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1/16/2019 Bengal Navy and the First Anglo-Mughal Confrontation in the Age of Globalisation
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Bengal Navy and the First Anglo-Mughal

Confrontation in the Age of Globalisation
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by
J.B.P More
Navigation and trade in the Indian Ocean waters were largely dominated by Indians
roughly till the twelfth century. Until this period, Indians not only indulged in extensive
maritime trade, but they also had a certain control over the high seas.
Though we do not know much about the naval capabilities of Indians during this
period, yet it is generally accepted in scholarly circles now that the Cholas of southern
India possessed a powerful navy and that they were engaged in successful naval and
maritime expeditions as far as Indonesia, Malaysia and China in the east, Burma and
Bengal in the northeast and Sri Lanka and Maldives in the south.
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However, for reasons hitherto unclear, the imperial Chola power including its naval
power collapsed around the twelfth century and no other Indian power was in a
position to take the place of the Cholas in the Indian Ocean waters. This left the field
clear for Arabs and Muslims of various origins to dominate trade in the Indian Ocean
waters thenceforth.
While Chola power was declining in the south during the twelfth century, northern
India passed into Muslim hands. A Turkish sultanate was established in Delhi during
this period and vast regions of northern India came under the Turkish rule. Very soon
the region of Bengal in eastern India came under their sway too.
In the sixteenth century, the Mongol Muslims of Central Asia conquered Delhi and
northern India and established the Mughal rule. Bengal too was brought under their
control. It is significant to note that both the Turks and the Mongols were land-based
conquerors, having scant knowledge or interest in maritime warfare. But as they
extended their control over the coastal regions and provinces like Bengal, they seem to
have realised the necessity of indulging in maritime trade.
With the demise of the Cholas and the ascendancy of the Arabs and Muslims in the
thirteenth century, trade in the Indian Ocean waters was generally peaceful. Arabs and
Muslims were only commercial navigators. In fact, no power dominated the Indian
Ocean waters during this period.
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But, unfortunately for the Mughals, they had taken over power in northern India and
were extending their power to coastal India only in the sixteenth century. This was a
period when the West Europeans had already arrived on the Indian shores with their
sturdier and swifter ships fitted with iron nails and bolts and equipped with powerful
canons, while the Indians including the Mughals were still trading with stitched vessels.
It very soon became obvious to everyone that the West Europeans had a decisive
advantage over the Indians and the Arabs in the Indian Ocean waters. So, in this paper,
it becomes necessary to explore, in spite of a great paucity of relevant material, the
Mughal reaction to this state of affairs, especially during the seventeenth century, and
the strategy adopted by them both on land and at sea to keep at bay the West
Europeans. We will concentrate our attention on Bengal alone, known to be the richest
of the Mughal provinces.
Pre-Mughal Bengal:
The Arab accounts unambiguously identify Bengal as part of al-Hind. The Palas seem to
have ruled over Bengal from the eighth century. Andre Wink suggests that there might
have been some political and commercial connection between the Palas and the Sri
Vijaya kingdom of Southeast Asia, which Rajendra Chola, one of the greatest of Chola
kings, sought to cut off. Whatever may the truth in this suggestion, it appears fairly
certain that there was some connection between Bengal and Southeast Asia towards the
middle of eleventh century itself, before Bengal passed into the hands of the Delhi
sultans and then the Mughals.
Bengal is a country criss-crossed by rivers and streams. The mouths of the mighty
rivers, Ganges and Brahmaputra, were located in Bengal. It was always a difficult task
to conquer Bengal without the use of boats to cross the rivers and streams. Taking
advantage of this peculiar geography of the country and its remoteness from Delhi, the
governors of Bengal had frequently revolted against the central authority of the sultan
in Delhi and behaved as if they were independent rulers.
In short, anybody wanting to control Bengal should adjust himself to the watery terrain
and be prepared for naval warfare and river battles. So, in 1351, when Firuz Shah, the
Delhi sultan marched against Bengal, he had not only to raise a powerful army, but also
took with him a number of boats or war-vessels, not only to facilitate the crossing of
many rivers, but also to undo the Bengla flotilla.
In 1527, Sultan Nusrat Shah of Bengal invaded Assam unsuccessfully. The Bengal
flotilla actually suffered a reverse at the hands of the Assamese. One could naturally
infer from the preceding that the war-vessels that plied the rivers must also have had
access to the Bay of Bengal.
Pre-Mughal sources do not shed much light on the activities of these war-vessels in the
Bay of Bengal. But it appears more certain that these war-vessels were in action mostly
in the rivers and the coastal areas of Bengal than in the high seas. It appears certain
that the pre-Mughal Bengal navy was never meant for aggressive action in the high
seas, in the pattern of the imperial Cholas. In fact, there was no necessity for such
action in the high seas, as the maritime trade was generally peaceful. This was the
situation when the Portuguese reached Bengal in the sixteenth century.
Mughal Bengal and its Navy:

Before the Mughals under Emperor Akbar took over Bengal in 1576, the Portuguese
were already trading there. Tapan Raychaudhuri actually asserts that Portuguese ships
visited Hijli—a trade emporium at the mouth of the Hughli river. The peace that
reigned in the Indian Ocean waters during this period allowed traders from as far as
China and the Red Sea to trade with Bengal without obstruction.
Things seem to have been in for a change with the Portuguese arrival and the
subsequent passing of Bengal into the hands of the Mughals. Before this happened, the
Arakan kingdom lying to the east of Bengal had conquered much of eastern Bengal.
Very soon, the Bengal port of Chittagong too fell into their hands.
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This brought about a confrontation between the Arakanese and the expanding
Mughals. The Portuguese and their half-breed progeny came also under pressure from
the Mughals. Many found a refuge in the Arakanese kingdom, from where they
indulged in piracy, along with the Arakanese Maghs. W.H. Moreland has reported that
they dominated the Meghna estuary completely, while the other estuary, the Hughli,
was also threatened, though to a lesser extent.
Emperor Akbar and his successors seem to have been conscious of the necessity of
maintaining a navy not only to ward off the Arakanese and Portuguese pirates, but also
to consolidate their power in the watery regions of Bengal. Thus, in 1603, the Mughals
successfully repulsed an invasion of the Dacca waters by the pirates of Arakan.
The Portuguese and the Maghs indulged in annual raids in the rivers of lower Bengal.
In 1612, the Mughal governor, Islam Khan waged a war against rebels from Sylhet. He
made use also of the whole imperial fleet in the East Bengal waters and the naval
contingent of a vassal zamindar to crush the rebels.
These imperial and Bengali war-boats were fitted with artillery and seem to have been
quite numerous during this period. In 1621, four to five thousand war-boats seem to
have been mobilised by the Mughals. The Mughals also used trench guns from both
banks of the rivers to shoot at enemy boats.
In 1658, Aurangzeb ascended the Mughal throne at Delhi. Mir Jumla was made
governor of Bengal. He seems to have possessed a significant navy, made up of boats
procured from remote places in Bengal. In 1661-62, Mir Jumla used his fleet also to
conquer Assam. The Assam expedition had cost the lives of many naval officers and
men, so that at the time of Mir Jumla’s death, the Bengal navy was utterly ruined.
It was under these conditions that Shaista Khan, an uncle of Emperor Aurangzeb, was
made governor of Bengal in March 1664. He, unlike his predecessors, was determined
to crush the Maghs and the Portuguese pirates and consolidate his authority over the
whole of the Bengal region. In fact, Aurangzeb himself had ordered Shaista Khan to
punish the Maghs.
He realised as soon as he arrived in Bengal the great necessity of rebuilding the

imperial navy in order to assert his authority. He ordered the Mughal naval inspector to
renovate the fleet completely, gave him plenary powers and sent bailiffs to every
province to procure timber and shipwrights and take them to the great dockyards of
Dacca, where ships were built.
The French traveller, Tavernier, who visited Dacca during Shaista Khan’s governorship,
had actually described Dacca as a big and lengthy village inhabited for the most part by
carpenters who built boats. Boats were also built at river ports such as Hughli and
Balasore. Thus, in a short time, nearly 300 ships were built. Some Portuguese pirates of
Chittagong, realising probably the growing strength of the Mughal navy, came over to
the Mughals with 42 jalia boats. In the final count, the imperial fleet seems to have
consisted of 288 vessels of all kinds: 21 of them being gun-boats or ghurabs, 157 fast-
moving kosas and 96 jalias.
The Portuguese with about forty vessels of their own acted as auxiliaries. Tavernier had
reported that the navy of Shaista Khan was composed of 200 galleys accompanied by a
number of smaller vessels which went about the Gulf of Bengal and the Ganges.
The Arakan navy consisted of longer ships called khalus and dhums. The Mughal fleet
sailed against them. Both of them came out into the open sea. But strangely there was
only a distant artillery duel and no close combat. Instead, the Mughals sailed up the
river and made an attack also by land, which led eventually to the sinking off several
Arakanese ships by gun-fire or ramming, the capturing of the Arakanese fleet with 132
war-vessels, with guns, armaments and elephants and the conquest of Chatgaon in
1666.
This only shows that the Mughals had no intention of indulging in naval engagements
in the open sea or the high seas. Instead, like their predecessors, they preferred coastal
and river-water battles. Their navy seems to have been trained and equipped only for
such warfares. They probably never felt the need and utility of controlling the high seas
though their ships seem to have made forays into the Bay of Bengal.
This left the field clear for the West Europeans to dominate the high seas, with their
ever-growing superiority in navigational techniques and technologies and in artillery
might. It is interesting to note that on account of this superiority a small nation like
Denmark, lacking in men and money, and with only an insignificant number of ships
(probably five), were able to wage a war against the Mughals and their trading interests
in the Bay of Bengal, roughly from the 1640s upto 1674 when a peace treaty was signed.
Thomas Bowrey, who was in the Bay of Bengal from 1669, has reported that the Danes
were at war with Bengal for over thirty years. The existence of a state of war is also
borne out by various incidental records of Danish attacks on Bengal shipping, which
took a heavy toll of Bengal trade.
A Danish report had attested that the Bengalis literally trembled when they came across
the Danish ships in the high seas. It appears that the Danish ships were lighter and
swifter with better navigational facilities and instruments. The bigger Indian ships were
difficult to manoeuvre. Besides, the Danish ships were fitted with formidable canons,
more devastating than the rudimentary small canons of the Bengali ships. In fact, the
Danish records report that the Bengali canons fired stone balls which were no match to
the destroying fire-power of the Danish canons. Stone balls were in usage in the Indian
continent from Babar’s times.
Though we cannot be sure if the Bengali ships actually fired stone balls or not, for want
of corroborating evidence, yet it is certain that there was a world of difference between
the naval and artillery capacities of the Mughals and the West Europeans by the second
half of the seventeenth century It is significant to note that the Danes recruited English
sailors to wage their wars against the Mughals. Thus, the English who were already
settled in Hughli for trade purposes from 1651 ran the risk of antagonising the Mughals.
Probably emboldened by the Danish defiance of Mughal supremacy in the Bay of

Bengal, the English too very soon began to flex their muscles in their settlement in
Bengal for their own reasons. They complained that the Mughal authorities were
harassing them and were not honouring the agreement previously reached by which the
English factors were to pay to the Mughal port authorities at Hughli an annual tribute
of Rs.3,000 as the price for continued exemption from customs duties.
But, the misuse of this agreement by the English seems to have obliged the Mughals to
cancel the agreement. Shaista Khan called the English “a company of base, quarelling
people and foul dealers”. It is significant to note that French factors in Bengal, during
this period, have confirmed the misuse of the agreement by the English in their letters
to Fraingois Martin in charge of the French settlement in Pondicherry.
Anyhow, the cancellation of the agreement by the Mughals seems to have infuriated the
English East India Company to such an extent that they eventually obtained permission
from King James II to wage war on the Mughal Empire with the aim of acquiring
coastal territory, fortifying their settlements and obtaining redressal of their imagined
grievances. Thus, the first Anglo-Mughal or Anglo- Bengal war broke out in the Bengal
region.
The First Anglo-Bengal War:

All the trouble seems to have started in August 1682 with the arrival of William Hedges
at Hughli as the first governor and agent of the English East India Company in Bengal.
According to a French account, very soon, the English in Bengal seem to have
convinced the Court of Directors of the English East India Company in London that
they were harassed, by the Mughal governor and his officials and therefore cannot carry
on with their trade profitably without the usage of force against the Mughal authorities.
As a result, orders had actually come from England in order to occupy some of the
islands in the Ganges, fortify them and become the masters of the region. It appears
that the English agent in Hughli was not actually in favour of declaring war against the
Mughals. Nevertheless, he was obliged to respect the orders and evacuate all his men
from the land to the safety of the ships, which had arrived by then at Hughli with
trained troops from England in 1686, without meeting the slightest resistance from the
Mughal navy either in the high seas or in the rivers.
The squadron designed for Bengal seems to have consisted of six ships, carrying on
many companies of soldiers, but only half that number seems to have reached the
destination. They were Beaufort, with 70 guns and 300 seamen, commanded by John
Nicholson; the Nathaniel, with 50 guns and 150 seamen, commanded by John Mason;
and the Rochester with 65 guns. Each ship was accompanied by a frigate or light-vessel
built for speed, armed with twelve guns and manned by twenty seamen.
Besides these, the English already had in the Ganges a number of sloops and river-
crafts, and orders were given that all vessels available at Madras should be sent to
Bengal. Nicholson was appointed as Admiral and John Mason, Vice-Admiral for the
naval operations against the Mughals in Bengal while the land forces were put under
the command of Joe Charnock. French sources maintain that actually trained English
troops, who had served in Tangers, were despatched to Bengal from England. They took
position near Hughli.
Shaista Khan, alarmed by the aggressive designs of the English, wrote to the English
once again that the Mughals did not contest the agreement but only wanted them not to
misuse it. At the same time, he made preparations to defend Hughli town. In fact, the
English complaints against the Mughals were only pretexts to justify their aggressive
designs. Very soon, according to French accounts, the English were involved in a brawl
with the men of the Mughal officer, in charge of the defence of Hughli.
The English, in their turn, claimed that the Mughals opened fire on the English ships
due to the brawl. Historians like Jadunath Sarkar seem to have toed this claim though
there is no independent evidence to support it. But all records concur in the fact that
the English attacked ruthlessly and sacked the town. Their ships in their turn
bombarded Hughli and razed it to the ground. In the face of the superior fire-power of
the English, the Mughals seem to have retreated, leaving the English to burn down the
houses and the boats of the Bengalis.
The English claim to have lost only two men and several wounded, while the Mughals
lost 60 men and many wounded. Once again, there seems to be no independent
evidence to confirm these figures. French sources maintain that there were several
killed and wounded on both sides without giving any figures.
Abdul Ghani seems to have approached Shaista Khan for help and reinforcements to
throw the English out of Hughli. He wanted the Dutch merchants at Chinsura to
mediate between them and the English. Jadunath Sarkar, following English accounts,
maintains that it was a trick to gain time and get reinforcements.
But French sources affirm that the intention of Abdul Ghani in his attempt to get the
Dutch mediate was to safeguard and remove Mughal treasury from the fort before it fell
into the hands of the English. In this Abdul Ghani seems to have succeeded.
In the meantime, Mughal reinforcements arrived and the English realising that they
would be no match to the reinforced Mughal land forces retreated to the safety of their
ships with all their property and men. On 20 December 1686, they sailed down the river
for 24 miles and halted briefly at a hamlet called Sutanati. Om Prakash asserts that
from Sutanati the English tried to undermine the Mughals in a variety of ways,
including an attempt to overrun Chittagong and offering their services to the king of
Arakan in his offensive against the Mughals. As they felt threatened by the Mughal
forces even there, the English forces left Sutanati and attacked and captured the
Mughal fort of Thana further down the Ganges and burnt down the Mughal salt-houses
there.
It also seems that the English like the Danes before them, continued to seize Mughal
ships at sea and even entered into an alliance against the Mughals, with the Muslim
zamindar of Hijli, who was at loggerheads with the Delhi emperor. In spite of this
alliance, it appears that the English, as they went further down the river, simply seized
the island of Hijli, at the mouth of the Hughli River, on the east coast of Medinipur
district, in early 1687.
This seizure was carried out under the command of Admiral Nicholson. In fact, English
accounts maintain that on the approach of Nicholson, the Mughal commandant, Malik
Qasim, deserted the place and surrendered all its forms and batteries, guns and
ammunition without striking a blow. It seems that for quite some time, the English
intended to capture Hijli and fortify themselves there so that they can control the
passage into the river. This retreat seems to be part of a more elaborate strategy on the
part of Malik Qasim to entice the English towards Hijli.
Tapan Raychaudhuri has pointed out that Hijli was a trade emporium in the sixteenth
century itself. During Aurangzeb’s reign, Hijli was famous for its salt banks. It provided
salt for almost the whole of the Bengal region. As a result, it was a gold mine for anyone
who controlled Hijli, for he can fix the price of the salt as he liked and the others had no
other alternative but to comply.
The English were no doubt aware of this economic advantage in occupying Hijli. But it
is surprising that they were not fully aware of its disadvantages. Hijli was malarious
and its water was unhealthy. Jadunath Sarkar, basing himself on English accounts,
reports that Hijli was rich in fruits, corn and game. Wilson apprises us that the island
was pleasant and was full of inhabitants and well stocked with cattle and also having a
great store of wild hogs, deer, wild buffaloes and tigers.
The English assembled all their land and sea forces at Hijli and built some mud
fortifications to repulse any Mughal attack. Sloops were placed all around the island
wherever it was thought likely that a landing might be effected by the Mughals. Besides,
the long boats and pinnaces were ordered to keep cruising all night to prevent the
people from crossing over to the mainland with their cattle through the Rasulpur River.
A French account asserts that the English deployed ten of their ships at the mouth of
the Ganges to blockade Bengal. The English then intended to obstruct Mughal shipping
and attack Mughal interests overland. In pursuit of this strategy, the English soldiers
and sailors attacked the Mughal fort at Balasore. They captured the fort and burnt
down the two towns called Old Balasore and New Balasore, along with the Bengali
ships in the river.
Troops were sent from Madras to Bengal to support the war effort. The English
plundered Indian merchant ships and goods on the high seas in order to put pressure
on the Mughals. In the Bay of Bengal, even ships belonging to high Mughal officers and
to members of the Great Mughal’s family were seized by the English.
Even then, Shaista Khan seems not to have wanted to evict the English completely from
Hijli and Bengal. Strangely, he did not also opt to make full use of his navy against the
English in the Bengal waters. If we believe the French sources, Shaista Khan actually
sent Abdul Samad, one of his lieutenants towards Hijli not to evict the English, contrary
to the claims of Jadunath Sarkar, but to find out if there were any means to come to a
compromise. But Abdul Samad had a reputation of being corrupt and unreasonably
cruel.
He arrived before Hijli with 12,000 men about the middle of May 1687. The Rasulpur
River separated Hijli from the mainland in the west, from where the Mughals under
Malik Qasim, who had made a tactical retreat from Hijli earlier, fired furiously their
heavy batteries, inflicting damage to the English ships and sloops including the
Beaufort and driving them from their anchorage.
As part of the war effort, the Mughals seem to have cut off all supplies to Hijli, which
resulted in lack of provisions and famine conditions in the island. Many local
inhabitants had also started to leave Hijli by then. Besides, the Muslim zamindar
refused to help the English any further. Many Englishmen were thus starved to death.
On its part, malaria seems to have taken a heavy toll of the English troops, though we
do not know the exact number who succumbed to it. Mughal military and naval
strategy against the English was so successful that it had literally asphyxiated the
English troops and their settlement in Hijli and annihilated all their intentions of
conquest in Bengal.
On 28 May 1687, a body of 700 Mughal cavalry and 200 gunners crossed the narrow
river above Hijli and seized the town. Decimated and weakened as they were, the
English could no more defend themselves against the Mughal onslaught, in spite of the
arrival of fresh naval reinforcements from England under the command of Captain
Denham on 1 June 1687.
They seem to have been cornered in their small weakly walled fort and many had given
themselves up. In fact, the bulk of the trained English troops, who had served at Tanger
previously, perished during the blockade imposed by the Mughals on Hijli. Their earlier
plan that Hijli was a safe defensible and a strategic point from where they could control
all Bengali shipping proved to be actually a gross miscalculation on the part of the
English.
French sources maintain that the Mughal general, in spite of his reputation for cruelty,
was exceptionally generous towards the English and allowed them even to buy
provisions from the mainland and escape starvation deaths. The same French sources
also draw our attention to the extraordinary humanity of the Mughals, who spared the
lives of the Englishmen.
It seems that the Mughal general had acted as he did under orders from Shaista Khan
himself, who actually wanted the English to return to their trading settlements and
resume trade in spite of the fact that the latter waged a war against the Mughal Empire.
There was a rumour that the English commandant at Hijli had paid a hefty sum to the
Mughal general in order that the latter might spare their lives. But French sources had
dismissed it as pure fiction as there was no corroborating evidence.
English sources hold that it was Abdus Samad who sued for peace. But there is no
corroborating evidence for this either. Besides, French sources do not utter a word
about it. Instead, they were in full praise of Mughal generosity and humanity. Anyhow,
peace seems to have been concluded and the remaining English soldiers and sailors
were allowed to evacuate Hijli on 11 June 1687.
The English ships halted at Sutanati once again. But Shaista Khan was never really
decided about allowing the English to resume their trade in Bengal, mainly on account
of the war that the Mughals were still waging against the English off Surat. He even
demanded huge sums from the English as war reparations.
The English were thus forced to evacuate Bengal in March 1688. The Court of Directors
acknowledged the humiliation to which the English were subjected in Bengal by the
superior strategy and tactics of the Mughals.
Humiliated as they were, the Court of Directors would not anyhow admit defeat. They
did not even know whether the English in Bengal had made peace with the Mughals or
not. For them the war was not yet over. So they again drew up a plan of campaign
against the Mughal Empire.
They felt quite competent to direct military operations at a distance of 15,000 miles
from England against a mighty empire. They somehow felt that the conquest of
Chittagong would change the situation in Bengal in their favour. They decided to send a
new agent to Bengal in the name of the naval captain, William Heath to continue with
the campaign against the Mughals.
They placed him in command of a fleet of 10 or 11 ships and sent him off to the Bay of
Bengal at the beginning of the year 1688. It was thought somewhat naively that this
would be enough to bring the Mughals down on their knees. After halting at Madras for
some time, Heath proceeded to Calcutta where the Englishmen had finally chosen to
settle. He arrived there on 20 September 1688.
He immediately called a Council of War and communicated his intention to capture

Chittagong, in spite of the fact that the majority of Englishmen seem to have been tired
of war partly at least due to the humiliation that they suffered at the hands of the
Mughals and longed for peace. At one stage, Heath even thought of allying with the
king of Arakan against the Mughals. But his mind changed very soon afterwards.
On 16 November 1688, Captain Heath and his fleet composed of 15 or 16 vessels arrived
at Balasore. He seems to have wanted somehow to engage the Mughals. He wanted the
Mughals to let go the Englishmen held at Dacca and at Balasore. The Mughal governor
of Balasore refused the English to leave Balasore or to send off any of their goods and
prohibited the English from buying provisions from land.
Captain Heath lost patience and on 29 November 1688, he along with his troops once
again attacked the Mughal fort at Balasore and hoisted the king’s flag. They sacked the
town by subjecting the inhabitants to great suffering. Heath then intended to attack
Chittagong with the intention of making it an independent fortified base of the English
in the Bay of Bengal.
But, the English restricted to the river waters by the Mughals could only raid Mughal
territory and towns. They lacked the capacity to hold on to them, in the face of the
superior might of the Mughal land forces. In December 1688, Heath called for a second
time a Council of War and made known his intention to take Chittagong. He tried again
unsuccessfully to ally with the king of Arakan against the Mughals.
Realising the impossibility of capturing Chittagong and undoing the Mughal forces
overland, though the English reigned supreme in the waters, Captain Heath was finally
forced to renounce all his projects to conquer Bengal and sailed away to Madras on 17
February 1689.
Thus, Captain Heath’s aggressive expedition to Bengal, master-minded from London,

ended in an abject failure. The Mughals, realising their superior might overland, hardly
paid attention to him and the English and literally kept them sailing from port to port.
They did not seem to have felt the necessity of using their naval forces against the
English in the river waters, as they did so successfully against the Arakans in 1666.
This might have been probably because they wanted to come to terms with the English
for trade reasons and they never had the intention to annihilate them completely. It
might also have been prompted because of the realisation on the part of the Mughals,
especially Shaista Khan, of the superiority of the English ships, both in navigational
techniques and skill and technology, which conferred them a definite advantage over
the Mughal navy.
Naturally, the Mughals did not seek to combat the English at sea or even in the rivers
by making full use of their navy. Instead, they chose to evict them from land and keep
them tied to the waters of Bengal for quite some time, which eventually pushed them to
quit Bengal.
This Mughal strategy towards the English had paid off. It brought the curtains down on
English designs over Bengal temporarily. It should be remembered anyhow as noted
earlier, that from the beginning of the hostilities in 1686 up to 1688, Mughal ships were
systematically seized on the high seas, which contributed greatly to the existence of a
state of war between the Mughals and the English in the Bay of Bengal for three years,
until Heath renounced all his plans and retired to Madras due to Mughal pressure
tactics. In the meantime, the English had also capitulated to the Mughals on the west
coast. Emperor Aurangzeb was magnanimous enough to forgive them and spare their
lives, both in Bengal and in the west coast.
He even wrote the following letter to the Governor of Bengal:
“You must understand that it has been the good fortune of the English to repent—and—
have by their utterings, petitioned for their lives, and a pardon for their faults, which,
out of my extraordinary favour towards them, have accordingly granted. Therefore
upon receipt here of my order you must not create them any further trouble, but let
them trade—as formerly, and this order I expect you see strictly observed.”
As a result, the new Mughal governor of Bengal, Ibrahim Khan, wrote to the English at
Madras inviting them once again to return to Bengal, promising them fair treatment,
with an eye on trade benefits. The English agreed and returned to Bengal once again
and established themselves at Sutanati, which rose to become Calcutta.
A new chapter on English connection with Bengal had begun with this return,
facilitated to a great extent by the generosity, magnanimity and humanity of Emperor
Aurangzeb and his governors and subordinates. It is strange to note that many later-
day English or rather Anglo-Saxon historians had preferred to portray Emperor
Aurangzeb in an extremely bad light, when the latter had been so compassionate and
liberal towards the English during his reign, which allowed them to regain a foothold in
Mughal Indian territory.
It is stranger still to note that many Indian historians have preferred to toe the line of
these English historians without proper enquiry or research. But, fortunately for us, the
French accounts, especially in the form of Francois Martin’s memoirs, that we have
consulted above, are in full praise of Emperor Aurangzeb’s and his subordinates’
magnanimity and humanity, in their dealings with the English.
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1/16/2019 Bengal Navy and the First Anglo-Mughal Confrontation in the Age of Globalisation

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Bengal Navy and the First Anglo-Mughal

Mughal Bengal and its Navy:

New New New

price drop price drop price drop

He realised as soon as he arrived in Bengal the great necessity of rebuilding the

Probably emboldened by the Danish defiance of Mughal supremacy in the Bay of

The First Anglo-Bengal War:

He immediately called a Council of War and communicated his intention to capture

Thus, Captain Heath’s aggressive expedition to Bengal, master-minded from London,

He even wrote the following letter to the Governor of Bengal:

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