Direct Control of Indian Territory

India in the Time of Clive

Plassey Aftermath

• English Army and Navy receive £275,000 for their members

• EIC receives 22.5 million rupees over three years

• Clive receives a payment of ~£35,000

Clive’s Triumph and TreasureClive of India, YouTube clip

1763 Treaty of Paris

• Ends Seven Years War

• France gets back all its territories

• Not permitted to fortify their posts

• French East India Company is dissolved in 1770

1763 Patna

• Mir Qasm asks for return of rights granted because the British were not living up to their treaty

• Continued issue of dustaks used for private trade

• Qasm captures members of British mission

Patna Massacre

• British captured Patna and “robbed and plundered the bazar, and all merchants and inhabitants of the city.”

• Qasm recaptures Patna; His mercenary, Walter Reinhardt Sombre (German, Austrian, Alsatian, Swiss?) massacres British prisoners

1764 Retaliation

• British (1,000 Europeans, 6,000 sepoys and 12,000 allies) defeat Mir Qasm and his allies at Panch Pahari

• Repeat victory at Buxar

– Losses 32 Europeans and ~270 Indians

– Enemy losses ~6,000

Significance of Buxar

• Emperor becomes de facto subservient to the British

• British power extends from Bengal to Oudh and Delhi

Chhabra, G. S. Advance Study in the History of Modern India (Volume-1: 1707-1803). Vol. 1. Lotus Press, 2005.

Powis Castle, Powys, Wales

Wine flask with rubies and emeralds

Finial from Tipu Sultan’s Throne

Hookah Set

Working for the EIC17th – Early 18th Century

East India Company Employees

1676 Masulipatnam

– 18 employees.

– one returned to England after being dismissed

• 32 English free merchants

• 14 died in India,

• 16 unknown fate

• 2 returned to England

Madras Employees

1677

• 29 persons

• 18 died in India,

• 9 returned to England (including three former governors, one was dismissed and one went mad)

Rank and Salary (17th Century)

Longevity Rank Salary

Beginner Writer £5

5 years Factor £15

8 years Junior servant £15

11 years Senior merchant £30

Poplar Hospital and Chapel, London

1627 Begun with legacy ofan imprisoned jeweler who had

stolen EIC diamonds

Home for seamen

1654 Chapel completed

1718 Polar Fund gives pensions to ex-Directors and civil servants on a case by case basis

1855 Facility for injured dockers

Terms of contracts

• Keep accurate accounts and diaries,

• Inform the names and practices of anyone intending to deceive or hinder the Company

• No trading between East Asia and Europe

• Not wasting Company resources

• Not aiding competitors

Length of Service

Remittance home

£1 (1760)=$203 (2017)www.uwyo.edu/numimage/currency.htm

Sending money home

Armies of the EIC

• Needs estimated as 2,000 European troops per presidency plus artillery

• Losses in peacetime ~18%/year

• War office in London blocks recruitment from the Royal Army

• After 1778 battalions supplied from Royal Army and Hanover

1770 Sepoys

Bengal 28,000

Madras 18,000

Bombay 6,000

1768 Parliament and the EIC

• 23% of MPs owned East India Company stock

• Several belonged to the General Court of the EIC

• Arcot interest (~ a dozen)

– Elections financed by returned EIC officials who derived payment from the Nawab of Carnatic

1770 Famine In Bengal (& Bihar)

• Failure of monsoons

“Some improper regulations, some injudicious restraints imposed by the servants of the East India Company upon the rice trade, contributed, perhaps, to turn that dearth into a famine.” Adam Smith (IV.5.45)

• 20-33% loss of population

Exacerbating Conditions• Consumption by troops

• Continued insistence on tax collections

• Lack of blocks on exports

• Forbidding hoarding prevents surplus accumulation for lean years

• Lack of labor in succeeding years

Help• Provision of supplies from Benares

Subsequent rapid rise in population

Bolts Criticism of EIC, 1772

Problems of the EIC

• Administering India

• Payment to Britain of £400,000

• Losses to private trade

• Reduced revenue from Bengal

• High dividend payout in spite of revenue decline

• Oversupply of Chinese tea

Administering British India

• English judges as supervisors

• Hindu law for Hindus

– Use mix of native scholars (pandits) and later British scholars

• Islamic law for Muslims

– Code written under Aurungzeb

1773 Regulating Act

Whereas the several Powers and Authorities granted by Charters to the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies have been found, by Experience, not to have sufficient Force and Efficacy to prevent various Abuses which have prevailed in the Government and Administration of the affairs of the said United Company, as well at Home as in India, to the manifest Injury of the Publick Credit, and of the Commercial Interests of the said Company; and it is therefore become highly expedient that certain further Regulations, better adapted to their present Circumstances and Condition, should he provided and established:

1773 Regulations

• Loan of £1.5 million

• Limit dividends to 6% until loan paid

• Prohibit servants from private trade or bribes

1773 New Authority

• Central administration under a governor-general, Warren Hastings

• Name four men for a Supreme Council

• Supreme Court operating with British judges and British law

– Continue using local law for local cases

Tea

• Colonies: 3 ½ Chinese cups (~ three ounces)/ per capita/ per day

1768

– Dutch tea 3s per pound

– English tea 4s 1d per pound

Tea for the Worker

• Hot beverage

• Sugar calories

• Accompany dry bread and cheese

Background: Tea Act of 1773

• Prior to the Act tea had to pass through London where it was taxed 2s 1d/pound

• Britain

– Estimate 66% smuggled

• Colonies

– Consumption 1,460,000 pounds

– EIC imports 560,000 pounds

Tea Act of 1773

• EIC could sell tea directly to North America without paying British duties

• Tax would be about half that paid in Britain

• 1784 Tax reduced from 117% to 12.5%

EIC Tea Exports

Tariff reduced

Warren Hastings (1732-1818)

Rise

1750 Appointed as clerk in Murshidabad

1756 Captured and released in campaign that led to the capture of Calcutta

Became assistant to Clive and his representative at Murshidabad

Learned Urdu and Persian

Administrator

• 1779 Took over as administrator in Bengal

• Assumed direct control of revenue collection rather than using Indian agents

Anglo-Mysore Wars

Haider Ali (1720-83)1790s engraving with later coloring

• Became an officer in the Wodiyar dynasty army of Mysore

• Became leader of Mysore in 1760s

• Fought British expansion with French advisors

1st and 2nd

Mysore Wars

Mysore Technology –Tipu Sultan

• French military engineers

• Shipbuilding arsenals,

• Canals,

• Irrigation works,

• Work-shops boring tiger-muzzled cannon

Tipu Tyger Cannon

First Anglo-Mysore War (1768-9)

• Diplomatic and military wrangling between British and Nizam of Hyderabad over Northern Circars

• British take and Mysore-Nizam retake Mangalore

• Superior British navy prevails

Second Anglo-Mysore War

• 1778 Rebuild Mysore Navy with Dutch aid;British capture Pondicherry

• 1779 British seize the French port of Mahé

• Counterattack by Haider Ali

• 1780 British forces surrender at Battle of Pollitur

2nd Mysore War

Bottom of the British Square from the Battle of PollilurMural, Daria Dawlat Bagh, Tipu Sultan’s summer palace, 1784

Tipu Sultan in mural

Second Anglo-Mysore War

1780 Lt. General Eyre Coote enters the war but is unable to follow up victories because of lack of cavalry

1781 Company agrees to pay for Royal Army in India

1782 Haider Ali dies and is succeeded by his son, Tipu Sultan

1783 Royal Navy increases force to 18 ships in the Indian Ocean

The Rockets’ Red Glare

Rocket and rocketeer 1792

Naval Battle of Cuddalore, June 1783