Paul Benfield

Who was Paul Benfield?

Architect and Contractor in Madras, died in Paris in 1810. He was also an Indian trader, becoming notorious principally in consequence of the attack made upon him by Burke in his celebrated speech on the debts of the Nawab of the Carnetie, in which Benfield was denounced as 'a criminal who long since ought to have fattened the region kites with his offal.' Benfield went out to India as a civil servant of the East India Company in 1764, and during the greater part of his residence in that country never drew a higher salary than two or three hundred rupees a month; yet he is reported to have amassed a fortune considerably exceeding half a million sterling.