Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
10
'There's Bloodletting as We Speak'
CALCUTTA, 1992
To all Gentlemen Seamen, and Lads of Enterprize, and true Spirit. Who are
ambitious of making an honourable Independence by the plunder of the Enemies
of their Country. The DEATH or GLORY Privateer, a Prime sailing Vessel
commanded by JAMES BRACEY mounting 22 six pounders, 12 Cohorns
and twenty Swivels and carrying one hundred and twenty Men - will leave
Calcutta in a few days on a six Months cruise against the Dutch, French and
Spaniards.
The best Treatment and Encouragement will be given.
- From the front page of
Hicky's Bengal Gazette
, September 8-15, 1781
The
Bengal Gazette
, as its front page still showed in 1781, had
originally been the
Calcutta General Advertiser
. Ads like the one above
convey the atmosphere of Calcutta in these early days more
efficiently than many entire books. The British established their
first settlement in the area at Hugli, or Hoogly, in 1640; but it was
not until Robert Clive's decisive victory over Sirajuddowlah, the
local nawab, at the battle of Plassey, or Palashi, in 1757 that the
British became absolute rulers of Bengal and gained their first real
foothold in India. Calcutta became Britain's imperial capital in the
East, and the base for the famous East India Company.
The era of John Company marked a time of state-sanctioned
freebooters, or merchant princes, as they preferred to be called.
Immense fortunes were made in the lawless climate, and Calcutta's
architecture reflected this, much as that of Venice, another pioneer
multinational corporation, did. Both cities existed to make a
statement of power and prestige as much as anything else.
Neoclassical palaces sprang up along the banks of the Hoogly River,
as the Ganges is called at its delta, and the city's extreme opulence
impressed all who saw it, as it was supposed to.
When the Raj officially arrived, a more imperial style - grander
