secured. He attributes the barbarity with which they were enforced to the soldiers intrusted with their execution; and it is certain that the horrors of the Black Hole afforded them entertainment. "They took care," says Holwell, "to keep us supplied with water that they might have the satisfaction of seeing us fight for it, as they phrased it, and held up lights to the bars that they might lose no part of their inhuman diversion." Mr. Cook, another of the prisoners, seems to have thought that the orders were specific as to the place of confinement, but that they were issued in ignorance of its small dimensions. But these apologetic suggestions, however creditable to the generosity of the sufferers, can do little to relieve the character of the man under whose authority this wholesale murder of prisoners took place; and if the servants of Suraja Dowlah exercised any discretion in the choice of a prison, it may safely be concluded that their choice was made under a full impression that it would not be disagreeable to their master.
Mr. Holwell was admitted to the presence of the tyrant on the morning after the murder, exhibiting on his person painful evidence of the sufferings of the night. He was in a state of high fever, unable to walk, or to support himself without assistance, and his endeavours to speak were vain till water was given him. On his way to the royal presence, a jemadar, who assisted in supporting him, threatened that, unless he confessed where the treasure was buried in the fort, he should in half an hour be blown from the mouth of a cannon. "The intimation," says Holwell, "gave me no manner of concern, for at that juncture I should have esteemed death the greatest favour the tyrant could have bestowed upon me."
At this interview the Soubahdar expressed neither regret for the horrors that had occurred, nor displeasure at the conduct of those who had been the direct instruments of producing them; but harshly interrupted Mr. Holwell's attempt to describe them by a demand for the treasure supposed to be concealed. The probability, there-
