In the spring of 1715, the fortunes of the English East India Company in Bengal seemed precarious. Mughal governor Murshed Kuli Khan’s heavy-handed exactions had put the fledgling colonial settlement at Calcutta in peril. Desperate for relief, the Company dispatched a high‑powered embassy to Delhi—John Surman and Edward Stephenson as envoys, Khojah Serhaud as interpreter, and William Hamilton as surgeon—bearing lavish gifts worth some ₹630,000 to plead their case before Emperor Farrukhsiyar. After a grueling three‑month march, the delegation finally reached the Mughal court in January 1716—but even royal audiences proved elusive. It was only when the Emperor fell gravely ill and consented to let Hamilton attend him that the embassy’s fortunes turned. Drawing on his surgical training, Hamilton treated Farrukhsiyar’s “malignant distemper,” restoring the monarch to health and, in doing so, capturing his gratitude—and his ear. In a single stroke, the Company’s surgeon secured not only the Emperor’s life but also the mission’s objectives: a firman granting free trade privileges and permission to purchase thirty‑seven villages along the Hooghly, extending Calcutta’s domain southward.
Source: Cotton, H.E.A. (1907). Calcutta: Old and New. Calcutta: W. Newman.
Arup K. Chatterjee 