The English East India Company In India

In 1599, a group of merchants known as the Merchant Adventurers organised an English association or company to trade with the East. Queen Elizabeth granted the company a Royal Charter and the exclusive right to trade in the East on December 31, 1600, and it became known as the East India Company. It was linked to the monarchy from the start, as one of the company's shareholders was Queen Elizabeth (1558-1603). The English East India Company's first voyage took place in 1601 when its ships sailed to Indonesia's Spice Islands. It decided to open a factory, which was the name given to a trading depot at the time, in Surat on the west coast of India in 1608, and sent Captain Hawkins to Jahangir's Court to obtain Royal favours.

 

•    Hawkins was initially welcomed with open arms. He was given a jagir and a mansab of 400 rupees. As a result of Portuguese intrigue, he was later expelled from Agra. This convinced the English that if they wanted any concessions from the Imperial Government, they needed to overcome Portuguese influence at the Mughal Court.

 

•    In 1612 and 1614, they defeated a Portuguese naval squadron at Swally near Surat. Because of these victories, the Mughals hoped to use the English to counter the Portuguese at sea, despite their naval weakness. 

 

•    Furthermore, competition among their foreign buyers would undoubtedly benefit Indian merchants. As a result, a Royal Farman granted the English Company permission to open factories in a number of locations along the West Coast.

 

•    This concession was not enough for the English. Sir Thomas Roe, their ambassador, arrived at the Mughal Court in 1615. They also used India's naval weakness to harass Indian traders and shipping to the Red Sea and Mecca, putting pressure on the Mughal authorities. 

 

•    Roe was able to persuade an Imperial Farman to trade and establish factories throughout the Mughal Empire by combining entreaties and threats. The Portuguese were enraged by Roe's success, and a fierce naval battle broke out between the two countries in 1620. It was won by the English.

 

•    In 1630, hostilities between the two countries came to an end. In 1662, the Portuguese gave King Charles II of England the island of Bombay as a dowry for marrying a Portuguese princess. Except for Goa, Diu, and Daman, the Portuguese lost all of their possessions in India. 

 

•    The Marathas captured Salsette and Bassein in 1739, benefiting the Dutch, English, and Marathas.

 

•    The English Company and the Dutch Company had a disagreement over the division of the spice trade in the Indonesian Islands. Finally, the Dutch nearly drove the English out of the Spice Islands trade, forcing them to focus on India, where the situation was more favourable.

 

•    The intermittent war in India between the two powers, which began in 1654, ended in 1667, when the English relinquished all claims to Indonesia and the Dutch agreed to leave the English settlements in India alone. 

 

•    The English, on the other hand, persisted in their efforts to drive the Dutch out of the Indian trade, and by 1795, they had driven the Dutch out of their last possession in India.

 

•    In India, the English East Company had humble beginnings. Until 1687, Surat was the centre of its trade. During this time, the English continued to petition the Mughal authorities. The company had factories in Surat, Broach, Ahmedabad, Agra, and Masulipatam by 1623. 

 

•    The English trading company attempted to combine trade and diplomacy with war and control of the territory where their factories were located from the beginning.

 

•    In fact, Roe had already given the English authorities advice that would set the tone for future British-Indian relations. “Assure you,” he wrote, “I know how to treat these people with the sword in one hand and the Caducean (a messenger's rod) in the other.”

 

•    The Company's authorities in Surat attempted to fortify their factory in 1625, but the English factory's chiefs were immediately imprisoned and put in irons by the local authorities of the Mughal Empire, which was still active at the time. In retaliation for the Company's English rivals' piratical attacks on Mughal shipping, the Mughal authorities imprisoned the Company's President at Surat and members of his Council, and only released them after a payment of £ 18,000 was made.

 

•    The English had it easier in the South because they didn't have to contend with a strong Indian government. It was easy to appeal to their greed or overawe them with armed strength after the great Vijayanagar Kingdom was overthrown in 1565 and its place taken by a number of petty and weak states.

 

•    In 1611, the English established their first factory in the South, at Masulipatam. However, they quickly relocated their operations to Madras, which they were granted a lease on by the local Raja in 1639. 

 

•    Madras was then a six-mile-long, one-mile-wide strip of coastal territory. The Raja gave them permission to fortify the location, administer it, and coin money in exchange for half of the port's customs revenue. Around their factory, the English built Fort St. George, a small fort.

 

 

•    By the end of the 17th century, the English Company had declared full sovereignty over Madras and was prepared to defend its claim. Surprisingly, this Company of profit-seeking merchants was also determined from the start to make Indians pay for the conquest of their own land.

 

•    The East India Company purchased the island of Bombay from Portugal in 1668 and immediately fortified it. For this reason, the English found a large and easily defended port in Bombay, and because English trade was threatened at the time by the rising Maratha power, Bombay quickly displaced Surat as the Company's West Coast headquarters.

 

•    In 1633, the English Company established its first factories in Orissa, in Eastern India. It was granted permission to trade at Hugli in Bengal in 1651. It quickly established factories in Patna, Balasore, and other Bengal and Bihar cities.

 

•    It was now desired that an independent settlement be established in Bengal as well. Furthermore, the English abandoned their role as humble petitioners due to their easy success in trade and establishing independent and fortified settlements at Madras and Bombay, as well as Aurangzeb's preoccupation with anti-Maratha campaigns. 

 

•    They now aspired to gain political power in India, allowing them to compel the Mughals to give them a free hand in trade, force Indians to sell cheap and buy expensively, keep rival European traders out, and make their trade independent of Indian policies. Such plans were explicitly put forward at the time, and political power would allow them to appropriate Indian revenues and thus conquer the country with its own resources.

 

•    Gerald Aungier, the Governor of Bombay, wrote to the Company's Directors in London, saying, “The time now requires you to manage your general commerce with the sword in your hands”The Directors advised the Governor of Madras in 1687 to establish such a policy of civil and military power, as well as to create and secure such a large revenue to maintain both, as could be the foundation of a large, well-grounded, secure English dominion in India for all time.

 

•    After the English sacked Hugli and declared war on the Emperor in 1686, hostilities between the English and the Mughal Emperor erupted. 

 

•    The English, on the other hand, had misread the situation and underestimated Mughal strength. Even now, the Mughal Empire under Aurangzeb was more than a match for the East India Company's petty forces. For them, the war was a disaster. 

 

•    They were forced to flee their factories in Bengal and seek refuge on a fever-stricken island at the Ganga's mouth. Their Surat, Masulipatam, and Vizagapatanam factories were seized, and their Bombay fort was besieged. After realising they weren't strong enough to fight the Mughals, the English returned to being humble petitioners, requesting that "the heinous crimes they have committed be pardoned." 

 

•    They expressed their willingness to trade with the Indian rulers if they were protected. They had obviously learned their lesson. To get trading concessions from the Mughal Emperor, they relied on flattery and humble entreaties once more.

 

•    The Mughal authorities were quick to forgive the English folly, recognising that they had no way of knowing that these harmless-looking foreign traders would one day pose a serious threat to the country; instead, they recognised that the Company's foreign trade benefited Indian artisans and merchants, thereby enriching the State's treasury.

 

•    Furthermore, despite their land weakness, the English were capable of completely destroying Indian trade and shipping to Iran, West Asia, Northern and Eastern Africa, and East Asia due to their naval superiority. As a result, Aurangzeb allowed them to resume trading in exchange for a compensation payment of Rs. 150,000. In exchange for Rs. 3,000 per year, the Company was granted exemption from paying customs duties in Bengal in 1691. The Company bought the zamindari of the three villages of Sutanati, Kalikata, and Govindpur in 1698, and built Fort William around it.

 

•    Boon became a city known as Calcutta as a result of the growth of the villages. In 1717, the Company obtained a farman from Emperor Farrukh Siyar, confirming and extending the privileges granted in 1691 to Gujarat and the Deccan. However, strong Nawabs such as Murshid Quli Khan and Alivardi Khan ruled Bengal in the first half of the 18th century. 

 

•    They kept a tight grip on the English traders and made sure they didn't abuse their privileges. They also didn't let them strengthen Calcutta's fortifications or rule the city on their own. The East India Company was merely a zamindar of the Nawab here.

 

•    Despite the Company's political ambitions being frustrated, its commercial affairs flourished like never before. It increased its imports from India to England from £ 500,000 in 1708 to £ 1,795,000 in 1740. 

 

•    Despite the fact that the English government prohibited the use of Indian cotton and silk textiles in England in order to protect the English textile industry and prevent the export of silver from England to India, this increase was recorded. 

 

•    As a result, at a time when the English were advocating for free trade in India, they were restricting trade in their own country and denying access to Indian manufactured goods.

 

•    British settlements in Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta grew into thriving metropolises. These cities attracted a large number of Indian merchants and bankers. This was due in part to the new commercial opportunities available in these cities, and in part to the unrest and insecurity outside of them as a result of the Mughal Empire's disintegration.

 

•    Madras' population had grown to 300,000 by the middle of the 18th century, while Calcutta's had grown to 200,000 and Bombay's had grown to 70,000. It's also worth noting that these three cities had fortified English settlements and direct access to the sea, where English naval power was still far superior to that of the Indians. 

 

•    In the event of a conflict with any Indian authority, the English could always flee to the sea from these cities. When the time came for them to take advantage of the country's political unrest, they could use these strategic cities as launching pads for their conquest of India.