Elizabeth
Inchbald's first play was a light farce called The Mogul Tale. One might be tempted to call is a lighter-than-air
farce, since its plot revolves around a hot-air balloon.
When the play
premiered in 1784, ballooning was the latest fad in Europe. The Montgolfier
brothers had succeeded in the first manned balloon flight the previous year,
and British balloonists were trying to repeat their success.
The first balloon
flight across the English Channel did not occur until the following year, but
Inchbald imagined a far longer trip--all the way to India! Though India at the
time was nominally ruled by the Mogul Emperor, the British had set up a
Governor General in 1773 who held significant (and largely unchecked) powers.
British colonial
authorities in India made such a mess of things in the eighteenth century that parliament tried to impeach the Governor General in 1788. Inchbald, who travelled in
radical circles, seems to have seen this coming, as she uses The Mogul Tale not to gape at the
"exotic East" so much as to make fun of the British characters in the
play.
The piece depicts
an unscrupulous doctor who sets down in a balloon in India together with a
cobbler and his wife, both of whom the doctor paid to come up in the aircraft
as an experiment. At first, the British characters don't know where they are,
but they then discover they're in the Seraglio of the Great Mogul, whose entire
court conveniently speaks English. Also, the Mogul has already heard about the
ballooning craze, so he's not too surprised when people fall from the sky. Deciding
to have a little fun with his visitors, the Mogul tells his chief eunuch:
Aggravate their fears, as much as
possible, tell them, I am the abstract of cruelty, the essence of tyranny; tell
them the Divan shall open with all its terrors. For tho' I mean to save their
lives, I want to see the effect of their fears, for in the hour of reflection I
love to contemplate that greatest work of heaven, the mind of man.
In order to
avoid execution, the doctor pretends to be the English Ambassador and the
cobbler pretends to be the Pope. The cobbler's wife gets dressed up in local
clothes, only to be hit on by the "Pope" her husband. Inevitably, the
impostors are unmasked and threatened with execution. Then the Mogul reveals he
will pardon them, because Christians have taught him the virtues of mercy and
compassion, but not the way one might think. As the Mogul puts it:
For your countrymen's cruelty to the poor
Gentoos has shewn me tyranny in so foul a light, that I was determined
henceforth to be only mild, just and merciful.
