('.(AP. VII.] TORTUOUS POLICY. 345
Captain Heath arrived in Bengal in October, 1688, and, proceeding to act a.d. ios9. on instruction.s which had become altogether inappUcable to the circumstances, embarked the Company's property at Calcutta, and then proceeded to Balasore rroceedings
in the Hay
Roads. The members of the factory there had been seized and imprisoned; but of Bengal. (Jai)tain Heath, though he opened a negotiation with the governor, was too imi)atient to wait for the result of it. Having effected a landing, he captured a battery of thirty guns, and then plundered the town. By this proceeding he gained little, and threw away the only chance of obtaining the English prisoners, who were carried off into the interior to endure a hopeless Cciptivity. From Balasore he proceeded to Chittagong; but in.stead of attacking it with his well- ecpiipped fleet, now amounting to fifteen sail, he spent some days in fruitless negotiation, and then set sail for Aracan. It was supposed that as the king was at enmity with the ]logul, a locality for a fortified settlement might be easily obtained. The ajiplication, however, was refu.sed; and Captain Heath, after an ineffectual attempt to secure his object by corn-ting the alliance of a rebel chief, finally quitted the Bengal coast, and arrived at Madras on the 4th of March, 1 689. On board the fleet was all that now remained to the Company of the wreck of their once flourishing factories in Bengal.
On the west coast of India the results were not more satisfactory. The fii'st Tortuou.s
policy of tlio
intimation of the warlike policy of the Company was commvuiicated by the company, secret committee in a letter to President Child, intended for his eye alone, but marked to be opened in his absence by Sir John Wyborae, deputy-governor of Bombay. The president was absent, and Sir John not onl}' opened the letter, but imprudently communicated the contents to the council. The secret was of a kind not likely to be kept, and great alarm was felt lest it should reach the ears of the governor of Surat. This was altogether contrary to the intentions of the Company, who were bent on canying out a gi'eat scheme of fraud by making sudden war on the Mogul in one quarter of his dominions, when they were delutling him with professions of friend.ship in another. In Bengal his territory was to be invaded, and his ships and those of his subjects seized as lawful prizes, not only there, but in the eastern seas and in the Pei-sian Gulf ; while on the west coast of India, and particularly at Surat, a mask of friendship was to be worn, and not thrown off so long as concealment might seem desir- able. This nefarious mode of warfare excited no scruples in the mind of Sir John Child, who at once entered into the spirit of it, and discovered, as Bnice expresses it, "a high sense of duty, and a provident concern for the interests of the Company," by resolving not only to keep up the deception and avoid hostilities with the Mogul till the result of the Bengal expedition should be known, but even "should circumstances oblige him to commence ho.stilities, to take the responsibility on himself" The meaning is, that he was to act as a screen to the Comj)any, and enable them, should the war prove unsuccessful, to
allege, in utter disregard of ti-uth and honour, that he had acted without their Vol. I. 44
