Captain Heath Balasore

At the same time, when the news of failure of Nicholson reached England, it was decided that
until a fort was built on the bank of the river, the English would never be able to do business
with ease and would always be on the mercy of the forces of the governor. For this, Captain
Heath was sent to Bengal with 160 soldiers either to fight and win against the forces of the
governor or to bring back all the properties of the company to Madras and abandon the trade in
Bengal. Captain Heath arrived in October 1688 in Bengal, took all of company persons on board,
set sail to Balasore on 8 November 1688. He reached Balasore on 29 November, pounded and
destroyed the town including their own factory and released some English prisoners from the
Governor's prison.
They left Balasore on 13 December for Chittagong, reached there on 17 December, found the
Governor's fortification too strong to destroy and decided to wait until his demands are answered
by the governor. However, instead of waiting for Governor's answer, Captain Heath set sail to
Arakan, arrived there on 31 January 1689 and offered treaty to the king that English will fight
against the Mughals at Dhaka and the king would provide them settlements in his dominion.
When a fortnight passed without any answer from the king, Captain Heath, frustrated and
dejected, returned to Madras on 4 March 1689. This was a total failure of English objectives in
Bengal during the early period of 1689 which caused them abandoning Bengal as their trading
location in eastern region.
Emperor Aurangzeb, enraged with the situation that the Company fortified Madras, occupied
territory around it, captured Mughal ships, went into alliance with his enemy Sambhaji, he
ordered his commanders everywhere in India to exterminate Company from the country and
seize their properties anywhere to be found. Warehouses in Visakhapatnam were destroyed and
many English men were captured and put to death. Shaista Khan went after them in Dhaka,
captured them and put them behind bars.
Shaista Khan retired from his duty as governor in ca 1689 and Ibrahim Khan was appointed as
the new governor of Bengal by Emperor Aurangzeb. By this time Aurangzeb was camping at
Visapur and was much aware of the fact that he was losing revenues from the Company trade
and the Company ships could cause him much trouble by stopping the pilgrimage to Mecca since
they controlled the sea-route. At the same time, the Company were desperate to open
negotiations with the Emperor after they left Bengal and Mr. Child was sent to him. He decided
to accept the offer and ordered the Governor of Bengal to allow Company to return there.
As a result, Ibrahim Khan invited Mr. Charnock back to Bengal; but Mr. Charnock refused to
come back until a specific Firman with terms and conditions clearly specified was issued by the
Emperor so that they would not be subjected to further humiliations. Ibrahim Khan again sent
letter to Mr. Charnock explaining that he had requested for the special Firman from the Emperor
and it would take a few months before it arrived, and in the meantime Mr. Charnock was
welcome to settle in Bengal and the governor would pay him 80,000 rupees for the goods that
have been destroyed by Shaista Khan's regime.
With this friendly invitation, Mr. Job Charnock with 30 soldiers returned to Sutanuti on 24
August 1690 and hoisted the Company standard on the banks of river Hooghly, thus beginning a
new era of Company involvement in Bengal. In the next year, Ibrahim Khan sent the order from
the Emperor to Mr. Charnock which allowed unrestricted trade without paying any other taxes
except the usual 3,000 rupees.
Mr. Charnock died in January 1692. While the English were always looking for fortification of
their factories in Bengal, Ibrahim Khan never allowed them to do so. In 1695 the town of
Hooghly was seized by Sobha Singh along with an unknown Afghan Rahim Khan, and the
English at Sutanuti requested from the governor to use their own armed protection for their
factories when their factories were surrounded by the enemy.
Ibrahim Khan allowed them to protect their own factories, but did not allow any fortification
explicitly. However, in the absence of specific orders the permission to defend their property was
taken as a permit to build fortress and construction began immediately overnight with all
available manpower. The fort was built on the bank of river Hooghly at Sutanuti with mortar
brought from Madras, completed in ca 1701 and was called Fort William after King William III
of England. This was the old Fort William and construction for a new one (the present one)
started after Siraj Ud-Daulah attacked Fort William in 1756.
In 1690, Job Charnok, an agent of the East India Company chose this place for a British trade
settlement. The site was carefully selected, being protected by the Hooghly River on the west, a
creek to the north, and by salt lakes about two and a half miles to the east. There were three large
villages along the east bank of the river Ganges, named, Sutanuti, Gobindapur and Kalikata.
These three villages were bought by the British from the local land lords. The Mughal emperor
granted East India Company freedom of trade in return for a yearly payment of 3,000 rupees.

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At the same time, when the news of failure of Nicholson reached England, it was decided that

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