English Gentleman Merchant at Work : Madras and the City of London 1660-1740

This book examines the private trade in the English East India Company conducted between Madras on the Coromandel Coast and the City of London in the period from 1660 to 1740. Hitherto, historians have placed English private trade within an Indian context, explaining the success of the private merchants as a consequence of an economic partnership between the English merchants and Indian commercial groups. This study revalues this Indocentric interpretation and considers this trade as an element of the first British Empire.