ANON. 'Count Roupee' (Paul Benfield (1741-1810), civil servant and merchant. He went out to India in 1764 as a military engineer in the service of the English East India Company. He resigned his commission to become a private contractor, and built a successful career as a banker and financier. Benfield was involved in a series of dubious loans to the Nawab of Arcot which ended his Indian career; he returned to England and became a prominent “nabob”, a member of the class of nouveaux riches whose estates, political power, and respectability were bought with ill-gotten gains. He was MP for Cricklade 1780–1784, and lord of the manor of the Hundred and Borough of Cricklade 1779. He lost his money died indigent in Paris in 1810. London, 1797. Caricature. Source: P1742.

ANON

'Count Roupee' (Paul Benfield (1741-1810), civil servant and merchant. He went out to India in 1764 as a military engineer in the service of the English East India Company. He resigned his commission to become a private contractor, and built a successful career as a banker and financier. Benfield was involved in a series of dubious loans to the Nawab of Arcot which ended his Indian career; he returned to England and became a prominent “nabob”, a member of the class of nouveaux riches whose estates, political power, and respectability were bought with ill-gotten gains. He was MP for Cricklade 1780–1784, and lord of the manor of the Hundred and Borough of Cricklade 1779. He lost his money died indigent in Paris in 1810. London, 1797. Caricature. Source: P1742.

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