Fort William, Kolkata

“ The old fort, situate within the town of Calcutta, may be an apt quotation. The impressions made by shots, of 24 and 32lb. fired by Admiral Watson against its western face, when his fleet lay within three hundred yards of it, in the year 1755, were absolutely insignificant; the brave admiral might have battered for a century, without bringing down the wall. In the year 1779, when the Company’s cloth godown took fire, the third regiment of European infantry, then in garrison at Fort-William, marched out with engines, &c. to aid towards its extinction ”

“ Calcutta is a modern city compared with the rest of India. It has been built around old Fort William, which was the headquarters of the East India Company 200 years ago, and is situated upon the bank of the River Hoogly, one of the many mouths of the Ganges, about ninety miles from the Bay of Bengal. The current is so swift and the channel changes so frequently that the river cannot be navigated at night, nor without a pilot. The native pilots are remarkably skillful navigators, and seem to know by instinct how the shoals shift. ”

“ The whole of the Bengal presidency had been so drained of British troops to supply the north-western provinces, that from Merut to Calcutta (nearly nine hundred miles,) there remained but one British infantry regiment [16] to overawe the [Pg 67] numerous independent principalities of India, to garrison Fort William, and to show the people of Hindostan that the British had not altogether forsaken them in their ardour to form new acquaintances on the frontier. ”

“ I mean Fort William. The fort itself was at this date of no great size or consequence; but in the neighbourhood along the river bank were many fine warehouses erected by the English. In the rear of these was built the native town, which the Moors call Calcutta. Here the houses are generally mean and dirty; but some of the rich Indians lived in very noble style, having fine gardens round their houses, ornamented with fountains and groves of tulip trees and mangoes.
Marian and I were put ashore in the ship’s gig, having first bid adieu to the officers, and set about inquiring the way to Mr. ”

“ Inaccessible in these parts, it would have been impregnable, if the south side had been equally secure; but here the ground is high, and gives advantages to an enemy.—The Indian engineer, whoever he was that erected the fort, seems to have exceeded the common reach of his countrymen in the knowlege of his art, not only by the choice of the spot, but also, by proportioning the strength of the defences, to the advantages and disadvantages of the situation: for the fortifications to the south are much the strongest, those opposite to the rice-fields, something weaker ”

“ After many cheers we marched into our barracks in Fort William. For the first ten days we had an increase of sick, but most of them recovered, though two or three poor men died. Our missing boat and the one left to pick it up both arrived in safety, about a fortnight after us; they were getting near the end of their provisions when they discovered their relief.
In Fort William we found the 16th Bengal Grenadiers, a regiment which wavered and held back to a man at the battle of Ferozeshah, leaving their English colonel to advance alone with our troops. ”

“ However much their ancient splendor may have been tarnished, yet it cannot be denied, that, in religious matters, the sable Portugueze of Bengal have out-done the British completely. They had long ago churches, and have now one in Calcutta, built at a great expence by an opulent individual, which may at least competite with the only English steeple to be seen under the presidency of Fort-William. ”

“ Pretexts for a quarrel were readily found, and Surajah Dowlah marched with a great army against Fort William.
36. "The servants of the company at Madras had been forced to become statesmen and soldiers. Those in Bengal were still mere traders, and were in no condition to defend themselves against the formidable attack. The fort was taken, after a feeble resistance, and nearly the whole English population fell into the hands of the conqueror. A few, including the governor, had saved themselves by taking refuge in the ships. ”

“ Bombay was acquired by the marriage of Charles II. to Katharine of Portugal, and Fort William (now Calcutta) was founded by another English trading company in the reign of William III. In 1702, the two companies united. They kept at each trading post a small body of native soldiers, or sepoys, and they paid rent to the neighbouring native prince or ruler for the land they occupied. These rulers of small districts owed allegiance to a higher ruler, who in turn was supposed to obey the Great Moghul of India. ”

“ Calcutta now rivals in splendor and importance the old capital of the Great Mogul. The palace of the governor-general is larger than Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace; the stupendous fortifications of Fort William rival the fortress of Gibraltar; the Anglo-Indian army amounts to two hundred thousand men; while the provinces of India are taxed, directly or indirectly, to an amount exceeding eighteen millions of pounds per annum. It is idle to speculate on the destinies of India, or the duration of the English power. ”

“ The top of a house belonging to one of the latter, built on the site of the old fort, gives an extensive view of the surrounding country, which is finely wooded with large mango groves, and of the town itself, A little below the fort to the south may be seen three old tombs, one erected to Shah Bhikhan, a faqir of the Kabíria sect and belonging to the Makhdúmzádas of Kákori, and close by it the tombs of two of his disciples, Sultan Gulrat of the imperial family of Delhi, and his foster brother Shams- ud-dín. ”

“ For more than twenty years the site remained vacant, till, in 1815, it was given by the Government for the Scotch Church. During the years in which these changes were taking place and transforming Calcutta from a trading factory to a city, Fort William was gradually approaching completion. There had been considerable trouble with contractors and skilled labourers, and a large number of brick-layers and artificers were sent out from England by the Court of Directors "for the better carrying on of the works." ”

“ The country in which the fort was situated was then the common hunting-ground of several buffalo tribes, unfriendly alike to one another and the whites. The Utaws and Cheyennes, the Pawnees and the Comanches gathered here in summer to hunt the buffalo; and thus, in the neighborhood of the post, there might be from fifteen to twenty thousand savages, “ready and panting for plunder and blood.” If the Indians engaged in fighting had their own battles among themselves, the people of Bent’s Fort felt safe; but if the Indians kept the peace among themselves, there was great anxiety at Fort William. ”

“ It cannot be expected that the princes of this country, whose fidelity is always to be suspected, will remain firm to their promises and engagements from principle only. It is, therefore, become absolutely necessary to keep up a respectable force in this province for the future. How far this is agreeable to the Company's circumstances, you, Sir, are the best judge. I shall only add, there never was such attention paid to the advice of military men at Calcutta as was consistent with the safety of the place when in danger—a total ignorance of which was the real cause of the loss of Fort William. ”

“ If the ditches of Fort William were allowed to remain filled with stagnant water, and become a field for the study of reeds and rushes, its present healthy character would soon leave it, and were the numerous tanks throughout Calcutta left to nature, the consequences on the public health would be calamitous.
Things are bad enough as they are. Calcutta is probably the worst drained city in the British dominions ”

“ His calm temper and the good spirits he maintained encouraged his countrymen, and contributed much towards inducing the natives to remain faithful. At present they had but little fear of being attacked, as the scouts reported that the larger number of the rebels either occupied Delhi, or were concentrating round Cawnpore and Lucknow. Still there were sufficient numbers in other places to prove formidable, should they design to attack the fort. ”

“ The general post-office occupies the site of the native prison whose horrors of the Black Hole stain chapters of Indian history; and a description of the burning of human bodies on the bank of the Hooghly, and of the animal sacrifices at the old Hindu temple at Khali-ghat, would be disagreeably gruesome. The gaudy Jain temple interests for a few minutes, and the exterior of Fort William impresses the casual spectator. The zoölogical [217] garden is conventional, and the feature of the botanical garden is probably the largest banyan tree in the world. ”

“ In 1628 the Dutch won over the native governor there, and the English were compelled to retreat to Armagon, where they built the first English fort in India. In 1639 Francis Day, the chief at Armagon, founded Madras, building Fort St George (1640) , and transferring thither the chief factory from Masulipatam. Here the English obtained their first grant of Indian soil, apart from the plots on which their factories were built. In 1653 Madras was raised to an independent presidency, and in 1658 all the settlements in Bengal and on the Coromandel coast were made subordinate to Fort St George. ”

“ The defenders of the fort rushed here and there, striking fierce blows with their axes wherever an Indian showed himself, thrusting with their pikes, and hurling back their assailants. Still, it was too likely that numbers would prevail. On either side the Indians were swarming up, and one man had often to contend with a dozen before others of the defenders could come to his assistance. Several more of the garrison had been wounded ”

“ All swore to fight as long as they had arms to wield their swords.
Two days passed away, when about noon, as the hot air quivered over the plain, the blue and red uniforms of the enemy’s cavalry appeared in sight. They approached, a vast horde thronging up in the distance. Column after column of infantry appeared following the cavalry, with numerous pieces of artillery. The rebels were evidently intent on the utter destruction of the fort. The lesson given by the mutineers at Delhi, Cawnpore, and many other places, warned the English and their allies against any attempt at negotiation. ”

“ On the 7th, the troops landed at Ras Halala, about fifteen miles below Bushire. Their first exploit was an attack on the old Dutch fort of Reshire, on the 9th of December. The enemy made a stout resistance. Captain Augustus Wood, of the 20th Bengal Native Infantry, led the grenadier company, which formed the head of the assaulting column. He was the first to mount the parapet of the fort, when a considerable number of the enemy, suddenly springing out on him from a trench cut in the parapet itself, attacked him furiously, firing a volley at his men when only a yard or two distant. ”

“ Of the private Men there were Thirty-two killed, and One hundred wounded. The Enemy had Forty killed and Seventy wounded in the Fort. They must be allowed to have defended themselves with great Spirit and Resolution, and probably would not have submitted so soon, if they had not suffered severely from Colonel Clive's Batteries, and been still more galled by the Fire of his Men, from the flat Roofs of the Houses, which in Truth made it almost impossible for them to stand to their 50Guns. ”

“ How soon, indeed, are human things forgotten! As we meet here this morning, the Southern sun is shining on their place of burial, and the waves sparkling and the sea-gulls circling around Fort Wagner's ancient site. But the great earthworks and their thundering cannon, the commanders and their followers, the wild assault and repulse that for a brief space made night hideous on that far-off evening, have all sunk into the blue gulf of the past, and for the majority of this generation are hardly more than an abstract name, a picture, a tale that is told. ”

“ He has not yet been made to pay a higher rate ; not, however, out of regard for the king's pledge, but solely out of that for Runjeet's fort of Dhurmpur, on the bank of the Ganges, his armed bands, and his seven pieces of cannon He has been diligently employing all his surplus rents in improving his defensive means; and besides his fort and guns, is said to have a large body of armed and disciplined men. He has seized upon a great many villages around belonging to weaker proprietors, and is every year adding to his estate in this way. ”

“ The struggle within the fort, for a considerable time, was most desperate. In addition to a heavy fire kept up on them, the British troops were assailed by the enemy sword in hand, as well as with daggers, pistols, and other arms; but British courage, perseverance, and fortitude overcame all opposition, and the enemy were soon to be seen abandoning their guns, running in all directions, throwing themselves down from immense heights, and endeavouring to make their escape over the walls. By five o’clock the capture of the Afghans’ last stronghold was complete. ”

“ LXKA'NKAR MABMUBABAD—Pargana Bmiti— Tahsil Kunda— District 'Partahgas.s. — This place was founded by Muhammad Hayat; the origiaal name is Gularia, and it was called Kalakankar because slabs of bkck limestone were found here. Raja Hanwant Singh built a fort here in 835 A.D. This town is on the bank of the Ganges, four miles from Manikpur and forty-four from Bela. There is a canal from the Ganges leading water round the fort. Population. ”