India at a time when the conditions of government were continually changing. They had also to suffer from the arrogance of the Dutch who with a superior force at their disposal were able to take up a high line and harass their rivals with impunity.
Gradually but surely the lesson was driven home to the reluctant minds of the Directors that if they were ever to succeed in creating a successful trade in Bengal they must have a fortified base. In 1686 they took exceptional measures to give effect to this policy. In that year they sent out to India a strong expedition which was charged with the duty of exacting satisfaction for wrongs inflicted by the Mogul Government. Failing redress from the Nabob of Dacca the force was to proceed to Chittagong and "seize and take the said town, fort and territory by force of arms." After capture the place was to be made as safe "as the art of invention of man can extend to." It was finally directed that Mr. Job Charnock was to be "Governor of our fort, town and territory of Chythegam."
Job Charnock, who was thus assigned the post of honour in this enterprise, was a man of very remarkable personality who fills a great place in the early history of British India. His parentage is obscure, but it may, perhaps, be surmised from his name that he came of the same Puritan stock which furnished so many of the earlier officials of the Company. He landed in India in either 1655 or 1656 and served his apprenticeship as a Junior Member of the Council of Cassimbazar, a much less important position than the high-sounding title would imply. Early in 1664 Charnock obtained his first important appointment as chief of the factory which the Company had established at
