Leaving the Gwalior monument we pass Rajchunder Das Ghat, almost abreast of the Eden Gardens, which Calcutta owes to the generosity of the sisters of Lord Auckland ; and then we come to the Chandpal Ghat, where in old days governors-general, commanders-in-chief, judges, and bishops used to land in state. Soon after passing Chandpal Ghat we are anchored at a jetty, not far from the spot where stood the old fort, and where " the illustrous Job Charnock, the first conspicuous Englishman on this side of the world," es tablished the English factory.
Captain Hamilton, who " left England before King William came into it as king," in his New Account of the East Indies, states : " The English settled there about the year Ifioo, after the Moghul had pardoned all the robberies and murders committed on his subjects. Mr. Job Charnock being then the Company's agent in Bengal, he had liberty to settle an emporium in any part on the river's side below Hooghly, and for the sake of a large shady tree chose that place, though he could not have chosen a more unhealthful spot on the whole river." Hamilton proceeds to relate : " One year he was there, and there were reckoned in August about twelve hundred English, some military, some servants to the Company, same private merchants residing in the town, and some seamen belonging to shipping lying at the town, and before the beginning of January there were four hundred and fifty burials registered in the clerk's book of mortality." He adds : " The Company has a pretty good hospital at Calcutta, where many go in to undergo the penance of physic, but few come out to give an account of its operations." It is Captain Hamilton who relates the story how the founder of Calcutta rescued his wife from a funeral pyre. He writes : " The country being overspread with paganism, the custom of wives burning with their deceased husbands is also practised here. Before the Moghul's war Mr. Channock went one time with his ordinary guard of soldiers to see a young widow at that tragical catastrophe ; hut he was so smitten with the widow's beauty that he sent his guards to take her by force from her executioners and conduct her to his own lodgings. They lived lovingly many years, and had several children. At length she died, after he had settled in Calcutta ; but instead of converting her to Christianity she made him a proselyte to paganism, and the only part of Christianity that was remarkable in him was burying her decently ; and he built a tomb over her, where all his life after her death he kept the anniversary day of her death by sacrificing a cock on her tomb after the pagan manner. This was and is the common report, and I have been credibly in formed, both by Christians and pagans who lived at Calcutta under his agency, that the story was really matter of fact." In spite, however, of Christian and pagan testimony, it would, as Colonel Yule points out, be hard to reconcile with " the pagan manner " or Hindu rites the sacrifice of an unclean bird. In the churchyard of St. John's beneath a massive mausoleum, octagonal in form with a double dome, lies the body of Job Charnock, or Channock, as Hamilton calls him. An inscription on a black slab informs us that he died January 1o, 1693—three years before the original Fort William was erected.
Calcutta, when Hamilton visited it, consisted of a group of European buildings which clustered round the park— now Dalhousie Square—about the midst of which was the great tank called the " Lall Dighi." North of the park, and immediately fronting the fort, stood the old church, whose lofty spire formed a conspicuous object in the view. Hamil ton writes :—" About fifty yards from Fort William stands the church, built by the pious charity of merchants residing there, and the Christian benevolence of sea-faring men whose affairs called them to trade there ; but ministers of the Gospel being subject to mortality, very often young mer chants are obliged to officiate, and have a salary of per annum, added to what the Company allows them for their pains in reading prayers and a sermon on Sundays."
Within the fort there was an official residence for the Governor, and convenient lodgings for factors and writers. On Sunday the Governor and Council and the civil servants and the military off duty walked in procession to the church. The Governor had applied for a state carriage for church going, but his frugal masters at home informed him that " if he wanted a chaise and pair he must pay for them him self ! " From Hamilton we get a glimpse of the social life of Cal cutta in the days of old. He writes : " Most gentlemen and ladies in Bengal live both splendidly and pleasantly, the forenoons being dedicated to business and after dinner to rest, and in the evening recreate themselves in chaises or palanquins in the fields, or to gardens, or by water in their budgeroes, which is a convenient boat that goes swiftly with the force of oars. On the river, sometimes, there is the diversion of fishing, or fowling, or both ; and before night they make friendly visits to one another, when pride or contention do not spoil society, which top often they do among the ladies as discord and faction do among men." The old church was destroyed during the famous siege by Suraj-ud-Dowlah. The Portuguese church at the time being vacant, it was taken for English services ; but three years afterwards the Council, " taking into consideration the unwholesomeness and dampness of the church now in use, as well as the injustice of detaining it from the Portu guese," ordered their surveyor to examine the remains of the gateway in the old fort, " and report to us what it will cost to put it in tolerable repair and make it fit for a chapel, till such time as the chapel designed to be built in the new fort be erected." The new chapel was built inside the ruined fort immediately north of the great east gateway, and it is described as a ground floor. It soon proved too small for its purpose, and in 1768 the old or mission church was erected by the well-known Swedish missionary Kieran der. He gave towards its building fifty thousand pounds, and the proceeds of the sale of his deceased wife's jewels. In The Genuine Memoirs of Asiaticus, published in London in 1785, we are told : " It was not until the year 1782, under the auspices of the princely and munificent Hastings, that the inhabitants of Calcutta seriously determined to erect an edifice for the celebration of public worship suitable to the exercise of the ministerial functions, and to such a numerous auditory as might be expected in the capital of our Indian Empire." " On the eighteenth day of December, 1783, the new Church Committee first met, and the meeting was attended by Governor Hastings and his Council. As the sum of thirty-five thousand nine hundred and fifty rupees had been subscribed already, the Committee determined to commence the building." The first stone of the new church was laid on Tuesday, April 6, 1784, " on the morning of which Mr. Wheler, Acting President, gave a public breakfast at the old Court-house, whence he proceeded, attended by the great officers of State and the principal inhabitants of Calcutta, to the ground upon which the sacred edifice was to be erected. The first stone was laid by Mr. Wheler with the usual ceremonies." Three years afterwards the church was opened with considerable pomp and state by the Earl of Cornwallis, who was at the time Governor-General.