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James Augustus Grant and the Gorakhpur Opium, 1789–1796

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

H. R. C. Wright
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Extract

In 1789 James Augustus Grant wrote that he had resided for several years in Benares as a free merchant under the protection of the East India Company. He evidently specialized on trade with the Gorakhpur district of Oudh. “I have for some time past and by the force of unremitting exertion and a great expense been enabled to establish factories in Gorruckpoor, etc., in the [Nawab's] Dominions for the manufacture of cloths, sugar, opium, etc., and I effected these establishments without any interest or influence except that which became the result of my own industry.” He had incurred considerable initial losses and expenses, chiefly in propitiating various Indian functionaries and landholders and especially the Nawab's land-revenue officers (amils). The amils seem mostly to have farmed the privilege of collecting the land-revenue on short leases and to have been constantly changing, a fact which made all business concerns highly precarious.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 92 , Issue 1-2 , April 1960 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1960

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References

page 1 note 1 Bengal Revenue Consultation, 9th September, 1789.

page 1 note 2 Select Committee of House of Commons on Justice in Bengal, Ninth Report (1783), App. 59A.

page 1 note 3 Bengal Board of Revenue Proceedings, 18th June, 1788.

page 2 note 1 Colebrooke, J. E., Supplement to the Digest of the Regulations…of Bengal (Calcutta, 1807), 399Google Scholar.

page 2 note 2 Bengal Rev. Cons., 1st August, 1777.

page 2 note 3 Shakespear, A., Selections from the Duncan Records (Benares, 1873), ii, 14Google Scholar.

page 2 note 4 A maund is equal to about 80 lb.

page 2 note 5 Board of Rev. Proc, 9th January, 1789. A chest contained two maunds.

page 3 note 1 Rev. Cons., 9th September, 1789.

page 3 note 2 About 2 lb.

page 4 note 1 Rev. Cons. (Salt and Opium), 18th April, 1796, No. 2.

page 4 note 2 Ibid., 29th February, 1796, No. 14.

page 5 note 1 Rev. Cons. (S. and O.), 1st June, 1795, 18th April, 1796, and 6th June, 1796. A Sicca Rupee was worth about 2s. 4d. in British money.

page 6 note 1 Rev. Cons., 12th May, 1790; Rev. Cons. (S. and O.), 1st July, 1791, and 11th June, 1793.

page 7 note 1 Board of Rev. Proc, 5th September, 1791, Rev. Cons., 30th June, 1790, No. 24.

page 7 note 2 Board of Rev. Proc, 3rd October and 19th December, 1791; Rev. Cons. (S. and O.), 5th March, 1798.

page 8 note 1 Rev. Cons., 9th September and 14th September, 1789.

page 8 note 2 Rev. Cons. (S. and 0.), 1st June, 1795.

page 9 note 1 Ibid.

page 10 note 1 Rev. Cons. (S. and O.), 26th October, 1795.

page 11 note 1 Rev. Cons. (S. and O.), 29th February, 1796, No. 14.

page 12 note 1 Rev. Cons. (S. and O.), 29th February, 1796, No. 15.

page 13 note 1 Rev. Cons. (S. and O.), 18th April, 25th April, and 23rd May, 1796.

page 14 note 1 The opportunity, however, was so obvious that it had been noticed even in London: Ninth Rep. (1783), p. 36Google Scholar.

page 14 note 2 It is difficult to know quite what the Company's servants meant by the “public”. Presumably the concept included the interests of the Company, its Indian subjects, and the British nation.

page 14 note 3 Rev. Cons. (S. and O.), 23rd May, 1796.

page 15 note 1 Rev. Cons. (S. and O.), 17th April and 27th April, 1798; Bengal Board of Trade Cons., 20th April, 1798.

page 16 note 1 Asiatic Annual Register, 1802, Chronicle, p. 33Google Scholar.