This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ 'Nabob, historian and orientalist' : the life and writings of Robert Orme (1728-1801). Tammita-Delgoda, Asoka SinhaRaja The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Non Commercial: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. No Derivative Works - You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of these conditions can be waived if you receive permission from the author. Your fair dealings and other rights are in no way affected by the above. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact [email protected] providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 10. Oct. 2021 'NABOB, HISTORIAN AND ORIENTAL! ST" The Life and Writings of Robert Orme (1728-1801) Asoka SinhaRaja Tammita-Delgoda Kings College London Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of the University of London I ABSTRACT This thesis studies the life and writings of Robert Orme (1728-1801), the first Official Historiographer of the East India Company. The work begins with a study of the main events of Orme's life and his career as an East India Company servant. Orme began his Indian career in 1742, when he arrived in Bengal. In 1753 he was promoted and appointed to the Madras Presidency, where he played an important role in the politics of the time. Orme returned home to England in 1760, where he involved himself in the politics of East India House and began his literary career. By the end of the decade, Orme's efforts had gained him some recognition and in 1769 he was designated Official Historiographer. The second half of the thesis is an analysis of Orme's writings. Orme's magnum opus was his "History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan". This was a military history of the early phases of British expansion in India and it was published in two volumes, in 1763 and 1778. Orme also made several studies of Indian culture and society, and during his career he compiled various maps, essays and printed works, all dealing with India. The intellectual framework, the motives, the methods and the significance of Orme's various writings are all of great interest, and we hope to examine and discuss them at length. As a result, this study is partly biography and partly literary history. Both sections are closely interlinked, for the events of his life influence the pattern of Orme's writings and are frequently reflected in the attitudes which characterise it. 11 CONTENTS Abstract. 1. Dedication. iv. Acknowledgements. V. Abbreviations. vu. Introduction. p. 1 PART I: THE LIFE Chapter I An Intellectual in India: The Formative Years p. 8 Chapter II The Madras Years: An Opportunity Wasted (1753-1758) p. 28 Chapter ifi The Search For a Vocation (1760-1769) p. 68 Appendix. Lauchlin Macleane and the First Great Stockmarket p.104 Speculation (1766) Chapter IV A Vocation Rediscovered (1770-1780) p.112 Chapter V The Oriental Scholar (1780-1801) p.136 PART II: LIFE AND WORKS Chapter VI. Orme and Robert Clive. The Waxing and p.151 Waning of a Friendship m PART III: WORKS Chapter VII The History The Origins of Histor p.183 Orme's Historical Method p.198 The History in the Making p.2l0 The Critical and Commercial Reaction p.221 Orme's Place in the Eighteenth Century Historiography p.231 Chapter Vifi. Orme the Orientalist p.238 Conclusion. p.273 Bibliography. p.278 iv DEDICATION. This Work is Dedicated To the Memory of my Beloved Grandparents Ran Bandara Tammita Nilamé. and Tikiri Kumari Tammita Kumarihamy. Also To My Parents, To Whom I Owe Everything. Major Asoka Rajendra Delgoda. and Asokamala Lakshmi Tammita Kumarihamy. V Acknowledgements My thanks first of all to Peter Marshall, to whose unfailing enthusiasm and concern this thesis owes a great deal. I am especially grateful to him for the time and trouble which he devoted to proofreading my various extracts, as well as for all his other efforts on my behalf. I hope that this thesis reflects the quality of.his supervision. I am also indebted to Leslie and Patricia Gray, who were responsible for typing up and printing this work. The entire thesis has gone through several drafts, an enormously laborious task, but one which they have fulfilled uncomplainingly and at a quite extraordinary pace. The final form is a tribute to their dedicated, painstaking application. I only hope that my deepest gratitude is some recompense for all the labour I have put them to. My thanks to Robert Bickers, who took two and a half days from his own research, to proofread the final version. He went through the entire draft with great care and attention, and unearthed innumerable mistakes which would otherwise have escaped my notice. Maybe the nicest thing I can say is that he did not even have to be asked. As for the others, Yoko Hironaka was kind enough to help me collate my final drafts, while Glenn Wilkinson helped me when I was struggling with introduction and conclusions; he even gallantly offered to do more. Paul Bradbeer too, was generous with his time, and made a fleeting visit to the India Office on my behalf. My thanks also to the staff of the India Office Library for their good- natured and uncomplaining cooperation. In particular, I would like to thank Andrew Cook, who gave me much valuable advice concerning Rennell and his maps. I would also like to thank Tim Thomas, Suzie Rayner and Lydia Seager for their help with all my queries and questions over the years. It is also a great pleasure at last to be able to thank June Walker at the History Department at Kings, who over the years, has been an invaluable (and patient) source of help and information. I would also like to express my gratitude for the efforts of all my other friends. Their concern and belief, I would like them to know, played a vital vi part in helping me carry on at a time when everything seemed to be going against me. I am particularly grateful to Nuzhat Kazmi, for all her encouragement and support during this bleak period. Also to my compatriot, Rammohan Cumaraswamy, for his instinctive and unswerving support. My thanks also to Sunder Tahil-Romani, Cyril Engman and Kathleen Turner for their concern, and the indulgence with which they listened to my ever-mounting problems. My regards to Brian Keaney too, for his offers of assistance at a particularly worrying time. Most of all, perhaps, my thanks to my friends Tchelva Ramanathan and Rahul Sarnaik: it has been my privilege to have been able to rely on them. vii ABBREVIATIONS The following abbreviations are used throughout this thesis, to denote manuscript material: P.R.O. Public Record Office. B.L British Library. Add. Mss. Additional Manuscripts. IOL India Office Library. IOR. India Office Records. Eur. Mss. European Manuscripts. The following abbreviations are used to denote manuscripts in the Orme Collection. OV. Orme Various. India India Manuscripts. Manuscripts and Records not otherwise referenced are from the India Office Library. The following abbreviations are used for printed sources: vii' DNB. Dictionary of National Biography. 22 vols. Ed. Sir Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee (London, 1908-90). Madras. Records of Fort St. George. S.O.A.S. Bulletin. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. Orme's various publications have been denoted as follows: History History of the Military Transaction of the British Nation in Indostan. 2 vols, 4th Edition (London, 1803). As I rule I have used the 4th Edition, which was the last version to have been revised by the author himself. On occasion I have also used the 1st Edition, which was published in 2 separate volumes, in 1763 and 1778 respectively. This has been denoted as follows: History (1763) 1st Volume. History (1778) 2nd Volume. Orme's other major work is The Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire. Thre 2 Editions of this. The 1st Edition was published in 1782 and the 2nd Edition in 1805. In general I have used the 2nd Edition, which was also edited by the author before his death. This is denoted as follows: Fragments The Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, 2nd Edition (London, 1805). The place of publication for all publications is London, unless otherwise indicated. 1 Introduction. Robert Orme came from a family with close Indian connections, which by the time he was born, already had a well-established tradition of service in the East India Company. In accordance with these traditions Orme too was trained with a view to a career out in India and, at an early age, he was sent out there to seek his fortune. In Orme's early days the East India Company was still very much a trading body.