---

Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 11, p. 52.

52 COROMANDEL COAST disuse. The derivation of Coromandel has been the subject of some discussion, but it is now generally held to be a corruption of Chola- mandalam, 'the country of the Cholas.' Cossimbazar (Kdsimbdz,ir).-Decayed town in the head-quarters subdivision of Murshidabad District, Bengal, situated in 24° 8′ N. and 88° 17′ E., on the Bhagirathi, and now included in the Berhampore municipality. Population (i9o1), 1,262. This town, the site of which is now a swamp marked by a. few ruins, may lay claim to an historical interest superior even to that of the city of Murshidabad. Long before the days of Murshid Kul! Khan, who founded and gave his name to the latter city, the trade of Bengal centred at Cossimbazar, and the different European nations who traded to India had factories here from very early times. The common name for the Bhagirathi in English records down to the early ;years of the nineteenth century was the Cossimbazar river; and the triangular tract enclosed by the Bhagi- rathi, Padma, and Jalangi was known in the early days of the Com- pany as the Island of Cossimbazar. The place is said to derive its name from a legendary founder, Kasim Khan. Its history cannot be traced back beyond the seventeenth century ; but even when first mentioned it appears as a place of great consequence. After Satgaon had been ruined by the silting up of the Saraswati mouth, and before Calcutta was founded, Cossimbazar was the great emporium. An English commercial agent was first appointed to Cossimbazar in 1658; and nine years later it was decided that the Chief at this place should be also a member of Council. In 1686 the factory at Cossimbazar, in common with the other English factories in Bengal, was confiscated by order of the Nawab Shaista Khan; but it was restored a year or two later, and at the close of the century had become the leading English. commercial agency in Bengal. In 1681, when job Charnock, the future founder of Calcutta, was Chief at Cossimbazar, of £230,000 sent out by the East India Company as the investment to Bengal, £140,000 was assigned to Cossimbazar: In 1763, out of a total of Jc400,ooo required as advances for invest- ment, Cossimbazar demanded £9o,ooo, or as much as any other two agencies, excepting Calcutta, and the filatures and machinery of the Company were estimated to be worth 2o lakhs. According to native tradition, the town was so studded with lofty buildings that the streets never saw the rays of the sun. The factory of the Company at Cossimbazar owed much of its wealth, and all its political importance, to its close neighbourhood to the Mu- hammadan capital at Murshidabad. But from the same cause it Nvas liable to constant danger. It was a matter of common occurrence for the Nawab to order out his troops to blockade the walled factory, whenever he had any quarrel with the English Council at Calcutta. In