Rosane Rocher 1984 Review of Two Books on Mughal Decline

American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS)

North India Between Empires: Awadh, the Mughals, and the British, 1720-1801 by Richard B.Barnett; Het Personeel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Azie in de achttiendeeeuw, meer in het bijzonder in de vestiging Bengalen [The personnel of the United (Dutch)East India Company in Asia in the eighteenth century, particularly in the Bengal settlement].by Frank LequinReview by: Rosane RocherEighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 118-124Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Sponsor: American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies (ASECS).Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2738319 .Accessed: 14/02/2015 13:03

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118 EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY STUDIES

including Diderot) set the stage for a new and more virulent antisemitism, that of "enlightened" national societies such as emerged in nineteenth- century France and twentieth-century Germany. Schwartz's study may lead others to take on, calmly, the role of other major Enlightenment thinkers in underpinning modern racism. It is regrettable that it took so long to find a publisher willing to undertake this volume which was under initial consideration in 1976.

RICHARD H. POPKIN Washington University

RICHARD B. BARNETT. North India between Empires: Awadh, the Mughals, and the British 1720-1801. Berkeley, Los Angeles, Lon- don: University of California Press, 1980. Pp. xviii, 276. $25.00.

FRANK LEQUIN. Het personeel van de Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie in Azie in de achttiende eeuw, meer in het bijzonder in de vestiging Bengalen [The personnel of the United (Dutch) East India Company in Asia in the eighteenth century, particularly in the Bengal settlement]. Leiden: [the author], 1982. Pp. xii, 653 in two vols. Fl. 70.00.

Historians tend to prefer success stories and to neglect periods of tran- sition and decline. This is a bias which Barnett and Lequin set out to redress. The stretch of Indian history which separates the Mughal and British empires has been branded a time of chaos, a legitimization, con- scious or not, of Britain's manifest destiny. Work devoted to eighteenth- century India has focused primarily on the English East India Company at the onset of its triumphant conquest. Yet, the resourcefulness with which regional successor states to the Mughals resisted British encroachments and postponed foreign takeover makes a compelling story. Others as well were on the defensive. The Dutch seaborne empire knew its heyday in the seventeenth century and declined steadily in the eighteenth, as the stan- dard works by C. R. Boxer (The Dutch Seaborne Empire 1600-1800, 1965) and Holden Furber (Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient 1600-1800, 1976) have shown. The Dutch decline has often been blamed on the lower quality of their eighteenth-century personnel, yet no attempt has been made thus far to survey their careers. Barnett's eloquent demonstration of the resilience of Awadh (Oudh), and Lequin's monumental documentation of the lives and careers of Dutch personnel, constitute landmarks in the historical study of eighteenth-century India as well as points of departure for comparison. Both are doctoral dissertations: Barnett's a thor- oughly revised and strictly edited version, as the American pattern favors,


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Lequin's a work published prior to the public defense, as the Dutch system requires. Both feature tables, illustrations, and maps, as well as extensive bibliographies.

Barnett's work aims to show that the eighteenth-century history of Awadh, the largest and most durable post-Mughal polity in North India and the first Indian state to come under a subsidiary alliance system with the British, is a success story of its own. Yet, the ascending phase of this process, from 1720 to 1754, and its pinnacle, from 1754 to 1764, claim only the first two chapters, or fifty pages of the book. The greater weight of the work, and its most novel contribution, lies in the analysis of the two decades 1765-85, during which Awadh and the Company engaged in a series of moves and countermoves which resulted in Awadh's being assured a period of semiautonomy, ending abruptly in 1801 with the annexation of half of its territory. Awadh postponed the inevitable with a skillful allocation of its resources. These consisted not only of overt financial and military resources, but also of intangible, yet, as Barnett brilliantly dem- onstrates, very real resources such as prestige, legitimacy, buffer value, provision of sanctuary for rivals in succession struggles, decentralization, and concealment of assets, and, when all else failed, the civilian equivalent of the scorched earth, total administrative shutdown. Barnett shows that, contrary to common assumptions, both camps resorted as little as possible to brutal force, which is relatively uneconomical.

In Barnett's presentation Awadh and the Company become bodies gov- erned by internal impulses, desires, momenta, reflexes, and defense mech- anisms. Their behavior shows how far off the mark were Sheridan's oratory excoriating the spoliation of the Begams of Awadh and Burke's condem- nation of the episode somewhat grandly labeled "the Rohilla war." Barnett, however, is not interested in applying his findings to the interpretation of Warren Hastings's impeachment, nor in reactions in London generally. His focus, enhanced by his extensive use of Persian and Urdu sources, besides the English sources which have so far provided most of the record of events, remains steadily on the Indian scene. The home administration of the Company is rarely mentioned, for the policies which he discusses were made in India. Though the Court of Directors confirmed decisions or dispatched countermanding orders, the fact that it took the better part of two years for reports to be sent, issues to be discussed, and reactions to reach Bengal, gave the Governor and Council, and sometimes the British Resident at the court of Awadh, who similarly disposed of almost two weeks' time vis-a-vis Calcutta, the undisputable advantage of the fait ac- compli.

Barnett's view of Awadh and the Company as systems, though both were riddled with factions, is stretched to its utmost limit, in that it leads him to negate the importance of individual players. He describes the dif- ferent attitudes of British Residents, yet contrasts them as "styles," not as substantive policies. He specifically denies that Asaf ud-daula's lack of



interest in affairs of state contributed to Awadh's decline. The point is of some importance, since, right from his accession to the throne, the com- munis opinio was that Asaf lacked the qualifications and the initiative evidenced by his younger brother. Primogeniture and his mother's clout alone militated in his favor. In Barnett's interpretation, Asaf's reluctance to pay attention to the chores of administration was not a cause, but a consequence of Awadh's decline:

He had become even more of a puppet ruler than his father had been at his death. Every increasing share of his revenue and every function of his authority that passed into British hands caused him to suffer under a daily humiliation from which he could not possibly escape. Governing, in short, had become a painful occupation, and his only recourse seemed to be simply to avoid it. (p. 204)

There are reasons to doubt the scenario Barnett draws for the resumption of the Begams' jagirs (land revenues) and the Resident's short-lived as- sumption of power in Awadh, as a logical next step on the British agenda. The Begams' treasure and the revenues of other jagir holders was the last segment of the Awadh resources of which the British had been unable to obtain a share. "Resuming the jagirs had been a goal of the Council as soon as [former Resident] Purling had analyzed Awadh's resources" (p. 204). The need to finance the double war with France and Mysore pressured the British to exact yet a higher amount from Awadh's coffers. The Begams' involvement in the Banaras revolt provided the needed opportunity. Yet, Hastings's uncharacteristic petulance in the entire affair raises doubts about the planned and orderly nature of the endeavor. The Com- pany unit assigned to protect the Governor had been massacred during the Banaras outbreak, and he himself had had a narrow escape. The Be- gams' role in fomenting the violence was plain for all to see. To view the resumption of their jagirs as an act of vengeance is all the more tempting since Hastings treated with like harshness Alexander Hannay, a longtime protege who failed to come to his rescue, and Nathaniel Middleton, his trusted Resident who settled for less than the total surrender of the Be- gams' treasures. This and his instructions to Bristow, an archenemy, to take the reins of power away from the Nawab, are evidence of the "frayed nerves" described by his biographer (Keith Feiling, Warren Hastings, 1954, p. 277).

An issue which is not addressed is the role played by Britons in the employ of the Nawabs. Barnett points out that when the British pressured Asaf into dismissing his French employees and banishing all Europeans from his dominions, the Resident had to arrange for British replacements. Yet, though he names some of the displaced foreigners, none of the British substitutes is mentioned, nor are their activities outlined. What of military men such as John Osborne, who, having been twice court-martialed while in the Company's service, achieved the rank of major in that of the Nawab? Was he one of the technical personnel whom the Nawab was eager to hire in an effort to reorganize his army according to the European model? Or,


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since in spite of his tribulations Osborne remained a protege of Hastings, was he foisted upon Awadh when in need of alternative employment? In either case were such men part of the intelligence network which gave the British Resident unmatchable powers? What also of Nathaniel Brassey Halhed, whom the Nawab hired as his agent in London? The correspon- dence between Hastings and his man in Awadh clearly shows that in this case the appointment was generated by the Governor's desire to provide a protege with needed emoluments. Yet, what role did such an agent play later on, what interference did he create in London that Governor Corn- wallis found disruptive? Other Indian rulers as well had former Company servants as their agents in London, whose activities the home administration resented as attempts to subvert the channels of communication in India. How successful were the Nawabs and other heads of princely states in undercutting the policies of the British administration in India?

The most signal omission in Barnett's study of eighteenth-century Awadh is its cultural life. Yet, it is in the cultural sphere that Awadh most clearly emerges as the prime successor state to the Mughals. Poets and artists deserted Delhi when the Mughal capital became unsafe. They flocked to the Nawabs' court, making it the unrivaled center of Muslim culture in India. Throughout India's history, both Hindu and Muslim, the ability to attract and retain poets and artists over one's competitors was the hallmark of a mighty ruler, a symbol of prestige, a consecrating act. On the archi- tectural side the building in 1784 of the central mosque in Lucknow, an engraving of which illustrates the book but is not mentioned in the text, is evidence that, in spite of the heavy demands of the British, the Nawab still disposed of vast resources which he could apply to the pious duties of a Muslim ruler while providing relief for his people during a famine. Reference to the Nawabs' role as patrons of the arts would have under- scored the argument which Barnett makes on economic and political grounds.

Contrary to Barnett's powerfully argued analysis of the state of Awadh, Lequin's documentation of the Dutch East Indian personnel is essentially descriptive. Lequin's goal is to bring to light materials preserved-and heretofore buried-in Dutch and other archives. "This study is a report of a systematic enquiry, not an attempt to package the results of the enquiry in an attractive little story" (p. 33). It offers a comprehensive, computer-assisted documentation in which twelve appendixes occupy center stage and the body of the text provides needed commentary. Through- out, the circumstances of Dutch personnel are compared and contrasted with the much better known situation of servants of the rival English East India Company.

The attitude of the Dutch East India Company vis-a-vis their personnel was marked by arrogance, insensitivity, and obduracy. Whereas the Eng- lish Company was centralized at home and decentralized in the East, the Dutch Company, with its six Chambers, was decentralized at home and centralized in the East, all settlements reporting to Batavia. Servants, even



on the west coast of India, had to proceed to Batavia (modern Jakarta) to seek permission to return home. They were considered deserters if they failed to do so or returned by any other than a Dutch ship. They had to sell all their assets and were not allowed to bring back any papers or books. They were forbidden to discuss East Asian affairs in their private corre- spondence, which could be sent only by Dutch ships. Hierarchy was strictly observed, down to the seating in churches and in mess halls. To make matters worse, the Dutch Company did not have an automatic system of promotions based on seniority. Private trading activities were strictly forbidden. Such at least was the theory, often violated in practice, but always at considerable risk. Not only did the Dutch Company treat their servants as menial labor to be had at the least possible cost, they turned a deaf ear to proposals for reform forwarded by experienced administrators. Nor did returned personnel play a significant role in the home administration of the Company which remained oligarchical. By contrast East Indian servants provided many directors to the English Company, as well as many members of Parliament who were influential in the debates over the pe- riodic renewals of the Company charter and saturated the press with accounts and criticisms of former policies and plans for future develop- ment.

The only section in which Lequin departs from his descriptive stance and engages in argumentative discourse is Chapter iv, in which he discusses the causes of the Dutch decline in the eighteenth century and attempts a rehabilitation of the Company servants whose alleged corrup- tion and lack of energy have often been blamed for this decline. He cen- sures instead the central management of the Company, both at home and in Batavia, for their unwillingness or inability to change with the times. The Company rejected pleas to lift the ban on private trading and refused to pay their servants in a way which compensated them for the greater risks, particularly the higher death rate, in the East. It complained of an increasing shortage of qualified personnel, especially in the military and maritime services, yet refused to make East Indian service competitively attractive. The increasingly oppressive and secretive bureaucratization of the service stifled personal initiative. The servants of the Dutch Company were not more corrupt, nor were they less energetic than their British counterparts. They had less reason and less opportunity to exert them- selves. The debilitating attitude of the Company's administration was the prime cause of the Dutch decline. A contributing factor was the wane of the Dutch maritime power which after the innovations of the seventeenth century remained mired in techniques which had been surpassed. Lequin's is a convincing indictment which unfortunately ends on a weak note, a vacuous suggestion that "perhaps in the end there remains little else than the realization that an organization, an enterprise such as the Company is subjected like every living organism to a 'life cycle' and knows a time of rise and a time of fall" (p. 99).


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In every other part of Lequin's two volumes the nature and contents of the archival data shape the discussion. Thus the collection of data about individual servants proceeds in two steps. Appendix 7 offers standardized and computerized career surveys for the 115 servants who were members of the Bengal Directorate in the eighteenth century, based on three sets of official Company records relative to personnel. Additional data from a variety of other sources such as church registers, notarial archives, stock ledgers, as well as secondary literature, are provided in appendix 10.

A major drawback of allowing archival documents to speak for them- selves is that, on occasion, they may record the official version of events rather than the historical facts. A circumstance in which official reports must be taken with a grain of salt is the British capture of Chinsura, the Dutch headquarters in Bengal, during the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War in 1781. In spite of corporate rivalry, personal relations between the Dutch and the British were cordial. The Dutch, who did not have the benefit of clergy, used the services of the Anglican chaplain. Without a press of their own they relied on Calcutta newspapers for news, notices of sales, and want ads. Calcutta offered cultural and recreational resources in which they took part. Most important, Dutch channels were the preferred method for British servants to remit private earnings home, as Holden Furber's John Company at Work (1948) and P. J. Marshall's East Indian Fortunes. The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century (1976) have shown. Except with regard to the French, whom both Dutch and English East Indians feared and distrusted, national wars were nuisances, which dis- turbed profitable business and good neighborliness. The British governor- general, Warren Hastings, and the Dutch Director, J. M. Ross, and their wives, were particularly close friends. Thus, when orders from home re- quired Hastings to occupy Chinsura and to seize Dutch citizens in Bengal as prisoners of war, there was joy on neither side. Hastings first tried to make the takeover as low-key as possible, but Ross refused to surrender Chinsura to anything less than a full regiment. Not only did the Dutch director have a well-documented penchant for the grand, he presumably wished to prove to his superiors that, though the factory fell without a shot being fired, he was bowing to a vastly superior force. Lequin does not mention this episode, often quoted in the British secondary literature, but only suggests, on the basis of papers introduced as evidence by a later Director in an attempt to recover damages, that the takeover was not handled with British tact, in that the British commander, who was ine- briated, was insolent. Obviously not all events took place in perfect amity. The appointment of British commissaries to oversee occupied Chinsura was bound to create frictions. Ross nevertheless saw to it that private property, after inventory, was left undisturbed, that no Dutch servants be forced to leave, and that the British continue to pay their salaries for the duration of the war. The British also helped individual Dutch families in financial straits, though, generally speaking, private trade flourished at that time. In these circumstances one may doubt the accuracy of a report



by the British governor to the home administration according to which the British commissaries had found the stores of the Dutch Company "to be of such indifferent quality as to be thought not worth the expence of transportation. We have therefore ordered that they shall continue where they are under charge of the Commissaries" (p. 125). Hastings, who was then providing shelter for "poor old Ross" had to report to London that their orders had been followed, but he clearly argued that drastic measures were not called for.

The richness and novelty of Lequin's archival evidence make it man- datory reading for scholars who seek to assess the colonial experience across nations and centuries. The "summing-up," list of appendixes, and explanatory notes concerning appendixes 7 and 10 are translated into English (pp. 206-22). This should make most of the standardized and computerized data accessible to those who do not read Dutch. It is that body of information which, by the author's own acknowledgement, con- stitutes his most important contribution.

ROSANE ROCHER University of Pennsylvania

FRANK A. KAFKER, ed. Notable Encyclopedias of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Nine Predecessors of the Encyclopedie. Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1981. Pp. 252.

The title, hinting at no thesis whatever, suits this book quite well. For the book does not pretend to be anything more than a descriptive survey of nine predecessors of the great Encyclopedie.

Believing the task of surveying the various encyclopedias to be beyond the abilities of any but a "universal genius" (p. 9), the editor, Frank A. Kafker, farms the individual chapters out to a series of collaborators. The collaborators, who "include," Kafker tells us, "specialists in French, Ger- man, and Italian literature, historians of early modern Europe, and a historian of science who is also a professional scientist," are armed with guidelines, which they "were free to use as much as they found appro- priate" (p. 9). The guidelines, printed as an Appendix to the volume, amount to a series of questions concerning the "History of the enterprise," "The work's editing and prose styles," "The work as a book of knowledge," "The work's politics and religion," and a request for bibliographical information. In modestly deferring to his coterie of specialists, the editor becomes a sort of Diderot, standing at the head of his own "Societe des hommes de lettres," and his book becomes a sort of encyclopedia of encyclopedias. This parallel requires the reviewer to be concerned not only with the merits of the individual chapters, but also with the conception and organization of the overall project.


Article Contentsp. 118p. 119p. 120p. 121p. 122p. 123p. 124

Issue Table of ContentsEighteenth-Century Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1 (Autumn, 1984), pp. 1-146Front MatterPhonetics and Politics: Franklin's Alphabet as a Political Design [pp. 1-34]Goya's Teratology and the Critique of Reason [pp. 35-56]The Origin of Burke's Ideas Revisited [pp. 57-71]ForumJohnson's Intentions in The Vanity of Human Wishes [pp. 72-75]

ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 76-81]Review: untitled [pp. 81-84]Review: untitled [pp. 84-89]Review: untitled [pp. 89-92]Review: untitled [pp. 92-96]Review: untitled [pp. 96-99]Review: untitled [pp. 99-103]Review: untitled [pp. 103-108]Review: untitled [pp. 108-112]Review: untitled [pp. 112-115]Review: untitled [pp. 115-118]Review: untitled [pp. 118-124]Review: untitled [pp. 124-128]Review: untitled [pp. 128-132]Review: untitled [pp. 132-133]Review: untitled [pp. 134-137]Review: untitled [pp. 137-141]Review: untitled [pp. 141-143]Review: untitled [pp. 143-144]Review: untitled [pp. 144-146]

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Rosane Rocher 1984 Review of Two Books on Mughal Decline

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