222 
LIVES OF THE MOGHUL EMPERORS. 
ceeded in securing tranquillity throughout his new 
dominions, and looked with satisfaction upon the 
promising effects of his mild and temperate govern- 
ment, which extended over a vast surface inhabited 
by a numerous and intelligent population. 
The fruitful province of Bengal, at that time a 
principality, and since the locality of the capital of 
the India Company’s possessions in Hindostan, then 
owned the supremacy of that master-mind which had 
established an empire, in the pride of its glory one 
of the greatest in extent of domination and in political 
importance which have existed since the downfall of 
the Roman. At this period Calcutta, the city of pa- 
laces, had neither a local habitation nor a name. 
Scarcely more than a century ago, it was a mere 
dirty village, consisting of clusters of small hovels 
inhabited by the lowest castes, consequently by per- 
sons in the extremest state of destitution and of social 
degradation. Within half a century this wretched 
village had become a mighty capital, containing a po- 
pulation of four hundred thousand inhabitants, and 
a metropolis of great mercantile importance. It is 
now what Delhi and Agra were in the days of their 
ancient renown, — the pride of one of the most pro- 
ductive and interesting countries upon the face of 
the globe. Its splendid palaces, (for many of its 
private houses are palaces,) its magnificent churches, 
its public edifices, its extent and population, together 
with its site upon the sacred river, render it at this 
moment as distinguished a city as any of modern 
times. “ On approaching Calcutta from the sea,” 
says Hamilton, “ a stranger is much struck with its 
