CALCUTTA: PAST AND PRESENT
stifled by the furious agitation of the waters, and an innumerable quantity of birds were beaten down into the river by the storm. Two English ships of five hundred tons were thrown into a village about two hundred fathoms above the bed of the Ganges, broke to pieces, and all the people drowned pell-mell among the inhabitants and cattle."
Curiously enough, a sentence has been interpolated by successive writers when quoting this account of the storm from the Gentleman's Magazine, to the effect that the steeple of the English church sank into the ground without breaking. There is no such statement in the original, though no doubt the steeple was destroyed. In a despatch from Calcutta to the Court of Directors, dated January, 1749, permission is requested for the rebuilding of the church steeple "which was thrown down in the storm, the foundation of which being already laid we imagine the expense will not exceed eight thousand rupees." Whether the storm alluded to was that of twelve years earlier, or a subsequent one, is not clear, but it is evident the steeple could not have been swallowed up entire for the foundation to have remained.
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