‘The Capital Object of the Public’: The 1766–7 Parliamentary Inquiry into the East India Company

Abstract

Abstract Of all the eighteenth-century parliamentary inquiries into the post-Plassey East India Company, the most poorly understood is the first, the one that took place during, and contributed directly to, the dissolution of Chatham’s ill-fated ministry of 1766–7. Though it is now little remembered, produced no lengthy report and resulted in comparatively insignificant legislation, the 1767 inquiry held the greatest promise to change the course of imperial history. This is because it contemplated the abolition of the Company, if not as a commercial enterprise, then as a monopoly-state. In 1766–67 British politics formulated, and came closest to addressing, the post-Plassey India question in its fundamentals. Just how different was this inquiry from later eighteenth-century debates, including even that surrounding Fox’s failed bill (the only other that approaches it in significance), is indicated by the fact that parliament explicitly debated, and the Prime Minister himself supported, not simply government intrusion in, or oversight over, Company operations, but liberating Bengali society (and, indeed, British society) from the tentacles of the emerging Company state. This would have allowed for something approaching the rule of law to be established in the conquered domains. Regarding the course and dynamics of Chatham’s attempt to address the India question, much merits reconsideration. But it is clear that the ministry splintered because of Chatham’s insistence that parliament conduct a full and informed debate on the general question of the Company’s right to rule the Indian territories.