Read The British in Bengal 1756-1773: A Society in Transition Seen Through the Biography of a Rebel - William Bolts

The British in Bengal 1756-1773: A Society in Transition Seen Through the Biography of a Rebel - William Bolts

W.G.J. Kuiters

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Description:In 1756, the Company became the principal political power in Bengal. This position would be strengthened after 1764 and was finally openly acknowledged and confirmed during the government of Warren Hastings between 1772 and 1785.The British, however, were not newcomers on the Indian scene. They were either the servants of that great trading organization known as the East India Company or lived there under its protection. The East India Company had been trading in India ever since the seventeenth century and had started setting up their Calcutta settlement on the eve of the eighteenth century. The Company's settlements were governed by a President and his Council, almost always made up of servants with the greatest length of service and exercising a virtually absolute power over their subjects by virtue of a Royal Charter. This small community of merchants, trading for their masters in London as well as for their own good fortune, was the driving force behind the British rise to power in Bengal.Whereas increased British power in Bengal significantly enhanced the prospects of profit for both the Company and its servants, it also presented them with increased administrative responsibility. The existing administrative structure of the Company was severely put under strain by the political developments in Bengal as well as by the reactions of its servants thereto, who were quick to perceive new prospects for personal gain.It would not be long before the old administrative structure of the Company in India would be contested from within by its own servants. The call for reform was raised early indeed and the first sketches of plans for the better government of the British possessions in Bengal appeared even before a great credit crisis in 1772 threatened the Company's very existence and finally induced Government to propose what would become the Regulating Act of 1773.The author of the book proposes a micro-historical approach to analyse this process by exploring the career of William Bolts. Bolts was a junior servant on the Company's Bengal establishment during this crucial period, whose entrepreneurial energy and skill soon gave him an importance in private trade rivalling that of his superiors in the service. Political power and importance in trade were closely connected under the Bengal circumstances of the time and Bolts' very success therefore put the old hierarchical administrative structure of the Company under strain. In trying to bring Bolts' stature in private trade back one in accordance with his position in the Company's service, the Governor and Council of Bengal first provoked Bolts' resistance to their orders before causing him to attack its members before the courts of justice in Calcutta. Exasperated by his defiance of their authority, they finally resorted to measures of doubtful legality to have him deported from the settlement and put him on a boat to Europe. Bolts, however, continued his fight in London where he managed to draw the attention of the public to what were then called "India Affairs" with his publications and his orchestration of the legal pursuit of Governor Verelst by his former Armenian agents before the London courts.If the roles of individual characters in the process of the expansion of British power in Bengal has been highlighted in previous works, the present book provides a close inquest into their public and private motivations. It also shows that the issue of how Bengal, and later India, should be ruled was raised very early in the history of British dominance there. Bolts' views on the matter, exposed in his two voluminous "Considerations on India Affairs", proposed an alternative to the authoritarian bureaucracy that was being put into place by Hastings and his successors and by which India would be ruled until well into the twentieth century. This reality of the Raj caused Bolts' views and testimony to be stamped as self-interested or at times even as "unbritish". The present book shows that Bolts' career shows much of the strains and tensions to which British rule was subjected from within. Bolts analysed them with genuine insight and his views and ideas are of real interest to the reader taking an interest in ideas about Empire and the history of early British rule in India.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with The British in Bengal 1756-1773: A Society in Transition Seen Through the Biography of a Rebel - William Bolts. To get started finding The British in Bengal 1756-1773: A Society in Transition Seen Through the Biography of a Rebel - William Bolts, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
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Pages: 305

Format: PDF, EPUB & Kindle Edition

Publisher: Les Indes Savantes

Release: 2002

ISBN: 2846540047

Description: In 1756, the Company became the principal political power in Bengal. This position would be strengthened after 1764 and was finally openly acknowledged and confirmed during the government of Warren Hastings between 1772 and 1785.The British, however, were not newcomers on the Indian scene. They were either the servants of that great trading organization known as the East India Company or lived there under its protection. The East India Company had been trading in India ever since the seventeenth century and had started setting up their Calcutta settlement on the eve of the eighteenth century. The Company's settlements were governed by a President and his Council, almost always made up of servants with the greatest length of service and exercising a virtually absolute power over their subjects by virtue of a Royal Charter. This small community of merchants, trading for their masters in London as well as for their own good fortune, was the driving force behind the British rise to power in Bengal.Whereas increased British power in Bengal significantly enhanced the prospects of profit for both the Company and its servants, it also presented them with increased administrative responsibility. The existing administrative structure of the Company was severely put under strain by the political developments in Bengal as well as by the reactions of its servants thereto, who were quick to perceive new prospects for personal gain.It would not be long before the old administrative structure of the Company in India would be contested from within by its own servants. The call for reform was raised early indeed and the first sketches of plans for the better government of the British possessions in Bengal appeared even before a great credit crisis in 1772 threatened the Company's very existence and finally induced Government to propose what would become the Regulating Act of 1773.The author of the book proposes a micro-historical approach to analyse this process by exploring the career of William Bolts. Bolts was a junior servant on the Company's Bengal establishment during this crucial period, whose entrepreneurial energy and skill soon gave him an importance in private trade rivalling that of his superiors in the service. Political power and importance in trade were closely connected under the Bengal circumstances of the time and Bolts' very success therefore put the old hierarchical administrative structure of the Company under strain. In trying to bring Bolts' stature in private trade back one in accordance with his position in the Company's service, the Governor and Council of Bengal first provoked Bolts' resistance to their orders before causing him to attack its members before the courts of justice in Calcutta. Exasperated by his defiance of their authority, they finally resorted to measures of doubtful legality to have him deported from the settlement and put him on a boat to Europe. Bolts, however, continued his fight in London where he managed to draw the attention of the public to what were then called "India Affairs" with his publications and his orchestration of the legal pursuit of Governor Verelst by his former Armenian agents before the London courts.If the roles of individual characters in the process of the expansion of British power in Bengal has been highlighted in previous works, the present book provides a close inquest into their public and private motivations. It also shows that the issue of how Bengal, and later India, should be ruled was raised very early in the history of British dominance there. Bolts' views on the matter, exposed in his two voluminous "Considerations on India Affairs", proposed an alternative to the authoritarian bureaucracy that was being put into place by Hastings and his successors and by which India would be ruled until well into the twentieth century. This reality of the Raj caused Bolts' views and testimony to be stamped as self-interested or at times even as "unbritish". The present book shows that Bolts' career shows much of the strains and tensions to which British rule was subjected from within. Bolts analysed them with genuine insight and his views and ideas are of real interest to the reader taking an interest in ideas about Empire and the history of early British rule in India.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with The British in Bengal 1756-1773: A Society in Transition Seen Through the Biography of a Rebel - William Bolts. To get started finding The British in Bengal 1756-1773: A Society in Transition Seen Through the Biography of a Rebel - William Bolts, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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The British in Bengal 1756-1773: A Society in Transition Seen Through the Biography of a Rebel - William Bolts

The British in Bengal 1756-1773: A Society in Transition Seen Through the Biography of a Rebel - William Bolts

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