Almost immediately after the conclusion of the Mogul war, a new settlement of importance was acquired on the coast of Coromandel ; that of Tignipatam, which was at first ceded by the Rajah of Gingee, and afterwards, when his territory was conquered by Aurengzebe, the grant was confirmed by that monarch. The British fortified the station, and it has since been known by the name of Fort St David.
About the same time, a more important acquisition was made in Bengal. During the late hostilities in that pro vince, the agent and council had retired to a town a few miles lower down the river, called Chuttanuttee, imme diately contiguous to which is that of Calcutta ; as soon as peace was made with the court of Delhi, the agency was transferred to this latter place. At first, however, they could not gain permission to fortify it ; but some of the rajahs having rebelled against the Mogul monarch, the British, under pretence of being afraid that Calcutta would be attacked, obtained leave to raise walls round it. In 1698, Prince Azim, one of the grandsons of Aurcng zebe, who commanded the Mogul army in Bengal, was bribed by the British to confer on them a grant of the three connected villages of Chuttanuttee, Gorindpore, and Calcutta, together with the power over the in habitants. Shortly afterwards, the fortifications of the new possessions being completed, received, in compliment to the king of England, the name of Fort William ; and about the same period the agency of Bengal was elevated to the rank of a presidency. For some years the position, and relative constitution of the British presidencies, had fluc tuated very much ; but Bombay at last superseded Surat completely ; and front the date of the building of Fort William, the established presidencies were those of Mad ras, Bombay, and Bengal.
Soon after the death of Aurengzebe, the settlement of Bengal was much exposed to the depredations and extor tions of JATier, who had become nabob of that province.
i Weary, at length, of the insults and the injuries which they sustained, the Presidency orCalcutta, in the year 1713, sent an embassy of complaint, accompanied by pre sents, to the court of Delhi. It would, however, have failed altogether, but for the concurrence of two propitious circumstances. The one was, a cure effected on the em
peror by Mr I lamilton, the surgeon of the embassy. 'This gentleman being offered any reward he chose, besought. the grant of the Company's requests, which were instantly complied with ; and the emperor, besides other valuable presents, gave him models of all his surgical instruments in pure gold. The other circumstance was, the retire ment of the English from Surat, from which place the emperor had been long anxious to induce or force them to depart. Of the privileges granted to the Company, those relating to Bengal were the most important ; and, indeed, they were long considered as constituting' the great charter of the English in India. They were, that, in Ben gal, all persons indebted to the Company should he de livered up ; that English goods might be conveyed duty free through the Bengal provinces ; and that the English should be at liberty to purchase the lordships of thirty seven towns contiguous to Calcutta. This last privilege, however, was never in fact granted, and even some of the others were rendered ineffectual ; as, however, the privi lege of exemption from duty, and a free passage for their goods was actually given, the English soon became the principal carriers from the ports of the Ganges, and the shipping possessed by private Europeans in Calcutta, in ten years after the embassy, amounted to 10,000 tons.
From this time till the breaking out, in the year 1745, of the war between France and England, the English set tlements in India present nothing deserving of particular notice or record. At the breaking out of this war, the English possessed the following settlements :—Bombay; Dabul, about 40 leagues farther to the south, in the pro vince of Concan ; Camay, in the province of North Carrara ; Tellicherry, on the sea coast of the Malabar pro vince ; Anjengo, their most southerly settlement on the western coast of the peninsula, on the sea coast of Tra vancore ; Fort St David ; Madras ; Visigapatam and Bala sore, on the Coromandel coast ; and Calcutta. The prin cipal French settlements were Pondicherry and Chandler nagore ; the latter about 20 miles above Calcutta, the for mer on the sea coast of the Carnatic.