Global Encounters and the Archives: Britain’s Empire in the Age of Horace Walpole

The India Directors in the Suds, 1772

When George Grenville expressed his support for the Stamp Act in 1765, he simultaneously pushed Robert Clive of the East India Company (EIC) toward acquiring territorial sovereignty over Bengal. This print affords a compelling glimpse into the nature of British power in India in the decade that followed. Similarly, in The India Directors in the Suds, East Indian merchants appear before company directors so suddenly that one stands up quickly in fright, overturns his chair, and drops a letter marked "Apology" –a reference to a rancorous imperial debate over whether the EIC had failed to treat indigenous Indians fairly. It inverts the power dynamics traditionally associated with British imperial rule. Instead of Europeans dictating the terms of governance, the Indian leader in the print holds power over company officials and British politicians. The company's mistreatment of native Indians became a major subject of political scrutiny in Parliament in the 1770s, leading many to question whether the empire had failed in its stated purpose of extending liberty to native communities across the globe. Catalog Record

Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University Library

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