On the next day, 17 June, to British satisfaction, the Bengali attack appeared to falter. Firing was sporadic. In fact the Nawab’s forces were merely regrouping. They set fire to the ‘black town’; as darkness fell and flames raged through the town again, the blackened remains of a large part of Calcutta were ‘too horrible to contemplate’.
The Indian servants and camp followers of the British now deserted in droves. ‘We had not a black fellow to draw or work a gun, not even to carry a cotton bale or sandbag on the ramparts; and what work of that kind had been done was by the military and militia. This want of workmen at last and scarcity at the beginning harassed us prodigiously, and prevented our doing several works that would have been necessary.’
The following day was the nineteenth of Moslem Ramadam. The Nawab’s siege now began in earnest. It then became apparent that, on top of their incompetence and stupidity, the British had also been betrayed. The figure who looms largest in the body of circumstantial evidence on this score was the Bengali merchant Omichand.
Omichand was perhaps the richest Indian trader in Calcutta, a position he had acquired through acting as an agent for the British. However, some years earlier he had lost this superiority to English traders, and certainly bore them a major grudge. Omichand had been in direct contact with Siraj-ud-Daula’s ambassador to Calcutta, introducing him to the British, only to see him snubbed by Drake.
It seems certain that around this time Omichand decided to throw in his lot with Siraj-ud-Daula, while retaining close British links. Whether he did so out of resentment of the British or because he genuinely believed that their absurdly arrogant attitude to the Nawab portended only disaster and the certainty of a Bengali occupation of the city cannot be properly guessed at. It was probably a mixture of both.
When two letters were found in Omichand’s handwriting to the Nawab’s principal spy in Calcutta, Drake not unreasonably ordered his arrest. The merchant surrendered quietly enough, but at his brother-in-law’s house there was a fight, and a loyal servant killed thirteen women in the house, to save them from the dishonour of being exposed to the eyes of strangers, before attempting to kill himself.
On 17 June, during a lull in the fighting, the same servant, together with another bearing a letter from Omichand, went to the Nawab – who almost certainly by prior arrangement now occupied Omichand’s house – and offered to lead the Bengali forces and their guns across the Maratha Ditch. Thousands of men now began to infiltrate Calcutta proper around and behind the two exposed British positions to the east and the south, occupying the few houses still left standing.
* * *
At 8 a.m. the fighting began, as Siraj-ud-Daula’s men, now in control of several of the buildings around the southern British position, opened fire with muskets. The British cannon there fired back but could make little impression on the buildings. An hour later the Nawab’s forces started another attack on Perrin’s Redoubt, and again were driven off by a volley of grapeshot. Two hours later, an attack began on the east battery. Considering that the British positions were indefensible and all but surrounded, the defenders fought bravely and well.
Finally Clayton and Holwell on the eastern flank decided they could no longer hold out, and the latter left to seek authority from the council to evacuate his men to the fort. When he returned he found that most of the guns had been spiked – although ‘with so little art that they were easily drilled and turned against us’ and that the little force was close to panic. They retreated ‘giving the appearance of a confused rout, managing to carry back only one cannon’.
The southern position was evacuated in more orderly fashion under fire from the nearby houses. Ensign Piccard and his valiant men were evacuated from their redoubt that evening by boat. The council now decided to make a further stand along a line consisting of the burnt-out shells of the houses around the fort. The noose was tightening. Siraj-ud-Daula’s offensive had proved successful so far. He had driven the British from the town itself and into their second last bastion.
Drake, astonishingly, remained optimistic. He ‘imagined from the number of men slain that evening, a terror might seize [the enemy] and that they would decamp’. Even he, though, had the common sense to realise that the English women and children should now be evacuated to the ships. ‘Colonel’ Manningham and ‘Lieutenant-Colonel’ Frankland escorted them aboard – where they decided to remain themselves, the first of an appalling string of acts of cowardice by the senior merchants supposedly entrusted with the defence of Calcutta.
Inside the fort some 3,000 people were jammed in chaotic conditions, as an attack was expected at any moment. As Drake later reported, ‘Three different times did ye drums beat to arms, but in vain, not a man could be got to stand to their arms, tho’ we had frequent alarms of ye enemy preparing under our walls to scale them.’
Much of the garrison was drunk; the wounded lay strewn around the fort; the civilians were in panic. Fortunately no attack came. But conditions inside the fort continued to deteriorate, forcing Drake to call a council of war at one o’clock in the morning. The despair of the half-dozen men present could be seen on every face except Drake’s.
The officers reported that the men were virtually out of control. The artillery officers reported that they had ‘not enough powder and shot for three days; our bombs and grenades were of no use, the fuses being spoiled by the dampness of the climate owing to their being filled some years ago and never looked into afterwards.’ Even in this extremity, Drake was playing his own variety of bowls, showing an almost comical refusal to be flustered.
It was agreed that a retreat should take place and the fort be evacuated, although not until the following night. The day should be given over to evacuating the Portuguese women and children and the garrison’s valuables so as to avoid ‘confusion and tumult’ – as if this was not the case already. It was as though the captain of a sinking ship had decided to postpone manning the lifeboats until the following day.
The council was under the illusion that the timing still rested with themselves, not Siraj-ud-Daula; and they had no time left. If the fort had been evacuated that night – admittedly probably under conditions of panic – most of the garrison might have got away. But the Bengali forces, although unwilling to attack by night, were not going to give Drake and his men a day’s respite to prepare their withdrawal. The council resolved that Manningham and Frankland must return to shore – which they refused to do – and the meeting ended when a cannonball crashed into the room.
* * *
The following morning dawned to reveal a dismal spectacle. Siraj-ud-Daula’s army now not only controlled all the houses in the town outside the fort: they were on the river bank, firing upon the small fleet of British vessels and sending burning arrows into the air in an attempt to set fire to them. It seemed only a matter of time before they broke through the thin wall to the north that protected the British guns to seaward and so also cut off the escape route from the fort to the sea.
The ‘orderly’ evacuation of the Portuguese women turned into a pathetic rout as they crowded, screaming, into every available boat, swamping them. Only a handful of boats made it to the British ships offshore. Several sank and the women drowned. Others were carried by the tide to Bengali-held positions, and the women on them were either captured or massacred.
By 10 a.m. Drake was told that the garrison was about to run out of ammunition because the little gunpowder left was damp and unusable. The remaining Portuguese women heard this, stampeded to the remaining boats with their children, swamped them, and some 200 were drowned. The ships, meanwhile, began to pull away out to sea out of range of the fire arrows and Siraj-ud-Daula’s guns.
This increased the state of panic in the garrison. The sole hero remained Ensign Piccard who, with twenty men, occupied Company House, just outside the fort, driving out its nest of snipers. After two hours of intense fire from nearby houses, he was forced to retreat. Drake was still desperately trying to get men and guns to p
rotect the flimsy north wall that commanded the escape route to the river. No one obeyed him.
Captain Minchin and the other senior members of the settlement remaining had commandeered boats. Drake, who had ordered the ships to return, also now embarked, in one of the most shameful actions of a British commander in history.
As soon as these illustrious figures had boarded, the ships moved downriver, leaving the rest of the garrison to its fate. The captains of the ships, which were private merchantmen, felt no obligation to rescue those on shore and had no wish to come under fire again. Only Captain Nicholson of the Hunter attempted to return to evacuate the garrison; but his Indian crew threatened to jump overboard if he did so. The ships slipped anchor, and watched as evening fell and the receding flames of the burning houses and the fort illuminated the night sky.
* * *
There were still around 300 people inside, more than half of them British. The only two senior figures remaining were Holwell, the magistrate, and Richard Pearkes, a junior officer. Holwell appointed himself governor after Drake’s desertion, and Pearkes was ordered to escape from the fort to reach their last remaining hope of rescue – the Prince George, still guarding the northern redoubt.
When Pearkes and his small party reached the shore opposite the ship, however, they found it had been run aground, and fled to the nearby Dutch settlement. The Dutch promptly returned them to the Nawab’s forces – who, however, did not ill-treat them.
Holwell, expecting the ship at any moment to evacuate the remainder of the garrison, tried desperately to rally his exhausted men, promising them treasure in return for continuing to defend the settlement and sending desperate signals to the ships down the river; but ‘there was never a single effort made to send a boat or vessel to bring off the garrison’.
Surprisingly, the fort withstood relentless attacks throughout the day. The defenders proved remarkably resilient. They ‘got up a quantity of broadcloth in bales, with which we made traverses along the curtains and bastions; we fixed up likewise some bales of cotton against the parapets (which were very thin and of brickwork only) to resist the cannonballs, and did everything in our power to baffle their attempts’. At last, as night fell, the attacks ceased.
Much of the garrison now turned to the liquor stores. ‘The Company’s House, Mr Cruttenden’s, Mr Nixon’s, Dr Knox’s and the marine yard were now in flames and exhibited a spectacle of unspeakable horror. We were surrounded on all sides by the Nabob’s forces, which made a retreat by land impracticable.’ Around a third of the garrison now deserted. It had managed to hold out more than 36 hours after the flight of Drake.
On Sunday, 20 June the Bengalis renewed their attack. Again, the garrison resisted bitterly, the sole redeeming act throughout this sorry tale. But by midday 25 soldiers had been killed, and some 70 of the artillerymen wounded, so that only 14 men remained to man the guns, whose ammunition would last no more than two hours. Holwell had no option but to call a truce, asking Omichand, still a prisoner in the fort, to write to Raja Manik Chand, Siraj-ud-Daula’s confidant.
Two hours later an emissary from the Nawab arrived, saying that he was prepared to talk if the British stopped firing. This they did. The scene in the fortress was now one of utter desolation: exhausted, battle-weary men abandoned by their leaders rested after four days of intense siege. The wounded were screaming and groaning, the dead putrefying in the heat.
Shortly afterwards another emissary appeared to tell the British that they would be spared if they surrendered. Holwell sought a personal reassurance that this was the Nawab’s own promise, writing a letter to his commander on the spot, Rai Durlabh, which was thrown over the ramparts.
The letter was taken up by the person who advanced with the flag, who returned with it. Soon after multitudes of the enemy came out of their hiding places round us and flocked under the walls; a short parley ensued. I demanded a truce to hostilities until the Suba’s [Nawab’s] pleasure could be known. To which I was answered by one of his officers from below that the Suba was there, and his pleasure was that we should have quarter. I was going to reply when at that instant Mr William Baillie, standing near me, was slightly wounded by a musket ball from the enemy on the side of the head, and word was brought to me that they were attempting to force the south-west barrier and were cutting at the eastern gate.
The Nawab’s patience had in fact run out. His men had finally climbed the north-west bastion and killed the occupants, while the western gate had been opened by a deserter, and the Bengali army flooded in. Holwell hastily gave his sword up to the nearest officer ‘who had scaled the walls and seemed to act with some authority’. It was perhaps the first ever instance of a European fort being taken by an Indian army.
This humiliation had been brought on by the impetuousness and arrogance of the British settlers themselves: the bulk of the evidence suggests that Siraj-ud-Daula could, at the very least, have been bought off until the British garrison was adequately strengthened. His attack was brought on by needless provocation as well as the wretchedness of the commanders in defending Fort William. The only mitigating factor was that Drake and his council were essentially merchants, absolutely unprepared for war, and that most of the British community were accustomed to lifestyles of considerable comfort. They had been traumatised by the threat of attack.
* * *
Holwell himself was put in irons, and his men rounded up. There now followed the event that has passed into myth, and it is hard to separate fact from polemic. Certainly the myth was to be extraordinarily convenient for the British, both in obscuring indignation about the inadequacy and cowardice of the principal defenders of Calcutta, and in providing the justification for what was later to be the conquest of Bengal.
Holwell was soon released on the Nawab’s orders, and taken to see him three times in his temporary encampment in one of the more luxurious European houses. The portly little magistrate must have been deeply apprehensive as he approached the effete young man with his high-pitched laugh known for his extreme cruelty and hatred of the British.
But Siraj-ud-Daula was in an excellent mood, savouring his great victory, which he was later to claim rivalled the exploits of Tamerlane. Some 7,000 of his men, it was estimated, had been killed. Not the least of his feats had been in spurring his men to fight on in the face of such huge losses. He could not have known the state of unpreparedness of the British in advance; and his gamble in taking on the invincible strength of a European army had paid off.
He had achieved what no Indian prince had before, and he was in a high good humour. He promised Holwell that no harm would befall the prisoners. His army in fact was busy looting the English houses and many of the Armenians and Portuguese managed to escape the fort in the confusion. Holwell himself claimed he could have escaped but decided to stay to share the fate of the garrison. Clive later was to observe caustically that ‘nothing but the want of a boat prevented his escape and flight with the rest’.
As dusk fell, some of the garrison’s soldiers began drunkenly to attack the Bengali soldiers. News of this, and of the escape of the Europeans, was brought to the Nawab with the suggestion that the prisoners should be locked up. Siraj-ud-Daula asked whether there was a suitable prison in the fort, and was told of the Black Hole – the common name of the punishment cell in British garrisons where soldiers who had caused some offence were held. It was decided to put the prisoners there for the night.
Did the Nawab know that the cell was only 18 feet by 14 feet wide, with just two barred windows? It is commonly assumed today that he did not, and that he merely made an error. It is nevertheless strange that he did not enquire whether the cell was large enough to accommodate all the prisoners, or that his aides did not inform him. They at least cannot have been ignorant as to the consequences of forcing so many into this tiny space.
The implications of such an act were bound to be considerable. Taking a British fort was one thing; massacring its inhabitants in so sadistic a way quite another – vi
rtually demanding a massive response from the European power involved. Any subordinate of Siraj-ud-Daula must have known he would be in desperate trouble if he carried out such a massacre against the Nawab’s wishes.
The bulk of probability suggests that the Nawab knew exactly what he was doing when he ordered the prisoners into the lockup – whether to teach them a lesson for insubordination against the occupying power or whether out of some reflex sadism in his character can only be surmised. Macaulay gave the classic account of what then ensued, which at least captures the horror of the event as it seared itself into the minds of eighteenth-century Englishmen.
Macaulay’s account was based on Holwell’s, and the latter, although founded on truth, was almost certainly exaggerated. The magistrate claimed that 146 people were locked up; but his own account suggested that the garrison by that time had been reduced to no more than 70 men (and two heroic women who refused to abandon their husbands). Modern Indian studies suggest that the number of people who could have been in the Black Hole was 69, while others put the figure as low as 39. During that appalling night, the sufferings of the sweating, panicking, fighting, defecating, vomiting, screaming, expiring bodies must have made it seem far more.
Holwell’s figure for the number of survivors – 23 – is much more likely to have been accurate, and even Indian historians have stuck to it. On the highest revised figure, 43 would have been killed; on the lowest, 16. Holwell claims that he pleaded from inside the jail for the Nawab to be informed of their plight, but was told that he could not be awoken. Victorian sources embellished the account with tales that the guards taunted the prisoners by holding water to the windows and urinating on them. Holwell survived by drinking from a handkerchief made sodden by his own sweat.
It is not necessary to believe the exaggerations to see that a major atrocity had occurred. To the jailers and officers involved, the effect of crowding so many Europeans into so small a chamber on a night of high summer in Bengal must have seemed obvious; and the yells and the groans of the dying must have made it more obvious still. To suggest that the Nawab gave the wrong order, that he was not aware of the size of the cell, and that the guards were too fearful to awake him stretches credulity.
Clive Page 18