Claude Martin: an eighteenth century European adventurer in India

Abstract

During the Eighteenth Century the Moghul imperium, already subjected to severe stresses because of Aurangzeb's policies, suffered a series of shocks which eroded Moghul authority to near vanishing point. Potential successors of Asian origin failed to fill the power vacuum, both because they clashed with each other to their mutual disadvantage, as at Panipat in 1761, or because their internecine quarrels, as in the case of the Maratha generals in the years following that disaster, weakened them still further. On the other hand European interests had not yet manifested themselves clearly in the form of imperial ambitions, largely because they still saw themselves mainly in the role of traders, and partly because they regarded such ventures into Indian politics as were thrust upon them as extensions of European and North American rivalries. In fact they had not become aware of their own potential, though it was customary for European historians of the Nineteenth century to claim, with what passed for the wisdom of hindsight, that Clive, Dupleix and their contemporaries had unmistakeable visions of imperial destinies for themselves and their respective nations in India.