In The Company's Secret Service: Neil Benjamin Edmonstone and the First Indian Imperialists ...

370 Pages·2015·3.1 MB·English

by  Marla Karen Chancey

Florida State University Libraries
Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School
2003
In the Company's Secret Service: Neil
Benjamin Edmonstone and the First Indian
Imperialists, 1780-1820
Marla Karen Chancey
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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY
HISTORY DEPARTMENT

IN THE COMPANY'S SECRET SERVICE: NEIL BENJAMIN EDMONSTONE
AND THE FIRST INDIAN IMPERIALISTS, 1780-1820

by

MARLA KAREN CHANCEY

A Dissertation submitted to the
Department of History
in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded:
Fall Semester, 2003
The members of the Committee approve the dissertation of Marla Karen Chancey,
defended on August 26, 2003.

Bawa Satinder Singh
Professor Directing Dissertation

Patrick M. O'Sullivan
Outside Committee Member

Peter P. Garretson
Committee Member

Winston Lo
Committee Member

Richard L. Greaves
Committee Member

Approved:

Neil Jumonville, Chair, Department of History

Donald Foss, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee
members.

ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT iv

INTRODUCTION 1

1. ORIGINS, 1765-1783 4

2. SOCIETY AND IMPERIALISM IN OLD CALCUTTA: 1783-1788 17

3. "THE SPLENDOR AND MAJESTY": A SEASON IN HYDERABAD,
1788-1790 36

4. ASAF-UD-DAULA AND THE BRITISH, 1790-1794 56

5. POWER POLITICS IN AWADH, 1794-1797 73

6. THE DENOUEMENT, 1797-1799 89

7. WILD AMBITION: THE MASSACRES OF 1799 105

8. WAR IN MASQUERADE, 1799-1801 126

9. THE POMP AND THE POWER, 1802-1803 145

10. THE MARATHA WARS, 1803-1805 161

11. THE BARLOW YEARS: DETERMINATION AND DISCORD,
1805-1807 183

12. CONSOLIDATION AND CONQUEST: MINTO AND MOIRA,
1808-1818 205

CONCLUSION 225

APPENDIX A: GLOSSARY OF TERMS 240

APPENDIX B: NOTES 243

BIBLIOGRAPHY 347

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 363

iii
ABSTRACT

Neil Benjamin Edmonstone held many important positions in the East India
Company's Indian service during a career spanning 34 years, from 1783 to 1818. He was
at various times Persian Translator to Government, Chief Secretary to Government,
Secretary of the Secret Foreign and Political Department, Vice President of the Supreme
Council at Calcutta and acting governor-general on two occasions. He served as the
Company's chief intelligence officer for more than twenty years, taking on espionage
occasionally himself, but more frequently directing the activities of others. He was
thereafter a member of the Company's chief governing body, the Court of Directors, from
1820 until his death in 1841.
In addition to providing the first biographical study of Edmonstone, this work includes
a discussion of the lives of important civil servants of his generation, many of which have
never received scholarly attention. The essential thesis of the work is that Edmonstone,
and the group of civil servants around him, formed the first deliberately expansionist
government in the Company's history. They combined all of the requirements for
imperial success--a passionately held ideology, a sound plan for achieving their aims, and
more expertise on the sub-continent than any previous generation had attained.

iv
INTRODUCTION
And many strokes though with little axe,
Hew down and fell the hardest timbered oak.—Shakespeare, King Henry VI

In June 1841, a British newspaper in Calcutta noted the passing of a man whom it
equated with Warren Hastings (governor-general of the East India Company from 1773-
1784) and Richard Wellesley (governor-general from 1798-1805) as one of the
"originators and first workers-out of the very policy which has won for us the empire we
now enjoy."1 Comparing an individual with two of the greatest names in early British
India might seem merely the flattering rhetoric common to obituaries, but in this case the
paper told the simple truth. A few years earlier, Wellesley had commented that this
individual "was constantly in my unreserved confidence . . . He was my advisor and
intimate counselor in all political transactions. . . . After a long and general experience I
cannot justly place any name above his, either for integrity, judgment, diligence,
knowledge, ability, discretion, or temper."2 The nineteenth-century historian, Sir John
Kaye, called him "the great political foreman of a succession of Governors-General," and
believed that "among the many eminent public servants who helped to build up the great
Raj of the Company, he had not a superior and scarcely an equal."3 However, Kaye gave
no evidence to substantiate his claims, and therefore few have taken notice of them. More
recently, David Kopf characterized him as "a key official in the Diplomatic Office,"4 and
C.A. Bayly identified him as "the dominant figure in the Persian and Political
Departments for nearly twenty years," but gave few details of his life and career.5
Indeed, so little has been written about him that many historians have never heard the
name Neil Benjamin Edmonstone, much less the story of the important, perhaps unique,
role he played in the affairs of the East India Company.
This work will demonstrate that Edmonstone was the confidant and political advisor
to every governor-general from Sir John Shore (1792-98) to Francis Rawdon Hastings,
Lord Moira (1813-1823), the "spy master" who originated a number of their policies and
made possible many of their successes, and the jack-of-all-trades who left an indelible
mark on the Company's government. More than a discussion of the accomplishments of
one man, however, this work provides portraits of many of the most influential civil and
military officials with whom he worked--the "lost generation" in Indian history, as most
have received little previous attention in scholarship. Yet theirs was one of the most
critical eras for the British in India.
It can be argued that 1783, the year Edmonstone joined the Company's service, was
the real beginning of British imperialism on the sub-continent: the end of the American
war turned British eyes towards India as a substitute for the empire they had lost; Warren
Hastings' actions as governor-general publicized the affairs of the Company to a degree
unknown before and led to furious debates over the proper role of the British in India;
and William Pitt's East India Act was being formulated, which would culminate the next
1
year in the British government attaining a significant amount of control over the
Company's affairs. Edmonstone's generation served the Company as it changed from a
mercantile association based in North India and a few coastal stations to an empire
spanning the sub-continent. Eighteen-eighteen, the year Edmonstone left India,
witnessed the Company's final victory over the Marathas, the last great, independent
Indian power. During his career, the mercantilists in the Company's service became
functionaries of the new empire: diplomats, administrators, statesmen and spies replaced
in importance the bookkeepers and accountants of the previous age. There was no
precedent for what they were called upon to do, and no guidelines on how to build an
infrastructure capable of ruling a land far larger and more diverse than Britain. Although
few of them had prior training for the task, they built a workable system that endured
under the Company's rule until 1858, and became the basis for every subsequent Indian
government.
There were certainly imperialists in the Company's service prior to Edmonstone's
generation, but this work will argue that he and his colleagues formed the first organized,
deliberately expansionist government in the Company's history. They combined for the
first time all of the requirements for imperial success--a passionately held ideology, a
sound plan for achieving their aims, and more expertise on the sub-continent than any
previous generation had attained. Theirs was not the haphazard or primarily self-seeking
aggrandizement of the mercantile age, but a carefully ordered design intended to found an
empire.
The work is divided into four parts. The first gives an in-depth look into the life of
young men in the Company's service, focusing on the forces--cultural, ideological,
economic and political--that combined to push them towards a strong imperialist stance.
It discusses the imperial evolution of the Company in Edmonstone's early life and career-
-in Europe, internally within its Indian possessions, and externally in its dealings with the
Indian states. A further theme is the considerable expertise on Indian politics, culture and
diplomacy that Edmonstone and many of his generation acquired, information that would
make possible the conquest of a continent.
The second part deals with the period of Sir John Shore’s governor-generalship (1792-
1798), a time traditionally viewed as the calm before the storm of the Wellesley era in
which little of significance occurred. It will be argued here that the opposite was actually
the case: Shore's period in office saw significant change take place in Europe and India
that would make difficult anything other than an imperial stance for the Company. The
focus of this section is the first significant political action influenced by Edmonstone's
generation--the "Revolution at Lucknow," as he termed it--which, although a relatively
minor affair in itself, had significant and long-lasting ramifications. The change of
authority in Awadh in 1798 instigated by Shore, and, it is argued, prompted by his young,
imperialist advisors, provided a useful example and a dangerous weapon to Wellesley in
the form of an expanded and retooled subsidiary alliance system.
The third part examines the close relationship between Edmonstone and Richard
Wellesley. Iris Butler, Wellesley's modern biographer, noted that no one has attempted
an in-depth political discourse about his Indian career, a fact she ascribes to his
voluminous surviving papers.6 A better reason may be that his actions are difficult to
explain without an understanding of the attitudes and influences of the men who made up
2
his government, especially Neil Edmonstone. This section discusses Edmonstone's effect
on the external and internal changes of the Company in the Wellesley era. Through his
advice, backed by extensive experience with the Indian states, he was responsible for
much of Wellesley's territorial expansion. His grip over the Company's secret service, his
participation in the governor-general's educational experiments, and his position as
mentor to many of the next generation of Company employees, guaranteed that he was
also an important factor in the extension of imperialist ideas within the British Indian
government.
Lastly, the effect of Edmonstone and his generation on the Company from 1805, when
Sir George Barlow became governor-general, until 1818, when Francis Rawdon Hastings
defeated the Marathas, is examined. The group of civil servants around Edmonstone
provided a vital ideological link between these ministries, making certain that, although
governors-general came and went, the Company's actions in India remained consistently
imperialist. The final chapter discusses this generation's influence on Company policy in
the decades after Edmonstone and many of his associates took up positions in the Court
of Directors on their return to Britain. The way in which their imperialism differed from
that of following generations, from the 1820s to the Mutiny, is also discussed. The
cumulative effect of the work brings the lost generation of Indian imperialists into a place
in scholarship more in line with their historical legacy.

3
SECTION ONE: THE MAKING OF AN INDIAN IMPERIALIST, 1765-1790

CHAPTER ONE: ORIGINS, 1765-1783
"Get money, still get money, boy,
No matter by what means."—John Donne, Every Man in His Humor

The Stormont was one of the graceful sailing ships called East Indiamen after the
name of the company that owned them. It sailed out of Portsmouth in March 1783 bound
for Bengal, reached Madras in July and, by September, had made its way to the Hugli
River and Calcutta's Diamond Harbor.1 There it blended into the forest of masts
belonging to some of the more than 300 vessels that called at the city each year. Like
them, the Stormont's primary purpose was to take part in the lucrative trade in cotton
cloth, saltpeter, indigo, opium and spices that made Diamond Harbor one of the world's
most famous ports. As a small sideline, it also transported passengers, usually East India
Company employees. On this trip, there were 42 "writers" on board.2 These were young
men, normally between the ages of 16 and 18, who had been appointed to the lowest level
civil rank in the Company's hierarchy.
Writerships were highly sought-after positions, offering one of few chances in
eighteenth century Britain for ambitious young men of any class to make their fortunes
and improve their social position. With hard work, luck or a certain lack of scruples,
virtually anyone could advance to high office in the Company. As everyone on the
Stormont must have known, the then governor-general, Warren Hastings, had begun his
career as a lowly writer making £5 a year.3 As early as 1714, in order to cut down on the
vast number of applications, the directors of the East India Company had begun requiring
that each new prospect be nominated by one of their number and post two securities for
£500.4 This did little to stem the tide; a writer's position sold in the 1770s for as much as
£3,000, while in 1783 an English newspaper carried an advertisement offering 1,000
guineas for a posting to Bengal.5 The lure of riches and the hope of advancement drew
some of the most capable minds of a generation to the East. Those already in India when
the Stormont arrived included names that would soon play key roles in the Company's
civil and military service: William Kirkpatrick, who joined the Bengal Infantry in 1773;
James Lumsden, George Frederick Cherry, and John Kennaway, writers of 1778; George
Hilaro Barlow and Archibald Seton, writers of 1779; and George Dowdeswell and Henry
Colebrooke, writers of 1783. John Baillie, a relative latecomer, joined the Company's
army in 1791. They were part of the generation that bridged the gap between the old
mercantile-minded Company of the pre-Warren Hastings period and the new, imperialist
one of the post-Wellesley era. They developed the ideology, perfected the institutions
and trained the minds that administered and expanded the Company's Indian empire.
The Stormont's passengers were probably less concerned with making a mark on
history than with finishing their journey. They soon discovered that their 723-ton vessel
4
could take them no further.6 For the last 41 miles of the trip they would need to take boats
small enough to safely navigate the upper Hugli's winding, sandbank-filled reaches. The
solution was to find a place on one of the strange looking vessels called budgerows that
made the three-day trip to Calcutta on a regular basis. This was a dismaying prospect to
face after a long journey. The average budgerow was little more than a barge equipped
with a flat-roofed cabin over two-thirds of its length. Many of them were decorated with
a wooden figurehead carved to resemble someone's idea of a European.7 With its stiff
limbs encased in a bright blue coat and its wide, painted eyes staring out from under a
black hat, it probably did bear a resemblance to some of the more exhausted travelers, but
it is doubtful that any of them was in a mood to appreciate the humor. Entertainment on
the journey consisted of the view of a tangled jungle of banyan and betel nut trees, bright
green peepuls, palms and bamboo thickets that flourished in the black mud of the river's
floodplain. Most travelers passed the time sitting on their luggage playing cards, getting
drunk or, if they were imprudent, doing both. The usual rigors of the journey were
complicated in September by the last of the monsoon rains, which intermittently pounded
the boat and soaked the passengers, and by the hoards of mosquitoes that bred in the wet
weather.8
Under such conditions, it is unlikely that the young writers noticed anything special
about one of their number. In many ways he was a stereotypical Company employee. He
was young, just seventeen; he was Scottish--one of the thousands who made up a
majority in the Company's service; and he was a younger son in a family that had a
longer history than credit line. In other ways, however, Neil Benjamin Edmonstone was
anything but ordinary. It is doubtful that anyone on the boat was better suited by either
background or temperament to the job ahead.
When he tired of watching the miles of swamp forest passing in hypnotic procession
along the high banks of the Hugli, Edmonstone could amuse himself by recalling his
numerous ancestors who had traveled abroad on similar ventures. One of these, on his
mother's side of the family, had set out on the First Crusade to save the holy land and to
make his fortune, not necessarily in that order. He had captured a "princess of Antioch,"
married her and acquired land and a title in the bargain.9 The Edmonstones had not
lacked energetic types either. An early Edmonstone had won fame and fortune on the
tournament circuit, and another had done even better by becoming an Adventurer in
Ulster.10 There was also recent evidence that what Sir Walter Scott called the Scottish
"national disposition to wandering and adventure" was strong in Edmonstone's
family. His eldest brother served as aide-de-camp to Major General Friedrich Adolph,
Baron von Riedesel, in America, helping General John Burgoyne oversee his battalions
of German mercenaries, until illness forced him to return home following the surrender at
Saratoga in 1777.11 One of his cousins and his brother William preceded Edmonstone to
India. The cousin died prematurely and penniless,12 but William waited to meet his
younger brother in Calcutta.
Edmonstone's appearance and temperament were also family legacies. It may have
been from his half-French mother, Susanna Mary Harene, that he inherited his dark,
almond-shaped eyes.13 The Harenes were an ancient French noble family who settled in
Normandy before 1066. About 1720, Roger Harene moved to England where he married
Susanna, the daughter of William Hays of Wimbledon, and prospered in business; he was
able to give his daughter a dowry of £10,000 when she married Edmonstone's father in
5