with whom England has had to contend obtained a footing in India. The French had formed an establishment in Pondicherry, and were now employed in fortifying the place, and in establishing a close connexion with those natives most hostile to the English. Such proceedings naturally quickened the desire of the Company to obtain an extension of territory, and a real dominion by treaty at all risks, by which they might become independent of the Great Mogul and all other powers in the world. "The truth is," says Sir John Malcolm, in his Sketch of the Political History of India, "that from the day on which the Company's troops marched one mile from their factories, the increase of their territories and their armies became a principle of self-preservation; and at the end of every one of those numerous contests in which they were involved by the jealousy, avarice, or ambition of their neighbours, or the rapacity or ambition of their own servants, they were forced to adopt measures for improving their strength, which soon appeared to be the only mode by which they could avert the occurrence of similar danger." So in 1689 the directors adopted the principle that independence was to be established and dominion to be acquired in India.

A few years later Aurungzebe had appointed his grandson Azim to be viceroy of Bengal: Moazzim, the viceroy's father, was in the meantime aspiring to his father's throne. To enable him to succeed, money and arms were required, and the Company, for valuable considerations, could promise both. For a large sum Azim sold to the Company the zemindarships of Chuttanuttee, Govindpore, and Calcutta.

At

The City of Calcutta.

23

the last-mentioned place the English commenced with great caution, in the year 1688, to erect Fort William. Nine years later, when the fort was strong, and a town had arisen under the shadow of its walls, the Company made Calcutta the seat of a presidency; and the place gradually began to rise to the dignity of capital of the British Empire in Hindostan.

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CHAPTER V.

FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PRESIDENCY OF CALCUTTA TO THE CAPTURE OF MADRAS BY THE FRENCH.

A

A.D. 1707—1746.

NEW element of discord had been apparent

for some time in the existence of a Scotch East India Company, which claimed to have been embodied by James I., and now issued its licences for free trade. The result of this over-trading between the rival companies was great; the English markets were glutted with Indian produce, while the English manufacturers, feeling the effects of the excessive importation of calicoes and silks, petitioned for their prohibition, and obtained some relief in the shape of increased duties on imported goods. These matters caused much alarm to the interlopers as well as to the English Company, until the year 1702 brought about the eventual amalgamation of all traders to India under the appellation of THE UNITED EAST INDIA COMPANY which was established under a charter granted by Queen Anne.

At this period the Company's possessions in India may be enumerated as follows: In western India,

The Fall of the Mogul Empire.

25

the factories of Surat, Baroche and others in the presidency of Bombay. In Persia they had factories at Ispahan, Shiraz, and Gambroon. On the eastern

coast of India they possessed Fort St. George and the city of Madras, Fort St. David, with three square miles of territory, as well as factories at Cuddalore, Musilipatam, and other places. In Bengal, Fort William, with the rising city of Calcutta and its adjoining territory, with factories at Patna, Balasore, Raj-Mahal, and other places besides. Six years were allowed for the amalgamation of the two companies, when the final adjustment was made under an award by Earl Godolphin, then prime minister, dated September 29th, 1708.

The tranquillity and commercial prosperity which the peace of Utrecht in 1713, however discreditable to the Tory government of the day, brought to England and a great part of the Continent, contributed to raise the value of the British settlements in the East, and to encourage the Company to seek an extension of their dominion. The breaking up of the Mogul Empire, which commenced with the death of its greatest sovereign, Aurungzebe, in 1707, seemed to afford a good opening to their ambition. His four sons contended for the paternal dominion, as in the case of Herod the Great, and there was no dominant power then in India like that of Rome to apportion a tetrarchy apiece. During this unfraternal contest, the Mahratta chiefs, who had entered the service of the Emperor Shah Jehán, extended their conquests in the south, the Rajpoots virtually obtained their independence in the north, while the Şikhs, a remarkable sect who professed a pure theism,

and attempted to reconcile the religion of the Hindus with that of Mohammed, ravaged the provinces of Delhi and Lahore.

Moazzim, the father of Azim, to whom Aurungzebe had entrusted the viceroyalty of Bengal, triumphed over his brothers, though only for a very brief period, as at the end of a few months he was dethroned by his nephew, Faroksheer, whose rule lasted for nearly seven years. Under his successor, Mohammed Shah, the Mogul Empire was wasted to a shadow, compared with its condition only a few years before, during the reign of the magnificent Aurungzebe. The Deccan was alienated under the rule of the Nizam-el-Moolk, in name a viceroy of the Mogul emperor, but in reality an independent prince. The Rohillas, who were descended from the former Afghan troops and settlers at Delhi, a fierce and warlike race, seized on the northern provinces ; and in 1739 the Persians under Nadir Shah penetrated to Delhi, and slaughtered alike both Mussulmans and Hindus.

We have already had occasion to notice how the East India Company obtained their first footing in Bengal by Mr. Boughton's cure of the favourite daughter of the Emperor Shah Jehán; and eighty years later a similar piece of good fortune attended the Company from the same cause. In the year

1715, a Dr. Hamilton, who accompanied a commercial mission to Delhi, obtained on behalf of the Company a grant of three villages near Madras, with permission to purchase thirty-seven additional townships in Bengal, as a reward for curing the Emperor Faroksheer of a dangerous and painful illness, which