Three Frenchmen in Bengal Part 2

What Clive feared was that, though the Nawab might not interfere openly, some of his servants might receive secret orders to do so, and on the 22nd of March he wrote even more curtly to Rai Durlabh himself:--

"I hear you are arrived within 20 miles of Hughly.

Whether you come as a friend or an enemy, I know not. If as the latter, say so at once, and I will send some people out to fight you immediately.... Now you know my mind."[38]

When diplomatic correspondence was conducted in letters of this kind, it is easy to understand that the Nawab was frightened out of his wits, and absolutely unable to decide what course he should take. There was little likelihood of the siege being influenced by anything he might do.

The outpost mentioned as the object of the first attack was a small earthwork, erected at the meeting of three roads. It was covered by the Moorish troops, who held the roofs of the houses around. As the intention of the outposts was merely to prevent the town from being surprised, and to enable the inhabitants to take shelter in the Fort, the outpost ought to have been withdrawn as quickly as possible, but, probably because they thought it a point of honour to make a stout defence wherever they were first attacked, the defenders stood to it gallantly. Renault sent repeated reinforcements, first the company of grenadiers, then at 9 o'clock the company of artillery, and at 10 o'clock, when the surrounding houses were in flames, and many of the Moors had fled, a company of volunteers. With these, and a further reinforcement of sixty sailors, the little fort held out till 7 o'clock in the evening, when the English, after three fruitless a.s.saults, ceased fire and withdrew. Street fighting is always confusing, and hence the following vague description of the day's events from Captain Eyre Coote's journal:--

"Colonel Clive ordered the picquets, with the company's grenadiers, to march into the French bounds, which is encompa.s.sed with an old ditch,[39] the entrance into it a gateway with embrasures on the top but no cannons, which the French evacuated on our people's advancing. As soon as Captain Lynn, who commanded the party, had taken possession, he acquainted the Colonel, who ordered Major Kilpatrick and me, with my company of grenadiers, to join Captain Lynn, and send him word after we had reconnoitred the place. On our arrival there we found a party of French was in possession of a road leading to a redoubt that they had thrown up close under their fort, where they had a battery of cannon, and upon our advancing down the road, they fired some shots at us. We detached some parties through a wood, and drove them from the road into their batteries with the loss of some men; we then sent for the Colonel, who, as soon as he joined us, sent to the camp for more troops. We continued firing at each other in an irregular manner till about noon, at which time the Colonel ordered me to continue with my grenadier company and about 200 sepoys at the advance post, and that he would go with the rest of our troops to the entrance, which was about a mile back. About 2 o'clock word was brought me that the French were making a sortie. Soon after, I perceived the sepoys retiring from their post, upon which I sent to the Colonel to let him know the French were coming out. I was then obliged to divide my company, which consisted of about 50 men, into 2 or 3 parties (very much against my inclination) to take possession of the ground the sepoys had quitted. We fired pretty warmly for a quarter of an hour from the different parties at each other, when the French retreated again into their battery. On this occasion I had a gentleman (Mr. Tooke[40]), who was a volunteer, killed, and 2 of my men wounded.

The enemy lost 5 or 6 Europeans and some blacks. I got close under the battery, and was tolerably well sheltered by an old house, where I continued firing till about 7 o'clock, at which time I was relieved, and marched back to camp."

The defenders were much exhausted, as well by the fighting as by the smoke and heat from the burning houses and the heat of the weather, for it was almost the hottest season of the year. It seemed probable that the English would make another attack during the night, and as the defenders already amounted to a very large portion of the garrison, it was almost impossible to reinforce them without leaving the Fort itself in great danger, if Clive managed to approach it from any other quarter. Renault called a council of war, and, after taking the opinion of his officers in writing to the effect that the outposts must be abandoned, he withdrew the defenders at 9 o'clock, under cover of the darkness: The French had suffered a loss of only 10 men killed and wounded. Clive mentions that, at the same time, all the other outposts and batteries, except those on the river side, were withdrawn.

Mustering his forces in the Fort, Renault found them to be composed of 237 soldiers (of whom 117 were deserters from the British), 120 sailors, 70 half-castes and private Europeans, 100 persons employed by the Company, 167 Sepoys and 100 _Topa.s.ses_. Another French account puts the total of the French garrison at 489, but this probably excludes many of the private people.[41]

On the 15th the English established themselves in the town, and drove out the Moors who had been stationed on the roofs of the houses. This gave them to some extent the command of the interior of the Fort, but no immediate attack was made on the latter. A French account[42] says this was because--

"all their soldiers were drunk with the wine they had found in the houses. Unfortunately we did not know of this. It would have been the moment to make a sortie, of which the results must have been favourable to us, the enemy being incapable of defence."

During the night of the 15th the Fort was bombarded, and on the morning of the 16th the British completed the occupation of the houses deserted by the Moors. The latter not being received into the Fort, either fled or were sent away. They betook themselves to Nand k.u.mar, the Faujdar of Hugli, announcing the capture of the town.

Nand k.u.mar, who is said to have had an understanding with the British, sent on the message to Rai Durlabh and the Nawab, with the malicious addition that the Fort, if it had not already fallen, would fall before Rai Durlabh could reach it. This put an end to all chance of the Nawab interfering.

The French spent the day in blocking a narrow pa.s.sage formed by a sandbank in the river, a short distance below the town. They sank--

"four large ships and a hulk,... and had a chain and boom across in order to prevent our going up with the squadron.

Captain Toby sent his 2nd lieutenant, Mr. Bloomer, that night, who cut the chain and brought off a sloop that buoyed it up."[43]

It was apparently this rapid attack on the position that accounts for the timidity of the pilots and boatmen, who, Renault tells us, hurried away without staying to sink two other ships which were half laden, and which, if sunk, would have completely blocked the pa.s.sage. Even on the ships which were sunk the masts had been left standing, so as to point out their position to the enemy.

Besides the ships sunk in the pa.s.sage, there were at Chandernagore the French East Indiaman the _Saint Contest_ (Captain de la Vigne Buisson), four large ships, and several small ones. The French needed all the sailors for the Fort, so they sank all the vessels they could not send up the river except three, which it was supposed they intended to use as fire-ships.

Clive, in the meantime, was advancing cautiously, his men erecting batteries, which seemed to be very easily silenced by the superior gunnery of the Fort. His object was partly to weary out the garrison by constant fighting, and partly to creep round to the river face, so as to be in a position to take the batteries which commanded the narrow river pa.s.sage, as soon as Admiral Watson was ready to attack the Fort. Later on, the naval officers a.s.serted he could not have taken the Fort without the a.s.sistance of the fleet. He said he could, and it is certain that if he had had no fleet to a.s.sist him his mode of attack would have been a very different one.

Early in the siege the French were warned from Chinsurah to beware of treachery amongst the deserters in their pay, and on the 17th of March a number of arrows were found in the Fort with labels attached, bearing the words:--

"Pardon to deserters who will rejoin their colours, and rewards to officers who will come over to us."

These were seized by the officers before the men could see them, but one of the officers themselves, Charles Cossard de Terraneau, a sub-lieutenant of the garrison, took advantage of the offer to go over to the English. This officer had served with credit in the South of India, and had lost an arm in his country's service. The reason of his desertion is said to have been a quarrel with M.

Renault. M. Raymond, the translator of a native history of the time by Gholam Husain Khan,[44] tells a story of De Terraneau which seems improbable. It is to the effect that he betrayed the secret of the river pa.s.sage to Admiral Watson, and that a few years later he sent home part of the reward of his treachery to his father in France.

The old man returned the money with indignant comments on his son's conduct, and De Terraneau committed suicide in despair. As a matter of fact, De Terraneau was a land officer,[45] and therefore not likely to be able to advise the Admiral, who, as we shall see, solved the riddle of the pa.s.sage in a perfectly natural manner, and the Probate Records show that De Terraneau lived till 1765, and in his will left his property to his wife Ann, so the probability is that he lived and died quietly in the British service. His only trouble seems to have been to get himself received by his new brother officers. However, he was, so Clive tells us, the only artillery officer the French had, and his desertion was a very serious matter. Renault writes:--

"The same night, by the improved direction of the besiegers' bombs, I had no doubt but that he had done us a bad service."

On the 18th the French destroyed a battery which the English had established near the river, and drove them out of a house opposite the south-east bastion. The same day the big ships of the squadron--the _Kent_ (Captain Speke), the _Tyger_ (Captain Latham), and the _Salisbury_ (Captain Martin), appeared below the town. The _Bridgewater_ and _Kingfisher_ had come up before. Admiral Watson was on board the _Kent_, and Admiral Poc.o.c.k on the _Tyger_. The fleet anch.o.r.ed out of range of the Fort at the Prussian Gardens, a mile and a half below the town, and half a mile below the narrow pa.s.sage in which the ships had been sunk.

On the 19th Admiral Watson formally announced the declaration of war,[46] and summoned the Fort to surrender. The Governor called a council of war, in which there was much difference of opinion. Some thought the Admiral would not have come so far without his being certain of his ability to force the pa.s.sage; indeed the presence of so many deserters in the garrison rendered it probable that he had secret sources of information. As a matter of fact, it was only when Lieutenant Hey, the officer who had brought the summons, and, in doing so, had rowed between the masts of the sunken vessels, returned to the _Kent_, that Admiral Watson knew the pa.s.sage was clear. Renault and the Council were aware that the Fort could not resist the big guns of the ships, and accordingly the more thoughtful members of the council of war determined, if possible, to try and avoid fighting by offering a ransom. This apparently gave rise to the idea that they wished to surrender, and an English officer says:--

"Upon the Admiral's sending them a summons ... to surrender, they were very stout; they gave us to understand there were two parties in the Factory, the Renaultions and the anti-Renaultions. The former, which they called the great-wigg'd gentry, or councillors, were for giving up the Fort, but the others vowed they would die in the breach. To these high and lofty expressions the Admiral could give no other answer than that in a very few days, or hours perhaps, he would give them a very good opportunity of testifying their zeal for the Company and the Grand Monarque."

The offer of ransom was made, and was refused by the Admiral.

Renault says, he--

"insisted on our surrendering and the troops taking possession of the Fort, _promising, however, that every one should keep his own property_. There was not a man amongst us who did not prefer to run the risk of whatever might happen to surrendering in this fashion, without the Fort having yet suffered any material damage, and every one was willing to risk his own interests in order to defend those of the Company. Every one swore to do his best."

The Admiral could not attack at once, owing to the state of the river, but to secure his own position against any counter-attack, such as was very likely with a man like Captain de la Vigne in the Fort, he sent up boats the same night, and sank the vessels which it was supposed the French intended to use as fire-ships; and the next day Mr. John Delamotte, master of the _Kent_, under a heavy fire, sounded and buoyed the pa.s.sage for the ships.

The army, meanwhile, continued its monotonous work ash.o.r.e, the soldiers building batteries for the French to knock to pieces, but succeeding in Clive's object, which was "to keep the enemy constantly awake."[47] Sometimes this work was dangerous, as, for instance, on the 21st, when a ball from the Fort knocked down a verandah close to one of the English batteries, "the rubbish of which choked up one of our guns, very much bruised two artillery officers, and buried several men in the ruins."[48]

By the 22nd Clive had worked his way round to the river, and was established to the north-east and south-east of the Fort so as to a.s.sist the Admiral, and on the river the Admiral had at last got the high tide he was waiting for. Surgeon Ives tells the story as follows:[49]--

"The Admiral the same evening ordered lights to be placed on the masts of the vessels that had been sunk, with blinds towards the Fort, that we might see how to pa.s.s between them a little before daylight, and without being discovered by the enemy.

"At length the glorious morning of the 23rd of March arrived." Clive's men gallantly stormed the battery covering the narrow pa.s.s,[50] "and upon the ships getting under sail the Colonel's battery, which had been finished behind a dead wall," to take off the fire of the Fort when the ships pa.s.sed up, began firing away, and had almost battered down the corner of the south-east bastion before the ships arrived within shot of the Fort. "The _Tyger_, with Admiral Poc.o.c.k's flag flying, took the lead, and about 6 o'clock in the morning got very well into her station against the north-east bastion.

The _Kent_, with Admiral Watson's flag flying, quickly followed her, but before she could reach her proper station, the tide of ebb unfortunately made down the river, which occasioned her anchor to drag, so that before she brought up she had fallen abreast of the south-east bastion, the place where the _Salisbury_ should have been, and from her mainmast aft she was exposed to the flank guns of the south-west bastion also. The accident of the _Kent's_ anchor not holding fast, and her driving down into the _Salisbury's_ station, threw this last ship out of action, to the great mortification of the captain, officers, and crew, for she never had it in her power to fire a gun, unless it was now and then, when she could sheer on the tide. The French, during the whole time of the _Kent_ and _Tyger's_ approach towards the Fort, kept up a terrible cannonade upon them, without any resistance on their part; but as soon as the ships came properly to an anchor they returned it with such fury as astonished their adversaries. Colonel Clive's troops at the same time got into those houses which were nearest the Fort, and from thence greatly annoyed the enemy with their musketry. Our ships lay so near to the Fort that the musket b.a.l.l.s fired from their tops, by striking against the _chunam_[51] walls of the Governor's palace, which was in the very centre of the Fort, were beaten as flat as a half-crown.

The fire now became general on both sides, and was kept up with extraordinary spirit. The flank guns of the south-west bastion galled the _Kent_ very much, and the Admiral's aide-de-camps being all wounded, Mr. Watson went down himself to Lieutenant William Brereton, who commanded the lower deck battery, and ordered him particularly to direct his fire against those guns, and they were accordingly soon afterwards silenced. At 8 in the morning several of the enemy's shot struck the _Kent_ at the same time; one entered near the foremast, and set fire to two or three 32-pound cartridges of gunpowder, as the boys held them in their hands ready to charge the guns. By the explosion, the wad-nets and other loose things took fire between decks, and the whole ship was so filled with smoke that the men, in their confusion, cried out she was on fire in the gunner's store-room, imagining from the shock they had felt from the b.a.l.l.s that a sh.e.l.l had actually fallen into her.

This notion struck a panic into the greater part of the crew, and 70 or 80 jumped out of the port-holes into the boats that were alongside the ship. The French presently saw this confusion on board the _Kent_, and, resolving to take the advantage, kept up as hot a fire as possible upon her during the whole time. Lieutenant Brereton, however, with the a.s.sistance of some other brave men, soon extinguished the fire, and then running to the ports, he begged the seamen to come in again, upbraiding them for deserting their quarters; but finding this had no effect upon them, he thought the more certain method of succeeding would be to strike them with a sense of shame, and therefore loudly exclaimed, 'Are you Britons? You Englishmen, and fly from danger? For shame! For shame!' This reproach had the desired effect; to a man they immediately returned into the ship, repaired to their quarters, and renewed a spirited fire on the enemy.

"In about three hours from the commencement of the attack the parapets of the north and south bastions were almost beaten down; the guns were mostly dismounted, and we could plainly see from the main-top of the _Kent_ that the ruins from the parapet and merlons had entirely blocked up those few guns which otherwise might have been fit for service. We could easily discern, too, that there had been a great slaughter among the enemy, who, finding that our fire against them rather increased, hung out the white flag, whereupon a cessation of hostilities took place, and the Admiral sent Lieutenant Brereton (the only commissioned officer on board the _Kent_ that was not killed or wounded) and Captain Coote of the King's regiment with a flag of truce to the Fort, who soon returned, accompanied by the French Governor's son, with articles of capitulation, which being settled by the Admiral and Colonel, we soon after took possession of the place."

So far then from the besiegers' side; Renault's description of the fight is as follows:--

"The three largest vessels, aided by the high-water of the equinoctial tides, which, moreover, had moved the vessels sunk in the narrow pa.s.sage, pa.s.sed over the sunken ships, which did not delay them for a moment, to within half pistol shot of the Fort, and opened fire at 6 a.m. Then the troops in the battery on the bank of the Ganges, who had so far fired only one discharge, suddenly found themselves overwhelmed with the fire from the tops of the ships, abandoned it, and had much difficulty in gaining the Fort....

I immediately sent the company of grenadiers, with a detachment of the artillery company as reinforcements, to the south-eastern bastion and the Bastion du Pavillon, which two bastions face the Ganges; but those troops under the fire of the ships, joined to that of the land batteries, _rebuilt the same night_, and of more than 3000 men placed on the roofs of houses which overlooked the Fort, almost all took flight, leaving two of their officers behind, one dead and the other wounded. I was obliged to send immediately all the marine and the inhabitants from the other posts.

"The attack was maintained with vigour from 6 a.m. to 10.30, when all the batteries were covered with dead and wounded, the guns dismounted, and the merlons destroyed, in spite of their being strengthened with bales of cloth. No one could show himself on the bastions, demolished by the fire of more than 100 guns; the troops were terrified during this attack by the loss of all the gunners and of nearly 200 men; the bastions were undermined, and threatened to crumble away and make a breach, which the exhaustion of our people, and the smallness of the number who remained, made it impossible for us to hope to defend successfully.

Not a soldier would put his hand to a gun; it was only the European marine who stood to their duty, and half of these were already killed or disabled. A body of English troops, lying flat on the ground behind the screen which we had commenced to erect on the bank of the Ganges, was waiting the signal to attack. Seeing the impossibility of holding out longer, I thought that in the state in which the Fort was I could not in prudence expose it to an a.s.sault. Consequently I hoisted the white flag and ordered the drums to beat a parley."

According to an account written later by a person who was not present at the siege, Renault lost his Fort by a quarter of an hour.

This writer says the tide was rapidly falling, and, had the eastern defences of the Fort been able to resist a little longer, the ships would have found their lower tiers of guns useless, and might have been easily destroyed by the French. Suppositions of this kind always suppose a stupidity on the part of the enemy which Renault had no right to count upon. Admiral Watson must have known the strength of the fortress he was about to attack before he placed his ships in a position from which it would be impossible to withdraw them whenever he wished to do so.

The flag of truce being displayed, Captain Eyre Coote was sent ash.o.r.e, and returned in a quarter of an hour with the Governor's son bearing "a letter concerning the delivery of the place." Articles were agreed upon, and about 3 o'clock in the afternoon Captain Coote, with a company of artillery and two companies of grenadiers, took possession of the Fort. Before this took place there occurred an event the consequences of which were very unfortunate for the French. Everything was in a state of confusion, and the deserters, who formed the majority of the garrison, expecting no mercy from the Admiral and Clive, determined to escape. Rushing tumultuously to the Porte Royale, their arms in their hands, they forced it to be opened to them, and, finding the northern road to Chinsurah unguarded, made the best of their way in that direction. They were accompanied by a number of the military and marine, as well as by some of the Company's servants and private persons who were determined not to surrender. As all this took place after the hoisting of the white flag and pending the conclusion of the capitulation, the English considered it a breach of the laws of warfare, and when later on the meaning of the capitulation itself was contested they absolutely refused to listen to any of the representations of the French. In all about 150 persons left the Fort. They had agreed to rea.s.semble at a place a little above Hugli. The English sent a small force after them, who shot some and captured others, but about 80 officers and men arrived at the rendezvous in safety. The pursuit, however, was carried further, and Law writes:--

"Constantly pursued, they had to make forced marches.

Some lost their way; others, wearied out, were caught as they stopped to rest themselves. However, when I least expected it, I was delighted to see the officers and many of the soldiers arrive in little bands of 5 and 6, all naked, and so worn out that they could hardly hold themselves upright. Most of them had lost their arms."

This reinforcement increased Law's garrison from 10 or 12 men to 60, and secured the safety of his person, but the condition of the fugitives must have been an object lesson to the Nawab and his _Durbar_ which it was not wise for the French to set before them. A naval officer writes:--

"From the letters that have lately pa.s.sed between the Nawab and us, we have great reason to hope he will not screen the French at all at Cossimbazar or Dacca. I only wish the Colonel does not alarm him too much, by moving with the army to the northward, I do a.s.sure you he is so sufficiently frightened that he had rather encounter the new Mogul[52] himself than accept our a.s.sistance, though he strenuously begged for it about three weeks ago. He writes word he needs no fuller a.s.surance of our friendship for him, when a single letter brought us so far on the road to Murshidabad as Chandernagore."[53]

The escape of the French from Chandernagore is of interest, as it shows the extraordinary condition of the country. It is probable that the peasantry and gentry were indifferent as to whether the English or the French were victorious, whilst the local authorities were so paralyzed by the Nawab's hesitation that they did not know which side to a.s.sist. Later on we shall find that small parties, and even solitary Frenchmen, wandered through the country with little or no interference, though the English had been recognized as the friends and allies of the new Nawab, Mir Jafar.

To return, however, to Renault and the garrison of Chandernagore.

The capitulation proposed by Renault and the Admiral's answers were to the following effect:--

1. The lives of the deserters to be spared. _Answer_. The deserters to surrender absolutely.

2. Officers of the garrison to be prisoners on parole, and allowed to keep their effects. _Answer_. Agreed to.