BEN 



457 



BEN 



' of the 18th century, they obtained from Feroksere, 

 Gripes. g reat g ran d 30n f Aurung-zebe, a firman or grant, 

 exempting their trade from all duties ; and, while the 

 company stoud in need of protection against the native 

 princes, this was regarded as their commercial char- 

 ter in India. From the year 174-2, they had frequent 

 occasion to resist, by force of arms, the attacks of the 

 Mahratta states, and of the nabobs of Bengal, till the 

 famous battle of Plassey, in 1757, laid the founda- 

 tion of their great power in that country. From that 

 period they became the arbiters of the succession to 

 the nabobship of Bengal ; and in 1765 assumed the 

 government of that province, receiving from the no- 

 minal Mogul, Shah Aulem, a grant of the revenues 

 of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, on condition of paying 

 26 lacks of rupees (about je260,000) per annum. 

 From this last date, Bengal, with its dependencies, 

 have continued, without interruption, under the 

 power of Great Britain ; and, whatever diversity of 

 opinion may exist, respecting the means by which 

 that power was established, there can be no question, 

 that it has proved a most beneficial exchange to the 

 natives. In all these provinces, the limits of order 

 have uniformly extended with the progress of Euro- 

 pean dominion ; for the space of half a century, (a 

 circumstance unexampled in their history,) the cala- 

 mities of war and of military depredation have been 

 removed from their habitations; and they have en- 

 joyed a degree of security in their persons and pro- 

 perties, at present unknown in any other part of 

 Asia. 



For other particulars, respecting the civil history 

 of Bengal, its commercial connections with Great 

 Britain, its government and revenues, the religion, 

 language, manners and customs of its inhabitants, we 

 refer our readers to the articles, India, Hixdovi an, 

 East India Company, Calcutta, Dacca, Gan- 

 ges, Gentoos, Hindoos, Seiks, Brahmins, &c. 

 See Modern Univ. Hid. vol. vi. Rennet's Memoir 

 /" a Map of Hindustan. Pinkerton's Geography. 

 "Pennant's Indian Recreations; Thoughts on India; 

 Remarks on the Husbandry, Spc. of Bengal. Valen- 

 cia's Travels, vol. i. Pennant's View of Hindoslan. 

 Asiatic Researches, vol. x. (q) 



BENGAL Stripes, known also by the appella- 

 tion of Ginghams, is one of the numerous varieties of 

 the cotton manufacture which have been derived 

 from Indian sources, and recently cultivated to very 

 great extent in Britain. A very near relative of the 

 writer of this article, was the first person who manu- 

 factured them to any extent, for the purpose of sale 

 in Scotland ; and their introduction in Lancashire, 

 where they have been carried to a prodigious height, 

 is still more recent. The Bengal or gingham, is a 

 stout but generally rather fine fabric, of coloured 

 striped cotton ; and these stripes are sometimes cros- 

 sed, with either similar or dissimilar stripes, by the 

 woof, so as to form a check. The fabric of the Ben- 



fal stripes is generally designed to assimilate it to the 

 eavier kinds of printed cottons used for women's ap- 

 parel. A kind of a much denser fabric, and generally 

 of much larger patterns, is also manufactured for 

 hangings of beds, window curtains, sofa and chair 

 covers, and other kinds of domestic furniture. A 

 great part of their excellence, when well manufactu- 



VOI.. 1U. TART III. 



red, consists in strength of fabric and brilliancy of co- 

 lour. Of the fabric, as it was first practised in Scot- 

 land, a very near idea may be had by taking about 

 No. iJ2 for a 1200 reed, and, in this dense fabric, ta- 

 king the proportion already stated, (as the squares 

 of the reeds, so are the numbers of the warp,) the 

 deviation from actual practice will not be great. The 

 great expense of the Turkey red dye, which is the 

 most prevalent colour, renders this article very ex- 

 pensive when the dyed warp is bold and coarse ; and 

 this circumstance has occasioned a very great falling 

 off in the quality of these stuffs. The first expedient 

 generally practised, is to make the coloured warp 

 very considerably finer than the white ; for, as the 

 price of the dye, which is charged by the weight, 

 greatly exceeds the original cost of the yarn, it be- 

 comes a great object in point of price, to save as much 

 as possible in this respect. But, when the coloured 

 warp is very disproportionally finer than the general 

 body of the texture, besides the deterioration which 

 the general fabric sustains, the brilliancy of the colour 

 is inevitably lost ; for the dyed warp is so sunk and 

 concealed in the density of the general fabric, as only 

 to produce a very faint effect. The whole fabric, par- 

 ticularly in the Lancashire goods, is sometimes also 

 made extremely flimsy, and the defect is concealed 

 from the superficial and ignorant observer, by the 

 mode of dressing and finishing the goods, so as to 

 give them an appearance of at least tolerable density 

 of fabric ; but the illusion is completely dissipated by 

 the first wetting to which they are afterwards expo- 

 sed. This mode of finishing consists merely in 

 starching the cloth when bleached with a very thick 

 mucilage, which completely insinuates itself into every 

 vacancy between the threads ; and then either dres- 

 sing it with the paper or pasteboard cylinders, which 

 will be described in the article Calender, or giving it 

 high glazing with wax and the flint, as also described 

 in the same article. In this state, when stiffened with 

 the mucilage and well smoothed, it has a beautiful and 

 glossy appearance ; and really, in some respect, re- 

 sembles the appearance of a sheet of well made wri- 

 ting paper ; but whenever the starch, with which 

 every part is fully saturated and impregnated, is dis- 

 solved by moisture, the thinness and poverty of the 

 fabric is hilly detected. The stripes which are made 

 for furniture, requiring greater strength than those 

 for garments, are more dense and close in the fa- 

 bric than the others. If No. 24 of cotton yarn 

 be taken for a 1200 reed, and other fabrics cal- 

 culated by the same analogy as the former, something 

 very near what takes place in common practice will 

 be found. In the latter article, the colouring of the 

 stripes, is generally much heightened, by making that 

 part of the texture of twecled, instead of plain cloth. 

 As the fast colours, such as purple, claret, Turkey 

 red, blue, and buff, are generally employed, the fa- 

 bric, if less susceptible of great ornamental variety 

 than printed cloths, is generally very superior in the 

 greater requisites of brilliancy and durability ; and 

 hence it is in higher estimation with those who study 

 economy, and prefer durability to show. In an eco- 

 nomical comparison with prints, among other advan- 

 tages which loom woven stripes possess, is their be- 

 ing totally free from the excise duty of three-pence 

 3 m 



Benga< 

 Stripes. 



