Bengal was a region long known to the Company. Trade, however, was stifled by the Portuguese and the determination of Mughal authorities to resist English incursions. The Company was able to establish settlements in the weaving centres of Patna, Dacca and Malda, but these were outlying centres of production. Josiah Child’s control of the Company signalled a shift towards a new aggressive phase notable for a resolve to fortify settlements, exploit new sources of land revenue and a willingness to challenge Mughal authority. In the aftermath of the abortive assault on Chittagong, Job Charnock settled on a site on the banks of the Hugli. Pestilential, remote and of little interest to Mughal authorities it may have been, and yet the three small villages which became Calcutta were trading centres, made easily defensible by the encompassing jungle and river. Charnock died before any vision he had for the site could be realized, but his successors acted expeditiously and mostly fraudulently to secure zaminardi rights over the surrounding area, erect adequate fortification and after a period of uncertainty, impose a system of justice based on the mayors’ courts of Bombay and Madras.

The central feature of Bert Bissell’s life was his deep-seated Methodist faith. Bissell went to the hills (always the hills for him) to renew contact with this faith rather than to discover it for the first time. Climbing mountains in search of God has a long history and Bissell’s dedication to it suggests we should not be too quick to construe ruralism or nature worship as a displacement of religion. Nevertheless, even in Bissell’s case, other elements than religion contributed to his ruralism, including strong physical and social impulses. Perhaps most important of all was the need to shore up his own sense of self in the face of a world moving rapidly away from his most cherished beliefs and values.