“The Grandest Society of Merchants in the Universe”: The Rise and Fall of the English East India Company

Abstract

For more than two centuries of its history, the English East India Company (EIC), founded in 1600 to conduct the spice trade in the East, had transformed itself into an undisputed overlord of the Indian Subcontinent, one of the richest lands on earth, making the company “the grandest society of merchants in the Universe”. Being allowed to control its own army and wage war with indigenous states and peoples independently from the British Government’s intervention, the company used these privileges to establish and expand its position in the subcontinent continuously. Its victory in the Battle of Plassey of 1757 saw the beginning of the “Company’s Rule” in which the company gradually replaced Indian rulers. However, since the EIC was, by then, no longer a conventional trading corporation, ruling over the Indian Subcontinent with unlimited powers, the British Government began its lengthy intervention to take more responsibilities in the governance of India. This article explores the history of the EIC from its early days as an overseas trading company to its heyday when the company ruled over the whole subcontinent as well as its downfall in 1858 when the British Government took over control of India. Although the EIC’s history was a story of wars and aggression which the company imposed upon native rulers and populations of the subcontinent, its existence in India for more than two centuries had unarguably paved the way for Britain to become an effective ruler of India, the “Crown Jewel” of the British Empire.