| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation examines the relationship between Enlightenment political thought and the
conduct of imperial affairs on the Indian subcontinent between 1756 and 1773. It is
concerned with the ways in which Enlightenment ideas affected the response of politicians,
thinkers, merchants and East India Company officials, to the Company's actions and
conduct in Bengal. It seeks therefore to uncover the underlying political principles that
informed debates regarding the future of Britain's connection with the acquired territories.
At first, controversy raged between the Company and the British state over the question of
property rights: in 1767 the British government tried to assert its right to the territorial
revenues of Bengal that had been acquired by the Company in 1765. The government was
not successful and the issue of ownership would remain unresolved in this period and
beyond. However, as the Company began to appear incapable of managing and reforming its
own affairs, the British government was forced to confront the question of what the best way
of conducting policy in the east might be.
This thesis makes use of an array of under-utilised printed sources - pamphlets, books and
tracts - as well as analysing contemporary parliamentary debate, to recover the ways in
which empire was both rationalised and theorised. The first part of the dissertation lays out
the narrative of events, gives a brief sketch of ideologies of empire in Britain after 1690, and
reviews the historiography on the East India Company's rise to power. It then proceeds, in
part two, to set out the ways in which Enlightenment conceptions of a science of politics
underpinned both the condemnation of the Company's government of Bengal and plans for
its reform. In the third part of the thesis, particular attention is given to the thought of Sir
James Steuart who was specifically approached by the Company to provide a solution to
their monetary problems in Bengal. This was a brief that he fulfilled comprehensively,
making use of the concept of self-interest, and revealing the rationale that he believed should
inform the Company's commercial policy towards a British dependency. Throughout this
work, the political ideas examined are situated in the broader context of debate regarding
sociability, international trade, the nature and obligation of governments in general, and of
the British constitution in particular. | en_US |
