Three Frenchmen in Bengal Part 1

Three Frenchmen in Bengal.

by S.C. Hill.

PREFACE

This account of the commercial ruin of the French Settlements, taken almost entirely from hitherto unpublished doc.u.ments, originated as follows. Whilst engaged in historical research connected with the Government Records in Calcutta, I found many references to the French in Bengal which interested me strongly in the personal side of their quarrel with the English, but the information obtainable from the Indian Records alone was still meagre and incomplete. A few months ago, however, I came across Law's Memoir in the British Museum; and, a little later, when visiting Paris to examine the French Archives, I found not only a copy of Law's Memoir, but also Renault's and Courtin's letters, of which there are, I believe, no copies in England. In these papers I thought that I had sufficient material to give something like an idea of Bengal as it appeared to the French when Clive arrived there. There is much bitterness in these old French accounts, and much misconception of the English, but they were written when misconception of national enemies was the rule and not the exception, and when the rights of non-belligerents were little respected in time of war. Some of the accusations I have checked by giving the English version, but I think that, whilst it is only justice to our Anglo-Indian heroes to let the world know what manner of men their opponents were, it is equally only justice to their opponents to allow them to give their own version of the story. This is my apology, if any one should think I allow them to say too much.

The translations are my own, and were made in a state of some perplexity as to how far I was bound to follow my originals--the writings of men who, of course, were not literary, and often had not only no pretension to style but also no knowledge of grammar. I have tried, however, to preserve both form and spirit; but if any reader is dissatisfied, and would like to see the original papers for himself, the courtesy of the Record officials in both Paris and London will give him access to an immense quant.i.ty of doc.u.ments as interesting as they are important.

In the various accounts that I have used there are naturally slightly different versions of particular incidents, and often it is not easy to decide which is the correct one. Under the circ.u.mstances I may perhaps be excused for not always calling attention to discrepancies which the reader will detect for himself.

He will also notice that the ground covered in one narrative is partly traversed in one or both of the others. This has been due to the necessity of treating the story from the point of view of each of the three chief actors.

I may here mention that the correspondence between Clive and the princes of Bengal, from which I have given some ill.u.s.trative pa.s.sages, was first seen by me in a collection of papers printed in 1893 in the Government of India Central Printing Office, Calcutta, under the direction of Mr. G.W. Forrest, C.I.E. These papers have not yet been published, but there exists a complete though slightly different copy of this correspondence in the India Office Library (Orme MSS. India XI.), and it is from the latter copy that I have, by permission, made the extracts here given. The remaining English quotations, when not from printed books, have been taken chiefly from other volumes of the Orme MSS., a smaller number from the Bengal and Madras Records in the India Office, and a few from MSS.

in the British Museum or among the Clive papers at Walcot, to which last I was allowed access by the kindness of the Earl of Powis.

Finally, I wish to express my thanks to M. Omont of the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, to Mr. W. Foster of the Record Department of the India Office, and to Mr. J.A. Herbert of the British Museum, for their kind and valuable a.s.sistance.

S.C. HILL.

_September_ 6, 1903.

CHAPTER I

THE QUARREL WITH THE ENGLISH

Writing in 1725, the French naval commander, the Chevalier d'Albert, tells us that the three most handsome towns on the Ganges were Calcutta, Chandernagore, and Chinsurah, the chief Factories of the English, French, and Dutch. These towns were all situated within thirty miles of each other. Calcutta, the latest founded, was the greatest and the richest, owing partly to its situation, which permitted the largest ships of the time to anchor at its quays, and partly to the privilege enjoyed by the English merchants of trading freely as individuals through the length and breadth of the land.

Native merchants and native artisans crowded to Calcutta, and the French and Dutch, less advantageously situated and hampered by restrictions of trade, had no chance of competing with the English on equal terms. The same was of course true of their minor establishments in the interior. All three nations had important Factories at Cossimbazar (in the neighbourhood of Murshidabad, the Capital of Bengal) and at Dacca, and minor Factories at Jugdea or Luckipore, and at Balasore. The French and Dutch had also Factories at Patna. Besides Calcutta, Chandernagore, and Chinsurah, the only Factory which was fortified was the English Factory at Cossimbazar.

During the long reign of the usurper, Aliverdi Khan,[1] that strong and politic ruler enforced peace among his European guests, and forbade any fortification of the Factories, except such as was necessary to protect them against possible incursions of the Marathas, who at that time made periodical attacks on Muhammadans and Hindus alike to enforce the payment of the _chauth_,[2] or blackmail, which they levied upon all the countries within their reach. In Southern India the English and French had been constantly at war whenever there was war in Europe, but in Bengal the strength of the Government, the terror of the Marathas, and the general weakness of the Europeans had contrived to enforce a neutrality.

Still there was nothing to guarantee its continuance if the fear of the native Government and of the Marathas were once removed, and if any one of the three nations happened to find itself much stronger than the others. The fear of the Marathas had nearly disappeared, but that of the Government still remained. However, it was not till more than sixty years after the foundation of Calcutta that there appeared any possibility of a breach of peace amongst the Europeans in Bengal. During this time the three Factories, Calcutta always leading, increased rapidly in wealth and importance. To the Government they were already a cause of anxiety and an object of greed. Even during the life of Aliverdi Khan there were many of his counsellors who advised the reduction of the status of Europeans to that of the Armenians, i.e. mere traders at the mercy of local officials; but Aliverdi Khan, whether owing to the enfeeblement of his energies by age or to an intelligent recognition of the value of European commerce, would not allow any steps to be taken against the Europeans. Many stories are told of the debates in his _Durbar_[3]

on this subject: according to one, he is reported to have compared the Europeans to bees who produce honey when left in peace, but furiously attack those who foolishly disturb them; according to another he compared them to a fire[4] which had come out of the sea and was playing harmlessly on the sh.o.r.e, but which would devastate the whole land if any one were so imprudent as to anger it. His wisdom died with him, and in April, 1756, his grandson, Siraj-ud-daula, a young man of nineteen,[5] already notorious for his debauchery and cruelty, came to the throne. The French--who, of all Europeans, knew him best, for he seems to have preferred them to all others--say his chief characteristics were cruelty, rapacity, and cowardice. In his public speeches he seemed to be ambitious of military fame. Calcutta was described to him as a strong fortress, full of wealth, which belonged largely to his native subjects, and inhabited by a race of foreigners who had grown insolent on their privileges. As a proof of this, it was pointed out that they had not presented him with the offerings which, according to Oriental custom, are the due of a sovereign on his accession. The only person who dared oppose the wishes of the young Nawab was his mother,[6] but her advice was of no avail, and her taunt that he, a soldier, was going to war upon mere traders, was equally inefficacious. The records of the time give no definite information as to the tortuous diplomacy which fanned the quarrel between him and the English, but it is sufficiently clear that the English refused to surrender the son of one of his uncle's _diwans_,[7] who, with his master's and his father's wealth, had betaken himself to Calcutta. Siraj-ud-daula, by the treacherous promises of his commanders, made himself master of the English Factory at Cossimbazar without firing a shot, and on the 20th of June, 1756, found himself in possession of Fort William, the fortified Factory of Calcutta.[8] The Governor, the commandant[9] of the troops, and some two hundred persons of lesser note, had deserted the Fort almost as soon as it was actually invested, and Holwell, one of the councillors, an ex-surgeon, and the gallant few who stood by him and continued the defence, were captured, and, to the number of 146, cast into a little dungeon,[10] intended for military offenders, from which, the next morning, only twenty-three came out alive. The English took refuge at Fulta, thirty miles down the river, where the Nawab, in his pride and ignorance, left them unmolested. There they were gradually reinforced from Madras, first by Major Kilpatrick, and later on by Colonel Clive and Admiral Watson. About the same time both French and English learned that war had been declared in Europe between England and France in the previous May, but, for different reasons, neither nation thought the time suitable for making the fact formally known.

Towards the end of December the English, animated by the desire of revenge and of repairing their ruined fortunes, advanced on Calcutta, and on the 2nd of January, 1757, the British flag again floated over Fort William. The Governor, Manik Chand, was, like many of the Nawab's servants, a Hindu. Some say he was scared away by a bullet through his turban; others, that he was roused from the enjoyment of a _nautch_--a native dance--by the news of the arrival of the English.[11] Hastening to Murshidabad, he reported his defeat, and a.s.serted that the British they had now to deal with were very different from those they had driven from or captured in Calcutta.

The English were not satisfied with recovering Calcutta. They wished to impress the Nawab, and so they sent a small force to Hugli, which lies above Chandernagore and Chinsurah, stormed the Muhammadan fort, burnt the town, and destroyed the magazines, which would have supplied the Nawab's army in an attack on Calcutta. The inhabitants of the country had never known anything so terrible as the big guns of the ships, and the Nawab actually believed the men-of-war could ascend the river and bombard him in his palace at Murshidabad.

Calling on the French and Dutch for aid, which they refused, he determined to try his fortune a second time at Calcutta. At first, everything seemed the same as on the former occasion: the native merchants and artisans disappeared from the town; but it was not as he thought, out of fear, but because the English wished to have them out of the way, and so expelled them. Except for the military camp to the north of the city, where Clive was stationed with his little army, the town lay open to his attack. Envoys from Calcutta soon appeared asking for terms, and the Nawab pretended to be willing to negotiate in order to gain time while he outflanked Clive and seized the town. Seeing through this pretence Watson and Clive thought it was time to give him a lesson, and, on the morning of the 5th of February, in the midst of a dense fog, Clive beat up his quarters.

Though Clive had to retire when the whole army was roused, the slaughter amongst the enemy had been immense; and though he mockingly informed the Nawab that he had been careful to "injure none but those who got in his way," the Nawab himself narrowly escaped capture. The action, however, was in no sense decisive. Most of the Nawab's military leaders were eager to avenge their disgrace, but some of the chief n.o.bles, notably his Hindu advisers, exaggerated the loss already incurred and the future danger, and advised him to make peace. In fact, the cruelty and folly of the Nawab had turned his Court into a nest of traitors. With one or two exceptions there was not a man of note upon whom he could rely, and he had not the wit to distinguish the faithful from the unfaithful.

Accordingly he granted the English everything they asked for--the full restoration of all their privileges, and rest.i.tution of all they had lost in the sack of Calcutta. As the English valued their losses at several hundreds of thousands, and the Nawab had found only some 5000 in the treasury of Fort William, it is clear that the wealth of Calcutta was either sunk in the Ganges or had fallen as booty into the hands of the Moorish soldiers.

Siraj-ud-daula, though he did not yet know it, was a ruined man when he returned to his capital. His only chance of safety lay in one of two courses--either a loyal acceptance of the conditions imposed by the English or a loyal alliance with the French against the English.

From the Dutch he could hope for nothing. They were as friendly to the English as commercial rivals could be. They had always declared they were mere traders and would not fight, and they kept their word. After the capture of Calcutta the Nawab had exacted heavy contributions from both the French and Dutch; but France and England were now at war, and he thought it might be possible that in these circ.u.mstances the restoration of their money to the French and the promise of future privileges might win them to his side. He could not, however, decide finally on either course, and the French were not eager to meet him. They detested his character, and they preferred, if the English would agree, to preserve the old neutrality and to trade in peace. Further, they had received no supplies of men or money for a long time; the fortifications of Chandernagore, i.e. of Fort d'Orleans, were practically in ruins, and the lesser Factories in the interior were helpless. Their military force, for attack, was next to nothing: all they could offer was wise counsel and brave leaders. They were loth to offer these to a man like the Nawab against Europeans, and he and his Court were as loth to accept them. Unluckily for the French, deserters from Chandernagore had served the Nawab's artillery when he took Calcutta, and it was even a.s.serted that the French had supplied the Nawab with gunpowder; and so when the English heard of these new negotiations, they considered the proposals for a neutrality to be a mere blind; they forgot the kindness shown by the French to English refugees at Dacca, Cossimbazar, and Chandernagore, and determined that, as a permanent peace with the Nawab was out of the question, they would, whilst he hesitated as to his course of action, antic.i.p.ate him by destroying the one element of force which, if added to his power, might have made him irresistible. They continued the negotiations for a neutrality on the Ganges only until they were reinforced by a body of 500 Europeans from Bombay, when they sent back the French envoys and exacted permission from the Nawab to attack Chandernagore. Clive marched on that town with a land force of 4000 Europeans and Sepoys, and Admiral Watson proceeded up the river with a small but powerful squadron.

Thus began the ruin of the French in Bengal. The chief French Factories were, as I have said, at Chandernagore, Cossimbazar, and Dacca. The Chiefs of these Factories were M. Renault, the Director of all the French in Bengal; M. Law, a nephew of the celebrated Law of Lauriston, the financier; and M. Courtin. It is the doings and sufferings of these three gallant men which are recorded in the following chapters. They had no hope of being able to resist the English by themselves, but they hoped, and actually believed, that France would send them a.s.sistance if they could only hold out till it arrived. Renault, whose case was the most desperate, perhaps thought that the Nawab would, in his own interest, support him if the English attacked Chandernagore; but knowing the Nawab as well as he did, and reflecting that he had himself refused the Nawab a.s.sistance when he asked for it, his hope must have been a feeble one. Still he could not, with honour, give up a fortified position without attempting a defence, and he determined to do his best. When he failed, all that Law and Courtin could expect to do was to maintain their personal liberty and create a diversion in the north of Bengal when French forces attacked it in the south. It was not their fault that the attack was never made.

I shall make no mention of the fate of the Factories at Balasore and Jugdea. At these the number of Frenchmen was so very small that resistance and escape were equally hopeless. Patna lay on the line of Law's retreat, and, as we shall see, he was joined by the second and other subordinate officers of that Factory. The chief, M.

de la Bretesche, was too ill to be moved, but he managed, by the a.s.sistance of his native friends, to secure a large portion of the property of the French East India Company, and so to finance Law during his wanderings.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Aliverdi Khan entered Muxadavad or Murshidabad as a conqueror on the 30th of March, 1742. He died on the 10th of April, 1756. (_Scrafton_.)]

[Footnote 2: Literally the fourth part of the Revenues. The Marathas extorted the right to levy this from the Emperor Aurengzebe, and under pretext of collecting it they ravaged a large portion of India.]

[Footnote 3: Court, or Court officials and n.o.bles.]

[Footnote 4: Such fires are mentioned in many Indian legends. In the "Arabian Nights" we read of a demon changing himself into a flaming fire.]

[Footnote 5: His age is stated by some as nineteen, by others as about twenty-five. See note, p. 66.]

[Footnote 6: Amina Begum.]

[Footnote 7: _Diwan_, i.e. Minister or Manager.]

[Footnote 8: The English at Dacca surrendered to the Nawab of that place, and were afterwards released. Those at Jugdea and Balasore escaped direct to Fulta.]

[Footnote 9: Captain George Minchin.]

[Footnote 10: Known in history as the Black Hole of Calcutta.]

[Footnote 11: Both stories may be true. Manik Chand was nearly killed at the battle of Budge Budge by a bullet pa.s.sing through his turban, and the incident of the _nautch_ may have happened at Calcutta, where he certainly showed less courage.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FORT D'ORLeANS, CHANDERNAGORE, 1749. (_Mouchet._)]

CHAPTER II

M. RENAULT, CHIEF OF CHANDERNAGORE

The French East India Company was founded in 1664, during the ministry of M. Colbert. Chandernagore, on the Ganges, or rather that mouth of it now known as the River Hugli, was founded in 1676; and in 1688 the town and territory were ceded to France by the Emperor Aurengzebe. I know of no plan of Chandernagore in the 17th century, and those of the 18th are extremely rare. Two or three are to be found in Paris, but the destruction of the Fort and many of the buildings by the English after its capture in 1757, and the decay of the town after its restoration to the French, owing to diminished trade, make it extremely difficult to recognize old landmarks. The Settlement, however, consisted of a strip of land, about two leagues in length and one in depth, on the right or western bank of the Hugli. Fort d'Orleans lay in the middle of the river front. It was commenced in 1691, and finished in 1693.[12] Facing the north was the Porte Royale, and to the east, or river-side, was the Water Gate. The north-eastern bastion was known as that of the Standard, or Pavillon. The north-western bastion was overlooked by the Jesuit Church, and the south-eastern by the Dutch Octagon. This last building was situated on one of a number of pieces of land which, though within the French bounds, belonged to the Dutch before the grant of the imperial charter, and which the Dutch had always refused to sell. The Factory buildings were in the Fort itself. To the west lay the Company's Tank, the hospitals, and the cemetery.

European houses, interspersed with native dwellings, lay all around.

M. d'Albert says that these houses were large and convenient, but chiefly of one story only, built along avenues of fine trees, or along the handsome quay. D'Albert also mentions a chapel in the Fort,[13] the churches of the Jesuits and the Capucins, and some miserable _paG.o.das_ belonging to the Hindus, who, owing to the necessity of employing them as clerks and servants, were allowed the exercise of their religion. In his time the Europeans numbered about 500. There were besides some 400 Armenians, Moors[14] and Topa.s.ses, 1400 to 1500 Christians, including slaves, and 18,000 to 20,000 Gentiles, divided, he says, into 52 different castes or occupations.

It is to be supposed that the European houses had improved in the thirty years since d'Albert's visit; at any rate many of those which were close to the Fort now commanded its interior from their roofs or upper stories, exactly as the houses of the leading officials in Calcutta commanded the interior of Fort William. No other fact could be so significant of the security which the Europeans in Bengal believed they enjoyed from any attack by the forces of the native Government. The site of the Fort is now covered with native huts.

The Cemetery still remains and the Company's Tank (now known as Lal Dighi), whilst Kooti Ghat is the old landing-place of Fort d'Orleans.

As regards the European population at the time of the siege we have no definite information. The Returns drawn up by the French officials at the time of the capitulation do not include the women and children or the native and mixed population. The ladies,[15] and it is to be presumed the other women also, for there is no mention of women during the siege, retired to the Dutch and Danish settlements at Chinsurah and Serampore a few days before, and the native population disappeared as soon as the British army approached. The Returns therefore show only 538 Europeans and 66 Topa.s.ses. The Governor or Director, as already mentioned, was Pierre Renault: his Council consisted of MM. Fournier, Caillot, Laporterie, Nicolas, and Picques. There were 36 Frenchmen of lesser rank in the Company's service, as well as 6 surgeons. The troops were commanded by M. de Tury and 10 officers. There were also 10 officers of the French East India Company's vessels, and 107 persons of sufficient importance for their _parole_ to be demanded when the Fort fell.

Apparently these Returns do not include those who were killed in the defence, nor have we any definite information as to the number of French sepoys, but Eyre Coote[16] says there were 500.

The story of the siege is to be gathered from many accounts. M.

Renault and his Council submitted an official report; Renault wrote many letters to Dupleix and other patrons or friends; several of the Council and other private persons did the same.[17] M. Jean Law, whose personal experiences we shall deal with in the next chapter, was Chief of Cossimbazar, and watched the siege, as it were, from the outside. His straightforward narrative helps us now and then to correct a mis-statement made by the besieged in the bitterness of defeat. On the English side, besides the Bengal records, there are Clive's and Eyre Coote's military journals, the Logs of the British ships of war, and the journal of Surgeon Edward Ives of His Majesty's ship _Kent_. Thus this pa.s.sage of arms, almost the only one in Bengal[18] in which the protagonists were Europeans, is no obscure event, but one in which almost every incident was seen and described from opposite points of view. This multiplicity of authorities makes it difficult to form a connected narrative, and, in respect to many incidents, I shall have to follow that account which seems to enter into the fullest or most interesting detail.