Patronage and Profit

In the early eighteenth century, the Indian Ocean was a dynamic crossroads of commerce, politics, and shifting power. European trading companies, Indigenous rulers and polities, and long-established merchant networks all competed and collaborated across a region stretching from the Red Sea to the South China Sea. This book explores that world through the remarkable career of one man: Sir Robert Cowan, an Irishman who rose from provincial origins in Derry to become Governor of Bombay and one of the East India Company’s most influential servants. Drawing on Cowan’s extraordinarily rich archive, one of the most extensive personal collections surviving for any Company servant, this book follows his journey from Derry to Bombay, and all stops in between. Through his letters, accounts, and private dealings, we see not only the daily realities of Company rule but also the vibrant network of personal relationships, patronage ties, and commercial opportunities that shaped life in the early modern Indian Ocean world. Cowan’s pursuit of wealth, his role in diplomacy and security, and his navigation of both Company policy and private trade reveal the blurred lines between public duty and personal ambition that defined the age. Intended for readers interested in the history of empire, maritime trade, and the East India Company, this book offers a fresh perspective on a formative period in the Indian Ocean. By using Cowan’s life and career as a lens, it illuminates the human connections and competing interests that underpinned the expansion of colonial power, and places Irish involvement in empire at the centre of British early modern colonial history.