Robert, author of a History of British India, was born at Anjengo, in Travancore, in 1728. He was educated at Harrow school, and after spending a year in a counting-house in England, he went to Calcutta in 1742, and engaged in commercial pursuits. His energy and intelligence soon attracted notice; and for a number of years he rendered essential service in connection with the government of India. Failing health, however, compelled him to return to England in 1758. He settled in London, and employed himself for the two succeeding years upon his Military History. The first volume appeared in 1763, and was received with great approbation. The East India Company not only granted him free access to their records, but appointed him their historiographer, with a salary of £400 a-year. He was chosen a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in March 1770; and was on familiar terms with the leading men of his time. After the publication of the second volume of his History in 1778, he continued to amuse himself with literary pursuits of a more general nature. In 1792 he retired to Ealing, where he died on the 13th January 1801.

Good sense and sound judgment were the principal features of his mind. His works are more distinguished by simplicity, clearness, and precision, than by any very powerful eloquence, or a very nice discrimination of character. His works are,—A General Ideal of the Government and People of Indostan, written in 1752, and printed among his posthumous works; History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan from the year 1745; the first volume, published in 1763, extends to 1756; and the second, published in 1778, carries the history down to the peace of 1763; Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, from the year 1659, 8vo, London, 1782; first published anonymously, but acknowledged and reprinted in 4to in 1805, together with the Origin of the English Establishment at Broach and Surat, the General Idea of the Government and People of Indostan, and a Life of the author. Several hundred volumes of Orme's manuscript collections, together with some scarce printed tracts relating to oriental history, are preserved in the library of the East India Company.