Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/178

170 throughout the Presidency or collected at Calcutta were about 2,500, who are classed as Europeans, and whose names in very few instances suggest Eurasian origin. Many of the trades which have since been learnt by natives were then probably almost confined to white men. 'Mariners,' as a matter of course, abounded at Calcutta and other ports. Indigo planters were numerous in many districts of Bengal, though none seem to have established themselves to the west of the Benares Division. Lord Amherst gives a very bad account of the men who were at the time in charge of the factories. Two members of this class, whose cruelty and oppression led to their expulsion from British jurisdiction, had the effrontery to come to England and furnish Mr. Hume with a statement of their grievances, which that humanitarian politician utilized as an item in his acrimonious indictment of the absent Governor-General. Cawnpur and Fatehgarh—the great seats of English power in the pioneer days—had large mercantile communities of Englishmen. The trader invariably follows the advance of cantonments. There were many missionaries. Jewellers were in request. We find even a European 'scavenger.' An Englishman kept an 'asylum for insanes' at Bhawánípur. At Patna resided a jockey. A miniature painter, a teacher of the piano, and a nurseryman contributed to the amenities of the capital. Meerut boasted a schoolmaster. An Inspector of Empty Houses earned an honest livelihood. So did many