Paul Benfield (1742–1810) was an English

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

employee and trader,

financier An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of property. Types of in ...

and

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. He is now known as a target for the

rhetoric Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse ( trivium) along with grammar and logic/ dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or w ...

Edmund Burke Edmund Burke (; 12 January ew Style, NS1729 – 9 July 1797) was an Anglo-Irish Politician, statesman, journalist, writer, literary critic, philosopher, and parliamentary orator who is regarded as the founder of the Social philosophy, soc ...

, and for his spectacular

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Life

Benfield went out to India as a civil servant of the East India Company in 1764, on a modest salary. He reportedly amassed a fortune of over £500,000. At

Madras Chennai, also known as Madras ( its official name until 1996), is the capital and largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost state of India. It is located on the Coromandel Coast of the Bay of Bengal. According to the 2011 Indian ce ...

he entered into

partnership A partnership is an agreement where parties agree to cooperate to advance their mutual interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, schools, governments or combinations. Organizations ...

with local Indian bankers. He made money partly by trade, partly by loans at high rates of interest, and partly by contracts. He had extensive money transactions with the Nawab of the Carnatic, and he entered into and completed contracts with the government for the construction of fortifications for the town of Madras and for Fort St. George.

The Carnatic affair

One of Benfield's major loans was made for the purpose of enabling the Nawab, who, with the aid of the English, had invaded and conquered the Maratha state of

Tanjore Thanjavur (), also known as Thanjai, previously known as Tanjore,#Pletcher, Pletcher 2010, p. 195 is a city in the India, Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It is the 12th biggest city in Tamil Nadu. Thanjavur is an important center of South Indian c ...

, to satisfy some claims of the Dutch at Tranquebar on territories of the Rajah of Tanjore. Benfield was then charged with having helped malcontents in the Madras council, in conflict with George Pigot, 1st Baron Pigot. He was ordered by the Company's court of directors in 1777 to return to England. He resigned the Company's service, and on reaching London in 1779 demanded an investigation into his conduct. Benfield made no attempt to conceal his loans to the Nawab, stating that though they had been extensive, they had not been of a clandestine nature, and that they were well known to the governor, to the council, and indeed to the whole settlement. He alleged that he had enjoyed commercial confidence, argued that by his loans he had prevented war, and had promoted the interests of the Company. He was subsequently restored to the service and permitted to return to Madras: the court of directors resolving that his conduct, in relation to the loan to satisfy the claims of the Dutch, was beneficial.

In England

During his stay in England in 1780, Benfield was elected to Parliament as member for

Cricklade Cricklade is a town and civil parish on the River Thames in north Wiltshire, England, midway between Swindon and Cirencester. It is the first downstream town on the Thames. The parish population at the 2011 census was 4,227. History Cricklade ...

, spending freely to do so. At the same time William Burke was working for the Rajah of Tanjore. When Benfield brought an action for bribery against his opponent, S. Petrie, which was tried at Salisbury 12 March 1782, Petrie was defended by Richard Burke Jr. and

William Pitt the Younger William Pitt (28 May 1759 – 23 January 1806) was a British statesman who served as the last prime minister of Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain from 1783 until the Acts of Union 1800, and then first Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, p ...

. Petrie was acquitted, and published an account of the trial with a letter giving his history of the case in 1782. It was said in the case that Benfield returned eight or nine members to parliament; this assertion is not now given credence. Benfield finally returned to England, via France, in 1793. He established a mercantile firm in London, called Boyd, Benfield, & Co., with Walter Boyd. He entered Parliament again, for

Malmesbury Malmesbury () is a town and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England, which lies approximately west of Swindon, northeast of Bristol, and north of Chippenham. The older part of the town is on a hilltop which is almost surrounded by the upp ...

(1790), and then by buying into the seat of

Shaftesbury Shaftesbury () is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England. It is on the A30 road, west of Salisbury, Wiltshire, Salisbury and north-northeast of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester, near the border with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hi ...

. Boyd engaged in speculations which turned out badly, and Benfield's fortune collapsed rapidly. He died in Paris in poverty in 1810.

Family

In 1793, Benfield married Mary Frances Swinburne, of Hamsterley, Durham, eldest daughter of Henry Swinburne. The marriage settlement was lavish. They had a son and at least two daughters; their elder daughter Henrietta Sophia was married to Robert Berkeley, of Spetchley, while their younger daughter Caroline Martha was married in 1824 to

Grantley Berkeley The Honourable George Charles Grantley FitzHardinge Berkeley (10 February 1800 – 20 February 1881), known as Grantley Berkeley, was a British politician, writer and sportsman. Background and education Berkeley was the sixth son of Frederick Be ...

. Through these marriages, their descendants married into several aristocratic families such as the Feildings (earls of Denbigh & Desmond), and landed families.

References

External links

Historyofparliamentonline.org, ''Benfield, Paul (1741–1810), of Woodhall Park, Watton Woodhall, Herts.''
;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Benfield, Paul 1810 deaths English bankers Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British East India Company civil servants British MPs 1780–1784 British MPs 1790–1796 British MPs 1796–1800 18th-century English merchants 1742 births 19th-century English businesspeople Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Cricklade Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies UK MPs 1801–1802