Three Frenchmen in Bengal: The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757Hill, Samuel Charles
History
Three Frenchmen in Bengal: The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757
Hill, Samuel Charles
Bengal (India) -- History; Courtin, Jacques Ignace, active 18th century; French -- India; Law, John, 1719-; Renault, Pierre
[Footnote 104: Orme MSS., India Office, and Clive correspondence at
Walcot, vol. iv.]
[Footnote 105: The celebrated traveller. He quickly quarrelled with
and left them.]
[Footnote 106: Province.]
[Footnote 107: Nawab of Oudh and father of Suja-ud-daula.]
[Footnote 108: I.e. the receiver of the rent or revenue.]
[Footnote 109: The regular winds of the various seasons are called
monsoons, and are named after the point of the compass from which
they blow.]
[Footnote 110: Alamgir II.]
[Footnote 111: Imad-ul-mulk, Ghazi-ud-din Khan.]
[Footnote 112: Ali Gauhar, born 1728. On the death of his father,
November 29, 1759, he assumed the name or title of Shah Alam.]
[Footnote 113: The old English Factory at Patna was re-opened by Mr.
Pearkes, in July, 1757. See his letters to Council, dated 12th and
14th July, 1757.]
[Footnote 114: Kasim Ali had a much better army than any of his
predecessors. Though it was not trained in the European manner,
several of the chief officers were Armenians, who effected great
reforms in discipline. Three years later it made a really good fight
against the English.]
[Footnote 115: The battle is generally known as that of Gaya, but
was fought at Suan. The site is marked in Rennell's map of South
Bihar. It lies about six miles west of the town of Bihar, on the
river Banowra.]
[Footnote 116: The Banowra River.]
[Footnote 117: The French capital on the Madras coast. Surrendered
to Eyre Coote.]
[Footnote 118: Sepoys, so called from the Telingana district in
Madras, where they were first recruited.]
[Footnote 119: Mrs. Law. _Bibi_ is the equivalent of mistress or
lady. _Lass_ was the native version of Law. Mrs. Law's maiden name
was Jeanne Carvalho.]
[Footnote 120: Bengal Select Com. Consultations, 28th January,
1761.]
[Footnote 121: "A part of these Memoirs was written at Paris in
1703, and part at sea in 1764, during my second voyage to India, but
several of the notes were added later." _Law_.]
CHAPTER IV
M. COURTIN, CHIEF OF DACCA
Jacques Ignace, son of François Courtin, Chevalier, Seigneur de
Nanteuil, and of Catherine Colin, is, I believe, the correct
designation of the gentleman who appears in all the records of the
French and English East India Companies as M. Courtin, Chief of the
French Factory at Dacca.
In June 1756, when Siraj-ud-daula marched on Calcutta, he sent word
to his representative, the Nawab Jusserat Khan at Dacca, to seize
the English Factory, and make prisoners of the Company's servants
and soldiers. The English Factory on the site of the present
Government College, was--
"little better than a common house, surrounded with a thin
brick wall, one half of it not above nine foot high." The
garrison consisted "of a lieutenant" (Lieutenant John Cudmore),
"4 serjeants, 3 corporals, and 19 European soldiers,
besides 34 black Christians[122] and 60 _Buxerries_."[123]
[Illustration: DACCA, OR JEHANGIR NAGAR. (_After Rennell_.)]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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