Images de page
PDF
ePub

"The works I propose to erect, with your Honour's approbation, are to form an hexagon, as a citadel to the town from the old dock southwards, as the bank of the river projects in this part, and admits that three of the sides of this citadel flank the current of the river, which I propose to strengthen with proper outworks before them, to multiply the defences of these fronts; for, as the channel is on this side, a naval force will thereby be exposed to the fire of 100 pieces of cannon, which I conceive must effectually prevent any squadron from passing further up." In order "to accomplish this great undertaking with all the frugality and diligence which the present state of the Company's affairs and that of Europe demands," Captain Brohier requests that he should employ his own overseers and be allowed to keep the accounts of the expense. But there was neither frugality nor diligence displayed in the erection of Fort William, and it cost two millions of money-of which fifty thousand pounds were spent in keeping off the encroachments of the river. At the south-west angle of the fort stands an ugly yellow structure, which the makers of guide-books are pleased to state is in "the Grecian Ionic style of architecture." It was erected by the citizens of Calcutta-European and native to perpetuate the memory of James Prinsep, who founded the science of Indian numismatics and chronology, and who rescued from the dark oblivion of two thousand years the name and history of the great Buddhist Emperor Asoka, the Constantine of the East. It was the genius of Prinsep which brought to light the long-hidden secrets of the inscriptions incised on pillars and rocks. Like most Anglo-Indian workers in the field of knowledge he was a busy official, and the periods during which he won his laurels were stolen from repose earned by long and monotonous drudgery in the Assay Master's office at the Calcutta Mint. "My whole day," wrote Prinsep, "is consumed at the scales. What a waste of precious moments!" His short life comprised in all but forty years, and five of these sufficed for all his splendid discoveries. A road now separates the building from the river, and as it can no longer be used as a landing-stage it might be pulled down and a more suitable monument erected in honour of James Prinsep.

As we pass Prinsep's Ghaut we notice a Moslem shrine, whose copper dome glistens in the sun. It is, however, no shrine, but the monument erected by Lord Ellenborough in memory of the battles of Maharajpoor and Punniar, which crushed the rebellion of the overgrown Gwalior army. On December 28th, 1843, at Maharajpoor, the English once more encountered the Mahrattas. They fought with all their ancient valour, but had, after a desperate resistance, to yield to British bayonets. Three thousand of the enemy lay dead on the field, and fifty-six superb bronze guns were the spoils of the victors, and it is these guns which supplied the metal for the cupola and the pillars which support it. The same day another British force encountered another portion of the Mahratta army at Punniar, twelve miles from Gwalior, and gained a complete victory. Lord Ellenborough, whose vanity prevented his great energy and undoubted ability being sufficiently appreciated, was present at Maharajpoor, and showed much humane attention to the wounded. His prompt

action regarding the mutinous army of Gwalior was one of the most creditable events in his administration, but owing to his love of theatrical display he could not help detracting from its merit by issuing high-sounding proclamations about the glory of British arms on the Plains of Scindia.

Leaving the Gwalior monument we pass Rajchunder Das Ghat, almost abreast of the Eden Gardens, which Calcutta owes to the generosity of the sisters of Lord Auckland; and then we come to the Chandpal Ghat, where in old days governorsgeneral, commanders-in-chief, judges and bishops used to land in state. Soon after passing Chandpal Ghat we are anchored at a jetty, not far from the spot where stood

[graphic][subsumed][merged small]

the old fort, and where "the illustrious Job Channock, the first conspicuous Englishman on this side of the world," established the English factory.

Captain Hamilton, who "left England before King William came into it as king," in his "New Account of the East Indies," states: "The English settled there about the year 1690, after the Moghul had pardoned all the robberies and murders committed on his subjects. Mr. Job Channock being then the Company's agent in Bengal, he had liberty to settle an emporium in any part on the river's side below Hooghly, and for the sake of a large shady tree chose that place, though he could not have chosen a more unhealthful spot on the whole river." Hamilton proceeds to relate: "One year he was there, and there were reckoned in August about twelve hundred English, some military, some servants to the Company, some private merchants residing in the town, and some seamen belonging to shipping lying at the town, and before the beginning of January there were four hundred and fifty burials registered in the clerk's book of mortality." He adds: "The Company has a pretty good hospital at Calcutta, where many go in to undergo the penance of physic, but few come out to give an account of its operations."

It is Captain Hamilton who relates the story how the founder of Calcutta rescued his wife from a funeral pyre. He writes: "The country being overspread with paganism, the custom of wives burning with their deceased husbands is also practised here. Before the Moghul's war Mr. Channock went one time with his ordinary guard of soldiers to see a young widow at that tragical catastrophe; but he was so smitten with the widow's beauty that he sent his guards to take her by force from her executioners and conduct her to his own lodgings. They lived lovingly many years, and had several children. At length she died, after he had settled in Calcutta ; but instead of converting her to Christianity she made him a proselyte to paganism, and the only part of Christianity that was remarkable in him was burying her decently; and he built a tomb over her, where all his life after her death he kept the anniversary day of her death by sacrificing a cock on her tomb after the pagan manner. This was and is the common report, and I have been credibly informed, both by Christians and pagans who lived at Calcutta under his agency, that the story was really matter of fact." In spite, however, of the Christian and pagan testimony it would, as Colonel Yule points out, be hard VOL. VIII.-No. 33

7

to reconcile with "the pagan manner" or Hindu rites the sacrifice of an unclean bird. In the churchyard of St. John's, beneath a massive mausoleum, octagonal in form with a double dome, lies the body of Job Charnock, or Channock as Hamilton calls him. An inscription on a black slab informs us that he died January 10th, 1693-three years before the original Fort William was erected.

Calcutta, when Hamilton visited it, consisted of a group of European buildings which clustered round the park-now Dalhousie Square-about the midst of which was the great tank called the "Lall Dighi." North of the park, and immediately fronting the fort, stood the old church, whose lofty spire formed a conspicuous object in the view. Hamilton writes: "About fifty yards from Fort William stands the church, built by the pious charity of merchants residing there, and the Christian benevolence of sea-faring men whose affairs called them to trade there; but ministers of the Gospel being subject to mortality very often young merchants are obliged to officiate, and have a salary of £50 per annum, added to what the Company allows them for their pains in reading prayers and a sermon on Sundays." Within the fort there was an official residence for the Governor, and convenient lodgings for factors and writers. On Sunday the Governor and Council and the civil servants and the military off duty walked in procession to the church. The Governor had applied for a state carriage for church-going, but his frugal masters at home informed him that "if he wanted a chaise and pair he must pay for them himself!”

From Hamilton we get a glimpse of the social life of Calcutta in the days of He writes: "Most gentlemen and ladies in Bengal live both splendidly and pleasantly, the forenoons being dedicated to business and after dinner to rest, and in the evening recreate themselves in chaises or palanquins in the fields, or to gardens, or by water in their budgeroes, which is a convenient boat that goes swiftly with the force of oars. On the river, sometimes, there is the diversion of fishing, or fowling, or both; and before night they make friendly visits to one another, when pride or contention do not spoil society, which too often they do among the ladies as discord and faction do among men."

The old church was destroyed during the famous siege by Suraj-ud-Dowlah. The Portuguese church at the time being vacant, it was taken for English services; but three years afterwards the Council, "taking into consideration the unwholesomeness and dampness of the church now in use, as well as the injustice of detaining it from the Portuguese," ordered their surveyor to examine the remains of the gateway in the old fort, "and report to us what it will cost to put it in tolerable repair and make it fit for a chapel, till such time as the chapel designed to be built in the new fort be erected." The new chapel was built inside the ruined fort immediately north of the great east gateway, and it is described as a ground floor. It soon proved too small for its purpose, and in 1768 the old or mission church was erected by the well-known Swedish missionary Kiernander. He gave towards its building fifty thousand pounds, and the proceeds of the sale of his deceased wife's jewels. In "The Genuine Memoirs of Asiaticus," published in London in 1785, we are told: "It was not until the year 1782, under the auspices of the princely and munificent Hastings, that the inhabitants of Calcutta seriously determined to erect an edifice for the celebration of public worship suitable to the exercise of the ministerial functions, and to such a numerous auditory as might be expected in the capital of our Indian Empire." "On the eighteenth day of December, 1783, the new Church Committee first met, and the meeting was attended by Governor Hastings and his Council. As the sum of thirty-five thousand nine hundred and fifty rupees had been subscribed already, the Committee determined to commence the building."

[graphic][merged small]

The first stone of the new church was laid on Tuesday, April 6th, 1784, "on the morning of which Mr. Wheler, Acting President, gave a public breakfast at the old Court-house, whence he proceeded, attended by the great officers of State and the principal inhabitants of Calcutta, to the ground upon which the sacred edifice was to be erected. The first stone was laid by Mr. Wheler with the usual ceremonies." Three years afterwards the church was opened with considerable pomp and state by the Earl of Cornwallis, who was at the time Governor-General.

The old Court-house, from which Mr. Wheler and his Council walked to lay the foundation of St. John's Church, occupied the site on which St. Andrew's Kirk is now erected. It was originally a charity school-house built by subscription. A portion was held by the Mayor's Court for their records, and when it ceased to be used as a school the portion not occupied by the Corporation was let for assemblies, lotteries, and balls. Asiaticus informs us that Anglo-Indian ladies were as fond of dancing in the beginning of the eighteenth century as they are at the present time, but he did not consider it a pastime suited to a hot climate. He writes: "For

own part I already begin to think the dazzling brightness of a copper-coloured face infinitely preferable to the pallid and sickly hue which banishes the roses from the cheeks of the European fair, and reminds me of the death-struck countenance of Lazarus risen from the grave. The English ladies are immoderately fond of dancing, an exercise ill calculated for the burning climate of Bengal; and in my opinion, however admissible in cooler latitudes, not a little indelicate in a country where the inhabitants are covered with no more clothes than what decency absolutely requires. Imagine to yourself the lovely object of your affections ready to expire

with heat, every limb trembling, and every feature distorted with fatigue, and her partner with a muslin handkerchief in each hand employed in the delightful office of wiping down her face, while the tiny drops stand impearled on her forehead!”

In 1792 the old Court-house, being in a ruinous condition, was pulled down by order of Government; and, as it had been used as a town hall, a public meeting was held to raise a building worthy of the City and its Corporation, which had a quarter of a century previously-August 26th, 1777-been founded by Royal Charter. It consisted of a Mayor and nine Aldermen, with power of holding a Court whose jurisdiction extended to all causes—civil, criminal, and ecclesiastical— in which an Englishman might be concerned--high treason excepted. All purely native suits, however, continued to be tried by an official called the Jemindar, who was also responsible for collecting the local revenues from fees, farms and ground-rents. We find from a volume of records, which was one of those thrown into the boats when the English abandoned Fort William, and which alone has escaped the ravages of time and the white ants, that in 1748 Mr. Cruttenden was Jemindar. The following list of officers enables us to realise the small beginning from which the Indian Empire has arisen, and its mercantile origin:-

MR. FEAKE, Accomptant.

MR. BELLAMY, Export Warehouse-keeper, and to take charge of the books till Mr.
Feakes' arrival.

MR. FYTCHE, Import Warehouse-keeper.

MR. DRAKE, Buxey, and to continue Military Store-keeper till Mr. Blackford's arrival.

MR. CRUTTENDEN, Jemindar.

MR. HOOPER, Store-keeper.

MR. BLACKFORD, Military Secretary.

MR. WATTS, Collector of Consulage.

MR. BURROW, to continue Sub-Treasurer till an employ is vacant.

The Jemindar has become the Home Minister of a vast empire, and the Buxey holds the portfolio of Finance. The Mayor and nine Aldermen have long since vanished, and their place is taken by a Chairman appointed by Government, and seventy-five Commissioners, the larger proportion of whom are elected by the ratepayers. They hold their meetings in a substantial building of their own, and the Town Hall is now chiefly used for concerts, balls, and public meetings, held to further some noble work of charity like the Dufferin Fund, or to criticise some act of Government which has aroused public attention. The non-official European, to whose pluck and enterprise India owes her tea-gardens, her jute industry, her coal mines, is not given to politics. Occupied much with his business, he is the most conservative and least revolutionary of the Queen's subjects; but he is tenacious of his birthright. The Ilbert Bill or the Jury Question brings out the English character true to its old traditions, and at the Town Hall, with no uncertain voice, the Englishman declares his resolution to maintain his own.

In the old Court-house the Supreme Court, when it was first established by Royal Charter, held its sittings; but when the buildings became unsafe, and had to be pulled down, another more substantial and handsome edifice was erected on the site of the present High Court. In the Supreme Court Nundcomar was tried for forgery, not by Sir Elijah Impey, as Macaulay states, but by the Chief Justice, two of his colleagues and a jury, and after a long and patient trial was convicted and sentenced to be hanged. A full reprint of the trial was published at the time, and Macaulay might have ascertained the facts if he had referred to the Bar Library, where a copy exists. But he preferred rhetoric to accurate research.

« PrécédentContinuer »