Page:Calcutta, Past and Present.djvu/70

 ebbing tide, leaving to their fate a greatly reduced garrison of brave men under John Zephaniah Holwell, the senior officer left on shore, whose courageous conduct has imperishably associated his name with the story of the Black Hole.

In spite of the desertion of the senior officers, the defence was maintained all through Sunday, the 20th of June, when only one hundred and fifty fighting men were left, and of these more than a third were wounded. Even then Holwell would have kept the enemy at bay till night, and have tried to escape down the river under cover of darkness, but, at six o'clock in the evening, a number of men, who had broken into a spirit-store and been drinking heavily, opened the river gate with the idea of escaping to the ships—the enemy at once rushed in, the stubborn resistance was broken, and Calcutta was lost.

The fighting being at an end, the nawab was carried into the Fort in his palanquin, and to him Holwell surrendered his sword, and was ordered to immediately deliver up the key of the Company's treasury. To Suraj-ud-Dowlah's great disappointment and anger, fifty thousand rupees was all the money in the treasury; he refused to believe that there was no more, and was convinced that the greater part of the vast