NEAR AND FAR
the English fort in Calcutta. When Fort Orleans fell, in 1757, to Clive and Admiral Watson, the prosperity of the factory passed away; nor did it ever revive, for from that date the English became more powerful every year, and one by one their rivals, in trade and politics alike, with- drew, leaving them in sole possession of the country, which for centuries had been one great battlefield, on which foreign invaders fought and struggled for dominion over the fair land which they laid waste.
While France still clings to her bright little settlement in Bengal, the Danes at Serampore, like the Dutch at Chinsurah, realized that their Indian possessions had become useless to them, and, in 1845, the King of Denmark transferred his Indian settlements to the British Government, receiving in return a sum of twelve lacs of rupees; and now, beyond the Danish royal monogram on the church and on the gateway of the magistrate's house, and a few names on the old tombstones in the cemetery, nothing remains in Serampore to tell of the Danish occupation.
The Serampore church, strangely enough, was never occupied by a Danish minister. It was built in 1805 by public subscription, to which Lord Wellesley contributed a thousand rupees, on the ground, it was said, that a church steeple
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