George Bogle (diplomat)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Portrait of George Bogle, late teens

George Bogle (26 November 1746 – 3 April 1781)[1][2] was a Scottish adventurer and diplomat, the first to establish diplomatic relations with Tibet and to attempt recognition by the Chinese Qing dynasty. His mission is still used today as a reference point in debates between China and Tibetan independence activists.

Family background

George Bogle was the third son of a wealthy Glasgow merchant, George Bogle of Daldowie, one of the Tobacco Lords and Anne Sinclair, a gentlewoman directly descended from James I and James II of Scotland. His father had extensive connections in the Scottish landed, commercial, and governmental elite, as well as trading contacts across the British Empire.[3]

The Scots

India.[citation needed] This was to be a significant feature in George's career.[citation needed
]

Education and early career

Born in 1746 at the family seat of

Enfield, near London. Following this, he spent six months travelling in France. His brother Robert then took him on as a clerk in his London offices of Bogle and Scott where he spent four years as a cashier.[5]

India

Using his family network, he secured an appointment as a writer in the British East India Company (BEIC). In 1770, he landed in Calcutta, the centre of East India Company power in India.[6] His extensive letters home, as well as his journal entries, show him to have been a lively, entertaining and perceptive writer. The comments of his colleagues and others show him to have been an agreeable, indeed playful – if sometimes riotous – companion. These qualities no doubt influenced Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of the BEIC, when he appointed him as his private secretary.[7] His letters show that he was aware of being under suspicion of corruption, and had some misgivings about it – Hastings would soon be impeached for corruption – although Bogle was determined to make his fortune come what may.

Envoy to Bhutan and Tibet

The Sixth Panchen Lama Receives George Bogle at Tashilhunpo, oil painting by Tilly Kettle, c. 1775.

In 1773, Hastings responded to an appeal for help from the

Duars
and into the foothills in 1773.

Zhidar, the Druk Desi, returned to face

Sixth Panchen Lama, who had imprisoned Zhidar, interceded on behalf of the Bhutanese with a letter to Hastings, imploring him to cease hostilities in return for friendship. Hastings saw the opportunity to establish relations with both the Tibetans and the Bhutanese and wrote a letter to the Panchen Lama proposing "a general treaty of amity and commerce between Tibet and Bengal."[9]

Hastings then lost no time in appointing Bogle to undertake a diplomatic and fact-finding mission "to chart the unknown territory beyond the northern borders of Bengal", with a view to opening up trade with Tibet and possibly establishing a back-door trade relationship with the Qing Empire who tightly controlled foreign trade at Canton under the Canton System.

Hastings instructions to Bogle, given on 18 May 1774, were as follows:

"I desire you will proceed to Lhasa ... The design of your mission is to open a mutual and equal communication of trade between the inhabitants of Bhutan [Tibet] and Bengal ... You will take with you samples, for a trial of such articles of commerce as may be sent from this country ... and you will dilligently inform yourself of the manufactures, productions, goods introduced by the intercourse with other countries which are to be procured in Bhutan ... The following will be also proper objects of your inquiry: the nature of the roads between the borders of Bengal and Lhasa and the neighbouring countries, their government, revenue and manners ... The period of your stay must be left to your discretion.[10]

Bogle's expedition set out the same year and consisted of himself, an army surgeon named Alexander Hamilton, and

Shangri-la. Bogle helped the Panchen Lama compose his still famous Geography of India
.

Returning to India, Bogle fulfilled the Panchen Lama's request,

King George III and it is now in the Royal Collection
.

Overtures to China

The hopes for a breakthrough in China rested on using the Lama as an intermediary with the

Palden Yeshe visited Beijing where he came close to gaining a passport for Bogle. The Qianlong Emperor presented him with a golden urn for use in ceremonial lotteries and the goodwill seemed to suggest that a passport would be issued. However, Bogle was struck down by smallpox, and died that same year. (It was not until 1793 that a British envoy, Lord Macartney
was, very sceptically, received by the Qianlong Emperor).

Death

Bogle died, probably of cholera, on 3 April 1781,[12] and was buried in South Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta.[13] He had never married, but left behind a son George, and two daughters, Martha and Mary. According to family lore, the girls' mother was Tibetan. The two girls were sent back to Daldowie House, where they were brought up by Bogle's family and eventually married Scotsmen.[14][15]

Legacy of Bogle’s mission

Bogle's diary and travel notes were found in his Ayrshire family archives and published as "Narratives of the mission of George Bogle to Tibet, and of the journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa" (1876) by Sir Clements Markham. This edition provided a partial impetus for the Tibetan journeys of Sarat Chandra Das. Das translated and published parts of the Tibetan biography of the Third Panchen Lama, including descriptions of his friendship with Bogle. Some critics have ascribed Bogle and Das as major inspirations for Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim, shown by Kipling's use of the title "Teshoo Lama" (an alternate title of the Panchen Lama used by Bogle and other British sources of the time).[16]

The Bogle mission has echoes today. The Chinese government has used it on official websites to suggest that Britain recognised Chinese sovereignty over Tibet.

11th Panchen Lama culminated with Beijing and the Dalai Lama proclaiming rival child candidates, Gyaincain Norbu and Gedhun Choekyi Nyima
respectively, with Chinese officials using the Qianlong Emperor's urn as a symbol of legitimacy and sovereignty.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Charles Edward Buckland, Dictionary of Indian Biography
  2. ISBN 978-0-521-51502-3
  3. ISBN 0-374-21700-9
  4. ISBN 978-1-56663-281-2
    .
  5. ISBN 0-374-21700-9
  6. ^ a b Henderson 1886.
  7. ISBN 978-0-226-31747-2
    .
  8. ISBN 978-0-313-07696-1
    .
  9. ^ Younghusband 1910, pp. 5–7.
  10. ^ Younghusband 1910, p. 9.
  11. ^ "Bhot Bagan Moth". West Bengal Heritage Commission. Retrieved 4 March 2024.
  12. ^ Stewart, op. cit. p. 145
  13. ISBN 1-56663-281-1
  14. ISBN 0-374-21700-9
  15. ^ Markham, Clements R. Narratives of the mission of George Bogle to Tibet: and of the journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa, pp. cliv–clv. Trübner and Co., London. Second edition, 1879
  16. ^ Teltscher, op. cit., pp 257–260
  17. ^ Teltscher, op. cit., pp 265
Attribution

Henderson, Thomas Finlayson (1886). "Bogle, George" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 5. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 302.

Bibliography

Further reading

  • Mitchell Library Glasgow Special Collections Bogle Papers, 1725–80 [letter-book and correspondence of the firm Bogle & Scott, tobacco merchants]

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Bogle.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Bogle_(diplomat)&oldid=1220082663"