The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
William Dalrympleamazon.com
The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire
a factory with adequate trading capital had been left at Bantam while in London nearly 500 tons of peppercorns were soon being laboriously transferred from the Red Dragon to the Company’s warehouse.
The comparative ease with which the East India Company was able to seize power was partly due to the increasing weakness of the Emperors. However, their task was also made easier because so many small Sultanates and Kingdoms were prepared to collaborate with the British in exchange for favours and protection.
What was never discussed was whether the Company was legally empowered to try Zafar at all. For though the government took the position that Zafar received a pension from the Company, and was therefore the Company’s pensioner and thus subject, the actual legal position was considerably more ambiguous. While the Company’s 1599 charter to trade in th
... See moreinterlopers like Sir Edward Michelborne