Cite
MLA
“Anglo-Mughal War (Child’s War).” Hindu History, 2026, https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/anglo-mughal-war-1686/. Accessed .
APA
Hindu History. (2026). Anglo-Mughal War (Child’s War). Retrieved , from https://www.hinduhistory.in/battles/anglo-mughal-war-1686/
The Company was beaten, sued for pardon, paid a fine and accepted Aurangzeb’s terms in 1690.
01The Company goes to war
In London, the Company’s governor Sir Josiah Child decided that the Mughal officials’ duties and exactions in Bengal could only be ended by force. In 1686 ships and soldiers were sent to seize Chittagong and fortify a base. Fighting broke out at Hooghly in October 1686, and Job Charnock withdrew the English down the river to Sutanuti and then to Hijli, where they suffered from fever. Shaista Khan, the Mughal governor, seized English goods across Bengal.
02Humbled at Bombay
On the west coast Sir John Child attacked Mughal shipping. Aurangzeb answered by arresting the English at Surat and sending Siddi Yaqut, the Mughal admiral of Janjira, against Bombay in 1689. The Siddi occupied most of the island and shut the English into their fort. The Company sent envoys to beg forgiveness. In 1690 Aurangzeb pardoned them on payment of a fine and the restoration of captured goods. That August Charnock returned to Sutanuti, the beginning of Calcutta.
Child’s War showed that in the 1680s the Company could not fight the Mughal empire; seventy years later, at Plassey, the balance had changed.
