Mogul Nabob on the plains of Bengal; but it was under the direction of one of those heroes who appear at distant intervals in history, whose masterminds acquire such an ascendancy over mankind as almost to command fortune; and from whose exertions, in circumstances the most adverse, unhoped-for triumphs often proceed. In the end of December 1756, COLONEL CLIVE appeared at the mouth of the Ganges, defeated the Mogul detachment sent to oppose his landing, retook Calcutta, and, disregarding the timid expostulation of the council, took upon himself the supreme direction of affairs. It soon appeared how water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies; raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among them. The gaolers, in the mean time, held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of the victims. At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and moanings. The day broke; the Nabob had left off his debauch, and permitted the doors to be opened; but it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome change. When at length a passage was made, twenty-essential the guidance of a chief of three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would not have known, came forth alive. A pit was instantly dug; the dead bodies, one hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung into it promiscuously, and covered up. Among those saved was Mr Hollwell, the governor; but the indignation excited throughout England by that inhuman cruelty was unexampled. All classes were animated by a generous desire to avenge the sufferings of their countrymen; and from the horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta the glories of our Indian empire may be said to have taken their rise. such personal and moral courage was to the salvation of our Indian possessions at that critical juncture. Surajee Dowlah in a few weeks returned with increased forces; but Clive stormed his camp, and struck such terror into his troops that a treaty was concluded, by which Calcutta was restored to the Company, and permission granted to fortify it. From that hour the territorial empire of England in India may be said to have been established. 5. Shortly after this important event, intelligence arrived in India of the commencement of hostilities between France and England, and the government at Calcutta received advices that Surajee Dowlah was preparing to join the former with all his forces. Clive instantly took his determination; he resolved to raise up Meer Jaffier, a re 4. The East India Company, at that period, possessed an inconsiderable | settlement at Madras, on the eastern coast of India, protected by a fort called Fort George, and to it the distressed merchants at Calcutta des-nowned military leader in Bengal, to patched a deputation, earnestly soliciting succour. Fortunately, at that period, the hostilities which were hourly expected with France had caused a considerable body of British troops to be assembled in that city, which, from its comparative vicinity to Pondicherry, the principal seat of French power in the East, was most exposed to danger; and a detachment of nine hundred Europeans, and fifteen hundred sepoys, was forthwith despatched to restore the British fortunes at the mouth of the Ganges. This inconsiderable band seemed little qualified to combat the vast armies of the the viceroyship of that province, in the hope that, owing his elevation to the British, he would be less disposed to join their enemies than the Nabob, who was already their inveterate enemy. Such a treaty was immediately concluded with the Hindoo potentate, on terms highly favourable to the English; and shortly afterwards hostilities commenced, by Colonel Clive marching with two thousand men against the French fort of Chandernagore, on the Hoogly, eighty miles above Calcutta. This fort was soon taken, and several others reduced. At length, on the 22d June, Clive, with his little army, then raised to nine hundred Europeans and two thousand sepoys, and six guns, came up with the vast array of Surajee, consisting of fifty thousand infantry, eight thousand cavalry, and fifty guns, under French officers, in a good position at PLESSY. For the first and last time in his life, Clive called a council of war: the proverb held good, and the council declined to fight; but the English general consulted only his own heroic character, and led his troops against the enemy. The odds were fearful; but valour and decision can sometimes supply the want of numbers. The British were sheltered, in the early part of the day, by a high bank from the cannon-shot of the enemy: treachery and disaffection reigned in the Asiatic ranks; and before Clive led his " * Clive_stated in his evidence before the House of Commons-"This was the only council of war I ever called, and if I had abided by its decision, it would have been the ruin of the East India Company. The same truth may be observed in all ages, and in all transactions civil and military, where vigour and decision are requisite to success. The shelter of numbers is never sought but by those who bave not the moral courage to act on their own conviction; true intrepidity of mind never seeks to divide responsibility. In the multitude of counsellors there may be safety; but it is in general safety to the counsellors, not to the counselled.-CLIVE's Evidence before the House of Commons, given in MILL'S App. No. vi., and iii. 166. He assigned the following reasons for his treaty with Meer Jaffier to dethrone Surajee Dowlah: "That after Chandernagore was attacked, he saw clearly that they could not stop there, but must go on; that having established themselves by force, and not by the consent of the Nabob, he would endeavour to drive them out again; that they had numberless proofs of his intentions, and some upon record; that he suggested, in consequence, the necessity of a revolution, and Meer Jaffier was pitched upon to be Nabob instead of Surajee Dowlah." This is precisely the language and principles of Napoleon; this necessity of advancing to avoid being destroyed, is the accompaniment of power founded on force in all ages. The British power in India was driven on to greatness by the same necessity which impelled the European conqueror to Moscow and the Kremlin: it is the prodigious difference in the use the former made of their power, even when acquired by violence, which, hitherto at least, has saved them from the fate which so soon overtook him. CLIVE'S Evidence, ut supra; and MILL, iii. 162. troops in their turn to the attack, the victory was already gained. The Nabob fled on his swiftest elephant; Clive remained master of the Indian camp, artillery, and baggage; and the fate of a kingdom as great as France, containing thirty millions of inhabitants, was determined with the loss of seventy men. 6. The British ascendancy on the Ganges was now secured. Meer Jaffier, as the reward of his treachery, was saluted by the conqueror as Nabob of Bengal and Bahar. Surajee was soon made prisoner and slain; and his successor purchased the foreign aid which had gained him the throne by the grant of an ample territory around Calcutta, and the immediate payment of £800,000, as an indemnity for the expenses of the war. The Mogul Emperor, alarmed at this formidable irruption of strangers into one of the provinces of his mighty dominions, made an attempt to expel the intruders, and reinstate the former dynasty on the throne; but he was defeated by Meer Jaffier, aided by the Company's forces. Jaffier was soon after deposed in consequence of his weak and tyrannical disposition, and succeeded by his natural son, Meer Cossim: the Moguls were finally routed by Major Carnac, and the French auxiliaries made prisoners. After this, the British proceeded from one acquisition to another, till, after several intrigues and revolutions in the native governments of Bengal, sometimes effected by their influence, sometimes forced upon them by the inconstancy of the Mahommedan princes, a great battle was fought at Buxar, in which the Moguls were totally defeated, with the loss of six thousand men, and one hundred and fifty guns. 7. This important victory decided the fate of Bengal. Lord Clive, who had returned to Europe in 1760, soon after was sent out again to Hindostan; and, foreseeing the necessity of the East India Company assuming the government of the whole of that province, if they would preserve their footing on the banks of the Ganges, insisted, as an indispensable preliminary, that its sovereignty should be ceded to the English power. 85 The two hundred soldiers being allowed to 8. While the genius of Clive, supported by the commanding spirit of Chatham and the resolution of the local government, was thus spreading the British dominion on the banks of the Ganges, the English had to sustain a still more obstinate contest in the southern part of India. MADRAS, on the coast of Coromandel, was, so early as the year 1653, invested with the dignity of a presidency, though at that period its garrison was limited, by an express resolution of the court of directors, to ten men. This insignificant town was the object of fierce contests between the English and French in the middle of the eighteenth century; the war which broke out in Europe in 1744, was as warmly contested in the East as the West; and a strong French military and naval force besieged and took it in 1746, its weak garrison of 9. No sooner had hostilities broken out a second time in Europe, between France and England, in 1756, than the cabinet of Versailles made a strenuous effort to root out the British settlements on the coast of Coromandel. The expedition fitted out for Pondicherry, the chief French stronghold, for this purpose, consisted of eight thousand men, of whom more than half were Europeans, under Lally; and after capturing Fort St David, to which the British had retired in the former Г At war, they besieged Madras in form. | flinching intrepidity, were conspicuous. The garrison, consisting of eighteen "Fighting," says one of his uncles, hundred European and two thousand "to which he is beyond all measure sepoy troops, had to sustain a variety addicted, gives his temper such a fierceof desperate assaults, almost without ness and imperiousness, that he flies intermission, for two months. At out on every trifling occasion." length the siege was raised, when the the age of twelve he terrified all the brave besieged were nearly reduced to people of Market-Drayton by climbing extremities, by the arrival of the Eng- to the top of the lofty steeple of the lish fleet with six hundred fresh troops. village, where he was seen for some Lally retired precipitately, and the Brit- time calmly seated on a stone spout ish immediately carried the war into near the summit. Soon after, he formed the enemy's territories. Colonel, after-the boys of the place into a sort of prewards Sir Eyre Coote, invested and datory band, who levied contributions took the important fortress of Wandi- of apples and halfpence on the shopmash in the Carnatic; and Lally, hav-keepers. In the vain hope of quelling ing collected all his forces to regain his turbulent disposition, he was sent that stronghold, was met and totally defeated by Coote, with six thousand men, who made General de Bussy and several of the ablest French officers prisoners, and took twenty pieces of cannon. This great victory proved decisive of the fate of the French power in India. Lally was soon after shut up in his capital, after losing all the detached forts which he held in the province; he was closely blockaded by sea and land by the victorious armies and fleets of England; and at length, after a protracted siege of eight months, in which the gallant Frenchman exerted all the expedients of courage and skill to avert his fate, his resources were exhausted, he was compelled to capitulate, and in the middle of January the British standards were hoisted on the towers of Pondicherry. 10. Robert Clive, afterwards Lord Clive, the founder of the British empire in India, to whom these triumphs were mainly owing, was born at the ancient seat of his ancestors, near Market-Drayton, in Shropshire, on the 29th September 1725. His family had been settled there since the twelfth century; but, like many others of old extraction in that country, had never risen to eminence either for good or for evil. Traces of the character of the future hero are to be found even in the earliest anecdotes of the child. The letters, still existing, of his relations prove, that when yet only seven years of age, his determination of purpose, vehement passions, and un from school to school, in all of which he learned little, and gained the reputation of being exceedingly unmanageable, though one old master, more sagacious than the rest, prophesied that the wild boy would make a great man. At length his relations, anxious to get quit of him, were glad to accept the offer of a writership, or civil appointment in India; and he set sail for Madras at the age of eighteen, in the year 1743. 11. Young Clive had not been long in India before his peculiar character made itself conspicuous. At first he was melancholy and reserved: he had no friends, the warm climate affected his health, solitude oppressed his spirits; and in his letters he speaks of his "dear native England, and Manchester the centre of all my wishes," with an affection which could hardly have been anticipated from his previous temper. This solitude, however, was the making of his character: he took with vehement ardour to reading, and compensated in a few years for the previous idleness of his youth. The uncontrollable fury of his passions, however, still continued: his violent temper fre quently put him in danger of losing his situation; he fought a desperate duel with a noted bully who had long been the terror of Fort St David; and twice, in fits of despair, attempted to shoot himself. On both occasions the pistol, though well loaded and primed, missed fire; an occurrence with which Clive was so much struck, that on lay ing down the weapon he exclaimed, | followers, and awakened among his that "surely he was destined for gallant sepoys a devotion rivalling even something great!" An opportunity that of the tenth legion of Cæsar, or soon occurred for showing his real the Old Guard of Napoleon. "Such character. War having broken out in an extent of cultivated territory," it India in 1746, between the English has been eloquently said, "such an and French, he entered the army as amount of revenue, such a multitude an ensign at the age of twenty-one, and of subjects, was never added to the soon distinguished himself highly in dominion of Rome by the most sucseveral operations against Dupleix. cessful proconsul; nor were such Peace having soon after been con- wealthy spoils ever borne under arches cluded, he again returned for a season of triumph along the Sacred Way to to pacific pursuits, and was appointed the threshold of Tarpeian Jove. The commissary, with the rank of captain. fame of those who subdued Antiochus But in 1749 his career of greatness and Tigranes grows dim, compared began by the master-stroke which he with the splendour of the exploits suggested to the government, and in which the young Englishman achieved person delivered against Arcot, the at the head of an army not equal in capital of the rajah of the same name, numbers to half a Roman legion. As and the heroic valour with which, at a statesman, he first made dauntless the head of a hundred and twenty and unsparing war on the gigantic English and two hundred sepoys, he system of oppression, extortion, and successfully defended that fortress, corruption, which previously existed. when afterwards besieged, for two In that war he put to hazard his ease, months against ten thousand of the his fame, his splendid fortune. If the bravest soldiers in India. reproach of the Company and its servants has been nobly taken away; if in India the yoke of foreign masters has been found lighter than that of any native dynasty; if a body of public servants has been reared, unequalled for their ability, integrity, and public spirit, the praise is in no small degree due to Clive. His name stands high on the roll of conquerors; but it is found in a better list-among those who have done and suffered much for the happiness of mankind." He died by his own hand, at the age of fortynine, in a fit of insanity, produced by the ingratitude and persecution of his country. As a warrior, history must assign him a place in the same rank with Lucullus and Trajan; as a proconsul, the veneration due to Antoninus and Turgot; as a victim of national ingratitude, a place in the narrower but more glorious fane of Themistocles and Scipio. 12. Lord Clive was one of the greatest generals and bravest men, and second in civil government to none whom England, so fertile in able statesmen, has produced. It is hard to say whether he appears with most lustre as the hero whose single exploits laid the foundation of a mighty empire, or as the governor whose resolution and integrity stamped the characters which have given stability and permanence to its power. With his defence of Arcot commenced that long series of triumphs which was destined to carry the British standards beyond the Himalaya snows and the Indian Archipelago, to Ghuznee and Nankin; with his civil administration, the power which has equalled in extent, and exceeded in duration, the empire of Aurengzebe. His genius for war was intuitive; he had little instruction, no counsellors; he was born a general. Compelled to form himself, his officers, and his army, he did the whole, amid the deepest adversity, in a few years. Like all great men, he took counsel only of himself; saw by intuition the whole art of war; communicated his own ardent spirit to a noble band of 13. The downfall of the French power in India first brought the Eng* See Mr Macaulay's noble biography of Clive in the Edinburgh Review- an author upon whom alone the mantle of Hume since his time is worthy to descend.-Edinburgh Review, lxx. 309-312; and Miscellaneous Essays, iii. 205. |