Early English adventurers in the East (1917)/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX
The Arch Interloper—Thomas Pitt
Interlopers in the Bay of Bengal—Thomas Pitt a leading member of the fraternity—Governor Hedge's description of an interloping party ashore— Pitt's trading ventures—He defies the Company—He returns to England and is arrested and fined—Reappears in India—The Company makes terms with him and appoints him President of Fort St. George (Madras)—His administration—The Pitt diamond and its history—Last years in England—Pitt's character
WINTER'S amazing usurpation described in the preceding chapter had its counterpart in the daring achievements of some of the adventurers of this period who went to India as interlopers—that "horrid trade" which to the sleek old gentlemen who directed the affairs of the East India Company seemed to touch the lowest depth of infamy. There were many such in the Bay of Bengal at that juncture. They were men who, enticed to the East by the profitable character of the trade, went out with their own ships in defiance of the charter of the Company which conferred upon it an absolute monopoly of the Indian trade. Bold and dashing adventurers all, they played their part on the great stage of Indian life with an audacity which was proof alike against the shafts of the privileged merchants in London and the impediments placed in their way by native potentates.
Hedges, a servant of the Company, who was sent to Bengal as Agent and Governor, and who has left behind an entertaining Diary for the benefit of modern readers, gives a vivid picture of one of these interloping parties he met with in the course of one of his journeys. The leader in making a ceremonial visit to the native court went richly habited in a dress of scarlet and lace. "The Englishmen in blew capps and coats edged with red all round with Blunderbusses went before his pallankeen; 80 peons before them, and 4 musicians playing on the Weights with 2 flags before him." "A gawdy shew and great noise add much to a public person's credit in this country," sapiently remarks the diarist by way of commentary.
A conspicuous member of the fraternity was Thomas Pitt, the progenitor of two of the greatest British statesmen, and himself a man who in later life won considerable distinction. Pitt was a born free lance. He had gauged to a nicety the foibles of the Oriental and he played upon them with a master hand during a career of almost unbroken prosperity extending from the year 1674 into the new century. The Directors, when they got to hear of him, as they soon did, sent out orders that he should be seized and imprisoned pending the arrival of a ship in which he could be dispatched to England. But Pitt was not the man to put his neck in a noose. He gave a wide berth to the Company's stations and outside their limits always had at his command a sufficient force for his personal defence. After some years successful trading, mostly with Persia, he seems to have landed at Madras, whether of set design or otherwise is not clear. He was haled before the Council there and is said on the occasion to have promised compliance with the Company's orders. But he was soon at his old work again, building up by successful trade a handsome fortune.
In 1682 he went to England to enjoy a hard-earned holiday. Proceedings were commenced against him in the Courts by the Company, but the circumstance did not deter Pitt from returning to India to recommence his old interloping career. The Court forwarded peremptory instructions that his person should be seized at all costs, "he being a desperate fellow, and one that we fear will not stick at any mischief," observed the instructions.
In his accustomed airy manner, Pitt snapped his fingers at the threats of the Company. Landing at Balasor he gave out that he was the Agent of a newly-formed Company that was to supersede the old organization. In keeping with his assumed character he adopted considerable state. Proceeding up the Hooghly and landing at Chinsurah he obtained from the native Governor privileges of trading, with the right to build a factory for his suppostitious Company. Hedges served him with a subpoena out of Chancery, and called upon him to answer it. Pitt blandly told the Agent that he would answer it in England in his good time. At length, as a result of strenuous efforts, Hedges obtained from the Nabob of Dacca an order for the arrest of Pitt and a fellow offender. Nothing followed, however, because the arch interloper took care to keep on good terms with the native authorities by paying readily handsome dues for all goods landed.
When the situation began to get a little too warm to be pleasant, Pitt flitted to England of his own accord. He was arrested on arrival at the suit of the Company and fined £1,000 for interloping, but the Court reduced the penalty subsequently to £400.
Apparently by this time Pitt had tired of his life of Indian adventure. He settled down in Dorset as a landed gentleman, and entered Parliament as member for New Sanmi, or Salisbury. But the call of the East was irresistible, and after playing propriety at Westminster and elsewhere for nearly ten years, he embarked again for India, and in October, 1693, re-appeared at his old haunts at Balasor. The Directors, after a vain attempt to suppress him, came to the sensible conclusion to make terms with him. This they did with the result that after discharging various missions for the Company in Europe he blossomed forth in full glory in 1697 as President of Fort St. George. He made an excellent administrator, displaying those statesmanlike qualities which are to be looked for in the head of so illustrious a line as that of the elder and the younger William Pitt. In 1702, when Daud Khan, the Nabob of the Carnatic, attacked Madras, he defended the station with such courage and resolution and conducted the negotiations with the native assailant with so much perspicuity, that the Nabob eventually retired, agreeing in consideration of a small subsidy to restore all that he had taken from the Company or its servants. Pitt continued in office until 1709 when his Indian career was closed by a difference with his employers which led to his recall. By that time Madras had become an important station with a far-reaching trade and possessing a political influence which radiated to a greater part of Southern India.
Thomas Pitt's life in Madras, as illustrated in his letters, seems to have been one of considerable usefulness and activity. He kept a sharp eye on the general affairs of India and gave shrewd advice which though not always followed was often extremely helpful. From the first he advocated the adoption of a vigorous policy in dealing with the native powers. "Force and a strong fortification were better than an ambassador," he urged in one of his dispatches. On another occasion he wrote home telling the Court that the Mogul officials would never let the Company's trade run on quietly until they were well beaten.
"Besides," he added, "your having suffered your servants to be treated after that most ignominous manner at Surat for many years past has encouraged them to attempt the like in all your settlements, and I hear in Bengal that they chawbuck (whip) Englishmen in their public durbars, which formerly they never presumed to do, and the Jun-kaneers all over the country are very insolent: only those within our reach I keep in pretty good order by now and then giving them a pretty good banging." Pitt knew the type of Indian official with whom the Company chiefly had to deal. If his advice had been accepted instead of being ignored the path to ultimate supremacy would have been much smoother for the British.
Though an essentially hard man, Thomas Pitt had his little weaknesses. One of his hobbies was gardening, a pursuit which he seems to have followed with all the ardour of an enthusiast. "I hear," he wrote to a friend at Calcutta in 1702, "that you are the top gardener in Bengali and I am as well as I can imitating of you here . . . and should be extremely obliged to you if you would yearly furnish me with what seeds your parts afford: Beans, Pease, etc.: they must be new and the best way to send 'em is in bottles well stopped, for no manner of seed thrives here if it be the growth of the place, for it dwindles to nothing," To a friend in London a little later he wrote: "My leisure time I generally spend in gardening and planting and making such improvements which I hope will tend to the Company's advantage, and the good of the whole place, for that in a little time I hope the place will be able to subsist of itself without much dependence upon the country, for that in the late long siege (by Daud Khau) we were not a little pinched for provisions." The spectacle of the arch interloper cultivating his cabbage patch in the vicinity of Fort St. George must have had its diverting side for those who were closely associated with him in his earlier roving career.
Pitt, amongst his less estimable qualities, had a capacity for accumulating wealth which his enemies were not slow to denounce as avarice. His name in this connexion will always be associated with the acquisition of the famous Pitt Diamond which is one of the historic gems of the world. A scandalous story current at the time relative to the circumstances in which the stone came into Pitt's possession suggested the well-known lines of Pope—
"Asleep and naked as an Indian lay.
An honest factor stole a gem away;
He pledged it to the Knight: the Knight had wit,
So kept the diamond and the rogue was bit."
It was clearly proved, however, that the conditions under which the purchase was made reflected no discredit on Pitt. The stone was discovered at the diamond mines on the Kistna by a slave, who secreted it in a wound in his leg. It was stolen from him by an English captain, who disposed of it to a Madras dealer named Jamchand. Pitt, who was an extensive buyer of precious stones, was offered the diamond by Jamchand in the ordinary course of business. After protracted bargaining the gem changed hands for £20,000. It was then sent home and placed in the hands of skilled diamond cutters, who by their processes reduced the weight from 410 carats to 136¾ carats. From the workshop emerged a superb gem which was immediately recognized as one of the finest stones in the world. Pitt, with characteristic acumen, set himself to the task of disposing of his precious possession to the fullest advantage. It was not the kind of article to secure a ready market, and many anxious days and restless nights were spent by the owner ere he found for it a purchaser in the person of an Agent of the Regent of France. The price paid was £135,000, and enormous as the amount is, it fell far below the actual value of the stone which in 1791 was calculated at £480,000. The gem, which after the purchase was placed in the Crown of France, is still preserved amongst the few Royal jewels left by the vicissitudes of time in the national treasure-house in Paris.
In his later years Pitt was a prominent figure in Parliament. He died on April 28, 1726, and was buried at Blandford St. Mary's. Of all the earlier adventurers who were conspicuous in the East he was in many respects the most able. There were in him the qualities which are peculiarly valuable in a field such as India where in administration so much depends upon a prompt and yet calm judgment, resourcefulness and a steadiness of purpose in those who are in positions of power. If he had lived a century later he would probably have ranked amongst the great British rulers of India. Even without the opportunities offered to his successors, he left a name which will ever be associated with the firm building up of British power in Southern India and the organization of the earliest of the English settlements.