Like Another Helen

by Sydney C. Grier

Six days ago, as we hear, the Nabob quitted Cossimbuzar with his army, and began his march towards us, in spite of the intercessions of three of his own subjects, Roopchund and Mootabray, the sons of Jugget Seat, his own shroff and money-lender, and Coja Wazeed, a respectable merchant of Hoogly. That these disinterested persons failed in their benevolent designs is in great part due to the submissive and terrified letters sent by our Presidency to Mr Watts, which have continued to arrive long after Cossimbuzar was taken, and, falling into the hands of the Nabob, have confirmed him in his contempt and hostility for us, and he is marching forward with an incredible rapidity, so that many of his soldiers fall dead each day from the fierce rays of the sun. The news of the Soubah’s approach reached us on Saturday, and the next day was such a Sabbath as I should think Calcutta never saw before, nor is likely, should it escape the ruin that seems to be impending, to see again. For first of all, there was a letter intercepted from Rajaram Hircara, the chief of the Nabob’s spies and the person that sent his brother Narransing to demand that Kissendasseat should be given up, addressed to Omy Chund, advising him to escape from Calcutta to join with the Soubah while there was time. This coming so soon after Mr Menotti’s accusation against Omy Chund moved the President and Council to alarm, and they had the old man arrested at once and lodged in the Fort, setting a guard over his effects. Orders were also issued out to stop all the Moors’ boats passing up or down the river, and to seize two Moorish ships that were lying at anchor, which was done. Then, as though this were not turmoil enough for one day, some busy-body, finding the defences pretty well advanced and no feats of arms doing, revived Mr Holwell’s discarded notion of an attempt on the fort named Tanners, which the Moors call Mucka Tanna, situated some five miles down the river on the opposite bank. So confident were our rulers in the strength of our mighty army, that all Captain Colquhoun’s prudent representations were thrown to the winds, and all morning were preparations going forward for sailing against Tanners at noon, though the Captain warned them additionally that no success could be looked for in an enterprise that was commenced by profaning the Sabbath.

It appeared for a time, however, as though these prophecies of evil were to be falsified, for on our troops approaching Tanners in the evening in two ships and two brigantines, and landing in company with the Europeans and Lascars from the vessels’ crews, the Moorish garrison fled, without scarcely any resistance at all, so that our people entered the place in triumph and disabled or threw into the river all the great guns of the fort. But this piece of bravado has proved the destruction of the enterprise, for yesterday morning came Monickchund, the Moorish Governor of Hoogly, with two field-pieces and two thousand men, who fired very smartly with their small arms, and to oppose whom our people had no cannon, and were drove out with little difficulty. Last evening and throughout to-day our vessels have been employed in vain trying to dislodge the enemy a second time, in a genteel sort of style without any fighting, and even a reinforcement of thirty men from our small garrison had no effect, so that the ships are dropped down with the ebb of the tide to lie quiet for the night.

Dreadful though this reverse is in a country where such extravagant value is placed upon the slightest piece of success, an event of far greater horror occurred yesterday in Calcutta itself. It was resolved by the Council, who feared further treachery, to arrest Omy Chund’s relations and his friend Kissendasseat as well as himself, and a parcel of peons was sent to their houses with this object. Resistance was offered at both places, and Kissendass, who had raised and armed a force of men in the evident intention of joining with the Nabob when he arrives, succeeded in driving off his assailants and taking some of them prisoners, whom he used in the most shameful manner imaginable, until his house was fairly taken by storm by Lieutenant Blagg and a force of thirty Europeans, who discovered an incredible quantity of arms, as well as much treasure, concealed in it. At Omy Chund’s house, and this is the horrid part of the affair, his brother-in-law Huzzaromull, who was the person most sought for, hid himself in the Ginanah among the women, while the place was defended by Omy Chund’s peons and armed domestics, to the number of three hundred. The fight going against them, the head Jemmautdar, Juggermunt Sing (the same man that Mr Menotti catched in my papa’s garden with Sinzaun’s letter), stabbed all his master’s women, to the number of thirteen, to preserve them, as he believed, from disgrace, and fastening up the doors, set light to the place. Huzzaromull, having no mind to be burnt alive, surrendered himself, having lost his hand in the fight, and there’s a rumour that the perpetrator of the fearful deed, Juggermunt Sing himself, was conveyed away by his fellows covered with wounds. But oh, my dear, think of all these poor Gentoo women and their children, murdered in this barbarous fashion! Pray heaven the guilt of their innocent blood may not come on us, who are indeed remotely, though not directly, responsible for its being shed.

Fort William, June ye 17th.

We are besieged, Amelia. Yesterday morning, some time before noon, when the ships, which had come up with the flood-tide, were preparing to drop down to Tanners again, all thought of the continuance of that enterprise was forbidden by a brisk sound of firing from the direction of Chitpore. The vanguard of the Nabob’s army was arrived at Mr Kelsall’s garden, under the command of Meer Jaffier, his buckshy[08] or chief general officer, and firing on the Prince George sloop of eighteen guns that lay off Perrins Redoubt. As you will guess, my dear girl, we had all received our orders in the event of this crisis, and had our effects packed in readiness for transport, so that as soon as the firing was heard, and the military and militia were repaired to their posts, we European women quitted our houses, and ourselves in palanqueens, and with our trunks carried on bullock-waggons, took refuge in the Fort without much confusion. Everything, of course, must necessarily be abandoned, with the exception of our clothes and jewels and our bedding, which is always carried about with them by travellers in the East, and which we should need in the Fort. Here the state apartments belonging to the Company were prepared for the fugitives’ reception, and the gentlemen who lodge within the walls were also most obliging in leaving their rooms free, and huddling into the varandas themselves. Mrs Freyne, who is still indisposed, was disturbed to discover that the state apartments were already seized upon when we arrived by the ladies who live nearer at hand, or whose spouses are of higher rank in the service than my papa, but we were made welcome to have our choice of all the young gentlemen’s chambers, and found ourselves at last settled in two tolerable rooms, in as cool a situation as we could hope for. Next to us, to my great delight, is my dear Mrs Hurstwood, whose fever has attacked her again to such a degree that she had to be brought into the Fort in a palanqueen of the French shape, which is like a couch covered in with a waggon-top, but her disposition is the cheerfullest in the world, and she declares that the having her Sylvia so close at hand will alone suffice to cure her. My Amelia will guess that I had plenty to do, even with the help of our three iyas (who were more minded indeed to sit down and bewail themselves), to make my two sufferers comfortable, while disposing our trunks and other effects to serve for chairs and tables with some air of neatness and order. When I had time to give my attention to public affairs, I learned from one of the young gentlemen, who came good-naturedly to see whether he could offer me any assistance, that the greater part of the black inhabitants of the town was fled, as were also most of the servants of the Europeans, and among them all the cooks, so that though the place was well supplied with provisions we bade fair to starve in the midst of plenty. But if the Indians are gone, the half-blood Portuguese and other black Christians are all crowded into the Fort, to the amount of two thousand—men, women, and children—so that ’tis scarce possible to move about the courtyard without tumbling over some of the refugees; and, with their chests and bundles, the place is like a fair, though lacking the ease and cheerfulness. However, a certain number of ’em are chose out to act as cooks, so that they are not without some use to the garrison and ourselves.

’Tis some slight consolation, in all this alarm and confusion, that throughout yesterday the honours of the fight remained with us. In command at Perrins Redoubt is Mr Ensign Piccard,[09] a young gentleman that has seen war service on the coast of Choromandel, and has profited by it. With him were only twenty Europeans, though these have since been reinforced by fifty more under Lieutenant Blagg, and this small party, with two field-pieces, maintained themselves with complete success against four thousand matchlockmen of the Soubah’s, with whom was a battery of four cannon and other pieces carried on the backs of elephants. Shortly after sunset, seeing the piquet under Captain Clayton advancing against them, the enemy retired, leaving seventy-nine dead on the field, and encamped in the top or grove on the further side of the rivulet. Here, after consuming their evening meal, they betook themselves to sleep, as is the custom of the Indians, and this being suspected by Mr Piccard, he crossed the rivulet with a party of his men, seized and spiked up the enemy’s guns, and beating up the thickets in which the Moors lay, drove ’em all out, and this without losing one of his people; the spirits of those in the Redoubt being further cheered by observing the enemy, as soon as they were recovered from the confusion into which they had been thrown, filing in very large columns towards Dumdumma, as though they designed to abandon the siege.

But this, alas! was not to be. Oh, my dear, how do our sins return upon us! Who does my Amelia think had entered the Nabob’s camp in the interval between Ensign Piccard’s attack and the departure of the enemy? None, my dear girl, but Juggermunt Sing, that Jemmautdar of Omy Chund’s of whose terrible and resolved behaviour I wrote you two days back. With invincible spirit this man, although covered with wounds and concealed timidly by his countrymen in some of the black houses, caused himself to be set on a horse, and being carried to Meer Jaffier the Buckshy, told him there was no need to sacrifice his men’s lives in attacking the bridge which was defended so stoutly by our people at Perrins, for that the Morattoe-ditch did not near extend round the town, and he himself could show him certain undefended passages by which he might enter our bounds on the eastward. This, then, was the secret of the enemy’s movement, which brought ’em as far as the old entrenchments at Cow Cross, where they encamped behind the Brick-kilns, their tents extending from the Bungulo[10] as far as Govinderam Metre’s garden on the Dumdumma road. Nor was this all our misfortune, for at Cow Cross bridge were posted by far the greater part of our buxerries, to the number of near a thousand, and these seeing the enemy approaching, at once joined with them, thus leaving the way into the settlement open.

Such, then, was our situation this morning, Amelia, the enemy entering the skirts of the town and plundering and burning wherever they went, especially the houses of the black merchants lying near Chitpore. They have set fire to the Great Buzar and many parts of the Black Town, and we, for our part, have fired the Buzars and poor mean huts to the east and south almost as far as Govindpoor’s, so that there’s a vast expanse of fire and smoke all around us, producing a scene too horrible to describe. This evening a party was sent to drive out the Moors from the merchants’ quarter by the river, and brought back a few prisoners, from whom it was discovered that a general attack upon our outposts is intended to-morrow. This has led to the recall of Lieutenant Blagg and his reinforcement from Perrins, and the troops are ordered to remain all night under arms. One more piece of news has reached us. The reply from Chandernagore to our genteel letter asking the French to assist us with ammunition is a cold refusal. They have only sufficient, they say, for their own needs. Yet we learn that they were obliging enough to supply the Nabob with two hundred chests of powder when he lay across the river from them at Banka Buzar. Questionless we are intended to be grateful that they don’t actively join with Surajah Dowlah against us, though we hear that in his army is a body of fifty deserters from Chandernagore, whose escape has been connived at by their superiors.

Fort William, June ye 18th.

I am writing these lines tormented by the most cruel anxiety. All is lost, Amelia, or very nearly so. The women and wounded are to be put on board the ships this evening, while the small remnant of our defenders endeavour to maintain themselves in the Fort, which alone is left to us, against a triumphant and exulting enemy. The Company’s ship Doddalay[11] and seven smaller vessels lie at a convenient distance from the Fort, and Mess. Manningham and Frankland are gone on board to provide for the reception of us unfortunates, while here every one is occupied in making sure that she shan’t be saved and her possessions left behind. Mrs Freyne is more sprightly than I have seen her for a fortnight. In an agreeable undress, she sits enthroned on piles of bedding, directing the trembling iyas as they cord the trunks, while my poor Charlotte lies almost speechless, exhausted by the heat and the violence of the fever that has held her all day. You’ll wonder that I can write at such a moment; and, indeed, I wonder at it myself. But, Amelia, my papa, my dear and honoured father, the kindest of men, is missing. I have been hurrying hither and thither, demanding of every European I met whether they could tell me anything of him, but all they can assure me of is that no one has seen him either slain or seriously wounded. Captain Colquhoun came upon me while I was seeking to obtain some news from a parcel of frightened To-passes, and fairly led me back by the hand to our lodging.