remained for three months, exposed to occasional attacks from the troops of the nawáb, but suffering far more from fever, which carried off two-thirds of Charnock's force. Eventually the emperor of Delhi, finding that his revenues were suffering from the hindrance to trade caused by the naval operations of the company on the western coast, decided to redress the grievances of the company's agents on both sides of India, and sent orders to the nawab of Bengal, which resulted in a discontinuance of hostilities at Hijili, and in the execution of a treaty under which the English were permitted to return to all their factories in Bengal, and likewise to erect docks and magazines at Ulabarea, a village on the western bank of the Hugli, about fifty miles from the mouth of the river. After a short stay at Ulabarea, Charnock returned to Sutánati, where he obtained leave to establish himself; but owing to a fresh outbreak of hostilities between the company and the emperor on the western coast, the treaty made at Hijili was set aside by the nawáb, who again assumed a hostile attitude. At this juncture Charnock, who had disappointed the expectations of the court of directors by delaying to give effect to their instructions for the seizure of Chittagong, was temporarily superseded by a Captain Heath, who, after a series of extraordinary proceedings, including a futile demonstration against Chittagong, carried Charnock and the rest of the company's agents in Bengal to Madras, at that time the chief settlement of the company on the eastern coast of India. After a stay of some fifteen months at Madras, Charnock, again through the intervention of the emperor, returned in July 1690 for the third and last time to Sutánati, where he obtained from Arangzib a grant of the tract of country on which Calcutta now stands. This he cleared of jungle and fortified; confirming, it is said, the emperor's favourable disposition by sending to Delhi an English physician, who cured the emperor of a carbuncle. There is a tradition that fourteen years before his death Charnock married a young and beautiful Hindu widow, whom he had rescued by force from the funeral pile, and had several children by her. On her death he enclosed in the suburbs of Calcutta a large piece of ground, which now forms the site of St. John's Church, and erected there, over his wife's remains, a mausoleum, in which he was himself buried on his death in January 1693. There is also a legend that Charnock, after the death of his wife, every year sacrificed a cock to her memory in the mausoleum.
Charnock appears to have enjoyed in an unusual degree the confidence of the directors of the East India Company. In the official despatches of the time he is constantly mentioned in very laudatory terms. He is described as having rendered 'good and faithfull service;' as 'one of our most ancient and beat servants;' as 'one of whose fidelity and care in our service we have had long and great experience;' as 'honest Mr. Charnock;' as 'a person that has served us faithfully above twenty years, and hath never, as we understand, been a prowler for himself beyond what was just and modest;' &c. &c. The only occasions on which the court adopted a different tone towards Charnock were when he failed to carry out their instructions to seize Chittaffong, a project which Charnock justly deemed to be, in the circumstances, impracticable, and when, in their opinion, he was not sufficiently firm in demanding the execution of the terms of the agreement made with the nawáb's agent at Sutánati; but even in these cases the unfavourable remarks were qualified by expressions of confidence in Charnock and by allusions to the perplexities occasioned to him by the machinations of his enemies in the council. The despatch relating to the second of these matters ends with the following remark: 'The experience we have of Mr. Charnock for thirty-four years past, and finding all that hate us to be enemies to him, have wrought such a confidence in our mind concerning him, that we shall not upon any ordinary suggestions against him change our ancient and constant opinion of his fidelity to our interest.' The court's treatment of Charnock certainly contrasts very favourably with that which in those days they meted out to most of their governors and agents, whom, as a general rule, after appointing them with every expression of confidence, they treated with a capricious harshness altogether unworthy of wise administrators. The high opinion which the court entertained of Charnock was not shared by Sir John Goldsborough, their captain-general in succession to Sir John Child, who visited Sutánati shortly after Charnock's death. In a report written by that functionary in 1693 animadversions are made upon Charnock, which reflect alike upon his administrative capacity and upon his private character. He is there charged with indolence and dilatoriness in the performance of his public duties and with duplicity in his relations with his colleagues and subordinates.
