Investment and empire in the later eighteenth century: East India stockholding, 1756-1791

Abstract

In recent years important advances have been made in our understanding of the relationship between Britain's overseas empire and the metropolitan or domestic economy. In an important article Cain and Hopkins have attempted to establish a 'connexion between gentlemanly capitalism based on landed wealth and overseas expansion, particularly in its imperialist forms, between i688 and i850'. They present a convincing alternative to the view that the 'link between the metropolitan economy and imperialism was forged by the industrial revolution', and they focus instead upon 'the influence of non-industrial capitalism on both overseas development and imperial policy'.3 In a later article their interpretative framework has been extended to cover the period to I945.4 Secondly, Davis and Huttenback have provided us with an exhaustive study of the 'profitability of empire' during the second half of the nineteenth century.5 Like Cain and Hopkins they focus on non-industrial capitalism, and in particular on the portfolio finance of the London stockmarket between i86o and I9I2. They have presented quantitative evidence on a massive scale, and thanks to their labours we now know a great deal about the volume and direction of imperial investment, the rate of return, and exactly who saw fit to invest in empire. Unfortunately, the last remark cannot be held to apply to our knowledge of imperial finance in the later eighteenth century. Of course, the stockmarket was then still in its infancy and there were relatively few imperial or overseas investment opportunities available to ordinary British investors. But, even so, important territorial advances were being made in various quarters of