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diff --git a/26621.txt b/26621.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7bf1f09 --- /dev/null +++ b/26621.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4117 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Madras, by Glyn Barlow + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Story of Madras + +Author: Glyn Barlow + +Release Date: September 14, 2008 [EBook #26621] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF MADRAS *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan and The Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + [Illustration: Chepauk Palace. + (Southern half)] + + + THE + + STORY OF MADRAS + + + + + BY + + GLYN BARLOW, M.A. + + + WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS + + BY THE AUTHOR + + + + + + HUMPHREY MILFORD + + OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS + + LONDON, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, MADRAS + + 1921 + + * * * * * + + + + +PREFACE + + +This little book is not a "History of Madras," although it contains a +good deal of Madras history; and it is not a "Guide to Madras," +although it gives accounts of some of the principal buildings in the +city. The book will have fulfilled its purpose if it helps the reader +to realize that the City of Madras is a particularly interesting +corner of the world. This fact is often forgotten; and even many of +the people who live in Madras itself, and who are aware that Madras +has played an important part in the making of India's history, are +strangely uninterested in its historic remains. They are eloquent +perhaps in denouncing the heat of Madras and its mosquitoes and the +iniquities of its Cooum river; but they have never a word to say on +its enchanting memorials of the past. Madras has memorials indeed. +Madras is an historical museum, where the sightseer may spend many and +many an hour--in street and in building--studying old-world exhibits, +and living for the while in the fascinating past. Madras is not an +ancient city; its foundation is not ascribed to some mythic king who +ruled in mythic times; it has no hoary ruins, too old to be historic +and too legendary to be inspiring. But Madras is old enough for its +records to be romantic, and at the same time is young enough for its +earliest accounts of itself to be--not unsatisfying fables, but +interesting fact. The story of Madras fills an absorbing page of +history, and the sights of Madras are well worthy of sympathetic +interest--especially on the part of those whose lines of life are cast +in the historic city itself or within the historic presidency of which +it is the capital. + +In the following pages certain places and events have been briefly +described more than once with different details; any such repetitions +are due to the fact that the Story of Madras has been told in a series +of vignettes, appertaining to particular buildings or particular +conditions, and each vignette had to be complete in itself. It is +hoped that such repetitions will be of familiar interest, rather than +tedious. + +In respect of the facts that are recorded, apart from general history, +I am indebted principally to the valuable Records of Fort St. George, +which the Madras Government have been publishing, volume by volume, +during several years, and which I have studied with interest since the +first volume appeared. Of other works that I have consulted, I must +specially mention Colonel Love's "Vestiges of Madras," which is a very +mine of information. + +G.B. + +MADRAS, 1921. + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE +PREFACE v + +CHAP. + +I. BEFORE THE BEGINNING 1 + +II. THE BEGINNING 5 + +III. FORT ST. GEORGE 9 + +IV. DEVELOPMENT 18 + +V. 'THE WALL' 25 + +VI. EXPANSION 35 + +VII. OUTPOSTS 41 + +VIII. THE CHURCH IN THE FORT 47 + +IX. ROMAN CATHOLIC MADRAS 56 + +X. CHEPAUK PALACE 63 + +XI. GOVERNMENT HOUSE 69 + +XII. MADRAS AND THE SEA 78 + +XIII. THE STORY OF THE SCHOOLS 87 + +XIV. HERE AND THERE 101 + +XV. 'NO MEAN CITY' 111 + + * * * * * + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + +CHEPAUK PALACE _Frontispiece_ + + + PAGE + +MAP OF MADRAS, ABOUT 1710 10 + +CORRESPONDING MAP, 1921 11 + +CLIVE'S HOUSE 16 + +A BIT OF THE BLACK TOWN WALL 26 + +CENTRAL GATE OF THE BLACK TOWN WALL 28 + +A MAGAZINE IN THE BLACK TOWN WALL 30 + +'THE OLD AND THE NEW' 32 + +MAP OF MADRAS 36 + +SAN THOME FORT 42 + +EGMORE FORT (SIDE VIEW) 44 + +REMAINS OF THE EGMORE FORT 46 + +ST. MARY'S, FORT ST. GEORGE 49 + +GOVERNMENT HOUSE, MADRAS 74 + +THE SEA GATE 80 + +THE COMPANY'S FLAG 81 + +SURF-BOAT 83 + +UNIVERSITY SENATE HOUSE 96 + +PACHAIYAPPA'S COLLEGE 97 + +DOVETON PROTESTANT COLLEGE 98 + +ST. GEORGE'S CATHEDRAL 102 + +ST. ANDREW'S (THE 'KIRK') 104 + +ST. THOME CATHEDRAL 106 + + * * * * * + + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL NOTES + + +The East India Company established A.D. 1600 + +First English settlement, at Masulipatam 1611 + +Site of Madras acquired by Mr. Francis Day 1639 + +The acquisition confirmed at Chandragiri by the Hindu + 'Lord of the Carnatic' 1639 + +The Hindu lord of the Carnatic (the Raja of Chandragiri) + dethroned by the Mohammedan Sultan of Golconda 1646 + +The Company secure from Golconda a fresh title to their + possessions + +The Sultan of Golconda dethroned by the Moghul + Emperor, Aurangzeb, who appoints a 'Nawab of the + Carnatic' 1687 + +The Company secure from a representative of the Emperor + a fresh title to their possessions + +Da-ud Khan, Nawab of the Carnatic, invests Madras for + three months, and is finally bought off 1702 + +In Europe, England and France are engaged in the War + of the Austrian Succession 1740-1748 + +Dupleix, who is possessed with the idea of making France + politically influential in India, is appointed Governor of + Pondicherry 1742 + +In the war in Europe he sees an opportunity for fighting + the English in India, and French forces under LaBourdonnais + capture Madras 1746 + +Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, by which Madras is restored to + the English 1748 + +Two Carnatic princes quarrel for the Nawabship 1749 + +The French and the English in South India join in the + quarrel on opposite sides. In the name of the claimant + whom the English supported, Clive captures Arcot, + the capital of the Carnatic, and then defends the town + against the rival claimant and his French supporters 1749 + +The French are defeated in the open field, and the + struggle is at an end 1752 + +In Europe, England and France are engaged in the Seven + Years' War 1756-1763 + +In India, Count Lally besieges Madras unsuccessfully for + more than two months A.D. 1758-1759 + +The English defeat the French at Wandiwash 1760 + +The English capture Pondicherry 1761 + +Treaty of Paris, by which Pondicherry is restored to the + French 1763 + +(The town was captured again in 1786 and in 1803). + +Haidar Ali makes himself Sultan of Mysore about 1760, + and reigns till his death, which occurred in 1781 + +Tipu, his son, succeeds him, and reigns till he is slain in + defending his capital, Seringapatam, against an assault + by the English 1799 + +(Madras was frequently disturbed by the raids of the + father and of the son; and Tipu's death relieved + the townsmen of constant anxiety.) + +The Supreme Court of Judicature established at Madras 1801 + +In default of an heir, the Carnatic 'lapses' to the Company 1855 + +The Madras Railway opened for traffic 1856 + +The Indian Mutiny 1857-1859 + +The Madras University instituted 1857 + +The High Court established 1861 + + * * * * * + +ERRATUM + +On page 1, _for_ 'Madraspatnam' _read_ 'Madraspatam.' + + * * * * * + + + + +CHAPTER I + +BEFORE THE BEGINNING + + +Three hundred years ago, Madras, under the name of 'Madraspatnam' was +a tiny rural village on the Coromandel Coast. Scattered about in the +neighbourhood there were other rural villages, such as Egmore, Vepery, +and Triplicane, which are crowded districts in the great city of +Madras to-day. In Triplicane there was an ancient temple, a centre of +pilgrimage, dating, like many village temples in India, from very +distant times; this was the Parthasarathy temple, which is the +'Triplicane Temple' still. A little fishing village called Kuppam, +lying directly on the seashore, sent out, even as Kuppam does now, its +bold fishermen in their rickety catamarans in perilous pursuit of the +spoils of the sea. There was one small town in the neighbourhood, +namely, the Portuguese settlement at Mylapore, where the tall facades +of the several churches, peeping over the trees, formed a land-mark +for the Portuguese ships that occasionally cast anchor in the roads. + +Such was the scene in 1639, the year in which our story of Madras begins. +The Portuguese had already been in India for nearly a century and a half; +and under their early and able viceroys they had made themselves powerful. +The stately city of Goa was the capital of their Indian dominions, and they +had settlements at Cochin, Calicut, Mylapore, and elsewhere. But the +influence of the Portuguese was now on the wane. For nearly a century they +had been the only European power in India and the Eastern seas; but +merchants in other European countries had marked with jealous eyes the rich +profits that the Portuguese derived from their Eastern traffic, and +competitors appeared in the field. First came the Dutch, who in India +established themselves at Pulicat, some twenty-five miles north of +Mylapore. Holland had lately thrown off the yoke of Spain, and was full of +new-born vigour; and Dutch trade in the East--chiefly in the East India +Islands--was pushed with a rancorous energy that roused the vain +indignation of the decadent Portuguese. Six years later, in 1600, came the +English. The English traders were employees of the newly-established East +India Company, and were sent out to do business for the Company in the +East; and they had to face the opposition of the Dutch as well as of the +Portuguese. Their earliest enterprise was in the East India Islands, and it +was eleven years before they gained their first footing in India, at +Masulipatam. Here they established an agency and did very considerable +business; later they formed a fortified sub-agency at Armagaum, a good way +down the coast, not far from Nellore. At first their fortunes went well; +but local rulers exacted ruinous dues, and at Armagaum in particular the +local ruler, alarmed at the influence that the English merchants had +gained, set himself so seriously to the work of handicapping their trade +that Mr. Francis Day, the Company's representative at Armagaum and a member +of the Masulipatam Council, proposed to the Council that he should be +allowed to seek a field for commercial enterprise more favourable than +either Armagaum or Masulipatam. To Mr. Francis Day was committed the +business of finding a suitable spot for a fresh settlement. + +It was an important commission. The East India Company's existence +depended entirely upon the profits of their trade. The Company's +enterprise at Armagaum was hopeless; at Masulipatam it was very +unsatisfactory; and Mr. Francis Day was appointed to find a place +where the commercial prospects would be bright. + +It should always be remembered that the East India Company was +established purely as a commercial association, with its head office +in London, and that its employees in India were men with business +qualifications, appointed to carry on the Company's trade. The prime +concern even of an Agent or a Governor was the making of good bargains +on the Company's behalf--and sometimes on his own--getting the best +prices for European broadcloths and brocades, and buying as cheaply as +possible Indian muslins and calicoes and natural produce, for +exportation to London, where they were sold at a large profit. Any +fighting in which the Company's servants engaged was merely incidental +to the pursuit of business in a land in which the ruling sovereigns, +as well as the many small chiefs, were constantly at war. It is a +maxim that 'Trade follows the Flag;' but in the case of India the Flag +has followed Trade. + +It is as a commercial man, therefore, that we must picture Mr. Francis +Day setting out on his commercial mission; but it can be imagined that +the English merchant, starting on an expedition in which he would be +likely to seek personal interviews with rajas and nawabs and bid for +their favour, set out in such style as would do the Company credit. In +our mind's eye we picture Master Francis Day, Chief of Armagaum, +standing on the deck of one of the Company's vessels lying at anchor +in the Armagaum roads, and receiving his colleagues' farewells. His +garb is that of a substantial merchant in the days of King Charles I. +It has none of the extravagances that were the fashionable +affectations of gay Cavaliers, but its sobriety makes it none the less +smart. He wears a purple doublet and hose, a broad white collar edged +with lace, and a gracefully-short black-velvet cloak. Curly hair +falls beneath his broad-brimmed black hat, but not in long and scented +ringlets such as were trained to fall below the shoulders of +fashionable gallants at King Charles's court. He is in every way a +fitting representative of the Honourable Company. + +The bo'sun has piped his whistle, and the last good-byes have been +said. The anchor's weighed, and the white sails are spread to the +breeze. Master Day waves his hand to his colleagues in the surf-boat +which is taking them shoreward, and the ship is headed to the south. +The expedition is important--yes, and it was much more important than +Master Day imagined; for something more serious than profits on muslin +and brocade was on the anvil of fate. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE BEGINNING + + +Mr. Francis Day was not sailing southward without definite plans. As +the result of enquiries for a promising spot for a new settlement, it +was his purpose to see if there was a favourable site in the +neighbourhood of the old established Portuguese settlement at +Mylapore. The Portuguese authorities at Mylapore, with whom Mr. Day +seems to have corresponded, were not unwilling to have English +neighbours. The ill-success of the English merchants at Masulipatam +had probably allayed any fears that they would be formidable rivals to +Portuguese trade at Mylapore; and furthermore the Portuguese welcomed +the idea of European neighbours who would be at one with them in +opposition to the forceful Dutchmen at Pulicat, up the coast, who +showed no respect, not even of a ceremonious kind, for any vested +interests--commercial or administrative--to which the Portuguese laid +claim. + +So Mr. Francis Day's vessel, standing no doubt well out to sea as it +sailed past the foreshore of the Pulicat lagoon with its unfriendly +Dutchmen, kept its course till the Mylapore churches were sighted and +showed that the place where the first inquiries were to be made had +been reached. The sails were furled and the anchors were dropped, and +we may imagine that a salute was fired in honour of the King of +Portugal, and was duly acknowledged. + +It was in winter that Mr. Francis Day arrived--a time of the year when +Madras looks its best and when the sea-horses are not always at their +wildest tricks; and Mr. Francis Day landed without accident, and was +pleased with the scene. There are always breakers, however, on the +Coromandel Coast, and Mr. Day found the landing so exciting that in +his report to the Council at Masulipatam he wrote of 'the heavy and +dangerous surf'. But after an inspection of the surroundings he was +satisfied with the conditions; he considered that at the mouth of the +Cooum river there was an advantageous site for a commercial +settlement; and the local ruler, the Naik of Poonamallee, following +the advice of the Portuguese authorities, encouraged him in the idea +of an English settlement within the Poonamallee domain. + +It is not surprising that Mr. Francis Day was pleased with what he +saw; for Madras is not without beauty. In those idyllic days, +moreover, the Cooum river, which was known then as the Triplicane +river--and which even to-day can be beautiful, although for the +greater part of the year it is no more than a stagnant ditch--must +have been a limpid water-way; and to Mr. Francis Day, seeing it in +winter, in which season the current swollen by the rain sometimes +succeeds in bursting the bar, it must have appeared almost as a noble +river, rushing down to the great sea--a river such as might well have +deserved the erection of a town on its banks. The fact that the +Portuguese had been at Mylapore for more than a century showed that a +settlement was full of promise--and the more so for men with the +energy of the English Company's representatives; and the conditions +were such that Mr. Francis Day felt himself justified in entering into +negotiations with the Naik for the grant of an estate extending five +miles along the shore and a mile inland. + +The negotiations were successful: but the Naik was subordinate to the +lord of the soil, the Raja of Chandragiri, who was the living +representative of the once great and magnificent Hindu empire of +Vijianagar; and any grant that was made by the Naik of Poonamallee +had to be confirmed by the Raja if it was to be made valid. Two or +three miles from Chandragiri station, on the Katpadi-Gudur line of +railway, is still to be seen the Rajah-Mahal, the palace in which the +Raja handed to Mr. Francis Day the formal title to the land. The +palace still exists, and it is a fine building, though partly in +ruins. It is constructed entirely of granite, without any woodwork +whatsoever; but its abounding interest lies not in its structure but +in the fact that it was in this palace that the British Empire in +India may be said to have been begotten. + +There is no little interest in the thought that it was the Raja of +Chandragiri that delivered the deed of possession to Mr. Francis Day. +The Raja was an obscure representative of a magnificent Indian Empire +of the past; Mr. Francis Day was an obscure representative of a +magnificent Indian Empire that was yet to be; and the document that +the Raja handed to Mr. Francis Day was in reality a patent of Empire, +transferred from Vijianagar to Great Britain. It was at Chandragiri +that the British Empire in India was begotten; it was at Madras that +the British Empire was born. + +Mr. Francis Day had fulfilled his mission. He had secured territory +where the conditions seemed to give promise of success; and his work +was approved. His superior officer, Mr. Andrew Cogan, Agent at +Masulipatam, came away from Masulipatam to take charge of Madras, and +with the co-operation of Mr. Francis Day he set about the development +of the Company's new possession. + +Of Mr. Francis Day's personal history we know little or nothing except +that he was one of the Company's employees, and that he founded first +an unsuccessful settlement at Armagaum--represented to-day by no more +than a lighthouse--and afterwards a successful settlement at Madras. +Later he was put in charge of the second settlement that he had +founded, but he was relieved of, or resigned, the office at the end of +a year. He then went to the Company's head-quarters at Bantam, in +Java, and afterwards to England. What finally became of him is +apparently unknown. + +It would probably be difficult to say whether Mr. Francis Day was a +great man with great ideals, or was merely a shrewd man of business, +reliable for an important commercial mission. Remembering that the +Company was strictly a commercial concern, we may think it likely +that, in fixing upon Madras as a site for the Company's business, he +was guided almost entirely by the question of trade-profits, and that +in his mind's eye there were no prophetic visions of imperial glory. +And it has been asked indeed whether or not he really chose well in +choosing Madraspatnam by the Triplicane river as the site of the +proposed new settlement; for there are those who have argued that the +prosperity of Madras has been due to dogged British enterprise and +placid Indian co-operation, not to natural advantages, and that Madras +has prospered in spite of Madras. We must bear in mind, however, the +limited geographical knowledge of the times and the limitations to Mr. +Francis Day's choice; and, whatever the verdict may be, the fact +remains that the Madraspatnam of Mr. Francis Day's selection is now a +vast city, and that the Empire of India which was born at Chandragiri +is now a mighty institution. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +FORT ST. GEORGE + + +When the tract of land at Madras had been formally acquired, the +European colony at Armagaum was forthwith shipped thereto (February, +1640). According to accounts, the colony, with Mr. Andrew Cogan at the +head, assisted by Mr. Francis Day and perhaps another chief official, +included some three or four British 'writers,' a gunner, a surgeon, a +garrison of some twenty-five British soldiers under a lieutenant and a +sergeant, a certain number of English carpenters, blacksmiths and +coopers, and a small staff of English servants for kitchen and general +work. + +'Madras was a sandy beach ... where the English began by erecting +straw huts.' So says an old-time chronicle,[1] the work of an early +resident of Madras; and, if we take the word 'straw' in a broad sense, +we can easily conceive the scene. In Madras the bamboo and the palmyra +grow in abundance, furnishing materials for the quick provision of +cheap and commodious accommodation; and we can picture the pilgrim +fathers of Madras camped in palmyra-thatched mat-sheds on the north +bank of the Cooum river, near the bar, the while that the houses +within the plan of the fort are being built. + +[Footnote 1: The chronicle was written by Manucci, an Italian doctor +of an adventurous disposition, who, after varied and surprising +experiences in northern India, settled down in Madras in 1686, and +married a Eurasian widow. 'Manucci's Garden,' where he lived, covered +a large area which is now occupied by a number of the houses at the +Law College end of Popham's Broadway, on the side that is nearest the +sea. The garden was watered by a stream that used to flow where the +Broadway tram-lines now hold their course. _Vide_ map, p. 10.] + +[Illustration: MADRAS about 1710, A.D.] + +[Illustration: Modern map (approximate) corresponding to the foregoing +map. (1) Old black Town is no more. (2) the Fort was extended about +1750. To provide ground, the Cooum was diverted. (3) The sea has +receded.] + +The 'sandy beach' has been waked from its longaeval placidity. Trains +of bullock-carts are lumbering along new-made tracks, bringing stone +and laterite and bricks and timber from various centres; and endless +files of coolies, with baskets on their heads, are bringing sand from +the summer-dry edges of the bed of the Cooum river. In the foreground +of the picture, scores of chattering village-labourers, from +Triplicane and other hamlets hard by, are working under the directions +of the mechanical employees of the Company, chipping stone, mixing +lime, sawing timber, carrying bricks and stones and mortar, or laying +them adroitly in place, with little dependence on line and level. + +In the course of a few months the buildings were sufficiently advanced +for occupation. The main building was the 'factory,' which formerly +signified a mercantile office; and it was here that the Company's +chief officials, who were styled 'factors' (agents), assisted by +writers and apprentices, transacted the Company's business, and were +also lodged. Included amongst the buildings were warehouses for the +Company's goods, and also barrack-like residences for the Company's +subordinate British employees, civil and military, according to their +rank. + +From the very beginning the settlement was called Fort St. George, but +it was several years before the buildings were surrounded by a high +and fortified wall. It was in no spirit of military aggression that +the Company's agents enclosed their settlement with a bastioned +rampart, from whose battlements big cannon frowned on all sides round. +The Company's representatives were 'gentle merchaunts,' to whom peace +spelt prosperity; but the times were lawless, and the gentle merchants +were wise enough to recognize that days might come when it would be +necessary to defend their merchandise and themselves, as well as the +town of Madras, from the roving robber or the princely raider or the +revengeful trade-rival, and that military preparedness was a dictate +of prudence. The days came! + +On such occasions the excitement in Fort St. George must have been +great. We can imagine the anxiety with which, when the sentry gave the +alarm, the gentle merchants climbed upon the walls and looked out at +the horsemen that were to be descried in the distance, and asked one +another disconsolately whether it was in peace or in war that they +came. A brief notice of some of the occasions on which the Fort was in +danger will be interesting. + +Some fifty years after the Fort had been founded, a party of soldiers +under the Commander-in-Chief of the Mohammedan King of Golconda +pursued some of the King's enemies into Madras, "burning and Robbing +of houses, and taking the Companies Cloth and goods," whereupon the +Governor of the Fort sent them word that "he would use means to force +them out of the Towne: Uppon which they retreated out of shott of the +Fort." They returned, however, with additional strength, and for eight +months they besieged the stronghold, but without success; and then +they wearied of their hopeless endeavour, and marched away. + +Later, a Dutch force, supported by Mohammedan cavalry, besieged San +Thome, which was then in the hands of the French; and for the purpose +of the siege they occupied Triplicane village, mounting their cannon +within the walls of Triplicane Temple, which they used as a fort. +During the several weeks of the siege of San Thome a powerful Dutch +squadron blockaded the coast of Madras; and, as Britain and Holland +were at war in Europe, there was constant anxiety in Fort St. George; +but the Dutchmen contented themselves with the capture of San Thome, +and were prudent enough to let Fort St. George alone. + +In the days of Queen Anne, Da-ud Khan, Nawab of the Carnatic, at the +head of a large force, was reported to be marching to Madras. In Fort +St. George there was much anxiety as to the purpose of his visit, and +'By order of the Governor and Council' various protective measures +were immediately proclaimed. The proclamation is to be found in full +in the Company's Minutes; and we find an amusing reminder of the +Company's mercantile _raison d'etre_ in the fact that immediately +after the military edicts comes the order 'That all the Company's +cloth be brought from the washers, washed and unwashed, to prevent its +being plundered.' The Nawab came, and he uttered threats, but he was +mollified with luxurious entertainment. Inviting himself and his dewan +and his chamberlain to dinner with the Governor and Councillors in the +Fort, he was received with imposing honours, and was feasted in the +Council Chamber at a magnificent banquet. The minutes relate that +after dinner he was "diverted with the dancing wenches," and finally +he got "very Drunk." At breakfast the next day in the Company's +'Garden,' His Highness again got "very drunk and fell a Sleep;" and a +few days later he marched his army away. In his sober moments, +however, he had been slyly measuring the Company's strength; and six +months later he came back with a larger force, and blockaded Madras. +He plundered all that he could, and on one occasion his spoil included +"40 ox loads of the Company's cloth." For more than three months the +blockade continued, and the Company's trade was entirely stopped, and +provisions in Madras were exceedingly scarce. Da-ud Khan, eventually +wearying of the unsuccessful siege, named the price that would buy him +off; and the Council, fearing the wrath of the Directors at the loss +of their trade, were glad to come to terms. The Company's Minute on +the occasion is a brief but exultant record: 'The siege is raised!' + +In 1746 there was a siege of a more serious sort. England and France +were at war in Europe, and suddenly a squadron of French ships +appeared off Fort St. George. After a week's siege, the English +merchants capitulated to superior force, and they were all sent to +Pondicherry as prisoners, and the French flag waved over Madras; but +by the treaty which ended the war, Madras was restored to the Company. +Twelve years later Madras was once more besieged by the French, but +unsuccessfully, and eventually the French leaders marched their forces +away, quarrelling among themselves over their ill-success. + +On several occasions, bodies of horsemen in the service of the +adventurous Haidar Ali of Mysore, raided the country almost up to the +Fort ditch, and were sometimes to be seen shaking their spears in +defiance at the sentries on its walls. + +These were not the only occasions on which Fort St. George was +assailed, but they suffice to show how necessary it was that the +Company's employees and their wares should be housed within the walls +of a fort. + +Fort St. George in the beginning was very small. Its external length +parallel with the seashore was 108 yards, and its breadth was 100 +yards. When White Town, which grew up around it, was fortified, there +was 'a fort within a fort' (_vide_ Map, p. 10); but eventually the +inner wall was demolished. At various times the outer wall has been +altered, but the Fort as we have it to-day is the selfsame Fort St. +George nevertheless, a glorious relic of bygone times, and verily a +history in stone. + +The gates of Fort St. George open towards main thoroughfares of +Madras, and it is permitted to anybody to pass in and out; but it is +not visited nearly so much as its historic associations deserve. Let +us pass within, and see if we cannot catch something like inspiration +from the scene where so much history has been made, and where a great +Empire was born. + +[Illustration: CLIVE'S HOUSE] + +An old-world feeling comes over us directly we leave the highroad and +make our way down the sloped passage and across the drawbridge over +the moat, past the massive gates and under the echoing tunnel that +leads through the mighty walls. Within we see the parapets on which in +bygone days the cannon thundered at the foe. We pass on into the great +spaces of the Fort; and in our imagination we can people them with +ghosts of the illustrious--or notorious--dead. It was here that, in +the reign of King James the Second, Master Elihu Yale assumed the +Governorship of Madras, did hard work in the Company's behalf but also +made a large fortune for himself, lost his son aged four, quarrelled +long and bitterly with his councillors, and was at last superseded. It +was here that Robert Clive, aged nineteen, newly arrived from +England, entered upon his duties as an apprenticed writer in the +Company's service, at a salary of five pounds per annum; it was here, +in St. Mary's Church, eight years later, when he had won his first +laurels, that he married the sister of one of the fellow-writers of +his griffinhood; and it was here, in 'Clive's House,' which is still +to be seen (now the Office of the Accountant-General), that he lived +with his wife. The ancient Council Chamber is replete with historic +associations; and St. Mary's Church offers material for many +researchful and meditative visits. The streets have history in their +names. 'Charles and James Street,' for example, which is a present-day +combination of two streets of yore, is jointly commemorative of the +days of the Merry Monarch and of his royal but unfortunate brother. +Enough! It is not my purpose to produce a guide-book to Madras, but to +promote an appreciation of the historic interests of the city; and I +take it that the reader has realized that Fort St. George is +interesting indeed. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +DEVELOPMENT + + +When an English colony had settled down in Fort St. George, it was +only to be expected that a town would spring up outside. The personal +necessities of the numerous colonists had to be supplied, and +purveyors and bazaarmen and workmen made themselves readily available +for the supply. The requirements in respect of the Company's +mercantile business were yet greater. The Company's agents wanted not +only native employees in their office--'dubashes' and 'shroffs' and +clerks and interpreters and porters and peons, but they also wanted +wholesale buyers of the cloth and other articles that they imported +from England for sale, and also merchants who could supply them with +large quantities of the Indian wares that the Company exported to +England; and they were able to get the men that they wanted. + +A crowd attracts a crowd; and when once a town has begun to grow, it +goes on growing of its own accord; and ten years after the acquisition +of Madras, the population of the town was estimated at as many as +15,000 souls. The Fort itself, moreover, had to be enlarged; for the +growth of the Company's business meant that more and more factors and +writers had to be brought out from England, and more and more +warehouses had to be provided for the multiplied wares; and, moreover, +the increasing lawlessness of the times necessitated a larger +garrison. Outside the Fort, Indian and other immigrants flocked from +near and far to settle down within the Company's domains, looking for +profit under the white men's protection; and, with their enterprising +spirit, they played no small part in the development of Madras. + +The town that grew up outside the little fort was divided into two +sections--'the White Town' and 'the Black Town.' The boundaries of +White Town corresponded roughly with what are now the boundaries of +Fort St. George itself. The original Black Town--'Old Black +Town'--covered what is now the vacant ground that lies between the +Fort and the Law College, and included what are now the sites of the +Law College and the High Court (_vide_ Map, p. 10). The inhabitants of +White Town included any British settlers not in the Company's service +whose presence the Company approved, also all approved Portuguese and +Eurasian immigrants from Mylapore, and a certain number of approved +Indian Christians. White Town indeed was sometimes called the +'Christian Town.' Black Town was the Asiatic settlement. The great +majority of the original Indian settlers were not Tamilians but +Telugus--written down as 'Gentoos' in the Company's Records. + +The Company's agents encouraged people of various races to reside in +Madras; and the names of some of the streets and districts of the town +are interesting testimonies as to the variety of the people who came. + +Armenian Street--which began as an Armenian burial-ground (_vide_ Map, +p. 10)--is an example. Armenians from Persia, like their +fellow-countrymen the Parsees, have a racial gift for commerce; and +Armenian merchants had been in India long before the English arrived. +Enterprising Armenian merchants settled in Madras in its early days to +trade with the English colonists, and the Company's agents were glad +to have as middlemen such able merchants who were in close touch with +the people of the land. The most celebrated of the earlier Armenians +in Madras was Peter Uscan, Armenian by race but Roman Catholic in +religion, who lived in Madras for more than forty years, till his +death there in 1751, at the age of seventy. He was a rich and +public-spirited merchant. He built the Marmalong Bridge over the Adyar +river, on one of the pillars of which a quaint inscription is still to +be read, and he left a fund for its maintenance; he also renewed the +multitude of stone steps that lead up to the top of St. Thomas's +Mount. His inscribed tomb is to be seen in the churchyard of the +Anglican Church of St. Matthias, Vepery, which in olden days was the +churchyard of a Roman Catholic chapel. Within the last half-century +the Armenian community in Madras has been rapidly declining, as the +result, probably, of inability to cope with the hustling style of +commercial competition in these latter days; and only a very few +representatives of the race are now to be seen in the city. + +In Mint Street there is a small enclosure which is the remains of what +was once a Jewish cemetery of considerable size; and the graves that +are still to be seen are interesting reminders of the fact that in +bygone times there was a Hebrew colony in Madras. In more than one of +the Company's old records the Jews in Madras are referred to as being +rich men, some of whom held positions of high civic authority. Some of +them were English Jews, and others were Portuguese; and most of them +were diamond merchants, on the look-out for diamonds from the mines of +Golconda, which were formerly very productive. The English Jews +exported diamonds to England, and imported silver and coral to Madras; +coral was in great demand in India, and was sent out by Jewish firms +in London. There is still a 'Coral Merchants' Street' in Madras, a +continuation of Armenian Street, and it is a living reminder of the +old Jewish colony. The Golconda mines eventually ceased to be +productive, and Jewish diamond merchants are no longer to be seen in +the city, and the Jewish colony has long since disappeared. Jews are +notorious all the world over as money-lenders, and it may perhaps be +wondered why none of them survived as money-lenders in Madras; but the +fact that Coral Merchants' Street is now the habitat of Nattukottai +Chetties, who are past-masters in the art of money-lending, suggests +that even the Jews were unable to compete with Madras sowcars in the +business of usury, and that the Chetties displaced the Jews who used +to live in the street. The little Jewish cemetery in crowded Mint +Street is an interesting spot. One of the antique tomb-stones has been +caught in the branch of a tree and has been lifted high in air, and is +a quaint sight; and the deserted little Hebrew graveyard itself is +symbolic of the dispersion of the ancient people. + +It is a curious fact that the Company's employees in South India never +spoke of Indian Mohammedans as Mohammedans or as Moslems or as +Mussalmans, but always as 'Moors.' It is thus that the name of 'Moor +Street' is to be accounted for. The original 'Moors Street' was a +street in which Mohammedans used to live, and the fact that one +particular street in a large city should have borne such a name is +evidence of another fact, namely, that in the earlier years of Madras +very few Mohammedans resided in the town. It should be remembered that +Madraspatnam, Triplicane, Egmore, and the other hamlets that went to +make up the city of Madras were all of them Hindu villages; and it was +only now and again that Mohammedans, in some capacity or another, +found their way into the town. In the earlier years of Madras a single +mosque sufficed for all the few Mohammedans therein. The mosque was +located in 'Moors Street' in old Black Town, a street that was the +predecessor of the 'Moor Street' of to-day. It was not till nearly +fifty years after the acquisition of the site of Madras that a second +mosque was built--in Muthialpet; and these two small mosques supplied +Mohammedan requirements for many years. The fact is that Madras was so +frequently troubled by successive Mohammedan enemies--the King of +Golconda; Da-ud Khan, Nawab of the Carnatic; Haidar Ali, Sultan of +Mysore; his son Tipu, and others--that the Company was disposed to +regard all 'Moors' with mistrust, so much so that they discouraged +Mohammedan residents; and a measure was passed with the special +intention 'to prevent the Moors purchasing too much land in the Black +Town.' There are large crowds of Mohammedans in Madras now, grouped +especially in Chepauk and the adjoining Triplicane and Royapettah; and +this is due to the fact that in later days Nawab Walajah of Arcot, who +was friendly to the English, came and settled down in Madras. He built +Chepauk Palace for his residence, and the many Mohammedans who +followed him into the city formed the nucleus of a large Mohammedan +colony. + +The name 'China Bazaar' appears early in the Madras Records; and it +would seem to have been the place where Chinese crockery was on sale. +Whether or not the salesmen were Chinese immigrants I cannot say; but +the fact that another street in Madras bears the name of 'Chinaman +Street' suggests that there was at one time a colony of pig-tailed +yellow-men in the city. The supposition is not unlikely, for China was +included within the sphere of the Company's commercial operations, +with Madras as the head-quarters of the trade, and ships of the +Company plied regularly between China and Madras. Tea was one of the +articles of trade, but Chinese crockery was in great demand in India, +and ship-loads of cheap China bowls and plates and dishes were +imported; and valuable specimens of Chinese porcelain were highly +esteemed by wealthy Indians--so much so that it is on record that one +of the Moghul emperors had a slave put to death for having +accidentally broken a costly China dish which the emperor particularly +admired. + +As the Company's trade was very largely in cloth, it can be understood +that the Company's agents were eager to induce spinners and weavers to +settle in Madras, so that cloth might be bought for the Company at the +lowest possible prices from the weavers direct. Elihu Yale, who was +one of the early Governors of the Fort, imported some fifty +weaver-families and located them in 'Weavers' street', the street that +is now known as Nyniappa Naick Street, in Georgetown. Some twenty-five +years later, Governor Collet established a number of imported weavers +in the northern suburb of Tiruvattur, in a village that was given the +name 'Collet Petta' in the Governor's honour--a name that degenerated +into 'Kalati Pettah'--'Loafer-land'--its present appellation. There +was still a demand for more weavers, and eventually a large vacant +tract was marked out as a 'Weavers' Town,' under the name of Chindadre +Pettah--the modern Chintadripet. In order to attract weavers, houses +were built at the Company's expense, which weavers were permitted to +occupy as hereditary possessions. It was formally decreed that "None +but Weavers, Spinners, and other persons useful in the Weaving trade, +Painters (i.e. designers of patterns for chintz), Washers (bleachers), +Dyers, Bettleca-merchants (beetle-sellers), Brahmins and Dancing +women, and other necessary attendants on the pagoda (erected in the +settlement) shall inhabit the said town." In Chintadripet to-day there +are still many spinners and weavers; and one of the sights in +Chintadripet--growing gradually more rare--is the spectacle of +primitively-clad urchins or grown men spinning in the streets with +primitive gear and in primitive fashion; and it is interesting to +recall the fact that this has been going on in Chintadripet for nearly +two centuries--an industry which the Company established. + +Washermanpet is another such locality. It was not so called, as many +people imagine, for being a land of dhobies (male laundresses). In the +Company's vocabulary a 'washerman' was a man who 'bleached' new-made +cloth; and the Company employed a number of bleachers. The bleaching +process needed large open spaces--washing-greens--on which the cloth +could be laid out in the sun to be bleached; and Washermanpet covered +a considerable area. + +A great many more of the streets and districts of Madras have history +in their names; but the few that we have dealt with suffice to +exemplify the manner of the expansion of the city of Madras. We can +picture the rustic suppliers crowding into the city to sell the +produce of their fields; we can picture the humble weavers migrating +into the city with their wives and their children, and with their pots +and their pans and their quaint machines, in response to the Company's +tempting invitation; we can picture the small tradesmen and the small +mechanics setting up their humble shops in the new city in which they +believed that fortunes were to be made. And in the higher grades of +life we can picture the grave Armenian merchants, the submissive Jews, +the mistrusted 'Moors,' and others seeking interviews with Stuart or +Georgian-garbed factors of the Company, and eager all of them to turn +the Company to profitable account. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +'THE WALL' + + +Skirting a thoroughfare in Old Jail Street, in North Georgetown, is +still to be seen a part of 'the Wall' that protected Black Town in +bygone days. This interesting remnant of the Wall of Madras might +before long have been levelled to the ground, either by successive +monsoons or by philistine contractors in want of 'material;' but, with +a happy regard for a relic of Old Madras, the Madras Government have +recently undertaken the task of preserving the ruin, which they have +officially declared an 'historic memorial.' + +The 'Wall of Madras' is worthy of a meditative visit, but, in order +that the meditation may be on an historic basis, it is necessary to +know something about the Wall itself. + +We have seen that when the Company established themselves at Madras, +in 1639, they first built a small fort for the protection of +themselves and their goods. Around the walls of the Fort a number of +Christians--English and Portuguese and Eurasians--settled down, and +what was called 'White Town' came into being. Within a term of years +this White Town was itself enclosed within fortified walls, which were +finally identical with the wall round Fort St. George to-day. There +was thus 'a fort within a fort;' but in course of time the inner wall +was pulled down. + +Immediately outside the northern wall of White Town lay Black Town, +inhabited by Indians--employees and purveyors of the Company, as well +as merchants, shop-keepers, industrialists, and the rest. It should be +borne in mind that the site of this original Black Town was +altogether different from the site of the later Black Town, the +'Georgetown' of to-day. Old Black Town, as already explained, extended +from the northern wall of the Fort to what is now called the Esplanade +Road, and it covered the ground that is now taken up by the Wireless +Telegraph enclosure, the grounds of the High Court, and those of the +Law College (_vide_ map, p. 10). + +Black Town was at first without any wall, and, as the times were +unsettled, the place was exposed to the serious danger of being raided +by any adventurous band of marauders. Very soon, however, a beginning +was made of enclosing the town with a mud wall; and in the reign of +Queen Anne a wall was built with masonry. Meanwhile, moreover, +numerous houses and streets had sprung up outside the wall, on the +site of the Georgetown of to-day. + +[Illustration: A BIT OF THE BLACK TOWN WALL] + +In 1746 the French captured Fort St. George; and they destroyed not +only the Black Town Wall but also Black Town itself. It was a +disastrous episode in the history of Madras. For six years the English +and the French had been at war in Europe, and the relations between +the English and French colonists in India were naturally strained; but +they were settlers within the dominions of Indian rulers, and, +although both the English and the French had ships and soldiers for +the protection of their settlements, they realized that they were not +at liberty to make war upon each other. The settlers, moreover, were +employees of mercantile companies, working for dividends; and war, +with its calamitous expenditure, was not within their design. But +Dupleix, the talented French Governor of Pondicherry, had ambitious +ideas for the extension of French influence in India, and, in defiance +of Indian rulers, war broke out. In the beginning there were several +engagements at sea between a French squadron under Labourdonnais and +an English squadron under Captain Peyton. The English squadron was +worsted, and had to put into Trincomalee Harbour, in Ceylon, to refit. +Thereupon Labourdonnais, after making quick preparations at +Pondicherry, sailed for Madras; and the alarm in the Fort and in the +city must have been great when his ships appeared off the coast and +proceeded to bombard the settlement. His guns, however, did but little +damage, and the citizens woke up the next morning to find, to their +great content, that the enemy had sailed away during the night. +Meanwhile Captain Peyton, having repaired his ships, was unaware of +what had happened at Madras, and sailed from Ceylon to Bengal, without +touching at Fort St. George. Possibly he was lured to Bengal by bogus +messages of French origin; for, as soon as he was out of the way, +Labourdonnais reappeared off Madras, better prepared than before. +Having succeeded in landing a considerable force, he erected batteries +on shore and from various points he bombarded White Town, which was +now the actual Fort St. George. At the end of an unhappy seven days +the garrison capitulated. The French marched into the Fort, and all +the English residents, civil and military--including the Governor and +the Members of Council, and also Robert Clive, who was then a young +clerk--were sent to Pondicherry as prisoners of war. + +For nearly three years the French flag flew over Fort St. George, +until, in accordance with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, made between +the combatants in Europe, Madras was restored to the Company. + +[Illustration: CENTRAL GATE OF THE BLACK TOWN WALL] + +During their occupation the French had made great changes. Feeling the +necessity of strengthening their position, their military commanders +realized what had apparently not been recognized by the Company's +employees, untrained in war--namely that a weak-walled native town +lying right against the northern wall of Fort St. George was a +serious danger. The houses offered convenient cover for any enemies +that might attack the Fort; and, moreover, any disaffected or venal +townsman was in a position to give the assailants valuable help. The +French Governor set himself, therefore, to the deliberate destruction +of Black Town. He first destroyed the Town Wall, and then--for a +distance of 400 yards from the northern wall of White Town, or the +present Fort St. George--he demolished every house. The area that is +now represented by the Wireless Telegraph Station and the grounds of +the High Court thus became an open space. Meanwhile they constructed a +moat and glacis round the walls of White Town, which, with certain +alterations, are the moat and glacis of Fort St. George to-day. + +The Records express the melancholy interest with which the Company's +employees, when they re-entered Madras, took note of the changes that the +enemy had made in the familiar settlement. The Councillors apparently +conceived that it was in a wanton spirit of destruction that the greater +part of Black Town had been wiped out; for they formally decided that the +streets that had been destroyed should be rebuilt. It may be supposed +however, that their military advisers counselled them otherwise; for, so +far from the old houses being rebuilt, those that had been left standing +were destroyed. The open space was allowed to remain; and 'New Black +Town'--the modern 'Georgetown'--began to be developed. It continued to be +called 'Black Town' until the visit of the Prince of Wales (afterwards King +George V) to Madras in 1906 when it was formally re-named +'Georgetown'--ostensibly in Prince George's honour, but in reality to meet +the wishes of a number of the residents who sought an opportunity of +getting rid of what they regarded--quite reasonably--as an objectionable +name for the locality in which their lot was cast. The disappearance of the +historic name is a matter for historic regret, but a concession had to be +made to the intelligible wishes of residents. + +[Illustration: A MAGAZINE IN THE BLACK TOWN WALL] + +The Company, bearing in mind that the French had been able to capture +Madras, realized that it was necessary to strengthen the defences of +Fort St. George and also to provide adequate protection for the new +native city that had grown up outside the Fort's protective walls and +was absolutely without defence. The defences of the Fort were taken in +hand at once, though the work was by no means completed; and the +Directors in England readily sanctioned the construction of a wall +round New Black Town. It was well that the security of the Fort was +looked to without any long delay; for in 1758, a large French army +under Count Lally besieged the Fort again--but so unsuccessfully that, +after sixty-seven days of persistent endeavour, they beat a sudden +retreat. It was a good many years, however, before the building of +the wall round Black Town was taken seriously in hand--and then only +because the Company had been given a succession of sharp warnings that +it was absolutely necessary that new Black Town should be protected. + +The French themselves had given the first warning during the siege +under Count Lally; for, although they were powerless against the Fort, +they were able to enter Black Town without opposition, and they made +use of some of the houses for the purpose of the siege. The next +warning was given a few years later when Tipu, the son of Haidar Ali, +Sultan of Mysore, after ravaging the country round Madras, came so +near to the city itself that parties of his horsemen were scampering +about in the suburb of Chintadripet. Tipu's raid induced the Company +to bring forth the approved but long-shelved plans for a wall round +Black Town; but there was still much more discussion than work. The +Company needed yet another awakening; and they got a stern one two +years later. We quote the story from the Company's official records, +published by the Madras Government. It is contained in a minute in the +official Diary of Fort St. George, dated the 29th of March, 1769, +which runs as follows:-- + + About 8 o'Clock this morning several Parties of the Enemy's + (Haidar Ali's) horse appeared in the Bounds of this Place at + St. Thome and Egmore, from which latter place some guns were + fired at them.... At eleven o'Clock a fellow was caught + plundering at Triplicane and brought into Town, who gave + Intelligence that Hyder himself was on the other side of St. + Thome with the greatest part of his horse. In the afternoon + Advice came that the Enemy's horse were moving from St. + Thome round to the Northward with a design, as was supposed, + to make an attempt on the Black Town. + +It would have been difficult to have defended the unwalled town; and +on the following day the Council of Fort St. George sent Mr. DuPre, +Chief Councillor and succeeding Governor, to Haidar Ali's camp, on +the other side of the Marmalong Bridge, to come to terms with the +invader; and within three days a treaty had been made. The treaty, +said Mr. DuPre, writing to a friend, "will do us no honor: yet it was +necessary, and there was no alternative but that or worse." + +After this humiliation the building of the Wall was regarded as a +pressing necessity; and within a year the work was practically +finished. + +[Illustration: 'THE OLD AND THE NEW' + +Corner of the Medical School built into a portion of the Black Town +Wall.] + +It was well indeed that the work was done; for a few years afterwards, +on the 10th of August, 1780, Haidar's cavalry raided San Thome and +Triplicane, killing a number of people; and the terror in Black Town +was so great that crowds of the inhabitants took flight. Fortunately, +however, the Governor was able to issue the following notification for +the reassurance of the public:--'A sufficient number of guns have been +mounted on the Black Town wall,' and 'nothing has been omitted that I +can think of for the security of the Black Town.' Haidar was not +sufficiently venturesome to attack the fortified town; but the terror +of the inhabitants was by no means at an end; for a little later came +the disastrous news that a British force sent out to meet the invader +had been cut to pieces at Conjeevaram. Eventually, however, the +Mysoreans were defeated, and the treaty of peace was a triumph for the +Company. + +The long delay in the building of the Wall was chiefly due to the fact +that the representatives of the Company, being commercial men, +naturally gave their chief attention to the Company's mercantile +business, and were apt to disregard the immediate necessity of +expensive schemes which the Company's military officers put forward as +strategic requirements. When the Wall was first talked about, after +the recovery of Madras from the French, the Directors in England, who +always kept a tight hand on the Company's purse-strings, declared that +the inhabitants of Black Town ought to be made to pay for the cost of +their own defences, and should be taxed accordingly; and the name of +the 'Wall Tax Road,' which runs alongside the Central Station to the +Salt Cotaurs, is a standing reminder of the Directors' decree, while +the road itself is an indication of the alignment of the western wall. +The people protested indignantly against being taxed for the purpose, +and, as a matter of fact, the representatives of the Company in India +doubted whether they would be within their legal rights in compelling +them to pay; and the tax was never actually levied. What with the Wall +Tax Road on the west and the seashore on the east, the existing +remains on the north, and the Esplanade on the south, it is not +difficult to form a general idea of the direction of the four sides of +the wall within which the later Black Town was enclosed. + +Such is the story of 'The Wall;' and the remains are an interesting +relic of lawless times when at any minute it was possible that crowds +of terror-stricken folk would suddenly be pouring through the +gateways of the city at the alarming news that strange horsemen were +dashing here and there in one or another of the suburbs, demanding +money and jewels from the people and slaughtering unhappy individuals +who tried to evade a response. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +EXPANSION + + +We have seen that the Company were careful to develop both White Town +and Black Town. They were not content, however, with mere +developments, for they took pains also to extend their territorial +possessions. + +The strip of land that was acquired by Mr. Francis Day was not large. +Roughly, it extended along the seashore from the mouth of the Cooum to +an undefined point beyond the present harbour, somewhere in the +neighbourhood of Cassimode, and inland as far as what was called the +North River, which is now represented by Cochrane's Canal--the canal +that runs between the Central Station and the People's Park. It will +be interesting to note how some of the various other parts of the +present city came into the Company's possession. + +[Illustration: MADRAS (APPROXIMATELY)] + +On several occasions the representatives of various dynasties that +were successively supreme over Madras made grants of additional land +to the Company. The village of Triplicane was the first +addition,----some twenty years after the acquisition of Madras. The +village was granted by the representative of the Mohammedan King of +Golconda, for an annual rent of Rs. 175, which ceased to be paid when +the Golconda dynasty shortly afterwards came to an end. Later, in +compliance with a petition by Governor Elihu Yale to the Emperor +Aurangzeb, the Company received a free grant of 'Tandore (Tondiarpet), +Persewacca (Pursewaukam), and Yegmore (Egmore).' Still later, in the +reign of Aurangzeb's son and successor, the village of Lungambacca +(Nungumbaukam), now the principal residential district of Europeans in +Madras, was granted to the Company, together with four adjoining +villages, for a total annual rent of 1,500 pagodas (say Rs. 5,250). +The Emperor's officers argued that the rent ought to have been larger, +but the Company, conforming to the spirit of corruption that was in +fashion, were wily enough to send by a Brahman and a Mohammedan +conjointly a sum of Rs. 700 'to be distributed amongst the King's +officers who keep the Records, in order to settle this matter.' The +village of Vepery--variously called in olden documents Ipere, Ypere, +Vipery, and Vapery--lay between Egmore and Pursewaukam; and the +Company, being naturally desirous of consolidating their territory, +proceeded at once to try to obtain a grant of the place; but +successive efforts on the part of Governor Elihu Yale came to naught; +and it was not till much later (1742) when the Nawab of Arcot was lord +of the soil, that Vepery was acquired from the Nawab. The manner of +its acquisition is interesting. The preceding Nawab had just been +murdered, and the Carnatic army disowning the ambitious rival who had +murdered him, proclaimed the dead Nawab's son as his successor. The +new Nawab was but a youth, and he was residing at the time in one of +the big houses in Black Town. The Company were politic enough to +celebrate the lad's accession with grand doings. They escorted him in +a splendid procession to the Company's Gardens, which were situated +along the bank of the river Cooum, where the General Hospital and the +Medical College now stand. In the Gardens there was a fine house, +containing a spacious hall, which the Company had specially designed +for great occasions; and there the lad's accession was formally +announced; and finally he was escorted in procession back to his +dwelling. The Company profited by their politic demonstration; for, in +return for their courtesies to the young Nawab, the lad gratified +their desires by making them a rent-free grant of the village of +Vepery, and also of Perambore and other lands. It may be added that +the boy-king was unfortunate; for he was murdered within two years of +his accession, at the instance of the man who had murdered his father. + +San Thome was acquired in 1749; and the story of the acquisition is +not without interest. The names 'San Thome' and 'Mylapore' are often +used as alternative designations for one and the same locality; but in +bygone days the two names represented quite different places. Mylapore +was a very ancient Indian town, which seems to have been in existence +long before the birth of Christ. San Thome was a seventeenth century +Portuguese settlement close by. It is an old tradition that St. Thomas +the Apostle was martyred just outside Mylapore; and when the +Portuguese first came to India some of them visited Mylapore to look +for relics of the saint. They found some ruined Christian churches, +and also a tomb which they believed to be the tomb of St. Thomas; and +soon afterwards a Portuguese monastery was established on the spot. A +Portuguese town grew up around the monastery; and in course of time +the town became a commercial centre, and was surrounded with a +fortified wall, and was the Portuguese settlement of San Thome, over +against the Indian town of Mylapore. An Italian dealer in precious +stones who visited India in the sixteenth century wrote of San Thome +that it was 'as fair a city' as any that he had seen in the land; and +he described Mylapore as being an Indian city surrounded by its own +mud wall. Mylapore was thus in effect the Black Town of San Thome; but +in later days the two towns were combined. When the English came to +Fort St. George, the power of the Portuguese was already waning; and +the development of the influence of the English at Madras meant a +further lessening of the influence of the Portuguese at San Thome; +and it was a natural consequence that San Thome, including Mylapore, +became a prey to successive assailants. Its first captor was the lord +of the soil, the Mohammedan King of Golconda. Next, the French took it +from Golconda; and two years later Golconda, with the help of the +Dutch, recaptured it from the French. The Dutch were content with a +share of the plunder for their reward, and left Golconda in +possession. On the self-interested advice of the English at Fort St. +George, Golconda destroyed the fortifications. He then put the town up +for sale. The Company were prepared to buy it, and so were the +Portuguese; but a rich Mohammedan named Cassa Verona found favour with +Golconda's Moslem officials, and secured the town on a short lease. +Next it was leased to the Hindu Governor of Poonamallee; and then for +a big price it went back again to the Portuguese. Towards the end of +the seventeenth century the great Moghul Emperor Aurangzeb dethroned +the lord of the soil, the King of Golconda; and, although the +Portuguese were not turned out of San Thome, it was now a part of the +Moghul Empire, and was put in charge of a Moslem ruler. After +Aurangzeb's death, the Moghul Empire broke up, and the Nawab of Arcot +eventually became independent, and San Thome was part of his +dominions. In 1749, when Madras, after the French occupation, was +restored to the English by an order from Paris, in accordance with the +treaty of Aix la Chapelle, Dupleix at Pondicherry was bitterly +disappointed at the rendition, and he formed designs for the +acquisition of San Thome for France, as a set-off for the loss of +Madras. The English at Fort St. George had information of his schemes, +and, being in no way desirous of having aggressive Frenchmen for close +neighbours, they forestalled Dupleix by persuading the Nawab to make +the Company a grant of 'Mylapore, _alias_ St. Thome,' on condition +that the Company should undertake to help the Nawab with men and +money whenever he should call upon them to do so. It was thus that San +Thome became a British possession; and, although it was afterwards +ravaged successively by the French under Count Lally and by Haidar Ali +of Mysore, it has remained a British possession ever since. + +We have said enough to show the manner in which the different parts of +the modern city of Madras came into the hands of the English. The +methods were not always wholly admirable; but we must remember that +the East India Company was a mercantile association, fighting for its +existence under diamond-cut-diamond conditions; and we must remember +also that, although its representatives at Madras were sent out to +India not to rule but to earn dividends for the shareholders, yet the +Company's rule over Madras was so upright that crowds of people were +continually flocking into Madras to enjoy its benefits. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +OUTPOSTS + + +The suburban lands which were successively granted to the Company were +not protected either by the walls of Fort St. George or by the walls +of Black Town, and it was accordingly necessary that special means +should be adopted for their defence. The Company's military engineers +devised the erection of small suburban forts ('redoubts'), +block-houses, and batteries, which were to be mounted with cannon and +to be in charge of an appropriate garrison, and were to serve as +outposts for the protection of the outlying quarters of the city. + +On the northern side of Black Town the batteries and block-houses were +linked together by a thick-set hedge of palmyras, bamboos, +prickly-pear, and thorny bushes, such that neither infantry nor +cavalry could force a way through. Later it was decreed that the +'Bound Hedge,' as it was called, should be extended so as to encircle +the whole city. The work, however, was never completed, for as late as +1785 an influential European inhabitant of Madras, addressing the +Government on the subject of the insecurity of the city, wrote:-- + + "Was the Bound Hedge finished, no man could desert. No Spy + could pass; provisions would be cheap. All the Garden + Houses, as well as thirty-three Square Miles of Ground, + would be in security from the invasions of irregular Horse." + +Of the suburban fortifications the two largest were at Egmore and at +San Thome. Next in size were those at Nungumbaukam and at Pursewaukam. +Of smaller works there were many. Of the fortifications at +Nungumbaukam and at Pursewaukam all traces have disappeared; but of +the larger ones at San Thome and at Egmore interesting remains are +still to be seen. + +[Illustration: San Thome Fort. + +A PORTION OF THE EXTENSIVE RUINS IN THE GROUNDS OF 'LEITH CASTLE,' SAN +THOME] + +The remains of the San Thome Redoubt stand within the grounds of +'Leith Castle,' a house that lies south of the San Thome Cathedral. +The remains are ruins, but the massive walls fifteen feet high and +three feet thick, are suggestive of the purpose for which the redoubt +was built. The 'Records' show that the San Thome Redoubt, built in +1751, was a very complete fortification, with a moat forty feet wide, +a glacis, and all the other works that are usual in respect of a well +appointed building of the kind. That it was of a large size is to be +seen in the fact that, when the French under Count Lally were +besieging Madras, an English officer was officially directed 'to stay +in St. Thome Fort with the Europeans belonging to Chingleput, four +Companies of sepoys, and fifty horse.' + +The Egmore Redoubt was a good deal older than that of San Thome. It +was constructed in the days of Queen Anne. It was intended, of course, +for the special protection of Egmore; but in those distant days when +trips to the hills were unknown, even Egmore was a health-resort in +respect of the crowded Fort St. George, and it was officially reported +that the Egmore Redoubt might 'serve for a convenience for the sick +Soldiers when arrived from England, for the recovery of their health, +it being a good air.' The Egmore Redoubt was evidently a need; for the +'Records' tell us that on various occasions its guns were fired at the +enemy. The enemy were for the most part horsemen of Haidar Ali or of +Tipu, his son and successor; and in 1799 the year in which Tipu was +killed, the need for the Redoubt disappeared. Adjoining the precincts +of the Redoubt were the premises of the Male Asylum, an Anglo-Indian +Orphanage, which required to be extended, and in the following year +the Madras Government gave the Redoubt to the Asylum, and the two +premises were turned into a common enclosure. In the beginning of the +present century the Directors of the Asylum sold their Egmore estate +to the South Indian Railway Company and removed to new premises in the +Poonamallee road; and what remains of the Egmore Redoubt is now the +habitation of some of the Railway employees. + +[Illustration: THE EGMORE FORT (SIDE VIEW)] + +The remains are of quaint interest. At some date or another the +authorities of the Asylum had an upper story added to one of the +military buildings, with the result that there is the strange +spectacle of a row of windowed chambers on the top of a buttressed and +battlemented wall, windowless and grim. The upper story has been built +into the battlements in such a manner that the outline of the +battlements is still clearly visible, and the building is a composite +reminder of old-time war and latter-day peace. The whole of the +lower part of the building, with its massive walls and its frowning +aspect, is of curious and suggestive interest; and the ground around, +which is extensively bricked, is a reminder of the fact that the +Redoubt in its original form was large indeed. The place provides +interesting material for antiquarian speculation. + +[Illustration: REMAINS OF THE EGMORE FORT. + +_The building is in the Male Asylum Road, and is now the residence of +some railway employees. Its upper part has been built upon a +battlemented wall, and doors have been let into the wall. The outlines +of the original wall and of some of the battlements can be easily +traced._] + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE CHURCH IN THE FORT + + +St. Mary's Church within the walls of Fort St. George is the oldest +Protestant church in India, and, except for some of the oldest bits of +the Fort walls, it is the oldest British building in Madras city, and +even in India itself. It dates from 1680. + +When Madras was rising upon its foundations, the Company's employees +were not only without a church but also without a pastor; for the +Company did not think it necessary to go to the expense of providing a +chaplain for so small a community. But it was an age in which +religious services on Sunday were seldom neglected; and it may be +conceived that, in default of a chaplain at Fort St. George, the +Governor himself or his delegate read the Church Service on Sunday +morning and evening, in the hearing of the assembled employees of the +Company, and perhaps also some selections from the published sermons +of distinguished Elizabethan divines. + +In the Portuguese settlement of San Thome there were numerous Roman +Catholic priests, and some of them ministered to the numerous +Portuguese and other Roman Catholic residents of White Town around +Fort St. George, as also of Black Town close by. So numerous indeed +were the Roman Catholic residents of White Town within three years of +the foundation of the Fort that the Governor permitted a French priest +to build a chapel in the Town. It was thus not a little anomalous that +in a British settlement, founded under the auspices of such a +redoubted antipapist as Queen Elizabeth, there was a Roman Catholic +church with a priest in charge, yet neither a church nor a pastor of +the established religion. + +In 1645, however, the Company's Agent at Fort St. George forwarded to +higher authority "a petition from the souldiers for the desireing of a +minister to be here with them for the maintainance of their soules +health;" and in the following year a chaplain was sent out. There was +still no Protestant church, but the celebration of religious services +was held in careful regard; for the chaplain read morning and evening +prayers every day of the year in a room in the Fort appointed for the +purpose, and it was compulsory upon all the youthful employees of the +Company to attend regularly, under the penalty of a fine. + +Chaplains came and chaplains went, and for some sixteen years they +continued their ministrations in the room in the Fort. A small church +was then built; but, with the Company's developing trade, the +population of White Town increased so rapidly that before long the +little church was too small for the number of the worshippers. When +Mr. Streynsham Master, after a long term of years in the Company's +service, was appointed Governor of Madras, one of his first acts was +the circulation of a voluntary subscription paper for the building of +a church that should be worthy of the Company's rapidly developing +South Indian possession. He headed the list with a subscription of a +hundred pagodas (Rs. 350), a sum which represented much more than it +does now; for it was more than Mr. Streynsham Master's pay for a whole +month as Governor of Madras. Subscriptions from the Councillors, as +well as from the factors and writers and apprentices, were +proportionately big; and on the 28th of October, 1680, St. Mary's +Church was solemnly opened, and the guns of the Fort roared forth loud +volleys in honour of the event. The steeple and the sanctuary were +added later; but, for the rest, the present church, except for +details, is the very same church that was built some two hundred and +fifty years ago, in the reign of Charles II. + +[Illustration: ST. MARY'S, FORT ST. GEORGE.] + +It is interesting to note that the church at Madras was built during a +period when in London a great many churches were being built--or +rebuilt--after the Great Fire. Church-building was in vogue, with the +distinguished Sir Christopher Wren as the builder in chief; and it is +not unlikely that what was being done so energetically in London was +one of the influences that inspired Mr. Streynsham Master to be so +earnest over a scheme for building a church in Madras. It may be +noted, moreover, that St. Mary's Church within the Fort at Madras is +of a style that was very much in fashion in London at the time. + +In deciding to build a new church, the Governor and his colleagues +realized that if ever the Fort should be bombarded, a shot from the +enemy's guns was as likely to fall upon the church as upon a fortified +bastion; so the roof of the church was made 'bomb-proof,' in +preparation for possibilities. Events proved the reasonableness of the +measure; for on more than one occasion the church was a factor in war. + +In 1746, when the French were besieging Fort St. George, the British +defenders lodged their wives and children and their domestic servants +in the bomb-proof church, and they took refuge there themselves in the +intervals of military duty. During the three years that they occupied +Madras, the French, fearing that they might be besieged in their turn, +used the bomb-proof church as a storehouse for grain and as a +reservoir for drinking-water. The church organ they sent off to +Pondicherry as one of the spoils of war. + +At the end of the war Madras was restored to the Company, but a few +years later the Fort was besieged by the French again. During the +interval, some of the houses had been made bomb-proof, and in these +the women and children were lodged, but St. Mary's Church was used as +a barrack, and its steeple as a watch-tower. Lally, the French +commander, failing to capture Madras, had to march away with his hopes +baffled; but, notwithstanding its bomb-proof roof, the church, as also +its steeple, had been badly damaged during the destructive siege, and +the necessary repairs were considerable. + +A few years later the English had their revenge. They captured +Pondicherry, and they destroyed its fortifications. They recovered, +with other things, the organ that had been looted from St. Mary's; +but, as a new one had in the meanwhile been obtained for St. Mary's, +the recovered instrument was sent to a church up-country. According +to accounts, moreover, they took toll for the Frenchmen's loot by +sending to St. Mary's from one of the churches in Pondicherry the +large and well-executed painting of the 'Last Supper,' which is still +to be seen in the church. The origin of the picture is not known for +certain; but it is believed with reason to be a fact that it was a +spoil of war from Pondicherry on one or another of the three occasions +on which that town was captured by the British. + +The stray visitor who wanders round St. Mary's without a guide is apt +to be astonished at what he sees in the churchyard. A multitude of old +tomb-stones, of various ages and with inscriptions in various tongues, +lie flat on the ground, as close to one another as paving-stones, in +such fashion that the visitor must wonder how there can be sufficient +room for coffins below. As a matter of fact, the coffins and their +contents are not there, and the inscriptions of 'Here lyeth' and 'Hic +jacet' are not statements of facts. The explanation is an interesting +story, which is worth the telling. + +In the Company's early days, the 'English Burying Place,' (_vide_ Map, +p. 10) lay a little way outside the walls of White Town, in an area +which is now occupied by the Madras Law College with its immediate +precincts. Later, when a wall was built round old Black Town, the +Burial Ground was included within the enclosure of the wall. An +English cemetery in a corner of an Indian town was not likely to be +treated with any particular respect; and on various counts the +'English Burying Place' was a sadly neglected spot. Nearly every +Englishman that died in Madras was an employee of the Company, and was +a bachelor, without any relatives in India to mourn his loss. His +colleagues gave him a grand funeral; but his death meant promotion for +some of those selfsame colleagues, and his place in the Company's +service was filled up by an official 'Order' on the following day. A +big monument in the old-fashioned brick-and-mortar ugliness was +piously built over his remains, and possibly there was genuine regret +at a good fellow's loss; but water is less thick than blood, and there +was no near one or dear one in India to take affectionate care of the +big tomb; so it was left to itself to be taken care of by the people +of Black Town. An unofficial description of Madras dated 1711 speaks +of the 'stately Tombs' in the English cemetery, and an official Record +of the same year speaks of the unhallowed uses to which the stately +tombs were put. The Record says that "Excesses are Comitted on +hallowed ground," and that the arcaded monuments were "turned into +receptacles for Beggars and Buffaloes." We have seen in a previous +chapter that the French, when they captured Madras, demolished the +greater part of old Black Town together with its wall, and that the +English, when they were back in Madras, completed the work of +demolition. In the two-fold destruction, both French and English had +sufficient respect for the dead to leave the tombs alone. But, now +that Black Town was gone, the big tombs were the nearest buildings to +the walls of White Town and Fort St. George; and when the French under +Lally besieged Madras a few years later, they used the 'stately Tombs' +as convenient cover for their attack on the city. The cemetery now was +a receptacle not for beggars and buffaloes but for soldiers and guns. +The siege lasted sixty-seven days, during which the cemetery was a +vantage ground for successive French batteries. It is therefore not to +be wondered at that when Count Lally had raised the unsuccessful +siege, the authorities at Fort St. George decided that the 'stately +tombs' were to disappear. The tombs themselves were accordingly +destroyed, but the slabs that bore the inscriptions were laid in St. +Mary's churchyard. At a later date some of them were taken up and were +removed to the ramparts, for the extraordinary purpose of 'building +platforms for the guns,'[2] but eventually they were restored to the +churchyard and were relaid as we see them to-day. + +[Footnote 2: Rev. F. Penny's _Church in Madras_, vol. i, p. 366.] + +When the burying ground was dismantled, two of its monuments were +allowed to remain. They are still to be seen on the Esplanade, outside +the Law College, and the inscriptions can still be read; and the two +tombs are interesting memorials of the past. One is a tall, +steeple-like structure, which represents a woman's grief for her first +husband, and for her child by her second. Her first husband was Joseph +Hynmers, Senior Member of Council, who died in 1680, her second was +Elihu Yale, Governor of Madras, whom she married six months after the +death of her first. When her little son David died at the age of four, +she had him buried in her first husband's grave. The other monument +covers a vault which holds the remains of various members of the +Powney family, a name which figured freely in the list of the +Company's employees throughout the eighteenth century. When the +cemetery was dismantled, members of the Powney family were still in +the Madras service, and it was doubtless in respect for their feelings +that the vault was not disturbed. + +It may be added that amongst the gravestones that pave the ground +outside St. Mary's Church there are several that record the death of +Roman Catholics. It is supposed that they were taken from the +graveyard of the Roman Catholic church in White Town, which was +demolished by the Company when they recovered Madras after the French +occupation. + +Although the gravestones around St. Mary's Church bear the names of +persons who were buried elsewhere, there are memorials within the +church itself which mark the actual resting-place of mortal remains. +Most of the monuments in St. Mary's are of historic interest, and +it is fascinating indeed to stroll round the building and study + + Storied urn or animated bust; + +but it is noteworthy that no inscription records the very first burial +within the walls of the church. It is noteworthy too that the +forgotten grave was not the grave of an obscure person, but of Lord +Pigot, Governor of Madras; and, in view of the extraordinary +circumstances of his death, the first burial is the most notable of +all. + +George Pigot was sent out to Madras as a lad of eighteen, to take up +the post of a writer in the Company's service. He worked so well that +he rose rapidly, and at the early age of thirty-six he was appointed +Governor of Madras. It was in the middle of his eight years' +governorship that the French under Lally besieged Madras for +sixty-five days; and Governor Pigot's untiring energy and skilful +measures were prime factors in the successful defence. After the war +he did great things for the development of Madras; and when he +resigned office at the age of forty-five and went to England, the +strenuous upholder of British honour in the East was rewarded with an +Irish peerage. Well would it have been for Lord Pigot if he had +settled down for good on his Irish estate! But twelve years later he +accepted the offer of a second term of office as Governor of Madras. +It is not infrequently the case that a man who has been eminently +successful in office at one time of his career fails badly if after a +long interval he accepts the same office again. Times have altered and +methods that were successful before are now out of date. In Lord +Pigot's case the conditions at the time of his second appointment were +very different from those at the time of the first. On the first +occasion he had risen to office with colleagues who had been his +companions in the service. On the second occasion he was sent out to +Madras as an elderly nobleman selected for the job, and as a stranger +to his colleagues, who moreover were particularly given to factious +disputes. It is not unlikely too that Lord Pigot himself had become +touchy and overbearing in his declining years. Any way, he quarrelled +with his Councillors almost immediately, and within six or seven +months there had been some very angry scenes. He had been accustomed +to being obeyed, and in his wrath at being obstinately resisted he +went to the length of ordering the arrest not only of some of the +leading members of Council but also of the Commander-in-Chief. The +Councillors check-mated the Governor's order by arresting the +Governor! It was a daring proceeding. He was arrested one night after +dark, while driving along a suburban road on his imagined way to a +friendly supper, and he was sent as a prisoner to a house at St. +Thomas's Mount. He was in captivity for some nine months, while the +triumphant Councillors were representing their case to the Directors +in England; and then he died, in Government House, Madras, to which +when he fell ill he had been transferred. It is on record that his +remains were specially honoured with burial within St. Mary's +Church--the first burial within the building--but no permanent +memorial was raised to the unhappy Governor's memory; and the +particular spot where he was buried is only a matter of conjecture. + +St. Mary's Church is less than 250 years old. Compared with hundreds +of the grey-walled or ivy-covered churches in England, St. Mary's at +Madras is prosaically new; but it is of exceeding interest +nevertheless. Madras itself is a great and historic city, which owes +its existence to British enterprise, with Indian co-operation, and St. +Mary's Church, as the oldest British building therein, is the earliest +milestone of progress. It is not a church that is best visited, like +Melrose Abbey, 'in the pale moonlight,' but in the bright daylight, +when the inscriptions on the tomb-stones without and on the monuments +within can be clearly read. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +ROMAN CATHOLIC, MADRAS + + +When the English first came to Madras, there were numerous Roman +Catholic churches in the neighbouring Portuguese settlement of San +Thome, but there were none within the tract of land that Mr. Francis +Day acquired in the Company's behalf. When, therefore, at the +Company's invitation, a number of Portuguese from San Thome, both +pure-blooded and mixed, came and settled down in the Company's White +Town, they were necessarily compelled to resort to the ministrations +of Portuguese priests who belonged to the San Thome Mission; and +within a year of the foundation of Fort St. George, the Portuguese +missionaries built a church in the outskirts of the British +settlement. This was the Church of the Assumption, which stands in +what is still called 'Portuguese Street' in Georgetown, and is +therefore a building of historic note. To the Company's +representatives the ministrations of Portuguese priests to residents +of Madras were objectionable; for the relations between Madras and San +Thome were by no means friendly. It is true that when Mr. Francis Day +was treating for the acquisition of a site, the Portuguese at Mylapore +had furthered his efforts; but such a mark of apparent good will was +no more than the outcome of Portuguese hostility to the Dutch; for +they hoped that the English at Madras would be powerful allies with +themselves against the aggressive Hollanders. As soon, however, as +Madras had begun to be built and English trade to be actively pushed, +jealousies arose and disagreements occurred; and the Company's +representatives chafed at the idea that Portuguese priests should be +the spiritual advisers of residents of Madras. + +In 1642, when Madras was in its third year, a certain Father Ephraim, +a French Capuchin, chanced to set foot in Madras. Father Ephraim had +been sent out from Paris as a missionary to Pegu; and he had travelled +across India from Surat to Masulipatam, where, according to his +instructions, he was to have secured a passage to Pegu in one of the +Company's ships. His information was out of date; for the Agency had +lately been transferred from Masulipatam to Madras, and the Company's +ships for Pegu were sailing now from Madras instead of from +Masulipatam; so Father Ephraim journeyed southward from Masulipatam to +look for a vessel at the new settlement. At Madras no vessel was +starting immediately, and Father Ephraim had to bide his time. +Meanwhile he made himself useful by ministering to the Roman Catholics +of the place. Official and other documents show that Father Ephraim +was a very devout and a very able man. He was 'an earnest Christian,' +'a polished linguist,' able to converse in English, Portuguese and +Dutch, besides his own French, and he was conversant with Persian and +Arabic. He had the charm of attractive friendliness, which is so +common with Frenchmen, and he captivated all with whom he conversed. +The Portuguese and other Roman Catholic inhabitants of Madras, to whom +the Company's disapproval of the ministrations of Portuguese priests +had been a frequent source of trouble, formally petitioned Father +Ephraim to settle down in the city; and the Governor in Council, +greatly preferring a French priest to a Portuguese and thoroughly +approving of Father Ephraim personally, supported the petition with a +formal order that, if the priest would stay, a site would be provided +on which he might build a church for his flock. Father Ephraim himself +was not unwilling to stay, but he was under orders for Pegu, and, +furthermore, Madras was within the diocese of San Thome, and the +Bishop was not likely to approve of a scheme in which the +ministrations of his own priests would be set at naught in favour of a +stranger. The Company, however, was influential. A reference was made +to Father Ephraim's Capuchin superiors in Paris, and they approved of +his remaining in Madras; another reference was made to Rome, asking +that the British territory of Madras should be ecclesiastically +separated from the Portuguese diocese of Mylapore, and the Pope issued +a decree to that effect. + +A site for a church, as also for a priest's house, was provided in +White Town, within the Fort St. George of to-day, and a small church, +dedicated to St. Andrew, was built; and for a good many years it was +the only church of any kind in the settlement. + +The Portuguese ecclesiastics of Mylapore were never reconciled to this +ecclesiastical separation of Madras, and when Father Ephraim went by +invitation to Mylapore to discuss certain ecclesiastical business, he +was forthwith arrested, clapped in irons, and shipped off to Goa and +lodged in the prison of the Inquisition. The Governor of Fort St. +George took the matter in hand, but Father Ephraim was in prison more +than two years before he was eventually released and sent back to +Madras. + +Later, Father Ephraim rebuilt St. Andrew's Church on a larger plan, +and the building was opened with ceremony; and Master Patrick Warner, +the Company's Protestant Chaplain at Fort St. George, complained +indignantly to the Directors in England that Governor Langhorn had +celebrated the popish occasion with the 'firing of great guns' and +with 'volleys of small shot by all the soldiers in garrison.' + +Father Ephraim had already built a church in old Black Town, which +seems to have stood somewhere within what is now the site of the High +Court. Another French Capuchin had meanwhile come to Madras to help +him in his ministrations to his ever-increasing flock; so the church +in Black Town had its regular pastor. + +After more than fifty years of self-sacrificing work in Madras, Father +Ephraim died of old age, sincerely esteemed by all who knew him. + +Some years after his death St. Andrew's was again rebuilt, and it was +now a large edifice, with a high bell-tower, and a small churchyard +around. In the suburban district of Muthialpet there was also a +'Portuguese Burying Place,' which is now the 'compound' of the Roman +Catholic Cathedral and its associated buildings in Armenian Street; +and a small church stood within this enclosure. Adjoining the +Portuguese Burying Place was the 'Armenian Burying Place,' which is +now the enclosure of the Armenian church; and it was the Armenian +Burying Place that gave the name to the street. + +When Madras was captured by the French, there were people who said +that the French priests in Madras had given information to their +countrymen; and three years later, when Madras was restored to the +Company, the Governor in Council confiscated St. Andrew's church. A +reference to the Directors in England as to what they were to do with +the confiscated building brought back the very decisive reply that +they were "immediately on the receipt of this, without fail to +demolish the Portuguese Church in the White Town at Madras, and not +suffer it to stand." The church was demolished accordingly, as also a +Roman Catholic chapel in Vepery. The church in old Black Town had +already been demolished by the French when they destroyed the greater +part of old Black Town itself; and, in accordance with another edict +of the Directors in England, by which the Company's representatives in +Madras were "absolutely forbid suffering any Romish Church within the +bounds, or even to suffer the public profession of the Romish +religion," Roman Catholicism was altogether scouted in Madras. + +Twenty-five years later, the English troops, after defeating the +French in various engagements, captured Pondicherry and demolished its +fortifications; and the peace of Paris left the French in India +powerless. With the danger of French aggression removed for good, the +Company were less intolerant of the religion which Frenchmen +professed; and a few years later they paid the Capuchin priests some +Rs. 50,000 as compensation for the destruction of the church in White +Town and of the chapel in Vepery. + +With funds thus in their hands, the Capuchin fathers set about +building a new church in the 'Burying Place.' This new church, which +they built in 1775, was the edifice which is now the Roman Catholic +Cathedral in Armenian Street. On the gate-posts appears the date 1642, +but this was the year in which the Company made a grant of the land +for a Roman Catholic Cemetery and in which Father Ephraim arrived and +the Madras Mission began, and is not the date of the building of the +present church or of its predecessor. The Capuchin missionaries +continued in charge of Roman Catholic affairs in Madras until 1832, in +which year they were put under episcopal jurisdiction. + +Reference has been made in this chapter and elsewhere to the churches +that were already in existence in Mylapore when the English first +settled in Madras. According to local tradition, the Apostle St. +Thomas made his way to the East, and, after preaching in various parts +of India, settled down in the ancient Hindu town of Mylapore, where he +made numerous converts. The Hindu priests, indignant at the loss of so +many of their clients, sought the missionary's life. The Apostle, +according to the tradition, lived in a small cave on a small hill--the +'Little Mount'--fed by birds and drinking the water of a spring that +bubbled up miraculously within the cave. Driven from the cave, he +fled to another hill, a mile or so away--'St. Thomas's Mount'--where +he was killed with a lance. The dead body was buried at Mylapore. Such +is the story; and in the present-day church on the Little Mount the +visitor is shown a cave which is said to have been the Apostle's +hiding-place; and within the nave of the cathedral at Mylapore he is +shown a hole in the ground--now lined with marble--in which the +Martyr's remains are said to have been buried. + +When the Portuguese came to Mylapore in the early part of the +sixteenth century, they built a church upon the ruins of an ancient +church that had enclosed the tomb; and the new church became +eventually the Cathedral of San Thome. The sixteenth century building +was pulled down in 1893, and the present Cathedral--a handsome Gothic +structure--was built. Mylapore is now a suburb of Madras, and is +within British dominion; but the bishopric, which was originally +supported by the King of Portugal, who had the right of nominating the +bishop, is still supported by the Portuguese Government. + +Mylapore has a history of its own that is outside the scope of the +'Story of Madras;' but a few words about the glories of a city that is +now a suburb of Madras will not be out of place. + +Mylapore and Madras, standing side by side, are a conjunction of the +old and the young. Mylapore, or Meliapore, the 'Peacock City' of the +ancient Hindu world, has existed for twenty centuries, and perhaps a +great many more; Madras has existed less than three. It was at +Mylapore that, according to tradition, the body of the martyred +Apostle St. Thomas was buried; Mylapore was the birth-place of +Tiruvalluvar, an old and illustrious Tamil author who belonged to the +down-trodden class, and of Peyalvar, an eminent Vaishnavite saint and +writer; it was here that a company of Saivaite saints, Appar and his +fellows, assembled together and wrote their well-known hymns; and it +was here also that Mastan, a renowned Mohammedan scholar, lived and +wrote and died. + +Of the ancient glories of Mylapore no vestige remains; but several of +the churches of the Mylapore diocese belong to the sixteenth century, +including the celebrated 'Luz' Church, the Church of the Madre-de-Deus +at San Thome and the little Church of Our Lady of Refuge between +Mylapore and Saidapet, besides the churches at the Little Mount and +St. Thomas's Mount, of which the latter is a sixteenth-century +development of an old chapel that existed there before the coming of +the Portuguese. + +It is of interest to note that there are those who say that a Mylapore +church gave its name to the city of Madras. They say--not, I believe, +without evidence--that the rural village of Madraspatam, where Mr. +Francis Day selected a site for the Company's settlement, had been +colonized by fisherfolk from the parish of the Madre-de-Deus +Church--the Church of the Mother of God--and that the emigrant +fisherfolk called their village by the name of their parish, and that +the name was eventually corrupted into 'Madras.' The origin of the +name 'Madras' is uncertain; and the explanation is at any rate +interesting and not unlikely to be true. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +CHEPAUK PALACE + + +Among the interesting buildings in Madras must be included Chepauk +Palace, which was built about a century and a half ago as a residence +for the Nawab of the Carnatic, and which is now the office of the +Board of Revenue. The high wall that enclosed the spacious Saracenic +structure in its palace days has been pulled down, and the public can +now gaze at a building that was once carefully screened from the +public eye, and can enter at will without having to satisfy the +scrutiny of armed men at the gate. A change indeed--from the sleepy +residence of a Muhammadan ruler, with his harem and his idle crowd of +retainers, to bustling offices where a multitude of officials and +clerks are working out the cash accounts of the Government of Madras! + +The 'Carnatic' was a dominion that extended over the territory that is +now included in the Collectorates of Nellore, North Arcot, South +Arcot, Trichinopoly, and Tinnevelly. The town of Arcot was the capital +of the dominion, and the Nawab of the Carnatic was sometimes spoken of +as the Nawab of Arcot. Chepauk Palace belongs to the history of the +Carnatic, and a few historical notes will make things clear. + +In our first chapter we intimated that Madras, when Mr. Francis Day +acquired it, was within the domain of the disappearing Hindu Empire of +Vijianagar, of which the living representative at the time was the +Raja of Chandragiri, from whom Mr. Francis Day accordingly obtained a +deed of possession. Seven years afterwards, the Raja of Chandragiri +was a refugee in Mysore, driven from his throne by the Muhammadan +Sultan of Golconda, who assumed the sovereignty of Hyderabad and the +Carnatic. The Sultan of Golconda thus became the recognized overlord +of Madras; and the Company were careful to secure from their new +sovereign a confirmation of their possession. But the power of the +Sultan was destined to fall in its turn; for Aurangzeb, the Moghul +Emperor at Delhi, being desirous of uniting all India under Moghul +rule, waged war against the Sultan of Golconda--who, as a Shiah +Mohammedan, was a heretic in Aurangzeb's eyes--and defeated him. +Aurangzeb put Hyderabad under a Nizam whom he named 'Viceroy of the +Deccan' and the Carnatic under a Nawab who was to be subordinate to +the Viceroy. But the Emperor who succeeded Aurangzeb had none of their +predecessors' greatness; and soon after Aurangzeb's death the Nizam of +Hyderabad assumed independence, with the Nawab of the Carnatic as his +vassal. + +In 1749 there was a quarrel for the Nawabship. The French at +Pondicherry supported one claimant, and the English at Madras +supported the other. This was the gallant Clive's opportunity. +Exchanging the clerk's pen for the officer's sword, the youthful +'writer' marched with a small force to Arcot and captured it on behalf +of the Company's nominee, and then sustained most heroically a lengthy +siege. Clive triumphed; and Mohammed Ali, otherwise known as Nawab +Walajah, became undisputed Nawab of the Carnatic. Later, with British +support, the Nawab renounced his allegiance to Hyderabad, and reigned +as an independent prince. + +In his capital at Arcot, Nawab Walajah, who had many factionary +enemies, would assuredly have found himself in a dangerous centre of +intrigue; but he was wise in his generation; for as soon as he had +gained his independence he sought and obtained from the Governor of +Madras permission to build a palace for himself within the protective +walls of Fort St. George. Arrangements for the work were made; and one +of the streets of the Fort--the street which still bears the name of +'Palace Street'--received its name because it was the street in which +the Nawab's residence was to be built. Eventually, however, the scheme +was set aside; and in the following year the Nawab acquired private +property in Chepauk, and engaged an English architect to build him a +house. Chepauk Palace thus came into existence. The grounds of the +Palace, which the Nawab surrounded with a wall, formed an immense +enclosure, which included a large part of the grounds of Government +House of to-day and a great deal of adjoining land. + +Chepauk Palace was the scene of some grand doings in its time; and +soon after it was built the Nawab entertained the Governor of Madras +and his Councillors, one of whom was Mr. Warren Hastings, at 'an +elegant breakfast;' and, when the feast was over, he divided some Rs. +30,000 among his guests. The Governor got Rs. 7,000, and, on a sliding +scale, the Secretaries, who were last on the list, got Rs. 1,000 each. + +The relations, however, between Nawab Walajah and a later Governor of +Madras were not so cordial. In 1780 Haidar Ali with an immense army +suddenly invaded the Carnatic, and annihilated a British force that +was sent to oppose him; and Tipu, his son and successor, continued the +campaign. The Company's treasury at Madras was straitened with the +expenses of the war, and the Nawab, whose capital was in the hands of +the enemy, was unable to contribute thereto; but when Tipu was +eventually defeated, the Nawab was induced to assign the control of +the revenues of the Carnatic to the Company. A few months later the +Nawab felt that he had made an unwise bargain, and he declared his +renunciation of the agreement; but Baron Macartney, the newly +appointed Governor of Madras, kept him strictly to his word. The Nawab +wrote various official letters, complaining in one that Lord Macartney +had 'premeditatedly' offered him 'Insults and Indignity,' and in +another that he had shown him 'every mark of Insult and Contempt.' The +Directors in London, expressly declaring their desire to content the +influential Nawab, decided in his favour; whereupon Lord Macartney, +who in the opinion of his friends had been set at naught for the sake +of the wealthy potentate, indignantly resigned the Governorship of +Madras, and went home. Friendly relations between the Nawab and the +Madras Government were thereupon resumed, and when Nawab Walajah died, +at the age of seventy-eight, he was eulogised in an official note in +the _Fort St. George Gazette_. + +The career of his son and successor, Umdat-ul-Umara, was less +auspicious. Although his accession was the occasion of friendly +letters between himself and the Government of Madras, the Nawab's +rejection of the Governor's suggestion that the financial arrangements +between himself and the Company should be made more favourable to the +Company irritated the Governor, and the Governor's efforts to induce +the Nawab to change his mind irritated the Nawab. Meanwhile Tipu +Sultan was preparing for another war with the Company, and when, after +a brief campaign, Tipu was killed while fighting bravely in defence of +his capital, it was declared that an examination of Tipu's +correspondence showed that the Nawab of Arcot had been guilty of +treasonable communications with Mysore. It was accordingly resolved +that the Company should assume control of the Carnatic; but, as the +Nawab was seriously ill, nothing was done until his death, when +British troops were sent to occupy Chepauk Palace. + +The Nawab's son refused to recognize the Company's right to control +his father's dominions, whereupon the Company set him aside, and put +his cousin on the throne in his stead. The Company were now the actual +rulers of the Carnatic, and the future Nawabs were styled 'Titular +Nawabs.' In 1855 the third of the Titular Nawabs died without any son +to succeed him. Lord Dalhousie was Governor-General of India at the +time, and it was Lord Dalhousie's declared policy that if the ruler of +any native state died without issue, his dominions should formally +lapse to the Company. On this principle the Carnatic now became a +formal part of the British dominions, and the dynasty of the Nawabs +came to an end; Chepauk Palace, which was the personal property of the +Nawabs, was acquired by the Company's Government for a price, and was +eventually turned into Government offices. + +The many thousands of Mohammedans, however, who dwelt in the crowded +streets and lanes of Chepauk, and who had looked upon the Nawab as +their religious chief, would have been afflicted at the cessation of +the Carnatic line; and after the Indian Mutiny the Government of +India, respecting Mohammedan sentiment, recognized the succession of +the nearest relative of the late Nawab and obtained for him from the +King of England the hereditary title of Amir-i-Arcot, or 'Prince of +Arcot'--an honorary title but higher than that of Nawab. A sum of Rs. +1,50,000 per annum--(not an excessive sum in relation to the revenues +of the Carnatic, which are now collected by the Madras Government)--is +expended annually in pensions to the Prince and to certain of his +relatives; and he lives in a house called the 'Amir Mahal' (the Amir's +Palace), which was given to him by the Government. The Amir Mahal +stands in spacious grounds in Royapettah. At the principal entrance, +the gate-house is a tall and imposing edifice in red brick. At the +gateway, sentries, armed with old-fashioned rifles, stand--or +sometimes sit--on guard; and the Prince's Band is often to be heard +practising oriental music in the room up above. + +Regarded in relation to its history, Chepauk is something more than +'one of the Government buildings on the Marina.' Let us remember that, +when it was enclosed within the walls that are now no more, it was the +home of Mohammedan potentates--sometimes a scene of gorgeous +festivity--sometimes a scene of desperate intrigue. In imagination we +may people the front garden with the gaily-uniformed Body-Guard of the +Carnatic sovereign, mounted on gaily-bridled steeds; and we may see +the Nawab himself coming magnificently down the front steps and +climbing into the silver howdah that is strapped on the back of a +kneeling elephant. A blast of oriental music, and the procession goes +on its way; and we may wonder at which of the tiled windows on the +upper floor the bright eyes of the Lalla Rookhs and the Nurmahals of +Chepauk are slily peeping at the spectacle. The vision vanishes. The +procession now is a procession of clerks to their homes when their +day's work is over; and the music is a ragtime selection by the Band +of the Madras Guards on the Marina, close by, with ayahs and children +around. We are in the twentieth century; but for a moment we have +lived in the past. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +GOVERNMENT HOUSE + + +In the early days of Madras all the employees of the Company, from the +Governor down to the most junior apprentice, lived in common. Their +bedrooms were in one and the same house, and they had their meals at +one and the same table. The house stood in the middle of the Fort, and +was the 'Factory'--a word which, as already explained, was used in +former times to mean a mercantile office, or, as Annandale in his +dictionary defines it, 'an establishment where factors in foreign +countries reside to transact business for their employers;' and the +Factory in Fort St. George was both an office and a home. + +The community life, with the common table, was maintained for many +years, but in course of time, when the number of the employees had +greatly increased and some of the senior officials had wives and +children, one man and another were allowed to live in separate +quarters, within the precincts of the Fort; and eventually the common +table, like King Arthur's, was dissolved. Even then, however, and +right on until the beginning of the nineteenth century, the junior +employees had a common mess, and were under something like disciplined +control. + +Like all the other buildings inside the Fort and within the walls of +White Town, the Factory--which was sometimes spoken of as 'The +Governor's House'--was without a garden; and it was only to be +expected that the resident employees, most of whom were young men, +should wish for a recreation ground to which they could resort in +their leisure hours. Some of the wealthy private residents of White +Town had shown what could be done; for they had acquired patches of +land outside the walls, which they had enclosed with hedges and +cultivated as gardens, with a house in the middle of each garden, in +which, as either a permanent or an occasional residence, the owner and +his family might hope to find relief from the stuffiness of the +streets of the rapidly developing city. In the 'Records' any such +villa is spoken of as a 'garden-house' and even now in Madras the term +'garden-house' is occasionally used in Indo-English as signifying a +house that stands within its own 'compound,' as distinct from houses +that open directly into the street. + +The Company's agents in Madras realized the desirability of laying out +a garden for the recreative benefit of the Company's employees. +Outside the walls, therefore, of White Town they hedged off some eight +acres of land in the locality in which the Law College now stands, and +they cultivated it as a 'Company's Garden;' and within it they built a +small pavilion. We may imagine that in the cool of the evening it was +common for a goodly number of the Company's mercantile employees to +leave their apartments in the Fort and stroll beyond the walls the +short distance to the 'Garden,' which in those early days was +refreshingly near the seashore. In our mind's eye we can blot the Law +College out of the landscape and can see a party of youthful merchants +engaged as energetically as was suitable to the heat of Madras in the +then fashionable game of bowls--or, less energetically but much more +excitedly, gathered in a ring round two cocks that are tearing each +other to pieces--a particularly popular form of 'Sport' in old Madras; +and, although the Directors in London appropriately forbade to their +employees the use of cards or the dice-box, we can espy a +tense-visaged quartet within the shadow of the pavilion with a 'pool' +of 'fanams' (coins worth about 2-1/2_d_.) on the table, or possibly, +rupees or pagodas, absorbed in a round of ombre or one of the other +card games that were in fashion. The sun has set, and the shadows are +lengthening. A bugle sounds from the Fort; and the employees stroll +back to supper, which, according to an old account, invariably +consisted of 'milk, salt fish, and rice,' but which will be privately +supplemented afterwards with potations of arrack-punch by those who +can afford nothing better and with draughts of sack or canary by those +who can. + +In the course of a few years the 'Company's Garden' was spoiled. Black +Town had been springing up close by; and, when a wall was built round +old Black Town, the Company's Garden was unpleasantly included +therein, and the Garden was now in the north-west corner of the Indian +city. Moreover, a part of the Garden had begun to be utilized as a +European burial-ground, and huge funeral monstrosities of the bygone +style had begun to dominate the enclosure. + +The Company's agents in Madras felt that a new recreation ground was a +necessity; and they were agreed that there ought to be not merely a +'Company's Garden,' but a 'Company's Garden-House.' They wrote to the +Directors saying that there were occasions on which the Company in +Madras had to entertain 'the King (Golconda) and persons of quality,' +and that they had no building that was suitable for any such +ceremonial proceedings. True there was the Council Chamber in the +Fort, but the Council Chamber was the place where the Company's +mercantile transactions were discussed; and the Chamber, as well as +all the other buildings in the Fort, was closely identified with the +'Factory;' and the Company's chief officials in Madras declared--not, +we may suppose, without regard for their own convenience--that a +stately 'Garden House,' unassociated with ledgers and bills of sale, +ought to be built, in due accord with the stateliness of the Company +itself. Their application for permission to put the work in hand was +met by the Directors in London with the typically frugal reply that +the work might be done but care was to be taken that the Company +should be put to 'no great charge.' Possibly the representatives in +Madras were able to provide additional supplies on the spot, but, +however that may have been, the house was 'handsomely built,' yet +'with little expense to the Company.' The new garden seems to have +comprised the area within which the Medical College and the General +Hospital are now situated. The grounds, which stretched down, even as +now, to the bank of the river, were well laid out, and the Company's +first 'Garden House' was a fine possession. + +In 1686 Master William Gyfford, Governor of Fort St. George, had a +fancy for using the Garden House as a private residence for himself. +It is not to be wondered at that he did so; for Master Gyfford, after +twenty-seven years' residence in Madras and more than twenty-seven +years in the East, was in poor health, and lately he had been taken +ill with a 'a violent fitt of the Stone and Wind Collick.' The +gardenless 'Factory' in the Fort was a gloomy apology for a +'Governor's House,' and the crowd of employees that were accommodated +there must have been a serious infliction upon the invalid Governor; +and he found the Garden House an agreeable retreat. In his new +quarters he got better of his illness; and he dwelt there a +considerable time, till in the following year he left Madras for +England for good. The story is interesting, for it records the first +occasion on which a Governor of Madras lived in a separate house +outside the Fort. + +On various occasions the Company's 'Garden House,' with its extensive +grounds, was used for public purposes, justifying the plea for its +construction. For example, when the Company received the news of the +accession of King James II, the event was celebrated with brilliant +proceedings at the Garden House. Similarly, at the accession of Queen +Anne 'all Europeans of fashion in the City' were invited to the Garden +House, where they 'drank the Queen's Health, and Prosperity to old +England.' In an earlier chapter we have related how a young Nawab of +Arcot who had just succeeded to his murdered father's throne was +entertained at the Garden House with great doings. Governor Pitt made +great developments in the Gardens, and was another Governor who liked +the Garden House as a residence. An Englishman who was living in +Madras in 1704, when Pitt was Governor, has left an interesting +account of the Garden House as he saw it:-- + + 'The Governor, during the hot Winds, retires to the + Company's new Garden for refreshment, which he has made a + very delightful Place of a barren one. Its costly Gates, + lovely Bowling-Green, spacious Walks, Teal-pond, and + Curiosities preserved in several Divisions are worthy to be + Admired. Lemons and Grapes grow there, but five Shillings + worth of Water and attendance will scarcely mature one of + them.' + +Before long it had come to be an unwritten regulation that Governors +at Fort St. George might reside at their choice either in the Fort or +at the Garden House. There came a time, however, when the Governor had +of necessity to betake himself to the Fort; it was the time when the +French were besieging Madras. During the siege the enemy used the +Garden House as a vantage-ground for their big guns; and afterwards, +when they had captured Fort St. George and were in occupation of the +city, they pulled the Garden House down, lest the English, trying +perhaps to recapture the Fort, should be able to use it as a +vantage-ground in their turn. + +Thus, when Madras was restored to the English, the Garden House had +disappeared, and the only house for Governor Saunders was the original +residence in the middle of the Fort. Governor Saunders, however, was +not content with the walled-in accommodation that the Fort provided +and was unwilling to forgo the residential privileges that his +predecessors had enjoyed; so a private 'garden-house' in Chepauk was +rented in his behalf. It belonged to a Mrs. Madeiros, a rich +Portuguese widow, whose husband, lately deceased, had been a leading +merchant in White Town. + +Mrs. Madeiros's house was 'Government House, Madras,' of the present +day. The house, however, has been enlarged and the grounds have been +extended since Governor Saunders lived there as a tenant. + +[Illustration: GOVERNMENT HOUSE, MADRAS] + +Governor Saunders liked his residence, and, before he had been there a +year, the Company acquired it from the widow, who had no use for it +now that her husband was dead; and the Governor was careful to leave +on record the reason of the acquisition:-- + + 'It having been always usual for the Company to allow the + President a house in the Country to retire to, and Mrs. + Medeiros being willing to dispose of her House, situated in + the Road to St. Thome, for three thousand five hundred + pagodas (say Rs 12,250), Agreed That it be purchased + accordingly, The Company's Garden-house having been + demolish'd by the French when they were in Possession of + this Place, and Mrs. Medeiros's being convenient for that + Purpose, and on a Survey esteem'd worth much more than the + Sum 'tis offer'd at.' + +The Company always enjoyed a good bargain, and Governor Saunders was +justified in thinking that he had made a very good one in respect of +the house; for, a few years later, the house, with certain extensions +and improvements, was written down in the Company's books at a +valuation of nearly four times the price that was paid for it. + +We have brought our story down to the acquisition of Government House, +but it remains to relate some of the historic events in which +Government House has figured since it was acquired. + +During the second siege of Madras by the French, under Lally, the +besiegers occupied the Garden House, and during their occupation they +did a great deal of wanton damage before they ceased their vain +endeavours. Two years later, however, the English had the enjoyment of +a delicate revenge. They captured Pondicherry and brought Lally to +Madras, where they imprisoned him in the Garden House till a vessel +was available to take him to England. The damage that he had done had +not yet been repaired; and a contemporary Record says that 'Mr. Lally +was lodged in those apartments of the Garden House which had escaped +his fury at the Siege of Madras,' and that in respect of his table he +was allowed to give his own orders 'without limitation of expence,' +with the result that he 'seemed to have intended Revenge by +Profusion.' + +A few years later Tipu, Sultan of Mysore, at the head of a body of +horsemen, made a sudden raid on Madras; and the troopers scampered +about the well-laid-out grounds of the Garden House, looting the +villages on either side. According to accounts, Governor Bourchier and +his Councillors were there when the raiders came, and they would +assuredly have been caught had they not managed to make their escape +in a boat that was conveniently tied up on the bank of the Cooum +river. + +More than one Governor of Fort St. George has died at Government +House, and it was there that Governor Pigot died in extraordinary +circumstances. The tale has been told in a previous chapter, that Lord +Pigot was arrested by his Councillors, with whom he had quarrelled, +and that he died in confinement in the Garden House. + +The reader has yet to be told how the Garden House was finally +transformed into the Government House that we see to-day. + +In 1798 Lord Clive, son of the great Robert Clive, was sent out to +India as Governor of Madras. Within the first six months of his +arrival there was the excitement of a war with Mysore, in which the +terrible Tipu Sultan was killed during the assault on his capital. +During the tranquil remainder of his five years in India, Lord Clive +turned his attention to domestic reforms, and amongst them he resolved +that the Garden House should be improved. In an official minute he +wrote:-- + + 'The garden house, at present occupied by Myself, is so + insufficient either for the private accommodation of my + family and Staff, or for the convenience of the public + occasions inseparable from my situation, that it is my + intention to make such an addition to it as may be + calculated to answer both purposes.' + +Lord Clive thereupon, in 1801, developed Government House at a cost of +more than Rs. 3 lakhs; and two years later he built the beautiful +Banqueting Hall, at a cost of Rs. 2 1/2 lakhs. The recent fall of +Tipu's capital of Seringapatam was an event that the Banqueting Hall +could appropriately commemorate; and Lord Clive, with pious respect +for his dead father's memory, coupled Plassey with Seringapatam, and +ordered that the fine figure-work on the facade of the hall should be +a commemoration of both victories. In England the Directors of the +Company complained of what they called 'such wasteful extravagance;' +but the developments were a real want, and it is a matter of +present-day satisfaction that the Madras Government have no need to be +acquiring a site now and to be building a new Government House in +these expensive days. Lord Clive was certainly no miser with the +Company's money, for he built also a second Government House--a +'country residence' at Guindy. The 'country residence' was developed +and improved some forty years later by Lord Elphinstone, who was +Governor of Madras in the middle of last century. It is a truly +beautiful house, standing in beautiful grounds; and it has lately been +a proposition that the house at Guindy should be the Governor's only +residence, and that Government House, Madras, should be used for +Government offices. + +'Government House, Madras!' To most people it is suggestive of dinner +parties within and garden parties without; and the Banqueting Hall is +suggestive of dances and levees and meetings for good causes. But to +people who can look at Government House, Madras, with an historic +glance it rouses other memories. Within its original walls more than +two centuries ago a belaced Senhor kept Portuguese state. It was here +that Frenchmen were encamped while their guns were fruitlessly +hammering at the walls of Fort St. George. It was here that Lally +lived sumptuously in prison, till he was sent to Europe--eventually to +be executed in Paris for having failed to capture Madras. It was +within these grounds that Tipu's horsemen were scampering about on a +September morning, looking for houses where money or jewels could be +commandeered. It was here that an ennobled Governor of Madras lived in +gilded captivity till death set him free. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +MADRAS AND THE SEA + + +Madras is now a seaport of considerable repute; but it is interesting +to recall the fact that less than forty years ago the city was without +a harbour, and that ships which came there had to anchor out at sea. +In the days of the Company, passengers and cargo had to be landed on +the beach in boats; and, as the waves that chase one another to the +shores of Madras are nearly always giant billows crested with foaming +surf, the passage between ship and shore was not without its +discomforts and also its risks. + +Warren Hastings, when he was senior member of the Madras Council and +was in charge of Public Works, wrote it down that he thought it +'possible to carry out a causeway or pier into the sea beyond the +Surf, to which boats might come and land their goods or passengers, +without being exposed to the Surf.' At various times different +engineers devised plans for such a pier as Warren Hastings proposed, +but nothing was actually done, and it was not until the sixties of +last century that a pier was actually made. It was not a stone +causeway such as Hastings seems to have had in his mind, but was a +lighter and likelier structure of wood and iron; and it did excellent +work, making it easy for passengers and cargo to be landed in fair +weather. Madras was still, however, without a harbour; but before many +years a harbour was taken in hand, and in the summer of 1881 its two +arms, enclosing the small pier, were practically finished. There was +much rejoicing; but the congratulations were short-lived, for on a +certain night during the winter of the same year there was a cyclone +off Madras, and the next morning the citizens saw that their harbour +had been wrecked by the devastating waves. It was fifteen years before +the harbour had been restored, upon an improved plan; and even then it +was a poor apology for a haven; for when a storm was expected, ships +were warned to put out to sea, as the cyclone had shown that a stormy +sea was less dangerous than the storm-beaten harbour. Within recent +years, however, the harbour has been so much altered and strengthened +and developed that it is regarded as a splendid piece of engineering, +and shipping business in Madras has benefited greatly. Large vessels +can now lie up against wharves, to discharge or to load their cargo, +and passengers can embark and disembark in comfort, and the increase +in trade has been great. Much watchfulness, however, is still very +necessary; for, on an exciting night a few years ago, part of the +extended harbour-wall was washed away by a storm. + +Yes, Madras is an important seaport; yet it is a fact that, except to +men whose business is with the sea, Madras is much less like a seaside +town than it was in its earlier years, and many of the people who live +there seldom see the briny ocean--even though they may sometimes be +reminded of its nearness when in the stillness of the night they hear + + 'The league-long breakers thundering on the shore.' + +For one thing, the greater part of Madras is not so near the sea as it +was in former times; for the southern wall of the harbour has acted as +a breakwater, causing the sea to recede a very long way from the +original shore; and houses in the thoroughfare that is still called +'Beach Road' are now a very long way from the beach, and it is only +from upper stories that the sea in the distance is visible. Southward, +moreover, the magnificent road that is still called the 'Marina' is +fast losing its right to the name; for it is only across a broad +stretch of ever-extending dry sand that the dark blue ribbon of +tropical sea is beheld therefrom. + +In earlier days Madras was verily a city of the sea. Both White Town +and Black Town lay directly along the sea-beach, and the coming and +going of the Company's ships were momentous events. Surf-boats used to +land on the beach outside the 'Sea-Gate' of the wave-splashed Fort, +laden with cargo from the Company's ships lying out in the roads; and +the bales were carried through the gateway into the Company's +warehouses within the Fort-walls. The Sea-Gate is still to be seen, +and it still looks towards the sea; but the sea is far away, and the +Sea-Gate is now one of the least used of the entrances to the Fort. + +[Illustration: THE SEA GATE. + +The sea has now receded afar.] + +In former times the Company had a considerable fleet of first-class +sailing-ships, and, owing to the frequency of wars with either the +French or the Dutch, the Company obtained royal permission to equip +their ships as men-of-war armed with serviceable guns, which could be +turned against an enemy if occasion required. The voyage from England +to India was by way of the Cape of Good Hope, and it lasted at least +three or four months, and often very much more. For example, when +Robert Clive came out to India for the first time, the vessel was so +buffeted by contrary winds that the commander thought it best to run +across the Atlantic and let her lie up so long in a South American +port that Clive learned to speak Spanish with considerable fluency; +and it was not till nearly a year after leaving England that the young +writer arrived at Madras. + +Furthermore, besides the various adventures that were natural to a +sea-voyage, there was the contingency of a sea-fight, and the +possibility of being taken to Pondicherry or Batavia as a prisoner of +war instead of being landed at Madras as a paid employee of the +'Honourable Company.' + +[Illustration: THE COMPANY'S FLAG.] + +It was usual for several ships to sail together, for mutual +protection; and passengers had reason to congratulate themselves when +they were eventually landed safe and sound at Madras. It can be +readily imagined that the sight of a vessel of the Company approaching +in the distance caused a stir of excitement amongst the residents of +Fort St. George. There were no telegraphs from other ports to give +previous notice of a vessel's prospective arrival; and the fact that a +ship was at hand was unknown until her flag[3] or her particular rig +was discerned in the distance, or until one of her guns gave notice of +her approach. The comparative regularity, however, of the winds in +Eastern seas caused 'seasons' in which vessels might be expected; and +when a season arrived, the look-out who happened to be on duty on +the Fort flagstaff must have been particularly alert. Ay, and there +must have been much hurrying to and fro in the streets of White Town +when the signal had been given and the news had spread that the sails +of a Company's ship had been sighted, and while the vessel, perhaps +with several consorts, came nearer and nearer, till at last the +anchors were dropped and salutes were exchanged between ship and +shore. + +[Footnote 3: 'The flag displayed by the Company's ships bore seven +horizontal red stripes on a white ground, with a St. George's Cross in +the inner top corner.'--_Love_.] + +There was good cause for excitement. The ship brought letters from +home--perhaps after several months of no news at all. There were the +private letters that told the news about near ones and dear ones; +there were the official letters that decreed appointments in the +Company's service and promotions and penalties, and dealt with the +Company's business; and there were the 'news-letters'--the +old-fashioned predecessors of the modern newspaper, which were written +by paid correspondents, whose duty it was to give their clients news +of London and of England and of Europe. The news was often astounding, +and was sometimes extraordinarily behind-time. For example, the +Company's employees in India were still professing loyalty to the Most +High and Mighty King James II nearly a twelvemonth after that monarch +had fled to France and had been succeeded by William and Mary; and the +employees at Madras were surprised indeed when a ship arrived one day +from England with the belated news. + +The salutes have been fired, and the vessel has been surrounded by a +flotilla of surf-boats and catamarans. The commander and the +passengers are being rowed ashore, and the Governor with his +Councillors, dressed all of them in their smartest official attire, +are waiting on the beach outside the Sea-Gate of the Fort to bid them +a hearty welcome. Amongst the passengers there are probably some +youths who have been posted to Madras either as apprenticed 'writers' +or as military Cadets; and perhaps there is a senior employee who is +returning to India after the rare event of a holiday in England. +Possibly too there are some ladies, either wives of employees who have +been willing to accompany or to follow their husbands to the +mysterious East--or, as was not infrequently the case, young ladies +who, with the consent of the Directors, have been shipped out to India +by their parents or guardians or on their own account, in the hope +that companionable bachelor employees, pining in their loneliness, +will jump at the chance of matrimony. + +[Illustration: SURF-BOAT] + +The surf-boat comes nearer and nearer; and when it gets among the +breakers there are feminine screams of terror. The alarm is not +without cause; for at one moment the boat is being balanced on the top +of a heaving wave, and the next it is almost lost to sight in a +foaming hollow. The excitement in the tossing boat is tremendous; but +it is brief; for there are only three or four breakers to be +negotiated, and in less than a minute a curling wave has caught the +boat in its clutch and hurls it with a thud into the shallows. Naked +coolies rush forward and lay hold of its sides, lest the backwash +should carry it seaward again; and, with the help of the next wave, +they manage to haul the boat a little further on shore, and the +passengers are able to disembark--splashed, perhaps, but safe and +sound. + +When the greetings are over, the Governor leads the way into the Fort, +where a general meal is served and the news is told and the +exclamations of surprise are many. In the evening there is a banquet, +and after the banquet, 'when the gentlemen have finished their wine,' +and have rejoined the ladies, the stately dances of the period are +'performed;' and it is not unlikely that before the assembly breaks +up, some, if not all, of the newly-arrived young ladies have received +and have accepted offers of matrimony; and it is possible that two or +more gallants have had a serious quarrel about this young lady or +that, and even possible that, out of the Governor's sight, swords have +been drawn in her regard. + +On the morrow the unloading begins; and for many days a fleet of +surf-boats is busily engaged in bringing ashore the broadcloths and +other English wares which the Company will be able to sell at a large +profit--not forgetting the barrels of canary and madeira and other +luxuries that have been imported both for private consumption and also +for the general table in the Fort. And when the unloading is over and +the ship has been overhauled after her long voyage, the surf-boats +will then be engaged in carrying to the ship the calicoes and other +Indian wares that are to be exported to England for the Company's +profit there. + +The sea-trade of Madras is very much greater now than it was in the +days of old. Not a day now passes but at least one steamship glides +into the Madras Harbour, and it is always a much larger vessel than +was the very largest of the sailing-ships that in those bygone times +tacked laboriously to an anchorage in the Madras roads. But the +excitement has disappeared. The steamers come and go with as little +stir--or not so much--as when a tramcar leaves a crowded +street-corner. + +In Madras there are still some reminders of the times when nautical +affairs were in more general evidence in Madras than they are now. For +example, the 'Naval Hospital Road' is still the name of a thoroughfare +which leads from the Poonamallee Road, opposite the School of Arts, to +Vepery, and it is a reminder of the fact that there were once upon a +time sufficient naval men in Madras to make a hospital for sick seamen +a necessity. The buildings of the old Naval Hospital still exist; they +are the buildings in the Poonamallee Road opposite the School of Arts. +In the early part of last century the Naval Hospital itself was +abolished, and the buildings were converted into a 'Gun Carriage +Factory'--and this is now no more. It is a good many years indeed +since the Gun Carriage Factory was closed down; and in Madras at this +particular time, when there is a very pressing demand for house +accommodation, many people wonder that such spacious premises in so +busy a quarter of the city should have been lying idle for so long and +are hoping to see them once more serving some useful purpose. + +Another reminder of the nautical conditions of those days is to be +found in the existence of an 'Admiralty House.' 'Admiralty House' is a +fine residence in San Thome, and is now the property of the Raja of +Vizianagram. It was apparently the San Thome residence of the Admiral +of the East Indian fleet. That official had another residence within +the Fort, which used also to be called 'Admiralty House'--the house +which Robert Clive occupied at the time of his marriage, and which is +now the Accountant-General's office. + +We will glance at one more reminder of the nautical Madras of bygone +times. At Royapuram there is a large house which is now styled 'Biden +House,' and is used as a harbour-masters' residence, but which until a +few years ago was called 'The Biden Home' or 'The Sailors' Home.' It +is not an ancient building, but it was nevertheless built in the days +of the sailing-ship, and is a reminder of the times when sailing-ships +used to lie out in the Madras Roads and the 'Sailors' Home' offered +seamen entertainment more physically and morally wholesome than that +which was provided in the low-class hotels and saloons which laid +themselves out for the spoliation of Jack ashore--and of the time when +the wreck of a sailing-ship on the Coromandel coast was not an +uncommon occurrence and parties of distressed seamen were not +infrequently to be seen in Madras, for whom a temporary 'Home' had to +be provided. The 'Old Salt'--the picturesque sea-dog of sailing-ship +days--has disappeared except from story-books--the old-fashioned +seaman with earrings in his ears and a villainous 'quid' in his mouth, +dressed in a blue jersey and the baggiest of blue trowsers, and +lurching as he walked, always 'full of strange oaths', and larding his +speech with nautical jargon. On shore, after a long sea-voyage, and +with money in his pockets, the 'Old Salt' in an Eastern port was not +always a factor for peace and progress. He was not uncommonly too +frequent a visitor at what the Madras Records call the 'punch houses,' +and the Records show that he often caused a disturbance. But he was a +brave fellow, and at sea he did much for England's trade and for +England's greatness. In an Indian seaport he was a picturesque, if +troublesome, personage, and nautical Madras has changed with the Old +Salt's disappearance. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +THE STORY OF THE SCHOOLS + + +A tourist who goes the round of Madras must surely be impressed with +the numerous signs of its educational activity. Apart from the +multitude of juvenile schools in every part of the crowded city, the +number of academic institutions is large, and educational buildings +are amongst the most prominent of its edifices. Our tourist, putting +himself in charge of a guide at the Central Station for a drive along +the beautiful Marina, sees a number of academic buildings on his way. +The Medical College is just outside the station yard. The classic +facade of Pachaiyappa's College for Hindus peeps at him gracefully +across the Esplanade. The Law College lifts its Saracenic towers above +him as he passes by. Across the road he sees the collection of +miniature domes and spires and towers that surmount the various +buildings that make up the far-famed Christian College. Driving along +the Marina he sees the Senate House of the Madras University +surmounted by its four squat towers; farther on he sees the staid +Engineering College, and the still staider Presidency College, and, +beyond, the whitewashed buildings of Queen Mary's residential College +for Women; and on his way back by the Mount Road he sees the +Muhammedan College, with its little white mosque and its spacious +playing-fields in the heart of the city. There are yet more colleges +in Madras; and there are also numerous large schools, some of which +are attended by more than a thousand pupils. + +Yes, the educational activity in Madras is great; and it is +interesting to reflect that it is a development from very small +educational enterprises in the days when Madras was young. + +The initial enterprise was small indeed. The first school in Madras +was the little "public school for children, several of whom are +English", which the French Capuchin priest, Father Ephraim, opened in +his own house in White Town very soon after Madras came into being. +His pupils were mostly Portuguese or Portuguese Eurasians, the +children of Portuguese subjects who had come from Mylapore and who, +for purposes of trade or commerce, had settled down within the English +Company's domain. His English pupils must have been children of the +very few of the Company's civil or military employees that were +married, or of the still fewer English free settlers. Father Ephraim, +who according to accounts was a really learned man, charged no fees, +yet was deeply interested in the welfare of his scholars; and the +little school must have supplied a great want in those far-off days. +It is interesting indeed to think of that little 'public school;' for +the room in the priest's house was the scene of the very first +beginning of what are now the mighty educational activities of +Madras--an earnest, moreover, of the great things that the Roman +Catholic Church was going to do in the way of education, both for boys +and for girls, in South India. + +Father Ephraim's school continued to prosper under his successors, and +in the seventeenth century it was transferred, as a poor-school, to a +building in the grounds of what is now the Roman Catholic Cathedral in +Armenian Street; and in 1875 it was put under the control of the +brothers of St. Patrick, an Irish order of educational monks, and it +became St. Patrick's orphanage. Later the brothers transferred +themselves and their orphanage to the spacious park--Elphinstone +Park--on the southern bank of the Adyar River, the premises which they +occupy still. + +For some thirty years the Company took no part in educational work, +and the children of Madras were left entirely to Father Ephraim's +care. Then for two years a certain Master Patrick Warner was the +Company's temporary chaplain of Madras--a conscientious and +uncompromising Protestant minister who wrote some long letters to the +Directors in England denouncing the laxity of the conduct of the +Company's employees and deploring the influence that Roman Catholic +priests had been allowed to obtain in Fort St. George. Finally, he +went back to England, with the threat that he was going to interview +the Directors on various matters pertaining to Madras; and that he +succeeded in making himself heard is to be seen in the fact that in +the following year the Directors sent a Protestant schoolmaster out to +Madras. The letter in which they notified the appointment to the +Governor in Council at Fort St. George was assuredly inspired by +Master Patrick Warner's undoubtedly high-minded representations. They +wrote that, as there were now in Fort St. George 'so many married +families,' they were sending out 'one Mr. Ralph Orde to be +schoolmaster at the Fort ... who is to teach all the Children to read +English and to write and Cypher gratis, and if any of the other +Natives, as Portuguez, Gentues (Telugus),[4] or others will send their +Children to School, we require they be also taught gratis ... and he +is likewise to instruct them in the Principles of the Protestant +religion.' Mr. Ralph Orde arrived by the same ship which brought the +letter, and his arrival (1677) is another notable event in the history +of education in Madras. It was the first beginning of Government +education--the laying of the first stone in what is now such a vast +edifice. + +[Footnote 4: In modern Madras the great majority of the Hindu +residents are Tamils; but in the beginning there were very few Tamil +immigrants, and the Hindu residents were nearly all of them Telugus +(Gentoos).] + +In appointing a schoolmaster, the Directors meant to do their best for +education in their rising city; for they had [5]engaged no mean +dominie on a menial's pay. In choosing Mr. Ralph Orde they chose a +good man, and they paid him accordingly. He was to dine at the General +Table, and his salary was to be L50 a year, which in those days was no +small sum--more than the salary of some of the Members of Council. +Perhaps, indeed, they got too good a man for the post; for after five +years of educational work in Madras, Mr. Orde complained that his +schoolmastering had been 'much prejudicial to my health,' and he asked +to be relieved of his duties and to be appointed to a post in the +Company's civil service instead. His request was granted. A new +schoolmaster was appointed; and as a 'Civilian' Mr. Orde worked with +such success that in two or three years he was sent to Sumatra to be +the Chief of a factory that he was to found on the west coast of the +island. The ex-schoolmaster would, perhaps, have risen to be Governor +of Madras, but it would seem that life in the East had really been +'much prejudicial to his health,' for he died in Sumatra ten years +after his first arrival in Madras. + +In 1688, by virtue of the Company's Royal Charter, a Corporation of +the City of Madras came into being, and it was among their delegated +duties that they should build a school in Black Town for the purpose +of teaching 'Native children to speak, read, and write the English +Tongue, and to understand Arithmetic and Merchants' Accompts.' Three +years later, however, Elihu Yale, Governor of Madras, complained to +the Corporation that, although they had been empowered to levy taxes +on the citizens, they had not so much as thought about building a +school, and had neglected various other civic responsibilities. The +Company--rightly or wrongly--sought to justify their inaction with the +excuse which the Corporation of Madras has--rightly or wrongly--made +for civic inaction so many times since, namely that 'no funds' had +been assigned to them by Government for the works that they were +called upon to undertake. As for taxation, they remarked that the +people in Black Town had not been schooled to civic taxation; and it +is true that any ruthless collection of taxes might have meant +wholesale departures from the city, or at any rate a serious check to +further immigration. So the municipal school for Native children never +came into being. + +Meanwhile the Company's free school in White Town, started by Mr. +Orde, continued its work under Mr. Orde's successors; and elementary +instruction was imparted therein to a heterogeneous crowd of +children--English, Eurasians, and Indians--Christians and Hindus. +Eventually the school was put in charge of the chaplain of St. Mary's +Church in the Fort, and the chaplain and his churchwardens agreed in +thinking that such education was not of the kind that a Church should +control, and that it was rather their duty to institute in Madras a +residential free-school for poor Protestant children of British +descent, which should be conducted on the lines of the many 'charity +schools' in England; and in 1715, with the approval of the Directors, +'St. Mary's Church Charity School' was founded. The event is of +particular interest; for St. Mary's Church Charity School developed +later into the 'Male Asylum'--the institution which has done so much +for boys and girls for so many years, and which, after changing its +habitation on various occasions, is now comfortably housed in spacious +premises in the Poonamallee road. + +The year 1715 is noteworthy on another account. St. Mary's School +having been founded solely for the benefit of children of European +descent, the native children who had attended the Company's day-school +were deprived of education. The Society for the Promotion of Christian +Knowledge undertook to supply the want, by establishing schools in +Madras for the special benefit of Indian children; and the year 1715, +therefore, is the date which marks the first beginning of the +educational work that English Protestant missionary societies have +done in India. The Society found themselves unable to take up the work +immediately themselves; so they applied to the vigorous Danish +Lutheran Mission at Tranquebar, which was then a Danish settlement; +and a Danish minister was sent to Madras to set things going. + +In the course of time Madras had become a much more habitable city +than it had been in its first beginnings, and a much more possible +place of residence for European women. The Company's employees, +therefore, were more and more disposed to matrimony; and, as already +related, the Directors, believing that married men made steadier +employees, had from early times encouraged the nuptial humour by +sending out from England periodical batches of well-connected young +women as prospective brides for employees who lacked either the means +or the inclination to take a trip home to choose partners for +themselves. The number of European fathers and mothers, therefore, in +Madras was continually increasing; and for the education of their +children, as also for that of children of well-to-do Eurasians, there +was need of a different kind of education than the various +free-schools supplied. Home education, with or without paid tutors and +governesses, probably served its turn with some, but it was certain +that sooner or later the private school would come into being. + +We are unable to say when the first private school in Madras was +started; but an advertisement in one of the issues of the _Madras +Courier_, in 1790, shows that a private school for boys was started in +that year; and it was probably the first. The enterprising +educationist was Mr. John Holmes, M.A., who opened the 'Madras +Academy' in Black Town for the instruction of boys in 'Reading, +Writing, Arithmetic, History, the use of the Globes, French, Greek, +and Latin.' Other towns in the Madras Presidency had their English +residents, so Mr. Holmes offered to accommodate 'a few Boarders;' and +the offer was found so convenient that certain parents wanted +accommodation for their girls as well as for their boys. Mr. Holmes +was willing to receive all the pupils that he could get; for in an +advertisement two months later he announced that he was going to move +to a larger house in which 'apartments will be allotted for the Young +Ladies entirely removed and separate from the Young Gentlemen.' + +The Madras Academy was eminently successful; but the mixed boarding +school was not its most commendable side; and in the following year an +enterprising lady-educationist announced that she was opening in Black +Town a 'Female Boarding School,' in which her young ladies would be +'genteelly boarded, tenderly treated, carefully Educated, and the most +strict attention paid to their Morals,' and the school was to be +conducted as far as possible 'in the manner most approv'd of in +England.' The enterprising lady-educationist was a Mrs. Murray, who +had been a mistress in the Female Asylum. Her syllabus of education +was of a more feminine sort than that which was followed at the Madras +Academy; for, as announced in the prospectus, it included 'Reading and +Writing, the English language and Arithmetic; Music, French, Drawing +and Dancing; with Lace, Tambour, and Embroidery, all sorts of Plain +and Flowered needle-work.' The two syllabuses are interesting +reminders as to what were the usual subjects of education for European +boys and girls a century and a half ago. + +Schools, therefore, were available for children of every +class--European and Indian, rich and poor; but the schools for +Indians, conducted either by missionaries or by indigenous teachers, +were of an elementary kind; and, apart from Oriental studies in +indigenous institutions, there was little or nothing in the way of +higher education for Indians either in Madras or anywhere else in +India. This condition was altered, however, during the governorship of +Lord William Bentinck, the magnanimous if not brilliant +governor-general whose term of office lasted for seven years, from +1828 to 1835. + +During this period everything favoured educational progress in India. +There was peace in England and there was peace in India. It was a time +of great educational developments in England, as is manifested by the +fact that within this period the London University and Durham +University were opened, and the great British Association for the +Advancement of Science was established. Such conditions in England had +their influence in India, and the more so because Lord William +Bentinck was ardent for progress. The opening of the Madras Medical +College in 1835 was one of the signs of the times. During Lord William +Bentinck's term of office education in India was reformed. Macaulay, +afterwards Lord Macaulay, was an Indian official at the time, and he +penned a notable report on education in India, in which he belittled +vernacular learning and asserted that the Government of India would do +well to discountenance it altogether, and to introduce western +learning and the study of English literature into all schools under +Government control, and to make it a rule that the English language +was to be the only medium of instruction. Whether or not Macaulay's +views were correct, they were adopted by the Government of India, and +Lord William Bentinck issued in 1835 a resolution in accordance +therewith, in which he sought to secure the people's acceptance of +English education for their children by notifying that a knowledge of +English would in future be necessary for admission into Government +service. Government service is particularly coveted in India, and the +resolution encouraged the foundation of schools of a good class in +which special attention would be given to the study of the English +language; and within a few years a number of important educational +institutions had been founded in different parts of India. + +In South India the Madras Christian College, called originally 'The +General Assembly's Institution,' was first in the field. It was +founded in 1837, by the Rev. John Anderson, the first missionary that +the Church of Scotland sent out to Madras. The name of the founder is +preserved in the 'Anderson Hall' in one of the college buildings; but +the remarkable progress of the institution has been very specially due +to the untiring energy of the Rev. Dr. Miller, whose statue stands on +the opposite side of the public road. Dr. Miller was Principal for a +number of years, and now (1921) at a great age the venerable +educationist is living in retirement in Scotland. + +In 1839, two years after the foundation of the Christian College, the +Roman Catholic Bishop in Madras, Dr. Carew, founded St. Mary's +Seminary, which after forty-five years became St. Mary's College, and +which is now represented by St. Mary's High School for Europeans and +St. Gabriel's High School for Indians. + +Two years later, in 1841, the Presidency College had its beginning, in +a rented room in Egmore. At its foundation it was not a Government +institution, but was a public school under the control of governors, +who were chosen from among the leading Europeans and Indians in +Madras, with the Advocate-General as their first president. It was +styled 'The High School of the Madras University,' and it was the +founders' intention that when a college department had been added, the +institution should be called the 'Madras University,' and should apply +for a charter. In the sixties, however, the Madras Government was +considering a scheme of its own for a University of Madras, whereupon +the governors of the 'University High School' transferred their school +to the Government, who called it the 'Presidency College.' The +Presidency College continued to work in the rented building until +1870, when the building that it now occupies was publicly opened by +the Duke of Edinburgh. + +[Illustration: UNIVERSITY SENATE HOUSE] + +Pachaiyappa's College, a well-known Hindu institution, had its first +beginning in 1842. Like the other colleges in Madras, it began as a +school; the school was called 'Pachaiyappa's Central Institution,' and +was located in Black Town. The present buildings were opened in 1850 +by Sir Henry Pottinger, an ex-governor of Madras, amid a large +gathering of leading European and Indian residents; and for a number +of years the annual 'Day' at Pachaiyappa's College was an important +social event. Pachaiyappa was a rich and religious Hindu, who made his +money as a broker in the Company's service, and who died more than a +hundred years ago leaving a lakh of pagodas--some 3 1/2 lakhs of +rupees--for temple purposes. The trustees neglected the provisions of +the will, whereupon the High Court assumed control of the funds, +which under the Court's control rose to the value of nearly Rs. 7 1/2 +lakhs. The original amount was set apart for the fulfilment of the +terms of the will, and the surplus was assigned to educational +purposes in Pachaiyappa's name. + +[Illustration: PACHAIYAPPA'S COLLEGE.] + +The education of girls shared in the development; for in 1842 the +first party of Nuns of the Presentation Order was brought out from +Ireland, and a convent, with a boarding school and an orphanage,--the +'Georgetown Convent' of to-day--was established in Black Town. The +'Vepery Convent School' and some of the other successful convent +schools in Madras are controlled by nuns of the same Order. + +Education in India was given further impetus in the time of Lord +Dalhousie. During his term of office (1848-1856) the present system of +education, under a Director of Public Instruction, was introduced, and +Government was empowered to make liberal educational grants, and to +establish universities. The despatch in which the educational +developments were announced has been called 'the intellectual charter +of India.' + +[Illustration: DOVETON PROTESTANT COLLEGE] + +Various institutions in Madras are representative of this later +development. A Government 'Normal School'--which has grown into the +'Teachers' College' of to-day--was established in 1856, to increase +the number and the efficiency of indigenous teachers; and the Madras +University was incorporated in 1857, for the control and the +development of higher education. Of large high schools still +existing, the Harris High School in Royapettah was founded by the +Church Missionary Society in 1856, for the education of Mohammedan +boys, and was named after Lord Harris, who was Governor of Madras at +the time; and the Hindu High School, in Triplicane, was founded in +1857. Doveton College, Vepery, for Anglo-Indian boys was opened in +1855. It owes its existence to a wealthy Eurasian, Captain John +Doveton, who obtained his Captaincy in the service of the Nizam of +Hyderabad, and who left a large sum of money to an earlier +institution, the Parental Academy, which was afterwards called Doveton +College in the deceased officer's honour. Within later years +philanthropic and enterprising Indians have done much for education, +and numerous schools both for boys and for girls have been established +by their efforts. + +An educational building of curious interest is the office of the +Director of Public Instruction, in Nungumbaukam. It is commonly known +as the 'Old College'. In the masonry of a large arch at the entrance, +as well as on another arch within, quaint designs have been +introduced--mysterious faces, and flags, and strange geometrical +figures. The house was the property of a wealthy Armenian merchant +named Moorat, who died more than a hundred years ago; and it may be +supposed that the quaint designs were after the nature of family +memorials. In the early part of last century the Armenian merchant's +son sold the building to Government, who used it as a 'College for +Junior Civilians.' Hence the designation 'Old College'; but the name +does not mean that it was a building in which young civilians were +trained, but means that it was a building in which there were +'colleagues' in residence, or, in other words, that, the 'General +Table' having been dissolved, the 'College' was a mess-house for +junior civilians. Later, its large hall was for many years a +recognized assembly-room for amateur concerts, amateur dramatic +entertainments, and other occasions of social reunion. The quaint +devices on the gates are still preserved, and the name of the old +'College' still survives; but the associations have gone. Not even as +a ghost does the long-robed Armenian merchant tread the floors; the +junior civilians, with their ancient pranks and their antiquated +jests, have departed; in the great hall the lilt of the song and the +frenzy of the fiddles for the dance and the amateur mouthings of the +drama are heard no more. A multitude of turbanned clerks are pouring +forth the blue-black ink from their pens; schoolmasters haunt the +portals to press their claims for educational grants for their own +particular schools; and the click of a chorus of typewriters is the +only music that is borne upon the breeze. + +I have told the story of the schools. It is creditable to Madras; for +great things have been done since that first little 'public school' +was opened in the Fort. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +HERE AND THERE + + +Before closing the story of Madras, it will be well to speak, at least +very briefly, of some of the prominent landmarks of the city that we +have not yet described. + +Of churches, we should mention St. George's Cathedral. It was opened +in 1816, not as a cathedral but as an ordinary church; for Madras then +was not a diocese by itself, but was a part of the immense diocese of +Calcutta. The new church was regarded as a necessity; for a great many +'garden houses' had sprung up in and about the Mount Road, in the area +that was called the 'Choultry Plain,' and the Directors of the Company +agreed with representations from Madras that it was undesirable that +English residents within the bounds should be able to stay away from +the Church-services on Sunday with the reasonable excuse that the +nearest Anglican church--St. Mary's in the Fort--was too far away from +their houses for them to be expected to attend. So the new church was +built; and some twenty years later, when Dr. Corrie, Archdeacon of +Calcutta, was consecrated first Bishop of Madras, the church became +'the Cathedral Church of St. George.' St. George's Cathedral is a +stately building, with a spire 139 feet high, and it stands in +spacious grounds. The total cost was more than two lakhs of rupees; +but nobody had to be asked to subscribe, for the money was available +from a peculiar source. It was an age in which State lotteries were in +vogue; Madras had followed the fashion with a series of official +lotteries, and a 'Lottery Fund' had been created from the profits, so +that there was always a good supply of cash available for +extraordinary expenses, such as mending the roads or entertaining +distinguished visitors. It was from the Lottery Fund that the cost of +building St. George's was met. + +[Illustration: ST. GEORGE'S CATHEDRAL.] + +St. Andrew's Church--most commonly known as 'The Kirk'--was planned +while St. George's was being built; and it is remarkable that it was +not projected sooner than it was. Scotchmen in Madras, as in other +parts of India, apart from Scottish soldiers, have been many; and the +names of a number of Madras roads and houses--such as Anderson Road, +Graeme's Road, Davidson Street, Brodie Castle, Leith Castle, Mackay's +Gardens--are reminders of the fact that not a few of the Scots of +Madras have been influential; and at the time when a second Anglican +church was being built in the city it was suggested to the Directors +of the Company in England that the numerous residents who were +members of the Church of Scotland ought to have a church too. The +Directors, who realized no doubt the desirability of being agreeable +to the many Scots in Madras, one of whom at the time was the Governor +himself, Mr. Hugh Elliot, consented to the suggestion, and in 1815 +they sent out a notification that a Presbyterian church was to be +built not only at Madras but also in each of the other Presidency +cities at the Company's expense, and that the Company would maintain a +Presbyterian chaplain at each. The Directors laid down no instructions +as to what was to be the maximum cost of each kirk, but it was +unpretentious buildings that they had in mind. At Bombay a large kirk +was built for less than half a lakh of rupees, but for the kirk at +Madras the Madras Government submitted a bill for nearly Rs. 2 1/4 +lakhs--some Rs. 10,000 more than the total cost of St. George's +Cathedral, and the Directors were indignant. The Kirk, however, had +been built; and it is one of the handsome churches of Madras.[5] It is +a domed building, with a tall steeple over the Grecian facade; and +some of its critics have said that the combination of dome and steeple +gives the edifice a strangely camel-backed appearance; but, however +that may be, the dome adds beauty to the interior. When the Church was +opened, it was found that the dome evoked disturbing echoes, and a +large additional expense had to be incurred to exorcise the wandering +voices. The steeple reaches a height of 166 1/2 feet, which is 27 1/2 +feet higher than that of St. George's. + +[Illustration: ST. ANDREW'S (THE "KIRK").] + +[Footnote 5: Major de Haviland, of the Madras Engineers, built St. +George's on a plan designed by Major Caldwell, his senior in the +service. Major de Haviland both designed the Kirk and built it, and he +devoted himself to his work and was very proud of his creation, which +was nevertheless much criticized by unfriendly critics.] + +The Roman Catholic Cathedral at Mylapore has been described on page +61. A sketch of the handsome building is given on the next page. + +The High Court, a red Saracenic structure that spreads itself out over +a large area between Georgetown and the Fort, is a modern building. It +was opened within the memory of elderly lawyers of Madras, some of +whom used themselves to practise in the big building which is now the +Collector's Office, opposite the gate of the Port Trust premises, and +which was for many years the habitation of the Supreme Court at +Madras. The present High Court is a mighty monument to the development +of 'The Law' in Madras. In the early days of Fort St. George the +Company administered its own justice to its own people, and the court +was held in a building in the Fort. Punishments in those far-off +times, judicial or otherwise, were usually severe; and the Records +show that even a civil servant of junior rank who gave trouble was +liable to be awarded some such penalty as to sit for an hour or more +on a sharp-backed 'wooden horse,' with or without weights attached to +the delinquent's feet. In the town that grew up outside the Fort, +justice as between natives of the soil was administered by an Indian +_adikhari_, who represented the lord of the soil. As the Company's +influence and authority increased, various courts of law were +created--and the Records show that there were certainly crimes enough +to justify their creation. A large number of the criminal trials in +the earlier years of Madras were in respect of thefts of children, to +sell them as slaves, especially to Dutch merchants along the coast, +where the victims were not likely to be traced. Slavery was a +recognized condition of life in old Madras, as indeed it was in the +whole of Europe; and in the Council-book of Fort St. George there is +still to be seen an Order, dated September 29, 1687, "that Mr. Fraser +do buy forty young Sound Slaves for the Rt. Hon'ble Company," who were +to be made to work as boatmen in the Company's fleet of surf-boats. It +was in reference to a slave that the first case of trial by jury was +held in Madras, in 1665, and it was a _cause celebre_. The prisoner +was a Mrs. Dawes, who was accused of having murdered a slave girl in +her service. The Governor himself, who, like a doge of Venice, was +both ruler and judge, was on the bench, and the twelve jurymen gave a +unanimous verdict that Mrs. Dawes was 'guilty of the murther, but not +in mannere and forme,' by which they seem to have meant that the +circumstances of the case exonerated her from the capital charge. +Being pressed to give a verdict 'without exception or limitation,' +they brought in a unanimous verdict of 'not guilty,' whereupon the +Governor felt that, although the woman had been guilty of a crime, he +had no help for it but to set her free. He thereupon wrote to the +Directors in England, expressing his disapproval of 'such an +unexpected verdict,' and notifying that in his ignorance of the law +and its formalities he was by no means confident that he had done the +right thing; and the end of it was that the Governor, presumably with +the Directors' approval, created two justices, on whom was thereafter +to fall the responsibility of hearing all such serious cases. Change +upon change! and to-day the Madras High Court, with the various other +courts in different parts of the city, is a very visible symbol of the +serious reality of the administration of justice. + +[Illustration: ST. THOME CATHEDRAL.] + +The story of the origin of the principal literary and scientific +institutions in Madras is interesting. In the olden times, when there +were no literary or scientific magazines by which an 'exile in the +East' could keep himself in touch with the developments of genius +throughout the world, people in India with literary or scientific +tastes had to be content to gratify their tastes with local +researches, and to depend upon one another for any interchange of +ideas. This meant that old-time literary and scientific societies in +India were naturally more enthusiastic than most such societies in +India are now. Madras indeed has been particularly fortunate in her +time in having had residents who were earnest in cultured pursuits, +and whose work survives, directly or indirectly, at the present day. + +For example, it was an old-time Madras Civilian, with a hobby for +astronomy and with a private observatory of his own, that created a +local interest in the science and is thereby to be regarded as the +originator of the Madras Observatory--the first British Observatory in +the East, a famous institution in olden days, which secured for Madras +the honour--which is still hers--of setting the standard of time +throughout the whole of India. The Madras Civilian was Mr. William +Petrie, an extraordinarily versatile genius, who entered the service +as a young man and rose to be a member of the Government, yet managed +to find time for very serious astronomical pursuits in his house at +Nungambaukam. Going home to England on long furlough, Mr. Petrie +allowed the Madras Government to acquire his instruments; and in 1791, +when he came back to Madras, the Madras Observatory was built, with +Mr. Petrie as adviser. + +Another enthusiastic scientist in Madras in the same period was Dr. +James Anderson, who, after many years of work in the Company's medical +service, settled down at Madras as 'Physician-General,' on a salary of +L2,500 a year, and devoted himself and a large part of his handsome +salary to botanical pursuits. He acquired in Nungambaukam more than a +hundred acres of land, which included what are now the grounds of the +houses that go by the names of Pycroft's Gardens and Tulloch's +Gardens; and for nearly a quarter of a century, until his death, Dr. +Anderson utilized his leisure in the creation and development of a +useful and ornamental botanical garden. He was most enthusiastic over +his hobby, and he was continually carrying out botanical and +agricultural experiments, of medical or commercial or industrial +value. His grounds were open to the public, and 'Dr. Anderson's +Botanical Gardens' became famous, and were a place of popular resort. +Dr. Anderson died at the age of seventy-two; and in St. George's +Cathedral his memory is graced with a fine statue that was carved by +the most eminent sculptor, Sir Francis Chantrey, and for which his +medical brethren in the Madras Service subscribed. How many years +after his death his gardens continued to exist it might be difficult +to say, but they must have suffered badly from the want of the ardent +botanist's enthusiastic care. But the botanic spirit that Dr. Anderson +had started remained alive in Madras; for in 1835, when, to the regret +of many, his gardens had been split up into building-sites for two +private residences, there was still a sufficient number of botanically +inclined people in the city to found the Agri-Horticultural Society of +Madras, a still-energetic body whose beautiful gardens at Teynampet +deserve to be more generally appreciated by the public than they are. + +The Madras Literary Society was founded a good many years ago. Its +work now is that of a circulating library; but in earlier times it was +especially a 'literary society,' and its meetings, at which lectures +were delivered or papers were read and discussed, were crowded +gatherings of the leading Europeans in the city. The original Literary +Society included scientific researches within its scope, and +scientific members used to discourse learnedly on scientific subjects +of topical interest, such as 'The Land-Crabs of Madras,' or +'Prehistoric Tombs in the Salem District,' or 'Gold in the Wynaad of +Malabar.' The name of the Society remains, but the literary and +scientific meetings are no more. The last lecture, if memory fails +not, was delivered in the nineties, and the audience was not large +enough or enthusiastic enough to denote that lectures were any longer +in demand. As a 'Literary Society and Auxiliary of the Royal Asiatic +Society,' the institution has outlived its requirement; but it has a +valuable store of more than 50,000 books, new and old, on all +subjects, and it is continually adding to the number; and, as a +circulating library of a high standard, it fulfils an excellent +literary purpose. + +The Madras Museum is a magnificent institution. It is to the Madras +Literary Society that it owes its being; and the Literary Society did +Madras splendid service in the initiation thereof. This was in 1851, +when the Literary Society presented its fine collection of geological +specimens to the Madras Government as the nucleus of the rich and +varied store of treasures that the Madras Museum now displays. The +Government lodged the geological specimens in the 'Collector's +Cutcherry'--a house which forms a part--the oldest part--of the Museum +buildings of to-day. Before the Government acquired the house in 1830 +for a Cutcherry, the house had been private property, and, under the +name of the 'Pantheon,' it had been for many years the predecessor of +the Old College as the 'Assembly Rooms', wherein Madras Society had +its balls, its plays, and its big dinners. The name of the old +building still survives in the Pantheon Road, in which the Museum is +situated. + +A high circular building on the Marina always attracts a stranger's +attention. It has a curious and interesting history. It is commonly +called 'The Ice-House,' and the name suggests its original purpose. A +number of years ago, when ice-factories had not been started and when +in Madras the luxury of the 'cool drink' was unknown, somebody +conceived the idea of importing ship-loads of blocks of ice from +America. The idea was developed, and about the year 1840 a commercial +scheme took shape. A large circular building was erected close to the +sea-beach as a reservoir for the imported ice, which sailing-ships +brought in huge blocks from the western world; and for a number of +years the scheme was a commercial success. The ice was sold at four +annas a pound, and many people in Madras remember the time when it was +the only ice that was to be had, and large quantities of it were sold. +With the eventual institution of ice-factories, which could supply ice +at a much cheaper rate, the enterprise came to an end, and for a +considerable time the ice-reservoir was out of use. Then somebody +bought it, and put windows into the walls, and turned it into a +residence; and meanwhile, as a result of the construction of the +harbour, the sea receded a long way down the Ice-house shore. As a +residence, however, a house of so strange a shape was not in request; +and eventually some benevolent Hindus turned it into a free hostel for +any preacher or religious teacher of repute, whatever his creed, who +might be temporarily staying in Madras, especially if he felt that he +had a message to deliver to the city. But the reputable prophets who +availed themselves of the proffered hospitality were few; and the +'Ice-house' had a deserted look. A few years ago the Madras Government +acquired it for the excellent purpose of a 'Brahman Widows' Home' for +Brahman girl-widows at school. This is the purpose that it now +fulfils. From Ice-house to child-widows' home! It is a great +transformation--from a house whose chambers were stored with hard +blocks of cold ice to a house whose chambers are aglow with the warmth +of young life! There is room to hope that in course of time the +Child-widows' Home will have outlived its purpose--in the time when +gentler ideals will prevail, and the sorrows of child-widows will have +ceased, and the institution will no longer be a need. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +'NO MEAN CITY' + + +It is less than three hundred years since Mr. Francis Day, seeking a +likely spot for a trading settlement, surveyed the desolate sea-beach +near the mouth of the Cooum, and decided that the settlement should be +there. A few scattered huts on the shore and a few catamarans out at +sea were the only signs of human life, and the breakers that sported +on the beach were the only manifestations of activity. But the years +have gone by--wild times and quiet times, years of war and years of +peaceful progress--and the scene has changed, and great is the +transformation. In place of the scattered huts there are huge +buildings on the beach, and behind them is a great and ever greater +city. The catamarans have not disappeared, but great ships pass to and +fro in the offing or lie within the shelter of the harbour walls. The +little 'Factory' in the Fort, within which the Company transacted its +mercantile business, has gone; but elsewhere in its stead there are +big offices of numerous commercial firms; and, moreover, there are +large 'factories' of the modern kind, such as are denoted by tall +chimneys and the perpetual roar of whirring wheels. + +The growth of Madras is a remarkable testimony to British enterprise, +energy, and perseverance, and also to Indian appreciation of the +new-comers and of their methods; and it is a matter of satisfaction +that many illustrious Indians have played an energetic and conspicuous +part in the development of the city and the promotion of its welfare. +In many respects the conditions were altogether unfavorable for the +foundation of a maritime city. There was no natural harbour, and the +breakers beat continually on the shore; and the so-called river was of +little practical use. The nearest Indian towns were a good many miles +away, and the Portuguese merchants in the neighbouring settlement of +Mylapore were commercial rivals, who might have been supposed to have +absorbed all the trade that was to be had. Yet Madras is now a large +city, with more than half a million inhabitants; and its commerce and +its industries have been so successful that its population is still +increasing rapidly. Houses are being built everywhere, yet the demand +increases. Not only are the suburbs being extended, but moreover the +gardens of existing houses are being everywhere divided, so as to +provide further building-sites; and two houses or more now stand +within grounds that were formerly occupied by only one. + +But it is well for Madras that, except in respect of some of its +streets and particular localities, it is not a crowded city, and that +there is therefore room for such additions. Madras has been called the +'City of Distances,' and it still deserves the name; for within its +limits there are some magnificent spaces, and in the garden of many a +private house the resident can sit of an evening and imagine himself +in a rural retreat, far from the madding crowd. + +Like all cities, Madras has its drab--very drab!--quarters and its +mean--very mean!--and straggling streets. Madras was not laid out on +any definite plan. Like ancient Rome, it had in the beginning to +attract outsiders to come and live there, and outsiders had to be +given much license to do things their own way, and the city was +allowed to grow just as it would; and in respect of many of its parts +there is much room for criticism. But Madras is a fine city +nevertheless, with a number of stately buildings, both public and +private, and with great possibilities; and its 'Marina' can truly be +called magnificent. + +But the greatest charm of Madras lies in its history. It was here that +the foundations of the Indian Empire may be said to have been laid. +The history of Madras is not a story of aggressive warfare. The +settlers were gentle merchants, whose weapon was not the sword but the +pen, and whose only desire it was to be left alone to carry on their +business in peace. But the rising city was a continual mark for the +hostility of commercial and political rivals, both European and +Indian. It was a storm-centre, and the storms were often fierce; and +the merchants were often compelled to meet force with force. Moreover, +the merchants were men, and their doings therefore were by no means +always without reproach; but, with due allowance for human weakness, +the history of Madras is a history of which Madras may be proud. The +city has grown from strength to strength, and in its story there is +much inspiration. This little book has merely told the story in part; +but it will have served its purpose if it has in any way helped the +reader to realize that the story of Madras is the story of no mean +city. + + + + +INDEX + + +_The figures refer to the pages_ + + +Admiralty House, 85 + +Agri-Horticultural Society, 108 + +Aix-la-Chapelle (Treaty), 28, 39 + +Amir Mahal, 67 + +Anderson, Dr. J., 107 + +Anderson, Rev. J., 95 + +Appar, 61 + +Arcot, Siege of, 64 + +Arcot, Prince of, 67 + +Armagaum, 2, 5, 9 + +Armenians, 19, 20 + +Armenian street, 19, 59 + +Assumption Church, 56 + +Aurangzeb, 39, 64 + + +Bantam, 8 + +Bentinck (Governor-General), 94 + +Biden House, 86 + +Black Town (Old), 19, 22, 25, 26, 29 + +Black Town (New), 29, 31, 32 + +Bound Hedge, The, 41 + +Bourchier (Governor), 76 + +Brahman Widows' Home, 109, 110 + + +Carew (R. C. Bishop), 95 + +Carnatic, The, 63 + +Cassa Verona, 39 + +Chandragiri (Rajah), 6, 7, 63, 64 + +Chepauk, 22 + +Chepauk Palace, 22, 63-68 + +China, 22 + +China Bazaar, 22 + +Chintadripet, 23 + +Christian College, 87, 95 + +Clive (Governor), 76, 77 + +Clive, Robert, 17, 28, 64, 81 + +Cochrane's Canal, 35 + +Cogan, Andrew, 7, 9 + +Convent Schools, 97, 98 + +Cooum River, 6, 9, 12 + +Coral trade, 20 + +Corrie, Bishop, 101 + +Corporation of Madras, 90 + +Cyclone, 78, 79 + + +Dalhousie (Governor-General), 67, 98 + +Danish Lutheran Mission, 92 + +Da-ud Khan, 13, 14, 22 + +Day, Francis, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 111 + +De Haviland, Major, 104 (Note) + +Diamond trade, 20 + +Doveton College, 98, 99 + +Dupleix, 27, 39 + +DuPre, Mr., 31, 32 + +Dutch, The, 2, 5, 13, 39, 56 + + +Egmore, 1, 21, 31, (acquisition), 35, 41, (the Egmore Fort), 43-46 + +Elliot, Hugh (Governor), 103 + +Elphinstone Park, 38 + +Engineering College, 87 + +'English Burying Place', 51, 52 + +Ephraim, Father, 57-59, 88, 89 + + +'Factory,' The, 12, 69, 71 + +'Female Boarding School', 93 + +Flag (E. India Co.), 81 + +Fort St. George, 12-19, 27, 30 + +French, The, 14, 15, 26, 27-31, 50 + + +'Garden-Houses', 70 + +Gentoos (Telugus), 19, 89 + +Georgetown, 29 + +Georgetown Convent, 97 + +Goa, 1, 58 + +Golconda, King of, 13, 22, 35, 39, 64 + +Government House, Madras, 74-77 + +Government House, Guindy, 77 + +Gyfford (Governor), 72 + + +Haidar Ali, 15, 22, 31-33, 40, 65 + +Harbour, The, 79 + +Harris High School, 99 + +Hastings, Warren, 65, 78 + +High Court, 104 + +Hindu High School, 99 + +Holmes, John, 92, 93 + +Hyderabad, Nizam of, 64 + +Hynmers, Joseph, 53 + + +Ice-House, The, 109 + + +Jews in Madras, 20, 21, 25 + + +Kuppam, 1 + + +Labourdonnais, 27 + +Lally, 30, 31, 40, 50, 75 + +Langhorn (Governor), 58 + +Law College, 87 + +Literary Society, 108 + +Little Mount, 60, 61 + +Luz Church, The, 62 + + +Macartney (Governor), 66 + +Macaulay, 94 + +Madras Literary Society, 108 + +Madre-de-Deus Church, 62 + +Male Asylum, 43, 44, 91 + +Manucci, 9 (Note) + +Marina, The, 79, 87 + +Marmalong Bridge, 20 + +Mastan, 62 + +Masulipatam, 2, 7 + +Medical College, 87, 94 + +Miller, Rev. Dr., 95 + +Mohammed Ali (_See_ 'Walajah'), 64 + +Mohammedans, 21, 22 + +Mohammedan College, 87 + +'Moors', 21, 24 + +Murray, Mrs., 93 + +Museum, The, 108, 109 + +Mylapore, 1, 5, 6, 38, 61 (_See_ also San Thome) + + +Nattukottai Chetties, 21 + +Naval Hospital Road, 85 + +Nungumbaukam, 37, 41 + + +Observatory, The, 107 + +'Old College', The, 99, 100 + +Orde, Ralph, 89, 90 + + +Pachaiyappa's College, 87, 96, 97 + +Parthasarathy Temple, 1 + +Petrie, W., 107 + +Peyton, Capt., 27 + +Peyalvar, 61 + +Pitt (Governor), 73 + +Pondicherry, 15, 20, 21, 60 + +Poonamallee (Naik), 6, 7 + +Popham's Broadway, 9 (Note) + +Portuguese, The, 1, 2, 5, 6, 39, 56, 58, 112 + +'Portuguese Burying Place', 59 + +Pottinger, Sir H., 96 + +Powney Family, The, 53 + +Presentation Nuns, 97 + +Presidency College, 87, 95, 96 + +Pulicat, 2 + +Pursewaukam, 35, 41 + + +Queen Mary's College for Women, 87 + + +Rajah Mahal (Chandragiri), 7 + +Royapettah, 22 + + +St. Andrew's (The 'Kirk'), 103, 104 + +St. Andrew's Church (R. C.), 58, 59 + +St. Gabriel's High School, 95 + +St. George's Cathedral, 101 + +St. Mary's Cathedral (R. C.), 59, 60 + +St. Mary's Charity School, 91 + +St. Mary's Church (Fort), 17, 47-55 + +St. Mary's High School, 95 + +St. Matthias's Church, 20 + +St. Patrick's Orphanage, 88 + +St. Thomas's Mount, 61, 62 + +San Thome, 13, 31, 32, + (acquisition), 38-40, + (redoubt), 43, + Cathedral, 61, 104 (_See_ also 'Mylapore') + +Saunders (Governor), 73 + +Sea-Gate, 80 + +Senate House, 87, 96 + +Slavery in Madras, 106 + +S.P.C.K., 91 + + +Teachers' College, 98 + +Thomas, St., 38, 60, 61 + +Tipu Sultan, 31, 43, 65, 66, 75 + +Tiruvalluvar, 61 + +Tondiarpet, 35 + +Trincomalee, 27 + +Triplicane, 1, 21, 22, 32, (acquisition), 35 + +Triplicane River, 6, 8 (_See_ 'Cooum') + +Triplicane Temple, 1 + + +Umdat-ul-Umara, 66 + +University of Madras, 66 + +Uscan, Peter, 19, 20 + + +Vepery, 1, (acquisition), 37-88 + +Vepery Convent School, 98 + + +Walajah (Nawab), 22, 64-66 + +Wall Tax Road, 33 + +Warner, Rev. P., 58, 89 + +Washermanpet, 24 + +Weavers' Street, 23 + +White Town, 19, 25, 27 + +Widows' Home, The, 109 + + +Yale (Governor), 16, 23, 35, 53, 57, 90 + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Story of Madras, by Glyn Barlow + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF MADRAS *** + +***** This file should be named 26621.txt or 26621.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/6/2/26621/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan and The Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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