Charles Chapman (politician, 1752)
Charles Chapman (born November 23, 1752 - March 19, 1809 ) was a commercial agent, diplomat and administrator of the East India Company . He is best known for the diplomatic fact-finding mission he led to Vietnam in 1778. After his return from India he became a member of the British House of Commons .
Life
Origin and education
He was the son of the same name of Colonel Charles Chapman from Bathwick , a suburb of Bath in Somerset . The father had made a career as an officer in the army of the British East India Company and even briefly served as commander in chief of all British troops in India in 1773/1774. However, he lost his fortune through gambling and was then forced to resign.
Charles Chapman junior began a civilian career with the East India Company. After attending the commercial academy in Hoxton near London, he went to India in 1773. He was initially a writer in Bombay , but then moved to Calcutta in Bengal , where he became the private secretary of Governor General Warren Hastings . Chapman became a close confidante and loyal supporter of the governor general, in return this promoted his further career.
Diplomatic mission to Vietnam
At the beginning of February 1778, a Portuguese missionary and two Vietnamese arrived in Bengal on board a British merchant ship. These were dignitaries of the Nguyễn dynasty and fled their homeland before the Tây Sơn rebellion . In Vietnam at that time there was a three-party civil war between the Nguyễn, Trịnh and Tây Sơn . The two Vietnamese were now looking for support, or at least for a ship to bring them back to a part of Vietnam that was still under the rule of the Nguyễn.
The British initially had little interest in the matter after a series of failures in Southeast Asia. It was only when the French administrator of Chandernagor ( French India ) intervened and offered military support to the Vietnamese that Governor General Hastings became active in the face of competition.
Chapman, promoted to factorist ( factor ), was commissioned to bring the two Vietnamese dignitaries back to their homeland and to establish diplomatic and economic relations there with the Nguyễn Princely House as well as the possible establishment of a trade base (as a stopover for the route to China) to negotiate. Two ships were made available to him for the enterprise, the Schnau Amazon under the command of Captain Maclennan and the smaller escort ship Jenny .
On April 16, 1778, the expedition set sail in Calcutta. A few weeks later, while driving through the Strait of Malacca , one of the two Vietnamese on board died. After short stops in Malacca and Terengganu , the southern tip of Vietnam was reached at the end of June. Here Chapman learned that in the meantime almost the entire Nguyfamilien princely family had been massacred by the Tây Sơn, only the young prince Nguyễn Phúc Ánh had survived and continued to resist. Since it was unclear which areas were still under Nguyễn control and the heavy British ships could not enter the shallow Mekong or Đồng Nai delta, Chapman decided to sail to Quy Nhơn instead , the center of the Tây Sơn rebellion . They arrived there on July 13th and were warmly received by the Tây-Sơn supporters. The presence of the Nguyễn dignitary on board was concealed from the British.
A good week later, Chapman received an audience with King Nguyễn Nhạc , the leader of the Tây Sơn, in his nearby residence, Chà Bàn . In spite of some initial protocol-related upsets, the meeting took place in a friendly atmosphere. King Nguyễn Nhạc agreed to allow British traders to trade in his ports for a fee. In return he asked for British military support in the fight against his enemies, the Trịnh in the north and the Nguyễn and Khmer in the south. Chapman said he would discuss this with the Governor General in India. In fact, he was convinced that the Tây-S -n rebellion would collapse soon and therefore did not attach much importance to the entire audience.
On July 28th, the British ships left Quy Nhơn and sailed north to the natural harbor of Tourane (ẵà Nẵng), where they arrived on August 2nd. From there, on August 13, Chapman took a small boat to the nearby former trade center of Faifo (H ebenfallsi An), which was also under the control of the Tây Sơn, but was in ruins after the recent fighting and looting. On his return to Tourane he met a Portuguese trader who brought him an invitation from the Trịnh governor in Huế . Huế was the former capital of the Nguyễn, but had been taken by the Trịnh three years earlier. Chapman decided to accept the invitation and traveled north on the Jenny on August 18th . The larger Amazon stayed behind because Captain Maclennan was seriously ill and the ship was also unable to enter the Perfume River - on the bank of which Huế lay - due to its draft .
Thanks to the support of some local pilots, the Jenny managed to enter the river. Once in the city, the British were warmly received by the Trịnh governor. Chapman and his companions stayed in town for about three months. The Nguyễn dignitary who had traveled with him knew friends in the region and therefore left the ship unrecognized by the Trịnh. On September 30, the previously lagging Amazon arrived near the mouth of the Perfume River. Captain Maclennan hoped to find better medical treatment in Huế, but died two days later. Chapman organized the funeral in the Portuguese cemetery a few miles outside of town.
In October and early November tensions grew between the British and the local Trịnh military commander. On November 7th, Chapman received a warning from his former passenger, the Nguyễn dignitary, that the Trịnh were planning a betrayal. The British and their Portuguese and Asian supporters - a good thirty people - then withdrew to the Jenny , which was anchored in the Perfume River. However, the ship was stuck in the river due to the low water level and the estuary area, which was difficult to navigate due to the dangerous surf. The situation finally escalated when Trịnh soldiers tried to board the British ship on November 14th. A battle broke out in which the British sank several Vietnamese rowing ships using hand grenades. On November 24th, the Trịnh began to set up guns and thus to take the British ship under fire. A small dinghy managed to successfully penetrate to the Amazon off the estuary and returned with a few additional men and weapons. On the following night, however , the Jenny was torn away by the storm and driven onto a sandbar, with two crew members being lost. On November 26, the ship was seriously hit by a Trịnh gun and a Briton was killed. The Amazon appeared on the horizon, but had to give up trying to enter the river. On November 29th, Chapman was forced to hoist a white flag on Jenny, who had been badly damaged by the ongoing fire . Fortunately, the wind turned towards evening, whereupon the British dared to break out under cover of night. They managed to go out to sea where the Amazon expected them and then return to Tourane. Here the local Tây-Sơn commanders proposed a joint attack on the Trịnh, but Chapman did not respond. After about two weeks of repairs, the two British ships left the Bay of Tourane on December 18 and, as the stormy winter north winds had now prevailed, finally sailed south. An attempt to get to Saigon failed, so the British started their journey home. Malacca was reached on January 1, 1779, and Calcutta on February 16.
Once there, Chapman wrote a report ( "Narrative of a Voyage to Cochin China in 1778" ), in which he on the one hand exuberantly praised Vietnam's economic opportunities, but on the other hand also portrayed an unstable country plundered by civil war. France had meanwhile entered the American Revolutionary War on the side of the colonists , whereupon British troops had occupied the French bases in India. Now that there was no longer any danger that the French could pre-empt the British, the leadership of the East India Company saw no reason to become active in Vietnam. Chapman's trip was therefore without consequences.
It was not until 1793 that British ambassadors returned to Vietnam with the Macartney Mission . However, the British were only passing through to the Chinese imperial court and therefore paid little attention to the proposals of the Tây-Sơn government. After the fall of the Tây Sơn, the company representative John William Roberts finally tried to obtain commercial rights from the new Nguyễn emperor in 1803 and 1804, but was rejected because he no longer needed foreign support.
Further career in India
Chapman was in 1781 by Governor General Hastings for junior clerk ( junior merchant transported) and as an envoy ( agent ) of the Company in the central Indian Nagpur sent. The Raja from the Bhonsle dynasty, who resided here, ruled not only the princely state of Nagpur , but also large parts of the neighboring province of Berar , because of which he was at war with the ruler of Hyderabad . Chapman distinguished himself in this difficult position and thus qualified for further tasks.
In 1783 he became the British administrator of Bhagalpur in Bihar . Here he made friends with the orientalist and judge Sir William Jones and in January 1784 became a founding member of his Asiatic Society . A few weeks later he married his fiancée Mary Williams in Calcutta .
In 1785 Chapman was appointed senior merchant , the highest regular civil rank. His sponsor Hastings resigned the office of Governor General a little later in a dispute with the British government, but recommended Chapman in a letter to his successor, Lord Cornwallis . In 1786 Chapman became a member of the newly created Board of Revenue , the company's most important administrative body in India.
Chapman and his wife spent the years 1787 to 1789 on home leave ( furlough ) in England. Here he witnessed how Hastings was charged with abuse of power. The process dragged on until 1795, during which time Chapman represented Hastings interests in India.
In 1794 Chapman took over the management of the salt trade in Hijli in Bengal. In 1800 he moved to Jaunpur in northern India . In 1801 he ended his career in India and returned to England. He had made a fortune in the service of the Company, now he owned an estimated £ 70,000 (around £ 5,380,000 in today's purchasing power).
Member of Parliament
In England, Chapman bought a country estate in Bathford and invested in shares in the East India Company. He also decided to become politically active, which is why he bought one of the two parliamentary seats in the constituency of Newtown ( Isle of Wight ) from Sir John Barrington . It was a so-called pocket borough , in which only a few landowners could exercise the right to vote, which made it possible to sell the parliamentary seats in advance to the highest bidder.
In July 1802, Chapman moved into the House of Commons as expected . Here he mainly dealt with colonial politics. In votes he was partly on the side of the Tory government (under Prime Ministers Addington and later Pitt ), and partly on the side of the Whig opposition (under opposition leader Fox , despite his hostility to Hastings).
However, like his father once upon a time, he spent most of his time gambling, which cost him much of his fortune and completely ruined his reputation. In May 1805 he finally resigned from his parliamentary seat; James Paull moved up. Chapman's old supporter Hastings reproached him and urged him to give up gambling, but to no avail. In 1808 he lost 5,000 pounds in a single night.
Chapman died on March 19, 1809. His wife and children were left with only a small fraction of his once stately fortune.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c J. W. Anderson: CHAPMAN, Charles (1752-1809), of Bathford, Som. . In: RG Thorne (ed.): The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1790-1820 , History of Parliament Trust, Boydell and Brewer, London 1986, p. 435
- ^ PJ Marshall: Chapman, Charles (1752-1809). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of January 2008
- ^ Alastair Lamb: British Missions to Cochin China: 1778-1822 , pp. 26-77. In: Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society Volume 34, No. 3/4 (195/196), Kuala Lumpur 1961 ( digital version available at JSTOR, registration required )
- ↑ Alastair Lamb: The Mandarin Road to Old Hué: Narratives of Anglo-Vietnamese Diplomacy from the 17th Century to the Eve of the French Conquest , Archon Books, Hamden 1970, chapter "The Chapman Mission, 1778" (p. 57ff)
- ↑ Michael J. Franklin: 'Orientalist Jones': Sir William Jones, Poet, Lawyer, and Linguist, 1746–1794 , Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011, pp. 18, 24/25
- ↑ on the role of the Board of Revenue see for example Banglapedia - the National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh: Board of Revenue (as of May 2014)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Chapman, Charles |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British colonial administrator and politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 23, 1752 |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 19, 1809 |