'THE WALL'
Skirting a thoroughfare in Old Jail Street, in North Georgetown, is
still to be seen a part of 'the Wall' that protected Black Town in
bygone days. This interesting remnant of the Wall of Madras might
before long have been levelled to the ground, either by successive
monsoons or by philistine contractors in want of 'material;' but, with
a happy regard for a relic of Old Madras, the Madras Government have
recently undertaken the task of preserving the ruin, which they have
officially declared an 'historic memorial.'
The 'Wall of Madras' is worthy of a meditative visit, but, in order
that the meditation may be on an historic basis, it is necessary to
know something about the Wall itself.
We have seen that when the Company established themselves at Madras,
in 1639, they first built a small fort for the protection of
themselves and their goods. Around the walls of the Fort a number of
Christians--English and Portuguese and Eurasians--settled down, and
what was called 'White Town' came into being. Within a term of years
this White Town was itself enclosed within fortified walls, which were
finally identical with the wall round Fort St. George to-day. There
was thus 'a fort within a fort;' but in course of time the inner wall
was pulled down.
Immediately outside the northern wall of White Town lay Black Town,
inhabited by Indians--employees and purveyors of the Company, as well
as merchants, shop-keepers, industrialists, and the rest. It should be
borne in mind that the site of this original Black Town was
altogether different from the site of the later Black Town, the
'Georgetown' of to-day. Old Black Town, as already explained, extended
from the northern wall of the Fort to what is now called the Esplanade
Road, and it covered the ground that is now taken up by the Wireless
Telegraph enclosure, the grounds of the High Court, and those of the
Law College (_vide_ map, p. 10).
Black Town was at first without any wall, and, as the times were
unsettled, the place was exposed to the serious danger of being raided
by any adventurous band of marauders. Very soon, however, a beginning
was made of enclosing the town with a mud wall; and in the reign of
Queen Anne a wall was built with masonry. Meanwhile, moreover,
numerous houses and streets had sprung up outside the wall, on the
site of the Georgetown of to-day.
[Illustration: A BIT OF THE BLACK TOWN WALL]
In 1746 the French captured Fort St. George; and they destroyed not
only the Black Town Wall but also Black Town itself. It was a
disastrous episode in the history of Madras. For six years the English
and the French had been at war in Europe, and the relations between
the English and French colonists in India were naturally strained; but
they were settlers within the dominions of Indian rulers, and,
although both the English and the French had ships and soldiers for
the protection of their settlements, they realized that they were not
at liberty to make war upon each other. The settlers, moreover, were
employees of mercantile companies, working for dividends; and war,
with its calamitous expenditure, was not within their design. But
Dupleix, the talented French Governor of Pondicherry, had ambitious
ideas for the extension of French influence in India, and, in defiance
of Indian rulers, war broke out. In the beginning there were several
engagements at sea between a French squadron under Labourdonnais and
an English squadron under Captain Peyton. The English squadron was
worsted, and had to put into Trincomalee Harbour, in Ceylon, to refit.
Thereupon Labourdonnais, after making quick preparations at
Pondicherry, sailed for Madras; and the alarm in the Fort and in the
city must have been great when his ships appeared off the coast and
proceeded to bombard the settlement. His guns, however, did but little
damage, and the citizens woke up the next morning to find, to their
great content, that the enemy had sailed away during the night.
Meanwhile Captain Peyton, having repaired his ships, was unaware of
what had happened at Madras, and sailed from Ceylon to Bengal, without
touching at Fort St. George. Possibly he was lured to Bengal by bogus
messages of French origin; for, as soon as he was out of the way,
Labourdonnais reappeared off Madras, better prepared than before.
Having succeeded in landing a considerable force, he erected batteries
on shore and from various points he bombarded White Town, which was
now the actual Fort St. George. At the end of an unhappy seven days
the garrison capitulated. The French marched into the Fort, and all
the English residents, civil and military--including the Governor and
the Members of Council, and also Robert Clive, who was then a young
clerk--were sent to Pondicherry as prisoners of war.
For nearly three years the French flag flew over Fort St. George,
until, in accordance with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, made between
the combatants in Europe, Madras was restored to the Company.
[Illustration: CENTRAL GATE OF THE BLACK TOWN WALL]
During their occupation the French had made great changes. Feeling the
necessity of strengthening their position, their military commanders
realized what had apparently not been recognized by the Company's
employees, untrained in war--namely that a weak-walled native town
lying right against the northern wall of Fort St. George was a
serious danger. The houses offered convenient cover for any enemies
that might attack the Fort; and, moreover, any disaffected or venal
townsman was in a position to give the assailants valuable help. The
French Governor set himself, therefore, to the deliberate destruction
of Black Town. He first destroyed the Town Wall, and then--for a
distance of 400 yards from the northern wall of White Town, or the
present Fort St. George--he demolished every house. The area that is
now represented by the Wireless Telegraph Station and the grounds of
the High Court thus became an open space. Meanwhile they constructed a
moat and glacis round the walls of White Town, which, with certain
alterations, are the moat and glacis of Fort St. George to-day.
The Records express the melancholy interest with which the Company's
employees, when they re-entered Madras, took note of the changes that the
enemy had made in the familiar settlement. The Councillors apparently
conceived that it was in a wanton spirit of destruction that the greater
part of Black Town had been wiped out; for they formally decided that the
streets that had been destroyed should be rebuilt. It may be supposed
however, that their military advisers counselled them otherwise; for, so
far from the old houses being rebuilt, those that had been left standing
were destroyed. The open space was allowed to remain; and 'New Black
Town'--the modern 'Georgetown'--began to be developed. It continued to be
called 'Black Town' until the visit of the Prince of Wales (afterwards King
George V) to Madras in 1906 when it was formally re-named
'Georgetown'--ostensibly in Prince George's honour, but in reality to meet
the wishes of a number of the residents who sought an opportunity of
getting rid of what they regarded--quite reasonably--as an objectionable
name for the locality in which their lot was cast. The disappearance of the
historic name is a matter for historic regret, but a concession had to be
made to the intelligible wishes of residents.
[Illustration: A MAGAZINE IN THE BLACK TOWN WALL]
The Company, bearing in mind that the French had been able to capture
Madras, realized that it was necessary to strengthen the defences of
Fort St. George and also to provide adequate protection for the new
native city that had grown up outside the Fort's protective walls and
was absolutely without defence. The defences of the Fort were taken in
hand at once, though the work was by no means completed; and the
Directors in England readily sanctioned the construction of a wall
round New Black Town. It was well that the security of the Fort was
looked to without any long delay; for in 1758, a large French army
under Count Lally besieged the Fort again--but so unsuccessfully that,
after sixty-seven days of persistent endeavour, they beat a sudden
retreat. It was a good many years, however, before the building of
the wall round Black Town was taken seriously in hand--and then only
because the Company had been given a succession of sharp warnings that
it was absolutely necessary that new Black Town should be protected.
The French themselves had given the first warning during the siege
under Count Lally; for, although they were powerless against the Fort,
they were able to enter Black Town without opposition, and they made
use of some of the houses for the purpose of the siege. The next
warning was given a few years later when Tipu, the son of Haidar Ali,
Sultan of Mysore, after ravaging the country round Madras, came so
near to the city itself that parties of his horsemen were scampering
about in the suburb of Chintadripet. Tipu's raid induced the Company
to bring forth the approved but long-shelved plans for a wall round
Black Town; but there was still much more discussion than work. The
Company needed yet another awakening; and they got a stern one two
years later. We quote the story from the Company's official records,
published by the Madras Government. It is contained in a minute in the
official Diary of Fort St. George, dated the 29th of March, 1769,
which runs as follows:--
About 8 o'Clock this morning several Parties of the Enemy's
(Haidar Ali's) horse appeared in the Bounds of this Place at
St. Thome and Egmore, from which latter place some guns were
fired at them.... At eleven o'Clock a fellow was caught
plundering at Triplicane and brought into Town, who gave
Intelligence that Hyder himself was on the other side of St.
Thome with the greatest part of his horse. In the afternoon
Advice came that the Enemy's horse were moving from St.
Thome round to the Northward with a design, as was supposed,
to make an attempt on the Black Town.
It would have been difficult to have defended the unwalled town; and
on the following day the Council of Fort St. George sent Mr. DuPre,
Chief Councillor and succeeding Governor, to Haidar Ali's camp, on
the other side of the Marmalong Bridge, to come to terms with the
invader; and within three days a treaty had been made. The treaty,
said Mr. DuPre, writing to a friend, "will do us no honor: yet it was
necessary, and there was no alternative but that or worse."
After this humiliation the building of the Wall was regarded as a
pressing necessity; and within a year the work was practically
finished.
[Illustration: 'THE OLD AND THE NEW'
Corner of the Medical School built into a portion of the Black Town
Wall.]
It was well indeed that the work was done; for a few years afterwards,
on the 10th of August, 1780, Haidar's cavalry raided San Thome and
Triplicane, killing a number of people; and the terror in Black Town
was so great that crowds of the inhabitants took flight. Fortunately,
however, the Governor was able to issue the following notification for
the reassurance of the public:--'A sufficient number of guns have been
mounted on the Black Town wall,' and 'nothing has been omitted that I
can think of for the security of the Black Town.' Haidar was not
sufficiently venturesome to attack the fortified town; but the terror
of the inhabitants was by no means at an end; for a little later came
the disastrous news that a British force sent out to meet the invader
had been cut to pieces at Conjeevaram. Eventually, however, the
Mysoreans were defeated, and the treaty of peace was a triumph for the
Company.
The long delay in the building of the Wall was chiefly due to the fact
that the representatives of the Company, being commercial men,
naturally gave their chief attention to the Company's mercantile
business, and were apt to disregard the immediate necessity of
expensive schemes which the Company's military officers put forward as
strategic requirements. When the Wall was first talked about, after
the recovery of Madras from the French, the Directors in England, who
always kept a tight hand on the Company's purse-strings, declared that
the inhabitants of Black Town ought to be made to pay for the cost of
their own defences, and should be taxed accordingly; and the name of
the 'Wall Tax Road,' which runs alongside the Central Station to the
Salt Cotaurs, is a standing reminder of the Directors' decree, while
the road itself is an indication of the alignment of the western wall.
The people protested indignantly against being taxed for the purpose,
and, as a matter of fact, the representatives of the Company in India
doubted whether they would be within their legal rights in compelling
them to pay; and the tax was never actually levied. What with the Wall
Tax Road on the west and the seashore on the east, the existing
remains on the north, and the Esplanade on the south, it is not
difficult to form a general idea of the direction of the four sides of
the wall within which the later Black Town was enclosed.
Such is the story of 'The Wall;' and the remains are an interesting
relic of lawless times when at any minute it was possible that crowds
of terror-stricken folk would suddenly be pouring through the
gateways of the city at the alarming news that strange horsemen were
dashing here and there in one or another of the suburbs, demanding
money and jewels from the people and slaughtering unhappy individuals
who tried to evade a response.