History of Kolkata - Establishment of English Trade in Bengal (1600-1700)

Establishment of English Trade in Bengal (1600-1700)

There is a long chain of events behind the arrival of British in Bengal, specifically Job Charnock in Sutanuti in 1690. These incidents are documented in numerous records of the East India Company and by several authors . By going through the documents we find an amazing story of how they were severely beaten and wiped out from Bengal several times by the forces of the Delhi Emperor for their own deeds, and how each time they came back to Bengal for the purpose of continuing their trade.

The agents of East India Company first visited the provinces of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, for trade during the period of Ibrahim Khan (ca 1617-1624), the Subahdar (Governor) of Bengal at the time of Delhi Emperor Jahangir. The first factory was established in Surat in 1620 and later in Agra, and agents were further sent from these places to the eastern provinces to see the possibility of opening factories there. However the transportation costs and logistics were against them and the plan was abandoned. In 1634, a Firman (royal decree) was obtained from the Emperor Shah Jahan which allowed them to make factory in Bengal and the company agents to reside at Pipili, Orissa. Two years after, the daughter of the Emperor was severely burnt and a doctor named Mr. Boughton was sent from Surat for her treatment. He was able to treat her well and in reward the Emperor allowed the company to establish factory at Pipili, and for the first time the English ships arrived at an eastern port. During 1638, Shah Jahan appointed his son Shah Shuja as the Subahdar of Bengal and Mr. Boughton visited the capital at Rajmahal where his service was again used to treat one of the ladies in the palace, and in return, the company was allowed to establish factory in Balasore and Hooghly in addition to Pipili.

Shaista Khan was appointed as the Governor of Bengal in ca 1664 by Delhi Emperor Aurangzeb and was relieved upon his request in ca 1682. While he was returning to Delhi, English men sent with him a request to the Emperor to obtain a special Firman to do business forever in Bengal; the Emperor was pleased to provide them the Firman and the occasion was celebrated with 300 gun salutes at Hooghly. The investment in Bengal soared, the Bengal residency was separated from Madras and Mr. Hedges was appointed as the chief officer to oversee trade in Bengal. His residence in Hooghly was secured with a bunch of soldiers obtained from Madras. This is the first time English soldiers came on the soil of Bengal. However, the Firman was vague in many aspects and soon disputes started to grow between the English and the Governor.

During this time a local disturbance occurred when the Zamindar in Bihar attacked the Governor of Bihar. Mr. Peacock, the chief of the factory in Patna, was imprisoned by the Governor with the assumption that he was involved in the dispute. At the same time their Saltpeter trade was disrupted by another rival British company. To protect their trade in Bengal, the original East India Company requested to build a fort in the mouth of Hooghly or on its banks. This request was immediately turned down by Shaista Khan and a 3.5% tax was imposed in addition to the already existing tax of 3,000 rupees, notwithstanding of the Firman obtained earlier. Another incident with the Faujdar of Cossimbazar resulted altercations between the Governor of Bengal and the company causing their ships to leave Bengal without obtaining cargo.

Enraged with this situation and determined to establish their authority, the company requested King James II in 1685 to permit use of force against the Emperor’s army to settle the matter. Admiral Nicholson was sent with ships to attack the port at Chittagong, fortify it, make an alliance with the King of Arakan who was against the Mughals, establish a mint and collect revenue, thus making Chittagong a fort city for British in the eastern part. Then he was ordered to proceed to Dhaka. It was assumed that the Governor would abandon the city and then a peace treaty would be offered which would guarantee the free trade and other economic benefits for the British and he would give up the territory of Dhaka and Chittagong. Mr. Job Charnock was then at Madras and was directed to join the expedition with 400 soldiers from Madras division.

Unfortunately the plan went awry; some of their ships, due to the change in current and wind, arrived at Hooghly instead of Chittagong and anchored off their factory in Hooghly after being joined by their Madras troops. The presence of large number of war ships alarmed Shaista Khan and he immediately offered truce. However the peace was broken again when some British troops misbehaved with Shaista Khans’s troops in Hooghly on 28 October 1686 for which the former were severely beaten by the latter. At the same time the admiral opened fire and burnt down 500 houses and property loss were about thirty lacs of rupees. However a truce was again obtained between Mr. Charnock and the local Foujidar, and the English were allowed to put saltpeter on board of their ships. However, Shaista Khan upon hearing this ordered the closing and confiscation of all their factories and properties in Bengal and sent a large force to drive out the English from Hooghly.

Upon hearing the news of Shaista Khan’s plan, Mr. Charnock determined that it was no longer safe to remain in Hooghly and decided to move downstream to Sutanuti, a small hamlet on the bank of river Hooghly on 20 December 1686. At this time their ships in Bengal required extensive repairs and the remainder of their fleet were considered in danger. In this situation they considered that they would be extremely fortunate if they could hold their current position instead of their desires on Chittagong and for this matter they decided to ask forgiveness from the Emperor and requested to reinstate the previously obtained Firman. Peace treaty was again offered by the Governor at the end of December 1686 but it was mainly to buy out time for attack and by February 1687 a large troop of Shaista Khan’s army arrived at Hooghly to drive the British out of Bengal. Mr. Charnock decided it was not safe to remain in Sutanuti and moved to the island village at Hijli. There he remained with his soldiers in an utterly inhospitable place full of mosquitoes, snakes and tigers. The Governor’s troops didn’t bother them there since they knew British would not be able to survive long there. In fact, within three months about half of Mr. Charnock’s soldiers died and the remaining half were ready to be hospitalized.

With his back on the wall, Mr. Charnock was desperately willing to negotiate with Shaista Khan to get out of this mess. His luck favored because of an unexpected event. At the time when Nicholson was ordered to proceed to Chittagong, Mr. John Child was ordered to withdraw the company’s establishment from Bombay, commence hostilities on western coast, blockade Mughal harbors and attack their ships anywhere to be found. Emperor Aurangzeb wanted to reconcile with the British to ensure uninterrupted voyage of pilgrimage to Mecca and asked his Governors to make terms with the British. As a result, a peace treaty was signed between Shaista Khan and Mr. Charnock on 16 August 1687. Shaista Khan allowed them to remain in Bengal, however to be limited only to Uluberia, a small town on the bank of river Hooghly south of Sutanuti, where they were allowed to make a port and do business from there, but their war ships were strictly not allowed to enter Hooghly. Mr. Charnock arrived at Uluberia, started making a dock there, however soon started to dislike the place and wanted to return to Sutanuti. At this time the Governor asked them to return and settle at Hooghly, ordered them not to build any structure at Sutanuti and asked Charnock to pay a large sum of money for compensation. While not in a position to fight against the Governor’s troops, two British agents were sent to Dhaka to plead to the Governor to allow them to return to Sutanuti and build a fort there.

At the same time, when the news of failure of Nicholson reached England, it was decided that until a fort was built on the bank of the river, the English would never be able to do business with ease and would always be on the mercy of the forces of the Governor. For this, Captain Heath was sent to Bengal with 160 soldiers either to fight and win against the forces of the Governor or to bring back all the properties of the company to Madras and abandon the trade in Bengal. Captain Heath arrived in October 1688 in Bengal, took all of company persons on board, set sail to Balasore on 8 November 1688. He reached Balasore on 29 November, pounded and destroyed the town including their own factory and released some English prisoners from the Governor’s prison. They left Balasore on 13 December for Chittagong, reached there on 17 December, found the Governor’s fortification too strong to destroy and decided to wait until his demands are answered by the Governor. However, instead of waiting for Governor’s answer, Captain Heath set sail to Arakan, arrived there on 31 January 1689 and offered treaty to the king that English will fight against the Mughals at Dhaka and the king would provide them settlements in his dominion. When a fortnight passed without any answer from the king, Captain Heath, frustrated and dejected, returned to Madras on 4 March 1689. This was a total failure of English objectives in Bengal during the early period of 1689 which caused them abandoning Bengal as their trading location in eastern region.

Emperor Aurangzeb, enraged with the situation that the British fortified in Madras, occupied territory around it, captured Mughal ships, went into alliance with his enemy Sambhaji, he ordered his commanders everywhere in India to exterminate British from the country and seize their properties anywhere to be found. Warehouses in Visakhapatnam were destroyed and many English men were captured and put to death. Shaista Khan went after them in Dhaka, captured them and put them behind bars.

Shaista Khan retired from his duty as Governor in ca 1689 and Ibrahim Khan was appointed as the new Governor of Bengal by Emperor Aurangzeb. By this time Aurangzeb was camping at Visapur and was much aware of the fact that the he was losing revenues from the British trade and the British ships could cause him much trouble by stopping the pilgrimage to Mecca since they controlled the sea-route. At the same time, the British were desperate to open negotiations with the Emperor after they left Bengal and Mr. Child was sent to him. He decided to accept the offer and ordered the Governor of Bengal to allow British to return there. As a result, Ibrahim Khan invited Mr. Charnock back to Bengal; but Mr. Charnock refused to come back until a specific Firman with terms and conditions clearly specified was issued by the Emperor so that they would not be subjected to further humiliations. Ibrahim Khan again sent letter to Mr. Charnock explaining that he had requested for the special Firman from the Emperor and it would take a few months before it arrived, and in the mean time Mr. Charnock was welcome to settle in Bengal and the Governor would pay him 80,000 rupees for the goods that have been destroyed by Shaista Khan’s regime. With this friendly invitation, Mr. Job Charnock with 30 soldiers returned to Sutanuti on 24 August 1690 and hoisted the Royal Standards of England on the banks of river Hooghly, thus beginning a new era of British involvement in Bengal. In the next year, Ibrahim Khan sent the order from the Emperor to Mr. Charnock which allowed unrestricted trade without paying any other taxes except the usual 3,000 rupees.

Mr. Charnock died in January 1692. While the English were always looking for fortification of their factories in Bengal, Ibrahim Khan never allowed them to do so. In 1695 the town of Hooghly was seized by Sobha Singh along with an unknown Afghan Rahim Khan, and the English at Sutanuti requested from the Governor to use their own armed protection for their factories when their factories were surrounded by the enemy. Ibrahim Khan allowed them to protect their own factories, but did not allow any fortification explicitly. However in the absence of specific orders the permission to defend their property was taken as a permit to build fortress and construction began immediately overnight with all available manpower. The fort was built on the bank of river Hooghly at Sutanuti with mortar brought from Madras, completed in ca 1701 and was called Fort William after King William III of England. This was the old Fort William and construction for a new one (the present one) started after Siraj Ud-Daulah attacked Fort William in 1756.