Three Scottish Cousins in East India Company Service, 1792–1804

Frances B. Singh

doi:10.3366/jshs.2018.0239

Three Scottish Cousins in East India Company Service, 1792–1804

Journal of Scottish Historical Studies ◽

10.3366/jshs.2018.0239 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 38 (1) ◽

pp. 160-177 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Frances B. Singh

Keyword(s):

East India Company ◽

Left Behind ◽

Henry Mackenzie

This article studies three first cousins, James Thomas Grant, George Cumming, and Henry Mackenzie, who arrived in India in 1792, 1793, and 1797, respectively. Born in the 1770s, the same decade as Scott, none of the cousins reached their thirtieth birthday, and though none of them died in battle, Cumming left behind huge debts, Mackenzie owed money to a Calcutta lender, and Grant chose not to return to Scotland, where, in due course, he would have succeeded to a considerable estate and become the head of his clan. Their history is used to examine Walter Scott's idea of India as a corn chest, a fabulously rich society whose wealth could be squeezed

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The Beginning of Dutch and English Conflict in Banda and Moluccas in the Early Seventeenth Century

IRA-International Journal of Management & Social Sciences (ISSN 2455-2267) ◽

10.21013/jmss.v8.n2.p4 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 162

Author(s):

A S Shngreiyo

Keyword(s):

Seventeenth Century ◽

New World ◽

East India Company ◽

Native Population ◽

Christopher Columbus ◽

Left Behind ◽

Spice Trade

Why Christopher Columbus did discovered America the new world, why did Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to reach India. They went and risk their life if search of the Spice Islands. The spices that European was searching were found in Indonesia Archipelago, Bandas famous for nutmeg and mace and Moluccas for its clove. After the formation of the East India Company in the early seventeenth century both the Dutch and English were competing against each other and outmaneuver one another for control of the islands. In the end, it was the Dutch who emerge victories. The Dutch established a monopoly on the spice trade from the Moluccas. They gained control over the clove trade through an alliance with the sultan of Ternate. Dutch occupation of the Banda’s gave them control of the nutmeg trade. Dutch control of the region was fully realized when Malacca was captured from the Portuguese in 1641. The Dutch were quite merciless when it suited their purposes; sometime obliterate the whole native population. By its brutal conquest over the Spice Islands they were able to control over the spice trade. Nevertheless, the English were not left behind whenever there is opportunity they set in to take the advantage of the sour relation between the native and Dutch, as the English played a role of more mercantile communities than occupation. The beginning of the seventeenth century is very important for the two companies as it decide the fate of the spices trade. Both companies were not willing to back out.

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THE SARACEN'S HEAD

Victorian Literature and Culture ◽

10.1017/s1060150308080261 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 36 (2) ◽

pp. 407-431

Author(s):

Sharmila Sen

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Eighteenth Century ◽

Central Asia ◽

East India Company ◽

Mughal Empire ◽

Left Behind ◽

Foreign Land ◽

Roast Beef ◽

Over Time

In 1529, Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur, descendant of the Timurid dynasty and founder of the Mughal empire, wept at the sight of melons. A mere fruit had reminded Babur of the homeland he had left behind in central Asia. In a letter to Khwaja Kalan, the emperor writes of the drudgeries of a ruler in a foreign land, who is forced to do without the tastes of home: “How can one forget the pleasures of that country? . . . Recently a melon was brought, and as I cut it and ate it I was oddly affected. I wept the whole time I was eating it” (423). The Baburnama, a personal record of the establishment of a new empire in the subcontinent, might seem like an unusual place to begin an essay on Victorian India. But Babur's nostalgia for the home left behind in Samarkand poignantly anticipates some of the hidden longings of the British as Company Raj gave way to Crown Raj in India. While the East India Company attempted to oust the Mughal rulers between the second half of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century, after India was incorporated into the Empire, the British would also attempt to don the mantle of the Mughals. On 1 November 1858, when India officially became part of Queen Victoria's Empire, the British inherited the Mughal's melons. Whether it was roast beef or mulligatawny, a pint of pale ale or a chhota peg, the British discovered their own versions of Babur's melons over time – an idea of homeland contained in a mouthful.

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