More likely the Nawab had decided to punish the British as a further retaliation to the snubs they had inflicted upon him, and his officers had instructions to do what they did. True, the Indians may have underestimated the effects of holding the Europeans under such conditions.
When morning came and dawn trickled its thin light through the bars on to the grisly scene, the door was opened. Holwell was again shackled and brought before the Nawab, who showed no sign of remorse or apology. Nor were any of his officers disciplined for the ‘mistake’. With the other survivors, the magistrate was taken to Murshidabad, the Nawab’s capital. The two women survivors were pressed into harems. The men were paraded naked through the city, humiliated and sexually abused. The remainder of the garrison, and any other Europeans still there, were told to leave Calcutta under threat of having their noses and ears cut off.
Siraj-ud-Daula appointed Manik Chand, one of his favourites, as his viceroy over the city, now renamed Alinagar, and ordered a mosque to be built there. The Nawab retired slowly up the river bank and threatened to occupy the Dutch settlement at Chinsurah unless he was paid a ransom of 2 million rupees.
The Dutch, lacking such sums, threatened to withdraw from Bengal altogether; eventually the Nawab settled for 450,000 rupees, which the Dutch had to borrow from the Jagat Seth, the Nawab’s banker, at a hefty rate of interest. The French at Chandernagore were the next to attract the Nawab’s attentions, but they bought him off for 350,000 rupees, paid for from a shipment of gold bullion from France. The British were convinced the French had got off lightly because they had provided artillery for the attack on Calcutta.
On his return to Murshidabad, Siraj-ud-Daula wrote triumphantly to his nominal superior, the Mogul Emperor, claiming that his victory had been on a par with the conquests of Tamerlane. Holwell, who had been brought to the capital, pleaded for his freedom, offering to pay ‘a considerable amount of money’. The monarch replied, in one of his rare displays of magnanimity, that ‘his sufferings have been great; let him have his liberty’. Holwell and his three companions were taken in by the Dutch, and were then brought down the Hugli to join the main body of English refugees.
* * *
The plight of the English in the ships was pitiable beyond measure. The flotilla of around 15 vessels was crowded out with men, women and children. They barely had a week’s supplies to support them. As it made its way downriver from Govindpur Point, fearing attack from the land and river at the same time, it came under the guns of Thana Fort; two of the ships anchored, and were promptly seized by the Bengalis. The rest of the flotilla again ran the gauntlet of fire from the fort, and this time succeeded in getting through with minimal damage.
On 24 June the ships reached Budge Budge, where all the Indians were put ashore in order to conserve supplies. Two days later, they reached Fulta, a comparatively safe point, but no more than a primitive village, where they dropped anchor. Their supplies were now almost exhausted. The ships were in the most inhospitable part of the Ganges basin, yet they stayed there for almost three weeks before the Dutch at last agreed to send them food and water secretly via the small settlement there.
It was astonishing that Drake had not taken his chance of breaking out into the open sea – for Madras. His hopes of obtaining food were better the further down the coast and away from Siraj-ud-Daula – who had ordered an embargo on supplies locally – they travelled. Almost certainly Drake and his now reduced council refused to move because of their embarrassment at the rout. If they fled now, they would also lose their chance to influence events if Calcutta were to be retaken.
Once again, vain political considerations took precedence in Drake’s mind over the fate of his starving compatriots. It was not the least display of self-centredness by this most inept of British leaders. He preferred to reopen talks with Siraj-ud-Daula in the hope of saving what little remained of his own face.
Those aboard the ships paid the price. ‘The want of convenient shelter, as well as the dread of being surprised, obliged them all to sleep on board the vessels, which were so crowded that all lay promiscuously on the decks, without shelter from the rains of the season, and for some time without a change of raiment, for none had brought any store away, and these hardships, inconsiderable as they may seem, were grievous to persons of whom the greatest part had lived many years in the gentle ease of India. Sickness likewise increased their sufferings, for the lower part of Bengal between the two arms of the Ganges is the most unhealthy country in the world, and many died of a malignant fever which infected all the vessels.’
Drake and the council wrote to William Watts, who had been released at the end of the previous month after being carried around as a captive with the Nawab’s army for nearly four weeks and had taken refuge at the French settlement at Chandernagore. Drake asked Watts to mediate with the Nawab.
Watts was shocked at the idea and refused disdainfully, saying he would not recognise the authority of the ‘governor’. The Nawab, he said, would settle only ‘on such shameful terms that Englishmen we hope would never consent to’. Watts himself, on being released, had been given a letter from the Nawab to George Pigot, Governor of Madras, to explain his motives in seizing Calcutta. He sought negotiations which would allow the British to re-establish themselves in Bengal, though humbled and respectful of the power of the Nawab:
Director Pigot, of high and great rank, and greatest of the merchants, may you be possessor of the Patcha’s [Emperor’s] favour. It was not my intention to remove the mercantile business of the Company belonging to you from out of Bengal, but Roger Drake, your gomasta [agent] was a very wicked and unruly man and began to give protection to persons who had accounts with the Emperor in the factor.
Notwithstanding all my admonitions, yet he did not desist from his shameless actions. Why should these people who come to transact the mercantile affairs of the Company do such things? However, that shameless man has met with the desert of his actions and was expelled from this subah [province]. I gave leave to Mr Watts who is a helpless, poor and innocent man, to go to you. As I esteem you to be a substantial person belonging to the Company, I have written these circumstances of [Drake’s] shameless and wicked proceeding.
Watts forwarded the note to Madras, as well as a copy of Drake’s letter, and advised the British instead to bring sufficient ‘military force – to attack the Nawab in his metropolis’. Meanwhile Drake himself despatched ‘Colonel’ Manningham – the first of the senior officials to flee Calcutta – along with a French officer who had rallied to the British cause to give the council at Madras their version of events.
Towards the end of July, both Watts and Holwell arrived at Fulta where, with an adequate food supply now established, Drake and his ‘council’, now again labelling themselves Company agents, were beginning to regain their confidence. Holwell quarrelled bitterly with the deserter Drake, but the latter was confirmed by his equally fleet-footed peers as governor and pompously insisted on being saluted as he travelled from his ‘flagship’, the Dodalay, to dine on one of the other ships in that stinking backwater.
At about the same time the English refugees took heart at being joined by a small flotilla containing 200 soldiers commanded by Major Kilpatrick, which had been despatched as soon as Pigot heard of the outbreak of war in Bengal. There was great rejoicing when the tiny squadron bearing the English flag reached that dismal settlement: at last it seemed to Drake that he might get his chance of revenge against the Nawab.
A ‘council of war’ was set up comprising Drake, Kilpatrick, Holwell and Watts. Omichand too reappeared as an intermediary between the British and the Bengalis, to advise that conciliatory letters should be sent to the Nawab and his chief advisers. The British were happy to do this to buy time, for there were unsubstantiated rumours that Manik Chand was preparing to launch fireboats down the river and attack them at Fulta.
* * *
The British took further heart when they learnt that the Nawab, who believed himself to be secure
on his throne after the defeat of the British at Calcutta, was once again being challenged by his cousin, Shaukut Jang. On 17 September the remaining British agent at Kasimbazar after Watts’s departure, the young Warren Hastings, reported that war between the two cousins was imminent.
The Jagat Seth and other Hindu nobles, heavily disapproving of the recklessness with which Siraj-ud-Daula had attacked the British and thereby removed Bengal’s main source of revenue, had intrigued against the giggling, sadistic ruler, even asking for the Emperor’s firman – seal of approval – to be bestowed on his rival for the throne, Shaukut Jang. Another covert supporter of Shaukut Jang was, as ever, Mir Jafir, the Nawab’s chief army commander and head of the Moslem military aristocracy, who complained of ‘the growing and daily cruelties of Siraj-ud-Daula’.
As the pretender to the throne assembled a large army of 15,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, the Nawab accused the Jagat Seth of betraying him, hysterically slapping him across the face, threatening him with circumcision and confining him to his house – although he did not dare to execute so powerful a man. The Nawab’s army commanders refused to support him unless the Jagat Seth was set free, which the Nawab did with ill grace at the beginning of October.
Siraj-ud-Daula, facing mutiny from his own senior officers and retainers, was saved by one thing. Although not so cruel, Shaukut Jang was erratic, heavily drugged much of the time and, according to one of his closest supporters, actually mad. He announced that after deposing Siraj-ud-Daula he would seize the throne in Delhi – near-blasphemy to Indian princes who regarded the powerless Emperor as their underlying source of legitimacy.
The pretender fired several of his senior generals, threatening to flay one alive, and told the Nawab that he would spare his life only if he at once left the throne. In mid-October, the armies of the two cousins at last met near Rajmahal. Of the two, Siraj-ud-Daula possessed by far the most cunning. Fearing he would be slain by his own officers, who hated him, he sent several decoys dressed up in his robes at the head of his troops, while he stayed behind his forces. His own officers made no attempt against these, however.
But Shaukut Jang believed he saw Siraj-ud-Daula among the enemy, led a charge against him and was shot; his leaderless army surrendered. Siraj-ud-Daula was once again undisputed ruler of Bengal – but only for a moment. Within weeks three new challenges were to press in to him in his capital of Murshidabad: from Afghan invaders in the north; from the French in the south; and from the British.
After the defeat of his rival, the Nawab was faced by a demand from Manik Chand, his commander in Calcutta, for a frontal attack on the ragged British forces at Fulta. The Nawab was uncertain. ‘A pair of slippers is all that is needed to get them,’ he remarked. In fact he was probably right: the British were in no shape to withstand a concerted assault. He prevaricated, probably believing himself to be in so strong a position that he could spare them; and his policy was now to bring them back, humbled, as traders.
At Fulta, as the weeks dragged by and the sickness continued to rage among the ships, while food supplies began to falter again because the British lacked the ready money to pay for them, Drake and his ludicrous council of war became increasingly restless. Rumours that Manik Chand was assembling an army at Budge Budge did nothing to reassure them. On 23 October a sloop, the Kingfisher, arrived: it brought the news that a large expedition was on its way from Madras. There was rejoicing on all the ships, and the flag was hoisted for the first time on Drake’s ‘flagship’.
CHAPTER 13
To the Hugli
Robert Clive is commonly described as having settled down to the routine of serving as deputy governor to what was now, once again, just a colonial backwater, when news of the ‘catastrophe’ – as he described the attack on Calcutta – reached Fort St David. In fact Clive had been sent to Madras as the potential military commander in the event of hostilities breaking out with the French. And those, to all in Madras, seemed imminent.
The Nizam of Hyderabad, who ruled the Deccan with the Marquis de Bussy perched on his shoulder, had called on the British to help him against the French overlords. Governor Pigot and his council decided to send him 400 men equipped with artillery. It was said that a French fleet of 19 ships and 3,000 men was sailing to Pondicherry. In Europe, war between the British and the French again appeared imminent. Clive was preparing the settlement in readiness for the outbreak of hostilities.
When news of the war in Bengal first arrived, it must have appeared an unwelcome distraction from the more serious task in hand: a single sloop, the Bridgwater, was despatched under the competent Major Kilpatrick with 200 men; tiresomely, this meant postponing the proposed offensive against de Bussy. But on 16 August Pigot heard the incredible news of the fall of Calcutta.
Pigot, Clive, and the council, as well as Admiral Watson, commander of the British fleet, were immediately thrown into a major strategic dilemma. The humiliation of British arms involved in the fall of Calcutta was without precedent. Moreover, there were rumours that the French had been helping the Nawab’s forces. Throughout the continent, the news that a British garrison had been humiliated and taken by a native army would stir up revolt and contempt against them, setting them back to where they had been fifteen years before.
The Company in London, when the news finally reached it, would be beside itself with anxiety and anger; it would scarcely understand if no attempt was immediately made to retake Calcutta. Yet there were tremendous risks involved: the British would have to abandon the attempt to dislodge de Bussy and the French from central India.
Watson angrily protested that if a French fleet did arrive on the east coast of India, it could bottle him up the Hugli river. ‘Is it not very probable, if the French squadron should arrive here, which you have reason to expect, that they, having intelligence where I am gone to, will under the presumption of the largest ships not being able to get higher [up the Hugli river] than Balasore Road, come there in search of me? How then should I be able to defend His Majesty’s ships without men? Would they not become an easy capture to the French and thereby contribute to the ruin of your affairs instead of being of any service?’
The council prevaricated, deciding to see if hostilities did indeed break out between Britain and France in Europe. On 19 September two ships from England brought no news of war. Meanwhile the rainy season in Bengal was coming to an end, and as the floodwaters in that sodden delta subsided, a land campaign would be possible there.
Pigot decided that they could wait no longer: an expedition would have to be sent of sufficient size as to ensure their chances of success. If war should break out between Britain and France, the expedition would be recalled. This meant that the expedition would have to be ultimately responsible not to the disgraced council in Calcutta, but to the council in Madras, which in practice meant the commanders of the expedition on the ground – a decision not entirely unwelcome to Pigot and his colleagues.
It was without precedent to set the military over the civil authority in this way. Manningham, who arrived on 29 September, was indignant. The next row concerned the command of the expedition. Stringer Lawrence was the obvious choice; but he was now beginning to show his age and was asthmatic – a fatal combination in the damp climate of the lower Ganges.
Pigot himself possessed the necessary authority, but lacked the military experience and wisely declined. The third obvious choice was Colonel John Adlercron, commander of the king’s regiment of several hundred troops in Madras assigned to help with the Deccan expedition. Small and pompous, Adlercron insisted that the king’s troops, which looked upon Company troops as little more than half-caste rabble, would not accompany the expedition unless he was given command of land forces.
He expostulated: ‘Surely, gentlemen, you are not so unreasonable as to expect that I will send away any part of His Majesty’s train or regiment (who are so immediately under my direction) and to leave to you the nomination [of its commander].’
But he refused to gua
rantee the Company any share of the booty he might win, and even suggested that, once despatched, the troops might not return to Madras – thus possibly placing the town at the mercy of French attack. The council was horrified – and the prestigious plum of leading this massive expedition now fell to Robert Clive – ‘the capablest person in India for an undertaking of this nature’, as Orme described him.
Adlercron was beside himself with fury and insisted that his artillery be taken off the fleet. The Company had hastily to embark its own artillery for the expedition. Only at the last moment did the pompous colonel permit just three companies of his men to go aboard as ‘marines’ – thus placing them under the command of the King’s admiral, Watson, not of the upstart Company man, Clive. The most impressive officer among them was Captain Eyre Coote. But it was a recipe for friction and conflict.
From the first, Clive understood the full significance of the hand destiny had once again dealt him. He wrote to his father in high excitement, ‘This expedition, if attended with success, may enable me to do great things. It is by far the grandest of my undertakings. I go with great forces and great authority.’
To the East India Company he showed clear awareness of the long-term possibilities of the expedition: ‘I flatter myself that this expedition will not end with the retaking of Calcutta only: and that the Company’s estate in these parts will be settled in a better and more lasting condition than ever. There is less reason to apprehend a check from the Nabob’s forces than from the nature of the climate and country. The news of a war [with France] may likewise interfere with the success of this expedition; however, should that happen, and hostilities be committed in India, I hope we shall be able to dispossess the French of Chandernagore and leave Calcutta in a state of defence.’
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