Champions of the fleet

by Edward Fraser

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.”