ABSTRACT
Merchant houses formed the rocks of the British Empire. The careers of some leading private traders and free merchants of Chennai are interesting. They took more risks and faced more uncertainty than their fortunate EIC colleagues. They built bridges between the natives and the EIC. The British Empire was actually conceived first by the free merchants, who studied the strengths and weaknesses of India. It all started in Chennai. They created a market for so far unvalued and undervalued products of Chennai as well as other provinces and nations. They made sometimes huge profits and spent them mostly in Chennai, and sent the rest to England. Chennai owed much of its development to the free philanthropic merchants of the 18th century. They traded globally and filled the gap left by the EIC. Their number and status varied as many of them were not stationary in Chennai. Troutback, Adrian Fourbeck, John Powney and Anthony Gaudoin were famous as free merchants.
