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Politics and Ideology in the Early East India Company-State: The Case of St Helena, 1673–1709

2007; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 35; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03086530601143362

1743-9329

Philip J. Stern,

Historical Economic and Social Studies

Abstract The English East India Company has long been regarded as a ‘mere merchant’ that turned into a sovereign only with its eighteenth-century territorial acquisitions in India. Focusing on the first decades of Company rule at St Helena, this article argues instead that the late seventeenth-century Company aspired to become a polity in itself: a self-sustaining global system built upon sound civic institutions and informed by a coherent if composite political ideology. In the end, the Company's early history at St Helena demands a flexible understanding both of the boundaries of the British ‘Atlantic world’ and of the various kinds of political communities beyond the national state instrumental in fashioning early modern empires. Moreover, such a political and intellectual approach to the early Company confounds the trade-to-empire narrative that has long defined its history, insisting on deeper and more complex roots for the ‘Company-State’ and thus for British Empire in India. Acknowledgements I am indebted for responses to early drafts of this article from participants at the Washington, DC area British studies group, convened by Dane Kennedy at the George Washington University, and the monthly American University history department faculty and graduate student lunchtime seminar; particular gratitude goes to Andrew Lewis, Katharine Norris, Kimberly Stern, Deborah Valenze and especially David Armitage, all of whom generously offered insights on several iterations of this piece. Notes 1. ‘Islanders suffer postal blunder’, BBC News World Edition, 10 Jan. 2005, available at: ; Faisal al Yafai, ‘Colony's Christmas post goes 3,000 miles astray’, The Guardian, 10 Jan. 2005, online edition, available at: . 2. For a brief but useful historiographical survey, see Schulenburg, ‘St Helena’, 118–20; Schulenburg, ‘St Helena Historiography’, 3–6. See also, Cant (ed.), His Majesty's Grant; Denholm, South Atlantic Haven; Gosse, St. Helena; the self-published pamphlet work of Trevor Hearl as well as Hearl, ‘Baptist Pioneers’, 252–60; Proud, Postal History. 3. Schulenburg, ‘St Helena’, 120–21. 4. Lawson, East India Company, 46. For example, Chaudhuri's masterful Trading World of Asia makes no mention of the island. For a notable exception, see Grove, Green Imperialism. 5. For example, Fitzmaurice, Humanism and America; Kupperman, Providence Island. 6. Chaudhuri, ‘The English East India Company’; Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, 22. 7. Lenman, England's Colonial Wars, 207; Lenman, Britain's Colonial Wars, 83. 8. Lawson, East India Company, 49. 9. Chaudhuri and Israel, ‘The English and Dutch East India Companies’, 438. 10. Sen, Empire of Free Trade, 80; Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, 20; Braddick, State Formation, 400. 11. This study of St Helena is part of my larger book in progress on the constitutional, institutional and ideological foundations of this Company-State in the late seventeenth century. See also Stern, ‘One Body Corporate and Politick’. For similar gestures in this direction, see Bayly, ‘The British Military-Fiscal State’, 323–25; Kemal, ‘The Evolution of British Sovereignty in India’, esp. 144; Refai, ‘Sir George Oxinden’, 573–81; Subrahmanyam, ‘Frank Submissions’. 12. See, for example, Koenigsberger, ‘Dominium Regale’; Elliot, ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies’; Gustafsson, ‘The Conglomerate State’; Spruyt, The Sovereign State; Thomson, Mercenaries, Pirates, & Sovereigns; Subrahmanyam, ‘Iranians Abroad’; Subrahmanyam, ‘Connected Histories’. 13. See, among others, Benton, Law and Colonial Cultures; Canny, ‘Writing Early Modern History’, 740; Hancock, ‘Undiscovered Ocean’, 153–54; Coclanis, ‘Drang Nach Osten’. 14. Boothby, A True Declaration, 24. 15. Foster, ‘The Acquisition of St. Helena’, 282–84; Gosse, St. Helena, 44–49; Schulenburg, ‘St. Helena’, 108–09. 16. See, for example, circular letter from East India Company Court of Committees, London, (hereinafter EIC) to ‘the Netherlands East India Company Governors of Columbo Pointagall or any other Place Within the Jurisdiction of the Neatherland East India Company in the East Indies’, 2 Oct. 1682, British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections, India Office Records (hereinafter IOR), E/3/90 f. 34. 17. EIC to Fort St George [hereinafter FSG], 29 Feb. 1683/4, IOR E/3/90 f. 154; EIC to Surat, 7 April 1684, E/3/90 f. 165; EIC to Bengal, 5 March 1683/4, IOR E/3/90 f. 159. 18. EIC to Bengal, 20 June 1683, EIC to St Helena, 1 Aug. 1683 and EIC to St Helena, 5 Aug. 1684, IOR E/3/90 f. 83, 95, 175–77. 19. Minutes of the Court of Committees, 10 Aug. 1688, IOR B/39 f. 138; EIC to St Helena, 11 Jan. 1709, IOR G/32/1, pp. 156–57. On the Company's Atlantic wine trade more broadly, see Hancock, ‘Undiscovered Ocean’, esp. 155–56. 20. For example, see, EIC to General and Council of India, 25 Aug. 1686, IOR E/3/91 f. 84; EIC to FSG, 9 June 1686, IOR E/3/91 f. 71. 21. Grove, Green Imperialism, 96. 22. See, for example, Minutes of the Court of Committees, 28 Sept. 1681, IOR B/36 f. 161, 11 Jan. 1681/2, B/36 f. 184, and 20 Sept. 1682, B/37 f. 39. 23. EIC to FSG, 11 Sept. 1689, IOR E/3/92 f. 34; EIC to Bencoolen, 3 Aug. 1687, IOR E/3/91 f. 175 and 31 Aug. 1687, IOR E/3/91, f. 192; EIC to St Helena, 3 Aug. 1687, IOR E/3/91 f. 185. 24. Surat to George Weldon, 11 Feb. 1692/3, IOR E/3/49 f. 205. 25. EIC to FSG, 13 June 1683, IOR E/3/90 f. 83; Madras Consultations, 4 Oct. 1686, 15 Feb. 1687/8, and 14 May 1688 in Diary and Consultation Book of 1686, 83 and Diary and Consultation Book of 1688, 30, 78–79. 26. St Helena Consultations, 13 Oct. 1684, IOR G/32/2, III, n.p.; EIC to St Helena, 5 Aug. 1684, IOR E/3/90 f. 175 27. EIC to Surat, 2 July 1684, IOR E/3/90 f. 196; Surat to EIC, 26 April 1684, IOR E/3/44 f. 44. 28. Opinions of Edward Northey and John Hungerford, 2 and 3 Dec. 1715, IOR H/23 ff. 127–28; Platt, ‘East India Company’, 555–56. 29. Logan, ‘British East India Company’, 340–41. 30. Fort St David Consultation, 8 Aug. 1701, in Fort St. David Consultations, 1701, 9. 31. St Helena Court of Justice, 7 Oct. 1695, IOR G/32/2, IV, n.p. 32. EIC to FSG, 7 Jan. 1686/7, IOR E/3/91 f. 121. 33. On the debate more broadly, see Statt, Foreigners and Englishmen. 34. EIC to St Helena, 15 March 1677/8, reprinted in Sainsbury (ed.), Court Minutes, XI: 162; Minutes of the Court of Committees, 21 Aug. 1674, 26 Aug. 1674 and 5 Jan. 1677, in Sainsbury (ed.), Court Minutes, X: 74–77, XI: 2. See also Khan, East India Trade, 200; Gosse, St Helena, 50–51. 35. EIC to St Helena, 1 Aug. 1683, IOR E/3/90 ff. 90–91. 36. EIC to St Helena, 5 Aug. 1684, IOR E/3/90 f. 175. 37. Ibid., 178. At least some of the French winemakers seem to have gone, as they are mentioned by Dampier, A New Voyage, 547. 38. Borsay, English Urban Renaissance, 85–101; Graham, ‘Planting, Planning and Design’. 39. Drayton, Nature's Government, 50–61; Pincus, ‘From holy cause to economic interest’, 297. 40. Child, New Discourse of Trade, 199. 41. EIC to St Helena, 3 Aug. 1687, IOR E/3/91 f. 186. 42. St Helena Consultations, 25 Feb. 1675, IOR G/32/2, I, f. 4. 43. Land was to descend by primogeniture, or one half to a man's wife and the other to his heir; goods and estates one-third to the wife and two-thirds distributed among children, though there were exceptions to these rules based upon exigent circumstances. Copy of the Minutes of the Court of Committees, 20 March 1679, IOR G/32/1 pp. 12–14. 44. Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 20–40; Pagden, ‘The Struggle for Legitimacy’, 49. 45. Recital of Laws and Ordinances, n.d. 1707?, IOR G/32/1 p. 90; Copy of the First Commission of the Government after the Retaking the Island from the Dutch, 19 Dec. 1673, G/32/1 pp. 5–7. 46. Ibid., 3. 47. Minutes of the Court of Committees, 11 June 1680, B/36 f. 11. 48. EIC to St Helena, 3 Aug. 1687, IOR E/3/91 f. 181; Extract of EIC to St Helena, 5 May 1708, British Library, Manuscripts Department, AddMS 20240 f. 3. 49. Seed, Ceremonies of Possession, 25–40; Drayton, Nature's Government, 55–67. 50. White, Reflections on a Scandalous Paper, 5. 51. McPherson, ‘Revisiting the Manor of East Greenwich’, 35–56; Craton, ‘Property and propriety’, 499. 52. Charter, 43 Eliz I, 31 Dec. 1600, in Charters Granted to the East-India Company, 5–12. 53. EIC to St Helena, 3 Aug. 1687, E/3/91 f. 180. 54. United Kingdom, Partnership, esp. 17. On the citizenship commission, see the official St Helena government's website: . 55. ‘Laws and Ordinances of St Helena’, IOR G/32/1 f. 1, emphasis added. 56. EIC to St Helena, 5 April 1689, IOR E/3/92 f. 17. 57. Steele, ‘The Anointed, the Appointed, and the Elected’, 107. 58. EIC to Bombay, 31 Jan. 1689/90, IOR E/3/92 f. 78; ‘Committee of the House of Commons to examine … martial law in St. Helena’, 6 Nov. 1689, Johnson Papers, BL AddMS 22185 f. 15. 59. See, for example, Journal of the Board of Trade, 10 Jan. 1697/8, National Archives (formerly PRO) CO 391/10 f. 198. 60. Vice, Coinage, 227, 233. 61. EIC to St Helena, 6 May 1685, IOR E/3/90 f. 272. 62. EIC to St Helena, 1 Aug. 1683, IOR E/3/90 f. 92. 63. EIC to St. Helena, 3 Aug. 1687, IOR E/3/91 f. 180. 64. Court of Committees, 6 Dec. 1676, in Sainsbury (ed.), Calendar of Court Minutes, X: 385. 65. See also, for example, Instructions to Captain John Nicholson, Commander of the Beaufort, 20 Jan. 1685/6, IOR E/3/91 f. 26; Fawcett, ‘The Striped Flag’, 449–76; Wilson, Flags at Sea, 36–37. 66. See, for example, EIC to Captain John Gayer, 7 April 1684, E/3/90 f. 173. 67. EIC to St Helena, 3 Aug. 1687, E/3/91 f. 183. 68. EIC to St Helena, 5 April 1684, IOR E/3/90 f. 178 and 6 May 1685, E/3/90 ff. 272–74. 69. St Helena Consultations, 16 Dec. 1695, G/32/2, V, [ff. 17–18]. 70. EIC to St Helena, 6 May 1685, IOR E/3/90 ff. 272–74. 71. See, for example, EIC to St Helena, 5 Dec. 1698, IOR G/32/1 p. 52. 72. EIC to St Helena, 10 March 1681, IOR G/32/1 p. 25. 73. EIC to St Helena, 15 Aug. 1683, IOR E/3/90 f. 108. 74. St Helena Consultations, 11 July 1682, IOR G/32/2, II: 13. 75. EIC to FSG, 6 June 1687, IOR E/3/91 f. 154. 76. EIC to Captain John Roberts, 5 May 1708, IOR G/32/1 pp. 143–44. 77. ‘Laws & Ordinances of St. Helena’, IOR G/32/1 ff. 1–3. 78. EIC to St Helena, 10 March 1681, IOR G/32/1 p. 23 and 3 Aug. 1687, IOR E/3/91 f. 183. 79. 6d for a common warrant; 1s for a special warrant; 1s 3d for a copy of an order of council; 1s for a copy of an account; 1s 3d for discharge of an account; and 2s 6d for proving a copy of a will. St Helena Consultation, 18 Dec. 1682, IOR G/32/2, I, p. 72; EIC to St. Helena, 10 March 1681, IOR G/32/1 pp. 19, 21; St Helena Consultations, 25 Oct. 1694, IOR G/32/2, IV, pp. 37–38. 80. St Helena Court of Justice, 7 April 1696, IOR G/32/2, V, n.p. 81. St Helena Court of Justice, 7–8 Jan. 1694/5, IOR G/32/2, IV, pp. 53–55. 82. Ibid., pp. 56–57. 83. See, for example, St Helena Consultations, 1694–95, IOR G/32/2, IV. 84. St Helena Consultations, 13 Oct. 1684, IOR G/32/2, III, n.p. 85. St Helena Consultations, 16 Dec. 1695, IOR G/32/2, V, n.p. 86. EIC to Governor and Council of India (Bombay), 25 Aug. 16986, IOR E/3/91 f. 84. 87. St Helena Consultations, 16 April 1682, IOR G/32/2, II, pp. 1–2. 88. ‘Att a Court of Justice Upon Monday the 1st Day of Aprill 1695. Att the Sessions house near Fort James’, IOR E/3/51 f. 14. 89. St Helena Consultations, 28 Nov. 1695, IOR G/32/2, V, n.p. 90. EIC to St Helena, 3 Aug. 1687, IOR E/3/91, ff. 180–85. 91. See, for example, St Helena Consultations, 8 May 1682, IOR G/32/2, II, p. 9 and 20 April 1696, IOR G/32/2, V, n.p. 92. St Helena Consultations, 21 Jan 1700/1, G/32/3, n.p. [f. 2]. 93. See Carson, ‘An Imperial Dilemma’, 169–90; Porter, ‘Commerce and Christianity’, 602–06. 94. Hont, ‘Free Trade and the Economic Limits to National Politics’, 62–63. 95. EIC to St Helena, 1 Aug. 1683, IOR E/3/90 f. 95, and 3 Aug. 1687, IOR E/3/91 f. 179. 96. St. Helena Consultation, 12 Feb. 1682/3, IOR G/32/2, I, p. 82. 97. Copy of the First Commission, 19 Dec. 1673, IOR G/32/1 pp. 5–7. 98. EIC to St. Helena, 10 March 1681, IOR G/32/1 pp. 18–19. 99. Copy of the First Commission, 19 Dec. 1673, G/32/1 pp. 5–7. 100. EIC to St Helena, 10 March 1681, IOR G/32/1 p. 18. 101. EIC to St. Helena, 20 Feb. 1677, G/32/1 p. 8. 102. Ibid., 10. 103. St Helena Consultation, 26 July 1694, IOR G/32/2, IV, pp. 20–26. 104. Recital of Laws and Ordinances, n.d. 1707?, IOR G/32/1 p. 96. 105. St Helena Consultation, 1 April 1676, IOR G/32/2, I, p. 5. 106. St Helena Consultation, 23 Oct. and 18 Dec. 1682, IOR G/32/2, I, pp. 42–43, 69–70. 107. St Helena Consultation, 17 Jan. 1694/5, IOR G/32/2, IV, pp. 59–61. 108. St Helena Consultation, 12 Aug. 1695 and 6 July 1696, IOR G/32/2, V, n.p. 109. For a similar argument concerning early Virginia, see Fitzmaurice, Humanism and America, 68. See also, among others, Pocock, Machiavellian Moment; Viroli, ‘Machiavelli’; Worden, ‘English Republicanism’. 110. Copy of the First Commission, 19 Dec. 1673, IOR G/32/1 p. 3. 111. E.g., 6d for oxen sent aboard ship; 6d for every hundred weight of sugar landed; 10s for every hogshead of liquor; 6d on every calico piece; and 1s for every piece of silk. Recital of Laws and Ordinances, n.d. 1707?, IOR G/32/1 pp. 93–95; EIC to St Helena, 3 Aug. 1687, E/3/91 f. 181. 112. Recital of Laws and Ordinances, n.d. 1707?, IOR G/32/1 p. 95. 113. EIC to Bombay, 28 Sept. 1687, IOR E/3/91 f. 196. 114. EIC to FSG, 26 Aug. 1685, IOR E/3/90 f. 293. 115. EIC to Bombay, 11 Sept. 1689, IOR E/3/92 f. 64. 116. EIC to FSG, 14 Jan. 1685/6, IOR E/3/91, f. 17. 117. EIC to St Helena, 1 Aug. 1683, IOR E/3/90 f. 95. 118. Child, ‘Discourse concerning Plantations’, 40. 119. Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 414; Radabaugh, ‘The Militia of Colonial Massachusetts’, esp. 18; Schwoerer, ‘No Standing Armies!’ 120. Copy of the First Commission, 19 Dec. 1673, G/32/1 p. 5. 121. Craton, ‘Property and Propriety’, 518. 122. It also carried the potential to open up a host of colonial political power relationships as well. See, among others, Braddick, ‘Civility and Authority’; Bowen, Elites, ch. 6. 123. EIC to St Helena, 1 Aug 1683, IOR E/3/90 f. 93. 124. Recital of Laws and Ordinances, n.d. 1707?, IOR G/32/1 p. 92. 125. Goldie, ‘The Unacknowledged Republic’, 154–55. 126. Recital of Laws and Ordinances, n.d. 1707?, IOR G/32/1 p. 94. 127. EIC to St. Helena, 3 Aug. 1687, IOR E/3/91, f. 181.