The Black Hole: The Question of Holwell's Veracity
by J. H. Little
Bengal, Past & Present
Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society
Vol. XI -- Part 1
July-Sept., 1915
Serial No. 21
-- The Black Hole -- The Question of Holwell's Veracity, by J. H. Little, Bengal, Past & Present, Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society, Vol. XI, Part 1, July-Sept., 1915
-- Full Proceedings of the Black Hole Debate, Bengal, Past & Present, Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society, Vol. XII. Jan – June, 1916
-- A Genuine Narrative of the deplorable Deaths of the English Gentlemen, and Others, who were suffocated in the Black Hole in Fort-William, at Calcutta, in the Kingdom of Bengal; in the Night succeeding the 20th Day of June 1756., In a Letter to a Friend, from India Tracts, by Mr. J.Z. Holwell, and Friends.
-- Interesting Historical Events, Relative to the Provinces of Bengal, and the Empire of Indostan. With a Seasonable Hint and Persuasive to the Honourable The Court of Directors of the East India Company. As Also The Mythology and Cosmogony, Facts and Festivals of the Gentoo's, followers of the Shastah. And a Dissertation on the Metempsychosis, commonly, though erroneously, called the Pythagorean Doctrine. Part II. By J.Z. Holwell, Esq.
-- Forging Indian Religion: East India Company Servants and the Construction of ‘Gentoo’/‘Hindoo’ Scripture in the 1760s, by Jessica Patterson
-- French Jesuits in India and the Lettres Edifiantes, by Jyoti Mohan
-- Claiming India: French Scholars and the Preoccupation with India During the Nineteenth Century, by Jyoti Mohan
-- Natural Theology and Natural Religion, by Andrew Chignell & Derk Pereboom
-- The Enlightenment and Orientalist Discourse on the Aryan, Excerpt from Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity, by Dorothy M. Figueira
-- Ezourvedam: A French Veda of the Eighteenth Century, Edited with an Introduction by Ludo Rocher
-- Holwell's Religion of Paradise, Excerpt from The Birth of Orientalism, by Urs App
It may be asserted with safety that every British school boy, almost as soon as he is able to understand stories at all, is told the story of the Black Hole of Calcutta and learns that on a stifling night in June 1756 one hundred and forty six men, the greater part of British birth, were shut up in a small room in Fort William; that when the prison door was opened in the morning only twenty three miserable wretches were able to totter out and that the remainder of that unfortunate band lay dead on the floor of the prison, the victims of a tyrant's cruelty.
He never thinks of doubting the truth of the story. Belief in it grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength so that if he chance to come to Bengal he is amazed to find highly educated Bengalis who disbelieve the story altogether. “But,” he will reply to such a one, “it is in all the history books. You will find it in every elementary text-book written for schools as well as in the pages of the most authoritative writers on the history of Bengal.” If the Indian objects that the story is not found in the pages of his historians our Englishman, naturally and not undeservedly, gives the objection short shrift. Abana and Pharphar are better than all the waters of Israel. Such negative evidence cannot stand for a moment against the positive statements of Macaulay and Mill.
One Englishman, at least, seems to have doubted the truth of the incident. An article in the Calcutta Review1 [No. LI, March 1856, Warren Hastings in Slippers. p. 69.] contains the following remarkable words:—“John Zephaniah Holwell, the historian of the said catastrophe of the so-called “Black Hole of Calcutta." There is nothing going before or after to explain the meaning of these words. Articles in the Calcutta Review were not signed in those days, but in the copy in the hands of the present writer some one has written in pencil the names of the authors of all the articles, and against this one appears the name of Dr. J. Grant, Apothecary General.
The appointment of Apothecary General in the British (or English) Army dated from 1686; it lapsed in 1826, by which time it was little more than an honorary title.
According to British regulations, the Apothecary General, like the Judge Advocate General, was a noncombatant officer who, under directions from the secretary at war, supplied the army with medicines, hospital stores, surgical instruments, etc. Semi-annually he presented a bill to the Treasury, having previously submitted it for approval to the surgeon and physician generals and to the secretary at war, who certified that the medicines specified had been forwarded to their respective destinations.
-- Apothecary General, by Wikipedia
The present writer was led to a study of the incident by chance. Engaged in research on a different subject entirely it was his task to read the works of many of the contemporary writers on the affairs of Bengal in the 18th century as well as the official records of the time. Holwell came into intimate connection with his subject, and he formed a very different opinion on the character of that gentleman from the one given by Dr. Busteed in his Echoes from Old Calcutta. Various incidents in the official records also caused grave doubts to arise in his mind as to the truth of the accepted version of the incident of the Black Hole. But a question at once asserted itself. If there is no truth in the Black Hole story then what did take place on the night of the 20th June 1756 to cause the death of so many men? The question was unanswerable and the matter dismissed.
Recently, however, the writer read once more Holwell's Narrative, and the answer to the above question almost leaped from its pages—an answer as simple and “as true as truth's simplicity”—and he is now prepared to prove that the Black Hole incident was a gigantic hoax and to advance what he believes to be the true version of the affair. Of his ability to perform the first part of his task he is calmly confident, but the second part he presents with all diffidence. The merit of the theory is its simplicity, the ease with which it removes every difficulty in which this incident is at present involved, and the fact that it explains how men living in Bengal at the time might have believed in the Black Hole story. It does far more. If it takes away it repays a hundred fold. It presents to the British nation a band of heroes not unworthy to rank with those who turned at bay in the retreat from Mons, with those who held the trenches at Ypres or those who stormed the blood-stained heights of Gallipoli. “Here are large promises,” the reader may exclaim. Let him read and judge whether they are not fulfilled.
Very significant, from the writer’s point of view, is the fact that the author of the Seir Mutaquerin, a contemporary historian, does not mention the Black Hole incident, but all he asks the reader to do is to note the fact. To prove his case he will rely solely on the writings of Englishmen who were in Bengal at the time—either in the Black Hole itself or in the neighbourhood. In the forefront of these men stands Holwell whose Narrative—“than which nothing more pathetic is to be found in the annals of the British in India”‘2 [Bengal in 1756-1757 by S. C. Hill (1905) Vol. I Introduction p. xc.] —is the chief authority for the incident. But before dealing with the narrative he will deal with the man. He frankly confesses that he intends to prejudice the reader against the writer of the narrative, so the reader will be upon his guard. Or if the latter prefers to form an opinion on the words of the narrative itself without the obtrusion of any extraneous matter whatever, let him pass over section 2 and proceed to section 3. Afterwards he may return to section 2 to confirm or modify the opinion he may have formed.
2.
John Zephaniah Holwell has received the eulogy of modern writers for his gallant defence of Calcutta in 1756 after the desertion of Governor Drake and his chief officers. He was the principal survivor of the Black Hole tragedy and wrote a narrative of his sufferings. When Clive left India in February 1760, Holwell succeeded him as Governor of Calcutta, but in August was superseded by Vansittart. His great achievement as Governor was to work up a case, in a most unscrupulous manner, against Nawab Mir Jafar. He prepared a memorial3 [The memorial may be found in Holwell's India Tracts and also in Vansittart’s Narrative Vol. 1 pp. 46-63.] on the state of the affairs of the province for the new Governor who was on his way to Calcutta. In this memorial he laid at the door of Mir Jafar all the evils under which the country was suffering; he charged him with treacherous dealings with the Dutch in the previous year, although Major Caillaud pointed out to him that this was never clearly proved, and even if it had been proved the fault had been condoned by Clive; he charged him with corresponding with the Shahzada, although Warren Hastings declared that the document was a forgery4 [The letters of Major Caillaud and Warren Hastings are given in India Tracts, but the writer has mislaid the exact reference.]; he charged him with the murder of persons who were alive when Mir Jafar himself was dead5 [See infra.] and he got £30,000 for himself when his scheme was successful.6 [Malcolm's Life of Clive (1836) Vol. 2, p. 289. See Bengal P. & P. Vol. VIII pp. 214-219.] The dethronement of Mir Jafar, condemned by Clive,7 [Malcolm's Life of Clive, Vol. 2, p. 255.] protested against by seven of the Company’s servants in Bengal who asserted that if the President had consulted the whole Council the measure would have been rejected,8 [Holwell’s India Tracts (1774) p. 107.] approved by the Court of Directors in such hesitating terms that Warren Hastings did not venture to translate the despatch to the new Nawab,9 [Hastings to Vansittart, July 14, 1762. (Vansittart’s Narrative Vol. 2, p. 69.)] was carried out by Governor Vansittart in October, and Mir Kasim was installed in his place.
Holwell was a man of great ability which he used unscrupulously to secure his own ends. Clive condemns him in the strongest terms: “Mr. Holwell is a specious and sensible man, but from what I have heard and observed myself I cannot be persuaded he will ever make use of his abilities for the good of the Company.”10 [Clive to William Mabbot, 31 Jan. 1757, (Hill’s Bengal in 1756-57 Vol. 2, p. 186)] He trembled to think of the fatal consequences if he were succeeded by such a mercenary man. “Mr. * * * has talents, but I fear wants a heart, therefore unfit to preside where integrity as well as capacity are equally essential.”11 [Malcolm's Life of Clive Vol. 2, p. 137 and p. 139. Asterisks are placed for the name but it is quite clear that Holwell is the man.] It seems ungenerous to add that when Siraj-ud-daula besieged Calcutta Holwell would have run away with the others if he had been able. But the statement was made at the time. Ives mentions it without condemnation12 [A Voyage from England to India in the year 1754 etc. (1773) p. 93. Ives was surgeon to Admiral Watson.] and Clive believed it. “I am well informed," he wrote, “there is no merit due to him for staying behind in the fort, nothing but the want of a boat prevented his escape and flight with the rest.”13 [In the letter quoted above. So Mr. William Lindsay who left the fort by permission on the 19th June. “It was much against his inclination being there, two gentlemen having carried away the budgerow he had waiting for him. I mention this as I understand he made a merit in staying when he found he could not get off." Letter to Mr. Robert Orme from Fulta July 1756. Hill’s Bengal in 1756-57, Vol. 1, p. 168.]
As a historian Holwell enjoys a reputation which is quite undeserved. To qualify himself to write on the history of India Holwell asserts that he “studiously perused all that has been written of the empire of Indostan, both as to its ancient as well as more modern state; as also the various accounts transmitted to us, by authors in almost all ages (from Arrian, down to the Abbé de Guyon) concerning the Hindoos, and the religious tenets of the Bramins.” He proceeds “to pronounce them all very defective, fallacious, and unsatisfactory to an inquisitive searcher after truth.”14 [Holwell's Interesting Historical Events, Part 1, p. 5.] Holwell may have been right, for all his reading did not save him from making the elementary blunder of declaring that Prince Nicosir, a pretender to the Empire in 1709, was a son of the great Akbar who died in 1605!15 [Holwell’s Interesting Historical Events, Part 1, p. 37.] If Holwell is correct in his history of the Mughal Empire from the death of Aurungzeb to the reign of Muhammad Shah then Elphinstone’s History of India needs revision for that period. If the Seir Mutaqherin approximates to history then Holwell’s account of the Transactions in Bengal from 1717 to 1750 is romance.
Here the reader may object: “Granted (though we should require better proof than you have brought forward) that Holwell was an inaccurate historian, that does not prove that he was a dishonest man." The latter point will now be established by showing (1) that Holwell fabricated a speech and fathered it on the Nawab Alivardi Khan; (2) that he brought false charges against the Nawab Mir Jafar; (3) that he fabricated a whole book and called it a translation from the ancient sacred writings of the Hindus.
(1) In a letter to the Court of Directors, dated Fulta, 30 November 1756,16 [Hill's Bengal in 1756-1757 Vol. 2, p. l.] Holwell is at pains to prove that the protection given by the Company’s servants to subjects of the Nawab was not the cause, as had been alleged, of Siraj-ud-daula’s attack on Calcutta. He asserts that Alivardi Khan “had long meditated to destroy the forts and garrisons of the Europeans,” and in support of this statement he quotes “verbatim, the last discourse and council which Mahabut Jung (Alivardi Khan) gave his grandson (Siraj-ud-daula) a few days before his death,” which, he adds, "I had from very good authority at Murshidabad, after my releasement.” Then follows the speech from which the following extract may be made:—“Keep in view the power the European nations have in the country. This fear I would also have freed you from if God had lengthened my days—The work, my son, must now be yours ....... ..Think not to weaken all three together. The power of the English is great; they have lately conquered Angria, and possessed themselves of his country; reduce them first; the others will give you little trouble, when you have reduced them. Suffer them not, my son, to have fortifications or soldiers: if you do, the country is not yours.”17 [Hill's Bengal in 1756-1757, Vol. 2, p. 16.]
This speech called forth some very plain language. Matthew Collet, second at Cassimbazar, contemptuously dismissed it with the words:—“As to Alliverde Cawn's last dying speech to his nephew, I look on it as a specious fable.”18 [Letter from Collet to Council, Fort William (Hill, Vol. 2, p. 129).] Richard Becher, chief of the Company’s factory at Dacca remarks:—“Mr. Holwell will excuse me if I do not admitt Alliverdee Cawn's speech as genuine till better proofs are brought to support it than any I have yet seen. Such advice if really given, it is reasonable to imagine had few or no witnesses, so that it appears very improbable Mr. Holwell in his distressed situation at Muxadavad should have been able to unravell the mysterries of the Cabinet and explore a secret never yet known to any one but himself.”19 [Letter from Becher to Council, Fort William (Hill, Vol. 2, p. 162).] William Watts, chief of the factory at Cassimbazar, observes:—“The last dying speech of Mahabut Jung or Alliverdi Cawn to his grandson neither he, or I believe, any of the gentlemen of the factory, ever heard of; neither have I since from any of the country people; it seems an imitation of the speech of Lewis XIV. to his grandson, and appears as Mr. Collet aptly terms it only a specious fable.”20 [Letter from Watts to Court of Directors, (Hill, Vol. 3, p. 336).]
Holwell replied to what (in his own words) was a charge of imposing on the Court of Directors a forgery that had no foundation but in his own invention. After quoting the words of Messrs. Collet, Becher and Watts he proceeds:—"That Mr. Becher should not believe the speech genuine I do not much wonder at, as he seems fully resolved that nothing shall drive him from his adopted principal cause of our misfortunes, the detention of the Nabob’s subjects, in confutation of which I have said sufficient; but the reasons this gentleman gives for his believing the speech not genuine had been better omitted for his own sake. The speech might probably enough have been a secret whilst it was necessary it should be so; but when I obtained it that necessity had long vanished, and Mr. Becher might have observed I say I had it from good authority, after my releasement, which was more than three months after the period it was uttered, and was no longer to be deemed a mystery of the cabinet, but might be judiciously enough divulged and circulated as an apology for and in support of Surajud Dowla's proceedings against the English, &c. Mr. Becher's opinion, “that I was unable to explore a secret, never yet known to any one but myself,” I would explain and reply to, could I possibly understand him. Shall only add, for Your Honours’ satisfaction, and in vindication of my own veracity, that I was released the 16th of July, and continued at the Tanksall, and the Dutch and French factories, until the 19th at night; during which period I had frequent conferences with the principal Armenians, and some the immediate servants of the late and present Suba, from whence I had the speech literally as I have given it; and notwithstanding the ingenious ridicule it meets from Messieurs Watts and Collet to cover their deficiency in matters which ought to have been known to them, I will not despair of giving Your Honours yet more convincing proofs of its being genuine.” The only proof that Holwell produces is a copy of a letter written by William Forth, surgeon at Cassimbazar, who relates that he was attending the Nawab fifteen days before his death when Siraj-ud-daula entered the room and charged the English with plotting to set up a rival to him in the succession. Alivardi Khan questioned Forth and at the end of his examination declared “he did not believe a word of the report he had heard.”21 [Letter from Holwell to Court of Directors, (Hill, Vol. 3, pp. 355, 356, 357.] How this helps Holwell it is difficult to see.
Holwell’s reply is as feeble as it could possibly be. Why did he not produce names with the date and hour of the conferences? He dared not. Watts and Collet were stationed close to Murshidabad and could have bowled him out. The only other remark of Holwell’s worthy of the slightest notice is his statement that the secret might have been circulated as an apology for the Nawab’s proceedings against the English. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Manningham, in his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons said that “it was impossible to give any rational account of the origin of the Troubles”; that he was in Murshidabad with Clive in July 1757 and “enquiry was then made with all possible attention, but without success, into the motives of Surajah Dowla’s conduct from his principal officers, and likewise from the officers of his predecessor, from the Seats, and every other person from whom information was likely to be obtained.22 [First Report, (Hill, Vol. 3, p. 284).] Scrafton says the same. “I have made it my study since our intercourse with the great men at court, to penetrate into the cause of this event, but could never obtain anything satisfactory .... Perhaps it is a vain research to trace the motives of a capricious tyrant."23 [Scrafton, Reflections on the Government, &c., of Indostan (1763) p. 55.] Finally, on the main point we have the evidence of a relation24 [Hill, Vol. I Introduction, p. xxviii, foot note.] of Alivardi Khan’s—the author of the Seir Mutaqherin—who states:—“He (Alivardi Khan) used to compare the Europeans to a hive of bees, of whose honey you might reap the benefit, but that if you disturbed their hive they would sting you to death.” On another occasion, when his General, Mustafa Khan, supported by his nephew, Sayyid Ahmad, represented the ease with which the Europeans might be deprived of their immense wealth, he exclaimed: “My child, Mustapha Khan is a soldier, and wishes us to be constantly in need of his service, but how come you to join in his request? What have the English done against me that I should use them ill? It is now difficult to extinguish fire on land; but should the sea be in flames, who can put them out? Never listen to such advice as his, for the result would probably be fatal."25 [All this is borrowed from Hill’s Bengal in 1756-57 Vol I, Introduction p. xxxi.] Commenting on the inconsistency of these words with Holwell’s speech Dr. Busteed suggests that probably Alivardi Khan modified these views later on.26 [Echoes from Old Calcutta (2nd edition) p. 5 footnote.] Undoubtedly he did, or Holwell is guilty of forgery. Let the reader judge.
(2) With respect to the second charge against Holwell the reader will probably be disposed to accept the judgment of Clive and his Council who in 1766 considered it their duty to acquaint the Court of Directors in an official despatch that the “horrible massacres” with which Holwell had charged Nawab Mir Jafar were “cruel aspersions on the character of that prince" and had not the least foundation in truth. The persons who, according to Holwell, had been put to death by Mir Jafar “are all now living, except two, who were put to death by Meeran, without the Nawab’s consent or knowledge.“27 [Long's Selections from Unpublished Records of Government, p. 428.]
(3) Holwell asserts that the leisure hours of his thirty years’ residence in India were spent in collecting materials relative to the history and religion of the inhabitants of the country. Many curious Hindu manuscripts came into his possession and among them “two very correct and valuable copies of the Gentoo Shastah" procured with great labour and at great expense. He spent eighteen months in translating the Sastra.28 [Interesting Historical Events, Part 1, p. 3.] In one year more he would have completed the work but the catastrophe of 1756 intervened and when Calcutta was captured he lost manuscript and translation. By an unforeseen and extraordinary event “that possibly I may hereafter relate” (he never does so) he recovered some of his manuscripts.29 [Interesting Historical Events, Part 1, p. 4.] Hence he was able to give to the world an account of what he calls the “Chartah Bhade of Bramah,” the oldest and purest of the sacred writings of the Hindus. In Holwell’s time only three or four families were capable of reading and expounding it from the Sanskrit character.30 [Interesting Historical Events, Part 2, p. 15.] He obtained his information concerning it not from ordinary learned Brahmans who, in spite of their knowledge of the truth, pandered to the corrupt beliefs of the mob, but from those “whose purity of principle and manners and zeal for the primitive doctrines of Bramah’s Shastah sets them above disguising the truth."31 [Interesting Historical Events, Part 2, p 9 and p. 21.] Holwell gives an account of the doctrines contained in the “Chartah Bhade of Bramah”32 [Interesting Historical Events, Part 2, pp. 9 to 21.] and a translation of the first book and a section of the second. This version of the most ancient sacred book of the Hindus will make Sanskrit scholars stare and gasp. But what condemns the whole thing as a colossal fraud is the fact that Holwell has retained some words of the original in his translation which he explains in footnotes, and from these words it appears that his manuscript of the “Chartah Bhade” which only a few Brahman families were capable of reading and expounding from the Sanskrit character, was written in a mixture of Colloquial Bengali and Hindustani33 [Holwell starts his translation with the words "God is one" which according to a footnote are a translation of "ekhummesha" (ek, one hamesha, always?) pure Hindustani (Interesting Historical Events, Part 2 p. 31). The other words of the Sanskrit (?) original given in the translation or in footnotes are:—Debtah, angels; logue, a people, multitude or congregation; debtah-logue, the angelic host (p. 35); hazaar par hazaar (Hindustani), thousands upon thousands (p. 42); mahah surgo, supreme heaven; onderah (Hindustani) intense darkness (p. 44) dooneah or dunneah (Hindustani) the world; dunneahoudah, the worlds or the universe; boboons, regions or planets (p. 48) ghoij, the cow; ghoijal, cows; ghoijalbarry, a cowhouse; mhurd (Hindustani) the common name of man, from murto, matter or earth; jhoale, water, fluid; oustmaan (Hindustani) the air (p. 56) jogues, ages (p. 56); pereeth logue, purified people (p. 103); munnoo logue, people of contemplation, from mun or mon, thought, reflection (p. 104); modoo, discord, enmity; kytoo, confusion, tumult (p. 106); surjee, the sun; chunder, the moon (p. 110). (The meanings and derivations are Holwell’s).] —the latter apparently predominating. The fourth “sublime book" of the “Chartah Bhade" which “must lie in oblivion, until some one, blessed with opportunity, leisure, application, and genius, brings them to light" was according to Holwell, commonly called by Hindus “Bramah Ka Insoff (insaf) Bhade”! or “Bramah's Book of Justice." Such was the barefaced fraud foisted by Holwell on a Europe totally ignorant of Sanskrit, and it was for this that Voltaire gratefully thanked him.34 [Quoted in Busteed's Echoes from Old Calcutta, p. 38 (2nd edition).]
Three outrageous frauds have thus been brought home to Holwell, and we now proceed to reveal a fourth. Let us examine what he calls “a genuine Narrative of the deplorable deaths of the English gentlemen and others who were suffocated in the Black Hole in Fort William, at Calcutta."
3.
A reader of Holwell’s narrative35 [The Narrative may be read in Holwell's India Tracts or in Hill’s Bengal in 1756-1757 Vol. 3, p. 131. All quotations have been taken from the latter source.] cannot fail to be struck by the leading part—and a noble part it is—played by Holwell himself. He is the hero of his own narrative. He bestrides his narrow world like a Colossus, and the petty men, his companions in misfortune
Walk under his huge legs, and peep about
To find themselves dishonourable graves.
At the very outset of the narrative Holwell’s nobility of character is brought conspicuously forward. Leech, the Company’s smith, had made his escape when the Fort was captured by the enemy, but as soon as it was dark he returned and informed Holwell that he had a boat in readiness and Holwell might escape if he would follow him “through a passage few were acquainted with, and by which he (Leech) had then entered.” The guards were not looking, he might easily have escaped, the temptation to do so was great but immediately resisted. “I thanked him,” says Holwell “in the best terms I was able; but told him it was a step I could not prevail on myself to take, as I should thereby very ill repay the attachment the gentlemen and the garrison had shewn to me; and that l was resolved to share their fate, be it what it would; but pressed him to secure his own escape without loss of time; to which he gallantly replied, that “then he was resolved to share mine, and would not leave me.”36 [p. 135. Yet on the 3rd August 1756, six weeks after this incident, Holwell appears to have forgotten Leech. On that date he compiled his first lists of victims, etc. which he declared “are as correct as I at present can make them and are deficient in nothing but in the number of those of the militia and others who quitted the fort the 18th and 19th" (Hill Vol. i. p. 188). Leech‘s name is not given. It appears first in the list appended to Holwell's Narrative.]
The rest of the narrative is pitched in the same key. Throughout that night of horrors Holwell ever regardless of himself thinks only of his companions and how he may help them, comfort them and sustain their courage. Death he plainly perceived was their inevitable destiny, but death had no terrors for him, indeed he felt much more for his wretched companions than himself.37 [p. 137.] Only once during that dreadful night did his courage fail him. “Some infernal spirit” he says, “brought to my remembrance my having a small clasp penknife in my pocket, with which I determined instantly to open my arteries and finish a system no longer to be borne. I had got it out, when heaven interposed and restored me to fresh spirits and resolution, with an abhorrence of the act of cowardice I was just going to commit.”38 [p. 143.] Holwell’s abnegation of self and regard for others were repaid in a manner that is very touching. His fellow prisoners show their regard for him throughout the night, and when the first rays of dawn entered the prison some of the survivors searched for him and brought him insensible to the window where a man is found willing to resign his place to him.39 [p. 144.] Truly we must admit that this fiery ordeal thoroughly consumed all the dross there may have been in Holwell’s character leaving fine gold or ...........
The second point that cannot fail to strike a reader of the narrative is the extraordinary nature of the sufferings endured by Holwell and not less than this, his extraordinary powers of endurance and instant recuperation.
Holwell entered the Black Hole at 8 P.M. “exhausted by continual fatigue and action."40 [p. 136.] From about nine to near eleven Holwell had to withstand such pressure in his window that his “legs were almost broke with the weight against them.” By eleven o’clock he was “very near pressed to death”; while three men who were with him in the window had actually been crushed to death. It is true two of these were wounded men, but the third could not have been, for Holwell says he “had forced himself into the window."41 [p. 139.] Not only did Holwell withstand a crush that killed three men beside him, but the effects on himself were quite temporary. He begged those around him “as the last instance of their regard" to remove the pressure and allow him to retire into the room to die in quiet. They gave way and he was able “without much difficulty” to reach the centre of the prison and from thence he proceeded to a platform at the back.42 [p. 140.] After remaining ten minutes here he was seized with a pain in his breast and palpitation of the heart “both to the most exquisite degree." Fresh air would give relief, so he determined to push for the window opposite him. “By an effort of double the strength I ever before possessed," he states that he gained the third rank at the window and “with one hand seized a bar, and by that means gained the second, though I think there were at least six or seven ranks between me and the window.”43 [p. 141.] The pain, palpitation and difficulty of breathing immediately ceased. In this new position Holwell declares “from half an hour past eleven till nearly two in the morning, I sustained the weight of a heavy man, with his knees in my back and the pressure of his whole body on my head, a Dutch serjeant, who had taken his seat upon my left shoulder, and a topaz44 [A black Christian soldier: usually termed "subjects" of Portugal (Holwell).] “bearing on my right; all which nothing could have enabled me long to support but the props and pressure equally sustaining me all around.”45 [p. 142.] An hour and a half of this was more than even Holwell could stand, and about two o'clock he made his way once more to the platform where he lay down and “presently lost all sensation."46 [p. 144.] Holwell remained insensible till nearly six in the morning when, as has been related, he was, found under the dead47 [p. 144.] and carried to a window. Nearly four hours of insensibility in an atmosphere which had caused the death of 123 men had the most temporary of effects on Holwell. “The fresh air at the window," he says, “soon brought me to life"48 [p. 144.] and not merely to life but restored him to his sight and senses and he gazed round the room and his soul was stricken with suffering at the dreadful destruction which met his view. However, Holwell did not escape scot-free. When he got out he found himself in a “high putrid fever”49 [p. 145.] and not being able to stand threw himself on the wet grass outside the verandah of the prison. He was then taken to the Nawab who charged him with being privy to the concealment of the Company’s treasure and ordered him to discover it. Once more we admire Holwell’s superiority to bodily infirmities. The high fever leaves all his faculties unimpaired and he vigorously repels the charge. “I urged everything I could to convince him there was no truth in the information; or that if any such thing had been done, it was without my knowledge. I reminded him of his repeated assurance to me the day before; but he resumed the subject of the treasure, and all I could say seemed to gain no credit with him.”50 [p. 145.] After the interview Holwell with three companions was conveyed to the camp of Mir Madan, over three miles off. Here they were “loaded with fetters and stowed all four in a seapoy’s tent, about four feet long, three wide, and about three high; so that we were half in, half out: all night it rained severely."51 [p. 146.] Holwell must, therefore, have been drenched but, if so, it agreed with him and cured his fever. “I became,” he says, “covered from head to foot with large painful boils, the first symptom of my recovery; for until these appeared my fever did not leave me."52 [p. 146.] Still twenty four hours’ high fever would leave an ordinary man extremely weak, but not so Holwell. “On the morning of the 22nd they marched us to town in our fetters under the scorching beams of an intense hot sun, and lodged us at the Dockhead in the open small veranda fronting the river."53 [p. 146.] Here for all we learn from the narrative Holwell was in a tolerable state of health and was quite ready on the 24th (the 23rd is a blank in the narrative) to embark for Murshidabad. The curious reader may pursue the story of Holwell’s sufferings on the journey by boat to Murshidabad but probably enough has been related to cause him to exclaim that, Holwell was no mere mortal man, or .......
We now proceed to notice a few points in Holwell’s narrative on which, if he were a witness in a court of law, he would certainly suffer cross-examination. The first four points are comparatively unimportant, but they will assume importance later, and the reader is requested to give them his attention. The fifth point, if the reasoning is sound, and the reader will judge of this, immediately characterises the whole narrative as a daring piece of unblushing impudence.
(1) Holwell states:—“The Suba and his troops were in possession of the Fort before six in the evening. I had in all three interviews with him; the last in Durbar before seven, when he repeated his assurances to me, on the word of a soldier, that no harm should come to us; and indeed I believe his orders were only general, that we should for that night be secured; and that what followed was the result of revenge and resentment in the breasts of the lower jemmaatdars, to whose custody we were delivered, for the number of their order killed during the siege.”54 [p. 134.] Knowing how Indian subordinate officers are ready to reflect the smiles and frowns of their master is it credible that these men would dare to disobey the orders of the Nawab given in Durbar in this flagrant manner? How can this be reconciled with the fact that when Holwell requested that the prisoners might be separated into two parties one of these same subordinate officers went to inquire and returned with the reply “it could not be done but by the Suba’s orders and that no one dared awake him.”55 [p. 137.]
(2) This is Holwell’s account of how the prisoners entered the Black Hole:—“We were no sooner all within the barracks, than the guard advanced to the inner arches and parapet wall; and, with their muskets presented, ordered us to go into the room at the southernmost end of the barracks, commonly called the Black Hole prison; whilst others from the court of guard, with clubs and drawn scymitars, pressed upon those of us next to them. This stroke was so sudden, so unexpected, and the throng and pressure so great upon us next the door of the Black Hole prison, there was no resisting it; but like one agitated wave impelling another, we were obliged to give way and enter; The rest followed like a torrent, few amongst us, the soldiers excepted, having the least idea of the dimensions or nature of a place we had never seen; for if we had, we should at all events have rushed upon the guard, and been, as the lesser evil, by our own choice cut to pieces.”56 [p. 136.] Yet under such circumstances as these, Holwell who was “amongst the first that entered" and who had never seen the room before, was able, as soon as he passed the door, to turn sharply to the right and secure possession of one of the windows. Not only did Holwell do this but two wounded men also.57 [p. 136.] Surely when Holwell thought of the matter afterwards he must have wondered how he found himself at the window instead of being flattened against the dead wall opposite the door and blessed his good fortune. But in his narrative he passes the matter by without notice.
(3) The writer has read somewhere the statement made by a Bengali gentleman58 [I have since verified this statement. It was made by Babu Bhola Nath Chunder in the Calcutta University Magazine. Quoted by Babu Akhoy Kumar Maitra in his book (in Bengali) on Siraj-ud-daula.] that it was mathematically impossible to get 146 men into that room. Let us examine this point. Holwell says the room was “a cube of about eighteen feet.”59 [p. 136.] Mr. Secretary Cooke, one of the survivors, said it was about 18 feet long and 14 wide.60 [First Report (Hill, Vol. 3. p. 302).] The late Dr. C. R. Wilson ascertained that the exact dimensions were 18 feet by 14 feet 10 inches.61 [Hill’s Bengal in 1756-57, Vol. I Introduction p. xc. footnote.] The last dimensions give somewhat less than two square feet of floor space to each man, and this seems to be quite enough if the men were carefully packed. But what a job the guards must have had to get the last of the prisoners in the room; And when they were all inside, the door had to be shut and the door opened inward!62 [p. 136.] What shouting and cursing on the part of the guards there must have been to get free space to close that door! What expostulations on the part of those roughly pushed about! How Holwell must have been squeezed in his window! Yet this is passed by unnoticed by Holwell. The men who, according to Holwell, would have rushed upon the guard and been as the lesser evil, cut to pieces, when they had the chance of doing so, preferred tamely to allow that door to be closed without an attempt to prevent it, without even so much as a protest.
(4) Consider this internment from another point of view. The Nawab's officers had first to decide on the prison. For this purpose they examined “with lighted torches” (please note this fact for future reference) “all the apartments under the easterly curtain"63 [p. 136.] of the Fort. They decided upon the room. Then the officers went to the parade where “four or five hundred gun-men” were drawn up.64 [p. 134.] Next Holwell “observed part of the guard drawn up on the parade advance to us with the officers who had been viewing the rooms.65 [p. 135.] Holwell and his companions were sitting quietly “under the arched veranda or piazza, to the west of the Black-Hole prison, and the barracks to the left of the court of guard."66 [p. 134.] The officers ordered them “all to rise and go into the barracks and when they were all in the barracks and were congratulating themselves on “the prospect of passing a comfortable night” there they were hustled into the Black Hole as quoted above. And all this took exactly—half an hour. According to Holwell the officers began to examine the appartments “about half an hour past seven."67 [p. 135.] When Holwell was in the window he says “it was now about eight o’clock!"68 p. 136.] Mr. Secretary Cooke allows less time. He says; “A little before eight we were all of us directed to withdraw and remain in a place contiguous to the Black Hole....While we were wondering what this should mean and laughing at the oddity of it, a party of fellows came and ordered us to walk into the place before mentioned called the Black Hole .... Into this hole we were forcibly crammed about eight o’clock in the evening and the door immediately locked upon us.”69 [First Report (Hill, Vol. 3, p. 302.)] Who will dare to say after this smart performance that Indians cannot hustle?
(5) There are other incidents upon which some light would be desirable; for example, how water was passed in hats through the bars of a window which, according to Holwell, was blocked up by four men sitting in it, but let us pass to something fundamental. Holwell states that the Black Hole was “shut up to the eastward and southward (the only quarters from whence air could reach us) by dead walls, and by a wall and door to the north, only open to the westward by two windows, strongly barred with iron”.70 [p. 136.] Remember that these were windows of a recognised prison. Remember further that the windows opened not into the outer air but into a low verandah. Lastly remember that it was night and it follows at once that the room was as dark as Erebus. But the room might have been lighted from the verandah. Undoubtedly it might. Then let the reader place guards to his taste in the verandah and give each guard a torch. (He will remember that the officers examined the rooms with torches and this is the only kind of light mentioned in the narrative). Should we not expect from Holwell a description of the weird effect of the light falling on that mass of men and of the dark shadows in the remoter parts of the room? But we have not assumed all the conditions. Block up the windows, as described by Holwell, with men and others standing over them and how much light could possibly have entered the room? Now turn to the narrative and the reader will see that the room was as bright as noonday and Holwell could see and describe everything that went on in every corner of it. As soon as he was settled in his window he remarks; “What must ensue appeared to me in lively and dreadful colours the instant I cast my eyes round and saw the size and situation of the room.”71 [p. 136.] Immediately after this “observing every one giving way to the violence of their passions”72 [p. 136.] he made them a speech. He tells us that every man stripped except himself, Mr. Court and the two wounded gentlemen.73 [p. 137.] Every hat was put in motion to produce a circulation of air and every man sat down on his hams. “When the whole body sat down, they were so closely wedged together that they were obliged to use many efforts before they could put themselves in motion to get up again.”74 [p. 138.] When Holwell retired from the first window in the manner related above he was able to pause in the centre of the prison and calculate the number of the dead which he believed amounted to one third.75 [p. 140.] He then “travelled over the dead” to the platform at the very back of the prison and “repaired to the further end of it, just opposite the other window" and seated himself “between Mr. Dumbleton and Captain Stevenson, the former just then expiring." Here Mr. Edward Eyre came “staggering over the dead” to him and “with his usual coolness and good-nature“ asked him how he did but fell down and expired before Holwell had time to reply.76 [p. 136.] Is it necessary to go on? One word more. Holwell, seated in his window with his back to any light there may have been, was able to see everything that went on in the room, but he states that when the guards wanted to see they held up lights to the bars.77 [p. 139.] This is the only reference that Holwell makes to a light during the time he was in the Black Hole.
4.
The writer imagines that by this time the reader is disposed to reject the Black Hole incident as we know it, and he will now present what he conjectures really happened on the night of the 20th June 1756. Astounding as it may appear, the only authority he will appeal to will be Holwell’s Narrative, for he believes that in a great measure it is a true narrative and that the very difficulties which he brought forward in the last section to overthrow the narrative are only difficulties because they are true facts placed in a false environment. This then is what he believes happened. The Nawab entered the Fort before six in the evening and Holwell had three interviews, with him as he states. It was not Holwell who desired the three interviews or he would have said so and the reason why he wished to see the Nawab so many times. It was the Nawab who wished to see Holwell and the reason is clear. The Nawab was anxious to secure the Company‘s treasure of which he had heard exaggerated accounts. He believed that this had been hidden, that Holwell knew the hiding place and could be forced to disclose it. Three attempts to obtain the information failed and then the Nawab desisted with the intention of trying again in the morning as we know he did. Meanwhile he gave orders that Holwell and all the Company's Servants in his hands and nobody else were to be secured for the night. These surviving servants of the Company were Holwell, Court, Cooke, Walcot, Lushington, Burdett the Rev. Gervas Bellamy and probably the two wounded men, Coales and Scott. Of these Walcot and Scott belonged to the military. These men, then, were placed in the Black Hole prison precisely in the manner related by Holwell in his narrative and there they remained in semi-darkness throughout the night, though Holwell made an attempt to get them removed to a more comfortable apartment. The two wounded men, if they were there,78 [It is probably safe to assume that they were there. In that case another statement of Holwell's falls at once into the category of “true facts placed in a false environment.” Holwell states that at about eleven o’clock one third of the prisoners had died. On our supposition this was literally true. Three had died out of nine.] died that night, but they died of their wounds and lack of medical aid. It is absolutely certain that the Rev. Mr. Bellamy died in the Black Hole. He was ill at the time and succumbed to his illness in the prison.79 [For his death in the Black Hole we have the authority of the Bengal Council. In their letter to the Court of Directors, dated the 31 January 1757 they state “ Our chaplains having both demised, Mr. Gervas Bellamy in the Black Hole .... ..we have appointed &c.” (Hill, Vol. 2 p. 190). For his illness we have the authority of the list given in Hill, (Vol. 3 p. 415) and quoted in the following pages of this paper. Ill as he was the padre Sahib was too important a man to be passed over when the order had been given to seize all the Company's servants.] The rest suffered much as Holwell says they suffered. They were bathed in perspiration. They fanned themselves with their hats. They suffered greatly from thirst and water was passed through the bars to them as stated by Holwell. Finally at about 2 a.m. Holwell managed to fall asleep and was roused in the morning by one of his companions and told that the guard had come to take him to the Nawab who again interrogated him on the subject of the treasure. That, approximately, is the secret of the Black Hole of Calcutta. To that genuine experience add the idea that there were 146 men present, throw in a small quantity of what a great man called “corroborative detail tending to give verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative,” and you have the whole secret of the concoction of Holwell’s story.