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If there was one thing
18th-century British gentlemen
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00:00:13,785 --> 00:00:17,573
thought they knew
more about than port or racehorses,
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it was liberty.
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They basked in it.
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It was the reward,
they told themselves,
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for nearly a century of civil wars.
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It helped make Britain
the freest country in the world,
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safe from Catholic tyranny,
absolute monarchs
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and standing armies.
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Liberty was their religion.
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They built temples in their gardens
devoted to it.
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They even wrote it a hymn.
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Pity the rest of the enslaved world,
deprived of its manifold blessings!
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But the real payoff of liberty
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had been riches and power
from around the globe.
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With liberty had come trade.
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Trade had wrought perhaps the most
staggering transformation of power
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in all British history.
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From being a tiny outcrop
of insignificant islands
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off the north-west coast of Europe,
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Britain had expanded
into a global power.
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The shadow of Britannia
now fell across America,
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the Caribbean,
the Indian Subcontinent.
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It had taken barely a century.
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And, unlike the Roman Empire
they so admired,
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they dreamt of a British Empire
that would endure.
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One based on trade, not on conquest.
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It would be an empire of liberty,
they thought,
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Britain writ large,
sharing its bounty with the world.
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So, how was it that
in just over a century,
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the people that thought of themselves
as the freest on earth
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ended up subjugating
much of the world's population?
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How was it that a nation which had
such mistrust of military power
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ended up the biggest
military power of all?
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How was it that the empire
of the Free became one of slaves?
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How was it that profit
seemed to turn not on freedom,
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but on raw coercion?
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How was it that we ended up
with the wrong empire?
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Ask any British gentleman
in the middle of the 18th century
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to draw you a map
of the British empire,
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and it would have looked like this.
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To the east,
there were trading posts in India,
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tiny enclaves that had been there
for 100 years,
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shipping home
printed cottons and silks.
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A commercial enterprise
run by the East India Company,
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not the government.
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There would be no colonies in Asia.
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But Britain could look west
as well as east.
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And west was a whole different story.
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To the west was America -
Britain West, in fact.
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Two million people between the Atlantic
seaboard and the Appalachian Mountains.
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They came from York to New York,
Hampshire to New Hampshire.
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And they all ate, slept,
breathed the same mantra -
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liberty and Britishness.
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They had first arrived
in the early 17th century,
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seeking their fortune
or religious tolerance.
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Time enough to build farms,
communities, towns, cities even.
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Certainly time enough
to deal with the troublesome natives -
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to make alliances where possible,
and, if not, to wipe them out,
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or drive them inland.
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Within the settlements and houses
of the Virginia tobacco planters
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and Massachusetts merchants,
the silverware was a little simpler,
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the furniture not quite so
Hepplewhite as back home in England,
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but that very simplicity
spoke to their origins,
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the quest for liberty and the drive
for honest self-improvement.
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But it was rather small potatoes,
shall we say,
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if what you really wanted
was a palazzo in England,
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rather than a picket fence
in New England.
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Suppose you wanted
to make a serious fortune?
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Now, where could that happen?
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In the mid-17th century,
the Caribbean was where.
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Nobody settled in the West Indies
to read the Bible unmolested.
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This was not Massachusetts.
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No, you braved the fevers and swamps
for one reason alone -
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to make yourself very rich very fast.
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Serious profits
were already being raked in
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catering to Europe's addictions -
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chocolate, coffee
and, in England especially, tea.
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But, as a money spinner, nothing
compared with the stuff you added
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to make them more palatable - sugar.
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Once seen as a luxurious drug,
it was now a necessity,
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the cash crop of the empire.
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Barbados provided the perfect habitat
to grow the sugar cane -
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tropical heat and saturating rains.
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So the British
settled in the West Indies,
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transforming virgin forest
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into a patchwork quilt
of sugar plantations.
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But Queen Sugar was a bitch,
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demanding absolute service
before she'd spill her bounty.
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She took 14 months to get ripe,
all eight feet of her.
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When she was ready, she was ready.
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Cut the cane at once, get it
to the crushers before it spoiled.
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Boil the juice before it degraded.
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All very messy and very dangerous.
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By the side of the crushing mills
hung a sharpened machete,
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ready to sever the limbs of anyone
who got caught in the rollers.
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What she needed was a combination
of strength and lightning speed.
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What she needed
were human beasts of burden,
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strong, quick, durable
and uncomplaining.
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One commodity
would be reaped by another.
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By slaves.
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Sitting in a plantation house,
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next to mills turning sugar
into liquid gold,
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what did you care if you had to go
to West Africa to buy the slaves
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and ship them back
across the Atlantic?
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Oh, yes,
the logistics were difficult.
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Nothing the greatest seafaring
nation in the world couldn't handle.
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The British were good at commodities.
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A couple of thousand pounds
bought you
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200 acres of Barbadian cane fields,
a mill and a 100-odd slaves.
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Within a few years, it returned
an equal amount every year
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for the rest of your life.
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You were now among the richest men
anywhere in the British Empire.
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The slave economy in the Caribbean
wasn't just a side-show of empire,
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it was the Empire.
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3.5 million slaves were transported
in British ships alone.
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They went to British plantations,
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to make British profits
and build British cities...
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Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow,
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where the cult of liberty
was still on everyone's lips
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in smart coffee houses.
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Apart from the occasional
visiting Quaker and exiled Puritan,
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there was a deafening silence
in the land of liberty
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about turning fellow men
into work animals.
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The scale of profits sealed
the conspiracy of silence.
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Well, here's a little thing
of devilish prettiness.
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It's silver. It might be jewellery.
A hat pin or something like that.
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But it's not. This is an object
which marked the passage
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of a human being to a thing.
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It's a branding iron.
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Once the initials
were burnt into your flesh,
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you were no longer a person.
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You were an object, a commodity.
You were a beast of burden.
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Your journey into hell
started months earlier in Africa.
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It's described in one
of the few surviving accounts
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by Olaudah Equiano,
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one of the millions
to experience the nightmare.
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Captured as a small boy,
he was separated from his sister...
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then dragged to the coast
and a waiting slave ship.
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When I looked around the ship
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and saw a multitude of black people
of every description, chained,
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every one of their countenances
expressing dejection and sorrow,
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I no longer doubted of my fate.
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Quite overpowered
with horror and anguish,
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I fell motionless on the deck.
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To make the venture profitable,
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the slaves were stacked
in two layers in the hold,
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with only about two feet between
the planks below and above them.
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The air soon became
unfit for respiration,
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from a variety of loathsome smells,
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and brought on a sickness among
the slaves of which many died.
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This deplorable situation
was again aggravated
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by the galling of the chains
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and the filth of the necessary tubs
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in which the children often fell
and were almost suffocated.
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The shrieks of the women
and the groans of the dying
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rendered it a scene of horror
almost inconceivable.
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You're a ship's surgeon. It's your
job to go into the hold of a morning
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and examine the cargo.
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What do you find? For a start,
you find a lot of dead slaves,
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some of them manacled together,
living and dead, chained as one pair.
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What do you do then?
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You take the pair on deck,
strap them to the grating,
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sort out the living from the dead,
throw the dead overboard.
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There are the sharks,
always the sharks, waiting, grateful.
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If you were one of those
who made it to land alive,
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your troubles had just begun.
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Naked but for a loincloth,
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you were once again
paraded and poked at,
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your teeth inspected like horses.
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Violence, the threat or application
of it, ran the system.
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Women were the objects
of particular terror.
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In one year, a Jamaican overseer
of a plantation, aptly called Egypt,
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gave 21 floggings to women,
each no less than fifty lashes.
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Equiano says it was common
at the end of the beating
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to have the victims kneel and thank
their masters for the treatment.
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The same overseer also recorded,
with the same matter of fact manner,
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that he'd had sex
with 23 slave women that year,
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not including his regular mistress.
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Only Sundays
offered some moments of joy.
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The market and music let slaves
recreate some sense of community
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and the Africa they had left behind.
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At no time was there more joyous
music than at a funeral,
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because death, at last, was liberty.
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Death was the return home.
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(BASS VOCALIST)
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It was very important
for such a momentous journey
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to have something like this, African,
though made in Barbados.
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A necklace of teeth,
shells and bones, discarded trinkets,
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copper and bronze rings.
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to campground...
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So, a people who legally had
no possessions at all
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reserved what they'd hidden away
for this last important journey,
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so their spirits could return
to Africa with dignity.
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to campground
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For the British,
it was the perfect set-up.
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Their ships dominated the oceans,
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their slaves brought them profit,
the world was their oyster.
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00:15:07,225 --> 00:15:10,058
But someone else was eager
to prise it open -
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the French.
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They'd fought for centuries
and they would fight again.
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The Hundred Years' War of the Middle Ages
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would become the Seven Years' War
of the 18th century.
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Agincourt, fought,
not on a muddy field,
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but in battles around the globe.
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It turned out that the combo
the British most despised -
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Jesuits, professional soldiers
and bureaucrats -
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were stealing the empire
before their very eyes,
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starting with continental America.
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Singing patriotic anthems wouldn't
stop them, only war would.
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And war, as the Romans discovered,
changes everything.
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The first victim is liberty
and the second is profit.
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00:16:02,465 --> 00:16:06,140
The French had been in North America
for as long as the British,
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00:16:06,305 --> 00:16:10,093
based in Canada to the north,
and Louisiana to the south,
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00:16:10,265 --> 00:16:14,895
and exploring the Mississippi
and the Ohio River valley in between.
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00:16:15,065 --> 00:16:17,625
It didn't take a genius to work out
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that a cordon of French forts
linking Canada to Louisiana
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would box the British colonies in.
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It would be death
by slow strangulation.
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The days of the ad hoc empire
were drawing to a close.
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Empires were not for sharing.
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The British would have to fight
to keep theirs.
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It was commonly thought
by politicians that war was coming,
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but it wasn't a prospect
anyone relished,
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except someone who made
global victory his alpha and omega.
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And that man was William Pitt.
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For better or worse,
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it was William Pitt,
neurotic, gouty, irascible,
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either maniacally hyperactive
or collapsed in a paralysing gloom,
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who was the British Empire's
true visionary.
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He believed
with an almost feverish intensity
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00:17:15,745 --> 00:17:19,863
that what was at stake in the struggle
between France and Britain
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00:17:20,025 --> 00:17:23,859
was not just who would get
the lion's share of wealth,
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but whether the world would be
conquered by liberty or despotism.
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The first rounds went badly
for the forces of liberty.
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00:17:36,785 --> 00:17:40,937
British troops were wiped out
in the backwoods of New York State
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00:17:41,105 --> 00:17:43,903
by the French
and their native allies.
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00:17:47,745 --> 00:17:51,260
So Pitt unleashed
his biggest weapon -
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00:17:51,425 --> 00:17:53,381
his war chest.
241
00:17:54,945 --> 00:17:58,096
He would fight the first world war
242
00:17:58,265 --> 00:18:01,701
with columns of figures
as well as columns of soldiers.
243
00:18:02,585 --> 00:18:09,138
Pit spent �18 million a year,
twice the government's annual income.
244
00:18:12,465 --> 00:18:16,140
This flew right in the face
of the Empire's basic principle -
245
00:18:16,345 --> 00:18:18,063
that it shouldn't cost.
246
00:18:18,225 --> 00:18:21,774
But, as Pitt calculated, you can't
make a profit from empire
247
00:18:21,945 --> 00:18:24,413
if it's not your empire.
248
00:18:25,465 --> 00:18:29,538
After one more setback,
there were nothing but glories.
249
00:18:34,625 --> 00:18:38,413
1759 was a year of military miracles.
250
00:18:39,745 --> 00:18:46,059
The French Empire's strongholds fell,
one by one, to truly British forces,
251
00:18:46,225 --> 00:18:48,534
Highland regiments
often leading the way
252
00:18:48,705 --> 00:18:51,617
in India, the French sugar islands,
253
00:18:51,785 --> 00:18:54,458
West Africa and Nova Scotia.
254
00:18:55,345 --> 00:18:57,620
Horace Walpole boasted:
255
00:18:57,785 --> 00:19:02,779
Our bells are worn threadbare
with the ringing of victories.
256
00:19:03,625 --> 00:19:06,856
But there was no victory
as sweet or as significant
257
00:19:07,025 --> 00:19:09,255
as the one that broke the back
258
00:19:09,425 --> 00:19:12,701
of French power
in North America for good -
259
00:19:13,505 --> 00:19:16,815
General Wolfe's conquest of Quebec.
260
00:19:18,505 --> 00:19:21,497
It was exactly
the kind of thing Pitt adored.
261
00:19:21,665 --> 00:19:26,819
An attack so improbable that Wolfe
himself assumed it couldn't work.
262
00:19:26,985 --> 00:19:32,423
He'd designed it more
as a glorious death than a likely victory,
263
00:19:32,585 --> 00:19:36,260
climbing the sheer cliffs
that protected the city
264
00:19:36,425 --> 00:19:40,577
and surprising - and were
they surprised! - The French.
265
00:19:43,785 --> 00:19:45,503
After a suicidal charge,
266
00:19:45,665 --> 00:19:49,260
the defenders were cut down
in a monstrous volley.
267
00:19:49,785 --> 00:19:51,377
(GUNFIRE)
268
00:19:56,545 --> 00:20:01,061
True to his script, Wolfe
took a shattering shot to the wrist,
269
00:20:01,225 --> 00:20:03,864
then bullets in the guts and chest.
270
00:20:05,505 --> 00:20:08,497
Bleeding into the arms
of his brother officers,
271
00:20:08,665 --> 00:20:12,419
he died as the first
imperial romantic martyr,
272
00:20:12,585 --> 00:20:17,101
duly set in marble
in Westminster Abbey.
273
00:20:22,465 --> 00:20:24,979
Victory in Quebec and then Montreal
274
00:20:25,145 --> 00:20:29,423
totally transformed
the British Empire in North America.
275
00:20:29,585 --> 00:20:34,818
Pitt had made America,
as he supposed, British forever.
276
00:20:40,785 --> 00:20:46,462
And he must have felt he'd made
the world safe for liberty to triumph.
277
00:20:48,545 --> 00:20:53,221
The age of imperial Britain
as a world power was about to dawn,
278
00:20:53,385 --> 00:20:54,704
was it not?
279
00:20:54,865 --> 00:20:58,016
There was reason for
the new young king, George III,
280
00:20:58,185 --> 00:21:02,144
to be the first Hanoverian
to admit out loud that:
281
00:21:02,305 --> 00:21:05,183
I glory in the name of Britain.
282
00:21:06,825 --> 00:21:10,374
Even an American in London
like Benjamin Franklin
283
00:21:10,545 --> 00:21:13,423
couldn't help but agree.
He wrote that:
284
00:21:13,585 --> 00:21:17,498
The foundations of the future
grandeur and stability
285
00:21:17,665 --> 00:21:20,657
of the British Empire lie in America.
286
00:21:22,065 --> 00:21:28,061
17 years later, he was signing the
American Declaration of Independence.
287
00:21:28,225 --> 00:21:30,864
So, what went wrong?
288
00:21:33,705 --> 00:21:38,221
How could it all have been
thrown away in less than a generation?
289
00:21:38,385 --> 00:21:42,344
Pitt would learn
that even victories come at a cost.
290
00:21:42,505 --> 00:21:47,704
And, in Britain's case,
that cost would be America.
291
00:21:49,105 --> 00:21:52,177
Perhaps the resources
of the British Empire
292
00:21:52,345 --> 00:21:54,461
were now terminally over-stretched.
293
00:21:54,625 --> 00:21:58,664
Perhaps that young empire might
turn out to be a 30-year wonder.
294
00:21:58,825 --> 00:22:02,374
At any rate, if they were going
to defend the status quo,
295
00:22:02,545 --> 00:22:05,742
they were going to need
a huge transcontinental army
296
00:22:05,905 --> 00:22:07,896
and even bigger navy.
297
00:22:08,065 --> 00:22:10,533
And if that army and navy
were to be funded,
298
00:22:10,705 --> 00:22:14,823
the burden of taxes had better not
just fall on the British themselves.
299
00:22:14,985 --> 00:22:19,536
So, the colonists, who were
supposed to enjoy their protection,
300
00:22:19,705 --> 00:22:23,254
would have to cough up
their share of the money.
301
00:22:26,225 --> 00:22:28,785
And they'd do it through taxes.
302
00:22:29,745 --> 00:22:33,533
Taxation, the very thing that had
triggered the British civil wars,
303
00:22:33,705 --> 00:22:37,220
would do so again,
this time in America.
304
00:22:40,305 --> 00:22:42,296
The taxes may have been different,
305
00:22:42,465 --> 00:22:45,935
but the result would
once again be disaster.
306
00:22:50,585 --> 00:22:54,180
What happened in America
was really Round Two of those wars,
307
00:22:54,345 --> 00:22:56,620
the civil war of the British Empire,
308
00:22:56,785 --> 00:22:59,743
with the Hanoverians
playing the part of the Stuarts
309
00:22:59,905 --> 00:23:03,420
and the Americans
the heirs of the revolutionaries -
310
00:23:03,585 --> 00:23:08,579
of Cromwell and of William III,
the inheritors of a true British liberty
311
00:23:08,745 --> 00:23:12,374
that had somehow got lost
in its own motherland.
312
00:23:13,545 --> 00:23:18,175
One such American was John Adams,
a Boston lawyer and politician,
313
00:23:18,345 --> 00:23:20,779
deeply read in history and philosophy,
314
00:23:20,945 --> 00:23:25,416
and one of the most eloquent
patriot leaders in the colonies.
315
00:23:25,585 --> 00:23:28,463
He believed fervently
in those hard won liberties -
316
00:23:28,625 --> 00:23:34,063
no taxation without consent,
no standing armies, no martial law.
317
00:23:36,865 --> 00:23:39,459
When he looked
at what Britain had become,
318
00:23:39,625 --> 00:23:44,938
he no longer recognised a pristine
temple of liberty, and no wonder.
319
00:23:45,025 --> 00:23:47,823
Thanks to the unrelenting wars
with France,
320
00:23:47,985 --> 00:23:53,457
Britain had become a huge military state,
supporting a massive army, navy,
321
00:23:53,665 --> 00:23:57,055
and an insatiable
tax collecting machine.
322
00:23:58,905 --> 00:24:02,215
Adams's Britain,
the shrine of freedom,
323
00:24:02,385 --> 00:24:05,616
was, of course, a fantasy,
a dream Britannia.
324
00:24:05,785 --> 00:24:09,460
But this was a dream that John Adams
woke up with every morning.
325
00:24:09,625 --> 00:24:13,413
And from such nagging visions
comes action.
326
00:24:16,785 --> 00:24:20,460
He would not pay the taxes,
and he was not alone in this struggle.
327
00:24:23,465 --> 00:24:28,016
Angry, wealthy Boston in the 1760s
was exactly the kind of place
328
00:24:28,185 --> 00:24:30,255
that might breed a revolution.
329
00:24:32,145 --> 00:24:36,741
Adams, his friends and neighbours,
argued about everything.
330
00:24:36,905 --> 00:24:39,578
They attended public meetings
in droves.
331
00:24:39,745 --> 00:24:42,817
Gossip flew around
the cobbled streets in minutes
332
00:24:42,985 --> 00:24:46,216
and roused the citizens
to use their muscle -
333
00:24:46,385 --> 00:24:49,183
fast and fierce
in opposition to British taxes
334
00:24:49,345 --> 00:24:52,462
and those who tried to enforce them.
335
00:24:53,505 --> 00:24:58,374
Stunned by this strength of feeling,
the British hit on a tax by stealth.
336
00:24:59,465 --> 00:25:01,979
One only of interest to bureaucrats,
337
00:25:02,145 --> 00:25:07,378
something the mob couldn't possibly
notice, or so they thought.
338
00:25:09,705 --> 00:25:13,584
So, when the British government
decided to put a stamp on the paper
339
00:25:13,745 --> 00:25:17,704
which official documents,
handbills and newspapers were printed on,
340
00:25:17,865 --> 00:25:20,459
what in London
looked harmless enough,
341
00:25:20,625 --> 00:25:23,856
in Boston
seemed like a tax on knowledge.
342
00:25:24,025 --> 00:25:29,577
In that dangerously
over-informed city, it really lit a fire.
343
00:25:31,265 --> 00:25:35,463
After all, who uses official
documents and reads newspapers?
344
00:25:36,905 --> 00:25:40,534
Well, only every single lawyer,
merchant, minister, publisher
345
00:25:40,705 --> 00:25:44,493
and pamphleteer
across the 13 colonies.
346
00:25:45,625 --> 00:25:50,380
Anyone who has to deal
with an official document now hates you.
347
00:25:50,545 --> 00:25:51,864
And who are they?
348
00:25:52,025 --> 00:25:56,894
Only the best educated and loudest
of the colonial population.
349
00:25:57,265 --> 00:26:02,737
Their leadership was prepared
to mobilise anger on the Boston streets.
350
00:26:03,785 --> 00:26:07,334
The mob tore down the house
of the Governor of Massachusetts.
351
00:26:09,385 --> 00:26:14,584
In Britain, this violent opposition
divided parliament almost as strongly.
352
00:26:15,505 --> 00:26:18,144
The government was outraged
at the insolence
353
00:26:18,305 --> 00:26:21,661
of colonials who were
protected by our care,
354
00:26:21,825 --> 00:26:25,534
and demanded
that they should yield obedience.
355
00:26:25,705 --> 00:26:30,574
Up got William Pitt, the man who'd
done most to make America British,
356
00:26:30,745 --> 00:26:36,217
to demand the repeal
of the Stamp Act and save his empire.
357
00:26:37,985 --> 00:26:40,783
I rejoice that America has resisted.
358
00:26:40,945 --> 00:26:44,858
I would argue that even
under former arbitrary reigns,
359
00:26:45,025 --> 00:26:50,179
parliaments were ashamed of taxing
a people without their consent.
360
00:26:50,345 --> 00:26:54,179
The gentleman asks, "When were
the colonies emancipated?"
361
00:26:54,345 --> 00:26:59,055
But I desire to know,
when were they made slaves?
362
00:27:01,425 --> 00:27:04,019
As the war for public opinion
escalated,
363
00:27:04,185 --> 00:27:07,655
the American politician
and publisher, Benjamin Franklin,
364
00:27:07,825 --> 00:27:11,738
produced an image that quickly seized
the public imagination -
365
00:27:11,905 --> 00:27:15,102
a nightmare vision
of a dismembered Britannia
366
00:27:15,265 --> 00:27:19,019
ruined by alienating her colonies.
367
00:27:21,185 --> 00:27:24,541
Tensions rose in London and Boston.
368
00:27:24,705 --> 00:27:27,822
Parliament did eventually
repeal the stamp duty,
369
00:27:27,985 --> 00:27:31,421
but still the Americans
boycotted British goods.
370
00:27:31,585 --> 00:27:35,578
Parliament put troops
on the streets of Boston to keep order.
371
00:27:35,745 --> 00:27:38,737
The Americans assaulted
and abused them.
372
00:27:41,025 --> 00:27:43,664
Then, in one notorious incident,
373
00:27:43,825 --> 00:27:47,943
the tormented Redcoats opened fire
before the State House.
374
00:27:48,945 --> 00:27:53,097
Five Bostonians
were left dead on the street.
375
00:27:54,745 --> 00:27:57,623
Shocked by the killings,
over the next three years,
376
00:27:57,785 --> 00:28:00,982
both sides let things calm down.
377
00:28:04,425 --> 00:28:08,498
Eventually, the British dropped
all their taxes except one -
378
00:28:08,665 --> 00:28:11,338
that on tea.
379
00:28:19,145 --> 00:28:23,536
The import duty had been lowered
to sweeten the cup.
380
00:28:23,705 --> 00:28:29,382
The government supposed no one would
notice the tax. Well, they noticed.
381
00:28:30,825 --> 00:28:34,261
The ships carrying the tea
duly arrived in Boston.
382
00:28:34,425 --> 00:28:37,781
Unloading them meant
paying the import duty.
383
00:28:39,105 --> 00:28:42,859
On the night of December 16, 1773,
384
00:28:43,025 --> 00:28:46,017
the largest hall in Boston
was filled to capacity
385
00:28:46,185 --> 00:28:50,542
with people listening to orators
warning that to bring the tea ashore,
386
00:28:50,705 --> 00:28:55,495
much less to brew it, was to swallow
slavery along with a cuppa.
387
00:28:56,945 --> 00:29:00,221
At a pre-arranged signal,
the doors burst open
388
00:29:00,385 --> 00:29:04,344
and a group of patriots,
dressed in blankets as Mohawk Indians,
389
00:29:04,545 --> 00:29:08,458
urged the crowd to storm the ships.
390
00:29:09,505 --> 00:29:13,783
About 30 to 60 of our Mohawks,
with their faces all blackened up,
391
00:29:13,945 --> 00:29:17,620
blankets still in place,
climbed aboard with lanterns.
392
00:29:17,785 --> 00:29:21,698
They used hatchets, which they
called, of course, tomahawks,
393
00:29:21,865 --> 00:29:26,416
to break open the chests and poured
the stuff straight into the water.
394
00:29:32,185 --> 00:29:33,823
For those who knew,
395
00:29:33,985 --> 00:29:38,137
and the leaders of the patriot campaign
were very shrewd about this,
396
00:29:38,305 --> 00:29:42,935
understood that it was indeed
an incredibly fateful moment.
397
00:29:43,105 --> 00:29:45,096
John Adams said:
398
00:29:45,265 --> 00:29:49,258
"This was the most
magnificent moment of all,
399
00:29:49,465 --> 00:29:54,414
"that I cannot but call it
an epoch in history."
400
00:29:54,585 --> 00:29:57,258
How right he was.
401
00:30:01,025 --> 00:30:04,859
To punish Boston,
the British now closed its port,
402
00:30:05,025 --> 00:30:07,698
galvanising
all of the American colonies
403
00:30:07,865 --> 00:30:10,823
to come to the distressed city's aid.
404
00:30:10,985 --> 00:30:15,422
Cartloads of food came
from colonies north and south.
405
00:30:15,585 --> 00:30:18,053
George Washington declared:
406
00:30:18,225 --> 00:30:24,221
The cause of Boston now is,
and ever will be, the cause of America.
407
00:30:27,225 --> 00:30:31,901
And yet, still, there was hesitation
on the brink of catastrophe.
408
00:30:33,585 --> 00:30:38,340
Few wanted irrevocable divorce
from the motherland.
409
00:30:39,225 --> 00:30:42,103
In London, King George III
and his government
410
00:30:42,265 --> 00:30:44,574
believed rebellion
had already started
411
00:30:44,745 --> 00:30:47,543
and had to be nipped in the bud.
412
00:30:49,385 --> 00:30:55,255
In parliament, William Pitt made
a last-ditch plea for sanity and reason.
413
00:30:56,465 --> 00:31:00,743
Did their lordships not understand
that in fighting the Americans,
414
00:31:00,985 --> 00:31:06,935
they were fighting their own ghosts,
the ghosts of English liberty past?
415
00:31:10,265 --> 00:31:15,464
What, though you march from town
to town, province to province,
416
00:31:15,625 --> 00:31:19,220
though you shall be able to enforce
a temporary submission,
417
00:31:19,385 --> 00:31:24,061
how shall you be able to secure
the obedience of the country you leave,
418
00:31:24,225 --> 00:31:30,141
to grasp the dominion of 1,800 miles
of continent, populous in numbers,
419
00:31:30,305 --> 00:31:34,423
possessing valour,
liberty and resistance?
420
00:31:36,905 --> 00:31:39,783
The spirit which resists
your taxation
421
00:31:39,945 --> 00:31:43,654
is the same spirit which called
all England on its legs
422
00:31:43,825 --> 00:31:48,945
and, by the Bill of Rights,
vindicated the English constitution.
423
00:31:49,105 --> 00:31:53,337
This glorious spirit animates
three millions in America
424
00:31:53,545 --> 00:31:59,541
who prefer poverty with liberty
to gilded chains and sordid affluence,
425
00:31:59,705 --> 00:32:04,460
and who will die in defence
of their rights as free men.
426
00:32:12,585 --> 00:32:16,180
George III's ministers
were having none of it.
427
00:32:16,345 --> 00:32:20,657
Parliament's authority as government
of the Empire was at stake,
428
00:32:20,825 --> 00:32:24,818
and, if necessary, it had to be
backed up with bullets.
429
00:32:26,465 --> 00:32:29,343
So, few were surprised
when the first blood was shed
430
00:32:29,545 --> 00:32:34,983
at Lexington, outside Boston,
on April 19, 1775.
431
00:32:35,985 --> 00:32:39,216
Redcoats had been sent
to seize militia arms.
432
00:32:39,385 --> 00:32:42,104
They arrived just before dawn.
433
00:32:43,025 --> 00:32:47,462
Nobody knows who,
but inevitably, someone fired.
434
00:32:48,905 --> 00:32:51,703
And, in response,
the British shot their muskets
435
00:32:51,865 --> 00:32:57,303
straight into the ragtag group
of militiamen gathered before them.
436
00:32:57,785 --> 00:33:02,336
The Redcoats stormed nearby Concord,
but were then forced back to Boston
437
00:33:02,505 --> 00:33:06,293
in bloody shock,
peppered with fire all the way!
438
00:33:12,985 --> 00:33:16,773
The dream of somehow remaining
British and still being free
439
00:33:16,945 --> 00:33:21,655
had died along with the militiamen
at Lexington and Concord.
440
00:33:21,825 --> 00:33:25,295
Now there was a different dream,
a dream of a new country.
441
00:33:25,465 --> 00:33:27,501
It was an American dream.
442
00:33:32,905 --> 00:33:35,703
Once those shots had been fired,
443
00:33:35,865 --> 00:33:39,460
many more bodies would be laid
beside those in Concord.
444
00:33:41,065 --> 00:33:44,102
It would be a war fought,
not just with muskets,
445
00:33:44,265 --> 00:33:46,460
but with words and ideals.
446
00:33:49,705 --> 00:33:53,618
Adams and his fellow colonial leaders,
including Benjamin Franklin,
447
00:33:53,785 --> 00:33:55,423
meeting in Philadelphia,
448
00:33:55,585 --> 00:34:01,899
would publish their Declaration
of Independence on July 4, 1776.
449
00:34:03,425 --> 00:34:06,223
Yes, when the declaration
accused a king,
450
00:34:06,385 --> 00:34:09,297
in this case, George III,
of being a tyrant,
451
00:34:09,465 --> 00:34:13,777
it did sound remarkably like
a chapter from a British history book.
452
00:34:13,945 --> 00:34:16,539
But that's not
what everyone remembers.
453
00:34:16,705 --> 00:34:22,701
What we remember is something fresh,
something profoundly American.
454
00:34:24,225 --> 00:34:26,898
We hold these truths
to be self evident,
455
00:34:27,065 --> 00:34:29,260
that all men are created equal...
456
00:34:30,265 --> 00:34:34,497
They are endowed by their creator
with certain unalienable rights...
457
00:34:35,785 --> 00:34:40,734
... that among these are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness.
458
00:34:43,585 --> 00:34:45,735
In April 1778,
459
00:34:45,905 --> 00:34:48,897
faced with the undoing
of his life's work,
460
00:34:49,025 --> 00:34:51,539
an alliance between the old enemy,
France,
461
00:34:51,705 --> 00:34:54,299
and the new dominion of liberty,
America,
462
00:34:54,465 --> 00:34:57,616
Pitt tried to make one last
parliamentary speech
463
00:34:57,825 --> 00:35:02,455
which would put some gumption
into his demoralised compatriots.
464
00:35:02,625 --> 00:35:05,901
He struggled to his feet,
but, before he could pronounce,
465
00:35:06,065 --> 00:35:10,581
he collapsed back again
into the arms of his fellow peers.
466
00:35:10,745 --> 00:35:12,861
When he died a month later,
467
00:35:13,025 --> 00:35:17,701
the right empire, the empire
of liberty, died with him.
468
00:35:19,265 --> 00:35:23,258
It would take George Washington,
now commander of the American forces,
469
00:35:23,425 --> 00:35:28,453
seven years of bloody fighting
before independence became a reality.
470
00:35:30,065 --> 00:35:34,377
In that time, the Americans suffered
as many defeats as victories,
471
00:35:34,545 --> 00:35:38,663
but gained the crucial support
of France, Spain and Holland,
472
00:35:38,825 --> 00:35:41,419
eventually forcing the British
to surrender
473
00:35:41,625 --> 00:35:45,254
at Yorktown in Virginia in 1781.
474
00:35:51,745 --> 00:35:55,135
It may have been the end
of one kind of British Empire,
475
00:35:55,305 --> 00:35:59,184
but another one
was waiting to be born.
476
00:36:06,585 --> 00:36:09,418
20 years after defeat in America,
477
00:36:09,585 --> 00:36:13,624
the British found themselves
ruling millions in Asia.
478
00:36:16,785 --> 00:36:20,619
They hadn't planned it, they hadn't
even dreamed it was possible.
479
00:36:20,785 --> 00:36:22,776
Why would they?
480
00:36:25,625 --> 00:36:29,220
Since the British had first come
to India, early in the 17th century,
481
00:36:29,385 --> 00:36:32,457
they thought of nothing but trade.
482
00:36:33,945 --> 00:36:36,584
Their only presence
was the East India Company,
483
00:36:36,745 --> 00:36:40,294
a commercial body
there to make a profit.
484
00:36:45,105 --> 00:36:48,177
From toeholds on the south-east
and western coasts,
485
00:36:48,345 --> 00:36:52,657
they bought brilliantly-printed silks
and cottons and shipped them home,
486
00:36:52,825 --> 00:36:55,658
where the parlours and bodies
of the polite classes
487
00:36:55,825 --> 00:37:00,296
were suddenly transformed
by splashes of Indian colour.
488
00:37:01,265 --> 00:37:06,783
A nice business, but anything more
ambitious was out of the question,
489
00:37:06,945 --> 00:37:09,937
for there already was
an empire in India,
490
00:37:10,105 --> 00:37:12,744
one of the most spectacular
in the world.
491
00:37:14,865 --> 00:37:16,298
The Mughals.
492
00:37:24,265 --> 00:37:27,496
The Moslem descendants
of the Mongol conquerors of Asia.
493
00:37:30,945 --> 00:37:33,982
At their head
was the Emperor in Delhi.
494
00:37:35,505 --> 00:37:40,818
Across the land, a network
of governors loyal to him, the Nawabs.
495
00:37:43,065 --> 00:37:48,378
They had to give their permission
for the East India Company to be there.
496
00:37:51,945 --> 00:37:56,336
To the Mughals, the British merchants
were just extra pocket money,
497
00:37:56,505 --> 00:37:59,941
supplying silver
to take Indian goods home.
498
00:38:00,105 --> 00:38:02,903
No more than a gnat
on the elephant's rump,
499
00:38:03,065 --> 00:38:07,855
specks of bothersome dust
on the Emperor's peacock throne.
500
00:38:09,625 --> 00:38:12,458
But in 1739, that throne disappeared
501
00:38:12,625 --> 00:38:15,378
in the plunder
taken by Persian invaders
502
00:38:15,585 --> 00:38:19,783
when they sacked Delhi
and slaughtered its inhabitants.
503
00:38:27,425 --> 00:38:30,178
In the decades that followed,
other invaders,
504
00:38:30,345 --> 00:38:34,816
Afghans from the north-west,
rode deep into the Indian heartland
505
00:38:34,985 --> 00:38:39,740
waging war and fighting battles
on an unimaginable scale.
506
00:38:43,505 --> 00:38:48,260
The gorgeous fabric of
the Mughal Empire frayed and tore.
507
00:38:53,065 --> 00:38:59,061
Left to their own devices, the Nawabs
took advantage of Delhi's weakness,
508
00:38:59,225 --> 00:39:04,060
raising their own armies,
creating their own mini-states.
509
00:39:06,905 --> 00:39:10,978
18th-century Mughal India
was not some howling anarchy
510
00:39:11,145 --> 00:39:14,421
begging for the British
to come in and stop the rot.
511
00:39:14,585 --> 00:39:20,501
It was a patchwork of successor
states, elegant, robust, vigorous,
512
00:39:20,665 --> 00:39:24,419
many of them still using Persian law
and Persian court style.
513
00:39:24,585 --> 00:39:27,053
And it was
these up and coming states,
514
00:39:27,225 --> 00:39:32,458
not the corrupt petty kingdoms which
the British always complained about,
515
00:39:32,625 --> 00:39:36,015
into which the East India Company
smashed its way
516
00:39:36,185 --> 00:39:42,215
with a ferocious, unstoppable mixture
of arrogance, ignorance and political cunning.
517
00:39:43,785 --> 00:39:50,304
No one in Delhi saw it coming,
no one in London wanted it,
518
00:39:50,465 --> 00:39:53,696
but then enter the French,
enter trouble.
519
00:39:58,305 --> 00:40:03,425
It was the 1740s.
Anglo-French rivalry was going global.
520
00:40:06,705 --> 00:40:10,459
What the French had been doing
with native North American tribes,
521
00:40:10,625 --> 00:40:14,857
interfering in wars and alliances
to steal a march on their rivals,
522
00:40:15,025 --> 00:40:19,064
they would now do
in the Asian subcontinent.
523
00:40:20,465 --> 00:40:24,174
From Pondicherry,
their base in the south,
524
00:40:24,345 --> 00:40:26,336
the French
jumped into Indian politics,
525
00:40:26,465 --> 00:40:29,184
learning that a well-engineered coup
526
00:40:29,345 --> 00:40:33,099
could replace a neutral local
governor with a tame Nawab,
527
00:40:33,265 --> 00:40:37,053
one who would not just help
their business prospects,
528
00:40:37,225 --> 00:40:39,659
but shut out the British.
529
00:40:42,465 --> 00:40:48,017
So the British had little choice
but to join this game of trump the Nawab.
530
00:40:49,625 --> 00:40:54,938
To act was risky, but failure
to act was commercial suicide.
531
00:40:56,305 --> 00:41:00,139
Not everyone in the little company
settlements, like nearby Madras,
532
00:41:00,305 --> 00:41:04,696
was biting his nails
at the idea of an Indian war.
533
00:41:06,945 --> 00:41:10,779
There was one young man, who'd been
sweating it out as a company clerk,
534
00:41:10,945 --> 00:41:15,655
for whom the drum roll of battle
was an irresistible serenade.
535
00:41:17,185 --> 00:41:20,973
Robert Clive, like the East India
Company itself, you might say,
536
00:41:21,145 --> 00:41:25,661
was never really cut out for business,
at least, not legit business.
537
00:41:25,825 --> 00:41:28,214
In Market Drayton,
where he'd grown up,
538
00:41:28,385 --> 00:41:32,822
the Shropshire lad ran an extortion
racket, threatening shopkeepers
539
00:41:32,985 --> 00:41:37,342
with his own gang of toughs
unless they coughed up.
540
00:41:37,545 --> 00:41:41,902
Exported to Madras, Clive lived
the life of a bachelor clerk,
541
00:41:42,065 --> 00:41:46,058
scribbling, sweating,
drinking, fornicating,
542
00:41:46,225 --> 00:41:51,299
and making the whole thing bearable
only with pipes of opium.
543
00:41:53,665 --> 00:41:58,056
Scenting that powerful old aroma
of money and fame,
544
00:41:58,225 --> 00:42:03,094
Clive made a career change,
and he took British India with him.
545
00:42:04,865 --> 00:42:09,256
In the war that erupted between
French- and British-supported Nawabs,
546
00:42:09,425 --> 00:42:13,782
Clive turned a diversion
into the main event.
547
00:42:13,945 --> 00:42:18,700
While both main armies were on a long
siege at the city of Trichinopoly,
548
00:42:18,865 --> 00:42:24,576
Clive took a few men and stormed
the capital of the pro-French prince.
549
00:42:25,705 --> 00:42:30,301
He then held out for six long weeks
against everything thrown at it.
550
00:42:30,465 --> 00:42:36,461
The effort fatally weakened the enemy
and the British client Nawab took power.
551
00:42:37,785 --> 00:42:41,619
The French gamble in south India
was a busted flush.
552
00:42:41,785 --> 00:42:44,583
Clive had just broke the bank.
553
00:42:45,745 --> 00:42:48,862
Suddenly, the rest of India
woke up to the fact
554
00:42:49,025 --> 00:42:53,143
that it was no longer dealing
with a feeble little merchant fledgling.
555
00:42:53,305 --> 00:42:56,741
What it had got
was a cuckoo in the nest.
556
00:42:58,345 --> 00:43:02,338
Up the coast to the north,
the young impulsive Nawab of Bengal,
557
00:43:02,545 --> 00:43:07,221
Siraj-ud-Daulah, decided to do
something about this threat.
558
00:43:08,785 --> 00:43:12,937
In 1756, he attacked the British
settlement that had been established
559
00:43:13,105 --> 00:43:18,896
at the mouth of the Hooghly River
since 1690 - Calcutta.
560
00:43:23,545 --> 00:43:26,855
Most of its residents
made it out of the town in time.
561
00:43:28,065 --> 00:43:34,743
The rest, 100 or so, found themselves
imprisoned in a 20-foot-square cell...
562
00:43:35,585 --> 00:43:42,855
with no food or water and virtually no air,
in the height of the Indian summer.
563
00:43:47,705 --> 00:43:49,741
Few came out alive,
564
00:43:49,945 --> 00:43:56,259
and the Black Hole of Calcutta now entered
British history's lexicon of infamy.
565
00:43:58,865 --> 00:44:03,063
One survivor, John Zephaniah Holwell,
wrote a book about the Black Hole
566
00:44:03,225 --> 00:44:05,455
on his way back
from India to England.
567
00:44:05,625 --> 00:44:10,619
When it was published, in 1758,
it became an instant best seller.
568
00:44:10,785 --> 00:44:16,337
Holwell exaggerated the number
of those who suffocated on that night,
569
00:44:16,545 --> 00:44:20,823
multiplying them by about three,
from around 40 to 120.
570
00:44:20,985 --> 00:44:25,775
I don't think he was simply kicking
up the number for sensationalism.
571
00:44:25,945 --> 00:44:27,742
He was making a point.
572
00:44:27,905 --> 00:44:32,296
The point was that a regime that could
do that, that was so cruel, so inhuman,
573
00:44:32,465 --> 00:44:35,343
scarcely deserved the name
of a government at all,
574
00:44:35,545 --> 00:44:38,139
in fact, scarcely deserved
to survive.
575
00:44:41,185 --> 00:44:43,938
Clive sailed north
in Royal Navy ships,
576
00:44:44,105 --> 00:44:49,384
recaptured Calcutta
and pursued Siraj-ud-Daulah up-river.
577
00:44:51,025 --> 00:44:54,381
In June, 1757,
he took on an Indian army
578
00:44:54,545 --> 00:44:57,821
that outnumbered his ten to one.
579
00:44:59,865 --> 00:45:02,504
But Clive had been in India
long enough to know
580
00:45:02,665 --> 00:45:06,340
there was more than one way
to fight a battle here.
581
00:45:11,705 --> 00:45:14,981
The Battle of Plassey has gone down
in imperial textbooks
582
00:45:15,145 --> 00:45:17,500
as one of those stellar victories,
583
00:45:17,665 --> 00:45:21,783
with a handful of European soldiers
pulling off a long-shot victory
584
00:45:21,945 --> 00:45:24,857
against massed elephant cavalry.
585
00:45:25,025 --> 00:45:29,860
What happened was that Clive cut a deal
with Abdullah's second-in-command -
586
00:45:30,025 --> 00:45:33,984
"Make sure your soldiers disappear
and you can be the next Nawab."
587
00:45:34,145 --> 00:45:36,022
Well, of course, he went for it.
588
00:45:36,185 --> 00:45:39,382
The soldiers duly evaporated
and that was that.
589
00:45:42,865 --> 00:45:44,901
Courtesy of his tamed new Nawab,
590
00:45:45,065 --> 00:45:49,456
Clive helped himself to a quarter
of a million pounds reward.
591
00:45:50,705 --> 00:45:53,094
It made the delinquent
from Market Drayton
592
00:45:53,265 --> 00:45:59,261
one of the wealthiest men in Britain,
and Baron Clive of Plassey.
593
00:45:59,425 --> 00:46:04,545
When challenged, years later,
at the scale of his plunder, Clive replied:
594
00:46:05,905 --> 00:46:08,465
An opulent city lay at my mercy.
595
00:46:09,345 --> 00:46:15,580
Vaults were thrown open to me, piled
on either hand with gold and jewels.
596
00:46:16,585 --> 00:46:22,581
At this moment, I stand astonished
at my own moderation.
597
00:46:24,185 --> 00:46:27,302
The new Nawab would have disagreed.
598
00:46:27,465 --> 00:46:31,902
Clive cost him his independence,
as well as his jewels.
599
00:46:33,225 --> 00:46:37,343
The British could and would
replace him at their whim.
600
00:46:39,985 --> 00:46:45,218
As Clive turned from a general
into a power broker, an Indian Caesar,
601
00:46:45,385 --> 00:46:48,457
suspicions began to mount
back in London.
602
00:46:49,425 --> 00:46:53,338
Was this an economic exercise
in damage containment
603
00:46:53,505 --> 00:46:55,575
or was it empire building?
604
00:46:55,745 --> 00:47:00,660
For empires notoriously
came with long bills.
605
00:47:03,065 --> 00:47:06,023
But Clive was one step ahead of them.
606
00:47:06,665 --> 00:47:09,623
He would solve all their problems
by turning Bengal
607
00:47:09,785 --> 00:47:12,538
into a money-making machine
for the company.
608
00:47:14,505 --> 00:47:18,384
Not by trade,
but by collecting its land taxes.
609
00:47:20,745 --> 00:47:26,422
The temptation was not just for
company men to build private mega-fortunes,
610
00:47:26,585 --> 00:47:31,295
it was for the company itself
to want to grow rich, fast.
611
00:47:31,465 --> 00:47:34,821
This was just so much easier
for the business.
612
00:47:34,985 --> 00:47:40,935
Increasingly, the main trade of British India
was not spices, not cloth, but taxes.
613
00:47:41,145 --> 00:47:45,138
Taxes would pull down
one empire in America,
614
00:47:45,305 --> 00:47:48,900
but now they were going
to set one up in India.
615
00:47:49,905 --> 00:47:52,977
In 1765, the company
was granted the right
616
00:47:53,145 --> 00:47:56,774
to collect the land tax
across all of Bengal.
617
00:47:57,785 --> 00:48:02,654
For the British, it marked
the shift from trading to ruling.
618
00:48:04,305 --> 00:48:07,377
The theory of empire
had been turned on its head.
619
00:48:07,545 --> 00:48:10,343
Trade can only thrive,
that theory had said,
620
00:48:10,505 --> 00:48:14,384
when it's not lumbered
with government or an army.
621
00:48:14,545 --> 00:48:17,935
"Trade can only thrive in India,"
whispered Clive,
622
00:48:18,105 --> 00:48:21,495
"when it hooks up with government,
when it runs a tax system,
623
00:48:21,665 --> 00:48:24,259
"and when it supports an army."
624
00:48:25,265 --> 00:48:32,376
And it was in stark contrast to what
occurred in America at the same time.
625
00:48:32,585 --> 00:48:35,975
In Boston, they were sending
protesting mobs into the streets,
626
00:48:36,145 --> 00:48:39,899
but in Bengal, the money men
were falling over themselves
627
00:48:40,065 --> 00:48:41,703
to bankroll the British.
628
00:48:42,705 --> 00:48:46,983
The local land-owning tax collectors,
or Zemindars, as they were called,
629
00:48:47,145 --> 00:48:51,980
would happily keep harvesting the rupees,
as they had for the Mughals.
630
00:48:52,865 --> 00:48:57,097
The British even imagined that
under their enlightened supervision,
631
00:48:57,265 --> 00:49:00,382
Bengal would be turned
from a place of grinding toil
632
00:49:00,585 --> 00:49:02,541
into a model of progress.
633
00:49:02,705 --> 00:49:06,380
In theory,
everyone was going to be happy.
634
00:49:07,545 --> 00:49:11,220
If the Zemindars could know for sure
exactly how much tax
635
00:49:11,385 --> 00:49:15,219
they would owe to the government,
they could go easy on the peasants.
636
00:49:15,385 --> 00:49:19,094
The peasants, in turn, would be able
to be thrifty and industrious
637
00:49:19,265 --> 00:49:21,460
and produce a surplus for the market,
638
00:49:21,625 --> 00:49:24,822
and plough back the profit
into self-improvement.
639
00:49:29,745 --> 00:49:33,784
The only problem with this
was that it was a total fantasy.
640
00:49:33,945 --> 00:49:36,982
The Zemindars' main interest was,
and always had been,
641
00:49:37,145 --> 00:49:40,660
in shaking as much money as possible
from their peasants,
642
00:49:40,825 --> 00:49:42,736
which they continued to do.
643
00:49:44,505 --> 00:49:47,736
So, instead of beginning
a chain reaction of benevolence,
644
00:49:47,905 --> 00:49:51,375
it started a pyramid of extortion.
645
00:49:52,585 --> 00:49:56,260
The government screwed the Zemindars,
who screwed the peasants.
646
00:49:56,425 --> 00:49:59,383
The Zemindars went broke,
the peasants were evicted
647
00:49:59,545 --> 00:50:04,744
and died in hundreds of thousands.
So much for good intentions.
648
00:50:07,545 --> 00:50:10,537
And, in short order,
famine arrived in Bengal.
649
00:50:12,225 --> 00:50:14,819
Walking ribcages on the trunk roads,
650
00:50:14,985 --> 00:50:18,421
saucer-eyed children
dying in baked mudholes,
651
00:50:18,585 --> 00:50:22,703
flocks of kites landing
on the carcasses of cattle.
652
00:50:23,785 --> 00:50:29,655
Perhaps a quarter of the population
of Bengal perished, millions of people.
653
00:50:30,825 --> 00:50:34,864
Perhaps the British didn't cause it,
but they certainly didn't help.
654
00:50:35,905 --> 00:50:39,614
Guilty or innocent,
one fact was indisputable -
655
00:50:40,385 --> 00:50:43,104
Bengal now belonged to the British.
656
00:50:47,985 --> 00:50:52,456
Over the next 50 years,
most of the rest of India would follow.
657
00:50:53,425 --> 00:50:58,419
New British armies would complete
the job that Clive had started.
658
00:50:59,425 --> 00:51:01,143
For some who came after him,
659
00:51:01,305 --> 00:51:05,139
India was more than an invitation
just to smash and grab.
660
00:51:07,705 --> 00:51:12,062
Warren Hastings, the first to hold
the title of Governor-General,
661
00:51:12,225 --> 00:51:14,056
was committed to the possibility
662
00:51:14,225 --> 00:51:19,094
of repairing the broken body of India
the Indian way.
663
00:51:21,065 --> 00:51:24,455
He learned Persian
and four Indian languages.
664
00:51:25,665 --> 00:51:27,656
He founded the Asiatic Society,
665
00:51:27,825 --> 00:51:30,942
dedicated to understanding
Indian culture.
666
00:51:33,065 --> 00:51:36,899
He commissioned the first
Anglo-Hindustani dictionaries,
667
00:51:37,065 --> 00:51:41,741
translations of Indian law codes
and the Bhagavadgita.
668
00:51:47,425 --> 00:51:51,976
And under Hastings' administration,
there was a tantalisingly brief moment
669
00:51:52,145 --> 00:51:57,139
when the two cultures actually
converged rather than collided.
670
00:52:01,065 --> 00:52:04,944
British men had Indian mistresses,
even wives,
671
00:52:05,105 --> 00:52:08,541
sometimes two,
one in Delhi, one in Lucknow.
672
00:52:12,785 --> 00:52:16,824
They went to cock fights, smoked
hookah pipes with Indian princes...
673
00:52:21,065 --> 00:52:23,784
...made deals with Hindu money men.
674
00:52:36,105 --> 00:52:38,665
But for many of the British
who came to India,
675
00:52:38,825 --> 00:52:42,101
there would be no home,
just a cenotaph...
676
00:52:43,265 --> 00:52:47,224
their presence immortalised
only in stone.
677
00:52:51,505 --> 00:52:57,535
Acres in central Calcutta are still
occupied by Park Street Cemetery.
678
00:53:01,065 --> 00:53:06,981
In the early days, one in three
wouldn't make it through the first monsoon.
679
00:53:07,145 --> 00:53:12,299
In all, it's said over two million
Europeans are buried in India.
680
00:53:15,825 --> 00:53:18,942
And the imperial size
of their graveyard monuments
681
00:53:19,145 --> 00:53:22,217
says something
about a wish to be remembered,
682
00:53:22,385 --> 00:53:26,583
to leave an imposing mark
on the subcontinent.
683
00:53:38,745 --> 00:53:43,739
But neither translations of Hindu
epics nor Mughal-sized tombstones
684
00:53:43,905 --> 00:53:48,854
persuaded everyone that the British
really were Indianising themselves.
685
00:53:49,025 --> 00:53:53,974
Many still saw them as conquerors
to be resisted to the death.
686
00:53:56,465 --> 00:53:59,821
(MOSLEM CALL TO PRAYER)
687
00:54:02,705 --> 00:54:05,060
They were rulers like Tippu Sultan,
688
00:54:05,225 --> 00:54:10,982
who built up his southern Indian state of Mysore
into a dynamic Moslem power.
689
00:54:11,145 --> 00:54:15,980
For 20 years, he bitterly
and effectively opposed British rule,
690
00:54:16,145 --> 00:54:20,900
bloodying their armies and fighting
their soldiers to a standstill.
691
00:54:27,905 --> 00:54:30,055
But it couldn't last.
692
00:54:32,185 --> 00:54:34,301
Tippu Sultan, the tiger, would learn
693
00:54:34,465 --> 00:54:36,979
that a new kind of British
governor-general
694
00:54:37,145 --> 00:54:39,784
had arrived at the end
of the 18th century,
695
00:54:39,945 --> 00:54:44,336
contemptuous of Warren Hastings'
tendency to go native,
696
00:54:44,505 --> 00:54:49,295
and resolved to squash the least sign
of local insurrection.
697
00:54:50,505 --> 00:54:54,259
The most uncompromising of all
was Richard Wellesley,
698
00:54:54,425 --> 00:54:57,622
the older brother
of the future Duke of Wellington.
699
00:54:57,785 --> 00:55:01,903
Yet again, France provided
the impetus for action.
700
00:55:02,785 --> 00:55:06,221
With the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte
came the excuse
701
00:55:06,385 --> 00:55:10,583
to stamp on anyone
who might be his Indian ally.
702
00:55:11,945 --> 00:55:16,143
And so Wellesley dispatched
an overwhelming company army,
703
00:55:16,305 --> 00:55:21,254
the vast majority of its manpower
Indian sepoys, to Mysore.
704
00:55:23,385 --> 00:55:26,536
They stormed Tippu's island fortress,
Seringapatam,
705
00:55:26,705 --> 00:55:29,378
and overwhelmed the Sultan's army.
706
00:55:29,545 --> 00:55:32,821
Tippu was as good as his word
and fought to the death,
707
00:55:32,985 --> 00:55:36,455
his body discovered where
the fighting had been fiercest,
708
00:55:36,625 --> 00:55:40,618
shot in the head
and stripped of his jewels.
709
00:55:42,465 --> 00:55:45,775
Over the next two decades,
Wellesley and his successors
710
00:55:45,945 --> 00:55:48,664
moved relentlessly
across the subcontinent,
711
00:55:48,825 --> 00:55:52,261
picking off Indian states one by one.
712
00:55:53,065 --> 00:55:55,784
In one of Wellesley's letters
to his wife,
713
00:55:55,985 --> 00:56:01,696
you can hear the authentic voice
of the future of British India.
714
00:56:03,305 --> 00:56:05,182
Farewell, dear soul.
715
00:56:05,345 --> 00:56:09,463
I am about to arrange the affairs
of a conquered country.
716
00:56:12,545 --> 00:56:15,343
The foundation stones of a true Raj
717
00:56:15,505 --> 00:56:19,214
were laid by Richard Wellesley,
literally, in 1799,
718
00:56:19,385 --> 00:56:21,296
when he decided that British India
719
00:56:21,465 --> 00:56:25,856
had to have the kind of building
that was fit for an emperor.
720
00:56:27,665 --> 00:56:30,737
So he built a classical palace
in Calcutta,
721
00:56:30,905 --> 00:56:35,376
complete with busts of the Roman
Caesars and grand colonnades.
722
00:56:35,545 --> 00:56:40,175
From it, Richard Wellesley surveyed,
with triumphal satisfaction,
723
00:56:40,345 --> 00:56:45,021
the stupefying immensity
of what had been done.
724
00:56:47,065 --> 00:56:49,420
It might be pricey.
725
00:56:51,025 --> 00:56:54,734
But Wellesley wasn't thinking
about double-entry book-keeping.
726
00:56:54,905 --> 00:56:58,580
He was too busy measuring
his hat size for the victory garland.
727
00:56:58,745 --> 00:57:01,339
As far as he was concerned,
what he had wrought,
728
00:57:01,505 --> 00:57:04,542
the empire he had carved out,
was the ultimate riposte
729
00:57:04,705 --> 00:57:08,983
to Napoleon's jibe about the English
being a nation of shopkeepers.
730
00:57:09,145 --> 00:57:12,455
They were not. They were
a nation of empire builders,
731
00:57:12,625 --> 00:57:15,856
an empire of arms,
of law, of engineering.
732
00:57:17,785 --> 00:57:22,540
These men no longer cared
about an empire of liberty.
733
00:57:22,705 --> 00:57:27,779
That now sounded dangerously French,
suspiciously revolutionary.
734
00:57:27,945 --> 00:57:31,824
Let the Americans play with the tomfoolery
of democracy if they chose.
735
00:57:31,985 --> 00:57:36,456
As for the empire of liberty's twin,
the empire of trade,
736
00:57:36,545 --> 00:57:39,059
surely it was understood now
737
00:57:39,225 --> 00:57:44,060
that something grander was in the offing
than money-grubbing business.
738
00:57:44,265 --> 00:57:47,462
The Almighty had led them,
by crooked steps, to be sure,
739
00:57:47,625 --> 00:57:50,776
toward their true destiny
as the modern Rome,
740
00:57:50,945 --> 00:57:52,742
instructor to the benighted,
741
00:57:52,905 --> 00:57:57,899
guardians of an empire which would
make war to provide peace.
742
00:58:01,345 --> 00:58:06,214
And just think, Roman culture might
have reached Spain and Jerusalem,
743
00:58:06,385 --> 00:58:09,821
but British civilisation
would span the world...
744
00:58:10,825 --> 00:58:14,101
...or so we told ourselves.