Clive, in the meantime, was advancing cautiously, his men erecting batteries, which seemed to be very easily silenced by the superior gunnery of the Fort. His object was partly to weary out the garrison by constant fighting, and partly to creep round to the river face, so as to be in a position to take the batteries which commanded the narrow river passage, as soon as Admiral Watson was ready to attack the Fort. Later on, the naval officers asserted he could not have taken the Fort without the assistance of the fleet. He said he could, and it is certain that if he had had no fleet to assist him his mode of attack would have been a very different one.

Early in the siege the French were warned from Chinsurah to beware of treachery amongst the deserters in their pay, and on the 17th of March a number of arrows were found in the Fort with labels attached, bearing the words:—

"Pardon to deserters who will rejoin their colours, and
rewards to officers who will come over to us."

These were seized by the officers before the men could see them, but one of the officers themselves, Charles Cossard de Terraneau, a sub-lieutenant of the garrison, took advantage of the offer to go over to the English. This officer had served with credit in the South of India, and had lost an arm in his country's service. The reason of his desertion is said to have been a quarrel with M. Renault. M. Raymond, the translator of a native history of the time by Gholam Husain Khan,[[44]] tells a story of De Terraneau which seems improbable. It is to the effect that he betrayed the secret of the river passage to Admiral Watson, and that a few years later he sent home part of the reward of his treachery to his father in France. The old man returned the money with indignant comments on his son's conduct, and De Terraneau committed suicide in despair. As a matter of fact, De Terraneau was a land officer,[[45]] and therefore not likely to be able to advise the Admiral, who, as we shall see, solved the riddle of the passage in a perfectly natural manner, and the Probate Records show that De Terraneau lived till 1765, and in his will left his property to his wife Ann, so the probability is that he lived and died quietly in the British service. His only trouble seems to have been to get himself received by his new brother officers. However, he was, so Clive tells us, the only artillery officer the French had, and his desertion was a very serious matter. Renault writes:—

"The same night, by the improved direction of the
besiegers' bombs, I had no doubt but that he had done us
a bad service."

On the 18th the French destroyed a battery which the English had established near the river, and drove them out of a house opposite the south-east bastion. The same day the big ships of the squadron—the Kent (Captain Speke), the Tyger (Captain Latham), and the Salisbury (Captain Martin), appeared below the town. The Bridgewater and Kingfisher had come up before. Admiral Watson was on board the Kent, and Admiral Pocock on the Tyger. The fleet anchored out of range of the Fort at the Prussian Gardens, a mile and a half below the town, and half a mile below the narrow passage in which the ships had been sunk.

On the 19th Admiral Watson formally announced the declaration of war,[[46]] and summoned the Fort to surrender. The Governor called a council of war, in which there was much difference of opinion. Some thought the Admiral would not have come so far without his being certain of his ability to force the passage; indeed the presence of so many deserters in the garrison rendered it probable that he had secret sources of information. As a matter of fact, it was only when Lieutenant Hey, the officer who had brought the summons, and, in doing so, had rowed between the masts of the sunken vessels, returned to the Kent, that Admiral Watson knew the passage was clear. Renault and the Council were aware that the Fort could not resist the big guns of the ships, and accordingly the more thoughtful members of the council of war determined, if possible, to try and avoid fighting by offering a ransom. This apparently gave rise to the idea that they wished to surrender, and an English officer says:—

"Upon the Admiral's sending them a summons ... to
surrender, they were very stout; they gave us to understand
there were two parties in the Factory, the Renaultions and
the anti-Renaultions. The former, which they called the
great-wigg'd gentry, or councillors, were for giving up the
Fort, but the others vowed they would die in the breach. To
these high and lofty expressions the Admiral could give no
other answer than that in a very few days, or hours perhaps,
he would give them a very good opportunity of testifying
their zeal for the Company and the Grand Monarque."

The offer of ransom was made, and was refused by the Admiral. Renault says, he—

"insisted on our surrendering and the troops taking possession
of the Fort, promising, however, that every one should keep his
own property. There was not a man amongst us who did not
prefer to run the risk of whatever might happen to surrendering
in this fashion, without the Fort having yet suffered any
material damage, and every one was willing to risk his own
interests in order to defend those of the Company. Every
one swore to do his best."