George Bogle (diplomat)
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George Bogle (1747 - 1781) - was a Scottish adventurer and diplomat, the first to establish diplomatic relations with Tibet and to attempt recognition by the Chinese Empire. His mission is still used today as a reference point in discussions between Tibet and China.
George Bogle was the second son of a wealthy Glasgow merchant, George Bogle of Daldowie , one of the Tobacco Lords and Anne Sinclair, a gentlewoman. His father had extensive connections in the Scottish landed, commercial, and governmental elite, as well as trading contacts across the British Empire. The Scots gentry to whom he belonged were in turn, in the 18th century, a key feature in the British state. Their political allegiance was often managed through patronage . In particular, Henry Dundas was able to offer the younger sons of gentry opportunities in India. This was to be a significant feature in George’s career.
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[edit] Education and early career
He was born in 1747, the youngest of three brothers. His elder brother John Bogle eventually had a plantation in Virginia while his other brother, Robert Bogle , after the failure of a business adventure in London (the importing house of “Bogle and Scott”), established a cotton plantation in Grenada . Both intimately involved negro slaves. His four sisters married into their gentry network of traders, lairds and lawyers. His mother died when he was thirteen. The following year he matriculated at Edinburgh University where he studied Logic . He completed his education, when he was 18, at a private academy in 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.
[edit] India
Using the family network, he secured an appointment as a Writer in the East India Company (EIC). In 1770, at the height of the Bengal Famine , he landed in Calcutta, the centre of British power in India. 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 EIC, when he appointed him his private secretary. His letters also show that, while he was aware of the general suspicion of corruption which surrounded the at the time, and had some misgivings about it - Hastings would soon be impeached for corruption - he was determined to make his fortune come what may.
[edit] Ambassador to Bhutan and Tibet
In 1773, Hastings responded to an appeal for help from the Raja of Cooch Behar to the north of Bengal, whose territory had been invaded by the Raja of Bhutan. Hastings agreed (on condition that Cooch Behar recognise British sovereignty ) and defeated the Bhutanese in 1773. He then chose Bogle to go on a diplomatic and fact-finding mission “to chart the unknown territory beyond the northern borders of Bengal”, including Tibet, with a view to opening up trade there. There was also a hope of establishing relationships with the Chinese Empire.
Bogle’s expedition set out in 1774 and consisted of him, an army surgeon named Alexander Hamilton , Purangir Gosain (an agent of the Panchen Lama, the effective ruler of Tibet), and a retinue of servants. Bogle established a very good personal relationship with Lobsang Yeshe the 5th Panchen Lama and spent six months in his palaces, awaiting the melting of the snows. He was very struck by his experiences, noting in his journal,‘When I look upon the time I have spent among the Hills it appears like a fairy dream.' Indeed, it may have been the publication of accounts of his journey which established the myth of Tibet as Shangri-la. Bogle, incidentally, helped the Lama compose his still famous Geography of India, the homeland of Buddhism.
The mission to Tibet was diplomatically (though not commercially) a success, and was commemorated by a 1775 portrait of Bogle being presented (in Tibetan gowns) to the Lama. This portrait, by Tilly Kettle , a Calcutta artist, was reputedly presented by Hastings to George III and it is now in the Royal Collection. In recognition of the alliance with Tibet, the British gave the Lama a plot of land in Calcutta for a Budhist monastery.
[edit] Overtures to China
The hopes for a breakthrough in China rested on using the Lama as an intermediary with the Qing Emperor of China Qianlong an astute but aloof ruler who regarded all the world as tributaries. In 1780 , Lobsang Yeshe visited Beijing where he came close to gaining a passport for Bogle. Qianlong presented him with a golden urn for use in ceremonial lotteries and the goodwill seemed to suggest that a passport would be issued. However, he was struck down by smallpox and died that year. (It was not until 1793, that a British envoy ) Lord Macartney was, very sceptically, received by the Chinese Emperor).
[edit] Death
The following year, 1781, Bogle slipped while emerging from his rooftop bath in Calcutta and died from the injuries. He had never married, but left behind two daughters by a Tibetan mother. These were sent back to Daldowie House, where they were brought up in obscurity.
[edit] Legacy of Bogle’s mission
The Bogle mission has echoes today. The Chinese government has used it on official websites to suggest that Britain recognised Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. They portray the meeting of the Panchen Lama as one where he kowtow'ed in submission to China. The Tibetans suggest it was a meeting between a pupil (the Emperor) and a revered master (the Lama).
According to the Asia Times, in 1995 the search for the 11th Panchen Lama culminated with Beijing and the Dalai Lama's government in exile proclaiming rival child candidates, and Chinese officials seized on Qianlong's urn as a symbol of legitimacy and sovereignty, physically placing it at the very heart of their stage-managed ceremony. Meanwhile, as the authorities wheeled out the antiques, the Dalai Lama's candidate (who also lived in mainland China) was placed in detention, publicized at the time by pressure groups as the youngest political prisoner in the world. His whereabouts remain unclear today.
[edit] Bibliography
- Bogle, George; Hamilton, Alexamder; and Lamb, Alastair Bhutan and Tibet : the travels of George Bogle and Alexander Hamilton, 1774-1777 Hertingfordbury : Roxford Books, 2002
- Markham, Clements R. (editor), Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet, and of the Journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa, edited, with notes, and introduction and lives of Mr Bogle and Mr Manning, London 1876, Reprinted: New Delhi, Manjusri Pub. House, 1971.
- Teltscher, Kate The High Road to China: George Bogle, the Panchen Lama and the First British Expedition to Tibet, Bloomsbury, London, 2006. ISBN 0374217009 ISBN-13: 978-0-7475-8484-1.
- Teltscher, Kate Writing home and crossing cultures: George Bogle in Bengal and Tibet, 1770-1775 in A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660-1840, edited by Kathleen Wilson , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2004 ISBN 0521007968 ISBN-13: 9780521007962
[edit] External links
- http://www.rc.umd.edu/praxis/containment/teltscher/teltscher.html in which Kate Teltscher entertainingly analysesto Bogle’s letters.
- http://atimes.com/atimes/China/HH19Ad02.html Asia Times review of Teltscher’s book.
