made major. He succeeded Colonel Caroline Scott as chief engineer in the same year. His downfall was as rapid as his progress. He was transferred to Calcutta to rebuild Fort William, and his work there was said to be so defective that it had to be done over again. He received his dismissal in 1760 without any reason being given, and retired to Ceylon, where apparently he settled. Through the kindness of one of his descendants, Mr. Siebel, a retired Queen's Proctor of Ceylon, I have had the opportunity of reading a long letter addressed by Major Brohier to a friend in England. In it he excuses himself for shortcomings, complains that he was short-handed in the work at Calcutta, not having enough over-seers on his staff, and asserts that he was ruined by the personal spite of Boddam and Vansittart, two influential men in the Company's service whom he had offended. The name of the friend to whom the letter was written is not mentioned, but at the end of the copy I found a note of part of a letter from Sir John Call, who was Brohier's successor for a short time at Madras. The letter from Sir John was dated February 14, 1771, and said, 'I am on very good terms at the India House and often consulted Mr. James, the late secretary ; and the Commodore, now a director, inquired kindly for you, and I took the opportunity to tell him it was a misfortune to the Company that you was [sic] forced from Bengal, in which they agreed.' Following this extract there is a memorandum which suggests that perhaps after all it was not entirely on account of defective building that Fort William was rebuilt. The memorandum is :
'Of the Plans stolen (by a man of the name of Fountaigne or Fountayne) from John Brohier, late Engineer-in-Chief of Calcutta on the evening of December 2, 1760.
'The large original Plan of the Citadel.
