The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was posted by A. H. Perris of Calcutta. The card, which has a divided back, was printed in Great Britain.
The Black Hole of Calcutta
The Black Hole of Calcutta was a dungeon in Fort William, Calcutta in which troops of Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, held British prisoners of war on the night of the 20th. June 1756.
John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the British prisoners and an employee of the East India Company, said that, after the fall of Fort William, the surviving British soldiers, Indian sepoys, and Indian civilians were imprisoned overnight in conditions so cramped that many people died from suffocation and heat exhaustion, and that 123 of 146 prisoners of war imprisoned there died.
The Holwell Account
Holwell wrote about the events that occurred after the fall of Fort William. He met with Siraj-ud-Daulah, who assured him:
"On the word of a soldier; no
harm should come to us".
After seeking a place in the fort to confine the prisoners (including Holwell), at 8.00 p.m., the jailers stripped the prisoners of their clothes and locked them in the fort's prison—"the black hole" in soldiers' slang—a small room that measured 14 by 18 feet (4.3 m × 5.5 m).
The next morning, when the black hole was opened at 6.00 a.m., only about 23 of the prisoners remained alive.
Historians offer different numbers of prisoners and casualties of war; Stanley Wolpert reported that 64 people were imprisoned, and 21 survived. Busteed reports that the many non-combatants present in the fort when it was captured make infeasible a precise number of people killed.
Regarding responsibility for the maltreatment and the deaths in the Black Hole of Calcutta, Holwell said:
"It was the result of revenge and resentment
in the breasts of the lower Jemmaatdaars
(sergeants), to whose custody we were
delivered, for the number of their order killed
during the siege."
Concurring with Holwell, Wolpert said that Siraj-ud-Daulah did not order the imprisonment, and was not informed of it. The physical description of the Black Hole of Calcutta corresponds with Holwell's point of view:
"The dungeon was a strongly barred room, and it
was not intended for the confinement of more than
two or three men at a time.
There were only two windows, and a projecting
veranda outside, and thick iron bars within impeded
the ventilation, while fires, raging in different parts
of the fort, suggested an atmosphere of further
oppressiveness. The prisoners were packed so
tightly that the door was difficult to close.
One of the soldiers stationed in the veranda was
offered 1,000 rupees to have them removed to a
larger room. He went away, but returned saying it
was impossible.
The bribe was then doubled, and he made a second
attempt with a like result; the nawab was asleep, and
no one dared wake him.
By nine o'clock several had died, and many more were
delirious. A frantic cry for water now became general,
and one of the guards, more compassionate than his
fellows, caused some water to be brought to the bars,
where Mr. Holwell and two or three others received it
in their hats and passed it on to the men behind.
In their impatience to secure it nearly all was spilled,
and the little they drank seemed only to increase their
thirst.
Self-control was soon lost; those in remote parts of
the room struggled to reach the window, and a fearful
tumult ensued, in which the weakest were trampled or
pressed to death.
They raved, fought, prayed, blasphemed, and many
then fell exhausted on the floor, where suffocation
put an end to their torments.
About 11 o'clock the prisoners began to drop off fast.
At length, at six in the morning, Siraj-ud-Daulah awoke
and ordered the door to be opened. Of the 146 only 23,
including Mr. Holwell (from whose narrative, published
in The Gentleman's Magazine for 1758, this account is
partly derived), remained alive, and they were either
stupefied or raving.
Fresh air soon revived them, and the commander was
then taken before the nawab, who expressed no regret
for what had occurred, and gave no other sign of
sympathy than ordering the Englishman a chair and a
glass of water."
Notwithstanding this indifference, Mr. Holwell and some others acquit him of any intention of causing the catastrophe, and ascribe it to the malice of certain officers, although many think this opinion unfounded.
Afterward, when the prison of Fort William was opened, the corpses of the dead men were thrown into a ditch. As prisoners of war, Holwell and three other men were transferred to Murshidabad.
Imperial Aftermath
The remaining survivors of the Black Hole of Calcutta were freed the next morning on the orders of the nawab, who learned only that morning of their sufferings.
After news of Calcutta's capture was received by the British in Madras in August 1756, Lieutenant Colonel Robert Clive was sent to retaliate against the Nawab.
With his troops and local Indian allies, Clive recaptured Calcutta in January 1757, and defeated Siraj-ud-Daulah at the Battle of Plassey, which resulted in Siraj being overthrown as Nawab of Bengal and executed.
The Black Hole of Calcutta was later used as a warehouse.