A brief overview of the themes of the study shows that the quest for land upon which to erect defensible settlements and from which to raise necessary revenue determined much of the course of Company endeavour. Without land there was nowhere to erect Company factories and accommodation, without land there was no security from the predations of indigenous and rival European forces, without land there was no settlement of indigenous artisans and traders generating revenue, without land there was no revenue from tenant peasants and without land there was no empire. This legitimacy of this quest and the sovereign authority the Company sought depended in part on the administration of justice. Following haphazard attempts to impose English law, the unification of jurisdiction after 1726 provided a degree of coherence across the three presidencies. Accompanied by all the trappings and pageantry of court proceedings, and the assimilation into its ranks of leading figures from the various communities, the mayor’s courts commanded legitimacy and thus a broad acceptance; this despite the persistence of corruption and a failure to render the courts wholly independent from Company influence.

Bengal was a region long known to the Company. Trade, however, was stifled by the Portuguese and the determination of Mughal authorities to resist English incursions. The Company was able to establish settlements in the weaving centres of Patna, Dacca and Malda, but these were outlying centres of production. Josiah Child’s control of the Company signalled a shift towards a new aggressive phase notable for a resolve to fortify settlements, exploit new sources of land revenue and a willingness to challenge Mughal authority. In the aftermath of the abortive assault on Chittagong, Job Charnock settled on a site on the banks of the Hugli. Pestilential, remote and of little interest to Mughal authorities it may have been, and yet the three small villages which became Calcutta were trading centres, made easily defensible by the encompassing jungle and river. Charnock died before any vision he had for the site could be realized, but his successors acted expeditiously and mostly fraudulently to secure zaminardi rights over the surrounding area, erect adequate fortification and after a period of uncertainty, impose a system of justice based on the mayors’ courts of Bombay and Madras.