White Mughals

by William Dalrymple

  2 Mountstuart Elphinstone: OIOC, Mss Eur F88 Box13/16[b], f.92.

  3 Annemarie Schimmel, Islam in the Indian Subcontinent (Leiden-Koln, 1980), p.111.

  4 OIOC HM464, op. cit., f.368.

  5 Wellington, Supplementary Despatches & Memoranda, Vol. II, p.174, ‘Memorandum of Conversations which passed between Seyd-oo-Dowlah, Captain Ogg, and Colonel Wellesley, and between Meer Allum and Colonel Wellesley, Dummul 26th Sept 1800’.

  6 Quoted by Sir Penderel Moon, The British Conquest and Dominion of India (London, 1989), p.277.

  7 Stanley Lane-Poole, Aurangzeb and the Decay of the Mughal Empire (London, 1890), p.19.

  8 Castanheda, Historia do Descobrimento e Conquista da India peolos Portugueses, Vol. I, III-43, p.107, and quoted in Maria A.L. Cruz, ‘Exiles and Renegades in Early Sixteenth Century Portuguese India’, in The Indian Economic and Social History Review, XXIII, 3 (1986), p.9.

  9 J.H. Van Linschoten, The Voyage of John Huyghen Van Linschoten to the East Indies (2 vols, London, 1885; original Dutch edition 1598), p.205. 10 Ibid., p.213.

  11 Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (trans. V. Ball, ed. W. Crooke), Travels in India (2 vols, Oxford, 1925). 12 Linschoten, op. cit., Vol. 1, pp.207-8.

  13 Ibid., pp.206-10, 212-14. See also M.N. Pearson, The New Cambridge History of India 1.1: The Portuguese in India (Cambridge, 1987), pp.98-119.

  14 Quoted in Pearson, op. cit., p.87.

  15 Linschoten, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.184.

  16 Geoffrey Parker, The Military Revolution (Oxford, 1988), p.129.

  17 See Cruz, op. cit., p.11.

  18 G.V. Scammell, ‘European Exiles, Renegades and Outlaws and the Maritime Economy of Asia c.1500-1750’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4 (1992), pp.641-61.

  19 See A.R. Disney, Twilight of the Pepper Empire: Portuguese Trade in South West India in the Early Seventeenth Century (Harvard, 1978), p.21.

  20 From a manuscript in the OIOC by Mirza Mohd Bux ‘Ashoob’, ‘Tarikh i-Shadaat e Farrukhsiyar va juloos e Mohd Shah’, f.266a, quoted by S. Inayat A. Zaidi, ‘French Mercenaries in the Armies of South Asian States 1499-1803’, in Indo-French Relations: History and Perspectives (Delhi, 1990), pp.51-78.

  21 Sanjay Subrahmaniyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia: A Political and Economic History (London, 1993), p.254.

  22 William Foster (ed.), Early Travels in India 1583-1619 (London, 1921) pp.203-4.

  23 Nabil Matar, Islam in Britain 1558-1685 (Cambridge, 1998), p.7.

  24 Ibid., p.37.

  25 Ms Bodley Or.430, f.47 recto.

  26 Thomas Pellow (ed. Robert Brown), The Adventures of Thomas Pellow, of Penryn, Mariner (London, 1890), p.103; also quoted in Matar, op. cit., p.39.

  27 Samuel C. Chew, The Crescent and the Rose: Islam and England During the Renaissance (New York, 1937), pp.373-4.

  28 Zaidi, op. cit., p.74, n.112.

  29 Nabil Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (New York, 1999).

  30 Quoted in ibid., p.28. 31 Ibid., p.42.

  32 William Foster (ed.), The English Factories in India 1618-1669 (13 vols, London, 1906-27), Vol. 1, pp.vi, 39-40.

  33 Dr John Fryer, A New Account of East India and Persia Letters Being Nine Years Travels Begun 1672 and finished 1681 (3 vols, London, 1698), Vol. 1, p.83.

  34 Foster, English Factories, op. cit., Vol. 3, p.360.

  35 Ibid., Vol. 4, p.99.

  36 J.A. de Mandelslo (trans. J. Davis), The Voyages and Travels of J. Albert de Mandelslo: The Voyages & Travels of the Ambasssadors sent by Frederick Duke of Holstein, to the Great Duke of Muscovy, and the King of Persia (London, 1662), Vol. 3, p.27.

  37 Alexander Hamilton, A New Account of the East Indies, (2 vols, London, 1930), Vol. 1, pp.8-9.

  38 Foster, English Factories, op. cit., quoted in Philip Davies, Splendours of the Raj: British Architecture in India 1660-1947 (London, 1985).

  39 John Jourdain (ed. W. Foster), Journal of John Jourdain 1608-17 (London, 1905), p.162.

  40 Foster, English Factories, op. cit., Vol. 8, passim. Also OIOC E/3/21, OC2121 (f126), OC2150 (f221), OC2151 (f224), OC2153 (f228), OC2154 (f232), OC2155 (f234), OC2156 (f236).

  41 Foster, English Factories, op. cit., Vol. 8, p.304.

  42 Ibid., Vol. 3, p.345.

  43 Cited in H.D. Love, Vestiges of Old Madras (2 vols, London, 1913), Vol. 2, p.299.

  44 Scammell, op. cit., pp.643, 646.

  45 Philip B. Wagoner, ‘ “Sultan among Hindu Kings”: Dress, Titles and the Islamicization of Hindu culture at Vijayanagar’, in Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 55, No. 4 (November 1996), pp.851-80.

  46 Chester Beatty Library 9.681, ‘A Young Prince and his Courtesans’, in Linda York Leach, Mughal and Other Paintings from the Chester Beatty Library (London, 1995), Vol. 2, pp.948-9.

  47 Kirkpatrick’s conversion to Islam is the best-attested of such conversions for marriage purposes, but it is clear from his letters that William Gardner also had to undergo a similar ceremony, as, very probably, did William Palmer. The practice was no doubt a great deal more widespread than is apparent from the sources, which only go into detail on such points in exceptional circumstances.

  48 Colley, ‘Going Native, Telling Tales’, op. cit., p.172.

  49 P.J. Marshall, ‘Cornwallis Triumphant: War in India and the British Public in the Late Eighteenth Century’, in Lawrence Freeman, Paul Hayes and Robert O’Neill (eds), War, Strategy and International Politics (Oxford, 1992), pp.70-1.

  50 James Scurry, The Captivity, Sufferings and Escape of James Scurry, who was detained a prisoner during ten years, in the dominions of Haidar Ali and Tippoo Saib (London, 1824), pp.252-3.

  51 See Jaffer, op. cit., p.36.

  52 Claudius Buchanan, Memoir on the Expediency of an Eccleciastical Establishment for British India; both as a means of Perpetuating the Christian Religion Among Our Own Countrymen; And as a foundation for the Ultimate Civilisation of the Natives (London, 1805), pp.15ff.

  53 Sadly this much-repeated and thoroughly delightful story may well be apocryphal: I have certainly been unable to trace it back further than Edward Thompson’s The Life of Charles Lord Metcalfe (London, 1937), p.101, where it is described as ‘local tradition … this sounds like folklore’. In his will (OIOC L/AG/34/29/37), Ochterlony only mentions one bibi, ‘Mahruttun, entitled Moobaruck ul Nissa Begum and often called Begum Ochterlony’, who was the mother of his two daughters, although his son Roderick Peregrine Ochterlony was clearly born of a different bibi. Nevertheless it is quite possible that the story could be true: I frequently found old Delhi traditions about such matters confirmed by research, and several Company servants of the period kept harems of this size. Judging by Bishop Heber’s description of him, Ochterlony was clearly Indianised enough to have done so.

  54 Reginald Heber, A Narrative of a Journey Through the Upper Provinces of India from Calcutta to Bombay, 1824-1825 (3 vols, London, 1827), Vol. 2, pp.362, 392.

  55 See Herbert Compton (ed.), The European Military Adventurers of Hindustan (London, 1943), pp.365-6; Lester Hutchinson, European Freebooters in Mughal India (London, 1964), pp.23-6. See also Theon Wilkinson, Two Monsoons (London, 1976), p.125.

  56 William Francklin, Military Memoirs of Mr George Thomas Who by Extraordinary Talents and Enterprise rose from an obscure situation to the rank of A General in the Service of Native Powers in the North-West of India (London, 1805), p.333n.

  57 There is a wonderful picture of Jan Thomas in his banka kit at the Begun Sumroe’s durbar in a miniature in the Chester Beatty Library, 7.121. See Leach, op. cit., Vol. 2, pp.791-5, colour plates 109-110.

  58 Cited in John Keay, India Discovered (London, 1981), p.21.

  59 Hawes, op. cit., p.4.

  60 Quoted in Anna A. Surorova, Masnavi: A Study of Urdu Romance (Karachi, 2000), pp.89-91.

  61 Bengal Wills 1782, Number 24, Will of Thomas Naylor, Probate granted 6 August 1782; OIOC L/AG/34/29/4.

  62 Bengal Wills 1804, Number 13, Will of Matthew Leslie; OIOC L/AG/34/29/16.


  63 Charles D’Oyley, The European in India (London, 1813), pp.xix-xx. See also Captain Thomas Williamson, The East India Vade Mecum (2 vols, London, 1810; 2nd edition 1825), Vol. 1, p.451.

  64 Cited in Fawn M. Brodie, The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton (London, 1967), p.51n.

  65 See Collingham, Imperial Bodies, op. cit., pp.46-7.

  66 D’Oyley, op. cit., p.ii.

  67 C.A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World 1780-1830 (London, 1989), p.115.

  68 Thomas Medwin, The Angler in Wales (London, 1834), pp.4-8.

  69 Gardner Papers, National Army Museum, Letter 119, Sekundra, 12 December 1821.

  70 Elizabeth Fenton, The Journal of Mrs Fenton (London, 1901), pp.51-2.

  71 See Bengal Wills 1780-1783. 1782, Number 41, The Will Of A. Crawford, Probate granted 13 November 1782; OIOC L/AG/34/ 29/4.

  72 Williamson, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.412.

  73 William Hickey (ed. A. Spencer), The Memoirs of William Hickey (4 vols, London, 1925), Vol. 3, p.327.

  74 Ibid., Vol. 4, p.100.

  75 Ibid., p.89.

  76 Ibid., p.6.

  77 Ibid., pp.26-7.

  78 Ibid., pp.140-1.

  79 The text of Halhed’s Code of Gentoo Laws may be found in P.J. Marshall, (ed.), The British Discovery of Hinduism (Cambridge, 1970).

  80 Anonymous review of A Code of Gentoo Laws or Ordinations of the Pundits, from Critical Review, XLIV, September 1777, pp.177-91.

  81 Cited in Marshall, The British Discovery of Hinduism, op. cit., p.39.

  82 Quoted by Michael Edwardes in King of the Nabobs (London, 1964).

  83 Cited in Marshall, The British Discovery of Hinduism, op. cit., p.189, from Hastings’s ‘Letter to Nathaniel Smith’ from The Bhagavat-Geeta.

  84 Sir William Jones (ed. G. Canon), The Letters of Sir William Jones (2 vols, Oxford, 1970), Vol. 2, p.755, 23 August 1787, Sir William Jones to the second Earl Spencer.

  85 Ibid., p.766, 4 September 1787, Sir William Jones to the second Earl Spencer.

  86 Asiatic Journal, Vol. 26, 1828, pp.606-7.

  87 See Gardner Papers, National Army Museum: Letter 1, 5 January 1820; Letter 2, 10 January 1820; Letter 110, Saugor, 9 November 1821; Letter 119, 12 December 1821.

  88 See Wilkinson, op. cit., p.73.

  89 James Morris, Heaven’s Command: An Imperial Progress (London, 1973), p.75.

  90 OIOC Eur Mss, Mackenzie Collection General, XXV, pp.162-3, ‘The Culleeka-Pooree-Putna Vrittant Or Memoir Of The Ancient City Of Culleeka-Pooree-Putnam, rendered into Marattas from a Tamil Ms. On Cadjan, in the hands of the Curnam of Culleekapoor, near Tuckolm, in Arcot province, & translated by Sooba Row Bramin, September, 1808’; the original is in the Kalikapurici vrttanta in the Madras List, Marathi Mss, p.1. From the collection catalogue, p.362: ‘Next we have what is evidently the record by an eye witness of the visit of General Matthews to Takkolam, which was accompanied by many curious incidents, illustrating the conduct of a European in a Hindu Temple.’

  91 Marshall, The British Discovery of Hinduism, op. cit., p.42.

  92 ‘British Idolatry in India’: a sermon preached by the Rev. R. Ainslie at the monthly meeting of ministers of Congregational Churches, in The Pastoral Echo: Nineteen Sermons of Eminent Dissenting Ministers and Others (London, 1837).

  93 Rev. A. Thompson, Government Connection with Idolatry in India (Cape Town, 1851).

  94 A Vindication of the Hindoos from the Aspersions of the Revd Claudius Buchanan MA by a Bengal Officer (London, 1808). For Hindoo Stuart’s authorship of this work see Jorg Fisch, ‘A Solitary Vindicator of the Hindus: The Life and Writings of General Charles Stuart (1757/8-1828)’, in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 4, 2-3, 1985, pp.35-57.

  95 See Jorg Fisch, ‘A Pamphlet War on Christian Missions in India 1807-9’, in Journal of Asian History, Vol. 19, 1985, p.22-70.

  96 Anon., Sketches of India Written by an Officer for the Fire-Side Travellers at Home (London, 1821), p.221-2.

  97 Fenton, op. cit., pp.51-2.

  98 Wilkinson, op. cit., p.84.

  99 Ibid., p.73.

  100 R.B. Saksena, Indo-European Poets of Urdu and Persian (Lucknow, 1941), p.21. Hawes, op. cit., Chapter 4.

  101 See Norman Gash, Lord Liverpool: The Life and Political Career of Robert Banks Jenkinson, Second Earl of Liverpool, 1770-1828 (London, 1984), p.11.

  102 Hastings Papers, BL Add Mss 29,178, Vol. XLVII, 1801-1802, John Palmer to Hastings, 1 January 1802.

  103 Anderson Correspondence, BL Add Mss 45,427, William Palmer to David Anderson, 12 November 1786, F196.

  104 See Durba Ghosh, op. cit., p.42, for the disappearance of bibis from wills, and p.36 for their disappearance from the East India Vade Mecum.

  105 Major J. Blackiston, Twelve Years Military Adventures in Hindustan 1802-14 (London, 1829). 106 Williamson, op. cit., Vol. 1, p.501.

  107 Emma Roberts, Scenes and Characteristics of Hindoostan, with sketches of Anglo-Indian Society (2 vols, 2nd edition, London, 1837), Vol. 1, p.75.

  108 D’Oyley, op. cit., Plate X, ‘A gentleman with his Hookah-burdar, or Pipe-bearer’.

  109 P.J. Marshall, ‘British Society under the East India Company’, in Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 31, No. 1, 1997, p.101.

  110 Lady Maria Nugent, Journal of a Residence in India 1811-15 (2 vols, London, 1839), Vol. 2, p.9.

  CHAPTER 2

  1 Anne Barnard (ed. A.M. Lewin Robinson), The Cape Journals of Lady Anne Barnard 1797-98 (Cape Town, 1994), p.263.

  2 Quoted in Moon, op. cit., p.341.

  3 Anne Barnard (ed. A.M. Lewin Robinson), The Letters of Lady Anne Barnard to Henry Dundas from the Cape and Elsewhere 1793-1803 (Cape Town, 1973), p.99.

  4 Barnard, Cape Journals, op. cit., p.266.

  5 Now in the National Gallery of Ireland. Illustrated in Mildred Archer, India and British Portraiture 1770-1825 (London, 1979), pp.226, 152.

  6 Richard Wellesley (ed. Edward Ingram), Two Views of British India: The Private Correspondence of Mr Dundas and Lord Wellesley: 1798-1801 (London, 1970), p.16.

  7 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/27, p.26, letter to Lieutenant Colonel John Collins from William Kirkpatrick at the Cape, 11 February 1798.

  8 Quoted in Henry Briggs, The Nizam: His History and Relations with the British Government (London, 1861), pp.9-10.

  9 Strachey Papers, OIOC F127/478a, ‘Sketch of the Kirkpatrick Family by Lady Richard Strachey’.

  10 Henry Dodwell, The Nabobs of Madras (London, 1926), p.113.

  11 Ibid., p.122.

  12 Kirkpatrick Papers, OIOC F228/13, p.156, James Kirkpatrick to William Kirkpatrick, 8 September 1801.

  13 Strachey Papers, OIOC F127/478a, ‘Sketch of the Kirkpatrick Family by Lady Richard Strachey’.

  14 Kirkpatrick Papers, OIOC F228/96, Letter from Mrs R Strachey (Julia Maria Strachey), 69 Lancaster Gate W , to Sir Edward Strachey, Sutton Court, Pensford, Somersetshire, dated and postmarked 3 April 1886.

  15 Kennaway Papers, Devon Records Office, Exeter, B961M ADD/F2.

  16 Obituary in the New Monthly Magazine for 1836; Rev. George Oliver’s ‘Biographies of Exonians’ in Exeter Flying Post 1849-50; and a file on the Kennaway family in the West Country Studies Library.

  17 Kennaway Papers, Devon Records Office, Exeter, B961M ADD/F2, William Kirkpatrick to Kennaway, London, July 1784.

  18 Anderson Papers, BL Add Mss 45,427, f.198, William Palmer to David Anderson, 12 November 1786.

  19 Sir Jadunath Sarkar (ed.), English Records of Mahratta History: Pune Residency Correspondence Vol. 1-Mahadji Scindhia and North Indian Affairs 1785-1794 (Bombay, 1936), p.111, Letter 65, James Anderson to William Kirkpatrick, Sindhia’s Camp, Shergarh, 5 December 1786.

  20 Ibid., p.131, Letter 78, Cornwallis to William Kirkpatrick, Calcutta, 1 March 1787.

  21 Kennaway Papers, Devon Records Office, Exeter B961M, ADD/F2, William Kirkpatrick to Kennaway, 24 April 1788.

  22 Ibid., John Kennaway to William Kennaway, 23 December 1788.


  23 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/1, p.6, Safdar Jung’s Tomb, 20 February 1787, William Kirkpatrick to Shore.

  24 Ibid., p.114, 17 February 1794, William Kirkpatrick to Maria Kirkpatrick.

  25 Strachey Papers, OIOC F127/478a, ‘Sketch of the Kirkpatrick Family by Lady Richard Strachey’.

  26 Ibid. The file contains an undated letter from France from Clementina Robinson, a granddaughter of William Kirkpatrick (the daughter of Clementina Louis, m. May 1841 Sir Spencer Robinson), which fills in a lot of the gaps about William Kirkpatrick and Maria, of whom the girls had clearly completely lost track.

  27 Kennaway Papers, Devon Records Office, Exeter, B961M ADD/F2, William Kirkpatrick to Kennaway, 31 October 1788.

  28 Charles Ross (ed.), Correspondence of Charles, First Marquis Cornwallis (3 vols, London, 1859), Vol. 2, p.570.

  29 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/1, p.88, 3 March 1793, William Kirkpatrick ‘to my dearest Maria’.

  30 Ibid., p.92, 4 November 1793, William Kirkpatrick to Maria Kirkpatrick.

  31 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/52, p.42, Ellore, 10 May 1792. The letter to the Madras Courier is unsigned but is in James Kirkpatrick’s handwriting and is clearly autobiographical.

  32 Ibid., p.10, James Kirkpatrick to the Handsome Colonel, Camp before Seringapatam, 1 March 1792.

  33 Ibid., p.1, James Kirkpatrick to the Handsome Colonel, Camp near Colar, 26 December 1792.

  34 William Kirkpatrick, introduction to Select Letters of Tippoo Sultaun (London, 1811).

  35 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/52, p.42, Ellore, 10 May 1792. See n34, above.

  36 Ibid., p.15, James Kirkpatrick to the Handsome Colonel, Camp near Doscottah (?), 1 May 1792.

  37 Ibid., p.1, James Kirkpatrick to the Handsome Colonel, Camp near Colar, completed January 1792.

  38 Kennaway Papers, Devon Records Office, Exeter, B961M ADD/F2, James Kirkpatrick to Kennaway, 11 August 1793.

  39 OIOC, Kirkpatrick Papers, F228/1, p.95, 14 November 1793, William Kirkpatrick to Cornwallis.