Europeans, Britons, and Scots

Welsh Sojourners in India: The East India Company, Networks and Patronage, c. 1760–1840

“…The meaning of England in this context is ambiguous'. 93 The same can be said of the Welsh in this instance.…”

“…Whilst anxious to see their loved ones return home safely, families encouraged sojourners to stay in the East until they had accrued sufficient wealth to enable them to return home with enough capital to financially maintain themselves and their family. 41 Crucially, the sojourner himself also writes of similar concerns and ambitions. Thomas Griffith had purchased lottery tickets in the hope of making a speedy fortune 'which will enable me to leave this unpleasant country like a Gentleman not as I came into it as a Beggar for I could call my self very little better'.…”

“…In the Scottish context, Mackillop argues 'Scottish sojourning in India is best understood by investigating how ethnic, national, regional, and kinship identities were mutually influential rather than somehow distinct from each other'. 71 The concept of home appears in the narratives of Welsh sojourners, and in particular how home was perceived whilst the Welsh Company men were overseas. give a very good Idea of Wales to a person unacquainted with that Country'.…”

“…This is unsurprising, as the British East India Company retained a strong English identity, even with the greater influx of Irish and Scots into the Company from the mid-eighteenth century onwards. 88 When writing home of the customs in India, Thomas Griffith, in discussing dining habits, wrote of 'the English way' and noted how some traditions were 'the same as in England', referring to England as home in this context. 89 England and Wales could be used interchangeably, for example, when lamenting it would be many years again before he returned home, Wales and England are both used interchangeably to refer to home.…”

“…A system of personal correspondence maintained a sense of familial belonging. Mackillop explains how: Personal correspondence enabled the maintenance of intimacy with family members, with written dialogue used to overcome vast physical separation.Above all, communication served a shifting set of objectives, enabling the sojourner to appear both exceptional and exotic while simultaneously transplanting him (and more rarely her) back into the domestic and familiar embrace of home and family' 29.…”