Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power by Niall Ferguson
Authors: Niall Ferguson
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drove his horses in the Park; he dined at the fashionable taverns ... he frequented the theatres, as the mode was in those days, or made his appearance at the opera, laboriously attired in tights and a cocked hat ... He was very witty regarding the number of Scotchmen whom ... the Governor-General, patronized ... How delighted Miss Rebecca was at ... the stories of the Scotch aides-de-camp.
A more timorous and unmartial figure than Jos Sedley it would be hard to imagine. Yet in truth the profits of the nabobs were increasingly underwritten by an enormous military establishment in India. By the time of Warren Hastings, the East India Company had more than 100,000 men under arms, and was in a state of near perpetual warfare. In 1767 the first shots were fired in what would prove a protracted struggle with the state of Mysore. The following year, the Northern Sarkars – the states of the east coast – were won from the Nizam of Hyderabad. And seven years after that, Benares and Ghazipur were seized from the Nawab of Oudh. What had started as an informal security force to protect the company’s trade had now become the company’s raison d’être : fighting new battles, conquering new territory, to pay for the previous battles. The British presence in India also depended on the Navy’s ability to defeat the French when they returned to the fray, as they did in the 1770s. And that cost even more money.
It was easy to see who got rich from the Empire. The question was, who exactly was going to pay for it?
The Taxman
Robert Burns was just the sort of man who might have been tempted to seek his fortune in the Empire. Indeed, when his love life went awry in 1786 he thought seriously of taking himself off to Jamaica. In the end he missed his intended ship and elected, on reflection, to stay in Scotland. But his poems, songs and letters can still give us an invaluable insight into the political economy of the eighteenth-century Empire.
Burns was born in 1759, at the height of the Seven Years War, the son of a poor Alloway gardener. His early literary success, though gratifying, paid no bills. He tried his hand at farming, but that was little better. There was, however, a third possibility open to him. In 1788 he applied to one of the Commissioners of Excise to become, in effect, a taxman. It was something that embarrassed him a great deal more than his celebrated drinking and wenching. As he confided in a friend: ‘I will make no excuses ... that I have sat down to write you on this vile paper, stained with the sanguinary scores of “thae curst horse leeches o’ th’ Excise” ... For the glorious cause of LUCRE I will do any thing, be any thing’. But ‘five and thirty pounds a year was no bad dernier resort for a poor Poet’. ‘There is’, he admitted, ‘a certain stigma affixed to the character of an Excise-Officer, but I do not intend to borrow honour from any profession; and though the Salary be comparatively small, it is luxury to any thing that the first twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect.’ ‘People may talk as they please of the ignominy of the Excise, but what will support my family and keep me independant [ sic ] of the world is to me a very important matter’.
In swallowing his pride for the sake of a taxman’s salary, Burns became a link in the great chain of imperial finance. Britain’s wars against France had been funded by borrowing and yet more borrowing, and the magic mountain atop which British power stood, the National Debt, had grown in proportion with the new territories acquired. When Burns started work for the Excise it stood at £244 million. A crucial function of the Excise was therefore to raise the money necessary to pay the interest on this debt.
Who paid the Excise? The main dutiable articles were spirits, wines, silks and tobacco, as well as beer, candles, soap, starch, leather, windows, houses, horses and carriages. Notionally the tax was
drove his horses in the Park; he dined at the fashionable taverns ... he frequented the theatres, as the mode was in those days, or made his appearance at the opera, laboriously attired in tights and a cocked hat ... He was very witty regarding the number of Scotchmen whom ... the Governor-General, patronized ... How delighted Miss Rebecca was at ... the stories of the Scotch aides-de-camp.
A more timorous and unmartial figure than Jos Sedley it would be hard to imagine. Yet in truth the profits of the nabobs were increasingly underwritten by an enormous military establishment in India. By the time of Warren Hastings, the East India Company had more than 100,000 men under arms, and was in a state of near perpetual warfare. In 1767 the first shots were fired in what would prove a protracted struggle with the state of Mysore. The following year, the Northern Sarkars – the states of the east coast – were won from the Nizam of Hyderabad. And seven years after that, Benares and Ghazipur were seized from the Nawab of Oudh. What had started as an informal security force to protect the company’s trade had now become the company’s raison d’être : fighting new battles, conquering new territory, to pay for the previous battles. The British presence in India also depended on the Navy’s ability to defeat the French when they returned to the fray, as they did in the 1770s. And that cost even more money.
It was easy to see who got rich from the Empire. The question was, who exactly was going to pay for it?
The Taxman
Robert Burns was just the sort of man who might have been tempted to seek his fortune in the Empire. Indeed, when his love life went awry in 1786 he thought seriously of taking himself off to Jamaica. In the end he missed his intended ship and elected, on reflection, to stay in Scotland. But his poems, songs and letters can still give us an invaluable insight into the political economy of the eighteenth-century Empire.
Burns was born in 1759, at the height of the Seven Years War, the son of a poor Alloway gardener. His early literary success, though gratifying, paid no bills. He tried his hand at farming, but that was little better. There was, however, a third possibility open to him. In 1788 he applied to one of the Commissioners of Excise to become, in effect, a taxman. It was something that embarrassed him a great deal more than his celebrated drinking and wenching. As he confided in a friend: ‘I will make no excuses ... that I have sat down to write you on this vile paper, stained with the sanguinary scores of “thae curst horse leeches o’ th’ Excise” ... For the glorious cause of LUCRE I will do any thing, be any thing’. But ‘five and thirty pounds a year was no bad dernier resort for a poor Poet’. ‘There is’, he admitted, ‘a certain stigma affixed to the character of an Excise-Officer, but I do not intend to borrow honour from any profession; and though the Salary be comparatively small, it is luxury to any thing that the first twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect.’ ‘People may talk as they please of the ignominy of the Excise, but what will support my family and keep me independant [ sic ] of the world is to me a very important matter’.
In swallowing his pride for the sake of a taxman’s salary, Burns became a link in the great chain of imperial finance. Britain’s wars against France had been funded by borrowing and yet more borrowing, and the magic mountain atop which British power stood, the National Debt, had grown in proportion with the new territories acquired. When Burns started work for the Excise it stood at £244 million. A crucial function of the Excise was therefore to raise the money necessary to pay the interest on this debt.
Who paid the Excise? The main dutiable articles were spirits, wines, silks and tobacco, as well as beer, candles, soap, starch, leather, windows, houses, horses and carriages. Notionally the tax was
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