THREE FRENCHMEN IN BENGAL
[Illustration: THE GANGES VALLEY AND THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS IN
BENGAL, 1756 (_After Rennell_.)]
THREE FRENCHMEN IN BENGAL
OR
_THE COMMERCIAL RUIN OF THE FRENCH SETTLEMENTS IN 1757_
BY
S.C. HILL, B.A., B.Sc.
OFFICER IN CHARGE OF THE RECORDS OF THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA AUTHOR
OF "MAJOR-GENERAL CLAUD MARTIN"
_WITH MAPS AND PLANS_
1903
TO
MY DEAR WIFE
PREFACE
This account of the commercial ruin of the French Settlements, taken
almost entirely from hitherto unpublished documents, originated as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 quantity of documents 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
circumstances 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 illustrative
passages, 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 Bibliothèque
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 assistance.
S.C. HILL.
_September_ 6, 1903.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE QUARREL WITH THE ENGLISH
II. M. RENAULT, CHIEF OF CHANDERNAGORE
III. M. LAW, CHIEF OF COSSIMBAZAR
IV. M. COURTIN, CHIEF OF DACCA
INDEX
MAPS AND PLANS
THE GANGES VALLEY AND THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS IN BENGAL, 1756.
(_After Rennell_) _Frontispiece_
MAP OF THE RIVER HUGLI FROM BANDEL TO FULTA. (_After Rennell_) _To
face page_
FORT D'ORLÉANS, CHANDERNAGORE, 1749. (_Mouchet_)
MUXADABAD, OR MURSHIDABAD. (_After Rennell_)
DACCA, OR JEHANGIR-NAGAR. (_After Rennell_)
[Illustration: MAP OF THE RIVER HUGLI FROM BANDEL TO FULTA. (_After
Rennell_.)]
THREE FRENCHMEN IN BENGAL
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 shore, 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 asserted 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 nobles, 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 restitution 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
circumstances 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'Orléans, 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 asserted 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, anticipate 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 assistance 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
assistance 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
assistance 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 nobles.]
[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 passing through his
turban, and the incident of the _nautch_ may have happened at
Calcutta, where he certainly showed less courage.]
[Illustration: FORT D'ORLÉANS, CHANDERNAGORE, 1749. (_Mouchet._)]