-Caveat Lector-
an excerpt from:
The East India Company
Brian Gardner©1971
Barnes & Noble Books[1997]
ISBN 0-88029-530-9
pps. 319 -- Out-of-print
--[1b]--
***
The rivalry between Dutch and English in the 'Spice Islands' archipelago had
become intense and clashes had become almost inevitable with each voyage.
Nathaniel Courthope, Sir Thomas Dale, John Jourdain, all led expeditions to
the East Indies and had to fight the Dutch, although the two nations were
supposedly at peace. Jourdain, the Company's first President in Java, was
killed in a naval battle with the Dutch in 1620. The Dutch were extremely
jealous of their new acquisitions, for which they had fought bitterly with
the Portuguese. Although the English ships were often able to hold their own,
the Company was being defeated in its efforts to establish itself in this
region — more highly prized than India — by sheer weight of numbers. The
Dutch East India Company, an amalgamation of interests, was much richer and
more powerful than its London counterpart. At length the Dutch settled the
matter by a simple expedient; they massacred most of the Englishmen at the
East India Company's main depot.
The new trade with Europe had now moved beyond Java and Sumatra to the
Moluccas (now all part of Indonesia). The most important British depot in the
East Indies was at Ambon, which was also the capital of Dutch interests in
the Moluccas. A treaty had been signed between the Dutch and English, in
1619, on a live-and-let-live basis; the British were to be allowed one-third
of the trade, and would contribute the same proportion to the cost of the
forts, which were, however, to be manned by the Dutch; the treaty had solved
nothing. 'Chief Factor' of the English in the area was Gabriel Towerson, who
had married Hawkins's Armenian widow, and had succeeded to the post once held
by William Starkey, of the Company's first voyage. He was a jolly, breezy
sort of man; he disliked the Dutch.
What happened at Ambon is one of the most horrible stories of Europeans in
the east. A Japanese mercenary in the Dutch garrison was suspected of spying
for the English. The Dutch were extremely sensitive about their position, and
deep feelings of insecurity were common to all Europeans in the east. The
Japanese mercenary had been asking questions about the guard system at the
Dutch fort. He insisted that his questions had only been out of curiosity,
but he was put to torture and 'confessed', having 'endured pretty long',
according to the official Dutch report. At first he said there was a
conspiracy of the Japanese to overthrow the Dutch. But after further torture
he said the English were involved. 'Extremely surprised when I heard of this
conspiracy,' wrote the Dutch governor; there were very few Japanese in the
area, and even less English. As one account says: 'The ever-present dread Of
revolt, however, lent a powerful stimulus to the official Dutch imagination.'
The Japanese soldiers were disarmed and imprisoned. There was also one
Englishman in the fort, who had been arrested for arson; he was evidently the
English Company's surgeon. He confessed ('After little or no torture,'
according to the Dutch report), and told a detailed story of conspiracy to
gain control of the fort, led by Towerson. Orders were immediately issued for
the arrest of the other English in the Moluccas, seventeen in all, all in the
Company's service. The Dutch authorities then began the methodical torture of
the group, each unfortunate victim being subjected to water ordeal and
burning until he confessed. This lasted for several days, some of the men
continuing to protest their innocence, 'with deep oaths and protestations',
between bouts of torture. Towerson himself does not seem to have been put to
the ordeal, but the 'confessions' of others were enough to condemn him.
The Dutch later admitted torture had been used, but denied its extent. It
should be remembered that torture was customary at that time, the curious
notion being that it was the one certain way of extracting the truth. Guido
Fawkes had been tortured in London only a few years before. On the Company's
own ships, forty strokes of the lash were not unusual.
Only two of the prisoners were reprieved. The remainder were assembled in the
courtyard for execution. One of them drew from a pocket a piece of paper,
which he read; it was a prayer and a final declaration of innocence.
Finished, he threw the paper to the ground, where it was retrieved by an
official. The executioner began the beheadings. 'And so, one by one, with
great cheerfulness, they suffered the fatal stroke.'
When news of the executions reached England, the country was outraged. For
several months the affair was discussed with fury, in London and other
cities, and at court. A deep sense of indignation against the Dutch remained
for years. The King was shocked, but did little. The Company demanded 'real
restitution for damages, justice upon those who had in so great fury and
tyranny tortured and slain the English, and security for the future'. The
dispute became bogged down in diplomatic exchanges.
Whatever their justification, the executions had achieved what the Dutch had
wished for so long — the virtual elimination of the English from the
Moluccas; but it is most unlikely that this was the calculated intention of
the executions. The executions, and the Company's lobbying, were among the
pressures that finally led to an inevitable Anglo-Dutch war; for the Dutch
and English were rivals around the globe, having clashed in the Americas as
well as in the east.* In that war, the Dutch secured the Cape of Good Hope,
so strategically placed on the route to India and the east; they were to hold
it for nearly a hundred and fifty years. The English were successful in the
war, but the English company never recovered in the East Indies from the
Ambon massacre. For a few years the 'factory' at Bantam lingered on; it
finally closed in 1667, after a second Dutch War (it was this war which
resulted in the exchange of New Amsterdam, renamed New York, for Surinam.).**
[*Anglo-Dutch War, 1652-4] [**Anglo-Dutch War, 1665-7.]
In India, meanwhile, the Dutch and English had worked together a little
better. For a while they had been allies against the Portuguese: the English
warring at sea and the Dutch on land. In the Arabian Gulf, the East India
Company strengthened its interests by means of a treaty with Persia, a naval
victory, and the capture of the important Portuguese bastion of Hormuz after
a ten-weeks' siege. But soon the Dutch and English were at loggerheads in
India, full of suspicions and accusations. In mid-century, the Dutch took
Ceylon from the Portuguese by force.
The East India Company's wide interests stretched — by the standards of those
days — over enormous distances, and financially it was often in extreme
difficulty. The expense of its operations was frequently greater than its
income, and it was often in debt. But a new generation of directors was as
ambitious as the founders. They persisted in increasing the operations,
except in the East Indies.
In 1640 Francis Day, one of the Company's representatives in Southern India,
in the lands independent of the Mughal, obtained from a local sovereign a
grant of land on the east coast. Upon this, the Company built the trading
post of Fort St George — around the walls of which grew an increasing
settlement — to become one day the great city of Madras. It was the first
land to be held by the British in India. By 1670 the post had developed to
about 300 English, with some 3,000 Portuguese living under their protection.
It was mostly famous for its laxity of morals. The Company's chaplain wrote
to the directors on 31 January 1676:
I have the charity to believe that most of you have so much zeal for God, and
for the credit of religion, that your heads would be fountains of water, and
eyes rivers of tears, did you really know how much God is dishonoured, his
name blasphemed, religion reproached amongst the Gentiles, by the vicious
lives of many of your servants ... I do earnestly wish there may be more
inspection taken what persons you send over into these places; for there come
hither some thousand murderers, some men stealers, some popish, some come
over under the notion of single persons and unmarried, who yet have their
wives in England, and here have lived in adultery; and some on the other hand
have come over as married [couples] of whom there are strange suspicions they
were never married... Others pride themselves in making others drink tiff
they be insensible, and then strip them naked and in that posture cause them
to be carried through the streets to their dwelling place. Some of them, with
other persons whom they invited, once went abroad to a garden not far off,
and there continued a whole day and night drinking most excessively, and in
so much that one of the number died within a very few days after. The Company
was not finding it easy to recruit staff, and it had to take what it could
get. Prospects were not good, mortality from sickness high, and the Company
forbade private trading by its employees. In 1665 two factions at Fort St
George fought each other in rebellion, and the Company was obliged to send
out a fleet and troops to settle the matter. Rough as Fort St George was, its
foundation was a most important step in the history of British rule in India.
At last the officials of the East India Company were able to barter, trade,
and negotiate with Indian rulers from an independent base of their own. And
the place was not without its humanitarian outlook; although slavery was
countenanced, the slave trade, which was abolished there in 1683, was not. In
1653 it was made a 'presidency, and five years later was given authority over
the Company's posts on the Coromandel coast and in Bengal.
The Company's territory was increased by the acquisition, in 1667, of the
island of Bombay, which Charles II had received six years earlier as part of
his dowry on marrying the Infanta of Portugal. Charles, like most of his
contemporaries, had not previously heard of the place, but he was a good
friend to the Company and he gave it the island for a loan Of £50,000 at 6
per cent, charging a rent of £10 per annum (which the Company paid till
1730). The Portuguese had held it for nearly a hundred and thirty years, and
the Company was quick to appreciate its importance.
Bombay and Surat were in the west. Fort St George was in the south. The
Company was also showing interest in eastern India — the populous, dank,
sweltering, tempting lands of Bengal. This was not surprising. The main
trade-routes of India, from the north, east, and central districts, had
always been down the mighty Ganges and its tributaries. A constant traffic
followed the river's course, with many trading places on its banks,
eventually concentrating at the many small ports where the river debouched
into the ocean in a complicated maze of numerous channels. Such trade and
commerce as existed in the interior of India relied to a great extent on the
Ganges. At the delta of the river, where it met the Brahmaputra, was Bengal,
nominally in the Mughal Empire.
>From 1633 the Company had attempted to institute trade with this area, but
without success. After concessions from the Emperor, the Company set up a
'factory' at Hooghly. Cromwell, and Charles II, showed interest in the
Company and its affairs, and the war with the Dutch had improved the English
position in Bengal; but difficulties with local rulers brought confusion and
sometimes despair; the Bengal traders and the Company's merchants were not
attuned to the practices of each other, and thus there was an almost
continuous failure in communication and trust. The East India Company had
been empowered to raise its own military forces — a fateful decision in
Indian history — and a more aggressive policy in Bengal was decided upon. In
1686 an expedition was sent to Bengal; the reason was officially to exact
satisfaction for alleged wrongs by the Mughal and his subordinate rulers.*
This enterprise was- left to a singularly ruthless individual, job Charnock,
who became a legend in Anglo-Indian history. He had with him over 300 men,
formed in companies on the model of the royal army, and also Portuguese
mercenaries and Rajputs. The Mughal's forces, over 12,000 strong, slowly
assembled to meet the English. The years of wearisome talk and argument and
misunderstanding were over. The years of the sword were beginning.[*
Anglo-Mughal War, 1685-8.]
The Nabob of Dacca, the supreme Mughal authority in Bengal, was incensed at
the insolence and perfidy of the foreigners in challenging the Emperor. The
Indian forces had some success in brief skirmishes, and their artillery
bombarded the British forts; the English evacuated Hooghly. Charnock, having
decided on an unlikely village called Kalikata as his chief post in the area,
much against the Company's wishes, was recalled. A general evacuation from
Bengal was undertaken. To the west, the Mughal had seized Surat.
Then a most unexpected thing happened. The Mughal emperor, Aurangzib
(Jahangir's grandson), offered peace. It was an extraordinary act of goodwill
because the English appeared to have lost much of the influence they had been
so slowly accumulating for half a century and more; but Aurangzib was
concerned about the pilgrim route across the Arabian Sea, which the English
had kept fairly peaceful with their command of the seas. The Nabob of Dacca
was told to re-admit the English to Bengal. The terms were very humiliating
for the Company, but soon Charnock was back, establishing a fort at Kalikata.
The climate was dreadfully unhealthy, the place was surrounded by jungle and
swamp; the Englishmen died off like flies. But Fort William, at Calcutta, was
to become the headquarters of the Company's third presidency, and eventually
to take precedence over the other two and to become the capital of India.
(The third presidency was officially established by the East India Company in
1699, six years after Charnock's death.) Charnock ruled, with the Brahmin
widow he had rescued from the funeral pyre, like a Raja, and a fairly
refractory Raja at that. He died in Calcutta, but his descendants played a
prominent part in city life for many years to come; an elaborate mausoleum
was erected over his tomb; the city he had founded from a collection of huts
at the water's edge grew to be a vast metropolis of some 3,500,000 people;
for many years it was to be second only to London in the British Empire.
At this time important changes were made in the structure of the Company. The
English headquarters in the west were moved down the coast from Surat to
Bombay; a few years later the Bombay presidency became the seat of
administration for all British forts and depots in India. In 1685 Sir John
Child, a prominent member of the Company, became the first 'Captain-General
and Admiral' for India -a post which developed into the 'Governor-General' of
later years. He had considerable powers, which negated the previous necessity
for frequent but slow correspondence with London. The Company was empowered
to coin its own money in India. All this without any reference to the Great
Mughal whatever. Most important of all, in 1689 the East India Company issued
a formal declaration of intent in India. It declared that the Company 'must
make us a nation in India. Without that we are but a great number of
interlopers, united by His Majesty's royal charter, fit only to trade where
nobody of power thinks it their interest to prevent us.' It was a significant
declaration, for it revised the aims of the founders, which had been purely
commercial: it foreshadowed the era, not of merchants but of administrators.
But the purpose of the whole operation was still trade, and trade alone.
***
>From time to time during the seventeenth century the Company's charter was
renewed, notably under Cromwell in 1657.* This was not accomplished without a
great deal of opposition. Throughout the century the Company's activities
were the subject of controversy and were the centre of economic debate in
England. In only two years between 16o01and 1640 did it export goods to a
value greater than its payments abroad. The basic weakness of the Company was
that the peoples of tropical and semi-tropical areas did not require English
products, in particular they did not require wool; what had been founded as
an export-import company was therefore always exposed to the vagaries of the
market at home. In the first twenty-three years of its operation the Company
exported £753,336 of bullion to the east. The merchants of India, China, and
Japan were, to a man, more interested in English gold and silver than they
were in woollen garments. In the later years of the century the situation was
aggravated by the Company's policy of actually importing manufactures from
India, the unprocessed products of which were not so easily importable to
Europe as the spices of the East Indies had been. Even as early as 1621 it
was recognised that over 50 per cent of exports ad valorem from India would
have to be silks and cotton cloth; the 26 per cent hoped for from pepper was
not achieved. By 1675, the Company's imports had risen to £860,000.. In 1628
the Company had presented a 'Petition and Remonstrance' to the House of
Commons, a remarkably early discourse in the science of economics:
Some men have alleadged that those countries which permit money to be carried
out, doe it, because they have few or no wares to trade withall: but we have
great store of commodities, and therefore their action ought not to be our
example.
To this the answer is briefly: That if we have such a quantity of wares, as
doth fully provide us of all things needfull from beyond the seas, why should
wee then doubt that our monies sent out in trade must not necessarily come
back againe in Treasure, together with the great games which it may procure
in such manner as is before set down? And on the other side if those Nations
which send out their monies, do it because they have few wares of their owne,
how come they then to have so much Treasure as we ever see in those places,
which suffer -it freely to be exported at all times and by whom so ever? We
answer even by trading with their monies. For by what other meanes can they
get it, having no mines of gold or silver?
Thus may we plainely see, that when this waighty businesse is duely
considered in its end (as all our humaine actions ought well to be weighed)
it is found much contrarie to that which most men esteeme thereof, because
they search no further than the beginning of this work, which misinformes
their judgements and leades them into errorr. For if wee only behold the
actions of the husbandman in the seede time, when he casteth away much good
corne into the ground, we will rather account him a madd man than a
husbandman: but when we consider his labours in the harvest, which is the end
of the endeavours, we finde the worth and plentifull increase of his actions.
But by the end of the century, the harvest still had not come. And Indian
manufactures were entering Britain. Henry Martyn,* [ *Not to be confused with
an East India Company chaplain of the same name who, in the early nineteenth
century, translated the New Testament into Hindi and the Prayer Book into
Hindustani.] in his Considerations Upon the East-India Trade, complained:
There is no reason, that the Indians will take off any of our manufacturers,
as long as there is such a difference in the price of English and Indian
tabour, as long as the tabour or manufacture of the East Indies shall be
valued there at but one-sixth part of the price of like tabour or manufacture
here in England ... Therefore, unless now and then for curiosities, English
manufactures will seldom go to India. Without the help of laws, we shall have
little reason to expect any other returns for our bullion, than only
manufactures, for these will be most profitable; for the freight of unwrought
things from India is equal to the freight of so much manufacture; the freight
of a pound of cotton is equal to so much callico, the freight of raw silk to
that of wrought silk; but the Labour by which this cotton or raw silk is to
be wrought in England 'is a great deal dearer than the Labour by which the
same would be wrought in India. Therefore of all things which can be imported
thence, manufactures are bought cheapest; they will be most demanded here,
the chief returns will be of these, little then will be returned from India
besides manufactures. And when these shall be imported here they will be
likely to stay; in, France, Venice, and other countries, Indian manufactures
are prohibited, the great consumption must be in England. It has been proved
by arguments that bullion and chiefly bullion is carried into India, that
chiefly manufactures must be returned, and that these must be consumed in
England. But instead of all other arguments, is matter of fact: cargos of
bullion are every year carried into India, while almost every one at home is
seen in Indian manufactures ... The next complaint against this trade is of
the Labourer: that he is driven from his employment to beg his bread; by the
permission of Indian manufactures to come to England, English manufactures
must be lost.
Fortunately for the Company, it did not trade only with India. With
remarkable persistence, and despite many set-backs, it had been trying to
trade with Japan, China, Siam, and Formosa -the four great nations of the Far
East. It was partly forced to this by the Dutch domination of the Spice
Islands (East Indies). The Portuguese had already reached Japan, and had run
a depot on the China coast, at Macao, since 1557. In Japan, they had spent
much effort in attempts to convert the population to Christianity, not
without some initial success. The arrival of Spanish missionaries, however,
and fierce rivalry between Portuguese and Spanish priests, had brought about
an unholy situation. The English, spearheaded by a remarkable adventurer,
Will Adams, were less devout and at first were welcomed; they were intrigued
to find that their doubtful reputation had preceded them. An early English
master reported: 'Our English nation hath long been known by report among
them, but much scandalled by the Portugals Jesuites as Pyrats and Rovers upon
the seas ... [tales of which] they terrifie and skare their children.' The
Dutch, however, had narrowly got there before the English, as at so many
other places in the east. Dutch competition was ruthless. The Japanese,
accustomed to fine and beautifully coloured silks, were not impressed with
the coarse and dull English woollens. The English factory on Hirado Island
was abandoned in 1623
In China, also, the main problem was that the Chinese were not overwhelmed
with the desire to purchase merchandise sent out from London. Queen Elizabeth
had twice sent letters to the Emperor of China, but neither had reached him.
For many years the urge to contact China was behind the quest for a
North-West Passage, a challenge which obsessed English mariners for
centuries. (Not surprisingly, for it was estimated that of the first 3,000
Englishmen to round the Cape, 2,000 never returned.) Many merchants connected
with this quest were also members of the East India Company. Failing to
discover this route, a number of voyages rounded the Cape for China, both
privately backed and by the East India Company. The Chinese authorities, howev
er, were more than reluctant to have anything to do with Europeans. The Dutch
overcame this problem by pirating their junks, and the masters of Company
vessels asked the directors to permit the same, but this the Company declined
to do. Factories were established at Amoy, Tonkin, and in Formosa, but none
of them came to much. The Portuguese, with their well-established base at
Macao, were nearly as formidable rivals in China as the Dutch had been in
Japan. It was not until the sixteen-nineties that East India Company trade
with China became really established; some lead and woollen goods were sold,
and tea, spices, and silk bought; unfortunately the Chinese demanded at least
two-thirds payment in silver. The first highly profitable voyage from China
was in 1700. The Company began importing the new beverage of ch'a, or tea,
from China, which had first been sold at a London coffee-house in 1657. The
Company also began to export opium to China from India.
The second half of the seventeenth century was a time of consolidation for
the East India Company, as well as the search for new markets in the Far
East. Cromwell had set the Company up again, after its associations with
royalty had nearly ruined it during the early days of his rule, and the
Restoration of 1660 saw the start of prosperity for it. From 1657 to 1663 it
was allowed to use the British stations in West Africa as calling places.
James II, like Charles II, was the Company's friend. During the last years of
the century, the Company's annual dividend averaged 25 per cent. This,
coupled to the fact that the trade was financed by the export of bullion
rather than of goods, did not make many friends for the 500 shareholders of
the Company. There was jealousy, as well as economic doubts.
One obstacle to the Company was the activity of 'interlopers', following the
example of Sir William Courteen (who eventually gained a licence), thirty
years before. Many of these men based themselves on the American colonies and
engaged in smuggling and in piracy. The East India Company was unable to
check the bargain sale of merchandise from the east in New England, much of
it commandeered from their own ships. This was the start of a long history of
bad relations between the East India Company and North America. The one
bright spot was the career of Elihu Yale, a second-generation American, who
joined the Company's service, became Governor of Madras, and made a fortune
through private trade. He was the benefactor of the university named after
him.
Even more serious was the establishment, in 1698, of a rival English company;
the two Companies were forced to outbid each other in the east, and prices
rose to such an extent that for a time the London market was almost stagnant.
This new company had come about with the fall of James If and the Stuarts in
1688. The East India Company had always fostered close links with the
Stuarts, and that hard Dutchman, William of Orange, was quite glad to grant a
new Whiggish company the right to trade with India and the east (especially
when it promised to raise a £2,000,000 loan for the Government) — and so was
Parliament, which had long been nagging about the Company's monopoly and
trade — as had the ports of Bristol, Liverpool, and Hull, outraged by their
exclusion from the trade. 'The old East India Company,' said Samuel Pepys,
'lost their business against a new company by ten votes in parliament, so
many of their friends being absent going to see a tiger baited by dogs.' The
new company was called the English East India Company (as distinct from the
London East India Company). After only four years of competition, which
proved ruinous to both, it was decided that monopoly was better after all;
this took some time to undertake, but amalgamation was completed in 1709 — in
the form of the United East India Company.* In almost every way this was
merely the original company; the new company had never established a wide
network of posts and administration, or employed a considerable body of employ
ees scattered about a large part of the world.
[* The full tide of the Company was 'The United Company of Merchants of
England Trading to the East Indies'; this it remained until the Act of 1833,
abolishing its trading function, renamed it the East India Company, which it
had always been known as, anyway.]
The Company's headquarters in London graduated from three rooms at the
residence of its first Governor, Sir Thomas Smyth, to the more spacious
Crosby House, belonging to a later Governor, until finally it got its own
offices, custom built in Leadenhall Street in 1648. A home for old sailors
and a chapel, which survived until 1866, were beside the Company's former
docks at Blackwall; but control of the East India docks and dockyard, still
to be used by the Company's ships for generations, was in the hands of a
succession of separate companies. Apart from the organisation of voyages in
what was becoming to be considered one of the finest fleets in the world,
administering pay and minor appointments, and merchandising returning
cargoes, one of the main tasks of the London staff was constant litigation
against employees, particularly in India, who had been engaged in private
trading — something, against which the Company was adamant but about which it
could do little.
Another bane of the Company was the activity of the merchant interlopers. It
was exceedingly difficult to deal with these men, as the only remedy was long
and wearisome litigation, into which the Company was reluctant to enter. The
Court Minutes of the Company had referred to the interlopers as early as 22
February 1615 — Ito examine all suspected personnes that intend interlopinge
into the East Indies'. Sometimes the Company received little or no support at
home in maintaining its position, but in 1685 the Company mounted 48
prosecutions for interloping. In 1701, the notorious Captain Kidd was
executed for piracy in the Indian Ocean. Even with illegal perquisites, life
abroad in the Company's service was seldom a happy one, which no doubt account
ed for the heavy incidence of alcoholism and opium-taking. One early employee
complained:
At home men are famous for doing nothing; here they are infamous for their
honest endeavours. At home is respect and reward; abroad disrespect and
heartbreaking. At home is augmentation of wages; abroad no more than the
third of wages. At home is content; abroad nothing so much as grief, cares
and displeasure. At home is safety; abroad no security. At home is liberty;
abroad the best is bondage.
The various 'factories' differed in size from a complement of less than a
dozen to one or two of fifty or more staff. The men lived in rooms over a
hall beneath; not till near the end of the century were women allowed, and
then employees rented or bought houses in the town. Many of the factories
were proud of their gardens, on which much trouble was spent by the more
sober inmates, and the garden at the Company's house at Surat was considered
to be a considerable achievement. Five-year contracts of employment gave way
to longer engagements, anticipating a lifetime's career in the service of the
East India Company. The hierarchy was —
Apprentice (until 1694)*
Writer
Factor junior
Merchant
Senior Merchant (or Chief Agent)
Councillor
President and Governor
There were also Chaplains, Surgeons and Masters.
[* Many of them, by special arrangement, from Christ's Hospital School, which
almost alone among leading schools provided a commercial education.]
Life in the factory building was continued as much as possible in the
traditions of home. Members sat at table in strict precedence, toasts were
drunk to the Crown, the Company, and to wives at home. The main meal was
midday, especially on Sundays. Brandy and wine were drunk to excess. English
dress, heavy, tight-fitting, and utterly unsuited to the climate, was almost
invariably worn.
The most conspicuous member of the Company's staff in India at this time, the
late seventeenth century, was Thomas Pitt. He started his career in the east
as an 'interloper, with some success, and to the fury of the Company, so
jealous of its monopoly. Despite attempts to seize him, peremptory warnings
and legal action, Pitt obtained trading privileges from local rulers.
Returning to England, he was arrested and fined £1,000, which he could well
afford (it was later reduced to £400). After a brief career as a Member of
Parliament, he returned to India to replenish his fortune. The Company wisely
decided to engage him on its staff rather than have him as a rival, and he
became Governor of Fort St George in 1697. The incipient Madras, already
described, was a place well suited to his tastes, and he made a popular
Governor. For thirteen years he supervised the rapid growth of the place. He
treated Indians with some disdain, and insisted that Englishmen be treated
with, at the least, respect. 'Those within our reach I keep in pretty good
order by now and then giving them a pretty good banging.' For years
Englishmen had felt themselves humiliated and scorned in India by numerous
petty restrictions, and by laws and customs they did not understand or care
about. Thomas Pitt was the first of many senior administrators of the Company
who believed he had the right answer. Like so many of his successors,
however, he could not resist the temptations of the country, even when in the
Company's service. He added to his personal wealth with singular
concentration. On the famous Pitt Diamond, which later became one of the
French Royal jewels, he made a profit of over £100,00 — a quite staggering
fortune at the time. He was not without his good qualities, and under him
British influence on the east coast of India suffered none of the periodic
setbacks it had known hitherto.
By 1700 the English in India had taken the place of the Portuguese. The East
India Company, beset with difficulties in its East Indies, Persian, and even
China trade, was to make India the centre of its operations. It had, it
seemed, no serious rivals among Europeans in trading with the vast, populous
and ostensibly rich subcontinent. In 1707 Aurangzib died; he proved to be the
List of the great emperors, for within months of his death the Mughal Empire,
so delicately held together, began to disintegrate. Chief among the claimants
and trouble-makers were the Marathas and the Sikhs. But something even more
immediately important for the English had happened. The Compagnie des Indes
Orientales had been founded in 1664. The French had been late on the scene.
There was not much yet to indicate that they would be even more dangerous
rivals than the Dutch had been.
pps. 11-52
-----
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Em Hotep, Peace Be,
All My Relations.
Omnia Bona Bonis,
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
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