CALCUTTA: PAST AND PRESENT
report as "Government House" was the Governor's house of Drake's time, 1756, as in a letter to the court, dated December 31, 1758, the Calcutta Council report that they had "purchased Mr. Drake's house for the sum of twelve thousand rupees, to be used as an import warehouse when the old Fort was clearing out to be converted into barracks for the military." (These barracks were for use till the new Fort was completed.) It seems more likely that the Governor's house thus purchased was identical with the Bankshall of later years, which was pulled down in 1812, when it was in a state past repair. The present Small Cause Court occupies the site of the old Bankshall: an examination of old maps shows that the old building stood on the river's bank; this was conclusively proved in 1890, when the western extension of the Court was being built. The excavations then made for foundations revealed masonry remains, which were easily identified as a portion of the southern wall of the "New Dock" which was built adjoining the Bankshall just one hundred years earlier, in 1790, and was filled up in 1808.
It is not clear where "Government House" stood up to 1789, when M. Grandpré, a French officer who published an account of his "Voyage
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