The History of India, from the Earliest Period to the Close of Lord Dalhousie's Administration ] by John Clark Marshman (Volume 2)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1867 Excerpt: ...out this grand armament to establish a political power in India, did not, however, last more than five years. The dying indication of it appears in their despatch of 1689: The Yin. FORTIFICATION OF CALCUTTA. 215 increase of our revenue is the Bubject of our care as much as our trade; 'tis that must maintain our force when twenty accidents may interrupt our trade; 'tis that must make us a nation in India; without that we are but as a great number of interlopers, united by his Majesty's charter, fit only to trade where nobody of power thinks it their interest to oppose us; and upon this account it is that the wise Dutch, in all their general advices that we have seen, write ten paragraphs concerning their government, their civil and military policy, warfare, and the increase of their revenue, for one paragraph they write concerning their trade. But adversity was not lost upon the Court of Directors; from this time forward, and for more than fifty years, their views were confined so exclusively to the pursuits of commerce that in the year 1754, only three years before the battle of Plassy, which laid the foundation of their magnificent empire, they continued to inculcate on their servants, the necessity of avoiding an expensive manner of living, and of considering themselves the representatives of a body of merchants, for which a decent frugality would be much more in character. Fortifications of After the establishment of the factory at Calcataitta, 1695. cutta, the Court of Directors were anxious to place it in a state of defence. They felt that their existence in India during the recent convulsion had been owing solely to the fortresses of Madras and Bombay, which were impregnable to the assaults of any native force. Those forts had...