Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/824

800 800 INDIA [HISTORY, pany founded by the Scotch in 1695 may be regarded as having been still-born ; and the &quot;Royal Company of the Philippine Islands,&quot; its factors being chiefly persons who had served the Dutch and English companies. But the opposition of the maritime powers forced the court of Vienna in 1727 to suspend the company s charter for seven years. The Ostend company, after passing through a very trying existence, prolonged through the desire of the Austrian Government to participate in the growing East India trade, became bankrupt in 1784, and was finally extinguished by the regulations which were prescribed on the renewal of the English East India Company s charter in 1793. The last nation of Europe to engage in maritime trade with India was Sweden. When the Ostend company was suspended, a number of its servants were thrown out of employment, of whose special knowledge of the East Mr Henry Kouing, of Stockholm, took advantage, obtaining a charter for the &quot; Swedish Company,&quot; dated June 13, 1731. This company was reorganized in 1806. The extent to which foreign nations now carry on direct dealings with India may be inferred approximately from the following figures, taken from the census report of 1871. There were then in British India about 8000 inhabitants of conti nental Europe ; but of these the nationality of only 2628 was more particularly specified, chieHy in Bengal. Germans numbered 755, French, 631; Portuguese, 426 ; Italians, 282 ; Greeks, 127; Swedes, 73 ; Russians, 72 ; Dutch, 70 ; Norwegians, 58 ; Danes, 45 ; Spaniards, 32 ; Belgians, 20 ; Swiss, 19 ; Turks, 18. British Empire (17G5 to 1881). The political history of the British in India begins in the 18th century with the French wars in the Carnatic. Fort St George, the nucleus of Madras, was their earliest territorial possession, properly so called, in India, having been founded by Thomas Day in 1639. The land on which it stood, with an area round of about 5 miles in length by 1 mile in breadth, was purchased from the raja of Chandragiri, who claimed to be the lineal descendant of the Hindu emperors of Vijayanagar. The French settlement of Pondicherri, about 100 miles lower down the Coromandel coast, was established in 1672, and for many years the English and French traded side by side, without either active rivalry or territorial ambition. The English, especi ally, appear to have been submissive to the native powers at Madras no less than in Bengal. They paid their annual rent of 1200 pagodas (say 500) to the deputies of the Mughal empire when Aurangzeb annexed the south, and on two several occasions bought off a besieging army with a heavy bribe. On the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the whole of southern India became practically independent of Delhi. In the Deccan Proper, the Nizam-ul-Mulk founded an independent dynasty, with Hyderabad for its capital, which exercised a nominal sovereignty over the entire south. The Carnatic, or the lowland tract between the central plateau and the eastern sea, was ruled by a deputy of the nizam, known as the nawab of Arcot, who in his turn asserted claims to hereditary sovereignty. Further south, Trichinopoli was the capital of a Hindu raja, and Tanjore formed another Hindu kingdom under a degenerate descendant of the line of Sivaji. Inland, Mysore was gradually growing into a third Hindu state, while every where local chieftains, called pdlef/drs or naiks, were in semi-independent possession of citadels or hill-forts. In that condition of affairs the flame of war was kindled between the English and the French in Europe in 1745. Dupleix was at that tinie governor of Pondicherri, and Clive was a young writer at Madras. An English fleet first appeared on the Coromandel coast, but Dupleix by a judicious present induced the nawab of Arcot to interpose and prevent hostilities. In 1746 a French squadron arrived, under the command of La Bourdonnais. Madras surrendered almost without a blow, and the only settle ment left to the English was Fort St David, a few miles south of Pondicherri, where Clive and a few other fugi tives sought shelter. The nawab, faithful to his policy of impartiality, marched with 10,000 men to drive the French out of Madras, but he was signally defeated by a French force of only four hundred men and two guns. In 1748 an English fleet arrived under Admiral Boscawen and attempted the siege of Pondicherri, while a land force co-operated under Major Lawrence, whose name afterwards became associated with that of Clive. The French success fully repulsed all attacks, and at la--t peace was restored by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which gave back Madras to the English (1748). The first war with the French was merely an incident in the greater contest in Europe. The second war had its origin in Indian politics, while England and France were at peace. The easy success of the French arms had inspired Dupleix with the ambition of founding a French empire in India, under the shadow of the existing Mahometan powers. Disputed successions at Hyderabad and at Arcot supplied him with the opportunity that he lacked. On both thrones he placed nominees of his own, and for a short time posed as the supreme arbiter of the entire south. In boldness of conception, and in knowledge of Oriental diplomacy, Dupleix has had probably no rival. But he was no soldier, and he was destined in that sphere to encounter the &quot; heaven-born genius &quot; of Clive. For the English of ciiv Madras, under the instinct of self-preservation, were com pelled to maintain the cause of another candidate to the throne of Arcot in opposition to the nominee of Dupleix. This candidate was Muhammad AH, afterwards known in history as Wala-jah. The war that then ensued between the French and English, each with their native allies, has been exhaustively described in the pages of Orme. The one incident that stands out conspicuously is the capture and subsequent defence of Arcot by Clive in 1751. This heroic feat, even more than the battle of Plassey, established the reputation of the English for valour throughout India. Shortly afterwards Clive returned to England in ill-health, but the war continued fitfully for many years. On the whole, English influence predominated in the Carnatic, and their candidate, Muhammad All, maintained his position. at Arcot. But the French were no less supreme in the Deccan, whence they were able to take possession of the coast tract called &quot; the Northern Circars.&quot; The final struggle was postponed until 1760, when Colonel (after wards Sir Eyre) Coote won the decisive victory of Wandewash over the French general Lally, and proceeded to invest Pondicherri, which was starved into capitulation in January 1761. A few months later the hill-fortress of Gingee (Chenji) also surrendered. In the words of Orme, &quot; That day terminated the long hostilities between the two rival European powers in Coromandel, arid left not a single ensign of the French nation avowed by the authority of its Government in any part of India,&quot; Meanwhile the interest of history shifts with Clive to Bengal. The first English settlement in that part of India was Pippli in Orissa, to which the East India Company was permitted to trade in 1633, six years before the foundatioi of Madras. The river on which Pippli stood has since silted up, and the very site of the English settlement is now unknown and undiscoverable. In 1642 factories were opened at Balasore and Hugli (Hooghly), and in 1681 Bengal was erected into a presidency, as yet subject to Madras. The name of Calcutta is not heard of till 1686, Cak l when Job Charnock, the chief at Hooghly, was expelled by the deputy of Aurangzeb, and settled lower down the river on the opposite bank. There he acquired a grant of the three petty villages of Sutanati, Gobindpur, and Kalighat (Calcutta), and founded the original Fort William in 1696. At the time of Aurangzeb s death in 1707 the nawab or Ben governor of Bengal was Murshid Kuli Khan, known also uaw