Part 8

Chandernagore in itself seemed capable of making a good defence, and the Governor, indeed, as his arrangements drew towards completion, was not without hope of being able to hold his own until help, of which at an early date he received promise, should arrive from the Nawab. Clive and his army gave him little anxiety—or comparatively little. The preliminaries of the attack on the land side showed that the French heavy guns on the ramparts had a command of fire that gave the defence the mastery on that side. It was the broadsides of the men-of-war that M. Renaud was anxious about. If only he could stand up against the sailors, he thought it possible to hold out until the relief he anticipated should arrive.

The British men-of-war in the river had to wait at anchor for four days until the tides suited their further advance. Admiral Watson used the opportunity to announce the declaration of war to the Governor of Chandernagore, demanding at the same time the surrender of the fort. Lieutenant Hey, of the flagship, carried the letter. The reply was an offer to ransom the place. It was refused flatly. Unconditional surrender, Admiral Watson sent back word, were his only terms, though private property would be respected. To that the French made no reply, but pressed on with their preparations.

The interval was profitably spent otherwise. It so happened that the French officers responsible for blocking the fairway had either neglected to remove the masts of the sunken vessels or were unable to do so before the English squadron came in sight. Anyhow, they were left sticking up out of the water—in the cases of five of the six vessels—and showed what the enemy’s plans in that direction were. Admiral Watson’s first step was to remove the boom and the two bomb-vessels behind the line of the sunken vessels, together with the fireships. The boats of the men-of-war were sent up with muffled oars after dark on the first night after the arrival of the squadron and cleared these off, by cutting through the boom and sending the bombs and fireships adrift, causing them to run ashore and ground hard and fast. “Mr. Delamotte, the master of the _Kent_,” relates Dr. Ives, “on the second day sounded between the sunken vessels, whose masts were above water, under continuous cannon shot from the fort, and found room for our ships to pass between.”

Treachery, as the French afterwards said, enabled him to do this. One of their artillery officers, according to French accounts, had a quarrel with the Governor, deserted and sold the secret of the passage for a large sum to Admiral Watson. He sent the money, so the story proceeds, to help his father in France, an aged and poor man, only, however, to receive back again the price of his treason, together with a bitter letter of reproach on the receipt of which the traitor hanged himself. On the other hand, Dr. Ives, on board the flagship, says nothing of any traitor. Admiral Watson in his dispatch simply says that he was delayed “until ... I could further discover by sounding a proper channel to pass through, which the pilots found out without being at the trouble of weighing any of the vessels.” There was hardly need for a traitor, and no need at all to pay for information with the masts of the sunken French vessels in the river standing up in the air, right across the bed of the Hooghly, for every man and boy in the English squadron to see. There was a traitor at Chandernagore, De Terraneau, an artillery officer; but he deserted to Clive’s camp, and, useful as his information proved to the land attack, he knew nothing about the river defences.

By midday on the 22nd all was in order for the squadron to go forward to the final fight. The tides now were running higher every day, and the next tide would probably serve. That afternoon Rear-Admiral Pocock (afterwards Sir George, and a very distinguished commander), the Second in Command of the East Indies squadron, came up the Hooghly rowing up from Calcutta in his barge. He had hurried up to join, in the hope of being in time to see something of the fighting. He had left his flagship, the _Cumberland_, at Balasore, unable to enter the river owing to the same low tides that had during the past few days delayed the _Kent_ and her two consorts in approaching Chandernagore. With Admiral Watson’s sanction, Pocock hoisted his flag for the battle on board the _Tyger_, to lead the line.

At dusk that evening, as soon as it could be done without observation by the enemy, boats crept ahead quietly and lashed lanterns to the masts of the sunken vessels, so screened as to show their light only in the direction of the English ships. By means of these the ships were to be guided before daybreak next morning between the obstacles and across the danger zone where the French had marked the range, past the heavy battery that overlooked the sunken ships.

The order to go forward was given at daybreak. Within five minutes they were on the move.

Anchors were silently weighed between 5 and 6 a.m., and on the top of the flood tide the three ships, the _Tyger_ leading, and the _Kent_ and _Salisbury_ in her wake, glided ahead through the water with the least possible noise. Apparently their getting under way was not observed.

Admiral Watson’s plan of battle was to bring-to directly opposite the river face of Fort d’Orleans within pistol shot. The _Tyger_ was to lead on until she came in front of the further bastion of the river face of the fort, the north-east or “flagstaff bastion,” as it was called, and then drop anchor. The _Kent_ was to anchor between the two river front bastions at the north-west and south-east angles of the fort, directly facing the curtain and the eight-gun ravelin covering the main gate. The _Salisbury_ was to post herself opposite the south-east, or St. Joseph, bastion.

As the _Tyger_, a few minutes before six o’clock, neared the battery covering the sunken ships, the French ashore sounded the alarm. Apparently they were surprised. The soldiers in the first battery merely fired a few rounds at the leading ship as she passed by, a dim spectre in the half-light, and then the men in the battery cleared out at a run, and fell back to join the main garrison inside the fort. For their part the three British men-of-war passed on for their appointed stations without replying with a single shot.

The main garrison now were quickly on the _qui vive_, and the south-east bastion took up the firing; but for the moment the light was too uncertain for the gunners in Fort d’Orleans to shoot with much effect, until the _Tyger_ and _Kent_ had nearly drawn up abreast of the fort. Then, however, they got their chance.

The French gunners took advantage of it to the full before the men-of-war were in position. As it were by signal, a tremendous burst of artillery fire flashed out all along the ramparts from end to end, from bastions and curtain and ravelin. The tornado of iron beat on the _Tyger_ heavily, but she stood up to it, forging her way ahead stolidly, and then let go anchor within her allotted station to a yard. The flagship was not so lucky. She was following at a half cable’s length astern—a hundred yards—when, almost at the moment that the _Tyger_ anchored, the tide turned, and began to race back, swirling down the river. It checked the _Kent’s_ way instantly, and she hung back at a dead standstill, unable to breast her way against it. At the same moment a heavy concentrated fire from the ramparts beat upon her, and the ship, reeling under the terrific battering began to drift down, stern first. First one anchor was let go, then another. Both anchors dragged, and the big seventy-gun ship drove down astern right across the bowsprit of the smaller _Salisbury_.

The Frenchmen yelled and cheered and redoubled their efforts, and there was for a space intense excitement. Would the two ships collide and get foul? At the moment that the flagship first checked her way, Captain Speke had fallen severely wounded, with, close to him, his little son, a boy midshipman, acting as aide-de-camp to his father, who was struck down by the same shot and mortally wounded.

In a few seconds the _Kent’s_ anchors held, and the ship was brought up; but she had got into a bad position. The forward-half of the ship lay partially opposite the south-east bastion, with the after-half overlapping the southern face of the fort in such a way that some of the guns of the further bastion on that side, the south-west bastion, could play upon the quarters and stern. Most of the guns mounted on the ravelin and along the curtain of the river front could at the same time train on her bows with a raking fire, assisted by some of the guns on the north-east or flagstaff bastion, facing the _Tyger_, some of which could be brought to bear. More serious still was this. The _Salisbury_ had been pushed entirely out of the fight: had been placed practically out of action for the day. The channel was not wide enough to let the _Salisbury_ tow ahead and pass the flagship, and the _Salisbury_ had to anchor at a spot whence only one or two of her guns could engage. Thus it came about that the whole brunt of fighting Fort d’Orleans fell on two ships, the _Tyger_ and the _Kent_, by themselves.

Not a shot, according to Dr. Ives, had so far been fired in reply to the enemy’s “tremendous cannonade.” The _Tyger_ was waiting for the _Kent_ to hoist the red flag. It went up as soon as the _Kent’s_ anchors held. “As soon as the ships came properly to an anchor, they returned it with such fury as astonished their adversaries.” “Our ships lay so near the fort,” says the doctor also, that “the musket balls fired from their tops, by striking against the chunam walls of the Governor’s palace, which was in the very centre of the fort, were beaten as flat as a half-crown.”

Clive’s men were at work meanwhile on the land side. They had begun pushing the enemy hard on the previous afternoon, and had opened a brisk attack on the outworks before daylight that morning, under the pressure of which the French outposts fell back, until they had abandoned practically all their landward positions beyond the walls of Fort d’Orleans. Clive’s soldiers after that occupied some bungalows that stood not far from the walls, from under cover of which they plied the enemy on the ramparts with a continuous fusillade of musketry, and with six light guns they had pushed forward. The soldiers, however, could make little further progress for the present.

“For three hours nothing was heard but an incessant roll of artillery and musketry, the crashing of timbers and masonry, the shouts and cheers of the combatants, and the shrieks and groans of the wounded.”

Describing the scene on board his own ship during the first two hours, Dr. Ives says: “The fire was kept up with extraordinary spirit. The flank guns of the south-west bastion galled the _Kent_ very much, and the Admiral’s aides-de-camp being all wounded, Mr. Watson went down himself to Lieutenant William Brereton, who commanded the lower-deck battery, and ordered him particularly to direct his fire against those guns, and they were accordingly soon afterwards silenced.”

Then he relates this incident, which occurred on board just afterwards. “At eight in the morning,” says the doctor, “several of the enemy’s shot struck the _Kent_ at the same time; one entered near the foremast, and set fire to two or three 32-pound cartridges of gunpowder as the boys held them in their hands ready to charge the guns. By the explosion the wad-nets and other loose things took fire between decks, and the whole ship was so filled with smoke that the men in their confusion cried out she was on fire in the gunner’s store-room, imagining from the shock they had felt from the balls that a shell had actually fallen into her. This notion struck a panic into the greatest part of the crew, and seventy or eighty jumped out of the portholes into the boats that were alongside the ship. The French presently saw this confusion on board the _Kent_, and resolving to take the advantage, kept up as hot a fire as possible upon her during the whole time. Lieutenant Brereton, however, with the assistance of some other brave men, soon extinguished the fire. Then running to the ports he begged the seamen to come in again, upbraiding them for deserting their quarters; but finding this had no effect on them, he thought the more certain method of succeeding would be to strike them with a sense of shame. He therefore loudly exclaimed, ‘Are you Britons? You Englishmen! and fly from danger! For shame! For shame!’ This reproach had the desired effect; to a man they immediately returned into the ship, repaired to their quarters, and renewed an inspirited fire into the enemy.”

The end was in sight by nine o’clock, and it came within a very few minutes of the hour.

“In about three hours from the commencement of the attack, the parapets of the north and south bastions were almost beaten down, the guns were mostly dismounted, and we could plainly see from the main-top of the _Kent_ that the ruins from the parapet and merlons had entirely blocked up those few guns which otherwise might have been fit for service. We could easily discern, too, that there had been a great slaughter among the enemy, who finding that our fire against them rather increased, hung out the white flag, whereupon a cessation of hostilities took place, and the Admiral sent Lieutenant Brereton (the only commissioned officer on board the _Kent_ that was not killed or wounded) and Captain Coote of the King’s regiment with a flag of truce to the fort, who soon returned, accompanied by the French Governor’s son, with articles of capitulation.”

At the moment that the Governor hung out the flag of truce (“waved over their walls a flag of truce,” in the Admiral’s own words) the landward side of the fort was still holding Clive’s soldiers at bay. The firing from the ramparts there continued for some little time after the flag on the Governor’s palace had been lowered.

The formal surrender and giving up of the fort took place at three o’clock in the afternoon. Says Admiral Watson in his dispatch: “I sent Captain Latham of the _Tyger_ ashore to receive the keys and take possession of the fort. Col. Clive marched in with the King’s troops about five in the afternoon.” The _Kent’s_ log notes this: “5.30 p.m. The Fort at Chandernagore fired 21 guns as a salute to H.M. Colours, after being hoisted half an hour before.”

So Chandernagore fell. “It must be acknowledged,” to use the words of Dr. Ives once more, “that the French made a gallant defence, as they stood to their guns as long as they had any to fire. We never could learn how many of their men were killed and wounded on the whole, though they confessed they had forty dead carried from the south-east bastion. The north-east bastion was also cleared of its defenders twice.”

“The fire of the ships,” says the Indian military historian Orme, “did as much execution in three hours as the batteries on shore would have done in several days.” “Few naval engagements have excited more admiration,” says Sir John Malcolm, writing three-quarters of a century afterwards, “and even at the present day, when the river is so much better known, the success with which the largest vessels of the fleet were navigated to Chandernagore and laid alongside the batteries of that settlement is a subject of wonder.” Summing up results, Colonel Malleson says: “The capture of Chandernagore was not less a seal to French dominion in Bengal than it was the starting-point of British supremacy in that province.”

Admiral Watson in his dispatch states the enemy’s force thus: “They had in the fort 1200 men, of which 500 were Europeans and 700 Blacks; 183 pieces of cannon, from 24-pounders and downwards; three small mortars, and a considerable quantity of ammunition. Besides the ships and vessels sunk below, to stop up the channel, they sank and ran ashore five large ships above the fort, and we have taken four sloops and a snow.”

Dealing with the casualties on the British side, Admiral Watson proceeds in these words: “The _Kent_ had 19 men killed and 49 wounded, the _Tyger_ 13 killed and 50 wounded. Among the number killed, was my first lieutenant, Mr. Samuel Perreau, and the master of the _Tyger_. Among the wounded was, Mr. Pocock slightly hurt, Captain Speke and his son, by the same cannon-ball, the latter had his leg shot off. Mr. Rawlins Hey, my third lieutenant, had his thigh much shattered, and is in great danger. Mr. Stanton, my fourth lieutenant, slightly wounded by splinters; but the greatest part of the wounded have suffered much, being hurt chiefly by cannon shot: Several of them cannot possibly recover.”

According to the _Kent’s_ log the flagship had three lower-deck guns dismounted and three on the upper deck, and had 138 shot holes through her engaged side, besides suffering severe damage aloft to masts and rigging.

Next morning Chandernagore paid its formal salute to the victor. From the _Kent’s_ log: “March 24th, 10 a.m., the Fort saluted the Admiral with 19 guns.” Then follows: “Fired 18 guns for the burial of the 1st Lieutenant Perreau.” Lieutenant Rawlins Hey and Midshipman Speke died a few days later.

After a ten days’ stay at Chandernagore, to rest the troops, arrange for the occupation of the place and the disposal of the prisoners, the men-of-war and the rest of the expedition returned to Fort William.

Further trouble with Suraj-u-daulah was looming ahead. The Nawab’s troops that had started to intervene at Chandernagore had halted at Plassey and gone into camp there. It was less than a hundred miles from Calcutta, and the authorities strongly objected to their being so near. There were no signs of any immediate withdrawal, although letters passed continuously to and fro between the Council and Suraj-u-daulah. Each side distrusted the other. Then began the series of intrigues between certain members of the Council and Clive with Mir Jafier and disaffected officials of the Nawab’s _entourage_, which led to the battle of Plassey two months later. With the ramifications of the plot, the treachery of the crafty Hindu go-between Omichand and how it was foiled, our narrative does not concern itself, beyond the passing reference. Everybody knows the ugly story of the “White” treaty and the “Red”; one genuine and the other sham; one honestly signed at the Council table by Admiral Watson, the other with the Admiral’s signature to it forged secretly, either by the hand of Clive himself or by some underling at his instigation. The battle of Plassey, from which the British _raj_ in the East, by common consent, dates its rise, was the sequel, on the 23rd of the following June.

To strengthen Clive’s small army the Royal Navy took over the garrisoning of Chandernagore for the time being; occupying the place with a hundred and forty of the flagship’s men, under Lieutenant Clarke of the _Kent_. Communication between Clive’s army in the field and Calcutta was kept open by way of Chandernagore and the _Bridgewater_, which ship was sent some miles higher up the river and anchored there.

Fifty seaman from the East Indies Squadron with a lieutenant and seven midshipmen in charge, accompanied Clive’s army, attached to the artillery. Most of them were from the flagship, and one of the _Kent’s_ midshipmen, Mr. Shoreditch, was wounded in a hand-to-hand encounter with one of the Nawab’s French officers.

More than that, however, the sailors had no small share in winning the battle for England. At Plassey Clive, as he said, put his trust in God. It was the sailors who kept his powder dry. It was their guns that did the work in smashing up the dense masses of the Nawab’s levies in the critical second stage of the battle, after the deluging monsoon rain-storm that burst at noon, swamped the ammunition of Suraj-u-daulah’s artillerymen. On such a detail as the smartness of Admiral Watson’s handy-men with their tarpaulins and budge-skin powder-covers did the fate of the epoch-making day of Plassey practically hinge. Only after it had become plain with which side the fortune of the day rested did Mir Jafier and his corps pass over and throw in their lot with Clive.

* * * * *

Within two months of Plassey Admiral Watson was dead. The climate killed him in the end. For more than four months past he had been ailing, and for the past four months had had among his papers the Admiralty’s permission to return home on sick leave. But, like Nelson during the last eighteen months of his glorious life while watching the enemy off Toulon, he would not leave his post while there was duty to be done. The inactivity after Chandernagore, in the sultry, steamy heats of the rainy season in Lower Bengal, killed Admiral Watson.

A plain obelisk on a heavy square base in the graveyard compound of St. John’s Cathedral, Calcutta, marks the Admiral’s resting-place. It was erected by Mr. Holwell, the survivor of the Black Hole, during his governorship a few years later, and is thus inscribed:—

Here lies interred the Body of CHARLES WATSON, ESQUIRE, Vice Admiral of the White, Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s Naval Forces in the East Indies, Who departed this life On the 16th day of August, 1757, In the 44th year of his age. _Geriah taken, February 13th, 1756. Calcutta freed, January 11th, 1757. Chandernagore taken, March 23rd, 1757._ Exegit monumentum aere perennius.

Monumentum aere perennius? Hardly that. Modern India has no place for naval memories. Clive—and Clive only—holds the field.

Hos ego versiculos feci: tulit alter honores

—wrote Virgil once, in a moment of literary bitterness. If it be given to those beyond the Veil to know of things on earth, and think, the Shade of the gallant admiral might well express itself in terms hardly less strong.

The East India Company erected a monument to the Admiral in Westminster Abbey, and King George bestowed a baronetcy of the United Kingdom on his only son—then a boy—in consideration of his father’s “great and eminent services.”

_Est procul hinc_—the legend’s writ, The frontier grave is far away, _Qui ante diem periit_ _Sed miles, sed Prô Patriâ_.

Is it too extravagant to suggest that, with things as they then were, with nearly five years of continuous war yet to come, and with enemies’ fleets in every sea, Admiral Watson, a man young in years for his high position,[7] might, had he been spared, have well found opportunity for achieving yet higher fame, even wider renown? His, too, in 1757, was surely in a real sense a “frontier grave”—the grave of one

Who might have caught and claspt Renown, And worn her chaplet here:—and there, In haunts of jungle-poisoned air, The flame of life went wavering down.

The flagship _Kent_, it so happened, did not long outlast her chief. She had for some time past shown signs of being nearly worn out, and an official survey of her, shortly after Admiral Watson’s death, resulted in her condemnation as unfit for sea. She was “cast” and ordered to be broken up, and on the 15th of September, a month all but a day from the death of her Admiral, the pennant was hauled down on board the _Kent_—still lying off Fort William—and the ship’s company were paid off and drafted into the _Cumberland_, _Tyger_, and _Salisbury_.

So with the passing of the Admiral and his ship our story reaches its end.