that followed, bore the brunt of the hard work and had their share in
the fighting. First, a week after the taking of Calcutta, an expedition
was sent up the Hooghly to attack the fort at the city of Hooghly,
thirty miles up the river, the Nawab’s capital of Lower Bengal. All the
boats of the squadron, manned and armed, with the _Bridgewater_ and the
_Kingfisher_ carrying two hundred European soldiers and two hundred and
fifty Sepoys formed the expeditionary force. The fort at Hooghly was
stormed, a midshipman of the _Kent_, Mr. William Hamilton, and two seamen
of the flagship being among the killed, and several men were wounded. The
Nawab’s treasury was looted and the town burned. After that the sailors,
under Captain Speke of the _Kent_, and with a small military detachment,
went three miles higher up and burned the immense storehouses and
granaries of the Nawab’s army at Goongee. Suraj-u-daulah’s advanced guard
of some five thousand men was encamped close by in force, and attacked
the little column, but the enemy were handsomely beaten off and the work
carried through with complete success.
Again we have from Dr. Ives, incidentally, a curious story of much the
same kind as that already told of Strahan at Budge-Budge. Three men
from the flagship, as it would seem, on the force returning to Hooghly,
were missed. There was no trace of them or their fate. Nobody had seen
them after the opening of the fight. Their disappearance could in no
way be accounted for, except that they had been shot and overlooked in
some extraordinary way. They were therefore entered as “killed.” Next
morning, to the general surprise, the three men made their appearance
safe and sound, with an extraordinary tale of adventure. “Early the next
morning,” to quote the doctor’s words, “a raft was observed floating down
the river, and on it sat with the greatest composure possible our three
missing sailors, who after they were taken off and brought on board their
ship, gave the following account of their adventure.” After the fighting
they had straggled and gone to sleep. “Awakening in the beginning of
the night, and perceiving their companions had left them, they judged
it expedient to set fire to all the villages in order to intimidate the
enemy and make them believe the whole detachment still continued on shore
which had done them so much mischief the previous day. As soon as the day
broke they repaired to the water’s edge to search for a boat, in which
they hoped to be conveyed on board their ship. No such thing, however,
could be found, but luckily for them this raft at length presented
itself, on which they resolved to trust themselves.”
The men’s story explained at the same time certain mysterious fires on
shore during the previous night which it had considerably puzzled those
on board the ships to account for.
For the remainder of the month the squadron lay quietly at its anchorage
off Fort William. Things meanwhile were shaping themselves elsewhere for
more fighting.
Incensed beyond measure at having Calcutta wrested back from him and
at the destruction of his State granaries at Hooghly, Suraj-u-daulah
vowed vengeance. He would not rest, he swore, until he had driven every
Englishman out of Bengal, and he promptly set to work to assemble his
soldiery and make good his words. While his forces were mustering, to
gain time the Nawab wrote to Admiral Watson, and expressed himself
desirous of coming to an arrangement on friendly terms. When his
preparations were completed he abruptly broke off the negotiations, and
marched with his whole force directly on Calcutta. The Nawab’s army was
estimated at between forty and fifty thousand horse and foot, with forty
guns.
Colonel Clive, on the first information of the enemy being on the move,
on the 4th of February took post near Dum-dum with all the available
troops—seven hundred Europeans, thirteen hundred Sepoys, and fourteen
6-pounders. He was outflanked though at the outset by the pushing forward
of the Nawab’s advanced guard, and had to send off to Admiral Watson for
help. It was at once afforded. Within less than an hour a strong naval
brigade of nearly six hundred men, had landed under arms. It was a
night march to get to the army, and the seamen reached Clive at two in
the morning, just as his little force was on the point of setting out
with the idea of surprising Suraj-u-daulah in his quarters. The sailors
joined the column, and they started. All promised well until they neared
the enemy’s lines. Then, at the critical moment, a dense fog, “thicker
than on the Banks of Newfoundland,” suddenly rolled up. The fog upset the
native guides. Instead of striking the Nawab’s camp they bore off to the
left. That brought Clive front to front with a long field work, behind
which the right wing of Suraj-u-daulah’s army lay entrenched. Almost at
the same moment the sun rose, and the fog thinned off and dispersed,
leaving the small English force in a position that at the first glance
looked well-nigh desperate.
It was not Clive’s way, however, to lose his head. He fell back quickly
and steadily, making a rear-guard fight of it for six hours, all the time
keeping the enemy off and dealing great slaughter among their pursuing
columns by the continuous cannonade from his 6-pounders, until at noon he
regained the camp. In the fighting two of the guns had to be abandoned
owing to their carriages breaking down. The loss on the English side
was: a lieutenant of the _Salisbury_ mortally wounded, twelve seamen and
twenty-nine soldiers and Sepoys killed, including two captains of the
Company’s troops, fifteen seamen and between forty and fifty soldiers and
Sepoys wounded. Suraj-u-daulah’s loss was reported by a spy as being
upwards of thirteen hundred, including some of his best officers. At any
rate, it staggered the Nawab. Startled at the audacity of Clive’s attempt
on his camp and its near approach to success, when the names of his
fallen captains were told him he lost what little nerve he possessed, and
in a state of abject fright sent a flag of truce to Calcutta declaring
his readiness to treat for peace. To prove his good faith, as he said,
he at the same time ordered his troops to break camp and withdraw
up-country. The Calcutta Council, for their part, were quite ready to
come to terms. Their demands included the restoration of their trading
rights and of the _status quo_ generally, together with the payment by
the Nawab of a lump sum as compensation for property seized at Calcutta
in the previous June. The terms were acceded to by Suraj-u-daulah, and
articles of peace were ratified on the 9th of February.
The Council had agreed with their adversary quickly. They had reason to
do so. A yet more threatening cloud was lowering on the horizon. The
settlement with the Nawab came almost as a God-send to the Company’s
politicians at Calcutta, for the long-expected war between England and
France had broken out.
* * * * *
Official intimation of the declaration of war had been received at Fort
William five weeks before, but for very urgent reasons it had been
deemed advisable to keep the news secret if possible. The authorities
at Calcutta understood that the French garrison at Chandernagore—barely
twenty-five miles off up the Hooghly river—numbered some five hundred
Europeans and a thousand Sepoys, and the French also had another garrison
at Cossimbazaar (Kasim Bazar), within touch of Chandernagore. What if the
French should make common cause with Suraj-u-daulah, then on his march
down country, and reinforce his horde of armed men with their drilled
troops, officered by men who had seen service. The bare idea was a
nightmare to the Council of Calcutta.
As it happened, Governor Renault at Chandernagore had received the
news of war with England on the very day (the 6th of January) that the
officials at Fort William had their information. They, too, for their own
particular reasons, had decided for the time being to say nothing about
it. The French at Chandernagore were, as a fact, in a very different
position from what they were thought to be at Calcutta. The garrison
actually numbered only a hundred and forty-six European soldiers, many
of whom were invalids, and some three hundred Sepoys. In addition there
were between three and four hundred officials, traders, and sailors
belonging to ships from France in the river. What was to be done was a
very difficult question. There seemed to be two courses open. One was to
join with the Nawab in his campaign against Calcutta then—in January—just
about to open. Suraj-u-daulah had himself already pressed them to side
with him. He had heard rumours as to the relations between England and
France. The other course for the French was to temporize, and try to
form a private treaty of neutrality between Chandernagore and Calcutta.
This course the French adopted, and they sent an emissary to Calcutta to
make propositions for a treaty. The emissary arrived at Fort William in
the third week of January, and found the Calcutta Council not indisposed
to listen to the suggestion. A deputation was then sent to Calcutta and
negotiations begun. It took some little time, however, to settle on
terms; and then came the sudden collapse of the Nawab’s campaign and his
treaty with the English of the 9th of February.
That altered the situation entirely. The authorities at Calcutta now saw
matters in quite another light. With the Nawab out of the way, and with
Clive and the pick of the Madras army at their disposal on the spot, why
should they not take the opportunity of ridding themselves of their most
formidable trade rivals once for all?
It was considered politic, however, not to break off the negotiations
with the French for the moment. The Nawab’s sanction to the carrying
on of hostile operations within his territories ought to be obtained.
The negotiations with the French deputation were meanwhile protracted
on various pretexts. Again the unexpected happened. Suraj-u-daulah’s
reply was a peremptory refusal to permit operations of war in Bengal.
The Calcutta Council on that again took up the question of a treaty
with Chandernagore. It was duly drafted and made ready for signature,
when Admiral Watson himself, as representing the British Government,
intervened. The negotiations hitherto had been no concern of his. Now he
was asked to sign the treaty. The Admiral declined to assent to any terms
with the French. The French settlement at Chandernagore, he pointed out,
was legally a dependency of Pondicherry, where any arrangement come to
would have to be ratified.
At that moment, early in March, a fresh letter from Suraj-u-daulah came,
in the form of an appeal for assistance against Ahmed Shah, news of whose
capture of Delhi had reached Moorshedabad. In mortal dread of an Afghan
raid on the rich plains of Bengal, Suraj-u-daulah offered Clive a hundred
thousand rupees a month if he would march to his assistance. If Clive
would do so, the English might have a free hand with the French. Two
days after the receipt of the Nawab’s letter at Fort William, a message
came up the river that three ships, bringing a reinforcement of three
companies of infantry and one of artillery, sent round from Bombay on the
news of the Black Hole reaching there, had arrived in the Hooghly, and
that the long-delayed _Cumberland_, with two hundred European infantry
on board, which had had to put back to Vizagapatam, was at Balasore. Now
all thought of an accommodation with Chandernagore, or of neutrality, was
flung to the winds. The French envoys were packed off home with a curt
message that parleying was at an end. They might take it that war with
Chandernagore had already begun.
Preparations for an immediate advance on Chandernagore were taken in hand
forthwith, and pushed on apace. At the last moment yet another letter,
the third, came in from Suraj-u-daulah, who had got over his alarm about
the Afghans. The Nawab once more forbade interference with Chandernagore.
But it was too late.
The formal declaration of war with France was read on board the flagship
_Kent_, as the ship’s log records, on the 14th of March. Here is the
entry:—
“March 14—At an anchor off Calcutta. P.M. Cut up 373 Pounds of Fresh
Beef. Punish’d Joseph Vatier and Thomas Holderness with a Dozen lashes
each for Disorderly Behaviour on Shore and Read His Majesty’s Declaration
of War against the French King.”
Clive and his troops, numbering, with the reinforcement of three hundred
men of the Bombay army that had been hastened up to Fort William, seven
hundred Europeans and sixteen hundred “Blacks,” as Admiral Watson termed
the Sepoys, had already crossed the river. They had crossed some days
before—before, in fact, the French envoys had left Calcutta, it being
given out that the movement was with a view to be ready to march off
up-country and assist Suraj-u-daulah against the Afghans. Clive camped a
little distance up the river, with the _Bridgewater_ and the _Kingfisher_
sloop to keep him in easy touch with Calcutta.
On the 15th the squadron began to move forward. It comprised three
men-of-war in this order: the _Tyger_ ahead, then the _Kent_, lastly
the _Salisbury_. Following them came Clive’s heavy artillery in flats
towed by row-boats. The ships advanced towing and warping their way up
for three days, until they came within sight of Chandernagore. Then they
had to anchor two miles below Fort d’Orleans, as the entrenched work
forming the defence of the settlement was called. Until the tides became
higher it was impossible to make further progress with such big ships.
The artillery were now landed, together with a hundred and forty of the
seamen, who were to throw up the siege batteries and fight the guns.
These moved across and joined Clive, who, since the early morning of
the 14th, had been carrying on a skirmishing attack on the outworks of
Chandernagore on the western or landward side.
At Chandernagore itself, meanwhile, during the brief lull before the
bursting of the storm, the French were working night and day on their
defences. The news of the breaking off of the negotiations had come on
the settlement like a thunderbolt from an apparently clearing sky. Blank
dismay fell on all, from the Governor downwards, when they learned what
had happened. For days past they had been confidently looking forward
to see the envoys arrive from Calcutta with the signed treaty in their
hands. The envoys returned with the message: “Delenda est Carthago.” It
was a staggering set-back. But the Governor and his officers were men.
They set themselves to work with the energy of despair to make the best
fight for it they could. Messengers were sent galloping off to the Nawab
and to Cossimbazaar, where the French agent, M. Lawson, had a small
detachment of picked Europeans, imploring immediate help.
Field works and entrenched positions were thrown up at the most exposed
points outside the main fort, which constituted the stronghold of the
settlement, Fort d’Orleans. Six trading ships were sunk across the
fairway of the Hooghly, a hundred and fifty yards below the fort, to stop
the English men-of-war coming up, and a covering battery, heavily gunned,
was placed to enfilade the channel at close range and bring a punishing
fire on any ships trying to pass the sunken obstacles. A double boom,
moored fast with chains, was also laid across the river. Two bomb-vessels
were anchored broadside-on across the fairway, close to the sunken
vessels, and three fireships were made ready to let drift down stream on
the enemy. Chandernagore Fort itself was a four-sided brick-faced work,
two hundred yards each way, with walls fifteen feet high, constructed on
the regular Vauban system, with a dry ditch and bastions, and a curtain
between the bastions, and with a ravelin covering the main gate. It
mounted ten 32-pounders along each curtain, and eight 32-pounders on the
ravelin. Besides these there was a six-gun battery of lighter pieces
erected on the roof of the high-terraced church of St. Louis, inside the
fort.
To man his defences M. Renaud de St. Germain, the French Governor, had
in all a hundred and forty-six European soldiers and three hundred
Sepoys, with an auxiliary body of some three hundred Europeans, “men with
muskets,” raised from among the Chandernagore traders and the crews of
the French vessels.
Chandernagore in itself seemed capable of making a good defence, and
the Governor, indeed, as his arrangements drew towards completion, was
not without hope of being able to hold his own until help, of which
at an early date he received promise, should arrive from the Nawab.
Clive and his army gave him little anxiety—or comparatively little. The
preliminaries of the attack on the land side showed that the French heavy
guns on the ramparts had a command of fire that gave the defence the
mastery on that side. It was the broadsides of the men-of-war that M.
Renaud was anxious about. If only he could stand up against the sailors,
he thought it possible to hold out until the relief he anticipated should
arrive.
The British men-of-war in the river had to wait at anchor for four
days until the tides suited their further advance. Admiral Watson used
the opportunity to announce the declaration of war to the Governor of
Chandernagore, demanding at the same time the surrender of the fort.
Lieutenant Hey, of the flagship, carried the letter. The reply was
an offer to ransom the place. It was refused flatly. Unconditional
surrender, Admiral Watson sent back word, were his only terms, though
private property would be respected. To that the French made no reply,
but pressed on with their preparations.
The interval was profitably spent otherwise. It so happened that the
French officers responsible for blocking the fairway had either neglected
to remove the masts of the sunken vessels or were unable to do so before
the English squadron came in sight. Anyhow, they were left sticking up
out of the water—in the cases of five of the six vessels—and showed what
the enemy’s plans in that direction were. Admiral Watson’s first step was
to remove the boom and the two bomb-vessels behind the line of the sunken
vessels, together with the fireships. The boats of the men-of-war were
sent up with muffled oars after dark on the first night after the arrival
of the squadron and cleared these off, by cutting through the boom and
sending the bombs and fireships adrift, causing them to run ashore and
ground hard and fast. “Mr. Delamotte, the master of the _Kent_,” relates
Dr. Ives, “on the second day sounded between the sunken vessels, whose
masts were above water, under continuous cannon shot from the fort, and
found room for our ships to pass between.”
Treachery, as the French afterwards said, enabled him to do this. One of
their artillery officers, according to French accounts, had a quarrel
with the Governor, deserted and sold the secret of the passage for a
large sum to Admiral Watson. He sent the money, so the story proceeds,
to help his father in France, an aged and poor man, only, however, to
receive back again the price of his treason, together with a bitter
letter of reproach on the receipt of which the traitor hanged himself.
On the other hand, Dr. Ives, on board the flagship, says nothing of any
traitor. Admiral Watson in his dispatch simply says that he was delayed
“until ... I could further discover by sounding a proper channel to pass
through, which the pilots found out without being at the trouble of
weighing any of the vessels.” There was hardly need for a traitor, and no
need at all to pay for information with the masts of the sunken French
vessels in the river standing up in the air, right across the bed of the
Hooghly, for every man and boy in the English squadron to see. There was
a traitor at Chandernagore, De Terraneau, an artillery officer; but he
deserted to Clive’s camp, and, useful as his information proved to the
land attack, he knew nothing about the river defences.
By midday on the 22nd all was in order for the squadron to go forward
to the final fight. The tides now were running higher every day, and
the next tide would probably serve. That afternoon Rear-Admiral Pocock
(afterwards Sir George, and a very distinguished commander), the Second
in Command of the East Indies squadron, came up the Hooghly rowing up
from Calcutta in his barge. He had hurried up to join, in the hope
of being in time to see something of the fighting. He had left his
flagship, the _Cumberland_, at Balasore, unable to enter the river owing
to the same low tides that had during the past few days delayed the
_Kent_ and her two consorts in approaching Chandernagore. With Admiral
Watson’s sanction, Pocock hoisted his flag for the battle on board the
_Tyger_, to lead the line.
At dusk that evening, as soon as it could be done without observation by
the enemy, boats crept ahead quietly and lashed lanterns to the masts
of the sunken vessels, so screened as to show their light only in the
direction of the English ships. By means of these the ships were to be
guided before daybreak next morning between the obstacles and across the
danger zone where the French had marked the range, past the heavy battery
that overlooked the sunken ships.
The order to go forward was given at daybreak. Within five minutes they
were on the move.
Anchors were silently weighed between 5 and 6 a.m., and on the top of
the flood tide the three ships, the _Tyger_ leading, and the _Kent_ and
_Salisbury_ in her wake, glided ahead through the water with the least
possible noise. Apparently their getting under way was not observed.
Admiral Watson’s plan of battle was to bring-to directly opposite the
river face of Fort d’Orleans within pistol shot. The _Tyger_ was to lead
on until she came in front of the further bastion of the river face of
the fort, the north-east or “flagstaff bastion,” as it was called, and
then drop anchor. The _Kent_ was to anchor between the two river front
bastions at the north-west and south-east angles of the fort, directly
facing the curtain and the eight-gun ravelin covering the main gate. The
_Salisbury_ was to post herself opposite the south-east, or St. Joseph,
bastion.
As the _Tyger_, a few minutes before six o’clock, neared the battery
covering the sunken ships, the French ashore sounded the alarm.
Apparently they were surprised. The soldiers in the first battery merely
fired a few rounds at the leading ship as she passed by, a dim spectre in
the half-light, and then the men in the battery cleared out at a run, and
fell back to join the main garrison inside the fort. For their part the
three British men-of-war passed on for their appointed stations without
replying with a single shot.
The main garrison now were quickly on the _qui vive_, and the south-east
bastion took up the firing; but for the moment the light was too
uncertain for the gunners in Fort d’Orleans to shoot with much effect,
until the _Tyger_ and _Kent_ had nearly drawn up abreast of the fort.
Then, however, they got their chance.
The French gunners took advantage of it to the full before the men-of-war
were in position. As it were by signal, a tremendous burst of artillery
fire flashed out all along the ramparts from end to end, from bastions
and curtain and ravelin. The tornado of iron beat on the _Tyger_ heavily,
but she stood up to it, forging her way ahead stolidly, and then let
go anchor within her allotted station to a yard. The flagship was not
so lucky. She was following at a half cable’s length astern—a hundred
yards—when, almost at the moment that the _Tyger_ anchored, the tide
turned, and began to race back, swirling down the river. It checked the
_Kent’s_ way instantly, and she hung back at a dead standstill, unable to
breast her way against it. At the same moment a heavy concentrated fire
from the ramparts beat upon her, and the ship, reeling under the terrific
battering began to drift down, stern first. First one anchor was let go,
then another. Both anchors dragged, and the big seventy-gun ship drove
down astern right across the bowsprit of the smaller _Salisbury_.
The Frenchmen yelled and cheered and redoubled their efforts, and there
was for a space intense excitement. Would the two ships collide and get
foul? At the moment that the flagship first checked her way, Captain
Speke had fallen severely wounded, with, close to him, his little son, a
boy midshipman, acting as aide-de-camp to his father, who was struck down
by the same shot and mortally wounded.