Page 306 - Early English Adventurers in the Middle East_Neat
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306 EARLY ENGLISH ADVENTURERS IN THE EAST

                  four quarters of the globe; it is the home of philosophies
                  and religions and the headquarters of a political   move-
                  ment which is profoundly influencing the course of events
                  in India. If the British had done nothing else in India
                                                                                  -
                  the creation of Calcutta on what was little better than
                  a swamp would be a conclusive testimony to the genius
                  of the race for the successful management of alien
                  peoples.
                    Job Charnock did not live to see even the first glory of
                  the city which he more than any other may be said to
                  have founded. Full of years as they were reckoned for
                  the Englishman at that time in India, and weighed down
                  with the cares and responsibilities of his position, he died on
                  January 10, 1693, in Calcutta. He was buried in St.
                  John’s Churchyard in the city in a grave which is said to
                  contain also the remains of his much loved Indian wife,
                  who predeceased him. Some four years after his death
                  his son-in-law, Charles Eyre, erected over the tomb an
                  elaborate mausoleum, which was the receptacle of the
                  bodies of a number of his descendants who died in the
                  latter part of the seventeenth and the first half of
                  the eighteenth century. This striking structure still
                  stands, an object of interest to the curious visitor to
                  Calcutta and a silent reminder of one to whom the city
                  owes so much.
                    Few men of note in the early annals of British India have
                  been the subject of acuter controversy than Job Charnock.
                  Even before his death there had gathered about him a
                  wealth of picturesque legend which distinguished him
                  from the ordinary type of English adventurer of that day.
                  As Chanak, a master mind who had by his almost super­
                  human powers defeated the Mogul forces at Hooghly, he











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