THREE FRENCHMEN IN BENGAL




CHAPTER I

THE QUARREL WITH THE ENGLISH


Writing in 1725, the French naval commander, the Chevalier d'Albert,
tells us that the three most handsome towns on the Ganges were
Calcutta, Chandernagore, and Chinsurah, the chief Factories of the
English, French, and Dutch. These towns were all situated within
thirty miles of each other. Calcutta, the latest founded, was the
greatest and the richest, owing partly to its situation, which
permitted the largest ships of the time to anchor at its quays, and
partly to the privilege enjoyed by the English merchants of trading
freely as individuals through the length and breadth of the land.
Native merchants and native artisans crowded to Calcutta, and the
French and Dutch, less advantageously situated and hampered by
restrictions of trade, had no chance of competing with the English
on equal terms. The same was of course true of their minor
establishments in the interior. All three nations had important
Factories at Cossimbazar (in the neighbourhood of Murshidabad, the
Capital of Bengal) and at Dacca, and minor Factories at Jugdea or
Luckipore, and at Balasore. The French and Dutch had also Factories