Page 291 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat

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JOB CHARNOCK FOUNDS CALCUTTA 291
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/’ • Alter 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 Chythe-
gam.”
I Job Charnock, who was thus assigned the post of honour
in this enterprise, was a man of very remarkable person­
ality 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
I
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

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