CALCUTTA: PAST AND PRESENT
"the inconvenience we experienced at the siege of Calcutta from the prodigious number of Portuguese women who were admitted for security into the Fort, the very little or no service that race of people are of to the settlement, added to the prospect we had of a war with France, in which case we had reason to suppose they would refuse to take up arms against an enemy of their own religion should we be attacked."
The priests having been banished from the settlement, the Roman Catholic Church was available for the English chaplain, who took it over, and conducted services in it for a couple of years. By that time the interdict against the Roman Catholics had been removed by desire of the court, who disapproved of the order, and the church was restored to the priests. A temporary chapel was then fitted up for the chaplain in the gateway of the old Fort, pending the building of a new church in the new Fort, but, as events proved, it was nearly thirty years before this temporary little chapel of St. John ceased to be the presidency church.
The new Fort was naturally the first consideration, and various sites were proposed before that at Govindpore was finally selected. Captain,
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