CALCUTTA: PAST AND PRESENT
for food. It is to this latter circumstance that Holwell attributed their escape from death, for, as he wrote afterwards, "could we have indulged in flesh and wine we had died beyond all doubt." Arrived at Murshedabad they were lodged in a stable near the palace, and, still laden with chains and strongly guarded, they narrowly escaped a second suffocation by "the immense crowd of spectators who came from all quarters of the city to gratify their curiosity, and blocked us up from morning till night."
On the return of the nawab to Murshedabad the old begum, his grandmother, interceded with him for the English gentlemen, and, a few days later, he ordered them to be set at liberty and allowed to go where they would; on which, as Holwell records, "as soon as our legs were free, we took boat, and proceeded to the Dutch Tanksall, where we were received and entertained with real joy and humanity."
Eventually Holwell and his companions, with Messrs. Hastings and Chambers, who had been hospitably sheltered by the French and Dutch from the time the Company's factory at Cossimbazar had been destroyed, were able to make their way down country to Fulta, where they joined the refugees from Calcutta who there awaited succour.
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