'80 The Revd. H. B. Ejdo — First marriage of Warren Hastings. [Jdly, 



earlier of wliich is an inventory with an account of the proceeds of the 

 property down to 30th March, 1759. This is signed by Mr. J. Z. 

 Holwell, as attorney of Mr. Hastings ; the latter is a similar and final 

 account, brought down to January 31st, 1763, and is signed by Mr. 

 Hastings himself. 



From these papers, as illustrated by the few volumes of the 

 Calcutta Consultations which survived the siege, the parish Registers 

 and Holwell's tracts, the following notes have been compiled. 



In 1754, on the 12th of May, Colonel Caroline Frederick Scott, 

 Engineer- General of the Company's Indian Establishments and Com- 

 mandant of Fort William died and on the 3rd of June, Captain JMinchin 

 was appointed to succeed him. The Company the latter had com- 

 manded was given to Lieutenant John Buchanan, to whom the Court had 

 promised a Captain's commission on the next vacancy. At the time of 

 the siege Buchanan is spoken of as being the only senior ofiScer at 

 Calcutta who had seen active service, and we may therefore presume 

 that this commission was the reward of valour in some recent Indian 

 campaign. He was then a married man and the previous month his 

 daughter, Catherine Caroline, by his wife Mary, had been baptized in 

 Calcutta. It is not unlikely that Mary Buchanan was a daughter of 

 Colonel Scott. 



At the northernmost point of Calcutta was Perrin's Garden, 

 reserved of old as a promenade for the Company's covenanted servants. 

 By 1752 it had fallen wholly out of fashion, and the buildings about it 

 were becoming ruinous, and it was therefore sold by out-cry. Mr. J. Z. 

 Holwell bought it for 2,500 rupees. From Holwell it passed to Colonel 

 Scott, the Commandant, who had secured the contract for supplying the 

 Garrison and Train with gunpowder. On Perrin's the Colonel erected 

 a Powder Mill. At his decease the premises were purchased by his 

 Administrator, Captain Buchanan, who hoped the Council would transfer 

 to him the gunpowder contract. However there were other tenderers, 

 principally Minchin, Scott's successor, and a Captain Jones, and there 

 was much delay in deciding the point ; thus the Perrin's Factory lay 

 idle for many months. Then Buchanan began to experiment in gun- 

 powder-making with the result that ho blew up his mill, killing happily 

 only a bullock. Nothing discouraged by this, he, early in 1756, again 

 uro-ed the Council to bestow upon him the lapsed contract. But whe- 

 ther he obtained it or not, and thus whether the powder burnt in the 

 battery which was set up at Perrin's Point on the approach of the 

 Nawab's army was of his compounding or not, does not appear. 



Holwell's Tracts contain many allusions to Buchanan, whose energy 

 SMd courage during the siege were admirable. He held by the Fort 



