The British East India Company was an English and later (from 1707) British joint-stock company and megacorporation formed for pursuing trade with the East Indies but which ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent.
The East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpetre, tea and opium. The Company was granted a Royal Charter in 1600, making it the oldest among several similarly formed European East India Companies. Shares of the company were owned by wealthy merchants and aristocrats. The government owned no shares and had only indirect control. The Company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its own private armies, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions. Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey and lasted until 1858 when, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act led to the British Crown assuming direct control of India in the new British Raj.
The East India Company has had a long lasting impact on the Indian Subcontinent. Although dissolved following the rebellion of 1857, it stimulated the growth of the British Empire. Its armies after 1857 were to become the armies of British India and it played a key role in introducing English as an official language in India. It was the first company to record the Chinese usage of orange-flavoured tea in which it led to the development of Earl Grey tea. It also introduced a system of merit-based appointments that provided a model for the British and Indian civil service.
Goa Stone and Gold Case Object Name: Goa stone and container Date: late 17th–early 18th century Geography: India, Goa Culture: Islamic Medium: Container: gold; pierced, repoussé, with cast legs and finials Goa stone: compound of organic and inorganic materials
Goa stones, named for the place where they were manufactured by Jesuits in the late seventeenth century, were manmade versions of bezoars (gallstones from ruminants). Both types were used for their medicinal and talismanic powers. These treasured objects were encased in elaborate containers made of gold and silver and often exported to Europe. Surviving examples are recorded in European treasuries, including one made for the duke of Alba in the late sixteenth century (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna). The stone was usually a compound of organic and inorganic materials, including bezoar, shell, amber, musk, resin, and crushed precious gems, which would be scraped and ingested with tea or water. The egg-shaped gold container enclosing this stone consists of hemispherical halves, each covered with a layer of pierced, chased, and chiseled gold foliate openwork. An arabesque surface pattern is overlaid with an ogival trellis containing a variety of beasts, some highly Europeanized, including unicorns and griffins. The source of these images is likely to have come to Goa through the Portuguese and may also reflect a particular European patron. (This example was brought to England in the eighteenth century by a British officer in the East India Company.)
Survey the empire of India; calculate the millions of acres, the billions with which it is peopled, and then pause while you ask yourself the question—how is it that a company of merchants claim it as their own? By what means did it come into their possession?
— Frederick Marryat, Newton Forster
‘The diamond eaters, horrid monsters!’: 1788 satirical print depicting British colonial administrator Warren Hastings feeding ‘Indian plunder’ to Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain Edward Thurlow, Queen Charlotte, and King George III.
I’ve held off on posting this to Reading Captain Marryat because I wanted to add some commentary on my main blog.
It’s an extraordinary passage from Marryat—part of a long tirade of harsh criticism directed at the East India Company and seemingly, at British colonialism in general. He even opens the chapter with a quote from the poet Thomas Campbell that begins:
Rich in the gems of India’s gaudy zone,
And plunder piled from kingdoms not their own,
Degenerate trade! thy minions could despise
Thy heart-born anguish of a thousand cries
All this and still, the Hero of the book, Mr. Newton Forster himself, is someone who becomes a captain of an East India Company ship. It’s not played as ironic or tragic, or even a good person becoming a cog in an evil machine because of the society that produced him. It’s strictly a triumph for Newton, and a great career for a man of humble origins. He gets the ship, he gets the girl, and Marryat lampshades the whole thing: “Such is the history of Newton Forster, which, like most novels or plays, has been been wound up with marriage.”
There’s a lot going on in Newton Forster (with Marryat’s often snarky intrusions in the narrative being highlights), but it’s also a reminder that there’s a book about Marryat’s works called Puzzled which to Choose: Conflicting Socio-political Views in the Works of Captain Frederick Marryat. Marryat seems to contradict himself often.
There is something fundamentally conservative about the Captain in the way he often points out injustice and inequality, but then backs off with a kind of, “oh well, that’s just the way things are!” *shrug emoji* It’s puzzling and sometimes infuriating.
