The Nawabs of Carnatic occupied an increasingly fictitious position of power throughout the 18th century — nominally autonomous under Mughal suzerainty, they were in practice vassals first of the Nizam of Hyderabad and then effective clients of the British East India Company. By the 1770s, the Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah had mortgaged virtually the entire revenue of the state to Company creditors, a fiscal collapse that made even routine coin production politically fraught. The Carnatic was formally annexed in 1801, ending the series.
The Nawabs of Carnatic occupied an increasingly fictitious position of power throughout the 18th century — nominally autonomous under Mughal suzerainty, they were in practice vassals first of the Nizam of Hyderabad and then effective clients of the British East India Company. By the 1770s, the Nawab Muhammad Ali Khan Wallajah had mortgaged virtually the entire revenue of the state to Company creditors, a fiscal collapse that made even routine coin production politically fraught. The Carnatic was formally annexed in 1801, ending the series.