to quit

In 1687-88, the Company's servants, broken in spirit by the English oppressions of the native Viceroy, determined to quit their resolve factories in Bengal. In 1688, Captain Heath, of the Resolu- Bengal, tion, in command of the Company's forces, embarked all its 1686. servants and goods, sailed down the Húglí, and anchored off Balasor. They were, however, soon invited to return by the Emperor, who granted them the site of the present city of Calcutta for a fortified factory. In 1689, our factories at Vizagapatam and Masulipatam were seized by the Muhammadans, and the factors were massacred. But in this same year, the Company determined to consolidate their position in The ComIndia on the basis of territorial sovereignty, to enable them pany embarks on to resist the oppression of the Mughals and Marhattás. With territorial that view, they passed the resolution, which was destined to sway, turn their clerks and factors throughout India into conquerors and proconsuls: 'The increase of our revenue is the subject of our care, as much as our trade; 'tis that must maintain our force when twenty accidents may interrupt our trade; 'tis that must make us a nation in India. Without that we are but a great number of interlopers, united by His Majesty's royal charter, fit only to trade where nobody of power thinks it their interest to prevent us. And upon this account it is that the wise Dutch, in all their general advices that we have seen, write ten paragraphs concerning their government, their civil and military policy, warfare, and the increase of their revenue, for one paragraph they write concerning trade.'

1689.

'East

The Portuguese at no time attempted to found a Com- Other pany, but kept their eastern trade as a royal enterprise and India monopoly. The first incorporated Company was the English, Comestablished in 1600, which was quickly followed by the Dutch panies. in 1602. The Dutch conquests, however, were made in Dutch; the name of the State, and rank as national colonies, not as private possessions. Next came the French, whose first French; East India Company was founded in 1604; the second, in 1611; the third, in 1615; the fourth (Richelieu's), in 1642; the fifth (Colbert's), in 1644. The sixth was formed by the union of the French East and West India, Senegal, and China Companies under the name of 'The Company of the Indies,' in 1719. The exclusive privileges of this Company were, by the king's decree, suspended in 1769; and the Company was finally abolished by the National Assembly in 1796. The first Danish East India Company was formed in 1612, and the Danish ; second in 1670. The settlements of Tranquebar and Seram

Scotch;

Ostend ;

pur were both founded in 1616, and acquired by the English by purchase from Denmark in 1845. Other Danish settlements on the mainland of India were Porto Novo; with Eddova and Holcheri on the Malabar coast. The Company started by the Scotch in 1695 may be regarded as having been still-born. The Royal Company of the Philippine Spanish; Islands,' incorporated by the King of Spain in 1733, had little to do with India proper. Of more importance, although but short-lived, was 'The Ostend Company,' incorporated by the Emperor of Austria in 1723, its factors being chiefly persons who had served in the Dutch and English Companies. But the opposition of the maritime powers forced the court of Vienna in 1727 to suspend the Company's charter for seven years. The Ostend Company, after passing through a very trying existence, prolonged by the desire of the Austrian Government to participate in the growing East India trade, became bankrupt in 1784. It was finally extinguished by the arrangements made at the renewal of the English East India Company's charter in 1793. The last nation of Europe. Swedish. to engage in maritime trade with India was Sweden. When the Ostend Company was suspended, a number of its servants were thrown out of employment. Mr. Henry Köning, of Stockholm, took advantage of their knowledge of the East, and obtained a charter for the 'Swedish Company,' dated 13th June 1731. This Company was reorganized in 1806.

European traders in 1871.

The extent to which foreign nations now carry on direct dealings with India may be inferred approximately from the following figures, taken from the Census Report of 1871. There were then in British India about 8000 inhabitants of continental Europe; but of these the nationality of only 2628 was more particularly specified, chiefly in Bengal. Germans numbered 755; French, 631; Portuguese, 426; Italians, 282; Greeks, 127; Swedes, 73; Russians, 72; Dutch, 70; Norwegians, 58; Danes, 45; Spaniards, 32; Belgians, 20; Swiss, 19; Turks, 18.

CHAPTER XIII.

HISTORY OF BRITISH RULE (1757 TO 1881 A.D.).

territorial

THE political history of the British in India begins in the 18th Our first century with the French wars in the Karnatic. Fort St. George, possession. the nucleus of Madras, founded by Francis Day in 1639, was Madras, our earliest possession. The French settlement of Pondicherri, 1639. about 100 miles lower down the Coromandel coast, was established in 1674; and for many years the English and French traded side by side without rivalry or territorial ambition. The English paid rent of 1200 pagodas (say £500) to the deputies of the Mughal Empire when Aurangzeb annexed the south, and on two several occasions bought off a besieging army by a heavy bribe.

1707.

On the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the whole of Southern Southern India became practically independent of Delhi. In the India after Deccan Proper, the Nizám-ul-Mulk founded a hereditary dynasty, with Haidarábád for its capital, which exercised a nominal authority over the entire south. The Karnatic, or the lowland tract between the central plateau and the eastern sea, was ruled by a deputy of the Nizám, known as the Nawáb of Arcot. Farther south, Trichinopoli was the capital of a Local Hindu Rájá; Tanjore formed another Hindu kingdom under rulers. a degenerate descendant of Sivají. Inland, Mysore was gradually growing into a third Hindu State; while everywhere local chieftains, called pálegárs or naiks, were in semi-independent possession of citadels or hill-forts. These represented the fief-holders of the ancient Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar; and many of them had maintained a practical independence since its fall in 1565.

Such was the condition of affairs in Southern India when war broke out between the English and the French in Europe French in 1744. Dupleix was at that time Governor of Pondicherri, and Engand Clive was a young writer at Madras. An English fleet lish in first appeared on the Coromandel coast, but Dupleix by a judicious present induced the Nawab of Arcot to interpose

T

Karnatic.

First war, 1746-48. We lose

Madras, 1746.

Second

war, 1750-61. Dupleix.

and prevent hostilities. In 1746, a French squadron arrived, under the command of La Bourdonnais. Madras surrendered almost without a blow; and the only settlement left to the English was Fort St. David, a few miles south of Pondicherri, where Clive and a few other fugitives sought shelter. The Nawáb, faithful to his impartial policy, marched with 10,000 men to drive the French out of Madras, but was defeated. In 1748, an English fleet arrived under Admiral Boscawen, and attempted the siege of Pondicherri, while a land force co-operated under Major Lawrence, whose name afterwards became associated with that of Clive. The French repulsed all attacks; but the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, in the same year, restored Madras to the English.1

The first war with the French was merely an incident in the greater contest in Europe. The second war had its origin in Indian politics, while England and France were at peace. The easy success of the French arms had inspired Dupleix with the ambition of founding a French empire in India, under the shadow of the Muhammadan powers. Disputed successions at Haidarábád and at Arcot supplied his opportunity. On both thrones he placed his nominees, and posed as the arbiter of the entire south. The English of Madras, under the instinct of self-preservation, had supported another candidate to the throne of Arcot, in opposition to the nominee of Dupleix. Their candidate was wards known in history as Wálá-jáh. between the French and English in exhaustively described by Orme. Clive's stands out conspicuously is the defence of defence of Arcot by Clive in 1751.

Arcot, 1751.

Muhammad Alí, afterThe war which ensued Southern India has been The one incident that capture and subsequent This heroic feat, even

more than the battle of Plassey, spread the fame of English valour throughout India. Shortly afterwards, Clive returned to England in ill-health, but the war continued fitfully for many years. On the whole, English influence predominated in the Karnatic or Madras coast, and their candidate, Muhammad Alí, maintained his position at Arcot. But, inland, the French were supreme in the Deccan, and they were able to seize the maritime tract called 'the Northern Circars.'

The final struggle did not take place until 1760. In that

1 The original authorities for the French and English wars in Southern India aree—(1) Orme's Indostan, 2 vols., Madras reprint, 1861; (2) Mill's History of British India (ed. 1840); and (3) for the French view of those transactions, Colonel Malleson's admirable History of the French in India (London, 1868), and Final Struggles of the French in India (London, 1878).

year Colonel (afterwards Sir Eyre) Coote won the decisive Wandewash, victory of Wandewash over the French General, Lally, and 1760. proceeded to invest Pondicherri, which was starved into capitulation in January 1761. A few months later the hill- Gingi surrendered, fortress of Ginjee (Gingi) also surrendered.1 In the words 5th April of Orme: 'That day terminated the long hostilities between 1761. the two rival European powers in Coromandel, and left not a single ensign of the French nation avowed by the authority of its Government in any part of India.' 2

Meanwhile, the narrative of British conquest shifts with The Clive to Bengal. The first English settlement in that part in Bengal, English of India was Pippli in Orissa, to which the East India Com- 1634-98. pany was permitted to trade in 1634, five years before the foundation of Madras. The river on which Pippli stood has since silted up, and the very site of the English settlement is now a matter of conjecture. In 1640, a factory was opened at Húglí; in 1642, at Balasor; and in 1681, Bengal was erected into a separate presidency, though still subordinate to Madras. The name of Calcutta is not heard of till 1686, when Job Charnock, the chief at Húglí, was expelled by the deputy of Aurangzeb, and settled lower down the river on the opposite bank. There he acquired a grant of the three petty villages of Sutanati, Gobindpur, and Kálighát (Calcutta), and founded the original Fort William in 1696.

At the time of Aurangzeb's death, in 1707, the Nawab or Native Governor of Bengal was Murshid Kulí Khán, known also in rulers of Bengal, European history as Jafar Khán. By birth a Bráhman, and 1707-56. brought up as a slave in Persia, he united the administrative ability of a Hindu to the fanaticism of a renegade. Hitherto the capital of Bengal had been at Dacca, on the eastern frontier of the empire, whence the piratical attacks of the Portuguese and of the Arakanese or Maghs could be most easily checked. Murshid Kulí Khán transferred his residence to Murshidábád, in the immediate neighbourhood of Kásimbázár, which was then the river port of the Gangetic trade. The English, the French, and the Dutch had each factories at European headKásimbázár, as well as at Dácca, Patná, and Maldah. But Calcutta was the headquarters of the English, Chandarnagar 1740.

1 A full account of GINGI is given, sub verbo, in vol. iii. of the Imperial Gazetteer, pp. 368-370. In like manner, the local history of each Presidency, Province, or town is treated in the separate article upon it, and can therefore only be very briefly summarized here. Thus, with regard to Calcutta, the reader is referred to vol. ii, of the Imperial Gazetteer, p. 315.

2 Orme's History of Military Transactions in Indostan (1803), Madras reprint, vol. ii. p. 733 (1861).

quarters,