At about ten o'clock in the morning, we passed Jungepore, the site of one of the Company's principal silk factories, a portion of which is now conducted by private individuals; for since the loss of the Company's trading charter, their factories here and at other places, have been dismantled. Up to 1833, the East India Company, as is well known, held the monopoly of the trade in India and China; but the Government at home considering such a constitution of affairs incompatible with the position of a supreme legislative body, as well as injurious to the commercial and manufacturing interests, passed an act for the abolition of this monopoly, on the removal of what is commonly termed "the last charter of the East India Company, on the 25th of August, 1833." This act, as was expected, has already produced a vast change in the commercial relations of India. By throwing open the trade to private merchants, a greater stimulus has been given to individual enterprise and energy; and the market prices have been considerably lowered. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 103: Jer. xliv. 17.] [Footnote 104: Vol. ii. p. 524.] CHAPTER XVII. Moorshedabad--Cossimbazar--"Eina Mahal"--The Nawab Cowar Krishnath Roy--"Snake-boats"--Population of Moorshedabad--Berhampore--Ivory and Silk Manufactures--Kulna--The Tidal-bore--English Factory at Kulna--Hoogly--Chinsurah--Chandernagore--Ishapore--Barrackpore --Serampore--Dum-Dum--Garden Reach--Calcutta. AT four o'clock on the afternoon of the 4th of June, we lay off Moorshedabad, a large, unwalled town, in the Province of Bengal, of which it was the capital from 1704 until our conquests transferred that distinction to Calcutta, in 1757. In 1704, when Moorshed Coole Khan transferred the seat of government to this place, he changed its name of Mukhsooabad to Moorshedabad. It extends for eight miles along both sides of the most sacred branch of the Ganges, called Bhauguretty, or Cossimbazar, at a distance of about 120 miles above Calcutta. It is an excessively shabby-looking town; the houses are ill built, and have a mean appearance, most of them being only one story high. Some are of brick with tile roofs, others of mud; others again mere straw huts, all jumbled together without the slightest attention to regularity. The streets, too, like most of those in the East, are narrow and crooked, and seem to bid defiance to cleanliness and order. A redeeming point is the number of fine trees, which impart a picturesque character to this heterogeneous mass of buildings. Close to the brink of the river, however, there are some tolerable houses, mosques and temples, but these, too, are inferior to those of other cities.