“In the year 1726, Emin, the writer of these memoirs, was born at Hamadan, and in 1731 or 1733, he went with his family to Bagdad. Presently after, the Turks had evacuated Hamadan.”
At a young age, Emin followed his father Hovsep (Joseph?) to Bengal, to join the fairly significant numbers of Armenians here. He had lost his mother and a few of his siblings by the time, and it was with his grandfather, Michael, that he arrived in Calcutta. They probably arrived at Cochin by the ocean route and stayed there for five months, before making their way to Surat. In Surat, Emin found his uncle David, and from there in a matter of two months they reached Calcutta by ship. His father, Hovsep, was carrying on a slave merchandise. Soon after, his brother Moses died, losing his estate worth 5,500 tumans, amounting then to about 10,000 rupees. Hovsep sustained further losses—a couple of Armenian vessels at the bar of Madras were taken with all the money and passports and protection from the council of Calcutta by the late Admiral Griffin in the year 1746. Emin writes,
When the lawyer was making his speeches on the subject, the author unfortunately was sent by an Armenian to the court of king’s bench, the very year in which he arrived in London. At the confiscation of those vessels, he did not care so much for the insufferable loss, as when the lawyer pleading said, “How is it possible that inhabitants of Calcutta, Armenian merchants, should be possessed of so great a sum of money? They are like the Jews in Holland, who carried on a trade with the money of the enemy, when the Dutch were engaged in war. The property belonged to our enemy the French, and is justly and most lawfully taken by the admiral. The Armenians, underhand, are commissioners for them; they have not any interest in this affair.”
Apparently Emin fell sick, so disturbed he was hearing this comparison. He could not stand to have “their names disgraced by the unworthy appellation of Jews” for “it is beneath even the lowest class of his harmless countrymen, to act like that forlorn people…”
Moving on…
His father lost 30,000 rupees by those two ships, Emin reports. The author writes that his determination to travel to Europe was beginning to strengthen, and one day when his father came to ask him whether he wished to learn a language he chose English, rejecting the first two suggested: Portuguese and French. He was given six months to learn English, which apparently he did at the English school in St. Anne’s Charity School near the Old Court-house. The St. Andrew’s Church now stands on the site of the old school. He asked Mr. Parrent if law permitted him to go to England even if his father were against it, and he was told that it did, even though he would then forsake his father’s financial protection. He seems to have persuaded one Captain Williamson, telling him that he would be willing to lose the Turkish black turban and cut short the long clothes, if he were to sail. He let this opportunity pass, and had to wait a while before another one presented itself to him. He finally managed to board the India-man, Walpole, whose Sircar, upon receiving a couple of rupees arranged for Emin to meet the captain. It worked out happily for Emin and he set sail for England from the port of Balasore.
I came across his biography quite by chance, while trying to figure out the origins of the clock of the Armenian Church in Calcutta. (More on that later.) Joseph Emin (1726-1809) must surely be one of the most colourful characters to have spent a considerable part of their lives in Calcutta. You can read about his exploits on Wiki or elsewhere on the web, if, like me, you were unaware of this extraordinary man. His autobiography was published in London in 1792. It proudly states, “Written in English by himself”. In 1916, his great-granddaughter, Amy Apcar, decided to reprint the book. Her fascinating account of how she went about it may be found in the Foreword to the 1918 edition. From a serendipitous find of the Letters of Elizabeth Montagu (“Queen of the Blue Stockings”) to the help she received from Mrs Climenson and Lord Cobham with the printing of his sole (?) surviving portrait, it is a fascinating account of the reconstruction, and the annotations and notes are really commendable.
I found also of great interest the letter by one William Jones, whom Emin had given a copy of his manuscript. (Jones writes as beautifully as one would expect him to.) A few corrections are made in the MSS, as Jones says, “only these errors in language and orthography, which were unavoidable in an English work written by a native of Hamadan.” One also gets an interesting and rare insight into Jones’s ideas of governance. “A mixed government, therefore, like that of England, is the only form approaching to a state of natural society and likely to be permanent; if your design was to transplant our constitution to Armenia, I heartily lament your disappointment, though I cannot wonder at it.” Jones also provides some amusing advice on the style of writing, asking him to discard “forever the Asiatick style of panegyric, to which you are too much addicted”. “[t]he Asiatick style, whether dedicatory or epistolary, is utterly repugnant to English manners, which you prefer, I know, to those of Persia.” The letter is signed off from his Garden (Reach) near Calcutta. There is much to be said and written about the identity games that are going on between the “Grey town” settlers and the British at this time—by the end of the century, Shalom Obadiah Ha-Cohen will have arrived and started a new chapter of settlements in Calcutta. In the following posts, I hope I’ll be able to reconstruct some of the connections and networks Emin formed in Calcutta, and what he saw of the city.
Thanks, Chandrima, for reminding me of this blog! Over two months’ gap. Sigh.
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