Fw: H-ASIA: REVIEW On the East India Company

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> H-ASIA
> February 25, 2011
>
> Book Review (orig pub. H-Soz-u-Kult) by Michael Mann on Hugh V. Bowen.
> _The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain,
> 1756-1833_; George K. McGilvary. _East India Patronage and the British
> State: The Scottish Elite and Politics in the Eighteenth Century_;
> George K. McGilvary. _Guardian of the East India Company: The Life of
> Laurence Sulivan_; Anthony Webster. _The Twilight of the East India
> Company: The Evolution of Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics, 1790-1860_;
> and Anthony Webster. _The Richest East India Merchant: The Life and
> Business of John Palmer of Calcutta, 1767-1836_.
>
> (x-post H-Review)
> ************************************************************************
> From: H-Net Reviews
>
> Sammelrez: The East India Company
>
>
> Hugh V. Bowen. _The Business of Empire: The East India Company and
> Imperial Britain, 1756-1833_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
> 304p. $99.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-84477-2.
>
> George K. McGilvary. _East India Patronage and the British State: The
> Scottish Elite and Politics in the Eighteenth Century_. London:
> I.B.Tauris, 2008. 280p. ISBN 978-1-4416-0851-2.
>
> George K. McGilvary. _Guardian of the East India Company: The Life of
> Laurence Sulivan_. London: I.B.Tauris, 2006. 328 p.
> ISBN 978-1-4237-8768-6.
>
> Anthony Webster. _The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution of
> Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics, 1790-1860_. Rochester: Boydell &
> Brewer, 2009. 205 p. $90.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-84383-475-5.
>
> Anthony Webster. _The Richest East India Merchant: The Life and Business
> of John Palmer of Calcutta, 1767-1836_. Rochester: Boydell & Brewer, 2007.
> 194 p. $80.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-84383-303-1.
>
> Reviewed by Michael Mann
> Institut fur Asien- und Afrikawissenschaften, Humboldt Universitaet zu
> Berlin
> Published on H-Soz-u-Kult (February, 2011)
>
>
> Sammelrez: East India Company
>
> The history of the East India Company (EIC) has been the object of much
> consideration and contestation, despite the fact that with subjects
> addressing cultural issues becoming dominant in historical research from
> the middle of the 1990s the interest in matters relating to the EIC has
> gradually been decreasing. Much of the study of the EIC has been focussing
> on administrative-cum-commercial subjects whereas in the 1970s the take on
> perspectives from economic history has helped to shift the focus towards
> accounts integrating economic and social aspects. This development is
> represented by the seminal studies of C. H. Philips on the one hand, and
> of K. N. Chaudhury on the other hand. Cyrill H. Philips, The East India
> Company, 1784-1834, Manchester 1940; Kirti N. Chaudhury, The Trading World
> of Asia and the English East India Company, 1669-1760, Cambridge 1978.
> During the last three or four decades many articles and monographs on the
> EIC discovered new themes and contributed to a broader understanding so
> that a solid basis for general interpretations emerged, one of the recent
> examples is the latest monograph by P. H. Lawson. Philip Lawson, The East
> India Company. A History, London 1993.
>
> Now general histories of EIC have mostly reproduced a narrative which
> concentrates on its transformation from a trading company to an
> administrative organisation between 1770 and 1830 which is then presented
> as the (only) important aspect of empire building in the East, followed by
> the decades of reform in British India. The English Parliaments Regulating
> Act of 1773 and the last Charter for the EIC in 1833 sets the frame for
> this narrative, which centres on the British Empires ascent to global
> dominance. According to it, the empires train, once set into motion, could
> no longer be stopped. More importantly for our concern an differentiated
> reconstruction of the EIC on its own terms its development after 1833 has
> become a kind of postscript to a story which had already happily ended.
> Against this widespread view some studies discussed here, like Anthony
> Websters, The Twilight of the East India Company, provide an alternative
> account highlighting the continuities and changes that took place in the
> first half of the nineteenth century. They show that the EIC-history was
> by far not the linear sort of success story that has been told by
> generations of empire historians.
>
> Added to that, the books under discussion demonstrate a recent trend in
> researching the EIC, namely a renewed interest in commercial and
> administrative aspects which seems to respond to the growing importance of
> the effects of globalisation and the emergence of a new field of academic
> research: global studies. Also, this revivalism seems to reflect a new
> historiographical wave on the glory days of the British Empire, the only
> world empire of the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth
> century. The British Empire strikes back with the East India Company
> riding again. The selection of books mirrors a third tendency of current
> research: they follow on the one hand structural and institutional
> concerns and traditional approaches of economic and financial history
> while they also employ biographical approaches, trace individuals,
> especially those who can be characterised as actors of globalisation.
>
> Lets come to the first book: Hugh V. Bowens monograph The Business of
> Empire. Let alone the time-frame it sets itself, the companys development
> between 1756 and 1833, indicates that it concentrates on precisely the
> part of the empire-history which has been most dealt with, that is the
> transformation of the EIC from a trading corporation into an
> administrative organisation. Thus Bowen rewrites the old-fashioned
> EIC-success story and presents the well-known empire-narrative even though
> he adds new aspects and details. One has to mention positively that his
> history of the EIC is a well written compilation of the EICs business
> history. He profiles the companys London stockholders and directors,
> emphasising their business procedures, working practices and policies to
> changing circumstances in what became British India.
>
> Yet the major shortcoming of the book is its selective writing. Sometimes
> even the latest research findings are missing which is particularly
> striking in the sub-chapter on the abolition of the EICs trading monopoly
> in 1833 (pp. 252-9). Also, the chapter on an empire in writing (pp.
> 151-82) does not include recent research and does not reflect the current
> state of the art. Latest findings on the EICs bookkeeping, cartography,
> data collection, information gathering, its transformation into knowledge
> and effective presentation are not included in the narration.
> Additionally, the concentration on the metropolis as the centre of global
> action mirrors the old-fashioned empire narrative. Despite the fact that
> commercial relations with South Asian centres of production and trading
> grew tremendously during the eighteenth century, only the EICs activities,
> actions and reactions in London are presented depicting the undertaking as
> a most agile and modern enterprise. This is also the reason why the
> narrative of the EICs success story seems to be a repetitive story.
>
> In contrast, Anthony Websters book on the Twilight of the East India
> Company presents a more innovative stance. The first three chapters give a
> conventional overview of the EICs history since 1790 when the
> governor-generalship of Lord Cornwallis set the frame for the colonial
> state in Bengal and British India, and points out the EICs struggle for
> maintaining its monopoly for trade in the East. However, in the following
> chapters four to seven, Webster actually elaborates the history of crisis,
> change and continuities between 1833 and 1860. And here the tremendous
> consequences of this shift in perspective demonstrates itself: the
> established notion of the Great Indian Rebellion of 1857-9 loses its
> relevance as a sharp break in empire history as this political event had
> rather any influence on the economic history of the EIC.
>
> On another note, though the author is fairly acquainted with the companys
> history of these days and its battle for keeping her monopoly, one misses
> the fact that private trade to the East was on the agenda of many British
> undertakers since the foundation of the EIC, in particular from the second
> half of the seventeenth century onwards. So called interlopers were the
> reason for much trouble and they were, finally, successful in establishing
> a second EIC (English, instead of London merchants) at the end of the
> seventeenth century. Its shareholders received a royal charter as well,
> yet, due to competition on the financial markets for trading capital and
> other reasons, both companies were amalgamated into the United Company in
> 1709. However, even after this forced unification, private trade did not
> come to an end and could, at no time, be controlled effectively. I. B.
> Watson told the history of those interlopers in 1980 which Webster should
> have taken into consideration. Ian Bruce Watson, Foundation for Empire.
> English Private Trade in India, 1659-1760, New Delhi 1980. Apparently the
> end of the eighteenth century was not the beginning of the debate on free
> trade, but rather the demand for the end of state monopolies in favour of
> overall trading facilities with open access to all markets had been on the
> table since the beginning of the seventeenth century.
>
> The charter of 1813 ended the trading monopoly of the EIC except to China.
> Within two decades, repercussions of open access to capital, commodities
> and commerce caused the crash of the so called agency houses. These were
> Calcutta based privately operating trading-cum-financing companies with
> close connections to the Asian and English markets. As industrially
> manufactured cotton products flooded the Indian markets particularly that
> of Bengal, and as investment in an expanding Indigo market caused
> overheating within a short time, the said agency houses were not able to
> cope with this additional competition. Apart from this, pressure groups
> from northern British cities like Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and
> Glasgow strongly favoured the further opening of all Asian markets as well
> as the abolition of trade restrictions like protective customs. As a
> result of this public agitation, in a series of bankruptcies, all agency
> houses collapsed between 1830 and 1834.
>
> The most prominent among them was certainly that of Palmer & Co. Webster
> shows its rise and fall in his second book, The Richest East India
> Merchant. The story of John Palmer and his agency house, his rise to the
> prince of merchants in British India as well as the agencys bankruptcy is
> a fine example of the changing economic and commercial environs within the
> emerging British Empire in Asia. It demonstrates how free trade after 1813
> affected the business of private companies in India, how personal
> entanglement in British Indian politics, machinations with princely
> states, mismanagement and growing incompetence within a company ultimately
> caused the breakdown of a firm. In particular, the dubious practices of
> debt control, a complete absence of effective accounting and cash security
> arrangements, in short: bad financial management, caused the collapse of
> Palmer & Co triggering the bankruptcy of more than thirty agency houses.
> The reinterpretation of the EICs history before 1833 is a necessary
> precondition for its setting as a re-orientating company within a world of
> growing free trade.
>
> The latter aspect is actually the focus of Websters book on the Twilight
> of the East India Company. Taking P. J. Cains and A. G. Hopkins thesis of
> gentlemanly capitalism as a starting point, Webster argues that in
> addition to the capital concentrated in the City (of London), which from
> there directed the British empires expansion from the late seventeenth to
> the early twentieth century Peter J. Cain / Anthony G. Hopkins, British
> Imperialism. Innovation and Expansion, 1688-1914, London 1993. , it was a
> network of northern British commercial and financial interests as well as
> the chambers of commerce in the British Indian and East Asian metropolises
> established by the end of the 1830s that brought about the gradual end of
> the chartered companys state monopoly and the evolution of freely
> accessible markets within the Indian Ocean area and beyond from the late
> eighteenth century onwards. According to Webster it was this complex,
> trans-imperial network of firms and commercial-cum-financial pressure
> groups which used the organs of the EIC for expansion as well as for
> undermining its privileged position.
>
> However, despite the interesting subject, the book has some shortcomings.
> In particular, the parade of numbers and years sometimes disrupt whole
> paragraphs hampering the general flow of reading and understanding.
> Likewise, the narration is sometimes too descriptive often getting lost in
> details. These might have been of some relevance the dissertation that
> this book originally was at the end of the 1970s again indicating the
> then prevalence of the EICs commercial history but is somewhat misplaced
> in a present-day publication. Certainly a valuable contribution, the book
> can hardly be pigeon-holed in any one historiographic genre, as it seems
> to be something between a rather conventional biography of an empire
> builder and an entangled history of an actor of globalization. Overall,
> what is missing is the agency of Indian contemporaries as the narration
> mainly concentrates on the European development in the colonies on the one
> side and the centre of power, that is Great Britain, on the other.
>
> Another development during the 1830s according to Webster was the
> emergence of a new generation of exclusively London based agency houses
> that at the same time tried to establish Indian based banks for raising
> capital in the colony. Yet, the international economic crisis of 1847-8,
> particularly affecting the London financial market, again, destroyed these
> commercial and financial undertakings but paved the way for restricting
> the EICs competences to a mere wing of government in 1853. The abolition
> of the EIC in 1858 was, in the eyes of many London bankers, brokers and
> traders, long overdue. Yet it took until 1874 for the EIC to be finally
> wound up. Seen against this background, the history of the EIC in the
> 1830s and 40s is not merely the afterthought of its successful
> transformation from a commercial corporation into an administrative body
> but the history of gradual changes ultimately facilitating the
> modernisation of British India, in particular the railway and telegraph
> mania between the 1860s and the 1880s. In this respect the book is a solid
> contribution to the narrative of empire building.
>
> The same focus can be found in George K. McGilvary's East India Patronage
> and the British State. The Scottish Elite and Politics in the Eighteenth
> Century. The authors thesis maintains firstly, that the Scottish elite was
> drawn into the orbit of British state building far earlier than hitherto
> assumed, that is, it was not the politics of Henry Dundas from the 1780s
> onwards which made Scots participate in the building of the British Raj in
> India. Rather, they had already been part of the process in the first half
> of the eighteenth century as part of Prime Minister Walpoles state
> building strategies. Secondly, it is argued that patronage by English
> politicians and the reliable part of the Scottish elite after the Union of
> 1701 as well as the rebellions of 1715 and 1745 helped to establish an
> increasing network of patronage which promoted careers of the Scottish
> mercantile, medical and later also military personnel. And in the third
> place it is stated that these early patronage politics played an important
> role in founding the British Empire.
>
> Yet, again the East India Company is merely studied as an instrument of
> the British government, and its dynamism in the Indian Subcontinent beyond
> the context of empire is not taken into consideration. The East, indeed,
> was a career where Scots made their fortunes, which was to be invested in
> the local Scottish economy.
>
> In a somewhat rough and ready posoprographic approach, McGilvary tries to
> give short biographical backgrounds to Scots who became involved in the
> patronage network. Yet, even if one concedes that there was a growing
> Scottish influence within the East India Company, at least from the 1720s
> onwards, in most cases the numbers, though impressive, are cited without
> any reference statistics, that is the proportion to all East India
> employees are missing. Likewise the 24 per cent Scottish soldiers in the
> British Indian army, cited by McGilvary to prove his point, refer to 1830
> when Dundas promotion of Scotsmen was already bearing fruit. Though it has
> been mentioned that due to 1715 and 1745 only after the latter rebellion
> Scotsmen were recruited for overseas army service, the nexus to the 1830
> increase of Scotsmen in the military service has not been pointed out by
> Webster.
>
> Very striking is the detailed narration of John Drummonds fascinating
> political and mercantile life. It seems that his political career on the
> European continent as well as his social-cum-economic position in Scotland
> made him the predestined actor for establishing the above mentioned
> network. Indeed, Drummond, in collaboration with Walpole, may be seen as
> an early and decisive builder of the British Union after 1722. At the same
> time, the story of the EIC at home and abroad lacks detailed analysis and
> latest research findings have not been included. Among the many seminal
> articles missing is Hugh V. Bowens widely appreciated Revenue and Reform.
> Hugh V. Bowen, Revenue and Reform. The Indian Problem in English Politics,
> 1756-1773, Cambridge 1991. If done so, the reader of McGilvarys book would
> have been able to gain a deeper insight into the financial machinations of
> the EIC and the British state during those crucial years, thus placing the
> findings of McGilvary in a much more complex context.
>
> Despite these shortcomings the book certainly deserves attention. Seen
> from a Scottish, a British and an Empire perspective, it contributes to
> the mechanisms of modern state formation in the eighteenth century. Above
> that it becomes clear that networking does not only refer to present-day
> actors of globalisation but that it has been on the
> political-cum-mercantile agenda at least since the early days of modern
> state building. Patronage systems and networking were part and parcel as
> well as markers of the modern state in Europe, and Britain certainly
> spearheaded that development. Focussing on Scotland and the early Union
> seems to be appropriate as this approach has been neglected so far by
> academic research. At the same time the reader will not miss some sort of
> Scottish patriotism (or rather chauvinism). Again, without doubt there was
> an important contribution of Scotsman to the building of the British
> Union, yet to what extent is still open and needs much more academic
> research. In any case, the book marks a valuable point of departure.
>
> Of particular interest is McGilvarys other book on the Guardian of the
> East India Company. It is a biography on Laurence Sulivan who determined
> the politics of the East India Company for more than three decades in the
> second half of the eighteenth century. Much has been written on Sulivan by
> Lucy S. Sutherland highlighting the rivalry between the East India
> Companys two factions of commercial undertakers and colonial expansionists
> in the 1770s and 80s. Lucy S. Sutherland, The East India Company in
> Eighteenth-Century Politics, Oxford 1952. As McGilvary points out in his
> Preface [t]he book concentrates upon what went on in London and from the
> perspective of the companys leaders. (p. ix) Even if one may accept this
> explicitly Eurocentric perspective one wonders the many mistakes with
> respect to Britains and Indias history. Above all, the history of British
> expansion in Bengal and other regions of India is being depicted in a
> rather old-fashioned way simply re-telling the story of Plassey and its
> alleged consequences. Taking recent research into account would have
> helped to prevent such shortcomings.
>
> McGilvary has to re-tell large parts of the East India Companys story as
> his material on Sulivan is rather scattered and incomplete. Often
> McGilvary speculates about Sulivans decisions and deeds as well as his
> character and manners. Lack of sources for a thorough biography is topped
> by a lack of scientific historical tools. For example, on p. 77 the author
> quotes Sulivan writing 1761 in a letter to Chatham (William Pitt the
> Elder) that after having ousted the French from the Carnatic the
> commercial gain would be of no great significance yet the fiscal
> tremendous if the territory would be annexed. On p. 81 Sulivan complains
> in the very same year upon the burden which territorial administration
> will put upon the shoulders of the East India Company. This led McGilvary
> to the conclusion that Sulivan strictly opposed any territorial expansion.
> And on p. 83 the quote of p. 77 suddenly stems from Joseph Dupleix, the
> then governor of Pondichery. McGilvary again quotes Sulivan who rather
> wanted the trade of the company at an end than having it to rely on
> territorial revenues. This is fairly confusing and in any case
> unprofessional.
>
> As Peter J. Marshall put it in his review [t]his book seems to exemplify
> the problems that independent scholars face without an academic support
> network to advise them how to put their findings into a realistic context.
> Peter J. Marshall, Review, in: English Historical Review, 501 (2008), pp.
> 475f. The effort which MacGilvary certainly invested into the finding of
> sources does not correspond with the scientific outcome. Worse, as with
> John Drummond, the protagonist of his other book, McGilvary seems to
> develop sympathy with the celtic fringe of Great Britain highlighting its
> servants national, colonial and imperial service in a somewhat panegyric
> way. Sadly enough Sulivan has much more shortcomings than Drummond.
>
> All in all the reviewed books add a chapter to an old story which is
> basically about the commercial history of the EIC and its promoters as
> well as the empire history. It seems that hitherto men on the spot as part
> of an old-fashioned European expansion and empire history have been turned
> into actors of globalisation, but without actually debating globalisation.
> Hence we find plenty of fascinating and illustrative details and
> additional facts in all the reviewed books, however, at the end of the
> day, no substantial hypothesis or thesis. An exception to the rule may be
> Websters book on the EICs Twighlight. Despite the critique all books are a
> must for readers interested in the history of the EIC. Future research on
> the EIC should concentrate on the role of the undertaking as an agent of
> globalisation. To start with, concepts of globalisation have to be taken
> into consideration to depart from the old-fashioned empire-history and, at
> the same time, to aim at a deeper understanding of modes of globalisation
> in the middle of the nineteenth century.
>
>
>
> If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it
> through the list discussion logs at:
> http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl.
>
> Citation: Michael Mann. Review of Bowen, Hugh V., _The Business of Empire:
> The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756-1833_ and McGilvary,
> George K., _East India Patronage and the British State: The Scottish Elite
> and Politics in the Eighteenth Century_ and McGilvary, George K.,
> _Guardian of the East India Company: The Life of Laurence Sulivan_ and
> Webster, Anthony, _The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution
> of Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics, 1790-1860_ and Webster, Anthony,
> _The Richest East India Merchant: The Life and Business of John Palmer of
> Calcutta, 1767-1836_. H-Soz-u-Kult, H-Net Reviews. February, 2011.
> URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32643
>
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