourceful and powerful groups. Having failed for the better part of three decades to destroy or limit it, the court of committees finally legalised the practice of private trade once Madras was safely back under control in 1667. From then on, Company servants were not only allowed to trade privately in goods between various Company factories within Asia but the Company had officially withdrawn itself from this practice, giving its servants free reign.117 Even more importantly, servants were allowed to operate in contravention to the Company’s monopoly by trading between Asia and Europe, a dramatic concession that had been fiercely withheld beforehand as committees were convinced that its servants would eclipse the Company as an importer of Asian goods.118 By such privileges, the committees hoped that they would ‘encourage’ their servants ‘to undertake and proceed cheerfully in the management of the Company’s affairs’.119 There was still regulation, of course. Restrictions on the volume of private trade were put in place, with five tons of goods for senior servants such as chiefs, agents and presidents, and two or three tons assigned for junior servants, such as factors and writers.120 Similarly, certain goods remained strictly off-limits, including pepper and textiles, the latter regarded as the sacrosanct trading item which sustained the shareholder’s dividends.121 The legalisation of private trade after 1667 was certainly an admission by East India House of the futility in trying to stop what had become a widespread and endemic almost expected practice throughout its settlements in Asia. But more importantly, it was an acknowledgement of the willingness of the Company’s metropolitan authorities to not only accommodate the powerful transcultural partnerships which had posed such a threat to their authority but to facilitate their future expansion as drivers of commercial, demographic and even military growth. By legalising private trade, East India House had, in many respects, finally woken up to the successful strategies pursued by their servants since the foundation of Madras in 1640. While corporate and national authorities 115 117 118 119 120

116 Mukund, Tamil Merchant, p. 106. Ibid., p. 92. Ian Bruce Watson, Foundation for Empire: English Private Trade in India, 1659 1760 (New Delhi, 1980), p. 75. Ibid., p. 76. Cited in P. J. Marshall, East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1976), p. 19. 121 Erikson, Between Monopoly and Free Trade, pp. 59 60. Ibid.

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succeeded in reinserting themselves back into the political landscape of their settlements, they remained largely reliant upon these local networks, elites and communities for the longer-term success of their presence in Asia. East India House would continue to make attempts to expand their presence and to formalise regulatory frameworks in places like Madras, but the fact that between 1668 and 1711 there would be a further six ‘revolutions’, as Surat described a military coup at Bombay in 1685, suggests that the transcultural communities of the Company’s settlements remained largely resilient against further attempts to disrupt their integration into local political, cultural and commercial structures. Rather, the Company increasingly adapted its development to respond to the needs of a broad spectrum of groups that utilised its presence in Asia for its own ends and, as a result, sustained that very presence in ways the Company had not originally been incorporated for. This was perhaps most clearly demonstrated in 1675, when the survival of Madras itself was in doubt as Golcondan, Dutch and French forces warred for possession of neighbouring San Thome. In such desperate circumstances, the Company looked to Kasi Virana for its preservation, ‘and the great interest which your chief Merchant, has all over the country’. Through leveraging his influence at the Golcondan court, Virana eventually succeeded in acquiring a farman for possession of several towns surrounding Madras. ‘The said Cassa Verona having now all the Coast along from hence to Armagon . . . in his own hands’, the governor of Madras declared triumphantly to the court of committees, ‘all things are quiet for the present, and long may they soe continue.’122 Only once the Company had transitioned from an English enterprise in the first half of the seventeenth century into something resembling an Anglo-Asian partnership in the second half of the seventeenth century was it able to not just survive in Asia but grow at a scale not yet experienced by the English beyond the Cape of Good Hope.

122

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, Madras to court of committees, 16 July 1675.

Part II

Subordination and Expansion

4

‘To Be Determined by the Moor’s Justice’ Searching for Legitimacy in Mughal Bengal

The collapse of the Vijayanagara empire and the expansion of the sultanate of Golconda in the seventeenth century had created a shifting and flexible political landscape on the Coromandel Coast, one that had allowed Company servants to nimbly insert themselves into the state formation process and acquire the political and constitutional rights they so desperately needed to sustain their presence in the region. Vijayanagara had offered the Company a gold-plated set of commercial and political privileges in the hope that Francis Day and his colleagues would stimulate economic growth and build a strong defensive position on its frontier at a time when the polity was attempting to shore itself up in the face of immense external pressure. The new Golcondan regime was happy to confirm these, as long as the Company pledged itself to assist its governor, Mir Jumlah, with the financial and military resources he needed to consolidate recent Golcondan expansion in the region. In both cases, the Company subordinated itself politically and became part of the shifting state formation process in south India, admittedly in a peripheral way. If the shifting political tides provided the conditions for this process, the actual mechanics which determined the Company’s success were the social, cultural and commercial strategies of integration pursued with local elites and communities that had not been practiced by Company servants before. As Part I demonstrated, the cross-cultural interactions, relationships and networks which formed within the wider framework of Company subordination to Asian power structures ultimately allowed emerging settlements such as Madras to assume state functions, roles and responsibilities in exchange for new or expanded privileges. Of course, this proved nothing if not an uneven process across time and space, as the failed settlements at Masulipatam and Armagon had demonstrated. And if the contested ebb and flow of the Coromandel Coast ultimately facilitated the Company’s entrenchment there, establishing a presence in a far more powerful imperial polity such as the Mughal Empire presented a different, more challenging dynamic to the Company’s future development in Asia. In Bengal, for example, Company servants did not succeed in acquiring a settlement on the scale of Madras for well over eighty years following their 111

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initial arrival in the region. The obvious explanation of course, in light of the first part of this book, is that free of the contested political dynamics encountered by the collapsing and expanding polities of the Coromandel Coast, the largely secure Mughal regime in Bengal had little need to integrate new political and economic actors to consolidate its authority in the region. After all, the Bengal sultanate had become part of the empire from 1576 onwards, almost three quarters of a century prior to the arrival of English Company servants.1 Once installed in the subah or province, the new regime grew affluent on the fertile alluvial soils which provided for abundant agricultural production, whilst a highly commercialised cash-cropping economy fed the imperial treasury unlike any other subah in the empire.2 Under Mughal rule, new commercial and shipping hubs emerged, such as Hugli and Balasore, and Bengal consolidated its position at the centre of international trade with its extensive networks of rivers and export of raw silk, cotton, saltpetre and sugar.3 While Europeans were welcomed and encouraged to settle and trade in this thriving commercial environment from the early seventeenth century, they were clearly not considered as the decisive factor in the regime’s economic success in Bengal. Politically, too, it appeared that the well-established Mughal regime was less in need of new sources of military strength or constitutional dynamism that a strong, subordinate European presence might offer. Having destroyed the Afghan Kararani dynasty in 1576, a series of Mughal governors expanded the empire’s authority in seventeenth-century Bengal. Through a combination of territorial conquests to the north-east and south, religious conversion and the imposition of a formal revenue regime managed by a hierarchical provincial administration, Mughal government in Bengal appeared stable, secure and in little need of pursuing new sources of economic or political authority.4 In fact, Company servants received an early indication that establishing a presence in Bengal would be no easy task. As far back as the 1620s, Company servants travelled overland from Surat to Patna in Bihar, on the border of Bengal, to acquire the raw silk it was so famously known for. One of these, Robert Hughes, commented on reports that he had heard of silk in Bengal where ‘it maye be provided in infinite quantityes at least 20 per cent. Cheaper then in anye other place of India, and of the choysest stufe . . . where are also innumerable of silk wynderes, expert workmen, and labour cheaper by a third 1 2 3 4

For this rarely studied polity, see Syed Ejaz Hussain, The Bengal Sultanate: Politics, Economy and Coins, 1205 1576 (Delhi, 2003). Om Prakash, The Dutch East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1630 1720 (Guild ford, 1985), pp. 24 25. Richards, Mughal Empire, p. 190. Douglas E. Streusand, Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals (Boulder, CO, 2011), pp. 259 260.

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then elcewhere’.5 Hughes and his colleagues reached Patna in 1621 and obtained a building there to act as a new factory. But within a couple of months they were ejected following the arrival of the Mughal prince, Parwiz, who, having recently been appointed as the city’s governor, appropriated the city’s principal buildings including the English factory to accommodate his vast imperial retinue. ‘Wee are displaced, and have binge theise ten dayes’, Hughes reported to his superiors, as they had roamed the city like paupers ‘wandringe to cover ourselves and goods, thoughe but with grase, to debar the heate and raynes.’6 It was in stark contrast to the arrival of their colleagues at Armagon on the Coromandel Coast around the same time, where they ‘found a most friendly welcome by all the Inhabitants, who seemed overjoyed at our coming, especially those Merchants of the Place’.7 In the Mughal empire, the Company appeared far more disposable than in either the Vijayanagara or Golcondan polities. In explaining the regional differences in the Company’s success, the economic historian Kirti Chaudhuri claimed that the Coast ‘was ruled by a number of warring dynasties’, whereas ‘the strong centralised administration of the Mughals had created throughout the Empire an order that was lacking in the south during the mid-seventeenth century.’8 The Mughal empire was undoubtedly powerful, rich and expansive. But the contrast between a fragmented and decentralised political landscape in the Deccan and Coromandel regions and a highly centralised, united northern India under Mughal rule though convenient is ultimately misleading. The Mughal state proved just as adaptive and responsive to foreign groups, perhaps more so, actualising its authority through the integration and utilisation of local allies, networks and partners. This is perhaps best demonstrated following the Mughal conquest of Golconda in 1688. When Governor Elihu Yale believed that the fall of the capital and the capture of its sultan by Emperor Aurangzeb would provide an opportunity for Madras to acquire the neighbouring town of San Thome, which had previously been ruled by a Golcondan governor, he was quickly disabused of the prospect. ‘The Mogull’, Governor Yale reported to his council of the emperor, ‘order’d that these Parts should be under the same Rules and Government as in the King of Golconda’s time.’9 Consequently, San Thome remained independent of Madras. In allowing the autonomous political structures of Golconda to continue under the umbrella of Mughal sovereignty, the empire itself became decentred, a kind of ‘patchwork quilt’ of regional and local powerbases, held

5 6 7 8 9

EFI, Patna to Surat, 30 January 1621. BL, APAC, IOR/G/28/1, Patna to Agra, 19 May 1621. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/9, Armagon to Batavia, 1 March 1626. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, p. 51. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/5, consultation at Madras, 23 August 1688.

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together less by an imposing central government than by their inclusive participation in a wider imperial framework.10 In the short-term, Aurangzeb’s success may have relied on cannons to pummel the fort of Golconda into submission but the long-term survival of Mughal authority in the region depended on its ‘capacity to build alliances and tie rising groups to the dynasty’, as the historian Munis Faruqui has argued.11 If the Mughal Empire was no less integrative and inclusive than its southern neighbours, it was also shaped by many of the same fiscal, military, political and cultural currents shaping the state formation process elsewhere in Asia. And while it may have been better equipped as a vast empire to harness these, for that very reason it often proved no less challenging. So while the Afghan dynasty had crumbled before Emperor Akbar’s invasion in 1576, the thick jungles, riverine systems and marshes of north-eastern and southern Bengal meant that it took almost another century to extend Mughal rule to the entire subah.12 Even then, the region’s ethnically and religiously diverse population ensured that no unitary imperial system could be imposed, and Mughal governors were consistently grappling with client kings and disobedient zamindars political and fiscal actors whose vast resources often allowed them to assume autonomous sovereign power over large territorial districts.13 Similarly, an independent foreign presence in coastal regions continued to place large parts of Bengal out of Mughal reach. It wasn’t until 1632, for example, that Hugli was wrested from Portuguese control.14 Even by 1661 the imperial regime had still not fully established itself, requesting Dutch, Portuguese and English assistance in conquering the coastal district of Hijili.15 Even when established, imperial rule proved fragile. During one of the frequent wars of succession in the empire, the powerful zamindar of Kuch Bihar in western Bengal, Prem Narayan, attempted to seize power in Bengal. At exactly the same time, the Arakanese king, Jayadwaj Sinha, invaded from the east and annexed key frontier regions. Following a series of failed Mughal counterattacks, communities of Portuguese mestizos and Arakanese pirates raided the Ganges delta and enslaved entire coastal villages.16 With sizeable Buddhist and Hindu populations, and maritime communities of Christian converts, Mughal authority in Bengal rested on fragile and often contested foundations.17 10 11 12 13 14 15 17

Muzaffar Alam and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, eds., The Mughal State, 1526 1750 (Oxford, 1998), p. 57. Faruqui, Princes of the Mughal Empire, pp. 18 19. Jos Gommans, Mughal Warfare: Indian Frontiers and Highroads to Empire, 1500 1700 (Abingdon, 2002), p. 170. Roy, ‘Where Is Bengal?’ p. 140. Jorge Flores, Unwanted Neighbours: The Mughals, the Portuguese, and Their Frontier Zones (Oxford, 2018), pp. 223 224. 16 EFI, vol. 11, p. 68. Richards, Mughal Empire, pp. 167 168. Subrahmanyam, Improvising Empire, p. 151.

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But if the processes of Mughal empire formation shared much in common with the shifting political dynamics of southern India, its similar need to recruit and integrate new economic and political constituencies does not explain why Company servants failed to establish themselves in Bengal in the same manner as they had at Madras until the early eighteenth century. It was not through the failure of the English to subordinate and integrate themselves in Bengal as they had on the Coromandel Coast but rather the sheer effectiveness of the Mughal government in fully subordinating the Company without conceding political or constitutional autonomy in exchange. As Adam Clulow has demonstrated in regards to the Dutch VOC in Tokugawa Japan, powerful states and empires were more than capable of establishing completely unbalanced relationships with Europeans, gaining every last drop of fiscal-military advantage from the various Companies while conceding nothing but the right to be present and trade on often unfair terms.18 In a similar fashion, the English experience in Bengal represents the Company at its most subordinate, pliant and, indeed, weakest, utterly subservient to the communities, elites and rulers whom they relied on. In becoming so subsumed within the Mughal imperial edifice, over time the English struggled to acquire the legitimacy for greater political and economic rights, and more often than not had to accept surrendering a significant degree of their own political and judicial autonomy in exchange for little more than merely the right to exist in Bengal. This chapter will explore how successful the Mughal strategy was in exploiting the growth of non-corporate English groups in Bengal, such as pirates, interlopers, ‘freemen’ and those directly in the service of the Mughal regime. These English and increasingly multiracial communities forged political alliances, kinship networks and commercial partnerships with both the Mughals and the Company, entrenching themselves as much if not more than their corporate counterparts. By the 1680s, the Mughal nawab and his governors had developed a sophisticated strategy which played the two English groups off against one another, encouraging the establishment of English interlopers as a way to leverage greater services and contributions from the Company without the requisite privileges that such a dynamic was normally expected to produce. The result was not merely the arrested development of the Company’s political enfranchisement but in fact a significant degree of disenfranchisement, as the Company’s relationship with the Mughal empire, and the relationship between individual Company servants and Mughal elites, laid bare the fragility and unevenness of England’s engagement with Asia by the end of the seventeenth century.

18

Clulow, The Company and the Shogun.

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Madras’ consolidation on the Coromandel Coast within the orbit of the Golcondan state had allowed it to act as a springboard for establishing satellite presences elsewhere in Asia. By 1675, this had grown to consist of a small network of factories in the key cities of the Mughal subah of Bengal, including Balasore, Dacca, Kasimbazar, Patna and Hugli. Yet despite the latter emerging as the chief factory and centre of Company trade in the region, neither it nor the others ever developed beyond small factories. That is despite the fact that all of the ingredients which had allowed Madras to emerge as a politically and economically autonomous centre of power within the wider Golcondan state seemed to be present in Bengal. Take Balasore, for instance. Following the abandonment of the first permanent factory at Hariharpur in Bihar in the crisis decade of the 1640s, the Company withdrew to Balasore, which was, in the early seventeenth century, the principal port of the Bay of Bengal.19 Over the next three decades, Company servants pursued the typical transnational strategies of integration which became the norm following the successful establishment of Madras. Multiracial family households were built and maintained in the port and surrounding countryside, capital was utilised from local Indian and Indo-Portuguese mestizo merchants, and subordination was offered to the Mughal authorities.20 For example, when the Mughal governor prohibited the slave trade in Balasore when he demanded that ‘English, Dutch and Portuguize should give under yt hands not to buy any Moors Slaves’, Company servants quickly obliged, despite deriving significant proportions of their livelihood from the trade.21 Company servants had even begun to exercise government in Balasore, acquiring a contract to act as tax farmers of a suburb called Dumadapore, which provided them with ‘the sole Command of all the People’ living there.22 However, what prevented Balasore or the other regions of Bengal in which the Company operated from developing into something more substantial was the growing presence of English actors and communities not in the Company’s service. With even more freedom than their counterparts in the Company to cross transnational boundaries and weave complex relationships and allegiances across a number of commercial, cultural and political borders, such figures were able to flourish as they moved around the constitutionally porous spaces of Mughal Bengal. The notion of a formal Company presence with stone bastions, defined judicial rights and claims to political authority under the umbrella of Mughal sovereignty threatened this amorphousness. And for

19 20 21 22

Bowrey, Geographical Account, pp. 162 163. See, for instance, the career of William Blake at Balasore: BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, Balasore to court of committees, 7 October 1666. BL, APAC, IOR/G/2/1, consultation at Balasore, 15 May 1680. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/14, diary of Streynsham Master, Balasore, 15 December 1676.

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this reason, non-corporate English actors and their wider networks and communities united with Mughal elites in the 1670s and 1680s to both directly and indirectly prevent Company servants from acquiring the rights and privileges from the Mughal regime that would allow it to establish a politically autonomous presence and expand economically and jurisdictionally as Madras had done. Of course, the latter had accommodated and indeed sometimes served the needs of those not officially part of the Company but its formal position within the Golcondan hierarchy and the set of judicial and political rights that it had been granted by the sultan prevented interlopers from undermining its local dominance. The significant presence by the 1670s of English interlopers, pirates, traders and mercenaries in Bengal where the Company did not enjoy such rights made this a far more challenging prospect. As early as the 1650s, at the height of the crises decades when the Company had lost its charter for a monopoly over the Asian trade, East India House had warned its servants that ‘the said trade lies open and free for any persons to send shiping to India; soe that this yeare very many ships have and will set saile for all partes of India.’23 Many of these did not return, and, like their Company counterparts, enmeshed themselves into the cultural and commercial landscapes of Asia, marrying local women, adopting transcultural practices and often exercising a degree of political power in the service of Asian elites and rulers. Stripped of their authority, East India House was powerless to stop the entrenchment and enfranchisement of English interlopers, merchants and mercenaries not in their service. Encouraging his brother-in-law in London to come out to Asia and make a life for himself in 1650, the chief of Balasore James Bridgman assured him he could do so ‘in a way of freedome, which you may easily doe’, and urged him to bring his sister out with him.24 The problem for the Company, especially in the Bay of Bengal, was hinted at by Bridgman himself in his letter, when he concluded to his brother-in-law that once they arrived, they could expect every manner of assistance from Bridgman himself, in his capacity as ‘chiefe for the Company of all the factors in Bengall’.25 Not just the alliance but also the familial, commercial and political ties between ‘interlopers’ and Company servants bound them into the Mughal order in a way that blurred and undermined any attempt by the Company to provide a distinct subordinate role within the imperial regime and, in exchange, benefit from political and judicial privileges. Rather, the fragmented English presence placed the Mughal authorities in Bengal in a position of total strength when negotiating with the disparate English communities, demanding a range of services from crewing Mughal vessels to contributing troops in Mughal wars, and in exchange conceding very little constitutional autonomy to the Company 23 24

EFI, court of committees to Henry Bornford, London, 24 December 1656. EFI, James Bridgman to Francis Barker, Balasore, 15 December 1650.

25

Ibid.

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as a political actor. Individual servants and interlopers certainly acquired authority within the imperial regime, but the Company failed to marshal the legitimacy as a single corporate body to benefit in any substantial way. Perhaps the most illuminating example of the amorphousness of the English presence in Bengal can be gleaned from the experiences of Thomas Pitt. This young man from Dorset had quickly absconded from the crew of the Lancaster when it had weighed anchor in the Balasore road on the coast of Orissa, part of the Mughal subah of Bengal, in 1675.26 Despite having deserted the Company’s service, and, as per their charter now illegally residing in Asia, Pitt was recruited by the chief of Balasore, Richard Edwards, to manage part of his private trading network which stretched across Asia. Like most chiefs of the Bengal factories, Edwards was considerably integrated into local Indian communities, establishing relationships of a familial, sexual and business nature with a range of different groups. These were so deep, in fact, that in 1675 Edwards’ sexual relationship with an influential Brahmin’s wife at Balasore got him into trouble with the Mughal authorities at Murshidabad.27 While this affair proved controversial, his wide range of connections to local merchants, elites and communities made him a prosperous and influential figure in Bengal. It was this business enterprise that Pitt was put in charge of, which saw him purchasing sugar, silk and horses for sale in the Persian port of Gombroon.28 As the scale of Pitt’s business increased, his position within the commercial networks which bound Company servants in the Bay of Bengal together also deepened. In particular, he was integrated into powerful transcultural kinship groups maintained by senior Company servants at Balasore and Hugli. Around 1676, he married Jane Innes, the Indo-Portuguese daughter of James Innes, a servant stationed at Hugli, and his wife, the daughter of the old agent of Madras, Henry Greenhill. Greenhill’s other Indo-Portuguese daughters had married Richard Edwards at Balasore and Matthias Vincent, the chief of Hugli, creating an expansive cross-cultural kinship group with considerable commercial interests and resources.29 The three brothers-in-law welcomed Thomas Pitt into their partnership, and trusted him with their vast private investments. In return, Pitt addressed Edwards and Vincent as his ‘uncles’, invoking familial loyalty and affection in an effort to further consolidate their commercial and political interests in Bengal.30

26 27 28 29 30

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/88, court of committees to Hugli, London, 24 December 1675. For this affair, see the correspondence of Richard Edwards in Bengal Past & Present, vol. 18, no. 76 108. WH Diary, Hugli to Balasore, 21 February 1678. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/3, Matthias Vincent to John Goffee and James Innes, Hugli, 22 Janu ary 1669. WH Diary, Thomas Pitt to Richard Edwards, on board the Recovery, 24 October 1679.

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Thomas Pitt’s flourishing position in Bengal and his close relationship with the most senior Company servants suggest that the Company adopted a policy of salutary neglect towards its chartered rights. And while metropolitan authorities had begrudgingly accommodated the transnational strategies pursued by their servants following the revolution at Madras, no such accommodation had been made with interlopers. Their acceptance of their servants’ need to integrate themselves into local communities and power structures in Asia was more than anything an acknowledgement of the ultimate success this dynamic had clearly achieved for the Company’s long-term survival. And while the incorporation and utilisation of interloping communities would eventually also prove just as successful a dynamic, as they initially flooded into Asia and fully entrenched themselves, East India House recognised only a threat to its hard-won chartered rights from the Crown. ‘The Wreck of the Interlopers Wee look upon as a just Judgement of God for their disloyal and unjust procedings’, the court of committees informed their servants in Bengal in 1683, hoping that ‘to convince the Deluded World of the Vanity and Folly of those persons that would persuade them the trade of England in India is to be preserved by any other means than the strict Rules and Disciplines of an United Stock’.31 Nonetheless, there was some diversity in opinion, reflecting the willingness of some to view interlopers as an opportunity for the Company, not just a threat. James Houblon had been a member of the court of committees for a total of eleven years, until 1681, after which he travelled around Asia between 1683 and 1684. As he progressed from port to port, he compiled a ‘Memorandum’ on the English presence and its challenges, often in comparison to the Dutch VOC. When visiting Bengal, he noted the inextricable ties between Company servants and interlopers, a fact which he believed worked in the Company’s favour. Referring to ‘ye great number’ of freemen and interlopers who operated outside of the Company’s jurisdiction, he noted that their growth would encourage them ‘to trade into all parts wch would certainely be very prejudicial to ye Dutch as on ye Contrary it would be verry advantagious to ye English’.32 Houblon had perceptively observed that the unregulated expansion of interloping communities would inevitably increase the trade and presence of the Company through their mutual networks. However, Houblon’s observation remained a minority one, and had little impact on overall Company policy as he did not return to the court of committees but instead went on to hold a directorship in the Levant Company, and eventually helped to found the Bank

31 32

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/89 court of committees to Bengal, 30 May 1683. The H[untington] L[ibrary], HM 83394, Sir James Houblon’s Notebooks, 1683 1683, ‘Some Memorandum on things in India’.

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of England.33 Indeed, it’s likely that his unrepresentative beliefs on interlopers may have actually contributed to his departure from the East India Company. The result was that interlopers such as Thomas Pitt were endlessly targeted by East India House, subject to attempted imprisonment or deportation by order of the court of committees. Acknowledging the presence of Pitt and others at Balasore, the court ordered Hugli ‘to take Care to send them to the Fort [Madras] to remaine there till next yeares Shipping’.34 But with their local Asian contacts, senior Company allies and often vast resources, figures like Pitt were consistently able to brush off metropolitan attempts to break up their communities and dismantle their operations. Most commonly, interlopers could cross jurisdictional boundaries and political borders in a far more transient manner than their Company counterparts. So when John Byam first succeeded Richard Edwards as chief of Balasore in 1680, his request to Abdun Nazir Khan, the nawab of Orissa, for the arrest of the interloper Thomas Haggerston was rejected when he placed himself under the protection of the Mughal authorities.35 Of course, the failure to prevent Haggerston’s expanding interests at Balasore may have also resulted from the fact that Byam would himself shortly marry into an interloping community and become one of the most prominent parts of an expansive interloping network operating out of Balasore. In utilising the authority of Indian governments and the expertise and resources of Company servants, emerging interloper communities became even more hybridised than the transnational settlements formed by the Company. Interlopers increasingly existed in a constitutional and political grey area which provided their presence with a remarkable degree of elasticity and porousness. The world of Thomas Pitt by the early 1680s was both symptomatic of this blended dynamic, as well as a key force in its expansion. Through his marriage into the Indo-Portuguese families of the Company’s senior servants in Bengal, Pitt had expanded his own operations, especially in the sugar export trade to Persia, and established himself as one of the most prominent merchants of the Bay. Balasore remained his base of operations, largely as he had cultivated such a strong relationship with Malik Kasim, the Mughal governor, and his brother and deputy, Malik Bairam, as well as the port’s principal merchants, Khem Chand Shah and Chintaman Shah, both of whom also acted as the Company’s chief brokers, and to whom Pitt provided shipping for their trading ventures to Sumatra.36 In the port itself, Pitt maintained a ‘great house’ on the banks of the Budhabalanga River which curved 33 34 35 36

Brock, ‘The Company Director’, p. 291. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/88, court of committees to Hugli, London, 24 December 1675. BL, APAC, IOR/G/2/1, consultation at Balasore, 4 April 1684. WH Diary, Thomas Pitt to Richard Edwards, Hugli, 30 October 1679.

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around the city. One senior Company servant who sailed past in 1682 recorded that he had seen Pitt carrying ‘divers Chests of money ashore, and was very busy in buying of goods’.37 By this point, he had become a leading figure of a dynamic interloping community at Balasore, consisting of almost twenty English seafarers and merchants and their families. Most of these had settled there at the invitation of family members in the service of the Company. Abetted by Company servants and facilitated by Mughal authorities, interloping communities therefore had a foot in both worlds, moving frequently between the two and in the process binding them closer together. The pervasion of interlopers in every region and at every level of Mughal Bengal spelled disaster for the Company’s attempt to acquire the exclusive political and commercial privileges from the regime that would allow them to expand their presence in the region. As trading partners, commercial brokers, importers of bullion, ship captains, engineers, artillerymen, soldiers, revenue officials and even doctors, interlopers offered an array of subordinate roles that were usually bartered by the Company when seeking to establish themselves on a more formal and permanent footing. This was especially so in the case of the Company’s two most attractive areas of service: maritime and commercial activity. Both of these services had been part of the deal that Company servants had struck with the nayak for Madras, but in Bengal they were already being undertaken by interlopers. At Balasore alone, a majority of the interloping community played some leading role in the commercial and maritime networks of various Bengali governors and elites. From 1680 onwards, for instance, the interloper Thomas Browne piloted and commanded the vessels of Nuru’llah Khan, the nawab of Orissa, navigating their passage up the treacherous Hugli River and sailing them to the markets of Pegu and back.38 Similarly, Thomas Davies was employed by many of the most prominent Indian merchants at Hugli, including the nawab of Bengal, Shaista Khan, who even intervened to demand Davies’ release when he was arrested by the Company’s factory at Hugli for being an interloper in 1687.39 Below these elite actors, the saturation of interlopers was even more widespread in the maritime service of Bengal’s rulers. When the Company servant Streynsham Master boarded an Indian vessel in 1671, he reported to East India House how half a dozen English sailors were ‘Masters of the Shipp . . . though Imployed by the Native Indians, Moores and Banians’.40 Similarly, when the nawab of Bengal launched a campaign to capture the coastal district of Hijili, part of his fleet included a ship built for him by the Dutch but captained and 37 38 40

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Balasore, 19 July 1682. 39 DSM, vol. 2, p. 76. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/4, consultation at Madras, 7 February 1687. BL, APAC, MSS Eur E/210/2, Streynsham Master to court of committees, Bombay, 18 January 1671.

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crewed by English sailors who had deserted the Company’s service, including the Balasore-based captain, John Durson.41 Their reputation was not particularly accomplished, however, and despite serving the nawab successfully in his campaign, the English crew mutinied once it returned to the Mughal capital at Dacca, and Durson was severely injured in attempting to restore order.42 While the Company applied the term ‘interloper’ very broadly, encompassing any English subject in Asia not directly in the Company’s service, in Bengal it is clear that such persons had become deeply imbedded in the economic, maritime and military systems of the Mughal subah. Many of the interlopers who served the Mughal elite of Bengal even succeeded in acquiring a range of commercial and political privileges from their Indian partners, employers and masters. Captain William Alley had arrived in Bengal in 1676 with a ship full of European goods from Cadiz, and made two further voyages back and forth before settling down at Hugli. Following a proclamation from Charles II himself, in response to an application by the court of committees in 1679, which ordered all English subjects in Asia to ‘forebear to give any assistance, countenance, or encouragement whatever unto the said William Alley’, the latter sought non-European sources of legitimacy and protection for his presence and activities in the Bay of Bengal.43 From the local authorities at Porto Novo, Alley had obtained a cowl, or permit, for trade through his relationship with the port’s Maratha governor, Gopal Pundit. In response, the Company reminded the governor that they themselves had a cowl from his master, the Maratha Raja Maha.44 This was to little avail, however, as Alley remained a frequent visitor to the governor and his port, to the chagrin of East India House.45 It was in Bengal itself where Alley’s privileges proved most extensive. Through the offices of the governor of Hugli’s deputy, Paramecvaz Dãs, who the Company’s agent, William Hedges, described as Alley’s ‘Protector’, and who also happened to be the Company’s ‘Chiefe Customer’, Alley was granted an audience with Governor Bal Chandra Rai in 1683.46 According to Agent Hedges, who witnessed Alley’s arrival at the governor’s palace by way of a stately barge which was rowed up the Hugli River by English marines in red coats, the interloper looked more like a Mughal nobleman than an English pirate. Dressed head-to-toe in richly laced scarlet, Hedges described how Alley’s retinue was led by eighty peons, four musicians, two flagbearers, ten 41 42 43 44 45 46

EFI, Hugli to court of committees, 7 March 1661. EFI, Hugli to court of committees, 10 October 1661. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/89, King Charles II’s Commission to prevent interlopers, 2 Decem ber 1679. WH Diary, Madras to court of committees, 14 June 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/14/3, Porto Novo to Madras, 14 August 1685. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 8 October 1683.

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English foot soldiers in blue hats and red coats, carrying blunderbusses, and finally at the end of this long procession came Alley himself, carried in a palanquin. ‘A gawdy shew and great noise’, concluded Hedges, ‘adds much to a Public Person’s credit in this Country’.47 When the Mughal governor asked Alley the purpose of the audience, Alley declared that he had come ‘As an Englishman, and upon the same Service as ye Company traded here.’ When Governor Bal Chand challenged Alley’s claim to parity with the Company by pointing out that they had a farman from the Mughal emperor himself, Alley’s protector Paramecvaz Dãs intervened with the offer of a large present, securing Alley a highly sought after farman which placed his trade and his person under the protection of the governor.48 Soon, Alley had secured himself a place at court as a prominent merchant, where he would frequently meet with the Mughal governor to discuss trade and customs, ‘upon which they parted good friends’, according to the Company’s agent.49 Such personal attention from the governor turned Alley himself into a rising star, able to open doors with the Mughal regime. As a consequence, the interloper was inundated with visits ‘by every considerable person in this Factory’, recorded a disapproving William Hedges.50 The integration of interloping communities into the commercial and political landscapes of Bengal effectively undermined the Company’s ability to acquire a deeper footing in the region beyond a string of small factories dotted around the province. In granting privileges to interlopers which rivalled even those acquired by the Company at Madras, the Mughal authorities effectively played the Company and the interlopers off against one another, forcing both groups into ever more subordinate positions with increasingly fewer gains to show for such submissive behaviour. William Alley’s secure position within Governor Bal Chand’s regime at Hugli allowed him to negotiate a favourable customs rate of 3.5 per cent on his import and export of goods.51 Panicked at the prospect that Alley might usurp the Company’s entire trade in Bengal, the chief of Dacca, James Price, was able to obtain a perwanna, or warrant, from Nawab Shaista Khan, ordering the faujdar of Hugli, the chief of police, to ‘immediately arrest’ Alley and two other interlopers, bringing them in chains to his capital at Dacca.52 While two other interlopers were arrested, Alley evaded the faujdar and immediately appealed to Governor Bal Chand to intercede, who promptly had the arrests called off and secured the release of Alley’s two associates. ‘Soe insolent and proud is this Bal Chand growne with his vast state’, lamented Hedges in his diary, ‘as not to regard any Perwanna 47 49 51 52

48 Ibid. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 22 October 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 26 October 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 28 October 1683.

50

Ibid.

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that comes from the old doting Nabob of Decca.’53 By the end of 1683, Alley was in an unassailable position, usurping the Company’s commerce with a new grant for ‘free liberty of trade’, in which all his goods were protected under the private dastak or pass of Bal Chand himself.54 In fact, Alley had become so deeply integrated into the regime that he was treated as one of the most powerful members of the Hugli court. For instance, when he left the bounds of the city, the same faujdar which had previously attempted to arrest him hosted him in extravagant tents and summoned the local merchants and forced them to sell their goods to Alley.55 The interloper even nabbed one of Governor Bal Chand’s private houses for 10,000 rupees.56 It is clear that William Alley’s ascendant position in Bengal could never have seriously replaced the Company as a key commercial constituent of the Mughal regime at Hugli, even with his array of grants and farmans for trade under the protection of and in partnership with the governor. Rather, the Mughal authorities deployed Alley and the interloping communities as leverage over the Company, able to squeeze more and more out of their service, and in exchange ensured that their quid pro quo demands never resulted in significant political autonomy. In other words, interlopers like Alley forced the Company to accept a one-sided arrangement which was massively skewered in favour of the Mughal regime. Thus, once Alley had agreed to pay a fixed custom tax on his trade, albeit at a favoured rate, Bal Chand paid a visit to Agent Hedges at the Company’s factory to demand that they pay the same 3.5 per cent customs rate.57 This was despite the fact that Hedges and the Company claimed that a farman from Emperor Shah Jahan in 1650 exempted them from paying customs on their trade. This was, of course, entirely misrepresented. Over the decades, Company servants had skewered and stretched this imperial farman to fit their circumstances.58 Far from exempting them from paying taxes, all the farman had done was exempt the Company at Surat from transit dues and illegal or predatory taxation, and nothing more.59 Hiding behind this limited farman, Hedges was horrified at Bal Chand’s demands and dug his heels in, refusing to concede to the paying of customs, which, he estimated, would cost the

53 55 56 57 58

59

54 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 8 November 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 30 November 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 8 November 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 31 October 1683. For the myth of the Company’s customs free trading privileges in Bengal, see Sushil Chaudh ury, Companies, Commerce and Merchants: Bengal in the Pre Colonial Era (Abingdon, 2015) p. 51. Farhat Hasan, ‘Conflict and Cooperation in Anglo Mughal Trade Relations during the Reign of Aurangzeb’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 34, no. 4 (1991), p. 353.

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Company £42,000 a year. ‘If we pay 3 ½ per Cent. One yeare’, he exclaimed, ‘we shall pay 5 the next.’60 Despite Bal Chand Rai’s death in December 1683, the Company remained on the back foot. Although he had previously issued warrants to arrest interlopers, the aging Nawab Shaista Khan had recognised the opportunity to undo the emperor’s extravagant farman for custom-free trade in his province by leveraging his encouragement for the interlopers into the Company’s concession to pay tax. At the Dacca court, the nawab began to refer to the Company as ‘the Old English Traders’, and Alley and the interlopers as ‘this New Company’, who were ‘willing to pay 5 per Cent. Custome’. His position was increasingly augmented by a flood of letters in support of interlopers from senior Mughal officials across the subah. The shawbunder, or port-master, of Balasore, for instance, informed the nawab that if he extended his protection and support to them, ‘the New Company’s Trade would be much the greater’, and that consequently they would be in a position to perform that all important service to the state; ‘their paying Custome bring great profit to the King’, the shawbunder concluded.61 As these letters were read out to the nawab, James Price, the English chief of Dacca who was present at court, invoked the Company’s commercial services to the Mughal empire. Price argued that to ‘hinder’ the Company’s trade would be to the emperor’s ‘damage’ through loss of revenue and goods. But insisting that the Company’s commercial role could simply be more favourably performed by the interlopers, the nawab declared that Alley and his associates from then on ‘should trade freely’. Chief Price presently withdrew and scribbled a letter off to Agent Hedges at Hugli, warning him that it was now ‘impossible for us to hold out long without payment of Custome’.62 The success of interlopers in integrating into local power structures more effectively than the Company had created a dynamic in which the Company itself was forced to become more submissive to the regime in Bengal. By the mid-1680s, the nawab had managed to leverage his protection of the interlopers into substantially larger revenues from the Company, forcing them to abandon even their most cherished privilege: the imperial farman granted by the emperor himself. The success of the Mughal regime in playing the subordination of various English groups off against one another was one key reason for the Company’s inability to achieve significant political or jurisdictional rights in Bengal. The other reason was the Company itself, whose porous community of servants continued to pursue their adaptive and expansive commercial, familial and political networks. Indeed, the entrenchment of interlopers in Bengal was 60 61 62

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 17 November, 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 27 December 1683. DWH, Dacca to Hugli, 7 December 1683.

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essentially the product of the successful transcultural strategies adopted by Company servants, which included incorporating a variety of European and non-European groups into their networks, regardless of their corporate affiliation. As with Thomas Pitt at Balasore, interlopers fresh off the boat from Europe were initially brought into the existing operations of senior Company servants to manage their interests. It wasn’t long, however, before their greater flexibility in crossing national, sovereign and judicial borders allowed them to become senior partners in such operations and, as was certainly the case for Pitt, appropriate their resources, infrastructure and personnel for the political agenda of the interlopers as an increasingly autonomous English community. Even as William Hedges grappled with placing the Company on a more prominent footing in the eyes of the Mughal court at Dacca than William Alley and his ‘gang’, as Hedges referred to them, Thomas Pitt was in the process of creating a truly transcultural trading company of his own in Bengal, with stakeholders as broad as Dutch Company servants and Mughal governors, to servants from the English Company as well as the community of interlopers in the subah. The formation of Pitt’s company exposed the success of the Mughal authorities in ensuring the English presence remained disparate and divided. But it also exposed the Company’s diverging approaches towards the interlopers, with metropolitan authorities seeking to exclude or destroy their operations, while servants sought to incorporate and integrate them into the Company’s presence. Once again, the Company’s failure to take its servants’ lead led to a policy of confrontation, not just with interlopers but ultimately with the Mughal empire itself. Agent William Hedges had come directly from the court of committees itself, plucked out from amongst the committeemen to root out the interlopers from Bengal. Armed with a sweeping commission to use any means necessary, here was an agent of the corporate interest dedicated to placing the Company in a stronger position from which to negotiate with the Mughal authorities for the commercial privileges and political legitimacy that the presence of the interlopers had so far denied it in the Bengal subah. Hedges was to ‘seise and send home any English that you shall but suspect may aide the Interloper’. With a concise grasp on the significance of their servants’ kinship networks, East India House tasked him in particular with identifying those servants who ‘intermarry with any women that go over with any Interloper’, and to ‘dismiss forthwith such persons so marry’d from our Service and send them home with their Wifes’.63 By severing the familial ties which bound interloping communities and Company settlements together, Hedges would then be in a position to isolate figures such as William Alley from their powerful Company patrons

63

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/89, court of committees to Madras, 27 October 1682.

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and resources. The committees hoped that this would in turn encourage individual Company servants to be more zealous in convincing the Mughal authorities to disown the interlopers, and turn them out of their courts and withhold the political and commercial privileges which had allowed them to thrive in such a short period of time. ‘Let not one of these treacherous persons stay in our service’, the court declared to Hedges, ‘nor remain in India.’64 When it came to Thomas Pitt, by far the most powerful interloper beside Alley, Hedges’ entire strategy hinged on destroying one man. ‘In the first place wee do require you with all possible speed’, Hedges’ instructions from the committees urged him, ‘to seize upon the person of Mr Matthew Vincent’.65 Although they claimed that Thomas Pitt was ‘Mr Vincent’s cousin’, when he was in fact his nephew-in-law, they understood that the powerful chief of Hugli would continue not only to turn a blind eye to his family’s interloping interests but actively facilitate their growth, as Vincent no doubt had done since the early 1670s. Vincent was to be arrested and sent to Madras on charges of ‘treacherous and unpardonable sin of Complyance with Interlopers’.66 Hedges was then directed to move against Thomas Pitt himself, as Pitt would be isolated from his patron and support network. ‘Secure his person, whatever it cost to the Government or other natives’, the court wrote in a further letter, ‘so that you may answer our greate designe in preventing the prejudice that may be done us by that [Pitt’s] ship.’67 Recognising that the task at hand might not be so easy, they cautioned Hedges to be on his guard against any ‘insolent attempt of Pitts to rescue Vincent’, especially as he was ‘so well acquainted on the River Ganges’, presumably not just with its people and government but its navigation, too.68 While the Company were right to urge caution in Hedges’ attempt to destroy Pitt’s presence in Bengal, they had miscalculated in believing it was the interloper himself who posed the greatest threat. In fact, as Hedges realised almost immediately upon his arrival in Bengal, to his grave danger, Matthias Vincent posed the greatest threat to any attempt to sabotage his alliance with interlopers, especially if they threatened his family’s influence in Bengal. The success of Vincent’s position there relied on a far less formal and autonomous Company presence, one that was not potent enough to utilise the Mughal authorities against the interlopers, or indeed to act themselves. Interlopers and the Company servants who facilitated them relied upon jurisdictionally porous spaces in which to operate, moving freely between the Company and the Mughals, leveraging the rights and infrastructure of each in pursuit of their interests. If Hedges succeeded in undermining the interloping communities, he 64 66 67

65 BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/89, instructions to William Hedges, 14 November 1681. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/89, court of committees to Bengal, 20 September 1682. 68 BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/89, court of committees to Madras, 10 March 1682. Ibid.

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would be in a much stronger position to bargain the Company’s services for greater commercial and political privileges. And that is exactly what East India House sought: greater judicial powers in Bengal to monopolise the English presence there. That was impossible as long as Matthias Vincent and Thomas Pitt worked actively to prevent it. Matthias Vincent had been in Bengal for over twenty years, and chief of Hugli for the last five. In that time, he had established networks across the subah, cultivating relationships with Mughal elites, marrying into the IndoPortuguese community, creating expansive commercial interests in private trade, and establishing himself in considerable state in the city of Hugli itself. Vincent had become the archetype transcultural agent of social, cultural, political and commercial integration, moving around the country more like a Mughal prince than the representative of an English corporation. Joseph Hall witnessed Vincent’s arrival at Kasimbazar in 1678, describing how it had taken the chief an entire month to travel from Hugli as he progressed in state with a large retinue. ‘Soe long he was in bringing his family Consisting of about 20 fringeys and Portugueese’, Hall reported of Vincent, that the Company’s servants had to give up their own lodgings, ‘all being taken up by his trayne, and his Wifes’.69 Following his marriage to Henry Greenhill’s Indo-Portuguese daughter Mary, Vincent’s multiracial family had grown considerably, and he used their influence and connections in the country to fuel his private trade, and open up partnerships with a host of non-European groups. It was undoubtedly the reason for Vincent’s success in gaining the Company’s most advantageous privileges in Bengal yet, arriving in state at the new nawab’s court at Dacca in 1678 to congratulate him on his accession. Shaista Khan ‘was soe kindly taken’ by Vincent that he willingly confirmed the emperor’s farman for free trade. ‘There is now a more Solid ground for our trade in Bengall then heretofore’, concluded the chief of Kasimbazar approvingly.70 But another servant, Hall, bitter at being turned out of his own home to accommodate Vincent’s princely ambitions and multiracial family, described the chief’s partners, attendants and family to the court of committees as ‘a Sort of People, whome I have reason to think were not much for your Worships interest’.71 The court itself complained of reports that their factory at Kasimbazar was ‘frequently visited by Jesuits and Romish Priests, that goe up and down to Mr Vincents wife and family’.72 In fact, Vincent and his extended kinship network had such a hold over the Company’s presence in Bengal that he could not even be brought to account for his murder of an Indian broker. 69 70 71 72

DSM, Narrative of Joseph Hall, Kasimbazar, 1673. BL, APAC, IOR/G/23/1, consultation at Kasimbazar, 6 October 1678. DSM, Narrative of Joseph Hall, Kasimbazar, 1673. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/88, court of committees to Madras, 24 December 1675.

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When East India House demanded Vincent compensate them for all the trouble the crime had caused them, the Bengal servants closed ranks around him. ‘Your servants here are so affrighted with your Honours orders’, the agent of Madras reported, ‘that they account it more safe for them to let your business run to the utmost danger, nay to ruine itselfe.’73 This was the fully entrenched transcultural force that Agent Hedges went up against after his arrival in 1682, one that would not so easily be severed from its interloping networks. As he sailed up the Hugli River, Hedges counted on surprising Vincent and arresting him with a unit of twenty soldiers travelling on a separate ship. But forewarned of the agent’s intentions by his many ‘creatures’, as Hedges called them, Vincent fully mobilised the patronage, resources and authority of his transcultural networks in an effort to defend himself. In July 1682, Hedges arrived outside Hugli. Despite having lost sight of the vessel carrying his contingent of soldiers, which had been delayed at Balasore due to a storm, Hedges decided to confront Vincent, and made his way to the Company’s factory. The chief was not there, however, and the Company’s servants directed Hedges a few miles down-river to the Dutch Company’s garden.74 When Hedges’ boat arrived, it was met by a large flotilla of boats and barges. On board was Matthias Vincent and a veritable private army that he had raised, including thirty-five ‘firelocks’ and fifty Rajputs and Indo-Portuguese soldiers, ‘well armed’.75 Hedges was, more or less, trapped between a rock and a hard place. If he tried to retreat back up-river, Vincent’s fleet would have easily overpowered him. But if he landed, he would be more or less at the mercy of Vincent’s armed guard. Ultimately, it was Vincent himself who broke the deadlock. Holding all the cards, he feigned ignorance of Hedges’ orders to arrest him, and invited the agent ashore to the Dutch garden ‘where he had provided an entertainment for me, and made preparation for my reception’, noted Hedges in his diary.76 No longer in a position to remove the chief from power, and separated from his own reinforcements, Hedges was forced to play along and allow Vincent to laud his wealth and power through a magnificent reception. It was, however, all a very clever ploy. While Hedges was busy being check-and-mated at the Dutch garden, Thomas Pitt had arrived at Hugli with three ships to launch a full-scale evacuation of Vincent’s family, assets, papers, goods and belongings from the Company’s factory. He landed ‘in great state, with 4 or 5 files of soldiers in red coats, well armed, and great attendance of Native Soldiers and Trumpeters’.77 Hedges, finally ‘released’ from the Dutch 73 74 76

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/14, Streynsham Master to court of committees, Kasimbazar, 28 Octo ber 1676. 75 BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 24 July, 1682. Ibid. 77 Ibid. DWH, Hugli to court of committees, 30 May 1683.

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garden, returned to Hugli to find the Company’s factory ransacked and Pitt having withdrawn to the Dutch settlement of Chinsurah further up the Hugli River, where he combined forces with Matthias Vincent who was waiting for him.78 Safely beyond the reach of Hedges, Vincent and Pitt utilised the full resources available to them. With Dutch protection, the support of the Mughal authorities, the business of Indian merchants and the resources of their IndoPortuguese families, the chief and the interloper launched the ‘New English Company’, which quickly sought to supplant its rival. Pitt, the self-appointed agent, capitalised on his relationship with Governor Bal Chand to successfully acquire a farman to trade in Bengal after agreeing to pay the significant sum of 5 per cent customs ‘for all their goods, with other great presents’.79 Vincent meanwhile got to work building a new factory and warehouses, with the permission of the Dutch who were, according to bemused servants at Hugli in 1683, ‘everywhere assisting them’. No Company could succeed without merchants, of course, and soon enough they began to entice away ‘the Company’s black Merchants’, who diverted their trade to the ‘New English Company’ through ‘Vincents influence’.80 With his designs frustrated on all fronts, Agent Hedges became increasingly exasperated and hopeless in his ability to place the Company on a more prominent footing. Indeed, as Hedges dined one evening on the banks of the Hugli, he could do nothing as Pitt and Vincent cruised past him on their ship the Crown, filled with goods, bullion and armed with ‘4 guns and about 30 English seamen’.81 We can only wonder at the loss of appetite such a sight was to have caused the agent. Within the space of a year, the Mughal strategy of encouraging competing English groups had ensured a plural commercial environment that maximised the regime’s revenues while preventing any unified English presence which could be leveraged into a legitimate claim for political autonomy. By the end of 1683, the English communities had splintered into multiple corporate entities. With William Alley’s ascendancy at Hugli, the swing towards interlopers at the court in Dacca and the creation of Matthias Vincent and Thomas Pitt’s ‘New English Company’ at Chinsurah, the Mughal government were able to demand increasingly unsustainable customs on their trade in the subah of Bengal, while conceding nothing in return but the continued sanction of their presence at the expense of their rivals. Increasingly powerless against this effective strategy, James Price, the chief of Dacca, wrote ominously from the nawab’s court at the end of 1683 that if the Company ‘doe not resolve to fall out with these people very speedily’, then it would have to reconcile itself 78 79 80 81

Cornelius Dalton, The Life of Thomas Pitt (Cambridge, 1915), p. 36. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Dacca, 6 January 1683. DWH, Hugli to court of committees, 30 May 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Bankshall, 2 February 1683.

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to paying the nawab government’s larger tax revenues without the requisite privileges such service brought in other areas of Asia.82 Entertaining the idea that a show of defiance or force might mitigate the need to pay increased customs was increasingly shared by Company servants in Bengal, who sought the security of greater privileges and resented the loss of customs-free trade which would decimate their private trading networks. Most prominently, William Hedges, utterly exasperated by his flaccidity, had noted in his diary that the Company’s ‘affairs will never be better’ until they were prepared to ‘quarrel with these people, and build a Fort’. Hedges did not envisage a fullscale war against the Mughal empire, of course, but rather a show of force and the seizure of a defensive position which, he judged, might run the risk of ‘losing one yeare’s trade in the Bay’, but would ultimately prevent the Company from being ‘turned out of this country’.83 His opinion that a fortified base would eventually anchor the Company more firmly into the trade of the Mughal empire was echoed by the visiting ex-committee James Houblon, who had conversed with Hedges during his time in Bengal and pondered ‘how easiley might wee wth a fortification in Bengall agree with ye Moore to carry off all their raw & wrought silk & exclude all other nations’.84 It wasn’t remotely in the interest of the Mughal authorities to exclude the Company from Bengal, however. English trade was rivalled in size only by that of the Dutch, and like the latter they imported massive quantities of bullion which was so desperately sought by the empire to sustain Aurangzeb’s campaigns in the Deccan against the Marathas and Golconda.85 Silver imports by the English Company into Bengal in the period 1681 to 1685 alone rose to an unprecedented 82m tons.86 If the import of English bullion helped to underwrite the empire’s imperial expansion, the English and Dutch Companies’ insatiable demand for Bengali textiles provided employment for almost 10 per cent of the province’s workforce.87 As the historian John Richards concluded, the English Company’s presence in Bengal ‘directly benefited the imperial exchequer and indirectly enhanced the incomes of high-ranking Mughal officers’.88 The Company’s continued presence as a key economic constituent was therefore not under discussion, even remotely. Although from the perspective of Hedges and London the Mughal regime’s strategy of raising customs on

82 83 84 85 86 87

DWH, Dacca to Hugli, 7 December 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 30 October 1683. HL, HM 83394, Sir James Houblon’s Notebooks, 1683 1684, ‘Some Memorandum on things in India’. Abdul Majed Khan, ‘The Twilight of Mughal Bengal’, in P. J. Marshall, ed., The Eighteenth Century in Indian History: Evolution or Revolution? (Oxford, 2000), p. 360. Shireen Moosvi, ‘The Silver Influx, Money Supply, Prices and Revenue Extraction in Mughal India’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 40, no. 1 (1987), p. 70. 88 Prakash, Dutch East India Company, p. 242. Richards, Mughal Empire, p. 203.

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English trade, encouraging interlopers and withholding privileges seemed antagonistic and punitive, it was merely in an effort to subsume the English presence more thoroughly into the revenue-extracting machine of the Mughal state in Bengal. Demands for political autonomy within such a crucial and sensitive area of the province’s economic structure was always bound to be precarious, and, if possible, ultimately prevented. If the Company’s increasing importance to the fiscal and commercial systems of the subah of Bengal ensured that the Mughal government never sought to exclude the Company, it did not prevent individual servants from being driven from the province if they sought to undermine the Company’s subordination. Hedges and Price’s gathering calls for some military show of force against the Mughal regime and Hedges’ admittedly disastrous attempts to seize interlopers both resulted in a concerted effort to remove them from Bengal by the nawab, his officers and their interloping allies. Even though Hedges’ articulation of a violent break with the Mughal government aligned with the thinking of the new power in the court of committees, Chairman Josiah Child, his failure to drive interlopers out of Bengal had sealed his fate with East India House, and when Hedges was accused of opening letters addressed for them, he was dismissed as agent in 1684.89 Emboldened, his enemies immediately moved against him, seeking to seize him, or, at the very least, drive him from Bengal completely. The first rumblings came a week after his dismissal, when the captain of a visiting Company ship relayed information he had overheard in Hugli of ‘a conspiracy and combination against me to doe me all ye prejudice they could’.90 Somewhat ironically, Hedges fled to the same Dutch settlement that Vincent had withdrawn to on the agent’s first arrival, and even lodged in the very same house as his nemesis, a fact not lost on Hedges, who nonetheless resolved himself that it was ‘ye best house procurable in all ye towne’. Settled at a safe distance from the English at Hugli, Hedges appealed for the protection of the Dutch Company’s governor, Martin Huysman, who showed the ex-agent ‘great civillity and respect’.91 While it therefore seemed that he had escaped the grips of his English enemies, Hedges was not so lucky when it came to the Mughal authorities. By November, the interloping community had fully mobilised and brought their influence to bear across Bengal in an effort to have Hedges imprisoned for his actions against them while agent. Thomas Haggerston, for instance, last seen operating out of Balasore on behalf of the nawab of Orissa, travelled to the court at Dacca to lodge a claim with Nawab Shaista Khan’s foujdar ‘that I had

89 90 91

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/90, court of committees to Bengal, 29 December 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 19 August 1684. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 23 September 1684.

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seized & taken from him to ye value of near two lacks of Rupees’.92 The next month, it was widely rumoured that the nawab had published a perwanna for Hedges’ arrest, in order that the interlopers might have ‘justice’, according to the nawab.93 Rather than defend their countryman, the Company’s servants helped facilitate the warrant and worked with the nawab’s officers to apprehend Hedges. ‘So barbarously malicious have they shewne themselves’, Hedges complained in his diary, that they ‘doe what in them lyes also to expose my person to ye cruel tyranny of ye Mogulls.’ In executing the perwanna, the Company’s servants were also serving to subordinate themselves further and further to the Mughal regime. As Hedges concluded, ‘they make an example for themselves . . . & so by degrees bring all ye disputes and controversies arising betwixt ourselves to be determined by the Moor’s Justice’.94 Nonetheless, the latter was a powerful tool with which the nawab could cajole the European Companies, and, to Hedges’ horror, news of the perwanna convinced even his protector, the Dutch governor, to turn on him and deliver him up to the aging nawab. ‘So soone as he heard I was in danger of falling into trouble’, Hedges wrote regarding the Dutch governor, he ‘publickly declared I could not, nor should not, goe out of Bengall’.95 It was now or never for Hedges, and early the next morning, he and his family slipped out of the Dutch factory undetected, managing to board a vessel and sail down the Hugli and out into the vastness of the Bay of Bengal. Just as Hedges vanished out of sight, a troop of Mughal horse arrived at the Dutch factory from the foujdar to arrest the fugitive and drag him back to Dacca in chains.96 The trials and tribulations of William Hedges at Hugli demonstrate in rather dramatic fashion the success of the Mughal empire in integrating foreign constituencies without conceding the sweeping commercial and political privileges which its southern neighbours in the Vijayanagara and Golconda polities felt was necessary to consolidate their authority over the regions the Company happened to operate within. And while Hedges ultimately escaped the combination of Company servants, interlopers and Mughal elites which had sought to keep the Company’s presence more disparate, divided and ultimately disenfranchised in an effort to secure their own entwined interests, he nonetheless served as a powerful warning to any who might attempt to undermine this fruitful dynamic, one which the Mughal regime had a large stake in upholding. The decade between Pitt’s arrival at Balasore and Hedges’ flight from Hugli also reveals the crucial role played by local Asian contexts in the emergence and success of interloping assaults upon overseas trading companies in the later seventeenth century. Historians have largely understood 92 93 95

BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 14 November 1684. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 25 December 1684. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 26 December 1684.

94 96

Ibid. Ibid.

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the phenomenon through the prism of domestic European debates on monopoly, casting interlopers in Asia as the arm of anti-monopolistic interests and forces in England.97 And while the charged domestic environment did serve to encourage interloping, as witnessed by the ‘Great Case of Monopolies’, ultimately the reasons for its endurance as well as its success in preventing the Company from formalising and expanding its own presence in Bengal in the 1670s and 1680s could rather be found in the courts of Mughal nawabs, the palaces of Mughal governors and the relationships forged with Company servants, rather than the halls of parliament.98 Eventually, it would be those very nawabs, governors and relationships that would serve to unite the English presence in Bengal and empower it with the political, judicial and economic powers required to establish a substantial centre of power in the subah by the turn of the eighteenth century. But that lay in the future, and it would have been of little comfort to Sir William Hedges as he embarked on a gruelling two-year journey back to Europe. His travails involved losing his wife and son while at sea, being smuggled to Persia somewhat ironically aboard an interloping vessel, being pursued by bandits through the Ottoman empire and eventually chartering a ship across the Mediterranean to France, where he was able to cross the Channel and land at Dover in 1687.99 When he returned home, Hedges was met by a welcome party of his own kinship network, representing some of the most prominent families at East India House, including the Johnsons and the Sambrookes, both of whom counted several directors and major shareholders among their number. As they greeted the broken agent, they also confronted the failure of the Company’s attempt to determine the degree of its enfranchisement in Asia, and came face-to-face with the reality of Mughal power and its ability to bend transnational networks to serve its own interests.

97 98

99

Stern, Company State, pp. 46 47. George Jeffreys, The Argument of the Lord Chief Justice of the Court of King’s Bench Concerning the Great Case of Monopolies, between the East India Company, Plantiff, and Thomas Sandys, Defendant Wherein Their Parent for Trading to the East Indies, Exclusive of All Others, Is Adjudged Good (London, 1689). For this journey, see WH Diary, vol. 1, pp. 216 249.

5

‘A Firm Settlement in This Place’ War, Negotiation and Imperial Integration

In October 1686, a flotilla of Company warships appeared in the mouth of the Hugli river, navigating its way up the treacherous shoals and sandbanks which regularly claimed so many vessels and lives. On board were several companies of troops, sent directly by the newly constituted court of directors, empowered to wage war against the vastness of the mighty Mughal empire by a new charter from James II himself. Not since the revolution of Madras a generation before had the union of national and corporate power been so nakedly projected in Asia. The fleet was to reflect the ambitions East India House had for an expansive Company presence in Bengal, masterminded by its chairman Sir Josiah Child. Unfortunately, it proved an inauspicious start to what would turn out to be a disastrous military intervention. As the fleet had made its way up the Bay of Bengal, the ships were scattered in a storm. One was lost at sea with all hands, two more were forced to seek shelter on the coast, while the largest vessel proved too big to travel up the Hugli river. Only two vessels carrying troops managed to reach Hugli itself.1 The soldiers proved ‘very sorry fellows’, according to the Company’s chief at Hugli, Job Charnock, ‘of all which, with black and white . . . wee can not number 400 fighting men’.2 Within two years, this motley force had been chased out of Mughal Bengal, forcing the complete withdrawal of the Company’s factories and servants from the entire region. Chapter 4 explored the English East India Company at its most powerless, in which its monopolistic trading operations and diplomatic relationships became utterly subordinate to Mughal demands for greater revenue payments and politically disenfranchised vassals. While conflict had been a regular feature of the Company’s presence in Asia in the seventeenth century, whether fighting neighbouring rajas in defence of the nayak of Armagon’s independence or participating in Golconda’s wars of conquest on the Coromandel Coast, it had almost always been in the service of establishing or expanding the Company’s place within local frameworks and hierarchies of power and 1 2

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/46, Job Charnock to Surat, Little Tanna, 10 October 1687. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/46, Job Charnock to Madras, Hugli, n.d. [October 1686].

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legitimacy. In contrast, the outbreak of conflict in Bengal between the Company and the Mughal government in the years 1686 to 1690 is usually understood as an example of the Company’s willingness to deploy force against Asian powers in the service of its own territorial or sovereign expansion.3 Typically, this new belligerence has been traced to the metropole, in which a slew of pamphlets and factions of hawkish corporate figures promoted the need to embrace a new militarised policy in Asia, often citing the success of the Dutch VOC.4 Consequently, across the 1680s the Company fought wars at Bombay, Bengal and against the Siamese state. As such, historians have come to view the later seventeenth century as a period in which the Company successfully ‘reorganized and centralized its organisation in India, increased its army, and sought to expand its presence’.5 Yet the depiction of a progressively more capable and independent Company by the end of the seventeenth century does not quite reflect the integration and subservience of its actual presence within the Ganges delta. Rather, the conflict and its disastrous consequences for the Company in Bengal were rooted not in some metropolitan projection of power in Asia but in the eventual breakdown of the transnational networks woven between Company servants, interlopers and Mughal elites. These ties had served the Mughal regime effectively in subjugating the Company’s presence and preventing the emergence of centres of autonomous power, but it was their very effectiveness which eventually served to undermine their utility. The intensity of the expansive private networks which crossed jurisdictional and cultural boundaries and served to firmly root the Company’s presence in Bengal could create conflict as well as accommodation. In the environment of complete political subordination achieved by the Mughal regime, Company networks became vulnerable to exploitation, competition and rivalry. As he was preparing to make his escape from the clutches of the Dutch governor at Chinsurah and the converging forces of the nawab of Bengal in 1684, the last news William Hedges heard of affairs was that the court of committees had authorised his successors at Hugli ‘to quarrel and break friendship with the Government’.6 But the emerging pro-war lobby within Company 3

4

5 6

Philip Lawson, The East India Company: A History, 1600 1857 (London, 2006), p. 50; Robins, The Corporation That Changed the World, p. 51; Steve Pincus, ‘Rethinking Mercantilism: Political Economy, the British Empire, and the Atlantic World in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 1 (January 2012), p. 20. This of course forms part of the ‘contained conflict’ thesis discussed in the introduction, but also traces its lineage to an older historiographical perspective on the English use of maritime violence to achieve its aims. See Part I. Bruce Watson, ‘Fortifications and the “Idea” of Force in Early English East India Company Relations with India’, Past and Present, no. 88 (August, 1980), pp. 70 87. Roper, Advancing Empire, p. 232. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Chinsurah, 22 November 1684.

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leadership had little chance of pursuing a ‘quarrel’ with the Mughal government in practice without the support, collaboration and resources of Company servants in Bengal. However, at that point, as the historian Farhat Hasan has argued, ‘between the Company’s servants and the Mughal officials there existed an undefined and nebulous alliance which, though not without its own contradictions, safeguarded and fostered each other’s interests’.7 A recourse to force only became a reality once servants felt that their interests were, for some drastic set of circumstances, no longer facilitated by such alliances and the status-quo of the Company’s disenfranchisement by the Mughal government. Somewhat ironically, it was only following Agent Hedges’ expulsion from Bengal, one that Company servants had helped to facilitate, that they themselves became increasingly concerned with their inability to negotiate the terms of their relationships with the Mughal court and its elites. By the mid-1680s, this concern had turned to the certainty that they were being squeezed out of their networks in favour of interlopers. In that respect, the ensuing conflict was also illustrative of the limits of Company networks when operating outside of the constitutional parameters of the Company. If the origins of Company force against Asian states can be located within the personal conflicts which arose between Company servants and Mughal elites, so too was the projection of that force largely used as a way to renegotiate those relationships. Company servants hoped to use a limited show of force to place themselves and their networks back into the Mughal order on a more secure and legitimate footing, acquiring the rights that would protect their trade and formalise their presence. Similarly, Mughal elites responded with force in an attempt to preserve the beneficial status-quo, and to reinforce their power over Company servants. A war of conquest may have been envisaged by certain factions at East India House, but at no time did Company servants seek to realise this in Bengal. The eventual acquisition and emergence of Calcutta as a centre of Company government in the subah was not a product of the spoils of military conflict but rather the outcome of beneficial shifts in the relationships between Company servants and Mughal elites almost a decade after the war had concluded. These shifts, largely the result of a serious challenge to Mughal power from other constituents within Bengal, provided opportunities for the Company to access the sources of legitimacy and security that their use of force had denied them. By the turn of the eighteenth century, the Company had emerged as a powerful element within the Mughal hierarchy in Bengal not through the use of force but in re-developing its presence into a legitimate arm of Mughal authority. As in southern India, so too in eastern India the Company’s expansion would be achieved through the efforts of its

7

Hasan, ‘Conflict and Cooperation in Anglo Mughal Trade Relations’, p. 356.

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servants from within the parameters of the Asian state. This chapter focuses on the family, networks and policies of one particular servant, Job Charnock, who proved instrumental in grafting the Company’s presence in Bengal onto the Mughal regime at the end of the seventeenth century. Job Charnock was by far the most experienced servant in Bengal, having arrived there in 1656 as a young man in his early twenties. It was not long before his impressive commercial and political acumen was acknowledged by East India House, landing him the command of his own factory, first as chief of Patna from 1664, and then of Kasimbazar from 1680. This rapid rise was largely the product of Charnock’s almost immediate immersion into Bengali society and politics following his arrival there. When the first factories had been established at Balasore and Hugli in the 1650s, the factors were instructed that their principal concern must be ‘the advancement of the glory of God’, and this was to be done ‘by walking holily, righteously, prudently, and Christianly’. However, the same orders simultaneously urged them ‘to inform yourselves how best and most profitably to carry out the trade thereof’, and to cultivate relationships ‘with all such as are the Allies and friends of our Nation’.8 But for Charnock, there was an inherent contradiction in this approach, as he quickly discovered that a successful presence could not be established while remaining apart or outside of Bengali culture and society. As such, on one of his very first assignments to purchase saltpetre at Patna, his colleague Henry Aldworth reported in 1658 how Charnock ‘is now cutting his haire, and intends to enter into the MOORES fashion this day’. Aldworth, of course, justified this as a commercial strategy, opining that it was ‘for the quicker dispatch of his voyage’.9 This was indeed a principal benefit of adopting local customs and practices for Europeans in Asia, and Charnock’s success in increasing investments and establishing new partners in Patna soon saw him placed in charge of the factory there. In fact, Charnock’s reputation for immersing himself with his cultural surroundings, especially his linguistic abilities, led to the court of committees suggesting him as a suitable candidate to be resident at the Mughal court in Delhi to directly negotiate a new farman for the Company.10 As commercially and politically fruitful as Charnock’s adoption of Bengali customs and practices proved to be for the Company at Patna, it’s also clear that he genuinely embraced the cultural and social worlds of Bengal, and sought to establish himself permanently in the local commercial and political

8

9 10

DWH, Instructions for Mr James Bridgeman Chief, Mr Edward Stephens Second, William Blake and Francis Tayler Assistants, in the factories of Ballasor and Hukely for the honoble English East India Company, Balasore, 14 December 1650. DWH, Henry Aldworth to Thomas Davies, Rojamal, 9 February 1658. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/88, court of committees to Madras, London, 15 December 1676.

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landscape as a Mughal elite in his own right. This is most obvious in his marriage into one of the most influential Mughal families at the time, that of Governor Bal Chand Rai, whose rapid ascent up the hierarchy of the subah, with his appointment as governor of Murshidabad and then jointly of Hugli and Kasimbazar, made him one of the most important officials outside of the court at Dacca. Charnock’s marriage to ‘Maria’, as she is referred to on the epitaph in the family mausoleum, was reported by the mariner Alexander Hamilton, visiting Bengal shortly after Charnock’s death. He claimed that the chief of Kasimbazar had ‘rescued’ a Rajput noblewoman from her sati pyre, after which ‘they lived lovingly many Years, and had several Children’.11 The provenance of their marriage is partly supported by Bal Chand himself, who informed William Hedges shortly after the latter’s arrival in Bengal that Charnock did ‘keep a Gentoo woman of his kindred, which he has had these 19 years’.12 The marriage facilitated a fruitful relationship between Charnock and Bal Chand Rai in which the governor protected Charnock’s interests and secured his place at the top of local hierarchies of power and wealth. From the 1680s onwards, the Charnock family transitioned into an expansive kinship network, integrating a large group of Company servants into the family through marriage to Charnock’s children, he and his wife having had three daughters and a son.13 The eldest Anglo-Indian Charnock child, Mary, was married to Charles Eyre, a councillor at Dacca. Eyre, who would eventually succeed his father-in-law as agent of Bengal, was himself from an AngloIndian family. Sir John Goldsborough, appointed supervisor in 1693, noted Eyre’s Indian heritage, reporting that ‘he is very much for the Country habits and Customes’.14 Similarly, Charnock’s daughter Catherine married Jonathan White, a senior merchant who served his father-in-law first as a councillor and then as his secretary.15 The youngest of the Charnock daughters, Elizabeth, was similarly married into the Company’s leadership in Bengal, to the senior merchant William Bowridge.16 Both the White and Bowridge families had numerous kin stationed throughout the Bay of Bengal acting as interlopers, providing the Charnock family with even wider interests across the region.17 The establishment of the Anglo-Indian Charnock kinship network allowed Job Charnock to consolidate his hold over the Company’s community in 11 12

13 15 17

Alexander Hamilton, A New Account of the East Indies (London, 1721), vol. 2, p. 33. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Kasimbazar, 1 December 1682. For the practice of sati in Mughal India, see Susil Chaudhuri, ‘Sati as Social Institution and the Mughals’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 37 (1976), pp. 218 223. 14 Ghosh, Sex and the Family, pp. 246 247. Cited in ibid., p. xci. 16 See Wilson, Early Annals, vol. 1, p. 92, pp. 332 333. Ibid. For an account of the Charnock family and its larger kinship group, see ibid., vol. 1, pp. 307 386.

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Bengal, a process which led to the creation of a powerful social, political and commercial faction that enforced Charnock’s dominance. The latter’s influence over this faction can initially be discerned after his marriage to ‘Maria’, upon which Charnock supposedly adopted his wife’s Islamic religion.18 According to one Company servant who arrived at Calcutta shortly after Charnock’s death in 1693, many of the Company’s servants had followed Charnock’s example, marrying ‘black wives’, and showed little regard ‘for our Religion’, as he reported to East India House.19 In fact, there was little room in Bengal for Company servants who either existed outside of the Charnock network or resisted Job Charnock’s influence over their affairs. For example, when one servant, Richard Trenchfield, attempted to compete against the family’s commercial concerns at Kasimbazar in 1679, he was summarily dismissed.20 When William Hedges arrived in Bengal, he found Charnock’s commercial interests so dominant that he could barely establish his own trade in the subah, which, precedent dictated, should have taken priority as agent. ‘The Chief of Cassumbazar’s Dustuck’, Hedges fumed, referring to the pass which protected Charnock’s goods, ‘is in greater esteeme than mine.’21 As well as commercial dominance, Hedges also found that Charnock’s transcultural empowerment had also allowed him to gain political control of the Company in Bengal. From Kasimbazar, he held court with interlopers, sent out decrees to other factories and even directly recruited and promoted Company servants, even though he technically was not empowered to do so. Hedges discovered one servant who he had previously dismissed for ‘Blasphemy and Athisticall tenetts’, James Harding, re-employed at Kasimbazar by Charnock, where he was reportedly ‘fornicating with a slave wench’.22 Similarly, when ordered twice to dismiss John Griffin from his employ as a factor, Charnock simply refused to.23 Finally, Charnock brought the interlopers under his authority, protecting and facilitating their activities in exchange for a share in their operations. Under Charnock, Kasimbazar emerged as a new haven for interlopers, with witnesses reporting that the chief ‘keepe Company and Feast dayly with ye Interlopers . . . and take parts of Shipps and trade with them’.24 As leader of the entire English presence in Bengal, both corporate and noncorporate, Charnock represented a threat to the Mughal strategy of leveraging their support for different groups as a way to prevent the political or jurisdictional autonomy of the Company. Certainly, a key factor in causing a rupture between the Company and the Bengal government was Charnock’s mistake in overreaching himself by attempting to use his powerful position to dominate 18 20 23 24

19 Hamilton, A New Account of the East Indies, vol. 2, p. 33. Cited in DWH, vol. 2, p. xciii. 21 22 DSM, vol. 2, p. 284. DWH, vol. 1, p. 106. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 78. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 11 December 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 17 November 1683.

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his Mughal allies and business partners. These connections had facilitated his hold over the English presence, but when Charnock’s widespread trade monopolies and political influence began to threaten the position of the Mughal elite themselves in the economic and commercial structures of the subah, they were willing to use force to contest his position. One such figure was the prominent Indian elite Mathuradas, who had established a virtual monopoly in the silk and cloth trade between Hugli, Dacca and Kasimbazar, regularly undercutting the Company in its annual investment. Naturally, Mathuradas and Charnock quickly became rivals. As the latter’s power grew in the region, Mathuradas used his considerable wealth to bribe away the Kasimbazar picars or brokers, and in conjunction with two other local merchants chafing under Charnock’s dominance, Chaturmal and Govindji, engineered high prices in an attempt to squeeze Charnock out of the trade.25 It is little wonder that Charnock described his rival as ‘that notorious villain’.26 But for Mathuradas, Charnock’s own trading practices were monopolistic and exploitative, such as his tendency to levy his own private tax of 2 per cent on the goods brought in by picars as the price to procure from him a favourable valuation.27 Unfortunately for Charnock, his allies and most ruinously the Company, his attempt to exert his own personal influence over Kasimbazar and its environs coincided with the height of the Company’s disenfranchisement. With Hedges literally on the run and Mughal merchants and elites in a position of dominance, Bengal’s mercantile and political community moved to dislodge the chief of Kasimbazar from his position of power within the subah. At the beginning of 1683, Indian picars and merchants began to pour into the factory at Kasimbazar with their goods, fulfilling the orders placed by Charnock the year before. The rich mulberry plantations surrounding the town produced some of the finest raw silk in Asia which, along with the high quality raw cotton, meant that the local merchants could demand high prices from Charnock for their silk and taffeta goods, including highly prized dyed silk handkerchiefs known as bandannoes a Kasimbazar speciality absolutely devoured as a fashion item in Europe as well as the more common gingham, a mixed cotton and silk striped textile, and even the luxurious jamwars, a fine silk brocade popular with European nobility.28 These goods drove the Company’s dividends and stock at home, and their purchase proved to be big business by this point. The volume of silk and cotton brought in to the Bengal factories that year, the majority of which was supervised by Charnock at Kasimbazar, totalled over 200,000 lbs, costing 25 26 28

Sushil Chaudhury, Companies, Commerce and Merchants: Bengal in the Pre Colonial Era (Abingdon, 2016), p. 122. 27 Cited in ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 6 May 1683. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, pp. 241 242, 503 504.

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the Company around £90,000, or approximately 20 per cent of its entire investment in Asian goods.29 If managing the majority of this vast economic enterprise gave Charnock commercial and political influence in the region and indeed the subah as a whole, the Company’s insatiable demand for Bengali silk and cotton piece goods gave Mughal merchants and authorities even more leverage, something they usually exercised to their immense benefit, obtaining premium prices for their goods. But in the past couple of years, as Charnock’s private commercial empire had taken hold, he began to contest these prices, to the outrage of Mughal elites, merchants and even the weavers and dyers further down the food chain. Of course, driving the prices down gained Charnock immense popularity with East India House. His success in increasing margins gained him the almost unprecedented adoration of the committees, and even though reports of corruption, private interest and collusion with interlopers filtered back to London, Charnock’s commercial success provoked Sir Josiah Child to declare him in 1681 as ‘one of our most ancient and best servants’.30 More importantly, however, challenging Mughal merchants helped to secure Charnock’s own personal monopoly over the Kasimbazar region. It was widely reported how as the goods were brought into the factory every year, Charnock selected those of the finest quality and best value for his own purchase first, with the rest then sent into the warehouses for the Company. He was, one Mughal governor noted, ‘a great Theife, not only to the Merchants and other natives of the country, but to his Masters also’.31 One Company servant at Kasimbazar noted that Charnock had amassed as much as £45,000 in his private trading ventures, and that his Indo-Portuguese kinship network had consolidated their hold over the Company’s silk trade.32 A visiting London merchant typically attributed Charnock’s dominance to his transcultural conversion. He was, in the words of James Houblon, ‘too much weaded to ye Moors way of governing . . . being too seveare with all people I mean ye natives’. Nonetheless, even Houblon conceded that Charnock’s adoption of Indian cultural and political practices had earned him significant success, ‘his great excellency lying in ye cunning he hath learnt from ye Natives wch cannot easily be imposed upon by their little tricks & devices’.33 And yet this very success would be the cause of his downfall. At Murshidabad, the governor complained that Charnock ‘had been so unjust and so unworthy in all his 29 30 31 32 33

Ibid., table C.16. ‘Import of raw silk (Bengal)’, p. 533; table C.22. ‘Import of textiles (Bengal)’, p. 544. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/88, court of committees to Madras, London, 18 January 1681. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Murshidabad, 23 April 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/20/10, Kasimbazar to Hugli, 14 November 1684. HL, HM 83394, Sir James Houblon’s Notebooks, 1683 1684, ‘Some Memorandum on things in India’.

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dealings with ye people of ye country’. In a hint of what was to come, the governor warned the Company ‘that he had not forbore calling [Charnock] to Justice and giving him trouble’.34 This is exactly what Charnock got in February 1683, when he undervalued that year’s entire stock brought in by Indian merchants and picars by upward of 40,000 rupees.35 Sensing the political mood in the Mughal government against Charnock, they complained to the qazi, or judge, of Murshidabad. Sympathetic, the qazi issued a warrant at the end of 1683 summoning Charnock and the rest of the English servants to the adalat or court to answer the merchants’ claims. Charnock, used to the support and protection of Mughal authorities, simply ignored the warrant, hoping that his connections at Murshidabad and the court at Dacca would prevent the issue from spiralling out of control. That proved a mistake. In January 1684 the qazi issued a fatwa or ruling censuring Charnock for refusing to obey the summons.36 When Charnock’s partner and protector, Rai Bal Chand, died in December 1684, the new governor, Karim-ul-Mulk, was prepared to press the Kasimbazar merchants’ claims in an effort to break Charnock’s monopoly and influence over the region. With his support, the Kasimbazar merchants secured a perwanna for their goods to be re-valued at Murshidabad by a Mughal broker, accompanied by an officer from the court of the nawab at Dacca to oversee the entire affair.37 It became quickly apparent to Charnock that there was a concerted effort at the very highest levels of Mughal government in Bengal to undermine his entire position. This was confirmed when reports reached Charnock that when his old rival Mathuradas arrived at Murshidabad, the assessment being carried out on the goods turned decidedly against Charnock and found in favour of the Kasimbazar merchants, while the vakils or agents employed by Charnock to oversee the assessment were imprisoned by Karim-ul-Mulk.38 As compliant vassals of the Mughal government, the Company had set a precedent of operating within local and regional judicial systems, subjecting itself to Mughal law, oversight and regulation, especially in commercial disputes. The ruling therefore should have been binding, but, as an increasingly besieged Agent Hedges recalled, shortly before he fled Bengal for his life, Charnock ‘out of meer pride and malice would not consent unto’ the Mughal ruling.39 That was the final straw for Nawab Shaista Khan, whose prointerloping courtiers urged him to deal with Charnock directly. When the nawab 34 35 36 37 38 39

BL, BL, BL, BL, BL, BL,

APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Murshidabad, 21 April 1683. APAC, IOR/G/23/3, consultation at Kasimbazar, 9 February 1683. APAC, IOR/G/23/3, consultation at Kasimbazar, 4 January 1684. APAC, IOR/G/23/3, consultation at Kasimbazar, 17, 19, 20, 21 April 1684. APAC, IOR/G/23/3, consultation at Kasimbazar, 14 May 1684. APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 7 July 1684.

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mistook Dutch visitors to Dacca for English Company servants, he supposedly railed against them for their insubordinate behaviour, branding them ‘haramzadas’ or bastards. ‘There will be no living in Bengall for an English man’, Charnock wrote nervously after hearing this episode.40 The direct attack came in late December 1684, when the nawab issued a perwanna which not only summoned Charnock to the court at Dacca to answer for his defiance but also placed a blockade on the Kasimbazar factory, embargoing all trade and preventing anyone from coming in or out. A small force was even sent to maintain this, at one point drawing up their artillery guns and firing on the factory when Charnock attempted to smuggle out some taffetas.41 The Mughal government, the Bengali elite and its mercantile community were determined to keep Company servants from dominating local and regional hierarchies of power, commerce and authority, and saw no problem in using coercion to enforce the Company’s absolute subordination to Mughal power. As he sat bottled up and besieged in the factory at Kasimbazar throughout 1685, just the kind of solution he needed to reverse his situation and empower his position within Mughal Bengal was at that very moment assembling in London. Since despatching Hedges to Bengal as their agent in the early 1680s, court and shareholders alike had grown gradually more alarmed at the reports streaming into East India House from Asia: Bengal was infested with interlopers; the Company’s trade was on the verge of being overthrown; new taxation was being demanded on Company goods; factories were being placed under blockade and servants fired upon. For one man in particular, Sir Josiah Child, the reports only served to confirm what he had long believed and advocated, that is, the Company and therefore the nation’s trade would never flourish whilst under Mughal government. A Tory political economist, and very much the product of a resurgent metropolitan authority following the 1657 Cromwellian charter, Sir Josiah was a vehement defender of monopolist economics and the way in which trading companies existed to serve national commercial interests, most famously declaring that ‘the East-India trade is the most national of all foreign trades’ in a treatise published in 1681.42 Incidentally, this was the same year the hawkish committee was elected chairman of the court. In this position, Sir Josiah succeeded in using his influence to scaremonger significant portions of the court into resolving to assert the Company’s authority in the Mughal empire. Before Sir Josiah’s election, the court had declared that they were ‘averse to all kinds of war in India’, emphasising the ‘very great imprudence’ to be met with in fighting ‘those great and mighty 40 41 42

BL, APAC, IOR/G/20/10, Dacca to Hugli, 20 November 1684. BL, APAC, IOR/G/23/4, consultation at Kasimbazar, 29 December 1684. Philopatris [Sir Josiah Child], A Treatise Whererin Is Demonstrated, I. That the East India Trade Is the Most National of All Foreign Trades. . . (London, 1681).

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princes which might seem to obstruct our trade and ruin us’.43 But once Sir Josiah had ascended the corporate ladder, the court instructed Hedges’ successor at Hugli in 1684, John Beard, to threaten the nawab with the Company’s withdrawal of its factories and trade if he persisted in privileging the interlopers and raising taxes on their goods, and even, if necessary, to make some kind of show of force to demonstrate the Company’s new determination. Officially, the latter was only as a last resort, and Beard was told not to seek conflict with the empire if it could be avoided. Unofficially, Sir Josiah had already conceived of an ambitious plan to project the Company’s military power in India. Unfortunately for Sir Josiah, the new chief of Hugli did not share his employer’s militant design to challenge Mughal sovereignty and seek an independent footing in Bengal. As with most Company servants, Beard was intimately bound into local economic and political structures, having established social and commercial networks with Bengali merchants and English interlopers. Hedges had complained bitterly how Beard kept ‘a familiar private correspondence with disaffected persons and Interlopers’, the most notable of these being his brother-in-law, James Lowdon, as well as William Alley.44 Like Vincent, Beard’s world relied upon the complete integration of the Company in Bengal and the porousness of jurisdictional boundaries. This dynamic had so far largely succeeded in disenfranchising the Company politically and judicially, and in so doing allowed unregulated transcultural networks to flourish. The idea of an independent Company presence with defined borders and the means to regulate Anglo-Mughal trading practices would have ultimately meant the death of the transcultural communities which had allowed men like Beard to create and expand their power and wealth. Even as Sir Josiah urged Beard to step up Company rhetoric and threaten the nawab with action, the new chief of Hugli pursued a submissive negotiating stance towards the customs crisis, splurging on gifts for the nawab and his nobles. He would not dare to act, he informed Madras at the beginning of 1685, ‘in a Hostile way [which] cannot be done without fighting and killing . . . which will make an Irreparable breach, and be proclaimed an Open Warr’.45 When they got wind of this towards the end of 1685, the court was nothing short of incensed, however, decrying Beard for ‘how sheepish you are in submitting to such unreasonable affronts’.46 James Houlbon, then currently visiting Bengal from London, commented that Beard was ‘a man now of a plotting pate nor hath speculation enough to carry on things for ye true interest of ye Compa’.47 But for Beard a ‘breach’ with the 43 44 45 46 47

Cited in Keay, Honourable Company, p. 177. BL, APAC, IOR/G/40/15, diary of William Hedges, Hugli, 10 October 1683. LTFSG, Hugli to Madras, 5 January 1685. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/90, court of directors to Hugli, London, 12 August 1685. HL, HM 83394, Sir James Houblon’s Notebooks, 1683 1684, ‘Some Memorandum on things in India’.

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Mughal government would have ruptured the relationships, alliances and networks which he and his colleagues had so painstakingly constructed with surrounding interloping and Indian communities. The submissive response of servants in Bengal to the demands of the nawab and his governors only served to convince the chairman, Sir Josiah Child, of the urgency of his plans in 1686 for exerting the Company’s independence in Bengal. The first part of his plan was to acquire greater political powers for the Company by mobilising his influence with the new king, James II. Sir Josiah had been embraced by both James and his late brother Charles II as their chief economic adviser.48 This was in recognition of Sir Josiah’s prominence as one of England’s foremost merchants but it also helped to tie the Company firmly to the court, a relationship which the crown regularly squeezed for cash to fill their empty coffers. Many saw the new chairman of the Company as a royal stooge. According to a prominent critic and commercial rival, Nathaniel Cholmley, when Sir Josiah was elected chairman he ‘forsook all his old friends’ in the committees and ‘betaking himself to new counsellors’ brought in a clique of Catholic, Tory courtiers to maintain his control of the Company, including having his son-in-law Lord Worcester and the latter’s father, the Duke of Beaufort, ‘brought deep into the stock together with several other of Grandees . . . so that now [Sir Josiah] has the sole power by the disposal of their voices that no part is able to withstand him on the other side’.49 There has been a tendency to overstate the politicisation of factions within the Company, however. These could also be driven by private rivalry and interest, of the kind which had destabilised the leadership back in the crises decade of the 1630s. One victim of Sir Josiah’s purging of the court of committees when he became chairman in 1681 was Sir James Houblon, who was subsequently forced out of the court. He wrote vehemently and bitterly during his travels around Asia from 1683 of how the new regime at East India House ‘is only calculated to promote a particular private interest’. At the centre of this was Sir Josiah, whose ‘private interest is growne so vastly great’ that Houblon believed ‘all committee men who will not follow his rules & methods & service him are turned out yt’, and only those who ‘are immediate creatures’ to Sir Josiah remained.50 The factions of East India House were therefore often driven more by private rivalry and interest than growing divisions between Whig and Tory. Nonetheless, Sir Josiah and his supporters were undoubtedly close to the court of St James, with the chairman having transferred £10,000 of his own stock in the Company over to James II upon his succession to the throne.51 48 50 51

49 Pincus, 1688: The First Modern Revolution, p. 372. Cited in ibid. HL, HM 83394, Sir James Houblon’s Notebooks, 1683 1684, ‘Some Memorandum on things in India’. Robins, The Corporation That Changed the World, p. 51.

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Subsequently, the granting of a new charter was swiftly acquired, imbuing the Company with the right to wage war and claim territory in Asia.52 James II granted these new rights as he was ‘given to understand that many of the Native princes and Govrs of India . . . taking opportunity from ye Divisions, distractions or rebellions, amongst the English, occasioned by the late licentious trading of Interlopers, have of late . . . besieged their factories invaded their Libertyes [and] endammaged and abused their Chiefs and factors’.53 Armed with royal backing, Sir Josiah was able to persuade and cajole his fellow committees into underwriting the largest military force the Company had sent to Asia: a fleet of twelve warships and six hundred soldiers. Its orders were to evacuate the Company’s goods and personnel from Hugli, attack Mughal shipping in the Bay of Bengal and then sail on to the eastern Mughal city of Chittagong, seizing it as a fortified base from which the Company could gain political independence from the Mughal regime in Bengal.54 As Sir Josiah declared in his letters to servants in Asia which accompanied the fleet, ‘We must draw that Sord his Majesty hath intrusted us with, to Vindicate the Rights and Honour of the English Nation in India.’55 As it made its way to Asia, the fleet did indeed participate in a war with the Mughal empire. But much to Sir Josiah Child’s chagrin, it was not to be for the purpose of transforming the Company ‘into the condition of a sovereign State in India’, as he proclaimed it.56 Rather, for a brief period of time, the corporate and nationalist interests of East India House coincided with the complex and parochial disputes playing out between particular networks of social and commercial rivalry within the orbit of Mughal power and prestige. Sir Josiah found his hawk in Job Charnock, besieged in the Kasimbazar factory as his interests lay in tatters. But as the chairman quickly discovered, the desperate chief of Kasimbazar had no intention of using ships and soldiers from London in some misguided imperial rampage. Rather, they would prove to be just what Charnock needed to renegotiate his and his family’s position and therefore the Company’s within the hierarchy of Mughal Bengal. Sir Josiah’s great expedition would be appropriated by Charnock and his family as nothing more than a limited show of force against the actions of a small group of Mughal elites that would, as the historian Phil Stern has argued, result in ‘far greater leverage against the growing impositions of Bengal’s nawab, Shaista Khan’.57 As the intimate connections of family, commerce and culture that had been maintained over many years across communities of interlopers, Mughal elites

52 53 54 55

For a critique of ‘deductive’ descriptions of Company directors as ‘Whig’ or ‘Tory’, see Brock, ‘The Company Director’, p. 242. BL, APAC, IOR/A/1/40, His Present Majestyes Charter, 12 April 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/91, committee of secrecy to Madras, London, 14 January 1686. 56 57 Ibid. Cited in Stern, Company State, p. 86. Ibid., p. 81.

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and Company servants began to unravel, John Beard remained committed to ensuring the Company’s complete subordination to the Mughal regime. Even when the nawab rolled out a general blockade of all Company factories in Bengal and besieged the Hugli factory with several thousand troops, conflating the dispute with Charnock with the larger issues of customs payments and the dominance of interlopers, Beard still upheld the Company’s submission.58 Fortunately for Charnock, Beard died in August 1685, and as the next most senior servant in Bengal, Charnock succeeded as chief. As his private networks that had once integrated him into the Mughal order collapsed, Charnock embraced the need to use force to not only reinstate himself and retrieve the fortune and position of his extended Indo-Portuguese family within Bengal but also to acquire a package of political, judicial and commercial privileges that would protect and secure the presence of Company servants like Charnock and legitimise their position within the Mughal subah. As such, he had written furiously to the court of committees of this ‘grand designe’ to secure the rights that would provide the Company with a legitimate and stable presence in Bengal.59 As Charnock snuck out of Kasimbazar in April 1686, evading the Mughal blockade and making his way to Hugli to succeed Beard, he didn’t have to wait long before a small flotilla of Company ships appeared in the mouth of the Hugli river. Charnock hoped that this force, when combined with the threat of withdrawing the Company’s trade, would be enough to negotiate a new set of privileges for the Company in Bengal. Uncharacteristically, Charnock had severely underestimated Mughal resolve to uphold its authority in the subah. Far from intimidating the Mughal authorities, Charnock’s ragtag force of four hundred soldiers provoked the nawab into reinforcing the governor of Hugli with thousands of troops. Even after a brief skirmish between the two sides culminated in part of the port being burnt down, Charnock remained in the vicinity, hoping desperately that the nawab would open negotiations.60 As Charnock informed William Gyfford at Madras, ‘The Nabob knowes not what to thinke of us . . . therefore have taken this course for a cessation of armes.’61 Charnock led the fleet less than twenty miles down-river, on a bend of the Hugli where the villages of Sutanati, Govindpur and Kalikata clustered around the banks, and settled down for a long negotiation with the Mughal regime, ‘not without hopes of some accommodation of the differences’, Charnock reassured the president of Surat.62

58 59 60 61 62

Keay, Honourable Company, p. 154. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/90, court of committees to Hugli, London, 12 August 1685. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/46/1, Hugli to Surat, 24 October 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/46/1, Hugli to Madras, 22 November 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/46/2, Chuttanuttea [Sutanati] to Surat, 31 December 1686.

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The Company’s expedition remained ensconced at Sutanati into 1687 as Job Charnock attempted to open up negotiations with the court at Dacca. When he was reminded of the fleet’s orders to attack Chittagong, Charnock explained that such a course would only ‘incense the Emperor . . . and possibly may forfeit all our Trade in Bengall’.63 Company servants ultimately considered any attempt to pursue a war of conquest in India as ‘a designe that in the end would prove fruitelesse, and to noe purpose’, with Charnock informing Gyfford at Madras that for those reasons he had ‘taken this course for a cessation of armes, as more particularly advised’.64 When the directors found out they would bubble with rage. However, Charnock was not interested in any delusional dreams of imperial conquest in the heart of the Mughal empire, but was merely seeking to reinsert himself back into the Mughal political landscape with the legitimacy that would secure the interests of himself, his family and his partners. This was uppermost in his mind when the nawab finally sent a delegation to Sutanati to negotiate an end to the conflict. One of the key articles in a provisional agreement between Charnock and the three Mughal representatives was for the annulling of the ruling in favour of the Kasimbazar merchants against Charnock. As one of his colleagues described it, Charnock was trying to get the nawab to ‘restore the 45,000 Rupees he took about the Cassumbazar quarrel, and recover all debts contracted by the right worshipfull Agent [Charnock] when Chief there’.65 He isn’t quite saying that Charnock started a war to enforce his private interests in Bengal, but he isn’t far off. The other articles in the Sutanati negotiations included, most crucially, the granting of a farman for customs-free trade for an annual tribute of 3,000 rupees, and the granting of a site for the Company to build a fortified factory.66 Redeeming his character and position, securing his private trade and operating with security and legitimacy very much reflected Charnock’s ‘grand designe’, and shaped the course of the next three years. When the provisional agreement at Sutanati was not ratified by the emperor as Charnock requested, with the nawab stalling for time to rush reinforcements into Hugli under the command of Abdul Sumad, the buxy, or general, of Bengal, the Company’s fleet sailed to Balasore. Once again the Company’s forces skirmished with Mughal troops, part of the town was set on fire and Charnock initiated a fresh round of negotiations.67 With each new confrontation, Charnock worried that a new 63 64 65 66

67

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/46/2, Hugli to Surat, 9 December 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/30, Job Charnock to Madras, Little Tanna, 26 August 1687. EFI, Patna to Surat, 25 June 1687. BL, APAC, IOR/E/46/2, Articles of agreement between Bohourmull Mellick Bourcoordar & Mar Phanear and the Right Honourable English East India Company at Chuttanuttee, 11 January 1687. For Charnock’s narrative of these events, see BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/30, Job Charnock to Surat, Little Tanna, 10 October 1687.

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agreement would become increasingly difficult to achieve. As he lamented to the president of Surat in late 1687, ‘Wee no Less concurr with [you] in that it had been much better that Hugley had not been ransackt, Ballasore Destroyed, and the Shipps there burnt, if it had been any ways possible to have prevented it.’68 Charnock was therefore now more determined than ever to come to a settlement and salvage some kind of future in Bengal for himself, his family and his colleagues and partners in the Company. Withdrawing from Balasore, the fleet found shelter at Hijili, a swampy island at the mouth of the Hugli river. When Mughal forces caught them there, it proved to be the only ‘battle’ of the entire conflict. Marshalling Bengal’s forces and sending 12,000 men to storm Hijili, the buxy, Abdul Sumad, was imbued ‘with full power from the Nabob to End the Difference with the English, Either by fforce or peaceably’.69 Like Charnock, the buxy attempted to do both, using force to place the Company into a weak position when negotiations began. After beating off a ferocious charge of some 700 Mughal cavalrymen, Charnock and the fleet were only saved from their ‘most Desperate and Deplorable’ condition by the timely intervention of the annual trading fleet from Europe, arriving with fresh vessels, supplies and marines.70 That the Mughal government never intended to exclude the Company from Bengal, and that the Company’s servants never sought to enact some fanciful metropolitan scheme of imperial conquest or independence from the Mughal regime, was revealed following the fierce clash on Hijili. With barely a hundred healthy soldiers left, Abdul Sumad’s army of 12,000 could have annihilated Charnock and his forces. Instead, having demonstrated the empire’s might, the buxy chose to open up treaty negotiations to end the war and bring the Company back into the Mughal fold. With three emissaries from both sides, and hostages having been exchanged to ensure faithful behaviour, talks began with Charnock reviving the original treaty of Sutanati that was never ratified by the emperor. But the Company was negotiating from the weakest possible position, with Charnock confiding in the president of Surat that ‘our Condition was such at that time, through the greate Mortallity and Sickness of our Men, That Indeed we would have Acepted of any tearmes to have had our Selves, Shipps, and Goods conveighed of the island.’71 Unsurprisingly, Abdul Sumad refused to ratify the Sutanati treaty, and agreed to nothing more than a perwanna which granted the Company the right to resettle in Bengal ‘ffor the ffuture Continue your trade with the same priveledges as fformerly’.72 It was clear to Charnock that the Mughal governor wanted to enforce a return to the status-quo, with ‘a greate Designe on ffoot to flatter us 68 72

69 70 71 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/30, Articles of Peace betwixt ye Rt Honble Compa and Abdulsunmud, 21 July 1687.

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into their Clutches, with a few ffaire words’.73 Deflated, the fleet sailed back up the Hugli river to Sutanati with their perwanna, but ‘with a ffirme resolution not to Settle noe Trade, till he [the nawab] Confirmes these Last Articles, and Gives us Some security’.74 Further privileges remained elusive, and the Company’s forces remained at Sutanati into 1688, clearing land and building ramshackle mud huts.75 By this time, reports had slowly filtered back to London of the expedition’s disastrous progress. Sir Josiah Child, re-elected as chairman after a short-spell as deputy, perceived clearly that the armada he had intended to conquer Mughal territory had in fact been commandeered for other reasons. ‘We observe that you are so fond of Peace that you would find contradictions in the King’s and Our orders, to cover your avarice and faint heartedness’, the chairman thundered at Charnock, reminding him that the reports of the expedition’s progress were being read by James II himself. ‘We know your interest leads you to returne as soon as you can [to Bengal] to your Trades and getting of money’, Sir Josiah continued in late 1687, ‘but when the honour of Our King and Country is at Stake, we scorn more petty Considerations, and so should you.’76 The court urged Charnock to clutch victory from the jaws of defeat, ordering him to push on to Chittagong, or even to storm the Mughal capital at Dacca along with a swarm of Arakanese allies which they hoped might be enticed to the Company’s side.77 East India House’s policy of projecting military power in Asia might have conflated temporarily with their servants’ desire for a show of force in Bengal, and indeed both agreed that the ends were to achieve a more secure foundation for their presence in the form of a fortified base within the subah, but they diverged significantly when it came to how such a settlement would sit in the imperial landscape in Mughal Bengal. For Sir Josiah Child, he would accept nothing less than that the Company were ‘well settled and fortified in some strong place of our own, with an English garrison’.78 To realise this ambition, a second force was dispatched at the beginning of 1688 under the command of Captain William Heath, with strict orders to supersede Charnock and launch a direct attack on Chittagong, which they were to occupy and fortify as an independent Company colony.79 The second expedition’s arrival in the Bay of Bengal, comprising a newly built ship, the Defence, a frigate, the James, and a new troop of reinforcements, could not have come at a worse time for Charnock. During his stay at Sutanati, 73 75 76 77 78 79

BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/30, Job Charnock to Surat, Little Tanna, 10 October 1687. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/30, Job Charnock to Madras, Sutanati, 1 January 1688. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/91, court of directors to Bengal, London, 20 September 1687. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/91, court of directors to Bengal, London, 28 September 1687. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/91, court of directors to Bengal, London, 12 December 1687. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/91, court of directors to Madras, London, 25 January 1688.

74

Ibid.

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he had come to regard that bend of the Hugli river as the ideal site of a new settlement for the Company. Although it was barely forty miles below the city of Hugli, it was far enough to allow the Company a degree of autonomy in its day-to-day affairs while remaining accessible to the centre of Mughal governance in the region. It was also closer to the mouth of the river, with shorter times for shipping entering from the Bay, and strategically and commercially at an advantage to the other European and Mughal centres further up-river. In Charnock’s negotiations with the nawab over the course of 1687 1688, he had inserted a claim for the government of Sutanati, alongside the surrounding villages of Govindpur and Kalikata.80 While this may have seemed like a bold move, changes at the highest levels of Mughal government in Bengal had enabled Charnock to make considerable progress in his negotiations with the court at Dacca. The emperor had removed Shaista Khan as nawab in 1688. Free of the tangled interests and factional rivalry which had led to the outbreak of the war, his successor, Ibrahim Khan, proved more receptive to reintegrating the Company back into Bengal on a more formal and secure footing. The new nawab was anxious to revive what had become a linchpin of bullion, revenue and trade in his new subah at a time when the emperor Aurangzeb had stretched imperial finances to breaking point in his conquests in the Deccan.81 Charnock was able to resume the Company’s trade from Sutanati for the first time in years, while his son-in-law Charles Eyre, whom he had dispatched to the court at Dacca as ambassador with a gift of 10,000 rupees’ worth of ‘Raryties to treat wth him and agree upon those articles formerly delivered to Shastacawn’, was on the brink of securing confirmation of the original Sutanati agreement for a new settlement and customs-free trade.82 Just as Charnock was on the verge of negotiating a set of sweeping new privileges for the Company, Captain William Heath arrived in the Hugli river in September 1688 aboard the Defence. Much like a series of metropolitan agents before him, Captain Heath was not immersed in the local and regional networks which had allowed Company servants to navigate and adapt to the complex transcultural and diplomatic structures of Mughal India. Dispatched directly from London with specific instructions to carry out the policies of East India House, Heath had ignored the advice of the Madras council when he stopped there in August 1688 to consult with Charnock before carrying out his orders. Because of the ‘great Loss of men’, the ‘articles they [Charnock and his colleagues] had agreed upon’, as well as ‘the Mogulls resolute aversion against Fortifications’, and the ‘great power and force of those parts’, and finally the installation of the ‘just and kind’ Ibrahim Khan as nawab, they urged Heath to 80 81 82

BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/30, Job Charnock to Madras, Sutanati, 1 January 1688. Richards, The Mughal Empire, p. 225. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/5, consultation at Madras, 7 August 1688.

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hold a conference with the servants at Sutanati to discuss ‘the Constitution of the present Government [in Bengal]’ and their ‘Inclinations and Power’.83 But when Captain Heath alighted at the place he referred to as ‘Calcutta’ after the other settlement on that bend of the river, Kalikata he only read out his instructions from London for an attack on Chittagong. Despite Charnock urging the success of the ongoing negotiations, Heath refused to listen. Charnock then suggested that the Company servants and all of the ships’ captains should write down their opinion on whether negotiations should continue, or whether they should attack Chittagong, but was again overruled by Heath, ‘saying it would signifye nothing, the affair being solely left to his management’.84 Instead, Heath referred to the Sutanati treaty as those ‘Sham Articles of Peace’, ordered the evacuation of ‘all belonging to the English nation’ from ‘Calcutta’, and sailed out into the Bay.85 The entire withdrawal left the Mughal ambassador bewildered, as he had just arrived from Hugli ‘with Commission from the Nabob . . . to treat with us about an accommodation . . . and discourse us about a resettlement in Bengall’.86 Captain Heath’s strict adherence to his now outdated orders from East India House and his reluctance to adapt to local circumstances threatened to derail attempts to reintegrate the Company back into the Mughal order in Bengal. When the expedition reached Balasore, letters arrived for Charnock from his son-in-law Charles Eyre that he had managed to negotiate a military alliance with the nawab, in which the Company would provide shipping to transport 1,000 Mughal cavalry and 2,000 soldiers into Arakanese territory on Bengal’s eastern frontier in exchange for confirmation of the Sutanati agreement.87 Finally, here was the legitimacy that Company servants had sought to achieve in Mughal Bengal as a way to entrench their networks and relationships and acquire the rights and privileges so far denied to them. The conflict between the monopolising interests of the Company’s senior servants and certain factions of the Mughal elite which brought about conflict, while hardly to the Company’s advantage, nonetheless disrupted traditional rivalries and alliances enough that a renegotiated settlement provided new opportunities for the Company to serve the Mughal regime. When Charnock brought the news to Captain Heath of a military alliance with the nawab of Bengal against the Arakanese, however, the latter replied that he ‘would not nor could not doe it’.88 Instead, he attacked the Mughal governor’s house at Balasore when he refused to sell provisions to the Company’s expedition, although the fiasco

83 84 85 86 88

BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/5, consultation at Madras, 6 August 1688 and 9 August 1688. DWH, Job Charnock to Madras, 22 March 1689. DWH, William Heath to Madras, 16 August 1688. 87 DWH, Job Charnock to Madras, 22 March 1689. Ibid. DWH, William Heath to Madras, 16 August 1688.

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resulted in ‘the scandal’ of a number of Company servants ‘being taken prisoners and bound with fetters’.89 Despite Charnock and the rest of the leadership pressing Captain Heath to continue pursuing negotiations for a military alliance as now the only real option left to return to Bengal, the increasingly desperate captain sailed them on to Chittagong, which they reached at the beginning of 1689. Understanding nothing of the power-balance in Bengal, Heath thought he could leverage the Mughal offer of an alliance to instead contract one with the Arakanese king in order to take Chittagong, letters for that purpose having been written and given to Captain Heath by the directors on his departure. These he now dispatched ‘with a small present also, to acquaint that we would desire to joyn with him against his and our Enemies, the Mogull and Nabob of Dacca’.90 With no prior contact or relationship with the Arakanese court or state, and with few Company servants having ever established social, cultural or commercial bridges between the Company and Arakanese communities or elites, let alone attempting to offer the Company’s subordination, the offer was naturally rejected by the Arakanese court.91 Furthermore, when the fleet sent a force ashore to reconnoitre Chittagong, they found thousands of Mughal troops amassing for a campaign against the Arakanese, rendering any attempt to seize it by force out of the question.92 Feeling increasingly out of his depth, with Charnock undermining his every move, and the remaining soldiers ‘distemper’d with the scurvey’, Captain Heath threw his arms up in surrender, abandoning Bengal entirely.93 In February 1689 the expedition pushed out into the Bay and sailed south to find succour at Madras. ‘As well wishes to the Rt. Honble Company’s prosperity we can’t but be extream sorry that Capt. Heath should have thus slighted and rejected such good oportunityes and fair offers for the settling the Rt. Honble Company’s affairs in Bengall’, Charnock lamented in a letter to Madras, ‘and in likelihood confirme and conclude an Honble and firme peace, and we should have so obliged the [Mughal] emperour, by the addition of that Kingdom [Arakan] to his Territories.’ Instead, Charnock concluded, ‘Capt. Heath, tripping from Port to Port without effecting anything, hath not only rendered our nation Ridiculous, but hath unhinged all treaties by which means the trade of Bengall will be very difficult to be ever regained.’94 The resort to force and the projection of military power, far from expanding the Company’s presence in Bengal, had destroyed all foundation for future trade.

89 90 91 93 94

DWH, Job Charnock to Madras, 22 March 1689. DWH, William Heath to Madras, 16 August 1688. DWH, consultation on board the Defence, Chittagong road, 21 January 1689. DWH, William Heath to Madras, 16 August 1688. DWH, Job Charnock to Madras, 22 March 1689.

92

Ibid.

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Fortunately for those servants who had carefully immersed themselves in Mughal society for many years or decades, the web of connections and networks which bound them into local Bengali communities, whether diplomatic, commercial or familial, was not so easily dismantled by a single rampaging captain who refused to adapt his metropolitan directives to local circumstances. Almost as soon as the expedition limped into Madras, ongoing negotiations with the court at Dacca, now involving servants at Madras whom were themselves part of the private trading networks under threat by Heath’s abandonment of Bengal, were beginning to bring into fruition the efforts made by Charnock the previous year. The Company’s servants at Madras, with long experience of political enfranchisement in return for obedient service to the shifting powers of southern India, were able to push Charnock’s strategies of integration more effectively. As Elihu Yale, the governor of Madras, reminded a very receptive Ibrahim Khan following the arrival of Heath’s expedition there, the Company’s Bengal servants ‘have been of long advantage to the king [Mughal emperor] & Countery; we bringing yearly more treasure then the Dutch & all other nations together’.95 By dangling the prospect of renewed bullion imports into Mughal coffers at a time when Aurangzeb’s territorial expansion was placing new pressures on regional and provincial officials to increase revenue flow, Yale perceptively placed a tantalising new relationship on the table between Mughal Bengal and the Company, one more in line with the dynamic pursued and maintained by Madras in the south of the subcontinent. Bullion imports had perhaps been the biggest casualty of the war as far as Mughal authorities were concerned. In the period 1681 1685, the Company had exported almost 250,000 kgs of silver and 7,000 kgs of gold to Asia, but this had collapsed to barely 30,000 kgs and less than 1,000 kgs, respectively, in the period 1686 1690.96 As Yale implored the nawab, Charnock and his colleagues were merely waiting ‘till the Mogull [emperor] should be sensible of our great wrongs & doe us right therein, & recall us to o[u]r settlements & trade which have been of long advantage to the king & Countery’. Free of the commercial and social rivalries which had previously marked the relationship between Charnock and the Mughal elite, Yale banked on Ibrahim Khan’s reputation for preferring the ‘good of the King and Countery before any private interest or advantage which I am sorry to say yor predecessor studdyed’.97 Combined with Charles Eyre’s indefatigable efforts in Dacca to push his father-in-law’s interests, the tide of accommodation was clearing a return for the Company to Bengal. 95 96 97

LFFSG, Madras to nawab of Bengal, 22 February 1689. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia, table A.7, ‘The Quantity of Gold and Silver Exported by the Company, 1600 1760’, p. 177. LFFSG, Madras to nawab of Bengal, 22 February 1689.

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It was no accident that Charnock sent his own son-in-law to Dacca to treat with the new nawab, Ibrahim Khan. Having used his vast Anglo-Indian family network to expand his interests across Bengal, Charnock once again utilised his familial influence to reintegrate the Company there and reestablish his own private enterprise. As with many Mughal nobles, Charnock had a pre-existing relationship with the new nawab, Ibrahim Khan having been governor of Patna whilst Charnock was chief of the Company’s factory there for almost fifteen years. Contrasted with the destruction of the Company’s presence in Bengal occasioned by the directors’ abysmal efforts to project military power against the Mughal empire, Charnock’s strategy of tapping into personal relationships and relying on transcultural networks to place the Company on a more permanent and stable footing in Bengal was dramatically more effective. Of Indian heritage himself, married to Charnock’s Indo-Portuguese daughter, Charles Eyre represented his father-in-law as much as the Company in his negotiations with the nawab. Governor Yale recognised the advantages this had, and predicted the successful return of the Company to Bengal through playing on Charnock’s connections with the new nawab. The Company now had ‘a happy good opportunity to returne and settle in Bengall’, Yale declared in a council meeting at Madras in late 1689, which Charnock was invited to attend, ‘that Government being under that famously just and good Nabob Ebrahim Cawne . . . of whose honour the Agent [Charnock] has had long experience at Pattana’.98 The relationship between the new nawab and the old chief duly effected a reconciliation, and in the following year he invited Charnock to return to Bengal and confirm a new perwanna for establishing a factory at ‘Calcutta’, as the site at Sutanati was now more generally called. Their return was also facilitated by the end of an equally disastrous conflict on the other side of India. At Bombay, the directors had encouraged Sir John Child no relation to Sir Josiah to seize Mughal shipping in response to the refusal of Mughal authorities at Surat to arrest interlopers in 1688, in a dynamic almost identical to that playing out in Bengal. In his boardroom antics, Sir Josiah imagined western India as a second front in the great war with the Mughals which he envisaged playing out in Asia at that time. Instead, after several Mughal ships were seized, the governor of Surat stormed the Company’s factory there, placed the servants in irons and paraded them through the city. Meanwhile, in the following year the Mughal admiral Siddi Yakub blockaded the Company’s island of Bombay with a large fleet, and laid siege to the castle with 20,000 men. In a somewhat ironic twist, Sir John desperately pleaded for help from the very interlopers he had attempted to

98

BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/6, consultation at Madras, 10 October 1689.

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have arrested.99 As Sir Josiah proclaimed from London his belief that ‘The subjects of the Mogull cannot bear a war with the English for twelve months together without starving and dying by thousands for want of our trade’, Sir John and the Bombay council sued for peace.100 The terms, as the historian John Keay has noted, were humiliating. Like Sir William Hedges in Bengal, Sir John was to be expelled from Bombay, the Company were to pay the emperor an indemnity of 150,000 rupees, they promised to ‘behave themselves for the future no more in such a shameful manner’ and, finally, the emperor Aurangzeb announced that the Company ‘must proceed according to my will and pleasure, and be not forgetful of the same’.101 These articles were accepted unconditionally, made easier by Sir John’s death, very possibly from shock. As devastating as the collapse of the ‘second front’ against the Mughals was, its conclusion nonetheless helped facilitate the Company’s return and reintegration into Bengal. In summer 1690, the Company’s establishment at Fort St George lined the surf as Job Charnock and his colleagues rowed out to board the Princess, which was waiting to take them back to Bengal. Yale wrote jubilantly to the directors of Ibrahim Khan’s ‘pressing endeavours and arguments with the King [Aurangzeb] . . . he being very sensible of the great prejudice the loss your trade has been to these Provinces’.102 And while the absence of the Company from Bengal did impact the commercial environment of the subah, this tended to be an inflated claim put forward by the Company itself in the face of its negligible military performance. Rather, as Yale also emphasised in his letter to East India House, the desire of the nawab to bring the Company back into the Mughal fold was largely thanks to his ‘having been an old friend to your Affaires at Pattana and particularly known to Agent Charnock, which makes it more desired for the agents &ca. going downe’.103 In fact, Ibrahim Khan had gone above and beyond to facilitate a return of the Company to Bengal. The latter had been sought by him in the teeth of opposition from the emperor, Aurangzeb, who had finally turned his attention to the English Company following years of complaints by his uncle Shaista Khan. When the emperor demanded that Ibrahim Khan expel all of the English from Bengal in early 1690, the nawab urged otherwise, and cautioned Charnock and his colleagues to ‘make noe great noise and bring but one or two Ships for the present’. While he sought to procure a farman from the emperor, he urged the Company not ‘to be too forward in your Trafficque, until some orders arrive from thence’.104 99

100 102 104

For a narrative of the conflict at Bombay, see Margaret R. Hunt and Philip J. Stern, eds., The English East India Company at the Height of Mughal Expansion: A Soldier’s Diary of the 1689 Siege of Bombay, with Related Documents (London, 2016). 101 Cited in Keay, Honourable Company, p. 145. Cited in ibid., p. 146. 103 DWH, Madras to court of directors, 1 February 1690. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/6, consultation at Madras, 23 January 1690.

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In the world of transcultural links forged between Company servants and Mughal elites, personal and familial connections were clearly the driving forces of diplomacy and politics, and shaped the Company’s success in Asia as much as attempts at projecting national and corporate power had served to disrupt such intimacy. The Princess sailed up the Hugli river and deposited its cargo of Company servants, goods and supplies at Calcutta in September 1690.105 As they unloaded their wares and began re-establishing relationships with surrounding mercantile communities, agreeing new contracts and investing in new goods, the route to the Company’s political enfranchisement in Bengal would prove long, and Charnock’s return to Calcutta in 1690 was only the beginning of a fragile process of re-integration. Ibrahim Khan may have authorised the Company’s return to Bengal and provided a perwanna for trade, but he was not yet prepared to confirm the treaty of Sutanati from four years previous or the Company’s official settlement of Calcutta. In fact, for a long time after Calcutta had been settled, to the most optimistic it appeared that the years of disruption and hardship had barely returned the Company to the pre-1686 status-quo, while to pessimists the Company’s new position looked far more abysmal than even that. The servants at Calcutta ‘could dispose of little, nor have they safe goedowns to secure them from damage, and the truth is they live in a wild unsettled condition’, declared Governor Yale at Madras in 1691, ‘neither fortifyed houses nor goedowns, only Tents, hutts, and boats . . . a doubtful foundation, wholly depending on the good Nabob’s stay and favour’. Despite the nawab granting them permission to return, nothing concrete could be achieved without the long-awaited imperial farman confirming the terms of the Sutanati treaty, not even permanent buildings. ‘The King’s promised Phyrmaund being not yet sent them’, Yale concluded to the court of directors, ‘and the Agent &ca. little better than a Prisoner at large . . . The President had advised delay till the phyrmaund was received . . . but the Bengall gentlemen being in hast to return to their sweet plentyes which sandy Madrass could not please them in.’106 Charnock’s personal links with Ibrahim Khan’s new regime created the conditions for the Company’s return, but as nawab of one of the empire’s most important subahs, there was no rush to concede anything substantial to the Company right away. That would have to be earned, and only within a highly regulated and controlled Mughal framework. In the meantime, Charnock set about re-establishing his control of the English community in Bengal. This was helped considerably by the elation expressed by the court of directors on their servants’ return to Bengal. The loss of their trade had hurt them far more than it had the Mughal economy. Textile 105 106

BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/5, on board the Madapollam, Sutanati, 10 September 1690. DWH, Madras to court of directors, 25 May 1691.

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imports from Bengal, for instance, which had numbered over 220,000 pieces in 1685, collapsed by two-thirds in just the first year of the war, and then came to a complete stop following Heath’s evacuation in 1689. Even after the Company’s return, only 18,000 textile pieces were imported in 1693, not even a tenth of the pre-war figure, whereas no silk had yet to be brought in.107 To help jump-start their new establishment, the directors imbued Charnock with unprecedented ‘Power and Authority that he may with or without the Advice or Consent of his Councill, of Bengall, or any of our Servants there at his Discresion’.108 Clearly, they hoped to avoid the factionalism which plagued the administrations of Matthias Vincent and William Hedges in previous years. When the mariner Alexander Hamilton paid a visit to Calcutta in its early years, he noted how Charnock ‘reigned more absolutely than a Rajah’.109 Naturally, the chief put the powers to good use, tightening his family’s grip over the Company’s affairs. His son-in-law Charles Eyre was promoted to chief of the re-opened Dacca factory, which also made him the Company’s ambassador to the court of the nawab. In this capacity, almost his entire time was taken up with negotiations to have the Sutanati agreement finally ratified in the form of an imperial farman from the emperor himself. While this continued to prove elusive, Eyre did succeed in acquiring what Hedges had sought in vain for many years: a farman for customs-free trade. For the first time since the Company established itself in Bengal, it had finally been granted specific imperial recognition for its presence in the subah, providing its commercial activities with imperial legitimacy.110 However, it also bound the Company into a tributary relationship with the Mughal regime, in which the farman had to be confirmed annually by payment of a pischash or tribute of 3,000 rupees.111 When Job Charnock finally died in January 1693 after half a century living in Bengal, he had only partially fulfilled his ‘grand designe’ to entrench the Company there with the rights and legitimacy that would protect the private commercial and familial interests of Company servants. But as was typical of a vast Anglo-Indian family the likes of which Charnock had constructed over many decades, the intimate ties which shaped the Company’s presence in Mughal Bengal endured and continued to control the settlement and its 107 108 109 110

111

Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, table C.21, ‘Imports of Textiles (Bengal)’, p. 544. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/92, Instructions to Sir John Goldsborough as Commissary General of India, London, 29 February 1692. Hamilton, A New Account of the East Indies, vol. 2, p. 5. The Company had previously been awarded a farman for trade by Shah Jahan, but this was for Surat only, despite the Company attempting to make it stretch across the entire subcontinent. See Chapter 4. C. R. Wilson, ed., Old Fort William in Bengal: A Selection of Official Documents Dealing with Its History (London, 1906, 2 volumes), consultation at Calcutta, 18 January 1692 (hereafter OFWB).

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development. Despite the opposition of East India House, who favoured Charnock’s long-time councillor Francis Ellis, it was Charles Eyre that naturally succeeded his father-in-law as chief of Bengal. More than anyone, the old Dacca hand would see Charnock’s design through to the finish and place the Company firmly within legitimate hierarchies of Mughal power and authority. As chief, he consolidated the family’s hold over Calcutta, promoting his brother-in-law, Catherine Charnock’s husband, Jonathan White, to the council, along with Eyre’s own son-in-law John Russell. When White died some years later, his will demonstrated the intimacy and ties which bound the family so closely together, sharing his wealth and property between a dozen of its members, and wishing to be interred in the family mausoleum.112 This grand stone structure was begun by Charles Eyre in honour of his father-in-law in 1695. An ostentatious domed building of Indo-Persian design which stood in the centre of the protean settlement in stark contrast to the surrounding mud and timber structures, it was at once a reminder of the family’s prominent role in shaping the Company’s presence in Bengal and the family’s social and cultural affiliations straddling the intimate worlds of Europeans and Asians.113 The new Charnock generation took up their late patriarch’s vision for the Company in Mughal Bengal, one that continued to diverge from the imperial and colonial visions of the court of directors. When the latter urged Eyre to begin developing formal institutions for governing Calcutta and its residents like an English colony, the new chief delivered them a sober dose of reality. Noting the directors’ concerns that Eyre had not erected a court of judicature as ordered, he informed them that endeavours had been ‘fruitless . . . for a firm Settlement in this place’. Their orders to begin taxing Calcutta’s inhabitants were impossible without the farman. ‘We cannot lay any Impositions on the people’, he declared, ‘till such time as wee can pretend a Right to the place.’114 Having rejected the court’s model of colonial development as incompatible with the need to navigate the sensitive diplomatic and constitutional landscape of Bengal, Calcutta continued to operate below the radar in conformity to the wishes of the court at Dacca. As late as 1695 the Company’s establishment at Calcutta was still an insignificant patch of ground. Eyre had finally dared to order the construction of a single brick building, a godown or warehouse, to protect trade goods from the rains. But he refused to build any other permanent structures ‘until we have the Nabob and Duans Pwanna for a firm settlement here’, as he reported to the directors.115 Although the nawab remained on good terms with the Charnock family, and therefore remained sympathetic to the 112 113 114

OFWB, Last Will and Testament of Jonathan White, Calcutta, 14 November 1704. Robert Travers, ‘Death and the Nabob: Imperialism and Commemoration in Eighteenth Century India’, Past and Present, vol. 196, no. 1 (2007), p. 90. 115 BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/50, Calcutta to court of directors, 14 December 1695. Ibid.

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Company’s settlement, a farman for permanent settlement and the Sutanati rights remained elusive, especially as it had to be green-lit by Ibrahim Khan’s chief political rival, the diwan, the official directly appointed by the emperor and responsible for the financial administration of the subah, who had no intention of helping to facilitate the policies of the nawab. As Yale noted from Madras, the nawab and diwan constantly ‘quarrel about the Government’, a situation which had virtually hamstrung decision making at Dacca.116 It took a major military challenge to Mughal sovereignty in Bengal to finally break the Company’s arrested development. When a rebellion erupted in western Bengal in the years 1696 1698, the Company were able to prove their utility to the Mughal regime at a time when it desperately sought to mobilise its clients, allies and subordinate constituents in an effort to uphold the authority of the nawab. Much like the Anglo-Mughal War ten years previously, the rebellion had its roots in the conflicting interests and rivalries between certain Mughal nobles and government officials on the one hand, and migrating Rajput communities on the other hand, who had settled in Bengal around the same time as the Company arrived in the early seventeenth century. The Rajputs put down roots in the Midanpore region, where they facilitated the emergence of a flourishing sugar industry, helping to turn the area into a centre of production and trade. Led by Shova Singh and the Chauhan family, the Rajput communities were integrated into the power structures of the subah, and became enfranchised as zamindars or landowners, enjoying judicial and political rights over the Midnapore region.117 When the court at Dacca sided against Shova Singh in his dispute with the neighbouring zamindar of Burdwan, and supported the latter in its expansion at the expense of its smaller neighbour, the Rajput zamindar resorted to military force.118 And much like the Company in the previous decade, Shova Singh’s attempt to challenge the disenfranchisement of his zamindari by local rivals and certain Mughal elites spilled into a wider conflict with disastrous ramifications for Singh’s zamindari. Fortunately for the Company’s servants at Calcutta, this disruption of local power hierarchies provided the ideal opportunity to acquire the privileges that would empower and expand their presence in Bengal. At the beginning of 1696, in alliance with several Afghan zamindars under the leadership of Rahim Khan in the bordering subah of Orissa, the forces of Shova Singh attacked and occupied neighbouring Burdwan. After sacking the 116 117 118

Madras noted that the nawab and diwan ‘quarrel about the Government’, see BL, APAC, IOR/ G/19/23, Madras to court of directors, 30 September 1696. John R. McLane, Land and Local Kingship in Eighteenth Century Bengal (Cambridge, 1993), p. 140. Force was a typical recourse for disaffected zamindars in the Mughal empire. See Muzaffar Alam, ‘Aspects of Agrarian Uprisings in North India in the Early Eighteenth Century’, in Alam and Subrahmanyam, eds., The Mughal State, pp. 449 473.

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town and killing its ruling family, Singh and Khan marched east to Hugli, which they captured in the summer as the surprised and unprepared nawab Ibrahim Khan scrambled to muster his forces at Dacca. The loss of the principal commercial port of the subah to rebel forces damaged Mughal revenues and trade in a way that the Company’s own peripheral efforts in the previous decade failed to do. By 1697, following the capture of Murshidabad and Nadia, most of Bengal west of the Ganges had been plundered and occupied by almost 70,000 rebel soldiers, constituting one of the most serious threats to Mughal rule in Bengal in almost half a century.119 As it looked as though the regime was on the verge of collapse, Company servants pragmatically adapted to the turbulent political waters. At Calcutta, in light of the rebellion’s success, Eyre adopted ‘the prudent method’ of upholding ‘a friendship with both parties’, not openly opposing the rebels nor springing immediately to the support of the government.120 At Madras, however, Governor Yale urged Eyre to play the long game and support the Mughal government, predicting ‘it is more probable they will at last subdue the rebell’. In consideration of the Company’s efforts to acquire the rights which would allow it to permanently settle and fortify Calcutta, Yale cautioned Eyre that ‘the buildings of those who have assisted the Government may probably be connived at if not too great and to much like a Fort’.121 Yale’s was a tried and tested strategy at Madras, which had expanded its jurisdiction and authority through the award of a series of powerful farmans after working to uphold Golcondan and, latterly, Mughal authority on the Coromandel Coast. But his advice also proved a succinct insight into the dynamics of state formation in Mughal Bengal, in which the regime’s desperate need to utilise its networks of allies and supporters would inevitably lead to their political enfranchisement. It immediately paid off, with Eyre gaining permission from the besieged Ibrahim Khan to fortify the Company’s factory at Calcutta. But when the directors misinterpreted this to mean the authority to build an actual fort, Eyre was quick to correct them: ‘We fear your honours &c. misapprehend us in what we wrote about a fortification’, he wrote in April 1696, ‘which we never designed in the nature of a well modelled fort but to have built a strong factory.’122 While diligently balancing both sides of the conflict, in late 1696 and early 1697, Charles Eyre made a series of moves to help shore up the Mughal position. As the rebels consolidated their hold over western Bengal, they began their advance on the east of the subah. In response, Eyre sent his wife’s brother-in-law, William Bowridge, up the Hugli river in his ship the Diamond,

119 120 122

Richards, The Mughal Empire, p. 248. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/23, Madras to court of directors, 30 September 1696. BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/6, Calcutta to court of directors, April 1696.

121

Ibid.

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‘to prevent the Rebell forces from Coming over on this Side the river’.123 This had the desired effect of frustrating the rebel invasion of eastern Bengal and therefore protecting the Mughal capital at Dacca, ‘the enemy being ffled from all parts’.124 At the same time, Eyre threw the Calcutta factory’s newly fortified doors open to the Mughal elite, demonstrating its utility as a bastion of Mughal security. One of those who accepted the invitation was the emperor’s own munsubdar or courtier, who was granted accommodation in Calcutta ‘in Consideration of the Servis he may be able to doe our Right Honourable Masters’.125 While these efforts endeared the Company to the nawab at Dacca, it naturally gained the hostility of the rebels, something which Eyre had originally sought to avoid in light of their military success. It wasn’t long before the Company’s presence in Bengal came under attack by the rebels. In spring 1697 several servants were seized and imprisoned at the imperial mint at Rajamahul, where rebels also managed to capture 20,000 rupees of the Company’s treasure.126 In retaliation, Eyre came out openly in support of the imperial regime, stepping up the Company’s contribution to the Mughal effort to subdue the rebels and dispatching a contingent of soldiers and vessels to the forces of the new general appointed by Aurangzeb to lead the campaign, Zabardast Khan, the son of the nawab.127 Despite being an expense ‘which lyes very heavy upon us’, Eyre’s small military contribution proved timely, arriving in time to participate in the first victory against the rebels, when they were defeated by General Khan at Murshidabad, and forced back to the region of Midnapore.128 Unlike the poorly equipped forces previously sent by East India House to readdress the power dynamic between the Company and the Mughal empire, the forces deployed by servants in Bengal, while negligible, proved far more effective and decisive in achieving the Company’s aims. It was a dichotomy underscored by the disastrous advice arriving from the court of directors, who admonished Eyre in early 1698 for ‘too soon declaring for the Mogull’, a fact which ‘incensed the Rebell against [you], past all Reconciliation’.129 While not entirely advocating joining with the rebels to overthrow the Mughal government, the directors lauded the Dutch approach to their servants, in which they were ‘preserving a better Interest with the Rajah or Jemindar [zemindar]’.130 Fortunately for the directors and shareholders, the servants at Calcutta had done the opposite, and were vindicated by the Mughal regime’s subsequent acknowledgement of their part in upholding the emperor’s authority in Bengal. 123 124 125 126 127 129

BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/2, consultation at Calcutta, 23 December 1696. BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/2, consultation at Calcutta, 3 June 1697. BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/2, consultation at Calcutta, 15 April 1697. OFWB, Madras to court of directors, 3 June 1697. 128 BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/2, consultation at Calcutta, 3 June 1697. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/93, court of directors to Madras, London, 26 January 1698.

130

Ibid.

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As the flow of imperial revenues out of Bengal came to a grinding halt, Aurangzeb not only poured men and money into the subah but also enacted a sweeping regime change, replacing Ibrahim Khan as nawab with the emperor’s own grandson Prince Azim-ush-sham. Although, with his family’s own personal connections to Dacca now severed, considering Ibrahim Khan’s removal ‘a great loss’, Eyre hoped to use the opportunity of a new government to finally secure the jurisdictional and political privileges that would provide for a permanent settlement at Calcutta.131 In the spring of 1698 an embassy was dispatched from Calcutta to the new nawab with 1,000 rupees’ worth of gifts and orders to ‘insist upon the late Servises we have done the King [Aurangzeb]’.132 Although this proved somewhat of a flop, with the tent containing the gifts being blown away in a storm and the artillery gun presented to the nawab breaking apart upon firing, a more extravagant follow-up embassy, with sumptuous gifts worth 14,000 rupees and including a new artillery piece which fired properly, resulted in Prince Azim-ush-sham finally opening up negotiations with the Company.133 On 1 April 1698, the nawab granted the Company a nishan, or order, for the right to permanent settlement at Calcutta, and the privilege of purchasing the zamindari rights over the three villages of Sutanati, Govindpur and Kalikata. The Company was now officially part of the Mughal hierarchy in Bengal, exercising government and ‘paying the King as the Jamindar did’.134 At last, Eyre and the Company’s servants had realised Charnock’s vision of an entrenched, secure presence that would protect and facilitate their private interests and anchor the Company firmly within the governance of the subah. When the existing zamindars complained to the prince of being dispossessed by the Company, he paid them 500 rupees and ordered the Company to match it, as compensation.135 From now on, the Company’s jurisdictional rights and territorial government in the region would be protected by a resurgent Mughal government who began taking stock of the loyalty of their vassals when the nawab finally crushed the remnants of the rebellion in September 1698, bringing an end to two years of instability and chaos.136 Eyre was jubilant, declaring in council that the effort spent on acquiring the zamindari rights was ‘the best money that ever was Spent for so great a privilege’.137 In early 1699 Eyre relayed the news to the court of directors, declaring their success in gaining ‘the Princes Neshaan for a firme Settlement in this place with the 131 132 133 134 135 136 137

BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/7, Bengal to court of directors, 6 January 1698. BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/2, consultation at Calcutta, 24 June 1697. BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/3, consultation at Calcutta, 24 March 1698. BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/3, consultation at Calcutta, 1 April 1698. BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/3, consultation at Calcutta, 2 July 1698. McLane, Land and Local Kingship, p. 142. BL, APAC, IOR/G/7/3, consultation at Calcutta, 31 October 1698.

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rent of the three towns which will be a revenue sufficient to bare the Charge of the Garrison &ca’.138 Naturally, where the Company’s servants saw themselves exercising a Mughal office as zamindar over a settlement legitimised by imperial recognition and secured through loyalty and service to the regime, the directors saw an English colony independent of Mughal authority. They triumphantly replied to Eyre of their hope that ‘those Towns will flourish under the mild Government of the English’, urging him to expand Calcutta’s fortifications ‘without fear of giving Umbrage to the Moors, because they cant pretend to make an inquisition in a Place where they have nothing to do withall.’139 Nothing perhaps represents this dichotomy better than when they elevated the Bengal agency into a presidency at the end of 1699, re-naming their Calcutta factory ‘Fort William’, imagining themselves ‘now possessed of a strong ffortification and large Tract of Land and prospect from thence of raising a considerable Revenue’ and appointing Charles Eyre as president, acquiring a knighthood for him from William III.140 But this attempt to appropriate the achievements of Company servants as the successful outcome of metropolitan efforts to acquire an independent ‘colony’ in Asia rang hollow. Just as the Company servants’ integration into Mughal government had acquired and legitimised Calcutta, so their continued position within Mughal networks of authority and obedience would remain the decisive factor in expanding the rights and authority of the Company in Bengal. The benefits to the Company of their new position within Bengal cannot be overstated. Principally, it provided the Company with the stability and security to fend off potential rivals, just as Charnock and his contemporaries had hoped when their own interests had come under attack in the early 1680s. Such rivals were frequently to be found in ambitious Mughal political elites, powerful Bengal merchants or even neighbouring zamindars attempting to expand their own power within the subah. When such threats materialised, the Mughal government would now step in to protect the Company, or the Company would be able to exercise their zamindari powers to effectively defend themselves. This would be the case in 1708, when a nearby zamindar ‘came into the Neighbourhood of our Towns’ with a small force, at which Eyre ‘sett up the English fflags at the utmost extents of our Libertyes and forbid the Jemidars People coming within our Bounds’, an act which had the desired effect of redirecting the zamindar away from Calcutta, whereupon ‘the Nabobs Souldiers dispers’d them’.141 No wonder Eyre had proudly been able to declare to 138 139 140 141

OFWB, Calcutta to court of directors, 22 February 1699. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/93, court of directors to Bengal, 21 November 1699. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/93, court of directors to Bengal, 20 December 1699. OFWB, court of directors to Calcutta, London, 7 April 1708.

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the directors that the rights acquired from the Mughal government ensured that Calcutta was finally ‘strong enough to Secure Your estates and Servants . . . in the Kingdome of Bengall’.142 But the stability and security afforded by the zamindari also had a direct impact upon the Company’s economic growth in Bengal, a development which also reconfigured the Company’s trade more generally. Before the grant of the zamindari, instability and uncertainty had kept the purchase of goods in Bengal at little more than a low of £75,000, but within just two years of the grant the Company’s trade in the province expanded exponentially, jumping to a quarter of a million pounds.143 This growth changed the patterns of Company trade more widely. Whereas in the late seventeenth century, Madras and Surat’s share of Company trade had been as high as 80 per cent, after 1700 they were dethroned by Bengal, which alone accounted for up to half of all trade, climbing to almost 70 per cent in 1702.144 Naturally, the private trade of Company servants increased commensurately, and a posting to Bengal was now seen as the plum of the service, with the number of private trading vessels operating out of Calcutta subsequently tripling between 1700 and 1728.145 Their Asian partners began to flock there too, and by 1715 more Asian ships docked at Calcutta than at Hugli.146 Perhaps the most significant reward reaped from the Company’s incorporation into the Mughal regime in Bengal, however, was one that could not be foreseen, and that almost utterly destroyed the Company. The Anglo-Mughal War and subsequent rehabilitation of the Company in Bengal by the 1690s had significantly reduced the threat of interlopers to the Company’s position, though a pocket remained in Hugli, protected by the governor, Muttridas. But the decline of that port relative to Calcutta undermined the interlopers’ success, and they remained a marginal concern. ‘Their business goes on but Slowly’, the agent of Calcutta informed the court of directors.147 In fact, the substantial rights embodied in the zamindari grant and the official position of Calcutta within the Mughal province provided the Company with almost direct political access to the court at Dacca. This had the required effect of allowing the governor of Calcutta to procure government perwannas for the expulsion of unwanted interlopers in the subah, a great change from the trials and tribulations of the 1680s. For the majority of interlopers, the success of the Company in Bengal and its incorporation into the Mughal regime led even the most notorious interlopers to deduce that they were better off within the Company than without. In a spectacular volte-face, and after some negotiation

142 143 144 146 147

OFWB, Calcutta to court of directors, 8 January 1702. Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, table C.2. ‘Total Imports from Asia’, p. 508. 145 Ibid., p. 98. Watson, Foundation for Empire, p. 80. Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, p. 57. WH Diary, Calcutta to court of committees, 14 December 1694.

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with East India House, Thomas Pitt’s trading concerns were folded into the Company’s, and he himself was offered the governorship of Madras, which he took up in 1698.148 Pitt then subsequently brought much of his own interloping kinship network into the Company, recruiting various family members as servants. His brother-in-law Thomas Curgenven, for instance, was appointed a servant in Bengal, along with his cousin George Pitt, and his own son Robert was made a merchant at Madras.149 This was the situation, then, when perhaps the largest threat to the Company’s existence outside of the crises years of the mid-seventeenth century emerged in the form of a rival East India Company. Following the Glorious Revolution in Britain of 1688 1689, East India House’s long and expensive cultivation of close ties with the Stuart crown £324,000 had been given to Charles II alone unravelled.150 The Company suddenly found itself struggling to establish a fruitful relationship with the new Whig-dominated regime of William III, one whose power had grown considerably following a fundamental shift within the English state towards parliamentary government.151 The Company had spent almost a century building up a constitutional dialogue with the crown, upon which its chartered rights had depended, but now a toolkit of tactics to acquire these from successive monarchs, including ‘gifts’, loans and a financial share in various ventures, proved far less effective against a politically charged parliament whose interests lay against the monopolistic rights of monarchical power.152 In the postrevolutionary constitutional landscape, parliament was intent on taking charge of monopolies and was determined to regulate overseas chartered enterprise to the benefit of the nation, hoping to create what some historians have termed ‘imperial mercantilism’.153 To the Company’s dismay, ‘old rivals appeared from every corner, while new ones emerged’ throughout the 1690s to exploit the hostile attitude of parliament to the Company’s position.154 From the corrupt intrigues of its chairman Sir Josiah Child and what was now considered his uncomfortably close relationship with the disgraced James II to the Company’s abysmal military performance against the Mughal empire in the recent war to the clamours for free trade by disgruntled ex-interlopers and displaced English textile manufacturers and weavers, waves of public criticism engulfed 148 150 151

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153

149 Dalton, Thomas Pitt, p. 112. Ibid., p. 105. Sherman, ‘Pressures from Leadenhall Street’, pp. 329 355. The debate over the Company’s monopoly was in fact a contributory factor in this shift. See James Bohun, ‘Protecting Prerogative: William III and the East India Trade Debate, 1689 1698’, Past Imperfect, vol. 2 (1993), pp. 63 86. Though not entirely unsuccessful, as for certainly the first half of the 1690s the Company managed to enforce its monopoly rights with the support of the crown and a reluctant parliament. See William A. Pettigrew and George W. Van Cleve, ‘Parting Companies: The Glorious Revolution, Company Power, and Imperial Mercantilism’, The Historical Journal, vol. 57, no. 3 (2014), p. 619. 154 Ibid. Stern, Company State, p. 143.

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the Company, every one of which was entertained by parliament, who responded with a series of dramatic reforms to regulate the Company.155 A new charter confirming the Company’s rights was only narrowly granted in 1694 once the Company had reluctantly agreed to parliament’s demands to sell £100,000 worth of English wool in Asia every year and supply the English state with cheap stocks of saltpetre.156 But it wasn’t enough, and in 1697 a new kind of interloping threat emerged, one that was not technically an interloper at all but a ‘New Company’ chartered by an Act of parliament with the full backing of the new king. Parliament duly notified the ‘Old Company’ that it had just three years to wind up its affairs in Asia and then dissolve itself.157 In many respects, the creation of ‘The Governor and Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies’ was a belated reaction to the failure of the ‘Old Company’ to fulfil a national purpose of vending English goods and projecting English power overseas. Instead, it had subsumed itself within the various political and economic structures of Asia to the benefit of a web of private interests, much of which was not even English. When the Old Company tried to defend its role in promoting English interests in Asia by emphasising its acquisition of strong, populous and prosperous English settlements such as Madras, its critics were quick to highlight its subordinate and dependent relationship on Asian sovereigns. Madras, they pointed out only partly correctly was not English at all, but merely a ‘Lease from the King of Golcondah’.158 In contrast, the ‘New Company’ was to be far more of a state-backed national enterprise, as perhaps evidenced in its actual name. After all, the sweetener which had secured its charter had been a staggering offer of a £2m loan to the crown, sorely needed in the Nine Years’ War against France. William III meanwhile was personally invested in the New Company to the tune of £10,000 in stock.159 Englishmen in India and their Asian suzerains were no longer to sit in the driving seat, but rather development would be overseen by parliament. Its rights were regulated by Act of parliament, its governors who were sent out to oversee its presence were designated ‘king’s consuls’ and the MP for Liverpool, Sir William Norris knighted specially for the purpose was dispatched as official ambassador to the Mughal court. It’s almost as if the English state hit the reset button after a century of failing to promote its interests in Asia. The revocation of its charter and the formation of the New Company should have been illustrative of the potential for the domestic state to determine the Company’s development in Asia or not, in this case. On paper, its order to 155 156 158

Henry Horwitz, ‘The East India Trade, the Politicians and the Constitution: 1689 1702’, Journal of British Studies, vol. 17, no. 2 (Spring, 1978), p. 6. 157 Bohun, ‘Protecting Prerogative’, p. 79. Ibid. 159 Cited in Stern, Company State, p. 158. Ibid., p. 156.

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the Company to dissolve itself within three years somewhat ridicules any notion of an Asian genesis of English empire. But as always, in practice, the Old Company’s entrenchment in Asia and the fundamental role of Asian elites in English success beyond the Cape of Good Hope ultimately shielded it even from the intervention of the English state and the new power of parliament. The success of the Old Company in Asia and its enfranchisement by Asian elites made any attempt at dissolving this now complex transcultural enterprise somewhat redundant. Over its one-hundred-year history, the Company’s metropolitan authorities had transitioned from operating in tandem with their servants, to violently contesting their autonomy and finally to accommodating and sharing power with them and their highly successful transcultural networks. Now though, with the revocation of their charter and the launch of the New Company, the court of directors actively placed the Company’s entire survival in the hands of their servants in Asia, recognising that their integration within the regional political and economic structures would act as an effective shield against attempts to dislodge them. ‘We are Veterane Souldiers in this Warfare’, declared the directors to their servants in Bengal, ‘and if our Servants abroad in other Places do their parts . . . We don’t doubt of the Victory.’160 In the event, Company servants did their parts very well. When Sir Edward Littleton alighted in Balasore in July 1699 in his capacity as king’s consul for the New Company in Bengal, he sent a proclamation to the Old Company’s servants at Calcutta to acknowledge his commission as consul and ‘to Submitt to his Jursidiction Soe that all matters of Government would have fell under the new Presidents management’.161 Almost immediately, Sir Edward was confronted with the systematic challenges that faced any new European enterprise in Asia without decades of adaptation and integration. Balasore sat near the mouth of the Hugli River, and its navigation was impossible without the right shipping, skilled pilots and safe havens to refit and resupply all of which the Old Company had in abundance. Sir Edward demanded that all private shipping pay a consulage fee to him on behalf of the New Company, and tried to commandeer ships and pilots to escort him upriver.162 None of this was forthcoming, however, as the Company’s agent at Calcutta, Jonathan Beard, had set up his own proclamation on the gates of Calcutta ordering all those in the Company’s service not to acknowledge Sir Edward’s commission or cooperate with him in any way.163 When Sir Edward finally made his way up-river to Calcutta several months later, the factory refused to salute his presence with their guns or in honour of the king’s flag which adorned his ship, a fact which sent him into a rage and led him to dash a 160 161 163

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/93, court of directors to Bengal, 26 August 1698. 162 LTFSG, Calcutta to Madras, 12 December 1699. Ibid. LTFSG, Sir Edward Littleton to Calcutta, Hugli, 25 October 1699.

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furious letter of complaint off to the secretary of state, the duke of Shrewsbury, accusing Agent Beard of traitorous behaviour.164 Such complaints were useless, however, in the face of the opposition of Old Company servants on the spot. In possession of a prosperous urban and commercial centre, protected by the sovereignty of the nawab and Mughal emperor and secured in a series of powerful rights and grants, Agent Beard and his colleagues dug their heels in and tested the comparative flaccidity of Sir Edward’s authority. With the gates shut against him, the humiliated consul could do little but sail further up-river and establish himself in Hugli. It was an inauspicious start for someone whose authority was invested in him on behalf of ‘his Majty William the 3rd of Great Brittain’ who had ‘consistuted his minister and Consull Genll for these parts and committed and encharged the case of the Rights, libertys and Priviledges of all his Loveing Subjects in these parts’.165 Unable to smoothly appropriate the Company’s government in Calcutta, Sir Edward was forced to acquire his own settlement for the New Company, and that, he was to find out to his frustration, involved acquiring a certain set of rights and privileges that were not easily procured. This challenge was perhaps best summed up by the erstwhile interloper and himself founder of a ‘New Company’ many years before, Thomas Pitt, governor of Madras. His own cousin John Pitt had been sent out as king’s consul for the New Company at the same time as Sir Edward to gain a farman for rights to trade on the Coromandel Coast on the same footing as the Old Company. When he arrived in 1698, the consul wrote condescendingly to his cousin Thomas at Madras that he would offer him succour once the Old Company had wound up its affairs. In reply, Thomas Pitt provided a stinging lesson in the realities of a national enterprise like the New Company operating in Asia without having integrated into its local surroundings. ‘I can’t but laugh’, he wrote, ‘when you have neither forces, power nor Interest in the Countrey’. Such a situation could have only one conclusion: ‘When the MOORS have bang’d you and Stript you of what you have, upon your Submission and begging pardon for what you have done, I may Chance to protect you here.’166 Once ensconced in Hugli, Sir Edward set about acquiring the most basic of nishan or order for the New Company simply to legally reside in Bengal, but even this proved tricky, especially in the face of the access to the durbar that Old Company servants enjoyed. In fact, even as Sir Edward arrived in Bengal, Robert Hedges (son of the luckless ex-agent Sir William Hedges) and the

164

165 166

John Bruce, Annals of the Honorable East India Company: From Their Establishment by the Charter of Queen Elizabeth, 1600, to the Union of the London and English East India Companies, 1707 8 (London, 1810, 3 volumes), vol. 3, p. 349. LTFSG, Sir Edward Littleton to Calcutta, Hugli, 5 October 1699. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/55, Thomas Pitt to John Pitt, 12 November 1699.

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governor of Hugli, Muttridas, had at that moment travelled to the court at Murshidabad to discuss further trading privileges.167 Not that Sir Edward even knew the scope of rights that the Old Company possessed, petitioning Calcutta on several occasions to let him have copies of their nishans and farmans. ‘We think it no more reasonable to deliver you our Masters Phirmaund, Nishaan &c. then to deliver you their cash, or bales’, replied Agent Beard.168 Even after having spent the considerable sum of a lakh or one-hundred thousand rupees trying to obtain a nishan, Sir Edward was only able to secure a one-year dastak or personal trading pass for himself. According to John Beard, the only way the New Company could have acquired anything more was if ‘there be a change in this Government by a new Subahs arriveall’, which would prove their only opportunity to cultivate the support of a fresh regime, one unconnected to the Old Company’s servants.169 Beard was perhaps overstating the loyalty of the nawab to the Old Company, especially in the face of so much money in gifts and bribes, and by January 1700 a further 70,000 rupees spent by Sir Edward had produced a warmer response from court, indicating that if the New Company’s ambassador to the emperor succeeded in gaining a farman, then the nawab would be willing to grant a nishan to Sir Edward for the New Company’s trade in Bengal.170 There were a lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ involved, however, and the nawab’s response represented more a short-term policy of exploiting the resources and desperation of the New Company than any long-term commitment to enfranchising it with substantial rights to rival the Old Company at Calcutta. This was especially so considering Sir William Norris’ appalling lack of progress in negotiating a farman for the New Company, a fact certainly well known in Bengal. He had taken over a year simply to find the emperor in camp, landing first at Masulipatam and then sailing back to Surat, and then crawling around the Deccan with his vast entourage. But even when he reached the emperor’s camp in April 1701 there followed six months of failed negotiation, largely due to the New Company’s refusal to subordinate itself too readily to the emperor, seen most especially in Sir William’s rejection of Aurangzeb’s demand that the New Company take on responsibility for policing all of the Mughal empire’s trade routes.171 From Madras, however, Pitt had also utilised his contacts at camp, who succeeded in mobilising imperial attitudes against the New Company, especially a number of Armenian vakils or negotiators on the Madras payroll. Rather than a farman, in fact, the emperor issued orders that any New Company ship departing from Bengal had to pay a 3,000 rupee tax, a punitive policy which placed a heavy 167 168 169 170

LTFSG, Calcutta to Madras, 12 December 1699. LTFSG, Calcutta to Sir Edward Littleton, 6 February 1700. LTFSG, Calcutta to Madras, 7 March 1700. 171 LTFSG, Calcutta to Madras, 15 January 1700. Bruce, Annals, p. 468.

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burden on its trade.172 Sir William was so exasperated that he broke with diplomatic protocol in late 1701 and abandoned the imperial camp without taking leave of the emperor, and refused to return when ordered to do so by the emperor himself.173 With no farman forthcoming, high taxes on the New Company’s trade and both the ruinous expense of purchasing annual dastaks and the constant obstruction of Old Company servants at court and amongst the subah’s merchants, the majority of whom were their long-term partners, Sir Edward Littleton virtually abdicated his position as king’s consul. ‘Sr Edward is soe far Cast down and dejected that he keeps House’, observed Charles Eyre, newly returned to Bengal as President. Hugli’s Indian merchants had more or less written the New Company off, ‘notwithstanding the great noise and stir that they made of their approaching greatness and the Vast Treasure they had coming on divers ships’.174 But with the majority of Sir Edward’s investment having been spent on purchasing dastaks, lavishing the court with gifts and underwriting the expenses of Sir William’s embassy, not much had been left over to purchase goods. The result was that local merchants ‘deny’d to lend him money’, and soon Sir Edward and the New Company’s establishment at Hugli was mired in 300,000 rupees’ worth of debt.175 But Sir Edward was not alone in his abysmal attempts to displace the Old Company in Asia. The picture was the same across India. On the Coromandel Coast, for instance, Thomas Pitt, still laughing at his cousin’s expectations of supplanting him without the power or interest of the ‘Country’ government to help him, had isolated the consul’s presence at Masulipatam and gained the support of local Mughal elites in shunning his overtures to them for trading privileges. When Consul John Pitt expended much effort on attempts to gain the good offices of the rashwar or deputy of Masulipatam, the Old Company’s chief, Stephen Frewen, intervened and succeeded in securing the rashwar to his own interests, a development ‘wch disgusted the new Compas People’.176 The extent of the Old Company’s integration into the economic and political structures of Asia had effectively rendered useless all attempts by the New Company to supplant them. Having failed to gain control of any Company jurisdictions, unable to obtain recognition or privileges from Asian rulers and now burdened with debt and facing financial ruin, domestic forces had turned against the New Company, and barely three years after its launch parliament and shareholders alike were seeking to salvage anything they could from the wreckage. The solution, they hoped, would be found in merging with the far more resilient and successful Old Company. In December 1701 Governor Pitt heard the first reports from shipping at Madras that ‘Parliament was inclined to 172 175

173 174 Ibid., p. 461. Ibid., p. 470. LTFSG, Calcutta to Madras, 10 July 1700. 176 Ibid. LFFSG, Madras to Masulipatam, 24 December 1701.

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dissolve the new Company our Masters haveing offered to advance the two Millions lent on that act’.177 As the New Company stalled and failed, East India House sensed an opportunity to get rid of its executioner through a corporate buyout, absorbing its capital, interests and stakeholders by taking over responsibility for the massive loan proffered to parliament in 1698 by the New Company, and in doing so creating a vested interest amongst its political opponents for the Company’s future security. In January 1702 the merger was completed, and six months later news reached Bengal that from 1703 onwards the personnel of the New Company would be brought into the government of the Old Company’s settlements, albeit in a junior capacity, while the court of directors of both companies were merged into a united court at East India House.178 After several more years of negotiation and corporate restructuring, the ‘United East India Company’ finally emerged in 1709.179 Company servants in Bengal had dug their heels in, secure in their possession of Calcutta, and with the support of regional elites had easily undermined the New Company’s efforts to dislodge them, even when opposed by the authority of an Act of parliament and ultimately the crown. As for Sir Edward Littleton, he continued to hide himself away in his house despite the merger, writing dozens of ‘Stark mad’ rants to anyone of the New, Old or United Company that would listen, a situation that gained him the nickname ‘Strange Sir Edward’.180 As Governor Pitt observed from Madras in 1703, Sir Edward had been driven ‘craise’ from his ‘disappointments expecting to have been the Conquerors, and now to be conquered and hardly yett see their doom’.181 Historians have seen in the union of the companies the success of the British state in regulating overseas enterprise.182 And while this new state was far more capable than its much weaker English predecessor, and indeed would gradually begin to intervene more frequently in the Company’s affairs in Asia in the first half of the eighteenth century, ultimately the absorption of the New Company after 1703 represented the endurance and strength of the transcultural foundations of the Old Company.183 The ‘United Company’ gained a new motto, flag and coat of arms, all underscoring its subordination to the new expansive British state, but its own expansion in Asia continued to rely on the ties it cultivated with Asian elites and the surrender of much of its political autonomy to powerful Asian suzerains. Having survived the domestic onslaught on its position and fully embraced the Asian foundations of its presence, the first two decades of the eighteenth

177 178 180 182 183

LFFSG, Madras to Calcutta, 17 December 1701. 179 LFFSG, Madras to Calcutta, 3 August 1702. Stern, Company State, p. 162. 181 LFFSG, Madras to Calcutta, 20 October 1703. Ibid. Pettigrew and van Cleve, ‘Parting Companies’. See Chapter 8 for a discussion of the British state’s capabilities and intervention after 1707.

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century witnessed an expansion of the Company’s presence at Calcutta; as servants there were awarded increasingly powerful privileges which expanded their judicial, jurisdictional and even military authority within the subah. In 1708 came the long-awaited fort, Fort William, built during a period of further rebellion, while in 1716 an imperial farman from Emperor Farrukhisyar was finally procured during a time of civil war, granting the Company everything it desired.184 In exchange, the Company played an enlarged role in contributing to the expansive state formation processes of the Bengal nawabs, who themselves were beginning their own form of political enfranchisement as they sought to acquire greater sovereign autonomy within a changing imperial framework. As the subah of Bengal began its subtle and long-drawn out transformation into a Mughal ‘Successor state’, the Company would take on a greater role of its own within this transitioning political landscape, becoming one of the more vital constituents of the nawabi regime. As on the Coromandel Coast, the Company’s drawn-out expansion in Bengal was achieved from within the Asian state system, not by projecting force onto it but by growing within it through the acquisition of new rights and privileges that allowed it to grow politically and economically. And while force was utilised, whether in the form of the Anglo-Mughal War of 1686 1690 or later as the result of Mughal reprisals against Company factories due to European piracy in the years 1700 1702, it formed a small part of the relationship between the Company and the Mughal empire in Bengal, in which Company servants repeatedly sought to renegotiate their way back into the Mughal order, and place their interests and networks firmly within local and regional contexts. The success of this process eventually laid the foundations for their security, stability and, ultimately, expansion into the eighteenth century.

184

These events are dealt with in Chapter 8.

Part III

Limitations and Devastation

6

‘The Malays Will Not Preserve ye Countrey Themselves’ Sumatra and the Failure of Suzerainty

By the end of the seventeenth century, the Company had laid deep roots down across India, fully embedded within the economic and political structures of the Mughal empire. In the south of the sub-continent, the city of Madras had grown both demographically and jurisdictionally, with new grants incorporating neighbouring villages and communities into the city, and ever expanding farmans leading to greater political and economic powers for the Company to exercise there. Similarly, in the east, following a decade of turbulent negotiation, Calcutta had acquired a plethora of rights which allowed the city to establish itself as one of the foremost urban centres of Bengal, one that began to rival even Madras at the turn of the century as a cosmopolitan capital of trade and shipping. Under the aegis of Mughal sovereignty, the Company thrived. But the demands for sweeping privileges and new powers to facilitate the expansion of the Company’s presence had not been an entirely smooth process, involving the abandonment of settlements and even conflict with regional authorities. On the whole, however, the larger states of the Indian subcontinent had managed to absorb and utilise the Company’s expansion, even controlling it in an exploitative and subservient dynamic, as was the case in Bengal. There were limits to this transcultural, integrative, subordinate dynamic of growth and expansion, of course, especially considering that the Company’s success was less visible beyond the carapace of Mughal imperial authority. In the absence of a wider framework of legitimacy and enfranchisement to operate within, the story of the Company’s expansion proved more unstable and uneven. Take, for instance, the west coast of India. The Company had transferred its presidency from its factory in the Mughal city of Surat to the English colony of Bombay in 1687, an island which had been purchased twenty years before from Charles II, who himself had acquired it as part of the dowry of the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza.1 Following Sir John 1

For the Crown’s possession of Bombay as part of the Portuguese dowry, see Gerald L. Belcher, ‘Spain and the Anglo Portuguese Alliance of 1661: A Reassessment of Charles II’s Foreign Policy at the Restoration’, Journal of British Studies, vol. 15, no. 1 (Autumn, 1975), p. 73; for

177

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Child’s disastrous military intervention against Mughal shipping in 1688, the Company believed that developing Bombay as an independent sovereign colony at the expense of Surat would give it the freedom and security from Mughal jurisdiction that had made its servants and property so vulnerable during the Siddi invasion. The model for Bombay was not to be Madras but Batavia, the independent Dutch colony on Java. Accordingly, the island was reorganised as a ‘regency’, in which the directors hoped to establish a ‘Christian Collony’ through promotion of ‘the Laws of this Our Realm of England’.2 While this choice did indeed place Bombay beyond the frameworks of Mughal authority and legitimacy, rather than liberate the Company to develop the settlement along national or corporate lines, it actually left the island adrift in the middle of a highly contested political and jurisdictional region in which it was constantly forced to defend its independence, exert its authority and negotiate its freedom to trade in the face of more powerful rivals. As a consequence, for much of the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Bombay found itself on the losing end of entanglements with the Mughal empire’s vassal the Siddi, the Maratha Angria, Muscat pirates and a host of independent polities on the Malabar Coast.3 Not only was Bombay’s shipping almost constantly preyed upon but the Company had to invest heavily in fortifications and garrisons to protect its rights to trade on the Coast, a crippling burden which cost Bombay an annual 80,000 rupees, preventing it from becoming little more than a besieged peripheral port, unable to compete with Mughal Surat in any meaningful way until well beyond the mid-eighteenth century.4 In many respects, the comparison of Madras and Calcutta with Bombay represents the two extremities of the Company’s presence in Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Independent colony-building was rare for the English East India Company in this period, and similar attempts to work outside of indigenous imperial frameworks proved equally challenging and disappointing as Bombay’s early development, as attested to by the many abandoned settlements on the island of Madagascar.5 When the Company

2 3

4 5

the Company’s acquisition of Bombay from the Crown, see G. Z. Refai, ‘Sir George Oxinden and Bombay, 1662 1669’, The English Historical Review, vol. 92, no. 364 (July, 1977), pp. 573 581. Cited in Stern, Company State, pp. 23, 72. For these various challenges to Bombay’s expansion, see Simon Layton, ‘The “Moghul’s Admiral”: Angrian Piracy and the Rise of British Bombay’, Journal of Early Modern History, vol. 17 (2013), pp. 75 93. Ruby Maloni, ‘Surat to Bombay: Transfer of Commercial Power’, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 62 (2001), pp. 281 282. For these failed projects, see Games, Web of Empire, chapter 6; Edmond J. Smith, ‘“Canaanising Madagascar”: Africa in English Imperial Imagination, 1635 1650’, Itinerario, vol. 39 (August, 2015), pp. 277 298.

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adapted to operating within the sovereign systems of powerful states and empires, its servants and settlements could legitimise their rights, levy their presence for often transformative privileges and find a degree of stability and security that led to unprecedented commercial and political expansion. But although Asia was certainly host to the largest empires of the world, including the Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal and Qing superpowers, it did not consist exclusively of these imperial leviathans with whom the Company could ingratiate themselves. By the end of the seventeenth century, the Company’s presence had extended to an array of smaller territories, whether the polities scattered around the Arabian Sea or the port-cities of the Indonesian archipelago. Within this constellation of smaller sovereign bodies, the Company’s development and expansion proved more complex and uneven. Not only did these minor states struggle to accommodate the ambitions of Company servants and their networks but they also lacked the powerful political frameworks to contain the Company’s demand for sweeping privileges and powers. This chapter is principally concerned with the Company’s engagement with one of Asia’s largest islands, Sumatra, and the failure of servants there to entrench themselves and expand the Company’s interests in a political landscape that was shifting from the imperial to the regional. Exploring the failed attempts by servants to tie the Company into regional frameworks of authority and sovereignty on Sumatra reveals the significant role played by the local contexts of the Company’s presence in Asia, in which the petty chieftains of the riverine regions of the West Coast presented Company servants with a radically different power dynamic that struggled to either legitimise their demands for greater economic and political power or provide the imperial framework within which the Company could successfully entrench itself and find protection and security. Unlike in Mughal India, Company servants were met by a series of splintered and autonomous polities, some of which had recently seceded from collapsing empires, others that had enjoyed only nominal subjection to faraway suzerains, and others still that had remained confined to their own riverine regions and governed by their own independently elected rulers. These shifting and, in most cases, evolving frameworks of statehood made it virtually impossible for the Company to subordinate itself to a single, unitary authority that could facilitate the Company’s acquisition of powerful regional or even local powers. The Company and its servants simply could not realise their traditional strategies of subordination and integration in such transitional landscapes, in which old imperial hierarchies gave way to new regional successor states, and the parameters and sources of legitimacy and power constantly shifted to new centres. Their struggle to do so is the focus of this chapter. The English East India Company had a long history in the Indonesian archipelago, integrating itself with a series of expansive empires and states

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as early as 1602, when the Company’s first ever factory was established at Bantam on the island of Java.6 The sultanate had emerged as one of the more powerful players in the region, establishing an empire across the Straits of Sunda which stretched over the Lumpongs region in south Sumatra.7 From this base, Company servants were able to establish new satellite factories across the archipelago; the first and principal of these was established in the port-city of Jambi from 1615. Since the sixteenth century, this kingdom had grown affluent and powerful as an entrepot for the pepper trade, the result of its control of access to the Minangkabau plantations in the island’s central highlands.8 This had allowed a series of ambitious Jambi kings to successfully contest the dominance of neighbouring Palembang over the East Coast of Sumatra.9 Over the course of the seventeenth century, the Company was gradually and sometimes turbulently incorporated into the two powerful states of Bantam and Jambi. For example, in 1629 their subordination to the king of Jambi was formalised in a treaty in which Company servants committed themselves to be ‘subject to all [of the king’s] Lawes as ye rest of ye Marchants and all other Strangers observe, in this our Kingdome of Jamby’.10 This included being banned from travelling upriver to the highlands, from seizing debtors or from attacking any vessels travelling to Jambi. In exchange, the Company enjoyed constant access to the pepper trade at stable prices, and protection from Dutch attack.11 Similarly, after a rocky start, in which Bantamese strength and a multitude of other, more impressive foreign groups all vying for the sultanate’s favour meant that the English servants found it almost impossible to acquire any meaningful privileges, and even abandoned the city for a time, they were eventually brought under the sultan’s authority, especially once the Dutch withdrew to their new colony of Batavia and waged almost relentless war on Bantam.12 In exchange for generous terms of trade and access to the state’s flourishing spice markets, the Company helped to undermine Dutch naval blockades and brokered ceasefires between Batavia and Bantam.13 As at Jambi, this relationship was formalised in agreements in 1661 and 1672, with articles governing the Company’s rights in Bantam, including customs-free trade, as well as articles which committed the Company to perform a series of vital roles, including as a supplier of munitions to

6 8 9

10 11 13

7 See Chapter 1. See Bassett, ‘East India Company at Bantam’. Anthony Reid, A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads (Chichester, 2015), p. 79. For the Jambi Palembang rivalry, see Barbara Andaya Watson, ‘The Cloth Trade in Jambi and Palembang Society during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, Indonesia, no. 48 (October, 1989), pp. 27 46. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/3 2/2, Articles proclaymed by the King of Jamby to be observed by the Dutch and English, 9 December 1629. 12 Ibid. Reid, History of Southeast Asia, p. 155. Bassett, ‘East India Company at Bantam’.

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the king’s forces.14 Visiting London merchant Sir James Houblon calculated that the sultan raised as much as £100,000 per annum in customs on pepper, the ‘greatest part of wch wee paid’.15 So entrenched had the Company become in both Bantam and Jambi that when the king of the latter tried to persuade the Company to transfer its presidency from Bantam to Jambi, the sultan offered the Company a monopoly over pepper supplies in his kingdom to successfully prevent that from happening. As the chief of Bantam, Ralph Cartwright, explained to London in 1643, ‘They would not willingly we should goe hence or leave this place.’16 The Company’s experience of operating in the Indonesian archipelago was therefore one of needing to integrate itself with a series of powerful, expansive states and empires that were able not only to secure and legitimise the Company in those regions, especially in the face of dogged Dutch resistance, but to enfranchise the Company and its servants with the rights it needed to access the flourishing spice markets of Java and Sumatra, including customs-free trade and even monopolies. Despite historians’ insistence that the English Company largely withdrew from the Southeast Asian archipelagos after their servants were massacred by the Dutch VOC on Amboina, this was not remotely the case, and over the next half-century, the Company’s servants observed the success of their need to adapt to, and accommodate themselves within, the political landscape of the archipelago and its sturdy frameworks of power.17 The kingdom of Jambi successfully fended off challenges from its neighbours in an effort to maintain its hold over the routes to the pepper-producing Minangkabau highlands; the sultanate of Bantam’s imperial ambitions expanded beyond the Lampongs and into traditional Palembangese territory on the east coast; and while only a very inconsistent factory presence was established there, the private networks of Company servants stretched deep into the territory of the biggest power of all, the Acehnese empire, which held sway over much of the northern and western coasts of the island.18 For most of the first three quarters of the seventeenth century, much like on the Indian subcontinent, Company servants found themselves operating within a series of strong, regional powers, envisaging at least a partial imperial landscape in which they referred to both the rulers of Aceh and Bantam as ‘emperors’.

14 15 16 17 18

Ibid., p. 262. HL, HM 83394, Sir James Houblon’s Notebooks, 1683 1684, ‘Some Memorandum on things in India’. Cited in ibid., p. 155. For this stubbornly persistent assumption, see Borschberg, Singapore and Malak Straits, p. 61. Sher Banu A. L. Khan, ‘Response and Resilience: Aceh’s Trade in the Seventeenth Century’, Indonesia, no. 100 (October, 2015), p. 3; J. Kathirithamby Wells, ‘Achehnese Control over West Sumatra up to the Treaty of Painan, 1663’, Journal of Southeast Asian History, vol. 10, no. 3 (December, 1969), p. 476.

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The dynamics underpinning the Company’s presence at Bantam and Jambi changed irreversibly in the 1680s, however, forcing the Company to find an alternative region from where they could participate in the pepper trade. The situation transformed in Jambi first. As rivalry from its neighbours Palembang and Johore for control of the Minangkabau pepper routes intensified from the early 1670s, Jambi struggled to maintain its supremacy.19 In this period of struggle, the king of Jambi squeezed his subordinates for contributions to Jambi’s defence, and increasingly relied on their fiscal and military support. When the Company’s private trading networks began to suffer from the wars, and a series of servants were even killed in this turbulent environment in 1676, the Company began to seriously question the utility of their subordination to the kingdom, and formulated plans to withdraw from Jambi and perhaps relocate to its increasingly victorious rival Johore. As the chief of the Jambi factory declared, ‘It is now generally thought the Johores are like to prevaile which if it were once effected, we hope to find better usage under ye said people who are Malayans than under ye Jambeers who are Javaes.’20 Unfortunately, the Company’s servants did not move quickly enough, and an attack on the city of Jambi itself by a Johorean army in 1679 saw the Company’s factory burnt to the ground and several servants killed.21 The situation proved less protracted and even more dramatic at Bantam. When a power struggle broke out between Sultan Abdulfatah Ageng and his son, the Company’s chief, Francis Bowyer, supplied the regime with money and troops to defeat the usurper, a decisive factor in the repelling of an attack by the sultan’s son and a force of Dutch Company soldiers whom he had recruited in his effort to gain control of the throne. Unfortunately for the English Company, a second Dutch attack proved more successful, at which Sultan Ageg was deposed, leaving his victorious son to expel the English Company from Bantam.22 The destruction of the Company’s presence in Jambi and its expulsion from the sultanate of Bantam should have been clear signals to the English that the traditional frameworks of power within which they had successfully operated for almost a century were drastically changing. Both Jambi and Bantam had entered a period of decline as expansive states capable of exerting their authority and securing the needs and growth of their allies and vassals, while to the north-west Aceh’s direct rule over the coasts had become considerably circumscribed and largely nominal in most places. That is not to suggest that any of these polities collapsed, however. But while they outwardly continued to aspire to regional and imperial power well into the eighteenth century, in 19

20

Fiona Kerlogue, ‘The Early English Textile Trade in South East Asia: The East India Company Factory and the Textile Trade in Jambi, Sumatra, 1615 1682’, Textile History, vol. 28, no. 2 (1997), p. 157. 21 22 Cited in ibid. Ibid. Reid, History of Southeast Asia, p. 155.

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reality all three states or ‘empires’ gradually accommodated themselves to a more parochial role within the local political landscape: Jambi lost its access to the Minangkabau pepper routes; Bantam’s reliance on Dutch power undermined their control of southern Sumatra; and Aceh’s government of the west coast riverine regions disintegrated.23 But the nature of the expulsion of the Company’s presence from Jambi and Bantam to an extent distorted the fragility and increasing weakness of these traditional political orders within which they had previously been so thoroughly subordinated. Jambi’s survival as an independent state thanks in large part to a Dutch-mediated ceasefire convinced the English Company of its continued power, prompting a number of failed attempts by the Company to renegotiate a return of its servants in 1680.24 Similarly, Dutch intervention in the power struggles of the sultanate of Bantam led to the English Company blaming their expulsion almost exclusively on Dutch intrigue, and not on increasing Bantamese subordination to the Dutch VOC.25 Unable yet to acknowledge or understand the shifting political landscape in which old imperial hierarchies were transitioning into smaller local power structures that were less able to secure, legitimise or enfranchise the Company in the way it sought, its members desperately cast about for a re-entry point into the coveted pepper trade. Directors and shareholders in London were anxious not to cede competition entirely to the Dutch, whilst servants in Asia nursed their broken private trading networks, especially those in Madras for whom a crucial component of their fortunes were the exchange of Coromandel cloth for Sumatran pepper, benzoin resin, elephant’s teeth and gold.26 It’s no surprise therefore that almost immediately several new expeditions were put together to reinsert the Company into the pepper economy of the Indonesian archipelago. But with their expulsion from Java and the conflict-ridden east of Sumatra, and in the face of aggressive Dutch movements in Aceh, this just left the little-known West Coast of Sumatra. It was to this thin, comb-like stretch of coastal territory, divided by dozens of rivers flowing down from the Minangkabau Highlands, that a small expedition composed of the Amoy Merchant, the Caesar and the Rochester headed after leaving Madras at the beginning of 1685. Amongst those chosen to establish a new presence on

23

24 25 26

For a good survey of the rise and decline of these powers, see J. Kathirithamby Wells, ‘Forces of Regional and State Integration in the Western Archipelago, c. 1500 1700’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 18, no. 1 (1987), especially pp. 37 44. Barbara Watson Andaya, To Live as Brothers: Southeast Sumatra in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Honolulu, 1993), p. 128. Reid, History of Southeast Asia, p. 155. For an excellent survey of these networks, see Anne Lindsey Reber, The Private Trade of the British in West Sumatra, 1735 1770 (PhD dissertation, University of Hull, 1977), especially chapter 11.

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Sumatra were servants Clement du Jardin and John Goddard, who, with little knowledge of the region, stopped at every major trading settlement on the West Coast to negotiate grants, farmans and cowls for establishing factories and gaining monopolies over pepper. Over the next six months, du Jardin and Goddard established three key bases on the West Coast of Sumatra. At the port of Silebar to the extreme south, the ‘Maha Raja’ there offered the Company ‘all the Pepper that is procured in this Country’, if they promised to provide consistent shipping and settle permanently in the port. As the raja explained, he had previously granted a cowl to the Dutch Company, but ‘Bantam being lost’ through Dutch interference, he had subsequently severed his connections to his imperial masters in Java.27 At the town of Bencoolen slightly to the north, du Jardin and Goddard ‘had Contracted a Reall ffriendship’ with its king, and he had offered them ‘the best House in ye towne to live in Gratis’ in the hope of opening up new streams of royal revenue.28 Finally, leaving Goddard at Bencoolen, du Jardin travelled to the extreme north and landed at Inderapura at the beginning of 1685. Unlike at Silebar or Bencoolen, access to the sultan, Muhammad Syah, was restricted, and only after an overly generous dispensation of ‘Presents, Bribes, false Reports’ to the court was du Jardin able to open up negotiations for a farman, including the right to establish a fortified settlement and for a monopoly over the pepper trade.29 More so than any of the places the Company’s expedition had visited over the past six months, Inderapura seemed by far the most powerful polity encountered on the West Coast of Sumatra, and it was certainly the largest. Not only had du Jardin witnessed the sultan returning from a campaign to quell rebellious vassals to the south but he was also impressed by the war then being waged against the Dutch Company, all of which undoubtedly influenced du Jardin’s conceptualisation of the sultan as ‘Emperour’, as he described him in letters to Madras.30 To that end, du Jardin donated the hefty sum of 2,000 dollars to Inderapura’s ‘warr against the Dutch’, a contribution which netted the grant of a cowl from the emperor for the somewhat more modest privileges of a factory and rights to trade.31 As a more substantial farman proved elusive, du Jardin invited two of the emperor’s ambassadors to return with him to Madras, where a more formal

27

28 29 30 31

LTFSG, Translate of a Cowle given by Lelaw Maha Raja Orumkey of Syllabar to the Govern our and Councell of Fort St. George in the Behalfe of the Honble English East India Company, 30 April 1685. LTFSG, Articles against Capt. John Spencer relating to ye Honble East India Compas Affaires, May 1685. LTFSG, Translate of a Protest, Batavia to Madras, 30 April 1685. LTGSG, Inderapura to Batavia, 17 February 1685. DCB, consultation at Madras, 21 January 1686.

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and sweeping agreement for the Company’s presence in the ‘empire’ could be negotiated and secured.32 At every place the Company’s expedition had visited along the West Coast of Sumatra, Clement du Jardin and John Goddard perceived and articulated the presence of powerful kingdoms, sultanates and empires. At each place, they sought and acquired the rights and privileges which they believed would cover their presence with the legitimacy and security of these regimes. When du Jardin returned to Madras, the ambassadors were showered with gifts, presented with robes of honour and sent back to Inderapura with further gifts and letters to ‘His Imperial Majestie Sultan Mahomed Shaw, Emperor of Indriapore & the Severall Kingdoms on the Island of Sumatra’, requesting a package of rights that would not only anchor and expand the Company’s presence there but would contribute to the emperor’s own power over the region. Following further reciprocal exchanges with the ‘emperor’, Governor William Gyfford acknowledged his ‘kinde and Generous inclinations’ for the Company’s ‘affairs within your Majestyes Territoryes’, declaring that the terms agreed upon with the ambassadors would ‘greatly redound to yor Magnificence & Safety, & the good & benefitt of your Country & Subjects as well by checking the Dutch their insolence & averice as also by inriching & strengthening your Majesties Dominions wch is one great designe off our Settling & tradeing in your parts.’ Gyfford confidently concluded that the Company would thrive under ‘your honr & authority’.33 The governor and his council at Madras, as well as those servants opening up new factories on the West Coast itself in the years 1684 and 1685, clearly perceived the sultanate of Inderapura as a new Jambi or Bantam, able to provide the protection, legitimacy and stability that would allow their interests to thrive in that region of Asia. Over the next four years, however, the foundations established for the Company’s presence at Silebar, Bencoolen and Inderapura would prove precarious at best, as servants gradually realised that the frameworks of imperial power which they had inserted themselves into were largely imagined and illusory. In the case of Bencoolen, du Jardin’s initial settlement quite literally went up in flames, following a devastating fire which burnt much of the town to the ground in May 1685. As well as leaving the king destitute and severely ‘in want of money and goods’, the fire also destroyed the Company’s warehouse with the loss of all their property.34 It looked like the end of du Jardin’s tentative foothold on this part of the West Coast, had it not been for the intervention of Ralph Ord and Benjamin Bloome. The year before, East India House had ordered a new expedition to be sent to the far northern port of 32 33 34

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Madras to Bencoolen, 22 February 1686. LFFSG, Madras to His Imperial Majestie Sultan Mahomed Shaw, 18 October 1689. LTFSG, consultation on board the Amoy Merchant, Bencoolen road, 10 February 1685.

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Priaman, where they hoped to build a new settlement to rival Batavia, including orders for a fort to garrison 500 English troops, with English courts and martial law to govern the city.35 Unfortunately for the directors, Benjamin Bloome approached the Company’s presence in Asia much as his contemporary Job Charnock did. As member of council at Conimere in southern India, he had contributed to entrenching and expanding the Company’s new settlement there within local frameworks of authority. He and his colleagues had managed to acquire the right to build a small fort after lending generously to the raja to finance his private trade. When Conimere was threatened by invading forces, Bloome and his colleagues leveraged this to gain permission to expand their fort by an extra fifty feet, justifying it on the basis that it would help defend the city from attack and secure the raja and his goods.36 When orders arrived from London for the Priaman expedition, Bloome was summoned to Madras by Governor Gyfford. Along with Ralph Ord, who, as chief of Porto Novo, had similarly succeeded in establishing a durable and strong Company presence within the Maratha territories, they were placed in charge of the Priaman expedition and dispatched in April 1685 on board the Caesar and the Amoy Merchant. But when they arrived on the West Coast of Sumatra, the savvy Bloome and Ord rejected Priaman as a place to settle in favour of Bencoolen, as they were informed that the districts around the latter produced more pepper than the northern regions and that a small Dutch fleet was on its way to Bencoolen to prevent an English return to the area. ‘After A Tedious passage off nere two months from Madrass’, Ord wrote to Madras, ‘wee Arrived Att Bencoolen in the Criticall minute’, thwarting the Dutch expedition, which retreated south to Silebar.37 An existing agreement with the ruler, reports of bountiful pepper and an opportunity to block the Dutch, all combined to convince Ord and Bloome that Bencoolen should take precedent over Priaman. When Governor Gyfford at Madras agreed, the directors thundered back their disapproval: ‘It was a fatall and never enough to be repented errour . . . to break all our orders for a settlement at Pryaman upon a caprice of their owne to send our ships, spend our strength, our money, and soe many men’s lives upon settlement at such an unhealthful place at Bencoolen.’38 When Bloome and Ord arrived at Bencoolen on 24 June 1685, they hoped not merely to reconfirm du Jardin’s cowl, which had granted the Company the basic rights to trade and establish a factory in the town. To some extent, the ambitious brief from the directors for a flourishing colonial city like Batavia, although this had largely been rejected, combined with the concurrent 35 36 37 38

BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/90, court of directors to Madras, 19 May 1685. LTFSG, Conimere to Madras, 16 March 1685. LTFSG, Inderapura to Madras, 9 October 1685. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/91, London to Madras, 9 June 1686.

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struggle unfolding in Bengal over the legitimacy of the Company’s rights, to influence their designs for a more formal and sweeping agreement that would place the Company firmly and durably within the hierarchy of power at Bencoolen. This was boldly illustrated by the request not just for a factory in the town, but for the government of the town itself, much like the Company’s rights to fortify and govern Madras, and much like what Job Charnock and his colleagues were pursuing in Bengal at that very moment. The pursuit of such privileges after such a short relationship with the polity of Bencoolen one ending in fire and ruin was ambitious. Fortunately, the negotiations were facilitated by the private relationships established between Company servants and the elites and communities of the region, the private networks of which had consistently engineered the more formal integration of the Company into the various regions of Asia, as shown in the previous chapters of this book. At Bencoolen, Company servants enjoyed a pre-existing relationship with Orumkay Lila, who had helped them acquire a cowl to trade at Silebar the year before. As an orang kaya, or ‘rich man’, Orumkay Lila was part of the ruling elite of the West Coast of Sumatra, wielding not just commercial power but political authority within the riverine districts of the Coast.39 And much like Kasi Virana at Madras or Mathuradas in Bengal, Orumkay Lila facilitated and shaped the integration of the Company into the various regions of the West Coast of Sumatra, adeptly inserting himself as the chief intermediary between the Company and the communities and rulers of the Coast. Within the year, Orunkay Lila had conducted more than 4,000 dollars’ worth of business with Company servants, and welcomed some form of permanent presence at Bencoolen.40 Through Orumkay Lila’s influence, Bloome and Ord went ashore and negotiated with two of the principal rulers of the surrounding country who claimed sovereignty over Bencoolen. The first of these was the ruler of Sungai Lemau, whom the Company servants identified as the ‘Young King’, and the second the ruler of neighbouring Sungai Itam, known as the ‘Old King’. It was with these ‘kings’, as Bloome and Ord articulated their status, with whom negotiations were carried out. The ‘Young King’, Raja Muda, ‘enquired of us whether ye intent of our comeing was to buy Pepper onely, & soe to be gone, or to Settle here’. He was evidently anxious about potential Dutch reprisals, as he refused to grant Bloome and Ord an agreement ‘unlesse wee would dwell & abide wth ym’. In reply, they informed the ‘king’ that their ‘Aime was to Settle if upon good termes’, but that they would only do so upon condition that the 39 40

J. Kathirithamby Wells, ‘Royal Authority and the Orang Kaya in the Western Archipelago, Circa 1500 1800’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, vol. 17, no. 2 (September, 1986), p. 256. His debts to the Company are referred to in BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Ambassador of Bantam, 3 January 1686.

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Company would be ‘Lords & Sole Proprietors’ of an area encompassed by random cannon shot, and to have the entire revenue of the town themselves. In exchange, Bloome and Ord guaranteed to purchase all of the country’s pepper at the generous rate of eleven dollars a bahar,41 as well as promising to maintain ‘a Garrison for their [the kings’] Security, Trade & defence’.42 But while the prospect of contributing to a state’s wealth and defence may have worked when requesting the right to trade or to open a factory, it proved less incentivising when requesting possession of an entire town and the right to its revenue. Unsurprisingly, the negotiations broke down when the ‘Young King’ Raja Muda ‘begunn to Boggle att this’, arguing that such concessions ‘would in soe great A measure, not only lessen his soveraignty, but likewise his Revenues’.43 Only the substantial offer of twelve dollars a bahar of pepper, as well as customs payments of an extra dollar for every bahar of pepper brought down the Bencoolen River, managed to bring Raja Muda back to the negotiating table. While this steep incentive would cost the Company hundreds of dollars every month, Bloome and Ord reasoned that enriching the raja with customs payments would ‘alsoe make ye Rt Honble Compa ye more Absolute and powerfull in this place’, as tying themselves into formal agreements with the rulers ‘begetts a more seeming and perfect power’ for the Company.44 Bloome and Ord were negotiating right out of the Company handbook, building upon decades of integrative strategies used to entrench the Company into the states and empires of Asia. After several weeks of further negotiations with the pengerans of Sungai Lemau and Sungai Itam, the Company was brought formally into the economic and political structures of the Bencoolen river region. In exchange for creating lucrative flows of customs revenue, supplying arms and powder, and building fortified structures to provide an effective defence against the Dutch, the Company was installed in the government of Bencoolen and awarded a monopoly over pepper purchases. To conclude the agreement, the Company entered into a defensive military alliance with the pengerans and the surrounding ‘Hill Rajas’ from the interior, who came down to Bencoolen to ratify the agreement on 13 July. When, over the course of the summer, over 500 bahar of pepper was brought into the town, Ord and Bloome felt vindicated by their settlement at Bencoolen which, they informed Madras, had succeeded in the Company’s aim to ‘Regain ye pepper Trade, wch they have lost by Bantam being taken’.45 But over the next few years, Ord and Bloome gradually discovered that rather than a concrete foundation on which to build an 41 42 45

A bahar of pepper varied as a measurement depending on the period and the region, but equated to approximately 500 to 600 lbs. 43 44 BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Madras, 28 October 1685. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

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expansive Company presence, the transitioning political landscape of the West Coast of Sumatra operated more like quicksand, where shifting loyalties and contested power structures made it almost impossible for the Company to maintain its subordinate role within a larger hierarchy. Indeed, the ‘Young King’ Raja Muda was not a king at all, but pengeran of the Sungai Lemau district; similarly, his counterpart the ‘Old King’ was pengeran of the neighbouring district of Sungai Itam.46 The pengeran were political office holders akin to local governors, and those of Sungai Lemau and Sungai Itam had historically been appointed by the sultan of Bantam to run their respective districts.47 Then, in the 1660s, as the sultanate’s control began to decline, the pengerans were granted autonomous powers of their own and more or less exercised independence by the time the Company had arrived in the 1680s.48 Unbeknownst to Ord and Bloome, as they set about overseeing the construction of York Fort, they had stepped into the middle of a relatively smooth transition of power from the receding imperial authority of Bantam to the newly emerging local regimes of the West Coast. Predictably, it wasn’t long before the Company’s presence undermined this dynamic completely and destabilised the transitioning frameworks of legitimacy and sovereignty in the region. At the end of September 1685, as the bastions of York Fort took shape on a hill above the town of Bencoolen, reports began to arrive that a Dutch ship flying the sultan of Bantam’s flag had arrived at Silebar.49 Benjamin Bloome received the news with grave concern. He had been appointed chief of Bencoolen when Ralph Ord left to govern the northern factory at Inderapura. Over the next few months, he struggled to govern the Company’s new settlement, especially as servants and soldiers fell sick and died in such number that Bloome lamented that ‘wee have now neither men to make a grave to bury ye dead, & none to carry the dead corps out of towne’.50 As disease spread, Bloome remained as the single servant left to govern what amounted to little more than a large building site. Every time a bastion or wall was raised, it was washed away by the torrent of rains which lashed the Coast. By October, work on York Fort had stalled, and Bloome resorted to erecting a palisade of spikes to secure the encampment, a development which not only drew the ridicule of local Malays but severely undermined the Company in the eyes of the 46 47

48 49 50

See the note in John Bastin, ed., The British in West Sumatra, 1685 1825: A Selection of Documents with an Introduction (Kuala Lumpur, 1965), p. 2, fn 147. For the Company’s misinterpretation of the pengerans as kings, see J. Kathirthamby Wells, ‘A Survey of the Effects of British Influence on Indigenous Authority in Southwest Sumatra (1685 1824)’, Bijdragen tot de Taal , Land en Volkenkunde (1973), p. 244. Bastin, British in West Sumatra, p. 2, fn 147. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Madras, 29 September 1685. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Inderapura, 2 October 1685.

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pengerans and ‘Hill Rajas’ who brought their pepper down to the town from upstream.51 The anxious situation was compounded by new reports from Silebar. By December, Bloome was informed that a Bantamese force of 400 Dutch and Javanese troops had now gathered in the port.52 With his men sick and dying, and no real defensive position to secure them, Bloome looked to utilise the Company’s position within what he believed to be a powerful sovereign polity, and appealed for protection from the ‘King & ye rest of ye greate men to know their Resolution’. He asked the assembly whether ‘they will stand by us’ if the Dutch and Javanese attacked, as per the defensive alliance signed in July.53 But when Bloome received the troubling news that the ‘Young King’ Raja Muda had withdrawn to his territories in the interior, Bloome implored him to return. ‘I desire that you will come back wth all speed, for yt your presence now here is much more requisite then at another time since your going from hence.’54 But when the ‘Young King’ failed to return, it was clear to Bloome that there had been a general abandonment of the English at Bencoolen. Soon, the local Malay began to loot the poorly defended godowns of cloth and pepper. ‘Wee find ourselves quitt forsaken’, Bloome bemoaned of the local Malays, whom, he believed, ‘would undoubtedly have by violence taken away from us ye Rt Honble Compas Estate’ had the Bantamese not been poised to do exactly that any day then.55 As the Dutch and Javanese force increased at Silebar, so an increasing numbers of Malay allies and elites abandoned the Company at Bencoolen. One of these, Pattee Suranagary, visited Bloome to assure him of his intention to support the Company against Bantam, and offered to loan Bloome 100 dollars to pay for the upkeep of the Company’s garrison. But the next day, he had disappeared from the town. ‘He has been gone now 8 dayes . . . soe that wee now planely see, yt they [the Malays] are a Company of base and treacherous rogues, only endeavouring to gitt they can from us, & soe leave us.’56 When Bloome was able to question one departing Malay chief as to why he was abandoning Bencoolen, he replied that ‘the king being gone they cannot wth securety doe anything’. Bloome therefore made a final appeal to the ‘Young King’ to return and restore authority that the Company might retain the cooperation of the governing elite, but ‘he sent us word back he had businesse & could not yett’.57 While Bloome believed that the ‘kings’ and their elites had been treacherous in their dealings with the Company, or, as Bloome himself put it, ‘plainly 51 53 54 55 57

52 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Inderapura, 18 December 1685. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Benjamin Bloome to Patte Sittea Raja Muddo the Young King, 18 December 1685. 56 BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Inderapura, 18 December 1685. Ibid. Ibid.

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seeing that ye King intending to Play ye turn Coate wth us’, the truth was more complex.58 As approximately 3,000 more Javanese troops amassed at Silebar, they were joined by Karia Sutra Gistra, the jenang or ambassador of the sultan of Bantam. The jenang had been sent to reassert Bantam’s suzerainty over the districts of the West Coast, facilitated now by Dutch naval power, the VOC hoping to create its own monopoly over the region to the exclusion of the English Company. As the governor of Madras accurately described it to Bloome, the Dutch were utilising ‘that thread bare Cloake the King of Bantam’ for the legitimacy to pursue ‘their wicked designes and Practices against you’.59 But in that same sense, the sultan was using his increasingly subordinate relationship to the Dutch VOC to revive his old claims over those regions which had slipped from imperial control over the past twenty-five years. This was starkly revealed when the jenang, shortly after landing at Silebar, summoned the West Coast rulers to attend him at the port, referring to the pengerans as the sultan of Bantam’s ‘slaves’.60 Raja Muda and the governing Malays did therefore not so much abandon the Company at Bencoolen as respond to older imperial claims on their loyalty. In January 1686 both the ‘Young King’ and ‘Old King’ duly left their territories and travelled to Silebar to pay homage to the jenang of Bantam. The latter responded by confirming their titles as pengerans and, by ordering them to join an embargo against the Company at Bencoolen, banning the sale of pepper or provisions to the Company’s servants there or anywhere else in their territories.61 As the seeming revival of Bantamese authority over the West Coast rulers left the Company isolated at Bencoolen, Bloome realised that the local frameworks of power which he had negotiated the Company’s entry into were now redundant. Now utterly exposed, Bloome desperately appealed to Ord at Inderapura for help, but the situation to the north was little better. Apart from an impassioned letter from Ord to the ‘kings’ at Bencoolen ‘to remind them of their great promises of assistance & to encourage them to stand fast to your Interest’, he suggested his beleaguered colleague should make the best terms he could with the Bantamese. ‘There is little help to be expected from us’, Ord informed Bloome, ‘if the Malays will not preserve ye Countrey themselves . . . you are to make ye best terms you can for ye security of ye Honourable Compas Estate.’62 With this sobering advice, Bloome made contact with the jenang in the hope of either maintaining the status quo of the Company’s presence at Bencoolen, or, at the very least, negotiating the Company’s peaceful withdrawal from the Coast. Bloome began by promoting the motives of the Company’s presence at Bencoolen as being for ‘good designes & 58 60 62

59 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Madras to Bencoolen, 8 September 1687. 61 BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Inderapura, 18 January 1686. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Inderapura to Bencoolen, 19 October 1685.

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intentions in increasing trade & making this place ffamous & renowned for a publick & generous benefitt to all’.63 He then followed this up by disclaiming any perception that the Company sought to infringe or undermine Bantamese sovereignty. ‘If wee had known that the King of Bantam had any right or claim to this Countrey’, Bloome explained to the jenang, ‘wee should have taken other methods, being wee have some reason to believe that ye Kings here have erred in not consulting wth ye King of Bantam when they possest us here for a greater and more staple settlemt’.64 But if Bloome hoped that diplomatic ignorance and commercial altruism would save his besieged settlement, he was to be sorely disappointed. Having expelled the English Company from Bantam in 1682, the sultan had no intention of reincorporating them into his domain, especially now that he owed his throne to Dutch intervention, and paid for that with an increasing need to accommodate Dutch monopolistic demands. Karia Sutra Gistra’s role as jenang was therefore relatively simple: to force the Company out of Bencoolen and reassert the sultan’s authority over the pengerans in the region. He set about his task by providing the Company with a catch-22 scenario: first, if they wanted to remain at Bencoolen, then they had to ‘go to ye King of Bantam’ and enter into new terms for trading on the West Coast. If they refused, the jenang would know if ‘they are for ye Sultan of Bantam or no’, and would deal with the consequences if not. If they agreed, they would still have to leave Bencoolen to travel to Java, and undoubtedly any new negotiation at Bantam would be rejected.65 Second, the jenang then turned on its head Bloome’s claim that the Company’s presence benefitted the local Malays. ‘You must understand that these people are and have allwayes been ye Slaves of ye King of Bantam’, the jenang declared, ‘so we understand that ye English blush not to Concerne ymselves wth and Dwell amongst ym, much more to Contract wth & Except of a Settlmt.’66 In a third and final piece of diplomatic mastery, the jenang reasoned that if the Company continued to insist on their claim over the government of Bencoolen, then they logically owed the sultan of Bantam a staggering sum in customs payments.67 As far as Bloome was concerned, he had been thoroughly checkmated, with the skillfull jenang turning the Company’s desire to legitimise itself by operating within wider imperial frameworks entirely against them. The only thing left for Bloome to do was to negotiate terms of the Company’s evacuation. The final humiliation came when the jenang rejected his request for a thirty-day period to ship their

63 64 65 66 67

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Ambassador of Bantam, 30 December 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Ambassador of Bantam, 1 January 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Suttra Getra to Governor of Bencoolen, n.d. [December 1685]. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Suttra Getra to Governor of Bencoolen, n.d. [January 1685]. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Ambassador of Bantam, 12 January 1686.

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goods and property and secure their debts, and then even a second request for just eight days. The Company had to go immediately, the jenang declared, but he would happily gather up payments owing to them from debtors.68 Fortunately for the Company at Bencoolen, just as the transitioning power dynamics of the West Coast had rendered initial frameworks of negotiation and integration obsolete, so new shifts provided the opportunity to consolidate their position at Bencoolen. Although the penegrans of the West Coast had felt obliged to adhere to the jenang’s summons at Silebar when backed up by 3,000 Javanese soldiers and numerous Dutch ships, the rulers of Sungai Lemau and Sungai Itam in particular were not about to discard decades of autonomy from Bantam. They were willing to pay homage to the sultan’s representative only so far as it kept alive a nominal suzerainty to the Bantamese court, hoping to continue enjoying the sovereign powers that they had gradually assumed over their respective territories which had stretched along either side of the Bencoolen river. So when the jenang ordered the ‘Young King’ and ‘Old King’ to accompany him back to Bantam itself to confirm their new oaths of subordination to the sultan in person, they looked for a way to escape their new obligations. ‘Soe catching an oppertuniy they all escaped, soe that their escape broake ye neck of their [Bantam’s] designe.’69 As large as the Javanese force was, even with Dutch support Bantam had overstretched itself in sending an expedition to the West Coast, and could afford little more than this show of force at Silebar, let alone a sustained campaign hundreds of miles along the Coast. So following the withdrawal of the sultan’s new vassals, the jenang realised that without local support there was little that could be done to establish de facto control over the riverine districts. With sickness and desertion rampant, and with the failure of Dutch reinforcements to materialise, the jenang abandoned Silebar and returned to Bantam.70 In maintaining their political autonomy from the sultanate of Bantam, the West Coast pengerans had attempted to utilise new sources of economic and military strength while balancing the need to accommodate renewed Bantamese claims to sovereignty over the riverine districts of the West Coast. But when these two forces came into tension, the pengerans attempted to balance the two, nominally supporting the sultan of Bantam’s authority by abandoning the Company at Bencoolen, and then withdrawing that support and in the process wrecking the expedition’s chances when it threatened their actual autonomy. Even after fleeing from Silebar in the night and returning to their territories in the Lemba and Redjang regions around Bencoolen, they continued to employ such deft manoeuvring in keeping the sultan of Bantam at bay without entirely severing their connection to him. Benjamin Bloome 68 69

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Ambassador of Bantam, 3 January 1686. 70 BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Inderapura, 18 January 1686. Ibid.

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believed that the pengerans would be ‘severely punish for such their offence’ and that their ‘pfidy to ye Karia hath enough gaind his displeasure that they may never expect that he will forgive soe high an abuse’.71 But the pengerans understood more correctly that Bantam’s weakness would settle for even a nominal continuance of Bantamese legitimacy on the Coast, especially in light of the collapse of actual control, which the jenang had hoped to establish. Thus while they baulked at travelling to Bantam and submitting themselves fully to the sultan, the pengerans nonetheless continued to uphold the jenang’s parting order banning the West Coast rulers from dealing with the Company either commercially or diplomatically, and in doing so were able to continue to enjoy their political independence while hopefully forestalling any future expeditions from Bantam. While these shifting and unstable frameworks of power and legitimacy provided the protean West Coast polities with the jurisdictional and sovereign malleability within which they could etch out their own parameters of autonomy, it created a political environment far too slippery for the Company to grapple with, unable to gain the protection from a powerful suzerain which their weakness demanded, nor able to actualise the rights and privileges which they had been granted. Furthermore, their servants relied on creating durable and stable private relationships with elites, cemented through various crosscultural mechanisms from marriage to patronage. But when the pengerans returned from Silebar, the political and economic environment remained in flux as they distanced themselves from the Company in exchange for their continued independence from Bantam. Bloome himself was well aware that their weakness at Bencoolen, in which ‘York Fort’ amounted to little more than a palisade of timber spikes in which barely thirty men were left standing to garrison it, compounded the resolve of the pengerans to stay away.72 ‘Wee must expect noe trade untill that wee are of our selves strong enough to oppose ye enemy [Bantam].’73 Bloome correctly perceived that ‘knowing us to bee weake’ the local Malays did not dare ‘come nigh us, but remaind at theire habitations & still continue soe’.74 But for Bloome, the problem was frustratingly cyclical, for the Company’s presence could only grow strong through the cooperation and authority of the local Malays. As long as they refused to deal with the English, Bencoolen would remain a place of little significance. Used to dealing with larger Indian states such as the Marathas, Bloome could not understand why the pengerans chose to keep the Company at bay, despite the looming spectre of the sultanate. ‘It is but reasonable (being what wee doe is to secure ym) that they alsoe lend theire helping hand’, Bloome blustered to 71 73 74

72 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Madras, 26 January 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Inderapura, 18 January 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Madras, 26 January 1686.

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Ralph Ord at Inderapura, telling his colleague that he had tried to explain to the Malays ‘that the English were every where soe well belovd & held in so great esteeme that in severall countries, they have been Profferd forts ready built’.75 Clearly, the Company’s servants were still not able to grasp that the strategies of subordination and integration which worked so well to nurture and expand their presence in the Mughal empire or the kingdom of Golconda could not be so fully realised in the smaller shifting polities and states of the Indonesian archipelago. Here, the Company was a destabilising interloper, their presence unwanted by regional powers and rejected by local communities. But Company servants refused to abandon their claims. The situation remained dire at Bencoolen throughout 1686. Although they had escaped destruction at the hands of Bantam, the embargo by local Malays had crippled the Company’s presence at Bencoolen. The significance of particular local Asian contexts for the Company’s development is perhaps best demonstrated when the Resolution and Defence finally pulled into the Bencoolen road from Madras in May 1686. As well as reinforcements, guns and provisions, they also conveyed a copy of the new charter from James II granting the Company sweeping powers of war and conquest designed to alter the ‘balance of power’ in Asia (as Sir Josiah Child envisaged it) decidedly in the Company’s favour. But instead, when the ships pulled in, they found a small palisaded fort sinking into the mud, barely thirty men left alive, an embargo rigorously enforced by the surrounding communities and the godowns entirely empty of pepper.76 Desperate to demonstrate the Company’s utility and ability to the local Malays, Bloome gambled all of these new reinforcements and resources on a risky and daring expedition. His target was pengeran Ingalla of Silebar, whose willingness to facilitate the shipment of Bantamese forces into his port had caused such trouble for the autonomous pengerans around Bencoolen, as well as, of course, for the Company’s own presence in the region. A successful attack on Silebar would therefore ‘gain a better opinion & esteeme’ for the Company amongst the Malays.77 With twenty ‘well armed’ English soldiers, Bloome landed in Silebar in December 1686 to find that the pengeran had fled up-river into the steamy jungles of the interior. Bloome and his men took to longboats and set off upstream intending to seize the pengeran, bring him back to Bencoolen and parade him in chains in front of the Malays there. But after a few miles of rowing against the current in the lethal tropical heat, Bloome’s punitive expedition was unable to struggle on. Frustrated, the English force made preparations to burn Silebar to the ground when they returned downstream later that night. The port was only spared by the timely intervention of news from Inderapura, which described 75 77

76 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Madras, 13 May 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, consultation at Bencoolen, 30 November 1686.

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how the Dutch were similarly about to engulf the Company’s settlement in flames if help did not arrive soon. Bloome, reading the letter with alarm, beat a hasty retreat back to Bencoolen, his expedition having failed miserably in demonstrating the strength of the Company.78 If Company servants had failed to find a suitable suzerain power that could meet their insatiable demands for trade and government in the Bencoolen region, their colleagues to the north had proved no more successful at Inderapura. When Clement du Jardin had first arrived and acquired a cowl for the Company’s presence there in 1685 from Sultan Muhammad Syah, the Dutch governor of Batavia, Joannes Camphuys, had immediately complained to Madras that they had already acquired monopolistic rights within the Inderapura region ‘by reason of ye Many Succors afforded to ye Sultan . . . so yt to frequent Traffick and Commerce there belongs only to us as is manifest by ye Sd Agrement’.79 But when a Dutch vessel sailed up the Inderapura river to ‘vindicate’ to du Jardin ‘our Previleges & Concessione of those Countrys and Trade of Indrapoura’, they found him lodged in a large house and protected by ‘Crowds of arm’d Sumatrans’.80 For Joannes Camphuys, Inderapura’s protection of the newly arrived English servants was a flagrant violation of the series of agreements concluded with the sultan in 1660, 1662 and 1680, including, amongst other things, Dutch assistance to secure Inderapura’s control of the neighbouring region of Manduta, and Dutch payments of customs in exchange for a monopoly over the region’s pepper.81 Although du Jardin failed to acquire a farman from the sultan for more sweeping privileges, the cowl for the right to trade was enough to undermine Dutch exclusivity in the region. When the sultan sent ambassadors back with du Jardin to Madras to negotiate a broader agreement with the English Company, it was clear to Joannes Camphuys at Batavia that Inderapura was attempting to dilute Dutch influence in his territories and create a more plural commercial and political environment in which the sultan could play the European Companies off against one another. Following du Jardin’s departure, Ralph Ord arrived from Bencoolen in September 1685 to replace him as chief. Adopting his predecessor’s perception of Sultan Muhammad Syah as ‘Emperour’, Ord recognised the English Company’s precarious presence in the region, and the need to acquire greater rights from the regime, especially to protect themselves from the Dutch. ‘Wee have had noe time to treat with ye Emperour yett about our settlement’, Ord explained to Madras shortly after his arrival, ‘but Act only on his Cowl given 78 79 81

For a narrative of Bloome’s expedition to Silebar, see BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, consultation at Bencoolen, 30 November and 1 December 1686. 80 LTFSG, Batavia to Madras, 30 April 1685. Ibid. Kathirithamy Wells, ‘The Inderapura Sultanate’, p. 74.

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to Mr Jardin.’82 The inability of Company servants to anchor themselves officially within local frameworks of power exposed them to the actions of the Dutch VOC. Their vulnerability was illustrated in August 1686 when the new chief, Samuel Potts, succeeding Ralph Ord after his death, attempted to establish a Company presence in the town of Bantam Capas, some distance to the south.83 When the Company’s servants were buying up pepper in the market, the cannon from the Dutch fort on the opposite side of the river opened fire, scattering the Malay and English merchants. On the following day, the Dutch ‘came into our factory in a hostile manner and Robb’d and Plunder’d us of all yt belonged to ye Honble Compa’, reported Potts, tearing down the English flag and dragging the English servants back to the Dutch fort, from where they were shipped back to Inderapura.84 This humiliating episode reinforced the Company’s need to obtain the sultan’s protection and gain the security and rights that would allow them to maintain and expand their presence in the sultanate’s territories, free of Dutch molestation. However, it wasn’t long before Company servants realised their mistake in perceiving Muahmmad Syah as a powerful ‘Emperour’. Not only did he prove incapable of providing the Company with the powers they sought but he was also quite unable to protect them or even himself from the Dutch VOC. Although the terms of the agreement between the Inderapuran embassy and authorities at Madras have not survived, these clearly provided the English Company with far greater privileges than that granted by the initial cowl. Following the ambassadors’ return from Madras, for example, the Company were able to construct a paggar or palisaded fort, which they christened James Fort. They also supplied Inderapura with guns and munitions. The relationship with Muhammad Syah similarly intensified, and he began to utilise the English presence to consolidate his own authority in the region. In October 1686 he visited James Fort in person, and subsequently arranged with its chief, Hamon Gibbon, for the Company to provide transport and aid to a rebel raja who he was helping to install as his puppet in the region of Manduta to the south.85 Much like at Bencoolen, however, the ‘empire’ of Inderapura was in a process of transition, and its ‘Emperour’ had only recently gained independence from the declining sultanate of Aceh to the north, who had exercised direct royal government over Inderapura as late as 1660. As part of a treaty with the Dutch VOC, the Acehnese sultana, Tajul-Alam Safiatu’d Din Syah, had relinquished her sovereign rights over Inderapura when it recognised Dutch claims to

82 83 84 85

LTFSG, Inderapura to Madras, 9 October 1685. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/1, Bencoolen to Inderapura, 18 September 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Inderapura to Bencoolen, 29 August 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Inderapura to Bencoolen, 19 October 1686.

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collect pepper in the region in lieu of tribute.86 While this in effect provided the rulers of Inderapura with independence from Aceh, they were, as per the terms of the treaty, tied into an ambiguous monopolistic relationship with the Dutch. When Muhammad Syah acceded to the throne, he exerted Inderapura’s autonomy from the Dutch by assuming the title ‘sultan’ for the first time, but throughout the 1660s and 1670s the Dutch continued to wield a substantial degree of political influence within the sultanate, at times aiding the sultan’s rebellious vassals in Manduta or helping to consolidate the sultan’s rule over the region, depending on how it served their own interests.87 When English servants arrived from 1684, then, Inderapura had transitioned from the direct rule of Aceh to an autonomous sultanate under constant spectre of Dutch intervention, barely able to maintain control over its own vassals to the south. It proved the sort of shifting political framework unsuited to meet the ravenous needs of English Company servants for either substantial political and economic concessions or protection from external rivals. The tenuous suzerainty offered by the sultan of Inderapura over the English Company was shattered by the Dutch VOC at the end of 1686. In December, two Dutch ships appeared at the mouth of the Inderapura river with 1,000 Bugis and Malay troops on board. This military force was accompanied by a diplomatic push, in which the English servants at James Fort and the sultan were isolated from the ‘Lords of ye Place’, the menteri or chiefs of the region, by substantial Dutch bribes. Being abandoned by the local elites, Chief Gibbon lamented to Bencoolen, ‘causes more Dread & Terror of ye Treachory in Cutting us of then our fforementioned Enemies [the Dutch]’. Concluding his plea to Benjamin Bloome, who was at that moment contemplating burning Silebar to the ground, for help Gibbon declared that without the support of the menteri it was no longer ‘possible for us to continue any Longer’.88 As at Bencoolen, so at Inderapura, the Company’s acquisition of broad political and commercial authority within a delicate political landscape upset a fragile transition of power. The sultanate proved no more able to accommodate an expansive English presence while maintaining its autonomy in a region of collapsing and emerging empires than the Bencoolen pengerans had. The beginning of 1687 found English Company servants at Bencoolen and Inderapura in equally desperate straits: abandoned by local elites, besieged by enemy forces in their run-down ‘forts’, unable to purchase pepper and starved of provisions or men. With the failure of Bloome’s expedition to Silebar to impress the strength and utility of the English at Bencoolen to the surrounding chiefs, the Bantam-sponsored embargo continued to tighten around the town. Nonetheless, upon receiving Inderapura’s appeal for help, Bloome 86 88

87 Kathirithamy Wells, ‘The Inderapura Sultanate’, pp. 70 71. Ibid., p. 75. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Inderapura to Bencoolen, 11 December 1686.

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immediately sent the Company’s only ship on the West Coast, the Royal James, to relieve his colleagues to the north. The vessel arrived just in time to prevent the destruction of James Fort. The Dutch force of Bugis and Malay troops had stormed an English outpost a mile down-river and ‘burnt and distroid all ye pepper and paddy Round about us’. According to Chief Gibbon, they would have certainly been next at James Fort, ‘had not ye Royall James arrived at that Instant of time wch putt a stop to their proceedings upon ye noise of hir gunns fiering we had Certainly bin put of this place if not all Murdered’.89 Whilst Bloome’s quick action had prevented the English presence at Inderapura from total destruction, the arrival of a single ship did little to improve the situation in the long-term, and the Dutch forces remained in the river. By the summer, James Fort had been completely cut-off, and with a lack of provisions and barely six healthy soldiers left to bear arms, the English chief contemplated surrender. As Gibbon informed Bloome at Bencoolen, even ‘ye Emp[ero]r wth ye Major p[ar]t of his Mandriens speedely intend to desert ye Place & leave us to ourselves wthout help or assistance’.90 Gibbon was puzzled as to why Sultan Muhammad Syah was abandoning his own capital at the time, but the reason became clear in December 1687, as the Dutch noose of Bugis and Malay troops tightened around James Fort. The Dutch servants had been ‘Threatening ye Emperour yt if hee will not turne us off ye Place they will speedely come and destroy him & ye Countrey wth fier & sword.’ Following this threat, the sultan wrote to Gibbon that if the Dutch did indeed move against him, he would have little choice but to ‘leave ye Cuntry being wee are not strong enough to prevent him’.91 While Clement du Jardin and Ralph Ord envisaged Inderapura as a strong imperial power capable of protecting and fostering the Company’s expansion, their successors were faced with the reality that in fact Sultan Muhammad Syah looked to the Company to protect and foster its autonomy from the Dutch. In both cases, the sultanate and the Company proved too weak to empower one another. The Company’s progress at Bencoolen, meanwhile, had proved equally frustrated. Although following the withdrawal of the ambassador of Bantam they no longer faced imminent expulsion, the surrounding pengerans continued to uphold the blockade as a way of paying lip service to the sultan of Bantam’s claims to sovereignty. Company ships arrived to load pepper, and left with ‘so inconsiderable a lading of pepper’, complained the governor of Madras, ‘whose vallue will scarcely pay half her demorage’.92 The few remaining soldiers were on the verge of starvation, and the last of the Malay 89 90 91 92

BL, BL, BL, BL,

APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Inderapura to Bencoolen, 24 April 1687. APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Inderapura to Bencoolen, 19 August 1687. APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Inderapura to Bencoolen, 19 December 1687. APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Madras to Bencoolen, 8 September 1687.

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labourers had deserted, leaving the palisaded ramparts to sink into the monsoon-sodden earth. Bencoolen had become such a desperate and distressing settlement that when reinforcements arrived on the Berkeley Castle in January 1687, they mutinied. When Bloome fumbled an attempt to arrest the ring leaders, the mutineers could only be pacified with large sums of money.93 Even negotiations with the surrounding ‘Hill Rajas’ were terminated when the Malays ‘suddenly rose up and so left us, telling us . . . they would not sell us a graine of pepper nor sell us any provitions’.94 For Company servants, the failure of this gamble to stave off Bencoolen’s imminent collapse convinced them that only a miracle could save their position. With the Dutch closing in at Inderapura, the Malays enforcing a blockade at Bencoolen and mutinous English soldiers rampaging up and down the Coast, the Company’s strategy of attaching itself to a powerful suzerain lay well and truly in tatters. And then, as if from nowhere, in early April 1687, two messengers emerged from the Bencoolen hinterland, with letters declaring the imminent arrival of someone ‘assumeing ye name of Jeanderpatwan’, announcing that he had heard the English had settled here, for whom ‘haveing a respect for ym’ he was coming ‘to increace ye towne both in trade & people’, bringing with him 1,000 men for that purpose. Bloome and his bewildered colleagues watched as the local Malays flocked back to Bencoolen in ‘joy’ at the news of the impending arrival of ‘Jeanderpatwan’, and ‘are dayly busied in building of houses and prepareing places convenient for his reception’. It must have seemed to the English as though their prayers had been answered.95 For the third and, as it would turn out, final time, Company servants attempted to realise and articulate a powerful suzerain figure on the West Coast with the means and authority not just to protect the Company and its servants but to legitimise their presence and facilitate their commercial and political expansion on the island of Sumatra. Bloome sent the messengers back to ‘Jeanderpatwan’ weighed down with gifts and letters praising this unknown personage and bidding him all speed in coming to Bencoolen. As they departed, the Company’s servants launched ‘all preparations imaginable to gett up our paggar’, and to make their desolate worksite into something that resembled a settlement.96 They did not have long, for two ambassadors duly returned five days later to discuss the arrival of their master at Bencoolen. Having been shunned for almost two years by the ‘Great Lords’ of the surrounding region, Bloome and his colleagues were shocked to find that a not ‘inconsiderable company attended’ the ambassadors, ‘conducting them into Towne wt signes of ye greatest joy’. Two of the most eminent nochados or Malay merchants 93 94 95

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, consultation at Madras, 8 January 1687. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, consultation at Madras, 13 November 1686. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, consultation at Bencoolen, 12 April 1687.

96

Ibid.

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delivered a letter to Bloome from the ambassadors, which was publically read the next day at a dazzling feast of ‘Rice & fowles’ that Bloome had organised for the ruling Malays and ambassadors gathered in the town, the contents of which professed the standard diplomatic pleasantries of friendship and alliance between ‘Jeanderpatwan’ and the Company at Bencoolen.97 Once again the ambassadors were dispatched with gifts and letters imploring their master’s arrival, but this time they also took with them one of the principle nochados of the region to conduct ‘Jeanderpatwan’ to Bencoolen.98 But if the impact of the ambassadors merely announcing the intention of ‘Jeanderpatwan’ to establish himself at Bencoolen was substantial in bringing the surrounding Malays back to the town, the arrival of the man himself was electrifying, transforming the Company’s precarious isolation into a far more burgeoning presence. On 2 May 1687, Company servants at Bencoolen watched as a large entourage appeared on the horizon. As Jenapatwan made his way towards the town in ‘great esteem’ and ‘born by the principall men’, Bloome informed the directors in London how ‘all the Countrey [were] going out to meet him’, noting with a twinge of bitterness how they carried his luggage and built his followers accommodation ‘without hire’, but out of pure loyalty. Once ensconced in a large house built for his reception by the nochados, Jenapatwan assembled Bloome and the rest of the Company servants, announced that he would ‘intend the Compas interest’ and resolved to ‘dwell with the English, and to revenge himself of the Dutch’. If that wasn’t music to Bloome’s ears, Jenapatwan then ‘ordered a Market place’ to be established at Bencoolen by the Malays, and granted the Company permission to establish a mint there to ‘coin of Lead’.99 With a snap of his fingers, Jenapatwan had laid the foundations for Bencoolen to become a thriving settlement, imbuing the Company with the economic authority on the West Coast that it had struggled desperately to acquire from the surrounding Malay communities. As at Madras and Calcutta, once the Company had managed to subordinate itself to a powerful legitimising force, its presence at Bencoolen could thrive. In fact, not only had the region’s principle merchants and rulers returned to the town by 1688 but so had the labourers and general inhabitants, including an influx of new settlers thanks to their new patron’s entourage. It was not long before the Company’s fortunes felt the benefit of this invigorated presence. By mid-1688, Bloome was able to report that the newly christened York Fort was rising above the town. He described how ‘we have made our Lodgings warm and defenceable’, and that they were now beginning ‘to strengthen the Fort & build convenient houses’. Trade also picked up briskly, as Company servants 97 98 99

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, consultation at Bencoolen, 18 April 1687. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, consultation at Bencoolen, 24 April 1687. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to court of directors, 9 July 1687.

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had set about ‘buying up all the Pepper they can’. The Bencoolen road thronged with ‘countrey Boats’, and plans were put in motion ‘to have 3 or 4 of their own for the better dispatch of ships’.100 For the first time since their arrival four years previously, Bloome was able to report in September 1688 that 2,000 bahar, or roughly 1,000 tonnes, of pepper was ready to be shipped to Europe, with even more expected to pour in. This transformation, Captain Thomas Bowrey observed after returning to Madras from Bencoolen on the Success, was due entirely to ‘the friendship & Authority of the Manacobo Prince Janapatwan, who Mr Bloom highly extolling him, for his great generosity & fidelity & resolves to stand by & maintaine ye English’s Interest & Settlements against ye dutch & all opposers’.101 Very soon, the besieged servants at Inderapura, hearing of this powerful new benefactor, implored their counterparts at Bencoolen to ‘prevail wth him to come over here’ and ‘secure ye Place from further Trouble & danger’.102 The long search for a suitable suzerain to entrench and expand the Company’s presence on the West Coast of Sumatra appeared to be over. While the ‘kings’ of Bencoolen turned out to be semi-autonomous pengerans owing allegiance to Bantam, and the ‘Emperour’ of Inderapura in fact a newly independent sultanate struggling to resist Dutch intervention in its affairs and unable to control its own rebellious vassals, the power and authority Jenapatwan exercised over the region for once lived up to the lofty aspirations of Company servants on the Coast. Captain Bowrey had described Jenapatwan as a ‘Manacobo Prince’, alluding to the ancient Minangkabau empire, which was nestled in the highlands and ran down the centre of the island like a spine. By the early seventeenth century, the Minangkabau polity possessed little political or military power itself, consisting predominantly of a series of loosely federated pepper planting communities confined to the highland plateau. Rather, Minangkabau represented a powerful cultural, religious and ethnic force, regarded by West Coast Sumatran society as the font of all political legitimacy and kingship.103 The majority of the Malay who inhabited the West Coast, including those at Bencoolen itself, were Islamic Minangkabau migrants who had come down to the coastal districts to profit from the pepper trade that their kin supplied from their vines in the highlands.104 As they

100 101 102 103 104

BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to court of directors, 20 July 1688. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/5, consultation at Madras, 24 September 1688. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Inderapura to Bencoolen, 19 August 1687. Annabel Teh Gallop, ‘Royal Minangkabau Seals’, Indonesia and the Malay World, vol. 43, no. 126 (2015), p. 278. For an account of the Minangkabau people, see William Marsden, The History of Sumatra: Containing an Account of the Government, Laws, Customs, and Manners of the Native Inhabitants, with a Description of the Natural Productions, and a Relation of the Ancient Political State of That Island (London, 1783).

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spread across the Coast, the Minangkabau people established a matrilineal political tradition based on highland customs. This created a distinct culture of royal Islamic legitimacy that meant only those rulers able to trace their matrilineal credentials to Minangkabau were able to exercise and maintain sovereignty on the West Coast.105 This is why the sultan of Inderapura, Muhammad Syah, was unable to secure his hold over Manduta. Inderapura adhered to the patrilineal traditions of Aceh, and was therefore considered illegitimate by the fourteen menteri of Manduta, who instead supported the pretender Raja Adil, whose matrilineal claim was based upon Minangkabau tradition and gained him widespread support.106 Invoking Minangkabau royal tradition became a key pillar of political legitimacy, and the majority of diplomatic correspondence on the West Coast was conducted with a Minangkabau royal seal which declared a ruler’s lineage and credentials.107 Jenapatwan’s actual name, Ahmad Syah ibn Iskandar, directly invoked Minangkabau royal origin myths which traced descent back to Alexander or Iskandar the Great. He also boasted the title Yang di-Pertuan, a Minangkabau title of kingship which Company servants anglicised to ‘Jenapatwan’.108 In tapping into this rich vein of West Coast tradition and custom through the figure of Jenapatwan, the Company was able to wrap itself in a powerful cloak of legitimacy. Typically, the authority wielded by Jenapatwan as someone who claimed royal Minangkabau heritage convinced Company servants that he was a temporal emperor, wielding sovereignty and power over the island. However, the English failed to understand that there was no Minangkabau throne per se, but many thrones which adhered to the Minangkabau tradition. As the later eighteenth-century Company servant-turned-historian William Marsden noted, ‘The actual power and resources of the Sultan, are at this day, scarecly superior to those of a common raja.’ Instead, it was his symbolic value as head of the Minangkabau dynastic tradition which gave the sultan power, with Marsden observing that ‘The kings of Achen, Indrapura, Moco Moco, Palembang and Jambee acknowledge their authority to be derived from him.’109 Jenapatwan was therefore a representative of a sacred royal tradition, but did not himself possess a throne or a political territory which he ruled. His lineage accorded

105

106 107 108

109

Leonard Y. Andaya, ‘Unravelling Minangkabau Ethnicity’, in Leonard Blusse and Felipe Fernandez Armesto, eds., Shifting Communities and Identity Formation in Early Modern Asia (Leiden, 2003), pp. 117 138. Kathirithamy Wells, ‘The Inderapura Sultanate’, p. 72. Gallop, ‘Royal Minangkabau Seals’, p. 272. For his Minangkabau heritage, see J. Kathirithamby Wells, ‘Ahmad Shah Ibn Islankdar and the Late 17th Century “Holy War” in Indonesia’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. 43, no. 1 (1970), p. 53. Marsden, History of Sumatra, p. 267.

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him an ideological and cultural authority, and Minangkabau rulers perceived themselves more as spiritual emperors, symbols of the Minangkabau tradition across Sumatra. In fact, Jenapatwan specifically identified himself as a holy figure, in a long tradition which upheld Minangkabau’s place as the head of Islam on Sumatra.110 More importantly for the English Company, Jenapatwan’s holy persona was one that also increasingly advocated an anti-Dutch crusade, especially since his and his followers’ expulsion from the Lumpong region of southern Sumatra in 1686 after the Dutch intervention in the Bantamese succession dispute which had also expelled the English Company from Bantam.111 It’s for this reason that Jenapatwan likely sought the English out at Bencoolen as useful allies in his struggle to reassert Islamic Minangkabau tradition in the face of Dutch opposition in southern Sumatra. The joyous reception Jenapatwan had received at Bencoolen when he arrived the following year came in part from the fact that the ruling dynasty of the Sungai Lemau territory, in which the town was situated, proudly traced its origins back to the Minangkabau royal house.112 For Company servants at Bencoolen, Jenapatwan was certainly regarded as a saviour, though less in an Islamic tradition and more as a literal saviour, having revived their fortunes after four gruelling years. As Bencoolen flourished, the governor of Madras was as convinced as his colleagues on the West Coast that Jenapatwan was a powerful overlord capable of commanding the loyalty of the Malay by way of his sacred authority. ‘To his Emperiall Majestie Jenapatwan’, William Gyfford wrote from Madras in October 1688, ‘Emperour of the Rich and great Island of Sumatra ye Maurcanba &c. Territoryes and kingdoms appertaining thereto’. Gyfford placed the Company’s presence on the West Coast entirely in the hands of the ‘Emperour’, believing that he was the ultimate sovereign power capable of confirming the Company’s grants and agreements on the Coast, much like the Mughal emperor could issue an imperial farman for all of India. Gyfford explained how the Malays ‘made a contracy wth me for the termes & ffor ye privilidges of their settlement wch I hope your Majestie will gratiously confirm to us’. Reiterating ‘the many Beneffits’ the Company would bring to Jenapatwan’s ‘Territoryes’, including ‘people, Mony trade and shipping’, and emphasising how they ‘have privately sufferd soe much from the cruell wicked Dutch and their bad Instruments’, the Javanese, Gyfford implored Jenpatawan to act as ‘a generous faithfull friend and protector’.113 Gyfford simultaneously wrote to Benjamin Bloome to 110

111 113

Ibid. Also for Minangkabau’s Islamic significance, see Nikki R. Keddie, ‘The Revolt of Islam, 1700 to 1993: Comparative Considerations and Relations to Imperialism’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 36, no. 3 (July, 1994), p. 473. 112 Kathirithamby Wells, ‘Ahmad Shah’, p. 57. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/21, Madras to His Emperiall Majestie Jenapatwan Sultan Hamett Shaw, 24 October 1688.

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congratulate him on his successful quest to find a powerful suzerain capable of fostering and expanding the Company’s presence. Dispatching ships full of pepper was, Gyfford wrote, ‘esteemed by ye Rt Honble Compa as yr great reputation and their encouragement to prosecute their interest and settlement on ye west Coast’. While praising Bloome’s government, Gyfford was nonetheless clear what the real cause of the Company’s success was at Bencoolen: ‘That great reviving and protecting Genious of Jenapatwan sent by good providence to espouse our Right’, declared Gyfford. He ordered Bloome to direct all his energies into cultivating their relationship with Jenapatwan, ‘yr Insular Angel’. Gyfford had virtually abdicated the Company’s responsibility for developing Bencoolen over to the Minangkabau prince, relegating Company servants to an ancillary role. ‘For we cannot expect to florish till we are well rooted butt this certainly is our time to plane when we lye under the nourishment and sumbrage of the great sultans protections.’114 The entrenchment and expansion of the Company’s presence on the West Coast over the next couple of years only reaffirmed the belief by Company servants that Jenapatwan was a Sumatran equivalent of the Mughal emperor. By his orders, the Company’s mint was up and running by the end of 1688, churning out copper coins with the Company’s seal on one side and the ‘Honourable English East India Company’ in Arabic on the other.115 This was, it must be said, a cheap and common currency, with four hundred copper ‘Leaden Pettys’, as they were known, to a single Spanish dollar, the main currency of the West Coast. Nonetheless, not only was the ability to mint their own coinage a sign of legitimacy but it gave the Company the trappings of authority, albeit under the auspices of Jenapatwan’s sovereignty.116 More importantly, although the majority of the people, the nochados and the ‘Great Lords’ had flocked back to Bencoolen on Jenapatwan’s arrival, there were still some surrounding pengerans who continued to keep the Company at a distance through fear of retaliation from Bantam. However, Jenapatwan had succeeded in stamping out most of this opposition by mid-1688. ‘We find he hath subdued the whole Countrey hereabouts’, Bloome reported to Madras in July, including having ‘subdued the young King of Bencoolen, who enclined to the Dutch, and lived at Sungey Moone [Lemau], which Jeanderpatwan has secured us.’117 Gradually, the pengerans surrounding Bencoolen subordinated themselves to Jenapatwan’s power and re-opened their territories to Company trade, allowing their people to settle in Bencoolen and contribute to the growth

114 115 116 117

BL, APAC, IOR/G/19/21, Madras to Bencoolen, 24 October 1688. DCB, consultation at Madras, 8 August 1687. As Stern points out, without a mint Bombay was considered a weak and illegitimate settlement. Stern, Company State, p. 34. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 20 July 1688.

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of the new market established by the ‘Emperour’. Even the population of the town itself began to expand, especially when Jenapatwan ‘brought the People from the other side of the River [Bencoolen] to them’.118 By 1689, the Company’s presence was not only secure but expanding, holding out the promise of developing into a potential centre of government, trade and settlement under the umbrella of a great emperor’s authority. It was not to be, however. What Company servants failed to understand, despite repeated, bitter lessons over the past six years, was that the West Coast of Sumatra was in a period of transition. While for two centuries it had existed within powerful imperial frameworks, whether Acehnese or Bantamese, by the end of the seventeenth century the parameters of power and sovereignty were shifting, as old imperial hierarchies fell away and new regional successor states emerged from the debris of Minangkabau, Acehnese or Bantamese rule. They boasted the trappings of these declining empires, and claimed the legitimacy of sacred kingship which continued to command obedience, but the actual political landscape was too fractured for any single, unitary framework of power to secure the Company’s demands for enfranchisement and expansion. While larger imperial structures could afford to strengthen subordinates and allies with the grant of an entire town’s government and trade, significant commercial and urban centres were not so easily conceded in the shrunken spaces of political power erected by the small riverine districts of the West Coast. Jenapatwan had built Bencoolen up into a regional capital of increasing wealth and power, and while the Company had benefitted immeasurably, the ‘Emperour’ had gained just as much. For starters, the price of his suzerainty had not been cheap. Bloome had granted Jenapatwan customs rights of one dollar for every bahar of pepper shipped from Bencoolen, an enormous stream of revenue once the Company began to regularly ship hundreds of tonnes of pepper every year.119 By the end of 1688 the governor of Madras had come to regret consigning the revenue of the town over to Jenapatwan. As he lamented to Bloome, ‘tis very severe for him to have ye revenues’ of Bencoolen, especially because ‘ye Compa be at ye Charge to defend & maintaine it’.120 The Minangkabau prince was also granted a constant supply of ‘Powder, shot & great guns’ for his considerable retinue, which, at one thousand men strong, constituted the largest standing army in the region.121 And while he had ‘subdued’ the surrounding rajas and pengerans and ensured that they upheld their original agreements with the Company, Jenapatwan had also more importantly secured their subordination to his authority, carving out his own imperial fiefdom right under the Company’s nose. At Silebar, where Company 118 120 121

119 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Madras to Bencoolen, 8 September 1687. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Madras to Bencoolen, 24 October 1688. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Jeanderpatwan to Madras, n.d. [1689].

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servants had failed so miserably in demonstrating the Company’s strength, Jenapatwan attacked with his thousand-strong army and expelled the proBantamese penegran, bringing the port into his own possession where the people supposedly regarded him as a saint.122 As Bloome himself stated, still intoxicated with Jenapatwan’s reversal of the Company’s fortunes, he ‘is admitted as Soveraign who laid claim to all the Countrey as heir to Minangcabou’.123 Of course, the expansion of Jenapatwan’s authority furthered the Company’s own interests in the region, but as his power grew rapidly within such a small political playing field, there was less room to accommodate the English government of Bencoolen, the only significant urban centre in the region, and their monopoly over the pepper trade, the most vital stream of potential royal revenue available. The Mughal emperor could afford to see subordinate European Companies develop and expand the cities of the Indian subcontinent under his rule, and indeed relied on them to consolidate his own authority. But it would undoubtedly have been a different dynamic if Emperor Aurangzeb hadn’t possessed a capital or settlement of his own, and instead took up residence in Calcutta or Madras from where he ruled his domain. Jenapatwan was an emperor without a throne, and as his power spread across the Bencoolen region, and the Company’s government over Bencoolen grew, the two were on a collision course. Whether the increasingly ambitious Minangkabau ‘Emperour’ had always meant to build up his power in the region and seize Bencoolen for himself, or gradually felt that Company servants were constraining his economic or political authority, either way it’s clear that by early 1689 Jenapatwan intended to launch a coup against the deputy-governor, Benjamin Bloome. The governor of Madras was the first person to grow anxious about their new suzerain’s ambitious acquisition of power within Bencoolen and the surrounding region. ‘You must be careful and cautious of this new great Emperour’, Elihu Yale had advised in late 1687, ‘least he imploys his power & force to your prejudice or the surpresall of the Compas estate.’ Madras was particularly worried about his standing army, which had become well armed through the Company’s supply of guns and artillery, and well financed through the sizeable customs payments Jenapatwan received on the Company’s trade. ‘Permit not a great number of his attendance to come in your fort’, concluded Governor Yale, ‘least upon pretence of a vissitt they take posession.’124 This is, however, more or less what happened. Company servants’ desperate search for a suzerain, and their inability to understand the transition from imperial to regional frameworks of power, made them dangerously over reliant on a powerfully 122 123 124

Kathirithamby Wells, ‘Ahmad Shah’, p. 60. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to London, 26 June 1683. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Madras to Bencoolen, 8 September 1687.

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armed prince recently expelled from his base in southern Sumatra. If their weakness at Bencoolen hadn’t made them so blind, Company servants would otherwise have surely understood that Jenapatwan had arrived to build a territorial kingdom amongst the collection of chiefdoms and villages of the West Coast. Unfortunately, the records are frustratingly light on details of the attack itself, likely because the entire affair was yet another embarrassing debacle by Company servants placing all of their eggs in one basket. The forces of Jenapatwan struck in March 1689, in what the chief of Inderapura described as a ‘riseing’ of ‘bloody designe’. As Jenapatwan’s forces were lodged in their own kampong or village outside of York Fort, this suggests it was more of a coup or conspiracy than a full-on attack, especially as it’s hard to believe that the Company’s garrison, though in better shape than it had been, could have withstood Jenapatwan’s one thousand well-armed troops. Ultimately, Bloome, his colleagues and the small Anglo-Portuguese garrison succeeded in securing their ‘preservation & safe deliverence’ from the attack.125 However, it is clear that many Company soldiers died, with Bloome reporting shortly after that of the recent number of fresh recruits sent from Madras, only ten were left alive.126 As the chief of Inderapura declared on hearing the news of the failed coup, they had all believed Jenapatwan to be a faithful suzerain and protector, but ‘now on ye Contrary he is found by experience to be a verry treacherous & pfidious fellow, noe more to be looked on but as an enimie, who will for his owne ends doe any meschiefe though much blood be spiltt thereby’.127 Jenapatwan was not present at the attempted seizure of the fort, perhaps intentionally to distance himself in the event of failure. In fact, it wasn’t until the next month that Bloome managed to have him expelled entirely from Bencoolen. As he reported to Madras in April, ‘Jeanderpatwan who would have massacred all the English is turned away.’128 The expulsion was more violent than that, however, as the remaining Company forces set fire to his kampong, forcing Jenapatwan and his remaining followers to flee Bencoolen. Although reports show that he escaped north to the region of Manduta, taking up the cause of the Minangkabau menteri against the sultan of Inderapura, he sought a reconciliation with the Company in 1690, though this was rejected.129 Accounts are conflicted as to Jenapatwan’s eventual fate, with one Company servant reporting that he was killed in the civil war raging in Manduta, and his head put on a spike by Company soldiers in the service of the sultan of Inderapura; other accounts showed that he managed 125 126 128 129

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Inderapura to Bencoolen, 10 April 1689. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 11 April 1689. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 11 April 1689. Kathirithamby Wells, ‘Ahmad Shah’, p. 61.

127

Ibid.

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to escape the fighting and take up another lost cause on the other side of the island at Jambi.130 This isn’t a narrative of the unfortunate English being forced to defend themselves against rapacious Asian rulers, of course. As these chapters have shown time and again, the Company and its servants sought sweeping sets of privileges and rights to sustain and feed their commercial ambitions. These could be accommodated and facilitated in large empires and powerful kingdoms, where Company servants had no choice but to integrate and subordinate themselves to acquire and exercise these privileges. But when they pursued their insatiable demands for government over cities, monopolies over vital commodities and the exclusion of rivals in the smaller structures of power of the West Coast riverine districts, they undermined and squeezed out other political groups and players, creating a disruptive and destabilising environment. A key aspect of Minangkabau kingship had always been for royal heirs to descend from the highlands and seize the scarce economic regions as a foundation for political power, which was why so many territories in the region boasted descent and legitimacy from Minangkabau.131 The Company’s expansive presence therefore posed an obstacle to Jenapatwan’s establishment of royal Islamic power on the West Coast. Other than Silebar to the south, which Jenapatwan also seized shortly before his uprising, Bencoolen was the only settlement of any commercial or demographic importance until at least the Manduta region, some fifty miles further up the Coast. And after its growth and development under Jenapatwan’s protection, Bencoolen became the natural choice for a new seat of Minangkabau power, which he had been busily carving out amongst the protean polities that emerged from the wreckage of Bantamese rule. The historian Barbara Andaya Watson has described the fluid and shifting state formation process in Sumatra at this time as the ‘ebb and flow of power’.132 Freek Colombjin has similarly conceptualised this environment of flux in which Sumatra’s political framework was shaped as ‘the volatile state’, not necessarily to imply instability or failure but rather complexity and fluidity.133 Company servants, of course, had proven effectively adaptive to changing local circumstances, as they had been in the early seventeenth century when they rejected the Company’s strategy of attempting to realise an English enterprise in Asia, and instead pursued the more practical strategy 130 131 132 133

Ibid. Anthony Reid, ed., Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era: Trade, Power and Belief (London, 1993), p. 129. Barbara Andaya Watson and Leonard Y. Watson, A History of Malaysia (London, 1982), p. 41. Freek Colombjin, ‘The Volatile State in Southeast Asia: Evidence from Sumatra, 1600 1800’, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 62, no. 2 (May, 2003), p. 498.

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of integrating themselves and by extension the Company within transnational communities and networks. But by the end of the seventeenth century, the success with which their integration and subordination to powerful sovereign systems the kingdom of Golconda, the Mughal empire and even the sultanate of Bantam had created such an expansive and profitable presence for both themselves and their masters in London that it proved difficult for them to adjust. After all, it’s always easier to adapt from outright failure than it is to abandon proven strategies of success. And by the end of the seventeenth century, the Company’s expansive commercial and governmental presence, especially on the Coromandel Coast and in Bengal, made it increasingly difficult for Company servants to accept that these privileges and powers could not be procured elsewhere in Asia. Half a century of expansion within the Asian imperial system had transformed the once weak and collapsing English East India Company into Europe’s largest trader in Asian goods.134 Rather than abandon the West Coast of Sumatra, Company servants had dug in, and repeatedly searched for the suzerainty which would facilitate the sweeping expansion which they had now come to demand, but which ultimately proved elusive and highly destabilising.

134

Marshall, The Eighteenth Century, p. 488.

7

‘The Company as Their Lords and the Deputy as a Great Rajah’ The Making and Unmaking of an Imperial Power

The previous six chapters of this book have explored the inability of the English state to realise its national interests in Asia through the vehicle of the English East India Company, whether as a result of fiscal-military weakness or political instability, and the opportunities this provided for those servants on the ground in Asia to adapt and integrate their own interests into local political and economic hierarchies and frameworks. As well as a degree of substantial cross-cultural exchange and engagement, from establishing Anglo-Indian family networks of trade and patronage to incorporating Asian elites and communities into the government of Company settlements, this process also involved pulling the Company itself into a position of formal subordination to powerful Asian rulers and their representatives, one that involved acknowledging the sovereignty of those rulers, conceding corporate political autonomy and operating within a variety of legal and constitutional Asian regimes. By the later seventeenth century, this dynamic had deeply embedded the Company and its servants into the power structures of Mughal India, expanding their jurisdictional presence, military infrastructure, commercial interests and even political rights. But as the previous chapter highlighted, when these states and empires transitioned into smaller, regional polities, readjusting their parameters of legitimacy and power, Company servants struggled to access the sources of authority which had accommodated and even enfranchised their insatiable private interests, and those of their corporate and metropolitan employers in Europe. This had been most evident in the Indonesian archipelago at the end of the seventeenth century. As Company servants struggled to maintain their expansive presence within this post-imperial landscape, they gradually judged it more expedient to maintain or acquire the powers they sought by dominating these newly transitioning and emerging political orders. In the absence of wider imperial frameworks of power and legitimacy, Company servants assumed imperial authority for themselves, placing the Company at the summit of local hierarchies, from which all subsequent power was to flow. Company servants sought to re-arrange the West Coast of Sumatra as their own imperial domain, controlling local pepper production, breaking with local political traditions, assuming 211

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sovereign authority over fortified settlements and directly exercising suzerain rights over Malay subordinates. And while the polities of the West Coast found themselves increasingly shaped by the ambition of individual Company servants, they proved more than successful in resisting their subjugation, heavily circumscribed as Company servants were by East India House’s demand for fiscal and military retrenchment and the need to ensure the profitability of their pepper settlements. With little human or material resources to support their imperialism, Company servants found themselves locked in a cycle of incessant conflict and violence with the surrounding Malay communities, demanding obedience but unable to enforce this for any prolonged period through armed force. In the absence of a legitimate framework of power within which the Company could entrench itself, empire on the West Coast of Sumatra in the short-term proved unprofitable and unsustainable, and in the long-term ultimately impossible. Bencoolen had narrowly managed to survive the dramatic and bloody expulsion of Jenapatwan after 1689, largely because of the preceding years of development and growth under his authority. Although Company servants were anxious about the impact the failed coup might have on Bencoolen’s relationship with neighbouring states, its expansion as a fortified commercial centre in the preceding years, though not profound, was enough to prove the town’s utility to the surrounding Malay communities. ‘Bencoolen was never in such a posture as now, nor so flourishing’, Bloome reported triumphantly to Madras towards the end of 1689, in which state ‘the people finding the difference between the English & Jeanderpatwans government of the Town’ led to them ‘increasing in obedience and respect.’1 Along with this letter, Bloome also shipped almost 500 tonnes of pepper from Bencoolen. By the time of Bloome’s death in May 1690, the ruling Malays had established private networks of trade with the Company’s regime at York Fort. As the first two parts of this book have demonstrated, this was achieved largely through the private networks which Company servants wove across these communities. The pengerans of both Sumgau Lemau and Sungai Itam were described as living ‘togather in such Peace & Amity’ with the Company to the extent that Bloome and his colleagues had been granted the rulers’ personal chop or seal for protection of their trading goods throughout the region.2 As their private trading networks spread, dealing in salt, rice, gold and even to the anxiety of East India House pepper, Bencoolen was anchored more formally into the ecosystem of the region. However, beyond the immediate confines of the Bencoolen riverine region, the Company’s presence had virtually collapsed by the 1690s. The almost 1 2

BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 26 October 1689. LFFSG, Madras to Keay De Pattie Ka Loopa Raja & Sooroo Nagarra, 24 April 1689.

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constant siege of the Inderapura factory by the Malay and Javanese forces of the Dutch VOC had strangled the English presence in the north and exposed Sultan Muhammad Syah to Dutch retaliation for protecting the English. In June 1689 James Fort only narrowly survived complete destruction by a fullscale Dutch assault.3 Sensing that it was only a matter of time before the Dutch succeeded, the sultan abandoned Inderapura and shifted his capital to the southern province of Manduta.4 It wasn’t long before the English followed, evacuating James Fort in 1693 after their position became untenable once the Dutch installed one of their allies, Raja Mansur, as the new sultan of Inderapura.5 Unfortunately, although free of the threat of Dutch intervention, the territory of Manduta proved a much smaller and far more contested region for both the ‘old emperor’, as the exiled sultan was now known, and English Company servants to operate in. Muhammad Syah had spent decades attempting to exert his authority over the highly independent fourteen menteri who governed the region and who supported only legitimate matrilineal rulers claiming descent from Minangkabau, which Muhammad Syah did not. By 1695 the ‘old emperor’ was on the losing end of a civil war, in which he faced the more legitimate Raja Adil, as well as Raja Macoota and his son sultan Gulemat, all of whom commanded widespread support amongst the pengerans, menteri and rajas of Manduta.6 It was a political environment which made it barely possible for the Company’s new factory and paggar at the town of Tryamong to function, let alone purchase any pepper. As the new deputygovernor of Bencoolen complained, stopping there on his arrival from Madras, he ‘ffound the Country about Tryamong much in confusion by severall competitors, without some agreemt the pepper Trade will be retarded’.7 Within a post-Jenapatwan world, Company servants responded to this contested power dynamic by seeking to exert their own authority over the Manduta region, using military force to reshape the hierarchy of power in which the Company would enjoy a commanding position at the top: mediating disputes, determining the terms of alliances and enforcing conditions of peace and coexistence. Having failed in their search for a suzerain in the 1680s and early 1690s, Company servants were now determined to appropriate that position for themselves, and the spoils that they hoped would come with it. Whereas strategies of integration and subordination had once determined the terms in which Company servants engaged with Asian rulers and communities, the strategies of appropriation and domination that would play out in the 3 4 5 6 7

BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Inderapura to Bencoolen, 13 June 1689. DCB, consultation at Madras, 30 June 1690. Kathirithamby Wells, ‘The Inderapura Sultanate’, p. 79. As early as 1687 Company servants had watched as the ‘old emperor’ struggled to subdue this coalition of claimants, BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/2, Inderapura to Bencoolen, 7 November 1687. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 29 October 1695.

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Manduta region in the years 1695 to 1700 would become increasingly embraced by the Company on Sumatra. Although Muhammad Syah had managed to gain control of Manduta, even in the teeth of opposition by the fourteen menteri, the ‘old emperor’ had failed to establish little control outside of the town’s confines by 1695. Unable to bring peace or stability to the country, Company servants abandoned their subordination to him. As the new deputy-governor, Charles Barwell, explained to Madras, he ‘thought it most obligible to close with Raja Macoota & Raja Adill’, both of whom Muhammad Syah had declared as rebels, ‘& lend them Assistance to Expell the Emperor’.8 From their base at Tryamong in September 1695, Company servants held a bitchar, or assembly, a common form of political gathering used by the Malays for judicial hearings or royal proclamations, but principally utilised by Company servants as a diplomatic forum. As Deputy-Governor Barwell declared to those assembled, including Raja Adil and Raja Macoota and his son Sultan Gulemat, Muhammad Syah was ‘ye Grand Enimy and Disturber of their peace’, and therefore had to ‘be turned out of Manduta’, otherwise ‘the Countrey will never be well settled but must Remaine in ye same disorder and confusion itt is in att present’.9 While the Company’s servants appeared to be nobly wading into the fray to promote the peace of the region, the agreement made between the rajas and the Company betrayed their constant desire to expand their power and authority on the West Coast, now unregulated or uncontained by the sovereignty of an Asian suzerain. In exchange for contributing to the expulsion of Muhammad Syah with a force of European and Malay soldiers, as well as providing guns and munitions to the cause, the Company were to be granted all of the territory between the Manduta and Cattow rivers, an almost one hundred-mile stretch of coast, ‘to have and Enjoy the sovereigne power and Dominion of sd Territories’.10 The significance of the treaty of Tryamong cannot be overstated. For the first time in the history of the Company’s almost one hundred-year presence in Asia, servants had sought and acquired a region of territory from local rulers that would be entirely in their legal possession, and not, like Madras or Calcutta, under the immediate suzerainty of an Asian sovereign power.11 Aside from territorial expansion, Barwell also managed to exert the Company’s demand for control over pepper production, stipulating that all households within the Manduta region must annually plant and cultivate 2,000 pepper trees, as well 8 9 10 11

BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 29 October 1695. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, consultation at Tryamong, 25 September 1695. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, Articles of Agreement between the Company and Sultan Gulemat and Raja Adill, Tryamong, 26 September 1695. Perhaps with the exception of the small islands of Pulo Run and Pulo Ai, both of which were acquired in 1616, but which the Company only possessed for the next four years as a result of Dutch intervention. Keay, Honourable Company, pp. 3 5.

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as provide enough provisions and building materials to sustain the Company’s factories and paggars in the region. But the individual rulers also agreed to outright finance the building of a series of new Company paggars in their territories. Finally, and perhaps most overtly in an effort to demonstrate each individual signatory’s dependent status on the Company moving forward, each ruler bound themselves not to change their residency or capital without gaining the permission of the deputy-governor in Bencoolen. The treaty therefore outlined the parameters of a new framework of power on the West Coast of Sumatra, one that broke with old Sumatran traditions and instead sought to place the Company in a position of suzerainty over the governing Malays, guaranteeing the security and stability of their regimes in exchange for the enforced cultivation of pepper in their territories and the upkeep of a network of fortified Company garrisons throughout the region. Most importantly, of course, this suzerainty would also be defined by the sovereignty directly exercised by the Company as ruler over its own territorial jurisdiction. When the assembly gathered at the home of Sultan Gulemat’s mother, Charles Barwell distributed 230 dollars amongst the retinues of Raja Adill and Raja Macoota.12 Not only did this help to secure their support but, like a true Malay suzerain, Company servants were rewarding their vassals for their loyalty and obedience, an act which in Malay society took the form of the distribution of gifts, wealth and titles.13 In many respects, the Treaty of Tryamong represented the beginning of arbitrary, coercive and unequal treaty-making in Asia between the Company and the smaller Asian powers it encountered.14 In October 1695 the joint expedition of Company and Malay forces set off from Tryamong to expel Muhammad Syah from Manduta, and install the rajas as co-rulers of the region. Charles Barwell led the campaign, ‘itt being believed that ye Dept Govnr precense may much incourage and Enspirit our owne party and Perhaps cast the great Dread upon ye Empr and Mandareens’.15 This reflected the private nature of the Company’s authority on the West Coast, in which individual servants increasingly emphasised their personal prestige and reputation with the Malay more than their commercial acumen or administrative experience.16 With twenty European and mestizo soldiers, along with forty Bugis troops, the Company’s force was accompanied by a Malay army of

12 13 14

15 16

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, consultation at Tryamong, 30 September 1695. Colombijn, ‘Volatile State’, p. 499. Martine van Ittersum, ‘The Role of Written Documents in European Overseas Expansion, 1500 1800’, in Tristan Mostert and Adam Clulow, eds., The Dutch and the English East India Companies: Diplomacy, Trade and Violence in Early Modern Asia (Amsterdam, 2018), p. 155. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, consultation at Tryamong, 30 September 1695. See my ‘“The Company as Their Lords and the Deputy as a Great Rajah”: Imperial Expansion and the English East India Company on the West Coast of Sumatra, 1685 1730, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, vol. 41, no. 5 (2013), p. 695.

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200 men, increasing to more than 500 by the time they reached Manduta.17 Besides the brief capture of the town of Moco Moco, whose raja supported Muhammad Syah, the army itself engaged in little military action during the week-long campaign, and arrived at Manduta to find that the fourteen governing menteri had days earlier expelled the ‘old emperor’.18 Unfortunately for Charles Barwell, the treaty of Tryamong was in danger of being cast aside when the menteri, inviting Raja Adil, Raja Macoota, Sultan Gulemat and the Company’s servants to bitchar, strongly advocated electing Raja Adil as their new sultan. Barwell warned the assembly to adhere to ‘the Union wee made betwixt him & Sultan Guillimott and which he knows means that Power wch establisht him for had wee not come to his assistance he Mandareens would have not deserted the Emperour’.19 The fourteen menteri eventually agreed to elect Raja Adil and Sultan Gulemat as joint rulers, as per the treaty of Tryamong, as long as they enjoyed ‘equal power’, which Barwell agreed to. Two days later, a great bitchar was held in which the menteri, rajas, sultan and deputy-governor signed the concordat. Although no settlement could have been made without the authority of the menteri, it was the Company who ultimately decided the shape of the settlement. ‘The best course wee can take’, Barwell reasoned, ‘will be to Divide ye Country into two Governmts . . . under ye Honble Compa.’ Subsequently, he carved up the region into two jurisdictions, with his favoured ruler, Sultan Gulemat, being awarded the southern territories of Anak Sungai which bordered on Bencoolen, whereas the more ambitious Raja Adill would govern Manduta and its environs to the north, ‘as long as he continuing true and loyall to the Rt Honble Compa’, Barwell warned, in the tradition of a true suzerain power.20 The Company servants’ acquisition of suzerainty over the regions to the north of Bencoolen was one thing, but exercising and maintaining their power over Manduta and Anak Sungai proved quite another. The Company itself was still too weak to provide large-scale fiscal-military support to its settlements, barely able to maintain a trickle of recruits to the West Coast, let alone the funds to underwrite them. As the governor of Madras, Nathaniel Higginson, cautioned in 1698, ‘to settle Paggars among such unquiet and troublesome people will undoubtedly require a greater number of men then you can spare, and will consequently bee very chargeable’, especially, Higginson concluded, as ‘the charge of defending a Paggar with a great Company of Souldiers would so much over ballance the Proffitt of buying of Pepper’.21 But as the territorial

17 18 19 20 21

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, consultation at Tryamong, BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, consultation at Tryamong, BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, consultation at Tryamong, BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, consultation at Tryamong, LFFSG, Madras to Bencoolen, 7 May 1698.

30 September and 1 October 1695. 5 October 1695. 7 October 1695. 8 October 1695.

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and military role of Company servants expanded in Manduta, East India House constantly admonished them to retrench their establishments to the bare minimum in an effort to secure a profit from their pepper trade. ‘The 3 Principal things the Compa recommend to all their Presidents Agents and Chiefs’, declared Higginson, relaying the contents of a recent letter from the directors to his counterpart at Bencoolen, Matthew Milday, ‘are the increasing their revenues and trade & the retrenching all superfluous expenses all wch we earnestly recommend to you’.22 But as they appropriated more power to themselves, and the trappings and assets of that power, such as territorial rule, military force and ceremonial display, revenues and trade became subordinate to the ever-increasing need to maintain their position at the top of the West Coast hierarchy, a cyclical dynamic that, far from retrenching expenses, led to a spiral of debt, dislocation and instability. ‘The Rt Honble Company are not satisfied with the Charges of maintaining so many northern Factoryes and Paggars, and aim att the reducing all to York Fork’, Governor Higginson informed Milday in 1698. But even Higginson reluctantly admitted that ‘neither Tryamong nor its appendant Paggars can bee withdrawn till . . . the Government of the Countrey is firmly settled’.23 To the dismay of Company servants and metropolitan authorities alike, empire was not only proving ruinously unsustainable, but somewhat irreversible. It wasn’t long before the ‘union’ of Raja Adill and Raja Macoota, as engineered by the treaty of Tryamong, began to falter. In 1696, it became clear to both the deputy-governor at Bencoolen and the chief of Tryamong that Raja Adill, whose claim to Manduta adhered to the matrilineal tradition of Minangkabau, was able to command more support from the fourteen menteri, undermining Sultan Gulemat’s authority. When the latter’s regent and father, Raja Macoota, appealed to York Fort, Raja Adill and the menteri at first refused Charles Barwell’s summon to a bitchar at Bencoolen. It was only when Barwell despatched a deputation of Company servants to deliver his request in person that they relented, although only half of the menteri eventually travelled to Bencoolen with Raja Adill.24 Charles Barwell urged the bithcar attendees to ‘remember that at our last being at Manduta wee had Establisht Sultan Guillimott and Addill joint kings’.25 After a week-long bitchar, the assembly promised ‘their fidelity to the Rt Honble Compa and obedience to the king wee had appointed’, a concession which Barwell consolidated with a display of largesse, distributing expensive gifts, including sumptuously embroidered carpets, bottles of rosewater, yards of broadcloth and dyed bundles of taffeta.26 22 24 25 26

23 Ibid. LFFSG, Madras to Bencoolen, 28 May 1698. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, consultation at Bencoolen, 8 January 1696. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, consultation at Bencoolen, 11 January 1696. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, consultation at Bencoolen, 11 January and 16 January 1696.

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Despite their professions of obedience and loyalty, conflict between Raja Adill and Raja Macoota broke out again towards the end of 1697, contained only by the timely intervention of the new deputy-governor, Matthew Milday, who rushed a contingent of Malay troops into Manduta to enforce a ceasefire. ‘Have reconciled Rajah Addill & Rajah Maccoota again’, Milday laconically informed Governor Higginson at Madras, ‘whose differences put the country in disorder.’27 It was clear to Higginson that the Company’s political settlement of the West Coast could only be upheld through military force. Replying to Milday, he conceded that ‘the placing of a quality of Power’ in both Raja Adill and Sultan Gulemat was ‘necessary as circumstances then stood’ in 1695, but that subsequently over the years such ‘equality seems to have given the occasion of their Jealousyes’.28 Formalising the Company’s new hierarchy of power on the West Coast, Higginson suggested that in any future disputes, all rajas should submit themselves to the arbitration of the chief of Tryamong, failing which they had the right to appeal to the deputy-governor at Becoolen, with the governor of Madras acting as a final figure of appeal for their disputes.29 Although Company servants were clearly articulating a new imperial framework for the West Coast which secured their position as suzerain, Raja Adill was again accused of causing new disturbances in 1698. To the despair of Matthew Milday, he once again ordered an augmentation to the garrisons of the paggars in the Manduta region, grasping that for all of Madras’ articulation, imperial authority on the West Coast could only really be maintained by brute force. ‘Without a considerable force of about 200 men, Europeans and Portugueze, on this Coast’, he informed Higginson at Madras in March 1700, ‘wee believe these Countrys will never continue long in Quiet, as it hath been found by fatall Experience . . . Such a Constant force we believe to be the only expedient.’30 If the Company’s new hierarchy of power was barely enforceable at the highest levels, the lower levels of this new political entity proved even more fragile. The Company’s assumption of imperial authority had caused considerable political dislocation, but this instability also created new opportunities for Malay communities to create effective coalitions of resistance. This was certainly the case for the rajas of the Seblat and Cattow river regions, which straddled the border between Raja Adill’s territory of Manduta and Sultan Gulemat’s jurisdiction over Anak Sungai. Both had supported the claims of the ‘old emperor’ Muhammad Syah following his exile from Inderapura. Even when the latter was expelled by the fourteen menteri of Manduta, the rajas remained loyal to him, especially Raja Quasso of Seblat, who refused the 27 28 30

BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 26 October 1697. 29 LFFSG, Madras to Bencoolen, [?] October 1697. Ibid. LTFSG, Bencoolen to Madras, 15 March 1700.

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Company’s invitation to bitchar in 1696 to confirm the division of the Manduta region into two governments.31 This was particularly concerning for the Company as Raja Quasso ruled three key pepper-producing regions up-river which alone produced almost a third of annual Company pepper exports, some 600 bahars.32 The rajas’ loyalty to Muhammad Syah therefore earned them the brand of ‘rebels’ from Deputy-Governor Milday, and several attempts were made to ensure ‘they submitted themselves to the Compa & Sultan Guilimot’.33 These included a humiliating military expedition led by the chief of Tryamong in 1698 against Raja Quasso which intended ‘to beat him out of the Country’.34 Instead, the Company’s forces were administered a beating and retreated back down-river. Naturally, the blame fell entirely on the Malay. As Deputy-Governor Milday explained to Thomas Pitt at Madras, the expedition ‘was attended with very ill success being by the Cowardice of the Mallays, forced to a dishonourable Retreat’.35 Diplomacy achieved slightly more success in re-establishing the Company’s authority over the rebellious regions, when a series of bitchars in 1699 and 1700 concluded an agreement with the Seblat and Cattow rajas for generous compensation for their pepper. This treaty was sealed with the distribution of expensive gifts by the deputy-governor, and with a ceremony of pomp and display designed to impress the Company’s power a somewhat hollow gesture considering Raja Quasso’s military victory the year before.36 Nonetheless, in front of the assembled Raja Adill, Raja Macoota and Sultan Gulemat, the rajas ‘paid their due homage to ye Sultan’ and ‘owned themselves ye Rt Honble Compas & his Vassalls’. After this act of obedience, Matthew Milday put on a sumptious feast, ‘presenting ym with a couple of Buffelows, as usual on such occasions.’37 Clearly, Company servants had fully embraced their position as an imperial power, creating and reinforcing ceremonies, displays and customs of submission and obedience. But their gradual adoption and appropriation of the Malay institution of bitchar, partly brought about by their fiscal-military weakness, also had its limitations as a tool of imperial rule. For unless the Company was able to protect and promote the interests of their new vassals, the effectiveness of bitchars could become undermined, more of a pantomime of imperial theatrics than a serious form of political action. But the Company’s failure to integrate itself economically or culturally in the region and its break with Malay political tradition ultimately prevented it from acting as a capable, popular or legitimate imperial power. The Company’s commerce 31 32 33 34 36 37

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/3, consultation at Tryamong, 20 January 1696. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/4, consultation at Bencoolen, 18 October 1699. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 8 October 1698. 35 LTFSG, Bencoolen to Madras, 15 March 1700. Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/4, consultation at Tryamong, 20 January 1700. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/4, consultation at Tryamong, 21 January 1700.

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was small, its military infrastructure was weak, its settlements were thinly populated and lacked essential goods, and its relationship with the surrounding Malay communities relied ultimately on coerciveness. The most pressing danger to the Company’s control of its vassals proved to be its lack of financial or commercial dynamism. The only currency of value on the West Coast was the Mexican or Spanish silver dollar, a specie the Company servants consistently failed to acquire in any meaningful volume, instead disastrously forcing the nochados or Malay merchants to accept half of their payments in the form of calicos from the Company’s Indian settlements, mostly Madras.38 This created widespread resentment, especially on behalf of the mostly female pepper cultivators for whom silver was not only a form of specie, but commonly consumed as jewellery to demonstrate their social status.39 As Deputy-Governor George Shaw lamented to Madras in 1700, ‘the want of Mexico Dollars [is] most fatall to the Companys affairs’.40 But these dollars could only be acquired from other merchants through a thriving trade at the Company’s settlements. And while Bencoolen had managed to survive as a Company settlement, it never flourished like Madras and Calcutta, both of which were fully nestled within, and nurtured by, the political and economic landscapes of Mughal India and the cross-cultural networks which sustained them. Rather, despite Benjamin Bloome’s insistence a decade earlier, Bencoolen was ‘unfrequented’ by most merchants, with the exception of ‘a few Java prowes and a ship accidentally’.41 Its precarious early existence under the spectre of Bantamese and Dutch attack, combined with the designs of Jenapatwan, served to scare off the essential commercial and demographic communities that helped to transform other Company settlements in Asia, especially the Chinese, who provided settlements with essential services as bricklayers, carpenters and blacksmiths, and were often active in establishing industries such as sugar production and arrack distilling.42 The deputygovernor complained how the Chinese were ‘the only people proper to improve this Settlement’, but lamented that ‘they do not exceed twenty persons’.43 By the turn of the eighteenth century, Bencoolen had become more of a pepper entrepot than a commercial market, with the nochados frequently complaining that the only goods available were cloth from India.44 In 38 39

40 42

43 44

BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 29 October 1695. Barbara Andaya Watson, ‘Women and Economic Change: The Pepper Trade in Pre Modern Southeast Asia’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 38, no. 2 (1995), p. 85. 41 BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 17 February 1700. Ibid. Anthony Farrington, ‘Bengkulu: An Anglo Chinese Partnership’, in H. V. Bowen, Margarette Lincoln and Nigel Rigby, eds., The Worlds of the East India Company (Woodbridge, 2002), p. 114. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 17 February 1700. LFFSG, Madras to Bencoolen, 17 May 1698.

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consequence, the rajas of Seblat and Cattow began to divert their nochados away from Bencoolen, to other more attractive markets such as Bantam, where ‘they can gett severall other commodityes more proper for the Natives of Cattown and Sabblatt by which they gett an advantage’.45 The retarded development of Bencoolen, and the inability of Company servants to create a dynamic commercial environment that could satisfy its new vassals, made their servitude a one-sided relationship, deriving little benefit from subordination to the Company. Despite not being able to purchase the pepper produced by Seblat and Cattow, Company servants placed the rajas in an impossible position by refusing them permission to ship their pepper to Bantam, concerned as they were that such a trade route would have undermined their control over the region. By stopping the rajas ‘from exporting and to hinder the Countrey from selling to others and yet not to buy it yourselves’, warned the governor of Madras, ‘will bee a real injury to the Natives and give them just occasion of complaint and discontent.’46 Such discontent crystallised around the port of Ippue, which had erupted into rebellion in late 1698 after the Company’s own disaffected Bugis soldiers conspired with its raja to ‘murther our people’. Although the conspiracy was discovered, the Company was forced to evacuate and leave Ippue in the hands of the raja and the rebel Bugis.47 Matthew Milday’s successor, Robert Broughton, quickly placed Ippue under siege and settled down to starve the port into submission. However, in May 1699 reports were received that Raja Quasso was preparing to travel down-river to join the rebels at Ippue. ‘You may be assured the Rt H. Engs E India Comp has power Enough to raise sufficient force to attack our Enemies att Ippue and beat them from there at once’, Broughton warned in a letter to Raja Quasso, hoping to dissuade him through intimidation, ‘and recommend it to you to Consider if it may not be much more your and ye Countreys interest to return to Sablatt’.48 When combined with the construction of a series of paggars throughout the Seblat riverine region in September, overseen by one of the datus or Malay chiefs from Bencoolen, Raja Quasso was successfully restrained.49 However, this did not prevent him from reinforcing Ippue with his own troops, and gradually the rebels swelled in number. The year-long siege of Ippue in many ways became a test case for the Company’s ability to maintain itself as an imperial power on the West Coast of Sumatra. What began as a small rebellion quickly ballooned into a struggle for the future of the region, with the Company assembling all of its vassals and allies to participate in the siege, while a coalition of their enemies poured into the port to prevent its capture. 45 47 48 49

46 Ibid. LFFSG, Madras to Bencoolen, 28 May 1698. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/4, consultation at Tryamong, 15 November 1699. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/4, Bencoolen to Raja Quasso, 6 May 1699. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/4, Bencoolen to Dattue Bencoolen, 1 September 1699.

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By November Raja Macoota had joined the Company’s siege, where he advised Robert Broughton to convene ‘a firme bitchar’ at the siege camp of all the Malay rulers ‘from Manduta to Cattown’ to display the Company’s power.50 The raja himself was duly dispatched to summon these rulers, carrying Broughton’s own sword as a token of the deputy-governor’s authority.51 When he returned with many of the principle rulers of the West Coast in tow, including Sultan Gulemat, whose arrival was greeted with the beating of Company drums and the firing of artillery, they witnessed the Company’s victory over the Ippue rebels.52 Nonetheless, they also witnessed the end of an epic year-long resistance of a band of motley rebels against everything the Company had to throw at them. The siege had begun as a blockade based at the village of Semundum several miles from Ippue itself. But the resistance of the rebels, and support from surrounding rajas, forced the Company into a gruelling conflict of attrition, gradually moving their breastworks and artillery closer and closer to the port. ‘I am now tho’ sickly and weak against Ippue’, scribbled Broughton from one of the breastworks on the edge of the port, ‘so plagued the Natives that they are now contriving how to rid themselves of Tryley and Keygoose’, the two rebel leaders. ‘We are so near Towne thatt they cant stir without being discerned’.53 Unfortunately, that did not happen for another month, when Ippue, on the verge of starvation and pummelled into ruins, finally surrendered at the end of December 1699.54 In many ways the siege of Ippue reflected the Company’s struggle to appropriate and exercise imperial power over the West Coast of Sumatra at the turn of the eighteenth century. Company servants may have ultimately triumphed in the short-term, but in the long-run ‘that most unfortunate & Expensive Affair of Ippue’, as the deputy-governor described it to Madras in July 1700, exposed the fragility and weakness of Company rule, and served to illustrate the insurmountable challenges Company servants faced when attempting to expand their power over indigenous Asian political systems from the outside, as opposed to expanding from within.55 Unsurprisingly, the ‘victory’ at Ippue did not usher in the expected period of stability and prosperity for either the Company’s servants or their reluctant Malay vassals. Rather, over the next two decades, the Company’s presence on the West Coast of Sumatra descended into a spiral of exploitation, rapine, war and destruction. Unrestrained by the need to work within well-established structures of legitimacy and regulation, Company servants allowed their 50 51 52 53 54 55

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/4, consultation at Tryamong, 15 December 1699. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/4, consultation at Tryamong, 28 December 1699. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/4, consultation at Tryamong, 18 December 1699. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/4, consultation at a Breast of Semundum, 11 November 1699. LTFSG, Bencoolen to Madras, 15 March 1700. LTFSG, Tryamong to Madras, 31 July 1700.

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private interests to determine the contours of imperial power on the West Coast. In India, the private networks of Company servants and their transcultural relationships served to access the sources of Mughal credit, patronage and diplomatic influence that facilitated the growth of the Company’s trade and government, as well as their own interests. But on Sumatra, these networks, operating from the summit of local political hierarchies which they themselves had created, proved ever more exploitative and less accommodating of Malay interests. As Bencoolen’s arrested development created few opportunities for transcultural commercial enterprises, individual Company servants sought to aggressively monopolise the limited sources of wealth and power available to them as agents of the new imperial authority. It was a model of empire that, unless backed by overwhelming military force, was simply unsustainable. The victory at Ippue had confirmed the Company’s dominance over the West Coast of Sumatra, spurring an increasing disregard for the needs and interests of local Malay elites and communities by Company servants as they sought to capitalise on their new hegemony. Bencoolen’s failure to become a productive part of the Sumatran economic landscape, and its gradual reduction to a simple pepper entrepot, intensified its role as a vent for the private goods of Company servants which were increasingly imposed upon the Malay. Cloth proved the most prevalent of these new private trades, which Company servants imported into Bencoolen in vast quantities in exchange for mostly pepper but also gold, benzoin resin and elephant’s teeth. The factory at Manduta produced barely twelve bahar of pepper in 1710, for instance, but was maintained at a vast expense because some Company servants there ‘had a store of longcloth upon their Hands’ and found it the only place where they could exchange this for ‘quantitys of Gold’.56 Not only were these private trading posts paid for by the Company, but even more intolerable for East India House was the fact that servants sold their cloth to the Malay first, and only once the market had been flooded did they try and sell the Company’s stock, at often considerably depressed prices.57 Nonetheless, despite the best efforts of the directors, Indian textiles continued to privately flood into Bencoolen. When Joseph Walsh first arrived on the West Coast in 1711 as a factor, he established a trade with his brother John in Madras, receiving Madras cloth piece-goods and sending back Sumatran pepper or gold. One such shipment, in 1717, consisted of a bale of cheap fine cloth known as sannoes, as well as more luxurious ‘Pullicat’ stockings, all of which were exchanged with Malay merchants for gold, eventually realising the Walsh brothers a tidy profit of 200 dollars.58 The staggering value of the private cloth trade may be glimpsed 56 57 58

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/6, Bencoolen to court of directors, 4 July 1710. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 6 February 1712. BL, APAC, MSS Eur D546/1, Joseph Walsh to John Walsh, Bencoolen, 16 December 1717.

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from the bills of exchange drawn by Company servants at Bencoolen on their partners and family members at Madras, which in 1704 amounted to almost £60,000.59 The gradual dominance of Indian textiles as payment in kind for Sumatran goods, especially pepper, had severe economic consequences for the West Coast, not to mention dislocating traditional social and cultural exchanges, between Company servants and the Malay, and between the Malay themselves. As previously noted, by forcing textiles onto the Malay, Company servants denied themselves access to the desirable flows of dollar currencies which were essential to stimulate broad commercial exchange on the West Coast, especially the ‘Mexican’ dollar. But Company servants had trapped themselves into a self-destructive dynamic, relying ever-more on Indian textiles as payment in kind in the absence of dollars, and therefore exacerbating the shortage even more. As Deputy-Governor Shaw lamented in 1704, the Malays demand ‘all Mexico Dollars for their Pepper’, so that ‘should wee go to put any Goods [cloth] on them, Wee are too sensible of the ill Consequences that would attend’.60 Nonetheless, neither Shaw nor his successors stemmed the tide of cloth-payment, allowing the gradual stagnation of trade and exchange to envelope the West Coast, as dollars virtually disappeared and Company servants struggled to coerce Malay merchants into accepting more cloth. As the situation became critical, the Company began importing coppercash into Bencoolen, but this proved equally detested by the Malay, for whom silver was not only a valuable currency but also a commodity of status and cultural exchange, adorning women in highland villages as jewellery, used extensively in court-ceremonies and prized as gifts between elites and their retainers.61 ‘The Imposition of Copper Cash’, observed one deputy-governor to the directors in 1712, ‘has given no small disgust to them [the Malay] and, in many particulars has been much to ye prejudice of your Hons estate.’62 As the Company’s commerce became increasingly one-dimensional and exploitative, pepper yields declined as Malay cultivators and merchants either refused to supply the Company out of resistance or turned to other economic activities such as the production of paddy, rice or cotton.63 In fact, the threat to pepper production from the cultivation of cotton became so serious that Company servants sought to limit its growth. In 1710, the Company signed a new treaty with Sultan Gulemat which stipulated that not only were 59 60 61 62 63

LTFSG, Bencoolen to Madras, 7 February 1704. LTFSG, Bencoolen to Madras, 7 February 1704. Andaya Watson, ‘Women and Economic Change’, p. 85. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/8, Bencoolen to court of directors, 11 February 1712. Kathirithamby Wells believed that the decline in pepper was also probably due to soil exhaus tion in the region around Manduta and Bencoolen, see his ‘The Inderapura Sultanate’, p. 79, fn. 83.

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merchants in Anak Sungai no longer allowed to refuse copper cash but they were only allowed to export 50 bahar of cotton a year.64 The new treaty not only revealed the efforts of Company servants to revive the declining pepper trade but it also betrayed the diminished and desperate commercial environment of the West Coast which they themselves had engineered. In the following year, the deputy-governor of Bencoolen, Anthony Ettrick, lamented ‘ye barren trade of these parts’.65 Similarly, one visitor to Bantal in 1713 noted that there were barely four families left plying their trade in the town’s bazaar.66 In 1714 the deputy-governor warned the directors that unless a large supply of silver could be circulated on the West Coast, then ‘all will run to ruin’.67 The situation became so acute that East India House considered withdrawing from the West Coast altogether in 1717.68 The situation can perhaps best be gleaned from the fact that the expenses of Bencoolen for the month of July 1716 alone amounted to more than the value of all pepper shipped off the West Coast in the preceding seventeen months.69 As their private interests shrunk, Company servants resorted to ever more exploitative measures to extract the wealth and power they sought from West Coast communities, legitimately or otherwise. Perhaps the most harmful to the Malay, both on the Coast and further inland, was the enforcement by Company servants from 1712 onwards of a private salt monopoly. As in India, salt was not just a valued trading commodity but a crucial foodstuff without which the Malay struggled to achieve a healthy level of sustenance.70 The salt monopoly enforced by Deputy-Governor Richard Farmer, for instance, caused an intense backlash from Malay communities and contributed to the scarcity of rice and paddy in the countryside in 1717 and 1718. The governor of Madras declared that Farmer ‘did engross the Sale of Salt for his own proffit . . . to the very great oppression of the people’. Farmer virtually doubled the price of salt under his monopoly at four bambu of salt for a dollar, causing intense hardship to local communities.71 In some cases, the only way people could acquire salt was for entire communities to band together, at which Farmer was prepared to offer 20 bambu of salt in exchange for 48 bambu of rice. This, declared the governor of Madras, ‘must necessarily breed a great deal of discontent & uneasiness among 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/6, Agreement between the Company and the rajas of Sultan Gulemat’s country, Bencoolen, 5 September 1710. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/8, Bencoolen to court of directors, 11 February 1711. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/8, Bencoolen to court of directors, 27 February 1713. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/8, Bencoolen to court of directors, 11 September 1714. Robert J. Young, ‘The English East India Company and Trade on the West Coast of Sumatra, 1730 1760’ (PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1970), p. 15. BL, APAC, IOR/E/3/99, court of directors to Bencoolen, London, 14 March 1717. Barbara Watson Andaya, ‘Upstreams and Downstreams in Early Modern Sumatra’, The Historian, vol. 57, no. 3 (Spring, 1995), p. 551. A bambu was a weight of measurement equivalent to approximately 3lb.

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the People’.72 The supervisor Madras sent to Bencoolen to investigate concurred, observing in early 1719 that ‘the Countrey people have sufferd so much that they have left the Pepper Plantations to make Salt because [they] can’t live without it’.73 Unfortunately, Company servants did not stop at salt, and soon a whole string of crucial commodities, both foodstuffs and otherwise, were engrossed. In 1709, for example, the deputy-governor Robert Skingle expelled his chief commercial rivals from Bencoolen, its Chinese residents, and then forced all visiting Javanese merchants to sell their goods to him at favourable prices, which he then subsequently sold on to the Malay at a considerable profit.74 At Bencoolen, Company servants had even monopolised the rights to collect taxes on a crucial social practice, that of gambling, which had traditionally belonged to the governing rajas. In 1716, to farm these taxes, they created a ‘gaming licence’, which was then auctioned off to the highest bidder. However, this so outraged the pengerans of Sungai Lemau and Sungai Itam that this monopoly at least had to be abandoned. ‘Such powerfull Men as the Pangarans ought not to be incens’d’, warned Richard Farmer as he backtracked on his own design.75 It was one of the very few concessions made to the interests of the Company’s Malay vassals over the two decades following the fall of Ippue, in which not only had Malay resistance to Company rule survived but gradually became systemic up and down the West Coast as Company servants used their imperial authority to exploit every opportunity for wealth and power. Naturally, this also meant excluding others from potentially competing with, or enjoying the benefits of, the Company’s monopoly on power. Alongside the violent submission of the Ippue rebels, the subduing of the rajas of the Seblat and Cattow river regions, and the expulsion of the Chinese, the imperial ambitions of the Company’s servants manifested themselves most visibly in the annexation of the Jangallo region in 1711. Its pengeran had been a tough negotiator in 1695 when the Company sought to establish a factory and fort in his port of Silebar, some ten miles south of Bencoolen. As such, the price of these concessions was a staggering four hundred dollars per month in customs payments to the pengeran.76 His territory was strategically located so as to force all of the Company’s trade with the southern districts of the West Coast to pass through Silebar, a fact which the pengeran of Jangallo exploited by 72

73 74 75 76

DCB, A Charge exhibited by the President & Council of Fort St George against Mr Richard Farmer of Breach of Orders, and severall othr misdemeanours committed by him, Madras, 23 June 1719. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 10 January 1719. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/6, Bencoolen to court of directors, 4 July 1710. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/58, consultation at Bencoolen, 20 November 1716. BL, APAC, IOR/G/21/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 14 April 1701.

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extracting additional customs payments from the southern rajas, and using the flow of trade as a leverage over the Company’s servants at both Silebar and Bencoolen.77 ‘This Jangallo is a Prince of little Interest’, declared the deputygovernor of Bencoolen, Anthony Ettrick, rather bitterly in 1710, ‘being supported by such a yearly sum . . . a great part of this mony lavish’d away’.78 On the contrary, Jangallo had used the wealth and leverage of his position to build up a powerbase which increasingly challenged the Company’s position to the south, spending lavishly to recruit the support of surrounding rajas to his interests and assembling his new coalition at a ‘great Bechar’ in the spring of 1710.79 Unwilling to abide the existence of autonomous political structures on the West Coast, Company servants responded by drumming up divisions amongst Jangallo and its neighbours, who were informed in a ‘grand’ bithcar held at Silebar in April 1711 that Jangallo ‘appear’d an enemy to ye peace and tranquillity’, and that he had transformed his territory into an ‘assylum for vagabond and Run away slaves whom he dayly Employs in Molesting the neighbouring leading Mallays’.80 The Company agreed to divide Jangallo’s territory between its two neighbours, pengeran Jantinalo and dipati Allum Gallum, if they assisted the Company’s expedition.81 As at Ippue a decade before, however, the subjugation of Jangallo would prove messy and protracted. As Company servants ranged their vassals against Jangallo, the pengeran had been busy withdrawing from Silebar and entrenched his forces in a fortified dusan further up-river. After a brief battle, the Company’s forces managed to capture the pengeran and brought him back to the fort at Silebar.82 But despite the pengeran being a prisoner of war, when he entered the fort Henry Griffith ‘ordered the souldiers to fire upon him and his People who gave no provocation or made resistance’. Although the pengeran survived the ambush, he was imprisoned and two days later ‘Murder’d & bury’d’ in the fort, clearly at the behest of Griffith.83 Such wanton disregard for the status of sovereign rulers would have been unthinkable on the Indian subcontinent at the time, but on Sumatra it betrayed the hegemonic position of Company servants in the increasingly subservient districts of the West Coast. Unfortunately, if it was a tactic designed to end the war quickly, it did not work. The pengeran’s son and successor, Raja Cutcheel, mounted a rigorous defence of the dusan, forcing the Company and its allies to sustain a protracted siege over several weeks. Finally, in mid-May

77 79 80 81 82 83

BL, BL, BL, BL, BL, BL,

78 APAC, IOR/G/3/6, Bencoolen to court of directors, 14 November 1710. Ibid. APAC, IOR/G/35/56, consultation at Bencoolen, 19 March 1710. APAC, IOR/G/35/57, Instructions to Henry Griffith, Bencoolen, 24 April 1711. APAC, IOR/G/35/57, consultation at Bencoolen, 29 April 1711. APAC, IOR/G/35/57, consultation at Bencoolen, 26 April 1711. APAC, IOR/G/35/7, consultation at Bencoolen, 22 October 1712.

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1711 the dusan was captured and the young Raja Cutcheel, his family and followers were brought back to Silebar in chains.84 The conflict initiated by Company servants had ostensibly been caused by their fear of Jangallo’s growing power and influence, a situation which threatened their imperial authority on the Coast. But that was only part of the picture. The Jangallo region was home to one of the densest buffalo hunting grounds on all of the West Coast, a valuable stream of revenue either through the sale of licences for hunting rights or in selling the meat and hides enjoyed by the pengeran of Jangallo and his elites and allies, but denied to Company servants. As Deputy-Governor Ettrick observed of the buffalo, almost salivating as he did so, there were ‘several hundred wild in Jangallo country now belonging to ye rt honble Company’.85 The appropriation of this potentially lucrative monopoly as a motive for launching the expedition against Jangallo can be found in the curious declaration of its leader, Henry Griffith. Rather than seeking to treat with, or depose, the assassinated pengeran’s son and successor, Griffith declared in bitchar that the Company intended to ‘Burn destroy & seize upon whatever might belong to Pangran Jangallo’.86 This was an expedition to extract the assets of the region and exploit valuable sources of wealth which, in India, could only be accessed through negotiation, subordination and the cultivation of, and integration into, complex social and business relationships with Indian communities. In Sumatra, where Company servants had appropriated imperial authority to themselves, the few sources of wealth and power available were violently seized. The territory of Jangallo was therefore promptly carved up, and the country to the south of Silebar River was divided amongst the Company’s vassals, pengeran Jantinalo and dipati Allum Gallum.87 However, the richest picking, the region of Jangallo which stretched far inland to the north, was directly annexed by the Company, the first territory to be permanently conquered by the Company through military action. Not only would Jangallo provide the Company with ‘a place strongly sittuated’, declared Ettrick in justifying the conquest, but it would also open up all the ‘pepper and ye stock of timber and Grain which ye Country affords not only sufficient for a supply of ye rt honble Company but to afford ym some profitt’.88 On the same day that the dusan was captured, servants launched a comprehensive survey of all cattle, grain and goods contained in the town and surrounding country for transport back to Silebar, and then for shipment to

84 86 87 88

85 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, consultation at Bencoolen, 18 May 1711. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, consultation at Bencoolen, 29 April 1711. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, Articles of agreement between the Company and pengeran Jantinalo and dupati Allum Gallum, 2 June 1711. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, consultation at Bencoolen, 18 May 1711.

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Bencoolen, with the first booty in the form of boats weighed down with captured paddy arriving a week later.89 To ensure that this process of imperial looting was not interfered with, the population of the dusan and its surrounding environs were expelled from the region.90 At a bitchar of the Company’s allies and vassals in June, Ettrick announced that the northern half of Jangallo ‘is now by rt & Conquest Intrusted in the rt honble United English East India Company’, and that this gave them authority over the entire Silebar River, as well as ‘the fisheries’ and ‘all Buffalow formerly belonging to Pangaran Jangallo throughout his country on both sides of ye said river’. More still, the Company’s buffalo catchers were able to range freely across the territories bordering this new conquest if the buffalos they hunted strayed into these.91 Clearly, Company servants were already eyeing the lucrative buffalo trade which had made Jangallo so prosperous, but even before these expansive new rights were asserted over the country, servants could not resist already selling licences to other Malays for the right to hunt buffalo in Jangallo. A week after the country’s annexation, Inche Malijco purchased a licence from Bencoolen which gave him the rights to hunt in Jangallo at one dollar and five fanams per buffalo.92 In many ways, the invasion, plunder and annexation of Jangallo proved the culmination of almost two decades of unregulated expansion by the Company on the West Coast of Sumatra. Following the failure of local structures and frameworks of power to accommodate or legitimise the sweeping demands of Company servants on the Coast, from the Treaty of Tryamong in 1695 onwards they began to use military force in an effort to appropriate power to themselves, increasingly shaping the parameters of authority on the Coast in a way that allowed them to dominate Malay state and society in service of their own interests. The impact on the communities of Sumatra, as we have seen, was ultimately devastating. Following the assassination of his father and uncle, and the expulsion of his family and people from their homeland, the heir to Jangallo, Raja Cutcheel, was released from a year-long confinement in the fort at Silebar in 1712 after a petition from several prominent Malay rulers asked the Company to show clemency.93 Stripped of the title and status of pengeran, Raja Cutcheel succeeded to the diminished position of dipati or village chief, and joined his dispersed people who had been forced to wander the wild in

89 90 91 92 93

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, consultation at Bencoolen, 11 May 1711. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, Petition of Dupati Jangallo Raja Cutcheel to Joseph Collet, Decem ber 1712. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, Articles of agreement between the Company and pengeran Jantinalo and dupati Allum Gallum, 2 June 1711. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, consultation at Bencoolen, 18 May 1711. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, consultation at Bencoolen, 19 January 1712.

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great hardship and suffering.94 To Joseph Collet, the new deputy-governor, Dipati Jangallo sent a petition requesting that his people be resettled and accommodated on Company territory. After their ‘whole country was taken and plunder’d, all the Inhabitants expell’d’, pleaded the dipati, the people of Jangallo ‘are reduc’d to great necessity’s, having been stripp’d of all their substance’. Wisely, the dipati stressed his people’s desire to be located somewhere in Company territory where they might ‘live at peace with all their Neighbours, and to apply Themselves with all diligence to the Plantation of Pepper’, and so by that ‘industry to serve the Honble Company’.95 Evidently, it worked, and the exiled Jangallo community were granted a slice of territory half a mile in circumference ‘for building a small Town, and lying on a navigable river’, in exchange for which they were expected to supply Silebar with a rather arbitrary annual quota of pepper.96 By the second decade of the eighteenth century, then, the West Coast of Sumatra was in turmoil: basic provisions had been engrossed and their prices inflated; monopolies had been established over essential commodities such as salt; vital mercantile communities able to stimulate trade had been driven away; worthless copper currency had flooded the market; a combination of soil exhaustion and unrealistic, coercive quotas had led to a collapse in pepper production; and destructive and punitive wars had stripped the countryside of its assets and displaced entire communities. In appropriating imperial power to themselves by force, Company servants had undermined the very indigenous systems of commercial exchange, social relationships and political legitimacy that had brought them to this region following their expulsion from Jambi and Bantam forty years before. Predictably, in erecting new structures of power and hierarchies of authority on top of the shifting post-imperial landscape of the West Coast, Company servants constantly struggled to maintain their hegemony on such a fluid and shaky foundation. As servants agreed new treaties subordinating the various polities of the Coast deeper to the Company, or launched new wars of conquest to acquire greater opportunities for wealth and power, their ability to enforce this imperial framework, or indeed effectively confront systemic resistance to this new environment, became less and less achievable. The Company’s own resources remained limited, and in the absence of dollars from Madras or new recruits from London, servants on the Coast pursued ever-more exploitative policies to achieve their and the Company’s interests, policies which eventually alienated the surrounding Malay communities beyond either reconciliation or submission.

94 95 96

Kathirthamby Wells, ‘A Survey of the Effects of British Influence’, p. 241. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, Petition of Dupatty Jangallo to Bencoolen, December 1712. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, consultation at Bencoolen, December 1712.

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Within the context of the commercial and social depredations of Company servants, a series of accompanying political developments nudged the Malay further towards mass rebellion as Company servants sought to entrench their newly fashioned imperial authority. From 1710, for example, new regulations were introduced which made it mandatory for the Malay to disarm themselves when entering Company settlements.97 Although this secured the Company from the kind of conspiracies and uprisings which had plagued their presence for decades, it also served as a powerful symbol of the Company’s imperial authority, not just stripping the Malay of their power but visibly exercising its own. Naturally, the policy was met with outrage from the Malay: from the common people for whom being equipped with knives, bows and arrows and lances was essential to fulfil a multitude of everyday tasks; and from the governing elite, whose weaponry acted as a sign of their political significance and social status, and ranged from symbolic maces and gilded axes to engraved swords and keris a dagger with supposed magical powers.98 Rather than centres of exchange, accommodation and integration, as on the Indian subcontinent, the key Malay settlements of Bencoolen, Bantal and Silebar were now colonial spaces of regulation, control and coercion. They were no longer sites of European subordination, but of Malay submission and powerlessness. Naturally, this new dynamic was resisted by the Malay, many of whom challenged their disarmament, and even more resorted to violence to oppose it. In a private letter to Madras, one Company servant argued against the policy of disarmament, describing the ‘very melancholly accot of the affairs upon that Coast’, observing how the Company’s ‘Garrisons are very thin and weak, and the Natives having sufferd barbarous treatment’ were now ‘ripe for all manner of mischief.’99 The resistance continued throughout the year, when a new deputy-governor, Joseph Collet, landed at Bantal to discover ‘all in confusion’, in which the upheaval had meant that Company servants had ‘neglected all the Mercantile affairs’.100 If Collet had disapproved of the destabilising policies of his predecessors, he did not let it restrain him from launching his own controversial policies, which served to reinforce the subservience of the Malay while exerting the power of Company servants in an increasingly formalised imperial environment. Most prominently, this included the sacred Malay practice of bitchar, which itself had transitioned over the past four decades from an instrument of Malay government and a forum of diplomacy to an assembly of Company vassals

97 98 99 100

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/6, Bencoolen to court of directors, 4 July 1710. For the regalia of the Sumatran nobility and royalty, see Colombjin, ‘Volatile State’, pp. 512 513. DCB, John Hunter to Madras, Bencoolen, 22 May 1712. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 22 October 1712.

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in which rituals of subordination and ceremonies of hierarchy played out in often dramatic fashion.101 Nonetheless, even under this new configuration, bitchars continued to give Malay elites a voice in Company governance, advising Company servants, shaping policy and ruling on judicial matters involving Malay subjects.102 In 1715 Collet’s government ended the practice of bitchar altogether, and with it any remaining political influence the Malay possessed over the West Coast. In their place, Collet appointed several ‘Conservators of the Peace’, whose role it was to mediate in all disputes between the Malay themselves, as well as between the Malay and the Company.103 Having stripped them of their remaining judicial and political role in government, Collet’s successors then proceeded to weaken the power of the Malay rulers within their own political structures. By 1716, for instance, Deputy-Governor Theophilius Shyllinge had doubts about pengeran Sungai Itam’s ability to perform his subordinate role in upholding Company interests in the Bencoolen region, considering him ‘so indolent’ in pepper cultivation and the suppression of rebellions. As it was ‘not safe to expell him’, instead Shyllinge appointed a ‘Prime Minister’ to run the government of Sungai Itam on the Company’s behalf, retaining the pengeran as a mere figurehead moving forward. The new minister was even designated a force of Bugis soldiers to help establish his authority within the state.104 The formalisation of imperial frameworks of power over the West Coast was, of course, largely about reducing the role of indigenous structures of authority that might pose a threat to this. But the deputy-governorship of Joseph Collet also reveals the intensely personal dynamic underpinning this process, in which individual Company servants stripped Malay elites of their rights and privileges as a way of augmenting their own position atop these new hierarchies of prestige and power. On the Indian subcontinent, Collet’s contemporaries had acquired local and even sometimes regional authority and prestige through establishing important business links with ruling families, marrying into elite kinship networks and even acquiring positions of importance as zamindars, tax collectors or military leaders. But on the West Coast of Sumatra, individual Company servants utilised their hegemony to acquire dizzying heights of personal power, pomp and circumstance. ‘Their Kings and Princes obey my commands with as great readiness as if I were their natural Sovereign’, declared Collet in 1714, ‘I am really an Absolute Prince with respect to the Malays.’105 To the Reverend Nathaniel Hodges in London, 101 102 103 104 105

William Marsden depicted the bitchar as a constitutional and legal body governing the Malay, one that was gradually manipulated by the British. See Marsden, History, p. 182. See Bastin, ed., British in West Sumatra, pp. 34 35, fn 206. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 5 April 1715. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 29 September 1716. BL, APAC, MSS Eur D1153/2, Joseph Collet to Samuel Collet, Bencoolen, 1 March 1714.

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Collet described how, in his first meeting with some of the more important Malay rulers, he had ‘been ador’d with Prostration and have had my feet bath’d with tears of Joy and Gratitude . . . My Knees have been embraced and that even by a Prince as well as Slaves’.106 Within the context of the Company’s imperial framework on the West Coast, Collet’s office of deputygovernor was not just an administrative position but, as local circumstances demanded, one of suzerainty and sovereignty. As he reported satisfactorily to the directors in 1715, ‘All the natives look on the Company as their Lords and the Deputy as a Great Rajah.’107 Collet’s self-perceived role as a ‘Great Rajah’ was more than mere rhetoric, however, and the deputy-governor frequently exercised his suzerainty over his vassals. When fresh rebellions broke out in Anak Sungai in 1713, Collet used this as an opportunity to reduce Sultan Gulemat’s power even further. The deputy-governor declared that he was dispatching an expedition northward into Anak Sungai to maintain ‘Sultan Guillamatt in the Government which without doubt is his right’, but that he would also seek to ‘restrain his Power’, the reason given, of course, was that it was for the ‘wellfare, and benefit of the Natives’.108 After a swift march overland from Bencoolen to Anak Sungai by a Company force of 100 soldiers, the rebel towns of Manduta and Moco Moco were stormed and occupied, and the rebel rajas captured and eventually beheaded.109 Secure on his throne again, Sultan Gulemat was forced to agree to a revised treaty with the Company which severely limited his authority by providing the peroatins or regional officials throughout the sultanate with substantial autonomy.110 Other terms included a ban on the importation of gunpowder, and the implementation of fines of fifteen dollars for every family who failed to meet the Company’s arbitrary pepper quotas.111 Collet articulated his victory in suitably triumphant terms, writing to another clergy friend, Reverend Moses Lowman, that ‘I have gone through two successfull Wars . . . and at the same time have gain’d the Love of the people I have conquer’d.’112 And indeed the campaign had not only crushed the rebellion but also subjugated the sultanate even further to the Company, and in the process confirmed Joseph Collet as Sultan Gulemat’s superior. As Collet reported following this victory, the sultan ‘calls me a Father and asks my advice in the Government of

106 107 108 109 110 111 112

BL, APAC, MSS Eur D1153/2, Joseph Collet to Nathaniel Hodges, Bencoolen, 2 Novem ber 1712. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/8, Bencoolen to court of directors, 4 April 1715. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/57, consultation at Bencoolen, 22 October 1713. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/8, Bencoolen to court of directors, 15 May 1714. For the treaty’s full terms, see BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/8, Treaty with Anak Sungai, Bencoolen, 30 November 1713. Ibid. BL, APAC, MSS Eur D1153/2, Joseph Collet to Moses Lowman, Bencoolen, 3 January 1715.

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his own people’.113 But if Company servants believed that they had bound Anak Sungai more firmly into the lower rungs of their imperial hierarchy on the West Coast, Collet’s successor as deputy-governor, Richard Farmer, was more perceptive when he warned in 1717 that ‘tho’ the Natives seem to submit . . . it is because they cant remedy, and therefore will long conceal their Resentment’.114 More prophetic words were perhaps never spoken on the West Coast by an English servant. Reducing the sultan of Anak Sungai to a mere figurehead proved to be the unifying force in a consistent but hitherto largely disparate strand of resistance to the Company’s imperial pretensions on the West Coast. From 1716 onwards, a coalition emerged of deposed sultans, dispossessed pengerans, exploited coastal communities, disaffected up-river chiefs and radicalised religious leaders to destroy the Company’s nascent empire on the Coast. Shortly after taking over the reins from Joseph Collet, the new deputygovernor, Theophilus Shyllinge, had some startling news to report to his counterpart at Madras. ‘Are now to advise of the Revolution in Anack Soongey’, he wrote in September 1716. The Company’s most subordinate, pliant and significant vassal, Sultan Gulemat, had suddenly and unexpectedly fled the sultanate with his family and refused Company demands to return.115 There are conflicting accounts as to what caused the sultan’s startling abdication, including a falsified letter from an enemy raja pretending to be from one of the sultan’s confidants warning him that the Company intended to depose him, whilst another account suggests it was the result of Dutch agents seeking to destabilise the English Company’s position in Anak Sungai.116 And while it is perfectly reasonable that some of these elements contributed to the ‘revolution’, it is clear that Sultan Gulemat’s flight was neither sudden nor surprising but rather the result of a gradual undermining of his authority and his deeper subordination to the Company’s interests, a process which left the sultan virtually powerless after Joseph Collet’s intervention in 1713. Although the sultan was not technically deposed by the Company, it became clear to Company servants in retrospect that their relentless usurpation of his power had driven the sultan into exile, and they soon accepted that Sultan Gulemat ‘had been deposed and fled the Country’.117 The Company’s subsequent actions certainly reinforced this perspective. Deputy-Governor Shyllinge had deemed that by refusing to return to Anak Sungai, Sultan Gulemat had ‘abdicated the throne’.118 In response, Shyllinge appointed Raja Kecil Busar

113 115 116 117

114 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 23 October 1717. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 29 September 1716. For the existence of a fabricated letter, see BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/8, James Morris to court of directors, aboard the Queen, 6 February 1719. 118 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 29 September 1716.

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as the new sultan, the son of Gulemat’s erstwhile patron, but latterly rival for the throne, Raja Macoota. In doing so, Shyllinge’s government was purposefully promoting an alternative royal lineage, one that was not only intended to refute Gulemat’s claim to the throne but was also entirely dependent on the Company for its legitimacy. Reshaping Anak Sungai into a new sultanate under the tutelage of the Company and independent of Inderapura had been challenging enough over the past three decades. Even when the Company had maintained the authority of legitimate local rulers who drew on the Minangkabau royal tradition and had the support of the governing menteri, Company forces still had to intervene ceaselessly to crush rebellions, drive out rival claimants and coerce refractory vassals. The appointment of Raja Kecil Busar stripped away the last semblance of this local legitimacy, and by the menteri, rajas, peroatins, dipatis and even the villagers themselves, the new sultan was universally rejected as little more than a puppet of the Company, unfit to wield sovereignty on their behalf.119 Alongside the debilitating social and economic dislocation caused by Company servants up and down the Coast, including the hardship caused by monopolies on essential goods and the displacement of entire communities as the result of military conquest, the systemic resistance to Company rule now crystallised around Sultan Gulemat’s cause, unifying the disparate strands of anti-English opinion, tying together the various political victims of the Company’s empire-building and even popularising rebellion as entire villages and riverine populations took up arms under the deposed sultan’s banner, seizing the opportunity this justification provided to gain back control of key commodities, cast off oppress pepper quotas, reject baseless copper cash and re-centre political authority back onto individual riverine communities and the leaders they chose to invest with sovereignty. The spark for this general conflagration of resistance and rebellion was a carefully planned invasion of Anak Sungai by Sultan Gulemat himself in November 1717, returning to reclaim his throne in coalition with a number of previous rivals, including Raja Mansur.120 The latter provided the sultan’s cause with a broad spectrum of support from various political factions. As the chief of Bantal, James Morris, wrote in alarm, the sultan ‘who had been deposed and fled the Country was returned wth a force of men and joyn’d Raja Mansore the old disturber of the peace’. Every riverine district the coalition marched through took up the sultan’s cause, allowing the invasion force to ‘march clear through’ to the Company’s settlements on the Coast. 119

120

For the idea that the political communities of the West Coast freely switched allegiance and ultimately determined who exercised sovereignty, see Kathirthamby Wells, ‘A Survey of the Effects of British Influence’, p. 241. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 10 January 1719.

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Unsurprisingly, the rajas of Cattown and Seblat immediately ‘declar’d for him wth all the rest of the Country’.121 Such widespread support had an instant impact on military success, as the Malay forces swept down on the Coast, burnt the Company’s paggars at Tryamong and Ippue where they ‘kill’d many of the Companys Servants’, and then moved against Bantal itself, where they ‘plunder’d [the Company’s] cattle and almost starved them to death’.122 Bantal was a tougher nut to crack, however, and after burning the town down and driving the inhabitants away, the sultan’s forces placed the fort under a tight siege, seeking to starve the Company’s northern headquarters into submission.123 On the brink of destruction, Chief Morris observed to the court of directors how ‘the consequences of dethroning Sultan Guillamott appeared in its true Coulors for we were incompassed wth Enemys on all sides that came to revenge the affronts offered to the rights of Malay princes in Generall by deposing one and setting up another that has no manner of Claim.’124 Bantal was only saved from complete destruction by the timely arrival of a small Company force under Thomas Cooke in June 1718, who had been dispatched from Madras as supervisor to address the Company’s collapsing position on the West Coast. When he landed at Bencoolen, Cooke ‘found all in Confusion’, and ‘all the Settlemts near destruction’. After reversing some of the Company servants’ more severe policies, including restoring the practice of bitchar and reinvesting the pengerans with power ‘to keep up their authority’, Cooke emptied Bencoolen of all its soldiers, servants and even black slaves, and commandeered two Company ships, surprising the besieging Malay army at Bantal and succeeding in forcing Sultan Gulemat’s withdrawal from the region. However, it proved a pyrrhic victory for the Company, as Supervisor Cooke reported to the governor of Madras the loss of ‘many peoples lives’, as well as the loss of ‘thousands of dollars’ in destroyed property and goods. Most effectively in terms of the Malay coalition’s aims, however, the Company’s enforced pepper economy had ‘run to ruine’ as the Malay forces scorched the plantations in the Bantal region, with the loss of an estimated 250,000 pepper trees.125 The Malay coalition may have failed to capture Bantal, but the devastation their invasion had wrought succeeded in forcing the Company to abandon the region, withdrawing its northern headquarters from Bantal to the more geographically isolated Moco Moco in early 1719.126 Although the Company’s position as suzerain of Anak Sungai lay in tatters, Supervisor Cooke had managed to muster enough resources to salvage a small 121 122 123 124

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/8, James Morris to court of directors, aboard the Queen, 6 Febru ary 1719. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 10 January 1719. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/8, James Morris to court of directors, aboard the Queen, 6 Febru ary 1719. 125 126 Ibid. BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 10 January 1719. Ibid.

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enclave of Company power to the north. But in doing so, he had stretched the Company’s presence to breaking point. At the exact same time that Sultan Gulemat had invaded Anak Sungai to reclaim his throne, a simultaneous invasion was taking place at Bencoolen. The Company’s fiscal-military resources on the West Coast were barely adequate to enforce Company dominance during periods of peace, let alone face systemic resistance and large-scale invasions on multiple fronts. To meet the threat of Sultan Gulemat to the north, the Bencoolen region was left dangerously vulnerable, reliant almost entirely on the support of local Malay elites who had become alienated and indifferent to the interests of the Company’s regime through decades of policies aimed at reducing their authority. So when a large force of up-river hill tribes invaded the Bencoolen region in November 1717, many of these disgruntled elites seized the opportunity to pull down the Company’s framework of power, one severely exposed from the need to rush reinforcements to the north to secure Bantal. Like those elites, these new invaders had been the victim of the disruptive nature of the Company’s commodity monopolies, enforced cloth payments and coercive pepper quotas. Up-river communities had traditionally relied on their position as gobetweens in the trade of goods between the upland mountains and the coastal ports. The Kerenci in particular, a staunchly Islamic people whom Company servants described as the ‘Orang Gunung’, had gained their livelihoods from the salt trade, which they had participated in to acquire pepper from cultivators in the highlands or gold from visiting Javanese and Chinese merchants in coastal ports.127 Naturally, the private monopolies established by Company servants over salt displaced the Orang Gunung from this trade, a fact which led them to launch intermittent raids on Company vassals, most prominently pengeran Sungai Lemau.128 But it was Sultan Gulemat’s arrival amongst the Orang Gunung during his exile from Anak Sungai in 1717 which allowed them to unite their hostility towards the Company with the sultan’s political cause. Before he returned to Anak Sungai to reclaim his throne, Sultan Gulemat allied with Padri Penawar, a religious figure amongst the Kerenci who took on a leadership role in the cause against the English, and who agreed to lead an Orang Gunung invasion of Bencoolen to coincide with Gulemat’s own invasion of Anak Sungai.129 And indeed as Bencoolen was stripped of its resources to meet the threat to Bantal, Padri Penawar’s army arrived in the environs of Bencoolen in November 1717. With Company servants completely caught by surprise, Supervisor Cooke later reported to Madras how ‘the Oran Goonos joyning with the Mallays to extirpate the whole English 127 128

J. Kathirithamby Wells, ‘The Origin of the Term Padri: Some Historical Evidence’, Indonesia Circle, vol. 14 (1986), p. 3. 129 BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/. Kathirithamby Wells, ‘Origin of the Term Padri’, p. 4.

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Nation on that Coast’ had set the entire Bencoolen region in rebellion, ‘Sultan Guillamot concern’d therein the People being perswaded of his Hereditary right.’130 Unsurprisingly, the first to flock to the padri’s army was the son of the assassinated pengeran of Jangallo, Raja Cutcheel, now dipati of Jangallo, arriving in the Orang Gunung camp with eighty of his followers.131 Although not outwardly abandoning the Company, over the next couple of months the pengerans of Sungai Itam and Sungai Lemau opened their territories up to the Orang Gunung, allowing the padri to build a chain of fortified dusans in the country around Bencoolen, effectively cutting the city off from its environs.132 At the same time, the forces of the padri swelled as dozens of the pengerans’ senior peroatins flocked to his side.133 Ultimately, like Sultan Gulemat to the north, Padri Penawar was also unsuccessful in capturing Bencoolen. But, also like the sultan, his invasion severely undermined the foundation of Company power in the region, leaving servants clinging on to an isolated and exposed position. While the padri entrenched the Orang Gunung position in the country surrounding Bencoolen in late 1717, the Company had sent out the few European soldiers left available, in the absence of reinforcements that had already been dispatched to Bantal, to drive the padri off. This force barely got beyond Fort Marlborough’s gates before it met stiff resistance, even from the Malay inhabitants of Bencoolen itself an early warning sign that the low-lying resistance to the Company had now transformed into a popular uprising. Worst still, this small force was subsequently defeated by a detachment of Orang Gunungs that had moved in to occupy Bencoolen.134 With virtually no European soldiers left, Company servants launched frantic efforts to recruit anyone able to bear arms, from English sailors to Chinese merchants and coffrey slaves. By December, this rag-tag force marched out in two columns and, engaging the Orang Gunungs in the city, miraculously managed to inflict a crushing defeat on them, and ‘by the blessing of God obtained a glorious victory’, killing a hundred Orang Gunungs and returning to Fort Marlborough with ‘twenty of the Enemy’s heads’.135 Although Bencoolen was therefore saved from imminent destruction, the padri and the bulk of his forces remained intact in the countryside. Unable to muster up the resources to dislodge them, Company servants watched helplessly as the padri gradually detached the Company’s Malay vassals from them, undermining the framework of Company imperial rule which had previously rested on the use of force and the projection of power over the West Coast, but by early 1718 did not exist outside the walls of Fort Marlborough. As Company servants 130 131 132 134

BL, BL, BL, BL,

APAC, IOR/G/35/7, Bencoolen to Madras, 10 February 1718. APAC, IOR/G/35/58, consultation at Bencoolen, 2 December 1717. APAC, IOR/G/35/58, consultation at Bencoolen, 4 January 1718. APAC, IOR/G/35/58, consultation at Bencoolen, 3 December 1717.

133

Ibid. Ibid.

135

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put on a grand feast of ‘thanksgiving’ for their victory over the padri, the deputy-governor gave pause for thought when he mulled over what might happen if ‘the Malay padre the author of the late troubles here should with his broken forces rallie and joyn Sultan Guilliamott’. His guess was that ‘this confederacy will become so formidable it will not be in our power . . . to hinder a second incursion’.136 He could not have known it at the time, but that is exactly what was about to happen. As dusk fell on the West Coast of Sumatra on the 24 March 1719, Supervisor Thomas Cooke watched from the battlements of Fort Marlborough as darkness enveloped the countryside surrounding Bencoolen. But it wasn’t the wonders of a Sumatran twilight that had attracted the supervisor’s gaze that evening but rather ‘the dreadfull sight’, as he described it, of a thick wall of fire and smoke which blocked the horizon, prematurely covering the town in darkness. The previous day ‘a General combination of Malay’s’ had gathered about five miles beyond the fort, where they had set fire to the Company’s pepper plantations and houses. Once again a force was quickly cobbled together of migrant Buginese mercenaries, Chinese soldiers and hastily armed coffrey slaves, which were then despatched into the countryside the next morning. But when the Company’s ragtag expedition met the Malay army in an entrenched and fortified camp across the river beyond Bencoolen, they deserted the few English who had accompanied them, whilst the Company’s Malay vassals, who had promised to provide the expedition with supplies and pontoons, were nowhere to be seen. Beating a hasty retreat back to Fort Marlborough, and abandoned by all of their subjects, subordinates and allies, Cooke and the other Company servants concluded in a meeting that evening ‘that the whole Country was concerned in this rebellion’, including those within the settlement of Bencoolen itself. Shut away in the fort, the English mulled their options. With five or six hundred English, Chinese and slaves remaining in the fort, they agreed that they were ‘in some danger of being overcome’, and on 26 March decided to evacuate Fort Marlborough by withdrawing ‘with all the expedition and secrecy [that] could be possibly contrived’ to a Company ship that in rather timely fashion had arrived shortly before the new invasion had materialised, and was now anchored in the roadstead. Unfortunately, the next morning, as Company servants planned their withdrawal, events were forced upon them, as a series of coordinated fires carried out by the Malays engulfed Bencoolen in flames, and spread rapidly to the fort itself. Confused, and not able to see any of the enemy, the English started firing cannons at the ‘thickest of the Fire’. This proved a fatal mistake. The fort’s walls, already undermined by the inferno, began to collapse under the force of

136

BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/58, consultation at Bencoolen, 10 December 1717.

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the thundering canons, hurling the ‘great Guns’ from the battlements onto the fort’s buildings below. These, lamented Cooke, ‘took fire & burnt so fierce that there was no extinguishing of it’. As Fort Marlborough disintegrated around them, a general panic seized the English, ‘which put every man upon saving his life’. Roughly four hundred English, Chinese, and coffrey slaves made a mad scramble for the beach where the Metchlepatam awaited them offshore. At this moment, the Malay army finally showed itself, descending on the survivors as they struggled across the sand, where hundreds ‘of our People were either drown’d & killed’, lamented Cooke. When one Company servant, Joseph Walsh, was severely injured in the pandemonium and stumbled into the surf, only the intervention of a slave stopped him from being killed by pursuing Malay soldiers, helping him to his feet and carrying him into the water. As morning light approached, Thomas Cooke calculated the number of survivors crammed on board the Metchlepatam at less than half of what they had been when they fled the fort. As they sat on the deck of the ship, wet, traumatised and bloodied, they watched as Fort Marlborough, Bencoolen and thirty years of Company imperial rule burnt ingloriously to the ground.137 The astonishing success of the Malay coalition in expelling the Company from the West Coast of Sumatra was largely of the Company’s own making. In pulling down the newly emerging economic and political structures that had developed to accommodate the fledgling polities of the West Coast in the vacuum of Acehnese and Bantamese decline, Company servants had fashioned their own frameworks of imperial power that rather than bind these polities together into a broadly functioning and dynamic commercial and political environment, had instead relied on the projection of military force over the West Coast to subject, exploit and disenfranchise its elites and their communities. In coalescing around the cause of Sultan Gulemat and the throne of Anak Sungai, a range of disparate strands of resistance which had sporadically manifested in violent resistance to Company rule at Ippue, Cattown, Seblat and Jangallo, to name a few were able to unite around the single issue of political legitimacy. More than anything, in discarding the sacred political and ideological trappings of power, kingship and sovereignty which had dictated the largely stable transfer of power from the great Islamic empires of Aceh and Bantam to the smaller autonomous polities of the West Coast, Company servants had set up an imperial framework which was only enforceable with the application of overwhelming coercive force, something the Company itself

137

There are two surviving narratives of the destruction of Fort Marlborough and the expulsion of the Company from the West Coast of Sumatra. The official account can be found in BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/58, consultation at Bencoolen, 26 and 27 March 1719; in contrast, a private account of the attack can be found in BL, APAC, MSS Eur D546/1, Joseph Walsh to Captain Richard Williams, Madras, 12 July 1719.

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continued to lack, especially in the absence of supportive local networks which may have otherwise made credit and manpower more accessible. In fact, it is remarkable that Company servants were able to sustain this dynamic as long as they did. However, this wasn’t entirely the end of the Company’s history on the West Coast of Sumatra. Servants returned just two years later, re-establishing themselves at Bencoolen in 1721.138 But the aspirations to empire through the projection of military force were never revived, and in fact the Company’s establishment limped along rather pathetically over the next few decades. In 1755, Alexander Hall, stationed at the minor factory of Natal, complained bitterly of ‘the decayed state of this Coast where there are now small hopes of a gentleman’s picking up a competency’.139 The nadir came in 1760 when the West Coast settlements were captured by the French, and Hall along with all of his colleagues were made prisoners of war.140 Following its restoration, the West Coast establishment was downgraded to ‘factory’ status, consisting of a few minor trading posts along the Coast, managed by a single resident at Bencoolen.141 When Stamford Raffles arrived as the new resident in 1818, he reported to his secretary, the historian William Marsden, how ‘This is without exception, the most wretched place I ever beheld. I cannot convey to you an adequate idea of the state of ruin and dilapidation which surrounds me.’142 Never able to turn a profit or acquire enough pepper, the Company’s rule over the West Coast was ultimately traded away to the Dutch in 1824, in exchange for the more lucrative prospect of what would become Singapore.143 This chapter has charted the ultimately unsuccessful attempts by Company servants to become the author of their own frameworks of political and economic power in Asia. In doing so, the Company embarked on a process of imperialism: a form of expansion pursued when the Company was unable to acquire the commercial, governmental, jurisdictional and political rights and privileges from within the Asian state system. The Company’s expansion on the West Coast of Sumatra in the early eighteenth century was distinct from its expansion in, for example, India under the Mughal empire, largely because Company servants rejected adaptation to, and integration within, existing practices, customs and systems, and instead chose to create new structures 138 139 140 141

142 143

See BL, APAC, IOR/G/35/58, consultation at Bencoolen, 23 January 1721. N[ational] L[ibrary] of S[cotland], GD206/2/499, Alexander Hall to Sir John Hall, Natal, 30 November 1755. NLS, GD206/2/499, Alexander Hall to Sir John Hall, London, 17 April 1762. For the failure of the West Coast ‘presidency’ and its reduction into a ‘factory’, see J. Kathirithamby Wells, The British West Sumatran Presidency, 1760 1785: Problems of Early Colonial Enterprise (Kuala Lumpur, 1977). Cited in Victoria Glendinning, Raffles and the Golden Opportunity (London, 2012), p. 197. For the 1824 Treaty of London, see H. R. C. Wright, ‘The Anglo Dutch Dispute in the East, 1814 1824, The Economic History Review, vol. 3, no. 2 (1950), pp. 229 239.

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and control these to achieve their own ends. As such, this imperial dynamic undermines more linear or homogenous narratives of a ‘transition’ or ‘transformation’ by the Company from commercial pursuits to territorial ambition in Asia in the eighteenth century. As we have seen, the Company had always been interested in exercising government, gaining territory, expanding its commerce and enlarging its jurisdiction.144 But the acquisition of these depended entirely on the local or regional landscapes within which the Company found itself, and, just as within Europe, Africa or the Americas, these landscapes and the structures of state and empire which were to be found in Asia varied greatly. War and conquest were not viable options against the might of the Ottoman, Safavid or Mughal empires, especially when these polities were willing to integrate foreign groups like Europeans to strengthen their own imperial rule. But when the Company encountered smaller states which lacked the imperial frameworks of legitimacy and power that could both regulate the Company and enfranchise it with the rights it sought, then war, conquest and control emerged as means for the Company to, in a phrase, selfenfranchise. And while the Company’s presence on the West Coast of Sumatra constituted its earliest attempt at large-scale imperial expansion in Asia, it must also be placed side-by-side with the Company’s subordination to a host of larger Asian powers. But just as with its brief show of force against Mughal authorities at Bombay and in Bengal, even into the eighteenth century the Company remained militarily and fiscally weak, limited in its ability to project force in Asia. Although Company servants achieved a degree of success in subjugating the local polities of the West Coast, especially in comparison to the lamentable effort against the Mughal empire in the 1680s, they were never quite able to match their imperial ambitions with the force necessary to dominate the West Coast communities. The result was therefore an endless cycle of weak military intervention, political instability, rising costs and economic exploitation and dislocation. The Company had continued to learn the hard way that attempts to ‘go it alone’ and operate outside of wider frameworks of enfranchisement and rights which tied it to a host of legitimising authorities was ultimately an unsuccessful strategy.

144

As argued by Stern, Company State.

Part IV

Empire

8

‘The End of These Things Will Not Be Good’ Legacies of Empire in Mid-Eighteenth Century India

The failure of the English East India Company’s empire-building on the West Coast of Sumatra in the early eighteenth century stood in stark contrast to the Company’s sustainable expansion on the Indian subcontinent. There, in the early eighteenth century, the Company remained thoroughly regulated by wider Mughal imperial frameworks and regional hierarchies of authority, and firmly entrenched in the localities through expansive transcultural networks and dynamic transnational settlements. On Sumatra, the Company had failed to establish durable relationships with elites or acquire political legitimacy, and therefore in the long run failed to integrate productively into Sumatran political and social life. In India, the opposite was true, as the Company developed a rich cloak of political and constitutional legitimacy through integration and subordination, allowing its presence to flourish and expand commercially, jurisdictionally and politically. It was this century-long process which constituted the true origins of the British Empire in Asia, providing a foundation from which imperial authority could be acquired in India: not from without, but from within. With the cooperation and alliance of key sections of Indian society and facilitated by the great sweep of political rights gained over several generations, the Company went from strength to strength. At the same time as Company servants usurped Sultan Gulemat’s power and forced him to flee Anak Sungai in 1716, setting the West Coast of Sumatra aflame with rebellion and revolution, the Emperor Farrukhsiyar affixed his signature to three imperial farmans granted to an embassy of Company servants led by John Surman who gathered eagerly at the Mughal court in Delhi to receive them.1 After two years of attending the emperor at court and in his camp, participating in imperial marriage ceremonies and negotiating with Mughal ministers and courtiers, Surman’s embassy had acquired the most sweeping set of rights and privileges yet received by the Company in Asia. 1

John Surman and Edward Stephenson to Calcutta, Delhi, 31 December 1716, in C. R. Wilson, ed., The Early Annals of the English in Bengal: The Bengal Public Consultations for the First Half of the Eighteenth Century (Calcutta, 1911, 2 volumes), vol. 2, part 2, p. 210 [hereafter Surman Diary].

245

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The effort had not been easy, however. Some eight years in the planning by various governors of Madras and Calcutta, the embassy was conceived as a way to re-confirm the scores of regional and local grants received by the Company over the past half-century, while condensing them into a single overarching imperial farman that would also expand these rights in several significant ways. The key focus of the embassy was an extravagant present to the emperor and his court, designed not just to impress the Company’s wealth and status but to demonstrate their tributary relationship with the empire and their utility in enriching the Mughal elite. Thus over several years, more than 200,000 rupees’ worth of gifts were collected at Calcutta, including an ostentatious silk map of the world, embroidered with gold and silver Persian words; the finest ornate mechanical clocks from Europe set with precious stones; modern European guns and artillery; sumptuous cloth and silk; ambergris; fifty chests of Shiraz wine; and even a ‘Unicorns Horn’.2 All in all, some eighty tonnes of goods were loaded onto a caravan of 140 bullock carts and 22 oxen, accompanied by over 1,200 Indian porters, which took three months to snake its way across North India from Calcutta to Delhi.3 As the embassy passed through the Lahore Gate into the Mughal capital, it was preceded by the emperor’s own mace-wielding ministers, a Mughal troop of 200 horse and two elephants, and then eventually an English procession of trumpeters, drummers, a guard of 300 Company troops and finally the Company servants themselves, dressed in resplendent gold and silver robes of honour gifted by Emperor Farrukhsiyar, carried in silver-coated palanquins and throwing gold coins to the city crowds as they passed.4 Perhaps more than any other event, Surman’s embassy to the Mughal court highlights the stark contrast between the failure of Company servants in forcefully appropriating power on Sumatra with their more successful expansion from within existing Indian frameworks of sovereignty. This, of course, was largely due to the capability of the Mughal empire to absorb, accommodate and utilise the interests of Company servants, interests which otherwise proved too destabilising in smaller polities such as those of the West Coast. Surman and his colleagues had initially placed before the Peacock Throne a petition for almost twenty privileges, some of which were designed to significantly expand the Company’s presence, especially in Bengal. The articles ranged from the right to customs-free trade across the entire empire, extraterritorial privileges such as the Mughal government’s commitment to apprehend and return debtors to the Company, and, most sweeping of all, the grant of new territory, including the expansion of Calcutta to include thirty-eight 2 3 4

Surman Diary, John Surnman and Edward Stephenson to Calcutta, Delhi, 8 July 1715. Surman Diary, consultation at Patna, 2 November 1714. Surman Diary, John Surnman and Edward Stephenson to Calcutta, Delhi, 8 July 1715.

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surrounding villages which would be merged into a single new jurisdiction known as Farrukhabad, in honour of the emperor.5 While this was initially rejected, after much negotiation and revision with the court a second, more streamlined petition ultimately granted the majority of these requests, including the Company’s territorial expansion in Bengal and on the Coromandel Coast, as well as the right to customs-free trade in the empire. It is difficult to underestimate the sacrosanctity with which Calcutta, Madras and Surat treated the imperial farmans that each region received in 1717.6 When Madras received their farman, they recognised it as the constitutional foundation of their entire presence on the Coromandel Coast. It not only confirmed all of their existing rights but allowed for the acquisition of Divy Island off the port of Masulipatam, three towns at Vizagapatam and five towns neighbouring Madras.7 The physical document was itself treated as the sacred embodiment of Mughal sovereignty, even of the person of the emperor himself. On the 24 July 1717, the farman was carried in a litter on a stately palanquin through the main gate of Fort St George, where it was met by the English mayor and the Portuguese, Armenian and Indian alderman, as well as the garrison who were drawn up, bearing arms and beating drums. This assembly then accompanied the palanquin to the governor’s chambers at the centre of the fort, from where he descended with his councillors to proclaim the privileges enshrined in the farman, which was simultaneously read out in Persian and Tamil to the gathered city inhabitants. The farman was then paraded around the city, this time led by the Pedda Nayak, or town watchman, and his attendants on horseback, followed by an English guard, trumpeters, the Company’s dubash, or chief agent, and all the principle Indian merchants of the city, accompanied by several Indian bands playing a variety of ‘country’ music. At each of the town’s gates the parade stopped ‘to proclaim His Majesties Phirmaund’, declaring ‘This is His Majesty King Furruckseers Royal Phirmaund, wheren he confirms to ye Hono English East India Company all former Grants and Privileges . . . and further grants many new privileges with the possession of several Lands in many parts of India with such favr as has never before been granted to any European Nation.’ As these words were delivered, the fort fired a 151-gun salute, answered by all the European and Indian ships in the road. After this, the Indian and European officials and merchants marched the farman to the Company’s garden in the countryside just beyond the city, where another 101-gun salute was fired to honour ‘ye Mogulls Health’, and then, in descending order, the health of King George, and then that of the Company. Finally, ‘all the Gentleman of the City on Horse back with handsome accoutrements where 5 6

Surman Diary, A Translate off a Generall petition to the King, in order of our obtaining a Phirmaund, Delhi, 28 August 1715. 7 Stern, Company State, p. 203. DCB, John Surman to Madras, Delhi, 21 November 1716.

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all they English, Portuguese, Armenian, and Moors Inhabitants were splendidly entertain’d at Dinner, and the Day Concluded, with feasting of ye Soldiers with Tubs of Punch, and a Bonefire at night.’ The festivities came to a close with an ‘abundance of fire Works’, put on by the Indian merchants ‘to show their Joy at the Honr Company’s receiving so much favr from the Mogul’.8 Just as Company servants on Sumatra tore down existing economic and political structures and failed to maintain new imperial ones on top of these, their counterparts in India were clearly far more successful in acquiring and sustaining significant commercial, territorial and jurisdictional power by working within existing Asian frameworks of sovereign and constitutional authority. However, for many historians, the inability of the Company to fully realise all of the farman privileges granted by Emperor Farrukhsiyar is evidence of the collapse of the Mughal framework in the first half of the eighteenth century and the beginning of an ‘inevitable’ conflict between emerging regional forces as they sought to appropriate power in the vacuum left by the court at Delhi.9 As such, much emphasis has been placed upon the causal link between a supposed decline of the Mughal empire and the emergence of British colonial rule, creating a narrative in which Company servants worked to undermine Mughal authority as a way to carve out their own centres of power in the Indian provinces, especially in regions such as Bengal.10 As M. Athar Ali observed, the ‘break-up’ of the Mughal empire preceded the emergence of British colonialism ‘with such a short interval’ that he suggested the Company must have been ‘subverting the polity and society’ of Mughal India long before they assumed formal control.11 However, not only is half a century not really a ‘short interval’ at all but, as the preceding chapters in this book have shown, Company servants rarely sought to undermine a sovereign system which had facilitated, fulfilled and dramatically expanded their interests and presence across the Indian subcontinent. Rather, the opposite was true, as Company servants desperately sought to uphold Mughal legitimacy and the authority of the emperor in Delhi as a way to validate and enforce their sweeping privileges in the various regions of the empire. But, as adaptable as ever, and always deeply rooted into the local environs of their settlements and networks, Company servants also sought to integrate themselves with the newly emerging regimes in Bengal and on the Coromandel Coast. Far from a 8 9 10

11

BL, APAC, IOR/P/239/87, consultation at Madras, 24 July 1717. Stern, Company State, p. 204. Primary amongst these is the ‘great firm’ theory, which suggests that indigenous bankers drifted away from supporting the empire and instead funded the expansionist policies of the East India Companies. See Karen Leonard, ‘The “Great Firm” Theory of the Decline of the Mughal Empire’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 21, no. 2 (April, 1979), p. 152. M. Athar Ali, Mughal India: Studies in Polity, Ideas, Society, and Culture (Oxford, 2006), p. 338.

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disruptive force, in fact, the Company with one foot in Delhi and another in the provinces proved an important link between the emperor and the nawabs, contributing to the durability and cohesiveness of a Mughal framework of power which remained relatively intact though with perhaps far more elasticity than previously to serve the interests of Company servants well into the second half of the eighteenth century.12 Nonetheless, most historians have been ready to condemn the Mughal empire into irreversible decline following Aurangzeb’s death in 1707, in which imperial authority gradually collapsed throughout the subcontinent, hastened by a debilitating series of civil wars which witnessed six different claimants succeed to the throne in just twelve years, and several foreign invasions which repeatedly sacked and devastated the imperial capital at Delhi. The causes of the empire’s decline have given rise to a long-running debate amongst historians. Traditionally, much of the empire’s problems after 1707 were attributed to the reign of Aurangzeb himself, in which a combination of imperial overstretch following almost half a century of territorial expansion, as well as the religious divisions fuelled by the emperor’s policies, came to a head after the latter’s death. In contrast, some historians looked to the supposedly degenerate and effeminate courtly life of the weak emperors which followed, especially that of Farrukhsiyar, who was said to have conceded his political power to influential ministers such as the Sayyid brothers, and retreated into the pleasures of ‘luxury’ and ‘idleness’. More revisionist interpretations, however, have emphasised the structural and social problems of the empire, including the jagir system of imperial grants, which, depending on the historian, either failed to tie regional elites to the regime enough or tied them too readily, creating an exploitative system which led to widespread resistance and rebellion. Much has also been written of the role played by the emergence of new social groups, those often of a commercial nature, which disrupted old Mughal landed hierarchies and replaced these with more regionally centred power-blocs, tied to the increasingly significant presence of the European East India Companies. Whatever the cause or causes, ultimately these transformations led to the rise of ‘Successor States’ across much of the Mughal empire which, as on Sumatra following the decline of Acehnese and Bantamese rule, continued to operate within the framework and structures of Mughal legitimacy and tradition but also increasingly relied on local and regional sources of political, economic and social power, independent of the empire itself.13

12 13

For the longevity of the Mughal empire in the eighteenth century, see C. A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1988), p. 16. The majority of these factors has been conveniently brought together in Meena Bhargava, ed., The Decline of the Mughal Empire (Oxford, 2014). For a discussion of these, see the contribu tion by M. Athar Ali, ‘The Passing of the Empire: The Mughal Case’, pp. 128 140.

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However, many of these interpretations rely on a conceptualisation of the Mughal empire as a highly centralised polity, one that, after 1707, completely unravelled, with its power either forcefully appropriated by ambitious nawabs or gradually transferred to the provinces at the expense of the court in Delhi. As Om Prakash has noted, ‘The collapse of the centralized Mughal empire had witnessed the emergence of a number of successor states.’14 But as this book has illustrated, the expansion of the Company’s presence on the Coromandel Coast and in Bengal suggests that the Mughal empire had always been a highly autonomous construct whose power and authority was embodied and exercised less by the strength of the centre at Delhi and more through the networks of vassals, clients and allies who upheld imperial authority across India through their political, economic and territorial enfranchisement. From the East India Companies to the Mughal princes, imperial power was actualised through the mobilisation of these constituent parts, whose expansion was not at the expense of the sovereignty of the emperor in Delhi but rather in service of that sovereignty.15 The empire was inclusive and integrative, recruiting and empowering those groups that could help to consolidate and sustain its power. Thus even as it suffered external attack in the 1730s and 1740s, the empire sought to tie these foreign invaders firmly into the Mughal web of allies, subordinates and clients, whether through patronage, permanent settlement or large grants. In turn, these ambitious groups realised the utility of upholding imperial structures of power, whether in maintaining the authority of the emperor or in adopting the ideologies and practices of imperial rule.16 The decentred and adaptive nature of the Mughal empire provided it with a resilience and longevity which to a large degree accommodated the emergence of regional successor states such as Oudh, Bengal and Hyderabad, while still preserving a wider culture of legitimacy and political tradition which centred on the imperial court and which ensured that, until at least the later eighteenth century, Delhi continued to play a significant role in the formation of the successor regimes, whether in receiving annual tribute or in approving and dispensing regional offices and titles.17 Too much emphasis has been placed on the erosion of the emperor’s direct involvement in the political hierarchies 14 15

16 17

Om Prakash, ‘Trade and Politics in Eighteenth Century Bengal’, in Seema Alavi, ed., The Eighteenth Century in India (Oxford, 2002), p. 137. As Munis Faruqui notes, for example, those Mughal princes able to succeed to the throne tended to be those most effective at mobilising an extensive network of friends and allies throughout the empire, Princes of the Mughal Empire, p. 10. Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab, 1707 1748 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 228 233. In arguing this I am of course siding with those historians who prefer to view the eighteenth century as a period of ‘continuity’ as opposed to ‘change’. For an excellent synthesis of these opposing views, see M. Athar Ali, ‘Recent Theories of Eighteenth Century India’, in P. J. Marshall, ed., The Eighteenth Century in Indian History (Oxford, 2003), pp. 90 99.

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beyond Delhi, but much less attention has been paid to just how gradual and drawn-out this process was, and how successful frameworks of Mughal imperial authority were in continuing to shape the political and economic structures of the provinces well into the later eighteenth century. Many historians are apt to view the Mughal emperors after Aurangzeb in the first half of the eighteenth century as ‘pawns’ in the politics of emerging regional groups, but perhaps a more accurate description would be ‘powerbrokers’, able to consolidate and legitimise such groups in a way that allowed them to gain a greater share in imperial power without any dramatic social, economic or political dislocation. In return, few if any of these emerging centres of power sought to directly challenge or attack Mughal claims to sovereignty in the first half of the eighteenth century.18 In Bengal, for instance, at the same time as Calcutta received its imperial farman in 1717, the nawab Murshid Quli Khan assumed the position of both nazim and diwan.19 This unprecedented unification of political and economic power in a single nawab has often been seen as a sign of an erosion of the old imperial order, in which Delhi had kept these two offices separate.20 But both Murshid Quli Khan and Alivardi Khan, his successor from 1740, spent millions of rupees on gaining imperial recognition from Delhi for their position as nawab as a way to gain legitimacy for their rule. They also worked hard to maintain substantial flows of tribute to the Mughal court, perhaps as much as a staggering 10m rupees a year.21 If this flow slackened, the emperor had no qualms in switching his support to the enemies of the nawab, which Muhammad Shah did in 1727, acknowledging the usurper Shuja ud-Din as nawab, and forcing Murshid Quli Khan’s heir, Sarfaraz Khan, to abdicate.22 Similarly, while the nawabs of Bengal, especially after 1740, abandoned the Mughal jagir system of rewarding nobles and officials with land grants another development historians highlight in stressing the empire’s ‘collapse’ they only did so in Bengal proper, whereas it continued to survive in Bengal’s other provinces of Orissa and Bihar. Even in Bengal proper, the jagir system was replaced with an agreement to compensate Delhi with an annual lump-sum payment that was in theory supposed to be greater in value than the jagirs.23 Finally, as P. J. Marshall has pointed out, the authority of the nawab within Bengal rested largely on gaining the support of the Mughal nobility, the majority of whom continued to gain patronage from Delhi and owed their 18 19 20 21 22

Alam and Subrahmanyam, eds., Mughal State, p. 61. Philip B. Calkins, ‘The Formation of a Regionally Oriented Ruling Group in Bengal, 1700 1740’, in Bhargava, ed., Decline of the Mughal Empire, p. 172. Ali, Mughal India, p. 344. P. J. Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead: Eastern India, 1740 1828 (Cambridge, 1987), p. 51. 23 Ibid. Ibid.

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loyalty to the emperor. Indeed, perhaps the biggest prop of the regime in Bengal after 1740 was the Mughal Jaget Seth banking house, that was ‘virtually a partner with the Nawabs in the management of the Bengal revenues’, also acting as the agent or representative of the nawab at the imperial court where they were paid massive sums by the nawab to gain support from the emperor for his rule.24 In fact, when a Maratha army invaded Bihar in 1742, it was the emperor who dispatched an army to help repel the invaders and secure the province, while also conveniently reminding the new nawab, Alivardi Khan, of his obligation to continue tribute payments to Delhi.25 Bengal was certainly undergoing change, then, with more power concentrated in the hands of the nawab, but the Mughal framework within which the Company had operated for decades remained largely in place. As such, the substantial expansion of Calcutta in this period continued to be the result of efforts by Company servants to maintain and grow their transcultural networks with Bengal’s elites while also utilising and defending privileges granted by the emperor in Delhi. Perhaps the most illustrative example of this is the dastak or pass system, which, as per the terms of the imperial farman of 1716, granted certain Company goods intended for export the right to carry a dastak, which provided immunity from customs, local dues and interference from provincial officials.26 The impact on the Company’s trade proved significant, with annual investments increasing by almost £100,000 between 1717 and 1729, and the number of Company ships more than doubling between 1716 and 1732.27 In fact, by 1740, Bengal accounted for over half of the Company’s exports from Asia, with Bengal silk and saltpetre making up the bulk of trade goods.28 But as the Company’s trade increased, the nawabs sought to renegotiate the terms of the dastak system, levying extra payments from the Company for their use of the passes seven times between 1727 and 1749.29 The regime in Bengal also sought to regulate the application of the dastak system, transforming the imperial farman’s generalisations into a specifically defined vernacular of eligible and, most importantly, ineligible goods covered by the dastaks. As on the West Coast of Sumatra, the most hotly contested of these was salt, over which the state had a monopoly and which proved a lucrative source of revenue for the nawabi regime.30 Nonetheless, the Company began to purchase such large quantities of salt under the protection of their dastaks that the government worried about a decline in customs revenues. For these reasons, 24 26 27 28 29 30

25 Ibid., p. 63. Alam, Crisis of Empire, p. 54. Watson, Foundation for Empire, p. 211. Sukumar Bhattacharya, The East India Company and the Economy of Bengal, 1704 1740 (London, 1954), p. 25; Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, table 1, p. 55. Holden Furber, Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient, 1600 1800 (Minneapolis, 1976), p. 132. See Bhattacharya, The Economy of Bengal, chapter 2. Watson, Foundation for Empire, p. 338.

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Murshid Quli Khan’s successor as nawab, Shuja ud-Daula, seized a flotilla of Company ships near Patna, and impounded the considerable stores of salt on board.31 In response, Governor Henry Frankland defended the Company’s actions, emphasising that the use of dastaks had been ‘confirmed by his present Majesty King Muhammed Shah’.32 Nonetheless, Frankland acquiesced and duly forbade Company servants from using dastaks to trade in salt in the future, ‘under penalty of having all such salt confiscated’.33 The nawabs never rejected the dastak system as some interloping relic from an obsolete empire but merely sought to regulate its application to prevent its expansion from undermining the revenues of Bengal, a majority of which were still sent off to Delhi in tribute. As the nawab’s government declared in 1731, ‘Complaints had been made to His Majesty of Englishmen trading free of custom in most parts of his Kingdom without his immediate farman . . . that they trade contrary to former grants in all the country merchandise besides what are proper for the Europe markets, in salt as in every other commodity.’34 This was, the nawabs argued, entirely against the spirit of the imperial farman, which sought to attract international trade to the Mughal empire and stimulate the commerce of Bengal, and not to allow any single group to monopolise the region’s economic wealth. As the complaint concluded, Company servants were seeking to ‘protect private merchants goods under their dastaks both by land and water, to their own gain and a loss to His Majesty’s revenue’.35 As in previous decades, then, the Company’s rights and privileges acquired through subordination to imperial authorities continued to be subject to renegotiation by regional elites and highly regulated by local expectations and practicalities.36 Rather than pit Company servants against the nawab’s regime, the need to adapt the wider imperial rights of the Company to regional political and economic realities in Bengal actually intensified the transcultural networks which bound the Company and local elites together. While intended strictly to cover the goods traded by the Company for export overseas, inevitably the dastak system was largely appropriated by Company servants who not only used the passes to exempt their own privately traded goods from local inspection and taxation but sold passes or extended them to Asian business partners, family members and political elites to cover their goods, too.37 So while the governor of Bengal forbade the private trade in salt, mindful of the need to accommodate the nawab’s demands, and while even the directors themselves warned that ‘we cannot with reason expect to have our affairs carried on in a 31 32 33 34 36 37

Bhattacharya, The Economy of Bengal, p. 47. BL, APAC, IOR/P/1/6, consultation at Calcutta, 18 March 1728. BL, APAC, IOR/P/1/6, consultation at Calcutta, 9 October 1727. BL, APAC, IOR/P/1/8, consultation at Calcutta, 17 October 1731. Chaudhury, Companies, Commerce and Merchants, p. 52. Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, pp. 59 60.

35

Ibid.

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quite amicable manner, while our servants are committing or conniving at such malpractices to the prejudice of the Royal [Mughal] revenue’, Company servants in conjunction with their Indian partners continued to expand the use of dastaks and infringe upon lucrative Mughal monopolies.38 Even some of the most influential Bengal courtiers entered into partnership with Company servants, gaining immunity from local economic and jurisdictional demands that they were often themselves responsible for enforcing.39 By the 1730s, the scale of expansion pursued by Anglo-Indian dastak networks made the council at Calcutta anxious that the Company’s presence might be perceived by the nawab as developing autonomously of his authority. Despite the fact that they had ‘used all possible means’ to prevent the appropriation of passes by the private networks of Company servants ‘by regulating the dastaks’, the council opined in 1735 that if the practice was not brought under control then the Company would be punished by the nawab for ‘screening immense quantities of merchants goods, thereby defrauding the king of his customs’.40 However, as the preceding chapters of this book have shown, the Company’s senior servants were usually those whose private interests were the most pervasive, and naturally the chiefs of the Company’s various settlements in Bengal facilitated the expansion of the dastak system, even as they sought to accommodate the nawab’s need to regulate it. As the chief of Patna, Hugh Barker, declared, he had employed several Indian vakils or agents at the nawab’s court in Murshidabad to ‘endeavour to keep the vail over it’, and ensure that the use of dastaks to trade in state monopolies was kept from the nawab and his ministers.41 The result was that, by the 1740s, the scale of private trade in Bengal was perhaps equal to, or indeed exceeded that of, the Company’s own substantial increase in trade.42 The very gradual build-up of power by the Company in India was perceived as potentially threatening to the future regime building of the nawabs as early as the 1730s. When the nawab of Bengal, Shuja ud-Daula, was asked by ministers at the court of Delhi for his opinion on whether the Company deserved a new confirmation of their existing farmans, he provided an articulate summary of the process through which the Company had amassed a significant amount of power through generally legitimate channels. ‘When they first came to this country they petitioned the then Government in a humble manner for liberty to purchase a spot of ground to build a factory house upon, which was no sooner granted but they run up a strong fort, surrounded it with a ditch which has a

38 39 40 41 42

BL, APAC, IOR/E/110, court of directors to Bengal, 17 June 1748. See Watson, Foundation for Empire, p. 212. BL, APAC, IOR/P/1/11, consultation at Calcutta, 29 November 1735. BL, APAC, IOR/P/1/8, consultation at Calcutta, 4 January 1732. Furber, Rival Empires, pp. 131 132.

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communication with the river and mounted a great number of guns upon the walls. They have enticed several merchants and others to go and take protection under them and they collect a revenue which amounts yearly to Rs 100,000. In the reign of Aurangzib their trade never exceeded three ships’ cargoes and was well purchased within the province of Bengall.’ Thus at the height of the Mughal empire’s power under Aurangzeb, the privileges Company servants pursued in trade and government, while considerable, could be absorbed and accommodated. But for the nawab, having become entrenched in the subah in such a manner, the Company and its servants began to rapidly expand their presence. Regarding the dastaks, the nawab complained that ‘their investments of late have been immoderate and they both import and export other merchants’ goods in their own names’. Worse still, as per the imperial farman, ‘they now begin to farm several towns [around Calcutta], which it is feared, may in time become strongholds, and consequently a difficult matter for the Government to remove them.’ The Company’s servants had, in effect, assembled an empire within an empire. As to additional rights and privileges, the nawab was firmly against enfranchising the Company any further: ‘It is therefore my opinion that if any favours are designed them by the imperial Court it may be of ill consequence to give them a Phirmaund for any other privileges than they enjoyed in the reign of Aurangzib.’43 It was a damning assessment of the Company’s presence in Bengal, and indeed in the rest of the Indian subcontinent by the mid-eighteenth century. But it was also a largely accurate assessment of how the Company had very gradually built up its power from within existing Mughal structures of political and constitutional authority. Furthermore, the nawab had succinctly identified the driving force of this process as the private partnerships between Company servants and Indian elites which, through the expanded powers of the imperial farman, were now threatening to undermine the very framework by which their interests had been accommodated, legitimised and facilitated. The Company continued to expand in much the same way in the south of India, where Mughal frameworks of power similarly remained intact in the first half of the eighteenth century. The historian Seema Alavi has claimed that in the Deccan ‘the Mughal emperor was increasingly reduced to a mere reference point for legitimacy’.44 But here too the move towards the appropriation of local power by regional nawabs was to a degree offset by the continued need to seek the approval and support of the emperor in Delhi, as well as the need to reinforce existing institutions of Mughal power. For instance, Nizam-ul-Mulk, the Mughal subahdar or governor of Hyderabad, a region which encompassed the old Golcondan state and much of the Coromandel Coast, was also deeply 43 44

Cited in Bhattacharya, The Economy of Bengal, p. 43. Alavi, ed., Eighteenth Century, p. 21.

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enmeshed in imperial politics at Delhi, having been appointed to the office of wazir, or chief revenue minister, of the entire empire in 1722. As nizam of Hyderabad from 1724, the multitude of external threats the region faced especially the Marathas forced him to strengthen and utilise Mughal fiscal and military institutions, mobilising Mughal patronage and appealing to Mughal political tradition to command local support for his rule.45 In fact, it has been suggested that, rather than seeking to make Hyderabad an independent centre of power, Nizam-ul-Mulk sought to use its resources as leverage to increase his position at the imperial court in Delhi. Certainly, he used the patronage of his post as nizam to assign Mughal jagir grants to his supporters and obtained mansabs or imperial posts for family members.46 But perhaps most importantly, when north India was invaded by the Persian shah in 1738, Nizam-Ul-Mulk marched an army northward to provide reinforcements to Emperor Muhammad Shah in the defence of Delhi. When the city was occupied by the shah, Nizam-Ul-Mulk placed himself in a privileged position between the invaders and the Mughal court and used this leverage to increase his influence over his rivals.47 As in Bengal, so on the Coromandel Coast the Company’s attempts to fully realise all of the jurisdictional and financial privileges of the farman from Delhi involved complex negotiations with regional authorities, as it had always done. Perhaps the most protracted was for the possession of Divy Island, at the mouth of Masulipatam’s Krishna River, the jurisdiction over which had been granted to the Company by the terms of the farman. Rather than thumping the terms of the farman down in front of the nizam of Hyderabad and demanding the possession of Divy Island, Madras instead sought to negotiate with his deputy, the nawab of the Carnatic, whose capital was at Arcot on the Coromandel Coast. Madras almost immediately utilised its cross-cultural networks, engaging the services of several prominent Indian brokers and their agents with influence at Arcot to negotiate the logistics of the Company’s possession of the island with the regime.48 One of these urged the governor of Madras, Joseph Collet, recently arrived from Sumatra, to recruit the support of the nawab in their occupation of Divy Island, as the nawab ‘has considerable influence on the Renter of Divy Island’ who, they judged, may well resist being stripped of his rights over the jurisdiction.49 In the event, the renter or 45 46 47

48 49

Munis D. Faruqui, ‘At Empire’s End: The Nizam, Hyderabad and Eighteenth Century India’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 43, no. 1 (January, 2009), p. 21. Ibid., p. 23. For Nizam Ul Mulk’s involvement in the Persian settlement of Delhi, see Michael Axworthy, Sword of Persia: Nader Shah: From Tribal Warrior to Conquering Tyrant (London, 2009), pp. 175 211. DCB, consultation at Madras, 26 August 1717. BL, APAC, IOR/P/239/87, consultation at Madras, 2 September 1717.

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governor expressed a copy of the farman and conceded to ‘enter into Friendship with the English’.50 Similarly, Humphrey Holocombe was appointed the new chief of Masulipatam largely due to the fact that the governor of the port, Coja Gee, was ‘ready to do me any Service that lyes in his power both in relation to the Company and my own private affairs’, Holocombe noted, ‘out of the esteem for the friendship he had with my father’.51 As ever, the Company’s expansion was conducted largely through the web of interpersonal associations and familial connections which bound the Company’s servants into local social and commercial hierarchies. Despite these efforts by Company servants, the nawab of the Carnatic remained reluctant to approve the Company’s government over the island on the basis of the imperial farman alone. As with the five towns surrounding Madras itself, which were attacked and occupied by the nawab after Collet took possession of them in 1717 without seeking permission from Arcot, the nawab demanded that any expansion of the Company’s rights within his jurisdiction must also seek his recognition. So, while Collet counter-attacked the nawab’s forces and reoccupied the towns surrounding Madras, their acquisition by the Company was only conceded and confirmed once ‘the whole Board unanimously agreed’ to purchase a number of sanads or local grants from the nawab in 1718.52 For Divy Island, the Company’s success therefore laid in pursuing the articles of the imperial farman through the authority and acquiescence of the regional nawab. To that end, Governor Collet engaged the influential Armenian merchant Aga Peri to negotiate the acquisition of a sanad from the nawab for the sum of 5,000 pagodas.53 At the same time, Company servants fell back on their true and tried custom of contributing to a military campaign the nawab had launched against a refractory local raja, committing European gunners to his siege of a rebel fortress, which the chief of Masulipatam hoped would be ‘a great Instrument of our obtaining a peaceable and quick possession of Dieu Island’. And indeed the chief soon heard reports that the nawab ‘was mighty well pleas’d with our assisting him and express’d in his Camp that the English was his Brother’.54 Ultimately, Divy Island was never brought under the Company’s jurisdiction, and this has often been referred to by historians to demonstrate the Company’s increasing inability to operate within supposed ‘collapsing’ Mughal frameworks by the mid-eighteenth century.55 However, across the several years of negotiation, both the directors in London and the council at Madras came to 50 51 52 53 54 55

BL, APAC, IOR/P/239/87, consultation at Madras, 14 October 1717. LTFSG, Masulipatam to Madras, 19 February 1719. BL, APAC, IOR/P/239/87, consultation at Madras, 10 November 1718. BL, APAC, IOR/P/239/87, consultation at Madras, 4 November 1717. LTFSG, Masulipatam to Madras, 2 February 1718. Keay, Honourable Company, p. 244.

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realise that Divy Island held few prospects for the Company, either commercially or in terms of establishing a significant settlement, compounded by a noticeable increase in the silting of the river mouth, and the general decline of Masulipatam, itself a regional centre of trade.56 As Governor Nathaniel Elwick concluded in 1722, ‘for which and many other Concurring reasons we must let the thoughts of [acquiring the island] alone at present’.57 Despite this, the negotiations for Divy Island show that, rather than exploit a ‘decline’ of Mughal power in the first half of the eighteenth century, the Company continued to negotiate its position firmly within local and regional frameworks of power in much the same way as it had always done. And while the acquisition of Divy Island ultimately proved redundant, any idea of forcefully seizing the island was rejected out of hand. ‘There is an express prohibition of taking Dieu Island by force’, Collet had declared to the Madras council in 1719, ‘Because we know not how far the ill consequences may Spread.’58 The dynamics behind the Company’s development in India remained, as they had always been, ones of negotiation, integration and subordination. As late as 1743, when Nizam-ul-Mulk descended from Hyderabad down into the Carnatic to appoint a new nawab at Arcot, the Company’s servants at Madras emulated Surnam’s embassy to Delhi, though on a much more moderate scale. An embassy was organised to visit the nizam to present him with the substantial sum of 15,000 gold mohurs, as well as gifts to his family and court which included silver-mounted guns, Persian rugs, luxurious cloths and silks, painted looking glasses, gold dishes, and even a ‘large China cistern’, all of which cost an additional 20,000 pagodas.59 In exchange, the embassy requested confirmation of the Company’s privileges on the Coromandel Coast, including their possession of the five towns surrounding Madras granted by the imperial farman in 1716, as well as the more recent rights for minting Arcot rupees, and a new application to expand the dastak system to cover further goods on the Coast.60 The entire embassy was placed in the hands of Imam Sahib, a prominent minister at court whose sister lived at Madras, and who helped to direct the minutiae of the Company’s presence at court. The Company’s servants were advised that, if asked about their ‘Trade and Priviledges’ by the nizam, they should make it clear to him ‘how much Money we lay out in the Country, And we carry no money out’. Further, the nizam was to be informed that ‘the Priviledges we have were granted Us by . . . other great 56 57 58 59 60

For the decline of Masulipatam, see Subrahmanyam, Political Economy of Commerce, pp. 61 62. LFFSG, Madras to Masulipatam, 22 March 1722. BL, APAC, IOR/P/239/87, consultation at Madras, 2 July 1719. BL, APAC, IOR/P/240/5, Account of the Particulars & Cost of the Presents going to Arcot for Nazim al Muluck, 6 March 1743. BL, APAC, IOR/P/240/5, consultation at Madras, 1 March 1743.

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Men of the Country & afterwards confirmed to Us by the Great Mogul.’61 This they did, arriving at the durbar, or court, where, ‘making our Obeisances in Front at a Considerable distance’, they then sat down on the carpet to join the rest of the nizam’s vassals. The next day, the Company’s embassy was summoned to the nawab’s tent where he inspected all of their gifts, ‘and said they were very good’, while also earmarking the most sumptuous presents to ‘send them to the Mogul and would tell him he had them of the Governour of Chinnapatnam [Madras]’.62 The success of the embassy with the exception of the right to mint Arcot rupees, which the governor of Madras thought best to suspend temporarily when the nizam looked unfavourably upon it was also secured by the influence of Imam Sahib’s sister, who helped to negotiate several differences which arose over the jurisdiction of the villages, and by whom confirmation of the nizam’s acceptance of the new and old rights was eventually conveyed to the Madras council.63 By the mid-eighteenth century, then, the Company were still operating with and through Indian elites, invoking Mughal constitutional authority and the lineage of their legitimacy to trade and govern in India. Far from diminishing or indeed collapsing, as late as the mid-eighteenth century the Mughal framework within which the Company had been steadily expanding for almost a century while subject to a degree of change largely remained intact. Company servants were forced to adapt to a greater degree of negotiation with regional authorities, especially as the power of the nawabs increased, but in doing so they also helped to embed themselves deeper into these emerging regimes. Under the carapace of this maturing Mughal framework, the expansion of the Company’s political and economic interests remained substantial, having transformed Britain’s presence in Asia. In Bengal, Calcutta and its surrounding environs emerged as perhaps the largest and most affluent metropolis in the province, with a population estimated at 120,000 people by 1750, rivalled only by the new nawabi capital of Murshidabad.64 Calcutta’s jurisdiction stretched over the surrounding towns and villages, either directly or through Indian vassals, governing the largest financial and commercial community in Bengal, with extensive dastak networks of trade which virtually monopolised commerce in all of the region’s major markets and waterways. The city was home to prominent Mughal 61 62 63 64

BL, APAC, IOR/P/240/5, Madras to Thomas Eyre, Samuel Harrison and John Holland, 8 March 1743. BL, APAC, IOR/P/240/5, Diary of Occurrences in the Journey to Trichnoply with a Present to Nizam Al Muluck Nazir Jung & Coja Abdulla Khan, Trichinopoly, 31 March 1743. BL, APAC, IOR/P/240/5, consultation at Madras, 20 June 1743. For a discussion of Calcutta’s population estimates, see Thomas Mansfield, Calcutta, from Fort to City: A Study of a Colonial Settlement, 1690 1750 (Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Leicester, 2011), pp. 70 71.

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courtiers and merchants such as the Seth and Basak families, who not only managed the revenues and trade of the nawab but also the majority of the Company’s own investments in the province.65 The Seths and Basaks exploited the financial and commercial opportunities presented by the expansion of the Company, but they never comprised a new mercantile elite dependent on the British, as some historians have argued. They were instead political actors in their own right, tying the Company firmly into the Mughal order, acquiring political influence with the nawab and maintaining links with the imperial court at Delhi.66 These ‘merchant-princes’, as Company servants frequently referred to them, were perhaps best epitomised by Omichand. As broker for the Company at Calcutta, he oversaw a third of all investments in Bengal by 1747, a sum just short of 1m rupees every year. But he also managed to build an independent monopoly over the opium and saltpetre trades, and came close to achieving the same in grain. With his own political agents active in Murshidabad and Delhi, Omichand was an example of the integral links which bound Calcutta into the political and economic structures of Bengal and northern India well into the mid-eighteenth century. When the Company accused Omichand of fraudulent activities in the Company’s investment and dismissed him as broker, they were forced to reinstate him after the nawab’s own brother demanded it.67 With a palace in the city, an armed guard of 300 soldiers and the maintenance of a virtual court of his own, the Company servant Robert Orme rightly observed that Omichand ‘resembled more the state of a prince than the condition of a merchant’.68 This growing transnational elite ensured that Calcutta remained firmly embedded within the wider province of Bengal, with its fortunes tied to local and regional developments. Much like Calcutta, Madras similarly emerged as an unofficial regional capital. Eclipsing all other urban centres on the Coromandel Coast, Madras boasted a population of perhaps as many as 400,000 people by mid-century as its jurisdiction expanded to integrate eight surrounding towns, as well as neighbouring San Thome in 1749, once the main European settlement on the Coast under the Portuguese.69 Even the nawab of Arcot himself purchased a plot of land in the city in the 1750s, where he and his successors would build 65 66

67 69

Sushil Chaudhury, ‘Merchants, Companies and Rulers: Bengal in the Eighteenth Century’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 31, no. 1 (1988), pp. 81 83. For the argument that a new mercantile elite used their alliance with the European Companies to challenge the nawabs, see C. A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1988), especially chapter 1. 68 Chaudhury, ‘Merchants, Companies and Rulers’, p. 99. Cited in ibid., p. 100. In 1688, when the city was incorporated, the population had been approximately 80,000. See Philip J. Stern, ‘Rethinking Institutional Transformations in the Making of Modern Empire: The East India Company in Madras’, Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History, vol. 9, no. 2 (Fall, 2008).

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their own palace.70 Madras also controlled a series of expansive subordinate settlements, from Fort St David in the south, which exercised government over the large city of Cuddalore as granted by the Marathas, to Vizagapatam in the north, the jurisdiction of which had been expanded by the imperial farman to include the surrounding villages.71 While the trade and importance of Madras declined relative to the Company’s settlements in Bengal by the 1720s, its overall volume of trade remained robust, largely due to the considerable growth of private trading networks to the ‘South Seas’ based in the city, most especially those who opened up or expanded trade routes to China, Manila and Persia.72 In the first three decades of the eighteenth century, the number of ships visiting Madras and the customs raised there roughly doubled.73 Furthermore, the rights Madras had acquired to mint Mughal coins though later limited by the nizam meant that the city continued to remain the chief centre of bullion import and distribution in India.74 Madras’ crucial role in the subcontinent’s currency infrastructure was highlighted in 1741, when the Company minted a new standard ‘star’ pagoda, underpinned by the influx of gold from the private trading networks involved in the China trade.75 As a result of the growth of these cosmopolitan settlements, their transnational communities and the expansive transcultural networks that they maintained right across Asia, the Company was transformed into an economic powerhouse, contributing to Britain’s emergence as a global entity. From the desperate decades of the early seventeenth century when East India House struggled to dispatch a single ship to Asia, by the 1740s approximately twentyfive large East Indiamen plied the maritime routes from Europe every year, bringing back cargoes of Asian goods that generated annual sales of a staggering £2m.76 In fact, as early as the 1720s, Britain had eclipsed the United Provinces as the leading trader in Asian goods, the Dutch VOC’s ban on private trade preventing it’s servants from establishing the kind of dynamic partnerships with regional elites that tied their English counterparts so firmly into Asia’s commercial and cultural landscapes.77 With a stock fixed at £3.2m from 1708, producing dividends to its shareholders of upward of 8 per cent a year between 1722 and 1755, and with the ability to borrow up to £6m on bond 70

71 72 73 74 76 77

Susan J. Lewandowski, ‘Changing Form and Function in the Ceremonial and the Colonial Port City in India: An Historical Analysis of Madurai and Madras’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 11, no. 2 (1977), p. 203. S. Arasaratnam, ‘Trade and Political Dominion in South India, 1750 1790: Changing British Indian Relationships’, Modern Asian Studies, vol. 3, no. 1 (1979), pp. 19 40. Furber, Rival Empires, p. 292. Mentz, The English Gentleman Merchant at Work, table 5.6 and table 5.7, pp. 190 199. 75 Furber, Rival Empires, p. 133. Ibid., p. 134. Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, table A.24, ‘Costs and Receipts’, p. 438. See Chris Nierstrasz, In the Shadow of the Company: The Dutch East India Company and Its Servants in the Period of Its Decline, 1740 1796 (Leiden, 2012), p. 1.

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by 1744, the English Company had emerged as a key component of the nascent British fiscal-military state.78 Although not yet as significant as Britain’s Atlantic trade and colonies, from the Crown’s ability to squeeze the Company for loans to the expansion of shipping and the re-export trade to America in tea, coffee and calicoes, the Company helped to underwrite the expansion of the British imperial system.79 Ultimately, it was the sheer success of the Company’s transformation from a frail, national enterprise at the beginning of the seventeenth century into a thriving, transcultural economic and political actor by the mid-eighteenth century which threatened its ability to continue expanding within the framework of Mughal India. The volume of its trade, the wealth and power of its settlements and their networks, the juridical and extra-territorial effects of its imperial rights, and the growth of its jurisdiction and territory, all brought the Company into an uneasy tension with the British state on the one hand, and the constituent parts of the Mughal empire on the other. Both imperial systems were undergoing major transformations in the 1740s and 1750s, pushing them to regulate the Company’s expansion and make claims on it in different ways.80 The constitutional instability and fiscal-military weakness which had limited the English state’s ability to play a decisive role in the Company’s development in Asia in the early seventeenth century did not plague its British successor, which proved far more capable of projecting its power overseas by the early eighteenth century.81 From the political stability afforded by the unification of king and parliament from 1689 to the effectiveness of an increasingly bureaucratic form of imperial governance, as well as the ability to raise unprecedented amounts of money, especially from customs and credit, the newly formed ‘British’ state after 1707 was a different beast to its English forebear.82 Now, emenating from Britain there was ‘an increasingly powerful metropolitan state that by the late eighteenth century displayed aspirations for governance with a global reach’.83 The value of the Company’s presence in Asia, and the increased ability of the British state to intervene overseas, meant that the latter at once sought to protect the Company from European rivals and 78 79 80

81 82 83

Marshall, ‘The British in Asia’, in Marshall, ed., The Eighteenth Century, p. 488; Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, pp. 29 39. Jonathan Eacott, Selling Empire: India in the Making of Britain and America, 1600 1830 (Williamsburg, 2016), especially chapters 2 and 3. For a ‘global crisis’ which connects transformations in the West European state system with those in Asia’s Muslim empires, see C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780 1830 (Abingdon, 1989). Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires, p. 72. Roper, Advancing Empire, pp. 250 254. H. V. Bowen, Elizzbeth Mancke and John G. Reid, ‘Britain’s Oceanic Empire: An Afterword’, in H. V. Bowen, Elizabeth Mancke and John G. Reid, eds., Britain’s Oceanic Empire: Atlantic and Indian Ocean Worlds, c. 1550 1850 (Cambridge, 2012), p. 434.

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pirates as it simultaneously sought to ‘erode its autonomy from that state’, as the historian Philip Stern has concluded.84 The Company was now forced into a position of having to balance new claims on its interests with its existing commitments to the Mughal empire. The intrusion of the British state and its attempt to align Company interests more firmly with the national interest served to disrupt the carefully cultivated ties between the Company and its Asian patrons and suzerains. This manifested itself in several ways, most notably in the form of British military power. Whereas before the eighteenth century no Royal Navy ship had ever entered Asian waters, from 1700 their presence became more and more frequent, until a permanent ‘East Indies squadron’ was created from 1744 onwards.85 Ostensibly, this fleet had been commissioned for the purpose of ‘protecting the Company’s Trade in these parts’, as the court of director’s secret committee informed the governor of Madras.86 But in reality, it opened up a new theatre of war against France with whom Britain was engaged in several global conflicts from the mid-eighteenth century, as evidenced by the East Indies squadron spending almost all of its time seizing French shipping.87 Despite warnings from the nawab of the Carnatic, Anwar-ud-din Khan, who informed Madras in 1745 that ‘As the Sea Port Towns belong to the Great Mogull it is by no means proper that you & the French should Quarrel & have disputes together there’, the navies of both countries engaged in conflict. ‘Nothing of this nature has ever been Suffered’, the nawab declared, warning Madras that ‘the End of these things will not be good’.88 And indeed in 1747 a French fleet succeeded in capturing Madras, the centre of the English Company’s power in Asia for almost a century.89 This action proved a far more flagrant violation of Mughal sovereignty than the peripheral British naval presence in the Bay of Bengal. The nawab responded by mobilising a large army to attack the French at Madras and therefore reassert his authority over the warring Companies. ‘You transgress all bounds’, the nawab decried to the governor of Pondicherry, Joseph Francois Dupleix, ‘this is improper’.90 But this 40,000-strong force was easily defeated by a much smaller French detachment, forcing the nawab to withdraw from the Coast. And less than two years later, Anwar-ud-din Khan was deposed by a rival who was able to capture the 84 86 87

88 89 90

85 Stern, Company State, p. 193. Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires, p. 66. BL, APAC, IOR/P/240/6, consultation at Madras, 1 January 1745. When the East Indies squadron first arrived in Asian waters in 1744, it spent a year seizing ships in the Straits of Malacca before it bothered to proceed to its base on the Coromandel Coast to defend the Company’s settlements there. See H. W. Richmond, The Navy in the War of 1739 48 (Cambridge, 1920, reprinted 2011), pp. 182 183. DCB, Nawab Anwaruddin Khan to Madras, Bassawapatam, 2 March 1745. G. W. Forrest, ‘The Siege of Madras in 1746 and the Action of la Bourdonnais’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, vol. 2 (1908), p. 213. Cited in ibid., p. 215.

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capital at Arcot with the aid of the French Company’s forces, whom he rewarded with considerable new privileges, including grants of territory and custom-free trading rights throughout the Carnatic.91 Clearly, the consequences for the English Company of operating beyond Mughal frameworks had been devastating. Although the end of war in Europe in 1748 led to the restoration of Madras, the intrusion of the British and French states into the affairs of their respective Companies in Asia had succeeded in establishing rival frameworks of development for both Companies, defined less by the need to accommodate the demands and interests of Asian elites and communities, and more by the national ambitions of two European powers struggling for global dominance. Mirroring the more capable and intrusive British state was an intensification of the centralisation process in the hands of the Mughal empire’s nawabs, whose ‘Successor’ regimes were becoming more distinctively regional. It is true that this process continued to take shape within an overarching Mughal framework, drawing its legitimacy from Delhi and remaining part of a wider imperial culture. But many of the changes which the nawabs subtly introduced in the earlier eighteenth century, including fiscal reform and the formation of provincial military structures, had from the late 1740s onwards become far more entrenched and pervasive, establishing hierarchies of authority and power that were, by mid-century, firmly under the control of the nawabs, not Delhi. In Bengal, for instance, while Murshid Quli Khan had undertaken the modest reform of reorganising the existing Mughal jagir system by 1727, one of his successors, Alivardi Khan, had succeeded in the more transformative ambition of consolidating the zamindari system into a key fiscal prop of his government by the time of his death in 1756.92 Nawabi state-formation, after enjoying a leisurely and gradual evolution for much of the first half of the eighteenth century, had sped up dramatically following overwhelming external pressure, most notably a sustained decade-long invasion of Bengal by Maratha armies, ending only in 1751 after Alivardi Khan agreed to cede the border province of Orissa and pay an annual chauth, or tribute, in return for immunity from future attack.93 Both Alivardi Khan and his successor as nawab, Siraj-ud-daula, responded to the external pressures on Bengal by creating a more regulated state machinery in the 1750s with the aim of mobilising the region’s economic and military resources to ensure Bengal’s recovery. A key focus of this new regulatory regime was, of course, the extraction of greater amounts of revenue to compensate for the losses incurred from the Maratha invasions. But, following a mass rebellion of Afghan communities and their seizure of Patna in 1748, an 91 92

Henry Dodwell, Dupleix and Clive: The Beginning of Empire (London, 1920), p. 39. 93 Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead, pp. 56 59. Ibid., p. 71.

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uprising that was only finally crushed by the nawab in battle, an equally important aim of the more centralised polity which emerged after 1751 was the extraction of obedience, as well as revenue.94 Subsequently, every level of the political hierarchy in Bengal was subject to a greater degree of regulation, including the European East India Companies, all of whom found themselves having to pay ever greater sums in tribute to the nawabs in return for a confirmation of their existing privileges. In 1744 the English Company paid the significant sum of 350,000 rupees into Alivardi Khan’s treasury, and when they refused to pay a similar amount to his successor, Siraj-ud-daula, the nawab sought to revoke the Company’s more powerful and as far as the nawab was concerned more parasitic privileges, including the fortification of their settlements, the exploitation of the dastak system and the harbouring of the nawab’s subjects within their jurisdiction.95 ‘We are very apprehensive Matters will be carried to Extremities’, the governor of Calcutta informed his counterpart at Madras in 1756, ‘unless We comply with his [the nawab’s] peremptory Orders for destroying our Works.’96 A combination of an unwillingness to pay further tribute and a display of disobedience to their suzerain found the Company’s servants at Calcutta on the wrong end of nawabi state formation, with the result that in the following month Siraj-ud-daula marched on Calcutta with an army and succeeded in capturing the second bastion of Company power in Asia.97 For much of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the Company had thrived in the autonomous and decentralised spaces of the English and Mughal imperial systems. The weakness of the English system allowed Company servants to successfully embed themselves and the Company firmly into Asian communities and political structures; the integrating dynamic of the Mughal system meanwhile provided opportunities to contribute to the consolidation of the regime’s authority in exchange for sweeping rights and privileges. So, while subordinate to both sovereign powers, the Company and its servants were nonetheless able to develop within a rather nebulous and at times evasive environment. And although this duality was often brought into tension, for instance in Bengal in the 1680s, overall it allowed the Company to assume a privileged position within both imperial hierarchies: nurtured, legitimised and protected by a series of charters, farmans and extensive social ties in both Britain and India. The changing imperial landscape in the 1740s onwards placed the Company within a far more regulated political space, having to

94 95 96 97

Upendra Thakur, ‘Alivardi and the Afghans of Tirhut’, Proceedings of the Indian Congress, vol. 21 (1958), pp. 376 392. DCB, William Watts to Madras, Chandernagore, 2 July 1756. DCB, Calcutta to Madras, 1 June 1756. DCB, William Watts to Madras, Chandernagore, 2 July 1756.

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jostle the competing claims of an intrusive British state with those of a centralising nawabi regime. It was a balancing act which had proved disastrous for the Company and its servants in Asia, with the loss of its two principle settlements of Madras and Calcutta, and incalculable damage to both longgestating transcultural relationships and lucrative private trading networks. This is not to suggest that Company servants were passive reactors to the encroachment of the British state and the centralisation of nawabi power. On the contrary, as with Job Charnock and his contemporaries more than half a century previous, Company servants sought to appropriate and harness the military resources arriving from Europe which totalled an unprecedented £1m in men and materiel alone in 1757 to engineer the conditions in India that would once again facilitate and legitimise their private interests.98 The capture of Calcutta had been felt keenly by the directors and shareholders in the metropole, whose loss had cost the Company £2m and sent its stock plummeting.99 But it was more acutely felt by Company servants in India, many of whom were ruined by the disaster. ‘My loss by the Capture of Calcutta is not less than £2500’, lamented the Company servant Robert Clive to his father in early 1757.100 Overall private losses were also calculated at approximately £2m.101 Not only had servants lost their private property, their goods and their investments but they had also seen their relationships with Bengali elites severed as Siraj-ud-daula exerted his authority over revenuepaying subordinates. Whereas the nawab’s predecessors had utilised the powerful networks of Company servants and Indian elites to consolidate their authority in the region, in the wake of invasion and rebellion Siraj-ud-daula saw them more as a threat to be subjugated. As P. J. Marshall has argued, the nawab ‘was not prepared to accept the limitations on the full power of his office that were implied by the privileges which powerful groups within Bengal had been able to establish’.102 So, alongside the English Company, Siraj-ud-daula disenfranchised a number of prominent groups, including the larger zamindars, influential faujdars, military commanders and even the banking house of the Jaget Seths.103 Many of these, such as the Seths, had long-established networks with the Company, while others had recently entered into partnership with Company servants, such as the courtier and general Mir Jafar. 98 99 100 101 102

George McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company: The Life of Laurence Sulivan (London, 2006), p. 46. Keay, Honourable Company, p. 305. N[ational] L[ibrary] of W[ales], CR4/2, Robert Clive to Richard Clive, Chandernagore, n.d. [March 1757?]. BL, APAC, MSS Eur G37/9/1, Lord Hardwicke to Robert Clive, Powis House, 11 Novem ber 1757. 103 Marshall, Bengal: British Bridgehead, p. 75. Ibid.

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So when a large Royal Navy detachment carrying troops and artillery had arrived in 1755 to defend Madras in anticipation of the outbreak of a new conflict with France, Company servants instead renamed this force the ‘Expedition for re-establishing the Company in their Possessions, Rights & Priviledges in Bengal’, and successfully recaptured Calcutta in 1757.104 Although such a reshaping of policy by Company servants had become a normal course of the decentralised dynamic of the Company over the years, for the first time ever those in Asia had to contend with the physical extension of the metropole in the form of royal forces, with whom such appropriation of the national interest was to cause immediate tension. And naturally enough, the commanders of the Royal Navy squadron attempted to claim Calcutta as a prize of war, to be occupied by the crown. Only after an armed stand-off and complex negotiations led by Robert Clive was Calcutta restored to the Company’s jurisdiction.105 After a brief skirmish with the nawab’s army outside of the city, Clive, like Job Charnock before him, agreed a treaty with Siraj-uddaula that reintegrated the Company back into Bengal, confirmed their existing privileges and gained consent for a number of farman rights that had previously been withheld, such as the creation of a mint at Calcutta.106 The restored council informed Madras that they had successfully achieved a return to the status quo ante: ‘Peace being concluded with the Subah, & tranquillity establish’d by that means in these Provinces’.107 Despite this, the combination of a greater availability of British military forces and the continued centralisation of power in the hands of the nawab galvanised Company servants into engineering a far more advantageous settlement in which the Company and their private interests would be placed in a more privileged position within regional hierarchies of power than ever before. As usual, Company servants turned to their cross-cultural networks to create a ‘revolution in favour of Meer Jaffier’, gaining the support of other disaffected elites, including the Jaget Seths and Omichand, to depose Siraj-ud-daula.108 With their support, and after a skirmish at Plassey in June 1757, Siraj-ud-daula was killed and Mir Jafar placed on the munsud or throne.109 The resultant settlement agreed between the new nawab, Mir Jafar, and the Company following the ‘battle’ of Plassey highlighted more than anything the continued commitment to pre-existing aims and strategies adopted by the Company and its servants for well over a century. Plassey had undoubtedly 104 106 107 108 109

105 LTFSG, Calcutta to Madras, 7 January 1757. Keay, Honourable Company, p. 308. C. U. Aitchison, ed., A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sanads Relating to India and Neighbouring Countries (Calcutta, 1891 1930, 14 volumes), vol. 2, p. 197. LTFSG, Calcutta to Madras, 26 March 1757. William Watts to Robert Clive, 11 June 1757, in William Watts, Memoirs of the Revolution in Bengal (London, 1760, reprinted 1964), p. 107. Luke Scrafton, Reflections on the Government of Indostan (London, 1779), pp. 89 90.

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been the product of an interventionist British state and a transitioning postMughal landscape in India. But even still, the settlement demonstrated the remarkable endurance of attempts to work within existing Asian frameworks of power. For instance, the terms of the previous treaty with Siraj-ud-daula were reconfirmed, with the additional grant of the large zamindari known as the ‘Twenty Four Parganas’, stretching south of Calcutta to the coast, the revenue of which as with Calcutta was still ‘to be paid by them’ to the nawab.110 These terms, as Philip J. Stern has noted, would ‘have hardly seemed shocking to earlier Company leadership’.111 Most importantly, the treaty also reflected the continued dominance of private interests which clearly remained firmly in control of the Company’s development. Sums totalling £2.5m were paid to the Company for the losses incurred in the capture of Calcutta, to the residents who lived there and to individual Company servants for their role in the coup that had placed Mir Jafar in power.112 Its leader, Robert Clive, for example, was gifted the staggering sum of £234,000 by the nawab.113 The balance of power had shifted, to be certain. Over the next six years the constant deployment of force by the Company to uphold the authority of the nawabs of Bengal revealed the extent to which the relationship of subordination had become subverted, especially when Mir Jafar was deposed by company servants and replaced with Mir Kasim in 1760, only to be himself deposed in 1763 after a brief war to make way for the return of Mir Jafar.114 But by all measures, the settlement following Plassey represented not some jarring transformation of a trading company into an imperial power but rather the zenith of a more than century-long dynamic in which servants sought to expand the Company’s presence and their own interests from within existing Asian political and economic frameworks, however distorted these became after 1757. Unlike on Sumatra, where the Company had failed to ever gain a legitimate footing and therefore had no access to local sources of political or imperial authority, and whose expansion was resisted virtually as a foreign invasion, in India the Company was able to forcefully contest the limits on its expansion by the centralising forces of the new successor regimes, and indeed gain a controlling stake in them after 1757 by drawing on the considerable resources, support and alliances commanded by its century-long presence as a deeply embedded, legitimate political force. Not only did its long history of operating from within the Mughal system help to provide the relationships and resources 110 111 112 113 114

LTFSG, Translate of the Treaty executed by Jaffir Ally Khan, Murshidabad, 11 August 1757. Stern, Company State, p. 205. LTFSG, Translate of the Treaty executed by Jaffir Ally Khan, Murshidabad, 11 August 1757. NLW, CR4/2, Robert Clive to Mr Belchier, Calcutta, 21 August 1757. Henry Vansittart, A Narrative of the Transactions in Bengal from 1760 to 1764 (London, 1766).

‘The End of These Things Will Not Be Good’

269

needed to gradually appropriate power within the successor regimes in regions such as Bengal, but it even allowed the Company to project itself as a defender of the ‘ancient Mughal constitution’, even playing the role of an aggrieved party that was only seeking to defend itself against the supposed ‘rapaciousness’ of the new nawabs.115 In truth, the Company’s own rapacious expansion had been under threat by powerful new post-Mughal forces. That it was ultimately able to emerge in a dominant position within these regimes was entirely due to its parasitical growth from within the old Mughal empire, feeding off its strength and emerging almost unassailable by the second half of the eighteenth century.

115

Travers, Ideology and Empire.

Conclusion Rethinking the Origins of the British Empire in Asia

It should perhaps seem strange to conclude a book which seeks to emphasise the Asian genesis of the British Empire with a focus on that most infamous of all colonial conquerors, Robert Clive, the ‘victor’ of Plassey. But whereas most have considered Clive the architect of the British Empire in Asia, even the actions of this avid imperialist can be reconsidered within the context of the powerful local forces which shaped the Company’s expansion beyond the mideighteenth century. For in many ways, Clive encapsulated the increasing tensions between these Asian forces and the resurgent British state. So while the settlement of Plassey was a conservative one, ensuring that the Company’s expansion remained within the existing framework of nawabi Bengal, it had nonetheless placed the Company at the top of the post-Plassey hierarchy. Writing to the Prime Minister, William Pitt, Clive worried that if the Company were ever to directly rule Bengal one day, ‘so large a sovereignty may possibly be an object too extensive for a mercantile Company’. Rather, he wondered whether ‘an income yearly of upwards of two millions sterling, with the possession of three provinces, abounding in the most valuable productions of nature and art, be an objective deserving the public attention’.1 Clive was in rather stunning terms outlining a potentially new form of empire, one in which the British nation-state would directly exercise rule over Bengal for the benefit of the national interest.2 In the event, neither Clive nor Pitt took such a proposition seriously. The prime minister was naturally reluctant for parliament to usurp the Company and so violate its charter, which had just recently been renewed for a further twenty years. For Clive, these were hypothetical musings on a situation that had not happened nor was likely to happen in the foreseeable future. Rather, as governor of Bengal, Clive was struggling to marshal the resources that would allow both himself and the Company to maintain their new dominance within the post-Plassey framework. His appeal to national interest was designed to 1 2

BL, APAC, IOR/G37/15/17, Robert Clive to William Pitt, Calcutta, 7 January 1759. Bruce Lenman and Philip Lawson, ‘Robert Clive, the “Black Jagir”, and British Politics’, The Historical Journal, vol. 26, no. 4 (December, 1983), p. 809.

270

Conclusion

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secure 2,000 British soldiers from Pitt that Clive had applied for if ever Mir Jafar’s unstable regime was brought down by the serious rebellions then breaking out across the region.3 The nawab was Clive’s most important partner and patron. Not only had they been co-conspirators in the coup which replaced Siraj-ud-daula but Mir Jafar was given the use of Company forces to consolidate his authority in the wake of Plassey, while Clive was awarded not only a tremendous fortune in gifts from the nawab but was formally brought into the highest rungs of the Bengali political elite. Through the joint efforts of both Mir Jafar and Clive’s other significant ally and business partner the Jaget Seths, the Mughal emperor granted Clive the rank of masnab or Mughal commander of 6,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry.4 The title itself was somewhat honorary but its political implications were significant. As Clive’s cousin George observed when writing to his uncle from Calcutta, Clive was ‘made some great Prince & believe the Mogul have like wise given him a Title in Persian which in English “is the Never to be conquered & Protector of Provinces”’.5 Crucially for Clive, his new position as omrah or noble as with all Mughal grants of nobility came with a jagir or land assignment, providing Clive with the considerable annual sum of £27,000 from the revenues of the territory granted to the Company around Calcutta. However, perhaps more crucially for both Mir Jafar and the Mughal emperor, the grant of the jagir also made Clive a direct subject of the Mughal state, a dynamic which tied this powerful new force in the Bengal landscape more firmly to the regime.6 As the Company’s historian Thomas Babington Macaulay once observed, it also technically made Clive, as Zubit al Mulk Nazier ad Doula or ‘Administrator of the Kingdom and Overseer of the Empire’, omrah of Bengal and masnab of the Mughal emperor, the actual suzerain of the Company’s presence at Calcutta.7 It was a situation not entirely dissimilar from that of Robert Fleetwood and the Company’s presence in Narsapur almost a century earlier. The example of Robert Clive at the supposed advent of a dominant British Empire in India in the later eighteenth century demonstrates that any attempt to uncover the powerful and enduring Asian origins of such an empire requires a sweeping degree of revision of a number of stubborn historic fallacies that this book has sought to challenge: the capabilities of the domestic English and British states to intervene overseas for much of the early modern period; the ability for trading companies to operate in a centralised and regulated manner; 3 4 5 6 7

NLW, CR4/1, Robert Clive to Sir Edward Clive, Calcutta, 21 August 1757. Sir George Forrest, The Life of Lord Clive (London, 1918, 2 volumes), vol. 2, p. 140. NLW, CC1/1, George Clive to Richard Clive, Calcutta, 1 March 1758. Forrest, Lord Clive, vol. 2, p. 139. Thomas Babington Macaulay, Lord Clive (originally published London, 1841, reprinted 1910), p. 61.

272

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the social and cultural isolation of Europeans in Asia and their aversion to local integration; the antagonistic and adversarial relationship between Europeans and Asians; the attempt to use force to extract concessions out of Asian states and empires; the apolitical role of Europeans in Asia and their rigid adherence to commercial pursuits; the ability to acquire and develop independent English or British sovereign jurisdictions at the expense of local Asian powers; even the collapse of the Mughal empire and the Company’s resultant shift to territorial rule. All of these persistent perspectives collected over almost two centuries and crafted into a teleological, national, Eurocentric history of the British in Asia have served to distort and in some cases destroy what was in fact a far more culturally complex, nation-less, politically dependent, nonlinear manifestation of an English presence. It was an often fragile but no less enduring world of multiracial families, transcultural partnerships, political and economic enfranchisement, dramatic subordination to foreign rulers, and hybrid government of cities and forts. It was a world in which even a figure burned into the national British psyche and taught in schools up and down the country as a national hero and imperial architect, Robert Clive, was also a Mughal noble and Bengali landowner with a vested interest in the survival of this fragile, transcultural world in which his most valued associates and patrons were an Indian nawab and a Hindu banker. But perhaps the biggest obstacle in allowing us to uncover the Asian origins of the British Empire in the years 1600 to 1750 is the idea that England or even Britain could succeed overseas without operating within wider and mutually beneficial frameworks of economic and political power. When the Company and its servants were able to integrate themselves into their Asian surroundings and concede their political autonomy to more powerful sovereign and constitutional authorities, they reaped the benefits of protection, patronage, legitimacy and unrivalled expansion. This system formally bound the Company into durable relationships with some of the world’s strongest states and most prosperous economies. The success of this arrangement was confirmed whenever the Company or its servants sought to opt out of these integrative and subordinate strategies and instead attempted to go it alone in Asia, either by building independent English ‘colonies’ at Madagascar or Bombay, or imposing their demands and interests on pre-existing political and economic structures, such as on the West Coast of Sumatra. The result always fell far short of expectations, and more often than not led to commercial failure, economic dislocation and political destruction. When the Company finally abandoned the carapace of Asian authority in India, beginning with its assumption of sovereign power over Bengal following its appointment as diwan by the defeated Emperor Shah Allam II after the battle of Buxar in 1765, and then when its forces captured Delhi in 1803, its presence quickly descended into

Conclusion

273

chaos much as it had on Sumatra fifty years before beset by rebellion, gripped by war and famine, and facing financial calamity.8 The early modern world proved a dangerous and unpredictable place for a small European state such as England, and until at least the mid-eighteenth century any attempt to successfully prosper overseas relied on the cooperation, support and facilitation of other cultures and political communities. In what many historians define as a period of intense globalisation, England/Britain’s expansion in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was shaped and ultimately facilitated by powerful foreign forces beyond its shores, and not by the more peripheral concerns of domestic interests.

8

For the instability which plagued the Company’s presence in India after 1765, see Jon Wilson, India Conquered: Britain’s Raj and the Chaos of Empire (London, 2016). For a more narrative account, see the recent William Dalrymple, The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company (London, 2019).

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Index

Abbas, Mir, 47 Aceh, 181 183, 197 198, 203, 206 adalat, 143 Adill, raja, 214 219 Afghan, 13 14, 112, 114, 161, 264 agency problem, 12 Agra, 34 Akbar, 12, 114 Alam, Emperor Shah II, 272 Aldworth Henry, 138 Thomas, 34, 36 Alley, Captain William, 122 127, 130, 145 Amboina, 41, 181, 277 Anak Sungai, 216, 218, 225, 233 237, 240, 245 Andrews, Matthew, 79, 87 Annesley, Samuel, 15 Arakan, 154 Arcot, 256 258, 260, 264 Armagon burnt down, 48 Chetty, raja, 55 conflict with Vijayanagara empire, 48 49, 72 famine, 49 fort, 48 52 foundation of English factory, 47 49, 113 nayak, 47 48 withdrawal of English from, 49, 62 Armenian, 13, 171, 247, 257, 276 Atlantic, 7, 43, 81, 262 Aurangzeb, emperor, 13 15, 113, 124, 131, 152, 155, 157, 163 164, 171, 207, 249, 251, 255, 279 Azim ush sham, prince, 164 Baker, Aaron, 27 30 Balasore attack by English, 149 Chintaman Shah, 120 commercial hub, 112, 116

286

Dumadapore, 116 founding of English factory, 116, 138 interlopers, 116 122 Khem Chand Shah, 120 Malik Bairam, 120 Malik Kasim, 120 prohibition of slave trade, 116 shawbunder, 125 Ball, George, 37 Banda islands, 40 Bank of England, 120 Bantal, 225, 231, 235, 237 238 Bantam agency, 66 Arya Ranamanggala, pengeran, 41 42 blockade, 41 42 Chinese monopoly, 36 37, 41 42 coup, 182 English mediation, 180 English monopoly over pepper, 181 English re establish headquaters at, 42 43 expulsion of the English Company, 37, 182 founding of the English factory, 36, 180 Gabang, pengeran, 41 imperial expansion, 181 jenang, 191 193 Ratu, pengeran, 41 42 regents, 37, 41 Sultan Abdulfatah Ageng, 182 Bantam Capas, 197 Barker, Hugh, 254 Barwell, Charles, 214 217 Basra, 45 Batavia, 11, 39 42, 47, 113, 178, 180, 184, 186, 196, See Jakarta Beard John (junior), 169 171 John (senior), 145 146, 148 Bencoolen annexation of Jangallo, 226 230 Anthony Ettrick, 225, 227 as colonial space, 231

Index attack of Orang Gunung, 237 238 attempted coup de force, 207 209 Bantam’s claims on, 190 194 Batavia as a model, 186 Chinese, 220, 226, 237 240 cloth imports, 223 224 coffrey slaves, 238 240 commercial growth, 212 decline in trade, 220 221, 223 225 disarming of Malays, 231 embargo against, 191, 195 English arrival, 184, 186 establishment of English government, 187 189 exchanged for Singapore, 241 expedition against rebels, 233 expedition to relieve Bantal, 236 expenses, 225 expulsion of the English, 239 240 famine, 225 gaming license, 226 George Shaw, 220, 224 Jenapatwan, 201 209, 212 213, 220 Malay ethnicity, 202 market, 201 mint, 201, 205 mutiny of English soldiers, 200 plans to withdraw subordinate factories, 217 return of English, 241 return of Malay, 200 Richard Farmer, 225 226, 234 Robert Broughton, 221 222 Robert Skingle, 226 salt monopoly, 212, 225 226, 230, 237, 252 253 shipping, 202, 220 shortage of silver dollars, 224 225 Theophilius Shyllinge, 232 Thomas Cooke, 236 237, 239 240 volume of private trade, 224 York Fort, 189, 194, 201, 208, 212, 217 Bengal sultanate, 112 Bernier, Francois, 20 Bihar, 112, 116, 251 bitchar, 214, 216 217, 219, 222, 228 229, 231, 236 Bloome, Benjamin, 185 196, 198 201, 204 208, 212, 220 Bombay, 103, 108, 121, 136, 156, 177 178, 205, 242, 272, 280 281, 283 Borneo, 38 Bowman, Maximillian, 64 Bowrey, Thomas, 2, 21, 116, 202, 275 Bowridge, William, 139, 162 Bowyer, Francis, 182

287 Brahmin brothers (Venkata and Kanappa), 29 30 Bridger, John, 104 Bridgman, James, 117 Brond, Benjamin, 101 102 Buckeridge, Nicholas, 46, 93, 95 96 Bugis, 198 199, 215, 221, 232 Burdwan, 161 Buxar, battle of, 272 Byam, John, 120 Cadiz, 122 Calcutta. See Sutanati baptisms, 21 Basak family, 260 capture by Siraj ud daula, 265 commercial growth, 259 conflict with ‘New Company’, 169 173 expansion of jurisdiction, 259 Fort William, 165, 174 foundation of English factory, 158 Henry Frankland, 253 imperial farman, 245 248 Islam, 140 population, 259 private trade, 253 254 Rajput rebellion, 161 164 recapture by the English, 267 share of investment, 166 Surman’s embassy, 245 247 trade, 260 Twenty Four Parganas, 268 zamindar, 164 166 Cambodia, 38 Camphuys, Joannes, 196 Carnatic. See Arcot Cartwright, Ralph, 54 55, 181 Catholicism, 43, 83, 88 Cattow, 214, 218 219, 221, 226 Celebes, 38 Chamber, Thomas, 31, 85, 89, 91, 93 Charles I, king, 45 Charles II, king, 7, 9, 80, 82, 91 92, 103 104, 122, 146, 167, 177, 276 Charnock, Catherine, 139, 160 Charnock, Elizabeth, 139 Charnock, Job, 135, 138 143, 147 160, 164 165, 186 187, 266 267 Charnock, Mary, 139 Child, Sir John, 156, 178 Child, Sir Josiah, 132, 135, 142, 144 147, 151, 156, 167, 195, 275 China, 82, 261 Chinsurah, 130, 136 Chittagong, 147, 149, 151, 153 154

288

Index

Clarke Thomas (junior), 53 Thomas (senior), 53 55, 59 Clitherow, Sir Christopher, 80 Clive, Robert, 264, 266 268, 270 272, 278, 281 Cocks, Richard, 40 Cogan, Andrew, 51, 53 54, 57, 59, 61 67, 69 71, 73, 76, 85, 91 Cogan, Richard, 66 Collet, Joseph, 229 234, 256 258 Courteen Association, 45, 50, 74 Courteen, Sir William, 45 Cromwell, Oliver, 75, 77, 79, 81 82, 282 Cuddalore. See Fort St David Curtis, William, 86 Cutcheel, Raja. See Jangallo Dacca, 116, 122 123, 133, 141, 151, 159, 162 163 Dawes, William, 93, 97 99 Day, Francis, 50, 56 58, 60, 62 66, 68 69, 71, 73, 76, 91, 111 Deccan, 1, 113, 131, 152, 171, 255, 278 Delhi, 13, 138, 245 246, 249 252, 256, 260, 272 diwan, 161, 251, 272 Dixon, Hugh, 102 Dodsworth, Edward, 34 Downton, Nicholas, 34 Duke, Matthew, 39 Dupleix, Francois, 263 Durson, Captain John, 122 Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost Indische Compagnie) ban on private trade, 261 Bantam, 37 38, 180, 182 183, 189 colonisation, 7 conflict with the English Company, 37 38 conflict with Vijayanagara empire, 72 failure to settle Bencoolen, 186 Hereen Zeventien (Gentlemen Seventeen), 11 Inderapura, 184, 196 199, 213 intervention in Anak Sungai, 234 protection of William Hedges, 132 relationship with the Dutch state, 38 Silebar, 189 190 subordination to Asian states, 16, 115 union with the English Company, 38 43 war with Siam, 94 Eagle, 57, 60, 62 63 Edwards, Richard, 118, 120 Elizabeth I, queen, 31 33

England (Britain) Civil Wars, 45, 69, 74, 81 colonisation, 7, 19, 43 commercial expansion, 261 corporations, 7, 32 East Indies squadron, 263 economic crises, 44 Glorious Revolution, 167 leading trader in Asian goods, 261 mercantilism, 32 Navigation Acts, 81 Northwest Passage, 31 parliament, 12, 74, 134, 167 169, 172 173, 262, 270 proprietary grants, 7 re export trade, 262 war against Dutch, 41 war against France, 263 war against Spain, 31, 75 English East India Company colony building, 152, 160, 165, 178, 186 court of committees, 8, 34, 42, 45 46, 51 52, 62, 65, 69, 73 76, 79 82, 87, 90 91, 96 97, 102 103, 105 107, 120, 122, 126, 132, 146 147, See East India House, See court of directors court of directors, 135, 156, 158, 162, 165, 169, 173, 183, 186, 223, 253, 266 East India House (building), 80 factions within leadership, 45, 81, 136 137, 146 fiscal military weakness, 16, 20, 38, 40, 43, 46, 150, 191, 194, 211, 217, 219, 222 foundation, 31 interlopers, 89, 115 128, 130 134, 139 140, 145, 156, 166 investment, 33, 44, 46, 71, 74, 79, 166, 252, 261 New Company, 168 173 organisation, 33, 74, 82, 261 permanent joint stock, 79, 81, 89 private trade, 107 108, 223 224, 252 254 privileges, 5, 44, 46, 53, 61, 67, 73, 111, 128, 164, 174, 184, 196 197, 245 246, 252, 255 256, 258, 265, 267 rebellions, 108 records, 22 relationship with English state, 7, 22, 38 39, 41, 70, 73, 75, 167 169, 173, 262 264, 268, 271 religious policy, 76, 84, 95 shipping, 34, 38, 40 41, 45, 51, 61, 70 71, 75, 80, 103, 135, 147 subordination, 213

Index subordination to Asian states, 5, 16, 19, 44, 48, 61, 64, 72, 74, 94, 115 116, 123, 133, 144, 148, 168, 177, 179 180, 182, 189, 195, 201, 210 211, 214, 242, 253, 258, 265 trade, 142, 155, 159, 166, 168, 188, 252, 260 union with the Dutch VOC, 38 43 use of force, 37, 41, 104, 135 138, 144, 156 157, 162 163, 195 196, 213 239, 267, 271 withdrawal of factories, 40, 45, 47, 51, 76, 79, 217, 225, 236 Eyre, Charles, 139, 152 153, 155, 159 160, 162 165, 172, 259 Farrukhsiyar, emperor, 174, 245 246, 248 249 faujdar (police chief ), 15, 123 Fleetwood, Robert, 2 4 Fort St David, 261 Fort St George. See Madras Foxcroft Nathaniel, 98 99 Sir George, 96 102, 105 Fremlen, William, 61 French East India Compny (Compagnie Royale des Indes Orientales), 241, 263 264 Fryer, John, 14 Futter, Francis, 47 Gallum, Dipati Allum, 227 229 Gary, Henry, 103 Gingee, 55 Gistra, Karia Sutra. See jenang Globe, 46 Goa, 103 Godavari River, 1 4 Goddard, John, 183 185 Golconda Abdul Hasan Qutb Shah, 2 3 defensive policies, 14 invasion of Vijayanagara empire, 73 merchants, 47 Mughal annexation, 113 occupation of San Thome, 74 ports, 46 Goldsborough, Sir John, 139 Gombroon, 118 Govindpur. See Calcutta Greenhill Joseph, 27 Mary, 128 Greenhill, Henry censure from court, 76 conflict with Aaron Baker, 27 30 death, 86

289 Indo Portuguese family, 65 marriage of daughters, 118 Thomas Chamber, 86 wealth, 68 Griffith, Henry, 1 4 Gulemat, Sultan alliance with Orang Gunung, 237 authority limited by English, 233 conflict with Raja Adill, 217 218 deposed by English, 234 235 destruction of Bencoolen, 239 240 election as sultan, 213 expedition to conquer Manduta, 214 invasion of Anak Sungai, 235 236 mother, 215 opposition to Muhammad Syah, 214 siege of Bantal, 236 submission of Raja Quasso, 219 Gurney, John, 27, 29 Gyfford, William, 148, 185 186, 204 Haggerston, Thomas, 120, 132 Hall, Alexander, 241 Hall, Joseph, 104 105, 128 Hamilton, Alexander, 139, 159 Harding, James, 140 Hariharpur, 54, 116 Hawley, Henry, 41 43 Heath, Captain William, 151 155 Hedges, William arrival in Asia, 126 Captain William Alley, 122 125 conflict with Job Charnock, 140, 143 customs dispute, 124 125 escape from Bengal, 132 134 failure to suppress interlopers, 127 130, 145 support for conflict in Bengal, 131, 136 Hijili, 114, 121, 150 Hodges, Reverend Nathaniel, 232 Houblon, James, 119, 131, 142, 145 146, 181 Hudson, Richard, 51 Hudson’s Bay Company, 18 Hughes, Robert, 112 Hugli commercial hub, 112 decline, 166 Dutch garden, 129 English attack, 148 European description, 21 faujdar, 123 foundation of English factory, 116 interlopers, 122 125, 166 Mughal capture, 114 New Company, 172 Paramecvaz Dãs, 122 123

290

Index

Huysman, Martin, 132 Hyderabad, 250, 255 256, 258, 278 Inderapura advise Bencoolen to surrender, 191 Dutch VOC attack, 196 199 English arrival, 184 185 Hamon Gibbon, 197 199 James Fort, 197 199, 213 menteri, 198 Muhammad Syah, 184, 196 199, 203, 213 216, 218 Raja Mansur, 213, 235 request Jenapatwan’s assistance, 202 Innes James, 118 Jane, 118 interlopers alliance with Company servants, 89 Interlopers alliance with Company servants, 115 128, 131 134, 140 Balasore, 116 122 expulsion from Bengal, 166 Hugli, 166 Kasimbazar, 140 Narsapur, 89 protection by Indian rulers, 120 123 royal proclamation against, 103 transcultural practices, 118, 121 Ippue, 221 222, 236 Isaacson, William, 83 84, 86 Islam, 37, 43, 140, 204, 280 Itam, Pengeran Sungai, 187 189, 193, 212, 226, 232, 238 Ivie, Thomas, 52, 71 Jafar, Mir, 266 268, 271 Jagat Seths, 252, 266 267, 271 Jakarta, 38 39, See Batavia Jambi, 180 183, 185, 209 James I, king, 7, 38 James II, king, 135, 146, 151, 167, 195 Jamestown, 18, 43, 283 Jangallo, Pengeran, 226 230, 238 Jantinalo, Pengeran, 227 229 Japan, x, 16 17, 19, 40, 43, 115, 274, 277, 281 Jardin, Clement du, 183 186, 196, 199 jenang. See Karia Sutra Gistra, See Bantam Jenapatwan, 200 209, See Bencoolen Johore, 182 Jumla, Mir, 74, 89 Kalikata. See Calcutta Karim ul Mulk, 143

Kasim, Nawab Mir, 268 Kasimbazar, 116, 128, 138 144, 148 Keigwin, Richard, 103 Kerenci. See Orang Gunung Kerridge, Thomas, 34 Khan, Nawab Alivardi, 251 252, 264, 284 Khan, Nawab Anwar ud din, 263 Khan, Nawab Ibrahim, 152, 155, 157 158, 161 162, 164 Khan, Nawab Murshid Quli, 251, 253, 264 Khan, Nawab Shaista abuse of Dutch at court, 143 appointment as nawab of Bengal, 128 arrest of interlopers, 123 blockade of Kasimbazar factory, 144 complaints to Mughal emperor of English, 157 dispute with William Hedges, 132, 147 embaro against Company trade, 148 protection of interlopers, 121, 125 removal from Bengal, 152 Khan, Zabardast, 163 kinship, 2, 5, 18, 33, 66 67, 71, 85, 93, 115, 118, 126, 128, 134, 139, 142, 167, 232 Kuch Bihar, 114 Lancaster, Captain James, 32, 36, 118, 274 Leigh, John, 27 28 Lemau, Pengeran Sungai, 187 189, 193, 204, 226, 237 238 Levant Company, 7, 20, 119 Lila, Orumkay, 187 Littleton, Sir Edward, 169 173 Lowdon, James, 145 Lowman, Reverend Moses, 233 Lumpong, 204 Macassar, 38, 41 Macoota, Raja, 213 218, 222, 235 Madagascar, 178, 272, 284 Madapollam, 1 Madras bills of exchange, 224 Captain William Heath, 152 capture by French, 263 choultry, 94, 97 99 construction of Fort St George, 57 58, 63 65, 74 designated headquarters, 70 Divy Island, 247, 256 258 embassy to Nizam ul Mulk, 258 259 expansion of territorial jurisdiction, 260 factions, 27 30 foundation of English government, 57 65 imperial farman, 247

Index Inderapura ambassadors, 184 Indo Portuguese, 59 60, 63 68, 85, 87, 89, 91, 95 96, 98 100 lack of investment, 56, 63 64 Left and Right Hand castes, 28 30, 86, 93 marriages, 65 mint, 258 259, 261 Nathaniel Elwick, 258 Nathaniel Higginson, 216 218 nayak’s grant, 57 58, 61 62 negotiations with nawab of Bengal, 144 156 plans to sell, 76 population, 66, 260 private trade, 261 privileges, 73, 259 relationship with Golconda, 14, 74, 87, 94 relationship with Vijayanagara empire, 72 73 restoration from French, 264 restoration from rebels, 104 105 restructure, 82 retrenchment, 76 share of investment, 166 shipping, 261 Sir Edward Winter’s coup, 99 105 Manduta, 196 197, 203, 208 209, 213 219, 222 223, 233 Manila, 40, 261 Manwaring, Matthew, 104 Marathas, 131, 194, 256, 261 Marsden, William, 203, 232, 241, 274 Massachusetts Bay Company, 96 Master, Streynsham, 2, 121 Masulipatam, 46 56, 60, 62, 66, 70, 89 91, 171 172, 247, 257 Mathuradas, 141, 143, 187 Mediterranean, 7, 13, 20, 43, 134, 276 merchants, 1, 3, 28 29, 35 36, 39 41, 46 47, 50, 56, 63, 65, 71 72, 74, 85, 97, 113, 116, 120 121, 124, 130, 141, 143, 172, 197, 200, 220, 223 226, 237, 247, 253, 255, 260 Methwold, William, 46 Midnapore, 161, 163 Milday, Matthew, 217 219 Mills, Thomas, 40, 47 Minangkabau, 180 183, 202 204, 208 209, 213, 217, 235 Minors, Richard, 92 Mocha, 33, 45 Moco Moco, 203, 216, 233, 236 Morris, James, 235 Moyer, Samuel, 74

291 Muda, Raja, 187 191 Mughal empire Anglo Mughal War, 135 138, 144 154, 156 157, 162 163 bullion imports, 131 132, 152, 155, 261 concern over Company’s expansion, 255 conquest of Bengal, 112 conquest of Golconda, 113 dastak system, 124, 171, 252 decentred nature, 13 15, 113 115, 250 251 durability, 249 economy, 112, 131, 152, 155, 253 254 imperial farman, 124 125, 158 159, 174, 204, 246, 251 253, 255, 257 258, 261 jagir system, 249, 251 Maratha invasions, 252, 256, 264 mint, 163 Parwiz, Prince, 113 Persian invasion, 249 policy towards Europeans, 5, 112 114, 123 124, 130 131, 136 137, 263 rebellion, 161 165, 264 Sayyid brothers, 249 shipping, 15, 121, 156 siege of Bombay, 156 Successor States, 249 250 theories of decline, 248 249 war in the Deccan, 131, 152 Wars of Succession, 249 Murshidabad, 118, 139, 142, 162 163, 171, 254, 259, 268 Myddelton, Roger, 86 Mylapore, 59 60, 71 Narsapur, 1 4 Natal, 241 Navarette, Dominic, 100 New Company. See English East India Company New England, 19 Nizam ul Mulk, 255, 258 nochados (merchants). See merchants Noell, Sir Martin, 81 Norris, Sir William, 10, 168, 171, 278 Omichand, 260, 267 Orang Gunung, 237 238 Ord, Ralph, 185 189, 191, 195 196, 199 Orissa, 55, 118, 120 121, 132, 161, 251, 264, 281 Orme, Robert, 260 Ottoman empire, 12 13, 20, 134, 179, 242 Oudh, 250 Oxenden, Sir George, 88, 100

292

Index

Palembang, 180, 182, 203, 275 Patna, 112 113, 116, 138, 149, 156, 246, 253 254, 264 Pegu, 55, 121 Penawar, Padri, 237 239 Penniston, Thomas, 65, 68 Peppercorn, 33 34 Persia, 3, 13, 45, 55, 68, 83, 118, 120, 134, 256, 261 picars (brokers), 141, 143 piracy, 15, 114 115, 117, 178, 263 Pit, Laurence, 85 Pitt, John, 170, 172 Pitt, Thomas appointed governor of Madras, 170 attempts to imprison him, 120, 127 Balasore, 118, 120 conflict with William Hedges, 129 130 desertion from Company, 118 dispute with John Pitt, 170, 172 kinship network, 118, 120 marriage, 118 New English Company, 130 Pitt, William, 270 Plassey, battle of, 267 268, 270 271 Polsted, Henry, 33 Porto Novo, 122, 186 Portuguese English attack on shipping, 36 mestizo communities, 2, 53, 64 67, 84 85, 100, 116, 215 monopoly, 31 Mughal conquest of Hugli, 114 topazes, 59, 100 Potts, Samuel, 197 Priaman, 185 186 Price, James, 123, 125 Proby, Charles, 104 Puckle, Major William, 4 Pulicat, 14, 29, 39 40, 50, 58, 72, 85, 94 qazi (judge), 143 Quasso, Raja, 218 219, 221, See Seblat Raffles, Stamford, 241 Rai, Bal Chandra, 122 125, 130, 139, 143 Rajput, 14, 139, 161, 279 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 43 Rastell, Thomas, 52 Reade, Edward, 92 Roe, Thomas, 10 Royal Navy (British), 7, 263, 267 Russell, John, 160

Sambrook, Jeremy, 97 99 San Thome, 57 58, 60, 64, 66 67, 71, 74, 85, 108, 113, 260 Seblat, 218 219, 221, 226, 236, 240 Seshadri, Nayak, 28 30 Shah, Emperor Muhammad, 251, 256 Shuja ud Daula, Nawab, 253 254 Shuja ud Din, Nawab, 251 Siam, 38, 94 Siddi, Yakub, 14, 156, 178 Silebar, 184 187, 189 191, 193 196, 206, 209, 226 231, See Jangallo Sill, Henry, 52, 55 Singh, Shova, 161 162 Siraj ud daula, Nawab, 264 267 Smythe, Sir Thomas, 34 35, 80 Smythes, Reverend Simon, 93, 104 Spiller, John, 77 state, the (English/British) centralisation, 81 decentred nature, 7 8, 10 expansion, 262 264 intervention overseas, 38, 82, 262 264 weakness, 7, 31 Sumad, Abdul, 149 150 Surat Bombay, 156 conflict with Mughal empire, 156 criticisms of Madras, 62 decline of English position, 77 designated headquarters, 83 dispute with Madras over seniority, 87 foundation of presiency, 35 imperial farman, 247 presidency transferred to Bombay, 177 share of investment, 166 Surman, John, 245 247 Sutanati. See Calcutta Sutanati, treaty of, 148 153, 158 159, 161 Swally Hole, 61 Taqi, Muhammad, 47 tax farm, 3 4, 116, 226, 255 Thompson, Maurice, 8 Timana, Beri, 28 29, 86 87, 93 94, 96 99, 106 trade benzoin resin, 183, 223 buffalo, 228 229 cloth, 1, 3, 31, 35 37, 40, 50, 55, 60, 86, 97, 141, 183, 220, 223 224, 237 cloves, 53, 63 coffee, 262 cotton, 1, 28, 46, 96, 112, 141 142, 224 225 decline, 44

Index elephant’s teeth, 183, 223 gold, 155, 183, 212, 223, 237, 261 horses, 118 opium, 260 pepper, 36, 39, 107, 180 184, 186, 188, 190 191, 196 197, 199, 202, 205 206, 212 214, 217, 219 220, 223 225, 230, 232, 236 237 rice, 28, 76, 86, 97, 212, 225 salt, 97, 212, 225, 230, 237, 252 253 saltpetre, 101, 112, 138, 168, 252, 260 silk, 19, 54, 112, 118, 131, 141 142, 159, 246, 252 slave, 81, 116, 140, 240 spice, 37, 39 40, 180 181 sugar, 37, 81, 112, 118, 120, 161, 220 wool, 168 Treaty of Defence, 38, 41 Treaty of London, 241 Treaty of Tryamong, 214, 216 217 Trenchfield, Richard, 140 Trumball, Andrew, 65, 68 Tryamong, 213 215, 217, 236 Unity, 57, 60, 62 vakils (agents), 171 Vellore, 73 Venkatappa, Nayak Darmala, 60, 71, 73 Vijayanagara empire annexation of Armagon, 72 civil war, 48, 73 conquest by Golconda, 73

293 decentralisation, 47 49 Dutch VOC, 72 expansion, 49, 60 Rama Deva Raya, Emperor, 49 Sri Ranga Rayalu, Emperor, 73 Venkatta III, Emperor, 60, 72 war with Deccani sultanates, 48 Vincent, Matthias, 118, 127 130 Virana, Kasi, 86, 93 94, 96 99, 106, 108, 187 Viravasaram, 89 Virginia Company, 18 Vizagapatam, 247, 261 Walsh John, 223 Joseph, 223, 240 Warwick, earl of, 8 Weddell, Captain John, 50 White, Jonathan, 139, 160 William III, king, 165, 167 168, 276 Willoughby, George, 52 53, 55 Winter Francis, 92 Margery, 2 Mary, 92 Sir Edward, 2, 76, 89 90 Sir Thomas, 93 Wylde, Richard, 44 Yale, Elihu, 113, 155, 157 158, 161 162, 207 zamindar, 114, 161, 164 165, 232, 264, 266, 268