EARLY YEARS
Council" at Chuttanutty are almost pathetic in the assumption of authority and observance of forms, when the surrounding circumstances are remembered. The Right Worshipful Agent Charnock, Mr. Francis Ellis, and Mr. Jeremiah Peachie duly resolved, "in consideration that all the former buildings here are destroyed," to build "as cheap as possible," a warehouse, a dining-room, a cook-room, a room to sort cloth in, an apartment for the Company's servants, and a guard-house, also a house for Mr. Ellis. The agent's and Mr. Peachie's houses, which were part standing, to be repaired, as also the secretary's office: "these to be done with mud walls and thatched, till we can get ground whereon to build a factory." These mud-walled and thatched houses, which could have been no better than native huts, were the nucleus of the city of Calcutta.
The cessation of trade during the five years' dispute with the English had made it clear to the Mohammedan rulers that a persistence in their high-handed treatment of the traders inflicted loss on themselves. There had been a change of Governors too, and under these more favourable circumstances the factory was built, and prospered. Governor Charnock, however, worn by thirty-six years of hard work and
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