he Politics of Empire at the

Accession of George III

  H E L E W I S WA L P O L E S E R I E S
IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY
C U LT U R E A N D H I S T O R Y

The Lewis Walpole Series, published by Yale University

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 The Politics
of Empire at the
Accession of
George III
t h e e a s t i n d i a co m pa n y a n d
t h e c r i s i s a n d t r a n s f o r m at i o n o f
b r i t a i n ’ s i m p e r i a l s t at e

James M. Vaughn

New Haven & London

 Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund.

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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To the memory of Gregory Carpenter-Vaughn
This page intentionally left blank
 Contents

Acknowledgments, ix
Author’s Note, xii

Introduction, 1

Part One THE FIRST BRITISH EMPIRE AND ITS CRISIS

1 The First British Empire, the Whig Supremacy,
and the East India Company, 19
2 Bourgeois Radicalism and the “Empire of Liberty”
in the Age of Pitt, 50
3 The Plassey Revolution in Bengal and the Company’s
Civil War in Britain, 88

Part Two THE MAKING OF THE SECOND BRITISH EMPIRE

4 Clive’s Conquest of East India House and the
Company’s Conquest of Bengal, 131
5 The New Toryism and the Imperial Reaction at the
Accession of George III, 165
viii contents

6 The Triumph of the New Toryism and the Spirit of the

Second British Empire, 201

Epilogue, 232

Notes, 249
Index, 295
 Acknowledgments

This book owes most of its ideas and inspiration to innumerable discus-
sions and debates with advisors, colleagues, friends, and students over the past
decade. Any interesting conclusions and stimulating arguments it contains
are likely the result of the good company I’ve kept over the years; the rest is
no one’s fault but my own. I would like to take this opportunity to thank
many of the people who have discussed this book’s ideas and chapter drafts
with me.
This work began life as a doctoral dissertation at the University of Chi-
cago, where brilliant advisors and fellow students taught me most of what I
know about British and imperial history. I owe an intellectual debt too large
to ever repay to my supervisor, Steve Pincus, who taught me to ask big ques-
tions and to answer them as boldly and clearly as possible. Having spent the
past few years teaching and advising graduate students, I look back in awe at
the amount of time Steve devoted to discussing my ideas and arguments,
however silly and half-baked they were. In addition to serving on my disserta-
tion committee and providing invaluable commentary on every chapter,
Ralph Austen pressed me to think beyond “little England” and to place my
historical work in a global context. I’m grateful that Ralph remains a mentor
to this day. I was fortunate to take a seminar on Jacobitism with a visiting
professor, Alan MacInnes. Alan provided crucial advice and suggestions at
every stage of this project, suffering my Whiggish inclinations with good

ix
x acknowledgments

humor along the way. Bob Brenner kindly agreed to serve as an external re-
viewer for my dissertation. He rose above our sectarian disagreements to pro-
vide invaluable advice for sharpening my arguments.
The wider community of faculty and graduate students at Chicago
helped shape this book’s ideas in seminars, workshops, and less formal set-
tings. Foremost among them were Brent Sirota, Pablo Ben, Adrian Johns,
Abigail Swingen, Chris Dudley, Heather Welland, Fredrik Albritton Jonsson,
David Lyons, Lyman Stebbins, Spencer Leonard, Chris Cutrone, Sunit Singh,
Atiya Khan, and Andrew Sartori. I especially wish to thank Brent Sirota and
Pablo Ben. I have spent an inordinate amount of time with Brent discussing
and debating British history. All of my thinking about the field bears the
stamp of his ideas. Since my first day of graduate school, Pablo has pressed me
to be a more intellectually capacious and conceptually rigorous historian. I
was never able to adequately answer many of the questions he posed about
my book manuscript, but I believe my attempts to do so have much improved
the work.
I spent a year in residence at the University of London’s Institute for His-
torical Research while working on my dissertation. In addition to providing
research assistance and weekly seminars, the Institute introduced me to Peter
Marshall, who spent many hours discussing ideas and guiding me through
the vast holdings of the Oriental and India Office Collections at the British
Library. Although Peter will disagree with some of this book’s conclusions,
they would never have been reached without his patient support and helpful
suggestions over the years.
I could not have asked for a better beginning to my career than teaching
and working in the history department at the University of Texas at Austin.
My countless discussions with undergraduate and graduate students prompted
me to rethink my assumptions about British, European, and imperial history.
My colleagues Brian Levack and Mark Metzler read several different versions
of this manuscript and provided expert criticisms and suggestions for improv-
ing it. I benefited time and again from the vital feedback and support pro-
vided by Al Martinez, Judy Coffin, Erika Bsumek, Bob Olwell, Tracie
Matysik, George Forgie, Philippa Levine, Roger Louis, and Jorge Cañizares-
Esguerra. During my first years in Austin, I was fortunate to have Tony Hop-
kins as a colleague. Tony let me bounce my ideas around his office; many of
those ideas originated in his own work on the history of British imperialism.
This book owes much to his good cheer and great advice, as well as his put-
ting a bit of stick about when the situation called for it.
 acknowledgments xi

The book manuscript was made possible by financial support from the
Institute for Historical Studies and the College of Liberal Arts at the Univer-
sity of Texas at Austin. It never would have been completed without a re-
search fellowship at Yale University’s MacMillan Center for International and
Area Studies during the 2011–2012 academic year. While I was at Yale, Steve
Pincus introduced me to a remarkable community of faculty, graduate stu-
dents, and local residents who discussed issues and ideas with me and read
chapter drafts. I would like to thank Keith Wrightson, Megan Lindsay Cherry,
James Caudle, Steve Alderman, Haydon Cherry, and Mara Caden for provid-
ing me with an intellectual home away from home during my time in
New Haven.
I received helpful comments and criticisms after presenting sections of
this book at conferences, workshops, and invited lectures over the years.
These include the North American Conference on British Studies, the South-
ern Conference on British Studies, the Mellon Consortium Conference on
British History, the Faculty Seminar in British Studies at the University of
Texas at Austin, the Economies of Empire Conference at the Huntington
Library, the Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies at
Northwestern University, Nuffield College at the University of Oxford, the
British Historical Studies Colloquium at Yale University, the Triangle Global
British History Seminar at the National Humanities Center, the Institute for
Historical Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, and the Early Modern
Empires Workshop at Yale University.
At Yale University Press, I would like to thank Jaya Chatterjee for her ex-
pert assistance and kindly support. She has patiently guided me through every
step of the process of completing and submitting my manuscript, despite my
constant delays and dithering. I’m grateful for her time and consideration.
Last but not least, I would like to thank my family. My parents, Joyce and
Ted Vaughn, have unfailingly supported me throughout every stage of put-
ting this book together. I hope they know how much their support has meant.
My sister and brother-in-law, Nicole and Matt Manasse, have encouraged me
at every step. My little niece Adeline kept me in good spirits as I completed
this book, allowing me to work on my laptop for brief interludes between
playing games. Finally, my dog Max provided a sounding board for my
(mostly bad) ideas on our long walks over the past three years—of course, the
fact that he can’t speak probably helped.
 Author’s Note

Wherever possible, quotations from primary sources follow the original

spellings and punctuation. For the sake of clarity, light editing has occasion-
ally been necessary. For further information on sources, please consult the
endnotes.

xii
he Politics of Empire at the
Accession of George III
This page intentionally left blank
 Introduction

It can be said with little exaggeration that the Second British Empire was
born in Allahabad, India on the twelfth of August, 1765. For it was on that
day, and within the confines of that city, that the Mughal Emperor Shah
Alam II granted the diwani—the right to collect revenue—for the provinces
of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa to the British East India Company (EIC). Robert
Clive, Baron of Plassey, accepted the Emperor’s grant on the Company’s be-
half and, in doing so, definitively established the commercial corporation as
a territorial empire on the Indian subcontinent. As the Mughal’s Diwan, or
financial administrator, the EIC commanded the land revenues of Bengal and
consolidated the political and military gains British forces had made in the
province since Clive’s famed victory over its ruler, the Nawab Siraj-ud-daula,
in 1757. This grant and subsequent treaties gave the Company control over
Bengal’s military and foreign affairs as well as all government appointments.
Although technically the new Nawab, Mir Jafar, remained responsible for the
province’s internal policing and external defense, in reality he controlled little
more from his court at Murshidabad than a token stipend and a ceremonial
guard. The diwani effectively transformed the EIC into a subcontinental state
devoted to the extraction of revenue from an indigenous peasantry and to the
maintenance of a large bureaucratic and military apparatus. The acquisition
of this grant was, as Edmund Burke averred, “the great act of the constitu-
tional entry of the Company into the body politic of India.”1 Years later, on

1
2 introduction

the floor of the British House of Commons, Clive proclaimed this act to be
the heroic deed by which the Company became “sovereigns of a rich, popu-
lous, fruitful country in extent beyond France and Spain united.” Under his
initiative, the EIC took “possession of the labour, industry, and manufactures
of twenty million subjects.”2 In a single stroke, the “heaven-born general”
sealed the Company’s transformation from a commercial corporation into a
South Asian state and laid the basis for a British imperium that eventually
spanned the entire subcontinent.3
The acquisition of the diwani and the consolidation of the EIC’s territorial
rule were the key constitutive acts in the origins of the Second British Empire.
Whereas Britain’s overseas expansion in the seventeenth and early eighteenth
centuries primarily consisted of Atlantic trade and plantation settlements in
North America and the West Indies, its imperial development from the later
eighteenth century entailed territorial conquest and direct political rule over
large populations in Africa and Asia. The First British Empire, centered on
commerce and the Atlantic, was replaced by the Second, more territorial and
Eastern in focus. The new imperialism was characterized by autocratic gov-
ernment, territorial conquest, and revenue extraction. The profoundly illib-
eral features of British expansion during the later eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries were not merely detours on an otherwise evolutionary
path of Whiggish progress; a path where the early modern “empire of the seas”
led directly to nineteenth-century liberal, free-trade imperialism. “The British
Empire from 1780 to 1830 (and in some areas beyond) represented not simply
a hiatus between the irresistible waves of liberal reform,” C. A. Bayly persua-
sively argues, “but a series of attempts to establish overseas despotisms which
mirrored in many ways the politics of neo-absolutism and the Holy Alliance
of contemporary Europe.”4 Thus, the new imperialism marked a profound
rupture with earlier forms of overseas expansion. What caused this rupture?
Two overarching processes—the loss of the thirteen North American col-
onies and the acquisition of an Indian empire—underpinned the transition
to a new imperial formation. The former reconfigured the British Atlantic
and dealt a severe blow to the long-standing maritime empire of trade and
colonial settlement, and the latter heralded a new form of European imperial-
ism. While commerce with the New World continued unabated after the War
of American Independence, and colonial settlement was extended to new re-
gions of the globe such as the Antipodes, the rise and consolidation of the
British Indian Empire marked a truly epoch-making transformation of the
European presence in Africa and Asia. The Second British Empire—which
 introduction 3

was raised very much as an extension of, and in order to secure, the Raj—was
a refutation of the long-standing British ideal of a maritime imperium of free
association and exchange. Under Britain’s avowedly despotic and military do-
minion, the socioeconomic and political landscape of India was dramatically
transformed.

What caused the crisis and fall of the First British Empire? How and why did
the Second British Empire come to replace it? Why did Britain’s Whig re-
gime—a regime that was the direct heir of the anti-absolutist and libertarian
political upheavals of the mid- to late seventeenth century—attempt to
strengthen the powers of the imperial executive in its Atlantic colonies and to
build an American standing army? Why did the most politically liberal and
commercially dynamic early modern European power establish an autocratic
and tributary garrison state in South Asia? Why did the EIC transform from
a commercial corporation into an imperial power?
Scholarship on the origins and early formation of the British Indian
Empire remains wedded to a framework that both downplays the metropoli-
tan context out of which British imperialism emerged and focuses too nar-
rowly on the dynamics generated by sub-imperialist forces on the ground in
South Asia. Due largely to the failure of earlier attempts to link British socio-
economic development to the emergence and consolidation of the Company
State on the subcontinent, British imperial historiography tends to concen-
trate exclusively on sub-imperialist dynamics at the expense of the wider pan-
imperial and metropolitan sociopolitical contexts that in part generated those
dynamics. Before addressing the sub-imperialist interpretation of the origins
and early formation of the EIC’s territorial empire, I will briefly analyze its
primary and largely vanquished historiographic antagonists: social-structural
interpretations that attempt to link the transformation of British overseas
expansion with the early phase of Britain’s Industrial Revolution.
Several scholarly interpretations view the origins of British imperialism in
Asia, and the origins of the Second British Empire more broadly, as a conse-
quence of metropolitan industrialization. Whether these accounts are of the
liberal variety offered by Vincent T. Harlow or based on the world-systems
theory explicated by Immanuel Wallerstein and his colleagues, they interpret
eighteenth-century imperialism as an aggressive search for markets—in which
to sell finished goods and to purchase raw materials—fueled by the expansion
of Britain’s manufacturing sector.5 From the vantage point of these interpreta-
tions, the origins of the EIC’s imperial dominion in South Asia lay in the
4 introduction

necessity for a political apparatus capable of securing markets both for Brit-
ain’s domestic production and for acquiring raw cotton and additional re-
sources vital to the growth of its textile industries.6
Such accounts are fundamentally inadequate as they fail to specify the
relationship between British industrialization and the Company’s territorial
empire, and, as P. J. Marshall has repeatedly and persuasively demonstrated,
there exists little evidence to support the notion that an economically ad-
vanced Britain conquered India in order to secure a market for the purchase
of raw materials and for the sale of its manufactures.7 Not only did the EIC
lack a direct connection to British industry, making it difficult to determine
how it could have played the role of an imperial transmission belt for the
forces associated with the Industrial Revolution, but the corporation was also
routinely challenged by domestic manufacturing interests that were threat-
ened by the import into Europe of finished cotton and silk piece-goods.8 The
Company came under attack from commercial lobbies and economic theo-
rists who viewed its monopoly as an obstacle to the full expansion of Britain’s
eastern trade. It was not until the early nineteenth century—over sixty years
after the EIC’s takeover of Bengal—that the province’s exports to Britain be-
gan to shift significantly from manufactured textiles to indigo, silk, and other
raw materials.9 British textile industries only began flooding the subconti-
nent’s markets in the 1820s; from the 1750s until the first decades of the nine-
teenth century, the Company did not export significant amounts of British
finished products to South Asia.10 In fact, the EIC’s most important commer-
cial concerns during the second half of the eighteenth century were the same
as those that dominated its operations in the later seventeenth century, long
before the corporation’s territorial conquests: the purchase and re-export of
Indian textiles throughout Europe and Asia. When raw materials were ex-
ported from Bengal, they did not go to supply British industry, but rather to
purchase commodities from Asian markets for the purposes of global re-
export. Long reviled by Britain’s weaving communities and manufacturers,
the EIC was not a vehicle for rising industrial forces but rather a “conserva-
tive” commercial organization that monopolized long-established trading
networks. These networks delivered highly prized commodities into world
markets and large profits into the corporation’s coffers.
Due to the inadequacies of this type of social-structural analysis, scholarship
on the transition to British imperial rule in South Asia remains wedded to an
interpretation of the EIC’s territorial transformation that views it solely as the
result of crises on the colonial periphery and the sub-imperialist pressures they
 introduction 5

engendered. According to this sub-imperialist interpretation, metropolitan po-

litical and social forces played no important role in the Company’s conquest of
Bengal. In his 1998 survey of the historiography on the origins of British India,
Marshall summarizes the consensus on the subject as follows: EIC imperialism
was neither “planned nor directed from Britain . . . Ignorance about Indian
conditions and slowness of communication meant that no effective control
could be exercised from home.”11 Neither the corporation’s management, who
directed its affairs from Leadenhall Street in London, nor the national govern-
ment was capable of shaping commercial and military activities taking place far
away in the midst of a South Asian world they poorly understood.
From the standpoint of the sub-imperialist interpretation, the emergence
and consolidation of the Company’s territorial empire were the result of crises
on the subcontinent and the responses of British “men on the spot” to them.
During the 1750s and 1760s, the dissolution of the Mughal Empire, the emer-
gence of post-Mughal successor kingdoms, and Anglo-French global warfare
created a volatile context in which British and EIC forces in South Asia be-
came entangled in indigenous political and military affairs. Within this con-
text, and in pursuit of their own private interests, or what they perceived as
the Company’s interest, a congeries of British actors on the subcontinent—
including private traders, EIC employees, and military adventurers—took
the initiative and founded a colonial state under the corporation’s auspices.12
“The role of the British in India was determined by men actually in India,”
Marshall notes with regard to the EIC’s imperial transformation, which was
“a classic case of what has been called ‘sub-imperialism,’ that is, of the domi-
nance of local interests over metropolitan ones.”13 The responses of “men on
the spot” to crises generated on the colonial periphery ineluctably and irre-
versibly drew the Company into military conquests and territorial annexa-
tions in South Asia.
Throughout much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, scholars
assumed that the EIC’s territorial imperialism was an inevitable by-product of
the decline and fall of the Mughal Empire in the eighteenth century.14 The
crisis of Mughal imperial power supposedly subjected the subcontinent to
growing political fragmentation and socioeconomic turmoil. In the midst of
this generalized anarchy, the Company transformed into a military and politi-
cal power in order to preserve its trade and property.15 However, recent histori-
ography makes the assumption of a wholly disruptive and destabilizing Mughal
decline untenable. Scholars of eighteenth-century India now emphasize the
emergence and consolidation of stable post-Mughal successor kingdoms that
6 introduction

filled the vacuum left by the imperial center during the eighteenth century.16
Even in the midst of warfare and imperial decline, successor kingdoms
provided a durable political framework for social and economic life on the
subcontinent.17 Rather than undermining the sub-imperialist account, this re-
interpretation of later Mughal India largely confirms it. Although the EIC’s
agents did not acquire power in the midst of anarchy and confusion, they did
become ensnared in the geopolitical rivalry of the successor kingdoms. The
necessity of forging alliances with the emerging post-Mughal powers against
the French East India Company, and the lucrative military and commercial
opportunities involved in doing so, drew the British EIC’s servants—and, by
extension, the corporation itself—into the tangled web of South Asian diplo-
macy and warfare. The British Company emerged on the other end of this
process as a sovereign power on the subcontinent. Some scholars, combining
this reinterpretation of eighteenth-century India with the sub-imperialist ac-
count of the EIC’s transformation, go so far as to argue that the emerging
Company State in Bengal was simply one of the post-Mughal successor king-
doms vying for power on the subcontinent, albeit the most successful one.18
Since the EIC’s territorial dominion in Bengal was built on the fiscal-military
and bureaucratic foundations laid by the nawabi regimes of the early to mid-
eighteenth century, the advent of British imperial rule did not mark an abrupt
departure in South Asian political development. Bayly argues that such views
constitute a wider “oriental approach” to the origins and early formation of
British India. The exponents of this approach are “keen to avoid the view that
British conquest marked an abrupt break between tradition and modernity or
between feudalism and capitalism in India” and “have implied that up to 1830
or beyond, the East India Company operated essentially as an Indian state writ
large.”19 On the basis of this approach, students of British imperial and South
Asian history argue that the EIC’s early empire was a product of later Mughal
statecraft and of practical adaptations to conditions on the ground in north-
eastern India.20
This “oriental approach” to the formation of the early Company State
provides support for the central conclusion of the sub-imperialist interpreta-
tion. Namely, that metropolitan political and social forces played no role in
the origins and early formation of British India. Viewing the EIC’s territorial
dominion as more or less “a white Mughal Empire,” this account denies that
any metropolitan political-economic objectives or ideological impulses
shaped the content and operations of the Company State in Bengal.21 As
such, it is easily reconcilable with the strongest versions of the sub-imperialist
 introduction 7

interpretation. Since no metropolitan forces shaped the origins and early for-
mation of the British Indian Empire, one need only examine the eighteenth-
century South Asian landscape in order to understand the political forms,
economic policies, and ideological trappings of the early colonial state.
The sub-imperialist interpretation, as well as the closely associated “orien-
tal approach” to the history of the early Company State, contains a great deal
of explanatory power with regard to the origins and early formation of British
India. The combination of geopolitical rivalry between post-Mughal successor
kingdoms and Anglo-French global warfare on an unprecedented scale gener-
ated the conditions in which the transformation of the British presence in
Bengal became imaginable and even desirable. As Marshall remarks, “the ques-
tion of why British territorial expansion in eighteenth-century India became
possible can hardly be answered except in terms of Anglo-French rivalry and
Mughal decline.”22 The risks posed to the EIC’s lucrative trade by French and
South Asian rivals forced it to prepare for war, and the British arms that flooded
Bengal and other regions of India during the 1750s and early 1760s were sent
to preserve the corporation’s commerce. The Company and Crown forces that
fought to defend the EIC’s position on the subcontinent were not the advance
guard of imperial conquest, but rather the best hope for maintaining Britain’s
commercial connections with South Asia. The steps taken by the EIC’s ser-
vants and soldiers toward political and military supremacy in India stemmed
from the unintended consequences of their victories, not from any foreor-
dained plan.23 In the events leading up to the Plassey Revolution of 1757, Brit-
ish forces aimed to preserve trade, not to extend the flag. When the initial
moves toward political dominion on the subcontinent were made, the Com-
pany servants and soldiers who took them were acting under the pressure of
circumstances, not in order to achieve long-established imperial ambitions.
While the sub-imperialist interpretation is perfectly capable of explaining
the initial impetus toward territorial imperialism on the Indian subcontinent,
it moves too quickly from the possibility of empire to its full realization, often
assuming precisely what needs to be explained. There is little doubt that the
Plassey Revolution was a mostly sub-imperialist affair in which not even the
principal British “men on the spot” were motivated by larger designs for politi-
cal dominion in India. However, Plassey and its consequences did not dictate
the imperial resolution ultimately achieved with Clive’s acquisition of the di-
wani in 1765. Furthermore, Clive was only able to take control of East India
House (the Company’s London headquarters), to return to Bengal with ex-
traordinary civilian and military powers, and to consolidate a territorial empire
8 introduction

because metropolitan ministers intervened decisively in the corporation’s

affairs. Any attempt to account for the EIC’s consolidation of a territorial em-
pire in Bengal, as well as the fundamental character of that empire, must reckon
with the years immediately preceding the acquisition of the diwani.
What is necessary is a historical interpretation capable of distinguishing
between the initial moves toward political and military aggrandizement in
India undertaken during the 1750s and the decisive consolidation of a territo-
rial empire in Bengal in the 1760s. In other words, an adequate approach to
the question of the origins and early formation of the British Indian Empire
must differentiate between the rise of British power on the subcontinent and
the consolidation of a British dominion in northeastern India. It is all too
often the case that historical interpretations move immediately from the year
1757 to 1765 and, in doing so, assume that the problems generated by Plassey
inevitably led to the acquisition of the diwani and to the consolidation of the
Company’s tributary imperial state.24
Such interpretations lose sight not only of important developments be-
tween the years 1757 and 1765, but also of the wider metropolitan and pan-
imperial contexts that shaped those developments. When news of the EIC’s
difficulties and victories flooded the metropole in the late 1750s and early
1760s, the Company immediately became the subject of discussion and debate
in the vibrant public sphere of mid-Hanoverian Britain. The coffeehouses and
pubs of London and the provincial cities became the sites of a rich debate
concerning the purposes and character of the British presence in India. The
spread of news and discussion about the Company’s travails throughout Brit-
ain should not surprise us. The EIC played a vital role not only in the business
world of the City of London, but also in the fiscal-military state, in the system
of public credit, and in the political establishment. The corporation was deeply
entangled in the government’s fiscal affairs; it was crucial for the stability and
prosperity of the post-1688 British state. Therefore, the Company’s potential
economic downfall or imperial aggrandizement deeply concerned political and
business circles in London and beyond. Countless politicians, merchants, in-
vestors, and opinion-makers attempted to reckon with the events engulfing
the EIC and its servants abroad. It was in their debates and discussions that the
possibility of empire—a possibility created by “men on the spot” in South
Asia—was explored and its eventual achievement was shaped.
The sub-imperialist interpretation of the EIC’s territorial transformation
does not address these metropolitan discussions, debates, and conflicts sur-
rounding the Company’s purposes in South Asia. It is able to ignore such
 introduction 9

matters only because the most significant historical accounts of the domestic
context surrounding the EIC’s conquest of Bengal conclude that sociopoliti-
cal conflict and principled ideological debate played no role in this transfor-
mation. In her magisterial The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century
Politics, Lucy Sutherland contends that the Company’s imperial metamor-
phosis raised no major ideological or political issues in the metropole and that
British ministers only reluctantly intervened in the internal affairs of East
India House when disaster loomed.25 When disagreements were expressed
with reference to fundamental principles, those principles served either as
cover for or as ex post facto justifications of actions motivated solely by im-
mediate material and power-political interests. Such interpretive positions are
upheld both implicitly and explicitly in more recent writings on metropolitan
politics and the East India Company during the later 1750s and 1760s.26
This account of the domestic context surrounding the EIC’s transforma-
tion—and, by extension, the sub-imperialist thesis itself—is deeply bound up
with a Namierite British and imperial historiography that downplays ideo-
logical conflict and reduces eighteenth-century politics to a matter of strug-
gles for patronage and place waged between factions of an insular governing
elite.27 The Namierite school of historical interpretation views the period
stemming from 1688 to 1789 as a largely placid era free of major political and
social conflict.28 Having felled royal absolutism with the help of a Dutch
army in 1688, aristocratic grandees assumed their place as the “natural rulers”
of the country. Ruling a mostly deferential population, the great Whig mag-
nates steadily managed Britain’s ascent to world hegemony—an ascent com-
plicated but not fundamentally undermined by the French Revolution and its
associated radicalism. British politics in this relatively stable period entailed
the jockeying of various elite factions—interest-based coalitions of aristo-
cratic magnates, country gentlemen, and social climbers—for governmental
place and financial advantage against a background of ideological consensus.
Westminster and Whitehall were arenas for enhancing wealth and social sta-
tus, not for political debate. “Men went [into Parliament] ‘to make a figure,’
and no more dreamt of a seat in the House in order to benefit humanity than
a child dreams of a birthday cake that others may eat it,” Lewis Namier fa-
mously averred. “The seat in the House was not their ultimate goal but a
means to ulterior aims.”29 While Tory and Whig party conflict may have
raged in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, by the accession
of King George III national politics was an ideologically consensual and rou-
tine affair.30
10 introduction

According to Namierite historiography, the mid-Hanoverian transforma-

tion of British overseas expansion and the emergence of the Second British
Empire were not shaped by metropolitan political and ideological conflict. As
there was no serious and sustained British politico-ideological debate over
domestic issues, there was little chance that imperial problems and challenges
provoked any principled disagreement or discussion. “To look for any signifi-
cant intellectual or ideological contribution to the ordering of empire in the
first two decades of George III’s reign would seem at first sight to be a barren
task,” Marshall observes with regard to major historical works on British over-
seas expansion in the 1760s and 1770s. “This is the period for which Namier’s
skepticism about the role of ideas in politics remains largely unchallenged, at
least for those sections of society which were likely to have shaped attitudes to
empire.”31 Indeed, for a range of historians including (but not limited to)
Namier, H. V. Bowen, John Brooke, Philip Lawson, Bruce Lenman, Martyn
Powell, and Peter D. G. Thomas, the transformation of British overseas ex-
pansion in this period, in terms of both the imperial reorganization of the
North American colonies and the EIC’s conquests in northeastern India, was
the result of unexpected fiscal-military burdens and territorial responsibilities
accumulated with victory over Bourbon France in the Seven Years’ War.32 An
insular ruling class divided into factions based on material and power-political
interests attempted to manage these unforeseen outcomes as best they could.
As such, differences of political principle and contesting ideologies played no
role in the emergence of a new form of British imperial expansion. Since “in
the end statesmen hardly ever act except under pressure of ‘circumstances,’ ”
Namier concluded that “the basic elements of the Imperial Problem . . . must
be sought not so much in conscious opinions and professed views bearing
directly on it, as in the very structure and life of the Empire”; an empire whose
structure underwent transformations and adjustments similar to those found
“in the revolutions of planets, in the migrations of birds, and in the plunging
of hordes of lemmings into the sea.”33 The ideals of actors mattered little in
the face of large-scale processes beyond their control.
Given the sway held by Namierism over eighteenth-century British histo-
riography, especially with regard to the mid-Hanoverian transformation of
overseas expansion, the explanatory power of the sub-imperialist interpreta-
tion of the origins of the EIC’s empire is indeed great. If Britain’s long-term
socioeconomic development—especially, the growth of those forces associ-
ated with the Industrial Revolution—did not dictate the shift to a new form
of imperial expansion in South Asia, and if no metropolitan ideological or
 introduction 11

political impulses informed the transformation of British activity beyond the

Cape of Good Hope, then its causes must be sought exclusively in the conflict
between post-Mughal successor kingdoms and the rivalry between British
and French trading companies. The sub-imperialists operating on the periph-
ery drove the process of imperial expansion; Britain’s political elite, ignorant
of Indian conditions and uncontaminated by political ideas, responded to the
initiatives of “men on the spot” pragmatically, self-interestedly, and often
foolishly. Britain’s statesmen and officials adapted to circumstances beyond
their control and even, one might say, their concern.
Taken together, the sub-imperialist and Namierite interpretations reaffirm
a historical consensus established in the late Victorian era: namely, that the
acquisition of an Indian empire and the foundation of the Second British Em-
pire took place behind the backs of the actors involved. Indeed, Bowen asserts
that the “transformation of the [Company’s] position and status was un-
planned, unforeseen, and extremely complex,” and that, by 1765, “the British
had become, rather to their surprise, the dominant military and political agents
in Bengal and the surrounding areas.”34 The imperial acquisitions confirmed
and extended by the diwani and other Mughal grants were received in the
metropole as a “fait accompli”; East India House, Westminster, and Whitehall
could only “apply a seal of approval to a political and administrative order” they
exercised little control over.35 In other words, the EIC’s directors and Britain’s
rulers walked half-consciously into political dominion on the Indian subconti-
nent. Historical scholarship thus remains in the shadow of the late-nineteenth-
century scholar J. R. Seeley, who famously asserted that “the acquisition of
India was made blindly . . . nothing great that has ever been done by English-
men was done so unintentionally, so accidentally, as the conquest of India.”36
While Seeley’s claims on behalf of the grandeur and nobility of the Second Brit-
ish Empire are not echoed in contemporary historiography, his account of its
origins and early formation certainly is. It is still possible to claim that British
India and the largest empire of the modern world were founded in “a fit of
absence of mind” (to use Seeley’s famous phrase).37
Both the sub-imperialist interpretation of the Company’s transformation
and the Namierite account of eighteenth-century British politics and the
mid-Hanoverian crisis of overseas expansion fundamentally contend that
there was no “politics of empire.” That is, they both view the period of the
origins and early formation of the Company State in Bengal as lacking serious
and sustained metropolitan debate over the nature and purposes of British
expansion in Asia. According to these accounts, the India Question in British
12 introduction

politics from the 1750s to the 1770s amounted to little more than a discussion
of the manner in which government ministers and EIC directors should man-
age the formation of a territorial empire in South Asia over which they exer-
cised little control. As such, metropolitan conflict and debate played no role
in the origins and consolidation of the British Indian Empire and left little
mark on its early development.

This study provides an alternative interpretation of the origins and early devel-
opment of British India and the Second British Empire—an interpretation
that does not seek to refute the sub-imperialist account so much as to tran-
scend it. By filling in the missing dimension in this account—that is, the
metropolitan “politics of empire” downplayed and dismissed by Namierite his-
toriography—this book fundamentally reconceives the process by which Brit-
ish actors on the ground in South Asia laid the basis for a territorial empire
that eventually spanned the subcontinent. The argument of this book is that
the Company’s imperial metamorphosis, and the origins of British India and
the Second Empire, were rooted in the political defeat of radical liberalism.
The transition to the Second Empire was a result of the victory won by metro-
politan conservative-reactionary forces over their radical political opponents.
The defeat of British radical forces during the third quarter of the eighteenth
century—forces that attempted to reform the post-1688 political settlement—
conditioned the shift from an empire centered around free association and
exchange to one largely based on conquest and dominion. The consolidation
of an autocratic and tributary territorial empire in South Asia was a direct ex-
pression of the victory won by a conservative-reactionary political project over
a robust and radical Whiggery that sought to liberalize and democratize the
polity, to open up trade to the free play of private interests, and to extend the
kingdom’s maritime “empire of liberty” to every corner of the globe. Part and
parcel of this conservative-reactionary project was a new form of coercive im-
perialism that emphasized revenue extraction on the colonial periphery and
the due subordination owed by subject peoples to metropolitan sovereign au-
thority. The new imperialism sought both to lock the Atlantic colonies into a
relationship of mercantilist dependency, which ultimately provoked the Amer-
ican Revolution, and to consolidate a tributary empire in India. This imperial
impulse subjected the political and economic development of the periphery to
the metropolitan objectives of paying down the national debt, reducing taxa-
tion, and maintaining a large-scale military establishment overseas. These ob-
jectives were in turn designed both to preserve the aristocratic-oligarchic
 introduction 13

character of the British state and to combat the perceived entropy of an ad-
vanced commercial society. Thus, contra the sub-imperialist and Namierite
interpretations, the origins and early formation of British India and the Sec-
ond Empire were fundamentally shaped by metropolitan dynamics.
This book paints a very different picture of the metropolitan political
context for the EIC’s imperial transformation from the one dominant in
contemporary scholarship. It contends that the origins of the Company’s ter-
ritorial empire were deeply bound up with the politics surrounding the mid-
eighteenth-century crisis and transformation of Britain’s imperial state. This
state emerged during the revolutionary upheavals in seventeenth-century
England and paved the way for Britain’s global ascent, but by the 1750s and
1760s, it faced a profound crisis. This crisis, and the political conflicts and
forces that shaped it, led to the transformation of the nature and purposes of
the imperial state, and is as important for understanding the origins and early
formation of British India as are the actions of “men on the spot.” The re-
mainder of this chapter provides an overview of this interpretation, tracing
the evolution of Britain’s imperial state and the EIC from the seventeenth
century through the origins of British India and the transition to the Second
Empire during the third quarter of the eighteenth century.
By the seventeenth century, England was not simply one of several Euro-
pean powers and empire-builders. The kingdom was home to one of the world’s
first full-fledged bourgeois societies and, along with the Dutch Republic, it
was at the epicenter of global networks of commodity production and ex-
change. In the midst of this modernizing society, Parliament and the Crown
were engaged in a struggle for mastery of the centralized state. During the
revolutionary upheaval of the Commonwealth and Protectorate period, Eng-
land’s expansion in Asia was radically transformed and the Company was fun-
damentally reorganized. With the restoration of the Stuart monarchy in 1660,
the EIC came to play an important role in King Charles II’s and King James II’s
efforts to create an autocratic and tributary empire that would free them from
financial dependence on Parliament. The Company was one instrument with
which the Stuart monarchy sought to consolidate an absolutist political econ-
omy that allowed it to rule above civil society instead of through it.
When the Whig revolutionaries of 1688 unraveled Stuart absolutism and
secured the supremacy of Parliament, they launched a direct assault on the
Company and its chartered privileges. The radicals among the revolutionary
alliance wanted to abolish the EIC, to open up the eastern trade to the free
play of private interests, and to fundamentally transform the character of
14 introduction

England’s commercial expansion in Asia. From the Glorious Revolution to

the early eighteenth century, these radicals sought to integrate the East India
trade into England’s maritime “empire of liberty.” The fundamental condi-
tion for this project was the Revolution of 1688–1689 and the political-
economic reforms that took place following the downfall of James II. The
broad anti-absolutist alliance that lay behind the Revolution ushered in a se-
ries of measures that wedded the English state to the supremacy of Parliament
and to continuing capitalist transformation. These reforms allowed the
(mostly landed) parliamentary political system to draw upon the tremendous
economic resources generated by England’s dynamic commercial and manu-
facturing society. These resources were used to create a fiscal-military state
that staved off the return of Stuart absolutism and confronted the threat
posed by Bourbon France. Crucial to these reforms was the abolition of char-
tered monopolies and exclusive privileges so as to allow for maximum capital
investment and private entrepreneurship in every line of English trade. It was
in this context that the efforts of the anti-Company radicals to expropriate the
EIC met with initial success. The anti-Company forces were able to under-
take the first steps in their project to open up England’s eastern trade to
private enterprise and colonial plantation settlement.
The Glorious Revolution and the large-scale warfare against Bourbon ab-
solutism that issued in its wake generated political and social instability as
well as heavy taxes on the land. From 1710 to 1714, the landed gentry that
dominated the House of Commons supported a Tory government that threat-
ened to unravel the Revolution Settlement. This social and political instabil-
ity, as well as the discontent among the gentry, ultimately led to the emergence
and consolidation of the Whig Supremacy. The aristocratic magnates and
London’s elite merchants consolidated a patronage apparatus and a system
of public credit that cemented parliamentary rule and that empowered the
state to protect and expand a global commercial and colonial empire without
provoking the discontent of the gentry. The Whig establishment imple-
mented fiscal measures that allowed it to avoid taxing the gentry by culling
resources from Britain’s expanding commercial and manufacturing sectors.
It was in the context of the emergence of the Whig oligarchic order—with
London’s elite merchants and bankers playing a leading role—that the anti-
EIC alliance’s efforts were ultimately undone. By the 1720s, the Company
was transformed from a bulwark of the absolutist monarchy into a pillar of
the Whig oligarchic order; its monopoly charter and exclusive privileges were
once again secure.
 introduction 15

The capitalist political economy consolidated by Britain’s landed mag-

nates and London’s elite merchants drove a process of ongoing economic
transformation that generated immense revenues for the state, transforming
the kingdom’s social landscape. While Britain’s ruling class was harvesting
fiscal resources from capitalist development, new commercial and manufac-
turing centers were emerging throughout the country. Capitalist transforma-
tion was generating a vibrant bourgeois public sphere and extra-parliamentary
political culture, and politics was taking on an increasingly mass character.
With the recurrence of geopolitical conflict in the 1740s, the Whig establish-
ment faced increasing fiscal strains as the national debt expanded and the tax
burden grew. The system of public credit and the greater fiscal-military state
were stretched to breaking point. These difficulties were compounded by the
growth of domestic radicalism in the 1750s and 1760s. Radical Whiggery
flourished among the middling sort and in Britain’s urban centers. The radi-
cal Whigs sought to transform Britain’s domestic and imperial institutions so
as to make them more adequate for the kingdom’s dynamic commercial and
manufacturing society. They wanted to extend Britain’s maritime “empire of
liberty” to the furthest reaches of the globe and to reform the parliamentary
political system.
Radical Whiggery was not opposed to the bourgeois society and capitalist
political economy consolidated in 1688 but rather was committed to deepen-
ing and strengthening them. From the perspective of the radicals, the post-
1688 political order was no longer adequate to the society it gave rise to. The
capitalist social transformation secured and advanced by Britain’s ruling class
in 1688 gave rise to a form of politics critical of that very class. The bourgeois
society that the ruling class fostered and protected gave rise to a form of poli-
tics that sought to liberalize and democratize the established order. Contra
Whig historiography, the central political conflict of the late 1750s and 1760s
was not a contest between the influence of the Crown and the liberties of
Parliament but rather a struggle over the character of the parliamentary settle-
ment achieved in 1688. Was 1688 the end of Britain’s political evolution or was
it a revolutionary prelude to the kingdom’s ever-increasing liberalization and
democratization? Did “British liberty” simply entail the preservation of the
unreformed parliamentary political order achieved in 1688 or did it mean
something more expansive? Was the Revolution Settlement the beginning or
the end of the processes of liberalization and democratization in Britain?
The conservative-reactionary political project that emerged in the 1760s
did not seek to restore royal absolutism but rather to preserve the post-1688
16 introduction

political order in the face of more democratic challenges and demands. How-
ever, given the crisis of the fiscal-military state, the growth of social discon-
tent, and the emergence of radical Whiggery, the conservative-reactionary
forces could not simply maintain the political status quo. They were forced to
reconsolidate the oligarchic order on the basis of new measures and policies
designed to deal with the crisis of the mid-eighteenth century. Part and parcel
of this effort to defend the oligarchic order was the systematic transformation
of the British Empire. The conservative-reactionary forces sought to auto-
cratically centralize and militarize Britain’s Atlantic empire and to consolidate
the East India Company’s political dominion in Bengal in order to resolve the
crisis of postwar finance and to fend off the challenge posed by political radi-
calism. In doing so, they brought an end to the maritime “empire of liberty”
and erected overseas despotisms that served their social-imperialist interests.
Although these measures failed to meet with the success hoped for by advo-
cates of the conservative-reactionary project, they nevertheless transformed
the character of the British Empire.
The consolidation of the EIC’s territorial dominion in northeastern India
was fundamentally bound up with the emergence and development of the
conservative-reactionary political project and its support for an autocratic and
extractive imperialism. The Company State in Bengal was not born in “a fit of
absence of mind” but rather in the midst of wide-ranging metropolitan crises
and conflicts. The formation of the British Indian Empire was not an accident
but a symptom. It was the expression of fundamental reorientations in British
political life and in the relations between the kingdom and the wider world.
Throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Britain’s political
classes were at the forefront of the struggle against royal absolutism and the
spread of “arbitrary power.” During the 1760s and 1770s, this was no longer
the case. British politics was entering a profoundly conservative phase and the
country’s ruling class was in the vanguard of the European-wide effort to sup-
press radicalism and republicanism. This political transformation found its
most powerful and lasting expressions in the origins and early development of
British India and in the transition from the First to the Second British Empire.
 part one

he First British Empire

and Its Crisis
This page intentionally left blank
 chapter 1

he First British Empire, the Whig

Supremacy, and the East India Company

By the seventeenth century, England’s long-term agrarian capitalist devel-

opment had separated the direct producers from their means of production
and subsistence, thus shifting a significant portion of the population away
from primary employment in agriculture.1 As the century drew to a close,
England’s level of regional economic specialization and the size of its com-
mercial, manufacturing, and overseas trading sectors were unequaled any-
where else in Europe with the exception of the Netherlands.2 Bourgeois
society was rapidly developing in Stuart England, with the production and
exchange of commodities playing fundamental roles in daily life.
While the mid-century civil wars and English Revolution were ignited by
traditional constitutional and religious disputes, during the Commonwealth
(1649–1653) there was a self-conscious effort by ascendant merchant forces
and republican leaders to transform the political economy of England’s impe-
rial expansion. Although Thomas Scot and other republicans played an im-
portant role in these developments, the architects of the Commonwealth’s
new imperial political economy were, as Robert Brenner argues, principally
drawn from the worlds of unregulated Atlantic trading and East Indian inter-
loping.3 In alliance with elements of the landed elite and middling social strata
in London, these new merchant groupings helped to shift England’s central-
ized territorial state away from an essentially extractive relationship with over-
seas commercial and colonial expansion—whereby the state attempted to

19
20 the first british empire and its crisis

“arbitrarily” raise revenues from such expansion—toward a new relationship

in which the state was fully committed to providing the public infrastructure
and military protection necessary for the unlimited flow of English trade,
shipping, and investment across the globe.
This revolutionary shift in imperial political economy represented a dra-
matic departure from previous state policy. From the sixteenth-century be-
ginnings of English overseas expansion to the reign of King Charles I,
long-distance trade and colonial plantation settlement received limited back-
ing from the Crown.4 England’s colonies and trade beyond Europe were not
the products of coherent and concerted state policy but rather of the exploits
of merchants and adventurers. When the royal state did intervene in the over-
seas commercial and colonial arena, it did so largely through fiscal imposi-
tions and by granting monopoly charters to Court-connected merchants as
well as other key allies and backers. As the Crown’s differences with the ma-
jority of the landed elite over religious, fiscal, and foreign policy grew during
the 1610s and 1620s, its relations with Parliament worsened. Consequently,
the Stuart monarchy sought to improve its finances through taxes that did
not require parliamentary consent.5 Indeed, King James I significantly in-
creased the monarchy’s extra-parliamentary revenue stream by wielding his
prerogative powers to lay customs taxes on overseas trade.6 As matters wors-
ened over the course of the 1620s, especially with the onset of Charles I’s
Personal Rule in 1629, the Crown systematically raised revenue from extra-
parliamentary sources, which included ship money, forced loans, and the
grants provided by projectors and merchants who were the beneficiaries of
monopoly and corporate privileges.7 Thus, the evolution of state policy con-
cerning overseas commercial and colonial expansion between the accession of
Queen Elizabeth I in 1558 and the outbreak of the civil wars in 1642 largely
entailed a shift from the occasional extraction of revenue via the royal pre-
rogative toward the systematic extraction of revenue. As late as Charles I’s
reign, the English state deployed its power not to further the kingdom’s impe-
rial expansion, but rather to extract revenue from overseas colonial and com-
mercial endeavors in order to serve the Crown’s short-term interests.
The relationship between the coercive capacities of the state and overseas
expansion underwent a dramatic transformation in the late 1640s and early
1650s.8 During the first four decades of the seventeenth century, conflicts be-
tween the parliamentary landed classes and the Stuart monarchy over foreign
policy, taxation, the religious settlement, and war finance increased in frequency
and ferocity. These conflicts ultimately led to a shift in the political landscape
 whig supremacy and the company 21

away from a King-in-Parliament ideological consensus toward opposing theories

of royal absolutism and parliamentary monarchy (with the latter eventually be-
ing supplanted by notions of parliamentary and popular sovereignty).9 When
swords were drawn during the civil wars of the 1640s, the anti-absolutist forces
backing Parliament were required to raise resources and manpower from beyond
the confines of the traditional political nation and the country’s established insti-
tutions. New forms of ideological, financial, and military mobilization brought
new social groups and economic interests to the fore of political decision-making,
armed struggle, and state-building, particularly in London where overseas mer-
chants, religious Independents, shopkeepers, artisans, and craftsmen developed
powerful political movements and revolutionized municipal, religious, and mili-
tary institutions.10 By the time Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army achieved
victory in the civil wars in 1648, the politics of anti-absolutism had shifted away
from the ideal of a balanced polity toward the assertion of Parliament’s suprem-
acy over the Crown. After the Army’s purging of moderate and conservative
parliamentary forces in December 1648, the trial and execution of Charles I in
January 1649, the Rump Parliament’s legislation abolishing the monarchy and
the House of Lords, and the declaration of the Commonwealth, England was a
republic for a brief but dramatic period.
It was during the Commonwealth that England’s imperial political econ-
omy underwent a remarkable transformation. The republican regime consist-
ing of the Rump Parliament, the Council of State, and the New Model Army
was still dominated by the landed classes, but it was nevertheless a radical
political experiment that departed from traditional royal and aristocratic—
and, more broadly, agrarian—forms of governance. Nowhere was this more
manifest than in the reorientation of the English state toward overseas com-
mercial and colonial development.11 With the establishment of the Common-
wealth regime in 1649, as Brenner demonstrates, the links that had been built
between the increasingly radical parliamentary forces, the Army, and popular
political forces in London during the 1640s brought the city’s republican lead-
ers—above all, the religious Independents and the new overseas merchant
groupings, largely based on the Atlantic—into positions of direct and indirect
political power.12 After the Army dealt the deathblow not only to royal abso-
lutism but also to the democratic radicalism of the Levellers and assorted
movements from below, the new merchant leaders were given an opportunity
to transform their commercial and imperial aspirations, forged in the largely
competitive and entrepreneurial world of England’s Atlantic trade and colo-
nization, into state policy.13
22 the first british empire and its crisis

The Commonwealth regime, under the guidance and organization of lead-

ing Atlantic and East India–interloping merchants such as Maurice Thomson,
fundamentally transformed England’s imperial expansion. With the decisions
to support Robert Blake’s naval expeditions, to foster a naval-industrial com-
plex, and to pass the Convoy Act, the new regime signaled its commitment to
building and financing a standing navy capable of projecting maritime power
and protecting every line of English trade and colonial development.14 Naval-
driven imperial expansion “rose to a position of primacy in England in the
wake of the English Civil War,” Daniel Baugh contends, “signaled by the
Rump Parliament’s enactment of the Navigation Ordinances of 1650 and 1651
and the outbreak of the First Dutch War in 1652. Its motto may be found in
the Preamble to Articles of War issued in that year: ‘It is upon the navy under
the Province of God that the safety, honour, and welfare of this realm do
chiefly attend.’ ”15 The Act of Trade of 1650, the military expeditions to the
Caribbean and Virginia, the Navigation Act of 1651, and the launch of the First
Anglo-Dutch War combined to effect a radical transformation of the state’s
role in English overseas expansion.16 The Navigation Act, designed to chal-
lenge Dutch dominance in the Atlantic carrying trade and to foster England’s
shipbuilding and naval industries, established an imperial system that pro-
vided a national monopoly for English merchants over the kingdom’s New
World trade and plantations, while subjecting those very same merchants to
free-trade conditions (within the national monopoly) that encouraged compe-
tition, entrepreneurship, and innovation.17
Rather than following Charles I’s model of deploying the coercive capaci-
ties of the state to extract revenue from ongoing commercial and colonial
development, the Commonwealth regime wielded state power to provide a
national protective framework for all English merchants and to force open the
markets and sea lanes of the world. Indeed, as Brenner observes, “perhaps for
the first time, English government fiscal policies were being consciously and
systematically shaped to fit the needs of commercial development rather than
vice versa.”18 The Council of Trade founded in 1650—and dominated, as
Brenner demonstrates, by the new merchant leadership drawn from the At-
lantic and East India-interloping trades as well as by Thomas Chaloner and
other “republican radicals who helped to impart to Rump commercial policy
its particularly aggressive character”—eliminated corporate trading privileges
and monopolies in several lines of English commercial expansion and replaced
them with a national-naval protective framework that secured England’s ship-
ping and access to markets while maintaining free-trade conditions among
 whig supremacy and the company 23

English merchants and enterprises.19 The new regime thereby powerfully rein-
forced the development of England’s emerging commercial and manufactur-
ing society and committed the state to a policy of raising long-term revenue
on the basis of an ever-greater volume of economic activity. “The Navigation
Acts marked a transition from an organization based on monopoly companies
to a total integration of the country’s trade based on national monopoly, with
the state playing a leading role,” Christopher Hill observes. “The Navigation
Act of 1651 represented the victory of a national trading interest over the sepa-
rate interests and privileges of the companies . . . [it] realized a Baconian vi-
sion towards which men had long been groping: that state control and
direction could stimulate material progress.”20 With the Navigation Act and
similar policies, the Commonwealth regime brought England’s burgeoning
commercial and colonial empire under its direct supervision and regulation.
This new imperial-institutional framework abolished private corporate
monopolies and established the public infrastructure and military capacities
necessary for maximal English commercial expansion, investment, and entre-
preneurship. That expansion in turn provided the state with fiscal resources
far greater than those raised by Tudor and early Stuart royal exactions and
impositions, however extensive. Simply put, the foundations of the First Brit-
ish Empire, based on Atlantic trade and colonies, were laid between 1649 and
1653. “The immense, rationalizing ‘charge’ of the [English] Revolution was
detonated overseas,” Perry Anderson pithily observes; “the decisive economic
legacy of the Commonwealth was imperialism.”21 Indeed, the Common-
wealth gave birth to England’s imperial state in the year 1651.22
The far-reaching transformation of England’s imperial political economy
was not undone when the Army leadership brought the Commonwealth to
an end and established the Protectorate in 1653. Cromwell’s regime continued
the republic’s concerted program of state-led colonial and commercial expan-
sion, and it even extended that program to new frontiers with the Western
Design against Spain, the capture of Jamaica, and the establishment of a long-
term commitment to prying open the markets and settlements of Spain’s New
World empire.23 And, even more importantly, the new foundations of English
imperial expansion were largely preserved upon the restoration of the Stuart
monarchy in 1660.24 Beginning with the passage of the Navigation Acts of
1660 and 1663, and continuing with James Duke of York’s appointment as
Lord High Admiral and his expansion of the country’s naval-industrial com-
plex, the later Stuart kings not only accepted the Commonwealth regime’s
fundamental transformation of England’s imperial political economy as a fait
24 the first british empire and its crisis

accompli, but also used the new-modeled empire as a vital instrument in their
endeavors to establish an absolutist state. Although King Charles II and King
James II renewed their father’s efforts to consolidate an absolute monarchy
capable of ruling without dependence on Parliament, they did not seek to
unravel the new imperial-institutional framework established by the Com-
monwealth regime but, rather, to shift it in an autocratic direction.
Unlike the governments of James I and Charles I, under the later Stuart
kings imperial expansion was central to state policy. Between 1660 and 1688,
Charles II and James II aimed to transform the monarchy into the sole man-
ager and maintainer of England’s expanding empire, and thus to employ the
revenues and resources that empire generated in order to rule without depen-
dence on Parliament and without effective limits on royal authority.25 After
the Commonwealth, England was not just a European power but also a com-
mercial and colonial empire stretching from the plantation settlements of the
New World to the coastal ports of South and Southeast Asia. The imperial
state was here to stay.
What was the relationship between this dramatic imperial-institutional
transformation and England’s eastward expansion? The East India Company
(EIC), which managed and maintained the kingdom’s trade to Asia through-
out the first half of the seventeenth century, was not simply a commercial
corporation but also an important ally of the Stuart monarchy, particularly
during the politically turbulent 1620s and 1630s, as well as a key pillar of Lon-
don’s conservative merchant oligarchy. During the mid-century revolutionary
upheaval, the EIC and the eastern trade were for the first time, like so many
other English institutions, subjected to far-reaching politicization and recur-
rent public-sphere debates.
During the civil wars of the 1640s, the Company faced the growth of both
English interloping rivals in Asian waters and domestic parliamentary assaults
on its monopoly charter and corporate privileges. With the establishment of
the Commonwealth at the end of the decade, and in the wider context of the
fundamental transformation of England’s imperial political economy, the
eastern trade became a matter of widespread debate in London. Competing
politico-ideological groupings and mercantile interests struggled over the or-
ganization of English commercial expansion in Asia and the role of the state
in it. In 1649, the EIC was fundamentally reorganized along new lines that
transformed its mercantile practices and operations. From 1653 to 1657, the
Protectorate regime abandoned corporate organization altogether and the
eastern trade was laid open. This free and open trade to Asia ended when
 whig supremacy and the company 25

Cromwell renewed the joint-stock monopoly organization, effectively re-

establishing the East India Company in 1657. The corporate organization of
the eastern trade was confirmed by Charles II and maintained throughout the
Restoration era. The EIC emerged on the other side of the English Revolu-
tion intact but fundamentally transformed.

When the Stuart monarchy was restored in 1660, England was well on its way
to becoming a bustling commercial society at the epicenter of global networks
of commodity production and exchange. In the midst of this post-revolutionary
and increasingly commercial society, Crown and Parliament were engaged in a
struggle for mastery of the state. In their effort to consolidate an absolute mon-
archy, the later Stuarts sought to create an autocratic and tributary empire with
royally appointed colonial governors in North America and the royally char-
tered East India Company at its heart. Such an empire would help to free the
monarchy from financial dependence on the legislature.
By supporting and empowering monopoly joint-stock overseas trading
corporations such as the EIC, the Crown was intervening in the burgeoning
commercial sphere in order to privilege sectors of the merchant community,
thus protecting them from the competitive and entrepreneurial pressures of
that sphere. In return for their privileged and protected status, these rentier
businessmen were more than happy to support the monarchy in its confron-
tation with a recalcitrant Parliament. The Company’s pursuit of Dutch-style
aggrandizement along the coasts of India, culminating in the First Anglo-
Mughal War (1686-1690), extended this metropolitan logic beyond the Cape
of Good Hope.26 The Crown intervened politically in England’s commercial
sphere, providing politico-juridical and military privileges to the Company.
In return, the EIC intervened politically and militarily in the marketplaces of
South Asia in order to raise its commercial profits and shareholder dividends,
thus allowing it to provide increased financial support for the monarchy.27
The deepening and strengthening of the Crown-Company alliance was
one element in the Stuart monarchy’s efforts to consolidate an autocratic and
extractive empire throughout the worldwide zones of English trade and plan-
tation settlement.28 Across England’s overseas empire, from the garrisons of
Ireland to the plantation settlements of North America and the West Indies,
the Crown pursued an imperial program ultimately designed to increase the
rate of revenue extracted from the periphery.29 In several of the Atlantic colo-
nies, Charles II and James II abandoned earlier imperial practices by dimin-
ishing the authority of local assemblies and ruling directly through governors
26 the first british empire and its crisis

and their councils.30 The kings hoped that these royal appointees would use
their increased power to raise local tax revenues without recourse to colonial
elites.31 These developments reached their height between 1685 and 1688
during the reign of James II, whose autocratic imperial program in North
America sought to realize, as J. H. Parry aptly remarked, the Spanish-
style “administrative ideal, of great centralized viceroyalties governed from
Whitehall.”32
Charles II’s and James II’s American and East Indian endeavors aimed at
consolidating an absolutist political economy in England and its overseas pos-
sessions. In both imperial theaters, the monarchy amplified the powers and
privileges of actors completely dependent on it—royally appointed governors
in the New World and a royally chartered joint-stock company in the East
Indies—in order to increase the flow of extra-parliamentary revenue into its
coffers.33 The subordination of the peripheries was to pave the way for the
subordination of the metropole. While the Atlantic and Indian maritime
worlds were undoubtedly subject to local dynamics, it is nevertheless vital to
realize that Whitehall viewed them through the same lens.
With the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the Crown’s efforts to erect an
autocratic and tributary empire came to an inglorious end. When the revolu-
tionaries of 1688 unraveled Stuart absolutism and secured the supremacy of
Parliament, they launched a direct assault on the pillars of this autocratic
empire in colonial North America and the trading world of Asia.34 The
broad anti-absolutist alliance that lay behind the Revolution ushered in a se-
ries of measures that wedded the English state to ruling through Parliament
and that wedded its imperial administrations to ruling through colonial as-
semblies.35 Parliament secured control of the purse strings in England, and
local assemblies took control of them in the colonies. With the massive ex-
pansion of warfare and its associated costs in the late seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries, and with the need for ever-increasing taxes and govern-
ment debt to meet those costs, Parliament was able to use its financial lever-
age to bring the royal executive to heel and to influence the formation of
policy.36 The very same process played out in the colonies, allowing the as-
semblies to gain power over the imperial executive. “Recurrent colonial war-
fare since the late seventeenth century had pushed provincial taxing,
borrowing, and spending to levels unimaginable,” John Shy remarks; “the fi-
nancial demands of colonial wars from 1689 to 1748 had, in general, enhanced
the power of elected provincial Assemblies, who had used their power to raise
and borrow money and to oversee its expenditure as so many levers to bend
 whig supremacy and the company 27

British authority to their collective will.”37 The radically increased power and
influence of Parliament and the colonial assemblies meant that the English
state was now forced to rule through civil society instead of above it both at
home and overseas.
These reforms allowed the constitutional monarchy to draw upon the tre-
mendous economic resources generated both by England’s dynamic commer-
cial and manufacturing society and by its colonial and trading empire. These
resources were used to create a fiscal-military state that staved off the forces of
Jacobite counter-revolution and confronted the geopolitical threat posed by
King Louis XIV’s France.38 Crucial to these reforms was the abolition of char-
tered monopolies and exclusive privileges so as to allow for maximum capital
investment and private entrepreneurship in every line of British trade.
The Glorious Revolution, the long wars against Bourbon absolutism that
issued in its wake, and the institutional innovations that accompanied them
generated wide-ranging political and social change as well as heavy taxes on
the land, and, during the first decade of the eighteenth century, led to the
“rage of party” that dominated English political life. From 1710 to 1714, the
landed gentry—largely in reaction to social change, European warfare, and
heavy land taxes—empowered a Tory government that threatened to unravel
the Revolution Settlement and the new state institutions that were designed
to secure it, including the Bank of England, the national debt, the Act of
Settlement, and the Duke of Marlborough’s thoroughly rationalized and
Europe-centered military command.39
When the Whigs returned to power following the Hanoverian Succession
in 1714, they were committed to preserving post-1688 institutional innova-
tions, which they viewed as the only sure protection against the twin threats
of Jacobitism and Bourbon absolutism, but they nevertheless recognized the
need to win support from the landed gentry and moderate Tories for these
innovations. Thus, social instability and political discontent among the gentry
ultimately led to the emergence and consolidation of the oligarchic order
known as the Whig Supremacy. During the Sunderland-Stanhope ministry
and the long premiership of Robert Walpole, Whig aristocratic magnates and
leading City financiers consolidated a patronage apparatus and a system of
public credit that cemented parliamentary rule and enabled the state to pro-
tect and expand Britain’s worldwide commercial and colonial empire without
provoking the discontent of the gentry.40 What might be called the Pax Wal-
poliana solved the fundamental political dilemma of post-1688 Whiggery:
namely, how to secure the parliamentary supremacy necessary to prevent the
28 the first british empire and its crisis

return of royal absolutism without at the same time fully empowering the
Tory-leaning and largely agrarian parliamentary electorate. The great Whig
families and their allies among London’s business elite institutionalized a series
of fiscal and political measures that allowed them to avoid taxing the gentry
and to cull resources from Britain’s commercial society and maritime empire
via excise and customs taxation. They were thus able to secure the hegemony
of the unreformed and unrepresentative parliamentary political system and to
engage in empire-building without provoking the discontent of the gentry.
Under the auspices of the imperial state maintained by the Whig estab-
lishment, the Royal Navy provided the coercive capacity necessary for mer-
chants to pursue their private interests throughout the world. The military
and administrative expenses accrued by the state in protecting foreign trade
and plantation settlements were partially paid for by the revenue generated
from customs taxes on overseas commerce. Furthermore, these expenses were
well worth the empire’s contribution to social stability through expanding
employment and economic prosperity. By protecting and encouraging com-
mercial expansion, the British state could call on considerable long-term
loans from the mercantile community in order to finance geopolitical rivalry
and warfare. The state’s short-term and long-term fiscal interests were well
served by protecting British merchants and their markets overseas.41

From the 1720s to the 1750s, the British East India Company stood at the
height of the domestic and imperial system overseen by the Whig establish-
ment.42 As one of the three great monied companies underwriting the fiscal-
military state and the national debt, the EIC played an important role in the
Whig oligarchic order successively managed and maintained by Walpole,
Henry Pelham, and the Duke of Newcastle. The campaign against the Com-
pany’s commercial monopoly and exclusive privileges launched by City radi-
cals in 1730—the last serious challenge to its metropolitan position until the
1760s—was easily defeated, and the corporation was left to manage the East
India trade as its leadership saw fit.
By the 1720s, the EIC’s management was no longer an exclusive arch-Tory
clique; it was composed of powerful London commercial and financial inter-
ests drawn from both the Tory-dominated Old East India Company and the
Whig-dominated New East India Company.43 The corporation’s leaders were
exemplary exponents of the political and ideological moderation gaining
ground in the City and the state. With the waning of the party-political strife
that overshadowed the early decades of the eighteenth century, London’s
 whig supremacy and the company 29

leading Tory and Whig merchants and bankers united into a single City elite
that was largely conservative Whig in political disposition.44 The urban patri-
cians that governed the chartered corporations, the banks, and the insurance
companies tended, as J. H. Plumb remarks, “to support Walpole and call
themselves Whigs; but of course to them Whiggery was not a radical creed. It
meant, quite simply, the Hanoverian dynasty, with toleration to dissenters and
the preservation of things as they were.”45 As a domestic institution, the Com-
pany was a near-perfect embodiment of the establishment Whiggery that had
successfully diffused and contained political conflict, marginalizing both To-
ries and more radical Whigs in the process.
The EIC’s impenetrable position at home was matched by its steady com-
mercial expansion in Asia. The corporation’s fortified settlements at Bombay,
Madras, and Calcutta had grown into urban entrepôts, serving as important
links between the internal markets of India and the vibrant seaborne trade of
Asia.46 The Company’s long-standing trade in cotton and silk piece-goods was
stable and lucrative, and by mid-century its commercial relations with China
were rapidly growing. The total value of the EIC’s shipments to the East rose
from £552,154 in 1709 to £1,105,845 in 1748.47 During the first half of the eigh-
teenth century, the British Company surpassed the Dutch East India Com-
pany to become the most economically successful European enterprise
operating in Asian waters. Politically secure and commercially ascendant, the
EIC was in a remarkably solid position at home and abroad by the early 1740s.
The fundamental context for the Company’s evolution from 1688 to the
mid-eighteenth century was the successful consolidation both of the Whig
Supremacy in Britain and of the wider First British Empire, largely centered on
Atlantic colonial and commercial expansion. As we have seen, the broad con-
tours of England’s imperial state and the First Empire emerged during the
Commonwealth and were consolidated by the Cromwellian regime thereaf-
ter.48 While many of the domestic achievements of the Commonwealth and
Protectorate period were rolled back upon the restoration of the Stuart monar-
chy in 1660, the new imperial state and the political drive for continuing colo-
nial and commercial expansion were not. Charles II was, as Nuala Zahedieh
observes, “attracted . . . to the imperial project,” and he and his younger
brother were “enthusiastic support[ers] of expansion” that “helped to extend
England’s frontier (Jamaica was retained and Carolina was chartered in the first
years of the Restoration), acquired colonial land, invested in privateering, the
slave trade, and colonial joint-stock companies and, in all cases, hoped to use
the political levers of power to extract a profit.”49 The fundamental question of
30 the first british empire and its crisis

overseas expansion during the Restoration era was not whether England would
maintain an empire but whether or not that empire would be brought under
autocratically centralized control, with viceroy-style imperial executives re-
sponsible to Whitehall in colonial America and a militarized EIC managing
the eastern trade in the interests of the Crown and a small clique of Tory direc-
tors and shareholders.50 With the Glorious Revolution, the Stuart monarchy’s
aspirations to transform England’s burgeoning colonial and commercial em-
pire in an authoritarian direction were dashed.
The Whig-led transformations of England’s domestic and overseas politi-
cal economy undertaken in the 1690s and the first decades of the eighteenth
century both consolidated the English imperial state born during the Com-
monwealth and, crucially, brought it under the control of Parliament, thus
preventing the Crown from using the wealth and resources of the empire to
pursue absolutism. As part and parcel of the process of subjecting England’s
empire to parliamentary oversight and management, the Whig “revolution in
political economy” built upon and expanded the colonial and commercial
achievements of the Interregnum.51 Atlantic colonial assemblies were pre-
served or restored and the EIC was brought to heel and reformed, while the
commercial and financial revolutions furthered England’s overseas expansion.
The wealth and resources generated by this empire were in turn used to de-
fend the revolutionary settlement of 1689 and the Whig oligarchic regime
that was consolidated by the 1720s against the three greatest threats posed to
them: Jacobite counter-revolution and restoration, Bourbon absolutism and
France’s imperial ambitions, and the conservative recalcitrance of the Tories
and a significant section of the landed gentry. Thus the Whig Supremacy and
the parliamentary state’s “empire of liberty” were ushered into the world.
Simply and perhaps crudely put: the Commonwealth and the Protectorate
laid down the broad contours of the First British Empire, the Stuart monar-
chy and Parliament struggled for mastery over the new imperial state through-
out the Restoration era, and the period from 1689 through Walpole’s reign
witnessed the flourishing of the First Empire as the “empire of liberty.”
The evolution of the EIC during the later seventeenth and early eigh-
teenth centuries was fundamentally conditioned by these domestic-political
and overseas-imperial developments.52 Between the Restoration and Wal-
pole’s reign, the Company changed from an instrument of Stuart absolutism
into a pillar of the Whig Supremacy. Although the highest aspirations of the
most zealous Whigs of the 1690s for reforming the East India trade—namely,
to reorganize it along the lines of a loosely regulated or free trade under the
 whig supremacy and the company 31

protection of the parliamentary state—were not realized, by the early decades

of the eighteenth century the direct ties between the EIC and the Crown were
severed, the corporation was brought under the control of Parliament, its
joint-stock was significantly expanded so as to allow for increased participa-
tion in the trade, and its aggressive military exploits in the East were curbed.
The Company was made safe for the world of Whiggery, and the world of
Whiggery was profitable for the corporation’s directors and shareholders.
After 1714, with the return of the Whigs to power and the consolidation
of a political order that successfully governed Britain for almost another half
century, the EIC’s position was unassailable.53 Not only did the Sunderland-
Stanhope and Walpole ministries actively intervene to eliminate the Compa-
ny’s interloping rivals throughout Europe, they also backed the corporation
against its enemies at home. When the City radical John Barnard launched a
parliamentary and public-sphere assault on the EIC’s exclusive privileges and
commercial monopoly in 1730, his campaign brought together the most im-
portant elements of the earlier anti-Company alliance: outport merchants,
middling traders, and radical Whigs.54 Invoking the struggles of the 1680s
against the then Tory-dominated monopoly company allied to Stuart abso-
lutism, the anti-EIC forces of 1730 claimed “that however any Corporation
may have the Sanction of Parliament for the carrying on a Trade, exclusive of
all other their fellow Subjects, yet that notwithstanding, they are to all Intents
and Purposes a Monopoly; and the very same Arguments which were good
against any exclusive Trades being carried on by Virtue of the Prerogative
Royal, are equally now as strong against the allowing any Trade’s continuing
to be carried on by a Company, with a Joint-Stock, exclusive of the rest of the
Subjects of this Kingdom.”55 This threat was easily parried by the Walpole
ministry, which extended the Company’s charter until 1766 in return for a
£200,000 grant to the government.56 The EIC was, along with the Bank of
England and the South Sea Company, one of the largest subscribers to the
public debt. Furthermore, its directors and leading shareholders were among
the principal participants in the closed subscriptions to government loans.57
The relationship between the Whig establishment and the monied compa-
nies was, as George Rudé observes, one of “give-and-take and, in return for
the government’s protection, the great companies were always ready in times
of emergency, to place their considerable holdings at the government’s dis-
posal.”58 In the face of the financial arrangements that underpinned the Whig
Supremacy, the campaigns of anti-Company radicals stood little chance
of success.
32 the first british empire and its crisis

The close association of the Whig establishment with the EIC and other
monied companies eroded the party’s popular base. There’s little surprise that,
as one observer put it, Walpole “is hated by the city of London because he
never did anything for the trading part of it, nor aimed at any interest of
theirs but a corrupt influence over the directors and governors of the great
monied companies.”59 During the 1720s and 1730s, as the relationship be-
tween the Company and the Whig establishment deepened and strength-
ened, Bolingbroke and other Tory advocates of the anti-establishment
Country program sought to bring politicized elements of the urban-based
commercial and manufacturing classes into an alliance with independent
country gentlemen by virulently criticizing the EIC and its fellow monopoly
corporations. Bolingbroke called for the restoration of a golden age of landed
rule, when the gentry, free from the corrupting influence of wealthy magnates
and monied men, ran the country in the interests of the middling and lower
orders:
It was therefore the Wisdom and Care of our Ancestors to preserve
and encourage Trade in all its Branches, by making it free to all the
Subjects of England; and we find that when some of our Princes had
granted Charters to select Bodies of Men to carry on an exclusive
Trade to any particular Place or Country, Acts of Parliament were
made for restraining Monopolies, and giving the Subjects of England
an equal Freedom of Trade to all Countries, and declaring, that Char-
ters of Incorporation disabled all other Subjects of the Realm, and
debarred them from enlarging the Traffick of it, to the manifest im-
poverishing of all Owners of Ships, Masters, Mariners, Fishermen,
Clothiers, Tuckers, Spinsters, and many Thousands of Handicraft
Men, besides the Decrease of the Subsidies, Customs, and other Im-
positions, and the Decay of Navigation.60
Contra Bolingbroke’s claim, the country gentlemen had by and large not
been at the forefront of efforts to break up the monopoly companies in the
seventeenth century. However, this historical imaginary served as an ideo-
logical weapon in the present, not as a record of the past. If Bolingbroke’s
political project was to have any chance of success, the commercial and man-
ufacturing classes would have to abandon their attachment to Whig rule in
favor of the Country program. The talented propagandist sought to mobilize
these classes under the leadership of the Tory gentry in order to wage war
against their common Whig oligarchic enemies in the City and the state.
 whig supremacy and the company 33

From the broadest possible vantage point, the consolidation of an

alliance between the Whig establishment and the EIC should be viewed as a
symptom of the wider changes in post-1688 political economy. The defeat of
the royal absolutist project and its effort to erect an autocratic and tributary
empire ultimately ushered in wide-ranging changes in political economy de-
signed to maximize Britain’s commercial and industrial expansion and to
consolidate an “empire of the seas” organized around free trade within the
framework of a national monopoly. Parliament’s declaration of a free trade to
the East Indies in 1694 and the establishment of a regulated and open com-
mercial organization for this purpose in 1698 (the General Society for trading
to the East Indies) were important aspects of this transformation. However,
recurrent warfare with Bourbon France led to the creation of a system of
public credit that heavily relied on the City’s elite Whig merchants and finan-
ciers, many of whom sought to restore the monopoly joint-stock organization
of the eastern trade. Having overthrown the Crown-Company alliance and
created a new joint-stock corporation with a vastly expanded capital subscrip-
tion, elite Whig merchants and financiers no longer supported the project of
the General Society and the more radical program of the anti-EIC alliance. As
the influence of these elite merchants and financiers grew in the halls of
power, so too did the pressure on ministers to end the radical free-trade ex-
periment.61 By the end of the first decade of the eighteenth century, the East
India trade was again controlled by a monopoly joint-stock company, now
with a charter from Parliament. The same developments transformed the EIC
into a key ally of the Whig establishment. The Company’s fate was now in-
separably bound up with the evolution of the Whig oligarchic order in
state and society. From the 1720s to the 1750s, the EIC’s commercial success
was tied to the greater stability of the Whig Supremacy and of the First
British Empire.
The remainder of this chapter outlines the contours and dynamics of both
the fully developed First Empire, highlighting its fundamental differences
from the Second Empire, and the Whig Supremacy that managed and main-
tained it. For the central argument of the subsequent chapters is that the
transformation of the Company from a commercial corporation into a terri-
torial empire on the Indian subcontinent, and thus the origins and early de-
velopment of the Second Empire, were deeply linked with the interrelated
crises of the Whig Supremacy and the First Empire. These crises, and the
conflicts and resolutions they entailed, ultimately led to the abandonment of
the practices and ideals of the commercial and maritime “empire of liberty”
34 the first british empire and its crisis

and to the consolidation of an autocratic, militaristic, and extractive empire

in South Asia and beyond.

The First British Empire was a maritime vehicle for commercial and industrial
expansion concerned more with constituting and maintaining global networks
of commodity exchange than with the conquest and subjugation of foreign
territories and dominions.62 It was understood by contemporaries to be both
“an empire over the seas as distinct from the territorial empires of conquest
established by imperial Rome or by Spain,” and an institutional framework
under which “commerce would bring the peoples of the world together for
their mutual benefit.”63 Centered on the Atlantic, this maritime empire con-
sisted of colonial plantation settlements in the New World and vast commer-
cial networks stretching from northwestern Europe, the Mediterranean, and
the Near East to western Africa and the Asian maritime world. Colonial plan-
tations were established in areas thought to be relatively free of pre-existing,
well-settled populations. These settlements enjoyed an important degree of de
facto political autonomy from the metropole. Although the exploitation of
African slave labor and the expropriation of lands from indigenous peoples in
the New World were crucial aspects of the First Empire, the coercion involved
in such activities was of a different nature from that entailed in territorial con-
quest and political dominion over large populations.64 For its supporters, the
First Empire was a maritime realm of political liberty and commodity ex-
change, not a military dominion governing vast populations and territories.
British trade extended far beyond the Atlantic into the Indian Ocean and
the Arabian and South China Seas. Although there were important links be-
tween the New World and trade to Asia, the latter was managed and mo-
nopolized by the EIC, and thus contemporaries considered it a realm apart.65
The Company maintained sizeable settlements and factories throughout the
East, but they served largely commercial purposes.66 Although the EIC’s lead-
ership made a decisive effort during the Restoration era to militarize and
territorialize its settlements, these actions were bound up with late Stuart
absolutism and must be seen as part of the Crown’s endeavors to autocrati-
cally centralize England’s empire. Throughout most of the seventeenth and
early eighteenth centuries, English activity beyond the Cape of Good Hope
was by and large commercial in character and confined to coastal enclaves
such as Bombay and Madras.
By the later eighteenth century, British overseas expansion had departed
significantly from the long-standing ideals and practices of the maritime and
 whig supremacy and the company 35

commercial “empire of liberty.” While the metropolitan government was at-

tempting to centralize and militarize its Atlantic empire, a new form of ter-
ritorial imperialism was emerging in South Asia. The EIC’s military struggle
to maintain its lucrative trade beyond the Cape of Good Hope resulted in
full-blown political dominion over northeastern India. The corporation’s im-
perial metamorphosis was the most important development in the transition
to the Second British Empire; it provided the basis not only for a territorial
empire that eventually spanned the entire subcontinent, but also for the
“swing to the East” of British overseas expansion. The political interventions
and military conquests carried out by British forces in Asia throughout the
late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were largely undertaken in order to
serve the fiscal, commercial, and geopolitical interests of the Raj.67
The Company’s state in Bengal was in many respects the cornerstone of
the Second Empire, giving Britain’s overseas expansion a different character
from the Atlantic empire of an earlier epoch. While commerce and colonial
settlement continued unabated, post-diwani British imperialism now encom-
passed direct political rule over vast territories and well-settled populations.68
The EIC’s conquest of Bengal witnessed the rise of a new imperialism that was
far more overtly coercive in character. The new elements in British imperial-
ism—or rather, the elements that were distinct to the Second Empire as op-
posed to the elements characteristic of the First—included authoritarian
government, territorial conquest, and extractive revenue policies. The ideolo-
gies and practices entailed in the early formation of British India (especially in
Robert Clive’s second governorship of Bengal from 1765 to 1767) continued to
shape British imperialism on the Indian subcontinent and throughout Asia
during and after the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.69 The illib-
eral imperialism that originated with the conquest of Bengal and the attempt
to coerce the North American colonies grew in strength over the course of the
later eighteenth century. The maritime “empire of liberty” now included con-
quered territories and political dominions.70
The truly vital element in this transformation—that is, the most impor-
tant feature of the new imperialism—cannot be captured by categories such
as “the market” or “territorial rule.” Trade remained an important element of
the empire from its dawn until its twilight. Furthermore, even though the
First Empire was primarily maritime and commercial in focus, the colonial
settlements of the New World invariably raised questions of territory and
rule. However, the fact that such questions arose in the seventeenth as well as
the nineteenth century does not mean that there was no significant change of
36 the first british empire and its crisis

course in the evolution of British imperialism. “Direct coercion” and “overt

domination” are perhaps better categories for comprehending the imperial
rupture marked by the consolidation of the Company’s territorial dominion
in Bengal.71 The 1760s witnessed the birth of an imperial policy in both South
Asia and the New World designed to allow the British state to master events
and processes that ministers and officials thought were spiraling out of con-
trol. Before exploring this argument and its implications in subsequent chap-
ters, it is necessary to examine the contours and dynamics of the First British
Empire in greater detail.
From the reign of Elizabeth I until the mid-eighteenth century, the island
kingdom’s offshoots overseas consisted largely of export-driven settler colo-
nies in the New World and mercantile factories in the key ports of Europe,
Africa, and Asia. While these outposts were initially founded by private enter-
prises with limited backing from the Crown, in the mid- to late seventeenth
century they were integrated into an overarching order often referred to as the
Old Colonial System. From the Commonwealth’s transformation of imperial
political economy, embodied in the naval buildup and in the laws of trade
and navigation, to the Whig-led imperial reforms that followed the Glorious
Revolution, a worldwide zone of English trade and plantation settlement was
consolidated and regulated by Whitehall and Westminster in order to achieve
three interrelated objectives: commercial expansion, industrial production,
and national security.
In addition to the importation of raw materials, staple products, and luxury
goods otherwise unavailable in the metropole, this imperial system provided
crucial outlets for the sale of English manufactured goods. By the late seven-
teenth century, these overseas outlets were vital for the expansion of England’s
commercial and manufacturing society as foreign trade allowed for continuing
production in the face of the slow and often halting growth of domestic de-
mand.72 The export of manufactures to foreign and colonial markets grew
more rapidly than the domestic economy as a whole, and, as Patrick K. O’Brien
argues, “the growth of British industry from the Restoration onwards was pro-
moted by increasing involvement with the international economy in general
and with an ‘Imperial’ system in particular.”73 Steady and increasing produc-
tion in turn allowed for ever-higher levels of industrial employment, which was
conducive to both social stability and the expansion of state revenue via excise
and customs taxation. This overseas system formed a worldwide network of
commodity exchange and social labor that connected London, Birmingham,
and Liverpool with Philadelphia, Kingston, and Madras.74
 whig supremacy and the company 37

Within this imperial formation, security and prosperity were deeply

linked.75 The Royal Navy provided the coercive capacity necessary for mer-
chants to pursue their private interests throughout the world. In turn, cus-
toms taxation on overseas trade provided the revenue necessary for maintaining
the Royal Navy. Furthermore, private commercial enterprise generated the
skilled seamen and shipbuilding industry vital for maritime warfare.76 “As
trade enriched the citizens in England, so it contributed to their freedom, and
this freedom on the other side extended their commerce, whence arose the
grandeur of the state,” remarked Voltaire in his reflections on Walpole’s Brit-
ain. By drawing the connection between Britain’s commercial expansion and
naval power, the Anglophile philosophe explained to the European reading
public how it was possible for a relatively resource-poor country off the coast
of northwestern Europe to emerge in the early eighteenth century as the lead-
ing geopolitical rival to Bourbon France. “Trade raised by insensible degrees
the naval power, which gives the English a superiority over the Seas, and they
are now masters of very near two hundred ships of war,” Voltaire observed;
“[p]osterity will very possibly be surprised to hear that an island whose only
produce is a little lead, tin, fuller’s earth, and coarse wool, should become so
powerful by its commerce as to be able to send, in 1723, three fleets at the same
time to three different and far distanced parts of the globe: one before Gibral-
tar, conquered and still possessed by the English; a second to Porto Bello, to
dispossess the King of Spain of the treasures of the West Indies; and a third
into the Baltic, to prevent the Northern Powers from coming to an engage-
ment.”77 This naval war machine was designed to protect and extend com-
mercial activity, to secure raw materials, and to open new markets for British
manufactures. “Hence it is, and ever must be, the true policy of the British
Government,” averred the editors of the Whiggish Monthly Review in 1764,
“to support and extend its commerce, in order to acquire superior strength in
making war; and to make war, in order to protect and still farther extend its
commerce.”78
Government ministers used the fiscal and military resources generated by
overseas trade and naval might to subsidize armies and allies in continental
Europe. “Imperial advantage—whether in terms of trade or colonial expan-
sion—was not an end in itself,” Marie Peters reminds us. Indeed, eighteenth-
century British statesmen “saw colonial rivalry as an extension, even an
intrinsic part, of the European struggle.”79 The emergence of a single Euro-
pean hegemon—especially of a Bourbon “universal monarchy”—threatened
Britain’s security in terms of its territorial integrity and access to continental
38 the first british empire and its crisis

markets. The wealth generated by the Atlantic empire made available the
money and men necessary for maintaining the balance of power on the con-
tinent, thus allowing Britain to preserve the “liberties of Europe” without
generating any of the administrative and military costs of political rule and
territorial conquest.80 Furthermore, the British naval war machine honed by
Atlantic expansion was able to curtail an enemy power’s trade and shipping,
thus reducing the fiscal resources at its disposal. The “empire of the seas” was
a bulwark against the territorial empires of Europe, combining coercion and
commerce to preserve the European balance of power as well as Britain’s access
to global markets.
The exercise of coercion in the First British Empire (and it was exercised
often) was not intended to subjugate foreign territories and peoples but rather
to maintain the conditions for the expansion of British trade. Britain founded
colonies as a means of developing its trade and manufacturing, not in order
to expand its reach over vast territories.81 In terms of post-1688 British policy,
imperial expansion was designed both to open up new markets and to estab-
lish additional settler colonies in areas relatively free of pre-existing popula-
tions. Within this imperial-institutional framework, large acquisitions of land
and direct rule over foreign subjects were viewed with extreme skepticism. As
Baugh contends, the value of this empire was “seen to derive from maritime
commerce rather than territory and dominion.” Plantations settled by British
migrant laborers and African slave laborers benefited the mother country in-
sofar as “they stimulated commerce by producing commodities for export
and markets for English goods; they protected and sustained overseas naval
bases; and they served to enlarge the pool of English-controlled shipping and
seamen.”82
British ministers supported military actions in Europe in order to main-
tain the balance of power. They did not aim to establish a continental-style
territorial empire, which was anathema in British political culture. The con-
quest of European lands usually yielded little more than “Inconsiderable
Scraps of beggarly Territories,” mused an essayist in the Gentleman’s Magazine
in 1737, which “Infallibly involve us in Quarrels they are not worth, and in
Expences which the Fee-Simple of them, if sold, would not defray.” Dismiss-
ing the Hundred Years’ War and medieval dynastic conflict as so much non-
sense, the writer confidently proclaimed, “we may assert, that we are wiser
than our Ancestors, in avoiding the Mischiefs of Conquests they so eagerly
pursued—We have all of France that I hope we ever shall have, the Title and
the Arms; the one sounds very well in the Style of our Kings, and the other
 whig supremacy and the company 39

looks very well in their Escutcheons, but the Reality would ruin us.”83 Direct
rule over populated territories was deemed unnecessary and unwise as the
administrative costs of governance and the military costs of policing and pro-
tecting such acquisitions outran any benefits that might arise from them. Vol-
taire remarked that “the greatest defect in the government of the Romans
raised them to be conquerors . . . by being unhappy at home, they triumphed
over and possessed themselves of the world, till at last their divisions sank
them to slavery.” He was certain the island kingdom would not suffer a simi-
lar fate since “the government of England will never rise to so exalted a pitch
of glory, nor will its end be so fatal [for] the English are not fired with the
splendid folly of making conquests, but would only prevent their neighbours
from conquering.”84
It was a commonplace maxim of British political culture that greater eco-
nomic resources were harnessed from commercial exchange than from mili-
tary conquest. “Trade, without enlarging the British Territories,” the Whig
opinion-maker Joseph Addison remarked in 1711, “has given us a kind of ad-
ditional Empire: It has multiply’d the Number of the Rich, made our Landed
Estates infinitely more Valuable than they were formerly, and added to them
an Accession of other Estates as valuable as the Lands themselves.”85 The very
possibility of an “empire of the seas” led the influential Marquis of Halifax to
celebrate the fact that Englishmen and women were “in an Island, confined to
it by God Almighty, not as a Penalty, but a Grace, and one of the greatest that
can be given to Mankind.”86 According to the respected Trimmer, this “Happy
Confinement” necessitated a foreign policy based on commercial expansion
and sea power rather than on territorial conquests and the political subjuga-
tion of foreign peoples. In so doing, it made for a “Free, Rich, and Quiet”
England. “Our Situation hath made Greatness abroad by Land Conquests un-
natural things to us,” Halifax rejoiced. “It is true, we have made Excursions,
and Glorious ones too, which make Names great in History, but they did not
last.” Writing in the imperial policy debates that followed the Revolution of
1688–1689, Halifax asserted that “the first Article of an English-man’s Political
Creed, must be, That he believeth in the Sea.”87
While the maritime empire was underpinned by the Royal Navy and the
greater fiscal-military state, it was seen as essentially non-coercive. This was
because the exercise of imperial power aimed not to establish dominion over
populations and territories, but rather to secure Britain’s participation in
global commerce amid intense geopolitical rivalry. According to the empire’s
ideological defenders and propagandists, British subjects could trade and
40 the first british empire and its crisis

compete freely on the world market only to the extent that the British state
made such transactions possible. The state made global commercial activity
possible by playing the role of a neutral arbiter in disputes between British
merchants and by protecting all British trade from the depredations of other
states—that is, by providing the public infrastructure necessary for the free
play of private economic interests.
Countless pamphleteers and polemicists claimed that this maritime and
commercial empire generated far more resources for the British government
than territorial conquests ever could. The political theorist and sometime
Board of Trade councilor John Locke contended that “securing our Naviga-
tion and Trade [is] more the Interest of the Kingdom than Wars of Con-
quest.”88 From the late seventeenth century until the Seven Years’ War, this
view represented more or less a consensus in both British policy and economic
theory. Thus, when John Campbell asserted in his 1750 survey of the Great
Powers that Britain’s strength lay in commercial expansion and not in acquir-
ing “a great Extent of Territory, Multitudes of Subjects, or rich and fruitful
Countries,” he was merely expressing a widely-held view regarding the aims
and purposes of the kingdom’s overseas activity.89 “The rise and prosperity of
the republics of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, and, in later times, of the Dutch
republic, who all attained to their grandeur and prosperity, not by extent of
territory, but by Commerce alone,” insisted the Monthly Review editors, “has,
in a great measure, opened the eyes of almost all the Courts in Europe, and
convinced them, that the largest extent of fertile territory, the wisest counsels,
and the best military discipline, may not produce so much national strength
as may be produced by manufactures and commerce within the compass of a
very small or barren territory.”90 Continental observers had little doubt that
Britain was at the forefront of this new commercial imperialism. “It is not
only war that determines supremacy among nations, as has been thought until
the present day,” declared the Abbé Raynal; “for the past half century, trade
has played a far more important role.” The French radical decried “the powers
of the continent [for] measuring Europe and dividing it up into unequal por-
tions, which [are] continually kept in balance by political leagues, treaties, and
negotiations,” while calling attention to the fact that “a maritime nation was
forming a new system, so to speak, by its efforts making the land subject to the
sea, just as nature herself has done by her laws.” Raynal was certain that Brit-
ain was on the path to global hegemony as “it was creating or developing a vast
commercial network, based on excellent agriculture, thriving manufacturing,
and the richest possessions of the four quarters of the earth.”91 The public and
 whig supremacy and the company 41

private resources generated by Britain’s maritime empire were the envy of con-
tinental monarchs and merchants alike.
The “empire of the seas” involved the elaboration on a world scale of the
distinction between state and civil society—between public regulation and
the sphere of commodity exchange and social labor—that was emerging in
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. The Royal Navy protected a
kind of maritime polity that stretched from Europe, North America, and the
West Indies to Africa and Asia. Within this transnational space, British men
and women freely gathered and disposed of their property as they saw fit. This
was the basis on which early modern Britons understood their empire as fun-
damentally different from the world powers of old; an empire that was con-
ceived of as, David Armitage reminds us, “Protestant, commercial, maritime,
and free.”92 This was an imperial formation rooted in the ideals and practices
of generalized commodity production and exchange.93 The “empire of the
seas” was designed to foster those ideals and practices across the globe.

The consolidation of the First British Empire was the achievement of the
Whig oligarchic regime that developed from the 1690s to the accession of
King George II in 1727. The Whig Supremacy emerged out of the long period
of social and political instability that began with the Exclusion Crisis of the
later 1670s and ended during Walpole’s early premiership in the 1720s.94 From
1721 until 1756, three leading ministers—Walpole, Pelham, and Newcastle—
successively managed and maintained a state apparatus that stabilized the
country after nearly a half century of political conflict so severe that many
feared the return of civil war.95 The social basis of the Whig establishment
during this period lay in the aristocracy and the greater gentry, most of whom
were commercial landlords with large estates, living off significant rental in-
comes as well as the earnings from financial and commercial investments.96
These wealthy landed magnates were not opposed to the capitalist transfor-
mation of British society; rather, they were its principal beneficiaries.97 Their
rental incomes swelled from the growth of mass consumption, the expansion
of commercial imperialism, and the development of manufacturing industry,
which generated increasing demand for the products grown and the resources
available on their estates.98 They were full participants in the world of trade
and finance, and were deeply concerned with the overall health of Britain’s
economy. The landed magnates at the apex of Hanoverian Britain’s social or-
der “did not have to stop being feudal,” Eric Hobsbawm remarks, “for they
had long ceased to be so.”99
42 the first british empire and its crisis

The parliamentary supremacy and fiscal-military state created in the wake

of the Glorious Revolution and maintained by the Whig establishment dur-
ing the eighteenth century were in part expressions of the interests of wealthy
capitalist landlords and their elite merchant and banker allies in London.100
Seeking to maintain and extend the domestic and imperial conditions neces-
sary for their own reproduction, the landed magnates and their allies consoli-
dated a capitalist political economy.101 “Out of pure self-interest,” Harold
Perkin remarks, the post-1688 aristocracy and greater gentry “created the
political conditions—personal liberty, absolute security of property, the min-
imum of internal intervention, and adequate protection from foreign compe-
tition—best suited for generating [much later] a spontaneous industrial
revolution.”102 The British state that emerged after 1688, and that was con-
solidated by the Whig establishment in the 1720s, provided the public infra-
structure necessary for the free play of private interests in civil society and the
military might necessary for geopolitical security and economic expansion
overseas.103
The Whig regime created and maintained by capitalist aristocrats and the
City elite was rooted in, and ultimately dependent upon, the consolidation
and expansion of bourgeois society in Britain. Although political power was
monopolized by the landed classes, the establishment of Parliament’s suprem-
acy and a capitalist political economy following 1688 fostered a remarkably
dynamic society and economy, a vibrant intellectual life, and an open and
raucous political culture. This is why, as Linda Colley argues, Whig grandees
avidly sought out Canaletto’s paintings portraying an idealized Venice “as if it
were still in its fifteenth-century prime, the perfect maritime republic . . . the
Queen of the Adriatic, a trading empire, proud of its freedom, yet securely
controlled by an oligarchy.” These grandees were deeply invested in “the legend
of Venetian power and prosperity . . . because it suggested that commercial
energy, imperial dominion, a taste for liberty, and stable rule by an exclusive
élite could all be painlessly combined.”104 While traditional ranks and hierar-
chies pervaded eighteenth-century Britain, there was nevertheless a good de-
gree of social mobility in comparison to continental Europe.105 Furthermore,
throughout the first half of the century Britain’s economy was expanding and
diversifying, with the manufacturing and commercial sectors generating be-
tween one-third and one-half of national income by the 1750s.106
The island kingdom was fully integrated into global networks of com-
modity production and exchange, and by 1760 shipping tonnage had grown
by 30 percent while the total value of imports and exports had grown by 40
 whig supremacy and the company 43

and 80 percent respectively.107 The landed magnates and London’s merchant

and banking elite were made fabulously wealthy by these economic develop-
ments, but the middling sort and the plebeian classes also benefited from
increasing material prosperity, employment opportunities, and consumption
levels. Surveying the national economy in 1728, Daniel Defoe informed his
readers that if the wealth and employment generated by British trade, manu-
facturing, and navigation “were cast up together, the Poor, that is to say, such
as were formerly counted among the Poor, I mean the Tradesmen, the Shop-
keeping, trading and labouring Part of the People” would be found to “have
more real movable Wealth among them, than all the Gentry and Nobility in
the whole Kingdom, not reckoning the real Estates in Lands, Tenements, &c.
of which they possess a surprising Share also.”108 The Whig regime fostered
economic expansion across the board, aiming to increase the public revenue
available for maintaining internal stability and for projecting external strength
by increasing the economic activity of the population as a whole. As Frank
O’Gorman observes, “the Hanoverian regime was supremely well disposed
towards finance, commerce and industry, recognizing their vital importance
to the nation, to its security and to its ability to finance the wars in which
Britain was from time to time forced to engage.”109
Social transformation and economic expansion gave rise to a vibrant pub-
lic sphere, an enlightened intellectual life, and a robust extra-parliamentary
political culture. Important issues of the day were discussed and debated in
coffeehouses, taverns, clubs, and associations throughout London and the
provincial urban centers.110 The lapsing of the Licensing Act in 1695, the civil
and religious liberties secured in the Glorious Revolution, and the growth of
the popular press and pamphlet literature allowed for relatively free and open
discussion of scientific, political, economic, and religious issues.111 While En-
lightenment culture often developed behind closed doors in the continental
monarchies, it openly flourished in Britain during the high noon of the Whig
Supremacy.
The most pressing issue for the Whig establishment was managing the
political life of this boisterous, commercial, and rapidly changing society.
While the Whig grandees embraced economic growth and its accompanying
social change, they feared that eventually the combative and divisive politics
that attended an open and free society—and that created a period of intense
party strife and instability in the early eighteenth century—would undermine
the constitutional liberties and parliamentary supremacy achieved in 1688.112
Above all else, the Whig grandees feared a recrudescence of Stuart absolutism,
44 the first british empire and its crisis

a threat they believed was posed both by a recidivist Tory and Jacobite Right
and by a zealous and potentially republican Whig Left. The Whig establish-
ment carefully managed Parliament and the electorate by deftly using govern-
ment patronage and by moderating its party’s political positions. With the
resources of the Crown and an expanding fiscal-military state at its disposal,
the Whig establishment was able, in its view, to make Parliament and elections
safe for the Revolution Settlement and the Hanoverian regime.113 Walpole,
Pelham, Newcastle, and the grandees who supported them were committed to
a Court Whiggery that embraced the power of the centralized state and aban-
doned any pretense to popular radicalism. While this ideology contained au-
thoritarian political strands, the Court Whigs were nevertheless committed to
upholding the civil liberties and parliamentary supremacy won in 1688 and
confirmed in 1714.114 “These parties were far from being friends to arbitrary
power, or in any sort averse to parliaments; they loved the constitution,” the
editors of the Annual Register observed about Newcastle and his allies—and,
by extension, about the Whig establishment from the 1720s—in their 1758
review of the British political landscape, “but they were for preserving the
authority of government entire, and in its utmost lawful force. To make gov-
ernment more easy, knowing that many would disturb it, from disaffection, or
disgust, or mistaken notions of liberty, they thought it just to rule men by
their interests, if they could not by their virtues, and they had long been in the
practice of procuring a majority in parliament, by the distribution of numer-
ous lucrative places and employments which our constitution leaves in the
disposal of the crown. Several believed that no other method was practicable,
considering the nature of mankind, and our particular form of government.”115
The Whig oligarchs used this machinery of patronage and place to manage
the landed classes and, through them, the country. Thus, while the enterprise
and industry of the middling sort and the plebeian classes were vital to the
British state, power and policy remained firmly in the hands of the aristocracy
and greater gentry.116
Central to this entire political order was a system of public finance that
allowed the Whig establishment to raise public loans and to earmark future
taxation revenue for the interest payments. After 1714, ministers increasingly
imposed customs and excise duties, shifting the burden of taxation off the
land and on to commerce and industry.117 This shift and the general system of
public finance allowed the Hanoverian regime to pursue imperial expansion
and, when necessary, to project power without financially burdening the gen-
try class that dominated the House of Commons.118
 whig supremacy and the company 45

London’s haute bourgeoisie played a crucial role in the Whig oligarchic

order.119 The City’s elite merchants and financiers invested heavily in govern-
ment debt, and the extensive positions they had to fill in their companies and
businesses were an additional source of patronage placed at the ministry’s dis-
posal.120 Whig ministers rewarded the loyalty of London’s plutocrats with
government contracts and closed subscriptions to public loans.121 The interest
payments on these loans were raised not by taxes on wealth or real estate but
rather by excise and customs duties that disproportionately burdened the
middling sort and the plebeian classes.122
However much these systems of patronage and public finance served the
long-term geopolitical and economic interests of Britain, the growth of taxes in
order to meet the needs of an oligarchic government and to pay the interest on
the public debt eroded popular support for the Whig establishment over time.
The editors of the Annual Register thus noted that, although Newcastle and his
allies “had undoubtedly the greatest parliamentary interest” and “another in-
terest hardly less considerable, that of the monied people,” their rule faced seri-
ous obstacles as “they were not at all popular; a matter of great consideration
in a government like ours.”123
The Walpole, Pelham, and Newcastle ministries consolidated and contin-
ued the imperial system put in place in the aftermath of 1688. The Whig es-
tablishment defended the imperial status quo, rejecting radical efforts to
abolish the East India Company and to create a free trade to the East as well
as authoritarian measures that sought to extract greater revenue from the
American colonies (such as in 1722, when Walpole’s administration explicitly
rejected Atlantic imperial reforms similar to some of those later introduced by
the Grenville ministry in the 1760s).124 While Walpole, Pelham, and New-
castle were well aware of the smuggling networks that flourished on the At-
lantic and among the American colonists in direct violation of the laws of
trade and navigation, they nevertheless remained committed to the system
now known as “Salutary Neglect.” The tight regulation and even restriction
of colonial trade, though legal and within Parliament’s power, were best
avoided. The growing profits from legal and illegal colonial trade ultimately
generated more demand for British manufactures, since the merchants and
farmers of North America used their expanding income to buy finished prod-
ucts from the metropole. Hence, the Whig establishment was hesitant to ex-
tensively interfere with colonial trade for fear of undermining domestic
industrial expansion and the political and social benefits that accrued from it.
Walpole crisply conveyed this imperial wisdom to his cabinet colleagues:
46 the first british empire and its crisis

I will leave that [Atlantic colonial regulation] for some of my succes-

sors, who have more courage than I have, and are less a friend to com-
merce than I am. It has been a maxim with me during this
administration, to encourage the trade of the American colonies in the
utmost latitude, (nay, it has been necessary to pass over some irregu-
larities in their trade with Europe); for, by encouraging them to an ex-
tensive growing foreign commerce, if they gain £500,000, I am
convinced that, in two years afterwards full £250,000 of their gains will
be in his majesty’s exchequer, by the labour and produce of this king-
dom; as immense quantities of every kind of our manufactures go
thither, and as they increase in their foreign American trade, more of
our produce will be wanted. This is taxing them more agreeably to
their own constitution and ours.125
From the 1720s to the 1750s, the Whig regime maintained the imperial status
quo, which helped keep Britain prosperous and stable.
The preservation of this imperial political-economic order was by no
means an easy feat. While a potent fiscal-military state was available to main-
tain the European balance of power, to protect the Electorate of Hanover, and
to defend Britain’s commercial and colonial interests, the Whig establishment
was reluctant to go to war. Armed conflict led to significant increases in the
national debt and in domestic taxation. Anxieties regarding the debt and tax
burden, and the political discontent they might provoke, informed Walpole’s
central geopolitical objective between the later 1720s and the outbreak of war
with Spain in 1739: the maintenance of a stable system of alliances and peace
in Europe.126 Furthermore, recurrent warfare disrupted commerce, particu-
larly the most lucrative and stable patterns of trade dominated by London’s
merchant elite. Against this backdrop, Whig ministers calculated that they
had more to lose than to gain from war.
By the mid-1750s, the Whig establishment found it increasingly difficult
to monopolize the political stage. In the later 1720s, an unstable coalition
emerged to challenge the oligarchic order. This anti-establishment coalition
encompassed extremely diverse social interests and political views. Conse-
quently, its critique of the status quo contained both conservative and
radical implications. The main two political groups in this fragile coalition
were independent Whigs and Tories. The former embraced popular politics
and thought that the revolutionary settlement of 1688 had not gone far
enough; the latter had been out of power since the Hanoverian Succession in
 whig supremacy and the company 47

1714 and were extremely critical of the oligarchic order consolidated under
Walpole.127
This alliance drew on the Country critique of growing executive power
and an expanding centralized state.128 Taking aim at three of the principal pil-
lars of the Whig Supremacy—the Financial Revolution, the patronage system
and electoral management, and placemen in the House of Commons—Coun-
try propagandists contended that British liberties were drowning in a sea of
executive power and financial corruption. They advocated for purging place-
men from the Commons, curbing Crown patronage, and holding triennial
parliamentary elections (as opposed to every seven years). Although the Coun-
try program was in many respects conservative in character, several of its posi-
tions informed the political radicalism that emerged later in the eighteenth
century.129 Over the course of the later 1720s and 1730s, the opposition alliance
of Tories and independent Whigs molded Country ideology into a coherent
political project known as Patriotism, which called for the regeneration of
Britain through the elimination of oligarchic corruption and the restoration
of parliamentary and popular liberties.130
The Patriot coalition cobbled together by the likes of Viscount Boling-
broke and William Pulteney was fragile and difficult to manage. Contradictory
commitments—such as radical Whig support for the Dissenters and the Tory
loyalty to the Church of England and its prerogatives—constantly undermined
the unity of the Patriot opposition. Nevertheless, the coalition’s diverse con-
stituencies came together to advocate for a mutually agreed-upon political and
electoral program.131 While the Patriot opposition suffered numerous defeats at
the hands of the government, which was often successful in its efforts to label
them as a cabal of republicans and Jacobites, it nevertheless gained in strength
during the 1730s and 1740s.132 The popular appeal of the Patriot program grew
as the Whig establishment was increasingly seen to be more invested in defend-
ing the interests of aristocratic magnates and London’s haute bourgeoisie than
in preserving the Revolution Settlement and pursuing Britain’s imperial expan-
sion. Although the anti-establishment coalition was fragile and shifting, never
fully coalescing as a party, it was nevertheless able to attract a significant num-
ber of Tory country gentlemen and independent Whig lords, such as Viscount
Cobham, to its cause.
Over the course of the 1730s and 1740s, the Patriot opposition gained
a popular base of middling merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and craftsmen
in London and the provincial urban centers.133 Frustrated with Spanish and
French imperial aggression and commercial competition in the New World,
48 the first british empire and its crisis

and outraged at the multiplication of taxes on consumer goods, significant

sections of the population—particularly among the urban-based middling
sort—rallied around the Patriot opposition, putting pressure on Walpole to
declare war against Spain in 1739.134 Although Walpole’s government had
done much to foster the expansion of trade and industry, its laissez-faire at-
titude toward increasing commercial and imperial competition left it open to
the charge of disregarding the national interest.135 Walpole’s ministry de-
nounced the popular support for the Patriot opposition as “an insignificant
body of Tradesmen and Mechanics” who understood nothing of foreign pol-
icy and affairs of state.136 The combination of renewed geopolitical rivalry and
growing popular opposition eventually forced Walpole’s hand, leading to war
with Spain and, ultimately, his resignation from office in 1742.137
The continuing growth of Patriotism in the extra-parliamentary political
arena in the 1740s and early 1750s was due to popular dissatisfaction with the
Whig regime’s corrupt and plutocratic character as well as with its failure to
aggressively defend and extend Britain’s empire.138 While the Patriots were not
able to conquer the commanding heights of the state, the pressure they exerted
forced Pelham and the Whig establishment to piece together coalition govern-
ments, which brought several Patriot leaders into office during the 1740s.139
Pelham successfully put together a government of establishment Whigs
that lasted from 1746 until well after his death in 1754. However, when his
brother the Duke of Newcastle took over the reins of government, Patriotism
was thriving in the popular arena. In fact, during the late 1740s and 1750s Pa-
triot tropes and themes were more prevalent in Britain’s extra-parliamentary
political culture than ever before.140 There was a widespread sense that the na-
tion was losing its vigor as oligarchic corruption undermined parliamentary
liberties and the global power of Bourbon France grew.141 King Louis XV’s
imperial ambitions had been checked but not thwarted during the War of the
Austrian Succession and, according to many observers on both sides of the
Channel following the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, a grand war for em-
pire lay on the horizon. Many in Britain feared that the country’s rulers were
not prepared for such a struggle and believed that a French victory would
imperil the empire and the foundations of the post-revolutionary state. The
Patriot MP and popular naval hero Admiral Edward Vernon expressed the
fears held by many in 1749: “I look on the fate of this country to be drawing
to a speedy period whenever France should attain to a superior maritime
power to Britain . . . I may say without the spirit of prophecy that whenever
they think themselves so, the first blow they will strike, will be to strip us, of
 whig supremacy and the company 49

every one of our sugar colonies, which I know to be easily attainable by them,
whenever they have a superior force by sea; and that the natural consequence
of that will be, that you will by the same blow, lose all your American colonies
as to their dependence on Britain. And then what must become of a nation . . .
with eighty millions of debt, and deprived of those branches of commerce that
principally produced the revenues, to pay the interest of those debts, is a mel-
ancholy consideration.”142 Following the French military victories in North
America and South Asia in 1754 and 1755, and with the outbreak of the Seven
Years’ War in Europe in 1756, such fears were on the verge of being realized.
The dynamics of empire, war, and debt eluded the control of Newcastle
and the Whig establishment. By the time the great imperial war concluded in
1763, the First British Empire was in upheaval and the Whig Supremacy was
no more. It is to the politics of empire in the years leading up to and including
the Seven Years’ War that we must now turn.
 chapter 2

ourgeois Radicalism and the “Empire of

Liberty” in the Age of Pitt

The Seven Years’ War and its aftermath were key turning points in the
transition from the First British Empire to the Second. This fact is a well-
rehearsed theme of imperial historiography. The outbreak of Anglo-French
global warfare in the mid-1750s set in train a process that transformed British
imperial relations from the Ohio Valley to the port enclaves of the Coroman-
del Coast. These developments eventually led to a wide-ranging imperial cri-
sis, the most important results of which were the sundering of the British
Atlantic in the American Revolution and the East India Company’s meta-
morphosis into an imperial power on the Indian subcontinent.
While these transformations were certainly not what British ministers and
officials set out to achieve at the beginning of the war, this does not mean that
metropolitan politics and ideology failed to shape and inform them. The fact
that the imperial crisis engendered by the Seven Years’ War was not “in-
tended” does not confirm the Namierite view that politico-ideological forces
and conflicts played no role in the crisis and transformation of the British
Empire. Such a conclusion ultimately rests on a narrow definition of ideology
as little more than individual will or, worse yet, all-knowing intrigue and
conspiracy.1 Ideology is not a matter of individual agency and intention but
rather of the weltanschauung, or framework of understanding, within which
individuals and groups interpret their social world. This more capacious defi-
nition eschews questions of individual planning and intentionality, allowing

50
 bourgeois radicalism 51

the historian to grasp the means by which sociohistorical processes both con-
stitute and are constituted by forms of subjectivity.2 When considering large-
scale historical changes, such as the transition from the First to the Second
British Empire and the origins and early formation of British India, we should
not focus on conscious plots or designs but rather on the interpretations of
and the responses to unfolding crises and events by the actors experiencing
them. It is important to examine the categories and conceptual frameworks
with which individuals and groups interpreted and responded to crises and
events, seeking to shape and transform them in a given direction.
The focus, then, should not be on the intentions of British ministers,
merchants, and opinion-makers at the beginning of the Seven Years’ War, but
rather on the ideological nature of their response to developments during the
war and immediately following it. The great war with Bourbon France—
more global in scope than even the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars from
1792 to 1815—generated imperial dynamics and difficulties that British min-
isters and officials had never faced before. However, these dynamics and dif-
ficulties did not dictate the responses of the British state and its ruling class.
The resolution of the crisis of the First British Empire did not require the
consolidation of a tributary territorial dominion in South Asia or the restric-
tive regulation and coercion of the American colonies, and the fact that Brit-
ish politicians and administrators ultimately chose to pursue these measures
cannot be explained merely with reference to the crisis itself. Hence, an ade-
quate interpretation of the origins and early formation of British India and of
the eighteenth-century transformation of the British Empire must take into
account the ideological and political nature of metropolitan responses to new
imperial dynamics and difficulties.
Such an account must begin with the years 1756 to 1760, for it was during
this period that national political unity briefly held sway, only to be quickly
shattered beyond all repair. In the late 1750s, the country’s opposing political
forces united in support of the war effort against France. Then, in the after-
math of resounding victory, this wartime alliance crumbled. Opposing forces
reemerged between 1760 and 1763, vociferously debating how to conclude the
conflict and to secure Britain’s interests overseas.

During the annus mirabilis of 1759, British and allied forces were victorious
against Bourbon France in every major theater of combat across the globe.
The island kingdom’s chief continental ally, Prussia, maintained the balance
of power in Europe, while British forces were victorious over France on the
52 the first british empire and its crisis

Atlantic and in North America, the West Indies, and South Asia. While the
Seven Years’ War continued until the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, the
broad contours of the peace were settled in this fateful year.
A remarkable geopolitical achievement, Britain’s military success in 1759
confirmed the effectiveness and vitality of the constitutional monarchy and
parliamentary supremacy established following the Glorious Revolution of
1688–1689. In the annus mirabilis, the fiscal-military state that emerged dur-
ing the reign of William and Mary successfully subsidized and supplied ex-
tensive forces on the continent while simultaneously defending and extending
British commercial and colonial interests from the Caribbean Sea to the Bay
of Bengal. “Never was there such a series of happy and glorious events!” ex-
claimed the Patriot poet and politician Sir George Lyttelton to his brother in
December 1759. “Guadeloupe conquered, just before a reinforcement arrived;
our East Indies saved when the Company themselves had despaired of their
safety; the battle of Minden won . . . the King of Prussia on the point of repel-
ling all his enemies . . . the French and Canadian army beat, and Quebec
taken by Wolfe.”3 The King’s Speech on the opening of Parliament in Novem-
ber 1759 declared that “his Majesty sees, and devoutly adores the hand of
Providence, in the many signal successes, both by sea and land, with which
his arms have been blessed . . . from the taking of Goree, on the coast of Af-
rica, to the conquest of so many important places in America, with the defeat
of the French army in Canada, and the reduction of their capital city of Que-
bec, effected with so much honour to the courage and conduct of his majes-
ty’s officers both at sea and land . . . and the Divine blessing has favoured us
in the East-Indies, where the dangerous designs of his majesty’s enemies have
miscarried; and that valuable branch of our trade has received great benefit
and protection.”4 Congratulating a leading minister in early 1760 on the “glo-
rious and unbounded success of his Majesty’s arms, in every part of the globe,”
Britain’s ambassador to Prussia, Sir Andrew Mitchell, contended that “the
events of last year are the most glorious and the most important in English
history, and cannot fail to transmit to posterity the King and his ministers in
the fairest and most amiable lights.”5 Across the Channel, the events of 1759
and their confirmation in the peace of 1763 left the French state’s imperial
designs in ruins and its public finances in shambles. The Bourbon monar-
chy—the most powerful expression of royal absolutism in Europe—suffered
total defeat at the hands of a parliamentary regime capable of calling on un-
precedented fiscal resources to wage what Winston Churchill famously
described as “the first world war.”
 bourgeois radicalism 53

The immense military gains of 1759 were made possible by political unity
as much as by strategic acumen and sound administration. The Newcastle-
Pitt ministry that oversaw the war effort and the victories of 1759 represented
a coalition forged between the leaders of the Whig establishment and some of
its leading Patriot opponents. Political strife between the Whig governments
and the Patriot opposition had steadily intensified from Robert Walpole’s
premiership to the 1750s.6 Despite this, the military setbacks Britain experi-
enced during the early years of the Seven Years’ War eventually led to
an alliance between the Duke of Newcastle’s establishment Whigs and the
parliamentary opposition and popular forces led by the Patriot Whig William
Pitt the Elder.
The early losses suffered by Britain and its allies in Europe, North
America, and South Asia, both before and after the formal declaration of war
in May 1756, deeply troubled the parliamentary classes and the populace at
large. In the dark days of 1756 and 1757, many in the political nation viewed
French victories as “great scenes of misfortunes with which Europe was op-
pressed [and] its liberties destroyed.”7 British men and women believed that
the French monarchy would use its commercial and colonial gains overseas to
establish its hegemony on the continent. It was feared that King Louis XV’s
France was on the cusp of achieving a universal monarchy that would extin-
guish civil and political liberties throughout Europe and beyond.
It was in this gloomy and foreboding context that Pitt the Elder rose to
power—unsuccessfully at first in the Devonshire-Pitt ministry formed in Oc-
tober 1756 and then successfully in the Newcastle-Pitt ministry formed in June
1757—and forged an alliance with the Whig establishment. Newcastle and
King George II were extremely hesitant to admit Pitt into the halls of power
since the Patriot leader had often been an implacable critic of the Whig estab-
lishment and its policies in the 1740s and early 1750s. When fighting first
broke out between British and French forces in North America in the mid-
1750s, Newcastle saw no need to bring Pitt or other leaders of the Patriot op-
position into government since the political nation was busily rallying around
George II and his ministers. “It is with the utmost Satisfaction I can assure
You, That the Unanimous Voice of the Nation, is in support of the vigorous
Measures The King is pursuing,” the Earl of Holdernesse, a Secretary of State,
remarked to a correspondent, “in Opposition to the Oppressive, and unjust
Proceedings of The Court of France.”8 However, as the losses of 1756 and 1757
piled up—especially following Admiral John Byng’s failure to prevent Minorca
from falling to French forces in June 1756—the Patriot opposition successfully
54 the first british empire and its crisis

mobilized popular sentiment against the government.9 The same combination

of events that caused Walpole’s downfall in 1742—the renewal of geopolitical
conflict and the growth of parliamentary and popular opposition—led to Pitt’s
political ascent in 1756.10 The Great Commoner’s rise to power was fueled by
French victories and the resulting loss of confidence in the government. De-
spite the severe reservations of Newcastle and George II, Pitt formed a minis-
try with the Duke of Devonshire in 1756. He was subsequently toppled from
office in April 1757, but then returned to power in a coalition with Newcastle
the following June. Facing parliamentary and popular discontent with the
war’s conduct, George II allowed the formation of a coalition ministry in June
1757 which left Newcastle in control of the government machinery and gave
Pitt command of the military effort.
One of the most eloquent Patriot Whig voices in the House of Commons,
Pitt returned to office in 1757 on a wave of popular support and at the behest
of a combative press.11 Numerous Tories and independent Whigs in Parlia-
ment backed him. Pitt’s support among the urban centers of mid-Hanoverian
Britain was particularly strong; he received the freedom of eighteen cities.12 As
E. P. Thompson remarks, “it was exactly the appeal of his image as an uncor-
rupted patriot which carried William Pitt the elder on the flood of popular
acclaim to power, despite the hostility of politicians and of Court.”13 Pitt
promised to rise above the “corruption” of the Whig establishment and to
conduct vigorous military campaigns against French power across the globe.14
In response to the threat posed by early French victories, Newcastle and
Pitt did their best to establish a coalition government that included opposing
political forces and ideologies. The unity they managed to forge in the govern-
ment and in Parliament—in particular, between the old corps Whigs led by
Newcastle and the Patriot opposition that supported Pitt—was widely re-
marked upon in the annus mirabilis of 1759 and in 1760, the last year of George
II’s reign.15 “For the present it may suffice that I assure you of the union, cor-
diality, and good-will which reign at present among the King’s servants,” Lord
Barrington observed to a correspondent in January 1760; “[i]t, fortunately for
them, our master, and the public, is such, that there never was more at any
period of our time.” Despite Barrington’s penchant for cynicism, he found
this hard-won political harmony remarkable: “I verily believe that the Duke
of Newcastle and his brother [Henry Pelham, the prime minister from 1743 to
1754] did not more cordially wish each other to continue in their respective
stations, than the Duke of Newcastle and Mr. Pitt do now; and there are less
disputes and coldness by a great deal, than there used to be between the two
 bourgeois radicalism 55

brothers. This union, great and extraordinary as it may seem, is nothing in

comparison with that of the parliament and the nation; which seem to have
one mind and one object.”16 Although it did not last long beyond the acces-
sion of King George III in late 1760, the unity forged in the heat of the “great
war for empire” was sincere.

In waging war against France in every theater of British overseas activity, Pitt
was fulfilling a key plank of the Patriot platform. The defense and expansion
of Britain’s maritime empire was as important for the Patriots as the anti-
oligarchic measures they routinely advocated in Parliament and in the press.17
In contrast with the Whig establishment, whose foreign policy was less ag-
gressive and more focused on Europe, the Patriots sought to radically expand
Britain’s commercial and colonial “empire of liberty.” While the Hanoverian
Whig regime oversaw considerable commercial and industrial expansion be-
tween 1714 and 1760, the Patriot opposition believed that the country’s supe-
rior naval power could be used to expand Britain’s “empire of the seas,”
allowing for greater volumes of trade and manufactured exports.18 Although
aggressively expansionist, the Patriots were adamantly opposed to conquering
territories and to establishing political dominions. “The object of the ‘empire
of the seas’ was not further territorial expansion,” Bob Harris reminds us,
“but the accumulation of ever greater wealth, and, through this and the mar-
itime strength which would accompany it, international security.”19 The Pa-
triots believed that the wealth and naval resources generated by greater
commercial and colonial expansion would allow the British state to cut off
French trade and shipping, thus preventing Bourbon hegemony without the
continental military commitments that increased domestic taxation and the
national debt. The editors of the Annual Register observed that the Patriot op-
position was vehemently opposed to French aggrandizement but felt that
Britain’s position in the world
dictated a narrower, but a more natural, a safer, and a less expensive
plan of politics, than that which had been adopted by the other party.
We ought never to forget, said they, that we are an island: and that this
circumstance so favourable both to our political and to our civil liberty,
prescribes to us a conduct very different from that of every other na-
tion. Our natural strength is a maritime strength, as trade is our natu-
ral employment: these must always go hand in hand, and they mutually
support each other. But, if turning our back to our real interests, and
56 the first british empire and its crisis

abandoning our natural element, we . . . [may] destroy ourselves by

our ill-judged efforts against the enemy. That we can have nothing to
fear from the superiority of [Britain’s enemies] on the continent, whilst
we preserve our superiority at sea; that we can always cut the sinews of
the enemies strength by destroying their traffic.20
While Newcastle and George II were already committed to waging war
against France in the New World and the East Indies as well as in Europe,
Pitt’s rise to power in 1756 and 1757 meant that the military effort was now
being shaped by an imperial project seeking to aggressively expand Britain’s
maritime power and commercial reach.
Before examining the transformation of Pittite Patriotism into radical
Whiggism during the Seven Years’ War between 1757 and 1761, we must first
consider the diverse political strands that formed it. For our purposes, it must
be noted that the Patriot opposition’s platform of anti-oligarchic politics and
assertive maritime imperialism was essentially a compromise between two
very different ideologies. While one of those ideologies was conservative and
potentially even reactionary in character, the other grew increasingly radical
during George II’s reign.
The conservative ideological strand of Patriotism, best enunciated in the
writings of Viscount Bolingbroke’s Tory circle, held that the Whig oligarchic
order was the political manifestation of the corruption of British society, a cor-
ruption rooted in the power of money and the increasing sway of finance.
According to the Tory wing of Patriotism, the growth of mobile wealth, the
stock market, and the public debt led to a social revolution that subverted the
traditional agrarian order. The monied elite had gained power at the expense
of the landed elite while corruption and interest replaced virtue as the motivat-
ing factors of political life.21 “Let any Man observe the Equipages in this Town
[London]; he shall find the greater Number of those who make a Figure, to be
a Species of Men quite different from any that were ever known before the
Revolution; consisting either of Generals and Colonels, or of such whose
whole Fortunes lie in Funds and Stocks[,]” the Tory wit and Bolingbroke ally
Jonathan Swift argued, “[s]o that Power, which, according to the old Maxim,
was used to follow Land, is now gone over to Money; and the Country Gentle-
man is in the Condition of a young Heir, out of whose Estate a Scrivener re-
ceives half the Rents for Interest, and hath a Mortgage on the Whole.”22 The
Tory members of the Patriot opposition often expressed their disdain for high
finance and evinced a “reactionary nostalgia for traditional, rural society.”23
 bourgeois radicalism 57

The political vision of Patriot Tories was thus rooted in a critique of the Whig
establishment that targeted monied corruption. From this vantage point, the
financial world of private stocks and public credit was not the necessary ex-
pression of an advanced commercial society, but rather an alien implant that
subverted the landed order.
This conservative strand of Patriotism appealed to the less wealthy seg-
ments of the landed classes who were marginalized by the Whig oligarchy. As
John Brewer remarks, “the view that the halcyon age of the landed gentry and
the independent freeholder had been brutally interrupted by the forces of
government, credit, and commerce . . . found favor, for obvious reasons, with
the Matthew Brambles and Squire Westerns dotted throughout the English
countryside.”24 Patriot Tories hoped that the landed gentry, supported by the
urban-based commercial and industrial classes, would eliminate the public
debt and the Whig oligarchic order. According to this vision, the restoration
of gentry rule would bring an end to political conflict and restore the bucolic
pleasures of Old England. Conservative Patriots believed that an expanded
maritime empire would increase the revenue at the state’s disposal, reducing
the necessity for taxes levied on the land. They also asserted that maritime
expansion was preferable to European warfare because it did not entangle
“free Britons” in endless squabbles among continental powers that were irre-
deemably despotic. The Tory wing of the Patriot opposition was committed
to commercial expansion because it benefited long-suffering country gentle-
men and provided the resources necessary for strengthening the traditional
landed order.
The other main ideological strand in Patriotism, associated with indepen-
dent Whigs, was politically radical and primarily concerned with the expan-
sion of Britain’s commercial and manufacturing society. While Patriot Whigs
shared a significant political program with Tory and conservative opposition-
ists—which called for more frequent elections, the removal of placemen from
the Commons, and the reduction of taxes—they advocated it from a different
ideological standpoint. As early as the 1720s, the polemics of independent
Whigs such as Robert Gordon and John Trenchard’s Cato’s Letters developed a
very different ideological critique of the Hanoverian regime.25 While these
writings often called for the restoration of a previous constitutional order, their
primary emphasis was on the political and economic freedoms necessary for
the full realization of commercial society. “In fine, monopolies are equally
dangerous in trade, in politics, in religion,” Gordon and Trenchard averred,
because “a free trade, a free government, and a free liberty of conscience are the
58 the first british empire and its crisis

rights and blessings of mankind.”26 They opposed the Whig oligarchic order
because it was an obstacle to the further development of commercial society,
impeding the creation of wealth, the diffusion of property, and the spread of
political liberty. According to this ideological framework, the aristocratic-
oligarchic character of the Whig Supremacy was at least as problematic as the
plutocratic interests that supported it.
The radical wing of Patriotism appealed to the urban middling sort—
including petty manufacturers, middling merchants, shopkeepers, profession-
als, and tradesmen—many of whom mobilized against the policies of the
Hanoverian regime between the 1730s and the outbreak of the Seven Years’
War. The anti-oligarchic politics entailed in Patriotism resonated with the
daily experience and socioeconomic interests of this stratum. As Brewer dem-
onstrates, the middling sort were deeply affected by the growth of statutory
legislation and the parliamentary state, the increase in excise taxes on items of
mass consumption, and the expansion of credit.27 In response to both the
growing influence of the centralized state in their daily lives and their rising
tax burden, the middling sort became committed to curbing oligarchic cor-
ruption and patronage. Furthermore, the growth of borrowing among mer-
chants, shopkeepers, and tradesmen meant that the City elite’s influence and
the effects of government policy on private credit were mounting concerns for
them. Brewer persuasively argues that
the urban middleman and tradesman was not against credit per se . . .
what he objected to was the lack of regulation or control of credit and
its abuse by speculators. He also looked askance at “public credit”—
the demands of the state—for in times of war it competed very suc-
cessfully against private would-be borrowers. The employment of
Country ideology by such men should not, therefore, be seen as the
advocacy of a “politics of nostalgia” but as an enraged plea for the or-
dering of a mechanism whose current operations seemed as fickle as
fortune herself. The concern of the middling sort was not a return to
bucolic cloud-cuckoo land but the reduction of business risk and the
harnessing of new economic forces in the society.28
The independent Whigs and members of the urban middling sort who
adhered to this ideological strand of Patriotism were not critical of elite finan-
ciers and merchants because they were financiers and merchants—that is,
individual manifestations of the corrupting power of money—but rather be-
cause they were politically privileged. London’s haute bourgeoisie was freed
 bourgeois radicalism 59

from market competition by closed subscriptions to public loans, govern-

ment contracts, and monopoly charters, which allowed them to accrue wealth
on the basis of political connections instead of enterprise and industry.
Like the Patriot Tories, the Patriot Whigs called for the aggressive
expansion of Britain’s maritime empire—however, as in the case of their anti-
oligarchic politics, they did so from a different ideological standpoint. These
radical Patriots supported maritime imperialism not because they were con-
cerned with heavy taxes on the landed gentry, nor because they viewed the
“liberties of Europe” as an empty phrase of ministerial propaganda, but rather
because they believed that commercial and colonial expansion would unleash
the productive potential of market forces and, in turn, generate greater pri-
vate profits and public revenue.
The differences between these two ideological strands of Patriotism were
initially subtle, generating little friction among the opposition coalition dur-
ing the Walpole and Pelham ministries. However, by the later 1750s and 1760s,
they had become pronounced. During and after the Seven Years’ War, the
ideological commitment of Patriot Whigs to the maximal advance of com-
mercial and manufacturing society evolved into a radical Whig politics that
threatened the oligarchic order. It is to the growth of radical Whiggism, and
the intensified political conflict that it gave rise to, that we must now turn.

By the time the dust settled in 1759, the Newcastle-Pitt ministry had overseen
the defeat of Bourbon France in every major military theater. Yet it “was in
this year of unanimity and victory,” the radical Whig publisher John Almon
contended, “that the seeds were sown of those divisions which appeared soon
after the accession of George the Third.”29 Although Lord Barrington believed
that the coalition government was unified in early 1760, he nevertheless
warned that the Seven Years’ War had not so much eliminated political differ-
ences as repressed them, averring that national unity did not arise “from any
improvement made by our countrymen either in wisdom or in virtue” but
“solely from this,—no man who can raise any sort of disturbance finds it ei-
ther convenient or agreeable to be out of humour at this time.”30 Less than a
year after the death of George II, with France humbled, the government was
deeply divided over how best to proceed in the geopolitical arena. Was a
separate peace with France to be pursued, or was it in Britain’s national inter-
ests to continue the war with France, to further subsidize Prussia, and to de-
clare war against Spain as well? Which colonial and commercial acquisitions
were to be returned to France and which kept? What was to be done about
60 the first british empire and its crisis

the East India Company’s growing power on the subcontinent? What should
be done with Britain’s vastly expanded empire in North America? These and
numerous other questions of military and imperial policy were at the fore-
front of the government’s attention; they generated deep political divisions
within the ministry as well as between the ministry and the Court. The con-
flicts over these questions led Pitt and Newcastle to exit the government in
1761 and 1762, respectively, leaving George III and his chief advisor, the Earl
of Bute, to manage the last stages of the war and to pursue peace with France.
The central issue running through all of these military and imperial de-
bates was the uncertain state of government finance—particularly, the prob-
lems caused by the tremendous growth of the national debt. “Thank God we
have perfect union at home, which is both the cause and the consequence of
our success, and our credit is high as can be desired,” George Lyttelton re-
marked to his brother in 1759, “yet the eight millions which are to be raised
the next year will be a terrible burthen upon us.”31 His fears were not mis-
placed: the expansion of the national debt—surpassing £130 million by the
end of the war—eventually led to widespread political discord. The debt was
one of the central issues of the next five years, occupying the minds of politi-
cians, civil servants, and pamphleteers throughout the postwar upheaval.
“Since Jacobite or arbitrary principles have been exploded, as for above half a
century they have been by all sensible Britons, what has been the source of fear
and apprehension to considerate men? What has afforded colour to party
clamours and contention?” queried a pamphleteer in the early 1760s. “What
(I would be glad to know) but the national debt, its concomitants, and ap-
prehended consequences?”32 Indeed, the growth of the debt was an issue of
momentous importance that affected every aspect of government during the
1760s, from taxation and commercial regulation to public infrastructure and
military expenditure.
While the debt had grown steadily over the course of the eighteenth cen-
tury, it increased dramatically during the War of the Austrian Succession and
even more so during Pitt’s direction of the Seven Years’ War. Between 1756
and 1763 alone, the debt expanded from £74 million to £133 million.33 The
military costs stemmed from Pitt’s commitment to carrying on the war both
in Europe and in the Atlantic and Asian imperial arenas. Earlier in his career,
Pitt evinced the Patriot suspicion of continental warfare and roundly criti-
cized ministerial concern with the Electorate of Hanover. However, by the
time he took control of the war effort in 1757, Pitt was committed to fighting
France in central Europe, which was crucial to his strategy for victory. Thus,
 bourgeois radicalism 61

in 1757 and 1758, Pitt heavily subsidized Prussia’s conflict with France,
Austria, and Russia while maintaining Ferdinand of Brunswick’s British and
Hanoverian army.
While Pitt’s military support for Frederick the Great marked a departure
from his long-standing Patriot views on continental measures, his conduct of
the war overseas was another matter altogether. He vigorously pursued the
Patriot imperial project through extensive colonial and naval warfare.34 In
fact, Pitt was adamant that the government’s continental commitments were
secondary to and necessary for the struggle against France overseas.35 In 1759,
the Royal Navy won a decisive victory over the French fleet at Quiberon Bay.
British armies overtook French forces throughout North America and cap-
tured Quebec. More French possessions, including Guadeloupe in the Carib-
bean, fell to the British. Although Pitt’s imperial strategy adapted to events
and changing circumstances, Frank O’Gorman rightly observes that it was
informed by “his firm belief that the future of Britain lay with her trade, her
markets and her manufactures, that French military and economic power
would stand in her way and that the key to military conflict between them
would lie in North America.”36 The overarching goal of Pitt’s imperial strat-
egy was to secure and extend Britain’s commercial and colonial empire to the
maximum extent possible. This would allow for the free flow of British trade
and manufactures throughout the globe, unfettered by rival European mon-
archies. The ideological vision that informed this imperial strategy received
its earliest expression in the young Pitt’s criticisms of the Walpole administra-
tion, especially during the Patriot opposition’s drive for war with Spain in the
later 1730s. “When trade is at stake, it is your last retrenchment; you must
defend it, or perish,” Pitt declared in the House of Commons during the
debate over a treaty with Spain in 1738; “this convention, Sir, I think from my
soul, is . . . on the part of England a suspension . . . of the first law of nature,
self-preservation and self-defence—a surrender of the rights and trade of
England to the mercy of plenipotentiaries, and in this infinitely highest and
sacred point, future security, not only inadequate, but directly repugnant to
the resolutions of Parliament . . . the complaints of your despairing mer-
chants, the voice of England has condemned it.”37 By 1759, Pitt was in the
process of fulfilling his ideological ambition to permanently reduce the power
of Britain’s major commercial and colonial rival and to fully secure and ex-
tend the maritime “empire of liberty.”
In undertaking this global struggle against France, Pitt was supported by
increasingly radicalized groups of merchants, shopkeepers, petty manufacturers,
62 the first british empire and its crisis

and tradesmen throughout London and the provincial urban centers.38 The ur-
ban middling sort who formed the popular wing of the Patriot coalition began
to articulate an even more strident anti-oligarchic politics and commercial im-
perialism. Rising to office on a wave of popular acclaim in the midst of French
victories, Pitt was hailed as a leader capable of defeating Louis XV’s forces and
of advancing British trade and manufactured exports to the farthest reaches of
the globe. Pitt’s subsequent conduct of the Seven Years’ War restored the extra-
parliamentary political nation’s support for the government. “In this critical
conjuncture, in this forlorn state of hope, the voice of the nation pointed out,
and the necessity of affairs called into action a few men, on whom the people
reposed their safety, and in whom they placed their confidence,” one writer later
remarked. “Mr. P[itt] was conspicuous in this illustrious class, and took the lead
in the administration of the war. The genius of Britain seemed to rise on his
elevation, and a new soul diffused itself through all ranks of persons. From dif-
fident, disconsolate, and desponding, they became easy, chearful, and assured.
Their hearts burned with resentment to wipe out past disgraces, to restore the
glory, the honour, the true character of their country, and their purses opened
equal to the benevolence of their hearts.”39 Pitt received strong support from the
wider mercantile community, who viewed him as an advocate of their interests
rather than those of the aristocratic magnates and the City elite.40 Rallying the
urban middling sort to his side, Pitt rejected the long-standing notion that com-
mercial and industrial wealth was inferior to landed property. In doing so, the
Great Commoner upset the political establishment. As Linda Colley reminds
us, when “Pitt ripped through this polite convention and told the House of
Commons in 1758 that he would be prouder of being an alderman of London
than a peer of the realm, he caused an outcry.”41 It is no surprise that Pitt was
viewed as a voice for the middling sort and the urban centers amid a political
establishment dominated by the landed classes.
Pitt’s conduct of the Seven Years’ War deepened the support for him among
the mercantile community and in the public sphere. He took advice from
merchant allies while planning military campaigns, and London businesses as
a whole benefited from British victories.42 In 1759, Newcastle responded to
George II’s complaints about Pitt’s leadership by asking if the king “thought
that this War, at this Immense Expense, could have been carried on without
the Unanimity of the People; The Popularity; the Common Council &c;
which was entirely owing to Mr. Pitt; so that It could not have been done
without Him.”43 The support for Pitt among the urban middling sort was
rooted in his commitment to establishing an unrivaled maritime empire that
 bourgeois radicalism 63

would secure and extend Britain’s commercial and industrial expansion as well
as pay for itself. As Kate Hotblack observes, “the merchants recognized that
the government was pledged to carry on a war for and upon trade, and deter-
mined that trade should support the war . . . when the Great Commoner re-
turned to office [in 1757] he knew that the cities of England were with him,
and was confident that with their aid he would eventually win the King’s sup-
port.”44 As news of each military victory flooded the metropolis in 1759 and
1760, Pitt’s popularity beyond the halls of power grew. “Victory made Pitt
what he had long claimed to be, the tribune of the people,” Paul Langford
contends; “it also made him the most powerful figure in British political life.”45
Pitt combined two different geopolitical strategies and ideological visions
in his effort to permanently reduce the power of Bourbon France. He was
weaving together the commercial and maritime-imperial project of the Pa-
triot opposition—especially as it was articulated by the independent Whigs
and the urban middling sort—and the old Whig project of preserving the
“liberties of Europe” by preventing French hegemony on the continent.46
Pitt was fully committed to a foreign and military policy that combined long-
standing Whig concerns regarding the balance of power in Europe with the
Patriot Whig program of maximally expanding Britain’s commercial and co-
lonial empire.47 Pitt’s goal during the Seven Years’ War was to check French
aggrandizement once and for all. “We have now reason to hope a happy issue
of this campaign,” the leading City radical William Beckford wrote to his
staunch ally Pitt. “France is our object, perfidious France: reduce her power,
and Europe will be at rest.”48 The Great Commoner sought to permanently
curb both French power on the continent and French imperialism in the
Atlantic and Asian worlds.
Although France had been defeated in every major arena of British impe-
rial activity by 1760, Pitt aimed to continue and extend the war against the
Bourbon monarchy and its commercial and imperial outposts. Convinced
that the gains made by Britain in the Atlantic and Caribbean theaters could
be reversed with French victories in central Europe, the Newcastle-Pitt min-
istry spent £14 million on the war in 1760 and provided British soldiers and
heavy subsidies for Ferdinand of Brunswick’s army.49 These continental mea-
sures entailed a radicalization of the Patriot maritime-imperial project rather
than its abandonment. The total defeat of the greatest European power—the
only serious rival to Britain’s overseas supremacy—would permanently re-
move all obstacles to the island kingdom’s commercial and colonial expan-
sion, allowing its maritime empire to spread unchecked across the globe.50 In
64 the first british empire and its crisis

the summer of 1761, after King Charles III of Spain made the Bourbon family
compact with Louis XV, Pitt sought not only to continue the war against
France in Europe and overseas but also to extend it against Spain and its New
World possessions. “What cannot such a People [the English] as this do,”
Beckford declared in the House of Commons while urging war with Spain.
“I say together they may give Law to the World . . . the Nation that is Mars’s
Dominions is terrae Imperator.”51 While many in the political classes were
opposed to continuing and extending the war, Pitt and his radical allies
wanted to press forward with what they viewed as a potentially final struggle
for overseas supremacy.
The ambition animating Pitt’s war aims was enormous. As Daniel Baugh
observes, “Pitt wanted to win, to achieve more than a comfortable settlement:
his object was to raise Great Britain a very substantial notch above France, to
create a world in which Great Britain might be permanently secure.”52 With
France reduced to second-power status and the island kingdom in complete
control of the seas, the British state would no longer be the preserver of the
balance of power in Europe, waiting for the emergence of a new threat to peace
before subsidizing allies to fight against it, but rather its arbiter. “Mr. Pitt
thinks we ought, by well chosen alliances,” explained one radical commenta-
tor, “to prevent the approach of danger, weaken the connections of France, and
maintain the balance of power in our own hand.”53 Pitt, who was in part raised
to power and maintained there by an outpouring of public support, particu-
larly in London and the provincial urban centers, wanted to establish the un-
rivaled maritime empire long desired by the merchants, petty manufacturers,
shopkeepers, tradesmen, and artisans who formed the mass base of Patriotism.
The “liberties of Europe” were to be secured and all obstacles to Britain’s mar-
itime empire were to be removed. The Pittite project aimed to transform the
British imperial state into a global coercive apparatus that provided the basis
for continuing commercial and industrial expansion.
A radical political-economic ideology of British overseas expansion was at
the heart of this imperial project. While aristocratic magnates such as New-
castle were troubled by the fact that global warfare with France tested the very
limits of the fiscal-military state developed since the Glorious Revolution,
Pitt’s increasingly radical extra-parliamentary political allies were not con-
cerned with these limits.54 According to the Pittites, the rentier oligarchic
complex that governed the country had placed unnecessary limits on the re-
sources that could be brought to bear in support of British commercial and
colonial interests throughout the world. While the socioeconomic pillars of
 bourgeois radicalism 65

the oligarchic order (London’s mercantile and financial elite as well as the
country’s large-scale capitalist landlords) limited the ability of ministers like
Newcastle to maneuver (he had at all times to secure the support of the mon-
ied elite and to uphold the sanctity of public credit), the Pittites believed that
they could call on the resources of the urban middling sort to support com-
mercial and colonial expansion on a grand scale. The Whig establishment
viewed this social stratum as a largely recalcitrant sector of the population
unwilling to pay the excise taxes that the regime relied upon. Hence, the po-
litical discontents of the middling sort were little more than a problem to be
managed. Pitt and his radical supporters took a very different view, seeking to
politically mobilize the middling sort for an imperial project that would even-
tually increase both their prosperity and the public revenue.
By protecting and expanding trade and colonial settlements, according to
this ideological vision, the Pittite war effort fostered commercial and industrial
expansion. With Britain’s manufactures and re-exports flooding global mar-
kets, the kingdom’s overseas supremacy would eventually pay for itself. “Pitt
and the City believed they could afford to pay both the immense subsidies
which our continental allies demanded and the cost of those diversionary at-
tacks on the French coast which Pitt conceived as necessary to his strategy,”
J. H. Plumb observes; “it was the capture of trade which haunted his imagina-
tion and which to him and his City supporters made the whole struggle a
matter of life and death for England.”55 The fiscal costs of this war to secure
and extend Britain’s maritime empire were to be recuperated by victory. As
markets for British goods were secured and new markets were opened, tax
revenue flowed in from the prospering (and no longer recalcitrant) urban-
based commercial and industrial classes. “If you are afraid you are not able to
carry on the War, enquire of the Merchants what are your Imports what are
your Exports,” Beckford thundered in the Commons in 1761. “Look into the
Customhouse books—Your Manufactures are not sufficient for your demands.
There is nothing the Parliament & King can’t do hand in hand the Nation
never was in so comfortable a State.”56 One pamphleteer asserted that Pitt’s
“capacity, his integrity, the vigorous powers of his mind, attracted the hearts,
the confidence, the hopes of the nation” and “raised cheerful and constant sup-
plies, equal to his great and extensive views.”57 As John Almon remarked retro-
spectively, “Commerce gave [state revenue] copiously, but circuitously . . .
and, as Lord Chatham said, carried us triumphantly through the great seven
years war.”58 The Pittites believed their imperial project would eventually
pay for itself. Their central war aim was to achieve a global maritime empire
66 the first british empire and its crisis

that supported Britain’s rapidly developing commercial and manufacturing

society.59
While Pitt and his supporters believed that their imperial project was in
the process of generating (and would in the long term continue to generate)
considerable revenues and profits, the immediate costs of the war were stretch-
ing the limits of the fiscal-military state. By the early 1760s, the political
classes believed that the growth of the national debt was far outstripping the
state’s ability to raise taxes and to make interest payments on loans.60 Even
those members of the political elite who had praised Pitt’s conduct in the
early years of the war were troubled by his increasingly radical political and
military commitments. “Mr. Pitt, on entering administration, had found the
nation at the lowest ebb in point of power and reputation . . . and the heavy
debt of the nation, which was above fourscore millions, served as an excuse to
those who understood nothing but little temporary expedients, to preach up
our impossibility of making an effectual stand, they were willing to trust that
France would be so good as to ruin us by inches[,]” Horace Walpole remarked.
Yet even though “Pitt had roused us from this ignoble lethargy” and “asserted
that our resources were still prodigious, he went farther, and perhaps too
far[,]” Walpole averred, and “staked our revenues with as little management,
as he played with the lives of the subjects; and as if we could never have an-
other war to wage, or as if he meant, which was impracticable, that his ad-
ministration should decide which alone should exist as a nation, Britain or
France, he lavished the last treasures of this country with a prodigality beyond
example and beyond excuse.”61 Although these concerns were widespread in
governing circles, Pitt remained aloof and indifferent. With the death of
George II and the accession of George III in October 1760, the tide turned
against the Great Commoner and his policies. The new king and his advi-
sors—most importantly, Bute—were deeply concerned with Pitt’s growing
influence and his plan to extend the war to Spain and its New World colo-
nies.62 They joined forces with other members of the government in an effort
to end the conflict. With the tide of elite opinion turning against his policies
and war aims, Pitt left office in October 1761. Although the Bute ministry was
eventually forced to declare war against Spain in January 1762, the peace pro-
cess with France commenced later that year.
Now out of power, Pitt made common cause with the extra-parliamentary
political forces opposed to the peace negotiations and, eventually, to the terms
of the Treaty of Paris.63 In order to bring the war to as quick a conclusion as
possible, Bute and George III were willing to make considerable concessions
 bourgeois radicalism 67

to France—including Guadeloupe and Martinique—and to abandon the alli-

ance with Prussia. The radicalized sections of the urban middling sort that had
rallied around Pitt in the later 1750s—above all, in the London merchant com-
munity—viewed these measures as a betrayal of the conflict’s central purpose,
and waged a campaign against the peace provisions in later 1762 and 1763. The
Monitor, a weekly London paper founded by William Beckford’s brother,
Richard Beckford, and The North Briton, published by John Wilkes, led the
radical Whig propaganda campaign against the Bute ministry and its negotia-
tions with France. “War is more desirable than a peace, which by the continual
alarms of hostile preparations, obliges us to lie always upon our arms against
the surprize of an insidious friend,” The Monitor declared in November 1762,
“so that if an enemy, whose strength is broken, can’t be brought to this neces-
sary concession, the conquerors ought to proceed in the way of arms, till they
shall deprive them of their resources to raise and pay fleets and armies for those
mischievous purposes: and then there is no doubt of making the most ambi-
tious, revengeful, and obstinate nation a harmless, inoffensive people . . . [a]n
enemy that fights for dominion has no title to, neither is he to be treated with
moderation; nothing less than an entire reduction and suppression of his
strength can prevent his breach of faith.”64 The radical Whigs believed that
any peace concluded with France must fulfill the central objectives of Pitt’s
policies—namely, the permanent reduction of Bourbon power, the secure es-
tablishment of the “liberties of Europe,” and an extended British maritime
empire. When the Bute ministry abandoned these goals, the public sphere was
flooded with pamphlets, periodicals, and petitions decrying the peace process.
The Monitor contended that there was a “sudden change in the countenance
of [the] country, from an universal mirth and joy, spread over the whole island,
at the success of our arms over her enemies, and the increase and security of
our strength and trade, to the most dismal sorrow and disconsolate murmur-
ings, at the publication of such conditions of peace, as would leave us in the
sad situation of Tyre, disabled by sea and land; deprived of the richest branches
of our trade; rendered contemptible in all nations, and reduced to submit to
the dictates of Bourbon.”65 Although the campaign against the Bute ministry’s
negotiations with France was ultimately unsuccessful, the political movement
underpinning it continued to grow.
The radical political energies that surged around Pitt and his imperial
project did not die out when the Treaty of Paris was signed in February 1763.
The Pittite program was ultimately part of a larger political transformation
that began in the mid-1750s and grew in strength in the 1760s. During these
68 the first british empire and its crisis

years, the radical and Whiggish strands of Patriot ideology were disentangled
from the conservative Tory vision they had been allied with since the later
1720s.66 This ideological change was bound up with the urban middling sort’s
growing opposition to the landed elite’s monopoly on political power. The
later 1750s and 1760s gave birth to a radical Whig politics that sought not
only to secure and extend Britain’s maritime “empire of liberty” but also to
reform the domestic political order.
To grasp the connection between Pitt’s imperial project and the growth of
radical Whiggism, it is necessary to consider the strident commercial ideology
that informed the political context of the onset and conduct of the Seven
Years’ War. This commercial ideology was at the heart of the reform move-
ment that emerged over the next decade. The Monitor, a popular platform for
this ideology and the policies that flowed from it, understood Pitt’s imperial
project and war aims as the geopolitical instruments necessary for tapping the
potential of Britain’s dynamic commercial and manufacturing society:
At present, or rather, at the time the Right Hon. Mr. PITT was driven
from the helm, the whole land was full of joy and mirth: our armies
were victorious; no enemy could stand before them: our fleets main-
tained the dominion of the seas, and covered our conquests, colonies,
and islands; there was no danger of surprise from the shattered remains
of a hostile navy: there was no complaint of money to continue a just
and necessary war; the revenue or sources to pay our fleets and armies
were reaped in the harvest of the great ocean: the trade of the whole
world centered in this island; she was the mart of all nations: the mer-
chants engrossed the riches of the universe and lived like princes; and
the manufacturers were enabled to live in credit and reputation, being
supplied with many things necessary for their use from our conquests,
at an easy rate, for which they had been obliged to pay dear before.67
Such views, while undoubtedly utopian in failing to grasp the fiscal difficul-
ties faced by Newcastle and other establishment Whig ministers during
the Seven Years’ War, need to be explained rather than dismissed. For they
ultimately amounted to an ideological assertion of what would be possible if
Pitt was able to permanently curb the power of Louis XV’s France and to fully
secure and extend Britain’s maritime trading empire. Such ideological asser-
tions were ultimately rooted in the daily experience of Britain’s burgeoning
commercial and manufacturing society. These political radicals were commit-
ted to strengthening and expanding the freedoms and wealth-creating
 bourgeois radicalism 69

capacities of bourgeois society. They advocated the use of political and mili-
tary power against the Bourbon monarchy and its allies in order to transform
the world order, making it safe for the further development of these social
freedoms and wealth-creating capacities. The radical Whigs confronted ob-
stacles to the expansion of these same freedoms and capacities in Britain as
well. Over the course of the later 1750s and 1760s, they were increasingly pre-
pared to challenge domestic political arrangements in order to eliminate these
obstacles. The strident commercial ideology that underpinned Pitt’s war ef-
fort also informed the radical Whiggism that was vociferous in its critique of
Britain’s political establishment.68 It is to the growth of this radical Whig
politics that we must now turn.

The movement for political reform that emerged in the later 1750s and 1760s
largely centered around the issues of taxation and representation. During the
early years of the Seven Years’ War, instructions and petitions flowed into the
halls of power in London from commercial outports and manufacturing
towns demanding reforms such as the elimination of placemen from the
Commons and open subscriptions to government loans.69 When, faced with
the state’s mounting fiscal burdens, the Bute ministry proposed an excise tax
on cider in March 1763, it faced significant opposition from politically
organized elements of the urban-based commercial and industrial classes,
who deeply disliked the facts that tax offenders did not receive jury trials and
that excise officers possessed wide-ranging powers of search and seizure.70
There was widespread opposition to the tax in the cider-producing West
Country and in London’s extra-parliamentary political arena.71 “A duty is im-
posed upon our very apples,” proclaimed Wilkes in his immensely popular
newspaper, The North Briton, “and I confess that great sums of money may be
raised by the tax, as well as great murmurings.” The radical provocateur gid-
dily rejoiced in the “general alarm, which has spread not only through the
capital, but likewise through the whole kingdom, from a well-grounded ter-
ror of fatal consequences so justly apprehended from the next tax on cyder.”72
After the cider bill successfully made it through the House of Lords, the sher-
iffs of London approached George III and asked him not to give the legisla-
tion his assent. “What times do we not live in,” the king averred to Bute
shortly before signing the bill, “when a parcel of low shopkeepers pretend to
direct the whole Legislature.”73 Bute resigned from the ministry shortly after
the bill’s passage. The government found it increasingly difficult to tax any
item of popular consumption.
70 the first british empire and its crisis

Political opposition to the growth of excise and customs taxes flourished

in the 1760s. This development is not surprising given that, as Brewer ob-
serves, “about 20 percent of the nation’s commodity output was being appro-
priated as taxes (about twice the comparable French figure), and the share of
per capita output collected in the form of tax revenue was remarkably simi-
lar.”74 The regressive character of this taxation was the chief target of radical
opinion. “When I consider the enormous load of taxes under which this
wretched kingdom labours, and how unequally they are borne by different
members of it,” averred one radical Whig, “I do not wonder at that murmur-
ing and discontent, which prevails amongst the lower order of people, who
contribute more than their proportion to the expences of government.”
While the conspicuous consumption of the landed elite and London’s haute
bourgeoisie was lightly taxed, manufacturers, middling merchants, shopkeep-
ers, tradesmen, artisans, and laborers were expected to bear the state’s fiscal
burdens. In railing against the duty on beer, the radical opinion-maker called
for a dramatic social redistribution of taxation: “In a country like this, which
depends for its strength and riches on its manufactures, the necessaries of life
should escape as free as possible from taxation, because they are common to
the poor and to the rich, in almost the same proportion; and it is impossible
they should be taxed without increasing the price of labour, which it is for the
benefit of commerce to be kept moderate and reasonable . . . every duty that
is contrived to fall principally on the lower or middling part, which is the
bulk of the nation, is unjust, iniquitous, and execrable. Let all the superflui-
ties, elegancies, and luxuries of life be taxed and retaxed over and over: Dou-
ble or triple the duty upon plate and coaches, as well as upon dice and cards:
It is not fit that vanity and vice should be free and unrestrained, while the
most galling shackles are imposed upon labour and industry.”75 The govern-
ment was forced to defend its tax policy throughout the 1760s in the face of
an increasingly recalcitrant population.
In addition to reforming government taxation and abolishing monopo-
lies, the increasingly radicalized anti-oligarchic opposition aimed for greater
access to the halls of power and, ultimately, to win political representation.
The radical Whigs no longer sought merely to eliminate ministerial corrup-
tion and to remove pensioners and placemen from the legislature. They now
wanted to transform the parliamentary political system in order to provide a
more adequate institutional framework for Britain’s modernizing commercial
society. Upon his election as MP from London in 1761, the radical Whig
Beckford declared that “our Constitution is deficient in only one Point, and
 bourgeois radicalism 71

that is, that little pitiful Boroughs send Members to Parliament equal to Great
Cities; and it is contrary to the Maxim, that Power should follow Property.”76
The radical Whig critique of the oligarchic state did not point backward to a
traditional agrarian order but rather forward to a more commercialized and
urbanized polity. As Brewer argues, “the attack on the state of representation,
marked, as it were, the urbanisation of country party ideology.”77
By the early 1760s, the radical wing of Patriotism and the politicized mem-
bers of the urban middling sort had abandoned conservative Country notions
in favor of a full-blown radical Whiggery. This transformation was nowhere
more apparent than in the City of London. No longer wedded to the Tory or
independent Whig parliamentary opposition, London’s merchants and shop-
keepers began to articulate a new set of ideas and interests.78 Rather than fol-
lowing in the path of these radicals, the conservative Patriots and Tories began
gravitating back toward the government. The accession of George III, who
was firmly committed to dislodging the Whig establishment from power and
to ruling “above party,” and the growth of domestic radicalism led most con-
servative Patriots and Tories to rally around the Court and the ministry. In
effect, the Patriot coalition was ripped in half. While the conservative Patriots
and Tories were increasingly critical of independent middling-sort politics,
the radical Patriots-turned-radical Whigs began to take aim at the landed
elite’s monopoly on political power. In October 1762, The Monitor observed
that “all ranks of people” were in support of continuing the war against France
“except for a few miserable wretches, that disgrace their immense patrimonies
by grudging the out-goings of land tax.”79 In the later 1750s, Beckford aban-
doned his Tory connections and became, as George Rudé observes, “a cham-
pion of the commercial and ‘middling’ classes against the aristocracy.”80 With
the fracturing of the Patriot coalition, a new political landscape began to
emerge. The progressive strand of Patriot ideology independently developed
into a radical Whiggism that embraced the emancipatory and wealth-creating
potential of bourgeois society.
By the early 1760s, it was clear that a new political division was supplanting
the long-standing conflict between the Whig establishment and the Patriot
opposition. The radicalized elements of the urban middling sort and their al-
lies among the political elite articulated a new politics diametrically opposed
to the conservative elements in the Whig establishment and to the Tories and
the conservative Patriot circle around George III. Radical Whigs increasingly
viewed all of their opponents, regardless of party label, as hidebound Tories. In
the spring of 1764, The Monitor remarked that “the distinction which formerly
72 the first british empire and its crisis

had been between country gentlemen and courtiers, was now betwixt the friends
of liberty, and the slaves of power[,]” and that “[n]one but Whigs, who renounce
their convictions, forsake their first love, and cut off the breasts that nourish’d
them, can ever think of associating with Tories, who retain their prejudices,
and make gain of changing their professions.”81 While the radicals viewed the
politics of their opponents as a return to late seventeenth-century Toryism and
Stuart absolutism, the conservative elements of the Whig establishment,
George III’s inner circle, and the Tories viewed the radicals’ strident commer-
cial ideology and popular politics as a threat to political stability and British
liberty. Each side suspected the other of wanting to undo the revolutionary
settlement of 1688.
The radical Whiggism of the later 1750s and 1760s was not simply con-
jured into existence by the Seven Years’ War and Pitt’s policies. The emergence
of this form of politics was ultimately bound up with the continuing develop-
ment of bourgeois society in Britain. By the mid-eighteenth century, Britain’s
broad capitalist transformation—which, as Robert Brenner argues, was under-
written by a large-scale commercial agriculture that allowed and indeed neces-
sitated an ever-increasing proportion of the population to seek its livelihood
off the land—had given rise to new commercial outports, market towns, and
manufacturing centers fundamentally different in character from previous ur-
ban centers.82 The separation of the majority of direct producers in the coun-
tryside from their means of subsistence and production vastly transformed the
socioeconomic landscape and eventually led to the far-reaching commercial-
ization and expanding consumer market that characterized eighteenth-century
British society.83 Several towns and cities which were not politically dominated
by the local aristocracy and gentry developed vibrant public spheres and extra-
parliamentary political cultures. At the center of these new urban political
cultures in mid-Hanoverian Britain was the middling sort, including petty
manufacturers, middling merchants, shopkeepers, and tradesmen.84
This social stratum embraced the forms of market competition it was sub-
jected to, and eventually abandoned the Country and classical republican no-
tion that the possession of landed property was necessary for civic virtue and
political independence. By the later 1750s and 1760s, the anti-oligarchic ideol-
ogy generated in these towns and cities viewed existing political institutions as
anachronistic since they were founded when property primarily entailed own-
ership of land rather than the goods and services created by labor, trade, and
innovation. One radical pamphleteer contended that parliamentary represen-
tation was “established in those Ages when Land was almost the only species
 bourgeois radicalism 73

of Local Property in England” and that such a system was inadequate because
“Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, have derived a Flow of Wealth of a
different Species.”85 In other words, the unreformed and unrepresentative leg-
islature was no longer adequate to the dynamic commercial society of mid-
Hanoverian Britain. This emerging radical ideology—which fundamentally
challenged the aristocratic-oligarchic character of the British state—was the
political corollary of the urban middling sort’s economic embrace of an in-
creasingly anonymous marketplace that replaced their previous dependence
on a limited pool of aristocratic patrons and elite consumers. As Brewer con-
tends, members of the middling sort viewed “operating in an open market,
free from the constraints, whims, and fancies of a patron” as the means of
“securing independence, of exchanging the personal capricious control of cli-
entage for the Smithian “hidden hand,” which at least operated on a more
impersonal and egalitarian basis.”86 The expansion of the market had made
the urban-based middling sort less dependent on the landed elite. Radical
Whiggism sought to transform the British state into a vehicle for the further
expansion of the market at home and overseas and, thus, for the further ex-
pansion of personal independence, free exchange, and voluntary association.
From the perspective of the radical Whigs, the landed character of the existing
regime stood in the way of achieving this goal.
Cities such as London, Liverpool, and Manchester were the key centers of
a radical Whig ideology that sought to transform Britain and its empire. It
was in these urban centers that socioeconomic interdependence mediated by
commodity production and exchange received its purest expression. These
commodity-mediated social relations provided more than the general context
for the emergence of radical Whiggism and, eventually, the Wilkesite move-
ment. They constituted the fundamental forms of subjectivity expressed in
radical Whig politics. The social space of these cities was the site of what Karl
Marx termed the sphere of circulation, where commodities and capital are
distributed during the cycle of production and consumption. The exchange
of commodities in this sphere generated the categories of radical Whig and
proto-liberal critique—that is, the categories of freedom, equality, property,
and interest.87 It was in this sphere of bourgeois society that independent in-
dividuals, freed from extra-economic coercion, encountered one another in
their necessary social interdependence, freely exchanging equivalent values of
their own possessions. Thus, the sphere of circulation was both the precondi-
tion for and the generative site of radical Whig and proto-liberal ideology. As
Marx argued, “equality and freedom are thus not only respected in exchange
74 the first british empire and its crisis

based on exchange values . . . the exchange of exchange values is the produc-

tive, real basis of all equality and freedom.”88 Of course, the categories of radi-
cal Whig and proto-liberal critique were not understood by contemporaries
as forms of political subjectivity that expressed bourgeois social relations, but
rather as the dawning awareness of the “natural rights of mankind” that had
been traduced by aristocrats and priests. Nevertheless, the experience of
equality and freedom in the sphere of circulation gave rise to abstract political
categories that in turn provided the point of departure for criticizing existing
forms of sociopolitical organization. The civil society of mid-Hanoverian
towns and cities generated the forms of subjectivity that underpinned the
developing political radicalism of the period.
Rejecting the notion that their fiscal contribution was an eternal obliga-
tion in favor of the idea that the state should pursue the interests of the tax-
payers who sustained it, radical Whigs claimed that political representation
should reflect how (and by whom) the wealth and resources that the govern-
ment depended upon were generated. These political radicals were essentially
demanding their full rights as commodity owners over and against the oligar-
chic state that ruled Britain. They were no longer simply criticizing ministerial
corruption and incompetent policy but rather demanding the fundamental
reorganization of the sociopolitical order from the standpoint of the sphere of
circulation and commodity exchange. Thus, the radicals sought to transform
parliamentary representation in order to create a parliamentary state that was
more adequate to the forms of civil society and private property in mid-
eighteenth-century Britain.
Within this interdependent commercial society, the government’s tax and
regulatory policies were of vital importance. In commanding a portion of the
population’s income and regulating the economy in order to meet the fiscal-
military needs of the state, ministers and officials were intervening in the
privatized sphere of commodity exchange and the division of labor. In doing
so over the early modern era, the state called into being what Jürgen Habermas
famously termed the bourgeois public sphere—the realm of critical public
discourse, spanning from coffeehouses and market exchanges to newspapers
and pamphlets—where private individuals gathered to collectively reflect on
society (that is, their necessary interdependence) and engage “public authori-
ties . . . in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically
privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social la-
bor.”89 During the Seven Years’ War, the radical Whigs began to argue that the
bourgeois public sphere was a more adequate expression of the political nation
 bourgeois radicalism 75

than the existing parliamentary system. In rallying support for war with Spain,
the radical Whig leader Beckford claimed that there was a source of political
legitimacy beyond the Crown and Parliament. That source was the public
opinion of the middling sort. “When I talk of the Sense of the People, I mean
the Middling People of England—the Manufacturer, the Yeoman, the Mer-
chant, the Country Gentn. —they who bear all the heat of the day, & who pay
all Taxes to supply all the Expences of Court & Government[,]” Beckford
averred; “[t]hey have a right Sir to interfere in the Condition & Conduct of
the Nation which makes them easy or uneasy who feel most of it, & Sir the
People of England taken in this limitation, are a good natured, well inten-
tioned, & very sensible People, who know better perhaps than [any] other
Nation under the Sun whether they are well governed or not.”90 Merchants,
petty manufacturers, shopkeepers, and prosperous farmers formed a political
nation of propertied British subjects whose wealth derived from enterprise and
industry, not from inheritance, and who funded the state.91 For Beckford and
his co-thinkers, the failure of this political nation to find adequate expression
in the oligarchic order necessitated reform. They charged aristocratic grandees
with being “mere Subalterns” who “receive More from the Public than they
pay to it—If you were to cast up all their Accounts & fairly state the Balance
they would turn out Debtors to the Public for more than 1 third of their In-
comes.”92 The radical Whigs were opposed to a political order that served the
interests of aristocratic magnates and the City elite, a political order that they
increasingly believed was incapable of permanently curbing French power and
of extending the “empire of liberty” across the globe.
During the 1760s, the coffeehouses of London and the provincial cities
were inundated with pamphlets and newspapers calling into question the
foundations of the oligarchic order. Drawing on these radical sentiments, a
self-proclaimed “true Whig” averred that “we are, in great measure, deprived,
though, I hope, not irremediably, of that, on which the very foundation of
liberty must, in every nation, and under every species of free government, rest;
I mean the independent people’s weight in administration.” In describing the
source of Britain’s woes, this opinion-maker articulated the central radical
Whig indictment of the Hanoverian regime:
That the people have not, at this time, their due weight in govern-
ment, will appear, I humbly conceive from what follows. . . . What
constitutes a nation free, is the people’s having a power, equally dif-
fused according to property, of choosing the persons, who are to make
76 the first british empire and its crisis

the laws, by which they are to be governed, and the persons, who are
to administer government over them. . . . Let us, in order to form just
notions of the degree of liberty at present secured to us, consider . . .
the lower house. First, with regard to the representation, in that famous
assembly, of the great and important body of the people (great and
important beyond estimation both in number and in property) the
commoners of Great Britain; what could blind chance have deter-
mined more unequal, irregular, and imperfect, than we see it at this
day? I need not tell you, my good countrymen, that the property of
the commons of Britain consists of the landed, the monied, and the
commercial interests. . . . The monied interest is not represented at
all. One hundred millions and upwards of property wholly excluded
from a share in the legislature! excepting where the proprietors have
other qualifications. The case is much the same with the commercial
interest. A merchant or manufacturer who exports to the value of half
a million every year, is not represented as a merchant or manufacturer;
he has not the privilege of a beggar in a Cornish borough. Accordingly
the great manufacturing towns of Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield,
&c. have no representation in parliament. And in most towns the
corporation, which bears no proportion to the inhabitants, either in
number, or property, are the only voters.93
There are no hints of conservative Country ideology in this anti-oligarchic
declaration. The writer did not evoke a long-lost era of gentry rule but rather
called for the creation of a political order in which representation was “equally
diffused according to property.” The radical Whig challenge to the aristocratic-
oligarchic state, whether it was made through demands for political reform or
calls for the expansion of Britain’s maritime empire, did not seek to restore a
traditional agrarian order but rather to expand commercial society and to
establish a polity representative of that society.
In the face of a recalcitrant aristocratic-oligarchic state, how would such
objectives be achieved? The “true Whig” declared that “the power of the gran-
dees is . . . become more formidable than ever” and that nothing short of pop-
ular mobilization could curb it: “British lion! where dost thou crouch? Rouse
thy wraths: utter thy tremendous roar. The slavish and enslaving junto will
tremble at the glare of thine eye.” Even though Britons were “on the verge of
losing [their] liberties in aristocracy,” all was not lost. “Nay, the certain remedy
of all our distresses is in ourselves, I mean in the aggregate body of governors
 bourgeois radicalism 77

and people; for we are not under a foreign yoke. How zealously the people will
insist on redress . . . remains to be seen.”94 The ruling class was no longer cer-
tain that the political difficulties they faced could be managed in the typical
ways. During the later 1750s and 1760s, as Plumb concludes, “the day of the
bourgeois radical dawned.”95

The era of the Seven Years’ War witnessed the dramatic transformation not
only of the British Empire but also of the shape and character of metropolitan
politics. The political divisions that ran from Walpole’s ministry through to
the 1750s began to be supplanted. Although British political life both during
and after the Seven Years’ War was extremely fluid, it is retrospectively clear
that the long-standing conflict between the Whig establishment and the Pa-
triot opposition was giving way to a new ideological scene. Not only had
radical Whiggism emerged to challenge existing domestic and imperial ar-
rangements, but also, with the accession of George III and the Whig estab-
lishment’s loss of power, high politics itself was increasingly unstable. The
transformations of British politics and of the British Empire were not simply
simultaneous processes. They were mutually constitutive of one another.
Pitt’s direction of the war effort unleashed new forces not only in the empire
but also in metropolitan politics. When George III and the conservative po-
litical establishment brought the war to an end in the early 1760s, they
were concerned not only with fiscal and military necessities but also with
domestic political developments. During the first decade of George III’s
reign, British conservatives and radicals were deeply divided over both
domestic and imperial affairs.
What role did the East India Company (EIC) play in these wider metro-
politan and pan-imperial developments? The Company’s transformation into
a territorial empire in northeastern India during the later 1750s and 1760s
took place in the context of the crisis and transformation of Britain’s imperial
state, a key aspect of which was the metropolitan crisis of the oligarchic order.
The next two chapters are devoted to examining the British political context
surrounding the EIC’s emergence as a territorial empire on the Indian sub-
continent between the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and Robert Clive’s acquisition
of the diwani in 1765. Before examining this period in detail, however, it is
first necessary to briefly consider the relationship between the Company and
metropolitan politics before Plassey.
As we saw in the last chapter, the EIC stood at the apex of the metropolitan
political and economic order from the 1720s to the 1750s. The Company’s
78 the first british empire and its crisis

directors and leading shareholders were drawn from the City elite. The corpo-
ration had extremely strong links with the Bank of England, played an impor-
tant role in London’s financial market, and was well connected to the Whig
regime. While the EIC stood on the edge of dissolution during the first two
decades after the Glorious Revolution, it thrived and prospered under the
Whig establishment.
Much more than simply a commercial concern, the Company was a pillar
of the Whig Supremacy and of the fiscal-military state. Powerful corporations
such as the EIC and the Bank of England provided extensive loans, grants,
and patronage resources to the British state; in return, they received govern-
ment contracts and exclusive privileges. The Company loaned its entire capi-
tal stock of £3.2 million to the government upon the renewal of its monopoly
charter in 1709, provided £200,000 to the Walpole ministry when John Bar-
nard and London radicals clamored for its expropriation in 1730, and sub-
scribed £1 million to the national debt upon the renewal of its charter in
1744.96 The EIC was a key element in a London financial complex composed
of monied companies and City patricians.97 The plutocratic merchants and
financiers at the helm of the EIC also controlled the Bank of England, the
South Sea Company, and a disproportionate share of the national debt.98 By
the 1750s, this urban elite owned one-third of the shares traded on the Lon-
don stock market despite representing only 2 to 3 percent of the investing
public.99 The monopoly commercial profits that accrued to the Company as
a result of its exclusive charter flowed into the hands of wealthy merchants,
financiers, and aristocratic grandees in the form of corporate dividends, and
into the Treasury in the form of public loans and grants. The EIC’s business
tentacles stretched beyond London throughout Britain and across the Asian
trading world from Bombay to Canton. Hence, the EIC was able to provide
employment for many individuals with political connections.100 The Com-
pany was a central component of the oligarchic state.
Political conflicts over the eastern trade were bound up with the evolution
of metropolitan politics as a whole. Throughout the later seventeenth and
early eighteenth centuries, a radical campaign was waged to expropriate the
Company and to re-establish the trade under the auspices of an open and
loosely regulated commercial organization. Despite initial successes, the
emergence and consolidation of the oligarchic order during the early decades
of the eighteenth century foreclosed this possibility and secured the monop-
oly joint-stock organization of the eastern trade under the United EIC. The
corporation’s role in the oligarchic order from the 1720s, and the alliance be-
 bourgeois radicalism 79

tween its directors and the Whig establishment, aroused the hostility of the
Patriot opposition. Tories viewed the Company as part of the “monied cor-
ruption” that had subverted the traditional landed order and that had con-
taminated British politics under the Whig Supremacy.
For the radical wing of Patriotism and, later, for the radical Whigs—in
particular, among the merchant communities of London and the provincial
cities—the EIC represented precisely what was wrong with the Whig oligar-
chic order insofar as it was an obstacle to realizing the potential of Britain’s
commercial and manufacturing society. The Company imported highly
prized Indian textiles into Europe and failed to export significant amounts of
British finished products, thus arousing the opposition of domestic manufac-
turing interests. The corporation’s directors and leading shareholders were
rentier business elites who benefited from their connections to the ministry
and the Court. The EIC’s exclusive control of all British trade east of the Cape
of Good Hope prevented other British merchants from exploring and exploit-
ing commercial opportunities throughout the Asian world. For these and
other reasons, the Patriot Whigs and their supporters among the urban-based
commercial and industrial classes were opposed to the Company and sought
its expropriation. “May you, Sir, with the Patriot Spirit of the Gracchi, and the
Fortune of Caesar, force the monopolizing Companies, to submit to an Agrar-
ian Law in Commerce,” a Patriot writer urged Robert Nugent, a Lord of the
Treasury, in the dedication to a collection of letters on the EIC in 1754, “and
give Liberty to the People of Great Britain and Ireland, to use their Industry,
upon those two thirds of the World which are now lock’d up by Monopolizers,
under pretence of a Charter and Act.”101 The joint-stock corporation’s char-
tered monopoly was viewed as a fetter on British commercial expansion in
Asia, and it placed the management of the trade in the hands of London’s
plutocracy rather than in those of the wider British merchant community.
This is why, according to Patriot ideology, the East India trade was not yet part
of the “empire of the seas.”102 The EIC’s privileged position and connections
with the government made it anathema to the political and social forces seek-
ing to advance market relations and to reform the oligarchic order.103 The
monopoly corporation’s continuing existence and growing influence was an
institutional expression of the increasing conservatism of the Whig Party be-
tween 1688 and the 1750s, during which time the Whigs shifted from being
revolutionary opponents of Stuart absolutism to defenders of the oligarchic
status quo. For many Patriots and for the emerging radical Whigs of the later
1750s and 1760s, the Company was an obstacle to the advance of commercial
80 the first british empire and its crisis

and manufacturing society, and, as such, was a reminder that the revolution-
ary settlement of 1688 had not gone far enough.
While no major organized assault on the EIC’s monopoly and corporate
privileges had been launched since Barnard’s failed effort in 1730, during the
1750s anti-Company sentiment nevertheless grew among radical Patriots. In
1752, during the debate in the Commons over a bill to prevent British busi-
nesses from insuring foreign ships bound for the East Indies, Beckford railed
against the “intolerable monopoly of the East India company.” The London
Patriot and future radical Whig leader was bitterly opposed to the EIC’s ef-
forts to prevent British businesses from dealing with other European compa-
nies and merchants trading to the East Indies. While denouncing the
Company’s use of political measures to eliminate competitors, Beckford ar-
gued for the reorganization of the eastern trade along the lines advocated by
the anti-EIC alliance during the 1690s. He proposed the establishment of a
free trade along regulated lines, in which the Company would be paid with “a
duty laid on all adventures sent to India” in return for maintaining the forts
and settlements necessary for commercial expansion in Asia. Beckford main-
tained that, if such a reorganization were pursued,
There is not a creek, nor corner in all India, that would not be filled
with British traders and British manufactures, and the increase of rev-
enue would be immense. . . . Let, therefore, the East India company
keep their forts and settlements, and receive the rents and profits aris-
ing from those forts, but let the nation seek out new places of trade
within the limits of their charter; let the bold, adventuring merchant
be permitted to carry the cloth and manufactures of Great Britain into
that vast, expansive, rich world: it is a field of commerce so exten-
sive—an harvest so plentiful, that a low, distressed, spiritless, inter-
ested company has not force to reap and gather the fruits of such
a trade. What a prospect of advantage is this to the nation! How
immensely would your customs rise! How would the nation be
benefited!104
The Company’s monopoly was viewed as an obstacle to the expansion of
British trade and industry as well as to the increase of public revenue. In 1754,
a Patriot pamphleteer argued that if the corporation’s exclusive privileges were
abolished, “all the People of England and Scotland wou’d get the Liberty of
using their Industry in the East Indies, which would increase infinitely the
Exports, and consequently the Employment of the People of Great Britain.”105
 bourgeois radicalism 81

Other critics inveighed against the EIC’s monopoly price-setting power and,
consequently, the high cost of Asian commodities such as tea.106
While Patriot opponents of the Company and its exclusive privileges were
aware that the military power and political influence of the French East India
Company were growing on the Indian subcontinent during the 1740s and
early 1750s, they did not believe that this necessitated the continuation of the
British corporation’s exclusive monopoly.107 In fact, some opinion-makers
pointed to the growth of French power as an argument for abolishing the EIC’s
monopoly and transferring its Asian forts and settlements to the British state.
“At present the Revenues arising from their Territories maintains them, and
would do so, if they were in his Majesty’s Hands, in Time of Peace,” a Patriot
writer contended, “and if there is a War, we see that the Nation must be at the
Expence of sending Fleets and Troops upon extraordinary Occasions; therefore
if the Nation is to be at the Charge of defending the Trade, they ought not to
be excluded from the Benefit of that which they defend.”108 Radical opponents of
the EIC believed that if the East India trade was opened up and directly regu-
lated by the state, the British forts and settlements in Asia would eventually
evolve into politically participatory and commercially flourishing colonies
similar to those in British North America. As a radical Patriot observed:
If St. Helena, Bombay and Madrass, were each of them, with their De-
pendencies, created into a separate Colony, with a Governor, ap-
pointed by his Majesty, to be assisted by a Council and Assembly,
chosen by the People, as in America, they would make as rich and as
flourishing Colonies as Virginia, or Jamaica; since their Trade and
Commodities are of more Value. And if the free Merchants who are
now there, together with all other Britons, who should go thither here-
after, were incorporated with the Black Merchants, who are excessive
rich, and with the Black Artizans, who are sober and industrious, those
Colonies would grow up, in a very short Time, to such a Height, as
hardly can be conceived; they would be so far from wanting a Mo-
nopolizing Company, that they would not only be able to defray their
own Charges, but give Assistance towards paying off the National
Debt. Think what a Resort of People would be to any Part of India,
where there were good Laws, Liberty, and Property established; and
where there was a mild Government, and free Trade.109
According to this ideological vision, British settlements and outposts in
Asia needed to be transformed into the bridgeheads not of a conquering
82 the first british empire and its crisis

territorial imperialism but rather of an expanding and liberalizing commer-

cial society. Long before Adam Smith remarked that there was a stark “differ-
ence between the genius of the British constitution which protects and
governs North America, and that of the mercantile company which oppresses
and domineers in the East Indies,” Patriot Whig politicians and pamphleteers
were concerned with transforming the shape and character of the British pres-
ence in Asia.110 The same strident commercial ideology that sought to expand
the maritime “empire of liberty” in order to advance Britain’s commercial and
manufacturing society also sought to reform the East India trade, making it
part of the “empire of liberty,” for the same purpose. Patriot and radical
Whigs in the 1750s opposed the Company as yet another obstacle to the fur-
ther expansion of political and economic freedom. The aim of the radical
Whig challenge to the EIC was not the conquest of territories and the estab-
lishment of political dominions in Asia but rather the commercial transfor-
mation of the British presence there. The kingdom’s factories and settlements
beyond the Cape of Good Hope were to be integrated into a global trading
and colonial empire. Such an empire would fuel the rapid development of
Britain’s commercial and manufacturing society.111
While Patriot and radical Whigs deeply disdained the Company’s mo-
nopoly and its privileged position in the oligarchic order, their views on its
military and strategic role in the global struggle waged against French impe-
rialism during the Seven Years’ War were far more ambiguous. This ambiguity
was a product of the militarization of Anglo-French rivalry beyond the Cape
of Good Hope during the mid-eighteenth century. Many of the radicals op-
posed to the EIC nevertheless concluded that its position must be defended
in the face of growing French imperial power. There could be no reform and
expansion of Britain’s eastern trade if the country’s presence in Asia was heav-
ily reduced or eliminated.
From 1742 until 1754, Joseph François Dupleix, the Governor-General of
the French settlements in India, pursued a strategy of political and military
aggrandizement that aimed to acquire local revenue streams and to reduce
British commercial competition through diplomatic arrangements with South
Asian rulers.112 During the War of the Austrian Succession, Dupleix was able
to capture one of the British Company’s prized settlements—the city of Ma-
dras—in September 1746. Although the French Company returned Madras to
its British counterpart in the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 and Dupleix
was returned to France in 1754, a new imperial dynamic was set in motion—
one that drew the British and the French into military alliances with political
 bourgeois radicalism 83

forces in southern and eastern India, including rival claimants to the throne in
the Carnatic and the Deccan. The armed rivalry between the British and
French companies was now deeply entangled with geopolitical competition
between post-Mughal successor states on the Indian subcontinent.
The British EIC’s servants in South Asia and its directors in London inter-
preted the political and military maneuvers of their French rival as part of an
overall strategy of territorial conquest that was ultimately designed to establish
a political dominion in India and to bolster the Bourbon monarchy’s pursuit
of universal empire. In 1753, Robert Orme, a writer in the British Company’s
service and Clive’s confidante, informed the Earl of Holdernesse, then serving
as a Secretary of State, that “the French were the Aggressors in the present War
of Carnatica” and that “under the Pretext of securing the Rights and Advan-
tages of the Commerce of their Company, Their Intent was Nothing less than
to add Provinces in Asia, to the Dominions of Their Monarch.”113 Although
Holdernesse worked hard to bring the rival companies to a peaceful settle-
ment in 1754, he nevertheless informed the Earl of Albemarle that British of-
ficials “suspected the French of aiming at the Possession of an extended
Territory, in one of the richest Parts of India, & by which, They would have
obtained an immense Revenue.”114 Metropolitan ministers and officials in-
creasingly viewed the armed rivalry between the two companies as part and
parcel of a global Anglo-French struggle for imperial supremacy. By the time
the Seven Years’ War broke out in May 1756, South Asia was viewed as a vital
battleground in this titanic clash.
The expansion of Anglo-French warfare beyond the Cape of Good Hope
inevitably placed Patriot and radical Whigs in a difficult position. They were
committed to the farthest possible expansion of Britain’s commercial society
and maritime “empire of liberty,” and this necessarily entailed the abolition of
the Company’s monopoly and the opening up of the eastern trade. However,
the Company faced serious losses and perhaps even total annihilation at the
hands of French imperialism, by far the greatest threat to Britain’s maritime
empire and global trade. Although Patriot and radical Whigs viewed the EIC
as an institutional embodiment of “arbitrary power,” many worried that the
corporation’s defeat at the hands of its French rival would spell the end of
Britain’s trade to the East Indies. Thus, during the 1750s, at precisely the same
moment that arguments were put forward in favor of the eastern trade’s ref-
ormation and expansion, fears that the trade might be lost altogether grew
throughout the metropole. In this context, critics of the Company faced a
fundamental dilemma: would they refuse to support the corporation and risk
84 the first british empire and its crisis

losing Britain’s trade to Asia, or would they rally around the EIC in the face
of the Bourbon menace?
This question was difficult to avoid in 1755, when early French victories
portended a dark future for the British Empire. It proved impossible to avoid
once news of the capture of Calcutta in 1756 by Siraj-ud-daula, the Nawab of
Bengal, reached the metropole. “The East India company received a blow,
which would have shaken an establishment of less strength to its foundations,”
the editors of the Annual Register remarked, noting that “the Nabob of Bengal
. . . irritated at the protection given to one of his subjects in the English fort of
Calcutta, and, as it is said, at the refusal of some duties to which he claimed a
right, levied a great army, and laid siege to that place.” The news of the June
1756 defeat of the Company’s servants at the hands of the Nawab’s forces, and
the subsequent death by suffocation of British prisoners in the “Black Hole”
of Calcutta, further dismayed a British public already reeling from news of
military losses in Europe and the New World. Newspapers and pamphlets
described the “Black Hole” as “the most cruel distress which perhaps human
nature ever suffered,” and portrayed Siraj-ud-daula as the Bourbon monarch
of Bengal—a relentless tyrant and serial violator of commercial treaties who
stood for royal absolutism and against British trade.115
Patriot and radical Whigs were thus forced to confront the “East India
question” under the Newcastle-Pitt ministry during the Seven Years’ War—
that is, whether or not to support a British commercial monopoly and “arbi-
trary power” like the EIC in the face of the threats posed by Bourbon
imperialism and the ruler of Bengal. Two years before the outbreak of war in
Europe, Beckford railed against the Company in the House of Commons. He
feared that the growing militarization of the EIC’s presence in Asia ran the
risk of building a new military despotism on top of a long-standing commer-
cial one.116 Even during the Seven Years’ War, Beckford continued to launch
assaults on the Company’s exclusive privileges. In the Commons during the
spring of 1759, Beckford, along with John Barnard and John Phillips, sup-
ported the request of several London merchants for licenses to import tea
from the Netherlands.117 The City radicals were attempting to undermine the
EIC’s price-setting power by making an end run around its monopoly charter.
Despite the defeat of this effort, Lucy Sutherland is right to draw attention to
the seriousness of Beckford’s challenge since he was “one of the most promi-
nent supporters of Pitt and his chief link with the City” and since Newcastle’s
“alliance with Pitt was new and uneasy and ministers were afraid that if the
matter came up in the House, their formidable ally would join his supporters
 bourgeois radicalism 85

in attacking them.”118 Pitt’s failure to join Beckford’s cause in 1759 was not
merely a whim but rather a consequence of his need to support the Company
in the face of the powerful threats posed by French and South Asian rivals.
The EIC’s trade and revenue suffered heavy losses before Britain’s formal
declaration of war with France in May 1756. The Company was engaged in
conflict with its French rival in southern India from 1746 to 1754. It was left
with little time to recover before the renewal of hostilities. Consequently, the
corporation’s directors were convinced that their position in Asia could not
withstand another major French assault. On the day after Britain declared
war, East India House informed Henry Fox, a Secretary of State, “that as the
War now declared against France puts an End to the Provisional Treaty made
in the East Indies . . . [i]t is to be expected . . . Hostilities will not only be re-
newed there, but will also be extended to the other parts of India, where the
English and French have many Settlements of Commerce . . . and although
Your Memorialists will give Orders to repell them with all the Force the Com-
pany are able, Yet it will be impossible for them, from their own Strength, al-
ready so much exhausted, by the immense Expences they have for some Years
been at, in Defence of their Settlements and the preservation of so valuable a
Trade.”119 The British government sent royal troops and naval squadrons to
relieve the EIC’s position in India during the 1740s and early 1750s; the corpo-
ration’s management was certain that such support would have to continue for
the duration of the new war or else the East India trade would be lost.
Drawing Fox’s attention to the potential national consequences of a
French victory beyond the Cape of Good Hope, the Company’s directors
painted a dire picture: “Should such an Event happen, how Great must the
Distress be that will then attend this Nation; The East India Company, must
be no more; The Proprietors of their Stock will be Clamorous for the Loss of
their Capital; The Owners of Shipping, engaged in the Companys Service,
and in which Several Hundred Thousand Pounds are employed, will add to
the Public Discontent; The Navigation of the Kingdom will be greatly dimin-
ished; The very Large Revenue arising to the State from the Duties on East
India Goods will cease; a General Distress upon Public Credit will succeed,
and the Government will be in all probability, if not totally, in great measure
deprived of a Supply of Salt Petre from the Company.”120 If Britain’s East In-
dia trade suffered serious diminution at the hands of European or South
Asian rivals, its effects would be felt not only by the EIC and its proprietors
but also by the wider business community, the London stock market, and the
fiscal-military state. In response to the Company’s concerns, the government
86 the first british empire and its crisis

provided financial and military support while allowing its directors in Lon-
don and their servants in India to conduct the war effort beyond the Cape of
Good Hope.121
Despite the Patriot and radical Whig antipathy to the EIC, Pitt came to
the financial and military support of the corporation in 1757 as part and par-
cel of his effort to prosecute the war against France to the farthest extent pos-
sible on all fronts. Debates over the proper organization of the East India
trade would have to wait until after the Bourbon monarchy was humbled and
Britain’s maritime empire was secured and extended. Pitt maintained the
policies put in place by his predecessors, supplying money and manpower to
the Company while allowing its agents to plan and implement military strat-
egy.122 It is estimated that the government provided £4.5 million to the EIC
during the first four years of the war.123 In addition to supplying troops and
naval squadrons, Pitt worked to end the quarreling between the royal and
EIC military commands beyond the Cape. After placing William Draper in
charge of royal forces in India, Pitt introduced measures designed to ensure
their cooperation with the corporation’s military.124 The Great Commoner
was committed to supplying the Company with the additional resources that
it needed to fend off the French threat.
While Pitt’s wartime support for the EIC was in some respects a continu-
ation of previous policies, his war aims and imperial project infused these
policies with a new vigor and purpose. As George McGilvary argues, Pitt
maintained a very close working relationship with Laurence Sulivan, the
powerful Company Chairman who consolidated his control over East India
House in 1758 and routinely fought for the EIC’s interests with the ministry
and in Parliament. Pitt secured extensive military support for the Company
in 1759 and 1760, including a force of 1,200 soldiers commanded by his close
friend and fellow Patriot Whig, Eyre Coote.125 Furthermore, Pitt worked
closely with the EIC’s Secret Committee to ensure that the corporation had
an overall strategy for reducing French power throughout Asia.126 For all these
reasons, it is no surprise that Sulivan claimed that his beloved corporation
“not only owed their present glorious situation, but their very existence to
[Pitt’s] generous protection.”127 The Company was in many respects a defi-
cient instrument for the expansion of Britain’s maritime “empire of liberty”
into Asia but, in the context of the global and potentially final war for empire,
its institutional organization and resources proved vital. During the Seven
Years’ War, the issue at hand was not the organization of British commercial
endeavor in Asia but rather the very existence of the kingdom’s eastern trade.
 bourgeois radicalism 87

In the halls of power and in terms of the formation of state policy, any criti-
cisms of the EIC would have to be shelved until after peace was restored.
The Pittite imperial project played no direct role in the initial steps toward
political supremacy on the Indian subcontinent taken by Company forces in
1757. Clive regained control of Calcutta, seized Chandernagore, and defeated
Siraj-ud-daula at the Battle of Plassey before the Great Commoner wielded
any influence over British affairs in India. However, Pitt’s rise to high office
was a necessary precondition for the continuing growth of British power in
South Asia. For it was only with his political ascent that the geopolitical ti-
midity of the Whig establishment was supplanted by a maximal war effort
and a radical imperial project that sought to preserve the “liberties of Europe,”
to secure and extend Britain’s maritime empire, and to permanently reduce
the power of Bourbon France. It was Pitt’s conduct of the war from 1757 to
1761—when unprecedented amounts of money, manpower, and supplies
flowed into Europe, Asia, and the New World—that ensured a full-scale con-
frontation with French forces in every theater of British imperial activity.
While the EIC was rapidly gaining power in Bengal in the aftermath of
Plassey, it was the defeat of French imperialism at Wandiwash and Pondi-
cherry in 1760 and 1761 (which was made possible by Pitt’s direction of the
war) that secured the corporation’s newfound position in eastern India.
But a necessary precondition is not the same thing as a cause. While Pitt’s
support for the Company was crucial to the corporation’s emergence as the
greatest European power in Asia, it was not responsible for the British politi-
cal dominion consolidated in Bengal in 1765 nor for the early formation of
the British Indian Empire. Despite the fact that the waging of the Seven Years’
War led to an alliance between Pittite forces and the oligarchic and monopo-
listic EIC, the shape of Britain’s emerging territorial empire in South Asia was
not a product of the aggressive imperial expansionism and strident commer-
cial ideology associated with political radicalism. The consolidation of the
Company’s dominion in Bengal was not motivated by the radical Whig proj-
ect and its liberal political economy. The military autocracy and extractive
political economy that characterized the Company’s state in India were the
expression of a very different, opposing metropolitan political project. The
next three chapters are devoted to examining the development of that project
and its imperial aspirations in the context of the struggle to shape the British
presence in Bengal between 1757 and 1765.
 chapter 3

he Plassey Revolution in Bengal and the

Company’s Civil War in Britain

By the 1750s, the East India Company had established numerous settle-
ments throughout Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. While the fortified commercial
city of Calcutta served as the headquarters of British activity in the region and
comprised one of the corporation’s three presidencies in India, it was depen-
dent upon a network of mercantile factories located in economic centers such
as Patna, Cossimbazar, Dacca, and Balasore. Company agents stationed at
these factories undertook the collection and purchase of indigenous products,
which were in turn shipped to Calcutta for export to Europe. EIC servants
provided dadni (money in advance of production) to dalals (indigenous bro-
kers) who, in turn, contracted with manufacturers and weavers to produce a
specified number of piece-goods in an agreed-on period of time. Due to a
farman (a direct royal order) granted by the Mughal Emperor in 1717, the Brit-
ish corporation traded duty-free throughout Bengal. The Company was
granted dastaks (trading exemptions) that permitted its goods to pass through
the province without charge.
Although these arrangements served both the EIC and Bengal’s governors
well in the early eighteenth century, they were under increasing strain by the
1750s. The first major problem was that the Company’s employees, who
were paid relatively low salaries but permitted to trade privately in Asia on
their own accounts, systematically abused the EIC’s privileges by applying
dastaks to their own private trade goods as well as by providing these passes

88
 the plassey revolution in bengal 89

to independent European and Asian merchants. Thus, the British dastaks

eventually covered not only the Company’s commerce but also the private
trade of hundreds of the corporation’s servants as well as their European and
Asian business partners.1 The second major problem stemmed from the fact
that the EIC’s Calcutta settlement often provided refuge to native political
and business elites who had fallen out of favor with the nawabi regime in
Murshidabad.2 “The injustice to the Moors consists in that being by their
courtesy permitted to live here as merchants, to protect and judge what na-
tives were their servants, and to trade custom free,” a British ship captain re-
marked in 1756, “we under that pretence protected all the Nabob’s subjects
that claimed our protection, though they were neither our servants nor our
merchants, and gave our dustucks or passes to numbers of natives to trade
custom free, to the great prejudice of the Nabob’s revenue.”3 The nawabi re-
gime under Alivardi Khan responded by levying new duties on local trade,
requisitioning “gifts” from European companies, and interfering with the
EIC’s ability to collect its annual investment of indigenous manufactures.
“The Nabob coming down with all his Excellencies Canon to Hughley &
with an Intent it is thought to bully all the settlements out of a large Sum of
Money,” Robert Orme informed Robert Clive in August 1752, “twould be a
good deed to swinge the old Dog; I don’t speak at Random when I say that
the Company must think seriously of it, or twill not be worth their while to
trade in Bengall.”4 The Company’s London directors were incensed by their
servants’ commercial abuses and by the nawabi regime’s response. In 1755, the
Court of Directors commanded the Calcutta council to “use all prudent mea-
sures by applications to the Darbar and other ways to get relieved from the
impositions of the chokeys planted up and down the country . . . but at the
same time you must be extremely careful to prevent all abuses of the Dusticks,
that the Government may have no pretences to interrupt the trade on that
account, which we are afraid they have sometimes too much reason for.”5 By
the mid-eighteenth century, relations between Calcutta and Murshidabad
were at best uneasy.
The problems surrounding the abuse of dastaks and the refuge provided
by Calcutta to Mughal subjects were compounded by the difficulties that
arose when the nawabi regime and the EIC both faced external threats and
geopolitical rivalry in the 1740s and 1750s. In the midst of the dissolution of
the Mughal Empire and the political upheavals that followed in its wake, the
nawabi regime pursued an independent state-building project and sought
to improve its fiscal-military capacities.6 When recurrent warfare with the
90 the first british empire and its crisis

Marathas disrupted production and trade throughout Bengal, the government

was forced to undertake measures to secure its revenue base.7 In this climate,
Murshidabad could not afford to ignore the growing abuse of dastaks and the
evasion of customs duties.
During this very period when the Nawab’s court faced growing political
and military pressures, the Company’s administration in Bengal began grap-
pling with the strains of Anglo-French global warfare. In the 1740s and early
1750s, the British and French East India companies forged alliances with in-
digenous political forces in eastern and southern India and militarized their
settlements along the Coromandel Coast. Anticipating the spread of this
extra-economic rivalry to northeastern India, and seeking to increase the ex-
traction of local territorial revenue, the EIC’s council in Calcutta ordered the
construction of new fortifications around its commercial settlement. Since the
nawabi regime rigorously enforced the Mughal policy forbidding Europeans
to fortify their trading enclaves, the Company’s employees decided to proceed
without notifying Alivardi Khan.8 “I think a previous application to the Na-
bob of leave to fortifye Calcutta a step highly improper for us to take[,]” the
EIC official William Watts informed the Calcutta council, “for in case the
Nabob should absolutely refuse us his permission we must at once give over all
thoughts of fortifying or do it in defiance of him.”9 Fearing the growth of
French power throughout eastern India, the Company servants settled on the
latter option and refused to cease fortifying Calcutta despite the admonitions
of Siraj-ud-daula, the new Nawab of Bengal.
The increasing tensions between the British merchants and the nawabi
regime finally erupted in June 1756 when Siraj-ud-daula invaded and seized
Calcutta. “I have three substantial motives for extirpating the English out of
my country,” the Nawab wrote to Coja Wajid, an influential Armenian mer-
chant in Hugli: “one that they have built strong fortifications and dug a large
ditch in the King’s dominions contrary to the established laws of the country;
The second is that they have abused the privilege of their dustucks by granting
them to such as were no ways entitled to them, from which practices the King
has suffered greatly in the revenue of his Customs; The third motive is that
they give protection to such of the King’s subjects as have by their behavior . . .
made themselves liable to be called to an account and instead of giving them
[up] on demand they allow such persons to shelter themselves within their
bounds from the hands of justice.”10 With this forceful attempt to extend his
political power over Calcutta and to consolidate his regime’s fiscal-military
resources, the Nawab raised the wrath of the Company and its servants.
 the plassey revolution in bengal 91

EIC troops led by Clive, then a colonel in the corporation’s service,

and British naval forces under the command of Admiral Charles Watson
recaptured Calcutta in January 1757. Upon learning of the declaration of
war against France, Clive and Watson feared that Siraj-ud-daula might forge
an alliance with their chief rival. Hence, British forces invaded and destroyed
the nearby French trading settlement at Chandernagore in March 1757. In the
aftermath of these victories, Company officials in Bengal concluded that
the only viable long-term solution to the corporation’s problems was the
deposition of the Nawab and his replacement with a pliant alternative.
They formed a plan for a military confrontation with Siraj-ud-daula followed
by a coup d’état, and negotiated with several local power brokers with
whom they were closely connected—including the nawabi regime’s key fi-
nancial backer, the house of Jagat Seth, as well as a leading discontented gen-
eral, Mir Jafar. “Never was a conspiracy conducted so publicly and with equal
indiscretion on the part of the English and the Moors,” explained the French
governor of Chandernagore while imprisoned in Calcutta; “nothing else
was talked about in all their Settlements, and what will surprise you is that,
whilst, every place echoed with the noise of it, the Nawab, who had a number
of spies, was ignorant of everything.”11 The stage was set for the Nawab’s
battlefield defeat and the installation of the British-backed Mir Jafar on
the throne.
With Clive’s victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and Siraj-ud-daula’s
subsequent assassination, the British corporation had successfully defeated its
indigenous and French opponents in Bengal. Marking this ascendancy, Mir
Jafar rewarded British officials with gifts valued at £1.2 million, provided fi-
nancial compensation for his predecessor’s seizure of Calcutta, and conceded
the revenue of territories surrounding the city to the EIC. Since the capture
of Chandernagore “a Revolution of much greater Consequence to both pub-
lick & Private has been effected, with very little Loss, by the Defeat & Death
of the late Subah Surajah Dowlet, & the setting up another in his Stead, en-
tirely attach’d to the English Interest,” Clive informed the Earl of Hardwicke
in August 1757; “this happy Event has already been productive of many signal
Advantages to the Trade of the Company” and “by Treaty with the Subah
[Mir Jafar], they have been put in Possession of Land to the Yearly Amount of
near £150,000, & the other Articles of Agreement bind him to pay to publick
and private the Sum of 3 Millions Sterling one half of which is already receiv’d,
& I have the Pleasure to inform Your Lordship that out of that Sum he has
given to the Army & Navy £600,000.”12 As many Company servants were
92 the first british empire and its crisis

quick to point out, the “Plassey Revolution” of 1757 shifted the balance of
power in Bengal heavily in the corporation’s favor.

In the aftermath of Plassey, Clive and the Calcutta council sought to trans-
form the EIC’s newly won political and military advantages in Bengal into a
durable supremacy. Acting as the de facto governor of the British settlement,
Clive oversaw the fortification and militarization of Calcutta as well as the
Company’s upcountry trading stations. Although Clive declared on the acces-
sion of Bengal’s new ruler that the British “must attend only to commerce” in
the province, he nevertheless extended the EIC’s control over Mir Jafar by
supervising his official appointments and by rendering him militarily depen-
dent on British forces.13 Clive evinced little interest in restricting the power of
the Company and its servants in Bengal. Writing to Hardwicke with regard to
“the late Extraordinary Revolution,” Clive asserted that the British victory at
Plassey made a great deal more possible than a return to the status quo ante; it
was “an Event fraught with many Advantages to both publick & private, an
Event which may hereafter be made subservient to very great Purposes.”14
Clive governed the EIC’s Bengal presidency for two years after Plassey.
During that period, he not only transformed the Nawab into a financial and
military dependent of the Company but also curbed French and Dutch power
in northeastern India.15 Along with Lieutenant Colonel Francis Forde, Clive
oversaw the reorganization and expansion of British military forces in Ben-
gal.16 In the spring of 1760, one British observer looked back on Clive’s Cal-
cutta administration during the two years following Plassey and remarked: “A
just resentment for injurys received was the first motive which induced us to
make a trial of our strength; The ease with which we succeeded enlarged our
views & made us chearfully embrace all opportunity of increasing that inter-
est & influence, both on account of the advantages which accrued from it to
the Hon: Co., as likewise the hopes that it might in time prove a source of
benefit & riches to our Country.”17 Clive and his inner circle seized advantage
of the British military position, taking every step necessary to secure the EIC’s
hegemony over Bengal and to render the nawabi regime little more than a
shadow of its former self.
Clive’s policies were implemented with the support of—and, in part, to
serve the interests of—Company employees who traded extensively through-
out the region on their own private accounts.18 While the EIC monopolized
British trade with the East Indies, it allowed its servants to ply the “country
trade” throughout Asia.19 Over the course of the eighteenth century, the private
 the plassey revolution in bengal 93

enterprise of Company servants increasingly penetrated the inland trade of

Bengal.20 The post-Plassey political and military supremacy established by
Clive provided the corporation’s employees and their business partners with
economic security since it maintained their private-property rights and com-
mercial advantages. As a result, these forces tended to support the military
commander’s efforts to advance the EIC’s hegemony in Bengal.
The fundamental division of Britain’s eastern trade between the official,
public channel of the Company’s monopoly and a private, unofficial com-
mercial sphere consisting of EIC employees and independent European mer-
chants trading on their own accounts was in part a consequence of the
corporation’s integration within Britain’s oligarchic state during the first half
of the eighteenth century. Although the radical anti-Company alliance of the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries failed to abolish the EIC and
to open up the East India trade, the corporation nevertheless allowed its ser-
vants and independent merchants to freely pursue the Asian port-to-port
trade.21 By the 1740s, as the remarkable research of Søren Mentz demonstrates,
British private trade along the Coromandel Coast was no longer a minor off-
shoot of the Company’s commerce, but rather an important link in British
trading and investment networks stretching from the North Atlantic to the
Indian Ocean.22 At the height of the EIC’s prosperity during the three decades
following the Hanoverian Succession of 1714, the total tonnage of British pri-
vate trade in Bengal tripled.23
By the 1750s, British private trade in northeastern India was leading to a
deterioration in the Company’s relationship with the nawabi regime. The
abuse of dastaks by the EIC’s employees and their Asian and European busi-
ness partners drained public revenue precisely when Murshidabad desperately
needed to expand the fiscal-military resources at its disposal. In the aftermath
of Plassey, the private enterprise of Company servants penetrated Bengal’s
inland trade even further. The widespread support for Clive’s policies among
EIC employees and private traders was a consequence of their interrelated
socioeconomic interests and ideological commitments.
The nawabi regime’s increasing efforts to restrict the abuse of dastaks and
to interfere with European enterprise throughout Bengal were viewed by the
Company servants as additional instances of the arbitrary fetters placed on
the expansion of British trade and industry by despotic rulers throughout the
world. During the 1740s and 1750s, Patriot and radical Whig opinion-makers
railed against Bourbon France for violating treaties, interfering with British
commercial expansion, and attempting to erect a universal monarchy.24 In the
94 the first british empire and its crisis

aftermath of Siraj-ud-daula’s seizure of Calcutta in 1756, EIC servants articu-

lated a similar critique of the nawabi regime, portraying it as a degraded des-
potism responsible for violating long-standing commercial agreements
between the British corporation and the Mughal Empire.25 Since the Nawab
received French military assistance at Plassey, he quickly came to be seen as
the Bourbon monarch of Bengal—a royal despot who aimed to restrict the
“free-born Briton’s” political and economic liberty. Thus, the aggressive com-
mercial ideology of many Company servants should be seen as an imperial
variant of the Patriot and radical Whig politics articulated in the metropole
during the era of the Seven Years’ War. Clive’s post-Plassey governorship se-
cured the private property of the corporation’s employees and removed the
remaining obstacles to their commercial exploitation of Bengal. During the
late 1750s and early 1760s, as Spencer Leonard demonstrates, factions within
the Company’s service sought to extend the corporation’s political supremacy
far beyond what Clive himself envisioned. They aimed to establish a full-
blown British political dominion in Bengal—and perhaps even across India—
that would liberalize the economy and spark commercial expansion.26 The
support of many Company servants for the consolidation and extension of
British political power in northeastern India in the aftermath of Plassey
stemmed from their expansionist commercial interests and ideology.
While Clive and EIC servants were committed to extending the corpora-
tion’s hegemony in Bengal, their employers back in London were increasingly
concerned with the hefty expenses generated by the growth of the Company’s
political and military strength on the Indian subcontinent. As Bengal’s silk
and cotton piece-goods were prized commodities in European markets as well
as in the port-to-port trade throughout Asia, the Calcutta settlement could
without any exaggeration be called the nerve center of the EIC’s global com-
mercial empire. Thus, the directors rejoiced at the news of British military
successes in Bengal and bestowed numerous honors on Clive and other bat-
tlefield commanders. However, the initial delight of the corporation’s Lon-
don management soon wore off; letters arriving at East India House from
Fort William during 1758 and 1759 listed immense expenditures on fortifica-
tions and garrisons. Such costs only compounded the heavy losses in corpo-
rate revenue suffered by the EIC as a result of armed conflict with their French
rival during and after the War of the Austrian Succession. In the Madras
presidency alone, the corporation’s military charges rose from an annual aver-
age of £182,269 in the early 1740s to £292,168 in the early 1750s.27 With the
onset of the Seven Years’ War in 1756, the Company’s expenditures rapidly
 the plassey revolution in bengal 95

outpaced its commercial profits. It was estimated that the EIC lost up to £2.5
million in war-related expenditures and crises between 1753 and 1760.28
In the midst of a crisis in the EIC’s affairs in 1757–1758, Laurence Sulivan
and the “Bombay faction” of returned Company servants took control of the
Court of Directors.29 With news of French victories, soaring costs, and politi-
cal instability on the Indian subcontinent flooding the metropole, the Com-
pany was unable to command the short-term credit necessary for its commercial
operations. “From 1757 to 1763 my power at the India House was absolute,”
Sulivan wrote to his son in the 1770s, “for this plain reason the vessel was sink-
ing and no man had courage or (to my son I say ability) to take the helm . . .
the Company bankrupt at home in credit, not more than 5000 £ could be bor-
rowed in their name from man or men.”30 In order to resolve this financial
crisis, Sulivan’s circle sought to borrow immense sums from their connections
in the City and to reduce the military and administrative expenses accruing in
the EIC’s Indian presidencies.31
Naturally, the rising military expenditures in Bengal raised questions
among Sulivan and his allies. When learning of plans to refortify Calcutta and
to militarize all of the corporation’s upcountry trading factories, the EIC’s
management grew furious. “We are ready and willing to put Calcutta into that
respectable condition,” the directors wrote to the Fort William Council in
March 1759, but “you are not to deviate from the rules laid down to you last
season respecting the carrying on our affairs at Cossimbuzar and our other
[subordinate factories] without the least parade of soldiers, fortifications or
even the appearance of military strength.”32 The Court of Directors even ob-
jected to plans proposed for Calcutta’s defense, finding them more appropriate
for a military garrison than a commercial settlement: “It’s a striking fact, that
although we have benefited upwards of a million sterling by the [treaty of
1757], yet not a single shilling of this immense sum has gone in aid to our re-
turns & by your representation the whole will be buried in your citadel & the
charges of Calcutta.”33 While Clive and like-minded officials in Bengal were
bent on achieving a military capability that they viewed as the necessary con-
comitant of the Company’s newly won political position, East India House
sought a restoration of the conditions that characterized the corporation’s
commercial activities during the 1740s and early 1750s.
The Sulivanite program was met with increasing hostility in Calcutta, and a
series of acrimonious exchanges between East India House and Fort William
ensued. Frustrated with the obstacles his political leadership faced on Leaden-
hall Street, Clive resigned from the governorship of Bengal and sailed for Britain
96 the first british empire and its crisis

in February 1760. EIC servants and private traders continued to pursue their
aggressive commercial interests in opposition both to the political power of the
post-Plassey nawabi regime and to the program of fiscal retrenchment de-
manded by East India House. “Our People at Madrass we find are hot-headed,
but they are able, generous & open,—I can smother their Rebukes,” Sulivan
wrote to Eyre Coote in March 1761, “but the ungrateful Wretches, late of
Bengall, have hurt my Temper . . . [a]s I conclude you are now in Bengall, be
well with Vansittart, I beg; from his Character he is high in my Esteem . . . I
expect that lawless Settlement of Calcutta, will be reformed to Decency &
Order—Our Military Expences are amazingly large even beyond what we can
possibly support for any time, Pray manifest your Regard to the Company in
cutting off every [un]necessary Charge.”34 Sulivan and his allies were growing
impatient with the expansionary political and economic designs of EIC ser-
vants, and, between 1760 and 1763, they focused on stabilizing the Company’s
position in Bengal and on restoring the power of the nawabi regime.
The program pursued by Sulivan and his ally Henry Vansittart, the gover-
nor of Bengal from 1760 to 1764, was designed to consolidate the EIC’s com-
mercial interests, to reduce administrative and military costs, and to establish
a quasi-independent nawabi regime. While in practice this program was not a
simple return to the status quo ante, based as it was on new commercial and
territorial privileges won in the aftermath of Plassey, it nevertheless sought to
reassert the EIC’s long-standing monopolistic corporate interests. The
Sulivan-Vansittart program aimed to gain every possible commercial and fi-
nancial advantage for the Company in northeastern India without incurring
any of the costs associated with wielding political power over vast and densely
populated territories.
The Sulivan-Vansittart program sought to establish a territorially limited
fiscal-military state around Calcutta. The nawabi regime granted the Twenty-
four Parganas—territories near Calcutta from which revenue could be raised—
to the Company following Plassey in 1757, and, when Vansittart replaced Mir
Jafar with the latter’s son-in-law, Mir Qasim, in 1760, the British corporation
took control of the districts of Burdwan, Midnapur, and Chittagong.35 Vansit-
tart consolidated these territorial holdings and used their revenue to meet the
EIC’s local administrative and military costs, to fund its other presidencies and
settlements, and to purchase the cotton and silk piece-goods that it sold
throughout Europe and Asia.36 This limited territorialization of the EIC’s pres-
ence in Bengal allowed the Court of Directors to reduce bullion exports to Asia
while maintaining and expanding the corporation’s investment in indigenous
 the plassey revolution in bengal 97

manufactures. As George McGilvary argues, Sulivan was faced with British

bullion shortages and a crisis of confidence in the EIC’s position in Bengal that
effectively dried up the corporation’s domestic credit. In response, the Chair-
man deliberately sought to reduce bullion shipments and to export more Brit-
ish manufactures to Asia while raising territorial revenue in Bengal.37 Thus, the
Sulivan-Vansittart program did not seek to establish a territorial empire in
Bengal, but rather to financially stabilize the EIC and to reduce domestic crit-
icisms leveled at the corporation while maintaining and expanding its invest-
ment in Bengali cotton and silk piece-goods.38 The monopoly profits generated
from the sale of these goods in European markets allowed the Company to pay
out sizeable dividends to its proprietors and to improve its financial position in
the metropole. The Sulivan-Vansittart program undertook a limited territori-
alization of the EIC’s position in Bengal in order to pursue the commercial and
financial interests of the corporation’s directors and leading shareholders.
Although committed to preserving the Company’s monopolistic organi-
zation of the East India trade and to extracting every possible commercial
privilege from indigenous regimes, Sulivan’s circle was deeply opposed to un-
dertaking territorial conquests and to establishing a full-blown political do-
minion on the Indian subcontinent.39 When Sulivan wrote to William Pitt in
July 1761 to suggest possible peace terms for the eventual treaty negotiations
with France, he made his opposition to territorial imperialism perfectly clear:
What I shall offer to your consideration are my private Sentiments of a
Plan that may best secure to us solid and permanent advantages and
such I believe will appear to be the Sense of our Company. My Dear Sir
will be confined to our Mercantile Interest, we ought not, we cannot
look farther, Governmt. may—The Reduction of Pondicherry has
given us entire Possession of the Chormandel Coast—In a Commercial
light the advantages can never be very extensive, there are but few Man-
ufactures & no Ports; the great benefit then must arise from Possession
of Countries either by Cession or Usurpation, whose Revenues must
maintain Armies and draw Riches to Europe, This Doctrine Mr. Du-
pleix in his Memoirs avows, He goes farther and declares that no Trad-
ing can Support itself unless they adopt similar Measures, But if I could
not clearly confute his Reasoning I should wish our Trade to India at an
end. In Bengal we have a solid Extensive and valuable Commerce . . .
The Territories granted the Company and Provinces abounding in
Manufactures, and Tillage, whose Revenues are great & encreasing.40
98 the first british empire and its crisis

The Sulivan-Vansittart program upheld the EIC’s monopolistic and oligar-

chic interests but avoided assuming the economic and political costs of gov-
erning a vast and densely populated territorial empire.41 “If the Plan you
mention should take place, I think it will not answer,” Vansittart responded
to Clive’s proposals for British territorial aggrandizement on the Indian sub-
continent. “Conquests are easily made in this Country, but not easily turned
into Money, and Camp Expences you know are immense.”42 Under Sulivan’s
leadership, the Company turned down offers of the diwani—and, with it, a
full-blown territorial dominion in Bengal—not once but three times between
1758 and 1763.43 The Sulivanite program was ultimately premised on the as-
sumption that, once the Seven Years’ War came to a conclusion, the Company
would return to full commercial profitability and maintain all of its newly
won privileges.
As part and parcel of its efforts to maximize financial advantages while
minimizing administrative and military costs, the Sulivan-Vansittart program
sought to strengthen the political autonomy of the nawabi regime. The Su-
livanites believed that if Mir Qasim was allowed to develop a durable state in
northeastern India, his regime would eventually be capable of meeting the
costs of internal order and external defense. In such conditions, the EIC
could confine its political and territorial concerns to southern Bengal—espe-
cially to the territories surrounding Calcutta—and focus on maintaining and
expanding its highly valued trade. “To establish [Mir Qasim], therefore, in
the full authority over his own people, and allow him the just rights of his
government,” a Vansittart ally remarked, “was to make him an useful ally in-
stead of a burthen to us, which he must be without these, whilst, by shewing
a steady zeal to his interests, we should insure the same attachment in him to
ours, and make him a faithful one.”44 Vansittart’s removal of several of the
limits that Clive placed on the political independence of the nawabi regime
was part of Sulivan’s plan to stabilize the Company’s position and to restore
its commercial profitability.
These measures infuriated important factions within the EIC’s service and
the British private trading community in Bengal. From their perspective, the
Sulivan-Vansittart program represented more than a simple undoing of Clive’s
early efforts to establish a durable British political and military supremacy in
northeastern India. It was a betrayal of everything that the Plassey Revolution
stood for, and it threatened to undermine the dearly won liberties of the “free-
born Briton” in Bengal by restoring an arbitrary local despotism.45 The Su-
livanite program posed a threat to the socioeconomic interests and ideological
 the plassey revolution in bengal 99

commitments bound up with the large-scale, post-Plassey expansion of Brit-

ish private enterprise in the inland trade of Bengal. Between 1760 and 1763,
Company servants and private traders continued to abuse the corporation’s
dastaks and to diminish the Nawab’s sovereignty over his own territories.46
Faced with Vansittart’s efforts to curb the abuse of dastaks and with Mir Qa-
sim’s endeavors to enforce the collection of customs duties, the private trading
interests represented on the Calcutta council articulated a strident critique of
the nawabi regime informed by Patriot and radical Whig ideology.47 Sulivan
was certain that refractory EIC servants and their abuse of the corporation’s
dastaks lay at the root of Bengal’s instability during the early 1760s (and,
therefore, led to the failure of his program):
The Companys Servants are certainly not included in the Companys
Phirmaund of having their Imports & Exports Duty free, but the
Practice of covering their own Goods with the Company’s Name, had
been so long abusd that it was tolerated or rather winked at by the
Government. Cossim Ally . . . proving a Prince faithfull to his En-
gagemts the Company gratefully determined to adhere to his Interest
& positively ordered their Servants to support & protect him in his
Just Rights. Cossim Ally in wisely regulating all abuses saw and felt
with concern that the establishment of Tranquility wod. Never take
place unless the licentious & shameful conduct of our Servants who by
carrying on an inland Trade for their private benefit had ruind the best
branch of his revenues, and whose private disputes frequently involved
his Affairs was rectified, the Governour Mr. Vansittart sensible of these
striking Truths formd a sett of rules which Cossim Ally approved and
which gave the Companys Servants far greater advantages then they
had ever enjoyed; the Council of Calcutta rejected these fair proposals
insisting that the English private Trade should pay no Dutys and that
they would carry on the Trade thro every part of his Dominions.48
The Sulivan-Vansittart program continued to face considerable resistance in
the council rooms of Calcutta and in the commercial centers of Bengal be-
tween 1760 and 1763.
The Company servants and private traders who opposed Sulivan’s mea-
sures wanted to pursue an aggressive commercial imperialism, and they enun-
ciated a Patriot and radical Whig critique of the EIC and its Court of Directors
for failing to do so. Sulivan’s efforts to discipline the Calcutta council, to limit
the expansion of EIC and British power in northeastern India, and to restore
100 the first british empire and its crisis

the authority of the nawabi regime were viewed as the actions of an oligarchic
and monopolistic power broker bent on limiting the political and economic
liberties of the middling merchants in the Company’s service in Bengal. The
author of The History of the Administration of the Leader in the India Direction
cast the Calcutta council and the EIC servants as the overseas equivalent of
the commercially expansionist and politically radical forces in the metropole
during the late 1750s and early 1760s:
It is to be observed, that a Spirit of Liberty and Independency reigns
Supreme in that Settlement, which is unknown in other Parts of India;
and this arises from the extensive Trade they enjoy, both with the in-
land Countries, and other Parts of India . . . and partly, from the Inde-
pendency which the Court of Justice established there by Charter, has
maintained; which is a great Barrier against the Oppression of the
Company and the Governor. This the Company have greatly checked
in the other Settlements, by obliging them to elect their Mayor and
Aldermen chiefly from among the Servants of the Company, who, de-
pending on the Company’s Service alone for their Subsistence, are in-
timidated from giving such free Decrees in Cases where the Company,
or Governor, are interested, as in Bengal; where a Property, indepen-
dent of the Company, permits them greater Freedom of Action. The
same Spirit makes them unwilling to submit to the injurious Treat-
ment of their Superiors.49
The British reading public was thus invited to view the struggles of Company
servants and private traders as yet one more front in the battle being waged
between dynamic commercial forces and the oligarchic order that dominated
Britain and its empire.
In many cases, EIC employees and private traders sought not only to un-
dermine the Sulivan-Vansittart program but also to expand British political
power on the subcontinent. They felt that such political power was necessary
to secure their liberties and private property in the midst of the chaotic forces
and despotic powers of India. “The message of the [Calcutta] council was
clear,” Robert Travers argues; “free Britons would not subject themselves to
Asiatic despots; to remain a free people in a land of despotism, it seemed, it
was necessary to become conquerors.”50 Indeed, many Company servants
were committed to expanding British power to the furthest extent possible.
“The French power in India is totally crushed & destroyed: The Dutch are
become too despicable to attempt to disturb us: we are possessed of a heavy &
 the plassey revolution in bengal 101

useless burthen on the Company, if not employed; & the English name is now
at the highest pitch of glory,” remarked a British merchant in Calcutta in 1762;
“in a word every advantage seems united in making this the crisis for raising
the British empire in the East, which (if properly maintained) may rise supe-
rior to all the vicissitudes & precarious contingencies of future times.”51 While
several Company servants and private traders supported the expansion of Brit-
ish hegemony in South Asia, they did so in the name of an unfettered com-
mercial imperialism that was nothing like the territorial dominion that
eventually emerged following Clive’s acquisition of the diwani in 1765. Their
opposition to the Sulivan-Vansittart program of 1760 to 1763, as well as to Mir
Qasim’s growing power in Bengal, was articulated from the standpoint of a
liberalizing politics and political economy that sought to overturn the limits
placed on British commercial activity by the monopolistic East India Com-
pany and the despotic nawabi regime. In endeavoring to eliminate these
arbitrary powers, they aimed to open up the subcontinent to the free play of
British private interests.

Between 1758 and 1763, Sulivan and his allies among the EIC’s Court of
Directors pursued an imperial strategy designed to consolidate the corpora-
tion’s monopolistic trade and to curb the growth of British power in north-
eastern India. In doing so, they provoked the ire of Company servants and
independent merchants who had benefited from the expansion of British pri-
vate enterprise in post-Plassey Bengal. The clash of interests and ideologies
that ensued was similar to the political conflict that emerged between the
oligarchic order and radical Whig forces in Britain during the late 1750s and
1760s. The threat posed to Sulivanite imperialism by the refractory Calcutta
council was not the only challenge faced by the Company’s Chairman be-
tween 1758 and 1763. During this period, Sulivan entered into a bitter rivalry
with Clive—a rivalry that would dominate East India House politics for the
next decade.
By the late 1750s, Clive had emerged as the most successful military com-
mander in the EIC’s service and as a great Patriot hero in the British public
sphere. While he was initially employed as a writer in the Company’s Madras
presidency, Clive moved up the corporation’s military ranks during the armed
conflicts between the British and French East India companies in the 1740s.
Clive was among the British forces that successfully repelled Dupleix’s army at
Cuddalore in 1748, leading the expedition that captured and successfully de-
fended a fort at Arcot in 1751. He was second-in-command of the British
102 the first british empire and its crisis

troops that defeated the French ally Chanda Sahib at Trichinopoly in 1752.52
Clive won fame for these military exploits not only among EIC servants in
India but also with the British public. He was revered as a remarkable com-
mander whose martial prowess and heroism played an important role in the
Company’s victories over the French and their South Asian allies. “The Com-
pany was almost ruined by the victorious French, when the brave Clive, and us
who followed him, redeemed your Affairs,” a British soldier who fought in
India observed in a pamphlet in 1754. “There are two Kinds of Soldiers; the
regular one, who is curb’d by the Mutiny and Desertion Act, and another
Kind of Soldier, who serves, because he chuses to defend the Laws, Liberties
and Properties of the Community of which he is a Member,” the military
veteran argued; “[t]his Kind of Soldier you have now in the East Indies; this
Kind of Soldier, led by the valiant Clive, beat the French, and the vast Armies
of the Moors and Indians under the French Nabob. These fight for Freedom,
because they are free, and would not bear to live under slavish Rule[.]”53 By the
early 1750s, Clive was seen not only as a successful soldier but also as a Patriot
leader who valiantly defended British liberties and trade from the threat posed
by French despotism. He was rewarded by the EIC’s Court of Directors and
celebrated in the political arena upon his return to Britain in 1753.54
Clive’s early fame and reputation pale in comparison to the adulation he
later won during his second trip to India from 1755 to 1760. The news of his
victories at Calcutta, Chandernagore, and Plassey reached London in late
1757 and early 1758, a period during which the British public was reeling from
news of French victories in the Seven Years’ War. “You have, by the blessing
of God, gain’d a complete & most signal Victory over such a Superiority of
Numbers as sounds prodigious to European Ears, & thereby shewn what
Some English Spirit & Courage, under the direction of right Conduct, is
capable of performing,” the Earl of Powis wrote to Clive with regard to the
news of Plassey. “I wish I could, in return, send You an account of any Success
[of ] our military operations, in this part of the World, equal to what You have
obliged us with,” Powis continued, “but our misfortune in not being able to
do This, Does, on the Contrary Set your merit in the stronger light.”55 Al-
though Clive’s victories in Bengal were won far away from the European and
Atlantic theaters, he was nevertheless revered as a great war hero in Britain.56
Upon returning home in July 1760, Clive was widely celebrated in the press
and in high political circles as well as among the populace at large. “Col. Clive
arrived in Town from India, July 5th,” the Duchess of Northumberland recorded
in her diary. “He & his Lady dined that day at White Hart in Guildford,”
 the plassey revolution in bengal 103

she observed; “the populace assembled in vast numbers; & he may be said to
have dined in public, as the Doors & Windows were all thrown open, that every
ones curiosity might be satisfied.”57 Politicians and opinion-makers viewed
Clive as much more than a successful military commander. He was a self-made
Patriot leader who had successfully defended the British Empire during its dark-
est hour. For this reason, the Patriot minister Pitt dubbed him the “heaven-born
general” in 1757, and the two remained in close contact until the Great Com-
moner left the ministry in 1761. Clive was elected MP for Shrewsbury in 1761,
and, later that year, the Duke of Newcastle secured an Irish peerage for him in
return for the political support of his parliamentary connections.58
During the period in which Clive was emerging as a leading Patriot figure
in British politics and public opinion, he advocated aggressive imperial expan-
sion on the Indian subcontinent. As we discussed previously, Clive sought to
transform the advantages gained by the Company in the aftermath of Plassey
into a durable political and military supremacy in northeastern India. In pur-
suing this project, he was strongly supported by EIC employees whose private
trade had greatly expanded throughout Bengal in the wake of military victory.
Although Clive’s political project was amenable to private trading interests,
the imperial vision animating it was considerably different from the aggressive
commercial ideology of Company servants such as John Johnstone. While the
latter were extremely critical of Bengali political institutions and sought to
increase British political power in support of free trade, Clive advocated a very
different form of territorial imperialism.
Clive outlined his imperial vision in a letter to Pitt in January 1759. “I have
represented to [the Company] in the strongest terms the expediency of sending
out and keeping up constantly such a force as will enable them to embrace the
first opportunity of further aggrandizing themselves[,]” the victor of Plassey
informed the Patriot minister. “But so large a sovereignty may possibly be an
object too extensive for a mercantile Company,” he continued. “I have there-
fore presumed, Sir, to represent this matter to you, and submit it to your con-
sideration, whether the execution of a design . . . be worthy of the Government’s
taking it into hand.” Clive aimed to convince Pitt that a territorial empire in
Bengal was not merely possible but also potentially a solution to Britain’s
looming fiscal crisis: “I flatter myself I have made it pretty clear to you that
there will be little to no difficulty in obtaining the absolute possession of these
rich kingdoms . . . I leave you to judge whether an income yearly upwards of
two millions sterling, with the possession of three provinces abounding in the
most valuable productions of nature and of art, be an object deserving the
104 the first british empire and its crisis

public attention; and whether it be worth the nation’s while to take the proper
measures to secure such an acquisition,—an acquisition which, under the
management of so able and disinterested a minister, would prove a source of
immense wealth to the kingdom, and might in time be appropriated in part as
a fund towards diminishing the heavy load of debt under which we at present
labour.”59 The commercially expansionist ideology of EIC employees and pri-
vate traders is absent from these remarks. Clive was not concerned with the
growth of trade, but rather with the creation of a tributary territorial empire.
Clive did not seek the Company’s political and military aggrandizement in
order to expand Britain’s commercial society and its maritime “empire of lib-
erty,” but rather in order to seize the territorial revenue of Bengal and its
neighboring provinces. Once successfully obtained, he hoped this revenue
would be transferred to the British state in order to service the public debt.
This tributary and territorial imperial ideology—with an emphasis on military
conquest, fiscal extraction, and political dominion over a vastly populated
area—shared little in common with the views of Company servants like John
Johnstone and of domestic radicals like William Beckford. Whereas Patriot
and radical Whigs at home and abroad were concerned with commercial ex-
pansion and colonial settlement, Clive was committed to seizing the land rev-
enue of Bengal and to transferring it to Britain as an imperial tribute.
While Clive reveled in his reputation as a Patriot hero who valiantly de-
fended British interests in the face of European and South Asian tyrannies,
and closely aligned himself with British private trading interests while serving
as governor of Bengal from 1757 to 1759, his imperial vision had more in com-
mon with the conservative Patriotism of the 1750s and the emerging New
Toryism of the 1760s. In fact, during the early 1760s—at precisely the same
moment when conservative Patriots and Tories abandoned Pitt and his in-
creasingly radical Patriot allies in order to rally around King George III, the
Earl of Bute, and George Grenville—Clive’s circle articulated a statist, milita-
rist, and agrarian vision that was more in tune with conservative Patriot views
than with the aggressive commercial expansionism advocated by private trad-
ers in India and by radical Whigs in Britain.60
This conservative ideological tendency received expression in the propa-
ganda pamphlet written in 1761 by Clive’s close confidant and political ally
Luke Scrafton.61 His Reflections on the Government of Indostan emphasized the
military commander’s noble character and martial valor. Rather than focusing
on the possibilities for commercial expansion in the rich province of Bengal,
the pamphlet drew attention to the growth of British military power and to the
 the plassey revolution in bengal 105

reverence for Clive in India: “Before I close the scene of those glorious suc-
cesses, let me take a view of the figure the English made at this period. No
longer considered as mere merchants, they were now thought the umpires of
Indostan. So great was the reputation of our arms, that the Visir himself pressed
the Colonel, by his agents, to march up to Delhi; and the Emperor sent him an
elephant, a vest of honour, and a tiara, which is the usual present to persons of
the highest rank[.]”62 As Travers observes, Scrafton “deployed the idiom of neo-
classical narrative, posing as a statesman reflecting from retirement on the vir-
tues and vices of great historical figures” and viewed “Clive’s military successes
. . . as emblematic of his natural genius.”63 For Scrafton, Clive’s greatness was
confirmed by the jagir he received from Mir Jafar. This grant of territorial rev-
enue was bestowed upon Clive in order “to support the dignity of an Omrah
of the Empire, for which he is supposed to maintain six thousand men, and, in
the country language, is called a Jaghire, a tenure not unlike Knight’s service,
by which lands were held formerly in England.”64 In contrast to the commer-
cial expansionism of EIC servants in Bengal and of radical Whigs in Britain,
Clivite ideology emphasized the aristocratic, landed, and military character of
the British presence in India. While it is certainly the case that Clive wanted to
be portrayed as a great Patriot hero, and was celebrated as one in Britain’s
public sphere, it is nevertheless important to realize that his ideological vision
had more in common with the landed, hierarchical values of conservative
Patriotism than with the politically radical and commercially expansionist
sentiments of Patriot Whigs such as Beckford and John Wilkes.
The imperial vision that Clive enunciated in the late 1750s, which he con-
tinued to voice during the early 1760s, in many respects anticipated the New
Tory imperialism consolidated under George Grenville in 1764 and 1765.65
While the New Tory imperialism is discussed in detail in the following chap-
ters, it is necessary to briefly state here its significant similarities with Clive’s
proposal for a territorial empire in northeastern India. Clive wanted to use the
EIC’s political supremacy in post-Plassey Bengal to establish a heavily milita-
rized garrison state. This garrison state would take over the collection of the
province’s territorial revenue and remit it back to the Company and the Brit-
ish government. Clivite imperial ideology downplayed commercial expansion
and emphasized fiscal extraction, political subordination, and military con-
trol. These features were likewise prominent in the New Tory imperial re-
forms imposed on the American colonies in the 1760s. Those reforms sought
to create an imperial administration that was fiscally and politically indepen-
dent of the local population. Such an imperial administration would allow the
106 the first british empire and its crisis

British government to reorganize the colonies—which, from the perspective

of metropolitan officials, was much needed in light of the chaotic experience
of the Seven Years’ War—as well as to maintain a peacetime standing army in
North America. Furthermore, the new Atlantic imperial order would be far
more capable of extracting colonial revenue and, hence, of helping to relieve
Britain’s postwar fiscal burdens. Thus, the extractive political economy, po-
litical authoritarianism, and militarism contained in Clive’s plan for a British
territorial empire in Bengal foreshadowed the coercive imperial program that
developed in the metropole in the early to mid-1760s.
Not surprisingly, Laurence Sulivan found Clive’s variant of conservative
Patriot and emergent New Tory imperialism as distasteful as the aggressive
commercial expansionism of EIC servants and private traders in Bengal. As
we discussed earlier, Sulivan and his allies in the Court of Directors were
deeply opposed to territorial conquest and large-scale political dominion on
the Indian subcontinent. While the Sulivanites were committed to securing
every commercial advantage possible for the Company, they sought to avoid
the heavy costs and militarism associated with territorial empire. In doing so,
they hoped to maximize the monopoly commercial profits available to the
Company and its shareholders. In pursuit of this goal, the Court of Directors
criticized the Clive-led Calcutta council’s profligate military expenditures in
1759, and then implemented the Sulivan-Vansittart program in Bengal be-
tween 1760 and 1763. From the Sulivanite perspective, Clive’s brand of territo-
rial imperialism would prove disastrous for the EIC and ultimately undermine
the corporation’s commercial purposes.
Disappointed with the failure of the London directors to support his ef-
forts to consolidate a durable British political and military supremacy in Ben-
gal, Clive resigned from the governorship in December 1759, shortly after
signing an angry letter to the Company’s management.66 Clive informed Cal-
cutta’s inhabitants that “the ill-treatment I received from the Court of Direc-
tors in their last general letter, has fully determined me in throwing up the
service” and that “proper measures may be taken at home for the better secu-
rity of this valuable settlement, to promote which, you may depend upon my
exerting my utmost interests; and I may perhaps be able to serve you more
effectually than by my continuing here.”67 He returned to Britain in 1760 and
continued to criticize Sulivan’s policies among his confidantes and in high
political circles.68 There is little doubt that the EIC’s directors learned of
Clive’s 1759 letter to Pitt advocating a tributary territorial empire in Bengal.
As Mark Bence-Jones observes, the circulation of this letter was most likely
 the plassey revolution in bengal 107

the cause of the rumor that “Clive’s father had told Pitt that, given the neces-
sary resources, his son would send back enough treasure from India to pay the
National Debt.”69 By the time Clive returned to Britain in July 1760, Sulivan
was already deeply suspicious of the military commander’s ambitions and
intentions with regard to Indian affairs.
In the early 1760s, Sulivan was in a position to easily parry any challenges
that Clive made to his policies. He had been the “uncrowned king of Leaden-
hall” since 1758 and was firmly in control of the corporation’s committees,
patronage, and political connections.70 Sulivan worked closely with the
Newcastle-Pitt ministry from 1758 to 1761, thus any opposition to his author-
ity at East India House received no support from the government. Pitt not
only opposed challenging Sulivan’s supremacy but also was deeply skeptical of
Clive’s imperial proposals. When Clive’s secretary, John Walsh, presented
those proposals to the Patriot minister in 1759, Pitt informed him that al-
though the scheme for acquiring Bengal’s diwani was “very practicable,” it was
nevertheless the case that “the Company were not proper to have it, nor the
Crown, for such a revenue would endanger our liberties.”71 Pitt was deeply
concerned with the immense territorial revenue and patronage resources that
might be placed at the Company’s or the royal executive’s disposal by establish-
ing a British political dominion in Bengal. Such revenue and resources threat-
ened to dramatically increase the power of the oligarchic order to drown out
parliamentary dissent. As a close ally of the Bute ministry, Sulivan remained in
ministerial favor in 1762 and early 1763.72 Firmly in control of East India
House and closely connected to successive British ministries, Sulivan held the
predominant influence over Indian affairs in the late 1750s and early 1760s.
Despite Clive’s immense popularity, he realized that any challenge leveled
to Sulivan’s power would have little chance of success absent significant
changes in Company or national politics. Although they fundamentally dis-
agreed about the future shape of the British presence in India, Clive and Su-
livan maintained friendly relations upon the former’s return to Britain in
1760.73 When the Bengal Club—a group of returned EIC servants deeply op-
posed to the Court of Directors’ Indian administrative reforms and to the
Sulivan-Vansittart program—virulently criticized the Company’s leadership
in 1761 and 1762, Sulivan secured Clive’s silence by “a piece of polite black-
mail” that threatened his jagir grant.74 Drawing attention to the necessity of
maintaining his jagir payments, Clive informed a correspondent that “it is an
object of such importance that I should be inexcusable if I did not make every
other consideration give way to it; and this is one of the reasons why I cannot
108 the first british empire and its crisis

join openly with the Bengal gentlemen in their resentments.”75 Sulivan was
thus able to prevent the most popular figure in British Indian affairs from
openly opposing him and his policies.
Through his mastery of the machinery of East India House, as well as his
maintenance of important political connections with the ministry and in Par-
liament, Sulivan was able to fend off the challenges and potential challenges
posed to his control of Indian affairs both by returned EIC servants and pri-
vate traders and by powerful figures such as Clive. Between 1760 and 1763, the
Sulivan-Vansittart program was being implemented in Bengal and a quasi-
independent nawabi regime was emerging under the rule of Mir Qasim. In
London, Sulivan wielded the patronage of Leadenhall Street to keep his circle
in control of the Court of Directors and thus of Company policy. The dicta-
tor of East India House was well on the way to achieving his primary objective
of re-establishing the corporation’s monopolistic trading system on the basis
of the new commercial privileges and limited territorial gains won in the
Seven Years’ War. On the eve of the Peace of Paris, it appeared that Sulivan
and the forces of status quo conservatism had triumphed over the challenges
posed both by radical commercial expansionism and by Clivite territorial
imperialism.

Between the autumn of 1762 and the spring of 1764, Sulivan’s grip on
Indian affairs was broken, and the EIC entered into a new and decisive phase
of its long history. When the dust finally settled in 1765, the Company con-
trolled a territorial empire and militarized garrison state on the Indian subcon-
tinent. During this period, two important battles were waged for control of
East India House. Both of these battles centered on the annual April election
to the EIC’s Court of Directors. The first took place in April 1763, although
the battle lines had been drawn in the fall and winter of 1762. It was not so
much an internal Company affair as another front in the national political
conflict being waged over the Bute ministry’s efforts to bring the Seven Years’
War to a conclusion and to negotiate a peace treaty with France. The metro-
politan radical Whigs and the commercially expansionist Company servants
and private traders who had returned to Britain joined forces with the Clivites
and the parliamentary opposition in an attempt to take over East India House.
Crucially, these forces forged an alliance with several EIC directors, led by
Thomas Rous, who opposed Sulivan’s control of the corporation. The Su-
livanite forces were ultimately victorious in the 1763 election for the Court of
Directors, but they relied heavily on the political support of the Bute ministry.
 the plassey revolution in bengal 109

While Sulivan won the battle of 1763, he ultimately lost the war. The same
forces challenged his control once again in the election of 1764. This time,
however, there were two crucial differences. First, news of the outbreak of war
in Bengal arrived in London in January 1764. A formidable alliance of Indian
powers—including Mir Qasim—was arrayed against the Company, which was
a matter of grave concern in government and City circles. Under these circum-
stances, the Clivites, the returned EIC servants, and the Rous-led faction in the
Court of Directors were able to mount a more effective challenge to Sulivan’s
supremacy. The second crucial difference concerned the matter of ministerial
influence. While the weight of the government was again brought to bear in
the 1764 election for the Court of Directors, this time it was in favor of the
Clivite alliance. The ministry of George Grenville not only helped to secure the
election victory of the anti-Sulivan forces but also ensured that Clive was re-
turned to Bengal as a governor endowed with extraordinary civilian and mili-
tary powers. It was upon his return to Bengal that Clive acquired the diwani
from the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II and oversaw the consolidation of a
militarized garrison state and territorial empire on the Indian subcontinent.
The dominant historical interpretation of these events—that is, the argu-
ments put forward in Namierite historiography and by the sub-imperialist
school—contends that these election contests were indeed transformative but
were nevertheless devoid of any systematic political and ideological conflict.
According to this interpretation, the transformative character of these elec-
tions stemmed from two non-ideological factors.76 The first factor was the
bitter rivalry between Clive and Sulivan. Lucy Sutherland, the leading expo-
nent of the Namierite interpretation of the Company’s imperial transforma-
tion, contends that the rivalry between these two men “originated not from
any conflict of principle but from misunderstandings arising in the course of
the [1763 peace] negotiations and from the exclusion of Clive from participa-
tion in the intricate bargaining which took place between the Government
and Company about the precise terms to be put forward.”77 In other words,
this conflict was yet another instance of the essentially apolitical struggle for
power and influence that dominated Hanoverian Britain. The question of why
Sulivanite forces might want to exclude Clive from the peace process and from
any major decision regarding the shape and character of the British presence
in Bengal is not raised by Namierites. Sutherland refers to the battles between
Clive and Sulivan as the “great Civil War of the Company,” but she interprets
them as essentially a struggle for patronage and influence waged by unprinci-
pled factions.
110 the first british empire and its crisis

In addition to the heated “conflict of personality” between Clive and Suli-

van, the Namierite interpretation points to the intervention of metropolitan
political forces—above all, the ministries of Bute and Grenville—in the
Company’s elections as another transformative factor in the corporation’s de-
velopment. This was the first time that British politicians and officials had
systematically intervened in the EIC’s internal affairs since the early eighteenth
century. According to Namierism, these political interventions in the corpora-
tion’s management were not informed by any ideological conflict. Rather, they
were an extension of the central feature of Hanoverian politics—that is, the
efforts of aristocratic statesmen to accumulate the influential connections
and patronage resources necessary for gaining and maintaining power—into
Company conflicts.78 The EIC was a vital source of patronage and political
support, and thus ministers were forced to take sides in the struggle between
Clive and Sulivan in order to secure their access to the corporation’s resources.
These two factors—the personal rivalry between Clive and Sulivan and
the support provided to them by factions of the British ruling class—com-
bined to transform Company politics. According to the Namierite interpreta-
tion, this transformation was in the means by which EIC factions waged war,
not in the ends for which they waged it. In their attempts to win the 1763 and
1764 elections to the Court of Directors, the contending parties engaged in
organized stock-splitting campaigns. Victory in the elections ultimately de-
pended upon winning a majority of the voting proprietors. Every individual
who owned £500 or more of East India stock was entitled to vote in the cor-
poration’s annual election. In order to gain as many votes as possible, Clive
and Sulivan, along with their ministerial backers, worked with City banking
interests and stock-jobbers to acquire India stock and to distribute £500 shares
among their supporters.79 The acquisition and distribution of East India stock
thus became a systematic weapon in party warfare. According to the Namier-
ite account, this splitting of stocks proved transformative. It was more than a
mere tactical ploy; it set a dangerous precedent: any adventurers or interlopers
who sought control of the EIC for their own ends needed only to assemble the
financial resources necessary to accumulate votes in the Court of Proprietors
(the body that was both responsible for electing the Court of Directors and
capable of overturning the directors’ decisions). The methods deployed in the
battles between Clive and Sulivan dramatically transformed the course of the
EIC over the next decade. The Company was subjected to destabilizing inter-
nal contests and financial speculation that ultimately rendered it incapable of
governing the territorial empire it had accidentally acquired. The stage was
 the plassey revolution in bengal 111

now set for the British state’s wide-ranging interventions in the corporation’s
affairs. As a result, the Company lost its much-prized autonomy in 1784.
The conflict between Clive and Sulivan, the intervention of metropolitan
political forces in the EIC’s elections, and the politicization of India stock
ownership were indeed transformative events in the corporation’s history. But
they were not ideologically neutral matters. Rather, they were deeply informed
by systematic and principled political differences. Clive and Sulivan waged a
bitter struggle for power in East India House and were able to enlist many
statesmen and City businessmen in it because there was a great deal at stake
regarding the shape and future of the British presence in India. They under-
took innovative and ultimately disastrous stock-splitting campaigns because
the outcome of this struggle would have profound imperial consequences.
The remainder of this chapter and the next one argue that the transformation
of British imperial activity in Bengal and the politicization of East India
House were deeply entwined with wider politico-ideological conflict over the
evolution of Britain’s state and empire.

By 1762, it was clear to informed metropolitan observers that the British pres-
ence in India had undergone substantial changes during the global war with
France. The Company’s military power in Bengal had grown immensely in
the aftermath of Plassey, and East India House was now forced to decide how
best to use this power. What was to be the shape and character of the EIC’s
presence in Bengal? In response to this question, three distinct political proj-
ects emerged between 1757 and 1762. The first of these projects—that of the
commercially expansionist and increasingly radical Company servants and
private traders—sought to harness the EIC’s political and military power in
order to maximize Britain’s commercial exploitation of the Asian trading
world. The second political project sought to fulfill the ambitions of Clive
and the Company soldiers and servants closely allied to him, which entailed
consolidating a tributary territorial empire devoted to collecting land revenue
and to transferring it to the metropole. The third political project—that of
Sulivan’s circle—sought to integrate the commercial privileges and limited
territorial gains won in the Seven Years’ War into the EIC’s long-standing
monopoly trading networks. From 1758 until 1763, the Sulivanite project was
predominant. It was clear to all of the individuals and interests associated
with these projects that any attempt to unravel the Sulivanite ascendancy—
and thus to transform the British presence in Bengal—required the conquest
of East India House.
112 the first british empire and its crisis

Global warfare with France had destabilized not only the Company’s posi-
tion in Bengal but also the entire metropolitan sociopolitical order. The po-
litical establishment that developed between the Glorious Revolution of 1688
and the consolidation of the Whig Supremacy was devoted to managing the
capitalist transformation of British society. The leaders of the Whig establish-
ment were committed to protecting private property at home while preserving
the balance of power in Europe and maintaining a commercial and colonial
empire that fostered domestic economic expansion. When peace prevailed in
Europe for much of the 1720s and 1730s, the British government avoided the
heavy costs of warfare and of protecting trade. Thus, the Whig establishment
was able to limit the growth of the public debt and domestic taxation. With
the expansion of European global rivalry during the later 1730s and 1740s, the
Whig establishment faced a fundamental dilemma. Ministers could avoid ma-
jor imperial conflicts with rival powers and prevent the growth of debt and
taxation, but risk losing ground in overseas competition with Bourbon France
and Spain. Alternatively, they could engage in imperial warfare to defend and
extend commercial and colonial interests, thus leading to the growth of debt
and taxation. Both of these options generated domestic political opposition.
On the one hand, the failure to secure and extend British commerce and co-
lonial settlements risked undermining economic expansion; on the other
hand, the increasing debt and taxes that accompanied imperial warfare—most
importantly, the regressive excise taxes on items of mass consumption—eroded
the regime’s popularity.80
As we saw in the last chapter, the wide-ranging urbanization and com-
mercialization that accompanied the consolidation of a capitalist political
economy in Britain generated new social spaces and interests that were not
directly represented in the essentially landed political order inherited from the
seventeenth century. During the 1750s and 1760s, politicized elements among
these emerging urban and commercial interests coalesced into a radical Whig
project that sought to mold widespread discontent with the oligarchic order
into a political reform movement. The initial expression of this radicalism was
the tremendous political support for Pitt’s conduct of the Seven Years’ War
between 1757 and 1761.
In supporting Pitt’s campaign to permanently curb the power of Bourbon
France and to secure and extend Britain’s maritime “empire of liberty,” these
radicals sought to fulfill the seemingly contradictory goals of maximizing
commercial and industrial expansion by establishing the kingdom’s overseas
supremacy while limiting the growth of customs and excise taxes. Although
 the plassey revolution in bengal 113

the politicized elements of the urban middling sort were committed to aggres-
sive commercial expansion overseas, they were nevertheless opposed to the
increase in excise and customs taxes that often accompanied it. Radical Whigs
like Beckford believed that commercial expansion could be aggressively pur-
sued and domestic taxation could be limited because they were committed to
a liberalizing political economy that emphasized the possibilities of infinite
economic growth.81 If France was checked and Britain was able to consolidate
an overseas imperial supremacy—if British trade and manufactures were per-
mitted to flow unfettered throughout the world market—the resulting long-
term commercial and industrial expansion would generate far greater tax
revenue than any short-term fiscal levy. Pitt’s aggressive commercial imperial-
ism was no mere personal whim. Rather, it was part of a political program that
advanced the goals of many among the urban middling sort. When British
ministers sought to bring the Seven Years’ War to a close—essentially, when
they abandoned the Pittite imperial project—and to meet the interest pay-
ments due on the public debt through increases in excise taxes, they faced a
dramatic increase in calls for the reform of the political system. Once the
government abandoned Pitt’s war aims, the radical Whigs moved from the
arena of foreign policy to the arena of domestic reform. For the first time since
the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the character of Britain’s political system was
subject to widespread debate in the public sphere.
With the development of the constitutional monarchy and parliamentary
government between 1688 and the 1720s, the political elite succeeded in
establishing a capitalist political economy that underwrote a powerful fiscal-
military state. The Whig establishment was thus able to stave off the return of
royal absolutism, to stabilize the polity, and to prevent the emergence of a
Bourbon universal monarchy. However, by the mid-eighteenth century, the
very commercial society and imperial expansion that the Whig oligarchic
state had secured and fostered gave rise to new and seemingly intractable
political and fiscal difficulties. The immense growth of the public debt occa-
sioned by the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War neces-
sitated the creation of new and politically viable sources of revenue. British
ministers were not able to raise the land tax beyond a certain point without
losing support in the gentry-dominated House of Commons, nor could they
default on payments due on public loans. The latter option would invariably
threaten the state’s relationship with the City elite as well as the security of
public credit. The government’s traditional recourse to increases in excise
taxation faced new limits with the growth of domestic political radicalism in
114 the first british empire and its crisis

the late 1750s and early 1760s. Statesmen and officials feared that the growth
of excise taxes would strengthen the calls for domestic political reform and
intensify the threat posed to the oligarchic order.
In the context of these difficulties and in response to the growth of politi-
cal radicalism, what I term the “New Toryism” was born. The New Toryism
was neither a revival of late seventeenth-century Toryism nor an attempt to
consolidate an absolute monarchy, but rather an ideological project that
sought to preserve the aristocratic-oligarchic character of the British political
system and to solve the looming crisis of the public debt and of the wider
fiscal-military state. Political figures such as George III, Bute, and Grenville, as
well as members of the long-standing Whig establishment, were deeply con-
cerned with the growth of domestic radicalism and with the difficulties posed
by recurrent geopolitical warfare and the expansion of the public debt. The
majority of the political figures whom I term “New Tories” considered them-
selves good Whigs strongly committed to upholding the Revolution Settle-
ment of 1688 and the political order consolidated in the early eighteenth
century. The New Toryism was a conservative-reactionary ideology that sought
to preserve the liberties won in 1688 in the face of the perceived threats posed
by an advanced commercial society and by the political radicalism emerging in
the late 1750s and 1760s. During this period, the British ruling class—the
landed magnates and their allies among the City elite—shifted its focus from
the threat posed by the Crown to the threat posed from below. The New Tory-
ism of the 1760s anticipated many of the concerns that dominated British high
politics in the era of the French Revolution. If the kingdom’s high politics dur-
ing the seventeenth and early eighteenth century can be characterized as the
struggle over royal absolutism—Stuart and Bourbon—then the high politics
of the era stretching from 1760 to 1832 can be characterized as the struggle over
democratization at home and abroad.
The East India Company’s position in Bengal underwent rapid transfor-
mations at precisely the same time as metropolitan politics entered a phase of
profound instability. The Company elections of 1763 and 1764 were not inter-
nal corporate affairs. They were one more arena in which metropolitan po-
litical conflict was played out. Rather than mere personal contests between
Clive and Sulivan, these elections were bound up with the major ideological
struggles of the period. The emerging New Toryism and its imperial program
played a crucial role in both election struggles.
It is important to grasp the different role played by emergent New Tory-
ism in each election. While the New Tory political project was initially aligned
 the plassey revolution in bengal 115

with Sulivan and the forces of status quo conservatism at East India House,
it eventually shifted allegiance to Clive’s circle. This shift from support for
Sulivan to support for Clive was linked with the evolution of metropolitan
politics between 1762 and 1764. In the fall of 1762 and the winter of 1762–
1763, the primary concern of the New Tories was to bring the increasingly
costly and politically radical war against France to a conclusion as quickly as
possible and to consolidate the oligarchic order at home. After Pitt and New-
castle left the government, Bute and George III entered into peace negotia-
tions with France. Seeking to align the EIC with the new political powers at
Whitehall and Westminster, Sulivan and his allies worked closely with the
Bute ministry and were willing to adjust the Company’s claims and demands
to the needs of the peace process. It was in this context that Clive’s circle and
the Rous-led faction within the Court of Directors entered into an alliance
with more radical forces inside and outside of the EIC in order to challenge
Sulivan’s supremacy. They were all bitterly opposed to the concessions made
to the French East India Company in the preliminary articles of peace, and
they viewed Sulivan as a weak-willed bureaucrat incapable of grasping Brit-
ain’s potential in the East. In contrast to the radicals, the New Tories initially
aligned with Sulivan in order both to gain the Company’s acquiescence in the
peace process and to win the support of a key player in the oligarchic order.
During the second half of 1763, the New Tory political project entered
into a second phase. Having brought the Seven Years’ War to a close with the
signing of the Peace of Paris, the New Tories were now concerned with post-
war finance and the looming crisis of the fiscal-military state, as well as with
the dramatic expansion of the British Empire between 1758 and 1763. The
government was forced to deal with these problems in the midst of the growth
of domestic radicalism. The Bute ministry’s willingness to make concessions
to Bourbon France in order to end the war fueled radical Whig criticisms and
protests, which grew in magnitude and vociferousness. By far the most popu-
lar political figure of this period was Wilkes, the radical Whig propagandist
whose North Briton newspaper vigorously attacked what it viewed as Bute’s
betrayal of the Pittite war effort. Although the peace was signed in February
1763 and Bute left office two months later, the new ministry—led by Gren-
ville, the Earl of Egremont, and the Earl of Halifax—faced an increasingly
active and widespread radical Whiggism that challenged not only the govern-
ment’s foreign relations but also the oligarchic political order.
It was in this context that the Grenville ministry was forced to confront
the administrative and fiscal difficulties entailed in the governance of a vastly
116 the first british empire and its crisis

expanded empire. As Fred Anderson observes, “when Halifax pondered how

best to impose order on the empire in North America and elsewhere around
the world, he could scarcely ignore the disorders of radical opposition evident
in the streets of London.”82 Indeed, when the New Tories implemented the
Atlantic imperial reforms between 1763 and 1765, the threat posed by radical
Whiggism was foremost among their concerns. It ultimately led to the birth
of the New Tory imperialism. Hoping to solve the problems of postwar fi-
nance and to quell discontent with the political status quo at home, the Gren-
ville ministry sought to shift the revenue burden to the colonial periphery by
enacting a series of reforms designed to lock the American colonies into an
imperial hierarchy. This shift in emphasis in the New Tory political project—
from seeking to end the war in 1762 and early 1763 to transforming the British
Empire in an autocratic and tributary direction in later 1763 and 1764—was
ultimately responsible for the shift in New Tory support from Sulivan’s circle
to the Clivite forces. The Grenville ministry backed Clive in the EIC election
of 1764 because the military commander’s territorial imperialism was viewed
as better suited to the increasingly unstable conditions in Britain and its
worldwide empire.
Clive’s conquest of East India House, as well as his return to Bengal and
eventual acquisition of the diwani, were part and parcel of the metropolitan
political effort to alleviate the burdens of postwar finance and to stabilize the
oligarchic order in the face of the challenges posed by radical Whiggism. The
Grenville ministry viewed Sulivan’s imperial program in Bengal as the Eastern
equivalent of the long-standing Whig policy of “Salutary Neglect” on the
Atlantic. Just as Britain’s lax imperial administration in the American colonies
had allowed smuggling to flourish and imperial revenue to decline, the
Sulivan-Vansittart program had failed to stabilize the Company’s position in
Bengal. Furthermore, Sulivan was unsuccessful in his efforts to control EIC
servants and British private traders. From the New Tory perspective, these
servants and traders posed as dire a challenge to British interests in Asia as
reckless colonial American merchants and legislators did to British interests in
the New World. By 1759, as we saw above, Clive had emerged as the most
forceful metropolitan advocate for a program of autocratic and tributary im-
perialism in Bengal. The New Tories supported Clive’s return to India in 1764
in the belief that the military commander could stabilize the Company’s posi-
tion, discipline EIC servants, and consolidate a territorial empire. Thus, the
Company’s election contest in 1764 did not merely resolve a personal rivalry
between Clive and Sulivan, but rather determined the shape of the British
 the plassey revolution in bengal 117

presence in India for years to come. These arguments call for a detailed
examination of the elections of 1763 and 1764.

By the summer of 1762, after the departure of Pitt and Newcastle from the
wartime coalition government, Bute began laying the groundwork for bring-
ing the Seven Years’ War to a conclusion as quickly as possible. For the new
premier’s foreign policy to be a success, it was crucial that Britain and France
tentatively commit to a set of peace articles that Parliament could approve
later that year. The Duke of Bedford, Britain’s ambassador in Paris, and the
Earl of Egremont, the Secretary of State for the Southern Department, worked
overtime to settle a preliminary treaty. As part of their effort to formulate
British demands regarding the East Indies, Egremont and his under-secretary,
Robert Wood, spoke with the EIC’s Chairman and Deputy Chairman,
Thomas Rous and John Dorrien, in June, and consulted with the Secret
Committee appointed by the Court of Directors later that summer.83 Al-
though Sulivan was not serving on the Court of Directors during this period,
he was among those consulted by the government on the East Indian articles
and was kept abreast of the Secret Committee’s negotiations by his close
friend and ally Deputy Chairman Dorrien.84 The proposals for the East In-
dian articles made by the Company’s leaders in June 1762 and the proposals
put forward by the Secret Committee that September—both of which called
for the complete exclusion of the French East India Company from Bengal,
the recognition of Muhammad Ali Khan as Nawab of the Carnatic and Sala-
bat Jang as Subahdar of the Deccan, and the restoration of territorial posses-
sions acquired before 1745—proved unacceptable to Egremont and Wood.85
The EIC’s representatives continued to insist on these provisions through-
out the fall of 1762, and, as a result, relations between the Bute ministry and
the Company soon soured. Egremont expressed his dissatisfaction with the
EIC’s stance and insisted that its directors make greater concessions to the
French, at least in the preliminary articles if not in the definitive peace treaty.
The ministry viewed the Company’s demands as an impediment to the peace
process, and tensions between the government and the corporation grew. In
late October, Wood informed Deputy Chairman Dorrien that “he had orders
from Lord Egremont to say, that—‘as this was the first time the government
had taken upon themselves to make a peace for the East-India company, he
expected they would have acted with candour and openness to him; but as he
found they had only a mind to throw off a weight from their own shoulders
and burthen his Lordship with it, he was determined not to submit to such
118 the first british empire and its crisis

usage, as it was no part of his duty to settle a peace for the company, but had
only offered it in regard to them, and that the proposals first delivered were
such as he should have been ashamed to offer to the French ministry.’ ”86
Egremont demanded more modest proposals from the EIC’s directors and
threatened to abandon the corporation in the peace negotiations if they failed
to comply. Within a few days, the Company’s leaders capitulated to the
Bute ministry’s demands and agreed to preliminary peace articles that allowed
the French Company to maintain a commercial (and unfortified) settlement
in Bengal and that restored possessions acquired before the outbreak of armed
conflict between the British and French East India companies in 1749. In ad-
dition, the preliminary agreement failed to recognize either Muhammad Ali
Khan or Salabat Jang.87
The EIC’s negotiations with the government and its capitulation to Egre-
mont’s demands produced bitter conflict within the confines of East India
House. This conflict ultimately stemmed from Sulivan’s willingness to work
closely with the Bute ministry and to adjust the Company’s demands to the
needs of the peace process. As the EIC’s leading director in the late 1750s and
early 1760s, Sulivan was responsible for fostering close connections with the
government in order to secure the military support and the exclusive char-
tered privileges that the corporation relied on. In addition to maintaining a
close working relationship with Pitt, Sulivan cultivated connections with
Newcastle and the Whig establishment in pursuit of the Company’s agenda
as well as his personal interests. When it became clear that the Whig establish-
ment was losing power under George III, Sulivan shifted his allegiance to
Bute. He did so by cultivating a close relationship with the Earl of Shelburne,
a political client of Henry Fox and an ally of Bute.88 In March 1762, Sulivan
ended his political connections with Newcastle and embraced Bute’s inner
circle.89
Since Sulivan was the controlling influence in East India House and
had powerful connections among the City elite, it is no surprise that he culti-
vated close relations with the ministry of the day. George III and Bute were
seeking to re-establish the oligarchic order on the basis of personal loyalty to
the monarch rather than to the Whig establishment—thus, they embraced
the support offered by Sulivan.90 The EIC was a key component of the oligar-
chic order, and Bute’s circle was happy to obtain access to the corporation’s
patronage resources. By allying with the Bute ministry, Sulivan sought to se-
cure the Company’s traditional relationship with the oligarchic order. Beyond
these political interests, Sulivan’s policy in India was well served by the Bute
 the plassey revolution in bengal 119

ministry’s efforts to end the Seven Years’ War. As we saw above, the Sulivan-
Vansittart program aimed to re-establish the EIC’s monopoly trade, to reduce
political and military costs in Bengal by supporting Mir Qasim’s quasi-
independent nawabi regime, and to limit the commercial expansionism of
Company servants and British private traders. Sulivan’s circle was content
with the limited privileges won by the EIC in the wake of Plassey and was
deeply opposed to further political and military aggrandizement on the Indian
subcontinent. The Bute ministry’s efforts to restore global peace in 1762 and
1763 were thus well received by the Sulivanite forces within East India House.
In order to solidify his alliance with Bute and to bring the Company into
compliance with the ministry’s needs in the peace process, Sulivan used his
considerable influence to support the East Indian articles contained in the
preliminary peace treaty. As early as the summer of 1762, Sulivan sought to
conciliate the ministry by proposing “the giving back to the Indian powers
the territories adjacent to Masulapatnam, and to make Masulapatnam a neu-
tral city, where each company should have a factory; but neither should be
allowed to erect fortifications.” The Secret Committee reported Sulivan’s pro-
posals to the Court of Directors in early September and “the court, after
mature debate, unanimously agreed (excepting the deputy chairman, and an-
other gentleman), that it was not proper to give up to the country powers the
revenues of Masulapatnam, amounting to 50,000 l. a year; and that therefore
it should be no part of the plan to be laid before the government.”91 In the fall
of 1762, Sulivan acted through his ally Dorrien to pressure the EIC’s directors
to acquiesce to the ministry’s demands with regard to the preliminary East
Indian articles.
Sulivan continued to exert pressure despite the growing hostility of the
Company’s directors and leading shareholders to the government’s proposals.
“It became apparent that Sulivan and his supporters believed that the Com-
pany could gain by adopting a more conciliatory attitude towards the Govern-
ment,” Sutherland observes, “while others, of whom Thomas Rous became
the nominal leader, were determined to stand firm.”92 It is likely that Sulivan
and the Bute ministry reached a private understanding that, if the EIC sup-
ported the clauses of the preliminary treaty during the critical period of late
1762, the government would work to secure the corporation’s long-standing
aims when negotiating the definitive treaty with France.93 Nevertheless, the
EIC’s Court of Directors was unaware of such an agreement and was angered
by Sulivan’s support for the Bute ministry’s peace proposals. Believing his
position at East India House to be unassailable, Sulivan continued to support
120 the first british empire and its crisis

the government, even going so far as to assist Shelburne with the ministry’s
efforts to pass the preliminary peace treaty through the House of Commons in
December 1762.94
Sulivan’s support for the Bute ministry ultimately weakened his position
on Leadenhall Street. During the peace negotiations, a stridently anti-French
faction coalesced within the Company, a faction that was increasingly pre-
pared to go to great lengths in opposition both to the ministry’s peace propos-
als and to Sulivan’s control of the corporation. This faction included prominent
EIC directors such as Rous and Henry Crabb Boulton. Despite their initial
support for Sulivan’s supremacy within the Company, these directors and pro-
prietors could not stomach his willingness to negotiate with the Bute minis-
try. Unaware of any possible existing deal between Sulivan and the government,
this faction was shocked by his seeming willingness to betray the EIC’s long-
standing war aims. Given everything that the Company had suffered during
the Seven Years’ War, this faction was adamant that these aims be achieved.
The Company’s financial position had grown increasingly precarious with
each passing day of the war. With military costs outpacing profits, the EIC
was forced to lower its dividend by 2 percent as the market price of its stock
plummeted from £200 to approximately £135.95 As a result, a growing number
of directors and proprietors felt that all of the Company’s political and mili-
tary advantages in the East should be employed to increase commercial profits
and shareholder dividends. Led by Company Chairman Rous, this faction
was outraged by Sulivan’s willingness to capitulate to the ministry’s demands
regarding the preliminary treaty. “That, notwithstanding what has been given
out, by The Ministry, That the E. I. Company are satisfied, That Contrary of
it, is true,” mused Newcastle in his private notes on the preliminary articles of
peace. “Mr. Sullivan, & the Depy. Chairman Mr. Dorient, as Creatures of My
Lord B., pretend to be so; but The Chairman Mr. Rouse, & The Company in
general, are very far from being pleased.”96 Even though Sulivan was able to
secure several of the EIC’s aims in the definitive peace treaty signed in Febru-
ary 1763, the Rous-led faction was bitterly opposed to his overweening influ-
ence and his willingness to risk the Company’s global interests.97 A major
conflict was brewing within the meeting rooms of East India House.
In addition to the growing opposition he faced from the EIC’s directors
and proprietors, Sulivan also drew renewed criticism from Clive and his sup-
porters. The military commander was infuriated not only by Sulivan’s far
greater influence over the Company’s peace negotiations but also by the corpo-
ration’s failure to transform its political and military advantages in Bengal into
 the plassey revolution in bengal 121

a durable imperial hegemony.98 Clive refused to support the Bute ministry’s

peace proposals for the East Indies and led his parliamentary supporters in op-
position to the government. As C. H. Philips remarks, “Clive’s aim in securing
influence in the Commons was not merely mercenary . . . he insisted to direc-
tors and ministers alike that the Company’s Service ought to be purified and
strengthened, and that it was imperative to maintain strong military forces in
India.” The military commander believed that “British supremacy in India was
being sacrificed to Bute’s desire for peace.”99 The views of Clive’s circle were
closely aligned with those of the hard-line, anti-French Rous faction.100
In fact, Clive’s peace proposals were far more ambitious than those put
forward by the anti-Sulivan faction emerging within the EIC. In August 1762,
Clive and Orme wrote a memorandum for Bute that advocated the pursuit of
French-style imperialism in South Asia. They argued that Dupleix was the
first leader to recognize the fact that the spread of European conflict beyond
the Cape of Good Hope made it necessary for the British and French East
India companies to supplement trade with territorial revenue, and thus to
acquire political dominion on the Indian subcontinent. Although the French
Company was the first to pursue this project, the outcome of the Seven Years’
War left the British EIC in a political and military position capable of carrying
Dupleix’s strategy to its logical conclusion. “Our successes have been so great,”
Clive and Orme contended, “that we have accomplished for ourselves and
against the French exactly every thing that the French intended to accomplish
to themselves and against us.”101 While Sulivan was deeply opposed to the
political style and heavy costs associated with Dupleix’s territorial imperialism,
Clive encouraged metropolitan ministers to embrace French-style aggrandize-
ment in the East. The bitter rivalry between Clive and Sulivan was ultimately
based on their vastly different ideological visions and imperial programs. Dur-
ing the peace negotiations with France, the Bute ministry—which was closely
aligned with the Sulivanite forces at East India House while seeking to bring
the war to a conclusion as soon as possible—paid little attention to Clive’s
treaty proposals and imperial schemes.102
During the fall of 1762 and the winter of 1762–1763, the Clivites and the
Rous-led faction of Company directors and proprietors entered into an alli-
ance designed to undo Sulivan’s supremacy within the corporation. Clive pri-
vately expressed his support for Rous’s faction as early as November 1762.103
He initially feared that open opposition to Sulivan’s leadership might lead to
the revocation of his jagir grant. However, Sulivan’s ability to stop the jagir
payments was linked to his power within the confines of East India House.
122 the first british empire and its crisis

Thus, as opposition to Sulivan’s supremacy among the EIC’s directors and

proprietors grew, Clive was increasingly willing to openly challenge his adver-
sary’s leadership of the corporation. In December 1762, Clive voted against
the preliminary peace treaty in the House of Commons along with members
of the Rous-led Company faction.104 Rous and his supporters made it clear
that they planned to directly challenge Sulivan’s leadership at the next election
for the Court of Directors. In February 1763, Clive openly embraced the Rous
faction and began to campaign on its behalf.105 Delighted with the Baron of
Plassey’s support, Rous exposed the anonymous propaganda campaign that
Sulivan was waging against Clive in London newspapers.106
From February to April 1763, the Clive-Rous alliance conducted a vigorous
offensive against Sulivan in the City and among proprietors of East India stock.
They were supported in this effort by three different forces: the parliamentary
opposition, returned EIC servants, and radical Whig propagandists. Newcastle
was now leading the parliamentary opposition to Bute’s ministry and was no
longer aligned with Sulivan. Clive’s father was one of Newcastle’s political cli-
ents, and Clive himself established good relations with the Whig magnate dur-
ing 1760 and 1761.107 The leader of the rump Whig establishment was eager to
wrest control of the Company away from a Bute ally and thus happily embraced
the Clive-Rous alliance. Leading members of Newcastle’s political faction—in-
cluding the Marquis of Rockingham and the Duke of Portland—purchased
India stock and voted in favor of Rous’s slate of directors.108
In addition to the parliamentary opposition, the Clive-Rous alliance was
able to draw on the support of returned EIC servants and radical Whigs.
While neither of these groups favored the creation of an autocratic and tribu-
tary territorial empire in Bengal, they both supported Clive’s challenge to Su-
livan’s rule at East India House. As we saw before, Clive had emerged as a
British military hero in the early years of the Seven Years’ War and was por-
trayed in the public sphere as a leading Patriot light. Although Clive advocated
for creating a territorial empire in Bengal in numerous political memoranda,
he chose to emphasize the anti-French and Patriot political character of his
challenge to Sulivan’s authority in the public propaganda war waged between
February and April 1763. By doing so, Clive was able to win the support of
individuals and groups whose imperial interests and ideology differed vastly
from his own.
The Company servants and British private traders who returned home in
the late 1750s and early 1760s were prepared to make common cause with the
Clive-Rous alliance against Sulivan’s domination of East India House. Clive
 the plassey revolution in bengal 123

had closely aligned himself with these servants and traders during his first gov-
ernorship of Bengal in the years immediately following Plassey. In addition to
these long-standing connections, returned EIC servants and private traders
were willing to support Clive because they were strongly opposed to the
Sulivan-Vansittart program in Bengal. They were thus willing to go to great
lengths to replace the Sulivanite directors with ones more amenable to their
expansive commercial interests in the East. Metropolitan radicals with close
links to private trading interests in Bengal, including the Scottish merchant
George Dempster, voted with Clive in the House of Commons against the
preliminary articles of peace in December 1762.109 The returned Company ser-
vants used their newfound wealth in support of the Clive-Rous alliance during
the electoral campaign of 1763.110 Foremost among these former Bengal ser-
vants was the Johnstone family and their supporters.111 This faction consisted of
three brothers—the dismissed Company servant and private trader John John-
stone, the influential EIC proprietor George Johnstone, and the lawyer (and,
eventually, wealthy landed magnate) William Johnstone—and their various
connections among the Company’s proprietors. The Johnstones were deeply
opposed to Sulivan’s control of the corporation, and they were closely aligned
with Clivite forces in the 1763 election struggle.112
Clive’s public role as a Patriot war hero and a vociferous critic of the Bute
ministry’s peace negotiations with France also won him the support of several
important radical Whigs. These radicals viewed Sulivan’s apparent treachery
with regard to the EIC’s treaty proposals as one more instance of Bute’s be-
trayal of the Pittite war effort.113 Pitt and his allies vociferously denounced the
peace process.114 Radical Whigs such as Beckford and Wilkes voted with Clive
against the preliminary articles of peace in the House of Commons in De-
cember 1762.115 When denouncing the ministry’s negotiations, The Monitor
reminded its readers that “while the French were in a condition to encounter
our fleets, to interrupt our commerce and navigation, to dispute our property
and to face our armies in North America . . . our enemies were deaf to the
voice of peace: Pondicherry was an eternal bar to a reconciliation in the East:
Louisbourgh and the forces of Canada fed their ambitions with hopes of
conquering North America and its fishery: Martinico and Guadalupe were
thought equal for any attempt upon our Sugar Islands: and the Havannah
was provided to give laws to the windward navigation, to annoy our trade and
to deprive us of the advantages of all our conquests in the Western Ocean.”116
Thus, according to radical Whiggism, British imperial activity in Asia was not
a realm apart but rather a vital theater in the global struggle against French
124 the first british empire and its crisis

despotism. For the radicals, Sulivan’s efforts to placate the Bute ministry with
regard to the East Indian peace articles were part and parcel of the British
political establishment’s failure both to curb French power and to fulfill the
revolutionary Whig aims of Pitt’s war effort.
After the Seven Years’ War ended, the target of radical political criticism
shifted from foreign policy to the domestic oligarchic order. “All seemed within
[the City radicals’] grasp, but they failed, because they lacked political power,”
J. H. Plumb observes, and “in defeat, they directed their attention to the insti-
tutions and methods of government.”117 Pamphleteers and propagandists
scathingly criticized not only the Bute ministry but also the Court of George
III and the country’s wider political elite. Foremost among these writers was
Wilkes, whose North Briton newspaper “constituted a frontal assault on the
politics of oligarchy, and thereby threatened the political status quo.”118
Wilkes’s radicalism appealed not only to the urban middling sort but also to
London’s plebeian lower classes.119
It is not surprising that as part of his political struggle against Britain’s
oligarchic order, Wilkes chose to enter the propaganda war over the Compa-
ny’s 1763 election on the side of the Clive-Rous alliance. For Patriot and radi-
cal Whigs like Wilkes, Clive was not the advocate of an autocratic territorial
empire in South Asia. Rather, he was a staunch ally in the struggle against the
political establishment’s conciliatory foreign policy and oligarchic corruption.
In April 1763, Wilkes wrote, but did not publish, a special edition of his news-
paper entitled A North Briton Extraordinary. The radical Whig portrayed
Rous’s conflict with Sulivan as nothing less than a major front in the greater
political struggle being waged between popular Pittite forces and the Bute
ministry:
Whatever differences we may find between the present and the late
minister, in the exertion of a determined and inflexible resolution,
they certainly bear a near resemblance to each other. One distinction,
indeed, ought to be made even here, that Mr. Pitt’s resolution arose
from conscious virtue, and the Earl of Bute’s from conscious power;
but, to the credit of the latter we must observe, that he hath shewn as
inflexible a spirit in supporting every measure which was wrong, as the
former could possibly maintain in promoting what was right . . .
[n]umberless instances might be produced to justify this remark; but
no one is more proper . . . than the treatment which our East-India
Company in general, and Mr. Rous, a very worthy member of it in
 the plassey revolution in bengal 125

particular, have met with. However triflingly this affair may have been
talked of, it is really of very serious and general consequence. At this
time especially, when their election is drawing nigh, it is highly neces-
sary that a clear and full account of that affair, with the real merits of
the case, should be laid before the public.120
The provocateur’s account of the peace negotiations portrayed Rous as strug-
gling to defend Britain’s commercial interests in the face of the Bute ministry’s
duplicity and heavy-handedness. For Wilkes, the Clive-Rous alliance’s effort
to capture East India House was one of several radical challenges being posed
to the oligarchic order throughout Britain and its empire.
In their efforts to undo Sulivan’s supremacy, Clive and Rous were sup-
ported not only by a considerable number of proprietors and directors but also
by Newcastle’s parliamentary opposition and by returned EIC servants and
private traders, as well as by a boisterous public sphere filled with radical Whig
voices. Clive rallied these forces together with propaganda that focused on
Sulivan’s relationship to Bute and on the Company’s failure to achieve all of its
aims in the definitive peace treaty.121 The military commander poured £100,000
of his own money into the stock-splitting campaign that took place between
February and April 1763.122 Acting through intermediaries in the London firm
of Cliffe, Walpole, and Clarke, returned EIC servants and Rous’s supporters
commenced a stock-splitting venture in November 1762. They purchased
£26,500 of East India stock and created fifty-three votes in the Court of Pro-
prietors in the early months of 1763.123 By the time the election was held in
April, the Clive-Rous alliance had created 220 new votes.124 The campaign
undertaken by Clive’s coalition was impressive, and, in March 1763, they were
able to win an important vote in the Court of Proprietors exonerating Rous’s
conduct during the peace negotiations.125
Despite the Clive-Rous alliance’s considerable support within East India
House as well as among the parliamentary opposition and in the public sphere,
Sulivan ultimately defeated it in the Company election of 1763. Ten positions
on the corporation’s Court of Directors were contested.126 The Sulivanite can-
didates won each spot by a safe margin.127 Sulivan and his allies among the
directors had been the dominant force in the EIC since 1758, and they had
built up many valuable connections within the corporation and among Lon-
don’s business elite. Their ties to various banking and shipping interests with
long-standing connections to the Company proved very useful in the face of
the challenge posed by the Clive-Rous alliance.128 One Clivite remarked that
126 the first british empire and its crisis

“we have been cheated out of the election by the clerks of India House.”129 In
addition to drawing on his connections among business interests closely asso-
ciated with the Company, Sulivan also ran a sizeable stock-splitting campaign.
The most important factor in the victory of Sulivan’s circle over the Clive-
Rous alliance was the Bute ministry’s support.130 Shelburne assisted Sulivan in
planning his electoral campaign, and Henry Fox used the financial resources
of the Pay Office to purchase £19,000 of India stock and to create thirty-eight
votes.131 The government was responsible for 100 of the 160 new votes created
for Sulivan during the election struggle of 1763.132 Even more important than
the Bute ministry’s creation of new votes was the extensive lobbying campaign
it ran among London’s elite merchants and financiers on Sulivan’s behalf.
Ministers and officials brought pressure to bear on the Company’s leading
proprietors and were able to secure a majority of their votes for Sulivan.133 The
City elite relied on their privileged access to the state and were thus prepared
to back Sulivan in order to curry favor with Bute and George III. Although
Clive and Rous managed to assemble a respectable coalition, their forces
stood little chance in the face of the Bute ministry’s efforts. Despite the fact
that the EIC’s election contest took place after the final signing of the Treaty
of Paris in February 1763, the Bute ministry viewed it as an extension both of
the conflicts surrounding the peace negotiations and of the government’s ef-
forts to stabilize the postwar political order. Hence, the ministry was prepared
to go to great lengths in support of Sulivan’s supremacy in the Company.
Clive’s humiliating defeat in the corporation’s 1763 election made one thing
clear to him: East India House could only be conquered with ministerial
support.134
Sulivan not only defeated the greatest challenge to his leadership since he
took control of the Company in 1758 but also managed to rally much of the
oligarchic order behind his supremacy. The new centers of political power—
that is, the circles surrounding Bute and George III—were fully committed
to Sulivan’s control of the EIC. Having removed from office all the allies of
Newcastle and the Whig establishment during the “Slaughter of the Pelham-
ite Innocents” in December 1762, Bute and George III were well on the way
to consolidating the oligarchic order on a new basis. Thus, when the Bute
ministry threw its support behind Sulivan, it brought with it the govern-
ment’s patronage machine as well as the elite merchants and financiers who
were closely connected to the state. The Clive-Rous alliance and their sup-
porters among the returned Company servants were largely defeated by the
oligarchic order in the City and the state.
 the plassey revolution in bengal 127

With his sweeping victory in the EIC election held on April 13, 1763,
Sulivan stood as the uncontested master of East India House. Marking his
ascendancy, the Sulivanite Court of Directors voted on April 27 to stop pay-
ment on Clive’s jagir grant.135 The Baron of Plassey was thus deprived of one
of the key sources of his metropolitan power and influence. Signaling the
Company’s support for the political project of Bute and George III, the direc-
tors published an address praising the peace settlement with France.136 As we
discussed previously, Sulivan assisted with the peace negotiations in order to
win the ministry’s support for the EIC and his leadership of it. Beyond this,
Bute and Sulivan were both committed to bringing the war to a conclusion so
that they could reassert control over their respective institutions in the face of
the challenges posed by commercially expansionist and politically radical
forces. While Bute’s policies sought to consolidate the oligarchic order and to
contain the radical Whigs, the Sulivan-Vansittart program in Bengal sought
to restore the EIC’s monopolistic trade and to block the ambitions of Com-
pany servants and British private traders. Following his decisive victory in the
Company’s election, Sulivan was confident that he would be able to re-
establish the EIC’s global trading empire on the basis of the commercial priv-
ileges and limited territorial revenue gained in Bengal during the Seven Years’
War. The ruler of Leadenhall Street believed that the Company would soon
return to its pre-war level of commercial profitability and to its long-established
position within the oligarchic order.
This page intentionally left blank
 part two

he Making of the Second

British Empire
This page intentionally left blank
 chapter 4

live’s Conquest of East India House and

the Company’s Conquest of Bengal

In the aftermath of his 1763 East India Company election defeat, Robert
Clive’s future with regard to British affairs in South Asia was uncertain at best.
He attempted to preserve as much influence as possible within East India
House and enlisted the Duke of Newcastle’s support in an effort to keep large
amounts of India stock in the hands of his allies.1 Although Clive sought to
preserve his connections with EIC directors and proprietors, he was most
immediately concerned with the restoration of his jagir grant. While he
maintained close political ties with Newcastle’s circle, they were now in the
parliamentary opposition and stood little chance of mounting a successful
effort to reinstate the jagir.2 Clive’s supporters failed to mount a substantial
challenge to the Company’s revocation of his jagir throughout the spring and
summer of 1763. Fearing that Laurence Sulivan’s supremacy at East India
House was impregnable, and that his jagir grant was on the verge of being lost
forever, Clive approached Prime Minister George Grenville in the fall of 1763
in an effort to win support for his cause. Grenville, who took over the reins of
power along with the Earl of Egremont and the Earl of Halifax upon Bute’s
resignation in April 1763 and became the sole leader of the ministry in August,
agreed to attempt to restore the jagir by conducting negotiations between
Clive and the EIC.3 In November, Clive informed Grenville that if “the East
India Company shall pay to me or my Heirs annually for twelve or ten Years
at least, the Amount of what they shall receive from my Jaggeer provided that

131
132 the making of the second british empire

they hold those Lands of which this Jaggeer a Quit Rent,” then he “never
[would] give any Opposition to the present or any other Court of Directors
and never [would] interfere in any of their Affairs directly or indirectly.”4 This
offer represented a major concession on Clive’s part. It appeared that his long
struggle to determine the shape of the British presence in India—that is, his
effort to consolidate a tributary territorial empire in Bengal—was finally at
an end.
However, within seven months of writing this letter to Grenville, Clive
had managed not only to undo Sulivan’s supremacy at East India House but
also to be returned to Bengal with extraordinary civilian and military powers.
This dramatic reversal of fortune was not the result of Clive’s fortitude but
rather of the convergence of four major sociopolitical developments in late
1763 and early 1764. Taken together, these four developments—metropolitan,
pan-imperial, and South Asian in scope—seemed to portend the unraveling
of Britain’s political order and imperial state. It was in this context that Gren-
ville shifted the government’s support from the Sulivanites to Clive. The
Baron of Plassey emerged as the military guarantor of the British Empire in
the face of the anarchic, destabilizing forces that threatened it on all sides.
The first of these major developments entailed postwar finance and the
government’s efforts to stabilize public credit and the fiscal-military state. As
we saw in chapter 2, the national debt nearly doubled to £130 million during
the Seven Years’ War, and the state’s fiscal capacities were stretched to their
limits. In 1763, the annual interest accumulating on the debt stood at ap-
proximately £4.4 million, and the total public revenue of £9.8 million was
insufficient to meet the £14.2 million needed for government expenditure.5 To
make matters worse, with the end of the Seven Years’ War and the subsequent
drop in commodity prices, a financial crisis that began in Amsterdam spread
out across the capital markets of Europe, resulting in a massive credit squeeze.
Throughout the remainder of 1763 and early 1764, the Grenville ministry
sought desperately to reorganize government finance. The ministry worked
closely with the Bank of England and London’s business elite to secure public
credit, deploying key agents such as Charles Jenkinson, the Secretary of the
Treasury, and Joseph Salvador, a prominent City financier.6 “When I had last
the pleasure of seeing you I explained my sentiments concerning what was still
wanting by means of Supply this year to reestablish our sinking credit & gain
the moneys wanted by the Government,” Salvador informed Jenkinson in
February 1764. “I think the last done, if the first view is not obtained, much
will still be wanting to the great work & that a reestablishment of publick
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 133

Credit will be as essential to the Glory of the Ministry as having gone success-
fully thro the Supply.”7
Although the Grenville ministry was concerned about the London credit
market in general during 1763 and early 1764, it was particularly worried
about the East India Company’s position within it.8 The Company relied on
short-term loans drawn in London to finance its annual commercial opera-
tions. As the EIC played an important role in the London stock market and
the fiscal-military state, its failure would send ripples throughout the oligar-
chic order. In October and November 1763, the ministry undertook steps to
stabilize the Company’s finances, including securing a large loan from the
Bank of England.9 Thus, in late 1763 and early 1764, the Grenville ministry
focused on solving the problems of postwar finance and public credit in gen-
eral and on buttressing the EIC’s position in particular.
The second major development that dominated metropolitan politics in
late 1763 and early 1764 was the growth of radicalism. As we saw in chapter 2,
a radical Whig politics that strongly supported the Pittite war effort devel-
oped among the urban middling sort during the late 1750s and early 1760s.
Amid the peace negotiations of 1762, the Bute ministry was disturbed by the
extent and vigor of radical opposition to its policies. Tobias Smollett’s The
Briton, a pro-government newspaper advocating the pursuit of peace with
France, viewed the radical Whigs in London and the provincial urban centers
as a menacing and potentially revolutionary rabble:
True it is, the malcontents of our days have not yet proceeded to open
insurrection; perhaps their courage is not sufficiently roused, nor their
cause sufficiently strengthened for such an attempt. . . . They have
taken public exceptions to the proceedings of government, and boldly
intrenched upon the King’s prerogative. . . . As these Reformers have,
upon all occasions, assumed the title of free-born Englishmen, and de-
nominated themselves the good people of England; it will not be amiss to
enquire who the individuals are that compose this respectable commu-
nity. . . . They reverence no King: they submit to no law: they belong
to no parish. Have they a right to give their voice in any sort of election,
or their advice in any assembly of people? They have no such right
established by law; and therefore they deduce a right from nature, in-
consistent with all law, incompatible with every form of government.
They consist of that class which our neighbours distinguish by the
name of Canaille, forlorn Grubs and Garetteers, desperate gamblers,
134 the making of the second british empire

tradesmen thrice bankrupt, prentices to journeymen, understrappers

to porters, hungry pettifoggers, bailiffs-followers, discarded draymen,
hostlers out of place, and felons returned from transportation. These
are the people who proclaim themselves free-born Englishmen, and,
transported with a laudable spirit of patriotism, insist upon having a
spoke in the wheel of government; who distribute infamy among
the great; calumniate their S——n, asperse his family; condemn his
ministers, criticize his conduct, and publicly declaim upon politics, in
coffee-houses, ale-houses, in cellars, stalls, in prisons, and the public
streets.10
Political radicalism did not come to an end with the conclusion of the
Seven Years’ War. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris, the radical Whig
critique of British foreign policy transformed into a challenge to the oligar-
chic sociopolitical order. Wilkes’s polemical assault on the political establish-
ment did not cease with Bute’s resignation, but rather became more vociferous.
The forty-fifth issue of his North Briton denounced George III’s speech before
Parliament in April 1763 in harsh terms. While Wilkes’s opposition to the
Peace of Paris was nothing new, the stridency of his latest critique was deeply
troubling to government ministers and officials.11 The Grenville ministry’s
legal prosecution of Wilkes for libel—including both the government’s use of
general warrants and the dismissal of the charges against the radical scribbler
on the basis of his parliamentary immunity—only managed to fan the flames
of political radicalism. In the spring and summer of 1763, cries of “Wilkes and
Liberty” spread throughout the country; the ministry found it difficult to
counter radical Whiggism.12
The growth of political radicalism and the problems of postwar finance
tended to reinforce one another. While the Grenville ministry was dealing
with the Wilkes affair, they also faced widespread opposition to the excise
tax on cider passed by the Bute ministry. The campaign against the tax drew
support not only from the cider-producing West Country but also from in-
creasingly radicalized urban centers such as Bristol and London.13 Radical
Whig politicians and their supporters throughout the population bitterly de-
nounced the collection of burdensome taxes by an oligarchic government that
failed to pursue their foreign policy objectives. The difficulties posed by Wil-
kesite protest and by resistance to the cider tax dominated the political agenda
in early 1764. “I am in haste that all your business be put in form,” Salvador
informed Jenkinson in January. “I know if not done before Parliament meets
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 135

we shall be diverted with Mr. Wilkes & Cyder Bills &ca without end which
will compleat the ruin of any projects for the Reduction of Stocks for God
sake let a hand be had to that.”14 Fearing that other taxes would be subjected
to extensive criticism and protest if he gave way, Grenville adamantly refused
to repeal the excise on cider.15 The ministry was forced to hold firm in the face
of political radicalism and resistance to taxation, as the failure to increase
public revenue or to enforce its collection would invariably imperil govern-
ment credit, the fiscal-military state, and the oligarchic order.
In addition to the difficulties posed by postwar finance and domestic
radicalism in 1763 and early 1764, the Grenville ministry was confronted with
major problems of imperial rule in British North America. Smuggling flour-
ished among the American colonies in the first half of the eighteenth century.
As we saw in chapter 1, the Whig establishment led successively by Robert
Walpole, Henry Pelham, and Newcastle had pursued a policy of Salutary
Neglect on the British Atlantic. They chose not to enforce the laws of trade
and navigation in the hope that the profits generated by illegal American
trade would allow the colonists to purchase ever-increasing amounts of Brit-
ish manufactures. By the mid-eighteenth century, however, royal officials in
the colonies were concerned with the deleterious effects of illicit traffic. In
1742, the governor of Massachusetts informed metropolitan ministers that
“the Illicit Trade, which appears to have been carried on in this Province and
some of the neighboring Colonies (within this last year more especially) is
such as without the speedy Interposition of the Parliament to stop it, must be
highly destructive . . . and finally weakening the Dependence which the Brit-
ish Northern Colonies ought to have upon their Mother Country.”16 These
activities continued throughout the Seven Years’ War; imperial officials and
military commanders regularly reported the vast extent of colonial smuggling
to their superiors in London.17 By the late 1750s, the Commissioners of the
Customs and the Board of Trade were gathering evidence on illegal American
trade and drawing up plans for curbing it.18
Both metropolitan and imperial officials believed that the spread of illegal
trade before and during the Seven Years’ War was leading to the growth of
lawlessness throughout the colonies. Peter Oliver, the chief justice of the Su-
perior Court in Massachusetts, remarked retrospectively that “the Inhabitants
of the Massachusetts bay were notorious in the smuggling Business, from the
Capital Merchant down to the meanest Mechanick.” He was convinced that
“so pernicious is this illicit Trade, that it not only wrongs the Society of those
Dues which are the Resources for its Support, & injures the fair Dealer by
136 the making of the second british empire

lessening his Abilities to aid Society & maintain his private Family, but it
naturally tends to the Destruction of all moral Sense . . . it may safely be as-
serted, that a thorough Adept in this most baleful Science is ever ready to
commit, not only the lesser Crimes, but is fit for Stratagems, Treasons & Mur-
der.”19 Such fears of widespread lawlessness and insubordination seemed to be
confirmed by the events of the Seven Years’ War. Throughout the conflict,
British military commanders and royal governors were forced to deal with
recalcitrant colonial legislatures that sought to defend their political auton-
omy. By the early 1760s, many metropolitan observers were convinced that
British imperial authority in North America was extremely weak.20 In re-
sponse to these concerns, Grenville passed a series of Atlantic imperial reforms
through Parliament. The ministry hoped to check the growth of illegal trade,
to maintain a peacetime standing army in North America, and to increase
the collection of colonial revenue. These were the first steps in a wide-ranging
effort to fundamentally transform Britain’s Atlantic empire.
Throughout late 1763 and early 1764, there were three major issues con-
fronting the Grenville ministry: the reorganization of postwar finance, the
growth of domestic radicalism, and the weakness of imperial authority and
regulation in North America. These issues were deeply intertwined and im-
possible to separate in either theory or practice. While the government was in
dire need of new and politically viable sources of revenue in order to stabilize
public credit and the fiscal-military state, ministers and officials were aware
that political radicalism and popular discontent placed limits on their ability
to raise domestic taxation. Furthermore, these same ministers and officials
were deeply concerned with the vast extent of illegal trade in the colonies and
the consequent loss of imperial revenue. It is not surprising that the Grenville
ministry regularly discussed issues such as colonial smuggling and the Wilkes
affair in the very same sessions and proceedings.21 Thus, when Clive ap-
proached Grenville concerning the restoration of his jagir grant in the fall of
1763, the prime minister was in the midst of grappling with a profound
political-economic crisis. In fact, many metropolitan ministers and officials
believed that Britain and its empire were on the verge of collapse.

The initial discussions between Grenville and Clive focused on the former’s
efforts to negotiate with the East India Company’s Court of Directors in or-
der to restore the jagir grant. Seeking Clive’s parliamentary support, Grenville
readily agreed to take up his cause with the corporation.22 Sulivan and the
directors contended that Clive’s jagir was not legitimate because the Mughal
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 137

Emperor had not confirmed it. Rebutting this claim, Clive informed Gren-
ville that “the E. I. Company have acquired all their Possessions by force of
Arms & must maintain them by force of Arms; By supporting one Nabob,
against another in the Carnatick, by deposing two Nabobs and setting up a
third in Bengal without the Knowledge or Consent of the Mogul they have
acquired in different parts of India a Revenue of near one Million Sterling £
unconfirmed to this day by the Great Mogul . . . I could write Volumes of the
Insufficiency and Inability of the Mogul ever to call the Company to an Ac-
count.”23 Clive consistently emphasized the fundamental military character of
the EIC’s position in Bengal. Grenville spoke directly with Sulivan and John
Dorrien regarding the jagir in December 1763, and Clive informed his secre-
tary John Walsh that “the Directors cannot refuse [Grenville] without greatly
displeasing.”24 The prime minister was indeed upset with the Company’s re-
sponse to his overtures. The Sulivan-dominated Court of Directors, supremely
confident that their leader’s position within East India House was unassail-
able, voted unanimously on December 14 to reject the proposed terms for the
restoration of Clive’s jagir.25
Clive’s association with Grenville deepened and strengthened over the next
weeks and months while relations between the Company’s directors and the
ministry worsened. Although the Grenville administration worked to secure the
EIC’s credit in the fall of 1763—as a pillar of the oligarchic order, the corpora-
tion’s financial stability was a matter of great importance for the government—
the prime minister’s circle was not closely aligned with the Company’s leadership.
Sulivan’s relationship with the ministry deteriorated in the fall and winter of
1763 after his political patron, the Earl of Shelburne, left office. Shelburne
quickly became a close ally of William Pitt, who stridently criticized the Gren-
ville ministry’s policies during the fall of 1763.26 In November, Pitt and his allies
defended Wilkes in Parliament against the ministry’s efforts to have the forty-
fifth issue of The North Briton declared a seditious libel and to override Wilkes’s
parliamentary immunity.27 Grenville was infuriated by Shelburne’s support
for Wilkes in these debates. Since Sulivan remained a close political ally of
Shelburne, the prime minister knew that he could not rely on the dictator of
Leadenhall Street’s support. Thus, even before the Company’s directors made
the decision to reject the proposal for Clive’s jagir, relations between Grenville
and Sulivan were souring.28
From November 1763 to February 1764, Clive threw the full weight of his
parliamentary connections behind the Grenville ministry in its efforts to deal
with the problems of postwar finance, domestic radicalism, and British imperial
138 the making of the second british empire

authority in North America. Pitt and Newcastle were outraged at Clive’s

support for the prime minister’s policies. In December 1763, Clive informed
Grenville that he was “discoutenancd & hated by the Party I have abandoned,
as much as I was before respected and esteem’d,” and that his “poor Services such
as they are shall be dedicated for the rest of my days to the King, & my Obliga-
tions to You always acknowledged whether in or out of Power.”29 Clive became
a loyal ally of Grenville. In February 1764, the Baron of Plassey’s political
connections supported the Grenville ministry’s position in the parliamentary
debates concerning the use of general warrants.30
In the midst of the ministry’s efforts to grapple with the political-economic
crisis afflicting Britain and its empire, the alliance between Grenville and
Clive deepened. While this alliance was being forged in late 1763 and early
1764, a fourth major development came to a head. Between December and
February, the British public sphere was flooded with news of the outbreak of
war in Bengal. The EIC was once again threatened with extinction in north-
eastern India. Thus, the Grenville ministry was forced to deal with yet another
major challenge: the destabilization of the Company and its global trading
empire. Taking advantage of this crisis in the corporation’s affairs, the Clivites
launched another assault on Sulivan’s supremacy at East India House. In Feb-
ruary and March 1764, Clive renewed his alliance with Thomas Rous and
mobilized forces inside and outside of the EIC in order to contest the coming
election to the corporation’s Court of Directors. Although Clive’s support for
Grenville’s New Tory politics lost him the backing of radical Whigs who had
rallied to his cause in the Company election of 1763, returned EIC servants
and private traders once again collaborated with the Clive-Rous alliance in its
opposition to the Sulivanites. The crucial difference in the electoral contest of
1764 was the role played by the government. The Grenville ministry brought
the full weight of its power and influence to bear, shifting the balance of forces
in Clive’s favor. The Baron of Plassey was portrayed during the electoral con-
test as the military guarantor of the Company’s position in Bengal. Grenville’s
circle mobilized the oligarchic order in the City and the state in support of
Clive’s long-standing imperial project. By May 1764, the Clive-Rous alliance
was in control of East India House and the “heaven-born general” was prepar-
ing to return to Bengal with extraordinary civilian and military powers. He
subsequently militarized the EIC’s position in Bengal and consolidated a trib-
utary and autocratic territorial empire on the Indian subcontinent.
Before exploring the ultimate reasons behind the Grenville ministry’s
support for Clive’s conquest of East India House and return to Bengal—that
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 139

is, the emergence and development of the New Toryism and its imperial
implications—it is necessary to examine the Company’s electoral contest of
1764 and the government’s intervention therein in greater detail.31
The outbreak of war in Bengal in 1763 represented the unraveling of the
Sulivan-Vansittart program in the face of the intractable conflicts between
Mir Qasim’s independent nawabi regime and the private trading interests of
EIC servants. As we saw in the previous chapter, the penetration of Bengal’s
economy by British private trade and the abuse of the Company’s dastaks
undermined Calcutta’s relations with the nawabi regime. Although Vansittart
sought to contain British private trade within definite limits, his efforts were
undone in 1763.32 The political conflict between the divergent interests of
EIC servants and the nawabi regime spiraled out of control and led to open
warfare. Mir Qasim entered into a military alliance with the Mughal Emperor
Shah Alam II and the Nawab of Oudh, Shuja-ud-daula, in order to reduce
British power in Bengal.
When news of this political conflict (and, eventually, of a full-scale war
between Calcutta and the Nawab) reached the metropole, it caused panic in
East India House, among the political elite, and throughout the public sphere.
Sulivan later recounted the events that both undid the Sulivan-Vansittart pro-
gram in Bengal and provided an opening for the Clivites in the metropole:
The Governour [Vansittart] alarmed at the Consequences that might
flow from such amazing behaviour [the expansion of duty-free British
private trade throughout Bengal] remonstrated in the strongest Terms
but his Remonstrances were in vain, and thus far reached the Company
by our last Ships—who deliberating maturely upon the dangers that
threatened their Affairs in Bengall, thro’ the Conduct of a few daring
Men; resolvd to dismiss from their Service Messr. Amyat Carnac John-
stone & Hay also suspending others; but alas three days after this de-
termination arrives the Lapwing who brings the melancholly News
that all those Evils we meant to check have befallen the Company, For
these Men with others in opposition to Govr: Vansittart cruelly insisted
that the Nabob Cossim Ally should allow all English private Trade to
be Duty free—the Nabob announced that if such was their Resolution
and he must be deprived of his revenues, it was but just his own
Subjects should share with them in the Advantages. He therefore had
determined to charge no Dutys to any Man whatever; If You presume
to take such measures replys the Council it will bring on a Rupture;
140 the making of the second british empire

because Your Subjects will then be upon a footing with the English; the
Nabob Cossim Ally stung with this usage declard he would not submit
to such contemptuous Treatment.33
Mir Qasim and the Company subsequently engaged in an armed conflict that
did not come to an end until the British victory at the Battle of Buxar in
October 1764.
News that EIC servants were acting in direct violation of Vansittart’s au-
thority inundated London in January 1764. While the directors were busy
formulating the Company’s response to this development, news of the resto-
ration of Mir Jafar as Nawab of Bengal and of the outbreak of war reached
London on February 9, 1764.34 The capital shuddered upon learning that
Mir Qasim was leading an alliance of indigenous powers in an effort to expel
the British trading company from northeastern India. This development, as
one contemporary chronicler averred, “occasioned an incredible ferment in
London, among all who had any concern with that company.”35
The panic that spread among the owners of India stock was fertile ground
for the Clivites and their allies in the government; they quickly capitalized on
the events in Bengal and emphasized the weaknesses entailed in the EIC’s
policy of leaving political and military power in the hands of the nawabi re-
gime. They formulated a plan to undo Sulivan’s supremacy at East India
House and to return Clive to Bengal. The Grenville ministry’s intervention in
the Company’s affairs in 1764 was even more powerful and direct than the
government’s role in the electoral contest of 1763. As Lucy Sutherland remarks,
“the Treasury played a far more active part in organizing the opposition in the
Company, in planning its policy, and in choosing those to be put forward as
directors than it had [in 1763].”36 Grenville relied on his chief agents in the
City—Jenkinson and Salvador—to coordinate the government’s intervention.
From his position in the Treasury Jenkinson worked with Salvador to
rally elite merchants and financiers with connections to the ministry around
Clive’s cause. They sought to win support among EIC proprietors for the plan
“of Getting Lord Clive to go to Bengal & Mr. Amyand to head the direc-
tion.”37 Although in the event the merchant and MP George Amyand was not
able to stand for the Company’s leadership, Salvador continued to canvass
leading London figures—such as the Lombard Street banker Robert Glover
and the Governor of the Bank of England, Robert Marsh—on Clive’s behalf.38
While Grenville’s agents encountered difficulties in settling on candidates for
the EIC’s direction, they nevertheless won a significant amount of support
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 141

among the corporation’s proprietors and the City’s elite merchants and finan-
ciers.39 Grenville, Jenkinson, Salvador, and Clive eventually gathered together
a slate of candidates to stand for election to the Court of Directors, with Rous
and Henry Crabb Boulton heading the list.40
Forming a list of candidates to stand against Sulivan and his allies in the
Company’s April election was only one part of the plan forged by the Gren-
ville ministry and the Clivites for the conquest of Leadenhall Street and the
transformation of the corporation’s imperial policy in India. As Sutherland
argues, this plan “involved action in three stages; first, the raising of the sug-
gestion in the General Court of 12 March that Clive should go back to Bengal
with supreme military and civil power . . . [n]ext, a contest at the election of
directors in April, at which not only should all forces be mobilized but the
proprietors should be made to realize that Clive’s acceptance of office de-
pended on the result; and finally, after the election, the settling of terms on the
jagir with, it was hoped, a friendly Court of Directors as well as a favourable
General Court.”41 Although the Grenville-Clive alliance faced considerable
obstacles to implementing this plan, it was ultimately successful.
During February and March 1764, the Grenville-Clive alliance and the
Sulivanites waged war in a series of EIC General Court sessions—that is,
meetings of the corporation’s proprietors—and in the public sphere. When
news arrived in London of the turmoil in the Company’s Calcutta govern-
ment and of the outbreak of hostilities with Mir Qasim, both sides published
pamphlets and newspaper accounts that sought to interpret these events for
the reading public and, ultimately, to defend or criticize the EIC’s leader-
ship.42 Although the returned EIC servants did not rally around Clive in the
1764 election as enthusiastically as they had in the previous contest, influential
Company factions with links to British private trading interests in Bengal re-
mained committed to overthrowing Sulivan’s leadership.43 Chief among them
was the Johnstone family and their associates, who were long-standing critics
of the Sulivan-Vansittart program. They were infuriated by Sulivan’s decision
in January to dismiss John Johnstone and his allies from the Calcutta council,
and they supported the Clivites in the General Court sessions as well as in the
public propaganda campaign conducted between February and early April.44
In doing so, they hoped to gain the power necessary to reinstate John John-
stone and other dismissed Company servants, thus preventing the restoration
of the Sulivan-Vansittart program in Bengal. This faction aimed to remove all
obstacles to the full commercial exploitation of northeastern India by EIC
servants and British private traders.45
142 the making of the second british empire

Although the Grenville-Clive alliance needed the support of the John-

stones and their allies in the struggle against Sulivan, it was ultimately com-
mitted to pursuing a very different imperial project. The Clivites and their
ministerial backers emphasized the need for a strong British political and
military presence in Bengal. In speeches before sessions of the General Court
and in the public propaganda battle, the Clivites drew attention to the mea-
sures put in place during their leader’s governorship of Bengal between 1757
and 1759. They lauded the policies he implemented in order to consolidate a
durable British political and military supremacy in northeastern India.
In his much circulated A Letter to the Proprietors of the East India Stock,
Clive called attention to all of the advantages won by the Company as the
result of Plassey and his subsequent governorship. “Let the Proprietors paint
to themselves what I must have suffered, under such a complication of dis-
tressed circumstances; and let the Directors remember that under all these
disadvantages, I took upon me to march, and the English arms alone gained
the battle of Plassey,” Clive remarked. He contended that “by this event, and
by the large sums of money paid into their cash, for bills, the Company were
enabled to supply every exigence, and answer the demands of every settlement
in India, during the whole course of the war.” Clive concluded his pamphlet
with an appeal to the Court of Directors “to declare whether they think with-
out the battle of Plassey, and its consequences, the East-India Company
would have been at this time existing?”46 The Clivites and their supporters in
the ministry contended that only a strong military governor could secure the
EIC’s position in Bengal. It could not be left to the backroom-dealing and
hopelessly bureaucratic Sulivan. With these arguments, the Grenville-Clive
alliance grounded the narrative of Plassey in a conservative Patriot and New
Tory ideology that viewed political authoritarianism, military might, and the
reinvigoration of social hierarchies as necessary measures for staving off the
various crises that afflicted Britain and its empire. The alliance’s ideological
position differed considerably from that of radical Patriots.
Informed by these views and sentiments, the Grenville-Clive alliance
aimed to undo Sulivan’s supremacy and to elect Rous to head the Court of
Directors. Two committed Clivites, the banker Francis Gosling and the for-
mer Company servant Luke Scrafton, took the lead and proposed that a Gen-
eral Court be held to discuss the crisis in the EIC’s affairs.47 The Court met
for three days, beginning on February 27, and heatedly discussed and debated
the Company’s situation in Bengal as well as the directors’ decision to put
John Spencer in charge of Calcutta. These debates were well attended by
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 143

shareholders and were widely reported in the popular press.48 While Sulivan
and his allies won this initial contest, the Clivites called for another General
Court to be held on March 12.
With each passing day, the Grenville-Clive alliance gained more votes by
winning over EIC proprietors and splitting stock. In pursuit of their plan to
conquer East India House and to transform the Company’s position on the
subcontinent, pro-Clive propagandists inundated the popular press with calls
for the military hero to be returned to Calcutta as governor with extraordi-
nary powers. On March 7, one of these advocates set forth the Grenville-
Clive alliance’s objectives with distinctly conservative Patriot and New Tory
overtones: “There is but one man in the world, who, by his ability, integrity,
and what is of mighty weight with those people, NAME, can set you to
rights, and that person is Lord Clive . . . [he] shall be sent out Governor to
Bengal, to be uncontroulable in military and political matters, but to have a
council to assist him in the Company’s commercial affairs . . . Lord Clive, as
I said before, is the only man in the world who can help you at this juncture;
and I imagine his Lordship would be glad to reap some benefit from his Jag-
hier, the right of which the Company have thought proper to contest [em-
phasis mine].”49 According to his proponents, Clive should be returned to
Bengal with the autocratic powers necessary to permanently stabilize the
EIC’s position in India. It comes as no surprise, then, that radical Whigs—
and, eventually, the faction of commercially expansionist returned Company
servants and private traders—became deeply skeptical of Clive’s political
purposes and ideological commitments.
The Grenville-Clive alliance won its first major victory at the General
Court on March 12. In the days leading up to this meeting, Clive’s minions
distributed news and advice throughout the coffeehouses of the capital por-
traying the Company’s leadership in London and Calcutta as hopelessly weak
and ineffective. Their media campaign was extremely successful and many of
the Company’s “proprietors were of opinion that nothing but the credit, expe-
rience, and abilities, of lord Clive in person could retrieve the disorder into
which their affairs were thrown in the East Indies.”50 In the renewed debate
over Spencer’s appointment to the governorship of Bengal, the Clivites argued
for a leader with greater administrative and military capabilities. “That consid-
ering the great alteration of our affairs in Bengal by the late commotion in that
settlement,” Gosling declared to the Court of Proprietors, “the present ap-
pointment of the successor to the presidency and the military appointment of
the commander of our forces are therefore improper.” The EIC’s shareholders
144 the making of the second british empire

were persuaded by Clivite arguments. “A majority of proprietors appearing

convinced of the necessity of appointing some men of superior abilities and
influence to restore the affairs of this company, from the anarchy and confu-
sion in which they are involved,” recounted the London Magazine, “all eyes
seemed to be fixed upon one, which produced a motion, as if by inspiration,
from a candid sensible member . . . who had the honour of proposing this:
‘That Lord Clive should be requested by this court to take upon him the
presidency at Bengal, and the command of the military forces there, upon his
arrival in the province.’ ” This motion was “met with an universal shout of ap-
probation,” and Clive told the enthralled audience that “if he was called on by
the general sense of the proprietors, and matters could be settled, so that he
could proceed with any degree of prudence, supported by a friendly and
united direction, he would once more stand forth in their service.”51 Despite
his best efforts, Sulivan was unable to stem the tide of opposition. “I can only
tell You that I think we have entirely routed Mr. Sulivan, the Proprietors made
it their Request that I should go out again to India, & that my Jagger should
be restored to me,” Clive rejoiced to Grenville; “my final Answer was then
when all animosities are at an End among the Directors & that I saw a Direc-
tion appointed as well disposed towards me as I should be to them that then I
would undertake the Service.”52 This time, Clive’s campaign was supported
by the fearsome combination of ministerial power and elite London business
interests and assisted by the panic generated by the news from Bengal.
In an attempt to maintain its power within East India House, the Sulivan-
dominated Court of Directors offered a compromise to Clive in the after-
math of the General Court. Hoping that he would leave Britain immediately
and not challenge Sulivan’s position in the April election, the directors offered
to send Clive back to India as governor of Bengal. In the General Court held
on March 21, Clive remained adamant that he would not take up the gover-
norship of Bengal and leave for India until after the election for the Court of
Directors.53 The Sulivanites waged a considerable campaign within the con-
fines of East India House, and in the popular press as well, in order to force
Clive to accept their proposed compromise. The Grenville-Clive alliance re-
fused to budge. On March 28, Clive wrote a letter to the Court of Directors
informing them that he would not return to India until Sulivan was out of
power.54
As we saw above, the Grenville-Clive alliance’s plan called for Clive to be
returned to Bengal with extraordinary powers and for winning control of the
Court of Directors. The latter objective was crucial for the success of the project.
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 145

For, as Clive’s supporters learned between 1758 and 1760, control of East India
House was the sine qua non for undertaking any imperial project in South Asia.
The Sulivan-dominated Court of Directors had not only been able to dismiss
Company servants in India but also to thwart many of Clive’s initiatives in the
aftermath of Plassey. Sulivan and his allies were opposed to territorial and po-
litical aggrandizement on the Indian subcontinent. From a position of power in
London, they had implemented the Sulivan-Vansittart program in Bengal and
had refused to acquire the diwani from the Mughal Emperor on three separate
occasions between 1758 and 1763. If Sulivan remained in control of East India
House in 1764, he would be able to undermine any measures and reforms that
Clive eventually instituted in Bengal. Clive did not oppose Sulivan’s supremacy
because of personality differences, but rather because he believed that the corpo-
ration’s leader “acted, and does continue to act, upon principles diametrically
opposed to the true interest of the East India Company.” The Grenville-Clive
alliance would accept nothing less than mastery of East India House and the
return of the military commander to Bengal. Clive needed control over the
Court of Directors if his power and policies were to have any lasting effects
in India.
The Clivites and the Grenville ministry were pursuing a New Tory project
designed to resolve the political-economic crisis engulfing Britain and its em-
pire. This endeavor required control of Leadenhall Street and Calcutta in or-
der to undo Sulivan’s policies and to permanently transform the Company’s
presence in India. They were so single-minded and determined in these efforts
to align the EIC with the government and to return Clive to Bengal with au-
tocratic powers that many metropolitan observers worried about their inten-
tions. On April 6, 1764, a previously neutral Company proprietor expressed
his fears regarding the Grenville-Clive alliance’s pursuit of power:
I have notwithstanding hitherto refrained from giving my thoughts to
the public, as I saw the general inclination of the Proprietors was for a
reconciliation, between L—C—and Mr. S—. However, as it now
plainly appears from his L—most extraordinary letter to the Court of
Directors, that he never wanted a reconciliation, I think that longer
silence would be unpardonable. . . . I should be glad to know, what
check we can have upon a man, who shall have the supreme command
in India, and name a Direction at home. His L—declares the motives
of his conduct are entirely disinterested; I hope so; and that he aban-
doned the opposition: and attached himself to our present virtuous
146 the making of the second british empire

administration, purely for the good of the nation. . . . I am suitable of

the services L—C—has done to the Company, and I have an opinion
of his capacity; I shall not however on that account be reduced to
choose him for our Lord and Master; for surely that man must be so,
who having the supreme command in India, with the greatest army we
ever had there before; shall likewise, I say again, name a Direction at
home. [In] possession of such power, L—C—may differ from other
great men, and want ambition; he may likewise have no interested
views; but if he has, who will afterwards be able to dispossess him, since
it is certain, that he who holds 350,000 or 400,000L. India stock may
be absolute Master of the Company. This being the case, I wish it may
be still in the power of the old Proprietors to prevent the Company
being enslaved, and becoming the sole property of a man, who is sup-
ported by the riches of the East, the faction of the North, joined with
the utmost exertion of Ministerial influence [emphasis mine].55
While this proprietor was obviously sympathetic to the Sulivanites, his con-
cerns with regard to the Grenville-Clive alliance’s efforts to take over the EIC
were not far off the mark. Clive and his ministerial backers were determined
to control every aspect of Britain’s Indian affairs.
The Grenville-Clive alliance was relentless in its pursuit of victory in the
Company’s 1764 election. During March and April 1764, Clive and Rous
waged a major public propaganda campaign while the ministry pressed EIC
proprietors and the City elite to support its candidates for the Court of Direc-
tors. Grenville and his political allies—including Jenkinson, Salvador, and
Alexander Wedderburn—launched a major assault on Sulivan’s leadership.
Grenville not only brought the full weight of his ministry to bear in support
of the Rous-led opposition’s electoral effort (including pressuring public
office-holders who owned India stock to vote accordingly) but also worked
closely with Clive to lobby major proprietors who were not committed to
either side.56 Ministers and officials—including Henry Fox and the Earl of
Sandwich (a Secretary of State and a bitter opponent of Wilkes)—purchased
India stock in order to vote for the Clivites.57 In support of the Clive-backed
candidates for the Court of Directors, ministers instructed employees in
the Pay Office and the Post Office, as well as customs and excise officials, to
purchase voting rights in the Company.58 Grenville and his political allies
mobilized the full resources of the government in their effort to conquer East
India House.
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 147

The election was held on April 12 and, to the great surprise of Clive and
his supporters, the outcome was a draw. Sulivan had built extensive connec-
tions during his long reign on Leadenhall Street and was able to mobilize
many of them in support of his campaign. Furthermore, the enthusiasm of
some EIC proprietors for Clive’s return to India diminished when news of
early British victories against Mir Qasim arrived in London shortly before the
election.59 Twelve of the twenty-four candidates for the Court of Directors
ran on both Rous’s and Sulivan’s lists, thus only twelve spots were effectively
up for grabs. Since the opposing sides each won six of the contested spots,
neither took control of the Court of Directors. While Salvador was uncertain
about what step to take next, Clive was confident that the newly chosen di-
rectors would elect Rous to the EIC’s chairmanship.60 The election was held
the next day and Sulivan’s nomination resulted in an evenly split vote. De-
spite fighting the Clivites to a draw, Sulivan recognized that his power within
the Company was severely crippled. He walked out of the election along with
four allies in protest at his failure to win a majority for the chairmanship, thus
handing Rous an easy victory.61
In the weeks after the election, several directors and leading proprietors
shifted their support to Clive, and Rous expanded his control over East India
House.62 While Clive and his allies had been overwhelmingly defeated in
1763, they stood triumphant one year later. By far the most important ele-
ment in Clive’s success and the crucial difference between the two election
contests was the intervention of the Grenville administration. Sulivan blamed
the ministry for every successful challenge to his leadership in the winter and
spring of 1764.63 His power diminished over the course of 1764 and early 1765
as a growing number of leading shareholders and EIC interests shifted their
support to the Clivites.64 The Sulivanites were easily defeated in the 1765 elec-
tion for the Company’s Court of Directors and they remained out of power
in East India House for several years.
With Rous installed as the EIC Chairman in April 1764, the Grenville-
Clive alliance took the next step in their wide-ranging campaign to transform
the Company’s India policy. As we saw above, Clive had agreed to take up the
governorship of Bengal if Sulivan lost control of the Court of Directors.
After the election, Clive began drawing up the conditions for his return to
India. The Clivites sought not only to restore their leader’s jagir but also to
win extensive civilian and military powers for his governorship. They wanted
his rule in Bengal to be absolute. Clive requested a dispensing power that
would allow him to overrule any decisions made by the Company’s Calcutta
148 the making of the second british empire

council. Furthermore, he “insisted on having at least 3000 European troops

constantly in Bengal, with absolute control over them, so that there should be
no question of their being side-tracked to the other Presidencies as had hap-
pened in the past.”65 Clive’s proposals sailed through the Court of Directors
on April 19, but his supporters expected them to be hotly contested in the
General Court session called for May 2.66
Once again, the Grenville ministry played a key role in securing Clive’s
objectives. On April 22, Salvador informed Jenkinson that “we are now come
to the most difficult part of our task whatever my Lord Clive may tell you I
foresee much difficulty in carrying his points I therefore must beg your Effica-
cious & speedy Exertion for all depends on a nicety.”67 Grenville’s circle was
adamant that Clive be returned to Bengal with extraordinary civilian and mil-
itary powers. The prime minister himself wrote to Jenkinson in order to ensure
that the administration’s allies were doing everything in their power to secure
the passage of Clive’s proposals.68 The government campaigned vigorously on
Clive’s behalf in the weeks leading up to the General Court of May 2.
The Grenville ministry mobilized all of its resources and connections in
order to win approval for Clive’s proposals. “I have sollicited such of our
Friends as are Proprietors of East India Stock in the manner you have desired;
& I have acquainted Lord Clive of the Directions you have given in this re-
spect,” Jenkinson wrote to Grenville with regard to his efforts to build support
in the Company for Clive’s return to Bengal with extraordinary powers. “It is
affirmed that [the British general] Monson has been defeated by one, whom
we have learnt the Art of War . . . but who is now become Prince of the Coun-
try & turned against Us[,]” Jenkinson informed the prime minister, assuring
him that “Lord Clives Friend’s think that this Event will be of Use to them at
the general Court tomorrow, as it makes Lord Clives presence more necessary
in India.”69 Clive’s plans were vigorously debated at the General Court on
May 2 but the meeting ended before any conclusion was reached.70 While
Clive secured the restoration of his jagir a few days later, his pursuit of dispens-
ing and military powers remained a contentious issue within the confines of
East India House. “The Inclinations which You were pleas’d to testify for my
going abroad had more Weight with me than the Persuasions of all my other
Friends put together,” Clive wrote to the prime minister in May 1764. He
informed Grenville that his governorship would not be successful because the
“Directors from Timidity and want of Capacity refuse to give me those Powers
which they have already given and sent Mr. Vansittart and without which it
would be entirely out of my Power to render the Company the least Service.”71
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 149

The ministry and its allies within the Company were eventually able to over-
come opposition to the Baron of Plassey’s proposals. Clive returned to Bengal
not only as the governor and the commander-in-chief of the army but also as
the head of a five-member Select Committee with vast civilian and military
powers.72 The Select Committee was filled with Clive’s allies and invested with
a dispensing power to overrule any decisions reached by the Calcutta council.
Grenville and his allies wanted the Baron of Plassey to return to India not
only as the EIC’s governor but also as the representative of British national
power. The ministry sought to drape Clive in the trappings of aristocratic
privilege and royal favor in order to reinforce his authority in Bengal. Govern-
ment officials went to great lengths to ensure that George III invested Clive
with the Red Ribbon of the Order of the Bath before he set sail for South Asia,
even though the king had promised the next vacancy to Colonel William
Draper.73 This move almost caused a rupture with the Duke of Bedford, who
was Draper’s patron and one of the ministry’s most important supporters.74
Grenville and his allies thought it was crucial to return Clive to India with
royal and aristocratic honors as well as with dispensing and military powers.
They wanted to adorn Clive’s Bengal governorship with the symbols of Brit-
ain’s ruling class. Horace Walpole remarked that “Lord Clive could not con-
quer the Indies a second time without becoming a Knight of the Bath.”75 The
lawless upstarts and reckless merchants who dominated the Company’s Cal-
cutta settlement would be forced to submit to a governor who was invested
with the authority both of the EIC and of Britain’s landed elite. Having suc-
ceeded in removing all obstacles to his control over EIC policy in London and
Calcutta, Clive set sail for India on June 4, 1764.

During the spring of 1764, it became increasingly clear to metropolitan ob-

servers that the objective of the Grenville-Clive alliance was not simply to
stabilize the Company’s position in Bengal but also to transform the character
of British imperialism in India. The rhetoric of the Clivites foreshadowed
such a transformation. They had lauded Clive’s efforts to establish a durable
British political and military supremacy in Bengal in 1757–1759. Furthermore,
they had supported Clive’s ascendancy in distinctly conservative Patriot and
New Tory terms that emphasized his martial valor and political genius. With
the Grenville ministry supporting Clive’s return to Bengal, the worst fears of
many metropolitan commentators were confirmed. They believed Clive
would pursue policies in Bengal similar to those being implemented in North
America.
150 the making of the second british empire

In early 1764, when the government decisively shifted its support from the
Sulivanite directors to the Clivite opposition, the Grenville administration
was busy enacting new Atlantic imperial measures. The ministry reformed
the collection of customs, passed the Sugar Act, and proposed that stamp du-
ties be levied in the colonies. By implementing these and other measures,
Grenville was effectively transforming the nature of Britain’s Atlantic empire.
The ministry sought to maintain a standing army of 10,000 troops in North
America, to raise a colonial revenue, and to establish an independent imperial
administration. The maritime “empire of liberty” was being remodeled into a
politically autocratic and economically extractive dominion.
In this context, it is not surprising that radical Whigs became increasingly
critical of Clive’s ascendancy within the Company. These radicals deeply de-
spised the Grenville ministry’s Atlantic imperial reforms, which they viewed
as subjecting the American colonies to an imperial servitude. When Clive
conquered East India House with the support of the government in 1764,
political radicals feared that Grenville’s autocratic and extractive imperialism
might be extended to South Asia. The leading radical Whig newspaper, The
Monitor, was deeply opposed to Clive’s return to Bengal with extraordinary
civilian and military powers. When he was appointed to lead a Select Com-
mittee invested with dispensing power and with absolute control over a vastly
expanded military, The Monitor published a wide-ranging critique of Clive’s
imperial ambitions:
For tho’ a military power may, for a while, gain some advantages over
the natives, there will be this hazard, the military commander being
invested with supreme authority, will always make the commercial in-
terest subservient to his command; or if he is not able to maintain his
ground by force, that trade, which is interrupted during the war, will
be utterly extirpated with our settlements, should they once meet with
a total defeat. So that in whatever light we reason, the present mea-
sures begun by Lord Clive, and pursued by his successors in the coun-
cil at Bengal, of deposing and setting up Nabobs, and drawing upon
the Company the jealousy and resentment of the people, amongst
whom they were settled for trade and commerce only, must be injuri-
ous, not to be supported, fatal in their consequences, and therefore to
be discouraged and changed to such, as are homogenial with the con-
stitution of a trading company. . . . It is against both reason and the
nature of things, to expect any success from an attempt to compel
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 151

those Eastern powers to submit to the impositions of an European

settlement. A trade that must be supported by arms, should be in a
condition to pay a standing army able to protect it. But arms will be
so far from protecting the company’s trade in Bengal, when employ’d
against the power of the country, that they will obstruct and stop it:
therefore that trade will not be in a condition to pay a standing army.76
Although the radical Whigs were deeply hostile to the East India Company,
which they viewed as a bastion of oligarchic and monopolistic power, they
nevertheless remained committed to a maritime and commercial “empire of
liberty.” Thus, while the radicals did not support Sulivan and his allies among
the City elite, they were also opposed to Clive’s efforts to militarize the EIC’s
presence in Bengal. From the very beginning, the metamorphosis of the
Company into a tributary territorial empire was opposed by the forces of
radical Whiggism.
In addition to the criticisms from radical Whigs, Clive’s pursuit of extraor-
dinary civilian and military powers after his victory in the 1764 EIC election
alienated his allies among returned Company servants and private traders,
especially in the Johnstone faction. The Grenville-Clive forces allied with
these commercial interests for largely instrumental purposes. The Johnstones
and their connections controlled a significant amount of India stock and
wielded considerable influence among returned Company servants. Although
the Clivites did not share the Johnstones’ aggressive commercial expansion-
ism, they had nevertheless been willing to work with this faction in a general
campaign against Sulivan’s leadership.77
However, as the plans and intentions of the Grenville-Clive alliance be-
came increasingly clear during the spring of 1764, the Johnstone faction dis-
tanced themselves from the Baron of Plassey and his supporters. When Clive
drew up his proposals for Bengal in the aftermath of the EIC election, he
made no effort to reinstate John Johnstone and the dismissed Company ser-
vants, which greatly displeased the Johnstone faction. “After the election was
over [the Johnstone party] had hoped that Clive would have made John John-
stone’s reinstatement one of the conditions of his return to Bengal,” Suther-
land notes; “when he failed to do so, their not unjust suspicions of his good
faith rose rapidly.”78 The Johnstones’ suspicions transformed into open hostil-
ity when it became clear that Clive would settle for nothing less than absolute
civilian and military power in Bengal. In the campaign to win this power,
Clive increasingly emphasized his intentions to overrule the Calcutta council
152 the making of the second british empire

and to subdue and restrain British private enterprise in northeastern India.

When the EIC agreed to vastly expand its army in Bengal and to appoint
Clive to a Select Committee with dispensing power, the Johnstones and their
allies explicitly condemned the Baron of Plassey’s efforts to transform the
Company’s position in India. The Scottish merchants and EIC shareholders
George Dempster and George Johnstone denounced the creation of “a com-
mittee . . . with more ample, dangerous, and discretionary powers than any
ever known in [the Company’s] service.” They feared that Clive was returning
to Bengal in order to establish an “equally arbitrary and dangerous” despo-
tism in which “a thousand evils may be foreseen; and where the military are
to approve their own rewards.” His measures were “calculated, contrary to the
most solemn declarations, to annihilate the civil jurisdiction of that Presi-
dency” and would crush Calcutta’s dynamic commercialism under the heavy
weight of a coercive militarism.79
The objections of radical Whigs and the opposition of the Johnstone fac-
tion mattered little in the face of the overwhelming resources mobilized by
the Grenville-Clive alliance. With Rous installed as Chairman of the Com-
pany in April 1764 and Clive sailing for Bengal as governor and commander-
in-chief of the military in June 1764, a decisive phase in the struggle to
determine the future of the British presence in India came to an end. In-
formed metropolitan observers did not doubt the stakes involved in the con-
test for control of the EIC. “Lord Clive has been suddenly nominated by the
East India Company to the empire of Bengal where [the French have] taught
all our merchants to affect to be king-making Earls of Warwick,” Horace
Walpole caustically remarked that spring.80 While many in London were crit-
ical of Clive’s return to Bengal, the members of the Grenville-Clive alliance
rejoiced. “I take for granted that you are long before this in possession of the
Capital of the Nabob of Bengal, if not of the Great Mogol,” the Earl of Sand-
wich wrote to Clive in the winter of 1765. Sandwich, who as a Secretary of
State played a key role in the negotiations between the Clivites and the Gren-
ville ministry, hoped that the conqueror had “the whole affairs of the East
under [his] direction.”81 Another ally asked Clive to send regular reports of his
Indian exploits back to London, reminding him that “Caesar sent to Rome an
Account of every Campaign, & those are his Commentaries so much re-
spected to this Day by Mankind.”82 While metropolitan discussion was not
specific about what the newly anointed Select Committee would do in order
to establish a durable British imperial supremacy in Bengal and no one talked
of the diwani in particular, many were not surprised when Clive announced
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 153

the acquisition of a grant that would pour £2 million per year into the Com-
pany’s coffers and put the corporation’s military position in Bengal “upon so
respectable a footing that all the powers of Europe can have no chance of suc-
ceeding” in taking the province.83 When news of Clive’s acquisition of the
diwani finally arrived in the metropole in 1766, there was much rejoicing in
Grenville’s inner circle.
Why did the Grenville ministry go to such lengths to secure Clive’s vic-
tory in the 1764 EIC election and to return him to Bengal as governor with
extraordinary powers? As is discussed in detail in the next chapter, the Baron
of Plassey’s struggle against Sulivan was one front in the New Tory campaign
that Grenville’s circle was waging to resolve the profound political-economic
crisis afflicting Britain and its empire.

On the thirtieth of September in the year 1765, Clive, now serving as Gover-
nor of the EIC’s settlement at Calcutta, penned a letter to his employers back
in London effectively informing them of the birth of the British Empire in
India. “I have at last, however, the happiness to see the completion of an
event, which . . . must be productive of advantages hitherto unknown,” Clive
enthusiastically proclaimed to the Company’s Court of Directors. “I mean
the dewannee which is the superintendancy of all the lands, and the collection
of all the revenues of the provinces of Bengal, Bahar and Orissa.”84 Clive was
referring to events that had transpired several weeks before in the city of Al-
lahabad, where he had traveled from Calcutta with a large coterie in order to
settle terms with the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II. During those negotia-
tions, the Emperor granted the diwani of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa to the
EIC in return for an annual tribute and for control over the districts of Alla-
habad and Cora. Clive accepted the grant on the Company’s behalf, and, in
doing so, definitively established the mercantile corporation as a territorial
empire on the Indian subcontinent.85
The path to the diwani was long and arduous and by no means foreor-
dained.86 As we saw in the previous chapter, in 1756, while the EIC was en-
gaged in armed conflict in southern India with the French East India Company
and its native allies, the then Nawab of Bengal, Siraj-ud-daula, attacked and
captured Calcutta, the corporation’s prized commercial settlement and argu-
ably the central nodal point of its global trading empire. British forces retook
Calcutta and, in 1757, a Company army under Clive’s command defeated
Siraj-ud-daula at the Battle of Plassey and subsequently installed a new ruler,
Mir Jafar, on the throne of Bengal. In the aftermath of what contemporaries
154 the making of the second british empire

often referred to as the Plassey Revolution, the EIC’s political and military
influence over the province grew considerably. Although the Company sought
to reduce its interference in Bengal’s internal affairs, this proved difficult for a
number of reasons. Mir Jafar had promised to repay the damages incurred by
his predecessor’s assault on Calcutta. Additionally, he owed large sums to the
EIC and its servants for the military services they rendered against his Indian
opponents. The Nawab’s indebtedness and reliance on British arms put him
in no position to refuse the corporation’s demands. When Mir Jafar denied
the Company’s requests in 1760, Governor Vansittart and the Fort William
Council replaced him with his son-in-law, Mir Qasim.
Vansittart intervened in Bengal’s internal affairs at this time but he did so
in order to extract further fiscal concessions, not to establish a territorial do-
minion. His goal was to gain the revenue of a few districts in order to balance
the EIC’s accounts, which had suffered as a result of warfare with European
and South Asian rivals. In general, Vansittart sought to reinforce Mir Qasim’s
independence and to disentangle the Company’s affairs from the Nawab’s.
Vansittart’s support for Mir Qasim’s political, military, and economic sover-
eignty was considerable, and it outraged EIC servants like Clive who, since
1759, had advocated for the creation of a British territorial empire in Bengal.
“This was the error of Mr. Vansittart’s conduct,” Clive proclaimed; “he advised
the Nawab to regulate his treasury, save money, to form and discipline an ex-
cellent army, and pay them well and regularly contrary to the practice of all the
princes of India . . . Kasim Ali, in two years, thought himself in a condition to
bid us defiance, and was near being so.”87 In pursuing this course of action,
Vansittart was fully in line with EIC policy as formulated by the directors in
London. Troubled by the military and administrative costs associated with
imperial aggrandizement on the Indian subcontinent, Company Chairman
Sulivan condemned the idea of taking “Possession of Countries either by Ces-
sation or Usurpation, whose Revenues must maintain Armies and draw Riches
to Europe.”88 While the EIC’s management sought to gain commercial privi-
leges and concessions whenever and wherever possible, they studiously avoided
the acquisition of a territorial empire in South Asia.
Although Vansittart’s policy was initially successful, there were a number
of growing tensions between Mir Qasim’s government and the British pres-
ence in Bengal. Foremost among them was the commercial penetration of the
province’s inland economy by the Company servants. Trading in some of
Bengal’s most important commodities on their own private accounts, the
Company’s employees exempted themselves and their business partners from
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 155

the government’s duties and regulations. While this free trade allowed Com-
pany servants to undersell their commercial competitors throughout the
province, it ultimately diminished the Nawab’s customs intake and destabi-
lized the local economy. “Great advantages accrued from these articles of
trade, both to the country merchants who used to carry it on, and to the gov-
ernment by the customs they drew from it,” a liaison between the EIC’s Cal-
cutta council and the nawabi regime remarked; “both these are now cut off,
and the advantages in a manner engrossed by the English, who say, they will
pay no customs; and, to support this usurpation, our agents and gomastahs
are armed with an authority, independent of the officers of government.”89
These developments inevitably led to bitter confrontations between the
Nawab’s government and EIC employees, especially when Mir Qasim’s offi-
cials attempted to suppress what they viewed as illegal traffic.90 These con-
frontations typically concluded in the exchange of recriminations between the
Nawab’s court and the Company’s governor and council at Fort William in
Calcutta.
In 1763, the conflicts and strains generated by the growth of British power in
Bengal finally erupted into a full-scale war that threatened the Company’s foot-
hold in northeastern India. Mir Qasim, who had been raised to power by the
EIC only three years earlier, allied his military forces with those of Shah Alam II
and Shuja-ud-daula (the territorially ambitious Nawab of Oudh) in an attempt
to drive the British from Bengal. Although this alliance posed a major threat to
the Company’s position—perhaps the greatest since Siraj-ud-daula’s conquest of
Calcutta in 1756—it was parried by the corporation’s military forces, and ulti-
mately suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of an army commanded by
Major Hector Munro at the Battle of Buxar in October 1764. With this victory
and the retreat of both Mir Qasim and Shuja-ud-daula, as well as the submis-
sion of Shah Alam II, the EIC’s power and influence in northeastern India
achieved unparalleled heights.
It was in the push and pull of these conflicts spanning from 1756 to 1764
that a British territorial empire in Bengal became possible and even likely.
Every ship that arrived in London from the British settlements in Asia brought
with it news of the EIC’s struggles in Bengal. That news flooded the British
public sphere and was discussed in parliamentary debates, pamphlets, news-
papers, and coffeehouses throughout the kingdom.91 In the seven years fol-
lowing Plassey, the conflicts surrounding the Company’s growing power in
northeastern India were the cauldron in which imperial solutions to the India
question brewed.
156 the making of the second british empire

By 1759, Clive had become a powerful advocate for establishing a British

territorial empire in Bengal. “The great revolution that has been effected [in
Bengal] by the success of English arms, and the vast advantages gained to the
Company by a treaty concluded in the consequence thereof,” Clive observed
in a letter to Pitt, then in charge of conducting the global war against Bour-
bon France, and “much more may yet in time be done, if the Company will
exert themselves in the manner the importance of their present possessions
and future prospects deserves.” Although Clive “represented to [the EIC] the
expediency of sending out and keeping up constantly such a force as will en-
able them to embrace the first opportunity of further aggrandizing them-
selves,” he feared that “so large a sovereignty may possibly be an object too
extensive for a mercantile Company; and it is to be feared they are not of
themselves able, without the nation’s assistance, to maintain so wide a domin-
ion.”92 While he was initially unable to win the support of either the Com-
pany or the national government for this imperial program, Clive eventually
benefited from the instability of the EIC’s position in Bengal. In early 1764,
when word reached Britain of the military alliance formed against the Com-
pany by Mir Qasim, Shuja-ud-daula, and Shah Alam II, the corporation’s
proprietors trembled at the news. Clive, along with his allies at East India
House and in the government, wrested control of the EIC away from Sulivan
in the April election to the Court of Directors. The newly elected EIC direc-
tors returned Clive to the governorship of Calcutta at the head of a Select
Committee with extraordinary civilian and military powers in order to restore
tranquility in Bengal and to stabilize the EIC’s affairs.
Although Clive arrived in India too late to play a role in the Company’s
victories over the powerful native alliance arrayed against it, he was neverthe-
less prepared to seize the reins of power and to realize his territorial-imperial
vision. Upon arriving in India in the spring of 1765, Clive wrote to Company
Chairman Rous and laid out his plans for transforming Bengal into an impe-
rial garrison state administered by the EIC. He was furious that a Company
army was marching towards Delhi, which he viewed as a distraction from the
consolidation of the corporation’s territorial dominion in Bengal.93 Clive
counseled against entangling the EIC’s forces in further conflicts upcountry,
and instead aimed at an immediate and sizable buildup of the corporation’s
European and native regiments in northeastern India. Such a buildup was
necessary because, from Clive’s perspective, the only solution to the “Bengal
problem” was for the Company to assume political dominion over the
province.94
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 157

The Baron of Plassey’s travel upcountry to Allahabad a few months after

arriving in Calcutta in order to acquire the diwani from Shah Alam II was
part and parcel of his plans to transform the Company’s presence in Bengal
into a militarized garrison state. “Revolution upon Revolution, Rapacity, Ex-
tortion, and Corruption, have at last reduced Us to the Necessity of doing the
only thing which could be done, to save the whole Fabric from being ruined,
The King hath granted to the Company the Duanny of Bengal, Bahar, and
Orissa[,]” Clive averred to his longtime aide Scrafton.95 The EIC’s post-
diwani imperial state was to maintain a large standing army and a disciplined
civil service responsible for securing the Company’s commercial interests in
South Asia and for transferring Bengal’s territorial revenue to corporate cof-
fers in London. “The King [Shah Alam II] has granted to the Company for
ever, with the Approbation & Consent of the Nabob, all the Revenues which
shall remain after paying Him a certain Tribute & allowing a Sum sufficiently
for the Dignity and Support of the Nabob,” Clive informed his ally the City
financier Salvador; “the Company’s Income exceeds 2 Millions Sterling [per]
Annum & their Civil & Military Expences in future never shall exceed
£700,000 [per] Annum in time of Peace, and one Million in Time of War[.]”96
The EIC used the vast territorial revenue acquired with the diwani to pur-
chase Bengal’s most prized commodities, to build an imperial administration
and military, and to financially support its trading settlements throughout
the East.
Clive’s policy consolidated and extended contingent plans and haphazard
measures adopted by the Company during warfare with its European and
South Asian rivals. In the post-Plassey period, Mir Jafar and Mir Qasim made
territorial concessions to the EIC—including the Twenty-four Parganas in
1757 and the districts of Burdwan, Midnapur, and Chittagong in 1760—as a
means of repayment. The Company’s governor and council in Calcutta used
the revenue raised from these districts to fund their military and administra-
tive operations, to support the corporation’s settlements throughout India,
and to purchase the EIC’s “investment” in Bengal’s manufactures.97 After
1757, this territorial revenue increasingly replaced the Company’s regular bul-
lion shipments as the Calcutta council’s means of purchasing Bengali goods
and of meeting its expenses.
When, in the aftermath of the diwani grant, Clive informed the EIC’s
directors that “our revenues will for the future enable us to furnish all our
investments without any remittance from England,” he effectively confirmed
the systematic transformation of temporary wartime measures into official
158 the making of the second british empire

policies governing the Company’s newly won territorial empire.98 If the EIC
transferred its territorial revenue back to Britain in bullion shipments, it
would inevitably undermine Bengal’s economy. Hence, the corporation
sought instead to remit this revenue to Britain by increasing its purchase of
the region’s prized commodities, especially cotton and silk piece-goods as well
as saltpetre. Bengal’s revenue was used to vastly expand the EIC’s investment
in the province’s goods for the purposes of exporting them throughout Eu-
rope and Asia. The investment climbed from under ₤500,000 per year in the
mid-1760s to over ₤1,000,000 per year by 1780.99
This imperial tributary state, consolidated and extended in 1765, was re-
sponsible for transmitting Bengal’s territorial revenue not only to London but
also throughout the Company’s global trading empire. After the EIC’s civilian
and military expenditures in Bengal were met, Clive estimated that the re-
maining annual territorial revenue of “122 lack of sicca rupees, or ₤1,650,900”
would “defray all the expence of the investment, furnish the whole of the
China treasure, answer the demands of all your other settlements in India,
and leave a considerable ballance in your treasury besides.”100 In the years af-
ter Plassey, the Company’s settlement in Bengal provided much of the bullion
and goods necessary for the corporation’s expanding trade to China, whose
lucrative teas and porcelains were widely sought after in European markets. In
the aftermath of the diwani, the EIC quickly expanded its purchase of tea and
other Chinese goods, the total value of which grew from ₤393,122 in 1765 to
₤544,948 in 1766.101 The Company also channeled part of this vast territorial
revenue to its settlements at Bombay and Madras, thus making the corpora-
tion’s commercial and military operations throughout India in no small mea-
sure dependent on its newly won political dominion in Bengal.
With the acquisition of the diwani, the EIC was finally transformed from
a mercantile corporation plying an armed trade into a fiscal-military state
responsible for maintaining a global commercial empire. “Fortune seems de-
termined to accompany Me to the last,” Clive proclaimed. “I have succeeded
in every Undertaking, and the E. I. Company are become the most potent &
rich Company in the World, by a solid Peace, and a Grant from the King of
all the Revenues of Bengal, Bahar & Orissa, amounting to 4 Millions Sterling
[per] Annum.”102 The land taxes levied on a peasantry in direct control of the
means of subsistence were collected in order to fund the monopoly compa-
ny’s territorial empire and global business operations. “This new arrangement
of matters without having wrought any sensible change in the exterior form
of the English company, has essentially changed their object,” observed the
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 159

Abbé Raynal in his monumental treatise on European overseas expansion;

“they are no longer a trading body, they are a territorial power which farms
out its revenues in aid of a commerce that formerly was their sole existence,
and which, notwithstanding the extension it has received, is no more than an
additional object in the various combinations of their present real gran-
deur.”103 The EIC was now nothing less than a commercial corporation over-
seeing a vast rentier state on the Indian subcontinent. By the summer of 1765,
Clive had transformed contingent and temporary Company measures into a
concerted and coherent political economy of empire.
There was little doubt in the minds of Clive and his backers that the Com-
pany’s territorial empire needed to be ruled by an autocratic state manned by
a salaried and professional civil service. From Clive’s perspective, there could
be little meaningful connection between British governors and their Indian
subjects. Furthermore, the extraction of revenue from Bengal’s peasantry re-
quired the politico-military capacities of a strong state—a state capable both
of imposing itself on indigenous society and of defending itself against South
Asian rivals. The acquisition of the diwani gave the EIC’s political dominion
legitimacy within the Mughal framework and provided the fiscal resources
necessary for maintaining a large standing army. According to Clive, this le-
gitimacy and these resources were “the outwarks, which guard you from your
natural enemies, the natives of the country.”104 Yet other commentators, such
as the future Governor-General of Bengal Warren Hastings, were confident
that the Company’s autocratic state was continuous with a long line of despo-
tisms that ruled over northeastern India and that “for some Centuries past”
the native population was “inured to a foreign Government, to which They
have ever particularly Submitted.” Hastings was certain that the Company’s
neo-despotism would face little resistance as “there is scarce an Instance in
History or Tradition” of Bengal’s populace “taking up Arms in their own De-
fence, however oppressed.”105 Clive and Hastings maintained different views
with regard to the specifics of EIC policy in Bengal, but neither man doubted
that an autocratic state was natural and appropriate for the province as well
as necessary for its economic functioning and geopolitical security.106 “Sol-
dierly men, they had few illusions that the sources of the Company’s domi-
nance in India rested on anything other than gunpowder and musket-fire,”
David Washbrook remarks. Clive and Hastings “also eschewed visions of a
society in ‘British’ India founded on anything other than inherited Indian
institutions—most notably those of ‘Oriental despotism,’ which would give
their state (and its rapacious officials) virtually unlimited authority.”107
160 the making of the second british empire

When Clive instituted the administrative and military reforms that con-
solidated and extended the Company’s autocratic territorial empire in 1765 and
1766, he did so not only to secure the corporation’s possessions from indige-
nous threats, both internal and external, but also to discipline EIC servants,
transforming them from profit-seeking merchants into a corps of paternalist,
salaried administrators. In fact, from the time Clive wrested control of the
Company away from Sulivan in the spring of 1764 until his final days in Ben-
gal in 1767, he swore to save the corporation from the “licentiousness and
luxury” of its employees. According to the Baron of Plassey, these servants were
channeling the EIC’s newfound wealth and influence into private hands rather
than serving the “public” interest of the corporation and the “national” interest
of Britain. After taking control of East India House, Clive promised to “induce
the gentlemen abroad to contract their views of private advantage within the
bounds essentially necessary to the interests of the Company.” He contended
that the effort “to persuade, or, if necessary, to oblige your servants to be con-
tent with advantages much inferior to those which . . . they may think them-
selves entitled to” would be “the greatest difficulty which I shall have to
encounter.” Thus, the famed commander insisted that his second governor-
ship be endowed with extraordinary civilian and military powers. “It therefore
rests with the Court of Directors to consider, seriously, whether they should
not intrust me with a dispensing power in the civil and political affairs,” Clive
averred, “so that whensoever I may think proper to take any resolution entirely
upon myself that resolution is to take place.”108 As we saw above, Clive was
returned to Bengal in 1764 at the head of a Select Committee that was invested
with the special powers and privileges he requested. The threats posed by the
aggressive commercial expansionism of Company servants were to be reined in
by an autocratic state.
Clive contended that the disobedience and self-seeking disposition of many
EIC servants were symptomatic of a far deeper pathology. His faction argued
that the reckless pursuit of profit by the Company’s employees, as manifested
in their private trading activities and the payments and bribes they often ac-
cepted from Indian politicians and businessmen, was ultimately responsible
for the conflicts with the nawabs and for repeatedly placing the Company in
danger. While such an analysis of Bengal’s post-Plassey affairs was conventional
in British political and business circles at the time (Sulivan, Clive’s arch-
nemesis, similarly viewed the EIC’s troubles as a direct consequence of the
private trade, profiteering, and defiance of the corporation’s servants), the Cliv-
ite critique of Company servants’ profiteering was embedded in a powerful
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 161

ideological vision that distinguished it in the public sphere. As the Clivites saw
it, the immense wealth that the Company and its employees accrued in the
wake of Plassey had led to a profound socio-ideological transformation in Cal-
cutta. While in the past the EIC’s corporate hierarchy had kept in check the
ambitions of the petty merchants who plied the eastern trade, the vast accumu-
lation of wealth in Bengal during the late 1750s and early 1760s broke down all
barriers to the assertion of self-interest. For holders of this worldview, tradi-
tional authority and hierarchies had been undermined by the interest-based
worlds of civil society and commercial life in post-Plassey Calcutta.
According to Clivite ideology, the lawlessness, corruption, and anarchy
engulfing Bengal were generated by the unmooring of commercial life from
the political and territorial structures—in this case, those of the British East
India Company—that had historically kept it in check. Freed from traditional
constraints in Bengal by an immense expansion of wealth in the aftermath of
Plassey, the interest-based world of civil society was sapping the EIC’s admin-
istration and threatening its existence. “The sudden, and among many, the
unwarrantable acquisition of riches, had introduced luxury in almost every
shape, and in its most pernicious excess,” Clive asserted to the Court of
Directors while instituting his imperial reforms in the fall of 1765; “the evil
was contagious, and spread among the civil and military, down to the writer,
the ensign, and the free merchant.”109 In such circumstances, the greater inter-
ests of the Company and the British state were entirely neglected. “If I was to
give You an Account of all our Proceedings in Bengal, Volumes would not
suffice,” Clive remarked to a correspondent. “I shall only observe, that upon
my Arrival in [Calcutta], I found it overwhelmed with Luxury & Corruption,
the Company’s Affairs totally neglected, & their Orders from Home set at
Defiance . . . to the great Detriment of the Company, & the Dishonor of the
Nation.”110 The disassociation of the commercial world of civil society from
the established corporate order bred social entropy as individuals pursued
their own interests without regard for the community and the state.111
The relentless commercialism of EIC servants inevitably undermined
existing authorities. “Anarchy, & Confusion, Bribery, & Corruption, have ex-
tended themselves over the 3 rich Provinces of Bengal, Bahar, & Orissa,” Clive
averred; “in short the Gentlemen [the Company’s servants] having the Reve-
nues of the Country amounting to upwards 3 Million [per] Annum at their
Command, were making such strides towards Independency, that in two Years
time, I am persuaded the Company would not have had one Servant upon the
Establishment above the Rank of a Writer.”112 The vast accumulation of mobile
162 the making of the second british empire

wealth—unconnected to any territorial right, landed title, or hereditary

status—threatened to “level” all individuals and to eliminate every social and
political distinction.113
Clive contended that the leveling and anarchic tendencies of unrestrained
trade and accumulation made EIC servants as dismissive of South Asian roy-
alty and aristocracy as they were of the corporation’s chartered privileges and
command hierarchies. “Notwithstanding a special order from the Court of
Directors . . . that all correspondence with the country powers should be car-
ried on solely in the Governor’s name,” lamented the Barron of Plassey, “I
found, that our whole correspondence with the Great Mogul, the subahs,
nabobs, and rajahs, had been of late carried on by and in the name of the
whole Board, and that every servant and free merchant corresponded with
whom they pleased.”114 From this perspective, the conflicts between the Com-
pany’s servants and established authorities, both British and South Asian, were
not embedded in a structural situation resulting from the commercial corpo-
ration’s unplanned assumption of political and military power over a province
of the Mughal Empire. Rather, they were the offspring of a reckless, leveling,
and materialist impulse that imperiled Bengal’s traditional ruling class as well
as the Company itself.
The ideological underpinnings of Clive’s conquest of East India House in
1764 and of his second Bengal governorship were markedly different from
those that had informed the struggle between the Sulivanite Court of Direc-
tors and their refractory servants in India. Clive’s obsession with repressing
“licentiousness” stemmed from a coherent worldview in which commercial
society was seen as beneficial as long as it operated within a framework of
overt political and territorial restraints. Without those restraints, commercial
society invariably generated social entropy and rampant materialism; these
tendencies ultimately produced individuals incapable of being ruled by any-
thing other than their basest desires. Although the EIC was a mercantile cor-
poration, its activities took place within the bounds of chartered rights and
historical privileges granted by the British state. Furthermore, the Company’s
long-established corporate hierarchy had successfully channeled the ambitions
and interests of its employees overseas. After Plassey, this was no longer the
case. Despite the Company’s military victories over its French and South Asian
opponents, Clive warned his employers that “all is not safe [in Calcutta]; dan-
ger still subsists from more formidable enemies within; luxury, corruption,
avarice, rapacity, there have the possession of your principal posts, and are
ready to betray your citadel.”115 The Calcutta Select Committee informed the
 c l i v e ’s c o n q u e s t o f e a s t i n d i a h o u s e 163

directors that “every spring of this government was smeared with corruption,
that principles of rapacity and oppression universally prevailed, and that every
spark of sentiment and public spirit was lost and extinguished in the un-
bounded lust of unmerited wealth.”116 The immense accumulation of wealth
and the vast expansion of British private trade in the late 1750s and early 1760s
had created a reckless and leveling individualism that threatened the EIC’s
presence in Bengal.
The Clivite view of events in Bengal provided the basis for distinct policy
solutions to the Company’s problems. Sulivan’s faction had sought to preserve
the EIC’s commercial character at all costs, and they were prepared to take
action against the corporation’s servants in order to achieve this end. Clive
and his allies articulated a strident critique of licentiousness and luxury and
called for a very different course of action. Central to that course was the
Company’s transformation into a territorial garrison state. From this perspec-
tive, the acquisition of the diwani was vital not only for securing the EIC’s
economic prosperity and geopolitical security but also for countering the
leveling and anarchic tendencies that threatened the corporation from within.
The immense revenue and traditional legitimacy secured by the diwani made
possible the establishment of an autocratic and militarized state—a state that
contained commercial life and civil society within overt political hierarchies
and territorial boundaries. “With regard to the Latitude of our Possessions, be
not staggered,” Clive wrote to the Company’s Deputy Chairman in Septem-
ber 1765; “assure Yourself that the Company must either be what they are, or
be annihilated: hitherto at last we can see no alternative, for in a more moder-
ate State, though the Power might still be preserved, Corruption, and
frequent Revolutions, must in the end overset Us.”117 According to Clive, the
EIC’s newly won territorial empire would successfully contain commercial
life and civil society within their proper bounds.
Confident that “nothing can prove fatal, but a renewal of Licentiousness
among your Servants here,” Clive set about transforming the corporation’s ser-
vice into a salaried administration.118 He purged the EIC’s civil and military de-
partments of “corrupt” and “licentious” individuals, including John Johnstone,
whose extensive private trading activity and libertarian ideology made him
a target of the governor’s ire.119 The Select Committee established a series of
commodity monopolies designed to provide salaries for the Company servants.
Clive hoped that the British territorial empire in India would be administered
by independent gentlemen rather than self-seeking merchants. Freed from
reckless commercialism, the civil servants of British Bengal would maintain an
164 the making of the second british empire

autocratic imperial order that advanced the greater interests of the EIC and the
British state.
When Clive departed Bengal in 1767, the Company’s metamorphosis
from a mercantile corporation into a rent-seeking empire was complete. With
the acquisition of the diwani, the British joint-stock company became a des-
potic, tax-collecting state on the Indian subcontinent—a state that was ulti-
mately responsible for managing a global commercial empire. EIC directors
and British statesmen were now committed to maintaining a territorial empire
in South Asia. “If we make war, shall we not conquer? If we conquer, shall we
not keep?” Edmund Burke queried the House of Commons in 1768 during a
debate over the regulation of the Company and its eastern territories. “You are
plunged into empire in the East,” he answered; “you have formed a great body
of power there; you must abide by the consequences.”120 Indeed, between 1765
and 1767, Clive sealed the Company’s transformation from a commercial cor-
poration into a South Asian state and laid the basis for a British imperium that
eventually spanned the entire subcontinent.
 chapter 5

he New Toryism and the Imperial

Reaction at the Accession of George III

Why did Robert Clive’s imperial project win out in India? Why did met-
ropolitan ministers and officials consolidate a new form of autocratic, territo-
rial, and military-driven imperialism in South Asia? More broadly, what led to
the shift in British overseas expansion from the First to the Second British
Empire? While answers to these questions have already been provided in
terms of the origins and early development of the East India Company’s im-
perial state in Bengal, for a more complete picture it is necessary to shift our
focus back to metropolitan political conflict and the manner in which it
shaped British overseas expansion as a whole during the third quarter of the
eighteenth century. For, as argued in the previous two chapters, the origins
and consolidation of the EIC’s territorial empire in northeastern India were
fundamentally informed by the outcome of sociopolitical conflict and ideo-
logical debate within Britain. The Company’s transformation into an imperial
power was part and parcel of the wider conflict waged between radical and
conservative-reactionary forces over the shape and evolution of British impe-
rialism on a world scale. Clive’s consolidation of the EIC’s territorial state was
in part the expression of a New Tory political project that emerged in response
to the crises afflicting Britain and in opposition to radical Whiggism. It is not
possible to fully grasp the rise and early development of the Company’s em-
pire in India, and of the Second British Empire more broadly, without an
account of the debates and struggles waged in the metropole.

165
166 the making of the second british empire

While chapter 2 provided a detailed account of the emergence of radical

Whiggism in the 1750s and 1760s, this chapter focuses on the conservative
reaction to it—what I term the New Toryism—that developed during the
1760s and early 1770s. What was the character of the New Toryism? How and
why did it transform British overseas expansion as a whole, from the colonies
of North America and the West Indies to the trading settlements of South
Asia? Before examining in detail the rise and development of the New Tory-
ism during the early reign of King George III and the shift it led to in Britain’s
imperial expansion, we must first settle accounts with the Namierite interpre-
tation that has remained prominent for over six decades in the historiography
on the politics of empire during the 1760s and 1770s.

It has long been contended that eighteenth-century British politics was a

relatively staid affair until the outbreak of the French Revolution and the
spread of Jacobinism and plebeian radicalism in the 1790s.1 This interpreta-
tion views post-1714 British political life as characterized by widespread social
deference to the landed elite and by an intense but unprincipled factionalism
among the political class.2 Thus British politics did not consist of party con-
flict and ideological debate, but rather of the jockeying of aristocratic factions
for patronage and place within a broad ideological consensus shared by rulers
and ruled. And so it remained, until the exogenous shock of the French Rev-
olution awoke the lower orders from their slumber and renewed principled
party conflict among the elite.
The Namierite interpretation of eighteenth-century British politics has fo-
cused much analytic attention on the political upheaval of the early years of
George III’s reign. Between 1760 and 1775, the post-1714 Whig Supremacy
maintained by Robert Walpole, Henry Pelham, and the Duke of Newcastle
gave way, the government changed hands six times, and imperial reforms and
colonial American resistance provoked a crisis that eventually tore apart the
British Atlantic world. According to the Namierite account, the political up-
heaval of the period did not result from the breakdown of ideological consen-
sus and the emergence of principled conflict concerning the nature and
evolution of the British state.3 Rather, this instability was the consequence of
the ascent to power in 1760 of a young and inexperienced king, George III,
and of his efforts to shift the governance of the state away from Newcastle and
the establishment Whigs who had dominated British politics for decades. Sir
Lewis Namier refuted a long-standing Whig historiography that characterized
eighteenth-century British politics as a contest between stable Whig and Tory
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 167

political parties for control of parliamentary majorities and increasingly mod-

ern cabinet governments. Furthermore, Namier successfully demolished Whig
arguments that George III’s efforts during the early 1760s to undermine and
circumvent the Whig establishment were designed to subvert Parliament and
the constitution. In fact, George III aimed to break the political monopoly of
the great Whig families, established during the reigns of his great-grandfather
and grandfather, and thus to restore the post-1688 monarchy’s independence
to the level it enjoyed during the reigns of William III and Anne.
Namierite historians argue that the instability and upheaval of the 1760s
and early 1770s constituted one more phase in the recurrent eighteenth-
century struggle of upper-class political factions for patronage and place, for
perquisites and power. The intensity of these struggles during George III’s
early reign stemmed not from ideological debate but rather from the decline of
a Whig establishment that had successfully contained and defused such con-
flicts for several decades. The new king’s assault on Newcastle’s political system
was not a romantic and dangerous attempt to revert to Stuart absolutism, but
it nevertheless subjected British politics to the relentless factionalism of Pit-
tites, Buteites, Newcastle and Rockingham loyalists, Bedfordites, Grenvillites,
and the King’s Friends.
The major deficiency with the Namierite interpretation lies in its charac-
terization of the social context of eighteenth-century British politics. The no-
tion of a stable and calm era of aristocratic politics stretching from the
Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789
is simply untenable. While Britain was certainly governed by a landed oligar-
chy, that oligarchy was by no means ruling over a traditional agrarian society.
The oligarchs themselves were not feudal magnates but rather aristocratic
capitalists who owned vast commercial estates run by tenant-farmers and
worked by wage-laborers.4 Although proud of their titles and ancestry, the
members of this landed elite were, as E. P. Thompson observes, as bourgeois
in their lifestyle and assumptions as any urban or commercial class.5 They
took part in trade and finance, studied political economy, firmly defended
their property rights, and vigorously debated political and literary issues in the
reading societies and coffeehouses of London.6 During the later seventeenth
century, the agrarian transformation they oversaw and benefited from was
followed by commercial and financial revolutions that gave rise to the Bank of
England, the national debt, and the London stock market.7 These transforma-
tions were accompanied by the development of a modernizing state, with a
centralized and efficient administration, a highly professionalized military,
168 the making of the second british empire

and a largely indirect, market-based tax system.8 The landed magnates and
City elite that stood at the helm of Britain’s state and society were in every
respect a modern capitalist ruling class.
By the eighteenth century, Britain was a vibrant commercial and manufac-
turing society experiencing recurrent transformations in its economic rela-
tions and organization.9 While older towns with regulated guilds and restricted
economies declined, new provincial cities based on domestic trade and manu-
facturing, as well as overseas commerce, flourished. These towns and cities
were home to a vibrant extra-parliamentary political culture and a sophisti-
cated associational world of private clubs and improvement societies.10 The
rise of these urban centers was accompanied by the birth of mass consump-
tion and the spread of new patterns of fashion and taste.11 These developments
led to what Geoff Eley describes as the “gradual coherence of a self-conscious
middle-class public, which wore its provincialism less as an embarrassment
than as an expression of buoyant creativity.”12 Whether we consider its towns
or its countryside, eighteenth-century Britain was a remarkably dynamic soci-
ety in comparison to most of continental Europe.
The political life of this commercial and manufacturing society was not
limited to factional squabbles waged between aristocratic elites and their par-
liamentary connections. The plays, newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, pa-
rades, coffeehouses, and pubs of London and the provincial cities created a
vibrant public sphere in which the chief political and imperial issues of the day
were readily discussed and debated. Beginning in the 1720s, significant sec-
tions of the middling sort and plebeian classes grew disaffected with the Whig
oligarchy and subsequently embraced a reformist politics based on Country
ideology.13 Rather than lying dormant, the Tory party attempted to mold this
discontent into parliamentary victories and political change.14 By the 1740s
and 1750s, the concerns of commercial imperialism and moral improvement
were merged in Patriot ideology, which dominated the political opposition to
the Whig establishment.15 In the first decade of George III’s reign, a radical and
increasingly mass-based politics emerged in the form of the Wilkesite move-
ment.16 Abandoning the Country ideology expressed in earlier decades, the
political opposition to the oligarchic order was radicalized. This new radical
politics, struggling for the expansion of commercial society and for the cre-
ation of more representative political institutions, had widespread appeal
among the urban-based middling sort and plebeian classes.17 By the mid-
eighteenth century, Britain was not characterized by political stability but
rather by political conflict and ideological debate.
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 169

During the era of the East India Company’s transformation into a territo-
rial state, Britain and its global empire were in the midst of a fast-developing
crisis. News of the EIC’s initial steps toward political and military supremacy
in Bengal during the late 1750s and 1760s circulated in a metropolitan and
pan-imperial context characterized by political upheaval. The political opposi-
tion to the oligarchic state transformed into radical Whiggism in the protests
and riots surrounding the Wilkes affair in 1763. Merchants, petty manufactur-
ers, shopkeepers, professionals, artisans, and tradesmen decried heavy taxation
and began to demand more adequate representation within Parliament and
the halls of power. Plebeian discontent increasingly took the form of industrial
unrest and demands for higher wages. The kingdom’s political elite remained
deeply divided as ministry after ministry attempted to stabilize the country
following the Seven Years’ War, while George III and his chief advisor, the Earl
of Bute, sought to loosen the shackles placed on the monarchy by the Whig
establishment. The fiscal-military state seemed to many observers to be on the
brink of disaster, as Britain’s European and global warfare with France had led
to unprecedented government expenditures and a vast increase in the national
debt. Popular challenges to ministerial management in Ireland undermined
successive Dublin Castle governments and their London backers. The colonial
resistance movement in North America opposed the British ministry’s and
Parliament’s new imperial measures, leading to the disruption of the transat-
lantic economy.
The instability and upheaval of the late 1750s, 1760s, and 1770s witnessed
the return of principled political conflict and far-reaching ideological debate
not seen in Britain since the “rage of party” in the early eighteenth century.
The politics of the early years of George III’s reign was fundamentally charac-
terized by the emergence of two increasingly coherent politico-ideological
formations—radical Whiggism and New Toryism—that sought to make
sense of the problems facing British society, to offer solutions to those prob-
lems, to generate support for the exercise of state power among the political
classes and in the public sphere, and to wield state power to implement those
solutions and influence the course of events.
The cracks in the edifice of the British state and its empire were so numer-
ous and varied that many feared for the country’s prosperity and even survival.
“We live in an age of domestic & foreign paradoxes,” observed one of the Earl
of Hardwicke’s many correspondents; “truth has at all times more or less been
conceal’d in a well, but at present it seems to be buried in almost a bottomless
pit, at home different views, different interests, among the intelligent infection
170 the making of the second british empire

of parties & factions among the ignorant, of whom there are taking the herd
of mankind together 999 in a 1000.”18 Decrying the “confusion, attended with
such neglect of business & followed by such general discontent,” Charles
Townshend queried his brother in 1765: “in what a distress is the K[ing]? and
in what condition are these kingdoms? is such a dilemma paralleled in the his-
tory of any times?” The influential politician was certain that “things hasten in
this embarrassed country to some sudden revolution, and from this hour men
of sense will review their notions of the balance of this government & of the
comparative strength of the several orders of it.”19 In a parliamentary debate
held in May 1768, Frederick Montagu spoke on the riots and unrest afflicting
Britain and declared that “we are a ruined country, if neither the Civil, nor the
military power will support us . . . if we could be attended with the divinity in
Virgil we could then see, what shews us to be a distracted people, there is no
confidence in Government, the great bonds of society are loosened.”20 Plead-
ing against the expulsion of John Wilkes from the House of Commons in
February 1769, no less a figure than George Grenville observed that the “tem-
per of the People you have been truly told has on several occasions appear’d to
be disorderly & licentious, spurning at the Laws & at all lawful Authority . . .
the Difficulties we have to struggle with arising from the interior Condition of
this Country, from the Disobedience of our Colonies & from the State of our
Foreign Affairs are augmented to such a Degree as to form a very dangerous
Crisis . . . the Respect & Reverence due to the Parliament & the Confidence
reposed in this House are visibly diminished.” Given the growing political
instability, the former prime minister recommended that Parliament deal tact-
fully with Wilkes and like-minded radical provocateurs, or else risk further
angering an already inflamed populace. “Such a Clamour is no more than a
sudden Gust of Wind which passes by & is forgotten, but when the public
Discontent is founded in Truth & Reason, when the Sky lowers & hangs
heavy all around us,” Grenville averred, “a Storm may then arise which may
tear up the Constitution by the Roots & shake the Palace of the King him-
self.”21 While the East India Company’s servants were dealing with the crisis of
the corporation’s affairs in Bengal, many back home feared that Britain and its
empire were on the verge of collapse.
The rich ideological debates and political conflicts entailed in these crises
were not simply “background noise” for the emergence and consolidation of
the Company’s territorial empire in Bengal. Rather, the EIC’s transformation
and the metropolitan debates and conflicts that surrounded it were fundamen-
tally constitutive of one another.22 British men and women, whether they lived
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 171

in Calcutta, Kingston, or Glasgow, thought of their empire as a whole; their

actions and ideas were formulated not only with reference to local circum-
stances but also in relation to the dangers and possibilities created by events
taking place throughout the kingdom and its territories overseas. The Com-
pany’s emerging dominion in Bengal was not discussed and debated in a
vacuum, but rather in the context of wide-ranging political and ideological
conflict over many aspects of Britain’s state, society, and empire. The question
of an Indian empire was undoubtedly provoked by events in Bengal, but its
resolution was to an important degree determined by sociopolitical forces and
politico-ideological conflicts centered in Britain. It is to those forces and con-
flicts, in particular to the rise and development of the New Toryism, that we
now turn.

The Grenville ministry supported the efforts of Clive and his allies to take
control of the EIC in the hope that they would help to resolve Britain’s
political-economic crisis. From 1763 to 1768, Grenville worked closely with
two of his advisors and colonial experts, William Knox and Thomas Whately,
on a number of memoranda and publications that sought to define the prob-
lems facing Britain and its empire.23 Their ideas can be outlined as follows. In
order to help pay for its military expenditures, the British state relied on
short-term and long-term loans (disproportionately from wealthy subscrib-
ers). These loans made up the national debt, and subscribers were issued se-
curities that guaranteed them annual interest payments raised by taxation on
British subjects. The government’s military expenditures during the War of
the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War led to a massive increase in
the national debt. The growth of the debt at such a rapid rate seemed to im-
peril the state’s ability to meet its obligations to its creditors and thus created
a sense of public uncertainty, diminishing the government’s capacity to raise
new loans. By the early 1760s, public credit was in serious need of improve-
ment. The only way to meet interest payments on old loans and to quell un-
certainty regarding the debt, thus paving the way to secure new loans, was to
increase domestic taxation. As raising the land tax too high placed the minis-
try at risk of losing support in a landlord-dominated House of Commons,
new taxes inevitably fell on consumers as a whole in the form of excise taxes
on the necessities of life. The resurgence of geopolitical rivalry in the 1740s
led to a considerable increase in excise taxation. “Every thing except the
water and the air is . . . in consequence [of the national debt] severely taxed,”
observed a government advisor in 1759.24
172 the making of the second british empire

While such taxes allowed the government of the day to meet its obliga-
tions and to raise new loans, they inevitably fueled discontent among the
middling and lower orders on whom they fell disproportionately. Burdened
with heavy taxes from the 1740s on and enraged at the government, the Brit-
ish public was becoming increasingly riotous and susceptible to radical calls
for political reform.25 Thus, Grenville’s circle concluded, geopolitical rivalry
and warfare were leading to dramatic increases in debt and taxation, which in
turn fueled the growth of political instability and radicalism. From their per-
spective, the situation was dire. The memoranda and pamphlets produced by
these men spoke of the state of Britain in apocalyptic tones. “The great men
have lost their influence over the lower order of the people; even parliament
has lost much of its reverence with the subjects of the realm, and the voice of
the multitude is set up against the sense of the legislature[,]” Knox averred in
The Present State of the Nation: “An impoverished and heavily-burthened pub-
lic! A declining trade and decreasing specie! A people luxurious and licen-
tious, impatient of rule, and despising all authority! Government relaxed in
every sinew, and a corrupt selfish spirit pervading the whole! The state desti-
tute of alliances, and without respect from foreign nations! A powerful com-
bination, anxious for an occasion to retrieve their honour, and wreak their
vengeance upon her! If such be the circumstances of Great-Britain, who, that
loves his king or his country, can be indifferent about public matters?”26 Po-
litical resistance to taxation posed a dangerous threat to public credit as well
as to Britain’s long-term economic interests. By undermining the govern-
ment’s ability to raise revenue from the population, it weakened investor con-
fidence in the state and made it difficult for ministers to call on the sizable
loans necessary to meet strategic commitments throughout the globe. If the
government failed to protect vital interests such as trade routes and colonial
settlements, the ensuing economic downturn and unemployment would fur-
ther compound the fiscal crisis.
It is easy to see why the Pittite and radical Whig insistence on continuing
the Seven Years’ War and permanently curbing French power disturbed not
only Grenville’s circle but also the majority of the political establishment.
While Pitt was successful in achieving control over the conduct of the war
and flooding every theater of struggle with money and manpower, both his
traditional opponents-turned-coalition partners—the Whig establishment—
and his former allies, the Tories and conservative Patriots, were increasingly
troubled by the Pittite war effort’s implications for domestic state and society.
Newcastle and the Whig establishment had formed a coalition ministry with
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 173

their radical Patriot adversary in part to defuse the increasingly vociferous

extra-parliamentary criticism of their foreign policy. However, Pitt’s success-
ful conduct of the war drove a process of radicalization that many in the po-
litical elite viewed as deeply threatening.
The Whig establishment had long been concerned with defusing and sup-
pressing popular pressure on the post-1688 political regime, and they were
increasingly worried by the growth of an anti-oligarchic, extra-parliamentary
political culture in London and the provincial cities in the 1730s and 1740s.
During Walpole’s administration, there was a successful popular mobilization
to defeat tax reforms in the Excise Crisis of 1733, as well as extensive rioting in
Edinburgh and London during 1736.27 There was widespread discontent with
the government by the early 1740s, leading to Walpole’s resignation as prime
minister.
Many commentators saw these developments as a product of the anarchic
tendencies generated by the interest-based civil society that necessarily ac-
companied commercial and industrial advance. Several leading statesmen and
officials viewed the political opinion-makers of the urban middling sort as
dangerous provocateurs intent on stirring up popular discontent in order to
challenge the “natural rulers” of the country—the landed classes. “Nor can
Opposition, right or wrong, want even Property to gild it over and to grace it
. . . for Men arising from the lowest Level of the People, and advancing into
considerable and easy Fortunes, are, by a natural Consequence, too often led
to conspire against that very Felicity, Peace, Quiet, and Prosperity, to which
alone they have owed their Existence,” remarked the increasingly conservative
Earl of Egmont. “These Men rapine at what they never before had Leisure to
consider; that there is still a certain difference between their Condition and
that of another Rank, which they cannot remedy by all their Efforts to exceed
them in Expence,” Egmont argued, “which . . . sours them with their own
State, and inclines them to fall in with any popular Discontent . . . to create
a Chaos, out of which they hope to emerge upon a Level with those they envy.
From whence the Observation holds most true, That all Nations, in propor-
tion to their Increase [of wealth and abundance], grow turbulent and fac-
tious, and from this Quarter arise those levelling Schemes, in the Contention
for which, sooner or later, Anarchy ensues; and in the process of time, the
Loss of that real Liberty, whose sacred Name is so often speciously prophaned
by Malice and Ambition.”28 Leading statesmen and officials believed that a
popular threat to the post-1688 regime was brewing beneath the surface of
Hanoverian society.
174 the making of the second british empire

Many in the landed elite were deeply disturbed when, during the later
1750s, a radical Whig politics grew among the urban middling sort and sup-
ported Pitt’s war effort. Drawing attention to the spread of “the spirit of Jaco-
bitism and Rebellion, so propagated (in its new disguise) to Varnish a man
[Pitt] . . . of yet unknown benefits, to blacken the most Vigilent and Loyal ad-
ministrations,” John Gordon warned Newcastle in 1756 that “the Language of
this sect, becomes so much more intolerable, as to make Proselytes of the more
unthinking to believe, the word Jacobite and Rebellion, was no more than the
contrivance of a bad administration, to abuse the King and nation . . . and that
more especially, among the tribes of the City, that so Idolizes the man in ques-
tion.”29 Newcastle took such warnings seriously. The radical political views
espoused by some of Pitt’s associates troubled the Whig establishment, and
the cavalier manner in which the Patriot minister continued the war despite
the strains it placed on the fiscal-military machinery of the British state—
expanding the public debt to over £130 million and undermining the credit-
worthiness of the government—astonished the duke and his advisors.30
Several leading political figures—including Bute, George III, Charles Jen-
kinson, Grenville, the Earl of Egremont, and the Earl of Halifax—were deeply
concerned with the ideas and opinions expressed by Pitt’s radical colleagues in
London and the provincial urban centers in the later 1750s and early 1760s, as
well as with Pitt’s own views regarding the unlimited fiscal resources that might
be made available by the expansion of Britain’s trade and manufacturing. They
concluded that the Pittite war effort threatened the domestic political order as
much as it did Bourbon France. Drawing attention to Pitt’s popularity with
Britain’s middling and lower ranks, conservative pamphleteers and propagan-
dists condemned the radical Patriot leader for seeking support from beyond
the political establishment. One writer invented a letter from Pitt to his sup-
porters portraying him as a dangerous demagogue: “I think it but just that the
multitude of good subjects, who have nobody to speak for them, should be
allowed to speak for themselves; and I have always faithfully collected their
opinions from the number of voices in the different streets of the metropolis.
In return, your attachment to my service has been uniformly maintained,
while people, who pretended to a greater share of discernment, were wavering
in their opinions about me, or deserted my cause. The voice of the multitude,
like a swelling stream, covered all my actions, concealed the false, unequal bot-
tom of the channel it flowed in, and rapidly carried away all reason and argu-
ment before it.”31 During the late 1750s and early 1760s, the widespread fears
regarding political radicalism coalesced into a coherent New Tory ideology.32
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 175

An anti-radical political movement began to take shape in the circles

surrounding Bute, George III, and Grenville. This movement allied long-
standing Tories and conservative Patriots with important elements within the
Whig establishment. Although Bute purged Old Corps Whig political ap-
pointees from the government after Newcastle’s departure from office in 1762,
the social and political interests associated with the oligarchic order rallied
around George III and his new ministry. While Tories and conservative Patri-
ots were loyal to Pitt for much of the 1750s as part of their commitment to the
Patriot program and its critique of the Whig establishment, they were increas-
ingly disturbed by the political radicalism of several of the Great Commoner’s
close allies.33 In the early 1760s, Tories and more conservative Patriots shifted
their allegiance to Bute and George III, both of whom espoused a conserva-
tive Patriotism that emphasized overcoming party-political differences and
uniting the populace around a newly nationalized monarchy.34 Radical Whigs
took note of the shift of conservatives away from political opposition toward
support for the Court and the ministry.35 Elements within the Whig establish-
ment, once bitterly opposed to conservative Patriots and Tories, now aligned
with them in order to stave off what was perceived as the looming threat
posed by radical Whiggism. Together, these conservative-reactionary forces
rejected calls for public oversight of government policy, sought to preserve the
aristocratic-oligarchic character of the British state, and defended the unre-
formed King-in-Parliament system as the only political order appropriate for
the country.
Typical of the emerging New Tories was the Solicitor General and future
Lord Chancellor Alexander Wedderburn, a close political ally of both Gren-
ville and Clive. When he arrived in London from Scotland in the 1750s, Wed-
derburn was a Whig deeply committed to the Hanoverian Settlement and
firmly opposed to the illiberal character of Tory political thought. Neverthe-
less, the depth and extent of the capital’s political radicalism led to a change in
his views. By 1762, as his biographer relates, Wedderburn believed “that the
right of the people to interfere in the affairs of government had been pushed to
an inconvenient length” and that “the time was come when popular licentious-
ness might be repressed, and the people, ever incapable of governing them-
selves, might be governed by the prerogative which, for their benefit, God had
bestowed upon his viceregent the King.”36 Troubled by the growth of mass-
based radical politics, Wedderburn penned an angry invective to Grenville in
1768. He contended that whole regions of the British Isles were becoming a
“Great Bedlam under the dominion of a beggarly, idle, & intoxicated mob
176 the making of the second british empire

without Keepers, actuated solely by the word Wilkes which they use as Better
Savages do a War Mosh to incite them in their Attempts to insult Government,
& trample upon Law.” The Solicitor General was convinced that “[t]he Mob
has been made sensible of its own importance, & the pleasure which the Rich
& Powerful feel in governing those whom fate has made their Inferiors, is not
half so strong; as that which the Indigent & worthless feel in subverting Prop-
erty, defying Law, & lording It over those whom they used to respect.”37 The
sense of alarm expressed by Wedderburn continued to grow among the ruling
class in the 1760s.
During the Seven Years’ War, riots broke out in opposition to the govern-
ment’s taxation and militia policies. The Duke of Bedford wrote feverishly to
Pitt in 1757 demanding that a revolt against militia enrollment in Biggleswade
be put down with extreme severity. Such severity was necessary, the duke
averred, in order to prevent the ill effects of “a bad example the suffering a
giddy and riotous populace to stand in opposition to an act of parliament un-
noticed may have upon the rest of the kingdom.”38 Lord Holdernesse made
the increasingly commonplace observation that “the unbounded licentious-
ness of the News Writers is a great cause of the ungovernable spirit which un-
fortunately appears among all the Common People.”39 Indeed, the very word
“licentiousness” became shorthand among the British ruling elite for a kind of
political freedom that was incapable of staying in proper bounds and recogniz-
ing the limits imposed by social hierarchy. Activities deemed “licentious” in-
cluded the smuggling conducted by petty traders on the Isle of Man, the riots
of sailors demanding higher wages in Newcastle, and the propaganda cam-
paigns of radical agitators such as Wilkes.
The sociopolitical upheaval of the Seven Years’ War and Wilkesite radical-
ism often led conservative and moderate Whigs to rethink their political posi-
tions in dialogue with Tories. Despite their numerous personal differences
and clashes, powerful figures including George III, Bute, Bedford, Grenville,
and Egremont began to express a coherent and shared worldview. As Charles
Ritcheson argues, this worldview and the political alliances forged around it
were “becoming the seedbed of a new Tory party, although it was not to come
to fruition for many decades.”40 This process, although fractured and com-
plex, is what I refer to as the emergence of the New Toryism. By my use of the
term “New Tory,” I do not intend to argue for any continuity of thought and
practice stretching from the Tories of the Restoration era to the Tory Party of
the nineteenth century. Rather, I mean to grasp the manner in which states-
men, officials, and opinion-makers of an impeccable Whig pedigree were
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 177

pulling back from the potential political consequences of the socioeconomic

changes that occurred in the aftermath of 1688.41 These Whigs were increas-
ingly in dialogue with Tories and conservative Patriots who viewed the cor-
ruption of the Whig establishment as a manifestation of the social evils
of mobile wealth and economic transformation. The New Tory worldview
emerging during this period contended that radical Whiggism stemmed not
from the desire to incorporate new social groups and economic interests into
the relatively limited political settlement achieved in the Glorious Revolution,
but rather from the luxury and decadence generated by an advanced commer-
cial and manufacturing society.
During the 1750s and 1760s, newspapers and pamphlets gave voice to
anxieties about the culture of luxury generated by Britain’s wealthy commer-
cial and manufacturing society and, even more importantly, about the politi-
cal licentiousness purported to be an inevitable result of that culture.42
“Amongst the many reigning vices of the present age none have risen to a
greater height than the fashionable vice of luxury, and few require a more im-
mediate suppression,” remarked a writer in the London Magazine of Septem-
ber 1754; “indeed, in a trading nation like ours, luxury may be said to be the
daughter of commerce and promoter of trade; for it is certain that our riches
have encreased for some years past, in proportion as our commerce has been
improved; and when people have accumulated wealth, they will not be con-
tent with necessaries, but their craving appetites, tastes and passions require
to be indulged with superfluities.”43 This polemicist hoped that strong minis-
ters would emerge to deal with these threats. “Luxury emasculates our minds,
and makes us regardless of every thing but what relates to the gratification of
its incessant and insatiable demands . . . and that corruption, its natural at-
tendant, spreads its baneful infection so wide, as to threaten the undermining
our constitution and the downfall of our state,” averred another concerned
citizen in 1756. The overseas trade that Britain depended on was generating
luxury, which “by increasing our pleasures, has increased our wants, and left
us less time, or less inclination, to promote the welfare of the publick.” Unless
vigorous ministerial and parliamentary measures were taken to rein in self-
interest and avarice, “loss of liberty and power must be the inevitable conse-
quence, and our country will become a prey either to the intriguing ambition
of a domestick tyrant, or to the superior power of a foreign invader.”44 Al-
though luxury was the product of a dynamic economy, it inevitably under-
mined the basis of economic growth. “For luxury, by its constant, and natural
consequences, leads a state to destruction; it not only emasculates the minds,
178 the making of the second british empire

and debilitates the bodies of people,” one scribbler declared in 1758, “but
deprives them of their industry, which is the strength of every state; for no
people were ever at once luxurious and industrious.”45
Although such arguments drew on ancient critiques of luxury and imperial
decadence, the goals of their advocates were not atavistic but rather historically
specific. The pamphleteers and politicians who enunciated this vision did not
call for abandoning trade and manufacturing in favor of pastoral pleasures and
bucolic calm, but rather for a more authoritarian and paternalist state. One
such writer asked: “Ought not then a state . . . always to be attentive to the
dangerous luxuries of a people, and contrive certain laws whereby they may
restrain the growing licentiousness of a vice, which has so often enslaved the
bravest people, and overthrown the mightiest empires?”46 Opinion-makers in-
formed by such sentiments called for a range of measures to be implemented,
including sumptuary laws, harsher punishments for crime, increased policing,
and more extensive regulation of trade and navigation. “If the legislature
doesn’t speedily use some method effectually to suppress the present spirit of
rioting, which is become so general among the lower sorts of people,” averred
an essayist in the Gentleman’s Magazine, “we shall very soon reap no benefit
from the laws, nor will the power of the government afford us any protection
from the plundering mob. If the state is to be preferred from universal confu-
sion; if the liberties and properties of Britons are worth contending for; in
short, if the laws, religion, and natural blessings of our country are to be re-
garded by us, and transmitted to posterity, the mob must be conquered.”47 These
writers believed that Britain’s culture of luxury should be reined in by an au-
thoritarian parliamentary state freely exercising its undiluted sovereign power.
Samuel Johnson, the literary critic and New Tory pamphleteer, urged: “There
must in every society be some power or other for which there is no appeal,
which admits no restrictions, which pervades the whole mass of the commu-
nity, regulates and adjusts all subordination, enacts laws or repeals them, erects
or annuls judicatures; extends or contracts privileges, exempt itself from the
question of control, and bounded only by physical necessity.”48
From the New Tory standpoint, radical Whiggism was part of a political
degeneration caused by the animating impulses of a commercial and interest-
based economy overflowing into every sphere of life, threatening to weaken
public institutions beyond repair. During the Seven Years’ War, the Anglican
parson John Brown published an enormously popular diatribe against luxury
and effeminacy, titled An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times. This
treatise sought to refute political economists who emphasized the advantages of
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 179

expanding overseas trade, asserting that such maxims held true in the first and
second stages of commercial development, but not for societies such as Britain
and the Netherlands that had long since entered a third stage of wealth produc-
tion. According to Brown, the “present exorbitant Degree of Trade and Wealth”
was responsible for the factionalism and political divisions afflicting mid-
Hanoverian Britain. “They have produced a general Incapacity, have weakened
the national Spirit of Defence, have heightened the national Disunion,” the
parson contended.49
Many opinion-makers and officials viewed the political divisions and
upheaval engulfing the country during and after the Seven Years’ War as the
consequences of a reckless commercialism that had not been successfully
reined in by the parliamentary state. Tobias Smollet, publisher of The Briton,
observed that during the 1740s “commerce and manufacture flourished again,
to such a degree of encrease as had never been known in the island, but this
advantage was attended with an irresistible tide of luxury and excess, which
flowed through all degrees of the people, breaking down all the mounds of
civil polity, and opening a way for license and immorality . . . highways were
infested with rapine and assassination; the cities teemed with the brutal vota-
ries of lewdness, intemperance, and profligacy; and the whole land was over-
spread with a succession of tumult, riot, and insurrection.” Deeply skeptical
of rapid and extensive commercialization, Smollett contended that, in the
years leading up to and including the Seven Years’ War, “the tide of luxury still
flowed with an impetuous current, bearing down all the mounds of temper-
ance and decorum . . . while fraud and profligacy struck out new channels,
through which they eluded the restrictions of the law, and vigilance of civil
policy.”50 Tapped by Wedderburn to write against Pitt and in favor of Bute’s
peace negotiations with France, Smollett advocated New Tory principles and
decried London’s political radicals. He claimed that these radicals “espoused
the plebeian interests, from an innate aversion to all order and restraint . . .
[t]his, however, I take to be a mistaken philanthropy, which, conceiving every
individual to be equally free by nature, draws this erroneous inference, that
every individual has an equal right to meddle in public affairs, a principle
subversive of all government, magistracy and subordination; a principle de-
structive to all industry and national quiet, as well as repugnant to every
fundamental maxim of society.”51 From the standpoint of the New Toryism,
commercial and industrial advance spawned the reckless pursuit of self-
interest, which in turn threatened to undermine economic growth and the
political order.
180 the making of the second british empire

Government ministers and officials were deeply concerned with the grow-
ing problem of political radicalism in the late 1750s and 1760s. George III and
Bute worried about the luxurious habits widespread among the lower classes
and sought to address the problem.52 Several commentators believed that ple-
beian resistance to taxation and demands for higher wages were a product of
such luxury and licentiousness.53 By the spring of 1763, when Grenville replaced
Bute as prime minister, Britain and its empire seemed to be on the brink of
collapse: smuggling flourished on the Atlantic, conflicts were brewing between
metropolitan officials and the colonists in North America, the levying of excise
taxes caused widespread rioting, and Wilkes’s propaganda scathingly criticized
the character and policies of the governing elite.54 Undaunted by the task that
lay before him, Grenville informed the king that the government he was plan-
ning with the Earls of Egremont and Halifax would stem the tide of political
and social anarchy. George III advised his new first minister “that it was neces-
sary to restrain the licentiousness of the times; that even the carrying a criminal
to justice (the coachman condemned for a rape), the people had interposed and
endeavoured to prevent his execution; that it was time a remedy should be
found to these evils, for that if he suffered force to be put upon him by the Op-
position, the mob would try to govern him next.”55 New Tory ideology was put
into practice in the prosecution of Wilkes for seditious libel in 1763, and in the
implementation of new Atlantic imperial measures from 1763 to 1765.
There were two major phases in the emergence of the New Toryism. The
first phase stemmed from roughly the late 1750s to 1763 and entailed bringing
the Seven Years’ War to a conclusion. Deeply troubled by the expansion of the
national debt and the growth of domestic radicalism, several politicians and
propagandists began to openly criticize Pitt’s war effort. In 1760, Israel Maudit
published a full-scale critique of the war’s direction, titled Considerations on
the Present German War. Maudit asked his readers to consider the fiscal conse-
quences of continuing the war in Europe: “Will any man avow the running
his country a hundred millions farther in debt? Dare we imagine, that our
credit can extend so far; or our manufactures and exports, bear the load of
such an interest? I will leave the reader to picture to himself, what must hap-
pen long before we have gone such a length.”56 He tapped into widespread
concerns, and his work ran through five editions in a few months.57 The pam-
phlet was well received within conservative Patriot and Tory circles around
George III, and the Bute ministry rewarded Maudit with a post.58
Moving from printed propaganda to practice, New Tory ministers and of-
ficials sought to end the war following the accession of George III in late 1760.
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 181

“Notwithstanding the British arms continued successful in every quarter of

the world,” lamented the radical Whig John Almon, “yet it was the firm and
unalterable resolution of the British cabinet, to make peace with the utmost
expedition.”59 Bute and the new king undermined Pitt’s strategic aims by re-
fusing to declare war against Spain in 1761.60 After Pitt and Newcastle left of-
fice, the Bute ministry undertook negotiations with France to end the war. By
doing so, it decisively transformed British foreign and imperial policy. While
Pitt had pursued a radical foreign policy that sought maximal victory over
France in European and especially in overseas theaters, Bute implemented a
conservative Patriot and Tory foreign policy that was opposed to continental
entanglements and the expansion of the national debt.61
It was in this context that Grenville shifted his allegiance to Bute and de-
veloped the key New Tory imperial policies. Although Grenville and Pitt were
connected through marriage and had been political allies during the 1740s
and 1750s, they became bitter enemies when Grenville joined the Bute minis-
try and failed to accompany Pitt into political opposition. Grenville’s decision
was not motivated by careerism, but rather by principled commitments.
While Pitt was increasingly aligned with radical Whigs who supported con-
tinuing the war against France, Grenville was deeply troubled by the growth
of the national debt and political radicalism. The Earl of Fife later remarked
that, “in the times of Mr P[itt’s] greatest Popularity when the Gold Snuff
boxes were coming from every corner, I can bear my Testimony to Mr Gren-
ville’s grieving at the Squandering the publick money, & at the great addi-
tional National Debt which Posterity must feel the burden of.”62 Grenville
supported Bute’s efforts to curb radicalism and to end the war, although they
vigorously disagreed over the peace provisions.63 In 1765, one writer claimed
that “Mr. Grenville considered the opinion we enter[tain]ed of the late war,
and the value we set on our conquests, as the effect of popular madness, in all
his speeches, and those of his faction, it was always spoken of under the appel-
lation the unfortunate war.”64 Grenville became a leading figure among politi-
cians and civil servants who shared his concerns about the war, the problems
of public finance, and the growth of radical Whiggism. After becoming prime
minister in 1763, Grenville maintained links with Tories and conservative
Patriots, often rewarding them with patronage.65 He was at the forefront of
the emerging New Toryism.
While Bute’s primary objective had been ending the war, Grenville’s ad-
ministration was forced to deal with the conflict’s consequences. Between
1763 and 1765, the emergent New Toryism shifted into its second phase. After
182 the making of the second british empire

assuming power in the spring of 1763, Grenville confronted the problems

entailed in reducing the immense national debt, grappling with the growth of
domestic radicalism and resistance to taxation, and governing a vastly ex-
panded empire.66 The ministry sought to reduce government expenditure and
to increase public revenue. It did so while remaining concerned about further
inflaming popular discontent and fueling political radicalism, especially given
the riots provoked by a new excise duty on cider in 1763.
The problems of garrisoning and governing the New World territories
acquired from France and Spain greatly increased the strains on Britain’s
fiscal-military state. Given that the majority of peacetime expenditure went to
paying the annual interest of £5 million owed on the national debt, now near-
ing £140 million, the Grenville ministry needed to raise the additional reve-
nue required for imperial governance and defense from the Atlantic colonies.
The prime minister was deeply troubled by the extent of illegal trade in Brit-
ish North America and the West Indies, as well as by the “spirit of licentious-
ness” that the colonists and their assemblies displayed in failing to contribute
sufficient revenue and troops to fight the war against France. Consequently,
he sought to increase metropolitan supervision and authority over the colo-
nies by reorganizing and politically centralizing the Atlantic empire. In their
totality, the Grenville ministry’s imperial reforms and initiatives between 1763
and 1765 had the potential to transform the American colonies into a politi-
cally autocratic and economically extractive dominion, in which the needs
of colonial society were subordinated to the fiscal necessities and political di-
rectives of the metropole and its ruling elite.67 The new Atlantic imperialism
was born.
The objectives of the Grenville ministry’s imperial program were to main-
tain a peacetime standing army in North America, to extend and enforce the
laws of trade and navigation, and to accomplish these tasks in a manner that
made imperial administration less dependent on colonial institutions. As the
Seven Years’ War drew to a close, the Bute ministry made the decision to sta-
tion 10,000 British soldiers in North America—doubling the size of the pre-
war army there—in order to control and defend new territories in Canada,
Florida, and west of the Appalachians.68 The ministry’s plan for raising reve-
nue for the maintenance of the standing army proved to be extremely contro-
versial in the colonies. Breaking with the tradition of royal requisitions, in
which the Crown asked each colony for revenue and the colonial assembly
raised it, the costs of imperial defense were now to be met in part by taxes
directly levied on the colonies by the British Parliament. At the same time,
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 183

the ministry, building on steps taken during the final years of the war, rein-
vigorated the enforcement of the parliamentary trade and navigation laws,
which had been evaded in the colonies for decades, in order to raise revenue
and to stem the “licentious” corruption and smuggling that flourished in
colonial America.
These two objectives—to maintain a standing army and to enforce the
laws of trade and navigation—were combined and expanded with Parlia-
ment’s passage of the Sugar Act in 1764. This legislation extended the trade
laws, adding commercial regulations and customs duties on consumer goods
imported into the colonies, and also created new methods of enforcement: an
expanded customs service with greater authority of search and seizure, the
Royal Navy empowered to crack down on colonial smuggling, and trial with-
out jury for customs violations (to be held in vice-admiralty courts with roy-
ally appointed judges).69 In addition to imposing new customs duties, the
Sugar Act lowered the duty on foreign molasses. The Grenville ministry aimed
to reduce smuggling, to raise revenue, and to fund the army by lowering the
molasses duty and vigorously enforcing collection. In passing this legislation,
Parliament went well beyond its traditional practice of imposing duties in
order to regulate imperial trade. Britain was now taxing the colonies in order
to raise revenue.
These measures were all a prelude to the most controversial aspect of the
Grenville ministry’s imperial program, the Stamp Act passed in March 1765.
The stamp tax affected many forms of paper ranging from legal documents
to playing cards, and was designed to offset the costs of imperial defense. A
direct, internal tax on the Atlantic colonies, it represented a dramatic depar-
ture from past imperial practice. Combined with the royal proclamation of
1763—which created several royal colonies, prohibited colonial settlement
west of the Appalachians, and heavily regulated colonial trade with the
Amerindians—the Quartering Act of 1765, which required colonial assem-
blies to pay for quartering and provisioning the standing army, and the rest of
the Grenville program, the Stamp Act established unprecedented levels of
metropolitan intervention in and authority over the Atlantic colonies.
The peacetime standing army was crucial not only for imperial defense
but also for upholding metropolitan authority and increasing revenue collec-
tion in the colonies. Additionally, the stationing of the troops in North Amer-
ica would reduce military costs in Britain. As one government advisor claimed,
the army would allow the ministry to reduce “the Military Establishment for
Great Britain . . . to Guards for England, and Garrisons for Scotland, for the
184 the making of the second british empire

American Troops might be more conveniently transported to the French or

Spanish Settlements, should either of those States think of breaking with us
again, than Troops could be carried thither from England.”70 The very same
troops were to be used to extend metropolitan control over the colonies and
to enforce the new imperial regulations and taxes passed by Parliament.71 By
the early 1760s, British ministers and officials had grown weary of colonial
evasion and undermining of metropolitan authority. The same government
advisor averred that the colonists “consider themselves as intitled to a greater
measure of Liberty than is enjoyed by the People of England, because of their
quitting their Native Country, to make Settlements for the advantage of
Great Britain in the Wilds of America.” Thus the standing army was “neces-
sary for securing the Dependence of the Colonys on Great Britain; for giving
them Protection and thereby diverting their attention from Military Affairs,”
and “because the circumstances of England required that her burdens should
be lightened by distributing them amongst the several Members of her Em-
pire, in proportion to their ability to support them.” This advisor suggested
that the “Lodgment of these Troops” should be “so situated as to protect, and
at the same time Command the cheif Trading Towns.”72 In the spirit of this
suggestion, the Grenville ministry sought to station troops near colonial ports
in order to support customs collectors.73
In their totality, the new colonial policies pursued between 1763 and 1765
sought to militarize and to politically centralize Britain’s Atlantic empire, and
ultimately to make imperial administration independent of colonial assem-
blies and institutions. The numerous frictions and conflicts between colonial
authorities and imperial officials during the Seven Years’ War, over issues rang-
ing from military requisitions to observance of the laws of trade and naviga-
tion, led many in Britain’s ruling elite and in Whitehall’s bureaucracy to
support increased metropolitan supervision and control over the colonies.
Grenville’s administration and advisors—from the Earl of Halifax and the Earl
of Sandwich to Knox and Whately—were especially convinced of the necessity
of strengthening imperial governance and diminishing the power of colonial
assemblies. As Leland Bellot argues, Knox, perhaps Grenville’s most important
imperial advisor, was “convinced that overmighty colonial assemblies posed
the greatest potential threat to the imperial connection.”74 The immense post-
war strains on Britain’s fiscal-military state and vastly expanded empire, cou-
pled with the growth of domestic radicalism and resistance to taxation, meant
not only that more revenue had to be extracted from the colonies but also
that revenue-raising capacities could not depend on the will of a recalcitrant
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 185

colonial population. By securing Parliament’s direct taxation of the colonies,

the tightening and extension of the laws of trade and navigation, and greater
enforcement powers for Crown officials, the British government would be able
to circumvent colonial institutions and to raise imperial revenue without dif-
ficulty. “I have done my duty by endeavouring to assert the Sovereignty of the
King & Parl[iamen]t of Great Britain over all the Dominions belonging to the
Crown,” Grenville argued in defense of his colonial policies, “& to make all
the Subjects of the Kingdom contribute to the public Burthens for their own
Defence according to their Abilities & Situation.”75
The New Tory Grenville program asserted metropolitan authority over
the colonies in an unprecedented fashion, leading to an organized colonial
resistance in short order and setting in train an imperial crisis that wracked
the British Atlantic for over a decade. As Dora Mae Clark contends, the
“Americans immediately recognized the threat to their assemblies and their
legislative power.”76 The New Tories in the Grenville ministry and among the
wider ruling elite believed it essential to establish and to uphold the undimin-
ished sovereignty of Parliament over the American colonies, including the
ability to raise revenue without reference to colonial assemblies. If imperial
administration in the Atlantic colonies was no longer subject to the whims of
colonial elites and assemblies, Grenville argued that it would be able to “give
[the population] good Laws & good Government on the one hand & to exact
from them on the other hand that just obedience & Subordination which by
the original Compact of all Society is the Return due for it.”77 The political
centralization and militarization entailed in these New Tory imperial policies,
including the vast patronage resources in the colonies that accrued to the
British government as a result of them, would allow the imperial state to rule
the British Atlantic world without reference to colonial assemblies. The impe-
rial state would thus rule above colonial society instead of through it. The
resistance movement that arose in British North America was not primarily
motivated by the costs or regulations associated with the Grenville program,
but rather by opposition to the new political order that the program threat-
ened to establish in the colonies. The transformed imperial administration
would be responsive to the fiscal and military necessities of the metropole and
its ruling elite, not to the needs and aspirations of colonial society. While the
British political establishment was mostly unrepresentative of Great Britain,
it was wholly unrepresentative of colonial America.
During the early years of George III’s reign, the New Toryism sought to
uphold the absolute sovereignty of the King-in-Parliament political system
186 the making of the second british empire

over all the Crown’s subjects from Bristol to Boston. The New Tories aggres-
sively asserted the authority of the unreformed and unrepresentative parlia-
mentary political order, dominated by the aristocracy and greater gentry,
against the claims and demands of unruly subjects both at home and overseas.
When the colonial American resistance movement was organized, a second
front was opened up in the New Tory struggle against radical Whiggism. The
New Tories believed that Britain and its empire were threatened by popular
licentiousness and political radicalism, and thus that the aristocratic-oligarchic
state needed to be vigorously defended on both sides of the Atlantic.
Although the Grenville ministry fell from power in 1765 and the successor
Rockingham ministry repealed the Stamp Act in 1766, much of the new im-
perial program remained intact, and Parliament confirmed its absolute sover-
eignty over the American colonies with the passage of the Declaratory Act.
Furthermore, in 1767, imperial measures were passed by Parliament that
aimed to achieve the objectives of the Stamp Act by other means. This legisla-
tion was designed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend—
a New Tory politician who strongly advocated asserting greater metropolitan
authority over the colonies. The relative political and economic autonomy of
the colonies that existed during the period of “Salutary Neglect” was to be
replaced by an imperial state capable of ruling over and extracting wealth
from the colonists without the effective input of their assemblies and institu-
tions. The New Tories sought to transform the Atlantic colonies into a politi-
cally autocratic and economically extractive dominion. In aiming to bring the
colonies into due subordination, they provoked an imperial crisis and ulti-
mately the American Revolution.

It was in this context—that is, the shift of the New Toryism away from con-
cluding the Seven Years’ War toward confronting the war’s consequences and
transforming the character of British imperial expansion—that Clive initially
approached Grenville in order to enlist his services at East India House. Be-
tween 1757 and the early 1760s, Clive had lobbied Britain’s political class to
create a territorial empire on the Indian subcontinent. He insisted that the
consolidation of a durable political and military supremacy in Bengal was the
only viable way to secure the interests of the EIC and Britain in Asia. Begin-
ning in 1757, the Baron of Plassey developed an imperial project that aimed
to capture Bengal’s landed wealth for British interests. While the concerns of
Clive and Grenville initially revolved around short-term political and eco-
nomic interests—that is, the restoration of Clive’s jagir and Grenville’s need
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 187

to maintain and build a majority in Parliament—the crisis in Indian affairs

that emerged in 1763 soon transformed their relationship. The news that Mir
Qasim was leading an alliance of South Asian powers against the East India
Company generated widespread fear in the metropole. For the Grenville min-
istry, this upheaval represented one more in a series of crises that threatened
to unravel Britain’s imperial state.
In 1763, during the Clive-Rous alliance’s struggle to gain supremacy at
East India House and in the midst of the confrontation between the oligar-
chic order and bourgeois radicalism, Robert Orme, Clive’s ally and a former
EIC employee in Madras, published the first volume of his renowned History
of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan. Orme’s text,
which began with the year 1745, was both a work of remarkable historical
scholarship and a propagandistic set piece for the “heaven-born general’s”
imperial project. Clive’s military victories and daring exploits were chronicled
in detail for British domestic consumption, while the precarious nature of the
Company’s commercial settlements beyond the Cape of Good Hope served
as a background theme. Focusing on the natural wealth of Bengal and the
South Asian landmass in his introductory dissertation on the Mughal con-
quests, Orme contended that the immense fertility and productivity of the
subcontinent left its indigenous population in a precarious position.78 “But
not content with the presents which nature has showered on their climate,
they have made improvements when they felt no necessities,” the EIC histo-
riographer observed; “they have cultivated the various and valuable produc-
tions of their soil, not to the measure of their own but to that of the wants of
all other nations; they have carried their manufactures of linnen to a perfec-
tion which surpasses the most exquisite productions of Europe, and have
encouraged with avidity the annual tribute of gold and silver which the rest
of the world contest for the privilege of sending them.” Despite the potential
benefits of this situation, Orme contended that Bengal’s vast wealth left
the indigenous population weak, indolent, and “from time immemorial as
addicted to commerce, as they are averse to war.” Orme described to the Brit-
ish reading public what he believed to be the central problem of Indian soci-
ety, insisting that “they have always been immensely rich, and have always
remained incapable of defending their wealth.” While the Company histori-
ographer contended that the indigenous population’s only desire was “that
others should have looked on them with the same indifference with which
they regarded the rest of the world,” he spent three volumes demonstrating
that such a wish could never be fulfilled.79 The dissolution of the Mughal
188 the making of the second british empire

Empire, as well as the geopolitical ambitions of France and other European

powers, left the subcontinent vulnerable to exploitation and depredation.
At the center of Orme’s narrative were the heroic deeds of Clive, the EIC
military commander with whom he worked closely throughout the 1750s and
early 1760s. In many ways, Orme’s magisterial history served as a literary ex-
pression of the ideological vision that Clive forcefully advanced in the busi-
ness and political circles of London. According to this vision, British imperial
authority was capable of providing the just and paternalist protection neces-
sary for Bengal’s indolent and feeble but nevertheless naturally productive
society. In return for securing northeastern India from the machinations of
perfidious Asian and European predators, Britain could expect unlimited
access to its bountiful riches.
When news of the Company’s war with Bengal’s Nawab reached London
in late 1763 and early 1764, the widespread fear it engendered revived Clive’s
imperial ambitions. The political-economic crisis generated by this conflict as
well as by the wider problems of postwar finance, domestic radicalism, and
Atlantic imperial regulation was the background against which Clive allied
with Grenville to coordinate the takeover of East India House and to return
the military commander to Bengal. Clive’s territorial-imperialist ambitions
and Grenville’s struggle to solve the crisis of the British state cemented a firm
partnership between them. The Clivites required the political support of the
ministry to overcome Laurence Sulivan’s entrenched position at East India
House, and the ministry desperately needed to stabilize the EIC’s position in
Bengal and to find alternative and politically viable sources of revenue.
There were obvious reasons why Grenville’s administration would sup-
port any political project that promised to stabilize the Company’s position in
India. As a monied corporation with a large stake in the national debt, and as
a publicly traded company whose highly sought-after stock played an impor-
tant role in the London financial market, the EIC was a crucial component
of the fiscal-military state. Whenever its position beyond the Cape of Good
Hope was precarious, the ministry of the day inevitably supported the corpo-
ration to the fullest extent possible. Beyond this obvious element, the Clivite
program held additional attractions for Grenville’s circle. This program
sought to consolidate the Company’s territorial empire in Bengal and, in do-
ing so, to increase commercial profits while capturing provincial land reve-
nue. Such profits and revenue would flow into EIC coffers back home, and
thereby secure a key public creditor during a fiscal crisis. Furthermore, such
profits and revenue would make additional funds available to the EIC—funds
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 189

that might be used to make loans to the government. The growth of the cor-
poration’s profits and revenue would lead to increased shareholder dividends.
The Company’s leading shareholders were London’s elite merchants and
financiers, who were the most important subscribers to government loans.
The ministry could expect to benefit from expanding the income at the City
elite’s disposal.
Beyond stabilizing the EIC’s position in Asia and providing revenue for
various metropolitan interests, the Clivite project’s aim to consolidate a mili-
tarized garrison state in Bengal also held out the prospect of a self-financing
patronage empire. In order to improve public credit without raising taxes,
Grenville and the New Tories were under pressure at home to reduce govern-
ment patronage and to cut back on public expenditure. If the Company was
able to establish a territorial empire on the Indian subcontinent, the vast
number of administrative and military positions entailed in governing such
an empire would provide crucial patronage resources for the ministry. Such
resources would not require government or EIC expenditure, but rather
would be financed by the land revenue acquired with political dominion in
Bengal. All in all, territorial imperialism in northeastern India promised to
provide fiscal benefits, geopolitical security, and self-financing patronage for
the British government precisely when it most needed them.
Clive’s project also promised to address the problems posed by the exten-
sive commercial interests and political radicalism of Company servants and
British private traders. As we saw in chapter 3, the expansion of British private
trade throughout Bengal in the aftermath of Plassey destabilized the EIC’s
relations with the nawabi regime and ultimately ushered in the war with Mir
Qasim. The Grenville-Clive alliance believed that the rampant commercial-
ism of the Company’s employees threatened not only the oligarchic order and
fiscal-military state in which the corporation played a crucial role, but also the
EIC’s very existence. Grenville and the New Tories viewed the pursuit of pri-
vate interests by the Company’s employees as another instance of the degener-
ate luxury and licentiousness that was inundating Britain and its Atlantic
empire. From this perspective, the EIC’s insubordinate servants in Bengal
were no different from smugglers on the Atlantic, rebellious colonial subjects
in North America, or incendiary radical Whigs and Wilkesites in Britain it-
self. The New Tories contended that the activities of all these groups reflected
the political licentiousness that accompanied commercial and industrial ad-
vance. The Grenville-Clive alliance viewed the assertiveness of the Company’s
servants as a product of the vast expansion of British trade in post-Plassey
190 the making of the second british empire

Bengal. The Clivites contended that a militarized garrison state in northeast-

ern India would curb the insubordination of Company servants and private
traders.
Molded by the Grenville ministry, Clive’s militarism would rein in the
commercial decadence enveloping Bengal, parry all indigenous and European
threats, and transform the EIC into an autocratic and tributary territorial
empire responsible for remitting revenue back to various metropolitan inter-
ests. By the time Clive arrived in India in April 1765, Mir Qasim and his allies
had been defeated and British forces were in complete control of Bengal. The
Baron of Plassey sought to transform this situation into a durable political and
military supremacy, writing a letter to Chairman Thomas Rous effectively
informing him that the Company would soon be a sovereign state in India:
Can it then be doubted that a large Army of Europeans would effectu-
ally preserve to us the Sovereignty, as I may call it, not only by keeping
in Awe the Ambition of any Country Prince, but by rendering us
so truly formidable, that no French, Dutch, or other Enemy could
ever dare to molest us? . . . We must indeed become the Nabobs
ourselves in Fact, if not in Name, perhaps totally so without Disguise,
but on this Subject I cannot be positive until my arrival at Bengal. Let
us, and without delay, compleat our three European Regiments to one
thousand each. Such an Army together with five hundred light Horse,
3 or 4 Companies of Artillery, and the Troops of the Country will
absolutely render us invincible. In short, if Riches and Stability are the
Objects of the Company, this is the Method, the only Method we now
have for attaining and securing them.80
Central to Clive’s vision of a militarized Company State was a “Plan of Refor-
mation” for the Bengal presidency’s civil department. “Rapacity and Luxury;
the unreasonable desire of many to acquire in an Instant, what only a few can,
or ought to possess” were, Clive contended, the reigning vices in the corpora-
tion’s Calcutta administration, and “every man would be rich and without the
Merits of long Service and from this incessant Competition undoubtedly
springs that Disorder to which we must apply a Remedy, or be undone, for it
is not only malignant but contagious.”81 Clive wielded the extraordinary civil-
ian and military powers at the disposal of the Select Committee—powers
obtained with the support of the Grenville ministry—to carry out a series
of purges in the Company’s Calcutta presidency.82 “You will learn what Strug-
gles are making throughout this Settlement for what the Gentlemen called
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 191

Independency,” the Baron of Plassey wrote to Orme in February 1766. “I call

it Licentiousness and a struggle whether the immense Revenues of Bengal,
Bahar and Orissa shall go into the Pockets of Individuals or the Company.”83
Clive was committed to consolidating an imperial state that curbed the inde-
pendence of EIC servants and that remitted Bengal’s revenue to the Company’s
headquarters in London. “I do declare, by that Great Being who is the searcher
of all hearts,” he informed John Carnac, “that I am come out with a mind su-
perior to all corruption, and that I am determined to destroy those great and
growing evils, or perish in the attempt.”84
Clive carried out his “Plan of Reformation” in Calcutta and implemented
a series of measures designed to create a paternalist corps of salaried bureau-
crats and officers. This corps was meant to rule, not to profit. By dismissing
from office “corrupt” and “degenerate” members of the corporation’s service,
Clive hoped to lift the EIC’s administration out of the sphere of circulation.
“The Court of Directors must supply the Settlement with young men more
moderate, or less eager in their pursuit of Wealth,” he informed Rous in 1765,
“and we may perhaps be reduced to the necessity of drawing some Senior
Servants from the other Settlements.” Rather than employing mere mechan-
ics or tradesmen, the Baron of Plassey insisted that the EIC’s directors “must
. . . do all in your Power to send out proper Gentlemen.”85 These gentlemanly
administrators were to rule above colonial society instead of through it, un-
corrupted by commercialism and licentiousness. Although Clive’s second
Bengal governorship only lasted from 1765 to 1767, he was nevertheless able
to lay down the basic contours of a New Tory civil service that administered
the Company State and that ensured the transfer of Bengal’s revenue to
London’s mercantile and financial elite.
Clive’s acquisition of the diwani was integral to the New Tory imperial
project. His decision to obtain the land revenue of northeastern India, thus
transforming the EIC into a tributary territorial empire, was not undertaken
solely in response to irresistible sub-imperialist pressures. It was also intended
to serve a metropolitan political project that aimed to reduce the national
debt, to improve public credit, and to stave off the challenge posed to the
oligarchic order by political radicalism. “Give me leave to call to your Re-
membrance some discourse we had together about the Company’s affairs (in
which the Honor and Interest of our Nation was so much concern’d) and to
inform You I have now the particular Satisfaction of seeing the great Object
of my Wishes nearly accomplished,” Clive declared to Grenville after receiv-
ing the diwani from the Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II in 1765:
192 the making of the second british empire

[t]he enclosed Copy of my Letter to the Court of Directors and a

Map of Bengal with some Marginal Explanations will open to you a
full view of the present great & florishing Condition of our East India
Compy & then how near it was to destruction from Corruption
Extortion and Luxury, if You have leisure and Inclination to be further
acquainted with our Transactions, Mr. Walsh has Orders from me to
lay before You our Proceedings. May what we are about, in times
of Distress and Necessity, contribute towards lessening the Debt of the
Nation. If You imagine the King can find Amusement in perusing any
of these Papers or some particular Friends whom You can trust I shall
have no Objection. I hope by this Years Conveyance to send you a
particular Account of the Revenues of the Provinces which put under
proper Management cannot fall short of 4 millions per Annum
[emphasis mine].86
By acquiring the diwani from the Emperor, Clive finally fulfilled the
imperial ambitions he had first developed in the aftermath of Plassey. As the
Mughal’s Diwan, the EIC controlled the vast territorial revenue of Bengal and
consolidated a durable political and military supremacy in northeastern In-
dia. While the nawabi regime remained formally responsible for Bengal’s
internal policing and external defense, in reality it was a mere shadow of
its former self. The Nawab was now fully dependent on the Company,
which maintained a tax-office state devoted to extracting revenue from the
province’s peasantry.
A few weeks after acquiring the diwani, Clive wrote to Grenville once
again—this time including well wishes for the ministry’s continuing struggle
against Wilkes—and contended that his efforts to consolidate a territorial
empire and to curb the licentiousness and private trade of EIC servants were
closely aligned with the prime minister’s struggles to resolve the crisis of post-
war finance and to stave off the challenge posed by political radicalism:
Engaged as I hope You are in conducting the competent Concerns of
the Nation, I can hardly expect You should find Leisure to enter mi-
nutely into the Affairs of these distant Provinces, and yet when I con-
sider how far the Interests of Great Britain are connected with those of
the East India Company, I am confident that your Zealous Attachment
to the former, will not suffer You to be indifferent to the latter. . . . You
will have acquired a clear Idea of the Corruption, as well as of the
Riches of this Country. Agreeable to my Promise, I send You by this
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 193

Conveyance a Sketch of the Revenues of these Provinces, the exactness

of which, You may depend upon, and likewise a Copy of my Letter to
the Court of Directors. . . . The Labors of the Field, in which the early
part of my Life was so much employed, I look back upon as Trifles
compared to what I have undertaken by this expedition. The Country
indeed is settled in Peace, but Corruption and Licentiousness have such
strong Hold of the British Inhabitants, that I almost despair of effect-
ing that Reformation which is so absolutely requisite, for the Prosperity
of the Company’s Affairs. In short, unless the present Court of Direc-
tors support me in the Measures I have here pursued, I am certain that
the immense Revenues and Commerce of Bengal must either be soon
totally lost to the English, or taken in hand by You; of these two Evils I
wish the last, but I will labor to prevent both. Your Second Victory in
the Question relating to the General Warrants, has, I hope, effectually
cooled the heat of Opposition. My own situation makes me often think
of the vexation and fatigue of yours.87
When Clive set sail from Britain in June 1764, he was traveling to Bengal not
merely to stabilize the British position in South Asia but also to command the
eastern front in the war being waged against radical Whiggism.
The New Tories viewed the imperial crises in India and America as the
result of the rampant commercialism and increasing independence of British
subjects operating on the colonial periphery. In response, Grenville and his
collaborators both implemented the Atlantic imperial reforms that ultimately
provoked the American Revolution and intervened powerfully in the Com-
pany’s election in order to ensure that Clive was returned to Bengal. Grenville
informed Clive in 1766 that “the Scenes of Corruption on the one Hand &
Licentiousness on the other which have been opened in the East Indies, have
been at least as notorious in the other Parts of His Majesty’s Dominions, &
will I much fear be Attended with the same unhappy Consequences in all.”88
According to the New Toryism, the dilemmas of the British Empire were the
dilemmas of domestic politics writ large: the licentiousness and rampant self-
interest generated by commercial and industrial advance threatened to topple
the entire imperial edifice.
In 1765 Clive informed the EIC’s directors of his plans for a paternalist
officer corps designed to replace the “degenerate” Company servants that he
confronted upon arriving in Calcutta: “The sudden, and among many, the
unwarrantable acquisitions of wealth, had introduced luxury in every shape,
194 the making of the second british empire

and in its most pernicious excess. These two enormous evils went hand in
hand together through the whole Presidency, infecting almost every member
of each department. Every inferiour seemed to have grasped at wealth, that he
might be enabled to assume the spirit of profusion which was now the only
distinction between him and his superior. Thus all distinction ceased, and
every rank became in a manner upon an equality. . . . You will be pleased
upon the whole, to observe, the great object of my labor has been (and it must
also be yours) to stop that torrent of luxury, corruption and licentiousness
which have nearly overwhelmed the interest, and I might add, the existence
of the Company in these parts[.]”89 As part of his effort to erect an autocratic
imperial state, Clive established commodity monopolies and reformed the
army.90 British Bengal would not be allowed to slide into the luxury, deca-
dence, and licentiousness of an advanced commercial society, nor would it be
included within the maritime “empire of liberty.”
Clive’s acquisition of the diwani and his consolidation of a militarized gar-
rison state in Bengal were the South Asian equivalent of the British Atlantic
imperial measures implemented in North America to subdue the licentious-
ness and rebelliousness of the colonial population. The New Tory imperialism
sought to establish autocratic states in both North America and South Asia
responsible for remitting revenue back to the metropole. This revenue, in
turn, was intended to reduce the national debt, to improve public credit, and
to stave off the challenges posed by radical Whiggism. In both cases, the sub-
jection of the colonial periphery was to pave the way for the subjection of the
metropole.
When Grenville finally received news regarding the diwani in 1766, he was
no longer in power. Nevertheless, the former prime minister was extremely
pleased. “You will have heard long before this can reach You of the Various
Changes which have been made in His Majestys Administration after Your
Departure for the East Indies in Consequence of which for some time past I
have had nothing to do with the Public Busyness except only to vindicate my
own Honor & Character, to Continue to Support in Parliament the same
Measures & Plan out of office, which I pursued whilest I had the Honor to
serve the King & the Public[,]” Grenville informed Clive; “[w]ith this view I
have endeavourd to promote as far as I have been able that Plan which was
formd for the Direction of the East India Company’s affairs at the Time when
You set out for India to execute the very difficult Task which you had under-
taken, & which You justly tell me You find harder to go thro’ with than those
glorious Labors of the Field in which the early Part of Your Life was so much
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 195

employd.” The former prime minister perused the notes on the diwani pro-
vided to him by Walsh and remarked to Clive that “they Contain the Stron-
gest Proofs of the Infinite Importance which your late Treaty & the Acquisitions
confirmed by it are of to the Company, & thro’ them to the Public; I say thro’
them because however desirous I may be to lessen that Burthen of the Public
Debt under which we are Sinking, Yet You will find me at Your Return as You
left me, desirous to do it by legal & just means, & not by the Violation of
Charters, & of the Public Faith, on the Strict Preservation of which our last
Hopes, must, I think depend.”91 Although Grenville supported the consolida-
tion of a tributary empire on the Indian subcontinent, he believed that all the
territory and revenue should remain under the EIC’s control.
While Clive had emphasized the potential for the direct transfer of Ben-
gal’s wealth to the British state since 1759, Grenville insisted that such wealth
be used to buttress the Company and the elite merchants and financiers who
stood at its helm. The wealth of India would eventually be made available to
the British state through the public loans and grants provided by EIC direc-
tors and shareholders as well as through the vast self-financing patronage re-
sources entailed in a territorial empire. The origins and early formation of
British India were deeply bound up with the crises and conflicts that spanned
across Britain and its global empire. The Raj was not born in “a fit of absence
of mind,” but rather in a political struggle that sought to determine the future
evolution of Britain’s state and society.
Instead of simply seizing Bengal’s territorial revenue in the Company’s
name, Clive insisted on acquiring the Mughal Emperor’s diwani. This grant
helped to ensure what the Grenville ministry had insisted on: namely, that the
EIC remain in control of the Indian territory and revenue acquired. Any
metropolitan political effort undertaken to expropriate the Company or its
territorial possessions would face greater difficulties if the EIC maintained its
empire within the framework of Mughal sovereignty and indigenous author-
ity. Five days before writing to Grenville regarding the diwani, the Baron of
Plassey penned a happy missive to his father, Richard Clive, proudly pro-
claiming: “I have been up the Country 700 Miles and been very Conversant
with his Majesty the Great Mogull [who] hath made me one of [the] first
Omroys or Nabob of his Empire[.] I have Concluded a peace for the Com-
pany which I hope will Last and obtained from the King a grant of A Revenue
of Two Millions Sterling p Ann for them for ever and what is more I have put
them in a way of Securing this Immense Revenue in Such a manner as it’s
almost Impossible to Deprive the Company of it at Least for some years to
196 the making of the second british empire

Come.”92 The creation of the EIC’s territorial empire within the traditional
framework of Mughal sovereignty—the framework of the diwani grant—was
crucial for the Grenville-Clive New Tory imperial project.
With the acquisition of the diwani, the Company’s transformation into a
territorial empire on the Indian subcontinent was irreversible. Although some
were deeply troubled by Grenville’s Atlantic imperial reforms and by Clive’s
consolidation of a militarized garrison state on the Indian subcontinent, the
oligarchic order rallied around the New Tory imperialism during the 1760s
and early 1770s. When Grenville fell from power in July 1765, the Marquis of
Rockingham became prime minister. Rockingham led the remnant of the Old
Corps Whigs and attempted to defend the policies of the pre-1760 Whig es-
tablishment against both radical Whiggism and New Toryism.93 While the
new ministry inveighed against George III’s “arbitrary measures” and repealed
the Stamp Act in March 1766, Rockingham and his allies were nevertheless
committed to the absolute supremacy of Parliament over the American colo-
nies.94 Such views were embodied in the Declaratory Act, which passed at the
time of the Stamp Act’s repeal and upheld the unlimited sovereignty of Parlia-
ment in British North America. The Rockingham ministry repealed the Stamp
Act for strategic reasons—resistance to the stamp duty was widespread in
North America and colonial non-importation agreements were crippling Brit-
ish manufacturers and merchants who depended on overseas markets—but
the Declaratory Act reinforced the legal and political principles that under-
pinned Grenville’s imperial reforms.
In the arena of Indian affairs, the Rockingham ministry supported the Cliv-
ites and their imperial reforms in Bengal. “I have not discovered that the pres-
ent ministry have any intention to support any interest in Leadenhall Street
contrary to that of Lord Clive & his friends,” Orme informed Colonial Rich-
ard Smith. Rockingham’s circle refused to back any challenge to the supremacy
of Clive’s allies within East India House and believed that the military com-
mander’s strong-arm tactics were necessary to preserve British interests in South
Asia. During a chance encounter with Lord Rockingham at the residence of a
mutual friend, Orme was able to gauge the prime minister’s opinions on India
policy. “Much was said concerning Lord Clive; & Lord Rockingham as a kind
of conclusion said that although he had lately differed from Lord Clive in his
political conduct in English affairs, yet he should never oppose his interests in
those of India, esteeming him the most capable man of re-establishing them,”
Orme remarked, informing Colonel Smith that “I am well acquainted with
Mr. Bourke Lord Rockingham’s secretary & will endeavour to operate through
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 197

that channel, whenever I hear of any thing which may have a tendency to op-
pose the views of Lord Clive, either at home or abroad.”95 While Rockingham
and his allies were concerned with the growing power of the Crown in British
politics, they did little to challenge the New Tory imperialism in Bengal.

In the late 1760s and early 1770s, well after news of the diwani and the con-
solidation of a territorial empire on the Indian subcontinent reached the
metropole, the opposition of political radicals to the East India Company and
its monopoly joint-stock organization was renewed. A congeries of radical
bourgeois elements—ranging from manufacturers and outport merchants to
Pittite politicians and London shopkeepers—opposed not only the Compa-
ny’s chartered privileges but also its control of Britain’s burgeoning empire in
India. While many radical Whigs had opposed the EIC’s imperial aggrandize-
ment from the late 1750s to the mid-1760s, after the acquisition of the diwani
their criticism of the corporation transformed. No longer opposed to territo-
rial imperialism in and of itself, these radicals now sought to transform the
relationship between the British Empire and its Indian provinces. Radical
Whigs called for the expropriation of the EIC and the incorporation of its
South Asian territories into Britain’s maritime “empire of liberty.” They
wanted Bengal to be brought under the direct supervision of the parliamen-
tary state and to be integrated into a liberal empire.
While radical Whigs were concerned with reducing the national debt
and with increasing the revenue at the disposal of the British government, they
were nevertheless opposed to the extractive political economy and monopolis-
tic trading practices of the Company’s regime in Bengal. They sought to trans-
fer the EIC’s territories to the British state and to abolish the corporation’s
chartered privileges.96 Radical Whigs believed that these changes would initi-
ate a process of commercial exploitation and economic expansion in north-
eastern India capable of generating far greater revenue than the extractive
Company regime supported by New Tory ministers. One radical pamphleteer
contended that
as the Fountain and only true Resource of Advantages to this manufac-
turing and trading Nation is Commerce, nothing great can be done for
the Interest of Subject and State, towards paying off the national Debt,
and taking off Taxes, but what will necessarily result from a due En-
couragement of Trade; by abolishing all Monopolies, and laying open
the Trade to the East Indies, in particular. . . . I have endeavoured, in
198 the making of the second british empire

two Pamphlets, to shew the Necessity for laying open the Trade to the
East Indies, and abolishing all Monopolies; in order to give greater
Encouragement to Manufactures, and extend Commerce to such a
Degree as to make the Nation flourish by the natural Consequences.
For these are the only true Means of encreasing the public Revenue so
considerably as to provide gradually for the vast Debt of the Nation,
to enable the Government to take off the numerous burthensome
Taxes imposed upon the Public, which greatly oppress the industrious,
and occasion that Dissatisfaction which is universally complained of.97
The radicals shared many of the New Tories’ concerns with reducing the na-
tional debt and the burden of taxation, but they put forward a fundamentally
different political economy of empire for doing so. Rather than emphasizing
the acquisition of ever-greater territorial revenue, they sought to transform the
British dominion in Bengal into part of the maritime “empire of liberty.” Rad-
ical Whigs contended that, if the EIC’s monopoly was abolished and Euro-
pean settlers were allowed to establish colonial plantations in northeastern
India, British trade to Asia—in particular, the exportation of British manufac-
tures—would dramatically increase. In the late 1760s and early 1770s, the
radicals’ long-standing objective of opening up British trade to the East Indies
was transformed into a vision of liberal imperialism that sought to reform the
extractive, despotic, and military character of the Indian empire.
In a treatise on Indian affairs published in 1772, the radical Whig and East
India merchant William Bolts eloquently set forth this liberal vision for British
rule in the East. While radicals had long argued for free trade to Asia, Bolts
contended that the EIC’s imperial acquisitions added an entirely new dimen-
sion to the problem. “The Sovereign of Great Britain is now an Asiatic Poten-
tate . . . [h]is present objects should be far superior to those of merely
supporting the monopoly of any particular community of traders, who perhaps
are no longer necessary for serving even the ends for which they were incorpo-
rated,” the radical Whig argued; “[t]he question now is not simply, if an incor-
porated exclusive Company can carry on the trade to and from the East Indies
to greater national advantage than the whole subjects of Great Britain at large?
but it comprehends another, [can the Company] govern or conduct the Sover-
eignty of large wealthy and populous kingdoms, at such a distance, to greater
national security and advantage than the King, Lords and Commons of Great
Britain?” While Bolts contended that it would be “right to lay the trade open
to all British subjects [and] politic, under certain limitations, to encourage as
 the new toryism and the imperial reaction 199

much as possible even the ships of all other European nations to frequent
those Indian ports,” he believed that a commercial monopolist such as the EIC
would never pursue this policy. Only Britain’s parliamentary state, responsive
to public opinion and committed to national prosperity, was capable of realiz-
ing the true interests of British imperial rule in India. For radicals such as Bolts,
those interests entailed the creation of political-economic institutions that were
concerned not with maximizing the short-term profits of a commercial com-
pany, but with maximizing long-term economic growth via the systematic ex-
pansion of Bengal’s commercial and productive capacities. He predicted dire
consequences for the vibrant trading and manufacturing world of Bengal if the
emerging empire remained a territorial-absolutist state owned by a mercantile
monopoly. “It will be generally granted, that a commercial country with a des-
potic Sovereign who is the only merchant, must be in a situation the reverse of
prosperity, that of swift approach to ruin,” the radical Whig remarked, “and if
it be admitted, that all the resources which this nation can hope to reap from
those subjected dominions, must depend entirely on their prosperity, it will
then follow that there is become an absolute necessity for the British legislature
to separate the Merchant from the Sovereign, for the preservation of both.”98
Thus the radical critique of the Company entered a new and fundamentally
post-imperial phase in the later 1760s and 1770s.
The diwani grant made the radicals’ objectives difficult to achieve, as it
allowed the EIC to claim that its territorial dominion actually belonged to the
Mughal Empire and would therefore be lost to Britain if the corporation was
expropriated. The dual system established by Clive, in which the Company
ruled Bengal under the Mughal grant with the nawabi regime still intact, was
intended to serve metropolitan purposes as much as subcontinental ones. For
it not only gave the British corporation the guise of indigenous authority in its
struggles with European and Asian competitors but also provided a weapon
with which to fend off any challenges to its imperial rule mounted by domestic
radicals. Bolts grasped this political dynamic when he wrote that “there is
something excessively ridiculous in the very idea of vesting a body of mere trad-
ers with unlimited sovereign authority, and setting them between the real Sov-
ereign and people of this kingdom, and two mock Sovereigns and the whole
people of the Bengal provinces, to play securely their own game of advantage,
to the prejudice of all the other parties.”99 In place of this neo-traditional rule
in which the Company despotically governed India within the framework of
Mughal authority, Bolts advocated a radically liberal imperialism. He believed
that Bengal should be directly ruled by Britain’s parliamentary state and that
200 the making of the second british empire

it should be integrated into a global British empire of trade and colonial

settlement.
During the later 1750s and 1760s, radical Whigs sought to extend the
maritime “empire of liberty” to the furthest reaches of the globe and to reform
Britain’s oligarchic order. In response to the political-economic crisis afflict-
ing Britain and its empire, as well as to the challenge posed by radical Whig-
gism, the New Tory political project emerged during the early years of George
III’s reign to uphold the status quo in state and society. As part and parcel of
this effort to preserve the unreformed and unrepresentative parliamentary
political system, the New Tory project transformed Britain’s maritime “em-
pire of liberty” into an empire of conquest, dominion, and tribute. Although
many hoped that the young king’s accession would inaugurate an era of re-
form, the 1760s and 1770s instead witnessed the unfolding of an imperial re-
action that stretched from Boston to Bombay. Radical Whigs challenged the
consolidation of this imperial reaction, but their efforts met with little suc-
cess. The failure of these bourgeois radicals to prevent or to roll back the New
Tory project ultimately led to the outbreak of the American Revolution in
1775 and, with it, the breakup of the First British Empire. The First Empire
was born during the English Revolution in the year 1651, and its death cer-
tificate was issued during the imperial reaction in the year 1765.
 chapter 6

he Triumph of the New Toryism and the

Spirit of the Second British Empire

In the 1760s and 1770s, radical Whig views were given little hearing in the
halls of power. The oligarchic order was largely supportive of the New Tory
imperialism advocated by the likes of George Grenville and Robert Clive, and
the foundations of the Second British Empire were laid down. This general
trend was briefly interrupted in July 1766 with the formation of the Chatham
administration. William Pitt, now the Earl of Chatham, regained power amid
interminable political conflicts and ministerial reshufflings, and set out to
create a national unity government similar to the one he had led with the
Duke of Newcastle in the late 1750s. Although committed Rockinghamites
such as Henry Conway and moderate Whigs such as the Duke of Grafton
dominated the ministry, Pitt’s radical Whig allies now had a voice in policy
debates and proposals.
The radicals that were allied with the Chatham ministry advocated a
range of measures designed to transform the oligarchic order and the British
Empire. While the New Tories were committed to preserving the unreformed
and landed parliamentary state and to consolidating an autocratic and tribu-
tary empire in North America and South Asia, radical Whigs wanted to re-
form the parliamentary political order and to expand Britain’s maritime
“empire of liberty.” These radicals sought to remold domestic and imperial
institutions in order to make them more suited to Britain’s dynamic commer-
cial and manufacturing society. During the early days of the ministry, the

201
202 the making of the second british empire

Earl of Shelburne, a Secretary of State and a radical Whig convert, was busy
gathering together proposals for solving the crises afflicting Britain’s state and
society.
Shelburne was deeply critical of the oligarchic order, and open to radical
ideas and opinions. His secretary, Maurice Morgann, contended that “the
House of Commons is, by Degree, become almost wholly Aristocratical” and
“the Septennial Parliament having rendered the Burroughs, and indeed in a
great Measure the Counties, the Subjects of Pecuniary Calculation and Barter,
they have naturally fallen into the Hands of the Aristocratical Part of the
Constitution, who are the most interested in extinguishing a Popular Party
and Erecting their own Power on its Ruins.”1 Morgann believed that the prob-
lems of the era stemmed from the growth of aristocratic-oligarchic power, and
that the only solution was for the ministry to mobilize extra-parliamentary
political sentiment in support of radical measures designed to resolve the
political-economic crisis of Britain and its empire. He advised Shelburne
to “act popularly” in order to bring external pressure to bear on the political
establishment:
There must, in the present Conditions of Things, be another Party
formed by very different men and upon very different Principles. The
Stockholders, The Merchants & Traders, the great trading Cities,
the great Number of independent men in England, and, let me add,
the Artizans of England, who are not speculatively only, but practically
free, are sufficient (tho’ their Influence may be without Doors only) to
support a popular Party[.] . . . The Leaders of this Party will be formed
of Men, who conscious of their own worth & ability, will disdain to be
weighed in an Aristocratical Balance, but who will step forth into the
Notice of the Public and Challenge the general Confidence & Esteem.
In order to maintain this Station, they must be men of real ability &
Established Characters. They must support themselves by real Services
to the Public, and they must manifest the most tender Regard to the
Law and the Constitution. In short, they must (politically at least)
become good Patriots that they may continue real Ministers.2
Morgann and other radicals aimed to win support for the Chatham ministry’s
measures in the public sphere and from among the urban middling sort as
well as elements of the plebeian classes. They believed that such “popularity”
might help them to enact the extensive reforms they viewed as necessary for
resolving the problems threatening Britain and its empire.
 the triumph of the new toryism 203

While radical Whigs were stridently opposed to New Tory policies, they
did not advocate a return to the pre-1760 political status quo. Unlike the
Rockinghamites and other moderate Whigs who defended the policies of the
old Whig establishment against the innovations of George III and Grenville,
radical Whigs sought to transform domestic and imperial institutions in a
liberal direction. Morgann himself was a bitter critic of Grenville’s Atlantic
imperial measures and was sympathetic to colonial American claims regard-
ing taxation and representation. Whereas the New Tories were committed to
an extractive political economy that served the short-term fiscal interests of
Britain’s oligarchic order, radical Whigs upheld a liberal political economy
that emphasized the long-term gains to be had from continuing commercial
and industrial expansion.
During the early phase of the Chatham ministry, when radical and re-
formist ideas were circulating among politicians and their supporters beyond
the halls of power, the prime minister and his allies prepared for a parliamen-
tary inquiry into the East India Company’s affairs. Pitt informed Grafton in
the summer of 1766 that his ministry must address “E. India affairs,” which
he considered “the greatest of all objects, according to my sense of great.”3
The dominant Namierite interpretation of this parliamentary inquiry con-
tends that there was nothing at stake in it other than the British government’s
effort to win a portion of the EIC’s Indian revenues for itself. “Chatham’s
motives in instituting this inquiry were financial rather than political, and
governed by expediency rather than principle,” John Brooke remarks; “he did
not intend any fundamental change in the structure of the Company or in its
relations with the State.”4 Such a view fails to take into account the wide-
ranging political-economic debates of the period, as well as the radical Whig
critique of the EIC. Namierite interpretation does not apprehend the central
thrust of radical Whig politics with regard to the emerging British empire in
India—namely, its goal of integrating the Indian acquisitions into a liberal
empire of trade and colonial settlement.5
The East India inquiry was initially organized not only to win revenue for
the state, thereby decreasing the national debt and the burden of taxation, but
also as an attempt to systematically transform the political-economic character
of British imperialism in India. The question was not one of revenue simply
put, but rather the means by which this revenue was to be generated and trans-
ferred to the British state. Grenville and his New Tory allies supported the
Company’s control of the Indian territories and the transfer of land revenue to
corporate coffers (and, thus, to London’s elite merchants and financiers), and
204 the making of the second british empire

sought to secure an EIC-controlled garrison state devoted to conveying a por-

tion of Bengal’s wealth to Britain’s oligarchic order. In opposition to this posi-
tion, radical Whigs wanted to expropriate the Company, to bring Bengal
under the direct control of the parliamentary state, and to extend British trade
and plantation settlement throughout the region. They wanted to use the land
revenue of Bengal to provide the public infrastructure necessary for expanding
the province’s commercial and industrial capacities. In the case of Britain’s
burgeoning Indian empire, New Tory political economy emphasized short-
term fiscal extraction while radical Whig political economy focused on the
potential for long-term economic growth.
Pitt signaled his support for radical Whig ideas and proposals by placing
William Beckford in charge of the East India inquiry in the House of Com-
mons.6 As we saw in chapter 2, Beckford was a long-standing critic of the
Company and even launched a challenge to its commercial monopoly in 1758
in the midst of the Seven Years’ War. He was one of London’s leading radical
Whigs, and his antipathy to the EIC and its control of Britain’s Indian empire
was well known. Brooke observes that “if a settlement was intended which
was to satisfy both Crown and Company, this was a regrettable and irrespon-
sible choice, but for an all-out attack on the Company the choice of Beckford
was an unmistakable sign of Chatham’s intentions.”7 Beckford wanted to
abolish the Company’s chartered privileges and to bring its Indian territories
under the direct control of the British state. Several conservative observers
feared that Beckford’s role in the inquiry signaled the Chatham ministry’s
intention (or, at the very least, Pitt’s intention) to make radical changes in the
long-standing relationship between the EIC and the state. “The East India
Busyness I am told engrosses all conversation in Town & grows very serious,”
Grenville informed his brother in September 1766, “tho people can hardly
believe notwithstanding the threats thrown out to the Directors & the lan-
guage holden by Adln Beckford so that after what pass’d last year with regard
to North America & the West Indies, They will this year break thro the Char-
ter of the East Indies wch was purchas’d by the company & has been repeat-
edly confirm’d by many solemn acts of Parlt.” Grenville angrily concluded
that “this wd be a strike indeed worthy of their wisdom & consistency & wch
will be a proper crown to the whole.”8 The former prime minister’s concerns
were not unfounded.
The radical Whig critique of the EIC and its imperial state moved from
the public sphere into the halls of power early on in the Chatham administra-
tion. “There is not, I believe, a single Englishman, & who is moderately verse
 the triumph of the new toryism 205

in the History of his Country, who has observed the Course of public affairs
for some years past,” Morgann informed Shelburne as they worked on pro-
posals for the reform of the empire, “who does not apprehend some national
Misfortune and see a thousand Evils approaching very fast from all Quarters
to involve this Country in Misery, perhaps in Destruction.”9 Morgann was
convinced that vast reforms were necessary in British imperial affairs, particu-
larly with regard to the Company’s extractive political economy and milita-
rized garrison state in Bengal:
The desperate state of our affairs in India will next deserve our
Attention. Bengall (the only valuable Province there) is this Moment at
Stake, and perhaps torn from our Possession—impatient of the slow
tho’ certain Acquisitions of Commerce we have exchanged Industry for
Violence, and Trade for Plunder and Rapine. A Company established
upon mercantile Principles is most preposterously become Military.
This Company can acquire by Conquest no new Advantage, except a
territorial Revenue, which will in all Probability be insufficient to
support a Military Establishment. In the Mean Time the Officers it
employs will by various Arts and Exactions drain the Country of that
Wealth which might have purchased our Manufactures and thereby
have increased our Numbers and our Trade; instead of which the
Natives of India will be harassed and oppressed untill Defeats shall
teach them Discipline and Despair give them Courage to expel or
extirpate their insatiable Oppressors.10
Shelburne and his allies were deeply concerned with the autocratic and
tributary character of the Indian empire, and they were considering radical
reforms that would make fundamental changes in the relationship between
the EIC and the state. Thus Beckford’s opposition to the Company in the
Commons was likely to receive support from radical Whig elements within
the government.
It is difficult if not impossible to gauge Pitt’s support for radical Whig
proposals regarding the abolition of the EIC’s chartered privileges and the
transfer of its Indian territories to the British state. What is certain is that Pitt
wanted to expose the Company’s affairs before Parliament and to allow that
body to determine the question of right with regard to whether Bengal be-
longed to the EIC or to the Crown. As Brooke remarks, “the determination
of the right was the essence of his scheme and the only part of it which he
fully explained or showed any concern for: he gave no details of what kind of
206 the making of the second british empire

financial settlement he desired but insisted that it would follow logically from
the determination of the right.”11 Pitt clearly believed that the Indian territo-
ries belonged to the state, and he sought a full parliamentary inquiry that
would bring to light all of the corporation’s political and economic affairs.12
Beckford successfully motioned for such an inquiry on November 25, 1766.
The Rockinghamites, moderate Whigs, and New Tories within the
administration—as well as the Rockinghamites, moderate Whigs, and New
Tories among the parliamentary opposition—strongly opposed Pitt’s efforts
to hold a full Commons inquiry to settle the question of right. Furthermore,
they were deeply troubled by Beckford’s involvement in the ministry’s East
India affairs. Charles Townshend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and a
staunch advocate of the New Tory imperialism, believed that Pitt was not only
determined to declare the Crown’s right to the Indian territories but also
wanted to transfer the control and management of them to the British state.13
Conway and Townshend argued that the Indian territories should remain
within the EIC’s possession in both theory and practice, and they organized
opposition to Pitt’s measures within the ministry itself.14 “Mr. Conway was
not satisfied in his situation; and Mr. Townshend was never settled in any;
and these two gentlemen saw the management of the E. India business in a
very different light from what Lord Chatham had wished,” Grafton observed
with regard to the state of government affairs in the fall of 1766; “they were
for waving the decision on the right, and for bringing forward a negociation
with the Company, without entering on this essential point, which Lord
Chatham, together with the rest of the Cabinet, wanted to see decided in the
first instance; and which Mr. Aldn. Beckford had undertaken to move in the
House of Commons.”15 Conway and Townshend wanted to negotiate directly
with the Company in order to come to a financial settlement that left the
corporation in full control of its Indian acquisitions. In a letter to Grafton,
Pitt adamantly rejected their views and proposals: “I grieve most heartily
at the report of the meeting last night. If the enquiry is to be contracted
within the ideas of Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer [Townshend] and
Mr. Dyson, the whole becomes a farce, and the Ministry a ridiculous phantom.
Mr. Beckford will move his questions, (waving for the present the bonds and
transfers), and upon the issue of Tuesday must turn the decision of the pres-
ent system, whether to stand or make way for another scene of political revo-
lution. . . . What possible objections, fit to listen to, can be made to bringing
the revenues in India before the House? I hope Mr. Beckford will walk out of
the House, and leave the name of an enquiry, to amuse the credulous, in
 the triumph of the new toryism 207

other hands, in case this question be not fully supported and carried.”16 Pitt
was fiercely committed to exposing the EIC’s political and economic affairs
before the House of Commons and to determining the question of right with
regard to the Indian territories. Although both the Great Commoner and his
ministerial opponents sought to raise revenue from the newly won territories,
they vigorously disagreed over how it should be done. While Conway and
Townshend wanted to win a portion of the Bengal revenue for the govern-
ment and leave the Company in control of the province, Pitt was committed
to a far-reaching and open-ended parliamentary inquiry that explored every
aspect of Britain’s Indian affairs. It seems likely that Pitt was at the very least
open to radical Whig ideas and proposals regarding the EIC and its newly
won territorial empire.
Although the prime minister insisted on a full parliamentary inquiry into
the Company’s affairs, he was not in effective control of the government. In
the late fall of 1766, Pitt was incapacitated by severe physical and mental ill-
ness and was forced to travel to Bath. “Lord Chatham’s illness, and indeed his
constant bad state of health, often making it impracticable to talk with him
on business or even to get access to him,” Grafton remarked with regard to
East India affairs, “brought a weakness on the Ministry which will be easily
conceived; and placed us, who wished to forward his views, in the most un-
comfortable and perplexing of all situations, scarce knowing what line to
adopt; for Lord Chatham did never open to us, or to the Cabinet in general,
what was his real and fixed plan.”17 While Pitt was suffering from afflictions
that would eventually bring an end to his ministry and plague him thereafter,
the political factions committed to preserving the oligarchic order and to
consolidating the New Tory imperialism launched a concerted attack on the
East India inquiry. Grenville and his allies joined forces with Rockingham’s
circle to oppose the inquiry in Parliament. Within the ministry, Conway and
Townshend openly rebelled.18
While Beckford successfully motioned in December to bring the EIC’s
papers before the House of Commons, this was the last victory for those seek-
ing a wide-ranging inquiry into the corporation’s affairs and the determina-
tion of the right with regard to its Indian territories. Townshend, who
speculated in India stock throughout 1766 and early 1767, entered into direct
negotiations with the Company in late December and early January while
Pitt was recuperating in Bath.19 The New Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer
wanted the EIC’s directors to propose a financial settlement before Parlia-
ment began investigating its affairs on January 22. Townshend’s intentions
208 the making of the second british empire

were to undermine the inquiry and to conclude the matter of revenue with-
out settling the question of right. In response to the Chancellor, the Com-
pany’s directors put forward proposals to the government in early January.
Upon learning of these developments, Pitt was furious. “I wish, my dear lord,
I could see cause to express any thanks to the good chairman and deputy
chairman [of the EIC] for their communication to your Grace[,]” he re-
marked to Grafton. “I will say but a few words upon their captious and prepos-
terous paper[,]” Chatham averred; “[t]he points, on which the committee are
of opinion it is requisite and necessary to treat, entirely pass by the great ob-
jects of parliamentary enquiry and national justice . . . [o]n this self-evident
state of the thing, I am forced to declare I have no hopes from the transaction;
my only hope centers in the justice of Parliament, where the question of right
can alone be decided; and which cannot (upon any colourable pretence) be in
the company.”20 Despite these objections and his outrage at Townshend’s ef-
forts to undermine the East India inquiry, Pitt was unable to stop the growing
tide of opposition to his plans. He remained incapacitated at Bath through-
out the winter and Townshend effectively took control of Indian affairs.
“Beckford’s brief hour of triumph had passed,” Brooke observes; “the initia-
tive was now in other hands; and he was never again to know the bliss of
denouncing the Company with the full support of Chatham at hand and a
majority in the House of Commons behind him.”21 While the efforts to hold
an East India inquiry continued, they were now little more than a sideshow
to Townshend’s negotiations with the EIC’s directors.
From Bath, Pitt continued to inveigh against his own ministry’s negotia-
tions with the Company. He sought to move ahead with a full inquiry into
the corporation’s affairs and to settle the question of right in favor of the
Crown.22 In February 1767, Pitt informed Grafton that “Parliament is the only
place where I will declare my final judgment upon the whole matter . . . as a
servant of the Crown, I have no right or authority to do more than simply to
advise the demands and the offers of the Company should be laid before Par-
liament, referring the whole determination to the wisdom of that place.”23
But Pitt was not able to affect the course of events while incapacitated and
away from Westminster. From January through March 1767, Conway and
Townshend moved ahead in the negotiations with the EIC.24 Beckford’s
planned inquiry was becoming pointless. Townshend was opposed to any
fundamental political-economic transformation of the British Empire in
India. He was committed to extracting financial concessions from the Com-
pany while leaving its chartered privileges and militarized garrison state intact.
 the triumph of the new toryism 209

Beckford recognized that he and Townshend were motivated by fundamen-

tally different political-economic principles. “Charles [Townshend] seemed
to put the whole stress of the negotiation on the quantum to be given by the
Company, for the prolongation of the term of their charter, and regulations
and concessions to be made by the legislature, which would amazingly in-
crease the trade and profit of the Company,” the leading City radical in-
formed Pitt; “in short, he uttered so many kind and comfortable words for
their consolation, that the stock rose the next and the succeeding day six per
centum.”25 Beckford’s radical aims gave way to Townshend’s conservatism in
the face of strong parliamentary opposition and a deeply divided ministry.
Pitt attempted to rescue the efforts to conduct a meaningful inquiry into
the EIC’s affairs and to settle the question of right in the Crown’s favor when
he returned to London in March 1767 in order to lead the ministry and to
find a replacement for Townshend as Chancellor of the Exchequer.26 The
deep divisions within the ministry, the strength of the parliamentary opposi-
tion to the East India inquiry, and his own severe illness left Pitt in a weak-
ened position. The prime minister’s afflictions were severe and his political
leadership effectively came to an end that March. Grafton later lamented
Pitt’s loss of political power and the failure of his East India policy:
Had his health allowed it, I have no doubt that he would still have
weathered those difficulties which presented themselves from all quar-
ters to resist his views for the public. From this time he became invis-
ible, even to the Lord Chancellor and myself; and he desired to be
allowed to attend solely to his health, until he found himself to be
equal to any business. Here, in fact, was the end of his Administration;
tho’ relying on the hopes of his recovery, we were struggling to the end
of the Sessions, in order to prevent, if possible, the government of the
country from falling into other hands. . . . After much cavilling with
the India Company, a temporary agreement was adopted, rather than
to pursue the right forward road, on which Lord Chatham had laid
the greatest stress, and which I earnestly wished to follow.27
Conway and Townshend, having delayed Beckford’s parliamentary investigation
in order to pursue direct negotiations with the Company’s management, en-
sured that the inquiry would decide little. On March 11, over the objections of
radical Whigs such as Beckford and Isaac Barré, Conway and Townshend
blocked the effort to have the EIC’s papers and accounts printed.28 “March 11
marks the failure of Chatham’s policy,” Brooke remarks; “the Committee of
210 the making of the second british empire

Inquiry, postponed to March 20, could safely begin; there was no one now who
would press for a decision on the right.”29 While the inquiry undertook a parlia-
mentary examination into the EIC’s affairs for the first time since the late seven-
teenth century, it did nothing to advance radical Whig proposals concerning the
political-economic reform and reorganization of the Indian empire.
Townshend finalized a settlement with the Company that left Bengal in
its control in return for an annual payment of £400,000 to the British state.
During the very same period in which Townshend was settling East India af-
fairs, he also designed and implemented Atlantic imperial reforms that sought
to achieve Grenville’s New Tory aims by other means. Townshend dismissed
radical Whig ideas regarding British North America as well—namely, that
imperial representation be extended to the colonists—and instead introduced
a series of duties on colonial American imports including glass, paper, and
tea. The revenue from these duties provided for imperial administration in
British North America, making royal officials less financially dependent on
colonial assemblies. With the decline of Pitt’s political influence, Townshend
was able both to undermine the radical potential of Beckford’s East India in-
quiry and to pursue New Tory imperial reforms in the Atlantic empire.

Pitt’s leadership effectively came to an end in March 1767, but it was not
until October of the following year that Grafton formally took control of the
government. In the final months of the Chatham ministry and during his
own tenure as prime minister, Grafton was forced to confront the consider-
able growth of political radicalism beyond the halls of power. John Wilkes
returned from exile in France in 1768 and—despite the fact that he was an
outlaw and subject to imprisonment—stood as a candidate in the parliamen-
tary elections held in March. Although defeated in the City of London,
Wilkes was eventually successful when he opposed the sitting members from
the county of Middlesex. He was overwhelmingly elected amid great popular
acclaim. Wilkes presented himself before the Court of King’s Bench on April
27, but rioters subsequently freed him from jail. The radical Whig propagan-
dist continued publishing and stirring up political opposition to the govern-
ment. The Grafton ministry expelled Wilkes from Parliament in February
1769, but he was able to win re-election from Middlesex in the spring.30 The
government eventually put forward Colonel Henry Luttrell to stand against
Wilkes in a Middlesex by-election. Despite the fact that Luttrell lost by a
significant margin, the ministry mobilized its parliamentary majority to have
him seated in Wilkes’s place.
 the triumph of the new toryism 211

Support for Wilkes was widespread throughout Britain’s public sphere

and extra-parliamentary political culture during 1768 and 1769. The radical
Whigs among the urban middling sort stridently defended the cause of
“Wilkes and Liberty” in the face of the ministry’s measures.31 The Society of
the Supporters of the Bill of Rights [SSBR], recently founded to advocate for
the reform of the parliamentary political system, organized petitions and
print campaigns on Wilkes’s behalf. The radicals who challenged the govern-
ment in the late 1760s were concerned with Wilkes’s expulsion from Parlia-
ment as well as with the inadequacies of the political status quo. As John
Brewer contends, “Wilkes’s politics of participation threatened the politics of
oligarchy . . . the radicals of the SSBR promised to recreate institutionalised
politics in a form that would have readmitted those who had been excluded
for the past generation, and would newly admit an emergent social group
based on mercantile and financial wealth which wanted power commensurate
with its financial status.”32 The Grafton ministry was forced to confront the
supporters of Wilkes’s cause and an increasingly popular challenge to the
aristocratic-oligarchic state.
Britain’s political establishment was deeply troubled by the fact that radical
Whig politics and Wilkesite protests spread beyond the urban middling sort to
the plebeian classes during the late 1760s and early 1770s. Indeed, the cause of
“Wilkes and Liberty” was taken up by the lower orders and expanded to ad-
dress social issues that went well beyond the ongoing efforts to transform the
landed parliamentary system. In 1768, the political elite were confronted with
riots and strikes over wages and working conditions throughout the kingdom.
The widespread protests launched by silk-weavers in early 1768 were, as
George Rudé observes, “only the most violent and protracted of a great crop
of workers’ strikes, demonstrations, marches and petitions to Parliament that
marked the spring and summer of 1768 and thoroughly alarmed both Minis-
ters and magistrates . . . the authorities were faced with almost simultaneous
demands and demonstrations by sailors, watermen, coopers, hatters, glass-
grinders, sawyers, tailors, weavers and coal-heavers.”33 Grenville likened these
strikes and protests to the growth of colonial American resistance to imperial
authority and criticized the Grafton ministry for failing to act firmly. The
former prime minister decried the widespread “distress among the Common
People, luxury amongst the rich, servility, licentiousness,” and hoped that “the
Almighty, who in so many instances has mercifully interposed to preserve
these Kingdoms from destruction, may put it into the heart of our gracious
King to chuse such able, and virtuous Ministers, that Parliament may adopt
212 the making of the second british empire

their measures, and support them in carrying them into full execution; and
that all the subjects of the realm may be of one heart and mind to contribute
to the support of the british Empire, & the preservation of our most excellent
Constitution in Church, & State.”34 Grenville was certainly not the only
member of the ruling class who believed that these plebeian protests imperiled
the domestic political order. The ministry itself was surprised by the depth and
extent of discontent among the lower classes. Remarking on “the spirit of dis-
content and riot which broke out in many parts of the kingdom, but was most
serious in and about the metropolis,” Grafton was especially troubled by the
fact that “artisans of almost every denomination also combined for an advance
of wages, and their discontents and disobedience to the laws, led them to join
often, in numbers, those mobs which the consequence of the election for Mid-
dlesex frequently produced.”35 Although statesmen and officials worried about
the links between plebeian protest and Wilkesite radicalism, they were uncer-
tain what measures should be taken to deal with widespread social discontent.
The plebeian strikes and riots disturbed both the landed elite and the
radical political leaders of the urban middling sort. Beckford spoke against
the London sailors’ strike before the House of Commons in May 1768: “They
are Masters of the Port of London. Many men have been with me about the
trade. The Bakers say, if Flower can’t be brought, the City of London will be
starved. The Sailors don’t pay for their provisions, the Merchants do . . . let us
unite, the Kingdom is in danger. They want more money for less labour done.
They take example from their betters. They who raise mobs, raise the Devil,
and they know not how to lay him again. If these Sailors are not resisted, all
labourers will come upon you. If your own ships can’t go out, Trade can’t
come in.”36 These sentiments were typical among the wealthy commercial
leadership of radical Whiggism. While these leaders went to great lengths to
challenge the institutions and policies of the landed political establishment,
most of them were not prepared to link their cause with the social concerns
of the plebeian classes. The outbreak of strikes and riots among the lower
orders in the late 1760s shifted many wealthy and middling-sort members of
the radical Whig and Wilkesite movements away from popular politics and
into support for the ministry and the Court.
The Grafton ministry proved incapable of dealing successfully with the
Wilkes affair and the growth of social protest and radical politics that accom-
panied it. Grafton fell from power in January 1770, and Lord North formed a
new administration. The North ministry was faced with deepening social and
political discontent at home as well as with the growth of colonial resistance
 the triumph of the new toryism 213

in British North America. “One suspects that there were times during the
1760s and 1770s,” E. P. Thompson remarks, “when a part of the English peo-
ple were more ready to secede from the Crown than were the American colo-
nists, but they had the misfortune not to be protected from it by the Atlantic
ocean.”37 The ruling class feared that political discontent at home and in the
colonies would merge into a unified challenge to the established order. On
the eve of the War for American Independence, government officials believed
that there were links between the colonial cause and domestic plebeian dis-
content.38 Drawing together conservative Whigs, Tories, and supporters of
George III, the North ministry deepened and strengthened the New Tory
turn in British politics. The government was committed to preserving the
landed parliamentary political order and to defending the absolute supremacy
of Parliament over the Atlantic empire, even going so far as to wage full-scale
war in the American colonies to uphold the principle of parliamentary sover-
eignty in the face of radical claims regarding “no taxation without representa-
tion.” Amid radical discontent at home and abroad, the North ministry was
able to rally the oligarchic order around the government and to remain in
power for the next twelve years.
Throughout the 1770s and 1780s, Britain’s landed elite were increasingly
committed to the New Tory imperialism. The government appointed former
Scottish Jacobites to administrative and military positions throughout the em-
pire. Many of these former Jacobites held despotic notions of imperial rule and
reinforced the tendency toward authoritarian governance.39 The new imperial-
ism that had first emerged under the Bute and Grenville ministries during the
early 1760s was deepened and strengthened under Lord North. It was clear to
informed observers that the maritime “empire of liberty” was being trans-
formed into an autocratic and tributary empire. The New Tory imperial proj-
ect, with its extractive political economy and its commitment to militarized
rule, was in the ascendant.
By the early 1770s, the East India Company’s administrative and military
expenditures in northeastern India outpaced its territorial revenue. Clive’s
prediction that the Company would be able to use local revenue to cover all
its Indian expenditures and still remit £2 million to London proved far from
accurate. The costs of territorial empire were much greater than the “heaven-
born general” anticipated. When news of the EIC’s financial difficulties and
the Bengal famine of 1769 arrived in the metropole, Clive’s radical Whig op-
ponents took advantage of the disgust expressed in the public sphere and
waged a propaganda campaign against him and his Indian measures.40 In
214 the making of the second british empire

1772, a parliamentary select committee headed by John Burgoyne was formed

to conduct a thorough inquiry into the Company’s affairs going back to 1756.
The investigation continued throughout 1772 and early 1773 as hostility to the
EIC and its management of Indian affairs grew in the public sphere and the
extra-parliamentary political arena.41 Burgoyne used the information gathered
by the select committee to press the case against Clive, and, in May 1773, he
put forward a series of motions in the House of Commons designed not only
to condemn the Baron of Plassey’s activities in India but also to confiscate the
wealth that he had received from Bengal’s nawabi regime. “We have had in
India revolution upon revolution, extortion upon extortion,” Burgoyne pro-
claimed in Parliament; “in the whole history of mankind, I defy mankind to
produce such a continued system of oppression.”42 Burgoyne’s measures re-
ceived the backing of radical Whigs and other political factions, including the
Johnstones and their allies. Although the effort to condemn Clive met with
initial success, the Rockinghamites and the King’s Friends rallied to his cause.
On May 21, Burgoyne’s resolution—that Clive “had abused the powers with
which he was entrusted, to the evil example of the servants of the public”—
was defeated. “Lord Clive has thus come out of the fiery trial much brighter
than he went into it,” Edmund Burke observed; “his gains are now recorded,
and not only not condemned, but actually approved by Parliament.”43 The
final radical Whig assault on Clive’s reputation and program was defeated.
At the same time that the parliamentary select committee was investigat-
ing Clive’s imperial activities as well as that of other returned “Nabobs,” the
government was grappling with the crisis of the Company’s finances. After
the EIC approached the ministry for financial support in 1772, Lord North
decided that the corporation would receive assistance in return for substantial
reforms in its Indian government. In 1773, the ministry secured a loan of £1.4
million for the Company and passed the Tea Act. This legislation attempted
to restore the corporation’s profitability by permitting it to export tea directly
to North America. The EIC remitted its post-diwani territorial revenue to the
metropole in part through purchasing tea in China and selling it to London
merchants. By the early 1770s, over eighteen million pounds of unsold tea lay
in the corporation’s London warehouses. The Tea Act allowed the Company
to unload this surplus by selling it directly to the colonies.
The Act confirmed the remaining Townshend duty on tea imported into
the colonies and allowed the Company to export tea duty-free from Britain
and, thus, to undersell legitimate merchants and tea smugglers in North
America. As a result, it reignited colonial resistance to imperial authority. In
 the triumph of the new toryism 215

the fall of 1773, protests spread throughout colonial ports in an effort to pre-
vent the sale of the East India Company’s tea in North America. “At present
the Spirits of the People in the Town of Boston are in a great ferment,” Thomas
Hutchinson, the governor of Massachusetts, reported to the Earl of Dart-
mouth about the importation of the EIC’s tea; “[t]he same principle prevails
with by far the greatest part of the Merchants, Who tho in general declare
against Mobs and Violence yet they as generally wish the Teas may not be
imported[.]”44 Organized protests prevented the successful landing of the
Company’s tea in Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia. Governor Hutchin-
son refused to bend to the demands of colonial radicals, thus provoking pro-
tests and meetings throughout Boston. “I am sorry to inform you that since
the arrival of the Tea in this Harbour exported by the East India Company;
this Town and Country for some Miles round appear to be in Anarchy and
confusion,” Rear Admiral John Montagu remarked to Philip Stephens in De-
cember 1773; “Town Meetings have been called, in which such inflammatory
Speeches were made against Government and its Laws and such Resolves
passed in consequence thereof, (Namely) That the Teas already arrived, and all
such as may arrive shall remain on Board the several Ships and not be Suffered
to be landed in this Country.”45 These protests ultimately culminated in the
Boston Tea Party in December, when members of the Sons of Liberty boarded
the ships holding the Company’s tea and emptied their cargoes into Boston
Harbor.
The North ministry responded by closing the port of Boston and passing the
Intolerable Acts. Thus the Tea Act led to the renewal of serious and sustained
tensions between the colonial resistance movement and imperial authorities. In
preventing the importation of the EIC’s tea, radical Whigs in the Sons of Liberty
were not merely defending the interests of local smugglers and legitimate mer-
chants but also protesting the emergence and development of the New Tory
imperialism. The Tea Act was in part designed to uphold the Townshend duty
on tea and, with it, Parliament’s right to levy taxes on the colonists without their
consent. Furthermore, the revenue from this duty was used to pay the salaries of
imperial officials, thus freeing them from financial dependence on colonial as-
semblies. The duty was an essential step toward establishing an imperial state
that ruled above colonial society instead of through it. Moreover, the Tea Act
benefited the East India Company and its autocratic and tributary empire in
South Asia, which radical Whigs in the American colonies viewed as the very
embodiment of “arbitrary power” and taxation without consent. When they
dumped the Company’s tea into Boston Harbor, the colonial radicals were in
216 the making of the second british empire

part protesting the political authoritarianism and extractive political economy

that characterized post-1760 British imperialism.
In return for the government’s loan and the passage of the Tea Act, the
North ministry made the EIC implement reforms in its imperial state. While
the government carried out a second parliamentary intervention into the
Company’s affairs—an intervention that was protested by many EIC directors
and proprietors—its objective was not to transform the political-economic
organization of Britain’s emerging Indian empire but rather to consolidate
Bengal’s status as a tributary province responsible for servicing the fiscal and
military needs of the metropolitan oligarchic order. North’s intervention into
the Company’s affairs led to the passage of the Regulating Act of 1773, which
left the EIC’s chartered privileges intact and confirmed its control over Ben-
gal’s commercial affairs. The Act was the first serious government regulation
of the corporation’s burgeoning empire. Control over the civilian and military
affairs of the Company’s Indian provinces was transferred to the new office of
Governor-General and a four-member council appointed by the EIC and the
government. The North ministry did not intervene in the Company State’s
affairs in order to reform its extractive political economy but rather to stabilize
and to consolidate it. The EIC’s mismanagement of its Indian provinces left it
in financial peril. The Company not only failed to make its annual £400,000
payment to the government but also was unable to pay its creditors and share-
holders. If the EIC collapsed, it would inevitably send financial shockwaves
throughout the oligarchic order in the City and the state. The reforms of the
Regulating Act were ultimately designed to secure the administration and col-
lection of Bengal’s territorial revenue and its transfer to Britain. Thus, the
government’s intervention was undertaken in order to consolidate Bengal’s
status as a tributary province. The North ministry reinforced the New Tory
political-economic order established by Grenville and Clive.
During the 1760s and 1770s, the political-economic structures governing
the next hundred years of British imperial rule in India were laid down. The
relationship between the Company and the state underwent further transfor-
mations in 1784 and in the early nineteenth century, and the British govern-
ment’s control over the Raj’s civilian and military affairs significantly increased.
However, the Indian empire remained a tributary province responsible for
remitting revenue to the metropole and for supplying self-financing patron-
age resources to Britain’s landed elite. The Company State established in
Bengal, and which eventually spread over the subcontinent, extracted territo-
rial revenue in order to pay for the administrative and military expenses of
 the triumph of the new toryism 217

imperial rule, to pay dividends to EIC shareholders, and to repay the Raj’s
creditors. As P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins remind us, “the main problem ad-
dressed by successive generations of administrators was not how to open India
to British manufactures, but how to secure the revenue base of Britain’s rule.”46
The Company consolidated a fiscal-military state devoted to squeezing land
revenue out of an indigenous peasantry directly in control of the means of
subsistence. This revenue maintained a large standing army capable of pro-
jecting British power throughout Asia and the Near East. This army and the
EIC’s imperial administration provided substantial patronage resources for
Britain’s landed families.47 When the Company’s fiscal resources proved inad-
equate for repaying creditors and for paying out dividends to shareholders,
the Raj’s military power was deployed to acquire additional territory and
revenue.
The EIC’s imperial state reinforced landed and traditional hierarchies in
South Asia in order to stabilize its rule and to maximize the collection of reve-
nue. The “neo-traditionalism” of the British Empire in India stemmed from its
political-economic function as a tributary dominion. The Company’s adminis-
trators and military commanders were opposed to economic innovations since
they feared that such measures might introduce instability in imperial rule and
revenue collection. The foundation of the Raj marked a major departure in
British imperialism. While the maritime “empire of liberty” was a vehicle for
metropolitan commercial and industrial expansion and for self-sustaining eco-
nomic growth, the EIC’s despotic state served the short-term fiscal and political
interests of Britain’s ruling elite. A new form of social imperialism was born in
the 1760s and 1770s.
The imperial reforms imposed on the Atlantic colonies and the consolida-
tion of a territorial empire in Bengal during the 1760s stemmed from the same
metropolitan political impulse. This impulse continued to inform govern-
mental measures throughout the 1770s and 1780s. Rather than being part of a
maritime “empire of liberty,” northeastern India and the American colonies
were to be integrated into an imperial hierarchy designed to maximize reve-
nue extraction on the colonial periphery. “The late vast addition to the British
possessions in Asia, and the wealth of the inhabitants, open a rich prospect
. . . of revenue to the state,” averred the New Tory imperial architect William
Knox in a pamphlet of 1768. “The inhabitants, therefore, of the East-India
company’s possessions,” he continued, are “equally bound with the people of
Maryland to contribute to the burdens of the state; and the sovereign power
over the whole empire, is equally obliged to require them so to do. . . . these
218 the making of the second british empire

accessions of revenue, drawn from the several members of the empire, would
render the charge of the peace establishment no longer an oppressive burden
upon the people of Great-Britain.”48 The commercial expansionism and ram-
pant licentiousness threatening the empire were to be contained within the
boundaries established by the landed parliamentary state and its authoritarian
imperial administrations. While the New Tory imperialism suffered defeat on
the Atlantic, it was ultimately successful in building a bridgehead on the In-
dian subcontinent. The structures of illiberal imperialism laid down in this
period continued to haunt radicals and reformers well into the nineteenth
century.

The conquest and consolidation of control over three provinces in northeast-

ern India constituted an epoch-making departure in Britain’s long imperial
history. The First British Empire gave way to the Second as large swathes of
heavily populated territory in northeastern India were brought under the direct
rule of the East India Company and, eventually, of the British state. The EIC’s
conquest of Bengal witnessed the creation of a fiscal-military state devoted to
the extraction of revenue from indigenous peasants and landlords via an exten-
sive bureaucratic and military apparatus.49 The mercantile corporation emerged
as a sovereign government whose “large and politically influential armies in the
‘garrison states’ of southern Asia created their own momentum for domineer-
ing and conquest.”50 Although Britain’s trade beyond the Cape of Good Hope
continued to flourish, its imperial expansion in Asia was now accompanied by
military conquest, territorial annexation, and political dominion.
As we saw in chapter 4, a new commercial nexus accompanied this milita-
rized imperialism. The Company had been shipping bullion to the Bay of
Bengal for over a century in return for its prized cotton and silk piece-goods.
The British corporation was not alone in doing so; Bengal’s high-quality and
low-cost production of muslins, chintzes, and calicoes, along with its rich sup-
ply of saltpetre and raw silk, drew commercial companies and private traders
from all over Africa, Asia, and Europe. The extensive production and trans-
port of these goods, made possible by the agricultural fertility of the province
and by convenient commercial access to its interior (via the riverine networks
of the Ganges and the Brahmaputra), established Bengal as a vibrant center of
trade and investment.51 “The abundance of advantages peculiar to this coun-
try,” asserted Robert Orme, Clive’s confidant and the prominent historian of
early British India, has “induced the eastern world to call it the paradise of
India; and the western, without hyperbole, the rich kingdom of Bengal.”52
 the triumph of the new toryism 219

The Bay of Bengal’s central location in the commercial networks extending

from the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf to the South China Sea gave it a
privileged place in the Asian trading world. The EIC was but one economic
actor in this global zone of (pre-capitalist) commerce.
In its new role as an imperial power, the Company sought to transform its
trading arrangements in the region. During the later 1760s, the corporation
began to fund its exports from Asia with the territorial revenue accruing to it
as Bengal’s Diwan. Wealth derived from Bengali land taxes was used to pur-
chase the EIC’s annual investment of indigenous manufactures and to pro-
vide resources for the corporation’s commercial activities in the Far East. No
longer the repository of New World gold and silver, northeastern India was
effectively subjected to an imperial pattern of “unrequited trade” during the
1760s. While the overarching goal of EIC commercial policy was to stabilize
this pattern of unrequited trade, by the 1770s financial difficulties at home
and escalating military expenses in India undermined this aim. Successful
wars with South Asian rivals and territorial annexations gave the Company
control over new sources of revenue, but its expenditures grew at a faster pace.
Between 1792 and 1809, the EIC’s imperial state generated a deficit of ₤8 mil-
lion.53 Recurrent warfare, the difficulties encountered by Company officials in
collecting revenue, and devastating famine in Bengal ruined any possibility
that East India House would realize the immense post-diwani financial ben-
efits promised by Clive. Nevertheless, the landed wealth of Bengal was now
devoted to the maintenance of an imperial state whose central purposes were
to provide for internal order and external defense and—crucially—to maxi-
mize the collection of territorial revenue as well as the purchase of indigenous
goods. Those goods were in turn sold in London and re-exported throughout
Europe and the New World. The post-diwani imperial state was ultimately
responsible to EIC directors and shareholders, and, through them, to the
ministers and officials of the Board of Control. Following 1765, northeastern
India was fully integrated into imperial political and economic structures cen-
tered in Britain.
The advent of the Company’s imperial rule led to Bengal’s transformation
into a corporate fiefdom responsible for paying tribute to Britain’s oligarchic
order. The commercial profits that accrued from this territorial empire flowed
into the hands of London’s wealthy merchants, financiers, professionals, and
government employees in the form of both bi-annual dividend payments to
the corporation’s shareholders and interest payments to holders of its short-
term debt.54 The EIC and its shareholders passed a portion of their profits to
220 the making of the second british empire

the Treasury via loans and grants, which in turn underwrote the British state’s
fiscal-military operations. These loans and grants formed part of the ever-
expanding national debt, the maintenance and supply of which was crucial
for meeting the military needs of the state and for the proper functioning of
the oligarchic order.55 Thus the EIC was not only a commercial corporation
but also a key element in the system of public credit, the London stock mar-
ket, the fiscal-military state, and the ministerial machine that managed Parlia-
ment and the populace.56 The Company was, as Cain and Hopkins contend,
“the most impressive overseas manifestation of the alliance between land and
finance in the eighteenth century.”57 When the EIC reoriented Bengal’s eco-
nomic activity in order to maximize its tributary revenue flow to Britain, it
did so in the service of a wide range of metropolitan sociopolitical interests.58
The rise and consolidation of the Company’s dominion in Bengal in the
1760s irreversibly linked metropolitan politico-economic structures to terri-
torial imperialism on the Indian subcontinent. The EIC’s entanglement in
direct rule over vast populations inevitably drew British statesmen and offi-
cials into imperial management since the corporation played a vital role in
Britain’s post-1688 political and financial institutions. The web of interests
connecting the Company to the City’s commercial houses and insurance
agencies as well as the shipping industry meant that the wider London busi-
ness community was as invested as the national government in the corpora-
tion’s affairs. If the EIC’s territorial empire was threatened by internal revolt
or external assault, the Company’s stock fell and panic spread throughout the
City; such panic invariably undermined investor confidence in the London
stock market, the public debt, and the national government. “With regard to
the fall of the Company’s stock, whenever there shall be a war it will fall,”
Edmund Burke proclaimed on the floor of the House of Commons in 1768.
“What would the nation suffer by the fall of East-India stock?” he queried;
“what it has often suffered within my memory; the other national stocks
would fall together with it: the East-India stock could not receive a blow,
without affecting every other stock.”59 Many metropolitan observers con-
cluded that the British state was now irreversibly dependent on the EIC’s
territorial empire in Bengal. “Be the conduct of persons interested in the
[East India] company and its affairs still such as it has been; be the conduct of
men in power what it will . . . the feelings of mankind in general are at last
roused to a state of alarm; they apprehend the danger to the state[,]” observed
the former governor of Massachusetts Thomas Pownall in 1773. “People now
at last begin to view those Indian affairs, not simply as beneficial appendages
 the triumph of the new toryism 221

connected to the Empire; but from the participation of their revenues being
wrought into the very composition and frame of our finances; from the com-
merce of that country being indissolubly interwoven with our whole system
of commerce; from the intercommunication of funded property between the
company and the state, people in general from these views begin to see such
an union of interest, such a co-existence between the two,” Pownall averred,
“that they tremble with horror even at the imagination of the downfall of this
Indian part of our system; knowing that it must necessarily involve with its
fall, the ruin of the whole edifice of the British empire.”60
The Company’s financial and commercial tentacles stretched throughout
British politics and society, and its imperial endeavors were of interest far be-
yond the boardrooms of East India House. Not surprisingly, Sir Eyre Coote,
commander-in-chief of EIC forces in India, viewed victory in the Second
Anglo-Mysore War as vital not only to the Company but also to Britain and
the empire as a whole. Facing the well-organized armies of Hyder Ali, “whose
rapid Success has Strengthened his Cause with the Natives to an alarming
degree,” Coote informed the EIC Select Committee at Fort St. George that
“every Individual of our little Army, seemed to feel, the Critical Situation of
our National Concerns, dependant on this Country.”61
While the Company’s territorial empire ultimately did not secure the vast
revenue surpluses that Clive claimed it would, it did provide two vital extra-
economic services for Britain’s ruling elite. First, the EIC’s empire became
an important source of “politically-constituted private property” for Britain’s
landed classes.62 The recurrent warfare and territorial conquests undertaken
in order to maintain a British dominion on the Indian subcontinent created
a vast bureaucratic and military apparatus, and the appointments it provided
were an important source of patronage for the Company and its ministerial
allies. In this sense, the EIC’s imperial state was akin to the great absolutist
tax-office states of pre-1789 continental Europe, extracting an economic sur-
plus from a peasantry in direct control of the means of subsistence and pro-
viding offices for the landed elite and their connections.
As the Company’s territories expanded in the later eighteenth century, it
provided an increasing number of lucrative administrative and military posts
for Britain’s aristocracy and gentry.63 P. J. Marshall notes that the entry of the
landed classes into the Company’s service “was carried forward very rapidly
indeed after Plassey as stories of great fortunes being made in India induced
many upper-class families to try their luck there.”64 While East India House
was able to offer its political and business allies a wide range of administrative
222 the making of the second british empire

and commercial employment throughout the first half of the eighteenth cen-
tury, these resources grew enormously from the 1760s forward. As a free mer-
chant in Patna in the early 1770s, Pitt Lethieullier pleaded with one of his
patrons for an appointment in the Company’s service, without which he felt he
could not turn a profit. “I have had the mortification every Year, to find the
Court of Directors of the E: I: Company, breaking through their Absolute
Rules, & Orders, so that One or other, are coming out appointed as Senior, or
Junior Merchants, & Factors annually, thro’ the Intst: of some or other,”
Lethieullier remarked. “I am told Lord North [the prime minister] has such an
Influence, with the Court of Directors, that they will not refuse his recommen-
dations, if properly Supported.”65 Although Lethieullier and his friends were
not successful in their quest to obtain one of the “many Lucrative emploi-
ments, that have generally been filled up thro’ Recommendations from home,”
there were plenty of well-connected Britons who were more fortunate.66
Facing social discontent and the renewal of political radicalism in the wake
of the French Revolution, the British landed oligarchy pursued legislation that
reformed the state, eliminating various aspects of the patronage and place sys-
tem built up over the course of the previous century by the great Whig families.
Seeking to stave off reform from below (or, worse yet, revolution), ministries
began cleansing the oligarchic state of the worst elements of “Old Corruption.”
During this era, when “economical reform” reducing Crown patronage and
aristocratic sinecures passed through Parliament, a vast field of imperial pa-
tronage opened in South Asia. The EIC and the ministry were able to use this
patronage both to support the families and connections of the landed elite and
to expand the government’s political base.67 This system was a vital resource for
the maintenance of the narrowly oligarchic character of the British state from
the 1760s onward, when mass politics developed in fits and starts.
The second important (yet far less obvious) extra-economic function of
the Company’s post-1765 territorial imperialism was the politico-military un-
derpinnings it provided for the British investing public’s confidence in the
corporation’s long-term viability.68 Such underpinnings were vital not only
for EIC directors, shareholders, and administrators whose salaries and divi-
dends depended on the Company’s continuing existence in South Asia, but
also for the many soldiers, servants, and private traders operating beyond the
Cape of Good Hope. The wealth acquired by private British actors in the East
was typically not transmitted directly to Britain, but rather deposited in the
treasury of the EIC’s imperial state in Bengal. In return for these deposits,
individuals received the Company’s bills of exchange payable at East India
 the triumph of the new toryism 223

House in London. Therefore, whether they were Company servants, private

merchants plying the lucrative trade from Calcutta to Canton, or soldiers
providing their services to indigenous rulers at a good price, most individuals
were able to realize rewards on their activities only through the medium of
the EIC and its bills of exchange. If the Company’s headquarters in London
did not have the financial resources necessary to meet the obligations entailed
in these bills, wealth acquired in Asia would be difficult to transfer to Britain.
Such a state of affairs bound the economic success of many servants, trad-
ers, financiers, and soldiers to the Company’s prospects in the East; their
livelihood was tied up with the corporation’s profitability and viability. In
order to better grasp the strength of these connections, it is worth quoting
Holden Furber’s magisterial study of the early workings of the EIC’s empire
in India at some length:
In so far as the English or other European East India companies were
concerned, payment of such a fortune [that is, bills of exchange as well
as the interest payments they entailed] came out of the resources those
companies then had available in Europe. More often than not, much
of the money on which a Madras military officer took his ease in the
Scottish Highlands was money borrowed in London, Paris, or Amster-
dam. He owed his fortune not directly to India, but to the continued
confidence, not only of his fellow Britons, but of his fellow Europeans,
in future profits to be derived from the European connection with
India . . . The more firmly Englishmen believed that an ever broader
stream of wealth was pouring into England from India, the more se-
cure his fortune would be, and the more opportunity he would have
to set impecunious relatives upon the same path. The East India Com-
pany’s credit had to be maintained at all costs.69
British men and women who relied on remittances from the East were ulti-
mately dependent on the Company’s viability and therefore required assur-
ances of its long-term prosperity and survival. Crucially, ministers and civil
servants viewed these concerns as vital for the state’s well-being since the eco-
nomic success of private individuals as much as of the EIC bolstered the
City’s profits and investments and, through them, the system of public credit.
“How many millions of money have been brought from India, exclusive of
what has been brought by public persons, since the year 1759,” exclaimed
George Grenville in a 1768 parliamentary debate on Company affairs; “if
these millions had not been so brought, where would this country have been,
224 the making of the second british empire

in regard to its finances?”70 Private British actors throughout Asia were eager
to transmit their accumulated wealth back to London, and the state was anx-
ious to help them do so. Both parties were committed to securing the EIC’s
long-term financial viability by any means necessary.
The acquisition of the diwani and the full commitment to sovereignty in
Bengal that it entailed must be seen in this light. The consolidation of the
Company’s imperial dominion signaled the fact that the territorial revenue of
northeastern India was now in the corporation’s permanent possession. Al-
though this revenue proved difficult to collect—let alone to increase—it nev-
ertheless could be used to make commitments to future repayment, thus
underwriting the EIC’s fiscal-military state. The Company could draw on
loans and run up debt in order to fund its vital short-term operations—
political, military, and commercial—if it was able to demonstrate its long-
term capacity to meet its obligations. The revenue derived from the EIC’s
politico-military control of Bengal provided the corporation with a perma-
nent fund to meet the interest payments on its debts, thus securing the long-
term confidence of those individuals and groups bound up in its complicated
financial, commercial, and political networks. These calculations were impor-
tant to politicians like Grenville who strongly backed Clive’s return to Bengal
in 1764 and who, in 1768, supported his call to strengthen the Company’s
political and military position in India.71 As long as the EIC and the British
state were committed to the military defense of the corporation’s territory
against all rivals—European and South Asian—the revenue of Bengal could
underwrite and secure the Company’s long-term credit.
The imperial state established by the EIC during the 1760s was funda-
mentally different in character from the British state. The Company’s politi-
cal dominion was ultimately dependent on the extraction of a surplus from a
peasantry in direct control of the means of subsistence. The successful extrac-
tion of this surplus, as well as the defense of Bengal from external threats,
required ever-increasing politico-military capabilities that, in turn, required
the extraction of even larger surpluses. This vicious circle created a dynamic
of imperial expansion and territorial conquest that was fundamentally anath-
ema to long-standing metropolitan practices and ideals.
The EIC state that emerged in 1757, was consolidated in 1765, and was
subsequently reformed and regulated by Britain’s Parliament in 1773 and
1784, was the central pillar of the Second British Empire in Africa and Asia.
Its vast war machine was the lever of imperial expansion beyond the Cape of
Good Hope. After subduing the subcontinent, the EIC’s armies went on to
 the triumph of the new toryism 225

conquer new territories in Southeast Asia and to force open markets through-
out the region.72 Beyond the military platform it provided for British activi-
ties throughout the East, the Company’s state was also a prototype for the
bureaucratic-military despotisms erected by Britain throughout its empire in
the later eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The political authoritarian-
ism and militarism that characterized Clive’s second Bengal governorship in
1765 served as a model for other regions.73
These developments heralded the birth of a new kind of imperialism,
one in which a European-dominated bureaucratic state, fueled by agrarian
revenue and devoted to the maintenance of a large army, relied upon non-
European peasant production.74 The British conquest of South Asia led to
the establishment of what Ralph Austen aptly describes as a “bureaucratic,
public revenue-oriented Beamtenstaat.”75 It was the first in a series of states
comprised of “more-or-less despotic regime[s] of professional colonial bureau-
crats” who fostered peasant production in order to extract revenue.76 The
British Raj did not preserve a feudal-absolutist Indian order; it was a despotic
regime wielding the most advanced techniques of modern statecraft. The new
subcontinental state taking shape during this period lacked both indigenous
political (as opposed to administrative) participation and the critical oversight
provided by a developed public sphere and civil society.
That the EIC’s conquest of Bengal constituted a radical departure
from Britain’s long-standing maritime “empire of liberty” was a fact not lost
on contemporaries. Josiah Tucker, the advocate of a mid-eighteenth-century
political economy that emphasized the productive potential of human labor
and the possibilities for infinite growth, decried the territorial aggrandizement
that took place in North America and South Asia during the Seven Years’ War.
“Princes expect to get by successful Wars, and a Series of Conquests, either
more Territory, or more Subjects, or a more ample Revenue,” the Anglican
divine averred, but this objective was undermined because “the indisputable
Fact is, that an ill-peopled Country, though large and extensive, neither pro-
duces so great a Revenue as a small one well cultivated and populous; nor if it
did, would the neat Produce of such a Revenue be equal to that of the other
because it is, in a manner, swallowed up in Governments, Guards, and Gar-
risons, in Salaries and Pensions, and all the consuming Perquisites and Ex-
pences attendant on distant Provinces.” The very fact that such assertions
required repeating astonished Tucker, for he thought it quite clear that only
increases in labor productivity and reductions in cost allowed British goods to
conquer foreign markets. The polemicist pithily summarized his own position
226 the making of the second british empire

when he asserted that “trade will always follow Cheapness, and not Con-
quest.”77 In the lead-up to the 1772 parliamentary inquiry into the Company’s
affairs, Horace Walpole, the Whig politician and famed novelist, proclaimed
that the “groans of India have mounted to heaven, where the heaven-born
general Lord Clive will certainly be disavowed.” Astonished at the reports of
famine and plunder that were filling London coffeehouses and pubs in the
later 1760s, Walpole declared that the British “have outdone the Spaniards in
Peru!” He believed that Britain “beat Rome in eloquence and extravagance;
and Spain in avarice and cruelty: and like both, we shall only serve to terrify
schoolboys, and for lessons of morality! ‘Here stood St Stephen’s Chapel; here
young Cataline spoke; here was Lord Clive’s diamond house; this is Leaden-
hall Street, and this broken column was part of the palace of a company of
merchants who were sovereigns of Bengal! They starved millions in India by
monopolies and plunder . . . Conquest, usurpation, wealth, luxury, famine—
one knows how little farther the genealogy has to go!”78 For Walpole and his
co-thinkers, the establishment of a British territorial empire in India was a
historical regression without precedent.79
The EIC’s conquest of Bengal was central to a radical political imagina-
tion widespread in Britain and the colonies that interpreted the metropolitan
government’s post-1763 Atlantic imperial reforms as an attempt to establish
an “arbitrary power” over North America. Radicals viewed the aristocratic-
oligarchic state’s efforts to tax the American colonies without the consent of
their assemblies and without granting them parliamentary representation in
Britain as the imperial recrudescence of Stuart absolutism: that is, as an at-
tempt by the state to rule above civil society instead of through it. In the
seventeenth century, the Crown had sought to govern England independently
of the wishes of Parliament and the people by levying taxes without legislative
consent. From the radical standpoint, this project was being revived in an
altered form in the 1760s: the king and Parliament were seeking to govern the
colonies independently of their populations by levying taxes without the con-
sent of local assemblies. Defending the colonial resistance movement in the
House of Commons in October 1775, the radical Whig MP and fierce critic
of the New Tory imperialism George Dempster remarked:
[I]n my conscience I think the claim of the Americans is just and well
founded, to be left in the free exercise of the right of taxing themselves
in her several provincial assemblies . . . [b]y this beautiful part of our
constitution, our wise ancestors have bound together the different and
 the triumph of the new toryism 227

distant parts of this mighty empire; by this single principle heretofore

inviolate, they have diffused in a most unexampled manner the bless-
ings of liberty and good government through our remotest provinces.
Look, Sir, into the history of the provinces of other states, of the Ro-
man provinces in ancient time; of the French, Spanish, Dutch and
Turkish provinces of more modern date, and you will find every page
of it stained with acts of oppressive violence, of cruelty, injustice and
peculation: but in the British provinces, the annual meetings of their
little assemblies have constantly restrained the despotism, and cor-
rected the follies of their governors; they watch over the administration
of justice, and from time to time enact such salutary regulations as
tend to promote their happiness and well-being. And what, Sir, I be-
seech you, could insure the regular meetings of those assemblies, ever
troublesome to governors, but their retaining in their own hands, like
us at home, the power of granting the funds necessary for defraying the
current expense of government. Were your provincial assemblies de-
prived of this power, I cannot see wherein the government of America
would differ from that of Indostan. And has our enquiries, in a former
session, into the administration of Bengal, made us in love with the
eastern species of government? Do we seriously wish to transplant the
rapine and cruelties of India to America?80
According to many of the colonial American merchants, shopkeepers, farm-
ers, lawyers, and artisans bitterly opposed to the imperial taxation and regula-
tion measures put in place during the 1760s, the British state was pursuing a
politically autocratic and economically extractive imperialism not seen since
the reign of King James II in the later 1680s. The triumph of New Tory
political economy—that is, of the executive’s absolute, extra-parliamentary
authority over commodity exchange and the division of labor—was nowhere
more evident for the radical Whigs of the American colonies than in the case
of the East India Company’s newly won territorial empire. In northeastern
India, the EIC ruled entirely without the consent of the governed. Taxation
without representation was an accomplished fact in Bengal.
In remarks on Clive’s death in 1775, the radical Whig and future revolu-
tionary Thomas Paine portrayed the Barron of Plassey’s second governorship
of Bengal as an embodiment of arbitrary power: “But alas! not satisfied with
uncountable thousands, I accompany [Clive] again to India. . . . Fear and ter-
ror march like pioneers before his camp, murder and rapine follow in the rear.
228 the making of the second british empire

Resolved on accumulating an unbounded fortune, he enters into all the

schemes of war, treaty, and intrigue. . . . Thousands of men or money are tri-
fles in an India bargain. The field is an empire, and the treasure almost with-
out end. The wretched inhabitants are glad to compound for offences never
committed, and to purchase at any rate the privilege to breath; while he, the
sole lord of their lives and fortunes, disposes of either as he pleases, and pre-
pares for Europe.”81 The New York Sons of Liberty, fierce opponents of Parlia-
ment’s 1773 Tea Act, charged the corporation with “a Barbarity scarce equaled
even by the most brutal Savages, or Cortez, the Mexican Conqueror.”82 Cast-
ing themselves as the defenders of the Whig revolutionary inheritance of 1688,
and the EIC’s emerging empire as the return of Stuart despotism, the Sons of
Liberty asserted that “what the People then had in Apprehension [in 1688], we
feel by sad Experience . . . that the East India Company would some Day or
other have a baneful influence on the Politicks and Constitution of that Na-
tion [England].”83 For these radicals, the British state’s effort to rule popula-
tions without their consent was successfully realized in Bengal. The EIC, an
oligarchic and increasingly arbitrary power, levied taxes and maintained a
standing army without the consent of the governed. The support offered to
the Company’s despotic empire by the Crown and Parliament signaled the
conversion of Britain’s political elite to the rule of arbitrary power. This broad
ideological background explains why, as Arthur M. Schlesinger Sr. argued
over a century ago, the American Revolution was in part an “uprising against
the East India Company.”84
The EIC’s territorial conquests were nakedly coercive in character, and
radical Whigs viewed them as a threat to the development of commercial soci-
ety and the maritime “empire of liberty” as well as a reversion to barbaric
modes of expansion. “The horrid scene that is now acting by the English gov-
ernment in the East-Indies,” Paine declared in his 1791 revolutionary mani-
festo The Rights of Man, “is fit only to be told of Goths and Vandals, who,
destitute of principle, robbed and tortured the world they were incapable of
enjoying.”85 In 1790, the New York resident Bartholomew Burges recalled his
travels to Calcutta, where he claimed to have conversed with Cojah Petrus,
Jenoniah D’Ameida, and several of Clive’s other friends and backers. “Lord
Clive, a star of the first magnitude in the East . . . declared in Council and
openly, that all acquisitions made under the commission of any body politic,
were legal, and that it was neither immoral or irreligious to exact contribution,
and establish subordination, and that it was the nature of mankind to contend
for superiority and dominion,” Burges informed his readers, “and added, that
 the triumph of the new toryism 229

the innumerable and successive instances related since the creation, of men
arriving to glory, and barbarous nations to civilization, by adopting belligerent
maxims and conducting themselves with craft and policy towards the people
they had to deal with, sufficiently demonstrated the laws of conquest to be
justifiable, as having a general tendency towards the improvement of man-
kind; that the sword conquered more passions than starched philosophic doc-
uments, study, or strenuousness; adverting that by that right, and no other, did
our ancestors come to their estates.”86 The veracity of this account is beside the
point. Burges related this information to the post-revolutionary American
reading public because it confirmed themes that were widespread in colonial
newspapers and pamphlets from the Boston Tea Party in 1773 to the conclu-
sion of the War for American Independence. Namely, that the takeover of
Bengal by the EIC and its agents—above all Clive—represented the overthrow
of an empire of liberty in favor of one of conquest. American politicians and
opinion-makers including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin—as well
as their radical colleagues in Britain such as James Burgh, Richard Price, and
Richard Priestley—argued that the creation of an autocratic Indian empire
with the support of British ministers signaled an end to the empire of trade
and liberty, thus justifying colonial resistance to metropolitan authority and,
eventually, revolution.87
Those politicians and writers who viewed Britain’s maritime “empire of
liberty” as an emancipation from the brutal and self-defeating territorial ex-
pansionism practiced from ancient Rome to sixteenth-century Spain invari-
ably viewed the Company’s conquest of Bengal as a major historical regression.88
While the maritime “empire of liberty” sought to limit coercion on the world
stage, weaving the globe’s population together in mutually beneficial arrange-
ments, the new EIC expansionism was extra-economic and coercive in charac-
ter. “Empire in India,” Marshall contends in his account of eighteenth-century
imperial transformation, “was the total antithesis of all ideals for a British em-
pire that was characterized by freedom.”89 For many Britons, in particular
domestic and colonial radicals, the Company’s imperialism was a reversion to
the violent and overt domination that commercial society was supposed to
have overcome (or, at least, to be overcoming).
The EIC’s imperial state in Bengal was not an anomaly but rather a harbinger
of the future.90 For it was the acquisition of the diwani and the consolidation of
an autocratic and tributary territorial empire on the Indian subcontinent in 1765,
and not the loss of the American colonies in 1783, that ultimately signaled the
shift from the First to the Second British Empire. The political authoritarianism
230 the making of the second british empire

and extractive political economy of the Company’s territorial state anticipated

the imperial despotisms erected by Britain in the era of the French Revolutionary
and Napoleonic Wars and then again amid the Great Power rivalry of the late
nineteenth century. The Second British Empire in Africa and Asia was not char-
acterized by political freedoms and economic development but rather by con-
quest, dominion, and tribute. The willingness of Britain’s ruling class not only to
accept but to embrace the Company’s territorial dominion signaled its effective
abandonment of the Whiggish and radical ideals of an empire of trade and lib-
erty. From there, it was only a short step to the military effort to coerce the At-
lantic colonies into submission and the War for American Independence. The
outbreak of hostilities at Lexington and Concord was a consequence of events
taking place in Calcutta and Madras as well as in Boston and Philadelphia.
Contra Whig historiography, the central political conflict of the 1760s and
1770s did not revolve around a struggle between Crown and Parliament but
rather around the character of the parliamentary settlement achieved in 1688.
Was 1688 the end of Britain’s political evolution, or was it a revolutionary pre-
lude to the kingdom’s ever-increasing liberalization and democratization? Did
“British liberty” simply entail the preservation of the unreformed parliamen-
tary political order achieved in 1688, or did it mean something more expansive?
Was the Revolution Settlement the beginning or the end of the processes of
liberalization and democratization in Britain?
The New Tory political project that emerged in the decade following
George III’s accession did not seek to restore royal absolutism but rather to
preserve the post-1688 political order in the face of more democratic chal-
lenges and demands. However, given the crisis of the fiscal-military state, the
growth of social discontent, and the emergence of radical Whiggism, the New
Tories could not simply maintain the political status quo. They were forced to
reconsolidate the oligarchic order on a new basis, with measures and policies
designed to deal with the crises of the 1760s and 1770s. Central to these new
measures was the transformation of the British Empire.
The consolidation of the Company’s territorial dominion in northeastern
India was fundamentally bound up with the emergence and development of
the New Tory imperialism. The EIC’s imperial state in Bengal was not born in
“a fit of absence of mind” but rather in the midst of a profound political-
economic crisis in Britain and its empire. The development of Britain’s territo-
rial dominion in India was not an accident but a symptom. It was the expression
of fundamental transformations in British political life and in the relations
between the kingdom and the wider world. Throughout the seventeenth and
 the triumph of the new toryism 231

early eighteenth centuries, Britain’s parliamentary elite were at the forefront of

the struggle against royal absolutism and the spread of arbitrary power. During
the 1760s and 1770s, this was no longer the case. British politics was entering
a profoundly conservative phase, and the country’s ruling class was in the van-
guard of the European effort to suppress revolution and republicanism. Thus,
well before 1789, Britain’s landed elite mobilized a reactionary defense of the
established order at home and abroad. This political transformation found its
greatest and most lasting expression in the transition from the First to the
Second British Empire.
 Epilogue

The Abbé Raynal’s A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements

and Trade of the Europeans in the East and West Indies was one of those En-
lightenment treatises that blazed like a comet across the night sky of the an-
cien régime. Widely translated and published, with twenty official and fifty
illegal editions produced between 1770 and 1796, Raynal’s multivolume his-
tory of European overseas expansion—written in secret collaboration with a
number of philosophes, most importantly Denis Diderot—was banned by the
Bourbon monarchy. France’s Catholic establishment declared the author “one
of the most seditious writers among modern unbelievers.”1 The powers of
church and state were not able to thwart the spread of Raynal’s tomes, which
were, according to Jonathan Israel, “more widely read than any other Enlight-
enment work.”2
While the Philosophical History was a bestseller throughout the Atlantic
world, it was particularly widely discussed and debated in Britain and its em-
pire, especially after the first English-language edition was published in 1774.3
The work was the most detailed and critical examination to date of European
overseas expansion, and it was avidly read in Britain—where it most famously
influenced Adam Smith while he was in the final stages of composing An In-
quiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations—because the king-
dom was in the throes of an imperial crisis that stretched from its colonial
settlements in North America all the way to its commercial outposts in Asia.

232
 epilogue 233

Raynal’s tomes were immediately incorporated into an ongoing and far-

ranging debate over the nature and purposes of the British Empire. “The work
gained as much fame in the New World as in the Old,” Lynn Hunt reminds
us, where “American colonists read it as a defense of the rights of man” against
the pretensions of British ministers and imperial authorities.4 The Philosophi-
cal History was viewed as an effort not merely to understand the world of Eu-
ropean imperialism but also to change it, and “many readers, reactions suggest,
grasped the work’s revolutionary implications at the time and early on it was
recognized as one of the most decisive publishing events in all history.”5 Fun-
damental to the work’s message was Raynal’s historical interpretation of the
aspirations created by the English Revolution and their betrayal in the period
following the Seven Years’ War.
The central argument of Raynal and the other philosophes was that world
history as such was coming into being for the first time in the history of the
world. The denizens of the salons and coffeehouses of Amsterdam, Paris, Phila-
delphia, and London were informed that the discoveries, transformations, and
upheavals of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries had consti-
tuted a universal historical process that encompassed the planet and bound all
of humanity to a common fate. This process entailed the formation of a global
commercial society based upon the universal exchange of labor and its prod-
ucts: “No event has been so interesting to mankind in general, and to the in-
habitants of Europe in particular, as the discovery of the new world, and the
passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope. It gave rise to a revolution in the
commerce, and in the power of nations; and in the manners, industry, and
government of the whole world. At this period, new connections were formed
by the inhabitants of the most distant regions, for the supply of wants they had
never before experienced. The productions of climates situated under the equa-
tor, were consumed in countries bordering on the pole; the industry of the
north was transplanted to the south; and the inhabitants of the west were
clothed with the manufactures of the east: a general intercourse of opinions,
laws and customs, diseases and remedies, virtues and vices, was established
among men.” The emergence of global commercial society entailed both the
overseas expansion of Europe and its fundamental transformation at home.
“Since America and the passage by the Cape has been known, some nations that
were of no consequences are become powerful,” Raynal averred; “others, that
were the terror of Europe, have lost their authority.”6 In effect, one of the cen-
tral purposes of this philosophical and political history of commercial and co-
lonial expansion was to inform the reading public that the signal achievements
234 epilogue

of post-Renaissance Europe were the result of the fact that regions of the conti-
nent were transforming into the nexus of a global commercial and manufactur-
ing society; a society that fused the cultural and intellectual inheritances of
world civilizations together and that created a dynamic, cosmopolitan sociality.
For Raynal and his collaborators, the eighteenth-century Enlightenment was
inseparably bound up with the emergence of the world as such and, thus, with
the emergence of world history.
It was precisely for this reason—the potential for the rise and development
of a genuinely cosmopolitan civil society—that Raynal and his fellow philos-
ophes set pen to paper. It was the emergence and expansion of global commercial
society—what Enlightenment writers generally referred to as the achievement
of “universal commerce”—that the Philosophical History sought to develop a
greater awareness of in the republic of letters. The transnational commercial
society of the eighteenth century had the potential to serve as a powerful instru-
ment in overcoming scarcity, achieving human mastery over nature, and ex-
panding individual and social freedom on a global scale.
According to Raynal, developments in the eighteenth century were fulfill-
ing and dramatically transcending the historical promise of commercial and
maritime communities going back to the ancient civilizations of the Near
East and North Africa. “The commercial states have civilized all others,” the
Philosophical History confidently declared before triumphantly recounting
the history of the trading and seafaring Phoenician city-states, “whose extent
of country and influence were extremely limited” but who nevertheless “ac-
quired by their genius for naval enterprises, an importance which ranked
them foremost in the history of ancient nations . . . happy in possessing so
few natural advantages, since the want of these awakened that spirit of inven-
tion and industry, which is the parent of arts and opulence!” It was the com-
mercial, maritime, and urban world of the Phoenicians—and not the vast
agrarian empires built on conquest—that provided historical antecedents for
the emergent cosmopolis of the eighteenth century. “It must be confessed, that
the situation of the Phoenicians was admirably adapted to extend their com-
merce to every part of the world,” Raynal enthused, “by inhabiting, as it were,
the confines of Africa, Asia, and Europe, if they could not unite the inhabit-
ants of the globe in one common interest, they had it at least in their power,
by a commercial intercourse, to communicate to every nation the enjoyments
of all climates.” And it was the Phoenician trading and maritime communi-
ties that founded Carthage, the North African city-state that might have
drawn the world into a web of universal exchange “had the Roman power
 epilogue 235

never existed . . . but the ambition of one nation excited all the rest to relin-
quish the arts of commerce for those of war, and either to conquer or to per-
ish.”7 Raynal reinterpreted the history of Europe from the standpoint of the
developing transnational commercial society of the eighteenth century. The
economic improvement and growing enlightenment of the world around
him were the products neither of the Greco-Roman tradition nor of Christi-
anity and medieval European civilization, but rather of the potential for “uni-
versal commerce” that had been developing since the trading and maritime
communities of the ancient world.
From this perspective, the Roman Empire and its barbarian aftermath
were little more than criminal enterprises. “The Romans, formed for con-
quest, though they dazzled the world with an appearance of grandeur,” Raynal
observed, “promoted an intercourse between different nations, not by uniting
them by the ties of commerce, but by imposing upon them the same yoke of
subordination. They ravaged the globe, which, when reduced to subjection,
they left in a state rather of lethargy than tranquility. Their despotism and
military government oppressed the people, extinguished the powers of genius,
and degraded the human race.” The highest achievement of ancient civiliza-
tion lay in its potential, contained within city-states such as Athens and Car-
thage, to establish “universal commerce.” The great agrarian empires were
redeemable insofar as they served the purpose of helping to foster global trade.
Otherwise, the “progress” over savagery entailed in the rise and development
of civilization was at best ambiguous. It was on this basis that the Philosophical
History interpreted the victory of Rome in the Punic Wars as a world-historical
defeat for humanity. “Carthage, after a long and glorious contest for the em-
pire of the world, was forced to submit to the all-subduing genius of Rome,”
Raynal lamented; “[t]he subversion of a republic, which gloried in its indus-
try, and owed its power to its skill in useful arts, was, perhaps, a misfortune to
Europe, and to the world in general.”8
The Philosophical History and similar contemporary treatises contended
that the global commercial society coming into being in the eighteenth cen-
tury represented both the fulfillment of the potential contained within the
early maritime communities and the radical transcendence of such potential
insofar as it made possible the development of a cosmopolitan order unimagi-
nable in the ancient world. For Raynal, such a cosmopolitan civil society had
become achievable only in the eighteenth century. “But the ancients whom we
have so often excelled, though we have derived much useful knowledge from
them,” he observed, “had not means sufficient to enable them to establish an
236 epilogue

universal commerce.”9 The commercial and manufacturing society of the

eighteenth century, based upon the increasingly global exchange of labor and
its products, represented both the culmination of civilization and its liquida-
tion and overcoming by a historically unprecedented, dynamic form of hu-
man sociality. The “universal commerce” that was coming into view in the
eighteenth century, and that Raynal and his collaborators were struggling to
promote a greater awareness of, was much more than a quantitative increase in
world trade. It had the potential for a qualitative transformation of the globe.
The world might be made anew.
Raynal’s magisterial treatise and the developing theorization of commer-
cial society in the discourse of political economy with which it was bound up
were intended not to praise the world of the eighteenth-century Enlighten-
ment but to task it. For many of the radical philosophes, the emancipatory
potential that emerged with the breakdown of late medieval civilization and
the subsequent commercial and colonial expansion of Western Europe was the
result of a contingent, not an inevitable, process. Men and women only be-
came conscious of and sought to realize this emancipatory potential in the
wake of the Dutch Revolt (c. 1568–1648) and England’s seventeenth-century
revolutionary upheavals (c. 1641–1689). Furthermore, for radical Enlighten-
ment thinkers such as Diderot and Raynal, the achievements of the Dutch
and English revolutions in promoting an awareness of the potential for eman-
cipation contained in “universal commerce” were in danger of being under-
mined and lost in the eighteenth-century world of enlightened absolutism
and increasingly conservative British and Dutch regimes.10 If those achieve-
ments were to be secured for the future, they had to be advanced in the pres-
ent. Raynal’s history tasked the eighteenth-century Enlightenment with
understanding its own conditions of possibility and, in doing so, with advanc-
ing “universal commerce.”
Based on his detailed study of recent overseas expansion, Raynal was by
no means optimistic about European civilization’s prospects for contributing
to the advance and development of global commercial society:
If we consider that the Europeans have the advantage of all the knowl-
edge of the Greeks, that their commerce is infinitely more extensive,
that since the improvements in navigation, their ideas are directed to
greater, and more various objects; it is astonishing that they should not
have the most palpable superiority over them. But it must be observed,
that when these people arrived at the knowledge of the arts and of
 epilogue 237

trade, they were just produced as it were from the hands of nature, and
had all the powers necessary to improve the talents she had given
them: whereas the European nations had the misfortune to be re-
strained by laws, by government, and by an exclusive and imperious
religion. In Greece the arts of trade met with men, in Europe with
slaves. Whenever the absurdities of our institutions have been pointed
out, we have taken pains to correct them, without daring totally to
overthrow the edifice. We have remedied some abuses, by introducing
others; and, in our efforts to support, reform and palliate, we have
adopted more contradictions and absurdities in our manners, than are
to be found among the most barbarous people. For this reason, if the
arts should ever gain admission among the Tartars and Iroquois, they
will make an infinitely more rapid progress among them, than they
can ever do in Russia and Poland.
The point of the Philosophical History was neither to praise nor to describe
European overseas expansion but rather to provoke greater awareness of the
fact that a global commercial society was emerging that contained significant
emancipatory potential for humanity. While the achievement of greater indi-
vidual and collective freedom might entail political struggle and social change,
any project of this sort was only possible if there was greater awareness of what
made individual and collective freedom possible in the first place—that is, the
conditions and dynamics of commercial society. “The Europeans have founded
colonies in all parts, but are they acquainted with the principles on which they
ought to be formed?” Raynal queried. “They have established a commerce of
exchange, of the productions of the earth and of manufactures. This com-
merce is transferred from one people to another. Can we not discover by what
means, and it what situations this has been effected . . . how comes it to pass
that those to whom Nature has been most liberal, are not always the richest
and most flourishing?”11 In calling for a systematic inquiry into the principles
of “the wealth of nations,” Raynal and his collaborators were seeking to pro-
voke a greater awareness of the very commercial society that they were a prod-
uct of and that made the Enlightenment possible. They aimed to promote a
wider public understanding of commercial society so that men and women,
acting on the basis of such an understanding, could realize that society’s eman-
cipatory potential—and fulfill the project of “universal commerce.”
The Philosophical History was published on the eve of the democratic rev-
olutions that rocked Western Europe and North America and whose effects
238 epilogue

rippled throughout the world. It was a time when many leading thinkers felt
that the achievement of a cosmopolitan civil society—a society that was based
not on the domination of Europe but on “universal commerce”—was on the
not-too-distant horizon. It was the hope and expectation of many intellectu-
als and writers that the world market and the global division of labor would
soon free humanity from scarcity, poverty, and coercion while spreading the
benefits of reason, liberty, and prosperity to all regions.
The long nineteenth century, stretching from the outbreak of the demo-
cratic revolutions in 1776 and 1789 to the First World War, both fulfilled and
thwarted these radical aims and aspirations. The consolidation of the world
market and the global division of labor were certainly two of the century’s
achievements—and, in that sense, the project of a “universal commerce” was
partially fulfilled—but the aspirations for a cosmopolitan civil society that
delivered perpetual peace, boundless and widely diffused prosperity, liberal
regimes based on the rights of self-determining individuals, and ever-
expanding social freedom came to naught. By century’s end, the uneven de-
velopment of the global capitalist economy had created an advanced
industrialized core in Europe and North America and a colonial and semi-
colonial agrarian periphery across much of the rest of the world. The pro-
cesses of industrialization and proletarianization in the West gave rise to a
society in which many members of the new urban-based working class toiled
for unprecedented hours in factories while a significant number of their
fellows went unemployed and were thus rendered socially superfluous and
dependent. Rather than achieving a perpetual peace based on universal ex-
change—and, with it, the withering away of the state and its military means
of coercion—the long nineteenth century witnessed the growth of authoritar-
ian state forms with large bureaucracies and standing armies steeled for com-
bat in ever-more destructive wars and for imperial conquest and dominion
overseas. While the consolidation of the world market and the global division
of labor during the long nineteenth century—and, with it, the emphatic con-
stitution of world history—certainly transformed the planet, it is not alto-
gether clear that it freed humanity.
One of the greatest examples of the radical Enlightenment’s unrealized
and thwarted aspirations for a cosmopolitan civil society is European expan-
sion in Asia during the later eighteenth century. Up to that point, the most
important development in the centuries-long encounter between Europe and
Asia was the rise of the British Indian empire. For philosophes such as Diderot
and Raynal, hope for the future lay in the rise of a commercial cosmopolis that
 epilogue 239

would integrate and reorganize human activity on a world scale and thus tap
the potential for infinite wealth and boundless freedom that “slumbered in
the lap of social labor.” The project of “universal commerce” that they sought
to advance intellectually did not entail the domination, division, and re-
division of the world by the European Great Powers in the service of their own
geopolitical interests and economic development. Radical Enlightenment
thinkers believed that the mercantile and manufacturing worlds of Asia and
Europe held out the greatest prospects for the advance of “universal com-
merce” and for the creation of the cosmopolitan civil society they envisioned.
And those worlds became directly linked in the later eighteenth century when
the British East India Company transformed from a trading corporation into
a territorial empire in northeastern India. As a consequence, the most dy-
namic commercial and manufacturing society of the Western world, Britain
and its Atlantic empire, collided with one of the richest and most economi-
cally buoyant regions of the Indian Ocean, the Mughal province of Bengal. It
was clear for writers like Raynal that the imperial connection between Britain
and Bengal, and the fusion of their commercial worlds, had great potential for
generating a cosmopolitan civil society. But, as the eighteenth century turned
into the nineteenth, such potential went unfulfilled.
The nineteenth-century British Raj in India was an extractive, bureau-
cratic, and military despotism that loomed large over an increasingly agrarian
and racially divided society. The imperial state did not rule through colonial
society but above it, with no significant indigenous political representation or
checks on its authority. This autocratic political order preserved and trans-
formed traditional hierarchies and customs, fusing them with modern tech-
niques of statecraft and political economy in order to maintain a coercive
apparatus that extracted revenue. It stifled the economy, propped up a landed
and financial oligarchy in Britain as well as traditional elites in India, and sup-
ported the forces of counter-revolution throughout Europe and the world.
The consolidation of the East India Company’s imperial state in Bengal dur-
ing the 1760s and 1770s was not simply one episode among others. The Com-
pany’s authoritarian and extractive state was very much the prototype for the
reinvigorated aristocratic, autocratic, and military forms of rule that character-
ized the Second British Empire and the European imperialism that flourished
globally during the epoch of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.12
Furthermore, the illiberal imperialism of the late eighteenth and early nine-
teenth century was the most important forerunner of the New Imperialism of
the 1880s and 1890s, which carved up the world into Great Power-dominated
240 epilogue

military and economic blocs.13 The Raj was one of the most profound expres-
sions of the failure to achieve the radical Enlightenment’s aspirations for a
cosmopolitan civil society.
Raynal and his collaborators on the Philosophical History were, already
in the 1770s, expressing their dismay at the failure of the EIC’s emerging
imperial state to realize the potential for integrating Bengal’s and Britain’s
commercial and manufacturing societies—and, in doing so, merging the
trading worlds of Asia and Europe. Broadly put, they were developing a sys-
tematic critique of the growing illiberalism of the British Empire in Asia and
throughout the world. Neither their dismay nor their critique stemmed from
concern with the Company’s growing political power on the subcontinent.
Rather, they were deeply troubled by the way that political power was de-
ployed to prop up the corporation’s short-term commercial interests and the
British state’s short-term fiscal-military needs at the expense of a liberalizing
imperial impulse that might reorganize Bengali commercial and manufactur-
ing society, fully integrating it into Britain’s worldwide empire of trade and
liberty.
Raynal thought that the EIC’s presence in Asia had the potential to fuse
the commercial worlds of Britain and India because the corporation’s direc-
tors had pursued the “sufficiently enlightened” policy of allowing “the private
traders of their own nation” to pursue the port-to-port and upcountry trade
in Asia largely unimpeded. The Company servants and free merchants who
traded on their own private accounts throughout the Indian Ocean world
had introduced a new dynamism into European operations in Asia and had
developed commercial relations far beyond the traditional confines of the
monopoly companies and their prized markets.14 Thus, emerging within the
EIC’s trading networks and settlements in the East was a dynamic commer-
cial sphere characterized by entrepreneurship and mobility rather than mo-
nopoly and stasis. This zone of private trade stretched across the Indian Ocean
world and deeply penetrated the commercial and manufacturing centers of
the Coromandel Coast and the Bay of Bengal. If the Company’s limitations
on this commercial sphere were lifted and if its trade and settlements were
opened to the free play of private interests—that is, if the EIC’s public infra-
structure was transformed from the property of a monopoly company into a
vehicle for the expansion of free trade within Asia as well as between East and
West—then a Eurasian civil society with Calcutta as its capital might develop.
While the outcome of the Seven Years’ War in India and Robert Clive’s
victory over the Nawab of Bengal at Plassey in 1757—and, consequently, the
 epilogue 241

growing political power of the EIC in South Asia—might have provided

the military bridgehead for the development of such a Eurasian civil society
around Calcutta, the authors of the Philosophical History maintained no illu-
sions about the economically extractive despotism that the Company was
actually putting in place, starting with Clive’s return to Bengal in 1764 and
culminating with his acquisition of the diwani from the Mughal Emperor
Shah Alam II in 1765. In the early 1760s, Raynal observed, the Emperor was
“[a]bandoned by his subjects, betrayed by his allies, without support, without
any army” and “allured by the power of the English” who “promised to con-
duct him to Delhi, and reestablish him on his throne[.]” Despite the commit-
ments made by the EIC’s agents to restore the Mughal Empire and to overcome
the political fragmentation of the subcontinent, under Clive’s direction “they
began by causing him [Shah Alam II] to cede beforehand the absolute sover-
eignty over Bengal” by transferring the right to collect revenue to the British
corporation, which was “made by an authentic act, and attended with all the
formalities usually practiced throughout the Mogul empire.” Although the
Company was now in control of Bengal, Raynal commented wryly, its forces
abandoned the Emperor and sought to obscure the fact that power had
changed hands in northeastern India:
The English, securely possessed of this title [the diwani], which was to
give a kind of legitimacy to their usurpation, at least in the eyes of the
vulgar, soon forgot the promises they had made. They gave the Mogul
to understand that particular circumstances would not suffer them to
be concerned in such an enterprise . . . and to make up for all his
losses, they assigned him a pension of six millions . . . upon which that
unfortunate prince was reduced to subsist himself in one of the prin-
cipal towns of the province of Banarez, where he has taken up resi-
dence. . . . The English, thus become sovereigns of Bengal, have
thought it incumbent on them to keep up the shadow of ancient
forms, in a country where they have the lead and, perhaps, the only
power that is likely to be secure and lasting. They govern the kingdom
still under the name of a nabob, who is of their nomination and in
their pay and seems to give his orders. It is from him that all public
acts seem to proceed and issue, though the decrees in fact of the coun-
cil at Calcutta; so that the people, notwithstanding their change of
masters, have for a considerable time been induced to believe, that
they still submitted but to the same yoke.15
242 epilogue

The growing British political and military power on the subcontinent was
not wielded to create a liberal regime that could further improve Bengal’s
commercial society and fuse it with Britain’s global trading empire. Instead,
the Company’s new means of coercion—that is, the territorial empire—were
deployed in the service of its narrow oligarchic interests.
Raynal and his collaborators were clear about the fact that the EIC’s ter-
ritorial empire posed greater obstacles to the development of Bengal’s com-
mercial society than had the previous Mughal and nawabi regimes. For the
Company’s state not only preserved many of the abuses and privileges of tra-
ditional elites and practices in Bengal but incorporated them into a new
political-economic imperial order that transformed northeastern India into a
tributary province designed to prop up a European monopoly company and,
through it, the revenue-hungry British political establishment. “This new ar-
rangement of matters without having wrought any sensible change in the
exterior form of the English company,” the Philosophical History observed,
“has essentially changed their object . . . no longer a trading body, they are a
territorial power which farms out its revenues in aid of a commerce that for-
merly was their sole existence, and which, notwithstanding the extension it
has received, is no more than an additional object in the various combina-
tions of their present real grandeur.”16 The territorial revenue that the EIC
accrued as the Diwan of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa was now the primary ob-
ject of its concern. The Company no longer imported New World gold and
silver but rather used the proceeds of the land tax to make its large-scale pur-
chases of Bengali silk and cotton piece-goods. Thus, Indian textiles, now pro-
duced and sold under the corporation’s imperial rule, became the means for
remitting territorial revenue to London and for maintaining a monopoly
company that was a key pillar of Britain’s fiscal-military state. The EIC was
now a tax-collecting behemoth that drew its sustenance from Bengal’s peas-
ants and landlords, whose wealth maintained a vast bureaucracy and military
that supported Britain’s expanding empire in the East.
Raynal contended that the EIC’s territorial empire was not laying the
groundwork for a Eurasian civil society because it was not building a state
designed to further “universal commerce” (that is, the unlimited and unim-
peded exchange of labor and its products) between European traders and
Asian weavers and merchants. Rather, through its monopolistic and monop-
sonistic practices, the emerging Company state was establishing conditions
inimical for the creation of a civil society of self-determining individuals who
could freely dispose of their labor and property as they saw fit:
 epilogue 243

[The EIC has] had the duties augmented, and, to conclude all, have
obtained an edict, which has been published, to forbid all private Eu-
ropeans trading in the interior parts of Bengal, and leaving it open and
lawful only for the English. When we reflect on such a barbarous pro-
hibition, it seems as if it had been contrived only to exhaust all the
powers of doing mischief to that unfortunate country, whose prosper-
ity, for their own sake, ought to be the only object of the English
company. . . . But still in the midst of this overbearing conduct, so
contrary to the advantage of their constituents, these treacherous
agents have attempted to disguise themselves under the mask of zeal.
It was necessary, say they, to export to England a quantity of merchan-
dise proportioned to the extent of her commerce, but the competition
of private traders was prejudicial to the purchases of the company.
Under the same pretext, and in order to extend this exclusion to the
foreign settlements while they appear to respect their rights, they have
of late years ordered more merchandise than Bengal could furnish. At
the same time the weavers have been forbidden to work for other
nations until the English orders were completed. Thus the workmen,
not being any longer at liberty to choose among the several purchasers, have
been forced to deliver the fruits of their labour at the price they were pleased
to give for them [emphasis mine].
The British territorial empire protected the EIC’s monopoly private property
and did not expand the freedom of labor and its exchange among Bengali
“workmen” nor among independent European and Asian merchants. By un-
dermining free labor and the private property generated on its basis, the EIC
not only squandered the potential to build an emancipated civil society in
India but also struck at the foundations of wealth creation that were already
present in Bengal. Under the auspices of the Mughal Empire “industry, agri-
culture, and population, have been carried to such length in the province of
Bengal,” Raynal averred, “one would think they might still be carried further
under the government of a free people, friends to humanity; but the thirst of
money, the most devouring, the most cruel of all passions, has given rise to a
pernicious and destructive government.”17
In Britain, the royal executive was limited by Parliament and the law.
Thus, it was forced to rule through civil society instead of above it. In British
North America, royal governors and imperial officials were constrained by
colonial assemblies. However, the features of this “empire of liberty” in the
244 epilogue

British Atlantic world—an empire based on the rule of law and the rights of
private property—were not extended to South Asia. No local councils or leg-
islatures constrained the EIC’s neo-absolutist despotism. While in Britain the
means of coercion provided the public framework for the ceaseless develop-
ment of civil society, such conditions did not exist in the Company’s Indian
empire. The Philosophical History made this situation clear to its readers: “We
must allow that the corruption to which the English have given themselves up
from the first beginning of their power, the oppression which has succeeded
it, the abuses every day multiplying, the entire loss of principle; all these cir-
cumstances together form a contrast totally disagreeing with their past con-
duct in India, and the real constitution of their government in Europe . . . the
English government considering the conquest of Bengal but as a help towards
increasing numerically the revenue of Great Britain, gave up to the company
for 9,000,000 livres per annum, the destiny of twelve millions of people.”18
While the EIC was subject to parliamentary regulation and the rule of law in
Britain—and, thus, to the country’s civil society—its imperial state in Bengal
operated under no such constraints. Furthermore, in return for a portion of
the tribute that the Company extracted from its Indian provinces, Britain’s
Parliament declined to assume direct control and supervision of the corpora-
tion’s emerging Asian empire. Thus, the EIC’s dominion in Bengal was ef-
fectively sealed off from the critical-political scrutiny of Britain’s public sphere
and civil society. The “empire of liberty” was not extended beyond the Cape
of Good Hope.
The territorial empire that the Company consolidated during the 1760s
and 1770s was the forerunner of the heavily militarized and autocratic impe-
rialism of the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries because it was an au-
thoritarian and reactionary but nevertheless modern state. It did not preserve
traditional, feudal, and mercantilist practices so much as codify, reinscribe,
and integrate them within a sociopolitical order that was based on modern
techniques of governance and the economic integration of Bengal into global
capitalism. Under such conditions, traditional forms of arbitrary power were
radically transformed and extended. “The exactions are become general and
stated, the oppression continual and absolute,” Raynal contended; “the de-
structive art of monopolies is carried to perfection, and new ones have been
invented . . . [the Company] have altered and tainted the public sources of
confidence and happiness.”19 While the EIC’s dominion had all the tools of a
modernizing statecraft at its disposal, it had none of the checks and critical
oversight provided by a modernizing civil society. Although the Company’s
 epilogue 245

state politically mediated the integration of Bengal into the world market and
the global division of labor, it did little to expand the province’s commercial
and industrial capacities.
Over the course of the nineteenth century, the British Raj used the tech-
niques and instruments of a modernizing industrial society in Britain to rein-
force and maintain the privileges and hierarchies of agrarian civilization in
India. “Who would ever have imagined that this same company, by an im-
mediate alteration of conduct, and change of system should soon make the
people of Bengal regret the despotism of their ancient masters,” queried the
Philosophical History. “That fatal revolution has been too sudden and too
real,” Raynal averred; a “settled tyranny has taken the place of arbitrary au-
thority.”20 The potential of Bengal’s commercial society was not realized, and
entirely new and powerful obstacles to its future realization were created.
These obstacles could not be attributed to the Mughals, the nawabi regime,
or previous agrarian empires.
Given these developments, how stood the project of a cosmopolitan civil
society based on “universal commerce”? If the political and intellectual agenda
of Raynal and his fellow philosophes was to be successful, it would have to
grapple with the problem of the Company Raj. The rise and consolidation of
Britain’s Indian empire posed difficult and fundamental questions for the
radical Enlightenment.
Raynal hoped that, despite the ongoing catastrophe of British imperialism
in India, the era might yet come when “the English respecting the rights of
humanity . . . rid these countries of the oppression under which they have con-
tinued to groan for so many ages.” He believed that the British territorial em-
pire in Bengal was capable of transforming into a political order that established
the rule of law, that protected and expanded the rights of private property, and
that generalized free labor and exchange. “Then Calcutta, far from being an
object of terror to the Indians, would be rendered a tribunal always open to the
complaints of those unhappy sufferers whom tyranny should dare to molest,”
the Philosophical History argued, and “property would grow into respect, so that
the treasure which has been buried so long would be drawn out of the bowels
of the earth, and fulfill its destined purpose.” Raynal wanted not only to restore
the Bengali commercial and manufacturing capacities ruined by the Compa-
ny’s state but also to awaken the potentialities that “slumbered in the lap of
social labor” in India: “Agriculture and manufactures be encouraged to such a
degree, that the objects of export would become from day to day more consid-
erable, and the company by following maxims such as these, instead of being
246 epilogue

driven to the necessity of lessening the tributes which they found established,
might possibly find means to bring about an augmentation consistent with the
general satisfaction of the natives.” The expansion of Britain’s “empire of lib-
erty” to northeastern India, and its fusion with the trading world of Asia, would
unlock the infinite wealth-creating potential of human labor. The transforma-
tion of political-economic relations within Bengal, and between Bengal and the
British Empire, would lay the basis for a Eurasian civil society that might serve
as the midwife to a genuinely cosmopolitan civil society. If the EIC’s imperial-
ism was to serve such a purpose, the Philosophical History informed Britain’s
reading public, “then shall the friends of humanity applaud your success . . .
they will pardon in you those usurpations, which have been only for the de-
spoiling of tyrants, and they will invite you to new conquests, when they see the
influence of your sublime constitution of government extending itself even to
the very extremities of Asia, to give birth to liberty, property and happiness.”21
By the early 1770s, Raynal and his collaborators were well aware that Asian
liberty, property, and happiness were not being pursued in the Company’s
London headquarters or in its Calcutta settlement. The EIC was successful in
consolidating an extractive despotism and, thus, in stabilizing its existing mo-
nopoly structure and its financial relationship with Britain’s oligarchic order.
The corporation’s emerging territorial empire faced less and less opposition
on the ground in Bengal and in the boardrooms of East India House as mer-
chants, stockholders, employees, and private traders adjusted to the new real-
ity. For matters to take a different course, forces beyond the Company and its
Bengal fiefdom would have to intervene.
Who or what had the political power capable of transforming the EIC’s
imperial state into the public infrastructure necessary for extending Britain’s
civil society into Bengal and for creating a new Eurasian civil society? What
institution could carry out this revolutionary transformation of British impe-
rialism in northeastern India? Raynal and his fellow philosophes looked to the
institution that most clearly embodied Britain’s historical struggles against
arbitrary power—the institution that ensured that the British monarchy and
its government ruled through civil society instead of above it: Parliament.
“Happy for this portion of our fellow-creatures [in Bengal], a revolution of a
peaceable nature is at hand,” Raynal enthused; “the nation has been struck
with such enormous excesses . . . [and] heard the groans of such a number of
victims sacrificed to the avarice and passions of some individuals.” News of
the Company’s “excesses” had reached the British public sphere, turning Par-
liament’s attention toward the emerging Indian empire:
 epilogue 247

The parliament is already employed on this great object. Every detail of

that administration is under their inspection, every fact will be cleared
up, every abuse unveiled, the reasons of them inquired into and removed.
What a sight to be presented to Europe! What an example to be left to
posterity! The hand of liberty is going to weigh the destiny of a whole
people in the scale of justice. Yes, august legislators, ye will make good
our expectations! Ye will restore humanity to her rights, ye will put a curb
on avarice, and break the yoke of tyranny. The authority of law, which is
not to be shaken, will every where take place of an administration purely
arbitrary. At sight of that authority, the monopolist, that tyrant over in-
dustry, will for ever disappear. The fetters which private interest has riv-
eted on commerce ye will make to give way to general advantage.22
Raynal and his collaborators were of course not calling for a parliamentary
inquiry into the EIC’s affairs but rather registering the fact that one was fully
underway in 1772. It was the hope of Enlightenment radicals across the Atlan-
tic world that the British House of Commons, the institutional heir to the
seventeenth-century revolutionary struggles against royal absolutism, would
curb the corporation’s despotism, transform the political economy of British
imperialism in Asia, and unlock the potential of commercial society and social
labor in India. The legislature that had conquered Stuart despotism would
break the Company’s chains on Bengal and unleash the forces of civil society
in the Indian empire. In an important sense, Parliament remained the last best
hope for the project of “universal commerce” and cosmopolitan civil society.
This hope was ultimately dashed with the conclusion of the parliamentary
inquiry into the EIC’s affairs in 1773. When the House of Commons passed
the proposals of Lord North’s ministry into law, it was clear to all observers
that the fundamental political-economic structures of the EIC’s autocratic
empire would remain in place. Over the next decades, the Company’s state
developed into a vast tax-collecting, territory-conquering leviathan that fos-
tered a society of landlords, peasants, bureaucrats, and soldiers in South Asia.
During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era, the Raj came into its
own as a global bulwark of counter-revolution. Over the course of the nine-
teenth century, British India—more than any other European colony or im-
perial outpost—came to embody the West’s subjugation of “the rest,” the
development of an inequitable world economy with an industrialized core
and underdeveloped peripheries, and the defeat and failure of the radical En-
lightenment’s aspirations for a cosmopolitan civil society.
248 epilogue

In retrospect, it can be said that the outcome of the 1772–1773 parliamen-

tary inquiry was of world-historical significance. The dynamic civil society of
Britain and its “empire of liberty”—the greatest achievement of the mid-
seventeenth-century civil wars and Interregnum and of the Glorious Revolu-
tion of 1688–1689—did not come to Asia. The global expansion of the English
Revolution was thwarted. The radical Enlightenment’s aspirations for a cos-
mopolitan civil society were not fulfilled. The specter of those failed aspira-
tions continues to haunt the present.
 Notes

A B B R E V I AT I O N S

BL British Library
FWIHC Fort William–India House Correspondence and Other Contemporary
Papers Relating Thereto (Public Series)
IOL India Office Library, Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library
IOR India Office Records, Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library
NLW National Library of Wales
OIOC Oriental and India Office Collections, British Library
WLCL William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan

INTRODUCTION

1. Quoted in Mark Bence-Jones, Clive of India (London, 1974), 216.

2. Quoted in H. V. Bowen, Revenue and Reform: The Indian Problem in British Politics,
1757–1773 (Cambridge, 1991), 15.
3. Clive’s successful performance in British military campaigns against French and native
forces on the Indian subcontinent during the later 1740s and early 1750s, in particular
his leadership of the expedition that seized Arcot, won him widespread fame at home
and abroad. As a result, his return to Britain in 1753 was an occasion of popular cele-
bration. William Pitt the Elder famously praised him as the “heaven-born general.”
4. C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830 (New
York, 1989), 8–9.
5. For classic liberal interpretations of the Second British Empire as a form of
industrialization-driven overseas expansion, see Vincent T. Harlow, The Founding of

249
250 notes to pages 4–6

the Second British Empire, 2 vols. (London, 1952 and 1964); John Gallagher and
Ronald Robinson, “The Imperialism of Free Trade,” Economic History Review, n.s., 6,
no. 1 (1953): 7–14. For world-systems analysis and its attempt to account for the trans-
formation of European imperialism in the eighteenth century, see Andre Gunder
Frank, World Accumulation, 1492–1789 (New York, 1978); Immanuel Wallerstein, The
Modern World-System, vol. 2: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World
Economy, 1600–1750 (New York, 1980).
6. Rudrangshu Mukherjee, “Trade and Empire in Awadh, 1765–1804,” Past and Present,
no. 94 (1982): 85–102; Rudrangshu Mukherjee, “Early British Imperialism in India: A
Rejoinder,” Past and Present, no. 106 (1985): 169–173.
7. Such interpretations fail to explain why a costly coercive apparatus—in this case, the
British Indian empire—was necessary to capture markets for the sale of industrial
goods and the purchase of raw materials. For refutations of the industrialization-
driven imperialism thesis as it has been applied to the British conquest of India, see
P. J. Marshall, “Early British Imperialism in India,” Past and Present, no. 106 (1985):
164–169; P. J. Marshall, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 2, 2: Bengal: The
British Bridgehead: Eastern India, 1740–1828 (Cambridge, 1987), 104–115.
8. The EIC occasionally played a direct role in Bengali textile manufacturing, especially
when it managed to assert control over weavers. However, rather than fostering capi-
talist production, it usually fixed wages, coerced weavers, and monopolized market
access. As Marshall asserts, “in its methods of doing business in Bengal the Company
can hardly be regarded as the sharp competitive edge of a new industrial society. It
relied on well-tried practices from the past, reinforced by the use of new political
powers. It preferred to control labour, fix prices and establish monopolies, rather than
trust to its superior efficiency.” Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead, 115.
9. Marshall, 113–115.
10. Marshall, 112.
11. P. J. Marshall, “The British in Asia: Trade to Dominion, 1700–1765,” in The Oxford
History of the British Empire, vol. 2: The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J. Marshall (Oxford,
1998), 498–499.
12. For the most detailed examination of these sub-imperialist activities during the
1740s and 1750s, see J. D. Nichol, “The British in India, 1740–63: A Study of
Imperial Expansion into Bengal” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 1976). See
also Sushil Chaudhury, The Prelude to Empire: Plassey Revolution of 1757 (New Delhi,
2000).
13. Marshall, “The British in Asia,” 498–499.
14. C. A. Bayly, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 2, 1: Indian Society and the
Making of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1988), 2–3.
15. J. R. Seeley, The Expansion of England (Chicago, 1971), 143 and 165; The Cambridge
History of India, vol. 5: British India, 1497–1858, ed. H. H. Dodwell (Cambridge,
1929), 106–108.
16. For overviews of this literature, see Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British
Empire, 7–78; D. A. Washbrook, “Progress and Problems: South Asian Economic and
Social History, c. 1720–1860,” Modern Asian Studies 22, no. 1 (1988): 57–96.
 notes to pages 6–9 251

17. Muzaffar Alam, The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh & the Punjab,
1707–1748 (Oxford, 1986).
18. Burton Stein, “State Formation and Economy Reconsidered, Part One,” Modern
Asian Studies 19, no. 3 (1985): 387–413.
19. C. A. Bayly, “The British Military-Fiscal State and Indigenous Resistance: India
1750–1820,” in An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815, ed. Lawrence Stone
(London, 1994), 322.
20. Robert Travers, “The Eighteenth Century in Indian History,” Eighteenth-Century
Studies 40, no. 3 (2007): 492–508.
21. The phrase is used by Bayly in his analysis of such approaches. Bayly, “The British
Fiscal-Military State and Indigenous Resistance,” 324.
22. Peter Marshall, “British Expansion in India in the Eighteenth Century: A Historical
Revision,” in The East India Company: 1600–1858, vol. 5: Warfare, Expansion and
Resistance, ed. Patrick Tuck (London, 1998), 17.
23. “Although the Company’s servants may not have devised systematic schemes for us-
ing their military ascendancy to establish a territorial empire,” Marshall observes,
“they were willing to use it to extract concessions from Indian rulers whose cumula-
tive effect was to weaken and eventually to destroy those states that came within the
British orbit.” Marshall, “British Expansion in India,” 18.
24. Maya Jasanoff, Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture, and Conquest in the East, 1750–1850
(New York, 2005), 23–31. Although Jasanoff recognizes that “it was not until 1765 that
Clive would consolidate his victory in Bengal by gaining the diwani from the em-
peror,” she nevertheless contends “it was at the battle of Plassey that the East India
Company irrevocably and victoriously asserted itself as a military and ruling power in
the Mughal domains” (30). The problem with such an analysis is that it assumes that
the post-diwani imperial state was the inevitable outcome of Plassey and, as a conse-
quence, fails to interrogate how, by whom, and why that imperial state was
consolidated.
25. Lucy Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics (Oxford,
1952).
26. Bowen, Revenue and Reform; Bruce Lenman and Philip Lawson, “Robert Clive, the
‘Black Jagir,’ and British Politics,” Historical Journal 26, no. 4 (1983): 801–829.
27. In praise of Lucy Sutherland’s work, Lewis Namier contends that “Indian affairs im-
pinge all along on British domestic history during the first twenty-five years of the
reign of George III” and that “it was high time that they were elucidated and worked
into the pattern of which they are an essential part.” Lewis Namier, “The East India
Company,” in Namier, Crossroads of Power: Essays on Eighteenth-Century England
(London, 1962), 162–163. Sutherland’s framework for analyzing British politics in the
second half of the eighteenth century is heavily based on Namier’s approach to the
subject.
28. The locus classicus of this view is contained in Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics
at the Accession of George III (London, 1957). It should be noted that Namier wrote
this book, which offers a major historical revision of mid-eighteenth-century British
politics, largely as a preface to his work on the crisis of the British Empire during the
252 notes to pages 9–19

1760s and 1770s. His primary concern was not the structure of politics itself but the
way in which the imperial crisis developed within the confines of this structure. See
Namier, The Structure of Politics, ix-xi.
29. Namier, The Structure of Politics, 2.
30. Although J. H. Plumb was critical of Namierite historiography in many respects, he
came to similar conclusions with regard to the character of metropolitan politics after
the 1720s. See J. H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England, 1675–1725
(London, 1979).
31. P. J. Marshall, “Empire and Authority in the Later Eighteenth Century,” Journal of
Imperial and Commonwealth History 15, no. 2 (1987): 105.
32. Bowen, Revenue and Reform; John Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 1766–1768
(London, 1956); John Brooke and Lewis Namier, Charles Townshend (London, 1964);
Philip Lawson, George Grenville, A Political Life (Oxford, 1984); Philip Lawson, The
Imperial Challenge: Quebec and Britain in the Age of the American Revolution (Montreal,
1989); Lenman and Lawson, “Robert Clive, the ‘Black Jagir,’ and British Politics”;
Martyn J. Powell, Britain and Ireland in the Eighteenth-Century Crisis of Empire (New
York, 2003); Peter D. G. Thomas, British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis: The First
Phase of the American Revolution (Oxford, 1975); Peter D. G. Thomas, The Townshend
Duties Crisis: The Second Phase of the American Revolution, 1767–1773 (Oxford, 1987);
Peter D. G. Thomas, Tea Party to Independence: The Third Phase of the American
Revolution, 1773–1776 (Oxford, 1991).
33. Lewis Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolution (London, 1963),
40–41.
34. Bowen, Revenue and Reform, 5.
35. Bowen, 11–12. See also H. V. Bowen, “British India, 1765–1813: The Metropolitan
Context,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire, 2:530–551, where it is claimed
that British politicians and opinion-makers gave “an almost unanimous ex post facto
seal of approval” to “the dramatic transformation of the East India Company from
trader to sovereign” (530).
36. Seeley, The Expansion of England, 143.
37. Robert Travers contends that “histories of British India have sometimes sought to
downplay the ideological motivations of empire, emphasizing the unplanned or ad hoc
characteristics of expansion.” He successfully demonstrates that there were significant
ideological debates and discussions regarding the EIC’s conquest of Bengal in both
northeastern India and Britain. Travers, Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-Century
India: The British in Bengal (Cambridge, 2007), 14. See also Robert Travers, “Ideology
and British Expansion in Bengal, 1757–72,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth
History 33, no. 1 (2005): 7–27.

CHAPTER 1. THE FIRST BRITISH EMPIRE, THE WHIG

S U P R E M A C Y, A N D T H E E A S T I N D I A C O M PA N Y

1. Robert Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-

Industrial Europe,” and “The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism,” in The Brenner
 notes to pages 19–22 253

Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe,

ed. T. H. Aston and C. H. E. Philpin (Cambridge, 1987), 10–63 and 213–327.
2. C. G. A. Clay, Economic Expansion and Social Change: England, 1500–1700, vol. 1:
People, Lands and Towns (Cambridge, 1984), 67–141; D. C. Coleman, The Economy of
England, 1450–1750 (Oxford, 1977), 111–130; Joan Thirsk, Economic Policy and Projects:
The Development of a Consumer Society in England (Oxford, 1978); Charles Wilson,
England’s Apprenticeship, 1603–1763, 2nd ed. (London, 1984), 20–35.
3. Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change, Political Conflict, and
London’s Overseas Traders, 1550–1653 (London, 2003), 577–632.
4. John C. Appleby, “War, Politics, and Colonization, 1558–1625,” in The Oxford History
of the British Empire, vol. 1: The Origins of Empire: British Overseas Enterprise to the
Close of the Seventeenth Century, ed. Nicholas Canny (Oxford, 1998), 55–78.
5. Conrad Russell, “Parliament and the King’s Finances,” in The Origins of the
English Civil War, ed. Conrad Russell (London, 1973), 91–116. For the relationship
of these Stuart administrative and fiscal developments to previous Elizabethan
governance, see Frederick C. Dietz, English Public Finance, 1558–1641 (New York,
1932).
6. David Thomas, “Financial and Administrative Developments,” in Before the English
Civil War, ed. Howard Tomlinson (London, 1984), 103–122.
7. Ronald G. Asch, “The Revival of Monopolies: Court and Patronage during the
Personal Rule of Charles I, 1629–1640,” in Princes, Patronage and the Nobility: The
Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, 1450–1650, ed. Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M.
Birke (Oxford, 1991), 357–392.
8. Daniel A. Baugh, “Great Britain’s ‘Blue-Water’ Policy, 1689–1815,” International
History Review 10, no. 1 (1988): 37–39.
9. J. P. Sommerville, Royalists and Patriots: Politics and Ideology in England, 1603–1640
(London, 1999).
10. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 316–374 and 393–459.
11. Michael J. Braddick, “The English Government, War, Trade, and Settlement, 1625–
1688,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire, 1:286–308.
12. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 541–557.
13. Brenner, 707–709.
14. “Although the Civil Wars weakened the English Empire, they resulted, in England, in
a more assertive, republican, government that was in a position to mobilize and assert
power,” Jeremy Black observes; “indeed, by 1650, the English navy had become the
largest in the world, a development that was to be continued by the subsequent
Cromwellian regime.” Jeremy Black, Crisis of Empire: Britain and America in the
Eighteenth Century (London, 2008), 7.
15. Baugh, “Great Britain’s ‘Blue-Water’ Policy,” 37.
16. J. E. Farnell, “The Navigation Act of 1651, the First Dutch War, and the London
Merchant Community,” Economic History Review, n.s., 16, no. 3 (1964): 439–454.
17. Charles M. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, vol. 4: England’s
Commercial and Colonial Policy (New Haven, CT, 1938), 1–49.
18. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 607.
254 notes to pages 23–26

19. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 602–608 (quotation, 603). See also Charles
M. Andrews, British Committees, Commissions, and Councils of Trade and Plantations,
1622–1675 (Baltimore, 1908).
20. Christopher Hill, From Reformation to Industrial Revolution (New York, 1967), 157.
21. Perry Anderson, “Origins of the Present Crisis,” New Left Review 1, no. 23 (1964): 29.
22. While I agree with Steve Pincus’s assertions that “before the outbreak of the Civil
War, English monarchs had precious few infrastructural resources” and imperial “ex-
pansion was the work of private or semiprivate actors,” I disagree with his central
claim that “there was no imperial state structure prior to Oliver Cromwell’s Western
Design of 1655.” Cromwell’s government consolidated and extended the imperial
state forged by the Commonwealth regime. Steve Pincus, “Rethinking Mercantilism:
Political Economy, the British Empire, and the Atlantic World in the Seventeenth
and Eighteenth Centuries,” William and Mary Quarterly 69, no. 1 (2012): 16–17.
23. Charles P. Korr, Cromwell and the New Model Foreign Policy: England’s Policy toward
France, 1649–1658 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1975), 138–147.
24. Baugh, “Great Britain’s ‘Blue-Water’ Policy,” 38–39.
25. It should be emphasized that Charles II and James II sought to rule without depen-
dence on Parliament and not without Parliament altogether. While their father
Charles I aimed to more or less eliminate Parliament’s role in the state, both Charles
II and James II at various points in their reigns sought either to free themselves from
financial dependence on Parliament or to rule with a pliant Parliament that offered
little to no opposition to their policies.
26. Philip Lawson, The East India Company: A History (Harlow, Essex, UK, 1993),
49–50.
27. James M. Vaughn, “The Politics of Empire: Metropolitan Socio-Political Development
and the Imperial Transformation of the British East India Company, 1675–1775”
(PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2009), chapter 2.
28. Lawson, The East India Company, 45–46.
29. Stephen Saunders Webb, The Governors-General: The English Army and the Definition
of the Empire, 1569–1681 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1979), 447–459.
30. Richard S. Dunn, “The Glorious Revolution and America,” in The Oxford History of
the British Empire, 1:448–454.
31. Stephen Saunders Webb, 1676: The End of American Independence (Syracuse, NY,
1984), 340–354; Stephen Saunders Webb, “The Strange Career of Francis Nicholson,”
William and Mary Quarterly 23, no. 4 (1966): 513–548.
32. J. H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1981), 269.
33. Vaughn, “The Politics of Empire,” chapter 2.
34. Dunn, “The Glorious Revolution and America”; Steve Pincus, 1688: The First Modern
Revolution (New Haven, CT, 2009), 386–388; Vaughn, “The Politics of Empire,”
chapter 3.
35. For England, see John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State,
1688–1783 (Cambridge, MA, 1990), 143–154. For the North American colonies, see
David S. Lovejoy, The Glorious Revolution and America (Hanover, NH, 1972),
334–374.
 notes to pages 26–30 255

36. Brewer, The Sinews of Power, 88–134.

37. John Shy, “The American Colonies in War and Revolution, 1748–1783,” in The
Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 2: The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J. Marshall
(Oxford, 1998), 301.
38. Brewer, The Sinews of Power, 27–87.
39. William Thomas Morgan, “An Eighteenth-Century Election in England,”
Political Science Quarterly 37, no. 4 (1922): 585–604; William Thomas Morgan, “The
Ministerial Revolution of 1710 in England,” Political Science Quarterly 36, no. 2 (1921):
184–210; William Thomas Morgan, “The South Sea Company and the Canadian
Expedition in the Reign of Queen Anne,” Hispanic American Historical Review 8, no.
2 (1928): 143–166; Stephen Saunders Webb, Marlborough’s America (New Haven, CT,
2013), 212–253.
40. Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England, 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1989),
19–22.
41. Patrick K. O’Brien, “Inseparable Connections: Trade, Economy, Fiscal State, and the
Expansion of Empire,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire, 2:53–76.
42. Lucy Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics (Oxford,
1952), 14–48.
43. Sutherland, 15.
44. The increasing ideological unity of Tory and Whig elites in London and in the coun-
try at large was in part made possible by the underlying sociopolitical assumptions
they shared. “The Whig and Tory parties shared certain social assumptions and po-
litical aims which caused them to moderate their ideology after the Glorious
Revolution,” H. T. Dickinson remarks; “in the decades after 1688 the Whigs became
less radical and the Tories gradually abandoned their loyalty to direct divine ordina-
tion and indefeasible hereditary succession. Increasingly, both parties put their trust
in the ancient constitution, recognized the legislative sovereignty of Crown, Lords
and Commons, and urged subjects to submit to the post-Revolution establishment
in which political power was still confined to the property-owning élite.” H. T.
Dickinson, Liberty and Property: Political Ideology in Eighteenth-Century Britain
(London, 1977), 123–124.
45. J. H. Plumb, England in the Eighteenth Century: A Study of the Development of English
Society (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK, 1950), 14.
46. Lawson, The East India Company, 66–71.
47. Lawson, 73.
48. Andrews, The Colonial Period of American History, 4:1–49; Baugh, “Great Britain’s
‘Blue-Water’ Policy,” 37–39; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 577–632; Hill, From
Reformation to Industrial Revolution, 157; Pincus, “Rethinking Mercantilism,” 16–17.
49. Nuala Zahedieh, The Capital and the Colonies: London and the Atlantic Economy,
1660–1700 (Cambridge, 2010), 44–45.
50. Dunn, “The Glorious Revolution and America”; Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance,
269; Pincus, 1688, 386–388; Webb, The Governors-General, 447–459; Webb, 1676,
340–354; Webb, “The Strange Career of Francis Nicholson.”
51. For the Whig-led “revolution in political economy,” see Pincus, 1688, 366–399.
256 notes to pages 30–34

52. For a detailed account, see Vaughn, “The Politics of Empire,” chapters 2 and 3.
53. Lawson, The East India Company, 73–79.
54. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 28–29.
55. Anon., A Collection of Papers Relating to the East India Trade, etc. (London, 1730), vi.
56. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 30.
57. Sutherland, 25.
58. George Rudé, Hanoverian London, 1714–1808 (Gloucestershire, UK, 2003), 146.
59. Quoted in Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 21.
60. The Craftsman, 7 September 1728, no. 114.
61. Vaughn, “The Politics of Empire,” chapters 2 and 3.
62. For the origins and evolution of the concept of the First British Empire, see P. J.
Marshall, “The First British Empire,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol.
5: Historiography, ed. Robin W. Winks (Oxford, 1999), 43–53.
63. P. J. Marshall, “Britain and the World in the Eighteenth Century: I, Reshaping the
Empire,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th Series, no. 8 (1998): 5.
64. This ideological characterization of the British Empire as essentially non-coercive
should not be viewed as hypocritical or false despite the fact that the exploitation of
African slave labor and the expropriation of territory from the indigenous peoples of
the New World were key features of British imperial expansion. While West Africans
were coercively transported across the Atlantic and New World indigenous peoples
were often forcefully displaced from their lands, African and Native American poli-
ties were not militarily conquered and subjected to direct imperial rule. Since Britain
did not formally rule African and Native American populations and territories, it was
possible for eighteenth-century Britons to assert that their empire—especially in
comparison to ancient, medieval, and other early modern empires—was one of lib-
erty rather than conquest. It should be noted that early modern Europeans under-
stood their relations with the populations of Africa and the Americas to be of a
fundamentally different character from their relations with the populations of Asia,
particularly those of China and India. On this point, see Dorinda Outram, The
Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1995), 66–67 and 72–79. Rather than simply pointing to
brutal forms of coercion such as slavery and territorial expropriation in order to dis-
miss early modern understandings of the First British Empire as an “empire of lib-
erty,” we must attempt to grasp how such understandings arose in the first place.
65. For instance, Britain’s East India trade exported large amounts of New World silver
and gold acquired in Amsterdam, Cadiz, and other cities. In addition to the eco-
nomic links between English imperial endeavor in the Atlantic and Asian maritime
worlds, Philip Stern draws attention to important political, ideological, and social
connections. Philip J. Stern, “British Asia and British Atlantic: Comparisons and
Contrasts,” William and Mary Quarterly 63, no. 4 (2006): 693–712.
66. The classic account of the Company’s pre-imperial (or commercial) phase is provided
in K. N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company,
1660–1760 (Cambridge, 1978). For an important contrasting interpretation, see Philip
J. Stern, The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundation
of the British Empire in India (New York, 2011).
 notes to pages 35–37 257

67. David Washbrook, “India, 1818–1860: The Two Faces of Colonialism,” in The Oxford
History of the British Empire, vol. 3: The Nineteenth Century, ed. Andrew Porter
(Oxford, 1999), 401–404.
68. For a contrasting interpretation of the fundamental distinctions between the First
and Second British Empire, see Vincent T. Harlow, The Founding of the Second British
Empire, 2 vols. (London, 1952 and 1964). Harlow argues that the focus of British
imperial expansion shifted from territory and dominion to markets and industry in
the later eighteenth century. The problem with such an interpretation is that it can-
not adequately account for the rise and development of Britain’s empire in India,
which was among the most important aspects of the kingdom’s overseas expansion
following 1763.
69. C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830 (New
York, 1989), 8–9.
70. P. J. Marshall, “ ‘A Free though Conquering People’: Britain and Asia in the Eighteenth
Century,” in P. J. Marshall, ‘A Free though Conquering People’: Eighteenth-Century
Britain and Its Empire (Aldershot, UK, 2003), 1–19.
71. P. J. Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India, and America, c.
1750–1783 (Oxford, 2005), 4–5. Marshall, who persuasively argues that the loss of the
thirteen North American colonies and the acquisition of a territorial empire in India
should be viewed as simultaneous and interrelated processes, criticizes historical in-
terpretations that make a firm distinction between a first British empire centered on
the Atlantic and a second based in Asia. However, such a distinction, properly modi-
fied, remains useful for grasping the differences between British imperialism before
1750 and following 1780.
72. T. H. Breen contends that this was a central and widely understood aim of British
imperial expansion long before the American Revolution. The “innovative element in
the eighteenth-century discourse [of empire] was not long-distance trade but rather a
commerce organized around an expanding market for British manufactured goods.”
T. H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American
Independence (Oxford, 2004), 72.
73. O’Brien, “Inseparable Connections,” 53–54.
74. Zahedieh, The Capital and the Colonies, 17–54.
75. In this paragraph and the next, I draw heavily from: Baugh, “Great Britain’s ‘Blue-
Water’ Policy, 1689–1815,” 33–58; Daniel A. Baugh, “Maritime Strength and Atlantic
Commerce: The Uses of ‘A Grand Marine Empire,’ ” in An Imperial State at War: Britain
from 1689 to 1815, ed. Lawrence Stone (London, 1994), 185–223; Jeremy Black, A System
of Ambition?: British Foreign Policy, 1660–1793 (London, 1991), 85–86 and 110–115.
76. John Brewer, The Sinews of Power, 168.
77. Voltaire, “Letters concerning the English Nation,” in Margaret C. Jacob, The
Enlightenment: A Brief History with Documents (Boston, 2001), 123.
78. The Monthly Review; Or, Literary Journal, February 1764.
79. Marie Peters, “The Myth of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, Great Imperialist, Part I:
Pitt and Imperial Expansion, 1738–1763,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth
History 21, no. 1 (1993): 55.
258 notes to pages 38–40

80. Peters’s essays on Pitt and eighteenth-century imperialism provide a corrective to the
emphasis on commercial and colonial expansion in the historiography on mid-
Hanoverian British foreign policy. See also Marie Peters, “The Myth of William Pitt,
Earl of Chatham, Great Imperialist, Part II: Chatham and Imperial Reorganization,
1763–78,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 22, no. 3 (1994): 393–431.
Peters criticizes the “mercantilist interpretation” developed by Baugh because it un-
derestimates the role of Europe in British strategic thinking and overvalues the im-
portance of Atlantic trade, settlement, and warfare. Peters, “Myth of William Pitt,
Great Imperialist, Part I,” 55–56 and 57, n. 4. While Peters is right to emphasize the
geopolitical repercussions of anti-Bourbon ideology in Britain, as well as the impera-
tives of realpolitik imposed by the European multistate system, she tends toward a
distinction without a difference. Baugh’s work does indeed emphasize the maritime
and commercial character of British foreign policy in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, but he views the “maritime-imperial system” as an instrument in the coun-
try’s efforts to prevent the emergence of a hegemon on the continent. He contends
that “the Atlantic empire was a ‘back-yard’ in which sinews of war were generated for
use in the ‘front-yard,’ that is to say, in Europe and European seas.” Baugh, “Maritime
Strength and Atlantic Commerce,” 203. Peters demonstrates that British statesmen
viewed commercial expansion as an “intrinsic part” of European conflict, while
Baugh’s work suggests that European conflict was seen as an intrinsic part of a global
struggle for commerce and colonies. The containment and defeat of France required
enormous fiscal and military resources; resources that were generated by a maritime
empire that opened markets while avoiding the burdens of territorial conquest and
imperial administration. Since France was Britain’s leading commercial and colonial
rival, its defeat promised to make the world safe for British merchants and manufac-
turers. The antipathy toward Bourbon France in Britain’s Whig political culture was
both political and economic in character. The Bourbon monarchy was viewed as a
despotism opposed to British liberties; such liberties were understood to include pri-
vate property and free exchange.
81. Barbara Arneil, “Trade, Plantations, and Property: John Locke and the Economic
Defense of Colonialism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 55, no. 4 (1994): 591–609.
82. Baugh, “Maritime Strength and Atlantic Commerce,” 186.
83. The Gentleman’s Magazine, May 1737.
84. Voltaire, “Letters concerning the English Nation,” 122.
85. The Spectator, 19 May 1711, no. 69.
86. George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, A Rough Draught of a New Model at Sea (London,
1694), 4–5.
87. George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, 4–5. For the origins and evolution of this “new
political creed, which saw the sea as the true British Empire,” see Richard Koebner,
Empire (Cambridge, 1966), 77–85 (quotation, 82).
88. Quoted in Arneil, “Trade, Plantations, and Property,” 606.
89. Quoted in Bob Harris, “ ‘American Idols’: Empire, War and the Middling Ranks in
Mid-Eighteenth-Century Britain,” Past and Present, no. 150 (1996): 127.
90. The Monthly Review; Or, Literary Journal, February 1764.
 notes to pages 40–44 259

91. The Abbé Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of
the Europeans in the East and West Indies, vol. 5, trans. J. Justamond (London, 1776),
461–462.
92. David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge, 2000), 173.
93. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, CT, 1992), 55–101.
94. For the key factors that led to the emergence of the Whig oligarchy, see J. H. Plumb,
The Growth of Political Stability in England, 1675–1725 (London, 1979).
95. For the very real threat of civil war and sociopolitical breakdown as late as the
early 1720s, prevented in the short term by Walpole’s emergency authoritarian mea-
sures and in the long term by the successful consolidation of Whig oligarchic rule,
see Eveline Cruickshanks and Howard Erksine, The Atterbury Plot (Basingstoke,
Hampshire, UK, 2004), 56–170.
96. W. A. Speck, Stability and Strife: England, 1714–1760 (Cambridge, MA, 1977),
143–166.
97. Barrington Moore, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant
in the Making of the Modern World (Boston, 1967), 22–29.
98. For a detailed exploration of the capitalist character of Britain’s landed elite, and of
the implications of that character for domestic sociopolitical development, see Perry
Anderson, English Questions (London, 1992), 130–136.
99. Eric Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire: From 1750 to the Present Day (New York, 1999),
59. See also Roy Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1991),
57–58.
100. P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000 (London, 2002),
62–103.
101. Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 709–716.
102. Harold Perkin, The Origins of Modern English Society, 1780–1880 (London, 1971), 67.
103. Benno Teschke, The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics and the Making of Modern
International Relations (London, 2003), 249–262.
104. Colley, Britons, 62–64.
105. Porter, English Society in the Eighteenth Century, 49–50.
106. John Rule, The Vital Century: England’s Developing Economy, 1714–1815 (London,
1992), 93.
107. Frank O’ Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century: British Political and Social History,
1688–1832 (London, 2007), 109.
108. Daniel Defoe, A Plan of the English Commerce. Being A Compleat Prospect of the Trade
of this Nation, as well the Home Trade as the Foreign (London, 1728), 74–75.
109. O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century, 109.
110. For excellent surveys of this culture, see Peter Clark, British Clubs and Societies, 1580–
1800: The Origins of an Associational World (Oxford, 2000); Brian Cowan, The Social
Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffeehouse (New Haven, CT, 2005).
111. Roy Porter, Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World (London,
2001), 30–47.
112. Geoffrey Holmes, British Politics in the Age of Anne (London, 1987).
113. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England.
260 notes to pages 44–48

114. Reed Browning, Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Court Whigs (Baton Rouge,
LA, 1982).
115. The Annual Register, or a View of History, Politicks, and Literature, for the Year 1758
(London, 1759), 11.
116. Colley, Britons, 56–71.
117. J. V. Beckett and Michael Turner, “Taxation and Economic Growth in Eighteenth-
Century England,” Economic History Review, n.s., 43, no. 3 (1990): 377–403; O’Brien,
“Inseparable Connections,” 53–77.
118. Brewer, The Sinews of Power; P. G. M. Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England:
A Study of the Development of Public Credit, 1688–1756 (New York, 1967).
119. Rudé, Hanoverian London, 52–56.
120. Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England, 295; Henry Roseveare, The Financial
Revolution, 1660–1760 (New York, 1991), 68–69.
121. Roseveare, The Financial Revolution, 64–65.
122. John Brewer, “English Radicalism in the Age of George III,” in Three British
Revolutions: 1641, 1688, 1776, ed. J. G. A. Pocock (Princeton, NJ, 1980), 337–338.
123. Annual Register . . . for the Year 1758, 10.
124. Thomas C. Barrow, “Archibald Cummings’ Plan for a Colonial Revenue, 1722,” New
England Quarterly 36, no. 3 (1963): 383–393.
125. Quoted in Thomas Campbell, The Annals of Great Britain, from the Ascension of
George III, to the Peace of Amiens, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1807), 121.
126. O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century, 82–83.
127. While many scholars of eighteenth-century Britain view the anti-oligarchic program
of the Hanoverian Tory Party as, in the words of Roy Porter, a “pilfering of liberal
clothes” by conservatives who were in no way “Enlightenment men,” others see the
Tories’ positions as forward-looking and sincere commitments. Porter, Enlightenment,
33. For the contrasting interpretation, see Linda Colley, In Defiance of Oligarchy: The
Tory Party, 1714–1760 (Cambridge, 1982).
128. Caroline Robbins, The Eighteenth-Century Commonwealthman (Cambridge, MA,
1959); J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and
the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, NJ, 1975).
129. Brewer, “English Radicalism in the Age of George III,” 329.
130. O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century, 79–83.
131. Langford, A Polite and Commercial People, 25–27.
132. O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century, 82–84.
133. Gerald Jordan and Nicholas Rogers, “Admirals as Heroes: Patriotism and Liberty in
Hanoverian England,” Journal of British Studies 28, no. 3 (1989): 201–224; Kathleen
Wilson, “Empire, Trade and Popular Politics in Mid-Hanoverian Britain: The Case
of Admiral Vernon,” Past and Present, no. 121 (1988): 74–109.
134. Langford, A Polite and Commercial People, 49–53.
135. For the relationship between Britain’s popular political culture and commercial
imperialism during the 1730s and throughout the eighteenth century, see Kathleen
Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture, and Imperialism in England, 1715–
1785 (Cambridge, 1995).
 notes to pages 48–54 261

136. Quoted in Langford, A Polite and Commercial People, 51.

137. Langford, 53–57; O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century, 82–83.
138. Nicholas Rogers, Whigs and Cities: Popular Politics in the Age of Walpole and Pitt
(Oxford, 1989), 13–129.
139. Langford, A Polite and Commercial People, 194–197; O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth
Century, 87–89.
140. Bob Harris, Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid-Eighteenth Century (Oxford,
2002).
141. Colley, Britons, 87–92.
142. Quoted in Black, Crisis of Empire, 59.

CHAPTER 2. BOURGEOIS RADICALISM AND THE

“EMPIRE OF LIBERTY” IN THE AGE OF PITT

1. Lewis Namier, England in the Age of the American Revolution (London, 1963), 40–41.
2. See the excellent discussion of ideology formation—in the context of the Holocaust
and modern anti-Semitism—contained in Moishe Postone, “The Holocaust and the
Trajectory of the Twentieth Century,” in Catastrophe and Meaning: The Holocaust and
the Twentieth Century, ed. Moishe Postone and Eric Santner (Chicago, 2003), 81–116.
3. Sir George Lyttelton to William Lyttelton, 4 December 1759, in Memoirs and
Correspondence of George, Lord Lyttelton, from 1734 to 1773, ed. Robert Phillimore
(London, 1845), 619–620.
4. Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, vol.
15: 1753–1765 (London, 1813), 948.
5. Sir Andrew Mitchell to William Pitt, 15 January 1760, in Correspondence of William
Pitt, Earl of Chatham, vol. 2, ed. William Stanhope Taylor and Captain John Henry
Pringle (London, 1839), 14–15.
6. Bob Harris, Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid-Eighteenth Century (Oxford,
2002); Nicholas Rogers, Whigs and Cities: Popular Politics in the Age of Walpole and
Pitt (Oxford, 1989).
7. Sir Benjamin Keene to William Pitt, 26 September 1757, in Correspondence of William
Pitt, Earl of Chatham, vol. 1, ed. William Stanhope Taylor and Captain John Henry
Pringle (London, 1838), 269.
8. The Earl of Holdernesse to Colonel Adlercron, 4 April 1755, British Library [BL],
Egerton MS. 3,488, ff. 67v–68r.
9. Rogers, Whigs and Cities, 94–104.
10. John Brewer, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III
(Cambridge, 1976), 96–111.
11. “The resignation or rather deprivation of the popular ministry, only increased their
popularity, and the general discontent; the people could not believe that good mea-
sures could be pursued when those, in whom alone they confided, were not em-
ployed; almost all the corporations of the kingdom presented the deprived ministers
with their freedom, and addressed them in the warmest manner, testifying the most
entire approbation of their conduct, and the sincerest concern to see them out of
262 notes to pages 54–60

employment. This conflict between the old established interest and the torrent of
popularity, continued for a long time, and the nation was almost ruined by it.” The
Annual Register, or a View of History, Politicks, and Literature, for the Year 1758 (London,
1759), 12. See also Paul Langford, “William Pitt and Public Opinion, 1757,” English
Historical Review 88, no. 346 (1973): 54–80.
12. Frank O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century: British Political and Social History,
1688–1832 (London, 2007), 93.
13. E. P. Thompson, Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture (New
York, 1993), 28.
14. For a contrasting interpretation of Pitt’s relationship to the extra-parliamentary po-
litical arena, see Marie Peters, Pitt and Popularity: The Patriot Minister and London
Opinion during the Seven Years War (Oxford, 1980).
15. For examples, see the addresses and speeches in Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of
England, 15:947–955.
16. Lord William Wildman Barrington to Sir Andrew Mitchell, 14 January 1760, in
Correspondence of William Pitt, 2:14, n. 1.
17. Eliga H. Gould, The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the
American Revolution (Chapel Hill, NC, 2000), 35–71.
18. O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century, 176–178; Harris, Politics and the Nation,
115–116.
19. Harris, Politics and the Nation, 117.
20. The Annual Register . . . for the Year 1758, 12.
21. For this interpretation and much of what follows in this paragraph and the next, see
Isaac Kramnick, Bolingbroke and His Circle: The Politics of Nostalgia in the Age of
Walpole (Cambridge, MA, 1968).
22. The Examiner, 2 November 1710, no. 13.
23. O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century, 80.
24. John Brewer, “English Radicalism in the Age of George III,” in Three British
Revolutions: 1641, 1688, 1776, ed. J. G. A. Pocock (Princeton, NJ, 1980), 330.
25. Steve Pincus, 1688: The First Modern Revolution (New Haven, CT, 2009),
366–399.
26. Thomas Gordon and John Trenchard, Cato’s Letters; or, Essays, on Liberty, Civil and
Religious, and other Important Subjects, vol. 3 (Berwick, UK, 1754), 184.
27. Brewer, “English Radicalism in the Age of George III,” 330–342.
28. Brewer, 337.
29. John Almon, Anecdotes of the Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt, Earl of
Chatham, etc. (London, 1778), 340.
30. Lord William Wildman Barrington to Sir Andrew Mitchell, 14 January 1760, in
Correspondence of William Pitt, 2:14, n. 1.
31. Sir George Lyttelton to William Lyttelton, 4 December 1759, Memoirs and Correspondence
of George, Lord Lyttelton, 621–622.
32. Anon., “On the necessity of raising supplies within the year,” and “The same subject
continued,” in John Almon, A New and Impartial Collection of Interesting Letters, from
the Public Papers, etc., vol. 1 (London, 1767), 5–6.
 notes to pages 60–66 263

33. John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783
(London, 1989), 114.
34. Peters, Profiles in Power, 83–121.
35. Rogers, Whigs and Cities, 109–110.
36. O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century, 181.
37. “Pitt’s Speech on the Convention with Spain, 1738,” in The Modern Orator (London,
1847), 5–8.
38. George Rudé, Hanoverian London, 1714–1808 (Gloucestershire, UK, 2003), 163–164.
39. Anon., A Political Analysis of the War: The Principles of the Present Political Parties
Examined, etc. (London, 1762), 11.
40. Kate Hotblack, Chatham’s Colonial Policy: A Study in the Fiscal and Economic
Implications of the Colonial Policy of the Elder Pitt (Philadelphia, 1980), 11–27.
41. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, CT, 1992), 61.
42. Hotblack, Chatham’s Colonial Policy, 17–18; Rogers, Whigs and Cities, 111–112.
43. Quoted in Rogers, Whigs and Cities, 111.
44. Hotblack, 15–16.
45. Paul Langford, A Polite and Commercial People: England, 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1989),
340.
46. The struggle against Bourbon hegemony dominated Whig foreign policy from the
Glorious Revolution until the rise of Walpole.
47. Brendan Simms, Three Victories and a Defeat: The Rise and Fall of the First British
Empire, 1714–1783 (London, 2007), 422–462.
48. William Beckford to William Pitt, 11 September 1758, Correspondence of William Pitt,
1:353.
49. Peter D. G. Thomas, George III: King and Politicians, 1760–1770 (Manchester, UK,
2002), 29.
50. For a retrospective statement of this ideological program, see The Monitor, or British
Freeholder, 6 November 1762, no. 381.
51. Beckford on the Address, 1761, BL, Additional MS. 38,334, ff. 29v–30r.
52. Daniel A. Baugh, “Great Britain’s ‘Blue-Water’ Policy, 1689–1815,” International
History Review 10, no. 1 (1988): 58.
53. Anon., “Letters on behalf of the Administration, in answer to Anti-Sejanus, etc.,” in
John Almon, A New and Impartial Collection of Interesting Letters, from the Public
Papers, etc., vol. 2 (London, 1767), 85.
54. Rogers, Whigs and Cities, 114–116.
55. J. H. Plumb, England in the Eighteenth Century: A Study of the Development of English
Society (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK, 1950), 112.
56. Beckford on the Address, 1761, BL, Additional MS. 38,334, ff. 30v–31r.
57. Anon., A Political Analysis of the War, 13.
58. John Almon, Biographical, Literary, and Political Anecdotes, of Several of the Most
Eminent Persons of the Present Age, vol. 2 (London, 1797), 85.
59. John Shovlin persuasively argues that “[e]conomic objectives were almost never the
sole, and rarely the principal, end of war in Europe before the middle of the eigh-
teenth century.” Shovlin, “War and Peace: Trade, International Competition, and
264 notes to pages 66–72

Political Economy,” in Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern

Britain and Its Empire, ed. Philip J. Stern and Carl Wennerlind (Oxford, 2014), 307.
The Pittite imperial project of the later 1750s waged economic warfare in an attempt
to achieve perpetual peace by making Britain an unrivaled global power and, thus,
ending the Anglo-French struggle for supremacy dating back to 1689.
60. Brewer, The Sinews of Power, 124.
61. Horace Walpole, Memoirs of King George II, vol. 3: 1758–1780, ed. John Brooke (New
Haven, CT, 1985), 51–52.
62. The opposition of George III and the Earl of Bute to Pitt’s measures stemmed from
their deep antipathy toward the radical political notions and aggressive commercial
imperialism espoused by the Great Commoner. George III and Bute were among
the leaders of a conservative-reactionary political movement that sought to
reconcile Tories and conservative Patriots with authoritarian elements in the Whig
establishment.
63. O’Gorman, The Long Eighteenth Century, 185.
64. The Monitor, or British Freeholder, 27 November 1762, no. 382.
65. The Monitor, or British Freeholder, 11 September 1762, no. 373.
66. For an example of this protracted process of ideological radicalization, see
Marie Peters, “The ‘Monitor’ on the Constitution, 1755–1765: New Light on the
Ideological Origins of English Radicalism,” English Historical Review 86, no. 341
(1971): 706–727.
67. The Monitor, or British Freeholder, 11 September 1762, no. 373.
68. For examples of the evolution of this commercial expansionism into a vigorous, wide-
ranging critique of British politics, see The Monitor, or British Freeholder, 14 August
1762, no. 369; 21 August 1762, no. 370; 25 September 1762, no. 375; 4 December 1762,
no. 383; 11 December 1762, no. 384; 18 December 1762, no. 385; 25 December 1762,
no. 386; 1 January 1763, no. 387; 8 January 1763, no. 388; 15 January 1763, no. 389.
69. Rogers, Whigs and Cities, 93–106.
70. Brewer, “English Radicalism in the Age of George III,” 339.
71. Rogers, Whigs and Cities, 124; Thomas, George III, 85–86.
72. John Wilkes, The North Briton, 26 March 1763, no. 43.
73. King George III to the Earl of Bute, 30 March 1763, in Letters from George III to Lord
Bute, 1756–1766, ed. Romney Sedgwick (London, 1939), 207–208.
74. Brewer, “English Radicalism in the Age of George III,” 338.
75. Anon., “Oppressive Duty upon Beer Considered,” in John Almon, A New and
Impartial Collection of Interesting Letters, 2:153–154.
76. London Evening-Post, 4 to 7 April 1761, no. 5,216.
77. Brewer, Party Ideology and Popular Politics, 206.
78. Rudé, Hanoverian London, 162; Lucy Sutherland, “The City of London in Eighteenth-
Century Politics,” in Lucy Sutherland, Politics and Finance in the Eighteenth Century,
ed. Aubrey Newman (London, 1984), 41–66.
79. The Monitor, or British Freeholder, 2 October 1762, no. 376.
80. Rudé, Hanoverian London, 164.
81. The Monitor, or British Freeholder, 12 May 1764, no. 458.
 notes to pages 72–79 265

82. Robert Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-
Industrial Europe,” and “The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism,” in The Brenner
Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe,
ed. T. H. Aston and C. H. E. Philpin (Cambridge, 1987), 10–63 and 213–327.
83. Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and J. H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society:
The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England (Bloomington, IN, 1982).
84. Peter Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial
Town, 1660–1770 (Oxford, 1989); Penelope J. Corfield, The Impact of English Towns,
1700–1800 (Oxford, 1982); Rogers, Whigs and Cities; Kathleen Wilson, The Sense of the
People: Politics, Culture, and Imperialism in England, 1715–1785 (Cambridge, 1995).
85. Quoted in Brewer, Party Ideology and Popular Politics, 212.
86. Brewer, “English Radicalism in the Age of George III,” 346.
87. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (New York, 1977), 280. For the full elaboration of Marx’s
argument with regard to the sphere of circulation as both the productive site and
point of departure for bourgeois ideology, see Marx, Capital, 1:270–280; Karl Marx,
Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, trans. Martin Nicolaus
(London, 1973), 239–250.
88. Marx, Grundrisse, 245.
89. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, trans. Thomas
Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge, MA, 1989), 27.
90. Beckford on the Address, 1761, BL, Additional MS. 38,334, ff. 29r–v.
91. Isaac Kramnick, Republicanism and Bourgeois Radicalism (Ithaca, NY, 1990), 1–40.
92. Beckford on the Address, 1761, BL, Additional MS. 38,334, f. 29r.
93. “Regulus; or a View of the present State of public Affairs: with certain Proposals, ad-
dressed to the independent Electors of Great-Britain,” The Political Register, January
1768, no. 9.
94. “Regulus; or a View of the present State of public Affairs.”
95. Plumb, England in the Eighteenth Century, 115.
96. Lucy Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics (Oxford,
1952), 14–30.
97. The best analysis of the Company’s financial operations in the pre-imperial era, and
of its relations with the government and London’s business community, is provided
in K. N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia and the English East India Company,
1660–1760 (Cambridge, 1978).
98. Although the directors of the three major monied corporations—the Bank of England,
the East India Company, and the South Sea Company—did not significantly overlap,
they were nevertheless all members of the intertwined City financial and commercial elite.
Furthermore, by mid-century the Bank of England was the leading short-term lender to
the EIC. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 22–23.
99. Henry Roseveare, The Financial Revolution, 1660–1760 (New York, 1991), 68.
100. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 19–20.
101. Anon., A Collection of Letters Relating to the East India Company, And to a Free Trade
(London, 1754), ii. See also, in the same tract: “A Letter to the People of Britain,”
13–16; “To the Honourable ***.***. Esq.; one of the *** of ***,” 21–23.
266 notes to pages 79–84

102. Harris, Politics and the Nation, 117.

103. Adam Smith’s powerful critique of the East India Company—as both a commercial
monopoly and an emerging territorial empire—was the ideological offspring of the
radical opposition to the Company that developed at the time of the Glorious
Revolution, and that re-emerged with the radical Whig politics of the later 1750s and
1760s. See Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,
ed. Edwin Cannan (Chicago, 1976): vol. 1, 82 and 470–472; vol. 2, 141–158, 254,
270–278, 343–344, and 484–485.
104. Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, vol.
14: 1747–1753 (London, 1813), 1218–1219.
105. “To Sir J———L———,” in Anon., A Collection of Letters Relating to the East India
Company, And to a Free Trade, 9–10.
106. Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England, 14:1233.
107. Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England, 14:1220.
108. “To Sir J———L———,” in Anon., A Collection of Letters Relating to the East India
Company, And to a Free Trade, 11–12.
109. “To———B———, Esq.; one of the Aldermen of the City of London,” in Anon.,
A Collection of Letters Relating to the East India Company, And to a Free Trade, 24–25.
110. Smith, Wealth of Nations, 1:82.
111. It should be noted that, during the 1750s and early 1760s, radical Whigs were deeply
opposed to British territorial expansion on the subcontinent insofar as it was under-
taken by the East India Company in order to acquire revenue. After Clive’s acquisi-
tion of the diwani in 1765, when it became clear in the public sphere that some form
of British political dominion on the Indian subcontinent was inevitable, radical
Whigs shifted away from their long-standing opposition to territorial imperialism in
favor of a liberal imperialism that sought to integrate British conquests into the com-
mercial and maritime “empire of liberty.” They wanted to abolish the EIC, to open
the trade of British India to all European and Asian merchants, and to settle colonies
on the subcontinent. The radical Whig vision of a liberal Indian empire, developed
during the later 1760s and 1770s, grew out of the mid-century project that sought to
establish a string of British free-trade enclaves and settlements in Asia. That mid-
century project was in turn a renewal of the radical aspirations for an open trade to
India that emerged in England during the seventeenth century.
112. Henry Dodwell, Dupleix and Clive: The Beginnings of Empire (London, 1920).
113. Robert Orme, “Reflections on the Disputes, subsisting between the Companies of
France and England trading to the East Indies,” 24 November 1753, BL, Egerton MS.
3,489, f. 36r. This treatise was composed and given to Holdernesse while Orme was
visiting Britain in 1753.
114. The Earl of Holdernesse to the Earl of Albemarle, 11 April 1754, BL, Egerton MS.
3,486, f. 17r.
115. The Annual Register . . . for the Year 1758, 13. For an ideologically richer and exagger-
ated depiction of the Black Hole and the cruelty of the Nawab’s troops, see the
narrative of the EIC servant J. Z. Holwell in The Annual Register . . . for the Year 1758,
278–287.
 notes to pages 84–90 267

116. Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England, 15:265–270.

117. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 30–31.
118. Sutherland, 31.
119. The Secret Committee of the East India Company to Henry Fox, 19 May 1756, BL,
Oriental and India Office Collections [OIOC], India Office Records [IOR], Home
Miscellaneous Series, 94:11–12.
120. The Secret Committee of the East India Company to Henry Fox, 18 August 1756,
BL, OIOC, IOR, Home Miscellaneous Series, 94:21.
121. P. J. Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India, and America,
c. 1750–1783 (Oxford, 2005), 125–126.
122. Hotblack, Chatham’s Colonial Policy, 88–89; George K. McGilvary, Guardian of the
East India Company: The Life of Laurence Sulivan (London, 2006), 58.
123. Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires, 128.
124. Hotblack, Chatham’s Colonial Policy, 88.
125. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 58–62.
126. Hotblack, Chatham’s Colonial Policy, 87–88 and 92–93.
127. Quoted in McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 59.

CHAPTER 3. THE PLASSEY REVOLUTION IN BENGAL

A N D T H E C O M PA N Y ’ S C I V I L WA R I N B R I TA I N

1. On the abuse of dastaks by EIC employees trading on their own private accounts,
and the role this practice played in destabilizing British relations with the nawabi
regime, see Sushil Chaudhury, The Prelude to Empire: Plassey Revolution of 1757 (New
Delhi, 2000), 53–55; Kalikinkar Datta, Studies in the History of the Bengal Subah,
1740–1770, vol. 1: Social and Economic (Calcutta, 1936), 301–310.
2. For divergent British and Mughal conceptions of Calcutta’s role in the province and in
the Mughal Empire as a whole, see Rajat Kanta Ray, “Calcutta or Alinagar: Contending
Conceptions in the Mughal-English Confrontation of 1756–1757,” in Ports and Their
Hinterlands in India, 1700–1950, ed. Indu Banga (New Delhi, 1992), 45–61.
3. Quoted in Datta, Studies in the History of the Bengal Subah, 1:303.
4. Robert Orme to Robert Clive, 25 August 1752, British Library [BL], Oriental and
India Office Collections [OIOC], India Office Library [IOL], Private Papers, Orme
MS., O.V. 19, 1.
5. Quoted in Datta, Studies in the History of the Bengal Subah, 1:302.
6. The breakup of the Mughal Empire and the emergence of post-Mughal successor
kingdoms was a far more uneven and complex process than traditional imperial his-
toriography suggested. Scholarly research on early modern South Asia over the past
four decades makes traditional assumptions regarding “subcontinental anarchy” un-
tenable. Even in the midst of warfare and imperial fragmentation, post-Mughal suc-
cessor kingdoms provided durable political frameworks for social and economic life
on the subcontinent. See C. A. Bayly, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 2, 1:
Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1988), 7–44.
7. Datta, Studies in the History of the Bengal Subah, 1:436–438.
268 notes to pages 90–94

8. Ray, “Calcutta or Alinagar,” 48–50.

9. Quoted in Chaudhury, The Prelude to Empire, 52.
10. Siraj-ud-daula to Coja Wajid, 1 June 1756, in Bengal in 1756–1757: A Selection of Papers
Dealing with the Affairs of the British in Bengal during the Reign of Siraj-ud-daula with
Notes and Historical Introduction, vol. 1, ed. S. C. Hill (Delhi, 1905), 4.
11. M. Renault to M. the Marquis Dupleix, 4 September 1757, in Bengal in 1756–1757: A
Selection of Papers Dealing with the Affairs of the British in Bengal during the Reign of Siraj-
ud-daula with Notes and Historical Introduction, vol. 3, ed. S. C. Hill (Delhi, 1905), 251.
12. Robert Clive to the Earl of Hardwicke, 21 August 1757, BL, Additional MS. 35,595, ff.
78r-v.
13. Mark Bence-Jones, Clive of India (London, 1974), 154–156 (quotation, 154).
14. Robert Clive to the Earl of Hardwicke, 30 December 1758, BL, Additional MS.
35,595, f. 320r.
15. John Malcolm, The Life of Robert, Lord Clive, vol. 1 (London, 1836), 273–430; vol. 2
(London, 1836), 1–143.
16. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 166–167.
17. General Caillaud to John Holwell, 29 May 1760, William L. Clements Library,
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor [WLCL], Shelburne Papers, 99:1–2.
18. This is one of the central conclusions of J. D. Nichol’s remarkable thesis on British
commercial and military activity in Bengal before and immediately following Plassey.
J. D. Nichol, “The British in India, 1740–63: A Study of Imperial Expansion into
Bengal” (PhD diss., University of Cambridge, 1976).
19. Ian Bruce Watson, Foundation for Empire: English Private Trade in India, 1659–1760
(New Delhi, 1980).
20. P. J. Marshall, East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century
(Oxford, 1976).
21. During the first half of the eighteenth century, Company servants and free merchants
who were members of pan-imperial Scottish trading networks were at the forefront
of the European port-to-port trade in Asia. See Andrew MacKillop, “Accessing
Empire: Scotland, Britain, Europe, and the Asia Trade, 1695-c. 1750,” Itinerario 29,
no. 3 (2005): 7–30.
22. Søren Mentz, The English Gentleman Merchant at Work: Madras and the City of
London, 1660–1740 (Copenhagen, 2005).
23. Marshall, East Indian Fortunes, 58.
24. For example, see Richard Rolt, An Impartial Representation of the Conduct of the
Several Powers of Europe Engaged in the Late General War, etc. (London, 1749), 4 vols.
25. Robert Travers, “Ideology and British Expansion in Bengal, 1757–72,” Journal of
Imperial and Commonwealth History 33, no. 1 (2005): 11–12.
26. See the detailed and excellent analysis of this in Spencer A. Leonard, “A Fit of Absence
of Mind?: Illiberal Imperialism and the Founding of British India” (PhD diss.,
University of Chicago, 2010).
27. “A general view of the charges and expenses of the Company for 3 years before the war
with France broke out in India, and for 6 years since the restitution of Madras,” BL,
OIOC, India Office Records [IOR], Home Miscellaneous Series, 94:97.
 notes to pages 95–98 269

28. George K. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company: The Life of Laurence
Sulivan (London, 2006), 63.
29. Lucy Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics (Oxford,
1952), 49–80.
30. Quoted in P. J. Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India, and
America, c. 1750–1783 (Oxford, 2005), 124–125.
31. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 64–66.
32. Court of Directors to President and Council at Fort William in Calcutta, 23 March 1759,
in Fort William—India House Correspondence and Other Contemporary Papers Relating
Thereto (Public Series) [FWIHC], vol. 2: 1757–1759, ed. H. N. Sinha (Delhi, 1957), 142.
33. Court of Directors to President and Council at Fort William in Calcutta, 1 April
1760, in FWIHC, vol. 3: 1760–1763, ed. R. R. Sethi (Delhi, 1968), 38.
34. Laurence Sulivan to Colonel Eyre Coote, 16 March 1761, BL, OIOC, IOR, Home
Miscellaneous Series, vol. 808, 182.
35. For a contemporary interpretation of the motives informing Vansittart’s replacement
of Mir Jafar with Mir Qasim, see The London Chronicle, 16 June 1761, no. 699.
36. P. J. Marshall, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 2, 2: Bengal: The British
Bridgehead; Eastern India, 1740–1828 (Cambridge, 1987), 83–85; Narendra K. Sinha,
The Economic History of Bengal: From Plassey to the Permanent Settlement (Calcutta,
1956), 10–14.
37. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 66–68. Bullion exports fell from an
annual total of £795,007 in 1757 to £27,089 in 1764 before rising again to £315,161 in
1766. McGilvary, 67.
38. Sulivan’s efforts to increase the export of British manufactures to Asia should be seen
in light of his alliance with Pitt and the growth of radical Whiggism, which advocated
the aggressive expansion of British trade and industry. Sulivan’s support for the export
of British manufactures to the East Indies comported well with his policy of reducing
bullion shipments, and allowed him to address long-standing criticisms of the EIC’s
adverse effects on British manufacturing.
39. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 81–83.
40. Laurence Sulivan to William Pitt, 27 July 1761, BL, OIOC, IOR, Home Miscellaneous
Series, vol. 808, 186–187.
41. Sulivan’s ideological suspicion of the autocratic and militarist politics associated with
territorial imperialism, as well as his opposition to the costs and burdens of political
dominion, continued to inform his policy recommendations in the late 1760s. For
example, see “Mr. Sulivan’s Sentiments upon East India Affairs submitted with great
Deference to the Earl of Shelburne,” WLCL, Shelburne Papers, 90:79–86.
42. Henry Vansittart to Robert Clive, 18 November 1761, BL, OIOC, IOR, Home
Miscellaneous Series, vol. 808, 193.
43. H. V. Bowen, Revenue and Reform: The Indian Problem in British Politics, 1757–1773
(Cambridge, 1991), 7.
44. Momtaz o’ Dowla Ferzund Cawn Buxy to John Carnac, 15 December 1763, in Henry
Vansittart, A Narrative of the Transactions in Bengal, 1760–1764, ed. Anil Chandra
Banerjee and Bimal Kanti Ghosh (Calcutta, 1976), 530.
270 notes to pages 98–105

45. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 74–75.

46. Sudipta Sen, Empire of Free Trade: The East India Company and the Making of the
Colonial Marketplace (Philadelphia, 1998), 85.
47. The pronouncements of John Johnstone, a member of the Calcutta council who
traded extensively throughout the region on his own private account, were particu-
larly scathing. For example, see “Mr. Johnstone’s Opinion,” in Vansittart, A Narrative
of the Transactions in Bengal, 385–387.
48. “Memorandum in Laurence Sulivan’s hand on Governor Vansittart’s support of
Cossim Ally over issue of EIC servants trade,” WLCL, Shelburne Papers, 99:1–2.
49. Anon., The History of the Administration of the Leader in the India Direction, etc.
(London, c. 1765), 7.
50. Travers, “Ideology and British Expansion in Bengal, 1757–72,” 13.
51. “A Narrative of the Principal occurrences & revolutions at the Court of Shahjehanabad
from the reign of Mahmud Shah,” 20 January 1762, WLCL, Shelburne Papers,
99:30–31.
52. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 22–67.
53. “To Miss A———, who has Interest in the East India Stock,” in Anon., A Collection
of Letters Relating to the East India Company, And to a Free Trade (London, 1754),
17–19.
54. Malcolm, The Life of Robert, Lord Clive, 1:131.
55. The Earl of Powis to Robert Clive, 11 November 1757, BL, Additional MS. 35,595, ff.
104r-v.
56. Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires, 129.
57. The Diaries of a Duchess: Extracts from the Diaries of the First Duchess of Northumberland
(1716–1776), ed. James Greig (London, 1926), 12.
58. C. H. Philips, “Clive in the English Political World, 1761–64,” Bulletin of the School
of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 12, no. 3/4 (1948): 697–698.
59. Quoted in Malcolm, The Life of Robert, Lord Clive, 2:119–123.
60. The relationship between these political leaders and the emergence and development
of the New Toryism is discussed in detail in chapters 4 and 5.
61. Scrafton and Clive often collaborated in making political interventions in the public
sphere. For example, see Robert Clive to John Walsh, 4 September 1763, BL, OIOC,
IOL, Private Papers, Ormathwaite Collection, MSS. Eur. D. 546, Bundle 5, ff.
90v–91r.
62. Luke Scrafton, Reflections on the Government of Indostan. With a Short Sketch of the
History of Bengal, from 1739 to 1756; and an Account of the English Affairs to 1758
(London, 1763), 120.
63. Robert Travers, Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-Century India: The British in Bengal
(Cambridge, 2007), 57.
64. Scrafton, Reflections on the Government of Indostan, 119–120.
65. In 1761, Clive’s close confidante Robert Orme wrote an address to the Earl of Bute
regarding the Dutch East India Company’s empire in Asia. He suggested that the
Dutch position was militarily weak and that British forces could easily conquer their
territories (and, with their territories, their trade). Robert Orme, “Batavia, Intended
 notes to pages 106–117 271

to be delivered to Lord Bute by Lord Clive, 1761,” BL, OIOC, IOL, Private Papers,
Orme MS., India 1, 142–161. Clive suggested that Orme write this address on the state
of the Dutch empire. See “Accounts of Events, Countries & Places in the East Indies,
out of Indostan, Robert Orme,” BL, OIOC, IOL, Private Papers, Orme MS., O.V.
45, 17.
66. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 195–196; Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-
Century Politics, 81–82.
67. Quoted in Malcolm, The Life of Robert, Lord Clive, 2:133.
68. Clive evinced disdain for Vansittart as well as Sulivan. For example, see Robert
Clive to John Walsh, 4 September 1763, BL, OIOC, IOL, Private Papers, Ormathwaite
Collection, MSS. Eur. D. 546, Bundle 5, f. 90r.
69. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 195.
70. C. H. Philips, “Clive and the English Political World, 1761–64,” 696.
71. Quoted in Malcolm, The Life of Robert, Lord Clive, 2:126.
72. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 58–60.
73. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 84.
74. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 196.
75. Quoted in Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 90.
76. This interpretation is widespread in British domestic and imperial historiography.
For examples, see Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics,
81–137; Peter D. G. Thomas, George III: King and Politicians, 1760–1770 (Manchester,
UK, 2002), 86–87 and 106–107.
77. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 94.
78. Sutherland, 103–107.
79. Sutherland, 101–103.
80. The limits placed on the increase of the land tax stemmed from the government’s
need to secure its political base in a landlord-dominated parliamentary system. After
1714, the British state shifted from raising taxes on the land to increasing excise taxes.
81. For this, see the detailed discussion of party politics and political economy in Steve
Pincus, 1688: The First Modern Revolution (New Haven, CT, 2009), 366–399.
82. Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British
North America, 1754–1766 (New York, 2001), 514–515.
83. Although I disagree with several of its conclusions, the best blow-by-blow account of
the Company’s negotiations with the Bute ministry in the lead-up to the Treaty of
Paris is provided in Lucy Sutherland, “The East India Company and the Peace of
Paris,” in Lucy Sutherland, Politics and Finance in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Aubrey
Newman (London, 1984), 165–176.
84. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 95. Sulivan’s ab-
sence from the Court of Directors in 1762 was not due to a loss of power within the
EIC. Since the corporation’s rules prevented any individual from serving as a director
for more than four years in a row, he did not seek re-election to the Court of Directors
in 1762. Nevertheless, he remained the leading power in the Company and wielded
considerable influence over his many allies among the corporation’s management.
85. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 96.
272 notes to pages 118–123

86. John Wilkes, A North Briton Extraordinary, 7 April 1763. This newspaper was written
in April 1763 but not published until 1765. See Sutherland, The East India Company
in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 95, n. 3.
87. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 97.
88. Sutherland, 91–92.
89. Laurence Sulivan to the Duke of Newcastle, 2 March 1762, BL, Additional MS.
32,935, f. 158r.
90. Bute and George III did not seek to eliminate the oligarchic order tout court but
rather to wrest control of it away from the Old Corps Whigs. See K. W. Schweizer,
“A Lost Letter of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, to George Grenville, 13 October 1761,”
Historical Journal 17, no. 2 (1974): 435–442.
91. John Wilkes, A North Briton Extraordinary, 7 April 1763.
92. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 97.
93. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 100–101; Sutherland, The East India
Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 98–99.
94. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 101.
95. Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires, 124.
96. “Notes on the Preliminary Treaty of Paris by the Duke of Newcastle, Claremont,” 18
October 1762, BL, Additional MS. 32,944, f. 30v.
97. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 101.
98. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 98–100.
99. Philips, “Clive and the English Political World, 1761–64,” 699.
100. See Robert Orme, “Reflections on the preliminary Articles regarding India sent to
Lord Holdernesse,” 1763, BL, OIOC, IOL, Private Papers, Orme MS., India II, 448.
101. Robert Orme, “Idea of a treaty for India, drawn at Condover at the request of Lord
Clive and with his assistance, sent by him to Lord Bute,” August 1762, BL, OIOC,
IOL, Private Papers, Orme MS., India II, 504.
102. Philips, “Clive and the English Political World, 1761–64,” 699.
103. Malcolm, The Life of Robert, Lord Clive, 2:197.
104. Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, vol.
15: 1753–1765 (London, 1813), 1273.
105. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 100.
106. Philips, “Clive in the English Political World, 1761–64,” 699.
107. Robert Clive to the Duke of Newcastle, 1 December 1761, BL, Additional MS. 32,931,
ff. 368r-v.
108. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 103–104.
109. Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England, 15:1273. For Dempster’s radical political
views, see George Dempster to James Boswell, 23 August 1763, Beinecke Library, Yale
University, Boswell Collection, James Boswell Papers, Correspondence, Gen. MS.
89, series no. II, box no. 20, folder no. 456, C/931, ff. 1v–3r.
110. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 100–101 and 103.
111. The Johnstones were one of the most important familial networks in the eighteenth-
century British Empire, with four brothers and three sisters managing and maintain-
ing commercial ventures and plantations from the Floridas and the West Indies to
 notes to pages 123–126 273

Bengal. The profits they won from every corner of the empire were invested not
only in their own estates but also in Scotland’s wider economy and infrastructure.
See Emma Rothschild, The Inner Life of Empires: An Eighteenth-Century History
(Princeton, NJ, 2011).
112. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 126.
113. For an important example of the radical Whig critique of Bute’s supposed betrayal
of Britain’s commercial interests and war aims, see John Wilkes, The North Briton,
22 January 1763, no. 34.
114. J. H. Plumb, England in the Eighteenth Century: A Study of the Development of English
Society (Harmondsworth, Middlesex, UK, 1950), 114–115.
115. Cobbett’s Parliamentary History of England, 15:1272–1273. It should be noted that
although Beckford was not critical of Clive’s effort to take control of East India
House in 1763, he remained deeply suspicious of the military commander. These
suspicions went at least as far back as 1757. After Pitt declared Clive to be the “heaven-
born general” in the House of Commons in December 1757, Beckford rose to speak
and insulted Clive’s reputation. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 169.
116. The Monitor, or British Freeholder, 6 November 1762, no. 381.
117. Plumb, England in the Eighteenth Century, 115.
118. John Brewer, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III
(Cambridge, 1976), 164.
119. George Rudé, Wilkes and Liberty: A Social Study of 1763 to 1774 (Oxford, 1962),
17–36.
120. John Wilkes, A North Briton Extraordinary, 7 April 1763.
121. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 105.
122. Thomas, George III, 86.
123. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 101.
124. Sutherland, 107.
125. A contemporary took note that “a motion was made for giving Mr. Rous thanks for
his prudent management and attention to the interests of the company, in the late
negotiations for a peace with France; and, after a long and warm debate, the question
was carried in the affirmative.” Tobias Smollett, Continuation of the Complete History
of England, etc., vol. 5 (London, 1765), 209.
126. Fourteen candidates were listed on both Sulivan’s and Rous’s slate of directors. The
election was essentially a contest to fill the majority of the ten remaining spots on the
Court of Directors.
127. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 109.
128. Philips, “Clive in the English Political World, 1761–64,” 700.
129. Quoted in McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 127.
130. Although Bute left office just before the election was held to the EIC’s Court of
Directors in April 1763, his ministry secured support for Sulivan well in advance of
the actual vote.
131. Thomas, George III, 86.
132. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 107.
133. Thomas, George III, 86–87.
274 notes to pages 126–134

134. McGilvary, Guardian of the East India Company, 127.

135. Thomas, George III, 106.
136. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 110.

CHAPTER 4. CLIVE’S CONQUEST OF EAST INDIA HOUSE

A N D T H E C O M PA N Y ’ S C O N Q U E S T O F B E N G A L

1. “Proprietors of East India Stock from Lord Clive’s Papers,” 19 May 1763, British
Library [BL], Additional MS. 32,948, ff. 332r–337v; Robert Clive to the Duke of
Newcastle, 19 May 1763, BL, Additional MS. 32,948, f. 338r; the Duke of Newcastle
to Robert Clive, 22 May 1763, BL, Additional MS. 32,948, f. 359r.
2. The Duke of Newcastle to Robert Clive, 30 June 1763, BL, Additional MS. 32,949, ff.
244r-v; Robert Clive to the Duke of Newcastle, 7 August 1763, BL, Additional MS.
32,950, ff. 53r-v; Robert Clive to the Duke of Newcastle, 5 September 1763, BL,
Additional MS. 32,950, f. 331r; the Duke of Newcastle to Robert Clive, 10 October
1763, BL, Additional MS. 32,951, ff. 379r-v; Robert Clive to the Duke of Newcastle,
14 October 1763, BL, Additional MS. 32,951, ff. 424r–425v; Robert Clive to the Duke
of Newcastle, 31 October 1763, BL, Additional MS. 32,952, ff. 154r-v; the Duke of
Newcastle to Robert Clive, 5 November 1763, BL, Additional MS. 32,952, f. 256r;
Robert Clive to the Duke of Newcastle, 6 November 1763, BL, Additional MS.
32,952, ff. 268r-v; Robert Clive to the Duke of Newcastle, 9 November 1763, BL,
Additional MS. 32,952, ff. 308r-v; Lucy Sutherland, The East India Company in
Eighteenth-Century Politics (Oxford, 1952), 112.
3. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 113–114; Peter
D. G. Thomas, George III: King and Politicians, 1760–1770 (Manchester, UK, 2002),
106.
4. Robert Clive to George Grenville, 7 November 1763, BL, Microfilm, RP/460, 1
[Letter 10].
5. Colin G. Calloway, The Scratch of a Pen: 1763 and the Transformation of North America
(Oxford, 2006), 12.
6. Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 16 January 1764, BL, Additional MS. 38,202,
f. 33r; Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 20 January 1764, BL, Additional MS.
38,202, f. 42r; Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 27 January 1764, BL, Additional
MS. 38,202, f. 60r; Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 6 February 1764, BL,
Additional MS. 38,202, ff. 80r–82r.
7. Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 1 February 1764, BL, Additional MS. 38,202,
f. 72r.
8. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 111.
9. Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 21 October 1763, BL, Additional MS. 38,397,
f. 72r; Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 25 October 1763, BL, Additional MS.
38,397, f. 73r; Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 31 October 1763, BL, Additional
MS. 38,397, f. 74r; Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 22 November 1763, BL,
Additional MS. 38,397, f. 75r.
10. The Briton, 11 September 1762, no. 16, in Tobias Smollett, Poems, Plays, and The
Briton, ed. O. M. Brack Jr. (Athens, GA, 1993), 318–320.
 notes to pages 134–140 275

11. Fred Anderson, Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British
North America, 1754–1766 (New York, 2001), 512–513.
12. George Rudé, Wilkes and Liberty: A Social Study of 1763 to 1774 (Oxford, 1962),
25–31.
13. Thomas, George III, 102.
14. Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 3 January 1764, BL, Additional MS. 38,202,
f. 2r.
15. Thomas, George III, 103.
16. Quoted in Thomas C. Barrow, “Background to the Grenville Program, 1757–1763,”
William and Mary Quarterly 22, no. 1 (1965): 96.
17. Jack P. Greene, “The Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution: The Causal
Relationship Reconsidered,” in The British Atlantic Empire before the American
Revolution, ed. Peter Marshall and Glyn Williams (London, 1980), 88.
18. Barrow, “Background to the Grenville Program, 1757–1763,” 93–104.
19. Peter Oliver’s Origin & Progress of the American Rebellion: A Tory View, ed. Douglass
Adair and John A. Schutz (Stanford, CA, 1961), 46.
20. Greene, “The Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution,” 89–90.
21. The Earl of Halifax to George Grenville, 24 October 1763, BL, Additional MS.
57,808, f. 118r.
22. C. H. Philips, “Clive in the English Political World, 1761–64,” Bulletin of the School
of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 12, no. 3/4 (1948): 701.
23. Robert Clive to George Grenville, 13 December 1763, BL, Microfilm, RP/460, 1
[Letter 11].
24. Robert Clive to John Walsh, 12 December 1763, BL, Oriental and India Office
Collections [OIOC], India Office Library [IOL], Private Papers, Ormathwaite
Collection, MSS. Eur. D. 546, Bundle 5, f. 97r.
25. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 114–115.
26. Thomas, George III, 97.
27. Thomas, 100.
28. The Court of Directors continued to reject the overtures made by Clive and his sup-
porters regarding the jagir. Robert Clive to George Grenville, 21 December 1763, BL,
Microfilm, RP/460, 1 [Letter 32].
29. Robert Clive to George Grenville, 13 December 1763, BL, Microfilm, RP/460, 1
[Letter 11].
30. Philips, “Clive in the English Political World, 1761–64,” 701.
31. For an important interpretation of the 1764 election to the EIC’s Court of Directors
that is complementary to the one presented in this chapter, see Spencer A. Leonard,
“ ‘A Theatre of Disputes’: The East India Company Election of 1764 as the Founding
of British India,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 42, no. 4 (2014):
593–624.
32. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 115–116.
33. “Memorandum in Laurence Sulivan’s hand on Governor Vansittart’s support of
Cossim Ally over issue of EIC servants trade,” William L. Clements Library,
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor [WLCL], Shelburne Papers, 99:2–4.
276 notes to pages 140–147

34. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 116.

35. Tobias Smollett, Continuation of the Complete History of England, etc., vol. 5 (London,
1765), 250.
36. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 120.
37. Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 6 March 1764, BL, Additional MS. 38,202,
f. 147r.
38. Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 6 March 1764, f. 147r.
39. Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 7 March 1764, BL, Additional MS. 38,202,
f. 148r; Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 8 March 1764, BL, Additional MS.
38,397, f. 78r.
40. Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 14 March 1764, BL, Additional MS. 38,202,
f. 159r; Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 16 March 1764, BL, Additional MS.
38,202, f. 168r.
41. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 119.
42. Public Advertiser, 8 March 1764, no. 9,156; Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser,
9 March 1764, no. 10,915; Public Advertiser, 10 March 1764, no. 9,158; Gazetteer and
London Daily Advertiser, 12 March 1764, no. 10,917; Public Advertiser, 15 March 1764,
no. 9,162; Public Advertiser, 16 March 1764, no. 9,163.
43. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 122.
44. Sutherland, 117–118 and 122–123; St. James’s Chronicle or the British Evening Post,
6 March 1764, no. 469.
45. For a detailed and persuasive analysis of the far-reaching political-economic program
developed by these servants and private traders in Bengal, see Spencer A. Leonard, “A
Fit of Absence of Mind?: Illiberal Imperialism and the Founding of British India”
(PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2010).
46. Robert Clive, A Letter to the Proprietors of the East India Stock, from Lord Clive
(London, 1764), 61–63.
47. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 117.
48. Sutherland, 117–118.
49. Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser, 7 March 1764, no. 10,913.
50. Smollett, Continuation of the Complete History of England, 5:254.
51. London Magazine, vol. 33 (London, 1764), 158–159.
52. Robert Clive to George Grenville, March 1764, BL, Microfilm, RP/460, 1 [Letter 26].
53. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 126–127.
54. Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser, 2 April 1764, no. 10,915.
55. Gazetteer and London Daily Advertiser, 6 April 1764, no. 10,939.
56. Robert Clive to George Grenville, 4 March 1764, BL, Microfilm, RP/460, 1 [Letter 30];
Robert Clive to George Grenville, February 1764, BL, Microfilm, RP/460, 1 [Letter 20].
57. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 120; Joseph
Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 8 April 1764, BL, Additional MS. 38,202, f. 224r.
58. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 119 and 122.
59. Mark Bence-Jones, Clive of India (London, 1974), 206.
60. Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 12 April 1764, BL, Additional MS. 38,397, f. 77r;
Robert Clive to George Grenville, 13 April 1764, BL, Microfilm, RP/460, 1 [Letter 29].
 notes to pages 147–153 277

61. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 206; Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-
Century Politics, 129–130.
62. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 130.
63. Laurence Sulivan to Robert Palk, 22 May 1764, Bodleian Library, University of
Oxford, MS. Eng. hist. b. 190, Laurence Sulivan Papers, f. 1.
64. John Walsh to Robert Clive, 22 November 1764, BL, OIOC, IOL, Clive Papers, Eur.
MSS. G. 37, Box 32, Miscellaneous Letters, 1764; George Amyand to Robert Clive,
14 February 1765, BL, OIOC, IOL, Clive Papers, Eur. MSS. G. 37, Box 33,
Miscellaneous Letters, 1765, January to March; John Walsh to Robert Clive, 5 April
1765, BL, OIOC, India Office Records [IOR], Home Miscellaneous Series, vol. 808,
231–235.
65. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 207.
66. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 130.
67. Joseph Salvador to Charles Jenkinson, 22 April 1764, BL, Additional MS. 38,202,
f. 248r.
68. George Grenville to Charles Jenkinson, 29 April 1764, BL, Additional MS. 38,191,
f. 80r.
69. Charles Jenkinson to George Grenville, 1 May 1764, BL, Additional MS. 57,809,
ff. 105r–106r.
70. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 131.
71. Robert Clive to George Grenville, 19 May 1764, BL, Microfilm, RP/460, 1 [Letter
27].
72. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 207.
73. The Duke of Bedford to George Grenville, 25 April 1764, BL, Additional MS. 57,811,
ff. 15v–16r.
74. Lord Sandwich to George Grenville, 23 April 1764, BL, Additional MS. 57,810, ff.
91r-v; Lord Sandwich to George Grenville, 25 April 1764, BL, Additional MS. 57,810,
ff. 93r–95r.
75. Quoted in Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 207.
76. The Monitor, or British Freeholder, 19 May 1764, no. 459.
77. Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 128.
78. Sutherland, 131.
79. George Dempster and George Johnstone, “To the Honourable the Court of Directors
for the Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies, 1 June 1764” and “The
Memorial of George Johnstone and George Dempster, Proprietors of East India
Stock,” in John Johnstone, A Letter to the Proprietors of East-India Stock, from John
Johnstone, Esq. (London, 1766), 85–90.
80. Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, 18 March 1764, in Horace Walpole’s Correspondence,
vol. 22, ed. W. S. Lewis (New Haven, CT, 1960), 210–211.
81. Lord Sandwich to Robert Clive, 8 January 1765, BL, OIOC, IOL, Clive Papers, Eur.
MSS. G. 37, Box 33, Miscellaneous Letters, 1765, January to March.
82. James Oglethorpe to Robert Clive, 1 December 1764, BL, OIOC, IOL, Clive Papers,
Eur. MSS. G. 37, Box 32, Miscellaneous Letters, 1764.
83. Quoted in G. R. Gleig, The Life of Robert, First Lord Clive (London, 1907), 239.
278 notes to pages 153–157

84. Robert Clive to the Directors of the East India Company, 30 September 1765, in Fort
William–India House Correspondence and Other Contemporary Papers Relating Thereto
(Public Series) [FWIHC], vol. 4: 1764–1766, ed. C. S. Srinivasachari (New Delhi,
1962), 337.
85. As a province of the Mughal Empire, Bengal’s government was traditionally divided
between diwani (fiscal administration) and nizamat (general administration), the
heads of which were appointed by the Emperor. The head of the latter, the Nazim,
was responsible for regional military defense as well as the maintenance of law and
order, while the chief of the former, the Diwan, was in charge of revenue collection.
With the weakening of imperial authority following the death of Emperor Aurangzeb
in 1707, regional governments began to develop into autonomous states. In Bengal,
the offices of Diwan and Nazim came under the control of Murshid Kuli Khan who,
in combining them, established the independent nawabi regime that governed Bengal
until 1757–1765. When Siraj-ud-daula, the Nawab of Bengal, was defeated by British
forces at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, the provisions of the treaty with the province’s
new ruler, the British-backed Mir Jafar, kept the nawabi regime intact, although some
commercial and territorial concessions were made to the Company. Upon acquiring
the diwani in 1765, the EIC technically returned Bengal to its pre-1716 form of gov-
ernment, with the British corporation acting as the Diwan and the Nawab acting as
the Nazim responsible for internal order and external defense. However, with the
Company’s military in complete control of the province, the nawabi regime was not
capable of acting independently of British authority. The EIC collected the revenue
of Bengal and directed its foreign and internal affairs, over which neither the Nawab
nor the Emperor exercised significant control. The Company was now a sovereign
state on the Indian subcontinent.
86. P. J. Marshall, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 2, 2: Bengal: The British
Bridgehead: Eastern India, 1740–1828 (Cambridge, 1987), 77–92.
87. Quoted in Henry Vansittart, A Narrative of the Transactions in Bengal, 1760–1764, ed.
Anil Chandra Banerjee and Bimal Kanti Ghosh (Calcutta, 1976), xiv.
88. Laurence Sulivan to William Pitt, 27 July 1761, BL, OIOC, IOR, Home Miscellaneous
Series, vol. 808, 186.
89. Momtaz o’ Dowla Ferzund Cawn Buxy to John Carnac, 15 December 1763, in
Vansittart, A Narrative of the Transactions in Bengal, 531.
90. Nandalal Chatterji, Mir Qasim: Nawab of Bengal, 1760–1763 (Allahabad, India, 1935),
172–195 (esp. 179–180).
91. For newspaper reportage and debates, see J. Paul Thomas, “The British Empire and
the Press, 1763–1774” (DPhil thesis, University of Oxford, 1982).
92. Robert Clive to William Pitt, 7 January 1759, quoted in John Malcolm, The Life of
Robert, Lord Clive, vol. 2 (London, 1836), 119–120 and 122.
93. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 210.
94. Robert Clive to Thomas Rous, 17 April 1765, quoted in Sir George Forrest, The Life
of Lord Clive, vol. 2 (London, 1918), 256–257.
95. Robert Clive to Luke Scrafton, 25 September 1765, National Library of Wales [NLW],
Clive Papers, CR 3/1, Europe Letter Book, 1765, 19.
 notes to pages 157–161 279

96. Robert Clive to Joseph Salvador, 25 September 1765, NLW, Clive Papers, CR 3/1,
Europe Letter Book, 1765, 24.
97. Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead, 83–85; Narendra K. Sinha, The Economic
History of Bengal: From Plassey to the Permanent Settlement (Calcutta, 1956), 10–14. The
“investment” was the contemporary term used to describe the Company’s purchase of
Bengali goods—most importantly, cotton and silk piece-goods and saltpetre.
98. Robert Clive to the Directors of the East India Company, 30 September 1765, in
FWIHC, 4:337. It should be noted that Clive’s objective of eliminating the export of
bullion to Bengal proved illusory. For the trend in bullion exports both before and
after the diwani grant, see H. V. Bowen, Revenue and Reform: The Indian Problem in
British Politics, 1757–1773 (Cambridge, 1991), 110–111.
99. Marshall, Bengal: The British Bridgehead, 104.
100. Robert Clive to the Directors of the East India Company, 30 September 1765, in
FWIHC, 4:337–338.
101. H. V. Bowen, “Tea, Tribute and the East India Company, c. 1750-c. 1775,” in
Hanoverian Britain and Empire: Essays in Memory of Philip Lawson, ed. Stephen
Taylor, Richard Connors, and Clyve Jones (Woodbridge, UK, 1998), 163.
102. Robert Clive to William Smyth King, 29 September 1765, NLW, Clive Papers, CR
3/1, Europe Letter Book, 1765, 26.
103. The Abbé Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of
the Europeans in the East and West Indies, vol. 1, trans. J. Justamond (London, 1776),
360.
104. Robert Clive to the Directors of the East India Company, 30 September 1765, in
FWIHC, 4:339.
105. Warren Hastings, “General Considerations on the Natural Strength of Bengal,”
[n.d.], WLCL, Shelburne Papers, 90:42–43. For an overview of the development
of concepts of “Oriental despotism” in early modern European thought, see
Franco Venturi, “Oriental Despotism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 24, no. 1 (1963):
133–142.
106. Robert Travers’s important work revises our understanding of Hastings’s ideas about
despotic government. In Travers’s estimation, Hastings’s political views combined a
“strong sense of sovereignty [that] carried the authentic traces of English Whiggism
in the age of Blackstone” with an “idea of Mughal despotism” that defended “a re-
served core of absolute power.” Robert Travers, Ideology and Empire in Eighteenth-
Century India: The British in Bengal (Cambridge, 2007), 100–140 (quotations, 139).
107. David Washbrook, “India, 1818–1860: The Two Faces of Colonialism,” in The Oxford
History of the British Empire, vol. 3: The Nineteenth Century, ed. Andrew Porter
(Oxford, 1999), 399.
108. Robert Clive to the Court of Directors, April 1764, quoted in Malcolm, The Life of
Robert, Lord Clive, 2:315, 313, and 314.
109. Robert Clive to the Directors of the East India Company, 30 September 1765, in
FWIHC, 4:330.
110. Robert Clive to Rev. Dr. Adams, 29 September 1765, NLW, Clive Papers, CR 3/1,
Europe Letter Book, 1765, 27.
280 note to page 161

111. Clive’s opposition to commercial expansionism and his repeated denunciations of

the Company servants’ “licentiousness,” “leveling,” and “luxury” are typically read as
a straightforward critique of profiteering, bribery, and unfair business practices. This
interpretation fails to grasp the politico-ideological character of Clive’s views. That
the EIC’s employees used the corporation’s post-Plassey political and military advan-
tages to their financial and commercial benefit—in the form of bribes, commodity
monopolies, extortionate loans, etc.—is beyond doubt. However, Clive’s interpreta-
tion of those practices was fundamentally illiberal. Such illiberalism must be taken
seriously as an ideology. This illiberal ideology informed Clive’s actions during his
second Bengal governorship and shaped the early formation of the EIC’s territorial
empire. In dismissing these illiberal sentiments as so much rhetoric, or as simple reci-
tations of the facts in question, historians risk losing sight of the larger stakes at
play in Clive’s policies. To illustrate this point, let us turn to Adam Smith’s reading of
the crisis of post-Plassey Bengal and his interpretation of the Company servants’
practices—the very same practices that so enraged Clive. Smith acknowledged that
post-Plassey events gave the EIC’s employees incredible political and military pow-
ers, which they wielded to the advantage of their private trade. According to Smith,
they remained merchants whose primary goal was to buy low and sell high and, thus,
they sought “to exclude as much as possible all rivals from the market where they
keep their shop.” Smith emphasized the position that the Company servants occu-
pied in larger social structures. He contended that “nothing can be more completely
foolish than to expect that the clerks of a great counting-house at ten thousand miles
distance, and consequently almost quite out of sight, should, upon a simple order
from their masters, give up at once doing any sort of business upon their own ac-
count, abandon for ever all hopes of making a fortune, of which they have means in
their hands, and content themselves with the moderate salaries which those masters
allow them, and which, moderate as they are, can seldom be augmented, being com-
monly as large as the real profits of the company trade can afford.” Smith, although
aware of the Company servants’ commercial abuses and their detrimental effects on
Bengal’s economy, nevertheless argued that these abuses were the symptom of a
larger political-economic contradiction—they were the product of a commercial
corporation’s rapid acquisition of political power over a vast territory. “I mean not,
however, by any thing which I have here said, to throw any odious imputation upon
the general character of the servants of the East India company,” Smith remarked; “it
is the system of government, the situation in which they are placed, that I mean to
censure . . . they acted as their situation naturally directed, and they who have
clamoured the loudest against them would, probably, not have acted better them-
selves.” Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,
vol. 2, ed. Edwin Cannan (Chicago, 1976), 155 and 158. Smith’s analysis lacks any
trace of Clive’s illiberalism, and his proposed solution to the Company’s problems
was significantly different from the course of action actually pursued in Bengal.
Smith, writing from the standpoint of radical Whiggism, called for the abolition of
the EIC’s monopoly and the liberalization of the emerging territorial empire in
India. For a contrasting historical interpretation that emphasizes the “unbelievable
 notes to pages 161–167 281

greed of Englishmen that found expression in rampant abuse of political power to

further private commercial gain,” see Lakshmi Subramanian, “ ‘East Indian Fortunes’:
Merchants, Companies and Conquest, 1700–1800: An Exercise in Historiography,”
in Bengal, Rethinking History: Essays in Historiography, ed. Sekhar Bandyopadhyay
(New Delhi, 2001), 58.
112. Robert Clive to Joseph Salvador, NLW, Clive Papers, CR 3/1, Europe Letter Book,
1765, 23.
113. Robert Clive to the Directors of the East India Company, 30 September 1765, in
FWIHC, 4:331.
114. Robert Clive to the Directors of the East India Company, 30 September 1765, 4:331.
115. Robert Clive to the Directors of the East India Company, 30 September 1765, in
FWIHC, 4:339–340.
116. The Select Committee to the Directors of the East India Company, 30 September
1765, quoted in Malcolm, The Life of Robert, Lord Clive, 2:337–338.
117. Robert Clive to George Dudley, 29 September 1765, NLW, Clive Papers, CR 3/1,
Europe Letter Book, 1765, 3.
118. Robert Clive to George Dudley, 29 September 1765, 3.
119. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 210–215; Malcolm, The Life of Robert, Lord Clive,
2:317–381.
120. Sir Henry Cavendish’s Debates of the House of Commons, during the Thirteenth Parliament
of Great Britain, etc., vol. 1: 10 May 1768–3 May 1770, ed. J. Wright (London, 1841),
264–265.

CHAPTER 5. THE NEW TORYISM AND THE IMPERIAL

R E AC T I O N AT T H E AC C E S S I O N O F G E O R G E I I I

1. The best articulation of this view remains the work of Sir Lewis Namier: The Structure
of Politics at the Accession of George III (London, 1957); England in the Age of the
American Revolution (London, 1963).
2. J. H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England, 1675–1725 (London, 1979).
3. Namierite scholarship on British politics during George III’s early reign is too exten-
sive to examine in detail here. For representative works, see H. V. Bowen, Revenue and
Reform: The Indian Problem in British Politics, 1757–1773 (Cambridge, 1991); Ian R.
Christie, Wilkes, Wyvill and Reform (London, 1962); and Peter D. G. Thomas, George
III: King and Politicians, 1760–1770 (Manchester, UK, 2002).
4. For an overview of the historical developments leading to this, see Robert Brenner,
“Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe,”
and “The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism,” in The Brenner Debate: Agrarian
Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe, ed. T. H. Aston
and C. H. E. Philpin (Cambridge, 1987), 10–63 and 213–327.
5. “It is a strain on one’s semantic patience to imagine a class of bourgeois scattered
across a countryside and dwelling on their estates,” Thompson remarks, “but if we
forget the associations with the French model which the term introduces, and
think rather of the capitalist mode of production, then clearly we must follow Marx
in seeing the landowners and farmers as a very powerful and authentic capitalist
282 notes to pages 167–170

nexus.” E. P. Thompson, “The Peculiarities of the English,” in Socialist Register, 1965,

ed. Ralph Miliband and John Saville (New York, 1965), 315–319.
6. Paul Langford, Public Life and the Propertied Englishman, 1689–1798 (Oxford, 1991);
Lawrence Stone and Jeanne C. Fawtier Stone, An Open Elite?: England, 1540–1880
(Oxford, 1984).
7. P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000 (London, 2002), 62–103;
P. G. M. Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of
Public Credit, 1688–1756 (New York, 1967).
8. J. V. Beckett and Michael Turner, “Taxation and Economic Growth in Eighteenth-
Century England,” Economic History Review, n.s., 43, no. 3 (1990): 377–403; John
Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783 (London,
1989).
9. Such is the thrust of Paul Langford’s magisterial A Polite and Commercial People:
England, 1727–1783 (Oxford, 1989). By the mid-eighteenth century, the manufactur-
ing and commercial sectors of the economy may have accounted for as much as 50
percent of national income. John Rule, The Vital Century: England’s Developing
Economy, 1714–1815 (London, 1992), 93.
10. Peter Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial
Town, 1660–1770 (Oxford, 1989); Peter Clark, British Clubs and Societies, 1580–1800:
The Origins of an Associational World (Oxford, 2000), 60–140; P. J. Corfield, The
Impact of English Towns, 1700–1800 (Oxford, 1982).
11. Neil McKendrick, John Brewer, and J. H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society:
The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England (Bloomington, IN, 1982); John
Stobart, Andrew Hann, and Victoria Morgan, Spaces of Consumption: Leisure and
Shopping in the English Town, c. 1680–1830 (London, 2007), 1–25; Lorna Weatherill,
Consumer Behaviour and Material Culture in Britain, 1660–1760 (London, 1988).
12. Geoff Eley, “Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the
Nineteenth Century,” in Habermas and the Public Sphere, ed. Craig Calhoun (Cambridge,
MA, 1992), 299.
13. Nicholas Rogers, Whigs and Cities: Popular Politics in the Age of Walpole and Pitt
(Oxford, 1989), 46–86; Kathleen Wilson, “Empire, Trade and Popular Politics: The
Case of Admiral Vernon,” Past and Present, no. 121 (1988): 74–109.
14. Linda Colley, In Defiance of Oligarchy: The Tory Party, 1714–1760 (Cambridge, 1982).
15. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, CT, 1992), 85–100;
Bob Harris, Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid-Eighteenth Century (Oxford,
2002); Kathleen Wilson, The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture, and Imperialism in
England, 1715–1785 (Cambridge, 1995).
16. George Rudé, Wilkes and Liberty: A Social Study of 1763 to 1774 (Oxford, 1962).
17. John Brewer, “English Radicalism in the Age of George III,” in Three British Revolutions:
1641, 1688, 1776, ed. J. G. A. Pocock (Princeton, NJ, 1980), 323–367; John Brewer, Party
Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III (Cambridge, 1976); Rogers,
Whigs and Cities, 87–129.
18. H. Porter to the Earl of Hardwicke, 29 June 1769, British Library [BL], Additional
MS. 35,608, f. 377r.
 notes to pages 170–174 283

19. Charles Townshend to George Viscount Townshend, 3 July 1765, BL, Additional MS.
34,713, ff. 253v–254r.
20. Commons Speech of Frederick Montagu, 17 May 1768, BL, Egerton MS. 215, f. 69.
21. Speech by George Grenville on the motion for expelling Wilkes, 3 February 1769, BL,
Stowe MS. 372, ff. 39v–41v.
22. My views on this subject are diametrically opposed to the Namierite interpretation
that sees no connection between metropolitan political conflict and the transforma-
tion of British imperial expansion in the eighteenth century. Ian Christie crisply sum-
marizes this Namierite view when he argues that “the story of British colonial policy
between 1763 and 1783 makes perfect sense if it is considered apart from the domestic
issues concerning Wilkes and the press.” Christie, “Was There a ‘New Toryism’ in the
Earlier Part of George III’s Reign?,” in Ian R. Christie, Myth and Reality in Late-
Eighteenth-Century British Politics and Other Papers (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1970),
212. For a powerful critique of Christie’s argument, see Paul Langford, “Old Whigs,
Old Tories, and the American Revolution,” in The British Atlantic Empire before
the American Revolution, ed. Peter Marshall and Glyn Williams (London, 1980),
106–128.
23. The key pamphlets in question include: William Knox, The Claim of the Colonies to
an Exemption from Internal Taxes Imposed by Authority of Parliament, Examined
(London, 1765); William Knox, The Present State of the Nation (London, 1768);
Thomas Whately, The Regulations Lately Made Concerning the Colonies, and the Taxes
Imposed Upon Them, Considered (London, 1765); Thomas Whately, Considerations on
the Trade and Finances of this Kingdom (London, 1766). Although these pamphlets
were composed after Clive returned to Bengal in June 1764, they represent ideological
crystallizations of political and imperial experience going back to the late 1750s. The
pamphlets published by Grenville’s inner circle in the mid- to late 1760s were public
articulations of policies and ideas they expressed in private memoranda and corre-
spondence during the first half of the 1760s while in office under George III. The
ideological positions expressed in these pamphlets informed their support for Clive’s
return to Bengal.
24. Quoted in John L. Bullion, “ ‘To Know This Is the True Essential Business of a King’:
The Prince of Wales and the Study of Public Finance, 1755–1760,” Albion 18, no. 3
(1986): 437.
25. It should be noted that this is not my interpretation but rather the conclusion reached
by Grenville’s inner circle as well as by many members of Britain’s political elite.
26. William Knox, The Present State of the Nation (London, 1768), 32.
27. George Rudé, Paris and London in the 18th Century: Studies in Popular Protest
(London, 1970), 201–221.
28. John Perceval, Earl of Egmont, Faction Detected, By the Evidence of Facts (Dublin,
1743), 2. The fact that Egmont became a staunch supporter of George III and Bute in
the 1760s is not surprising.
29. John Gordon to the Duke of Newcastle, 6 April 1756, BL, Additional MS. 32,889,
ff. 388r-v.
30. Rogers, Whigs and Cities, 114–116.
284 notes to pages 174–178

31. Anon., “To Isaac Buckhorse, Esq.; from the E. of C.,” in John Almon, A New and
Impartial Collection of Interesting Letters, from the Public Papers, etc., vol. 2 (London,
1767), 264.
32. In many respects what I am describing here is an early phase of the political conser-
vatism that dominated British public life in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
century. See Linda Colley, “The Apotheosis of George III: Loyalty, Royalty and the
British Nation, 1760–1820,” Past and Present, no. 102 (1984): 94–129.
33. For an example of such views regarding radicalism, see Anon., The True Whig
Displayed. Comprehending Cursory Remarks on the Address to the Cocoa-Tree. By a Tory
(London, 1762). For an example of a prominent Tory and conservative Patriot who
was fiercely loyal to Pitt earlier in the 1750s before becoming a strident critic of his
policies and radical associations, see Lewis M. Knapp, “Smollett and the Elder Pitt,”
Modern Language Notes 59, no. 4 (1944): 250–257.
34. Maurice Woods, A History of the Tory Party in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
(London, 1924), 210–231.
35. Anon., An Address to the Cocoa-Tree from a Whig. And a Consultation on the Subject of
a Standing-Army, etc. (London, 1763).
36. “The Life of Lord Loughborough,” in John Lord Campbell, The Lives of the Lord
Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England, vol. 6, 3rd Series (Philadelphia,
1848), 73.
37. Alexander Wedderburn to George Grenville, 3 April 1768, BL, Additional MS.
42,086, ff. 10v–11r.
38. The Duke of Bedford to Mr. Pitt, 1 September 1757, in Correspondence of John, Fourth
Duke of Bedford, vol. 2, ed. Lord John Russell (London, 1843), 269.
39. Quoted in Bob Harris, Politics and the Nation, 331.
40. Charles R. Ritcheson, British Politics and the American Revolution (Norman, OK,
1954), 31.
41. I agree with James Sack’s important contention that “the whole question of the sur-
vival of orthodox Toryism after 1760 has somewhat obscured the very real post-1760
authoritarian, anti-Enlightenment, right-wing patronage and factional networks
which grew up about ostensibly Whig politicians and which in many cases directly
intersected with important constituents of the so-called Tory revival of the 1790s and
beyond.” James Sack, From Jacobite to Conservative: Reaction and Orthodoxy in
Britain, c. 1760–1832 (Cambridge, 1993), 74–75.
42. John Sekora, Luxury: The Concept in Western Thought, Eden to Smollett (Baltimore,
1977), 155–211.
43. The London Magazine, vol. 23 (London, 1754), 410.
44. The London Magazine, vol. 25 (London, 1756), 15–16.
45. The London Magazine, vol. 27 (London, 1758), 223.
46. Anon., “On domestic grievances, the dearness of provisions, etc.,” in Almon, A New
and Impartial Collection of Interesting Letters, 2:174.
47. Gentleman’s Magazine, Supplement, 1757, 591.
48. Quoted in Langford, “Old Whigs, Old Tories, and the American Revolution,”
124–125.
 notes to pages 179–181 285

49. John Brown, An Estimate of the Manners and Principles of the Times (London, 1757),
181.
50. Tobias Smollett, Continuation of the Complete History of England, etc., vol. 1 (London,
1762), 56 and 128.
51. The Briton, 11 September 1762, no. 16, in Tobias Smollett, Poems, Plays, and The
Briton, ed. O. M. Brack Jr. (Athens, GA, 1993), 317.
52. John L. Bullion, “From ‘the French and Dutch are more sober, frugal and industrious’
to the ‘nobler’ position: Attitudes of the Prince of Wales toward a General
Naturalization and a Popular Monarchy, 1757–1760,” in Studies in Eighteenth-Century
Culture, vol. 17, ed. John Yolton and Leslie Ellen Brown (East Lansing, MI, 1987),
159–172.
53. For example, see Anon., Considerations on Taxes, as They are Supposed to Affect the
Price of Labour in Our Manufacturies (London, 1765).
54. By the early 1760s, the Treasury was fully aware of the extent to which colonial
American commerce operated beyond the legal boundaries set by the laws of trade
and navigation. Ritcheson, British Politics and the American Revolution, 16–18.
55. George Grenville, “Some Account of the Memorable Transactions since the Death of
Lord Egremont,” in The Grenville Papers: Being the Correspondence of Richard
Grenville, Earl Temple, K. G., and the Right Hon. George Grenville, their Friends and
Contemporaries, vol. 2, ed. William James Smith (London, 1852), 193.
56. Israel Maudit, Considerations on the Present German War (London, 1760), 132.
57. Rogers, Whigs and Cities, 117.
58. K. W. Schweizer, “A Note on Israel Maudit’s Considerations on the Present German
War,” Notes and Queries, n.s., 27, no. 1 (1980): 45–46.
59. John Almon, Anecdotes of the Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt, Earl of
Chatham, vol. 1 (London, 1798), 405.
60. Bute and George III were deeply worried about the growth of the national debt and
taxation. These concerns informed many of their early policy proposals. For more on
this, see Bullion, “ ‘To Know This Is the True Essential Business of a King’: The
Prince of Wales and the Study of Public Finance,” 429–454.
61. For evidence that Bute held Tory views on foreign policy, see K. W. Schweizer, “The
Draft of a Pamphlet by John Stuart 3rd Earl of Bute,” Notes and Queries, n.s., 34, no.
3 (1987): 343–345; K. W. Schweizer, “Lord Bute and the Prussian Subsidy, 1762: An
Unnoticed Document,” Notes and Queries, n.s., 36, no. 1 (1989): 58–61; K. W.
Schweizer, “Lord Bute and British Strategy in the Seven Years War: Further Evidence,”
Notes and Queries, n.s., 38, no. 2 (1991): 189–191.
62. The Earl of Fife to George Grenville, 3 September 1766, BL, Additional MS. 57,815,
f. 39v.
63. Bute and Grenville were both opposed to continuing the war but they intensely dis-
agreed over how to treat Britain’s conquests in the West Indies during the peace pro-
cess with France. Bute was willing to make considerable concessions on this front in
order to swiftly secure peace, while Grenville was adamantly opposed to the idea.
64. Anon., “Letters on behalf of the Administration, in answer to Anti-Sejanus, etc.,” in
Almon, A New and Impartial Collection of Interesting Letters, 2:84.
286 notes to pages 181–191

65. Sack, From Jacobite to Conservative, 57.

66. For a good overview of Grenville’s political and economic principles, see Dora Mae
Clark, “George Grenville as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the
Exchequer, 1763–1765,” Huntington Library Quarterly 13, no. 4 (1950): 383–397.
67. For a contrasting interpretation to the one presented here, see Peter D. G. Thomas,
British Politics and the Stamp Act Crisis: The First Phase of the American Revolution,
1763–1767 (Oxford, 1975).
68. John L. Bullion, “ ‘The Ten Thousand in America’: More Light on the Decision on
the American Army, 1762–1763,” William and Mary Quarterly 43, no. 4 (1986): 646–
657; John L. Bullion, “Security and Economy: The Bute Administration’s Plans for
the American Army and Revenue, 1762–1763,” William and Mary Quarterly 45, no. 3
(1988): 499–509.
69. For an overview of how these reforms strongly interfered with colonial patterns of
trade established during the long period of “Salutary Neglect,” see Jack P. Greene,
“The Seven Years’ War and the American Revolution: The Causal Relationship
Reconsidered,” in The British Atlantic Empire before the American Revolution, ed.
Peter Marshall and Glyn Williams (London, 1980), 90–91.
70. Thomas C. Barrow, “A Project for Imperial Reform: ‘Hints Respecting the Settlement
of our American Provinces,’ 1763,” William and Mary Quarterly 24, no. 1 (1967): 126.
71. Clark, “George Grenville as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the
Exchequer,” 393–394.
72. Barrow, “A Project for Imperial Reform,” 117, 122, and 123.
73. Clark, “George Grenville as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the
Exchequer,” 393.
74. Leland J. Bellot, William Knox: The Life and Thought of an Eighteenth-Century
Imperialist (Austin, TX, 1977), 41.
75. George Grenville to Thomas Pownall, 17 July 1768, BL, Additional MS. 42,086,
f. 68v.
76. Clark, “George Grenville as First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the
Exchequer,” 397.
77. George Grenville to Dr. Spry, 19 August 1766, quoted in Clark, “George Grenville as
First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer,” 394, n. 55.
78. For a commentary on Orme’s dissertation that places it in the wider context of British
political and social thought on the Mughal Empire, see Robert Travers, Ideology and
Empire in Eighteenth-Century India: The British in Bengal (Cambridge, 2007), 58–59.
79. Robert Orme, A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan,
from the Year 1745, vol. 1 (London, 1763), 7–8.
80. Quoted in Sir George Forrest, The Life of Lord Clive, vol. 2 (London, 1918),
256–257.
81. Quoted in Forrest, 2:257.
82. Mark Bence-Jones, Clive of India (London, 1974), 211–215.
83. Robert Clive to Robert Orme, 5 February 1766, BL, Additional MS. 44,061, f. 11r.
84. Quoted in John Malcolm, The Life of Robert, Lord Clive, vol. 2 (London, 1836),
322.
 notes to pages 191–203 287

85. Quoted in Forrest, The Life of Lord Clive, 2:257.

86. Robert Clive to George Grenville, 30 September 1765, BL, Microfilm, RP/460, 1
[Letter 24].
87. Lord Clive to George Grenville, 3 February 1766, BL, Additional MS. 42,084,
ff. 9r–10r.
88. George Grenville to Robert Clive, 22 November 1766, BL, Additional MS. 42,084,
f. 213v.
89. Robert Clive to the Directors of the East India Company, 30 September 1765, in Fort
William–India House Correspondence and Other Contemporary Papers Relating Thereto
(Public Series), vol. 4: 1764–1766, ed. C. S. Srinivasachari (Delhi, 1962), 21 and 34.
90. Bence-Jones, Clive of India, 226–239.
91. George Grenville to Robert Clive, 22 November 1766, BL, Additional MS. 42,084,
ff. 213r–214r.
92. Robert Clive to Richard Clive, 25 September 1765, BL, Additional MS. 32,970, f. 71r.
93. The moderate Rockingham Whigs offered a “middle way” in politics, seeking to steer
clear of the Scylla of conservative-reactionary New Toryism and the Charybdis of
radical Whiggism. During the 1760s and 1770s, they were increasingly marginalized
amid the political conflict between New Tories and radical Whigs. The Rockingham
Whigs, and their spell in power from 1765 to 1766, cannot be adequately discussed
here.
94. For an overview of this process, see Thomas, George III, 125–144.
95. Robert Orme to Colonel Richard Smith, 1 February 1766, BL, Oriental and
India Office Collections, India Office Library, Private Papers, Orme MS., O.V. 222,
122.
96. For example, see Thomas Pownall, The Right, Interest, and Duty, of Government, as
Concerned in the Affairs of the East Indies (London, 1773).
97. Anon., The Nature of a Quarantine, as it is Performed in Italy; to Guard Against that
Very Alarming and Dreadful Contagious Distemper (London, 1767), vii-viii.
98. William Bolts, Considerations on India Affairs; Particularly Respecting the Present State
of the Bengal Dependencies, etc. (London, 1772), 221–222.
99. Bolts, 219–220.

CHAPTER 6. THE TRIUMPH OF THE NEW TORYISM AND THE

SPIRIT OF THE SECOND BRITISH EMPIRE

1. Address to the Earl of Shelburne by Maurice Morgann, October 1766, “Advice on

Shelburne’s party image, opinion critical of the Privy Council’s embargo on the ex-
portation of corn,” William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan at Ann
Arbor [WLCL], Shelburne Papers, vol. 168, f. 2v.
2. Address to the Earl of Shelburne by Maurice Morgann, 1766, ff. 4v–5v.
3. The Earl of Chatham to the Duke of Grafton, August 1766, in Autobiography and
Political Correspondence of Augustus Henry, Third Duke of Grafton, K. G., ed. Sir
William R. Anson (London, 1898), 102.
4. John Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 1766–1768 (London, 1956), 72.
288 notes to pages 203–209

5. For the traditional Namierite interpretation of this parliamentary inquiry, see Lucy
Sutherland, The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics (Oxford, 1952),
140–176.
6. Beckford was not a member of the ministry but was serving as an MP for London.
The fact that Pitt chose Beckford rather than a cabinet member to introduce the
ministry’s East India motions in the House of Commons is important, and it is not
adequately addressed in the existing historiography on the EIC during this crucial
period.
7. Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 74.
8. George Grenville to Lord Temple, 21 September 1766, British Library [BL], Additional
MS. 42,084, f. 182v.
9. MS. given to the Earl of Shelburne by Maurice Morgann, 1766, “Paper considering
problems facing England in political divisions in Parliament; Scotland, Ireland, India
and America, West Indies; incomplete, beginning of discussion of Europe,” WLCL,
Shelburne Papers, vol. 168, f. 1r.
10. MS. given to the Earl of Shelburne by Maurice Morgann, 1766, ff. 5r-v.
11. Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 73.
12. While Pitt believed that the Company’s territorial dominion by right belonged to the
Crown—that is, that a commercial company could not possess extensive territory—it
is not clear what he intended to do on the basis of this right. Many historians con-
clude that Pitt simply intended to allow the EIC to remain in control of Bengal in
return for a portion of the territorial revenue collected by the corporation.
13. Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 90.
14. Brooke, 76–78.
15. Autobiography and Political Correspondence of Augustus Henry, Third Duke of Grafton,
109.
16. The Earl of Chatham to the Duke of Grafton, 7 December 1766, in Autobiography
and Political Correspondence of Augustus Henry, Third Duke of Grafton, 110–111.
17. Autobiography and Political Correspondence of Augustus Henry, Third Duke of Grafton,
110.
18. Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 76–79.
19. Brooke, 87–88.
20. The Earl of Chatham to the Duke of Grafton, 10 January 1767, in Autobiography and
Political Correspondence of Augustus Henry, Third Duke of Grafton, 111–112.
21. Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 91.
22. The Earl of Chatham to the Duke of Grafton, 23 January 1767, in Autobiography and
Political Correspondence of Augustus Henry, Third Duke of Grafton, 113–114.
23. The Earl of Chatham to the Duke of Grafton, 9 February 1767, in Autobiography and
Political Correspondence of Augustus Henry, Third Duke of Grafton, 116–117.
24. Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 91–92 and 110–111.
25. William Beckford to the Earl of Chatham, 27 January 1767, in Correspondence of
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, vol. 3, ed. William Stanhope Taylor and Captain John
Henry Pringle (London, 1839), 177.
26. Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 111–112.
 notes to pages 209–219 289

27. Autobiography and Political Correspondence of Augustus Henry, Third Duke of Grafton,
124–125.
28. Brooke, The Chatham Administration, 116.
29. Brooke, 116.
30. George Rudé, Wilkes and Liberty: A Social Study of 1763 to 1774 (Oxford, 1962),
57–89.
31. John Brewer, Party Ideology and Popular Politics at the Accession of George III
(Cambridge, 1976), 163–200.
32. Brewer, 22.
33. Rudé, Wilkes and Liberty, 90.
34. Commons Speech of Mr. Grenville, 19 May 1768, BL, Egerton MS. 215, ff. 121–122.
35. Autobiography and Political Correspondence of Augustus Henry, Third Duke of Grafton,
188–189.
36. Commons Speech of Alderman Beckford, 14 May 1768, BL, Egerton MS. 215, f. 27.
37. E. P. Thompson, Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture (New
York, 1993), 93.
38. “Report on the striking shipwrights at Woolwich and progress of American agents in
persuading them to go to New York,” 19 August 1775, WLCL, Rosslyn MS.,
Wedderburn Papers, vol. 2: 9, ff. 1r–2r.
39. Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, CT, 1992),
131–132.
40. Mark Bence-Jones, Clive of India (London, 1974), 270–271.
41. Bence-Jones, 280.
42. Quoted in Bence-Jones, 283.
43. Quoted in Bence-Jones, 288.
44. Thomas Hutchinson to the Earl of Dartmouth, 15 November 1773, WLCL, Rosslyn
MS., Wedderburn Papers, vol. 2: 24, ff. 1r-v.
45. John Montagu [Rear Admiral] to Philip Stephens [Secretary of the Admiralty], 8
December 1773, WLCL, Rosslyn MS., Wedderburn Papers, vol. 2: 30, f. 1r.
46. P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000 (London, 2002), 279.
47. Cain and Hopkins, 279–280.
48. William Knox, The Present State of the Nation (London, 1768), 39–41.
49. In recent decades, imperial British and South Asian historians have demonstrated the
degree to which early British imperial rule relied on fiscal-military institutions devel-
oped in post-Mughal successor kingdoms.
50. C. A. Bayly, “The First Age of Global Imperialism, c. 1760–1830,” Journal of Imperial
and Commonwealth History 26, no. 2 (1998): 34.
51. K. N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History
from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge, 1985), 93–94.
52. Robert Orme, A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan,
from the Year 1745, vol. 2 (London, 1778), 4.
53. P. J. Marshall, Problems of Empire: Britain and India, 1757–1813 (London, 1968), 84.
54. H. V. Bowen, “Investment and Empire in the Later Eighteenth Century: East India
Stockholding, 1756–1791,” Economic History Review, n.s., 42, no. 2 (1989): 186–206.
290 notes to pages 220–224

55. P. G. M. Dickson, The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of

Public Credit, 1688–1756 (New York, 1967).
56. The Company’s integration into these financial, bureaucratic, and political arrange-
ments took place during the first half of the eighteenth century. Sutherland, The East
India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics, 14–48. In 1708/1709, the EIC lent its
entire capital stock of £3.2 million to the government. While the Company could,
with state sanction, acquire capital through greater shareholder investments in an
expanded stock, its extensive business operations and administration required addi-
tional sources of investment. It thus began to raise trading capital by issuing short-
term bonds at low rates of interest. During the first half of the eighteenth century, the
EIC’s stocks and bonds flourished on London’s financial market.
57. Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 279.
58. The expansion of the tea trade to China in the wake of the diwani grant was a par-
ticularly important element in these processes of commercial reorientation. For more
on this, see H. V. Bowen, “Tea, Tribute and the East India Company, c. 1750-c. 1775,”
in Hanoverian Britain and Empire: Essays in Memory of Philip Lawson, ed. Stephen
Taylor, Richard Connors, and Clyve Jones (Woodbridge, UK, 1998), 158–176.
59. Sir Henry Cavendish’s Debates of the House of Commons, during the Thirteenth
Parliament of Great Britain, etc., vol. 1: 10 May 1768–3 May 1770, ed. J. Wright
(London, 1841), 265.
60. Thomas Pownall, The Right, Interest, and Duty, of Government, as Concerned in the
Affairs of the East Indies (London, 1773), 4.
61. Eyre Coote to Charles Smith, 6 July 1781, Center for Kentish Studies, Roper MS.,
U498 02/1, f. 4r.
62. This concept is Robert Brenner’s. For its use in the context of the mid-seventeenth-
century English Revolution, see Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution: Commercial
Change, Political Conflict, and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550–1653 (London, 2003),
670.
63. Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 278–284.
64. P. J. Marshall, “ ‘A Free though Conquering People’: Britain and Asia in the Eighteenth
Century,” in P. J. Marshall, ‘A Free though Conquering People’: Eighteenth-Century
Britain and Its Empire (Aldershot, UK, 2003), 13.
65. Pitt Lethieullier to Thomas Lord Pelham, 1 January 1773, BL, Additional MS. 33,441,
ff. 24v–25r.
66. Charles Grave Hudson to Thomas Lord Pelham, [1773/4], BL, Additional MS. 33,441,
f. 29v.
67. The usefulness of such “colonial patronage” for the maintenance of the oligarchic
state is one of the many insights of Cain and Hopkins’s interpretation of British im-
perialism. Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism (quotation, 96).
68. In this paragraph and the next two, I draw heavily from: Holden Furber, John
Company At Work: A Study of European Expansion in India in the Late Eighteenth
Century (Cambridge, MA, 1951); Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 275–284.
69. Furber, John Company At Work, 28–29.
70. Cavendish’s Debates of the House of Commons, 1:267.
 notes to pages 224–228 291

71. Cavendish’s Debates of the House of Commons, 1:266–267. “I could have wished that
some step had been taken, upon this occasion, to secure our possessions,” Grenville
asserted, “but not a single word has been said upon the subject, though those posses-
sions are subjected to all the dangers so emphatically painted by the noble lord
[Clive]” (quotation, 267).
72. David Washbrook, “India, 1818–1860: The Two Faces of Colonialism,” in The Oxford
History of the British Empire, vol. 3: The Nineteenth Century, ed. Andrew Porter
(Oxford, 1999), 401.
73. The Second Empire abandoned the local representative institutions and lax economic
regulations that characterized British overseas expansion up until the mid-eighteenth
century in favor of new forms of imperial governance. As C. A. Bayly argues, the
British dominions acquired in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century were
ruled by “a form of aristocratic military government supporting a viceregal autocracy”
that was characterized “by a well developed imperial style which emphasized hierar-
chy and racial subordination.” Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the
World, 1780–1830 (New York, 1989), 8–9. Important elements of this imperial style
were already present in Clive’s second governorship of Bengal from 1765 to 1767.
74. It should be noted that the Dutch East India Company underwent an earlier imperial
transformation, acquiring and expanding a territorial dominion in Java over the
course of various military and commercial conflicts between the 1640s and the 1750s.
75. Ralph A. Austen, “The Road to Postcoloniality: European Overseas Expansion,
Global Capitalism and the Transformation of Africa, the Caribbean and India,” un-
published paper.
76. Ralph A. Austen, “Market Integration through Peasantisation: The Economic
Transformation of Africa, the Caribbean and India under Modern Colonialism,” un-
published paper.
77. Josiah Tucker, The Case of Going to War, for the Sake of Procuring, Enlarging, or
Securing of Trade, Considered in a New Light. Being a Fragment of a Greater Work
(London, 1763), 12, 19, and 41.
78. Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, 5 March 1772, in Horace Walpole’s Correspondence,
vol. 23, ed. W. S. Lewis, Warren Hunting Smith, and George L. Lam (New Haven,
CT, 1967), 387; Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, 9 April 1772, in Walpole’s
Correspondence, 23:400.
79. Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, 12 February 1772, in Walpole’s Correspondence, 23:
379–382; Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, 29 May 1773, in Walpole’s Correspondence,
23:483–485; Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, 8 June 1773, in Walpole’s Correspondence, 23:
485–487; Horace Walpole to Horace Mann, 30 March 1781, in Walpole’s Correspondence,
vol. 25, ed. W. S. Lewis, Warren Hunting Smith, and George L. Lam (New Haven,
CT, 1971), 140–143.
80. Commons Speech of George Dempster, 27 October 1775, in Proceedings and Debates
of the British Parliaments Respecting North America, vol. 6, ed. R. C. Simmons and
P. D. G. Thomas (White Plains, NY, 1987), 140.
81. Thomas Paine, “Reflections on the Life and Death of Lord Clive,” in The Complete
Writings of Thomas Paine, vol. 2, ed. Philip S. Foner (New York, 1945), 23–24.
292 notes to pages 228–241

82. The Alarm, 9 October 1773, no. 2.

83. The Alarm, 6 October 1773, no. 1.
84. Arthur M. Schlesinger, “The Uprising Against the East India Company,” Political
Science Quarterly 32, no. 1 (1917): 60–79.
85. Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, Common Sense, and Other Political Writings, ed. Mark
Philip (Oxford, 1995), 320.
86. Bartholomew Burges, A Series of Indostan Letters (New York, 1790), xxiv-xxv.
87. Robert E. Toohey, Liberty and Empire: British Radical Solutions to the American
Problem, 1774–1776 (Lexington, KY, 1978).
88. Simon Schama, A History of Britain, vol. 2: The Wars of the British, 1603–1776 (New
York, 2001), 524.
89. P. J. Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India, and America,
c. 1750–1783 (Oxford, 2005), 197.
90. The fact that the Company’s early imperial state in India was a model for the subse-
quent political-economic development of the British Empire in Asia and Africa dur-
ing the nineteenth and twentieth century is acknowledged in recent historiography.
For example, see Kavita Saraswathi Datla, “The Origins of Indirect Rule in India:
Hyderabad and the British Imperial Order,” Law and History Review 33, no. 2 (2015):
321–350. Datla’s important conclusions regarding the consolidation of an economi-
cally extractive and military-driven British empire in India complement the conclu-
sions presented here regarding the relationship between the victory of New Tory
politics and political economy in Britain and the shift to the Second British Empire.

E PI LO G U E

1. Lynn Hunt, ed., The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary
History (Boston, 1996), 51–52 (quotation included).
2. Jonathan I. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment: Philosophy, Revolution, and Human
Rights, 1750–1790 (Oxford, 2011), 420.
3. Israel, 428–429 and 436–438.
4. Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights, 52.
5. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 420.
6. The Abbé Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History of the Settlements and Trade of
the Europeans in the East and West Indies, vol. 1, trans. J. Justamond (London, 1776),
1–2.
7. Raynal, 3.
8. Raynal, 7–8 and 5.
9. Raynal, 4–5.
10. Israel, Democratic Enlightenment, 414–442.
11. Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History, 7 and 2.
12. C. A. Bayly, Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830 (London,
1989).
13. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875–1914 (New York, 1989), 56–83.
14. Raynal, A Philosophical and Political History, 347–348.
15. Raynal, 359.
 notes to pages 242–247 293

16. Raynal, 360.

17. Raynal, 366–367.
18. Raynal, 379–380.
19. Raynal, 365.
20. Raynal, 365.
21. Raynal, 363 and 381.
22. Raynal, 380.
This page intentionally left blank
 Index
absolutism: and Enlightenment
philosophy, 236; in France, 27–28, 30,
84; and Glorious Revolution, 9, 13–16,
26–27; of Stuart monarchy, 13–14, 30,
34, 43, 72, 79, 167, 226; and Whig
Party, 113–114, 231
Act of Settlement (1701), 27
Act of Trade (1650), 22
Addison, Joseph, 39
African slave trade and labor, 29, 34,
38–39, 256n64
Albemarle, Earl of, 83
Alivardi Khan, 89, 90
Almon, John, 59, 65, 181
American colonies: loss of, 116, 257n71;
and New Toryism, 196; and radical
Whigs, 227; Salutary Neglect system
in, 45, 116, 135, 186; smuggling in, 135,
180, 183, 285n54; taxation of, 226; tea
importation by EIC, 215; and War for
American Independence, 213, 228,
229, 230. See also British North
America
Amyand, George, 140
295
Anderson, Fred, 116
Anderson, Perry, 23
Armitage, David, 41
Aurangzeb (Emperor), 278n85
Austen, Ralph, 225
Bank of England, 27, 31, 78, 132, 133,
265n98
Barnard, John, 31, 78, 80, 84
Barré, Isaac, 209
Barrington, Lord, 54, 59
Baugh, Daniel, 22, 38, 64, 258n80
Bayly, C. A., 2, 6, 291n73
Beckford, Richard, 67
Beckford, William: on Clive, 273n115; on
commercial expansion, 104–105, 113;
EIC inquiry conducted by, 204–209,
288n6; on Pitt’s war effort against
France, 63, 65; political radicalism of,
70–71, 75, 80, 84, 104, 105; and Treaty
of Paris, 123; on workers’ strikes, 212
Bedford, Duke of, 117, 149, 176
Bellot, Leland, 184
Bence-Jones, Mark, 106–107
296
Bengal: and Anglo-French global warfare,
90; British trade in, 93; Company State
in, 35, 36; diwani granted to EIC for, 1,
8, 153–164, 194–197; EIC conquest of,
149–164, 226, 252n37; famine (1769),
213; Plassey Revolution (1757), 88–127;
political economy in, 246; textile
manufacturing in, 250n8. See also East
India Company
Bengal Club, 107
Bihar, 1, 88, 153
Black, Jeremy, 253n14
Blake, Robert, 22
Bolingbroke, Viscount, 32, 47, 56
Bolts, William, 198–199
Bombay, 29, 158
Boston Tea Party (1773), 229
Boulton, Henry Crabb, 120
Bourbon France: absolutism in, 27, 30,
52; as geopolitical rival, 37, 258n80;
and Patriot coalition, 93; and Pitt, 63;
and Seven Years’ War, 112; war against,
14, 33, 51, 59; Whig foreign policy
influenced by, 263n46
bourgeois society: and capitalism, 15; in
England, 13, 19, 42; and landed elite,
167; and Marxism, 265n87; and New
Toryism, 187, 197, 200; and oligarchic
order, 45, 167, 187; radicalism in, 15,
50–87
Bowen, H. V., 10, 11
Breen, T. H., 257n72
Brenner, Robert, 19, 21, 22, 72, 290n62
Brewer, John, 57, 58, 70, 71, 73, 211
bribery, 160, 161, 280n111
British East India Company. See East
India Company
British Empire. See First British Empire;
Second British Empire
British North America: administration
of, 150, 243; and New Toryism, 196;
and Patriot coalition, 81; and radical
Whigs, 210; resistance movement in,
185, 212–213; Salutary Neglect system
index
in, 45, 116, 135, 186; smuggling and
illegal trade in, 135, 182; taxation in,
196; troops stationed in, 182–184. See
also American colonies
Brooke, John, 10, 203, 205, 208, 209–210
Brown, John, 178–179
bullion. See gold
Burdwan, 96
Burges, Bartholomew, 228–229
Burgh, James, 229
Burgoyne, John, 214
Burke, Edmund, 1, 164, 214, 220
Bute, Earl of: and Clive, 121, 123–124;
and EIC election (1763), 126, 273n130;
and EIC management, 110; EIC
negotiations with, 271n83; and
national debt, 285n60; and New
Toryism, 104, 175, 176, 180, 181; and
oligarchic order, 127, 272n90; and
Patriot coalition, 174; and political
radicalism, 69, 114, 264n62;
resignation of, 131; Sulivan’s
relationship with, 107, 119, 120, 124,
125, 126; and Treaty of Paris, 66–67,
115, 117, 118, 124, 127, 181, 285n63; and
Whig Party, 169
Buxar, Battle of (1764), 140, 155
Byng, John, 53
Cain, P. J., 217, 220, 290n67
Calcutta: Clive regaining control of, 87,
102; EIC fortified settlement in, 29,
89, 92, 95; Siraj-ud-daula invasion of,
90, 94, 153
Calcutta council, 148–149, 151–152
Campbell, John, 40
capitalist political economy, 14–15, 41–
42, 72, 112–113, 238, 280n111
Chaloner, Thomas, 22
Chanda Sahib, 102
Chandernagore, 91, 102
Charles I (England), 20, 21, 22, 254n25
Charles II (England), 13, 24, 26, 29,
254n25
 index
Charles III (Spain), 64
Chatham, Earl of. See Pitt, William, the
Elder
China, British trade with, 29, 158, 290n58
Chittagong, 96
Christie, Ian, 283n22
Churchill, Winston, 52
Church of England, 47
civil society, 74, 235–236, 241–244, 246
Clark, Dora Mae, 185
Clive, Richard, 195
Clive, Robert, Baron of Plassey: Bengal
governorship, 35, 92, 149–164, 291n73;
and bullion exports, 279n98; and
commercial expansionism, 280n111;
and diwani acquisition, 1–2, 7–8, 109,
153–164, 194–197, 251n24; and EIC
election (1764), 139–147; elected MP,
103; and jagir grant, 131–132, 136–137,
186, 275n28; and metropolitan
dynamics, 115; military successes of,
87, 91, 101–102, 249n3; and New
Toryism, 186–197, 201; and Plassey
Revolution, 88–127; popularity of,
102, 107, 283n23; resignation of
governorship (1759), 95–96, 106; and
Rous, 122, 124–125, 126; and Scrafton,
270n61; Sulivan’s rivalry with, 108–
110, 111, 120–122; takeover of EIC,
131–149; and territorial expansion in
Bengal, 98
coercion, 35–38, 244, 250n7, 256n64
Coja Wajid, 90
Colley, Linda, 42, 62
colonial patronage, 290n67
commerce. See global commercial
society; universal commerce
commodities: and capitalism, 73–74;
EIC monopolies on, 163, 194; and
manufacturing, 4; and New Tory
political economy, 227; prices for, 132;
taxes on, 70; trade networks for, 13,
19, 25, 34, 36, 41. See also specific
commodities
297
Commonwealth regime (1649–1653), 19,
21–22, 23
Company agents: Clive supported by,
122–123; private trading and
profiteering by, 88–89, 160–162, 240,
267n1, 280n111; in Scottish trading
networks, 268n21; support for
territorial expansion, 101, 122–123
conservative-reactionary forces, 12, 15–16,
114, 165, 175
Convoy Act, 22
Conway, Henry, 201, 206–209
Coote, Eyre, 86, 96, 221
Coromandel Coast, 90, 93, 240
corruption, 57, 61, 70–72, 161, 163, 175–
177, 183, 197, 208
cotton, 94, 158, 218, 279n97
Council of Trade, 22
Court of Directors (East India
Company): and Clive’s jagir grant,
275n28; election (1762), 271n84;
election (1763), 114, 116–117, 124, 125,
126, 273n126, 273n130; election (1764),
138, 139–147; election (1765), 147; and
private profiteering by EIC agents, 89;
Rous-Clive control of, 131–149, 152;
Sulivan’s control of, 95–99, 102, 106–
110, 119, 122, 271n84
Court of Proprietors (East India
Company), 110, 125, 143
Court Whigs, 44
credit markets: EIC role in, 8, 95, 97,
132–133, 137, 188–189, 223, 224,
290n56; and fiscal-military state, 15,
132, 135–136; and landed elite, 14–15,
27, 33, 113; and political radicalism, 57,
58, 60; and Seven Years’ War, 132
Cromwell, Oliver, 21, 23, 25, 254n22
customs taxes, 69–70
dadni (money in advance of
production), 88
dalals (indigenous brokers), 88
D’Ameida, Jenoniah, 228
298
dastaks (trading exemptions), 88–89, 99,
267n1
Datla, Kavita Saraswathi, 292n90
Declaratory Act (1766), 186, 196
Defoe, Daniel, 43
Dempster, George, 123, 152
Devonshire, Duke of, 54
Dickinson, H. T., 255n44
Diderot, Denis, 232, 236, 238
direct rule, 39
Diwan (financial administrator), 1, 192,
278n85
diwani granted to EIC, 1, 153–164, 191–
197, 278n85
Dorrien, John, 117, 137
Draper, William, 86, 149
Dupleix, Joseph François, 82, 101, 121
Dutch East India Company, 29, 270n65,
291n74
Dutch Revolt (c. 1568–1648), 236
East India Company (EIC):
administrative and military
expenditures, 213, 216–217, 219; and
Beckford, 204; Bengal conquest, 149–
164, 226, 252n37; credit markets role,
8, 95, 97, 132–133, 137, 188–189, 223,
224, 290n56; directors of, 265n98;
election (1762), 271n84; election
(1763), 114, 116–117, 124, 125, 126,
273n126, 273n130; election (1764), 138,
139–147; election (1765), 147;
Enlightenment philosophy on, 232–
249; expansionist ideology of, 104;
fortification and garrison costs
incurred by, 94–95; London role of, 8;
and metropolitan dynamics, 170–171;
as model for imperial expansion in
Asia, 292n90; and New Toryism, 186–
197; and North administration, 214;
and political radicalism, 50–87; and
public finance, 290n56; and
Regulating Act (1773), 216; as
sovereign authority, 6, 178, 190, 199,
index
218; and Stuart monarchy, 24; and tea
trade, 214–215; and textile
manufacturing, 250n8; and Whig
Supremacy, 28–49. See also Company
agents; shareholders of EIC
Egmont, Earl of, 173, 283n28
Egremont, Earl of, 115–118, 131, 174, 176,
180
EIC. See East India Company
Eley, Geoff, 168
elites. See landed elite; oligarchic order
Elizabeth I, 20, 36
“empire of liberty”: and Enlightenment
philosophy, 245–246; and First British
Empire, 33–35; and New Toryism, 194,
197–198, 200; Pitt’s campaign to
expand, 112–113; and political
radicalism, 12–16, 55, 61, 68, 75, 82–83,
86; and Second British Empire, 150,
194, 197–198, 200, 213, 217, 228–229;
and Whig Party, 30
Enlightenment, 232–234, 236, 239–247
Excise Crisis (1733), 173
excise taxes, 69–70, 113, 134–135, 173,
271n80
Exclusion Crisis (1679–1681), 41
Ferdinand of Brunswick, 61, 63
Fife, Earl of, 181
First Anglo-Mughal War (1686–1690), 25
First British Empire: Atlantic focus of, 2,
34; consolidation of, 26–40; and EIC,
88–127; and political radicalism, 50–
87; and Whig Supremacy, 19–49. See
also American colonies; British North
America; radicalism; Whig Party
fiscal-military state: and capitalist
political economy, 15, 113–115; and
credit markets, 132; EIC as crucial
component of, 6, 8, 28, 133, 158, 188,
217–218, 224; and First British
Empire, 39, 42, 44, 46; in Mughal
Empire, 90, 93, 96, 289n49; and New
Toryism, 174, 182, 184, 188–189; and
 index
political radicalism, 52, 64, 66, 74, 78,
85; and Seven Years’ War, 10
Forde, Francis, 92
Fort William Council, 154, 155
Fox, Henry, 85, 118, 126, 146
France: Anglo-French rivalry, 7, 27;
British global warfare with, 112;
geopolitical ambitions in South Asia,
188; and Hanoverian foreign policy,
258n80; New World imperialism of,
47, 49, 56, 182; Prussia’s conflict with,
61; radicalism in, 9; and Treaty of
Paris, 117. See also Bourbon France;
French East India Company; Seven
Years’ War
Franklin, Benjamin, 229
Frederick the Great, 61
French East India Company, 6, 81, 115,
117–118, 121, 153
French Revolution (1789), 9
Furber, Holden, 223
General Court (East India Company),
141–143, 144, 148
George II (England), 41, 53, 54, 56, 62,
66
George III (England): accession of, 9;
and EIC management, 126; imperial
reaction at accession of, 165–200; and
national debt, 285n60; and New
Toryism, 166–167, 175, 176, 180, 196,
203; and oligarchic order, 124,
272n90; and Patriot coalition, 104,
174; and political radicalism, 55, 59,
66, 69, 71, 77, 114, 264n62; and Seven
Years’ War, 115, 134; and Treaty of
Paris, 134; and War for American
Independence, 213; and Whig Party,
118, 169
global commercial society, 235–237
Glorious Revolution (1688–1689), 14, 26,
42, 52, 112. See also Revolution
Settlement
Glover, Robert, 140
299
gold, 96–97, 158, 218, 256n65, 279n98
Gordon, John, 174
Gordon, Robert, 57
Gosling, Francis, 142, 143
Grafton, Duke of, 201, 203, 206–208,
210, 212
Grenville, George: Clive’s alliance with,
137–138, 151, 171, 188; and EIC election
(1764), 109–110, 116, 131, 133–134, 136,
140, 141; and excise taxes, 134–135; and
New Toryism, 170–172, 175–176, 180–
185, 189, 194–195, 201, 203, 207, 210,
283n23, 291n71; and Patriot coalition,
104, 174; and political radicalism, 114–
115; on remittances from India, 223–
224; and Treaty of Paris, 285n63; on
workers’ strikes and protests, 211–212
Guadeloupe, 61, 67
Halifax: Earl of, 115–116, 131, 174, 180,
184; Marquis of, 39
Hanoverian Succession (1714), 27, 45–
46, 93
Hardwicke, Earl of, 91, 92, 169
Harlow, Vincent T., 3, 257n68
Harris, Bob, 55
Hastings, Warren, 159, 279n106
haute bourgeoisie, 45, 47, 58–59, 70
Hill, Christopher, 23
Hobsbawm, Eric, 41
Holdernesse, Earl of, 53, 83, 176
Hopkins, A. G., 217, 220, 290n67
Hotblack, Kate, 63
Hunt, Lynn, 233
Hutchinson, Thomas, 215
Hyder Ali, 221
indigenous peoples, 34, 88–89, 187,
256n64
industrialization, 3–4, 238, 247
Intolerable Acts (1774), 215
Israel, Jonathan, 232
Jacobitism, 27, 30, 44, 47, 166
300
Jagat Seth family, 91
Jamaica, 23, 29
James I (England), 20
James II (England), 13–14, 23–24, 26,
254n25
Jasanoff, Maya, 251n24
Jefferson, Thomas, 229
Jenkinson, Charles, 132, 140, 141, 146,
148, 174
Johnson, Samuel, 178
Johnstone, George, 123, 152, 272n111
Johnstone, John, 103–104, 123, 141, 151,
163, 270n47, 272n111
Johnstone, William, 123
King-in-Parliament system, 21, 175, 185–
186
Knox, William, 171, 172, 184, 217
landed elite: and EIC’s imperial state,
149, 216, 221–222; and New Toryism,
167–168, 213, 231; and political
radicalism, 56, 68, 70–71, 73, 222; and
workers’ strikes and protests, 212
land taxes, 158, 171, 219, 271n80
Lawson, Philip, 10
Lenman, Bruce, 10
Leonard, Spencer, 94
Lethieullier, Pitt, 222
Levellers, 21
Licensing Act (1695), 43
licentiousness, 160, 162–163, 175–183,
189–193, 218, 280n111
Locke, John, 40
Louis XIV (France), 27, 30
Louis XV (France), 48, 53, 62, 64, 68
Luttrell, Henry, 210
luxury goods, 36, 177, 179–180
Lyttelton, George, 52, 60
Madras, 29, 82, 158
manufacturing, 36, 80, 96–97, 245,
269n38, 282n9
Marlborough, Duke of, 27
index
Marsh, Robert, 140
Marshall, P. J., 4, 5, 7, 10, 221, 229,
250n8, 251n23, 257n71
Martinique, 61, 67
Marx, Karl, 73–74, 265n87, 281n5
Maudit, Israel, 180
McGilvary, George, 86, 97
Mentz, Søren, 93
metropolitan dynamics: and EIC
management, 8–9, 110–112; and
national debt, 60; and New Toryism,
169–186; and political radicalism, 77–
87; radicalism in, 133–135; in Second
British Empire, 12–13
mid-Hanoverian crisis, 10–12
Midnapur, 96
Mir Jafar, 1, 91–92, 96, 105, 140, 153–154,
157, 278n85
Mir Qasim, 96, 98–101, 108–109, 119,
139–141, 147, 154–157, 187–190
Mitchell, Andrew, 52
monopoly power, 20, 22–25, 59, 78–84,
97, 244–245
Montagu, Frederick, 170
Montagu, John, 215
Morgann, Maurice, 202, 205
Mughal Empire: and Bengal
administration, 278n85; commercial
agreements with, 94; dissolution of, 5,
89, 187–188, 267n6; diwani granted to
EIC, 1, 153–164, 191–197, 199, 278n85;
successor kingdoms to, 5–6, 267n6
Muhammad Ali Khan, 117, 118
Munro, Hector, 155
Murshid Kuli Khan, 278n85
Namier, Lewis, 9, 10, 166–167, 251nn27–
28
Namierite historiography, 9–10, 109–110,
166–167, 203, 283n22
national debt: and EIC, 28, 78; and
Glorious Revolution, 27; and
metropolitan dynamics, 60; and New
Toryism, 169, 171, 180–182, 188, 191,
 index
197–198; and war expenses, 27, 46, 60,
66, 132, 285n60
Native Americans, 256n64
natural rights, 74
naval power, 23, 51, 69, 253n14. See also
Royal Navy
Navigation Acts (1651, 1660, 1663), 22, 23
Nazim (general administrator), 278n85
Newcastle, Duke of: and Clive, 103; and
EIC election (1763), 122; and EIC
management, 118, 122; and oligarchic
order, 28; and Patriot coalition, 48;
and political radicalism, 53–54, 56, 62,
84; and Salutary Neglect policy, 135;
and Whig Party, 41, 44–45, 166
New Model Army, 21
New Toryism: and American colonies,
196; and bourgeois society, 187, 197,
200; and British North America, 196;
and Bute, 104, 175, 176, 180, 181; and
Clive, 186–197, 201; and EIC, 104–
106, 114, 116, 139, 142, 153; and “empire
of liberty,” 194, 197–198, 200; and
fiscal-military state, 174, 182, 184, 188–
189; and George III, 175, 176, 180, 196,
203; and Grenville, 170–172, 175–176,
180–185, 189, 194–195, 201, 203, 207,
210, 283n23, 291n71; and landed elite,
167–168, 213, 231; and metropolitan
dynamics, 169–186; and national debt,
169, 171, 180–182, 188, 191, 197–198;
and oligarchic order, 16, 168, 175, 189,
191, 196, 200, 201–204, 216, 230; and
Patriot coalition, 175; and Pitt, 201,
203, 204, 206; and radical Whigs, 116,
175, 178, 196, 200, 201, 203, 227; rise
of, 165–200; and taxes, 169, 171–172,
214–215, 219; triumph of, 201–231; and
Whig Party, 176–177
Nichol, J. D., 268n18
nizamat (general administration), 278n85
North, Lord, 212–213, 214, 216, 247
North America. See British North
America
301
Northumberland, Duchess of, 102–103
Nugent, Robert, 79
O’Brien, Patrick K., 36
O’Gorman, Frank, 43, 61
Old Colonial System, 36
oligarchic order: and bourgeois society,
45, 56–59, 65, 75, 78–79, 82, 167, 187;
and colonial patronage, 290n67; and
EIC management, 100–101, 107, 114–
118, 124–127, 216; and George III,
272n90; and Glorious Revolution, 14;
and New Toryism, 16, 168, 175, 189,
191, 196, 200, 201–204, 216, 230; and
radical Whigs, 211; and rentier
business elites, 25, 64, 79, 159; and
urban middling sort, 58, 62–68, 71,
113, 133, 173–174, 211; and Whig Party,
27–28, 33, 45–47
Oliver, Peter, 135
Orissa: diwani granted to EIC for, 1, 153;
EIC in, 88
Orme, Robert, 83, 89, 121, 187–188, 196,
218, 270n65
Paine, Thomas, 227–228
Parliament: and American colonies, 186;
and EIC management, 224–225, 246–
247; and George III, 167; and
Glorious Revolution, 26; and New
Toryism, 170; Rump Parliament, 21,
22; and Stuart monarchy, 21, 254n25;
Whigs in, 13–14; Wilkes’s election and
expulsion, 210–211. See also specific
political factions
Parry, J. H., 26
Patriot coalition: and EIC, 79, 80–81,
83–84, 99; and expansion of
commercial society, 59, 168; and New
Toryism, 175; and Pitt, 56; and Plassey
Revolution, 142; and political
representation, 71; and radical Whigs,
47–48, 53–54, 58; and Seven Years’
War, 55; Tory wing of, 56–57
302 index
patronage system, 47, 73, 110, 217
Pelham, Henry, 28, 41, 44, 45, 54, 135,
166
Perkin, Harold, 42
Peters, Marie, 37, 258n80
Petrus, Cojah, 228
Philips, C. H., 121
Phillips, John, 84
Phoenician trading and maritime
communities, 234
Pincus, Steve, 254n22
Pitt, William, the Elder (later Earl of
Chatham): ascent of, 53–54, 56; and
Beckford, 288n6; and Clive, 103, 123;
on Clive, 103, 249n3, 273n115;
economic warfare waged by, 264n59;
and EIC management, 207, 208, 209,
288n12; EIC support from, 86; and
foreign policy, 258n80; and New
Toryism, 201, 203, 204, 206;
popularity of, 62–63, 261n11; and
radical Whigs, 174; and Seven Years’
War, 55, 112, 172; and Shelburne, 137;
and Sulivan, 107; and tax protests,
176; and trade expansion, 269n38
plantation economy, 38
Plassey Revolution (1757), 7, 87, 88–127,
251n24
plebeian discontent, 43–45, 166–169,
202, 211–213
Plumb, J. H., 29, 65, 124, 252n30
political economy: after Glorious
Revolution, 32–33; in Bengal, 246;
and capitalism, 14–15, 41–42, 72, 112–
113, 238, 280n111; and fiscal-military
state, 15, 113–115; and New Toryism,
227
political radicalism. See radicalism;
radical Whigs
political representation, 70–72, 74
Porter, Roy, 260n127
Portland, Duke of, 122
Powell, Martyn, 10
Powis, Earl of, 102
Pownall, Thomas, 220–221
Price, Richard, 229
Priestley, Richard, 229
proletarianization, 238
propaganda, 59, 67, 122–125, 141–142,
146, 180, 187
property rights, 72–74, 94, 112, 243
Prussia, 61, 67
Pulteney, William, 47
Quartering Act (1765), 183
radicalism, 50–87; during
Commonwealth period, 21;
conservative-reactionary movement
against, 12; and EIC management,
14–15; in France, 40; and metropolitan
dynamics, 133–135. See also radical
Whigs
radical Whigs: and Clive’s EIC
expansion, 123–124, 150–151, 197–198,
280n111; and commercial expansion,
113, 269n38; and EIC management, 15;
emergence of, 169; and New Toryism,
116, 175, 178, 196, 200, 201, 203, 227;
and oligarchic order, 71; and Pitt, 181;
and Seven Years’ War, 172; and
Wilkes, 211
raw materials, 36
Raynal, Abbé, 40, 159, 232–241
Regulating Act (1773), 216
remittances, 223–224
rentier business elites, 25, 64, 79, 159
Revolution Settlement (1688–1689), 14–
15, 27, 30, 44, 46–47, 72, 80, 230
Rockingham, Marquis of, 122, 186, 196,
201, 206, 214
Rockingham Whigs, 287n93
Roman Empire, 235
Rous, Thomas: and EIC election (1763),
108–109, 115, 117, 119, 120, 122–126;
and EIC election (1764), 138, 146, 147,
152, 273n126; and EIC management,
190; and Treaty of Paris, 273n125
 index
royal absolutism. See absolutism
Royal Navy, 37, 39, 41, 61, 183
Rudé, George, 31, 71, 211
Rump Parliament, 21, 22
Sack, James, 284n41
Salabat Jang, 117, 118
saltpeter, 158, 279n97
Salutary Neglect system, 45, 116, 135, 186
Salvador, Joseph, 132–135, 140–141, 146–
148, 157
Sandwich, Earl of, 146, 152, 184
Schlesinger, Arthur M., Sr., 228
Scot, Thomas, 19
Scottish trading networks, 123, 152,
268n21
Scrafton, Luke, 104, 142, 270n61
Second Anglo-Mysore War (1780–1784),
221
Second British Empire, 129–248; and
EIC conquest of Bengal, 131–164; and
New Toryism, 165–200; origins of,
1–2, 3, 12; spirit of, 201–231
Seeley, J. R., 11
Select Committee (East India
Company), 149, 152, 160, 162–163, 190
Seven Years’ War (1756–1763): costs of,
10, 171; and credit markets, 132; debt
from, 132; and Plassey Revolution,
94–95, 111, 117, 120; and political
radicalism, 50–52, 55, 59, 62, 68, 74–
75, 86, 172. See also Treaty of Paris
Shah Alam II (Emperor), 1, 109, 139, 155,
156–157, 191, 241
shareholders of EIC: and credit markets,
31; dividends to, 25, 120, 189, 217; and
election (1762), 271n84; and election
(1763), 114, 116–117, 124, 125, 126,
273n126, 273n130; and election (1764),
138, 139–147; and election (1765), 147;
and stock prices, 220
Shelburne, Earl of, 118, 120, 126, 137,
202, 205
Shovlin, John, 263n59
303
Shuja-ud-daula, 139, 155, 156
Shy, John, 26
silk, 94, 158, 218, 279n97
silver, 256n65
Siraj-ud-daula, 1, 84, 87, 90, 91, 94, 153,
278n85
slave trade and labor, 29, 34, 38–39,
256n64
Smith, Adam, 82, 232, 266n103,
280n111
Smith, Richard, 196
Smollett, Tobias, 133, 179
smuggling, 45, 116, 135, 180, 285n54
social hierarchies, 105, 142, 162, 176, 217,
245. See also oligarchic order
social imperialism, 217
Society of the Supporters of the Bill of
Rights (SSBR), 211
Sons of Liberty, 215, 228
South Sea Company, 31, 78, 265n98
Spain: New World imperialism of, 23,
47, 182; war with, 45, 48, 61, 64, 66
Spencer, John, 142, 143
Stamp Act (1765), 183, 186, 196
staple products, 36. See also commodities
Stephens, Philip, 215
Stern, Philip, 256n65
stock-splitting campaign, 125–126
Stuart monarchy: absolutism of, 14, 26,
34, 43, 114, 167, 226; and EIC, 13, 24,
30–31; and Glorious Revolution, 26;
imperial political economy of, 19–21,
23–24, 25; and Parliament, 254n25. See
also specific rulers
sub-imperialist dynamics, 3–12, 109, 191
Sugar Act (1764), 150, 183
Sulivan, Laurence: Clive opposed by,
106–108, 111, 271n68; and EIC
election (1763), 115–120, 124–125, 127,
273n130; and EIC election (1764), 131,
136–137, 139–147, 154, 163, 273n126;
EIC management by, 86, 95–101, 106–
108, 269n38, 269n41; and Grenville,
188; and metropolitan dynamics, 115
304
Sutherland, Lucy, 9, 84, 109, 141, 151,
251n27, 271n83
Swift, Jonathan, 56
taxes: in British North America, 150, 185;
EIC collection of, 242; Excise Crisis
(1733), 173; excise taxes, 69–70, 113,
134–135, 173, 271n80; land taxes, 158,
171, 219, 271n80; market-based, 168;
and New Toryism, 169, 171–172, 214–
215, 219; and Patriot coalition, 48; and
political radicalism, 74–75; protests
against, 176
tea, 158, 290n58
Tea Act (1773), 214–216, 228
textile industries, 4, 79, 218, 250n8
Thomas, Peter D. G., 10
Thompson, E. P., 54, 167, 213, 281n5
Thomson, Maurice, 22
Tory Party: anti-oligarchic program of,
260n127; and EIC management, 28;
and George III, 213; ideological unity
of, 255n44; and Patriot coalition, 47,
168. See also New Toryism
Townshend, Charles, 170, 186, 206, 207,
208, 209, 210, 215
Travers, Robert, 100, 105, 252n37,
279n106
Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748), 48, 82
Treaty of Paris (1763), 52, 66, 108, 115,
126, 134, 271n83, 285n63
Trenchard, John, 57
Trichinopoly, 102
Tucker, Josiah, 225–226
universal commerce, 235, 237–238, 239,
245, 247
urban areas: political culture in, 168;
radical Whig ideology in, 73; working
class in, 238. See also specific cities
urban middling sort, 58, 62–68, 71, 113,
133, 173–174, 211
index
Vansittart, Henry: Clive’s disdain for,
271n68; EIC management by, 96–101,
106, 108, 119, 127, 139, 145, 154
Vernon, Edward, 48
Voltaire, 37, 39
Wallerstein, Immanuel, 3
Walpole, Horace, 66, 77, 149, 152, 226
Walpole, Robert, 27–30, 37, 41, 44–48,
53–54, 135, 166, 173, 259n95
Walsh, John, 107, 137, 195
War for American Independence, 213,
228, 229, 230
War of the Austrian Succession (1740–
1748), 48, 60, 82, 94, 113, 171
Washbrook, David, 159
Watson, Charles, 91
Watts, William, 90
Wedderburn, Alexander, 146, 175–176,
179
Whately, Thomas, 171, 184
Whig Party: bourgeois society and, 45;
and commercial expansion, 30–49,
112; consolidation of power following
Glorious Revolution, 14, 26–28; and
EIC management, 28, 78; foreign
policy dominated by conflict with
Bourbon France, 263n46; and George
III, 167, 213; ideological unity of,
255n44; and New Toryism, 176–177;
and oligarchic order, 272n90; and
patronage system, 47; and Pitt, 174;
and Seven Years’ War, 172. See also
radical Whigs
Wilkes, John, 67, 69, 105, 123–125, 134,
137, 170, 180, 210–211
William III (England), 167
Wood, Robert, 117
workers’ strikes and protests, 211–212
world-systems theory, 3, 250n5
Zahedieh, Nuala, 29