This book captures a moment when the competing ambitions of the Mughal Empire and the English East India Company brought them into armed conflict. The central document is a previously unpublished diary by an English officer who participated in the 1689 Siege of Bombay, a sixteen-month battle between English and Mughal-allied forces, which devastated the island and threatened the very foundations of English empire in western India, almost before it even began. Revealing much about seventeenth-century warfare and social relations, the diary and the two dozen related documents collected by the editors deliver new insights into encounters not only between the Mughals and the English but among a number of competing South Asian and European companies, states, and empires as they sought political and economic power in the Indian Ocean world. The introduction provides the broad historical context for the siege, and students are supported by document headnotes, gloss notes, a chronology, questions for consideration, and a bibliography.

Philip J. Stern (Ph.D., Columbia University) is Sally Dalton Robinson Associate Professor of History at Duke University and the author of The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India. He is also the co-editor of Mercantilism Reimagined, as well as the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters on the political, intellectual, and legal history of early British India. He is currently working on the history of the role of corporations in shaping the British Empire, as well as the spatial dimensions of colonial jurisdiction and sovereignty.

Foreword

Preface and Acknowledgments

List of Maps and Illustrations

PART ONE

INTRODUCTION: The 1689 Siege of Bombay in Global Historical Perspective

The New Global History

Mughal Expansion and the English Acquisition of Bombay

The Siege of Bombay

Making Peace and the Emperor's Farman

The Outcry in England and the Campaign to Abolish the East India Company

James Hilton and His Diary

Conclusion
PART TWO The Siege of Bombay: A Soldier’s Diary

James Hilton, Diary of the Siege of Bombay, 15 February 1689 to 22 June 1690

PART THREE

Related Documents

1. The East India Company on the West Coast of India

1. John Ovington, The Great Rival to Bombay: The Port of Surat and Indian Ocean Trade, 1689

2. Charter Granted by Charles II to the East India Company Confirming and Extending Their Former Charters, 3 April 1661

3. Patents from Charles II of the Port and Island of Bombay, 27 March 1669

4. Patents from James II Extending Jurisdiction of Prize Courts in the East Indies, 12 April 1686

2. Mughal Expansion under the Emperor Aurangzeb

5. Ishwar das Nagar, Modes of Siege Warfare —and Restoring Order Afterwards, 1688

6. Capture of Orchha, 1635

7. The Emperor Aurangzeb at a Chishti Shrine, 1670s

3. Sidi Yaqut Khan and Rising Tension in Bombay

8. Khafi Khan, On Sidi Yaqut, 1670s-1680s

9. Conflicts between Sidi Yaqut’s Men and the Soldiers of the Bombay Garrison, 1683

4. Company Plans for War

10. East India Company, A Fleet of Warlike Ships: Secret Instructions for War, 1686

11. Bartholemew Harris, Diplomatic Overtures between Surat and the Company, 1687

12. East India Company, Letter to the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, 1688

5. Other Experiences of the Siege

13. Alexander Hamilton, A More Critical View of the Siege, 1689-1690

14. The Governor and Council of Bombay, Letter to London about the Siege, 1689

15. John Stevens alias Abd-al Allah, Conversion to Islam while at the Sidi’s Camp, 1689

6. The Quest for Peace

16. The Company’s Response to Mukhtiar Khan, A Peace Proposal from Surat, 1689

17. George Weldon, Barker Hibbins, Abraham Navarro, Qazi Ibrahim and Mir Nazim, Peace Negotiations between the Company and the Surat Merchants, July 1689 to February 1690

18. The Emperor Aurangzeb, Declaring a Peace? The Imperial Farman, 1690

19. John Vauxe, An East India Company Hostage Reflects Back upon the Siege, 1691

7. The Company’s War: Defenders, Critics, Petitioners

20. Josiah Child, In Defense of the Company’s War, 1689

21. The Great Oppressions and Injuries which the Managers of the East India Company have Acted on the Lives, Liberties and Estates of their Fellow Subjects And Injustice Done to the Natives in Sundry Parts of India, 1691

22. Edith Holloway and others, A Petition to the House of Commons by Widows of East India Company Sailors, 1693

23. Sheikh Mahmud Hosson, Mulla Abdul Ghafur and Others, Surat Merchants, Clerics and Port Officials Petition against the East India Company, 1700

8. The Legacy and Memory of the Siege of Bombay

24. Khafi Khan, English Pirate Attacks and Continuing Tension between the Company and the Mughal Empire, 1694

25. John Burnell, Bombay Twenty Years after the Siege, 1710

APPENDIXES

A Chronology of The Siege of Bombay (1600-1709)

Questions for Consideration

Selected Bibliography

Index