This work sets out to study the dynamics of English imperial expansion on the west coast of India. The investigation leads the author to examine the role of Bania credit institutions and pan-Indian hundi transfers in facilitating the military triumph of the English East India Company over the Maratha confederacy.

Without the timely intervention of the Banias in favour of the British, the imperial vision would not have been translated into reality under Lord Wellesley at the time and in the manner it did. The partnership between the Banias and British in turn caused other dislocations in Indian society. The undermining of the position of Muslims in the declining port-city of Surat led to one of the earliest communal riots - the Surat riots of 1795.

This is a tale of two cities - the declining Mughal port-city of Surat and the rising English city of Bombay. In this book the politics of imperial expansion and the dynamics of Indian credit, trade and society appear complex and intertwined. This is a volume which will interest all scholars of trade, urbanization and the economic structures of colonial India.