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 im-
