8 - Mercantile Diplomacy: Corporations, States and International Negotiation

Summary

The English East India Company (EIC) was an organization like no other in England, with privileges regarding the right to make treaties and engage in military activities that were essential for the Company's expansion in Asia. In many respects, this was delegation of sovereignty from the English crown, and the EIC arranged treaties, engaged in military conflict and imposed laws. In Asia, the experience of the Company diplomatically was often through negotiations with states and interested parties in the region with whom they sought to obtain preferential treaties and rights to trade. While much of the historiography has examined the importance of conflict and ‘unequal treaties’ between the Company and Asian states, the diplomacy undertaken by the EIC was far more sophisticated. As Janice Thomson suggests, merchant companies ‘were based on a state-granted monopoly to trade between the home country and regions outside of Europe. Though they were financed largely with ‘private’ capital, they were not private organizations in the modern sense. They possessed military, judicial, and diplomatic power.’ In spite of the substantial powers taken by the EIC, the practice of trade in the East Indies was curtailed to reflect current political necessities for the English crown. While the EIC's charter did state that trade could be conducted anywhere in ‘Asia & Africa & America in any of them beyond the Cape of Bona Esperansa to the Straights of Magellan’, there were limitations. Specifically, it was clear that ‘the same trade must not be undertaken [to any place] already in the lawful & actual possession of any such Christian Princes or States, as at this point or at any time hereafter shall be in League of Amity with us our Heirs or successors.’ This meant that, in theory, the EIC was restricted from opposing other European powers active in Asia, and the crown sought to ensure that its own diplomatic activities in Europe would not be undercut through the EIC's activities in Asia.

In spite of attempts by the crown to restrain the Company, the latter's diplomatic and military efforts were not limited to engagement with Asian states. Competition with other Europeans was a common state of affairs for the EIC.