The Great British Loot: The jewels 'stolen' by the Royals Notice issued to SpiceJet on aircraft lessor's insolvency petition He organised the expedition to go find it, but ended up throwing a hissy fit because the command of the expedition was given to somebody called James Cook! So yes, all the same family.” Alexander Dalrymple was a cartographer who, when the Company captured Pondicherry, put together all the English and French maps and realised there must be one big landmass that he called Australia.

Stair Dalrymple was brought up in the same house and place as me, and James was his cousin - so not a direct forebear - who married into the family of Noor Jehan, actually. So it in particular attracted vicars’ sons from Northern Ireland or Scotsmen with larger social aspirations than their pockets or estates could provide for. But those that did come back, did so with very large fortunes. Three-quarters of the 16-year-olds who went out as writers with the Company never came back. It was never the top aristocrats, the earls and the lords and the dukes and so on. “We’re a very small family, and we are exactly the kind of family from which the East India Company would recruit.

Clad in one of the blue shirts he seems to prefer, Dalrymple takes a look at the television in the room - a telecast of Queen Elizabeth II addressing the British Parliament - scoffs, and having gathered the cushions on a large couch into a comfortable, supportive heap, is ready to talk about the book.Ī book that incidentally, contains a fair sprinkling of Dalrymples: A Stair Dalrymple, and a James, and an Alexander. He’s been travelling near incessantly, on a publicity tour for his new book, The Anarchy: The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire. William Dalrymple walks into the business centre of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in South Mumbai, a little rumpled.

Dalrymple the anarchy