European empires in the east during the early modern period seminar papers.

Ramada Curto, Diogo

Introduction

DIOGO RAMADA CURTO

Studies of European Expansion in the East during the Early Modern Period can no longer accommodate the outdated Eurocentric agenda for explaining the rise of the West. This becomes patently clear when drawing up a review of the contemporary historiographical literature on the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, English, French or, in short, European expansion in the Indian and Pacific oceans from the arrival of Vasco da Gama at Calicut in 1498 to the second half of the eighteenth century. This is all the more so when a comparativist perspective and a global scale of analysis, which includes the Russian empire, is adopted. Europeans, we are now told, mostly adapted and integrated into pre-existing trade networks and political relations, rather than establishing or imposing any political or economic supremacy. (1) Only in very limited areas, such as Goa or Batavia, was any real political control exercised. Whether the Dutch East India Company was successful enough to build up a sort of maritime and commercial hegemony in Southeast Asia during the second half of the seventeenth century is still a matter of controversy. (2) Following this line, which effectively minimizes the impact of the West in the East, it would seem more appropriate to date the rise of Western power in Asia only from around the 1780s, with the creation of the British territorial empire in North India, and even then, to see it as dependent on indigenous forces and local knowledge. (3)

The arguments for limiting what was once considered European hegemony and the more general tendency towards the deconstruction of the Western canon converge here. It can no longer be asserted that European economy, culture and civilization attained a supremacy over other peoples as a result of processes such as the scientific revolution or the development of rational patterns of economic behaviour, which were in turn seen as exclusively European. Likewise, it is no longer possible to hold to such textbook staples as the rise of the nation-state and trading companies out of dynamic rivalry and competition, greater religious tolerance as favoured by the Reformation, an increase in literacy based upon the re-organization of learning, and the dissemination of printed books, etc. The exploration of the internal complexities of each of these processes, on the one hand, and their subjection to comparative evaluation, on the other--the first, by embedding each process and its motivations in their social contexts, and thus either stressing the uniqueness of specific local cultures or emphasizing the plurality of meanings of objects, subject to different voices, uses or readings; the second, by confirming the existence of similar processes in other civilizations, including Asia, during the Early Modern Period--have rendered these theses problematic, and with them also the history of what was once considered the European expansion in the East. (4)

The essays collected here follow the same critical line, and can be read as contributions towards a wider revision of the field. They originate from work developed in my graduate seminars at Brown University (in the departments of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies, History, and East Asian Studies), and at Yale University (Department of History), with a group of doctoral candidates in history, some of whom are specifically interested in this field. All of the essays are based on primary sources, and aim to demonstrate a good level of familiarity with developments in the field at large. In some cases the use of printed primary sources, particularly those at the Beinecke, Hay and John Carter Brown libraries, is complemented by archival materials from Portugal, Spain and Italy. Unfortunately, despite its desirability, there is no paper based on primary sources produced by a student on any one of the civilizations encountered by the Europeans. In only two cases, both relating to Goa (studied by J. Celso Alves and Erik Lars Myrup), can one detect a specific interest in the voiceless, the poor, or the nameless; people who experienced colonial power from subaltern positions, but who were also able to create their own role as intermediaries between cultures. (5) In this instance the printed and manuscript documents available make possible an analysis of the main power structures and trade corporations, and not only of their actions, but also the images of themselves they sought to project. (6) Even so, to restrict the scope of analysis of those structures, however large, to a mere enumeration of set ideas or general notions would hardly be satisfactory. And this is precisely where all the articles come together in addressing the question of how to revise the established images of the different European overseas empires which tend to reproduce, even within academic history, the stereotypes rooted in the Black Legend and the images of oriental despotism. (7) Their approaches and research exemplify different conclusions.

Perhaps the best way of examining how institutional structures really worked is through case studies of individual agents and small groups: a Jesuit friar working between the Philippines and China around 1590; a Hindu who wanted to be a Catholic priest in Goa in the 1730s; a Jewish merchant house located in the Mediterranean and dealing with Goa; two French military commanders of the Coromandel coast in the mid-eighteenth century; or the two most important French and British cartographers of India of the second half of the century. Each illustrates the forms of agency available to historical actors, inside or at the margins of more institutionalized structures. Forms of negotiation, unexpected turns, conflicts, and situations that proved beyond the control of large structures are, perhaps, more productive objects of study, exploring the meaning of actions, instead of taking for granted institutions such as the Estado da India, the Spanish Empire, the Society of Jesus, the East India trade companies, or the beginnings of the French and British territorial empires in India. The case of the Jesuit Alonso Sanchez, studied by Carlos Aramayo, exemplifies this by showing how Sanchez's actions were not a direct result of orders from the Crown or the Society of Jesus, but rather the product of everyday struggles, arising from different relationships and embedded in different situations, determined by the relative power of the state, the Jesuits and the municipality of Macao. The result is a portrait of a highly contested process involving many actors and many potential outcomes, a process in which contingency plays an important role. (8)

The opposite approach is represented by Liam Brockey's study of the institutional structures of the Society of Jesus and its missionary activities in China during the seventeenth century. Here the examination of the work of specific priests reveals how that institution functioned on the basis of value-goals, channels of communication and patterns of hierarchy. Yet another way of calling into question the role of institutions is suggested by Francesca Trivellato and Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert in their studies of merchant networks and communities. These stress, for example, the crucial role of choice and decision and the offsetting of some interests by others within a merchant network. They also show how the merchant communities functioned by means of networks with a capacity for establishing cross-cultural relations, and a flexibility uncharacteristic of more institutionalized organizations. Finally, Jay Howard Geller's analysis of conflicts between the French commanders provides a good illustration of the relation between a governmental structure and individual projects, each embedded in particular options and interests. (9)

Parallel to this rethinking of the role of institutions based on the actions of specific agents, is the question of the different projects and images suggested by the same institutional frameworks, generally conceived of as state, or even national, structures. Here, the general aim is to call into question simplistic assumptions linking power to knowledge. The list of topics here is very rich, including the Spanish projects for the conquest of China (by Alonso Sanchez), the strategic racist portrait of Goa by the Dutch traveller Jan Huygen van Linschoten, the projects for fiscal reform and organization of the Estado da India (by Francisco da Costa), the images disseminated by the French Jesuits in Europe about the China mission, the ideas and imperial expectations of English and Russian intellectuals at the beginning of the Enlightenment, the images of the Anglo-French wars in India in the mid-eighteenth century fabricated for a European audience, the French and English mapping of India and, finally, the heated discussion in England about the desirability of the British territorial empire in the making, where the prominence of the speeches of Edmund Burke tend to overshadow a much larger debate.

The inherent complexities of all these projects become exposed when they are set against their wider contexts where their precise meanings are better rendered for closer scrutiny. Against the current fashion of reducing those discourses and projects to mere representations, all the articles here share a common interest in uncovering how historical agents understood the meanings of specific actions and defended their ideological positions. For example, in his Itinerario Linschoten presents an inventory of the causes for the decline of the Portuguese Estado da India, where miscegenation (as discussed by J. Celso Alves) is given as one of the reasons, and the avoidance of physical work (referred to by Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert) as another. Yet, while formulating this criticism of the Portuguese, with its overtones of a particularly Dutch form of racism, Linschoten also describes the riches of Goa, comparing its market place to the bourse of Antwerp. Here the creation of a new colonial project proposed to a Dutch audience was totally compatible with the demonstration of the dynamism of the markets already in place. In short, European imperial or colonial projects coexisted with an acceptance and acknowledgement of the existence of Asian trading mechanisms, thus refuting the argument that the European projects for expansion depended upon the idea of a blank space ripe for occupation.

The imperial projects presented to Peter the Great by Lomosonov (analysed by Jeremi Suri) reproduced in Russia the statist models of colonial expansion that circulated in contemporary British political and intellectual circles. Commerce, state power and patriotic zeal combined to forge an imperialist view. Therefore, more than a century before the Great Game, we find the existence of convergent imperialist projects inspired by identical rationalist ideals. This begs the question of how to explain the differences between the imperial projects of the two rival powers. The answer requires us to turn to the differences between the social and political structures in England and Russia, and leads us to the conclusion that the meaning of each imperial project can only be discerned by analysing its function within its specific context.

In another instance, the mapping of India by French and English cartographers represents both the use of the scientific tools of the Enlightenment and an act of taking possession. Supposedly this is one of the best examples for identifying knowledge with imperial power. A more careful analysis (see Lucy Chester) of the different aspects relating to the production, content and circulation of the maps, however, reveals other complexities. For instance, a close reading of James Rennell's maps reveals how the cartographic discourse was used to criticize the British Empire. The same conclusion is also supported by an analysis of the texts written by Willem Bolts, Adam Smith and Edmund Burke (discussed by Stephen Vella). Burke, for instance, denounced the English enterprise in India as 'perfectly despotic', which shows that Western discourses cannot always be seen as either celebrations of empire or cultural forms of imperialism.

Issues concerning how institutional frameworks function with respect to the meanings of projects and discourses, particularly as regards the role of individuals, group dynamics and trade networks, relate to a number of wider debates in the field. In as much as at least three of these areas of debate are directly addressed by the essays in this collection, their broader contribution to the current re-conceptualization of the historiography of the early modern world should also be noted. The first concerns a variant of Max Weber's thesis, which suggests a contrast between the patterns of behaviour, rationality and organization of Iberians and Northern Europeans. Two different responses, each with its own intellectual roots in the tradition originating in the Black Legend, can be found here. One is the rejection of the opposition between simplistic conceptions of the archaic and the modern. An acute perception of strategic choices, rather than just dreams and projects of conquest, the supposed characteristic of archaic forms of organization, for example, are shown to be present among the Spanish Crown and the church (Aramayo). Linschoten's racist view of Portuguese intermarriage in Goa, on the other hand, similarly discredits the so-called North European model as representative of a precocious expression of the modern values of liberty and toleration (Alves). The fact that Petrine Russia embarked on imperial projects similar to those entertained in England, which aimed to reinforce the role of the state (Suri), further attests to the complexity of the historical reality, and repudiates simplistic dichotomies. Lastly, the process of territorial occupation developed by the English East India Company in competition with the French demonstrates how difficult it is to maintain a simplistic division between a supposed 'role of war and conquest' held by the state and the imperialism of free trade (Chester, Geller, Vella). A second response is to question the units of analysis traditionally associated with variants of the Weberian thesis. Thus, instead of taking for granted the divisions created by religion (Catholics v. Protestants) or national groups (Dutch, English, French, Portuguese, etc.), other social units and identities are explored: the case of Portuguese Jews among the merchant communities and their networks of trade (Studnicki-Gizbert, Trivellato); the different 'nations' within the Society of Jesus, shown to aspire to a cosmopolitan view (Brockey); the specific configuration of the colonial city, such as in the case of Goa (Alves, Myrup); and the model of 'composite monarchy', applied equally to the empire of Philip II (Aramayo), the British Empire (Vella), and the Petrine Russian Empire (Suri). The adoption of these units of analysis represents a definitive break not only with the traditional dichotomies of the Weberian thesis but also with the different versions of the Black Legend.

Another theme addressed by these essays concerns the different European state structures. Adopting the notion of 'Greater Britain' British Empire specialists have recently taken up the old idea that empire building was an extension of state formation. (10) This claim to British history as imperial history raises at least two problems. One concerns its spatial dimension: even if we accept the tendency to define the Atlantic as the correct scope for this kind of British history, ignoring British imperial developments in India, particularly in light of C. A. Bayly's studies, it constitutes a serious omission. The second problem concerns its relative starting point or periodization: if we accept this claim for a link between state formation and empire it is difficult to hold on to the notion of British exceptionalism. Even prior to the Dutch Republic in the Spanish Empire, and perhaps even more so in the case of the Portuguese monarchy, one can find cases of a direct relation between state formation and empire. Geoffrey Parker has made this point in relation to the Dutch case. (11) So too has John Elliott for the Spanish, even if he does distinguish the territories of the Americas as an 'extension of Europe in a way that Asia and Africa could never be'. (12) Lately and, perhaps, as recent critical studies suggest, for ideological reasons of political correctness, some Portuguese historians have erroneously represented the process of Portuguese state-building during the seventeenth century as being independent from the larger Portuguese Empire. For this reason a number of the essays seek to show the importance of taking the European imperial process seriously both with reference to state institutions (Aramayo, Suri, Geller, Chester, Vella) and religious organizations (Aramayo, Brockey, Myrup).

The last, but not least important theme of these essays concerns the need always to begin with the study of the different societies, economic relations, powers, cultures and peoples differently encountered by the Europeans in Asia. Even if we accept that some images and projects which sought to represent Asia as a blank space open to inscription, or as a space of social disorder, were intended for the European public and in justification of different formulations of the civilizing mission, the following essays underscore the danger of generalizations, focusing instead on forms of actual interaction. One of the most radical formulations, the project of conquering China at the end of the sixteenth century, for example, was the result of a kind of utopian vision arising from a lack of concrete knowledge of China (Aramayo). Elsewhere, one of the most common goals of an institution such as the Society of Jesus consisted in gathering information about the land and people for potential conversion (Brockey). It is also possible to find cases of people living in two different worlds without necessarily experiencing a feeling of conflict, as was the case with the native clergy or Christian converts in Goa; which means that encounters cannot be generalized reductively to the image of colonial control over a passive mass (Myrup). Again in Goa, wealthy local merchants, probably of Hindu origin, belonged to a large trade network dealing in diamonds and coral, that included Lisbon and Livorno, which illustrates another specific kind of partnership (Trivellato). The role of local agents in India is also examined through Ananda Ranga Pillai, a Tamil working for Dupleix as a trading agent (Geller). Following C. A. Bailey's studies, the vitality of the regional powers apparently under the Mogul empire, and the importance of local systems of information are shown to have made the Europeans participants in the Indian game and dependent on locally available opportunities and options (Geller, Chester). Finally, from the involvement of British intellectuals and administrators in the defense of the Bengalis against the East India Company, one can sense local resistance to the forms of European control and colonial exploitation (Vella).

In order to reproduce something of the spirit of the seminars from which they originate, more specific comments on each of the papers is now in order. These follow the order in which the papers appear here.

Carlos Aramayo's essay develops as a life-story of the Jesuit Alonso Sanchez, a figure well-known from the studies of Horacio de la Costa, S.J., and Charles Ralph Boxer. (13) A number of points should be noted. Sanchez's plan to conquer China falls into the category of a larger series of plans of territorial conquest related to the Spanish tradition developed in the Americas. (14) The historical context was, moreover, favourable to such projects, with a decisive shift from a sea-borne to a more land-based conception of empire having occurred in the late sixteenth century. (15) The opposition to such projects, too, belongs to a then current practice of political debate found at least within the different administrative councils. Occasionally the debate reached a wider audience in print, as happened in 1577 when Bernardino de Escalante called for a diplomatic mission to the Chinese emperor to convert that country while explicitly denouncing any attempts at conquest. (16) Indeed, criticism of ambitious imperial projects converged from different quarters: the opposition of the Jesuit Pedro de Ribadeneira and the Italian Giovanni Botero, for one, and the contemporary literary genre of shipwreck narratives, with its criticism of the vanities of long voyages and large empires, for another. (17) A second aspect stressed in this essay concerns the relations between Macao and Manila. Aramayo argues that although under the same king, Philip II, the Portuguese and Spanish maintained their own separate jurisdictions, reflecting their divergent interests. This he shows in terms of how the mission of Alonso Sanchez to Macao was presented to the Crown as a great victory, and the oath of allegiance celebrated there. Rumors about the support garnered by D. Antonio, the great opponent of Philip II, were then put to rest. (18) The Portuguese in Macao could not share the dream of conquering China, for they not only knew just how fantastical such a plan was, but also how its implementation would endanger them and threaten their commercial interests. (19) However, this is only part of the story. The Portuguese needed to safeguard their relations with Manila to protect their own trade with China, since they needed to obtain silver from Potosi. As a matter of fact, the so-called Manila Galleon was connected with the interests of Portuguese groups on both continents. In the Americas, starting at the end of the sixteenth century, Portuguese New Christians gained control over the circuits of silver distribution to the point where, by the 1630s, they started to be persecuted by the Spanish authorities. In Macau the level of penetration of the Portuguese into the Manila trade led to the same kind of Spanish opposition. It is in this light that one must consider the arguments over the conquest of China by groups of Portuguese merchants during the age of Philip II. One last remark on Aramayo's narrative concerns the relations between the various institutions to which he refers. They include the Council of Indies, the Society of Jesus, the Spanish authorities in Manila represented, above all, by the governor, the Bishop of Manila and the municipal and ecclesiastic authorities of Macao. The relations established between them can be defined more as the product of contingencies and individual decisions than of well-established, organizational norms. In other words, rather than simply regular institutions at work, we find specific circumstances and concrete agents. This is admittedly a bias of the narrative approach adopted by Aramayo, but a useful reminder all the same that what was perhaps the most centralized European state structure of the time, the Spanish Empire, itself developed from the logic of circumstance.

In the second essay, Liam Brockey presents his strategy for researching Jesuit missionary activities in China during the seventeenth century. He calls for a return to essentially religious motivations as the main criteria for analyzing the work of the Society of Jesus, as a corrective to the studies that have over-emphasized the more intellectual or even scientific agendas of certain Jesuits in China. (20) One of the problems raised by the essay can be translated into Weberian terminology as the relation between the forces of charisma, devotion, and an impulse for conversion, on the one hand, and the bureaucratic forces that organize everyday actions and forms of control, on the other. (21) This essay suggests that there is a direct correspondence between the motives of individuals and the forms of institutional evaluation of each member. Is this a result of the bias imposed by the documents, which aim to provide a series of 'psychological' judgements, or is it rather a case of a genuine correspondence between the motives and meanings of the action of individuals and the more structural work of an institution? If it is the latter, then the argument needs to be confirmed in greater depth, since it is not common to find such a correspondence. At a more concrete and less conceptual level, another problem Brockey raises concerns the levels of interpretation that, even lately, continue to be influenced by the Black Legend. This is a crucial task if one intends to understand the role of different European nations within a society sharing 'cosmopolitan' values. The best sources of inspiration for studies of the Portuguese Jesuits, in Japan and world-wide, are by Charles R. Boxer and Dauril Alden respectively. But Brockey calls attention to the images fabricated in France and disseminated throughout Europe at the end of the seventeenth-century after the arrival of French Jesuits in China. After that, a number of books established an archaic image of the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries in China, in contrast with the scientific interests of other nations within the Society of Jesus. Not by chance the same thing occurred in relation to Goa, when Charles Dellon propounded the image of the intolerance and decline of the Portuguese Estado da India. (22)

The contrast between representations circulating in Europe and the relationships established by the Portuguese in the East is also present in Jose Celso de Castro Alves's essay on Goa. Based on a reading of published documents, Alves suggests a kind of alliance between lower-class Portuguese and native inhabitants interested in trade. This is presented as the ideal way to consider such a cross-cultural group of subalterns, and radically breaks with the established tradition. It is worth recapping: in 1596, after a period of residence in Goa, the Dutch author Jan Huygen van Linschoten published his Itinerario naer cost ofte Portugaels Indien, in which he offered an explanation for Portuguese decline, based specifically on their miscegenation with an 'inferior' people. This text was widely circulated. It was translated into English and German in 1598, and published in two different Latin versions in 1599. The French version, which came out in 1610, was reprinted several times, as was the Dutch edition. (23) The long life of this argument is hard to trace, but the argument is still explicitly present in the work of the twentieth-century Portuguese historian Jaime Cortesao, and in particular when he lists the causes of Portuguese decline in the 'Orient'. (24) However, what should be questioned here is conventional analysis which refers his criticism of the 'yellowing' of Goa to its Dutch origins. Imputing it to a Dutch culture characterized by racism dangerously courts the old thesis, which is full of ideological pitfalls, of a contrasting Portuguese natural adaptability overseas. (25) But could Linschoten's discourse, written after a lively period in Goa where he served as secretary to the bishop, be considered rather a mirror of the local political debate within elite Goan circles? If this is the case then, rather than a contrast between supposed Portuguese forms of integration and Dutch racism, we should be thinking in terms of an opposition between subaltern alliances and hegemonic discrimination. In any case, to avoid simplistic dualities it would be wise to compare the case of Goa with other colonial cities such as Batavia or Manila. (26)

The next contribution also takes its inspiration from micro-history. Erik Lars Myrup presents the case of Constantino, a Catholic priest born in Salcette, one of the Goa provinces, and interrogated by the Inquisition in 1736 for Hindu practices. Myrup's main concern is to reconstruct the misunderstandings of the prosecutors to provide an insight into their failure to deal with the intellectual constructions of someone who literally lived in two different worlds. (27) Indeed the essay clearly stresses this interest in hybrid figures when it proposes a comparison with groups living on the margins or working as intermediaries between cultural frontiers in Brazil and the Philippines. Another possible comparison would be with renegades. However, instead of using his case-study and the archival evidence to emphasize that marginality or peripheral status, the evidence is put to work to address a crucial problem faced by any colonial order: the question of local collaboration. In these terms the focus shifts from the periphery to the centre. The figure of the native priest corresponds to a strategy practised by various religious orders and reinforced by different viceroys during the eighteenth century. (28) His local knowledge, and more specifically his fluency in different languages, made him a valuable agent in the service of the values and decisions of the centre. Or at least so the colonial authorities thought and intended. The native priest, even more than the native soldier, should be seen as one of the sinews of power. However, there are two problems with this. The first concerns the way native priests in Goa used a Catholic discourse to develop a local debate on the hierarchy of castes: a case where agents, who in principle were considered as subalterns, clearly participated in the colonial order, appropriating it to translate or even resolve their local conflicts. (29) The second concerns another form of agency which can be ascribed to local priests and other men of religion. Voltaire gives expression to just such agency in his Dialogue entre un Brachmane et un Jesuite sur la necessite et l'enchainement des choses of 1756. (30) Indeed, this dialogue must not be seen as a mere fiction in the Enlightenment tradition. There are many examples of Hindu intellectuals finding expression in the European circuits of written communication; among them, Ananta Camotim Vaga (1752-93), official translator of the Estado da India, to whom are attributed the Noticia Summaria do Gentilissimo and the Traducao Summaria do Bagavota Guita. (31)

Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert's paper raises important questions about the role of merchant communities and networks of trade. His starting point is a re-evaluation of the role of Portuguese private traders, operating in competition with the official state structures in the East, yet always defined as pre-modern, while English private traders are seen as modern. In fact both groups, operating within the informal relations of the market of the intra-Asian trade, as distinct from the more formal and strictly hierarchical structures of exchange which governed the official trade between Asia and Europe, are equally characterized by the strategic safeguard of their interests and capitalizing on opportunities. This framework, which pits the role of markets and merchants against that of more institutionalized or state structures, is well known. One of the most original ways of addressing this question was put forward some years ago by K. N. Chaudhuri in relation to the Indian Ocean. He envisaged the trading communities there before the arrival of Vasco da Gama as working in a dynamic context of free trade, where the state provided legal regulation and conditions of stability, but did not interfere directly with commerce. By contrast, a model of permanent state intrusion and military protection of commerce, in the Mediterranean tradition, was introduced into the Indian Ocean by the Europeans, which step by step subverted indigenous markets and forms of exchange. (32) This macro perspective, which ascribes to the Europeans the imposition of the power of the state, neatly inverts the cliche of oriental despotism. However, the debate about the agency and behaviour of different merchant communities operating in the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia and the China Sea during the early modern period cannot be reduced to such terms. Specifically addressing the Portuguese case, Michael Pearson has shown that the presence of private traders can be documented from the beginning of the sixteenth century, thus challenging the claim that Portuguese private traders only began to appear in response to the decline of state structures during the latter part of the century. (33) In earlier work Pearson had argued the need to see the role of these same Portuguese groups in terms of partnerships with local groups. (34) It is precisely this kind of interaction, suggestive of a Portuguese way of 'going native' in the East, perhaps completely different from the behaviour of Portuguese traders in the Atlantic world, that Studnicki-Gizbert proposes to apply in a wider context.

Francesca Trivellato addresses the same sorts of questions by reference to the rich correspondence of an eighteenth-century commercial house of Portuguese Jews in Livorno trading in diamonds and coral. She hones her skills as a researcher by demonstrating how a network composed of different trading houses in Livorno, Lisbon and Goa functioned. The main characteristic of these relationships is that they are, to use Philip Curtin's expression, 'cross-cultural', meaning that they cannot be reduced to a single social identity, comprising as they do Portuguese Jews in Livorno, Italians in Lisbon and, perhaps, Hindu merchants in Goa. Commercial interests are therefore independent of ethnic, national or religious ties. This is in sharp contrast to the pattern defined by the Armenians outlined by Curtin. The problem lies in detaching the network from the identities of the participants. One possible justification would be the claim that because the mechanisms of economic exchange are autonomous, they are not embedded in the cultural frameworks suggested by Karl Polanyi. (35) In other words, to postulate an autonomous economic sphere. However, a better response would be to investigate the specificity of this very specialized intercontinental trade based on diamonds and coral. The famous Abbe Raynal, for example, showed himself sensitive to this point:

Aucune des compagnies qui exercent leur privilege exclusif au-dela du Cap de Bonne-Esperance, n'entreprit le commerce des diamans. Il fut toujours abandonne aux negocians particuliers; et, par degres, il tomba entre les mains des Anglais, ou des Juifs et des Armeniens, qui vivoient sous leur protection. Aujourd'hui ce grand objet de luxe et d'industrie est peu de chose. (36)

A final point raised by Trivellato's essay concerns a historiographical question on an issue already raised by Studnicki-Gizbert. Why is it 'no small paradox that British historiography is the only one to emphasize the involvement and importance of informal relations in the construction of a European national empire in the East'? The answer would appear obvious: it is a paradox to call attention to informal relations in the context of what is virtually a celebration of the successful role of formal institutions, such as the English East India Company, representing the most rational and modern form of organization. However, a more searching examination of the origins of the theme of 'informal empire' in the British historiographical tradition and its internal debates, particularly the discussions concerning the nineteenth century, may suggest a more complete answer. (37)

In 1770, Raynal wrote about Russia. After a brief reference to the conquests to the East in the 'Tartarie Chinoise', and the conquests around the Caspian Sea and Persia he said: 'cet empire qui, comme tous les autres, a eu de foibles commencements, est devenu, avec le tems, le plus vaste de l'univers. Son etendue, d'Orient en Occident, est de deux mille deux cens lieues, et d'environ huit cens du Sud au Nord'. (38) As a matter of fact, such estimations of the Russian Empire would continue until the nineteenth-century Great Game. But in fact Russia, whether as an object of research in its own right or as a subject of comparison, has been very unevenly covered in the field of Early Modern European expansion studies. (39) Jeremi Suri's merit lies precisely in calling attention to Russian imperialism during the age of Peter the Great. By stressing the comparison with the English case he confirms an idea which is not well established, that Russian intellectuals and administrators were as attracted to state imperial projects as their English counterparts--at least in terms of ideas and projects. There are therefore many points in common between Petrine Russia and England during 'the growth of political stability'. (40) Based on this comparison, Suri, along with others in this collection, is strongly critical of the supposed opposition between modern, strictly commercial north European countries, and pre-modern identities such as Portugal, Spain and Russia. Where England is concerned, one way of demonstrating this common interest in imperial projects supported by the state would be to trace the reception of the image of the Dutch empire there, or to attest demands for a strong investment in the military, which clearly contradict the idea of state-free colonial projects at the end of the seventeenth century. (41)

Where Russia is concerned, however, Suri does not explain how imperial projects met the expectations of the new Petrine political culture, which was similar to the model of European rational-bureaucratic political authority, without necessarily replacing the more traditional Muscovite politics of kinship, patronage and personal feuds dominated by the interests of the nobility. (42) Neither does he try to explain how imperial projects, a concept supposedly borrowed from Europe, were finally 'compatible with the old hypertrophic model of state'. (43) Finally, one should understand more fully the range of different territories considered as targets of Russian imperialism. In the so-called Testament of Peter, one of the main goals was to 'conquer the Levant, in order to dispose exclusively of the commerce of the Indies and thus become the true sovereign of Europe'. (44) However, it seems that the expansion into Central Asia was more effective, raising the important question of the economic dynamism of those territories. Were they conquered because they were in a state of economic depression, or were they coveted precisely for their riches? Recent research suggests the continuing importance of the caravan trade in Central Asia, and has sought to dispel the image of backwardness traditionally ascribed to the area during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. (45) If this was so, then Russian expansion is also representative of the model of an imperial state expanding in search for rich, dynamic territories.

Jay Geller's essay focuses on the different French imperial attitudes in the mid-eighteenth century. The main conflict here is between Dupleix and La Bourdonnais. Dupleix advocated a policy of neutrality, thus avoiding risky interference in local rivalries and also a direct confrontation with the English East India Company. As governor since 1742 he was successful in improving Pondicherry's participation in the trade networks, while at the same time amassing a considerable fortune with the help of local trade agents and his wife. His neutrality can also be explained in terms of the tradition of amicable Anglo-French relations that continued until late in the century, at least with regard to scientific and intellectual matters, and in spite of the war between the two nations. La Bourdonnais denounced this 'perfect neutrality' as folly, and launched a long-planned aggressive policy in India. Geller's suggestion of these two contrasting policies, while interesting, is controversial on two accounts. First, his analysis of the political game on the Coromandel coast is restricted to the French perspective. Here, his main arguments concern the complexity of defining the French enterprise, obviating the more reductive and common stereotype of the French in India as more state-oriented than the English, who were driven by strictly commercial reasons. As a matter of fact, if we take seriously the position of neutrality defended by Dupleix, precisely the opposite was true: he thought that the Compagnie des Indes could not provide Pondicherry with the same state-backed financial and military support that the East India Company could count on. Second, as someone who is well read in the work of Christopher Bayly, Geller recognizes the need to think of this political game as largely locally defined, where Europeans played as near-equals with diCerent local powers. In this sense, therefore, his essay does not represent a return to the old view which saw matters narrowly in terms of Anglo-French rivalry, with a British victory automatically resulting in their successful occupation of the void left by Mughal decline. However, even though Geller is dealing specifically with only one of the sides in the political game, it would still be useful for him to have examined more closely the kinds of notions and information the French had about other parts of India, particularly about the local powers who were in theory regional vassals of the Mughal, but in practice very powerful in their own right.

This shift from a one-sided view of history to a more encompassing perspective focused on the relations between the many actors is also required to put to rest a certain number of stereotypes. Richard Tracy, for example, has argued that, within the internal channels of communication established by the Dutch V.O.C. in Surat, quite accurate knowledge existed about the role of local authorities and their relations with the Mughal state, which stood in clear contrast with Mughal views propagated by the majority of books published in Europe. (46) While the images propagated in Europe were dominated by the stereotype of oriental despotism, Dutch agents working in the field had more accurate information concerning the failures that limited that seemingly centralized structure. Moreover, that kind of detailed information was already current and available in print in the eighteenth century. One concrete proof of this is directly related to the Anglo-French wars, and appeared in the opening pages of a book published in 1769:

It is generally supposed, that the Peninsula within the Ganges is under immediate government of the Mogul himself, and that the royal mandates from Delli are, according to the received notion of so arbitrary a dominion, obeyed in the most remote parts of the coast. This is so far from the truth, that a great part of that vast Peninsula never acknowledge any subjection to the throne of Deli, till the reign of Aurengzebe; and the revenues from those Indian kings and Moorish governors, who were conquered or employed by him, have, since his death, been intercepted by the viceroys, which his weaker successors have appointed for the government of the Peninsula: so that at this time neither can the tribute from the several potentates reach the Court of Delli, nor the vigour of the government extend from the capital to those remote countries. And ever since the province of Indostan was ruined by Nadir Shaw, the weakness of the Mogul, and the policy and confirmed policy of the Viceroys have in a manner confined the influence of the government to its inland department. (47)

Anglo-French competition can also be seen in the diCerent attempts at mapping India, especially during the second half of the eighteenth century. Lucy Chester uses the scheme proposed by Roger Chartier--production, content and reception--to analyse the maps made by Jean-Baptiste d'Ainville and James Rennell. In both cases, it is possible to appreciate the effort that went into creating scientific mapping in place of the older imaginative maps. Rennell's maps, made in India between 1763 and 1777, filled the white spaces left by d'Ainville with new information. But, as he himself recognized in a letter written at the end of the eighteenth century, his Map of Hindoostan (1783) was soon out of date:

Believe me, Sir, when I say that I pride myself on nothing so much as in having originally laid a foundation of Indian geography, and which is all that I pretend to, for at that day we were compelled to receive information from others respecting the interior of the country, but in your time you explored for yourselves. I have only the merit of furnishing a dim light by which others groped their way. (48)

It would be simplistic therefore, to contrast d'Ainville with Major James Rennell, on account of the first being Paris-based and the second a traveller in India, since the latter openly declared how much he too relied on information collected by others. Chester correctly considers that this indigenous knowledge was crucial, and all the more so since it seems that one of his informers was a sepoy officer. This further confirms the argument recently advanced by C. A. Bayly, which is critical of that developed by Said's followers, that imperial knowledge is not necessarily a mere Western construction, but some of its forms build on accurate local knowledge. (49) But there are other ways of challenging the simplistic relation between knowledge and power, which in this case means cartography and empire: the collaboration between intellectuals interested in antiquities, for example, such as the French traveller Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, or in cartography, like Rennell, which cross national barriers. This is the case with the Description Historique et Geographique de l'Inde, to which the Jesuit Joseph Tieffenthaler also contributed. However, the debate between d'Anville and Rennell also includes a later episode concerning the mapping of Africa. (50) In view of this it is possible to venture the generalization that cartography provided a key to an imperialism that emphasized the superiority of the European empires, whether British or French, but it is also necessary to follow events in order to recognize that at each instance compromising maps represent 'a series of competing interpretations of the world around them'. (51)

The last essay, by Stephen Vella, summarizes the views expressed by Willem Bolts, Adam Smith and Edmund Burke concerning the East India Company and the British presence in Bengal. All three share a very critical perspective of East India Company rule over the Bengalis, starting with Bolts' Considerations on India Affairs (1772), followed by Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) and ending with Burke's contribution to the debate on Fox's India Bill on 1 December 1783. This problem is well known through the work of Peter J. Marshall. (52) The criticisms raised by these discourses are based on a common political language, directed not only against tyranny, despotism, corruption and self-interest, as practiced by some leading individuals, but also at monopolies themselves, which were seen as contrary to the public good and larger national interests. The mobilization of this kind of rhetoric--full of moral implications and used to demonize the Company and, more particularly, its Governor-General, William Hastings--was nothing new. As a matter of fact, it clearly follows in the tradition of religious and political debates, framed in terms of the struggle of good against evil, that circulated in the form of pamphlets and political tracts at different times throughout the early modern period. However, Vella suggests that these writers, defined simultaneously by their Britishness and by their marginal position in relation to English identity, approached the question of the emerging imperial project in relation to that of British ('national') identity. In short, their criticism of the Company was framed both by their concerns over the defense of the imperial project, and by their interest in the formulation of an ideology of Britishness. I would like to add, at least in Burke's case, that the attack against the Company led him to an apologetic defense of Indian society, which shows that an imperial project could also coexist with an idealized or positive portrait of the native population. In his own words:

This multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous populace; much less of gangs of savages, like the Guaranies and Chiquitos, who wander on the waste borders of the river of Amazons, or the Plate; but a people for ages civilized and cultivated; cultivated by all the arts of polished life, whilst we were yet in the woods. There, have been (and still the skeletons remain) princes once of great dignity, authority, and opulence. There, are to be found the chiefs of tribes and nations. There is to be found an ancient and venerable priesthood, the depository of their laws, learning, and history, the guides of the people whilst living, and their consolation in death; a nobility of great antiquity and renown; a multitude of cities, not exceeded in population and trade by those of the first class in Europe; merchants and bankers, individual houses of whom have once vied in capital with the Bank of England; whose credit had often supported a tottering state, and preserved their governments in the midst of war and desolation; millions of ingenious manufacturers and mechanics; millions of the most diligent, and not the least intelligent, tillers of the earth. (53)

These ten essays, written by researchers at the start of their careers, deserve careful reading. They all demonstrate both serious attention to primary sources and to the main historiographical debates in the field, and a high consciousness of the need to formulate explicit arguments focused on specific problems. The main goal at present was not exhaustively to cover the field of European expansion in the East during the early modern period. The main value of these essays lies in their exploratory or experimental nature rather than in any claim to comprehensiveness.

Four other themes were present in the seminar, and even if they did not find a place in this volume, they are important enough to warrant a reference. The first concerns the particular attention devoted to specific areas. In this regard, the use of the expression 'the East', reflects the old concept of the East Indies, encompassing not only the Indian subcontinent and China, but also areas from East Africa to Japan or Southeast Asia. As a matter of fact, the expression 'Maritime Asia', and the fascinating studies associated with it, excludes the political units and dynamic port-cities of East Africa. (54) The second theme addresses an understanding of social groups based upon gender divisions. The theme of intermarriage between European men and Asian women, recently studied with respect to the Dutch in Batavia by Leonard Blusse, deserves more attention. Thirdly, the use of Asian sources, which I have emphasized elsewhere, in studying the different 'processes of expansion' in Asia also calls for further work. (55) Finally, historians must also make better use of visual documentation, and not merely maps, which is demonstrated by one of the essays here. Visual representations are yet another area in which contacts between different cultures is in need of further study.

The organization of the seminar and the following papers was only possible as a result of the initial invitation extended to me, and through the help and support of the many people involved. A mere list of names, while of course giving no sense of their varied and valuable support, is a pleasurable reminder of my debt to the many people and institutions involved. At Brown, Onesimo Teotonio de Almeida, Philip Benedict, Jerome Grieder, James MacClain, Anthony Molho; and at Yale, K. David Jackson, Stuart Schwartz and Robin Winks. In Portugal, Francisco Bethencourt launched a very attractive programme of research fellowships at the Biblioteca Nacional de Lisboa which set an excellent example for an international community of studies. In this regard the support of the Luso-American Foundation and the Fundacao Oriente was crucial, enabling Liam Brockey, Eric Myrup, Francesca Trivellato, and other of my graduate students to conduct their research in Portugal. I would like to put on record my gratitude to the Fundacao Oriente, to Carlos Monjardino, its President, Joao de Deus Ramos, and Joao Calvao. My thanks go to Rui Machete, President of the Luso-American Foundation, and to both Bernardino Gomes and Luis dos Santos Ferro. A special mention must also be made to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in the person of Jose Blanco. Finally, I wish to thank Helder Macedo and AbdoolKarim Vakil for their reception to my proposal to publish this collection of papers in Portuguese Studies, and to Toni Huberman for her invaluable editing and production work on the texts.

Brown University

(1) The Age of Partnership: Europeans in Asia before dominion, ed. by Blair B. King and Michael N. Pearson (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1979), pp. 15-41; Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984); India and the Indian Ocean 1500-1800, ed. by Ashin Das Gupta and M. N. Pearson (Calcutta: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 276-316; The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long-distance trade in the early modern world, 1350-1750, ed. by James Tracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), pp. 371-99; Emporia, Commodities and Entrepeneurs in Asian Maritime Trade, c. 1400-1750, ed. by Roderich Ptak and Dietmar Rothermund (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1991); Merchants, Markets and the State in Early Modern India, ed. by Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1990), pp. 242-65; Merchant Networks in the Early Modern World, ed. by Sanjay Subrahmanyam (Brookfield: Variorum, 1996).

(2) Jacob Cornelis van Leur, Indonesian Trade and Asian Society: Essays in Asian Social and Economic History (The Hague: van Hoeve, 1955); On the Eighteenth Century as a Category of Asian History, ed. by Leonard Blusse and Femme Gastra (Aldershot: Asgate, 1998); Denis Lombard, Le Carrefour Javanais: Essai d'histoire globale, 2 vols (Paris: E ditions de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1990).

(3) Christopher A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); Bayly, Empire and Information: Intelligence gathering and social communication in India, 1780-1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

(4) Victor Lieberman, 'Transcending East-West Dichotomies: State and Culture Formation in Six Ostensibly Disparate Areas', Modern Asian Studies, 31 (1997), 463-546. Arguing for a wider period as a framework: Jack Goody, The East in the West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

(5) Anthony Disney, 'The Portuguese Empire in India c. 1550-1650: Some suggestions for a less seaborne, more landbased approach to its socio-economic history', in Indo-Portuguese Sources: Sources and problems, ed. by John Correia Afonso (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 156 (case of a lingoa, working as middleman); Michael N. Pearson, The Portuguese in India, in New Cambridge History of India, 4 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), I, 61 ('more reciprocity than domination'), I, 81 ('interaction not domination').

(6) European images of Asia were discussed in the seminar, after the reading of Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, 3 vols (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1965-1993). An interesting criticism of Vol. III can be found in M. N. Pearson, '"Objects Ridiculous and August": Early Modern Perceptions of Asia', The Journal of Modern History, 68 (1996), 382-97. For a review of the literature on perceptions of other civilizations, with reference to the essential bibliography see the introduction to Implicit Understandings: Observing, reporting, and reflecting on the encounters between Europeans and other peoples in the early modern era, ed. by Stuart Schwartz (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 1-19.

(7) For a simplistic reproduction of old stereotypes based on the Black Legend: Wolfang Reinhard, 'The Seaborne Empires', in Handbook of European History 1400-1600 Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, ed. by Thomas A. Brady, Jr; Heiko A. Oberman and James D. Tracy, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill, 1994), I, 639-59.

(8) James Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and subsistance in Southeast Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976); Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico, ed. by Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniel Nugent (Durham: Duke University Press, 1994); Florencia E. Mallon, 'The Promise and Dilemma of Subaltern Studies: Perspectives from Latin America History', American Historical Review, 99 (1994), 1491-515; Mallon, Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995).

(9) Peter A. Hall, 'The Role of Interests, Institutions, and Ideas in the Comparative Political Economy of the Industrialized Nations', in Comparative Politics: Rationality, culture, and structure, ed. by Mark Irving Lichbach and Alan S. Zukerman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 174-207.

(10) John G. A. Pokock, 'The Limits and Divisions of British History: In Search of the Unknown Subject', American Historical Review, 87 (1982), 311-14; David Armitage, 'Greater Britain: A Useful Category of Historical Analysis?', American Historical Review, 104 (1999), 427-45. For a more general study of the relation between state formation and colonial empires, framed in Marxist terms, that considers the crucial topic of mercantilism: Fernando Novais, 'Brazil in the Old Colonial System', in Brazil and the World System, ed. by Richard Graham (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991), pp. 11-55.

(11) G. Parker, 'Empire and the Wider World, 1500-1700: The Military Balance', in The Political Economy of Merchant Empires: State power and World Trade 1350-1750, ed. by James Tracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 161-95.

(12) J. H. Elliott, Do the Americas Have a Common History? (Providence, RI: The John Carter Brown Library, 1998), p. 22; Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469-1716 (London: Arnold, 1963).

(13) H. de la Costa, S.J., The Jesuits in the Philippines 1581-1768 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961), pp. 5-7, 23-24, 37-57; Charles R. Boxer, The Christian Century in Japan, 1549-1650 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), pp. 257-59, 484.

(14) Leon Bourdon, 'Un projet d'invasion de la Chine par Canton a la fin du 16e siecle', in Actas do III Coloquio Internacional de Estudos Luso-Brasileiros (Lisbon: 1960), ii, 97-121; Boxer, 'Portuguese and Spanish Projects for the Conquest of Southeast Asia, 1580-1600', in Boxer, Portuguese Conquest and Commerce in Southern Asia, 1500-1750 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1985), pp. 118-36; GeoCrey Parker, 'David or Goliath? Philip II and His World in the 1580s', Spain, Europe and the AtlanticWorld. Essays in Honour of John H. Elliott, ed. by Richard Kagan and G. Parker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 245-66 (247-48).

(15) Disney, pp. 148-62.

(16) Bernardino de Escalante, Discurso de la navegacion que los Portugueses hazen a los Reinos y Prouincias del Oriente, y de la noticia q se tiene de las grandezas del Reyno de la China (Seville: Biuda de Alonso Escriuano, 1577), fols 95-96v.

(17) Diogo R. Curto, O Discurso Politico em Portugal, 1600-1650 (Lisbon: Universidade Aberta, 1988), pp. 179-80; Curto, 'Litteratures de large circulation au Portugal (XVIe-XVIIIe siecles)', in Colportage et Lecture Populaire: imprimes de large circulation en Europe, ed. by Roger Chartier and Hans-Jurgen Lusebrink (Paris: IMEC Editions--Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1996), pp. 299-329; Anthony Pagden, 'Heeding Heraclides: Empire and its discontents, 1619-1812', in Essays in Honour of John H. Elliott, pp. 320-21; Parker, 'David or Goliath?', p. 249.

(18) Horacio Costa, S.J., pp. 37-38.

(19) Horacio Costa, S.J., pp. 46-47.

(20) One example: Howard L. Goodman and Anthony Grafton, 'Ricci, the Chinese, and the Toolkits of Textualists', Asia Major, 3 (1990), 95-148.

(21) Wolfang J. Mommsen, 'La sociologie politique de Max Weber et sa philosophie de l'histoire universelle', Revue Internationale des Sciences Sociales, 17 (1965); Pierre Bourdieu, 'Une interpretation de la theorie de la religion selon Max Weber', Archives Europeennes de Sociologies, 12 (1971), 3-24.

(22) Gabriel Dellon, 'Relation de l'Inquisition de Goa (1687)', in L'Inquisition de Goa: la Relation de Charles Dellon (1687), ed. by Charles Amiel and Anne Lima (Paris: Editions Chandeigne, 1997); Diogo Ramada Curto, 'Descricoes e representacoes de Goa', in Historias de Goa, ed. by Rosa Maria Perez (Lisbon: Museu Nacional de Etnologia, 1997), pp. 45-86.

(23) Jan Huygen van Linschoten, The Voyage to the East Indies, ed. by Arthur Coke Burnell and P. A. Tiele, 2 vols (London: Hakluyt Society, 1885); Charles McKew Parr, Jan van Linschoten: The Dutch Marco Polo (New York: Crowell, 1964).

(24) Curto, 'Descricoes e representacoes de Goa', pp. 84-85.

(25) Curto, 'Descricoes e representaco es de Goa', pp. 84-85.

(26) Jean Gelman Taylor, The Social World of Batavia (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983); Leonard Blusse, Strange Company: Chinese settlers, Mestizo women, and the Dutch in VOC Batavia (Dordrecht: Foris, 1988).

(27) For the idea of misunderstanding as a key to studying cultural encounters, see Schwartz.

(28) D. R. Curto, 'As Praticas de Escrita', in Historia da Expansao Portuguesa, ed. by Francisco Bethencourt and Kirti Chaudhuri, 5 vols (Lisbon: Circulo de Leitores, 1998), III.

(29) Antonio Joao de Frias, Aureola dos Indios e Nobiliarchia Bracmana. Tractado historico, genealogico, panegyrico e moral (Lisbon: Miguel Deslandes, 1702); Leonardo Pais, Promptuario das definico es indicas, deduzido de varios chronistas da India, graves auctores, e das historias gentilicas (Lisbon: Antonio Pedroso Galrao, 1713).

(30) Voltaire, Melanges, ed. by Jacques van den Heuvel (Paris: Gallimard 'Bibliotheque de la Pleiade', 1961), pp. 311-15.

(31) Colleccao de Noticias para a Historia e Geografia das Nacoes Ultramarinas, que vivem nos Dominios Portuguezes, ou lhes sao vizinhas, 7 vols (Lisbon: Academia Real das Ciencias, 1812), I; Panduronga Pissurlencar, 'Um Hindu, autor desconhecido de duas publicaco es portuguesas', offprint from Memorias da Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa, Classe de Letras (Lisbon: Academia das Ciencias de Lisboa, 1959), VII.

(32) K. N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

(33) Pearson, The Portuguese in India, p. 66.

(34) Kling and Pearson.

(35) K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon, 1971).

(36) Abbe Guillaume Thomas Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique des Establissements et du Commerce des Europeens dans les Deux Indes, 10 vols+atlas (Geneva: Jean-Leonard Pellet, 1780), II, 150.

(37) The expression appeared in C. R. Fay, Cambridge History of the British Empire, 8 vols (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1929-59), II (1940), 399; John Gallagher and RonaldRobinson, 'The Imperialism of Free Trade', in Gallagher, The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire. The Ford lectures and other essays, ed. by Anil Seal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), pp. 1-18.

(38) Raynal, III, 149. In the Atlas following this edition of Raynal, only the Russian and Chinese empires deserve a map: 'l'Empire de Russie, en Europe et en Asie' (map no. 24).

(39) The Times Atlas of World History, ed. by Geoffery Barraclough, 4th edn (St Maplewood, NJ: Hammond, 1993), pp. 158-59: 'Russian Expansion in Europe and Asia'.

(40) J. H. Plumb, The Growth of Political Stability in England (London: Macmillan, 1972).

(41) Charles Davenant, Discourses on the Publick revenues and on the Trade of England. Which more immediately Treat of the Foreign Trafick of this Kingdom. Viz. I That Foreign Trade is beneficial to England. II On the Protection and care of Trade. III On the Plantation Trade. IV On the East-India Trade. By the Author of The Essay on ways and Means (London: James Knapton, 1698), II, 407-10; Charles Lockyer, An Account of the Trade in India containing rules for good Government in Trade, Price Courants, and tables: with descriptions of Fort St George, Acheen, Malacca, Condore, Canton, Anjengo, Muskat, Gombroon, Surat, Goa, Carwar, Telichery, Panola, Calicut, the Cape of Good-Hope, and St Helena. Their Inhabitants, Customs, religion, Government, Animals, Fruits, &c. To which is added an account of the management of the Dutch in their affairs in India (London: Samuel Crouch, 1711), pp. 309-40.

(42) Valerie A. Kivelson, 'Kinship Politics/Autocratic Politics: A Reconsideration of Early-Eighteenth-Century Political Culture', in Imperial Russia: New Histories for the Empire, ed. by Jane Burbank and David L. Ransel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), pp. 5-31.

(43) Imperial Russian Foreign Policy, ed. by Hugh Rashdale (New York: Woodrow Wilson Center Press--Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 7.

(44) 'Projects of Conquest in the Eighteenth Century', in Rashdale, p. 76.

(45) Morris Rossabi, 'The "Decline" of the Central Asian Caravan Trade', in Tracy, The Rise of Merchant Empires, pp. 351-70; Jos Gommans, 'The Horse Trade in Eighteenth-Century South Asia', Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 37 (1994), 228-50; Scott Levi, 'India, Russia and the Eighteenth-Century Transformation of the Central Asian Caravan Trade', Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 42 (1999), 519-48.

(46) James D. Tracy, 'Asian Despotism? Mughal Government as Seen From the Dutch East India Company Factory in Surat', Journal of Early Modern History, 3 (1999), 256-80.

(47) Richard Owen Cambridge, An Account of the War, in India: b[e]tween the English and French; on the Coast of Coromandel (Dublin: James Williams, 1769), p. xiii.

(48) J. N. L. Baker, The History of Geography (Oxford: Blackwell, 1963), pp. 137-38. For the Map of Hindoostan as 'the first accurate map of India', David N. Livingstone, The Geographical Tradition: Episodes in the History of a Contested Enterprise (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), p. 130.

(49) Bayly, Empire and Information.

(50) James Rennell, 'Geographical Illustrations of the Travels and Informations of F. Horneman, with Maps', in Frederick Horneman, The Journal of ...'s Travels from Cairo to Mourzouk, the Capital of the Kingdom of Fezzan, in Africa in the Years 1797-8 (London: Nicol, 1802), pp. 121-88.

(51) Lesley B. Cormack, Charting and Empire: Geography at the English Universities, 1580-1620 (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1997), p. 11.

(52) Peter J. Marshall, The Impeachment of Warren Hastings (London: Oxford University Press, 1965).

(53) Edmund Burke, Writings and Speeches, ed. by P. J. Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), v, 389-90; F. P. Lock, Edmund Burke (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), I, 531.

(54) John E. Wills Jr, 'Maritime Asia, 1500-1800: The Interactive Emergence of European Domination', American Historical Review, 98 (1993), 83-105 (a very important review article). In the case of Mozambique, see Malyn Newitt, A History of Mozambique (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995).

(55) Diogo R. Curto, 'As Expansoes no Oriente', in O Tempo de Vasco da Gama (Lisbon: Difel, 1998), pp. 59-98.