Full Proceedings of the Black Hole Debate
Bengal, Past & Present
Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society
Vol. XII
Jan. - June, 1916
Serial Nos. 23-24
FULL PROCEEDINGS OF THE DEBATE.
A special meeting of the Calcutta Historical Society was held on the 24th March 1916, at 9 P.M. in the hall of the Asiatic Society of Bengal to have a discussion on the Black Hole Question. The Venerable Archdeacon, W. K. Firminger, M.A., BD. presided.
Walter Kelly Firminger (28 September 1870 - 1940) was archdeacon of Calcutta and a historian of India who was the first editor of Bengal, Past & Present, the journal of Calcutta Historical Society. He was a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society....
Firminger was ordained deacon at Hereford in 1893. He served as a UMCA missionary in Zanzibar from 1893 to 1897 and was subdean in 1896. He was a curate in Margate from 1897 to 1898. He had clerical appointments in India from 1899 to 1923 being Archdeacon of Calcutta from 1914 to 1923. He was editor of the Indian Churchman from 1900 to 1905. He was Vicar of Padbury, Bucks from 1923 to 1926. He was Chaplain to the King at Hampton Court Palace from 1926 until he died in 1940. B.Litt. and D.D.
-- Walter K. Firminger, by Wikipedia
Mr. J.H. Little, who started the controversy in the pages of Bengal Past & Present, opened the debate:--
MR. J. H. LITTLE:—
I shall place before you all the contemporary evidence we have in favour of the Black Hole story; I shall show that this evidence is neither great in quantity nor trustworthy in character; then I shall give you three good reasons for rejecting the evidence which are quite independent of its unsatisfactory character. I have assumed that you have read my article in the Society’s Journal and have omitted as much of that as I could.
Take any historian you please who has written on the subject and you will find that he has derived his information, directly or indirectly, from Holwell’s Narrative or from Cooke’s Evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons or from both. These are the two primary authorities for the story. I have dealt at length with Holwell's Narrative in Bengal Past & Present and I need not go over the ground again, but there is one point in connection with the Narrative which I have not treated in an adequate manner, and another which I have not mentioned at all. The former point is this. Holwell’s Narrative is essentially different from the original story he told. He has omitted, he has altered, he has added. The main outlines of the story concocted in Calcutta before the prisoners were dispersed will be found in a letter written by Francis Sykes at Cossimbazar on the 8th July, 1756. Sykes gives the purport of a letter which Holwell, who had just passed Cossimbazar on his way to Murshidabad, wrote to the Englishmen who were there and he informs us that Holwell made the following startling statement:— “all the night our poor gentlemen were in the Black Hole the Nabob’s people kept firing at them through the door.” Nor have we any reason to suppose that Sykes reported Holwell incorrectly for the same story was current at Fulta. Captain Grant wrote on the 13th July:—"Some of those who give us the account say that they fired upon them all night with small arms through the doors and windows, but this is contradicted by others." The Fulta story, too, sprang up quite independently of Sykes’ letter for even assuming that his letter was sent direct to Fulta, and we do not know that it was sent there at all, it could not have reached Fulta before the 13th, the day on which Captain Grant wrote his account. The Consultations at Fulta given in Long’s Unpublished Records of Government inform us that a letter of Warren Hastings’ from Cossimbazar dated the 3rd October was received at Fulta on the 8th. In July it would probably have taken longer. Why was this part of the story discarded? The reason is to be found in a letter written at Chandernagore on the 3rd July which relates that the two first days after the capture of the fort “passed in licence and all the disorders of a place taken by assault, with the exception of massacre to which the Moors are not accustomed in regard to people disarmed." This incident, then, was a fatal flaw in their story. People would say, perhaps they did say, “the Muhammadans of Bengal do not do such things.” I think we have evidence, too, of how this incident was explained away. M. Law in his account of the tragedy has these words:--“The most bitter insults were employed to excite the rage of the Moors and persuade the guard to fire on the prisoners. One of the latter, seeing a pistol in the belt of a companion, seized it and fired on the Moors who were passing the window. The pistol had only powder in it, but the guards were so frightened that immediately several guns were thrust through the bars and fired several times. This was exactly what the wretched prisoners wanted. Every shot was a coup-de-grace which they strove with each other to obtain for themselves.” No one else relates this incident. Unless Law is retailing idle rumour, this is how Holwell explained away his former statement when he returned to Cossimbazar on the 19th July. In August Holwell amended his statement still further. He said the guards “ceased not insulting us the whole night.” In his Narrative it was the prisoners who insulted the guards to provoke them to fire upon them and put an end to their misery. Holwell also made important additions to his original story. On the 3rd August he made lists of the victims and survivors of the tragedy and those two lists were, he declared, deficient in nothing. They contain the names neither of Leech nor of Mrs. Carey. Yet in the Narrative we have a pretty story about Leech and the statement that Mrs. Carey accompanied her husband into the prison.
The second point to which I referred is this. Hardly had Holwell put his Narrative together than, in the most deliberate manner, he knocked it to pieces again. He wrote the Narrative on his voyage home in the early part of 1757. In August he was in London and while there replied to a letter written by William Watts, chief of the factory at Cossimbazar. The letter of Watts was, in turn, a reply to a letter of Holwell’s. Watts complained of Holwell’s “laboured endeavours through five sheets of paper" to set his conduct in the worst possible light and pointed out that Holwell, when he surrendered Fort William, had five times the number of men that he had had at Cossimbazar. To this Holwell replied:—“Had not Mr. Watts been guided more by malice than truth in this and his subsequent interrogatories, he would, from the letter he is answering, have found the number left in the Factory did not exceed 170; that of these we had 25 killed and 70 wounded by noon, the 20th, and that every man who survived was exhausted of strength and vigour." The number of prisoners in the Black Hole was 146; but 25 from 170 leaves 145 and when we make further deductions for the deserters and those who escaped when the fort was taken [“I did not advise that the guard there and a great part of the garrison, military and militia rushed out the moment the gate was opened and endeavoured to escape; many were killed, some escaped and others received quarter." Holwell’s Letter of 3rd August, 1756.] Holwell’s Narrative is clearly absurd. But it may be asked; Were there any non-combatants in the fort? I have not been able to find a trace of any except women and children and these were allowed in the fort because their men folk refused to fight unless they were admitted. Is Holwell, regardless of consequences, trying to score a victory over Watts? He is careful to point out that he made this particular statement in the letter to which Watts was replying. Did Holwell include all the defenders of the fort? In the previous letter he had declared that the number included “officers, volunteers, soldiers and militia”; that is, every class of men in the fort. Then Holwell is deliberately overthrowing his Narrative.
Cooke’s Evidence was given in 1772 when Holwell’s story had established itself. He states that nearly 150 souls were thrust into the dungeon among whom were one woman and twelve of the wounded officers. Picture the scene of 150 people being crammed into a room which would hardly hold them and then compare the picture of your imagination with the reality as described by Cooke. He says:—“The circumstances of the Black Hole affair, with all the horrors of that night, are so well known, and so much surpass any description that words can paint it in that I shall say no more upon that subject than that a little before eight we were all of us directed to withdraw and remain in a place contiguous to the Black Hole (where our soldiers were usually confined in the stocks). 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, a room or rather dungeon, about 18 feet long and 14 wide, with only two holes, barricaded with iron bars, to let in air, which opened into a low piazza, where a guard was set. Into this hole we were forcibly crammed about eight o'clock in the evening, and the door immediately locked upon us.” How simple it all was. One might almost believe those men wished to be shut up. I think, however, there would be no reason to find fault with these words were it not for the figures which follow them. For what he is really describing is how a very few men quietly walked into the prison and were locked up for the night and I shall endeavour to prove that this was the case with John Cooke as my chief witness.
I must first put you in possession of certain facts. Who were the men shut up in the Black Hole prison? They were the defenders of the fort. Then who were these defenders? There were the military who before the Nawab attacked Calcutta numbered 180. Of these 45 were Europeans. The rest, we are told, were black Portuguese. In one list they are called topazes and Holwell’s definition of a topaz is “a black Christian soldier; usually termed subjects of Portugal." There were 50 European volunteers. There were 60 European militia and 150 militia consisting of Armenians and Portuguese. There were 35 European artillery men and 40 volunteers consisting of sea-officers and Portuguese helmsmen. The figures are those of Governor Drake who had the rolls in his possession. The Europeans consisted of British and Dutch and it is necessary for me to estimate the number of the Dutch. At first sight it seems strange to find any Dutch at all among the defenders of the fort for the Dutch authorities, before the Nawab attacked Calcutta, absolutely refused to help the English in any way and after the capture of Calcutta they refused to supply them with food and other necessaries. The mystery is cleared up by Governor Drake who says they were deserters from Dutch ships [“We could have but few Europeans and those deserters from the Dutch ships, the remainder country-born Portugueze wedded to a place of tranquillity.” Drake's Narrative.] and the word matross is used in connection with them which, according to Mr. Hill, means a sailor and almost all the artillery men were sailors. The number of Dutch, then, could hardly have been very great. According to Drake’s list the total number of Europeans was 230. You will find the names of 194 of them in the list I gave in the Society’s Journal. The remaining 36 were Dutch. The prisoners in the Black Hole, then, necessarily consisted of British, Dutch, Armenians and Portuguese. This is confirmed by the various accounts of the tragedy we have. One account says 200 Europeans, Portugese and Armenians were shut up. Holwell heads his list of victims thus:—“A list of those smother’d in the Black Hole, the 20th June, 1756, exclusive of the English, Dutch, and Portuguese soldiers, whose names I am unacquainted with.”
Now I can return to Cooke and his evidence. Before the Nawab left the fort on the evening of the 20th and two hours before the prisoners were put in the Black Hole Cooke asserts that “the Armenians and Portuguese were at liberty, and suffered to go to their own houses.” Mr. Hill endorses this and states in his Introduction, “the Portuguese and Armenians were allowed to go free and disappeared.” If they disappeared, if they went to their own houses, they were not put into the Black Hole. With regard to the Dutch Cooke relates that a “Dutchman of the Artillery Company broke open the back door of the Factory, and with many others attempted to make their escape that way.” Perhaps we ought not to assume that the “many others” were all Dutch but no doubt a part of them were. Holwell asserts that these men broke open the gate with the aid of friends who had deserted the night before and Mr. Hill, following other authorities, relates that on that night, “a corporal and fifty-six soldiers, chiefly Dutch, deserted to the enemy.” I think the number is exaggerated but this, at least, seems clear that a party of Dutch deserted on the 19th and another party broke out of the fort on the 20th. There were only 36 to begin with so that even assuming that none left the fort with the Governor and that none were killed in the fighting, the number of Dutch who remained to go into the Black Hole was negligible. Only the British are left. On the 19th, says Cooke, a prodigious number of the garrison was killed and wounded and we may assume that a fair proportion were British. On the 20th all the attacks of the besiegers were beaten off with great loss to them, but as far as we can learn from Cooke with no loss to the defenders. If, however, you will accept provisionally my statement that most of the British were killed in the fighting, then you will be able to discern at once that very small band of men who walked quietly into the Black Hole prison in the manner so truthfully described by Mr. Secretary Cooke.
In addition to those of Holwell and Cooke we have the accounts of two other so-called survivors. One of these was Captain Mills who states that 144 men, women and children were shut up in the prison. The addition of women and children may have been careless exaggeration on the part of Mills, but I suggest that he made the statement deliberately knowing full well that it was impossible to find such a number of men and that those were the only possible conditions under which the tragedy could have occurred.
We do not know who the fourth survivor was, but the letter he wrote came home in one of the India ships and appeared in the London Chronicle in June 1757. From a list appended to this letter we find that nine men who were supposed to have died in the Black Hole were killed in the fighting and we also learn that Captain Mills was not in the Black Hole at all. This, then, is what we find about the evidence of the four chief witnesses:—two of them overthrow their own stories. The remaining two contradict the two former and also contradict each other.
Now I will deal with the secondary authorities for the story. First in order come the men who took part in the defence of Calcutta or who were in Bengal at the time. Their accounts which are all very short were, with one exception, written in the month of July. Captain Grant referred to the tragedy on the 13th, Watts and Collet on the 14th, Governor Drake on the 19th and William Lindsay’s letter is merely dated July. Then in November William Tooke wrote a narrative of the loss of Calcutta and mentioned the tragedy in it. All these accounts agree in one respect. They contain the true story side by side with the false and we must choose which of the two we will accept. By September, 1756, Governor Drake, Watts and Collet had made their choice and it was the Black Hole story they rejected.
In December the Madras expedition, with Admiral Watson and Colonel Clive in command, arrived in Bengal. I shall now ask you to consider what these two men had to say on the subject and I will take Admiral Watson first. On the 17th December, 1756, he wrote to the Nawab as follows:—“The King my master (whose name is revered among the monarchs of the world) sent me to these parts with a great fleet to protect the East India Company’s trade, rights and privileges. The advantages resulting to the Mogul’s dominions from the extensive commerce carried on by my master’s subjects are too apparent to need enumerating. How great was my surprise therefore to be informed that you had marched against the said Company’s factories with a large army, and forcibly expelled their servants, seized and plundered their effects, amounting to a large sum of money, and killed great numbers of the King my master‘s subjects." There is nothing here about the Black Hole. On the 3rd January 1757, Admiral Watson declared war on the Nawab in the following terms:— "Whereas the President and Council for the affairs of the United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies in Bengall have represented to me, that in consequence of the many hostilities and acts of violence committed against the servants of the said Company, His Majesty’s subjects, by the Subah of Bengal, Bahar and Orixa, and his officers to the great detriment of the Company, the ruin of many private people His Majesty's good subjects residing under their protection, many of whom have also been deprived of their live: in the most barbarous and inhuman manner,” and so forth. “Many of whom have also been deprived of their lives in the most barbarous and inhuman manner.” Do these words refer to the Black Hole tragedy? If so, it is strange that Admiral Watson was not more explicit. We should not expect to find such reticence in a declaration of war. We should not expect it from Admiral Watson at any time, for he was in the habit of using terribly plain language. I will give you two examples of this. On the 27th January he wrote to the Nawab:—“Your letter of the 23rd day of this month I have this day received. It has given me the greatest pleasure, as it informs me you had written to me before, a circumstance I am glad to be assured of under your hand, as the not answering my letter would have been such an affront as I could not have put up with without incurring the displeasure of the King my master.” Again on the 4th March he wrote to the Nawab in this strain:—“It is now time to speak plain, if you are really desirous of preserving your country in peace and your subjects from misery and ruin, in ten days from the date of this, fulfil your part of the treaty in every Article, that I may not have the least cause of complaint; otherwise, remember, you must answer for the consequences: and as I have always acted the open, unreserved part in all my dealings with you, I now acquaint you that the remainder of the troops which should have been here long since...will be at Calcutta in a few days; that in a few days more I shall dispatch a vessel for more ships and more troops: and that I will kindle such a flame in your country, as all the water in the Ganges shall not be able to extinguish. Farewel: remember that he promises you this, who never yet broke his word with you or with any man whatsoever."
It is the fashion to say that the Nawab was innocent in the matter of the Black Hole murders. Those who say this are merely repeating the statements of Holwell and Cooke, and this is but another instance of how they made truth serve the ends of falsehood. Those who use the argument have still to explain how the officers of the Nawab dared to disregard his known wishes with regard to the prisoners. The officers of the present Nawab Bahadur of Murshidabad would not dare to act in such a manner. But assuming that the Nawab had no direct responsibility for the crime could Admiral Watson have written to him in the following manner if he had not disavowed it and punished the guilty? “I call upon the Almighty,” wrote the Admiral, “whom we both worship, to bear witness against me and punish me, if I ever fail in observing to the utmost of my power every part of the treaty, concluded between yourself and the English nation, so long as you shall faithfully observe your part, which I make no doubt will be as long as you have life. What can I add more but my wishes, that your life may be long and crowned with all manner of prosperity?"
As a matter of fact I claim Admiral Watson as a witness on my side. He is not referring to the Black Hole tragedy at all but to the men who were killed at the time of the capture of the fort. He knew those men had been killed after the fort had been formally surrendered by its governor and put the worst construction on this. I have no doubt he learned subsequently that the slaughter had been a terrible mistake and had been stopped by the Nawab himself. If you are inclined to doubt this I will remove your doubt by showing that Mr. Pigot, Governor of Madras, used almost the same words as Admiral Watson—they are precisely similar in meaning— and plainly said he was referring to something that happened before the Nawab entered the fort. On the 14th October, 1756, he wrote to the Nawab:—“I received the letter you was pleased to write me on the 30th June advising me that it was not your intention to remove the mercantile business of the English Company out of the subah of Bengal, and at the same time I received information that all the Company's factories in the said province with their effects, amounting to several kerows had been seized by your people, also the effects of all the merchants who resided in the said settlements amounting to a great many lacks more, and I was further informed that the greatest part of the merchants were killed by your people in a cruel and barbarous manner beyond what can be described in writing." After relating how the English had enriched the province, how the Emperor had granted them certain privileges and how they had been treated by the Nawabs of Bengal he goes on “all that the Subahs, your predecessors, have done is nothing in comparison to what you have lately done. I should have been willing to have believed that the violence and cruelties exercised by your army against the English was without your knowledge but I find you commanded your army in person and after killing and murdering our people took possession of the Fort. The great commander of the King of England's ships has not slept in peace since this news and is come down with many ships, and I have sent a great Sardar, who will govern after me, by name Colonel Clive, with troops and land forces. Full satisfaction and restitution must be made for the losses we have sustained. You are wise: consider whether it is better to engage in a war that will never end or to do what is just and right in the sight of God: a great name is obtained by justice as well as by valour.” Were all the English in India of the tribe of Chadband?
Credit Charles Dickens for creating Rev. Mr. Chadband, a greedy preacher, in his 1853 novel “Bleak House”; hence, a chadband is an oily, hypocritical person.
-- Put on your Mae West, but try to avoid being a Chadband, by Bill & Rich Sones
I pass now to Clive and will first give you extracts from the family papers of the Earl of Powis. I had no difficulty whatever in obtaining these. The papers have been examined twice—first by Sir John Malcolm whose life of Clive was published in 1836 and recently they were examined again by Mr. Hill. The extracts I shall give were taken from Malcolm’s Life of Clive and Mr. Hill certifies they have been copied from the papers at Walcot. Before Clive left Madras he wrote to the Directors thus:—“From many hands you will hear of the capture of Calcutta by the Moors, and the chain of misfortune and losses which have happened to the Company in particular, and to the nation in general: every breast here seems filled with grief, horror, and resentment: indeed, it is too sad a tale to unfold, and I must beg leave to refer you to the general letters, consultations, and committees which will give you a full account of this catastrophe.” Apart from any Black Hole affair is this more than Clive should have said of the loss of the Company’s most flourishing settlement in India attended with the deaths of a great number of men and the infliction of great suffering and privation on the survivors? Writing to Mr. Mabbot he observes:—“Providence, who is the disposer of all events, has thought proper to inflict the greatest calamity that ever happened to the English nation in these parts; I mean the loss of Calcutta, attended with the greatest mortifications to the Company, and the most barbarous and cruel circumstances to the poor inhabitants.” In a letter to Mr. Roger Drake a gentleman then high in the Court of Directors, Clive writes, “A few weeks ago I was happily seated at St. Davids’s, pleased with the thoughts of obtaining your confidence and esteem, by my application to the civil branch of the Company’s affairs, and of improving and increasing the investment; but the fatal blow given to the Company’s estate at Bengal has superseded all other considerations, and I am now at this presidency upon the point of embarking on Buard His Majesty’s squadron, with a very considerable body of troops, to attempt the recovery of Calcutta and to gain satisfaction from the Nawab for the losses which the Company have sustained in those parts." In a letter to his father he wrote:—“It is not possible to describe the distresses of the inhabitants of this once opulent and populous town. It must be many years before it is restored to its former grandeur. It is computed the private losses amount to upwards of two millions sterling." In an earlier letter also Clive did not think it worth while to mention the Black Hole story to his father. Mr. Hill gives us another letter written by Clive to his father in which after describing his attack on the Nawab’s army early in February, 1757, he writes “This blow has obliged the Nawab to decamp and to conclude a peace very honorable and advantageous to the Company’s affairs." The day before Clive had written to the Secret Committee, London:—“I have little to observe on the terms obtained from the Nabob except that they are both honourable and advantageous for the Company." A British historian declares that no sufficient apology can be found for that treaty. “Peace was desirable,” he adds, “but even peace is bought too dearly when the sacrifice of national honour is the price.” The explanation is very simple. The historian was thinking of the Black Hole affair, Clive was not.
I will now give a different series of utterances by Clive which are not to be found in the family papers, but among the Orme Mss. Writing to the Nawab in December, 1756, he refers to “great numbers of the Company’s servants and other inhabitants inhumanly killed.” However, if the Nawab would make proper satisfaction for the losses sustained by the Company he would make Clive his sincere friend and get eternal honour for himself. On the 21st January, 1757, Clive wrote to Jagat Seth and clearly referred to the Black Hole incident:—“It would be unfolding a tale too horrible to repeat if I was to relate to you the horrid cruelties and barbarities inflicted upon an unfortunate people to whom the Nabob in a great part owes the riches and grandeur of his province. No less than 120 people, the greatest part of them gentlemen of family and distinction being put to an ignominious death in one night and in such a manner as was quite inconsistent with the character of a man of courage or humanity, such as I have always heard the Nabab represented to be, and for this reason I believe it must have been done without his knowledge.” After the battle of Plassey and when Siraj-ud-daula was dead Clive wrote a different version to the Emperor Alamgir Sani. Then he said. “The English, who as merchants were destitute of all implements of war, were easily defeated and Surajah Dowlat took and plundered Calcutta the 20th June 1756 and all the great men and other Englishmen that fell into his hands were by his orders suffocated in one night." Comment is needless. It must be remembered, however, that the standard of honour in the 18th century was not very high where politics were concerned. Twenty years had hardly passed since
Walpole talked of ‘a man and his price’;
Nobody’s virtue was over-nice.
Clive would have scorned to do for his own private benefit what he thought he was justified in doing for the good of the Company.
I have next to deal with the French and Dutch accounts of the capture of Calcutta. I will take the Dutch accounts first. The extracts I shall give were obtained by Mr. Hill from the archives at the Hague. On the 5th July the Dutch Council at Hugli wrote to the Supreme Council at Batavia thus:—“The whole world thought and expected that the Nawab would have knocked his head against such a strong place, but time has shown that the English defended themselves for three days only. A part of them fled in their ships down the river, and the rest, who did not perish by the sword, have fallen into the Nawab’s hands, and are bound in irons." We know that only four men were bound in irons. Therefore, according to this account the rest perished by the sword. It may be that this account absolutely accurate. In any case the error is a very trifling one. There were probably one or two prisoners who were not put in irons. The next account is that of the chief of the Dutch factory at Cossimbazar and is dated the 7th July, 1756. It runs thus:—“The Nawab in accordance with our letter of the 10th ultimo having left for Calcutta and arrived there on the evening of the 15th, has met with the same success as here; for after a five days’ investment he took the same, but, according to the testimony of everyone not by his tactful management or bravery, but rather owing to the ill-behaviour of the Governor Drake, who taking a good 200 picked soldiers with him left the fort, on pretext of attacking the enemy, but far from doing so, he embarked with those men, accompanied by the Commandants Messrs. Manningham and Frankland, after putting considerable treasure and all the women on board a few days before and dropped down the river leaving to the fury of the Nawab a number of brave men, among whom, when the fort was taken, a great carnage was wrought, but soon after put a stop to by the Prince." On the 24th November the Dutch Council at Hugli sent a reasonable account of the Black Hole tragedy to the Supreme Council at Batavia. “The rest who were taken prisoners at Calcutta,” they wrote, “have had, in the first fury, a dreadful time of it, about 160 prisoners being sent into the so-called Black Hole or Donkergat (Dark or Black Hole) in which there was not room for 40 prisoners, and there shut up. Thus they were trampled underfoot or suffocated, all but 15 or 16 who were brought out half dead next morning and being fettered were led by the Nawab in his suite in triumph to Muxadavad." In the following January the same Council, writing to the Assembly of Seventeen in Holland merely state that the Nawab treated the British who had fallen into his hands with great cruelty. How was it the Dutch Council at Hughli gave one account in July and a contradictory account in November? I think there is a simple explanation of this. Holwell was at Hugli in August. It was there that he compiled his first list of victims. He probably stayed with the Governor and must certainly have talked about the tragedy to him and the members of his Council. The result was that the Dutch changed their story. The numbers given in the Dutch account are not correct, but they approximate very closely to the figures which Holwell gave in his first account and subsequently corrected.
The French accounts of the capture of Calcutta are greater in number than the Dutch and more varied in character. Mr. Hill gives nine of the year 1756, and one dated 1757. Five of these, including one written by the Governor of Chandernagore, do not mention the tragedy. Another refers to the many jocular stories that were made up about the business. The first account that mentions the Black Hole incident was written on the 3rd July. The writer seems to have been under the impression that the affair lasted two days and gives some grotesque details on the authority of “an Englishman who survived this Hell.” I have shown elsewhere that this Englishman was, in all probability, Captain Mills who had arrived at Chandernagore a day or two before the letter was written. No further reference was made to the tragedy until October 8th. On that date a letter from Chandernagore contained the following extraordinary account:—“They put in prison more than 120 persons, men and women, and forgot them there for seven days at the end of which time when it was opened, only 14 came out alive, the rest were dead.” The prisoners, then, died of starvation. On the 16th December, 1756, the French Council at Chandernagore wrote an apparently reasonable account of the incident. They say that “the prisoners to the number of 200 having been hurriedly shut up in a warehouse were almost all suffocated in one night.” But were the Council thinking of the tragedy described by Holwell, or were they thinking of a fire? Mr. Hill found in the British Museum a French manuscript entitled. “Revolutions in Bengal”. It seems to have been written two years after the capture of Calcutta by a Frenchman of Chandernagore and contains the following account of the Black Hole affair:—"Night was approaching and the Moors wishing to make sure of their prisoners, shut them up hurriedly in a warehouse which caught fire. There were nearly 150 suffocated." M. Law also has something similar to this. He says:—“The Moors looked with pleasure on the scene of horror which was passing in the dungeon, for them it was a tamasha. To increase their pleasure the idea suggested itself to them of placing below, outside the window, a heap of damp straw to which they set fire. The outer air drove the smoke into the dungeon but the hopes of the Moors were deceived, they could see nothing more.” If the French Council were thinking of a fire, then the first reasonable French account of the tragedy is dated the 7th March, 1757, and came from the Isle of France (Mauritius I think). This relates that the defenders of the fort were made prisoners and thrown into a dungeon so small that the next morning 124 were suffocated.
I have placed before you all the contemporary evidence in favour of the Black Hole story. I will now give you three good reasons for rejecting that evidence.
(1) The story of the tragedy was, for many years, unknown to the people of of Bengal. In 1789, 33 years after the event was supposed to have occurred, the translator of the Seir Mutaqherin, not seeking to prove or disprove anything, but engaged in the task of annotating the historian he was translating, gave this evidence: "This much is certain, that this event...is not known in Bengal; and even in Calcutta, it is ignored by every man out of the four hundred thousand that inhabit that city: at least it is difficult to meet a single native that knows any thing of it; so careless and so incurious are those people.” This silence of a whole people has hitherto been dismissed in summary fashion. The people were indifferent to the tragedy says one. Their mouthpieces, the historians, says another, were partial and suppressed the story. How can I meet these indictments of a whole nation? Will it be sufficient if I prove that when a real tragedy occurred the people were not silent and their historians recorded the event in their pages? Seven years after the capture of Calcutta another band of men of British birth became the prisoners of a Nawab of Bengal and he, maddened with defeat after defeat, wreaked his vengeance upon the helpless captives. Let the Muhammadan historian tell the story. “A few days after that, on hearing that the English had possessed themselves of the fortress of Monghyr by treason, his temper, soured by misfortunes and perfidies, broke all bounds: Incensed beyond measure at so unexpected a reverse, and mistrusting the future still more than the past, he gave orders to Sumro, the European, [The translator of the Seir Mutaqherin states that Sumro was a German.] to put to death all the prisoners of that nation; and that man, of a flint-like heart, without any regard to the ties which bound him to those unfortunates, who were of the same Christian religion with him, accepted the commission without horror, and without reluctance. That stony man repaired to the house, then called Hadji-ahmed’s, where those ill-fated people were confined,...and without the least hesitation, or the least remorse, he ordered all those unarmed men to be killed with musket balls. It is reported, that in such a moment of distress and perturbation, those unfortunate men, without losing courage marched up to their murderers, and, with empty bottles, and stones, and brickbats, fought them to the last man, until they were all killed." We seem to recognise our countrymen in that story but do we recognise them in the bowling, frenzied mob fighting with each other for water or for a place at the window and ruthlessly trampling down the weak? The translator adds a note which has a direct bearing on our subject. “The next year after that catastrophe,” he writes, “and it was in 1765, I remember to have seen, both at Benares, and at Moorshoodabad, three or four commanders, who had refused the commission with indignation. One of them, an elderly stout man with a large pair of whiskers, speaking to a company where I was, expressed himself in these words: I did not refuse to do it: no: I only desired the Nawab to give them swords and bucklers and that I would fight them then: but, as to killing prisoners disarmed that I will never do. Send your scavengers for that business.” This was the class of men whom Holwell, exonerating the Nawab, charged with the Black Hole murders. He declared that they revenged themselves in that manner for the number of their body who had been killed in the siege. A real tragedy, then, was talked about by the people of Bengal, and the story is recorded in the pages of their historians. They were silent about the Black Hole affair because they were ignorant of it and they were ignorant of it because there had been no tragedy. In the pages of their historians you will find the true story of the capture of Fort William.
(2) My second reason for rejecting the story is that the Bengal Council by their conduct ignored it and by their words contradicted it. The Council unanimously agreed that before the capture of the fort the enemy destroyed a great many of their officers and private men. When the Council speak of their private men I do not think they are referring to the Dutch or the Armenians or to the topazes but to their own covenanted servants and “young men in the Settlement” who, Drake said, “entered as volunteers in the military doing duty in every respect as common soldiers." In their next letter the Council remove all doubt on this point. They said that most of their covenanted servants that died in the year 1756 “were killed at the taking of Fort William.” According to the Black Hole story, 12 officers and 23 of the covenanted servants of the Company died in the Black Hole. Further, in their letter of the 17th September, 1756, the Council unanimously agreed that the fort surrendered upon promise of civil treatment of the prisoners. How could they have left the matter there if the promise had been broken? In all their acts, too, they ignored the tragedy. In July they wrote to the principal ministers of the Nawab begging them to intercede for them. In August Major Kilpatrick was anxious that the Nawab should look upon him as a friend. It has been said that the necessities of their situation forced them to conceal their true feelings. There is no excuse for the statement. It has been said that they dissociated the Nawab from the crime. We have not their authority for this. But those who use these arguments must admit that when they came to an open rupture with the Nawab they had no necessity for concealment. When they declared war on the Nawab they would not nicely discriminate between his responsibility and that of his officers. They would have stated that on the night of the 20th June the Nawab had done to death over a hundred men in the Black Hole prison. In reality their declaration of war was milder than that of Admiral Watson. “Whereas the aforesaid Sirrajud Dowla," runs the document, "not satisfied with this violent proceeding and, without assigning any reason or even proposing any demands to us the President and Council, did sometime in the said month of June 1756 march towards Calcutta and Presidency of Fort William with a large army and train of artillery, attacked the said factory, took the fort, seized and plundered the effects of the Company and of the private inhabitants to a considerable amount, killed many of their servants both civil and military and expelled the few who escaped” and so forth. Surely common decency and the bonds of fellowship and nationality demanded that the Council, as a Council, should somewhere, at some time, have expressed their sorrow at the miserable deaths of the victims of the Black Hole tragedy, their detestation of the crime and their resentment against the perpetrators of it. They did none of these things. Contrast their conduct seven years afterwards when they were confronted with a real tragedy. When the news of the Patna massacre reached them they met together and passed this resolution:— “After reflecting with the most unfeigned sorrow and regret on this act of unparalleled and barbarous cruelty, which we have now no room left to doubt has been perpetrated at Patna by the emissaries of Cossim Aly Khan on the lives of our countrymen who were prisoners in his hands; although in the ordinary and usual calamities of war it becomes the business of the Heads of a Government to avoid shewing any marks of public concern which may be attended with the bad effects of depressing the spirits of a Colony, yet as the situation of our affairs is such as to give no occasion for apprehending any ill consequences to our public operations from a contrary conduct at this time, and the present calamity being in itself of so singular and heavy a nature, we think it highly proper to enter upon some public methods of manifesting to the world our concern on this occasion, as well because it is a necessary tribute to the memory of the unfortunate gentlemen who have thus fallen the victims of a horrid cruelty, as that it will serve to testify to the Natives of the country the sentiment we feel for the loss of our friends and imply our resolution of revenging their untimely fate. It is therefore agreed and ordered that a general deep mourning shall be observed in the settlement for the space of fourteen days to commence next Wednesday, the 2nd of November.
That the morning of that day shall be set apart and observed as a public fast and humiliation, and that intimation be accordingly given to the chaplains to be prepared with a sermon and forms of prayer suitable to the occasion.” They then order minute guns to be fired and proceed:—
“After paying this necessary duty to the memory of our countrymen, we are further agreed and determined to use all the means in our power for taking an ample revenge on the persons who may have been concerned in this horrid execution, and with a view of deterring in future all ranks and degrees of people from ordering or executing such acts of barbarity.
Resolved therefore that a Manifesto of the action be published throughout all the country, with a proclamation promising an immediate reward of a Lack of Rupees to any person or persons who shall seize and deliver up to us Cassim Aly Khan, and that he or they further receive such other marks of favour and encouragement as may be in our power to show in return for this act of public justice.
That an immediate reward of Rs. 40,000 shall be given to any person or persons who shall apprehend the Chief named Summereau and bring him a prisoner to us.”
Could the Council have called the massacre an act of unparalleled cruelty if a greater act of cruelty had been perpetrated seven years before? Would not that greater act of cruelty have recurred to their minds again and again and could they possibly have refrained from referring to it when they framed the above resolution? By this resolution alone the Black Hole story stands condemned.
(3) My third reason for rejecting the Black Hole story is the mass of evidence which proves that the men died fighting. Most of the English evidence, but not quite all, will be found in my article in the Society’s Journal. The Dutch evidence I have read to you to-night. The French do not say very much on the point but it must be remembered they were enemies at the time. In addition, after the fall of Calcutta, the Nawab had forced them to pay 350,000 rupees and they blamed the English for this. In their opinion the English were cowards unworthy of the name of Europeans. But even the French were not silent and their evidence is all the more valuable. They testify to the procession of wounded men that passed by their factory on the 19th June and in their first account of the capture of the fort, written the day after the occurrence, they state that those who made no resistance were spared which implies that some did make resistance and were not spared. Governor Renault states that the English lost 200 men at the siege of Calcutta and the natural inference is that the men were lost under circumstances usually attending a siege. Another account says that when the Nawab’s troops broke into the fort they killed many of the English and still another relates that they killed all who tried to resist. Lastly we have the evidence of Persian historians. Two of these speak of the suicide of the defenders of the fort, but there is a general agreement on two points (1) men lost their lives (2) only a few became prisoners.
Test the Black Hole story by this evidence. Take the evidence most favourable to the story—that of Holwell. Holwell suppresses all reference to the men who were killed at the capture of the fort but he states, in four separate letters, that 25 men were killed and 70 wounded by noon of the 20th and those were among his best men. In my article in the Society’s Journal I have shown that these men must have been one officer, perhaps one foreigner, and perhaps a carpenter, a court serjeant, a farrier, another foreigner and a fiddler. [Two of the wounded (Talbot and Pickering) died the next day. The remaining 98 must have died in the Black Hole according to Holwell.] The rest must have been Dutch, Armenians and Portuguese. Difficulties such as this are no new discovery of mine. They were noted and pointed out on the 12th July, 1756, by the Dacca Council who wrote thus to the Court of Directors:—“The accounts we have vary much and are difficult to reconcile. All agree in this that many brave men died miserably whose lives might have been saved by the smallest degree of good conduct and resolution in their leaders." The accounts vary much and are difficult to reconcile; in fact, they cannot be reconciled and we must choose between them. We know the choice made by Richard Becher the chief of the Dacca factory. All agree in this that many brave men died. If you believe they perished in the Black Hole you must reject all this evidence. You must say with Stewart and Orme—“In this scene of confusion no resistance was made" or with Macaulay— "The fort was taken after a feeble resistance." But if you accept this evidence the Black Hole story disappears at once and brave men come to their own again for their deeds will no longer be obscured by
a lamentable tale of things
Done long ago, and ill done.
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