Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/367

 EAST INDIA COMPANY'S FACTORY AT CALCUTTA 299 a report of the matter to Nawab Ja'far Khan and directed the Moghuls and other principal inhabitants of the place to accompany it. They all complained before the Nawab, who issued orders to the magistrate to the effect that not another brick or timber should be allowed to be raised. That official, immediately on receipt of the order, prohibited all the masons and car- penters from carrying on the work, and ordered that no one should go to the factory. Thus the work re- mained unfinished. Mr. Chanak, with great indignation, prepared to fight; but as he had a very small force, and as only one vessel was present at the time, while the Moghuls, who were joined by a powerful magistrate (whose name was Abd-al-Ghani), had assembled in great number, he saw no advantage in taking any hostile measure against them, and was obliged to weigh anchor. He had a burn- ing-glass in his ship, with which, by concentrating the sun's rays, he burnt the river face of the city as far as Chandarnagar. With a view to avenge this injury, the magistrate wrote to the police station at Makhua with orders to stop the vessel. The head constable accordingly, in order to prevent the passage of the vessel, prepared an iron chain, each link of which was ten sirs in weight, and having made it in length equal to the breadth of the river, kept it ready and fastened it to the wall of the fort. The chain being extended across the river, the vessel was thus intercepted; but Mr. Chanak cut through the chain with a European sword, and went