SANJAY GARG
Coins of European Adventurers in India During the eighteenth century, India witnessed a period of sustained political turmoil. This was the time when rapid decline of the central political authority, the Mughals, was marked by steep ascendancy of a number of rival powers. In this general scramble for power, not only the Indian revivalist forces but also a number of European trading companies participated. In the whole process the military prowess of the contender proved one of the decisive factors. While the history of the rise and consolidation of Indian revivalist forces such as the Marathas, the Sikhs, the Rohillas etc. as well as that of European trading companies, especially the English East India Company, has received considerable attention of the historians, the role of European mercenaries, who many a times played a crucial role in turning the tables in the eighteenth century political drama, has not received its due treatment. The earliest published source of information about the European mercenaries is by Lewis Smith (Smith, 1805). Though there had been individual accounts of several European adventurers in the intervening years, it was only in 1892 that a most comprehensive tome was published by Hebert Compton (Compton, 1892). This work primarily deals with three adventurers –De Boigne, George Thomas and Perron. However, in the Appendix, it contains short sketches of 66 other mercenaries who operated in India between 1784 and 1803. These mercenaries include the name of John William Hessing, which forms a part of the present study. Next work on the activities of the European mercenaries appeared in 1907 (Keene, 1907). It contained a masterly Preface by Sir Richard Temple. This book was, in fact, a compilation of a series of articles penned by the author for the Calcutta Review. It was originally published in 1901, under the title The Great Anarchy. Though not exclusive in its nature in the treatment of the European mercenaries, it devotes a substantial portion to their activities in India, during the period of its study. In 1929 appeared C. Grey’s European Adventurers, which had been edited by H.L.O. Garrett, the Keeper of Records of the Punjab
Government (Grey, 1929). This book presents a systematic study of the European adventurers, classifying them into categories ranging from the general ones such as general/obscure, to the specific one like combatants/ non-combatants. This work is primarily based on the archives of the Punjab Government and therefore, contains one of the best accounts of the Europeans employed by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. In the more recent times, are the works by Shelford Bidwell (Bidwell, 1971) and Maurice Hennesey (Hennesey, 1971). Coming to the numismatography, again we have to revert to the magisterial work of Compton. In a footnote in his chapter on George Thomas, Compton has illustrated a line-sketch of a silver rupee believed to have been issued by that Irish adventurer. The same sketch was reproduced by C. Grey in his book, but without any additional detail. The line-sketch of the coin was matched with an actual coin in the British Museum, and a Note was published by John Allan (Allan, 1911). There have been a few articles on individual adventurers in the last two decades. (For complete details, see Bibliography). The term ‘adventurer’ has been used in this paper to include even the non-military adventurers from Europe, who have left their imprints on Indian coins. For military adventurers, such as George Thomas, Perron or John William Hessing, the word ‘mercenary’ has generally been used, which forms the first group of adventurers discussed in this paper. In the second group are the officials of the English East India Company, at least two of whom –Henry Wellesley at Bareilly and Captain Pew at Nagpur–, are known to have caused the rupee coins struck under his administrative control bear his initials. The third category is of business entrepreneur and it is solely represented by Fredrick Wilson of Harsil, an army deserter-turned-business-entrepreneur-turned-local-Raja. Thus, an attempt has been made in this paper to include all hues of European adventurers, who were present on Indian soil during the eighteenth century and have left their numismatic imprints.
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