Indian Antiquary Vol 58

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Charles E A W Oldham, S Krishnaswami Aiyangar, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarka
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 127

JUNE, 1929]
GEORGE WELDON AND ABRAHAM NAVARRO
117
had done, and that having sent Vakils to his Court to solicit a farmán and ask for pardon, he had granted their prayer. He, therefore, commanded Ibrâhîm Khân to see that "no body in yor Jurisdiction to molest hurt or hinder the English nation in y businesse, but suffer them to carry it on in ye same manner as formerly this understand and act accordingly." 44
News of Peace with the Mughal was at the outset well-received by the Company's servants in Bengal and Fort St. George, since it would enable them to re-establish their trade in those provinces. President Elihu Yale and his Council wrote from Fort St. George, congratulating Weldon and Navarro on the successful result of their efforts and requesting them to forward a note of the articles together with other agreements necessary for their information concerning the Company's affairs.45 A few months later, on becoming acquainted with the terms of peace, their opinion entirely altered. They considered them "scandalous" and thought that if Sir John Child had been alive, he would not have accepted any farman on such terms.
When the terms of Peace with the Mughal were placed before the Court of Directors they pronounced them both unjust and humiliating. They had originally formed high expectations of the rewards likely to follow the heavy expenditure they had sanctioned, but the result dashed their hopes to the ground. They had aimed at a great political achievement by establishing their power independent of the Mughal's control, but the result not only confirmed the Emperor's authority, but made their own dependence more complete and obvious than ever. This was the outcome, as their own historiographer, John Bruce, admits, of their first attempt to become an independent power in India. He might well have added that they had committed the generally irreparable fault of under-estimating their opponent's resources and power while magnifying their own. It may have been difficult for the Company, especially when due allowance is made for the time then required to communicate with India, to form a just estimate of the Mughal resources, and no doubt they were led by reports of Aurangzeb's difficulties in the Deccan and with the Marathas into a belief that his power was rapidly on the decline. But it seems certain that the wish was father to the thought, and little sympathy can be feit for them when their pains and losses resulted in bitter disappointment and they found themselves in a worse position than before.
If allowance is made for these considerations, if it cannot be denied that Sir John Child's demands were quite beyond his or the Company's power to enforce, and that his procedure to attain them was arbitrary and reckless of consequences, then the terms of the Treaty were as fair and reasonable as could have been expected. The Mughal Emperor was in the position of the victor, and the accredited agents of the Company were suppliants. They came not to ask for the surrender of his authority and territory-that dream had passed away in the utter failure of an unjustifiable and ill-conceived adventure--but for permission to be allowed to continue their proper calling as traders. This the Emperor granted on his own conditions, and they were glad enough to accept them, although the Court chose to relieve their feelings of disappointment in angry outbursts. Mr. Bruce's commentary long after the event that "this apparent reconciliation of the Mughal to the Company was an arbitrary act of despotism towards the English" can only be explained by the fact that it was penned in a day when the political rôle of the Company had entirely superseded the commercial.
In forming his decision Aurangzeb could not be expected to leave out of consideration the enormous losses his subjects had for many years sustained at the hands of the Company's servants. Of course there was another side to the matter represented by the exactions imposed by his officials on the merchants at Surat and elsewhere round the Coast. Still, if a balance had been struck it would have been largely in the Mughal's favour. I may be admitted that the proceedings of those officials, their corrupt practices-with which, however, the Europeans had complied readily enough-and their evasions, to put it mildly, of Imperial orders proved 45 See No. 5706 of 0.0. 48, 1.0.
44 See No. 5707 of O. C. 48, I. O.