Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c3.33

c3.33

It is conventional doctrine (taught in most history books) that from 1600 to around 1748 the British East India Company (E.I.Co.) established itself largely in the coastal towns and cities of India, declared these places as fort towns and called them factories, i.e. store houses for trade, with the requisite military establishments. From 1748, the E.I.Co. is said to have gradually involved itself in the conquering of India and till 1858 at least was considered to be solely responsible for the plunder and violence associated with the conquest. We are further told that it is only because the British were disturbed by the company’s misrule—which resulted in the great Indian Mutiny of 1857-58—