Page 277 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

THE ENGLISH ON THE EAST COAST OF INDIA 277

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 i
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 communication 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 eventu­
ally 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 Com­
pany’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-