The English in India
Charter of Queen Elizabeth I
- Francis Drake’s voyage around the world in 1580, followed by the English victory over the Spanish Armada in 1588, generated a new sense of enterprise among the English, encouraging sailors to venture further out towards the East.
- As knowledge spread of the considerable profits the Portuguese were earning from Eastern trade, English traders too grew eager for a share. Accordingly, in 1599, a group of English merchants calling themselves the “Merchant Adventurers” formed a trading company.
- On 31 December 1600, Queen Elizabeth I issued a royal charter granting exclusive trading rights to this company, formally named the “Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies.”
- The charter initially granted a monopoly of fifteen years, which was later extended indefinitely by a fresh charter in May 1609.
- Since the Dutch were already concentrating their efforts primarily on the East Indies, the English instead turned their attention towards India, in search of textiles and other valuable commodities of trade.
Progress of the English Company
Foothold in West and South India
- Captain Hawkins arrived at the court of Jahangir as early as April 1609, though his mission to establish a factory at Surat ultimately failed due to opposition from the Portuguese, and Hawkins left Agra in November 1611.
- In 1611, the English had already begun trading at Masulipatnam, on India’s south-eastern coast, later establishing a formal factory there in 1616.
- It was in 1612 that Captain Thomas Best defeated the Portuguese in a naval engagement off Surat — an outcome that so impressed Jahangir that he granted the English permission, in early 1613, to establish a factory at Surat.
- In 1615, Sir Thomas Roe arrived as the accredited ambassador of James I to Jahangir’s court, remaining there until February 1619.
- Though he failed to conclude any formal commercial treaty with the Mughal emperor, Roe nonetheless secured a number of valuable privileges, including permission to set up factories at Agra, Ahmedabad, and Broach.
- The English Company’s early progress was far from smooth, as it had to contend with sustained competition from both the Portuguese and the Dutch — though a gradually changing political situation eventually turned matters decisively in its favour.
- Bombay had originally been gifted to King Charles II by the King of Portugal, as part of the dowry accompanying Charles’s marriage to the Portuguese princess Catherine in 1662.
- Bombay was then handed over to the East India Company in 1668, in exchange for a nominal annual payment of just ten pounds; the seat of the Western Presidency was later shifted from Surat to Bombay in 1687, making Bombay its new headquarters.
- This effectively established a tacit peace between the English and the Portuguese. A parallel Anglo-Dutch compromise likewise saw the Dutch agree not to interfere with the English Company’s trade in India — freeing the English of both their principal European rivals in the country.
- The Company’s position was further strengthened by the “Golden Farman”, issued to it by the Sultan of Golconda in 1632.
- In exchange for an annual payment of 500 pagodas, the English secured the privilege of trading freely across the ports of Golconda.
- In 1639, Francis Day, a British merchant and member of the Masulipatnam council, obtained permission from the ruler of Chandragiri to build a fortified factory at Madras — a settlement that later grew into Fort St. George, eventually replacing Masulipatnam as the headquarters of English settlements in South India.
- Bombay had originally been gifted to King Charles II by the King of Portugal, as part of the dowry accompanying Charles’s marriage to the Portuguese princess Catherine in 1662.
Foothold in Bengal
- Bengal, at this time, was a large and prosperous Indian province, well advanced in trade and commerce — commercial and political control over Bengal naturally appeared an attractive proposition to profit-seeking English merchants, all the more so given its standing as an important province of the Mughal Empire.
- Shah Shuja, the subahdar of Bengal, permitted the English to trade freely within the province in 1651, in exchange for an annual payment of Rs. 3,000 in lieu of all other duties.
- English factories in Bengal were subsequently established at Hooghly (1651), and at other locations including Kasimbazar, Patna, and Rajmahal.
- Despite the privileges secured through these farmans, the Company’s business was still periodically obstructed by local customs officers at various checkpoints, who continued to demand payment of tolls.
- In line with its evolving strategy, the Company sought to establish a fortified settlement at Hooghly, so that force could be used if genuinely necessary.
- William Hedges, the Company’s first agent and governor in Bengal, appealed to Shaista Khan, the Mughal governor of Bengal, in August 1682, seeking redress for these ongoing grievances — but with nothing coming of this appeal, open hostilities eventually broke out between the English and the Mughals.
- Four years later, in October 1686, Hooghly was sacked by imperial Mughal forces. The English retaliated by capturing the imperial forts at Thana (modern Garden Reach), raiding Hijli in eastern Midnapur, and storming Mughal fortifications at Balasore.
- The English were nonetheless ultimately forced to abandon Hooghly, and were relocated to an unhealthy site at the mouth of the River Ganga.
- Four years later, in October 1686, Hooghly was sacked by imperial Mughal forces. The English retaliated by capturing the imperial forts at Thana (modern Garden Reach), raiding Hijli in eastern Midnapur, and storming Mughal fortifications at Balasore.
- Following the Mughal raid on Hooghly, Job Charnock, a Company agent, opened negotiations with the Mughals to secure a return to a site called Sutanuti.
- Charnock signed a treaty with the Mughals in February 1690, and returned to Sutanuti that August.
- An English factory was formally established on 10 February 1691 — the very day an imperial farman was issued permitting the English to “continue contentedly their trade in Bengal,” on payment of Rs. 3,000 a year in lieu of all dues.
- A local zamindar in Bardhaman district, Sobha Singh, subsequently rebelled — an event that gave the English precisely the pretext they had been seeking to fortify their settlement at Sutanuti, in 1696.
- In 1698, the English secured permission to purchase the zamindari rights over three villages — Sutanuti, Gobindapur, and Kalikata (Kalighat) — from their existing owners, for a payment of Rs. 1,200.
- This fortified settlement was named Fort William in 1700, the same year it became the seat of the Eastern Presidency (Calcutta), with Sir Charles Eyre serving as its first president.
Farrukhsiyar’s Farmans
- In 1717, an English mission led by John Surman to the court of Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar succeeded in securing three celebrated farmans, granting the Company a range of valuable privileges across Bengal, Gujarat, and Hyderabad.
- These farmans came to be regarded, in effect, as the “Magna Carta of the Company.” Their key provisions included:
- In Bengal, the Company’s imports and exports were exempted from all additional customs duties, apart from the previously settled annual payment of Rs. 3,000; the Company was further permitted to issue its own dastaks (passes) for transporting such goods.
- The Company was also permitted to rent additional lands around Calcutta.
- In Hyderabad, the Company retained its existing privilege of duty-free trade, required only to pay the prevailing rent for its establishment at Madras.
- In Surat, in exchange for an annual payment of Rs. 10,000, the Company was exempted from the levy of all duties.
- It was further decreed that coins minted by the Company at Bombay would carry official currency status throughout the Mughal Empire.
- These farmans came to be regarded, in effect, as the “Magna Carta of the Company.” Their key provisions included:
- The English East India Company, in this way, evidently managed to secure a substantial array of trading concessions from Mughal authority in Bengal — achieved largely through a sustained combination of flattery and shrewd diplomacy.
- Even so, the English would still have to vanquish the French before they could finally shed their remaining European competitors and establish complete commercial and political sway over India.
