By this time the Nawab had taken possession of Fort William, but was terribly disappointed at finding very little money and only a poor stock of merchandise. The season ships to Europe had carried off all the Indian exports to escape the south-west monsoon, and the ships from England were waiting for the monsoon to carry their European cargoes up the river. There were 146 prisoners, and no place of security except the barrack cell, known as the Black Hole, which rarely held more than two or three prisoners, and was only eighteen feet square. In this horrid hole they were driven with clubs and swords, and next morning only twenty three were taken out alive. [Sidenote: End of the first period.] Such was the close of the first act of the East India Company's rule. Within a very brief space of time the British traders entered upon a new era of conquest and dominion; but the tragedy at Calcutta in June, 1756, has never been forgotten, and to this day there is not an English man or woman in India who does not occasionally call up a painful memory of the Black Hole.[6] FOOTNOTES: [1] The island of Goa, and the fortress of Diu in Guzerat, were nominally within Mohammedan dominion, but they were really independent and were held by force of arms. [2] The authorities for the present chapter, which deals with the rise and early development of British rule in India, are somewhat numerous. The most important are the Government records at Madras, in which the weekly transactions of the Governor and Council are entered at full length in a series known as "Consultations." Every year a copy of the "Consultations" was sent to the Court of Directors, together with a summary of the affairs of the year as a "General Letter;" and every year a "General Letter" was received from the Court of Directors, reviewing the "Consultations," and conveying instructions and orders thereon. The Madras records have been closely investigated by the author from 1670 to 1748; and printed extracts were published at Madras in 1860-62, in three volumes small quarto, under the title of _Madras in the Olden Time_. To them may be added Bruce's _Annals of the East India Company_; Sir Thomas Roe's _Journal of a Mission to the Great Mogul_ in 1616-18; and the travels of Pietro della Valle, Tavernier, Thevenot and Fryer; as well as Orme's _History of Hindustan_, Stewart's _History of Bengal_, Faria y Souza's _History of Portuguese Asia_, and Shaw's _Predecessors of the High Court at Madras_. Further authorities will be found cited in the author's _History of India from the Earliest Ages_, and in his _Early Records of British India_. [3] The Mofussil Courts, and the High Court in Appeals from the Mofussil Courts, are still required to decide, according to "equity and good conscience." See the "High Court amended Charters" granted in 1866.