Honourable Company: A History of The English East India Company

by John Keay

  Such enlightened sentiments accorded exactly with Hastings’s own and are echoed in the wide-ranging briefs drawn up by him for his two most important initiatives outside India. Both were prompted by fortuitous circumstance; and both had specific commercial and political objectives. But by endowing them with a wider significance Hastings persuaded himself that they were not purely speculative. They were to serve the cause of science and scholarship and they were to promote the idea of British Bengal as an established and honourable Asian polity. The first of these intitiatives also anticipated by nearly a century British India’s obsession with its Himalayan and central Asian frontier; and the second revived the dreams of Saris, Floris, Catchpole, and latterly Dalrymple for an entrepôt through which the China trade could if necessary be rerouted away from Cantonese mandarins.

  In the 1770s Tibet, Bengal’s northern neighbour, fairly merited its invariable epithets of ‘unknown’ and ‘inaccessible’. No Briton had yet so much as penetrated the Himalayas. But as ‘Button’ or ‘Botton’, Bhutan had occasionally scored a mention in the Company’s records and was often confused with Tibet itself. This was understandable. Tibet exercised a somewhat vague and fluctuating authority over many of the Himalayan states and it was thus on behalf of Bhutan that a Tibetan mission made its unexpected appearance in Calcutta in 1774. The Bhutanese had recently been worsted by four companies of sepoys sent to repel one of their habitual incursions into northern Bengal; their own territory was now threatened by way of reprisal; so the Grand Lama of Tashilunpo in Tibet was writing to Calcutta to plead negotiations and save the wayward Bhutanese.

  Hastings responded enthusiastically. Tibet, known to be uncommonly cold, might be the long-sought market for English woollens. Additionally, its trade with India, which traditionally passed through Nepal, had recently been interrupted. And still more to the point, Lhasa was known to be somehow subject to Peking and might therefore represent a back door into the Chinese Empire. Could this be a channel for re-presenting the grievances of the Canton factors? The commercial possibilities were enormous. But George Bogle, the Scot who was immediately dispatched to explore them, was also to investigate the manners, morals, customs, politics, etc of the Tibetans – and not simply for what Sir Clement Markham calls rather snidely ‘the personal satisfaction of Warren Hastings’.

  Bogle, a Company servant, is described as ‘a gentleman of distinguished ability and remarkable equanimity of temper’. The ‘distinguished ability’ would be somewhat wasted on the Tibetans for although his overtures were welcomed by the Tashi (or Panchen) Lama, only the authorities in Lhasa could conclude an agreement and they, jealous of the Tashi Lama and much under Chinese influence, refused Bogle permission to approach the capital. But that ‘remarkable equanimity of temper’ stood him in excellent stead. Neither the prevarication of the Bhutanese nor the gradients of the eastern Himalayas could ruffle the beaming Bogle; the Tashi Lama became a close and revered friend; and Bogle’s six months in Tibet he reckoned the happiest of his life. Like many subsequent travellers he was completely seduced by the Tibetans. ‘Farewell, ye honest and simple people,’ he wrote on his departure; ‘may ye long enjoy that happiness which is denied to more polished nations, and while they are engaged in the endless pursuit of avarice and ambition, defended by your barren mountains, may ye continue to live in peace and contentment, and know no wants but those of nature.’ These were odd sentiments for an ambitious servant of a decidedly avaricious Company, odder still for a man supposedly engineering the commercial and political penetration of the country.

  Making the most of his contacts, Bogle had compiled a dossier on Tibet’s export trade in such exotica as gold dust, musk, and shawl wool, and he foresaw great possibilities for Indian exports. Henceforth the encouragement of trans-Himalayan trade would be regarded as a British responsibility; more important, its interruption would be seen as a blow to British interests. Bogle hoped that in time the British would be able to participate in it directly and in this connection he expected much from the representations which the Tashi Lama promised to make during his forthcoming visit to Peking. Unfortunately the Lama died in Peking and Bogle himself died a few months later. Two follow-up missions from Bengal failed to gain access to Tibet, although trade with Bhutan was put on a regular footing. Then in 1782 word arrived from Tashilunpo that the Lama’s new incarnation had been discovered. Metempsychosis had its advantages. Naturally Hastings must congratulate his old friend who now, as an eighteen-month-old baby, was embarking on his seventh term of office. Accordingly Captain Samuel Turner, a cousin of Hastings, was sent back to Tibet with a brief almost identical to Bogle’s.

  Turner’s mission also returned empty-handed. Again the Lama, in spite of his lack of years, made a deep impression; again Lhasa refused to have anything to do with the British; and again hopes rested on Tashilunpo pleading the British case in Peking. Nothing came of this, partly because Hastings was about to leave India. The Tibetan initiative, though encouraged by the directors, had been very much his own project; when he left, all official contact with Tibet ceased. It would be seventy years before the British endeavoured to make good their ignorance about Tibet and nearly twice as long before they had regained the ground lost in the meantime. ‘Under Warren Hastings, British influence had penetrated further into the Himalayan areas, into Bhutan, Sikkim, and Tibet, than it was to again until the opening years of the twentieth century…’ (A. K. Jasbir Singh). On the other hand the intriguing detail and the romantic image conveyed by Bogle’s and Turner’s published narratives proved irresistible to a long succession of freelance travellers. Hastings would have been gratified to think that he had brought the Himalayas and the lands beyond within the realms of geographical enquiry.

  No such consolation would be afforded by his other venture outside India for the simple reason that the long coastal strip of mainland south-east Asia which is today Vietnam posed less of a challenge to geography. From the Hirado factory in Japan, Adams and ‘the honest Mr Cocks’ had attempted to establish trade links with Vietnam in the early seventeenth century. Later in the century the Company had opened its own factory in north Tongking (north Vietnam) and, soon after its closure in 1697, Catchpole and his colleagues of the New Company had established themselves briefly and disastrously at Pulo Condore (off the south Vietnamese coast).

  Thereafter it had been the French who had been making the running. Dupleix had sent a representative to explore the possibilities for French trade and so had the Compagnie des Indes from Paris. The idea that France might compensate itself for losses in India by establishing a naval and commercial bridgehead in mainland south-east Asia was frequently canvassed; and as the China trade figured ever more prominently in the finances of the English Company, so did the strategic potential of a French base astride this trade route. News that the Nguyen dynasty of Annam (roughly southern Vietnam with Hué as its capital) was being hard pressed by a revolt among its own subjects eventually provided the perfect pretext. To aid the beleaguered Nguyen, in 1777 Jean-Baptiste Chevalier of the French factory at Chandernagar in Bengal dispatched an expedition to the Annamite port of Tourane (Da Nang). ‘In this kind of business’, observed Chevalier, ‘it is he who arrives first who has all the advantages.’

  Hastings would come to appreciate this sentiment. At the time he was unaware of the French move. But happily for his cause, those unsung heroes of British enterprise, the country traders, had never given up on the Vietnamese market just as they had never given up on the Indonesian archipelago. Vietnam was the speciality of a Calcutta agency house then trading as Messrs Crofts and Kellican; and it so happened that as the French expedition put into Tourane’s capacious harbour, Crofts and Kellican’s ship Rumbold was already there, affording to the Nguyen the very support and sanctuary which the French had hoped to provide. He who arrived first already had all the advantages. Six months later, with the French having abandoned their mission and with the Nguyen forced to evacuate the Tourane area, the Rumbold returned to
base in Calcutta. Besides a tidy profit on its Indian exports, its cargo included two prominent and resplendent Nguyen mandarins.

  Presented with such a diplomatic windfall, Hastings again responded quickly. The mandarins had originally asked to be landed in the Mekong delta where the Nguyen were regrouping. Bad weather had prevented the Rumbold from making the necessary landfall but the mandarins were still keen to return and would undoubtedly accept a French passage if their English hosts hesitated to oblige. With France about to enter the American War of Independence, and with the mysterious St Lubin already intriguing with the Marathas at Poona, it was not the moment to invite French rivalry for the Far East trade. Hastings therefore treated the mandarins like royalty. Of course he would return them to Vietnam, but not without adequate protection in the shape of a naval escort – the Amazon and a smaller vessel named the Jenny – an accredited agent of the Company – Mr Charles Chapman – plus a second Company agent, a surgeon, presents, Indian exports, and assorted interpreters. Besides landing his charges, Chapman was to seek a commercial treaty with their overlord, endeavour to establish a British agency in the country and, of course, compile a thorough dossier on all matters political, commercial, social and geographical that came to his attention. The mission – for such it now was – sailed from the Hughli in April 1778.

  In spite of the ministrations of Surgeon Totty, one of the mandarins died in the Straits of Malacca. His colleague, called by Chapman ‘Ong-tom-being’, thereupon seemed to weaken in his resolution and when Chapman at last made contact with Nguyen supporters near Saigon, he positively refused to be put ashore. This threatened the entire enterprise. If Chapman was to avoid anywhere that the ‘Mandarine’ suspected of being in hostile hands, ‘I was at once excluded from the whole country’. ‘Unwilling, however, or indeed,’ as the pleasantly candid Chapman put it, ‘rather ashamed to leave Cochin China [i.e. Vietnam] almost as totally uninformed as when I sailed from Bengal, I resolved at all events to prosecute my voyage as far as the Bay of Turon [Tourane].’

  Contact was made en route with the dreaded Tayson rebels. As Ong-tom-being cowered in the depths of the Amazon, Chapman went ashore for an audience and found the enemy surprisingly friendly although diplomatically somewhat naive. They seemed to imagine that any agreement with the Company must entail a military alliance whereby they would soon be enabled to make themselves masters of all south-east Asia. On the whole Chapman preferred the idea of first sounding out the Tongking authorities. The Trinh rulers of Tongking were at least legitimate sovereigns and had recently taken advantage of the Nguyen’s eclipse to establish themselves in the old capital of Hué. An invitation from the Trinh viceroy in Hue was therefore readily accepted. Leaving the Amazon at Tourane, Chapman transferred to the shallow-draught Jenny to enter the Perfume River and then to a local galley for the journey up to imperial Hué.

  Of the city’s famed and hyacinth-choked waterfront Chapman says little, although he noted with satisfaction the presence there of a large fleet of China junks and was as delighted by the genial old Viceroy as Bogle had been by the Tashi Lama. Less pleasing was his reception by the city’s military governor who turned out to be ‘a monster disgustful and horrible to behold’ and a pedantic eunuch to boot. He held court in a darkened shrine ‘like a clothes press’ that barely contained more flesh than Chapman had ever encountered. ‘Great flaps hung down from his cheeks like the dewlaps of an ox, and his little twinkling eyes were scarcely to be discerned for the fat folds which formed deep recesses round them.’

  This ‘devil incarnate’ Chapman would hold responsible for what followed. During August, while negotiations with the Viceroy proceeded and the Jenny’s cargo was sold off, all went well. But in September the Amazon approached the mouth of the river to land its dying captain. His funeral in October coincided with mounting complaints against the British plus the departure of Ong-tom-being, the surviving Nguyen mandarin, for sanctuary ashore. An obvious omen, this move also proved a godsend. For it was Ong-tom-being, sincerely grateful for all the hospitality he had received, who in early November tipped off Chapman that he and his vessel were about to be seized.

  A precipitate retreat downriver to the Jenny went without hitch. But there adverse winds and a heavy swell precluded a dash for the open sea. Forced to temporize, Chapman tried to negotiate. The Trinh authorities responded with two armed galleys which, contrary to Chapman’s orders, were fired on, then taken and scuttled; so, as a result, was any chance of an accommodation. Downstream batteries were soon being erected to command the exit; upstream more galleys and fireships were said to be preparing. Against them the Jenny boasted ‘eight old and very bad two pounders for which we had scarce any shot, two swivels, some wall pieces and twelve muskets’; her complement, including one English sailor, amounted to thirty.

  As she edged towards the wall of breakers at the mouth of the river, the Jenny made an easy target for the shore batteries. Most of her rigging was shot away and the one English sailor was killed. When a boat bringing reinforcements from the Amazon went down in the surf, Chapman hoisted the white flag. His narrative suggests that he just wanted to parley. More credibly the Vietnamese took it as a token of surrender and ceased firing. Their mistake was not to board the vessel immediately. For as darkness came on, the wind suddenly changed and the captain, having little to lose, decided to make a run for it. ‘I must confess for my own part’, wrote Chapman, ‘I expected nothing better than to be wrecked amongst the breakers.’ But, without a single grounding – and without, for once, so much as an acknowledgement to Divine Providence – the Jenny and her crew bobbed through to safety.

  Three months later, back in Calcutta, the resilient Chapman seems either to have conveniently forgotten this Hué experience or else to have determined on making his report a work of fiction. For Vietnam he now portrayed as a merchant’s paradise. The coastline consisted of a succession of magnificent natural harbours, the rivers provided an ideal means of inland transport, the climate was a joy, and the people as a whole ‘courteous, affable, [and] inoffensive’; as for the ladies, ‘the active sex’, they welcomed ‘temporary connections with strangers’ and were esteemed for their fidelity. Moreover, ‘no country in the East, and perhaps none in the world, produces richer or a greater variety of articles proper for carrying on an advantageous commerce’. There was silk, cotton, spices, timber, and ivory. There was also gold (the Rumbold and now the Jenny had both sold their Indian exports for bullion). And there was a substantial and direct trade with Japan, as of old, and with China, as evidenced by all those junks in the Perfume River.

  In short it would be madness not to form a settlement. The plight of the Nguyen offered a legitimate and unrepeatable pretext. ‘For this and every other purpose’ fifty European soldiers plus a couple of hundred sepoys and a few artillery would suffice. The reward would be out of all proportion to the expense. And if the Company did not act, the French would.

  It all had a rather familiar ring. By now the Company’s records bulged with similar reports on a host of unhappy landfalls – Hirado, Pulo Condore, Divi, Devikottai, Negrais, and latterly Balambangan. Indeed it could well have been written by the indefatigable Dalrymple who, before plumping for Balambangan, had himself inspected the Vietnamese coast. Dalrymple’s ideas had been very much in Hastings’s mind when the Chapman mission was first launched and in his report Chapman duly reproduced the same arguments. To get round the restrictions and exactions imposed on trade at Canton, and to open trade with other Chinese ports, the only solution was to acquire a foothold somewhere in the South China Sea to which the produce of China could be brought by Chinese junks. Even the fiasco of Balambangan had not weakened the argument. Quite the contrary. With every year the China trade became more vital to the Company and with every year the Canton restrictions became more vexatious. A base at, for instance, Tourane would solve the problem once and for all.

  ii

  Yet Chapman’s mission, like those of Bogle and Turner, would never be
followed up. With the outbreak of hostilities with France, then Mysore, and then Holland, Hastings had his hands full in India. Not even fifty Europeans could be spared for Vietnam. Besides, the capture of Pondicherry and the presence of Hughes’s squadron seemed to reduce the chances of a French move into south-east Asia; and meanwhile the likes of Thomas Forrest and Francis Light were urging that if there was to be a new British base east of India, the Malay peninsula offered greater strategic advantages than Vietnam. After the restoration of peace and the departure of Hastings, Light duly accepted the Sultan of Kedah’s offer of Penang.

  But Penang would not be the end of the long quest for an Eastern base. Although it did have some advantages, it scarcely addressed the problems of the China trade. Ideally there were four requirements for any new settlement. It must possess the potential for a naval base in terms of deep water, shelter, timber, and provisions. It must be strategically placed to protect and supply shipping en route to and from Canton. It must be within easy reach of China’s junk trade as an alternative to Canton. And it must be able to provide or attract those commodities (sharks’ fins, birds’ nests, etc from the archipelago) which were most suitable for sale in China. Penang answered only the first and to some extent the second It was on the wrong side of the Malay peninsula for the junks; and although it was well placed for furnishing Malay tin, it was too far north to attract the exotic produce, so valued by the Chinese, of the archipelago.

  Providing cargoes suitable for the China market was absolutely vital. From this commercial point of view either Balambangan or Tourane would have been far preferable to Penang; and with the phenomenal growth in the tea trade after the 1784 Commutation Act, the commercial point of view was paramount. Already in the 1770s the China trade, mainly in tea, outstripped that of India. But during the decade after 1784 the Company’s tea imports more than trebled in volume. And so it would continue. There consequently arose what would now be called a trade gap of quite phenomenal proportions. Protecting the China trade was as nothing compared to the problem of financing it.