In 1583, Ralph Fitch set out for India with a group of fellow London merchants, carrying with them a letter from Elizabeth I addressed to the Mughal emperor Akbar I. In his later recollections published in the second edition of Richard Hakluyt’s  Principal Navigations of the English Nation (1598-1600), Fitch wrote of the many interesting sights he passed as he made his way across the subcontinent. One of the regions that he describes is the stretch of the river Hooghly in Bengal which would later become the seat of British power in India. His account is thus particularly fascinating since it now allows us to chart the long history of English associations with Bengal.

Waterways, in fact, play a significant role in Fitch’s travel account. He describes most notably his travels down the waterways of northern India: “From Agra downe the river Jemena [Jamuna], and downe the river Ganges, I was five moneths coming to Bengala; but it may be sailed in much shorter time” (24). After a brief detour through Cooch Behar in the foothills of the Himalayas, he returns to the banks of the Ganges:

I returned to Hugeli, which is the place where the Portugals keep in the country of Bengala; which standeth in 23 degrees of northerly latitude, and standeth a league from Satagan; they call it Porto Piqueno. […] Not far from Porto Piqueno south-westward standeth an haven which is called Angeli, in the countrey of Orixa. (25)

What Fitch describes in his travel observations is the commercially important  part of the river Ganges which is known commonly as the Hooghly River or the Bhagirathi-Hooghly. The Ganges bifurcates in Bengal into the river Padma which flows into what is now Bangladesh, and the Bhagirathi-Hooghly. In Indian mythology, Bhagiratha, a prince of the Ikshvaku dynasty, brought the river Ganges down on earth to expiate the souls of his ancestors, the 60,000 sons of King Sagara, who had been burnt to ashes by the sage Kapila for their insolence. The Ganges, however, had a mind of her own and went her own way, leaving one stream to follow Bhagiratha to the site of sage Kapila’s hermitage where her waters would release Sagara’s sons. It is this distributary stream of the Ganges in its lower course that is known as the Bhagirathi-Hooghly.

The stretch of the river that Fitch describes is now often referred to as ‘Europe on the Ganges’. What Fitch gives us is a glimpse into the economic circuits in Bengal at a time when the English merchants first arrived in India. The settlement of Hugeli or Hugli (Hooghly) was started by the Portuguese in the mid-sixteenth century. In time the Dutch would set up factories in Chinsurah, the English in Calcutta, the French in Chandannagar, and the Danes in Serampore further downstream. The choice of the European merchant companies was not arbitrary and likely influenced by the existence of thriving native commercial centres in these regions.

Fitch for instance, links Hugeli with the older Indian river-port of Saptagram which he refers to as Satagan. Comprising seven villages, Saptagram (or Satgao as it is sometimes referred to) was a well- established administrative and trading settlement by the time Fitch arrived. Saptagram’s fortunes rose from the ninth century after the ancient port town of Tamralipta (modern day Tamluk) silted over. In 1537, the Portuguese had received permission from Ghiyasuddin Mahmud Shah, the Sultan of Bengal, to start trading in Saptagram. The town received the new Portuguese name of ‘Porto Piqueno’ or ‘little haven,’ while the sea-port of Chattagram (otherwise known as Chittagong) was known as Porto Grande.  Fitch describes Saptagram as “a faire citie for a citie of the Moores, and very plentifull of all things” (26). The commercial importance of Saptagram, and of Bengal, becomes clear from Fitch’s account when he notes:

I went from Agra to Satagam in Bengala, in the companie of one hundred and fourscore boates laden with salt, opium, hinge [asafoetida: Hindustani hing], lead, carpets, and divers other commodities, downe the river Jemena. (18)

Asafoetida, still used in cooking and believed to be beneficial to digestion, came from Afghanistan and Persia. Opium would, under the East India Company, be grown forcefully in many parts of India, and in time fuel the Opium Wars with China.

Once established, the East India Company became interested in Saptagram. Although Sir Thomas Roe, the first official ambassador sent by King James I to the Mughal Court, tried to advise the English against trading in the area:

Ther is no mart nor resort of Merchauntes. It is traded by the Portugalles from Pegu with rubyes, topasses and Saphiers; and returnes Cloth, which is fyne, but you may bee furnished nearer hand. (349)

His lack of enthusiasm possibly arose from his preference for Surat and Agra, cities in western India with which he was more familiar. The Company, of course, would continue its efforts to enter into the markets of Bengal. In the succeeding years the river-port of Saptagram would silt up, eventually diverting its resources to the newly established English settlement called Calcutta.

Main Image: Linschoten's 1596 map of India and the Middle East, accessed here

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References:

Fitch, Ralph. “Travels.” Early Travels in India: 1583-1619. Ed. William Foster. [1921] Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1999.

Roe, Sir Thomas. The Embassy Sir Thomas Roe Court Of The Great Mogul 1615-1619, Volume II. Ed. William Foster. London: Hakluyt Society, 1899.