F.—SOME POINTS IN CONNECTION WITH THE FALL OF CALCUTTA.
It is difficult to resist the conclusion that never was a city more thoroughly warned of its impending doom than the Calcutta of 1756, and the fact renders the alternate defiance and cowardice of the Presidency the more unaccountable. That the actual approach of peril took them altogether by surprise appears certain, and Orme blames Mr Watts for not informing them until the danger was close at hand of the anxiety as to their intentions displayed by Alivardi Khan in his death-bed conversation with Dr Forth, which appears to have been considered by Siraj-u-Daula as a justification for his own subsequent proceedings. But without adopting the extreme view of the French, that the siege and its consequences were the outcome of a deliberate plan formed by Drake and his confederates for the destruction of Holwell, there can be little doubt that the President and his two friends were playing a double game, and found themselves defeated only because they met with opponents still less scrupulous than they were. The constitution of the Council was such as to render it extremely easy for them to manipulate public affairs in their own interest. Watts, the accomptant and second in command, was absent at Kasimbazar, and the executive was practically in the hands of the Governor, Manningham the warehouse-keeper, and his “partner” Frankland. The House of Commons Report makes it clear that these three were suspected not only of supporting the claims of Ghasiti Bigam against those of Siraj-u-Daula in the hope of gain, but of accepting a money bribe to allow the admission of Kishen Das into Calcutta. The writer who in the text is called Mr Dash goes further, and asserts roundly that their earlier defiance of the Nawab was intended to alarm the protected merchants and wealthy men of the surrounding districts, and induce them to seek refuge in Calcutta, when the Presidency might levy blackmail on their possessions. After this we are scarcely surprised to learn on the same authority that Drake and his friends were wont to apply to their own use as much as 10,000 rupees a month, which was a part of the sum devoted by the Court of Directors to the payment of the army—an army practically non-existent—nor that the plunder found at Tanna was put on board the Doddalay, the ship which belonged to the three confederates, and transferred to the snow Neptune. Having attained their object in despatching the expedition, the Presidency had no further interest in Tanna, but kept up a show of activity without any real result on the second day, merely in order to cover the passage of the Neptune up to Calcutta. It is some consolation to hear that when Fort William was abandoned, this vessel went ashore near Baj-baj, and the treasure was lost.
Unfortunately for the plans of the Presidency, it can scarcely be doubted that they were overreached from the first. The hollowness of the Nawab’s anger against Kishen Das, evidenced not only by the honours showered upon him on the fall of Calcutta, but by the fact that Rajballab, the father, and presumably the more guilty of the two, remained unmolested at the Court from beginning to end of the matter, seems to show that the affair of Kishen Das was nothing but a ruse, intended to bring about the ruin of the English by arousing their cupidity. That it was devised by Amin Chand and his friend Gobind Ram Mitar, as was suspected at the time, in revenge for what they considered the injustice with which they had been treated, is scarcely more doubtful. The double-dyed traitor Amin Chand appears, indeed, to have played both parties false with the greatest impartiality throughout his career, but the special malevolence displayed towards Holwell and the three others by whom he conceived himself to have been particularly injured seems to prove that the overthrow was plotted by him, and this is corroborated by the correspondence discovered between Amin Chand and Manak Chand. In consequence of this unsuspected treachery, the President and his friends, who had counted confidently upon the defeat of the Nawab, first at the hands of Ghasiti Bigam and then at those of his cousin of Parnia, found their confidence futile, and the airy carelessness with which they had been wont to discuss affairs of state, both with casual acquaintances and with the natives, contributed to their downfall by the information it furnished to the enemy. It is interesting to observe that in his examination before the Commons Committee, Manningham observes with the greatest coolness that in his opinion it was not in the power of any man to give a reason for the disaster, and that he knew of no conduct on the part of the Company’s servants likely to incense the country government. In regard to their intentions, this is probably true, but it is almost impossible not to believe that their plans for their own aggrandisement recoiled upon them in a way they little expected.
The conduct of the Governor and his friends during the siege appears to have been due merely to pusillanimity, for even Mr “Dash” does not venture to hint at treachery on their part. The incapacity of the engineers prepared a position impossible of defence, and the cowardice of those in command precipitated a defeat which a more resolute resistance might have delayed, and thus averted altogether. The flight of Manningham and Frankland was a natural corollary to the abandonment of the north and south batteries, and the order to the captain of the Doddalay to drop down the river followed easily. In the text I have followed Captain Grant’s account of Drake’s flight, his own share in which he endeavours to excuse by asserting that the boat in which he accompanied him was the only one left. If this is true, it seems scarcely necessary to have locked the Fort gate to prevent further desertions, as we learn was done, and that others succeeded in getting away is probable from the narrative of Mr “Dash,” which ends with a suspicious abruptness after describing the President’s escape. Unless the anonymous writer was the Mr Lewis who accompanied Mr Pearkes to the Prince George, and was presumably saved with her crew, he must have found some means of reaching the ships from the Fort, for we know on his own testimony that he was among the refugees at Falta. Le Beaume, who is branded by Broome with the stigma of taking part in the stampede, is shown by Grant’s narrative to have been wounded, and by Holwell’s to have been sent on board the Diligence on the night of the 18th with Mrs Drake and the three other ladies who had been left behind. I have no authority for identifying these ladies (whose vessel was captured by the enemy off Baj-Baj, and all Holwell’s property lost) with those mentioned in the Seïr-ul-Mutaqharin as having fallen into the hands of Mir Jafar, and been by him restored to their husbands, but the identification appears probable.
[The End]