The Anarchy

by William Dalrymple

  In reality, however, these were all two-way transactions: weak Indian rulers of fragmented post-Mughal states offered large blocks of territory, or land revenue, to the different European Companies in return for military support. The warfare that followed, which usually involved very small Company armies, was often incoherent and inconclusive, but it confirmed that the Europeans now had a clear and consistent military edge over Indian cavalry, and that small numbers of them were capable of altering the balance of power in the newly fractured political landscape that had followed the fall of the Mughal Empire.

  The Carnatic Wars that rumbled on over the next decade might have had few conclusive or permanent strategic results, but they witnessed the transformation of the character of the two Companies from trading concerns to increasingly belligerent and militarised entities, part-textile exporters, part-pepper traders, part-revenue-collecting land-holding businesses, and now, most profitably of all, state-of-the-art mercenary outfits.

  The British observed Dupleix’s successes greedily: ‘The policy of the Mughals is bad,’ wrote one English soldier of fortune, Colonel Mills, ‘their army worse; they are without a navy … the country might be conquered and laid under contribution as easily as the Spaniards overwhelmed the naked Indians of America …’158 The new Governor of Madras, Thomas Saunders, agreed: ‘The weakness of the Moors is now known,’ he wrote, ‘and ’tis certain any European nation resolved to war on them with a tolerable force may overrun the whole country.’159

  Looking back on the Carnatic Wars fifty years later, the urbane Comte de Modave blamed the hubris of his own French compatriots for bringing European rivalries and Anglo-French wars to Indian shores, and, through the pride and vaulting ambition of Dupleix and Bussy, destroying their own chances of a profitable trade.

  They did this, he wrote, by forcing their British rivals to throw all their military resources into protecting what had already become far too profitable a trading business to abandon willingly. Writing towards the end of his life, with the benefit of hindsight, the Comte reminisced about where things had gone wrong in the Carnatic half a century earlier. ‘The Mughal Empire held together while Aurangzeb reigned,’ he wrote, ‘and even for some years after he died in the early years of this century.’

  For generally beneficial laws have a certain inner strength which allows them, for a time, to resist the assaults of anarchy. But at last, about forty years ago, a horrible chaos overtook the Mughal empire: any spark of good that Aurangzeb had done to promote commerce was snuffed out. Ruthlessly ambitious Europeans were no less deadly in these parts, as if Europe and America were too small a theatre of war for them to devour each other, pursuing chimeras of self-interest, and undertaking violent and unjust resolutions, they insisted on Asia too as the stage on which to act out their restless injustices.

  The trade of the Mughal Empire was divided at the time between two national groups, the French and the English; for the Dutch had by now degenerated into base, avaricious toads squatting on their heaps of gold and spices, as if in apology for having once grabbed the empire of the Portuguese, and reducing them to nobodies.

  A few passing successes, more apparent than real – for these came with a series of crushing defeats – dazzled the French and went to their heads: as if drunk, they now foolishly boasted they could take over all the trade of India. They were, however, inferior to the British in naval power, their Company was corrupt and its leadership grotesquely ignorant, their major undertakings at sea were all vitiated by causes too easy to guess (and which will alas endure as long as their monarchy) and therefore always failing: none of this could puncture their mad hopes of becoming the dominant power in India. They campaigned complacently, as if there could be no doubt of their success, and thus, inevitably, failed to secure what they wanted, and lost even what they might have kept.

  The English were at that time concerned only in developing their trade from their bases in India, in all security. The administrators of that Company had never deviated from the fundamental purpose for which it had been incorporated … It was the ill-judged, scheming ambitions of the French that roused English jealousy and greed.

  For the former, this project of total domination was ruinously expensive and impossible to achieve, whereas for the latter it was indeed a tricky undertaking, but one promising great profits. The French rushed in impetuously, squandering money they could not afford to replace in mad undertakings; they were met by the English with implacable steadiness of purpose and constantly replenished resources, and soon they were working to bring about what we had dreamed of and waiting for an opportunity to put us out of action, far from any possibility of causing them any trouble or of challenging the immense advantages they had secured.160

  That opportunity manifested itself even as the Carnatic Wars were grinding to an inconclusive end in the mid-1750s. For it was not just in India that Anglo-French rivalry was smouldering, ready to reignite at the slightest spark. Instead the trail of gunpowder which ignited the next round of Anglo-French conflict began far away from India, on the frozen borderlands of America and New France – what we today call Canada – between the great lakes and the headwaters of the Ohio River.

  On 21 June 1752, a party of French Indians led by the French adventurer Charles Langlade, who had a Huron wife and was also influential among the Seneca, Iroquois and Micmac, led a war party of 240 warriors down Lake Huron, across Lake Erie and into the newly settled farmlands of British Ohio. Tomahawks at the ready, they fell on the British settlement of Pickawillany, achieving complete surprise. Only twenty British settlers managed to muster at the stockade. Of those, one was later scalped and another ceremonially boiled and the most delicious parts of his body eaten.161

  The violent raid spread a sense of instability and even terror among British traders and settlers as far as New York and Virginia. Within months, regular French troops, supported by indigenous guides, auxiliaries and large numbers of Indian warriors were rumoured to be moving in large numbers into the headwaters of the Ohio Valley, and on 1 November the Governor of Virginia sent a 21-year-old militia volunteer north to investigate. His name was George Washington. So began the first act in what Americans still call the French and Indian Wars, and which is known in the rest of the world as the Seven Years War.162

  This time it would be total war, and properly global, fought on multiple continents and in ruthless advancement of worldwide British and French imperial interests. It would carry European arms and warfare from the Ohio to the Philippines, from Cuba to the coast of Nigeria, and from the Heights of Abraham outside Quebec to the marshy flatlands and mango groves of Plassey.

  But the part of the globe it would transform most lastingly was India.

  * Over £5 million today.

  * A lakh equals a hundred thousand.

  * Over £1 million today.

  * £13 million today.

  * £13 billion today.

  * £260 million today.

  * Around £9,200 million today.

  * The modern equivalences of these sums are: £77,500 = over £8 million today; £20,000 = £2 million today.

  2

  An Offer He Could Not Refuse

  In early November 1755, an anonymous figure trained a telescope across the wintry estuary of the Scorff and beyond towards the French shipyards at Port Lorient in Brittany. The round sight panned over the wharves and warehouses, past the dry docks and milling quaysides, until finally coming to rest on a flotilla of eleven tall-masted ships – six men-of-war with full battle rigging and five French East Indiamen – all bobbing at anchor, slightly apart from the other shipping, on the seaward edge of the harbour.

  The ships were at the centre of a hive of frantic activity: French troops were marching in file over the gangplanks onto the frigates, while wooden dockside cranes slowly swung cannon after cannon aboard. They landed on the quarterdecks, between iron-bound barrels of wine and water, bales of food and pallets loaded with supplies for many months at sea. The observe
r then began to count the ships, and to note down the supplies and armaments being carried on board, precisely mentioning the different bores of the cannon, the numbers of troops being loaded and carefully assessing how deep in the water each ship was floating.

  A neat précis of the resulting intelligence report, written for the attention of the directors of the East India Company, sits today in the vaults of the National Archives of India.1 For obvious reasons the document does not give the identity of the person who produced the information: it might have been an official in the port, or a merchant from a third country innocently unloading his wares on a neighbouring quayside. But given the detail of the intelligence it contained, and the fact that the writer was able to make enquiries about the destination of the ships and the dates of their probable embarkation, it was unlikely to have been a distant observer out along the coast surveying the port through a spyglass or a passing British privateer risking a trip down the coast south of Brittany, past the heavily guarded French naval bases at Brest and Rochefort and the anchorage of Quiberon Bay in between. The source of the intelligence must have been in the port, amid the milling crowds and embarking marines, carefully observing all the preparations for departure, while casually eliciting information from the sailors, dock workers and warehousemen, perhaps over a glass of brandy in the port’s taverns.

  Some weeks later, on 13 February 1756, the anxious directors of the East India Company sat in their panelled Council Chamber in Leadenhall Street, carefully studying the report and arguing about its implications. What was clear, they agreed, was that, given the French aggression on America’s border, war was now all but inevitable. The flotilla was therefore probably not some stray French Compagnie mission but more likely early evidence of a major French initiative in India. The directors feared that Versailles was now embracing the plan that Dupleix had first dreamed up: the overthrow of the British East India Company and its replacement by its French counterpart. They were also clear that they must not allow this to happen.

  After discussing the various options open to them, the directors decided to forward the intelligence to Roger Drake, the Governor of Fort William in Calcutta, to warn him that war was now imminent. There must be no repetition of the loss of Madras a decade earlier. Drake must be vigilant about defence, they warned, as they presumed that the flotilla must be aimed at either Calcutta or Madras, for given ‘the present situation of affairs between the British and French nations, it is natural to suppose that the French will aim a blow wherever they can strike the most effectually’.

  As our Company may feel the weight of it, especially in Bengal, where the settlement has been deprived of the Military Recruits for some years past, adding to which is the insufficiency of the fortifications at Fort William to defend the settlement against an at all formidable European Force, the Court [of Directors] have thought it necessary to appoint you to take such measures as shall best conduce to the Protection and Preservation of the Company’s Estate, Rights and Privileges in Bengal.

  They then discussed the details of the intelligence that had just been revealed to them: ‘We were informed that [a flotilla of] eleven of the French Company’s Ships sailed from Port Lorient about the middle of November, with about three thousand men aboard.’

  Six of the largest, being only half-loaded and carrying about sixty guns, of different bores, each intended for a guard of convoy for the other five, which are loaded as usual; these eleven ships, with four that sailed some time before, make already fifteen gone; and it was reported they intended to send some more. But as none were destined for China, it is probable therefore that this armament is intended for the coast of Coromandel or Bengal.

  Finally, they delivered precise instructions as to what they now wanted done in response: ‘You are to put the settlement in the best posture of defence you can, that you be constantly vigilant, and concert the properest Measures for its Security, in order to which you must claim the assistance of our other Presidencies, whenever you are apprehensive of danger.’

  The great point is to render your garrison more respectable, by recruiting it with as many Europeans as will make it fully compleat, which we recommend to your utmost care and attention & effort, in order to which you must press the Select Committee of Fort George [Madras] to cause you to be supplied with as many [troops] as can be spared from thence and Bombay, and you must from time to time acquaint the Commander of His Majesty’s Naval and Land forces with your situation and desire their Assistance and Protection whenever it shall appear to be necessary.

  We earnestly recommend it to you to take all Prudent Measures you can, to engage your Nabob [the Nawab of Bengal, Aliverdi Khan] to take effectual care to prevent all Hostilities between the subjects of the British and French nations in Bengal, and to preserve Strictest Neutrality in his whole Government. It is so much in his interest that we [protect] ourselves, your applications cannot but be attended with Success, and shall accordingly hope to find the many good effects resulting from such a Pacifick Measure.

  Signing off, the directors urged strict confidentiality: ‘The most inviolable secrecy must be observed with regard to this information, that it may not, by any means, get to the ears of the French. The Fatal Consequences of a discovery being too obvious to mention. The like secrecy must be observed throughout the whole of your transactions.’2

  In the event, as is so often the case in dramatic intelligence reports, both ancient and modern, the intelligence turned out to have a fundamental flaw. For all the impressive detail of the report, the flotilla in Port Lorient was not in fact heading to India; indeed no troop-carrying French fleet left for Bengal in 1755, and when one did finally set sail, months later in December 1756, its destination was Pondicherry, not Calcutta.3 But right or wrong, the report was detailed enough to be credible, and was quickly transmitted from Port Lorient first to London and from there on to Calcutta. On receipt, Governor Drake immediately ordered work to begin on rebuilding and strengthening the city walls, an action explicitly forbidden by the Nawab of Bengal – which in turn quickly set off a chain of events fatal both for the people of Bengal and for the French in India.

  Some months before the directors sent the intelligence from Port Lorient to Calcutta, a young politician had been summoned to a meeting in the same East India House Council Chamber. Until a day earlier, this individual had been the MP for a Cornish constituency, a position from which he had just been summarily unseated due to alleged irregularities during the election. The directors did not hesitate to seize their chance. They summoned the thickset, laconic, but fiercely ambitious and unusually forceful young man, and then in formal Council presented Robert Clive with an offer of employment that he could not refuse.

  The Company’s head office had recently been rebuilt in the current Georgian style, but it was still easily missed by passers-by: flat-fronted and set slightly back from the street behind railings, it was only two storeys tall – significantly lower than the buildings on either side – and a mere five windows wide, an unexpectedly modest structure for what was, after all, now the headquarters of the world’s largest, richest and most complex business organisation and which housed a group of directors who exercised political and financial powers second only to the Crown itself.

  This anonymity was not accidental. The Company, which had always found it useful to behave with great ostentation in India, had correspondingly found it advantageous to downplay its immense wealth at the London end of its operations. As late as 1621, two decades after its founding, the Company was still operating from the home of Sir Thomas Smythe, its Governor, with a permanent staff of only half a dozen.4 It was not until 1648 that the Company finally moved to Leadenhall Street, operating from a humble, narrow-fronted house whose first-storey façade was decorated with images of galleons in full sail at sea. In 1698, when a casual passer-by asked who lay within, he was told ‘men with deep purses and great designs’.5

  Soon after East India House was given a Palladian facelift, a Portuguese
traveller noted in 1731 that it was ‘lately magnificently built, with a stone front to the street; but the front being very narrow, does not make an appearance in any way answerable to the grandeur of the house within, which stands upon a great deal of ground, the offices and storehouses admirably well contrived, and the public hall and committee room scarce inferior to anything of the like nature in the city’.6 Like so much about the power of the East India Company, the modest appearance of East India House was deeply deceptive.

  Inside, beyond the entrance hall, lay the main administrative block: a warren of rooms whose shelves groaned with scrolls, archives, records and registers, and where toiled 300 clerks, notaries and accountants scribbling figures into vast leather-bound ledgers. There were also a number of committee rooms of varying sizes and, grandest of all, the director’s boardroom, known as the Council Chamber. Here the most important meetings were held, letters to India drafted, the inward and outward cargoes for the Company’s thirty annual sailings discussed, and the sales – which then ran at between £1.25 and £2 million annually – were calculated and evaluated.

  From these rooms was run a business that was, by the 1750s, of unprecedented scale and which generated nearly £1 million out of Britain’s total £8 million import trade. Sales of tea alone cleared half a million sterling, which represented the import of some 3 million pounds of tea leaves. The rest of the EIC’s accounts were made up of sales of saltpetre, silk, gorgeously painted palampores (bed covers) and luxurious Indian cotton cloth, around 30 million square yards of which was now imported annually.7 The EIC’s stock was fixed in 1708 at £3.2 million, a figure which was subscribed to by some 3,000 shareholders, who earned an annual 8 per cent dividend. Every year roughly £1.1 million of EIC stock was bought and sold.8 The EIC had the deepest of pockets and used this credit to borrow extensively on bond. In 1744, its debts were set at £6 million.* It paid nearly a third of a million pounds annually to the government in customs duties. Two years earlier, in 1754, in return for the loan of 1 million sterling to the government, the EIC’s charter had been extended until 1783, so guaranteeing its profitable monopoly on the trade with Asia for at least another thirty years. By eighteenth-century standards, it was an economic giant, the most advanced capitalist organisation in the world.9