Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/729

Rh name of the town was changed in official documents to Alinagar. In January 1757 the expedition despatched from Madras, under the command of Admiral Watson and Colonel Clivc, regained possession of the city. They found many of the houses of the English residents demolished, and others damaged by lire. The old church of St John s lay in ruins. The native portion of the town had also suffered much. Everything of value had been swept away, except the merchandise of the Company within the fort, which had been reserved for the Nawab. The battle of Plassey was fought on June 23d, 1757, exactly twelve months after the capture of Calcutta. Mir Jdfar, the nominee of the English, was created Nawab of Bengal, and by the treaty which raised him to this position he agreed to make restitution to the Calcutta merchants for their losses. The English received 500,000, the Hindus and Mahometans 200,000, and the Armenians 70,000. By another clause in this treaty the Company was per mitted to establish a mint, the visible sign in India of ter ritorial sovereignty, and the first coin, still bearing the name of the Delhi emperor, was issued on August 19th, 1757. The restitution money was divided among the sufferers by a committee of the most respectable inhabi tants. Commerce rapidly revived, and the ruined city was rebuilt. Modern Calcutta dates from 1757. The old fort was abandoned, and its site devoted to the Customs House and other Government offices. A new fort, the present Fort William, was commenced by Clive, a short distance lower down the lliver Hugli. It was not finished till 1773, and is said to have cost two millions sterling. At this time also the maiddn, the park of Calcutta, was formed ; and the salubrity of its position induced the European inhabitants gradually to shift their dwellings eastward, and to occupy what is now the Chauringhi (Chowringh.ee) quarter. From this time the history of Calcutta presents a smooth narrative of advancing prosperity. No outbreak of civil war nor any episode of disaster has disturbed its progress, nor have the calamities of the climate ever done mischief which could not be easily repaired. A great park (maiddn), intersected by roads, and ornamented by a garden, stretches along the river bank. The fort rises from it on its western side, the stately mansions of Chauringhi with Government House, the high court, and other public offices, line its eastern and northern flank. Beyond the European quarter lie the densely populated clusters of huts or &quot; villages &quot; which compose the native city and suburbs. Several fine squares, with large reser voirs and gardens, adorn the city, and broad well-metalled streets connect its various extremities. Up to 1707, when Calcutta was first declared a presi dency, it had been dependent upon the older English settlement at Madras. From 1707 to 1773 the presi dencies were maintained on a footing of equality ; but in the latter year the Act of Parliament was passed, which provided that the presidency of Bengal should exercise a control over the other possessions of the Company; that the chief of that presidency should be styled Governor- General ; and that a supreme court of judicature should be established at Calcutta. In the previous year, 1772, Warren Hastings had taken under the immediate manage ment of the Company s servants the general administra tion of Bengal, which had hitherto been left in the hands of the old Mahometan officials, and had removed the treasury from Murshidabad to Calcutta. The latter town thus became the capital of Bengal, and the seat of the Supreme Government in India. In 1834 the Governor- General of Bengal was created Governor-General of India, and was permitted to appoint a Deputy-Governor to man age the affairs of Lower Bengal duri.ig his occasional absence. It was not until 1854 that a separate head was appointed for Bengal, who, under the style of Lieutenant- Governor, exercises the same powers in civil matters as those vested in the Governors in Council of Madras or Bombay, although subject to closer supervision by the Supreme Government. Calcutta is thus at present the seat both of the Supreme and the Local Government, each with an inde pendent set of offices. Government House, the official residence of the Governor-General of India, or Viceroy, is a magnificent pile of buildings to the north of the fort and the maiddn, built by Lord Wellesley in 1804. The official residence of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal is a house called Belvedere, in Alipur, the southern suburb of Calcutta. Proposals have been made from time to time, to remove the seat of the Supreme Government from Calcutta. Its unhealthiness, especially in the rainy sea son, its remoteness from the centre of Hindustan, and its distance from England, have each been animadverted upon. These disadvantages of Calcutta have now, however, been almost entirely removed, or their consequences have been mitigated, by the conquests of science and modern engineering. The railway and the telegraph have brought the Viceroy at Calcutta into close contact with every corner of India ; while an ample water supply, improved drainage, and other sanitary reforms, have rendered Cal cutta the healthiest city in the East, healthier, indeed, than some of the great European towns. English civiliza tion has thus enabled Calcutta to remain the political capital of India. The same agency still secures the city in her monopoly of the sea-borne trade of Bengal. The River Hugli has long ceased to be the main channel of the Ganges ; but Calcutta alone of all the successive river capitals of Bengal has overcome the difficulties incident to its position as a deltaic centre of commerce. Strenuous efforts of engineering are required to keep open the &quot; Nadiyd Rivers,&quot; namely, the three off-shoots of the Ganges which combine to form the Hugli. Still greater watchfulness and more extensive operations are demanded by the Hugli itself below Calcutta, to save it from the fate of other deltaic streams, and prevent it from gradually silting up. In 1853 the deterioration of the Hugli channel led to a proposal to found an auxiliary port to Cal cutta on the Matlah, another mouth of the Ganges. A committee, then appointed to inquire into the subject, reported that &quot; the River Hugli was deteriorating gradually and progressively.&quot; At that time &quot; science had done nothing to aid in facilities for navigation,&quot; but since then everything has been done which the foresight of modern knowledge could suggest, or the power of modern capital could achieve. Observations on the condition of the river are taken almost hourly, gigantic steam dredgers are con tinually at work, and the shifting of the shoals is carefully recorded. By these means the port of Calcutta has been kept open for ships of the largest tonnage, and now seems to have out-lived the danger which threatened it.

