they decided to ask forgiveness from the Emperor and requested to reinstate the previously obtained Firman. Peace treaty was again offered by the governor at the end of December 1686 but it was mainly to buy out time for attack and by February 1687 a large troop of Shaista Khan's army arrived at Hooghly to drive the Company out of Bengal. Charnock decided it was not safe to remain in Sutanuti and moved to the island village at Hijli. There he remained with his soldiers in an utterly inhospitable place full of mosquitoes, snakes and tigers. The Governor's troops did not bother them there since they knew the Company would not be able to survive long there. In fact, within three months about half of Charnock's soldiers died and the remaining half were ready to be hospitalized. With his back to the wall, Charnock was desperately willing to negotiate with Shaista Khan to get out of this mess. Luck favored him because of an unexpected event. At the time when Nicholson was ordered to proceed to Chittagong, Sir John Child was ordered to withdraw the company's establishment from Bombay, commence hostilities on the western coast, blockade Mughal harbors and attack their ships anywhere to be found. Emperor Aurangzeb wanted to reconcile with the Company to ensure uninterrupted voyage of pilgrims to Mecca and asked his governors to make terms with them. As a result, a peace treaty was signed between Shaista Khan and Charnock on 16 August 1687. Shaista Khan allowed them to remain in Bengal, however to be limited only to Uluberia, a small town on the bank of river Hooghly south of Sutanuti, where they were allowed to make a port and do business from there, but their war ships were strictly not allowed to enter Hooghly. Charnock arrived at Uluberia, started making a dock there, however soon started to dislike the place and wanted to return to Sutanuti. At this time the governor asked them to return and settle at Hooghly, ordered them not to build any structure at Sutanuti and asked Charnock to pay a large sum of money for compensation. While not in a position to fight against the Governor's troops, two Company agents were sent to Dhaka to plead to the governor to allow them to return to Sutanuti and build a fort there. At the same time, when the news of failure of