The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c20.85

v4.c20.85

At last the English traders, getting no redress from the emperor or the local viceroy, resolved to protect themselves by force. The war broke out in Bengal in November, 1686. The English under Job Charnock, in reprisal for the arrest of three disorderly English soldiers by the commandant of Hooghly, sacked and burnt that town, captured a Mughul ship and burnt a large number of barges and boats. The viceroy Shāyista Khān seized all the English factories within his reach. The English then sailed away down the river from Hooghly (30 December, 1686). In February next they burnt the imperial salt-warehouses near Matiāburuj and stormed the fort of Thāna (south of Calcutta), and sailing to the sea seized the island of Hijili (on the coast of the Midnapore district) where all their land and sea forces in the Bay of Bengal were assembled. Then one of their detachments plundered and burnt the town of Balasore and seized or destroyed the Indian shipping there. In May, 1687, a Mughul force sent by Shāyista Khān arrived before Hijili to expel the English, who had been reduced by disease from 300 to 100 men and from forty to five officers, and even these few survivors were weakened by fever. So, they evacuated Hijilī with all their artillery and munitions (21 June). At the end of August Shāyista Khān offered terms to the English, permitting them to renew their trade at Hooghly. Next year Captain Heath arrived from England as Agent in Bengal. He decided to withdraw from Bengal altogether, wrest Chittagong from the Mughul officers and make it a safe and independent base for the English trade in Bengal. On the way he stormed Balasore fort and committed frightful excesses on the people. But the council of war turned down the Chittagong project as mad, and in disgust Heath withdrew the English to Madras, abandoning Bengal altogether (February, 1689).