The history of the British Empire sometimes appears replete with the victories that built, and protected it. All good young Britons were weaned on such songs as “Rule Britannia,” or the rousing “British Grenadiers,” and observations about “the Empire upon which the sun never sets,” spanning the globe, as it did. All this, before it was finally brought down by economic necessity.
Child’s War, however, much neglected, or overshadowed, in both Britain, and the history of the lands that are now Bangladesh, was far from legendary. But, it perhaps marks, as much as anything, the role of individuals in history.
The outcome of the war depended, undoubtedly, on the Emperor Aurangzeb’s military abilities, as much as the start of the war describes, in lurid terms, the greed that so often lies at the outbreak of such conflicts. ‘Child’s War’ ended in failure, and a humiliating defeat for Britain’s Imperial ambitions; failure and humiliation that we would do well to remember is often a rite of passage to achievement.
It was perhaps the earliest of the attempts that the British made to secure access to, if not control of, the rich opportunities for profitable trade in, and through, the lands of Bengal. That the attempt ended with such complete humiliation of the British may explain why it never seems to have made its way into histories of Britain.
It seems to have taken the East India Company some time, in its adventures in India, to appreciate that Bengal, with its capital in Dhaka, and described by the Emperor Aurangzeb as, the ‘Paradise of Nations’, for its wealth and trade, was, in fact, where all the best business could be done. Its first ‘factory’, was set up on the west coast, at Surat, close to Bombay, in 1612. Its second base was established at Madras, in 1640. Distracted, for a while, by the English Civil War, its third base became Bombay itself, ceded as a part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, Princess of Portugal, on her marriage to King Charles the Second, and leased by the Company in 1688.
However, it already had come to recognise that there was a good reason for the Portuguese interest in the lands around the Ganges delta, and begun to seek an opportunity to establish a base for itself in that commercial heartland.
Described by the great English diarist, John Evelyn, in unflattering terms, ‘This merchant most sordidly avaricious etc’, the ‘etc’ leaving little to the imagination, Sir Josiah Child, having amassed a fortune, mostly, it seems, as a supplier to the Commonwealth navy of Cromwell, his wealth readily enabled him to survive the restoration of King Charles the Second, and, securing with that wealth, great influence, he became a director of the East India Company in 1677, rising to Deputy Governor, and finally Governor, in 1681.
It is unsurprising, since no one has ever doubted that the spread of the British Empire was commercial in motivation, that such men as Sir Josiah, ‘who helped create colonies merely by finding personal reason for making money’, were the talented manipulators of the resources of their country, for personal gain.
As Governor of the East India Company, he was, doubtless, one of the shrewd investors and managers who were amongst the first to recognise that Bengal was, in fact, where the greatest potential in British interest in South Asia lay, not least, we may suppose, for its resource in saltpetre, the main component of gunpowder, of which it proved to have an estimated 70% of all known supply.
In 1681, the Company sent, as the first Governor of its interests in Bengal, William Hedges, a well connected former employee of the Levant Company, to Bengal.
A year later, presumably at the suggestion of Child, he was instructed to approach Shaista Khan, the Mughal Governor of Bengal, and a maternal uncle of the Emperor Aurangzeb, to negotiate an Imperial directive that would allow England trading privileges throughout the Mughal Empire. The approach, however, was evidently of sufficient arrogance that Aurangzeb broke off the negotiations.
Within three years, Child’s evident influence, especially with the Navy, and no doubt his wealth, ensured that, in 1685, probably facilitated by the confusion that surrounded the death of King Charles, and the controversial succession of his brother, James, Admiral Nicholson was sent east, with twelve ships of war, armed with 200 cannon, and crewed by 600 men. All to be reinforced by a further 400 men in Madras, with instructions to seize the Port of Chittagong. Also in the cargo were a further 200 cannon, to support armed invasion of the surrounding lands and placate the zaminders of those lands, establish a mint, and enter into negotiations with the ruler of neighbouring Arakan, from whom Chittagong had been taken twenty years earlier by the Mughals.
An early example of the appreciation of the British of the potential for playing off two sides to benefit their own interests!
En route from Britain, however, as so often happened in those days of sailing ships, the fleet was broken up by weather, and ended up, not at Chittagong, but in the Hooglie river, where, four or five years later, the East India Company would eventually establish a nascent development of what would become, first Fort William, and, later, Calcutta.
The arrival of such a formidable fleet in the Hooglie alarmed Shaista Khan. However, any prospect of reaching an accommodation, if, indeed such a prospect had ever been a realistic one, ended when, following the beating of three English sailors on shore leave, the admiral opened fire on the local community.
Negotiations reopened some months later, following a standoff; negotiations which the Mughals chose, unsurprisingly, to prolong whilst they gathered an army sufficient to cope with the British … not least because their own war ships simply could not match those of the British.
A sailor named Job Charnock now had command of the fleet, and whilst the negotiations dragged on, he set up a base on the island of Ingelee, in the mouth of the Hooglie River. However, lacking fresh water, within three months, half the troops were dead from fever.
The standoff was ended when the remaining ships sailed back to the west coast, with a support base at the newly acquired Bombay, and resorted to harassing Mughal ships in what may, realistically, be described as piracy. The harassment is believed to have included the capture of a Mecca bound pilgrim ship, accompanied with the pilgrim’s wealth.
Aurangzeb, forced to recognise the British mastery of the sea, reopened negotiations. However, reinforcements for the British arrived from England, under the command of Captain Heath, who, sailing back to the east coast, first bombarded Balasore, then sailed on to Chittagong. Finding that city well defended, he returned to the East India Company base at Madras.
Aurangzeb at once ordered the confiscation of all English property in India, and before long, only the “factories” in Bombay and Madras were left, under seige.
Finally, assembling his fleet, Aurangzeb sent it to blockade Bombay. After a year of the blockade, the British surrendered, and the adventure ordered by Child had ended in complete failure and humiliation.
The Company, determined to attempt, one last time, to maintain a presence in a country whose enormous potential they had come to recognise, sent emissaries to Aurangzeb, where they were instructed to further humiliate themselves by prostration before the Emperor, and offer large sums of money as compensation and indemnity.
This first attempt by the East India Company may well have given the Mughals some hint of both the arrogance, and the opportunism, as well as the intrinsic weakness of the British and the East India Company. Had the lesson been remembered, and had Bengal, following the death of Aurangzeb, not seized on a high degree of autonomy from its Mughal rulers, history may well have been changed, not just for the lands that are now Bangladesh, but also, arguably, the entire world.
That British historians have relegated the humiliating outcome of this adventure to the sidelines of what was to become a rather glorious, and commercially successful history, even allowing for further such humiliations, especially the century later defeat by the American colonists, is perhaps unsurprising.
In its own way, Child’s War may, perhaps, be regarded as, in many ways, more instructive in a history of Bangladesh than the apparently better remembered tales of defeat and loss.