Full transcript
0:01[Music]
0:08the old river rested unruffled spread
0:12out in the tranquil dignity of a
0:14waterway leading to the uttermost ends
0:16of the earth
0:20when the novelist Joseph Conrad was
0:22writing those words one power governed a
0:25quarter of the world's population and
0:27covered the same proportion of the
0:29Earth's land surface from the mouth of
0:32the Thames to the Bay of Bengal it ruled
0:35the waves of all the world's oceans the
0:39British Empire was the biggest empire
0:42ever
0:45what greatness had not floated on the
0:47air of that River into the mystery of an
0:50unknown
0:53the dreams of men the seed of
0:56Commonwealth's the germs of Empires
1:03thanks to the British Empire I have
1:05relatives in Toronto Alberta
1:07Philadelphia and Perth Australia I even
1:10spent part of my childhood in Kenya
1:12nowadays of course the phrase British
1:14Empire conjures up images of chaps with
1:17stiff upper lips and pith helmets being
1:19waited on hand and foot by poor
1:21exploited natives the best it's around a
1:24corneal joke at worst it's something we
1:26should say a collective sorry for the
1:30Empire's sins tend to be better
1:31remembered than its achievements yet
1:34traveling the world today you keep on
1:37encountering the living legacies of
1:39Britain's age of empire it was British
1:42traders who United the world in a single
1:44capitalist economy while British
1:46migration changed the face of whole
1:48continents Protestant Christianity
1:51spread from Clapham to Cape Town English
1:54became the world language Western norms
1:57of law order and government were
1:59exported - and parliamentary democracy
2:02became the yardstick by which all
2:04political systems are judged
2:07these are the pillars of the modern
2:09world and if you like the modern world
2:12you can't deny its debt to the British
2:14Empire today we live in a world
2:18dominated by a single superpower the
2:20United States indeed sometimes seems a
2:23little bit as if we've become part of
2:24the American Empire yet Britain was the
2:27world's superpower for more than two
2:29centuries exerting even more power
2:32beyond her borders than the u.s. does
2:34today firsthand memories of the Empire
2:37may be fading but there's never been a
2:40better time to understand how Britain
2:42made the modern world
2:49[Music]
3:00[Applause]
3:04in December 1660 three British pirates
3:09launched a smash-and-grab raid on the
3:11Spanish outpost of gran Granada in the
3:13Caribbean
3:20they fired a volley overturned 18 great
3:24guns plundered for 16 hours sunk all the
3:28boats and so came away this is how the
3:36British Empire really began in a
3:38maelstrom of Seabourn violence and
3:41plunder it wasn't so much the work of
3:43imperialists consciously imposing
3:45English rule on foreign lands or even of
3:48colonists looking for a new life in a
3:50new world
3:50these Buccaneers as they were called
3:53were thieves in the business of stealing
3:55from someone else's empire what they
3:58were about was not so much grand
4:00strategy more like grand larceny
4:04the Buccaneers had a complex system of
4:06profit sharing including insurance
4:09policies for injury this was crime
4:11alright but it was organized crime
4:18the Buccaneers leader was a rogue
4:20Welshman named Henry Morgan a prickly
4:24hard-drinking character who insisted he
4:26was descended from respectable
4:28Monmouthshire Chantry Henry Morgan was
4:30anything but respectable Morgan was a
4:33gangster one of the generation of
4:36Goodfellas who laid the foundations of
4:38the British Empire
4:40for Morgan buccaneering was simply a
4:43matter of getting rich quick but for the
4:46English government piracy was a
4:48low-budget way of waging war and the
4:51enemy was Spain
4:57not that the Spaniards were too worried
4:59by the English Buccaneers by comparison
5:02with mighty Spain England was an
5:04imperial novice but the timing that a
5:09quarter first Caribbean bases the
5:11Spanish Empire had been around for more
5:13than a hundred years Spain was the 17th
5:16century superpower and its Empire
5:18stretched from Madrid to Mexico back in
5:22paracin Morgan in his Buccaneers seemed
5:24little more than an irritant certainly
5:26not a serious Imperial rival but that
5:29was about to change
5:30in 1655 the English captured Jamaica
5:35they quickly set about supplanting the
5:38Spanish super power thousands of pounds
5:41were spent on these fortifications to
5:43protect the harbour at Port Royal to
5:45supervise the work the government turned
5:47to Henry Morgan so just a few years
5:51after his epic pirate raid Morgan was
5:54now Deputy Lieutenant Governor of
5:55Jamaica and Commandant of the Port Royal
5:58Regiment once a licensed pirate the
6:02freelancer had become a respectable
6:04colonial governor Morgan's career was
6:07typical of the transformation of the
6:09British Empire the British shift from
6:12piracy to political power was to change
6:15the world forever
6:18but how was it that British pirates like
6:21Henry Morgan could lay the foundations
6:23of the biggest empire the world has ever
6:25known
6:26it's one of the great questions of
6:28history why Britain
6:30why not Spain Holland of France why not
6:34India why us fundamentally it was a
6:40matter of economic style the Spanish
6:43Empire was based on plunder the British
6:47too started out as plunder us but they
6:49went beyond smash and grab consider what
6:53Henry Morgan did with the Spanish silver
6:56he stole he didn't take it home instead
6:59he invested it in Jamaican real estate
7:02in what is still called Morgan's Valley
7:05even a hoodlum like Henry Morgan could
7:08see that bigger money could be made from
7:10legitimate business the point about
7:13Jamaica was that it was perfect for
7:14growing sugar and here's the key to a
7:17fundamental change in the nature of
7:18British overseas expansion the Empire
7:21had begun with the stealing of gold but
7:24the cultivation of sugar turned out to
7:26be far more lucrative and that was
7:29because something quite extraordinary
7:30was happening back home
7:4917th century England was still primarily
7:51an agricultural economy but the wheel of
7:55change turned slowly it dug nonetheless
7:58more efficient farming and the first
8:01stirrings of the Industrial Revolution
8:02meant that the English were getting
8:04richer thanks to bumper harvests of iron
8:08bars they could afford to indulge new
8:11and exotic appetites England consumes
8:15within itself more Goods of foreign
8:17growth than any other nation in the
8:19world so wrote the author of bestsellers
8:23like Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders
8:25Daniel Defoe himself the son of a London
8:28merchant and an acute trend spotter what
8:32he saw happening in late 17th century
8:34England was the birth of a new kind of
8:37economy the world's first mass consumer
8:40society then you only had to step inside
8:44the coffee houses of London to see what
8:46the English were consuming his
8:49importation consists chiefly of sugars
8:52of which the consumption in Great
8:55Britain is scarcely to be conceived of
8:59some people like to think the British
9:01Empire came about because of English
9:03individualism or the Protestant work
9:05ethic but I sometimes think he did more
9:07to do with our appalling sweet tooth
9:09jerk Daniel Defoe's lifetime imports of
9:12sugar more than doubled and that was
9:14just part of an enormous import bomb
9:16because the English like to mix their
9:18sugar with an orally administered and
9:20highly addictive drug Kaffee
9:23supplemented by an inhaled and equally
9:26addictive narcotic tobacco sweet tea
9:29coffee and tobacco taken together
9:32offered a dramatically different
9:34alternative to the traditional European
9:35drug alcohol if alcohols are depressant
9:39these new drugs were the 18th century
9:41equivalent of upper
9:43and these were legal substances that
9:46anyone could afford as Defoe acidly
9:49observed plain country joan is now
9:53turned into a fine london madam and
9:55drink tea take snuff and carry herself
9:58as high as the best thanks to these new
10:03drugs the english literally felt better
10:05they soon looked better too
10:08although there had long been english
10:10manufactured textiles there were nearly
10:12all course rules and linens what the
10:15discerning english shopper wanted now
10:17was altogether more exotic like a sugar
10:20tea and tobacco the english consumed
10:22with such gusto
10:23silks chintzes and calicoes had to come
10:26from abroad
10:27the result was nothing less than a
10:30fashion revolution and again Defoe
10:33spotted the trend it crept into our
10:36houses our closets our bed chambers
10:39curtains cushion chairs and at last beds
10:42themselves were nothing but calicoes or
10:45indian stuffs
10:46[Music]
10:52the wonderful thing about imported
10:55textiles is that the market forum is
10:57practically inexhaustible ultimately
10:59there's a limit to how much tea or sugar
11:02any human being can consume but people's
11:04appetite for new clothes had and has no
11:08such limit
11:16in the early 1700s there was only one
11:19place that could satisfy the English
11:21appetite for Gladrags it was the biggest
11:25economy in the world with total output
11:27nearly ten times the size of England's
11:31India the fabrics designs what worship
11:36and technology there were in a league of
11:38their own
11:39[Music]
11:48all this time the Spaniards were still
11:51empire-building the old-fashioned way
11:53ransacking the wealthy civilizations of
11:56Central America but when the English
11:59went to India it was to trade not to
12:02kill the Golden Goose
12:04[Music]
12:11the economics of this early import trade
12:14were relatively simple to begin with
12:17English merchants had little they could
12:19offer two years that the Indians didn't
12:21already make themselves so it was a case
12:25of paying in cash rather than exchanging
12:28goods today we call it globalization
12:33goods and money criss-crossing the world
12:35to form a single economic system but in
12:40one respect 17th century globalization
12:43was different
12:46[Music]
12:50getting the cash out from England and
12:53the goods home again meant sailing
12:55twelve thousand miles around the world
12:58in the age of sail the world was no
13:02global village merchants had to contend
13:05with storms shipwrecks not dimension
13:08pirates the real threat however came not
13:12from ships flying the Jolly Roger but
13:15from other Europeans who wanted to trade
13:17with India Asia was about to become the
13:19scene of a ruthless battle for market
13:22share this would be globalization with
13:25gunboats
13:42the Hubli river in Bengal was one of the
13:46commercial super highways of the first
13:48age of globalization
13:50[Music]
13:53in one direction hundreds of miles
13:56upstream lies the seat of political
13:58power Delhi in the other the open sea
14:01and the monster trade winds back to
14:03Europe
14:04so when Europeans came to India to trade
14:06this was one of their preferred
14:08destinations
14:09[Music]
14:15in 1700 the population of India was more
14:19than 20 times that of England India
14:23produced nearly a quarter of the world's
14:25economic output the sheer wealth of the
14:28Indian economy meant that Indian
14:30merchants had little interest in
14:32overseas markets but it made India an
14:36irresistible honeypot for European
14:38traders these dilapidated an
14:43incongruously European buildings are in
14:46the town of chin surah on the banks of
14:48the Hooghly they mocked the beginnings
14:50of one of history's most successful
14:53business corporations and its immensely
14:55lucrative relationship with the Indian
14:58people that was called the East India
15:01Company for more than a hundred years it
15:05dominated the trade routes between Asia
15:07and Europe but there's a catch I'm
15:11talking about the Dutch East India
15:13Company not the English
15:17[Music]
15:21the Dutch East India Company was founded
15:24in 1602 the Dutch then were at the
15:29cutting edge of capitalism a stock
15:32exchange a central bank a stable
15:34currency that was an investors paradise
15:37and Dutch businessman didn't just put
15:40their money in East India Company shares
15:42they were also more than happy to lend
15:45to their investor friendly government
15:48thanks to their system of national debt
15:51the Dutch seemed able to conjure up
15:53money out of thin air now they could
15:56afford to send more ships up the Hooghly
15:58than anyone else backed by the Dutch
16:01navy their East India Company soon
16:04monopolized the immensely lucrative
16:06Asian spice trade English merchants had
16:13in fact founded their own East India
16:15Company just a couple of years before it
16:17was run from a rather smart boardroom
16:19like this yet in its early days it
16:22lagged far behind the more financially
16:24sophisticated Dutch operation despite
16:26the corporate splendour it was an
16:28inferior imitation like it's Dutch rival
16:31the English East India Company raised
16:33money from the investing public by
16:35issuing bonds and shares and was backed
16:37by a Royal Charter which granted it a
16:40monopoly over trade with the East Indies
16:42or did it because two companies couldn't
16:46both have a monopoly over Asian commerce
16:51year after year that to East India
16:53Company's sent ships south with the
16:55trade winds round the Cape of Good Hope
16:57to the Indian Ocean from the start
17:01English attempts to muscle in on the
17:03Dutch company's business led to conflict
17:06the English fought three wars against
17:09the Dutch in an attempt to control the
17:11trade routes to the east but the Dutch
17:14despite having a smaller economy could
17:17afford a bigger and better Navy
17:19thanks to their sophisticated financial
17:21system for the English the cost of these
17:25unsuccessful Wars was ruinous there had
17:29to be an alternative there was a merger
17:34not a merger between the two companies
17:37but a political merger in 1688 a
17:41powerful group of English aristocrats
17:43backed by the merchants of the City of
17:45London invited the Dutchman William of
17:48Orange to invade their country they
17:51called it but Glorious Revolution the
17:54Glorious Revolution is usually seen as a
17:57political event the final clinching of
17:59British constitutional liberties but it
18:02was also a giant anglo-dutch business
18:05merger Dutch businessman were already
18:07major shareholders in the East India
18:09Company now their man William of Orange
18:11was Britain's new chief executive the
18:14Englishman who arranged this merger felt
18:17they needed no lessons from a Dutchman
18:18in religion or politics they already had
18:21Protestantism not to mention Parliament
18:24but what they could learn from the Dutch
18:26was modern finance
18:29a Dutch style Stock Exchange was formed
18:32allowing the government to borrow at
18:33much lower interest rates large-scale
18:36projects like Wars could now be funded
18:39by a national debt equipped with these
18:42new institutions England's larger
18:44economy soon powered ahead
18:47the English became in effect the super
18:51Dutch
18:54I was in India the company's agents were
19:02also copying the Dutch acquiring trading
19:05bases Enterprise Zones where they could
19:07safely do business by their own rules
19:09the biggest was on the southeast coast
19:12of India as if to advertise its
19:15Englishness they called it fort st.
19:18George the town the English built inside
19:22the fort with its church its parade
19:24ground its villas and warehouses was
19:27like a replica of the Dutch settlement
19:28at chin surah but under the new angler
19:31Dutch arrangement chin surah belonged to
19:33the past the future was fort st. George
19:36the Englishman who sailed East to work
19:41at forts in George were gambling not
19:43just health but life itself on the
19:46chance of Asian riches the trouble was
19:49that the company paid peanuts the
19:54temptation to supplement its meager
19:56wages by moonlighting was overwhelming
19:59it meant that the company was soon faced
20:02with a new source of competition
20:04renegade employees
20:09typical of the young men on the make who
20:11entered the company's service in the
20:13late 17th century was Thomas Pitts the
20:16son of a Gentile II impoverished Dossett
20:19clergyman India was to be the pit
20:22family's root from poverty to power Pitt
20:27was a consummate trader with both eyes
20:29on the main chance and his hand never
20:32far from the till he had no desire to
20:35sit sweltering in the company's offices
20:38for next to nothing
20:40no sooner had he arrived in India than
20:42Pitt went into business on his own in
20:45doing so he became an interloper
20:48breaking the company's monopoly to the
20:51company's bosses Pitt was a desperate
20:54young fellow of a haughty huffing daring
20:56temper that would not stick at doing any
20:59mischief that lay in his power his
21:02litter elegantly begged portraits mask
21:05Pitts true character put politely he was
21:08an operator put bluntly he was a spiv
21:16whether they worked for the company are
21:18not men like Pitt were crucial to the
21:20growth of Anglo Indian trade alongside
21:23the company's official business an
21:25enormous private sector was springing up
21:27and what that meant was a company's
21:30monopoly on Anglo Asian trade granted to
21:32it by the crown was crumbling away was
21:35probably just as well because a monopoly
21:37company could never have exploited
21:38business opportunities in India the way
21:41the interlopers did indeed the company
21:43itself gradually began to realize that
21:45the interlopers might be more a help
21:47than a hindrance to its business
21:51[Music]
21:55at this stage the English were merely
21:58parasites on the periphery of an Indian
22:01giant
22:05it was from here the Red Fort in Delhi
22:08that the Mughal Emperors the Lords of
22:11the universe ruled India a vast realm
22:15that dwarfed most European nations the
22:19idea that the English might one day make
22:21the Mughal an offer he couldn't refuse
22:23would have struck a visitor to this
22:25magnificent Court as preposterous for
22:29the time being keeping in with the
22:32Mughal emperor was an essential part of
22:34the East India Company's business loss
22:36of favor meant loss of money so from an
22:39early stage the company had to learn to
22:41play politics and that meant coming and
22:44paying diplomatic visits here in the
22:46Diwan 'i am in the heart of the red fort
22:49at delhi the Mughal Emperor sat right
22:51there on the Peacock Throne complicated
22:54treaties had to be negotiated with him
22:56bribes had to be paid surreptitiously to
22:59his officials all this called for men
23:02who were as adept at wheeling and
23:03dealing as they were at buying and
23:06selling in 1698 negotiations with the
23:11new girl were entrusted by the company
23:13to none other than the interloper
23:16Thomas Pitts just as the pirate henry
23:20morgan had been called in to defend
23:21british jamaica against spain so Pitt
23:25was to be the company's persuader in
23:27India he was appointed governor of Fort
23:30st. George
23:33when the fort itself was besieged by the
23:36Mughals local lieutenant the company's
23:39directors back in London instructed Pitt
23:41to take the gloves off these native
23:45governors have the knack of tramping
23:47upon us and extorting what they please
23:49of our estate from us
23:51they'll never forbear doing so till
23:54we've made them sensible of our power
23:58Pitts needed to get some protection
24:00he began garrisoning Fortson George in
24:03earnest raising company regiments from
24:06among India's warrior castes with
24:08British officers and the latest European
24:10weapons
24:15having started out in trade the East
24:17India Company now had its own
24:19settlements its own diplomats even its
24:22own army in fact it was becoming more
24:24and more like a sovereign state rather
24:26smugly it now called itself the
24:28Honorable East India Company but these
24:31political pretensions were about to run
24:33up against a new and formidable foe
24:36[Music]
24:39for centuries the plains of South India
24:42were dominated by this fort but by the
24:49middle of the 18th century it wasn't
24:51held by Indians normal by the Dutch nor
24:55even by the English it was in the hands
24:58of England's oldest and most tenacious
25:01rivals the French
25:05[Music]
25:10the struggle between the English and the
25:12Dutch had been primarily commercial it
25:15was strictly business a competition for
25:17market share the conflict with the
25:19French was political it would decide who
25:22would govern the world it raged in every
25:25corner of the globe even here in the
25:26ancient Indian fortress of gingy and its
25:29outcome was very far from a foregone
25:31conclusion
25:39[Music]
25:49today the French system of education is
25:52one of the most centralized in the world
25:54everyone's taught the same syllabus the
25:57same maths the same literature the same
25:59philosophy it's an authentic Lee
26:05Imperial project and that's as true here
26:08as anywhere else in the french-speaking
26:09world the amazing thing is that this
26:13isn't Paris or even puffing off its
26:16Pondicherry on the southeast coast of
26:18India if things had gone differently in
26:20the 1750s schools all over India would
26:23be like this and French not English
26:25would be the modern world language
26:29Pondicherry one of the first French
26:31bases in India was just down the coast
26:33from Fort st. George
26:35but palaces like this looked down on
26:37similar courtyards in Louisiana Canada
26:40and the Caribbean think of it as a race
26:44for Empire at first Spain had made the
26:47running but the Spaniards had fretted
26:48away the loot from their conquests then
26:51the Dutch pulled ahead with their
26:52financial wizardry but the anglo-dutch
26:54merger shared that advantage with bigger
26:56britain by 1700 there was only one
27:00serious rival left and with an economy
27:03twice the size of Britain's France was
27:05now the favorite to win the race in the
27:09British press there was mounting alarm
27:11every Britain ought to be acquainted
27:14with the ambitious views of France our
27:16trade our liberties our country may all
27:19the rest of Europe are in a continual
27:22danger of falling prey to the common
27:24enemy the universal cormorant that would
27:27if possible swallow up the whole globe
27:30itself
27:32commercially the French East India
27:34Company never pose much of a threat to
27:36the English despite massive government
27:38subsidies it still managed to lose more
27:40than a third of its capital in just 20
27:42years
27:43maybe that was because unlike its
27:45English counterpart it was under such
27:47firm government control it was run by
27:49aristocrats royal cronies who didn't
27:52give a hoot about trade what these men
27:58did care about was power politics they
28:02dreamt of kicking out the British and
28:04turning India French anglo-french
28:07rivalry here and elsewhere led
28:10inevitably to war the decisive conflict
28:14broke out in 1755 it lasted for seven
28:17long years the Seven Years War is one of
28:22those arcane conflicts beloved of a
28:24certain kind of dusty schoolmaster you
28:27can almost imagine having to swat up the
28:29causes and consequences for some ghastly
28:31exam yet this 18th century Armageddon
28:34was every bit as much a world war as the
28:37great global conflicts of the 20th
28:38century the fighting raged from Calcutta
28:41to Canada from Manila to Madras and what
28:45was at stake was nothing less than the
28:46future of Empire itself would the world
28:49be British or would it like under Gerry
28:52be French
28:54[Music]
29:00the answer lay in precints shipyards the
29:04Prime Minister William Pitt the grandson
29:07of the East Indian interloper Thomas
29:09Pitts ordered an enormous and expensive
29:12naval buildup the Royal dock yards
29:15became the largest industrial enterprise
29:17in the world it was the first indication
29:20of the British ability to harness
29:22industry to the cause of empire
29:25the Royal Navy doubled in size to a
29:28total of more than 300 ships who want a
29:31simple answer to the question why
29:33Britain that was the economy stupid
29:37the huge naval buildup was only possible
29:40because the British had something the
29:41French didn't have loads of money or
29:44rather the ability to borrow it the
29:47financial institutions copied from the
29:48Dutch at the time of King William now
29:50came into their own
29:51allowing Pitts government to spread the
29:53cost of war by selling low in response
29:56to the public by comparison the French
29:58were reduced to begging or stealing so
30:01Finance was the key behind every naval
30:04victory stood the national debt the
30:11sheer number of British ships made a
30:13permanent blockade of France possible by
30:161759 the Royal Navy was in a position to
30:19intercept and destroy the French
30:21battlefield
30:22[Applause]
30:27but in truth the French were sunk
30:30financially before a single cannon was
30:33fired at sea because France was a bad
30:35credit risk like his Spanish Ally
30:39the French King was an absolute monarch
30:41with a reputation for not repaying his
30:43debts
30:44so his government could only borrow at
30:46ruinous interest rates this was the
30:50turning point for the French dream of
30:52global Empire out in the French colonies
30:55the effect of the naval blockade was
30:57devastating
30:58with their supply lines cut the French
31:00simply couldn't hold out the capture of
31:04Quebec handed Canada to the British the
31:06French sugar islands in the Caribbean
31:08fell - and in 1762 their Spanish allies
31:12were bundled out of Cuba and the
31:14Philippines that same year the French
31:18surrendered the fort here at gingy by
31:22then all their bases in India had been
31:25captured the struggle for world mastery
31:29between Britain and France wasn't yet
31:31over it would drag on with only a few
31:33intermissions until 1815 but the Seven
31:36Years War decided one thing for sure
31:38India would be British not French and
31:41that gave Britain what for 200 years
31:44would be the jewel in its imperial crown
31:46a huge market for British trade and an
31:49apparently inexhaustible reservoir of
31:51military manpower indeed India was more
31:54than a mere jewel it was the whole
31:56diamond mine in the aftermath of the
32:00British victory the Mughal emperor was
32:02forced to cede vast territories
32:04including the whole of Bengal to the
32:06East India Company general robert clive
32:11it wasn't quite a license to print money
32:14but it was the next best thing the deal
32:17gave the company the right to tax over
32:1920 million people the company was now in
32:23the biggest and apparently most
32:25respectable business of all the business
32:28of government
32:31once pirates then traders the British
32:34had won the European race for Empire
32:36with a combination of naval and
32:38financial muscle they now found
32:40themselves the rulers of tens of
32:41millions of people overseas the majority
32:44of them here in India what had started
32:46out as a business proposition had
32:48evolved through warfare into a matter of
32:50government the question they now had to
32:53ask themselves was how should that
32:55government be carried out after all
33:02India was a highly sophisticated
33:04civilization the Spanish approach would
33:08simply have been to ransack it but
33:11British rule in Bengal was to be more
33:13than a smash-and-grab affair a new
33:17hybrid society began to develop East
33:20India Company scholars translated Indian
33:22laws and literature company employees
33:25married Indian women and adopted Indian
33:28customs it was an extraordinary moment
33:31of cultural fusion
33:34in 1773 a governor-general was appointed
33:38who was happy to encourage this mingling
33:41Warren Hastings had joined the East
33:44India Company at the age of 17 and
33:46worked his way to the top he was fluent
33:49in Persian and or do and the more he
33:52studied Indian culture the more
33:54respectful he became
33:55[Music]
33:57every instance which brings their real
34:00character home to observation will
34:02impress us with a more generous sense of
34:04feeling for their natural rights and
34:06teach us to estimate them by the measure
34:08of our own
34:11this was more than just a cultural
34:13merger in some cases it was a genetic
34:17cross fertilization literally producing
34:19a new breed of men genuine anglo-indians
34:23the archetype was the grandson of the
34:26mayor of Monroe's but the son of a red
34:29put princess on one of the great
34:31warlords of the early Empire Colonel
34:33James Skinner I think James Skinner is
34:38my favorite figure in the early history
34:40of Britain in India he personified that
34:43Anglo Indian encounter he himself was of
34:46mixed parentage
34:47he loved the women he wore the clothes
34:50he spoke the languages and the regiment
34:52he founded Skinner's horse was a
34:53quintessentially oriental outfit there
34:56was only one part of Indian culture
34:57Skinner didn't buy into and that was
34:59religion lying wounded in the
35:01battlefield he vowed to found a church
35:03and here is his today in the heart of
35:05Delhi
35:08men like skinner believed that a
35:11permanent bonding of European and Indian
35:13culture was a real possibility but this
35:16was to be not so much a merger as a
35:19takeover
35:23the company's executive never forgot
35:26that they were in India first and
35:28foremost to make money that was the
35:31bottom line of this private sector
35:33Empire a new word was about to enter the
35:38English language a corruption of the
35:41Indian princely title of Nawab the nabob
35:47it meant an Englishman who'd made a
35:50packet in India
35:52Thomas Pitts was one of the first of
35:54these nabobs when he returned from India
35:57he built himself this elegant stately
35:59home at swallow field in Berkshire as
36:07governor of forts of George Pitt had
36:10found the perfect way to bring back the
36:12loot to pay for his new home he called
36:15it my grand affair my great concern my
36:21all the finest jewel in the world this
36:26is a replica of his grand affair the
36:29Pitt diamond at the time it was the
36:32largest the world had ever seen Pitt
36:35never told the full story of how he came
36:37by it but it literally made his name
36:39henceforth he would be known as diamond
36:43Pitt you might say he was the original
36:45diamond geezer wealth like this enabled
36:49him to found a dynasty which produced
36:51not one but two British Prime Minister's
36:57yet the name box could only make these
36:59enormous profits because the East India
37:01Company was maintaining a hundred
37:03thousand men under arms an army that was
37:06in a state of constant and costly
37:08warfare what had started out as an
37:13informal Defence Force to protect the
37:16East India Company's trade had evolved
37:18into its raison d'être fighting new
37:20battles to conquer new territory to pay
37:23for the previous battles what's more the
37:25nabobs prosperity also depended on the
37:28Royal Navy's ability to fend off the
37:30French when they returned to the fray in
37:32the 1770s and that cost even more money
37:35it was easy enough to see who was
37:37getting rich from the Empire you only
37:39had to look at a place like this the
37:41question was who exactly was going to
37:43pay for it
37:58Empire didn't spell riches for everyone
38:01even as the neighbors were splashing out
38:04in their stately homes most people in
38:06the British Isles were sunk in poverty
38:08with incomes little better than those in
38:11present-day Africa a century of fighting
38:14France on land and sea increased the
38:17national debt by a factor of 20 but the
38:20interest on this mountain of debt was
38:22paid by hiking up the excise tax which
38:25was charged just as it is today on
38:28purchases of alcohol and tobacco it took
38:32a much bigger chunk out of poor people's
38:34incomes than out of the vast wealth of
38:37the nabobs and it hit families in
38:39England and in Scotland to the Union of
38:44England and Scotland gave Scots the
38:45chance to share in the profits of
38:47England's expanding Empire but it also
38:50meant they had to contribute towards the
38:53spiraling costs of what was now a
38:55British Empire
39:03even in a place as remote as this in
39:05darkest Ayrshire the undertow of empire
39:08could be felt this wee cottage is
39:10something of our national shrine to our
39:12Scots it's the birthplace of Robert
39:14Burns our greatest poet now unlike many
39:17another Scot in the late 18th century
39:19Burns isn't famous for martial deeds of
39:22derring-do beneath palm and pine but his
39:25life story sheds intriguing light on
39:27both the nature and the costs of the
39:30British Empire Barnes's poetry made him
39:36famous but it paid few bills so bad did
39:40things get that when he was 27 Burns
39:42thought seriously of emigrating to
39:45Jamaica it turned out however that he
39:48could just as well serve the British
39:50Empire by staying put
39:51here in Ayrshire this scrap of paper
39:56gives a clue as to how Burns finally
39:59made ends meet our national poet was a
40:02bit of a sinner that much we knew but
40:04what often gets forgotten is that he was
40:06also a tax collector working for the
40:09excise this is one of his tax Ledger's
40:12it was something that embarrassed him a
40:14great deal more than his celebrated
40:16boozing and wenching I will make no
40:20excuses but I've sat down to write you
40:22on this vile paper stained with the
40:25sanguinary scores of they cussed horse
40:28leeches or the excise for the glorious
40:31cause of Lucca I will do anything as an
40:36excise man Burns became a link in the
40:38great chain of Imperial Finance much as
40:42he deplored the unfairness of a system
40:44which supported the stately stability of
40:47self-sufficient Squires or the luxuriant
40:50insolence of upstart nabobs
40:53the enterprise of empire had become so
40:56all-embracing
40:57that it was able to co-opt even its
40:59fiercest critics Burns was forced to
41:02keep his opinions to himself on pain of
41:05losing his job like the many other Scots
41:08of the period who worked for Hastings
41:10Easy East India Company and they
41:12dominated the payroll in Calcutta Burns
41:14had been bought off yet the poor tax
41:17payers of Scotland were very far from
41:19being the worst off subjects of the
41:21British Empire the same drain of capital
41:26from India to Britain that made the
41:27nabobs rich also made the Indians poor
41:32British taxpayers have to reckon with
41:34the excise a government department but
41:38more and more Indians now paid their
41:40taxes to the East India Company and it
41:43was driven by the profit motive
41:46it's around this time a Muslim
41:49historians by the name of Ghulam Hussain
41:51Khan began writing a melancholy history
41:53of his times
41:54a former Mughal official a general
41:57indeed ago between for the British as
41:59they took over Bengal Ghulam has seen
42:02lamented the drain of wealth from India
42:04represented by the neighbors diamonds
42:07every one of the English holds it to be
42:10a divine obligation I mean that of
42:12scraping together as much money in this
42:14country as they can and carrying it in
42:16immense sums to the kingdom of England
42:18these two customs blended together
42:21should be ever undermining and ruining
42:23this country
42:25the ratcheting up of taxes coincided
42:28with a huge famine it killed as many as
42:31a third of the population some five
42:34million people as the bengali starved
42:38tax revenue dwindled for the company the
42:41only remedy seemed to be to fight more
42:43Wars and collect more plunder but these
42:47new wars proved much harder to win the
42:50company's military overheads were
42:51soaring its profits were turning into
42:54whopping losses back in London the
42:57shareholders were getting rattled and
42:59you can see why when you look at this
43:01chart of the East India Company's share
43:03price there's a bull market under client
43:06following the Seven Years War but under
43:08Hastings the stock tanks because of
43:10famine in Bengal and war things got so
43:13bad that the company's directors not
43:16only had to cut the annual dividend they
43:18had to go captain Han to the government
43:20for a bailout the company got its rescue
43:25package but the shareholders who were
43:27well represented in the corridors of
43:29power demanded a full guy
43:31as the arch nabob the East Indian fat
43:34camp
43:35the governor-general Warren Hastings was
43:37hauled before Parliament and to his
43:40horror charged with gross injustice
43:43cruelty and treachery against the faith
43:45of nations with various instances of
43:49extortion and other deeds of
43:51maladministration with a wanton and
43:54unjust and pernicious exercise of his
43:57powers this was more than just a
44:00backlash against chronic corporate
44:03sleaze it was a return to the Imperial
44:05drawing board up until now the Empire in
44:10India had been run as a purely
44:12commercial operation yet under Hastings
44:15profits had turned to losses was it time
44:18for the government in London to take
44:20over in the end
44:23after seven years of legal wrangling
44:25Hastings was acquitted those fat cats
44:28usually are but the system he
44:31represented was not the days of nabob
44:34rule were over like many another rogue
44:39corporation the East India Company would
44:42henceforth have to answer to a
44:44government regulator
44:45[Music]
44:48the supreme irony was that the Prime
44:51Minister who cracked down on the now not
44:53so honourable company was William Pitt
44:56the great-grandson of that notorious
44:58nabob diamond pit from now on Governor
45:03General's in India wouldn't be company
45:05traders but aristocratic Grandy's
45:08appointed directly by the crown when the
45:12first of the new governors arrived in
45:13India he took immediate steps to clean
45:16up the Companies Act
45:18[Music]
45:21this palace was the new Governor
45:23General's residence in the heart of what
45:26had become the capital of British India
45:28Calcutta
45:30it's a telling symbol of what the
45:32British in India now aspired to sleazy
45:35money-grubbing Orientalism was at
45:37virtuous high-minded classicism was in
45:43[Music]
45:45by the late 18th century the newly
45:48reformed East India Company was just one
45:51of a web of British corporations that
45:54together dominated the global economy
45:56from Hudson's Bay to botany bay from
46:00Bengal to Barbados
46:04but now these companies were becoming in
46:07effect agencies of the British
46:09government the globalization of British
46:13profits had become the globalization of
46:15British political power if ever an
46:21empire was built on economics then this
46:24surely was it the British had ended up
46:29with the biggest empire the world had
46:31ever seen
46:32they had robbed the Spaniards copied the
46:35Dutch beaten the French and plundered
46:38the Indians now they ruled supreme no
46:42one had consciously set out to do it
46:44indeed the Victorians later joked that
46:46the Empire had been acquired in a fit of
46:49absence of mind but the last thing the
46:52British suffered from was
46:53absent-mindedness they knew exactly what
46:57they were doing and they meant to keep
47:00on doing it
47:07[Music]
47:10when James Skinner died he was buried in
47:13the church he had founded in Delhi
47:16and his descendants continued to be
47:18buried alongside him right down to the
47:20end of British rule nearly a hundred and
47:23fifty years later
47:26this is one of those countless corners
47:29of a foreign field that will be forever
47:30British it's a striking reminder of our
47:34people who began as Buccaneers became
47:37traders then soldiers and then rulers
47:42from piracy to power in just three
47:45generations
47:46[Music]
48:05[Music]
48:13you