ABSTRACT
It is one of those perverse historiographical ironies that at the very moment of its remorseless decline, the East India Company’s history could not have received more attention by scholars. Any student looking at this period in the Company’s past will be struck, overwhelmed even, by the proliferation of narratives, accounts and analyses of every description and hue. Contemporary writers recognized this phenomenon themselves. Peter Auber, Secretary to the East India Company in the 1820s, prepared a massive two-volume history of the Company’s constitution and development. In the introduction he lamented: ‘It is rather a redundancy, than paucity of information, which is generally complained of.’ 1 Indeed, between 1784 and 1813 public knowledge of Company affairs and British activities in India generally increased markedly. Every aspect of the Company’s operation was openly debated in parliament and the press. Maps of India, the Near East and south-east Asia appeared in official and popular literature, revealing territorial possessions on the sub-continent and far-flung factories from Baghdad in the west to Penang in the east. Material was being gathered then for the splendid histories that are still with us today by authors such as Sir John Malcolm and James Mill. 2 Petitions arrived at Westminster protesting, declaiming and promoting all aspects of eastern trade, usually to the detriment of the Company’s best interests. Auber was thus correct in his assessment of the volume of information available on India and the Company in this period. Not recognized so readily at the time, however, was an ominous sub-text to this debate on the Company’s fortunes. Whereas there existed a great deal of enthusiasm for Britain’s continued role in the East, less and less comment appeared on the failing fortunes of the East India Company in that same theatre.
