Hamilton’s account of the east indies.

409

there is a little pyramid built for a land-mark, to confine the Company's colonyof Calcutta, or Fort William . On that fide, and about a league farther up, HandsFort William.

The Englifh fettled there about the year 1690, after the Mogul had pardoned allthe robberies and murders committed on his fubjefts. Mr. Job Channock being thenthe Company’s agent in Bengal, he had liberty to fettle an emporium in any parton the river’s iide below Hughly, and for the fake of a large fhady tree chofe thatplace, though he could not have chofen a more unhealthful place on all the river;tor three miles to the north-eaftward, is a falt-water lake that overflows in Septem-ber and October, and then prodigious numbers of filh refort thither ; but in Novem-ber and December, when the floods are diffipated, thofe fifhes are left dry, and withtheir putrefaftion affect the air with thick flunking vapours, which the north-eaflwinds bring with them to Fort William , that they caufe a yearly mortality. Oneyear I was there, and there were reckoned in Auguft about 1200 Englifh, fomemilitary, fome fervants to the Company, fome private merchants refiding in the town,and fome feainen belonging to /hipping lying at the town, and before the beginningof January there were four hundred and fixty burials regiflered in the clerk’s book ofmortality.

Mr. Channock choofing the ground of the colony, where it now is, reigned moreabfolute than a Rajah, only he wanted much of their humanity ; for when any poorignorant native tranfgreffed his laws, they were fure to undergo a fevere whippingfor a penalty, and the execution was generally done when he was at dinner, fo nearhis dining-room that the groans and cries of the poor deliquent ferved him formufick.

The country about being overfpread with Paganifm, the cuftom of wives burning withtheir deceafed hufbands, is alfo praftifed here. Before the Mogul’s war, Mr. Channockwent one time with his ordinary guard of foldiers, to fee a young widow aft that tragi-cal cataftrophe ; but he was fo fmitten with the widow’s beauty, that he fent his guardsto take her by force from her executioners, and condufted her to his own lodgings.They lived lovingly many years, and had feveral children; at length fhe died, after hehad fettled in Calcutta ; but inftead of converting her to Chriftianity, fhe made him aprofelyte to Paganifm, and the only part of Chriftianity that was remarkable in him,was burying her decently, and he built a tomb over her, where all his life after herdeath, he kept the anniverfary day of her death by facrificing a cock on her tomb, afterthe Pagan manner; this was and is the common report, and I have been credibly inform-ed, both by Chriftians and Pagans, who lived at Calcutta under his agency, that the■ftory was really true matter of faft.

Fort William was built an irregular tetragon, of brick and mortar, called Puckah,which is a compofition of brick-duft, lime, malafles, and cut hemp, and when itcomes to be dry, is as hard and tougher than firm ftone or brick; and the townwas built without order, as the builders thought molt convenient for their own affairs,every one taking in what ground beft pleafed them for gardening, fo that in moflhoufes you muff pafs through a garden into the houfe, the Englifh building near theriver’s fide, and the natives within land.

The agency continued till the year 1705, that the old and new Companies united, andthen it became a fplit government, the old and new Companies fervants governing weekabout, which made it more anarchical than regular. Sir Edward Littleton was agentsud conful for the new company at Hughly, when this union of the Cotnparies was

vol. viii. 3 c made,