Honourable Company: A History of The English East India Company

by John Keay

  The Portuguese had always accepted that trade depended on an assertion of sovereignty and the military expenditure to support it. Now new rivals, the French, were fortifying Pondicherry and in 1672 had stormed and occupied San Thomé just down the beach from Madras. But it was still the Dutch whom the English feared most and, just as imitation of their endeavours had proved the sincerest form of competition in Lancaster’s day, so now it was the Dutch example which the directors urged. Their new Chairman (or Governor), Sir Josiah Child, ordered Madras to form a municipal corporation on the Dutch model and adopted many Dutch terms; thus apprentice factors were now called ‘writers’ after the Dutch ‘shcruyvers’. When in 1682 the British were driven out of Bantam Child suggested that, if the lesson of Dutch supremacy was thereby learnt, it would be ample compensation. And that lesson was that to trade simply as merchants was a recipe for disaster. Prosperity and permanence depended on the Company operating in the East as a sovereign power with secure bases, adequate firepower, and efficient government.

  This was, of course, a complete reversal of those axioms propounded, after much wavering, by Sir Thomas Roe in the 1620s (‘…if you will profitt, seek it at sea and in a quiett trade; for without controversy it is an errour to effect garrisons and land warrs in India’). One explanation for this abrupt change to a more assertive stance is that it simply reflected the spirit of the age and the reality of the Company’s power. Since Cromwell’s charter trade had grown prodigiously; the Company was now the largest and wealthiest corporation in the English-speaking world; and while so closely allied with the Crown through those hefty donations to the royal exchequer it was inevitable that it would espouse the maritime and commercial ‘imperialism’ of its royal patrons. Sir Thomas Grantham, before he sailed east to deal with Kegwin, had put down a revolt in Virginia; and Sir Josiah Child was himself involved in a plantation in Jamaica. The success of settlements in the New World was suggesting a pattern of expansion and a form of overseas authority which might, with modifications, be applied in the Old.

  But of more direct bearing on the Company’s thinking was the unpredictable trading climate that now prevailed at the Moghul ports of Surat and Hughli (Bengal) as a result of political insecurity and the competition posed by interlopers. Under Aurangzeb (1658-1707) the Moghul Empire passed slowly through its zenith. Even as it achieved its greatest geographical extent it was assailed by enemies from within, foremost of whom were the Marathas, a warrior caste from the mountains just east of Bombay. Under the leadership of the great Sivaji, Maratha cavalry raided deep into the Deccan and Maratha fleets ranged along the west coast. In 1664 these ‘Seevagees’, as the English called them, swooped on the rich province of Gujarat and made for the great port of Surat. Panic gripped the city and business came to a standstill. Encountering little resistance Sivaji’s men overran the metropolis and ‘plundered it for forty days together’. Only the Governor’s castle and the English factory held out. Indeed so successful was the resistance offered by President Oxenden and so staunch his loyalty to the Moghuls that Aurangzeb conferred on him a robe of honour and partially remitted the year’s customs dues. Equally grateful, the Company awarded him a gold medal and £200 in gold.

  Six years later Sivaji gave a repeat performance. Once again the citizens of Surat fled, again the city was plundered and burnt, and again the English staged a stout defence. More expressions of imperial gratitude followed. But they scarcely made up for the loss of trade and Aungier was soon seeking a non-interference pact with the Marathas. The wars raged on. Surat, haunted by rumours of further raids, was itself fortified. But the Emperor evidently had no more faith in the new walls than did the Company. He removed his treasure; the Company diverted more shipping to Bombay. Yet even in Bombay the Company was commercially disadvantaged, for what trade there was remained a hostage to events on the mainland. While trying to keep on good terms with Sivaji, the Company was obliged to permit the Moghul fleet to ride out the monsoon at anchor off Bombay. In 1679 the Moghul and Maratha fleets clashed in the harbour itself. The punctilious neutrality observed by the English endeared them to no one.

  Meanwhile in distant Bengal relations between the Company’s abrasive factors and the Moghul’s most powerful Governor reached breaking point. In 1686 a fleet was despatched from England with, as will be seen, the absurd intention of ‘entering into a war with the Mogull’. This extraordinary turn of events also influenced the decision to downgrade the Company’s presence at Surat. Sir John Child supported the resort to arms and as Admiral and Captain-General of the Company’s forces was nominally in charge of operations. But Surat was a long way from Bengal and he seems to have imagined that the west coast trade would be allowed to continue regardless of events in the Bay of Bengal. No doubt he reasoned that any move against the Company at Surat could, as in the days of Sir Henry Middleton, be countered by blockading the port or raiding Moghul shipping on the vital Red Sea route.

  This deterrent, however, failed simply because no one could believe that Child could be quite so naive. In November 1686, six months before he finally withdrew to Bombay, the Bengal factors were under the impression that he was already safely ensconced in Bombay castle and ‘possessed of a good store of their (the Moghuls’) rich shipps…news of which will mightily delight us’. Similarly the Moghul Governor of Surat assumed that Child was taking the offensive. He therefore went out of his way to molest the English and embarrass their trade. For, as Hamilton asked, ‘by what rule of policy could Sir Josiah [Child] or Sir John Child think to rob, murder and destroy the Mogul’s subjects in one part of his dominions, and the Company to enforce a free trade in the other parts? Or how could they expect that he [the Moghul] would stand neuter?’ Finally even the merchants of Surat, normally well disposed towards the Company, assumed that Child was engaged in hostilities. Thus, when in 1686 one of their ships was indeed waylaid coming from the Red Sea, they held the English responsible. In reality the culprits were ‘two Danish pirates’; but that only emerged later. At the time it was not unreasonable for Surat’s Governor to freeze the Company’s assets nor for Surat’s merchants to shun further dealings with the English.

  It was also not unreasonable under the circumstances that the Moghul authorities should accommodate anyone with a grievance against the Company. Captain Hamilton, who was evidently on the scene at the time, makes much of the role played by two senior ex-factors, Messrs Petit and Boucher (or Bourchier), who, like him, were regarded by the Company as interlopers. Both had been dismissed by John Child when they refused to pay him a commission on their private trade. (Coming from Hamilton the accusation is suspect but even the impartial Reverend Ovington put Child’s personal fortune at a staggering £100,000.) Subsequently the two men had frustrated Child’s attempts to arrest them and, while Petit ‘bought a ship to go a trading in Persia’, Boucher repaired to the Moghul court and secured a trading licence.

  The Company’s anxiety about interlopers and pirates was now little short of paranoid. Suppressing Kegwin’s rebellion had been as much about suppressing the interlopers he welcomed to Bombay as about the rights and wrongs of Company rule. And in Bengal the decision to take on the Moghul empire had as much to do with its Governor entertaining interlopers as with its exactions on the Company’s trade. Thus the defiance of Petit and Boucher may, as Hamilton suggests, have preyed more upon the vindictive John Child than did the political crisis. Certainly they figured prominently, along with the Danish pirates, in the list of grievances which he drew up soon after reaching Bombay in 1687. The list was sent to the Governor of Surat. Receiving no satisfaction, Child at last took the offensive. Moghul shipping was boarded wherever it was encountered and in mid 1688 Hamilton counted fourteen prizes lying in Bombay harbour.

  Wholly predictably, the Moghul governor in Surat retaliated by imprisoning those factors left behind by Child. In the hope of freeing them Child returned to Surat towards the end of 1688 and was soon announcing that the city’s governor had agreed to his terms. Over
joyed, the Company voted him an unusually generous 1000 guineas by way of thanks. But it was premature. The governor promptly rearrested the factors and paraded them through the streets in irons. With a price on his head Child scuttled back to Bombay.

  On the way he fell in with a fleet of barges carrying corn to Sidi Yakub, commander of a formidable fleet that was operating against the Marathas as the Moghul’s navy. This was enough for Child. He ordered that the barges be taken. His senior captain protested that taking these provisions would practically oblige the Sidi to attack Bombay. Child scoffed at the very idea and accused the captain of cowardice. If Sidi Yakub came anywhere near Bombay he would ‘blow him off with the wind of his bum’.

  On the night of 14 February 1689 the Sidi’s force of 20,000 men entered Bombay harbour and landed unopposed. The only gun to be fired was that which gave the alarm; and since most of the English lived outside the Castle, the only response was a frantic stampede as ‘the poor ladies, both black and white, ran half naked to the fort and only carried their children with them’. The garrison was unprepared, the fortifications neglected; Child had failed to take even the most elementary precautions. ‘Better skilled at his pen than his sword,’ writes the Reverend Ovington, ‘the merchant was unfit for that great post [of General] and grown unwieldy with too much honour.’

  Next day the enemy took the lesser Bombay forts of Mazagaon and Mahim, still without a shot being fired. Advancing on Bombay Castle, the Sidi erected batteries which ‘bombarded our fort with massy stones’ that ‘disturbed the garrison very much’. Forays by the English proved ineffectual. ‘Buoyed up with a strong opinion of their own valour and of the Indians’ pusillanimity…they promised themselves victory in the most dubious engagements.’ But ‘our men being good runners’, the casualties were outnumbered by desertions. Even detested interlopers like Hamilton had to be pressed into service. And so ‘we passed the months from April till September very ill’. An appeal to the Marathas produced 3000 ‘Seevagees’. They fought well and probably saved the Castle; but feeding them put a terrible strain on the provisions.

  By August only the Castle itself and about half a mile to the south of it remained in the Company’s hands. Their warehouse had been ransacked and burnt and they were running low on both powder and ammunition. But the end of the monsoon gave Hamilton and others a chance to put to sea in the few small ships that remained to them. They had ‘pretty good success’ taking several prizes and so relieving the food shortage. As always the Company was more formidable afloat than ashore. But given the Sidi’s superior numbers and Child’s now obvious incompetence, a military solution looked more unlikely than ever. In December, cap in hand, a delegation of two Bombay factors was sent to the Moghul court to seek what terms they could. As in Bengal, so on the west coast, the war with the Moghul had proved an unmitigated disaster.

  Yet, even as the siege was at its height, Sir Josiah Child in London remained confident that it was the mighty Aurangzeb who would have to capitulate. ‘The subjects of the Mogull’, he opined, ‘cannot bear a war with the English for twelve months together without starving and dying by thousands for want of our trade.’ To the merchants and officials of the port cities, and to the producers in the hinterland, overseas trade was important. But it scarcely impinged on the Court or on the bulk of the population. As one historian puts it, ‘to Aurangzeb the Company was still a mere flea on the back of his imperial elephant’.

  When the Emperor deigned to receive the two peace envoys from Bombay he treated them not as representatives of a sovereign power but as errant subjects. With their hands bound they ‘were obliged to prostrate’ (‘after a new mode for ambassadors’, sneers Hamilton) while the Emperor delivered a severe reprimand. They then ‘made a confession of their faults and desired pardon’ adding a plea for the withdrawal of the Sidi’s forces and the restitution of their cancelled trading rights. Graciously Aurangzeb obliged but only on the most humiliating terms. The Company must pay an indemnity of 150,000 rupees, must restore all plundered goods and ships, and must ‘behave themselves for the future no more in such a shameful manner’. Their case against the interloper Boucher (Petit had died) must be proved in court, Sir John Child ‘who did the disgrace’ must be ‘turned out and expelled’, and henceforth the Company ‘must proceed according to my will and pleasure, and be not forgetful of the same’. They were surely the hardest terms the Company would ever have to swallow.

  John Child evidently felt so. He died, ‘a shrewd career move’, during the course of the negotiations. Either he was terrified that any terms that ‘would suit with the honour of his Masters’ would be unacceptable to the Emperor, or he was heartbroken by ‘their grating articles’. His successor would be obliged to make Surat once again his headquarters. Although the Company’s credit there had taken a severe blow, the Moghul authorities insisted that the Company’s senior representative remain amongst them as a guarantee of good behaviour. Meanwhile Bombay was left to moulder. Of ‘seven or eight hundred English’ before the war ‘not above 60 were left by the sword and the [subsequent] plague’. The plantations were devastated and houses destroyed. ‘Bombay’, writes Hamilton, ‘that was one of the pleasantest places in India was brought to be one of the most dismal deserts.’

  In the many histories of Britain’s involvement with India the Moghul War of 1688-90 receives little attention. Ill advised and worse prosecuted, it spawned no heroes yet fell short of sublime tragedy. Indecision induced adversity; adversity ended in ignominy. Its only saving grace, it would seem, was its irrelevance. Such inglorious and eminently forgettable incidents doubtless account for that typically dismissive attitude towards the Company which presents its history as opening in a blaze of exploratory endeavour in the early 1600s after which nothing happens until Clive’s exploits in the 1750s.

  Only one generalist historian, admittedly writing solely about the Company, perceives some significance in this precedent for an armed assault on India’s sovereign power. ‘If only’, he writes, ‘Sir Josiah could have had his way and his brother [sic] Sir John had lived!’ Then, we are told, ‘they might easily have made themselves masters [of India?]’. The book in which this surprising statement appears was written in the twentieth century. Moreover its author fashionably disclaims any ‘intermediary perversion due to national prejudice or to an avowed admiration for the Old Company.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Fierce Engageings

  CALCUTTA AND BENGAL

  The temptation to discern in the history of the Honourable Company events and personalities which presage the Raj is understandable but not necessarily helpful. It may even be misleading. For instance, in or about the year 1690 it fell to Job Charnock, an old and respected servant of the East India Company, to found the future city of Calcutta. That much is certain. But since Calcutta would soon come to epitomize British power in India, around both Charnock and the circumstances of his foundation myths and legends accrued as around no other event in the Company’s history in India in the seventeenth century.

  These fabrications took predictable forms. Thus native accounts of the affair emphasize the liberality of native rulers. One has it that the site was magnanimously granted to the Company by the emperor Aurangzeb in gratitude for provisions furnished from Madras to his troops in the south of India; another that Charnock himself won ‘the King’s favour by routing some rebellious subjects and pledging undying loyalty to the Emperor’s (or Nawab’s) person.

  But, flatly contradicting all this, the version favoured by British historians has Charnock at loggerheads with the Moghul and courageously defying imperial power. Hounded down the Ganges by vast native armies, the desperate little band of English merchants discover their destined haven at Calcutta only to be driven from it and forced back on to the river. They continue downstream with Charnock wielding his sword like a Sir Galahad to slice through steel chains strung across the current to prevent his escape. Eventually a desperate last stand is made on a pestilential island in the
mouth of the river. Suffering appalling losses the English gallantly stand their ground and finally cow the enemy into retreat by a ruse which greatly exaggerates their numbers. Peace negotiations thus find Charnock in a position of some strength. He is rewarded with the lease of Calcutta to which he triumphantly leads back his little band of heroes to start building the future metropolis.

  In all these accounts there are nuggets of truth, each badly flawed by retrospective sentiment. For in reality the Calcutta episode reflects credit neither on Charnock’s ability nor his companions’ prowess, and neither on the Moghul’s liberality nor on the Company’s good sense. Calcutta, as one might surmise from the city of today, was born not out of courage or design but out of commercial greed and political mayhem. There are few highlights in the Calcutta saga and no heroes. It is not a pretty story.

  First contacts with Bengal had been made from Masulipatnam by the Dutchman, Lucas Antheuniss, and his successor, William Methwold, in the 1620s. But it was during the English Civil War and the commercial chaos of the 1640s and 1650s (when Methwold, one of the first Company servants to hold office, was deputy-governor in London) that trade with ‘The Bay’ as opposed to ‘The Coast’ (Madras and Masulipatnam) began to prosper. Factories were established at Balasore and then inland at Hughli, Kasimbazar, Malda, Patna and Dhaka (Dacca). With the Restoration of the British monarchy the demand for Bengal’s saltpetre was supplemented by a growing appreciation of the area’s cheap raw silks and molasses. Ships were sent direct to the mouth of the Ganges and in 1681 the Company’s Bengal establishment was for the first time constituted as a separate Agency (or Presidency) independent of Madras and Bombay/ Surat. To direct its operations, discipline its factors and secure its trade, William Hedges, a director of the Company, sailed from London with a small escort and extensive powers. He arrived at the town of Hughli, where the Company had its main headquarters about twenty miles north of what was to be Calcutta, in 1682.