The Navy in the events of the six weeks campaign against Suraj-u-daulah that followed, bore the brunt of the hard work and had their share in the fighting. First, a week after the taking of Calcutta, an expedition was sent up the Hooghly to attack the fort at the city of Hooghly, thirty miles up the river, the Nawab’s capital of Lower Bengal. All the boats of the squadron, manned and armed, with the _Bridgewater_ and the _Kingfisher_ carrying two hundred European soldiers and two hundred and fifty Sepoys formed the expeditionary force. The fort at Hooghly was stormed, a midshipman of the _Kent_, Mr. William Hamilton, and two seamen of the flagship being among the killed, and several men were wounded. The Nawab’s treasury was looted and the town burned. After that the sailors, under Captain Speke of the _Kent_, and with a small military detachment, went three miles higher up and burned the immense storehouses and granaries of the Nawab’s army at Goongee. Suraj-u-daulah’s advanced guard of some five thousand men was encamped close by in force, and attacked the little column, but the enemy were handsomely beaten off and the work carried through with complete success.
Again we have from Dr. Ives, incidentally, a curious story of much the same kind as that already told of Strahan at Budge-Budge. Three men from the flagship, as it would seem, on the force returning to Hooghly, were missed. There was no trace of them or their fate. Nobody had seen them after the opening of the fight. Their disappearance could in no way be accounted for, except that they had been shot and overlooked in some extraordinary way. They were therefore entered as “killed.” Next morning, to the general surprise, the three men made their appearance safe and sound, with an extraordinary tale of adventure. “Early the next morning,” to quote the doctor’s words, “a raft was observed floating down the river, and on it sat with the greatest composure possible our three missing sailors, who after they were taken off and brought on board their ship, gave the following account of their adventure.” After the fighting they had straggled and gone to sleep. “Awakening in the beginning of the night, and perceiving their companions had left them, they judged it expedient to set fire to all the villages in order to intimidate the enemy and make them believe the whole detachment still continued on shore which had done them so much mischief the previous day. As soon as the day broke they repaired to the water’s edge to search for a boat, in which they hoped to be conveyed on board their ship. No such thing, however, could be found, but luckily for them this raft at length presented itself, on which they resolved to trust themselves.”