Early English adventurers in the East (1917)/Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII
The English on the East Coast of India
The first expedition to Bengal—Gabriel Boughton, a friend at Court, obtains trading facilities for the Company—Factories established at Balasor, Cassimbazar and Patna in subordination to Hooghly—Sir Edward Winter's coup d'etat at Madras—George Foxcroft the President imprisoned—Expedition to restore the status quo—Winter surrenders—Sir William Langhome's mission
IN previous chapters we have seen how the English adventurers after toil and stress, many wanderings and the expenditure of much blood and treasure, found a foothold for their weary feet in India—on the Coromandel Coast at Fort St. George, and on the Western Coast at Bombay. But there remained another fateful step to be taken before the shadowy outline was traced of the vast edifice of British dominion in India which is in existence to-day in full splendour. Then as now the commerce of India flowed in the fullest force along the course of the sacred Ganges and its tributaries. Over its classic surface passed, as they had done from the remotest ages, the productions of half a continent. From the great centres of population of Upper India went to and from the coast an unceasing stream of traffic, creating at a hundred points along the river's course important marts to which merchants from near and far resorted. In Bengal itself was the seat of many industries and the home of a numerous population whose exploitation offered openings of a promising kind to a great commercial organization of the character of the East India Company. To such a quarter it was inevitable that the English should sooner or later turn their serious attention.
Even before the title deeds of Fort St. George were secured, an English expedition intent on finding new openings for trade had penetrated to Bengal. It was an unassuming little venture, in which only eight Englishmen took part, but it has its place in history as the first intrusion of an organized body of representatives of the now ruling race into the most important of the Indian provinces.
The story of the journey is set forth for the benefit of posterity by a certain William Benton "of the parish of St. Saviour's, Southwark," quartermaster of the Company's ship Hopewell, who accompanied the party as navigating adviser. Starting in the early part of 1633 the expedition penetrated as far as Fort Barabati, the seat of the Court of Malcandy, or Mukund Deo, the last of the indigenous Kings of Orissa. The ruling Mogul, Viceroy Agha Mahommed Zaman, a Persian, received the visitors graciously, but he was not disposed to forego the customary court etiquette which consisted of a kissing of the viceroyal toe as a preliminary to conversation. Cartwright, the leader of the party, when the toe was insinuatingly uncovered, twice declined the suggestion that he should salute it, but eventually, with a wry face, "he was fain to do it." Agha Mahommed, however, was not at all a bad specimen of the Mogul dignitary. He treated the Englishmen most kindly and gave them permission to trade. Acting under his grant Cartwright started factories at Hariharapur and Balasor, and for some years these were centres of the Company's trade. But the operations were seriously hampered by Portuguese and Dutch hostility, and in a few years the Hariharapur factory was closed and the Balasor establishment was reduced to the smallest proportions.
Then came a new stage in the history of the Company's relations with Bengal. They had an important friend at the Mogul Court in the person of Gabriel Boughton, who was at one time surgeon of the Company's ship Hopewell. A romantic story was long current as to the circumstances which brought Boughton into relationship with the Imperial house. It was stated that he was sent for in consequence of an accident to a Royal princess, the favourite daughter of Shah Jehan, who returning one night from visiting her father to her own apartments in the harem set fire to her clothing by brushing unwittingly against a lamp. As she was in close proximity to men her modesty forbade her to call out and by the time she reached the women's quarters she was dreadfully burned. In despair of her life, Shah Jehan dispatched a messenger post haste to Surat for an English doctor, and Boughton was sent in response. He rendered such good service that he was permanently retained by the emperor.
It is unfortunate that in the interests of truth this pretty romance must be set aside. Boughton, it is known, did not reach Agra until 1645, a year after the accident, and there is evidence, moreover, that the princess was attended by a famous physician who was brought express from Lahore to treat the case. Boughton, however, for some cause undoubtedly occupied a position of great favour at the Mogul Court, and in such circumstances had the means materially to assist his old masters. His aid appears to have been invoked not in vain in reference to the Bengal affairs of the Company. Largely as a result it would seem of concessions which he obtained the Company in 1650 set on foot measures for the opening of a new factory further inland than Balasor, at Hooghly. In the following year it was actually established and thenceforward it became a centre of the Company's Bengal trade. But at the outset the natural difficulties of conmiunication with this place, a hundred miles up one of the most dangerous rivers in the world, prevented a full development of its capabilities. There was even some talk of abandoning it in favour of a more accessible spot and one in which the Company's representatives would not be so exposed to the exactions and obstructions of the Mogul officialdom.
Matters were in this state when the conclusion of the war with the Dutch in 1657, followed by the grant of favours to the Company by Cromwell, brought with it for India the inspiration of a new hope. The Bengal establishment was greatly strengthened and additional factories were created at Balasor, Cassimbazar and Patna in subordination to Hooghly. The death of Shah Jehan in September, 1657, with the fratricidal war which followed leading up eventually to Aurungzebe's accession on July 22, 1658, had a very injurious effect on the Company's interests in India, and markedly in Bengal where the administrative confusion of the Interregnum was taken advantage of by native officials to prefer extortionate demands upon the factors.
A crisis was reached at Hooghly in 1661 when the Company's agent in an ill-advised moment seized a native vessel as security for the payment of some debts. Mir Jumlah, the Viceroy, in his anger at the action taken, threatened to sweep the English from Bengal, and he would probably have been as good as his word if he had not had more important matters to engage his attention at the time in the shape of rebellions in Cooch Behar and Assam, which necessitated his leading an expedition to those regions. As things turned out the difficulty was settled by the release of the ship and the tendering of a humble apology.
The Restoration, which had given the English Bombay and had brought in its train for the Company a new charter of a far-reaching kind, empowering the Company to build fortifications, raise troops and make war on non-Christian powers, strengthened materially the influences which were at work for the opening up of the Bengal trade. Sir Edward Winter, who had been sent out as President of Fort St. George to reorganize the factories in Madras and Bengal, early came to the conclusion that a bold and even aggressive policy must be adopted both on the Coromandel Coast and in Bengal if the Company was to hold its own. He advocated that the Dutch example should be followed of maintaining a powerful naval force to keep the native authorities in awe and ensure protection for trade. His conclusions were sound as events proved, but the Directors in London took alarm at his ambitious schemes and sent out in 1665 Mr. George Foxcroft to supersede him. It was an arbitrary measure, which led to one of the most extraordinary episodes which are to be found in the chequered history of the English in India.
Foxcroft, with his son Nathaniel, on landing in Madras met with a very cool reception from the local English community who were in entire sympathy with Winter's aims. Defects of temperament on the side of the Foxcrofts added as time went on to their unpopularity. They were Puritans, or had been, and what was worse, they were, to use the cant of the time, Levellers. One day in a discussion over the dinner table in the factory, Nathaniel Foxcroft gave utterance to the proposition that no king had any right to his throne except that conferred by might and that a private man's interest came before that of the sovereign. Rank treason this seemed to the Royalist factors, whose loyalty had probably taken a deeper shade from the incidents in which most of them had participated before leaving England. Perhaps, too, they felt that if there was to be a struggle it would be as well to have it on this issue which would enlist for them sympathy at home. They were, at all events, prompt to take advantage of the Agent's indiscretion. With Winter as leader they decided upon a course of action which was virtually a coup d'etat.
The first move in the game was a denunciation of the Foxcrofts as traitors to the two independent members of the Council—Jeremy Samebrooke and William Dawes. These worthies when pressed to accept a formal charge declined to take action on the ground that the Agent could not properly be impugned. Failing a legal means of securing the downfall of intruders the conspirators resorted to open violence. With Chuseman, the Captain of the garrison, on their side, the execution of their plans was easy.
Selecting their time well they delivered their blow on Saturday morning at the hour for prayers. George Foxcroft, hearing that trouble was brewing, drew his rapier and in the company of Samebrooke and Dawes, rushed downstairs to the courtyard, where the soldiers were drawn up fully armed with their pistols ready to fire. He was met with cries of "For the King! For the King! Knock them down! Fire!" He advanced and commenced to expostulate, when Chuseman rushed at him and having fired his pistol without effect closed with the Agent and threw him to the ground. The soldiers, taking their cue from their leader, discharged their pistols, mortally wounding Dawes. Samebrooke, who had escaped injury by some miracle, ran forward to the help of the Agent and was promptly knocked down and secured by the soldiers. Meanwhile, Nathaniel Foxcroft, having obtained his pistols from his room on the ground floor, appeared on the scene with the object of making a good fight on his own account. In a brief space of time, however, he was also secured.
The revolution was now complete. It only remained for Winter to give effect to it by assuming office. This he did by making a solemn declaration that he had accepted the chief direction of affairs upon the unanimous request of the Company's officials and that he would discharge the duties until it should be ordered otherwise either by the plurality of the Council or by the Court. Almost simultaneously Winter forwarded to the Directors a dispatch seeking to vindicate his action on the ground of the traitorous and seditious conduct of the Foxcrofts. He also wrote to the King, to the Archbishop of Canterbury and to the Royal Commander at Bombay, giving a narrative of the course of events.
When the facts were known in England the Directors sought the intervention of the King to secure the withdrawal of Winter from his usurped position. Armed with a Royal proclamation promising a pardon to Winter and his accomplices if they surrendered peacefully, an Agent named Clavell was sent out to arrange matters. Meanwhile, the Winter faction had been strengthened in their resolve to maintain their position by the support they had received from the Royal Commander in Bombay, who had gone the length of issuing a proclamation denouncing the Foxcrofts as traitors to the King. In consequence, Clavell's mission was treated with contempt, Winter and his Council even proceeding so far as to declare that his credentials were forgeries.
Clearly nothing but force would break down the obstinate determination of the Winter faction to cling to their usurped powers. Accepting the inevitable, the Company prepared an expedition of sufficient strength to make resistance impossible. Five ships carrying out five companies of soldiers and a Royal Commission with full powers to reduce the rebel Government sailed for India at the end of 1667. A portion of the fleet anchored off Madras on May 21, 1668. Two officials from shore who proceeded on board were promptly made prisoners. Subsequently a demand was made by letter to Winter for the restoration of the fort.
Winter now perceived that the end of his reign had come, and when he had sought and obtained a guarantee for his personal safety and the protection of his property, he handed over the government. Thereafter, George Foxcroft was reinstalled in the Agency with all his old powers pending the decision of the Privy Council to which the whole matter had been referred. The order which ultimately emanated from this high authority was that Nathaniel Foxcroft should be sent home and that George Foxcroft should remain for another year at the head of the Government. Winter, it was further directed, should be permitted to stay on for a short time to arrange his affairs and should in the meantime be treated with respect. Finally, a Commission, with Sir William Langhorne at its head, was appointed to investigate the whole transaction and take evidence on the spot.
Langhorne's commission only led to a further complication of the already tangled skein of events. After wasting some eighteen months in fruitless inquiries it relegated the whole question home. Not until 1672, when both George Foxcroft and Winter embarked for England may the episode be said to have terminated.
The whole occurrence is so extraordinary as to seem almost to pass belief, but it must be remembered that in days when India was a six month's journey from England, and when the directing hand from home was still for the most part a nerveless display of incompetent authority, there were possibilities for the bold adventurer which cannot be fully realized in the present prosaic age.