“And our army of defence,” says the Captain, “with no disrespect to either of you, gentlemen, is a fit match for its weapons. With a garrison of less than two hundred, counting the officers, and of which not ten of the rank and file have seen any war service, we may be thankful if we can hold out for a single day.”
“Come,” says my papa, “think of Colonel Clive’s achievements with a force near as bad, and of your own experience in the Carnatic, sir.”
“Ah, sir, here we lack Colonel Clive. And I am not (though it shame me to say it) the man to take his place. If the President had broke Captain Minchin as he had designed doing, and placed Captains Clayton and Witherington in some such subordinate situation as befits their lack of military experience and judgment, maybe Captain Grant and your humble servant might have made shift to show a good front to the enemy, but with five persons in equal military authority, and his honour and the Council interfering perpetually in matters which are none of their province, the thing is hopeless.”
“But sure, sir,” said Mr Holwell, “you have Captain Grant as adjutant-general, and Captain Minchin made merely commandant of the Fort, where his lack of military qualities can’t do much harm.”
“Not if we were about to defend the town, sir, but when we are driven back upon the Fort, as we must very quickly be, he has all the chance for mischief that he needs. And were Captain Grant twenty adjutants-general in one, he would still have Mr President for his commander.”
“Aye,” says my papa, “the Quaker is quaking now in good earnest. But you seem at present to wish to defend the town, Captain, and I thought that you scouted the bare notion hitherto.”
“Why, sir, had I been in command, I would have called in the gentlemen from the other factories, and their garrisons with ’em, a month ago, and added them to our force here, whereas now they are refuging with the French and Dutch, or must be snapped up by the Nabob as he advances, since the summons to ’em only went out yesterday. In the former case, with the aid of the forced labour of the black inhabitants, we might have extended the Morattoe-ditch round the town with some hope of defending the space enclosed in it, but as things are, I confess indeed that the Fort is our only hope. The plan adopted by the Council on the advice of the engineer officers, which neither carries out Colonel Scott’s scheme of defending the whole space of the town nor contents itself with maintaining the Fort, as should be the case in our present untoward circumstances, is doomed, I am convinced, to failure.”
“Sure, sir,” said Mr Freyne, “you would not have took the responsibility of destroying the church and all the houses near the Fort, as you pressed upon the gentlemen at the council of war?”
“Aye, sir, that I would, instead of leaving ’em as so many fortresses for the enemy. But when every gentleman that has a brick or pucca house wants it included in the defences, and none must be destroyed lest the Company should refuse to pay compensation, how, I ask you, is this to be managed without frittering away in continual stands and retreats the best strength of our small garrison?”
“Ah, Captain,” says Mr Holwell, “you should have supported me in the matter of Tanners. Why, sir, I looked to you as my certain upholder, and yet there was none but Captain Grant and that gallant lad le Beaume besides myself to perceive the advantages we should gain in possessing an abundant store of provisions and a retreat both for the ships and ourselves, unless the Nabob should divide his forces to attack us.”