Madras Presidency, diverted the attention of Lally from hisattack on Trichinopoli by seizing Wandewash. The French army laid siege to the town, but on 22nd January 1760, Cootebroke out and won the decisive victory of Wandewash, in Battle ofwhich both Lally and Bussy were taken prisoners. The ^£ de 'English army then proceeded to invest Pondicherri, which 1760.was starved into capitulation in January 1761. A few monthslater the hill-fortress of Ginjee (Gingi) also surrendered. 1 In Gingi sur-the words of Orme : ‘ That day terminated the long hostilitiesbetween the two rival European powers in Coromandel, and 1761.left not a single ensign of the French nation avowed by theauthority of its Government in any part of India .’ 2
Meanwhile, the narrative of British conquest shifts with TheClive to Bengal. The first English Settlement near the Gangeticestuary was Pippli in Orissa , at which the East India Com- 1634-96. ’pany was permitted to trade in 1634, five years before thefoundation of Madras. The river on which Pippli stood hassince silted up, and the site of the old English Settlement isnow a matter of conjecture. In 1640, a factory was opened atHugli ; in 1642, at Balasor; and in 1681, Bengal was erectedinto a separate Presidency, though still subordinate to Madras.
The name of Calcutta begins to be heard of in the Company’srecords in 1686, when Job Charnock, the English chief, wasforced to quit Hugli by the deputy of Aurangzeb , and settledlower down the river on the opposite bank. There he acquireda grant of the three petty villages of Sutanati, Gobindpur, andKalighat (Calcutta ), and founded the original Fort William in1696.
At the time of Aurangzeb ’s death, in 1707, the Nawab or NativeGovernor of Bengal was Murshid Kuli Khan , known also inEuropean history as Jafar Khan. By birth a Brahman, and 1707-56.brought up as a slave in Persia , he united the administrativeability of a Hindu with the fanaticism of a renegade. Hithertothe capital of Bengal had been at Dacca , on the easternfrontier of the empire, whence the piratical attacks of thePortuguese and of the Arakanese or Maghs could be mosteasily checked. Murshid Kuli Khan transferred his residence
1 A full account of Gingi is given, sub verbo , in my Imperial Gazetteerof India. In like manner, the local history of each Presidency, Province,or town is treated in the separate article upon it, and can therefore only bevery briefly summarized here. Thus, with regard to Calcutta , the readeris referred to article Calcutta in The Imperial Gazetteer of India.
2 Orme’s History of Military Transactions in Indostan (1803), Madrasreprint, vol. ii. p. 733 (1861).