A hot-headed admiral.
The Royal fleet sailed to Arakan and frightened the Raja into a state of utter bewilderment. The Raja could make nothing of the offer of the admiral to help him against the Great Mogul, nor of the demand for the cession of Chittagong, and he naturally vacillated, prevaricated, and procrastinated. The admiral was blind with rage and mortification, and would have captured Chittagong by force of arms; but the place was too strong for him. Accordingly, he sailed away to Madras in a towering fury, and landed Mr. Charnock and the British factors at Madras, swearing that he had heard nothing but deceit and lies since he first entered the Bay of Bengal.
Humiliation.
The East India Company submitted to the Great Mogul, but the great Josiah Child must have found it a bitter pill. The prizes were restored, a vast fine was paid, and pardon was humbly implored before the Surat factors were restored to liberty.
Calcutta founded, 1690.
Meanwhile, the Moguls had learned to respect the British. The fugitives from Hughly were invited to return to Bengal, and permitted to purchase a strip of land on the eastern bank of the Hughly river, about twenty miles nearer the sea than their old factory. It was three miles long and one mile inland, and included the three native villages of Chutanutti, Govindpore, and Kali Ghat, which grew into a native town resembling that of Madras. Later on, the Hindus round about revolted against Mogul oppression, and the British took advantage of the general alarm to convert their factory into a fortress and to give it the name of Fort William, in honour of the Prince of Orange. The native settlement was known by the name of Calcutta, after the village of Kali Ghat, or the "landing place of the goddess Kali." Thus the dream of Josiah Child was realised, and British trade in India was protected by three fortresses and three towns—Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta.
Indian calm, 1700–40.
From the end of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth the Company's settlements were for the most part shut out from the Indian world. The British had learned their lesson and kept quiet, and the Moguls were busy fighting the Mahrattas, and left them very much alone. The Mogul conquests in the Deccan were made over to a Mogul Viceroy known as the Nizam, whilst those in the eastern Peninsula round about Madras were placed in charge of a Nawab who was known as the Nawab of the Carnatic. Meanwhile, the Moguls kept the Mahrattas quiet by the payment of a yearly black-mail known as chout, or "chauth," which was reckoned at one-fourth of the land revenue, but was often commuted for a lump sum. Thus India was to all outward appearance in a state of calm, but it was the calm that precedes a storm.
Typical Madras Governors.
§9. Although the administration of Madras was carried on by a Governor and Council yet each Governor had a strong personal influence and individuality. Two of these Governors, an Englishman and a Scotchman, may be brought under notice as types of all.
Governor Pitt, 1698–1709.
Thomas Pitt, grandfather of the Earl of Chatham, was Governor of Madras from 1698 to 1709. In 1702 the Nawab of the Carnatic was staying at St. Thomé, trying to squeeze some 50,000l. out of the British at Madras. He boasted loudly of his friendship for the British whilst his troops were plundering their outlying villages. He was entertained at dinner with great pomp at Fort St. George, and gratified with presents; but shortly afterwards he environed the whole settlement with his army. Pitt held out for months, getting his supplies by sea. At last Pitt offered two or three thousand pounds in rupees, and a peace was patched up, and the Nawab went away.
Imperious rule.
Governor Pitt was as lofty and mysterious in his way as his illustrious grandson. He was much irritated by a protracted quarrel between the Right and Left Hands. He set up stones to mark the boundaries between the streets, but they were carried away at night time. The bulk of the Right Hands fled to St. Thomé, and the Hindu populations in all the country round about were in great commotion. Pitt threatened to send a body of European soldiers to St. Thomé, and put the deserters to the sword. At this crisis, the Mogul officer at St. Thomé turned the malcontents out of the town. They went back to Madras submissive and crestfallen, and begged to be forgiven. From this time, however, the distinction between the Right and Left Hands was abolished as far as the streets were concerned, and all streets were opened to both Hands. But the old strife is still burning in the hearts of the Hindus of Southern India. They can be prevented from fighting with swords and clubs, but they carry the battle into the law-courts, where disputes are frequently brought to a decision as regards the right of either Hand to worship at a particular shrine and in a particular way.[5]
Hasty tempter.
Pitt was severe on native offenders. Some thieves went off with boat-loads of cotton goods, and the gunner at Fort St. George was ordered to fire upon them. The thieves escaped, but two peons who connived at the robbery were whipped and put in the pillory, whilst Governor Pitt thrashed the native overseer with his own hands.
Pitt diamond.
During the siege of Madras Pitt managed to buy a wonderful diamond from a Golconda jeweller at a small price. In after years he sold it to the Regent of France for 135,000l., and it was known as the Pitt diamond. The matter created some scandal at the time, but is now only remembered in connection with Pope's lines:—
"Asleep and naked as an Indian lay,
An honest factor stole his gem away."
Governor Macrae, 1725–30.
James Macrae, a Scotch celebrity, was Governor of Madras from 1725 to 1731. He carried out a general survey of Madras and its suburbs for the better collection of the quit-rents and scavenger-tax. The population of Madras numbered 200,000. The expenses of Fort St. George amounted to 20,000l. a year, whilst the revenue from the sea customs was under 5,000l.
Mayor's Court.
The Mayor's Court was re-organised in Governor Macrae's time under the charter of 1726. It was to consist of a mayor and nine aldermen for the trial of all civil causes. Seven of the aldermen were to be Englishmen, and the remaining two of any nation, provided they were Protestant. The new court was inaugurated in a style which seems inexpressibly absurd in the present day. The new mayor and aldermen were sworn in with much ceremony, and then left Fort St. George in a grand procession of soldiers with kettledrums and trumpets, dancing girls with the country music, court attorneys with all the chief gentry on horseback, and passed through Black Town to the Company's garden in the suburbs, where they were received by the Governor and Council and duly fêted.
Breaking up of the Mogul empire.
Meanwhile, the Mogul empire was breaking up. Aurangzeb died in 1707. Within thirty years after his death the power of the Great Moguls had died out; the name and prestige remained, but very little more. The successors of Aurangzeb were Roisfainéants shut up in palaces with wives and concubines, whilst all real power was exercised by the Ministers of State and the Viceroys of the provinces. In 1738–39 the British at the three Presidencies were startled by the news that Nadir Shah had invaded India with a large Persian army from the north-west, and had plundered the city and palaces of Delhi and carried away the spoil of Northern India. The payment of the Mahratta "chout" was stopped at the Mogul treasury, and armies of Mahratta horsemen were making up the loss by the plunder of the Carnatic and Bengal.
War with France, 1745.
§10. In 1745 news reached India that war had been declared between Great Britain and France. This was alarming news for the British traders at Madras, as the French had established a flourishing town and settlement at Pondicherry, on the coast of Coromandel, about a hundred miles to the south of Madras, and a collision might be expected at any moment between the two settlements. Moreover, the Governor of Pondicherry was a certain M. Dupleix, a Frenchman of large capacity and restless ambition, who hated the British with all the ardour of the typical Frenchman of the eighteenth century. The same year a British fleet appeared off the coast of Coromandel and threatened Pondicherry; but the Nawab of the Carnatic declared that he would have no wars between European nations within his territories,