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Imperial Subjects on Trial: On the Legal Identity of Britons in Late Eighteenth-Century India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Abstract

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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2006

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References

1 See in particular Brewer, John, The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Chicago, 2000), 136–39Google Scholar. On the connection between print culture, political authority, and satire, see Halasz, Alexandra, The Marketplace of Print: Pamphlets and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1997), 112–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also useful is Butt, Richard, ed., The Administration of Aesthetics: Censorship, Political Criticism, and the Public Sphere (Minneapolis, 1994)Google Scholar. See also Hunt, Tamara L., Defining John Bull: Political Caricature and National Identity in Late Georgian England (Cornwall, 2003), 149–50Google Scholar. Hunt argues that the increased nationwide circulation of the print image of John Bull during the period 1780–1800 can be attributed as much to a rush of national-patriotic sentiment in the context of European and imperial rivalry as to the effort at propaganda by a financially exigent and militarily beleaguered state. The French in the later eighteenth century were obvious targets of parody. See Duffy, Michael, The Englishman and the Foreigner (Cambridge, 1986)Google Scholar; and also Adhémar, Jean, Graphic Art in the Eighteenth Century (New York, 1964), 9395Google Scholar, especially on the work on noted draftsman James Gillray. One may argue generally that parody and travesty were genres more deeply related to questions of faith, conformity, and dissent. For a recent discussion of these issues, especially in the context of William Hogarth's work, see Paulson, Ronald, Hogarth's Harlot: Sacred Parody in Enlightenment England (Baltimore, 2003), xvixx, 19–21Google Scholar; and also Dabydeen, David, Hogarth's Blacks: Images of Blacks in Eighteenth-Century English Art (Athens, 1987)Google Scholar. On literary and aesthetic uses of satire, see Carretta, Vincent, The Snarling Muse: Verbal and Visual Political Satire from Pope to Churchill (Philadelphia, 1983)Google Scholar; and Bloom, Edward Alan, Satire's Persuasive Voice (Ithaca, NY, 1979)Google Scholar.

2 See Sen, Sudipta, Distant Sovereignty: National Imperialism and the Origins of British-India (New York, 2002), 99100Google Scholar.

3 The discourse of oriental despotism in the Indian context that portrayed the natives as simultaneously tyrannical, capricious, fickle, slavish, and effeminate can be traced back to the distinctions drawn between Gentoos and Moors that surfaced in the early accounts of Orme and were further developed by Alexander Dow and James Mill. I have discussed this genealogy extensively in Distant Sovereignty, 41–44, 100–104.

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6 See Man from the Upland Carrying a Spear, a Tanjore painting in the British Library, Oriental and India Office Collections, Add. Or. 190 A. The painting is also inscribed as A Polygar—or Indian Highlander.

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21 An Act to Prevent the Further Growth of Popery (1703), 2 Ann, c. 6. See sec. 15, “Oath of Abjuration.”

22 An Act for the More Effectual Preventing of Clandestine Marriages (1735), 9 Geo. II, c. 11. An Act for Better Regulating Juries (1755), 29 Geo. II, c. 6.

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37 See Hyde Papers (hereafter HP), vol. 10, National Library, Calcutta, rare books, microfilm reel 6.

38 British Nationality Act of 1730, 4 Geo. II, c. 21.

39 Parry, British Nationality Law, 76. See also Jones, J. Mervyn, British Nationality Law and Practice (Oxford, 1947), 6667Google Scholar.

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41 See Salmond, John W., “Citizenship and Allegiance,” Law Quarterly Review 18 (January 1902): 49, 53Google Scholar.

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46 Ibid., 135.

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49 See Spear, Percival, The Nabobs: A Study of the Social Life of the English in Eighteenth Century India (London, 1980), 6263Google Scholar.

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56 “Proceedings of the Governor General and Council at Fort William respecting the Administration of Justice among the Natives of Bengal,” quoted in Morley, W. H., The Administration of Justice in British India (1858; repr., Delhi, 1976), 45Google Scholar; see also Majumdar, N., Justice and Police in Bengal, 1765–1793 (Calcutta, 1960)Google Scholar.

57 See Ibbetson, David, “Sir William Jones as Comparative Lawyer,” in Sir William Jones, 1746–1794: A Commemoration, ed. Murray, Alexander (Oxford, 1998), 28Google Scholar; see also John Shore's tribute to Jones in the discourse delivered at the meeting of the Asiatic Society, 2 May 1794, in Teignmouth, Charles, Memoir of the Life and Correspondence of John Shore, Lord Teignmouth (London, 1843), 1:495Google Scholar.

58 For further details, see The Maharashtra Purana: An Eighteenth-Century Bengali Historical Text, trans. Dimock, Edward C. and Gupta, Pratul Chandra (Calcutta, 1985)Google Scholar.

59 See E. W. Madge, “The Maharat Ditch,” Bengal Past and Present, no. 27 (1924): 215–17 (published posthumously), and also The Mofussil and the Ditch,” Asiatic Journal 28 (1839): 3646Google Scholar.

60 K. Ghoshal vs. Lt. Colonel Henry Watson, 14 November 1780, HP 10, microfilm reel 6.

61 The actual charge against Nandakumar was brought by one Mohan Prasad in May 1775; the trial lasted from 8 June to 15 June. He was executed on 5 August 1775. See Majumdar, N., Justice and Police in Bengal (Calcutta, 1960), 223–24Google Scholar.

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65 See Rex vs. Joaõ Baptista & Anthony Rozario, 12 December 1780, HP 9, reel 4.

66 King vs. Thomas Perth, 1816, RSCJ.

67 Rex vs. James Clarke, 16 December 1791, HP 11, reel 4.

68 Michael de Rozario vs. Cheit Gir Gossain, 1789, HP 24, reel 11.

69 13 Geo. III, c. 3, clause 63, cited in De Rozario vs. Gossain, 1789.

70 De Rozario vs. Gossain, 1789.

72 Translation from Edward Coke's First part of the Institutes of the Laws of England (known also as Coke upon Littleton), published in 1628, a textbook that has been in circulation for many generations, excerpted here from Broom, Herbert, A Selection of Legal Maxims, 10th ed. (London, 1939), 40Google Scholar.

73 This offense was committed “where any man sueth any other in the spirituall Court for anything that is determinable in the Kings Court,” and the statutes were originally intended to repress the civil power of the Pope. See Burke and Allsop, eds., Stroud's Judicial Dictionary, 3:2262.

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75 Blackstone, Commentaries, 4:119–20.

76 Another variation is res judicata: a matter already settled in court that cannot be raised again. See Broom, Selection of Legal Maxims, 221–22. Latin for “to stand by things decided,” stare decisis is the doctrine of precedent: an issue previously brought to the court and a ruling already issued.

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79 See Collier, Jeremy, An Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain (London, 1840), 3:19Google Scholar.

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83 See Cone, Carl B., The English Jacobins: Reformers in Late Eighteenth-Century England (New York, 1968), 24Google Scholar.

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85 For a detailed discussion of the legal status of the Irish in England, see MacRaild, Donald, Irish Immigrants in Modern Britain, 1750–1922 (New York, 1999), 67, 79CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

86 Rex vs. John West and John Peak indicted for the willful murder of Pooran Krisno, Doynagur, Bengal, on 16 July 1790, HP 9, reel 4. Italics mine. Note that the Company's commercial charter extended the writ of allegiance.

87 Rex vs. James Clarke on the willful murder of Goursay a Black Man at Dinapore in the Province of Bahar, 16 December 1791, HP 9, reel 4.

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92 Ibid., 18.