Champions of the fleet

by Edward Fraser

It took six weeks to reach Balasore Roads, a distance of only seven hundred miles on a direct course. Owing to the delay at Madras they had, as the phrase went, “lost the passage.” With the south-west monsoon, which held from May to the middle of September, it took ordinarily from ten days to a fortnight to sail from Madras to Calcutta. Now they had the north-east monsoon to face—head winds all the way. It was not until the first week of December that the leading ships of the squadron were able to reach Balasore. They had sailed, with the wind, according to the flagship’s log, at west-north-west. Next day the wind shifted to north-east, dead against them. The strong current in the Bay of Bengal, which at that time of year sets down the Coromandel coast at one to five knots an hour, swept the squadron down until they came within sight of Point San Pedro, in Ceylon, thirteen leagues east of Trincomalee. On some days there were dead calms, when they barely made from three to five miles’ progress in twenty-four hours. Between the 28th of October and the 5th of November only six leagues’ advance was made altogether. Rough weather set in, during which the Salisbury sprang a dangerous leak, and the whole squadron had to shorten sail and stand by for a whole day until the leak had been found and stopped. Finally, a storm scattered the squadron far and wide. The Kent and Tyger, the two leading ships, arrived at Balasore Roads on the 3rd of December by themselves. The rest of the squadron were at that time miles astern, trying to weather Palmyras Point. Two of the ships, indeed, never got to Balasore at all; they had to bear away until they drifted right round Ceylon and anchored at Bombay.

At Balasore Admiral Watson got fresh news about what had been happening in Bengal. He now heard, for the first time, details of the taking of Fort William and of the grim tragedy of the Black Hole. Two English pilots who boarded the flagship told the story. The attack, said the men, opened on June 15th, Tuesday, and after a vain attempt to hold the gaol and Court House and a small redoubt in front of the city, the garrison had been driven into the fort. There it was found they had only ammunition for three days’ fighting. The women and children were thereupon sent on board the ships in the river, lying off the Maidan, and in the confusion that followed their departure, Governor Drake and most of the leading civilians—according to the pilots—deserted their posts, and stole off on board ship to join the women, after which they induced the skippers to weigh anchor and drop down the river, leaving the garrison cut off and without means of escape. These under Mr. Holwell, a member of the Council, had fought on gallantly, keeping the enemy off until the afternoon of Sunday the 20th, when, being at their last cartridge, they beat a parley. While they were talking from the walls, the enemy by treachery got possession of one of the fort gates (that in the rear), rushed the guard, and compelled the garrison to surrender at discretion. That night the prisoners, a hundred and seventy-five in number, were crammed all together into the Black Hole, whence next morning only sixteen were left alive. Of the sixteen, Mr. Holwell and Mr. Burdett, a writer, with two others, had been heavily ironed and sent to the Nawab’s camp. Such was the tale told to Admiral Watson.

The refugees at Fulta, added the pilots, were in a deplorable state; fever-stricken and short of food; in terror of their lives; living, some in tents on shore, some on board the ships in the river. The Nawab, it was reported, had withdrawn to Moorshedabad, but his general, Manikchand, was at Calcutta with nearly four thousand men. He was busy throwing up batteries at various points along the river bank to bar any approach by ships.

Admiral Watson, on hearing that, made up his mind to try and get up the Hooghly to Fulta with the Kent at once, without waiting for the rest of the squadron or the troops.

The pilots, however, made objection to carrying the flagship into the river. It was impossible, they said, to get so big a ship over the Braces, the belt of shoals across the mouth of the Hooghly on the Balasore side, with the tides as they were. They doubted, indeed, if it could be done at all, even at spring tides. On the usual “crossing track” over the Western Brace, the deepest channel, they said, was only three fathoms. But Admiral Watson had made up his mind to try. On the pilots finally declining to assist in taking the flagship into the river Captain Speke, the captain of the Kent, volunteered to make the attempt. He had been up the Hooghly once before, and he could, he believed, find a channel deep enough to carry the Kent over the Braces. The Tyger was to remain behind to bring on the rest of the squadron on their arrival.

The flagship set out, after a week’s further detention at Balasore owing to strong north easterly winds, her boats towing her. Captain Speke navigated the ship, and with such success that a channel was found through the Western Brace that gave four fathoms of water at half-tide. It proved sufficient to float the ship over safely. On the 12th of December, they were at anchor off Kedgeree (Khichri), sixty-seven miles from Fort William by water. After this the wind changed to westerly and the Kent was able to work up the estuary under sail.

Fulta was reached on the 15th, and the rescue of the fugitives from Calcutta effected. Major Kilpatrick and his men were found there, and the Kingfisher. The flagship herself had on board two hundred and fifty men of the 39th Foot under Captain Eyre Coote, afterwards the celebrated General Sir Eyre Coote. There was also a detachment of Sepoys, who had arrived two days before by the Protector, a Bombay cruiser, which had touched at Madras just after the squadron left there, and had since got ahead of them. At Fulta Governor Drake, the ex-Governor of Calcutta, came on board to see the Admiral.

The Tyger reached Fulta on the 16th, and the Salisbury and the rest of the men-of-war and the Indiamen with the troops on board, between then and the 26th. The Cumberland and the Marlborough Indiaman were still missing.

The tides, meanwhile, were too low to allow any of the ships to cross the sand-bar above Fulta and proceed further up the Hooghly until after the 27th.

Admiral Watson used the interval to send a letter to Suraj-u-daulah. He wrote courteously, but firmly, demanding the immediate restoration of Calcutta and compensation for property looted and destroyed. The letter was sent off on the 18th of December, but no reply came. None had arrived ten days later, when the forward movement up the river began. The Kent, Tyger, Salisbury, Bridgewater, and Kingfisher comprised the ships told off for the recovery of Calcutta. They carried up with them eight hundred soldiers and twelve hundred Sepoys—all that were available in the absence of the detachments on board the belated ships.