Haidar Ali, as founder of Mysore’s father and son dynasty, was a great moderniser. In analysing his European adversaries, he realised not only the importance of their efficient and well-equipped armies but that of their navies which ultimately sealed their presence in India. While merchant ships helped create the wealth by shipping sizeable amounts of commodities back to Europe, it was the navy that provided ultimate protection. In turn, of course, with the wealth secured, the construction of a larger and more powerful navy was possible. If, therefore, Haidar Ali was to better his enemy, he must take similar steps to develop his own trading fleet and the ships needed to protect it. Eventually, a further stage would be reached, that of having a sufficiency of naval power to take on and defeat the colonisers at sea. That this was his intention is evidenced by instructions left to his son, Tipu Sultan, in which he stated that for the purpose of expelling the British, ‘from the lands they have invaded’, it would be necessary to use against them their own weapons both on land and sea. In these endeavours, the port and dockyard city of Jamalabad, formerly Mangalore and always known as such by the British, was to play an especially crucial role. A more recent renaming of the city has resulted in it being now known as Mangaluru.

A further factor in Haidar Ali’s thinking was that of acquiring European knowledge for the purpose of turning it against them. As a cavalry commander, he had fought in the Second Carnatic War (1749–54), a succession conflict that involved several southern India states together with the French and British. The two European states not, at this time, wishing to be openly at war with one another, gave their support to opposing sides through the provision of military advisers and mercenaries. Haidar Ali, fighting alongside the British and latterly the French, learnt much of European methods of warfare and their weapons. With the return of peace, and through ‘paying and rewarding well’, he recruited a number of Europeans into his own military force.

The surest way for the nation states and principalities of India to resist the growing power of the British or, for that matter, any other European power would have been through the presentation of a united front. It was fundamentally the disunity existing across the continent that permitted first one and then a number of other European powers to gain a series of secure footholds. Having done so, and through collaboration with one indigenous ruler against another, each of the more powerful European contenders was able to extend their influence not only across the coastal regions but ultimately into extensive areas of the interior. A united India, with sufficient resolve, might never have allowed such a situation to develop. Providing supporting evidence, consideration need only be given to the course of events played out in China during roughly the same period. Here, under the firm hand of the Qing Dynasty, European traders, who were fundamentally the same as those seeking dominance in India, were carefully controlled. Instead of having a free hand to establish factories wherever they chose, the Europeans in China were restricted to the southern cities of Canton (Guangzhou) and Macau, where harsh rules governing their activities were laid down and enforced.

While accepting that a unity of governance existed across China, this sharply contrasting with the disunity and frequency of warfare within the sub-continent of India, there are two important similarities between India and China that need to be noted. First and foremost was that all of the European trading companies reaching out to China had received charters issued by their own governments that provided each with an exclusive right to trade between their own country and both India and China, so ensuring that actions advantageous to them taken in one of these two areas of trade would be transferred if possible to the other. Consequently, if the Chinese ruling Qing Dynasty had been less than resolute in its control of the European traders, then a similar scenario to that seen in India would also have been played out here. Furthermore, given that a major source of wealth upon which these companies depended was that of tea purchased in China, then a stronger foothold in that country would clearly have maximised the already considerable profits being earned.

3.1 Bombay formally replaced Surat as the EIC’s main trading centre in 1687 and was rapidly expanded from that date onwards. This late eighteenth-century engraving not only shows the fort which lies at the head of the peninsula but also the dockyard, which is seen towards the centre. This dockyard was particularly important for British control of the Indian Ocean, undertaking construction work on many warships for the Bombay Marine and also a small number for the Royal Navy.

Bombay, at that time an archipelago formed of seven islands with the more central and largest of these bearing the name Bombay, was first acquired by the English in June 1661. Although nowadays a major port, financial centre and the fourth most populous city in the world, this was not how it appeared in the seventeenth century. The seven islands were at that time sparsely populated and separated by an area of swamp, covered at high tide and known as the ‘Flats’. It was only as a result of a series of major land reclamation projects that took place from the eighteenth century onwards that the modern-day city of Mumbai emerged to develop into a twenty-first-century mega-city. In 1661 it would have taken someone with remarkable forward vision to predict such an astonishing transformation given that the islands formed an ideal breeding ground for malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Indeed, it was said of Bombay at that time that a mere three years was the average life-span of a European resident, with John Ovington, a chaplain on board a Company ship that arrived in 1690, describing the islands as ‘so very unhealthful ’tis certainly a mortal enemy to the lives of Europeans’.

The Portuguese had certainly viewed Bombay as having little potential when they first took possession of the islands in 1534; ceded to them by Bahadur Shah of Gujarat at the time when he was seeking out the Portuguese as an ally against the Mughals.