The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Life of Robert, Lord Clive, Vol. I (of 3), by John Malcolm

Engraved by Edwards, from a Painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
ROBERT LORD CLIVE.
London. Published by John Murray. 1836.

THE
LIFE
OF
ROBERT, LORD CLIVE:

COLLECTED FROM THE FAMILY PAPERS
COMMUNICATED BY
THE EARL OF POWIS.

BY
MAJOR-GENERAL
SIR JOHN MALCOLM, G.C.B. F.R.S. &c.
IN THREE VOLUMES.
WITH A PORTRAIT AND MAP.
VOL. I.

LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
MDCCCXXXVI.

TO
THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
THE EARL OF POWIS,
&c. &c. &c.

My Lord,
This Life of your illustrious Father is dedicated
to your Lordship, in the conviction
that, had the Author been spared to complete
this, his last and favourite work, he
would have thus endeavoured to testify
his gratitude for your unvaried kindness,
and his affectionate esteem for your public
and private character.

I remain,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's faithful Servant,
Charlotte Malcolm.

Warfield, April, 1836.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The present work was commenced in consequence of the possession of a body of unpublished documents, which, having been preserved among the family records at Walcot, were thrown open to the author by the friendship of the Earl of Powis. These consisted chiefly of the whole correspondence of Lord Clive, containing the originals of nearly every letter which he had received from the time when he first filled a public situation in India, down to the period at which he finally quitted that country; with copies of answers to many of the most important of them. They contained also several memoirs regarding the chief enterprises in which he was engaged, and minutes of council on the leading measures of his government.

From these sources, aided by the Reports of the different Parliamentary Committees, and other authentic materials, published and unpublished, Sir John had completed the introduction, and the first thirteen chapters, before he left India, in 1830. The fourteenth and fifteenth he finished after his return, and was engaged with the sixteenth, when death put a close to his labours.

The author was accustomed to bestow his final revision upon each successive portion of his work before he advanced to that which was to follow it. He had, consequently, made no preparation beyond the point where his progress was arrested; nor had he sketched out or indicated the plan he meant to pursue.

A gentleman for whose abilities Sir John Malcolm entertained a high respect, and by whose judgment it was his intention to have profited before he committed his work to the press, kindly offered to supply such a continuation as was necessary to bring down the narrative to the death of Lord Clive.

The materials which were here available were, of necessity, less abundant, less original, and less authentic than those from which the earlier part of the Memoirs had been composed.

After Lord Clive reached England, he filled no public situation, and had the means of settling his most important affairs directly by personal communication. The incidents of his English life were to be drawn chiefly from a limited and occasional correspondence with his more intimate friends, and the parliamentary proceedings from the reports in the periodical works of the day; in which the details of contemporary occurrences are infinitely less ample than are now afforded by similar publications.

The writer, therefore, by whose pen the concluding chapters were contributed, laboured under a difficulty which would have discouraged any person less influenced by friendship for the deceased, and by kindness for those on whom the publication devolved; but it has been surmounted in a manner which, it is hoped, will enable the reader to pursue the subject to its close, without any feeling of unsatisfied curiosity.

The family of Sir John Malcolm cannot close this brief notice, without expressing to the continuator of the work their warmest gratitude for the pains his affection has bestowed upon the last labours of his friend.

CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.

INTRODUCTION.

General View of the State of India in 1746

Page [1]

CHAPTER I.

Clive's Family—his Boyhood.—Events of his early Life in
India.—History of the Carnatic to 1750

[29]

CHAP. II.

Wars in the Carnatic.—Siege of Arcot, and subsequent
Operations of Clive till 1752

[67]

CHAP. III.

Clive returns to England, 1753.—Again sent to India in
1755.—Capture of Gheriah.—Operations in Bengal.—Calcutta
retaken, and Sujah-u-Dowlah forced to make
Peace

[128]

CHAP. IV.

Surrender of Chandernagore.—Quarrel with Sujah-u-Dowlah

[183]

CHAP. V.

Conduct of Sujah-u-Dowlah.—Intrigues at his Court.—Battle
of Plassey.—He is deposed, and Meer Jaffier raised
to the Musnud.—Treaty

[219]

CHAP. VI.

Transactions subsequent to the Battle of Plassey

[273]

CHAP. VII.

State of Parties in Bengal, and in the Court of Meer Jaffier.—Clive
proceeds to Patna.—Accepts the Government
of Bengal

[316]

CHAP. VIII.

Clive projects an Expedition to occupy the northern Circars.—Intrigues
at the Court of Moorshedabad.—The
Shahzada's Invasion of Bahar.—Repelled by Clive—who
receives a Jaghire

[364]

INTRODUCTION.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE STATE OF INDIA IN 1746.

Before entering on the Memoirs of Clive, it will be useful to take a succinct view of the state of India, at the period when he commenced his career in that country, and more especially of the coast of Coromandel, which was the scene on which he first displayed those talents that were afterwards to raise him to such eminence.

The emperors of Delhi, since the death of Aurungzebe (A. D. 1707), had rapidly declined from the power they once possessed. The government of distant countries was intrusted to soubahdars (or viceroys), who invariably took advantage of the dissensions in the imperial family, or the weakness of a reigning prince, to endeavour to render themselves independent. The same motives and principles which governed the conduct of these vicegerents, actuated those whose allegiance and obedience they claimed in virtue of their delegated powers from the nominal Sovereign of India. Hindoo rajahs, and Mahomedan nabobs owned or rejected the sway of their superiors according to their means of resistance; while the Mahrattas, a name unknown to the military history of Asia before the middle of the seventeenth century, threatened, by a system[1] of predatory warfare, to complete the destruction of these Mahomedan conquerors, whose chiefs, whether engaged in contest for the imperial Crown, the high office of soubahdar, or the inferior rank of nabob, appear to have lost, in their rancorous hostility to each other, all sense of union and of common danger, and to have blindly courted the aid of allies who (a little foresight would have shown them) were rising fast to greatness upon their ruin. These observations on the conduct of the Mahomedan princes are not more applicable to the connections they formed with the Mahrattas, than to those which, in the eighteenth century, they began to contract with Europeans. The Portuguese, who had discovered a passage to India in 1498, enjoyed the exclusive commerce with that country for a complete century; but their short and brilliant career was essentially different from that of the European nations who succeeded them. Their establishments were all maritime. They conquered and subdued the princes and chiefs on the shores and islands of India; but seldom, if ever, carried their arms into the interior, or engaged in any of those offensive and defensive alliances with native states, that must have hurried them into contests, to support which the resources and strength of the mother country would have been altogether inadequate. In consequence of this policy, their established character for valour, and the strength of their fortifications, they did not become objects of attack to the principal native powers of India. Neither the Emperors of Delhi, nor their princely delegates had, or desired to have, any naval force. They attached no value to the sea-coast or to islands, but as they might produce them profit through the medium of customs: and the increased commerce, consequent to the settlement of the Portuguese at Goa and other parts, was calculated to reconcile them to a nation, whose warfare on the continent of India was almost entirely limited to contest with the petty princes and chiefs who occupied or claimed the shores where they desired to settle.

The effect of the victories gained over these princes was improved by the valour, wisdom, and energy of the great men[2] who first established the Portuguese power in India; but all these impressions were lost by the subsequent conduct of their degenerate successors, who, selected by the favour, or removed by the caprice, of a weak and corrupt court, became the ready instruments of tyranny and oppression. This evil was augmented by the continual changes of their local rulers, and by other circumstances, calculated to bring ultimate ruin on their affairs, even had that not been accelerated by the attack of European states; to which the very considerations which saved them from the hostility of the great native princes of India left them peculiarly exposed. Every settlement which they had made depended exclusively upon their possessing a superiority at sea, and having no rivals either in commerce or war; but their monopoly of the trade of India, for so long a period, arose chiefly from a respect to their right as the first settlers, which extended even to that of the exclusive navigation to that country by the Cape of Good Hope. When this right was invaded, when their fleets came in contact with those of Holland and England, their power fell as rapidly as it had risen; and, like a meteor, left no trace but a recollection of its dazzling and short-lived splendour.

The successful voyages of Drake and others excited the merchants of England to seek establishments in India: but the enterprise of individuals was deemed unequal to so expensive and hazardous an undertaking; and a company was formed, to open and pursue a channel of commerce, from which such great gains were anticipated. This company and the nation were stimulated to greater efforts by the Dutch, having at this period (the close of the sixteenth century) sent several ships round the Cape of Good Hope. The English now began to settle in different parts of India. The first factory was established at Surat, in 1612, and continued to have the control over all the petty settlements on the western side of the peninsula, till the cession of Bombay, made in 1668 by the King to the Company, when that town, from its fine harbour, and central situation for commerce, soon rose to be the superior settlement in that part of India; while Madras obtained the same rank on the coast of Coromandel, and for some period counted Calcutta[3] as one of its subordinates. The latter at the period when Clive's career in India commenced, had become independent, and, like the settlements of Madras and Bombay, was under the government of a president and select committee; but it was still, in its establishment and means of defence, inferior to either of the other presidencies.

In the year 1698, another East India Company was formed, and received an exclusive right of trade in consideration of a loan to government; but the charter of the old Company was a few months afterwards confirmed, and the trade to the East Indies was divided between the two Companies. The jarring interests of these bodies, who obtained advantages over each other according to the favour of corrupt and changing administrations in England, had brought such distress on both, that, in 1702, their prayer to unite was attended to; a new charter was granted, and from that period they have been denominated "The United East India Company." By this charter, they were permitted to employ civil servants, to raise troops, and to make war and peace in India. Their policy, however, had been to avoid (as being ruinous to their commercial pursuits) all grounds of offence to native states; and they had not even made those fortifications which were necessary to defend their property from spoliation. The conduct which they thus pursued had been strongly recommended[4] to them by Sir Thomas Roe when ambassador at the court of the Emperor of Delhi, and a modern historian[5] of India observes, that "if Sir Thomas Roe had lived to the present day, he might have urged the trade with China as a proof, by experiment, of the proposition he advanced." But assuredly no cases ever existed more opposite than those of China and India. Though the government of the former, by a rigid system of exclusion, keeps European settlers dependent upon its own power, it secures them against all enemies. The native powers of the latter, by engaging in alliance, and inviting to interference in internal politics, the subjects of one European state, leave to the other, who may be in rivalry or hostility with it, no option between certain ruin, and employing means of self-defence and retaliation. This truth was never more completely evinced than in 1744, when war was declared between France and England. On receipt of this intelligence, the forces under the control of the companies of the two nations on the coast of Coromandel, prepared to prosecute hostilities by land and sea, upon a scale which involved both in a scene of operations more suited to empires than to commercial factories. The results of these operations will appear wonderful to him who only considers the handful of troops which either party could bring into the field; but the improvements which, within the last two centuries, had taken place in Europe, gave its soldiers an incalculable advantage over those of Asia, before the latter were taught, by repeated defeats, to make war upon more equal terms with their European opponents. The superiority of a well-constructed machine over manual labour is not more extraordinary, than the advantages which discipline and the improvements in fire-arms and artillery afford to a regular body of troops over an irregular and badly armed force. No valour can equalise the combat, and the impressions produced by defeat are rendered tenfold greater by a comparison of numbers. The well-commanded, and well-trained battalion moves amidst ten thousand of its rabble opponents, like a giant with a thousand hands, which defend or strike, according to the dictates of one mind, and to whom an unconnected force, where every individual acts for himself, can offer neither injury nor resistance.

It is to this fact far more than to the want of personal courage in the men, or pusillanimity in their leaders, that we must refer the astonishing success of small numbers of disciplined troops, in the early wars of India; and it was from observing this success that the rulers of the country so eagerly courted their aid.

It was, undoubtedly, good policy in the English to abstain from all interference with native states. It must have been obvious that, from the moment they left the limits of their factories, they would be involved beyond the possibility of retreat; and that the consequence of the course of policy in which they engaged could be no further foreseen, than that it was opposed to all those principles of commercial pursuit, upon which their establishments were founded. With such a prospect, nothing could justify the authorities in India in the part they acted, but proof that it was one to which they were compelled, in order to prevent positive ruin, and to support the honour and the interests of their country against a powerful enemy. Whether or not they had this justification at the moment when the following Memoir opens, will be seen by a short view of the state of affairs in the Carnatic at that eventful period of our history in India.

The Payeen Ghaut, or Lower Carnatic, well known as the dominions of the Nabob of Arcot, extends along the coast of Coromandel, from the southern limits of the Guntoor Circar to Cape Comorin, a distance of about 560 miles. Its breadth, from the sea to the Ghauts (or mountains), which separate it from the territories of Hyderabad and Mysore, is no where above 100 miles; and in some parts little more than fifty. This country was formerly governed by Hindoo princes, but these had for several centuries acknowledged a Mahomedan superior. Its nabob, Sadut Oolla, in the beginning of the eighteenth century (A. D. 1710), having no children, adopted two nephews, the eldest of whom, Doost Ali, on the death of his uncle, declared himself his successor; and the younger, Bauker, became governor of the strong fortress of Vellore. Nizam-ul-Mûlk, who was at this period soubahdar of the Deckan[6], to which district of the empire the Carnatic belonged, offended at the want of deference to his supremacy, evinced by this act of the self-constituted nabob, prevented that regular confirmation of his title which was required from Delhi. Doost Ali had two sons, and several daughters, one of whom was married to Mortaza Ali, the son of his brother at Vellore, and another to a relation of the name of Chunda Sahib, who became soon afterwards his Dewan, or minister; and on the death of the Hindoo prince of Trichinopoly (A. D. 1736), this chief was sent with a force, under pretext of demanding tribute of the Ranee, or queen, but with the real design of making himself master of that fortress,—an object which he effected more by artifice than force. The part he acted after obtaining possession of the capital of the southern part of the Carnatic, combined with his having halted for some days at Pondicherry, with the governor of which he had several interviews, give reason to conclude that Chunda Sahib laid, at this period, the foundation of that friendship, which was subsequently publicly proclaimed between him and the French government.[7]

Sufder Ali, the son of the nabob who had gone with Chunda Sahib to Trichinopoly, returned, after its capture, to Arcot, where a new Dewan, or minister, Meer Assud, was appointed; who took every step he could to prevent the accomplishment of those ambitious designs which he seemed convinced his predecessor in office had formed.

The Marathas had formerly been in possession of a great part of the Carnatic; and one of their chiefs had become Rajah of Tanjore, a small but rich principality, lying to the southward of the Cavery, and fertilised by its waters, and those of the Coleroon. Incited by the reigning rajah, and by the Hindu family who had been expelled from Trichinopoly, 10,000 of this nation, under Ragojee Bhonsela (A. D. 1740), invaded the Carnatic. In the first action with these plunderers, Doost Ali was slain, and his son, Sufder Ali, immediately assumed the title of nabob; but, dreading the results of the Maratha invasion, he sent his family and treasures for protection to Pondicherry. When the war with the Marathas was concluded, he took his family away; but Chunda Sahib left his, fearing, perhaps, the result of the intrigues, which were going on against him. These became too soon apparent; the Marathas retired; but, secretly excited by the court of Arcot, they soon returned, and surrounded Trichinopoly, which they took, after a siege of three months; and, having appointed one of their leaders, Morari Row, to be its governor, they sent Chunda Sahib, whom they had made prisoner, to be confined in a fortress near Sattarah.

Sufder Ali, who was at this time (A. D. 1741) in great alarm at the apprehended resentment of the Soubahdar of the Deckan, to whom he had remitted little or no tribute, went, for security, to reside in the fortress of Vellore, pretending, at the same time, that he was in great poverty, and intended to proceed to Mecca; and, to give more currency to this last report, he sent his son and family to Madras, from whence he said he meant to embark. His minister, Meer Assud, is stated to have advised him to put his family and property under the protection of the English, from a conviction of the intrigues the French were carrying on at this period with Chunda Sahib, of whose ambitious views he continued to entertain the most serious alarm.

The retreat of the Marathas had been purchased by the promise of a large sum, and every district of the Carnatic was heavily assessed to make up this amount. This assessment produced great discontent, and the principal rulers of districts, leagued with Mortaza Ali, in a conspiracy against the nabob, who was assassinated; and his treacherous relative and murderer, having distributed largesses to the army, proclaimed himself nabob, and marched to Arcot.

Mortaza Ali desired to have Sufder Ali's son and property delivered up to him; but the English refused to comply with his request, being urged to this refusal by the Maratha chief Morari Row, and several of the principal officers of the nabob's army. Many of the latter openly expressed their detestation of Mortaza Ali; and the cowardly prince was so alarmed at those symptoms of danger, that he fled in the disguise of a female from his court at Arcot, and found refuge in his stronghold of Vellore.

As soon as the flight of Mortaza Ali was known, the army proclaimed Mahomed Saeed (the young son of Sufder Ali) nabob; and, having appointed a minister, the prince was conveyed to Wandewash, which fortress was commanded by one of his near relations.

Such was the state of the Carnatic, when Nizam-ul-Mûlk, Soubahdar of the Deckan, advanced to Arcot (A. D. 1743). His immense army[8] met with no resistance. This old and celebrated prince is said to have been shocked at the state of anarchy in which he found the fine country he now, for the first time, visited. Every officer who had been trusted with a petty government was introduced as a nabob, till the soubahdar, enraged at this assumption of rank, under cover of delegated authority, exclaimed, "I have seen, this day, eighteen nabobs, in a country where there should be but one; scourge the next fellow who comes with that title!"

The son of Sufder Ali paid his homage, and was kindly received; but, though directed to be treated with lenity and respect, he was refused leave to return to Wandewash.

Nizam-ul-Mûlk having, by promises and presents, more than by arms, persuaded Morari Row to evacuate Trichinopoly, completed the settlement of the Carnatic, and returned to his capital, Hyderabad.

Khojah Abdulla, a native Toork, from beyond the Oxus, one of his most distinguished officers, who had accompanied him upon his late expedition, was nominated to the government of the Carnatic; but on the morning on which he was to commence his march to Arcot, he was found dead in his bed.[9] The charge of this important province was now given to Anwar-u-Deen, a brave and experienced soldier, of a respectable, though not noble family. He had filled several stations of consequence, and had, for sixteen years, been governor of the extensive districts of Ellore and Rajahmundry.

Nizam-ul-Mûlk, from regard to popular feeling, which was in favour of Mahomed Saeed, the son of Sufder Ali, signified his intention to make that youth nabob of Arcot, whenever he attained the years of manhood; stating, that the officer, to whom he had given the principal charge, was only to hold it till that period: but his placing the young prince under the care of Anwar-u-Deen augured ill for the accomplishment of this object (A. D. 1744). The youth was, however, for some time, treated with great honour and respect; subject only to the disquietude arising from the clamorous demands of some Patan soldiers for arrears of pay. At the marriage of one of his relations, Mahomed Saeed was compelled, by usage, to receive Mortaza Ali, the murderer of his father. The appearance of that chief was ominous. Nothing, however, happened till near the close of the ceremony. When the young prince went forward to meet his guardian Anwar-u-Deen, the captain of the discontented Patans, under the pretence of asking pardon for his former insolence, approached his person, and stabbed him to the heart. As the boy fell lifeless, a hundred swords were drawn, and the Patan leader and his comrades were hewn in pieces. Mortaza Ali was next sought for, but he had fled to Vellore. Anwar-u-Deen was loud in his lamentations, and apparently active in the pursuit of all concerned. The whole of the Patan race were banished, and their houses rased to the ground; but these demonstrations, though they satisfied Nizam-ul-Mûlk, did not lull the suspicion of the public; and it was generally believed that Anwar-u-Deen was concerned with Mortaza Ali in destroying a prince whose right to be nabob, when he came of age, was recognised by the soubahdar of the Deckan, and who enjoyed the attachment of all ranks, not more on account of his promising character, than from the recollection of the benefits the country had enjoyed, for thirty years, under the administration of his ancestors.

When war occurred between England and France, the latter country had every thing to expect from the ability and enterprise of La Bourdonnais, the commander of her fleet, in India, and Dupleix, the governor of the settlements on the coast of Coromandel.

It may be questioned, whether France has ever produced a more skilful or more able naval officer than La Bourdonnais. Nor were his talents limited to the profession to which he belonged: to his efforts and genius the islands of Bourbon and the Mauritius owe all their prosperity. He was as active and successful in improving the colonies of his own country, as he was fortunate and distinguished in his attacks upon those of its enemies.

Before the arrival of La Bourdonnais in India, the English had the superiority at sea, and the French settlements were almost defenceless: but the government of Pondicherry prevailed upon the nabob of Arcot to require the governor of Madras to abstain from making any attack upon the French; and Commodore Barnet, who commanded His Majesty's fleet, was induced, by the entreaty and representations of the Company's government, to adopt a similar line of conduct.

When, however, the French admiral arrived, he resolved to be fettered by no arrangements made on shore, from injuring, to the utmost of his power, the foes of his country. It is mortifying to read the narrative of the events of this year (A. D. 1746), when the superior energy of the French so completely triumphed, both on sea and land. The English fleet, after some indecisive efforts, left the coast, and Madras[10] was taken. La Bourdonnais agreed, however, to restore it to the English, on the payment of a ransom.

Nothing could be more desperate than the situation of the Company's affairs: fortunately, the jealously and collision of the two great men, to whom the interests of France were entrusted, prevented their complete ruin.

Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry, a man of an ardent and comprehensive mind, cherished, very early, the most ambitious views of raising his nation to unrivalled power in India. He saw, with jealousy, the independent power of La Bourdonnais; and, instead of entering into the plans of that able officer[11], which were directed to the conquest of all the English settlements in India, he acted in direct opposition to his views; nor did he hesitate to violate the pledge the admiral had given.[12]

Possessed, as the French now were, of a very superior force, Dupleix could not endure the thought of restoring Madras to the English; so that, when La Bourdonnais left the coast, he declared the capitulation null and void, and placed a French garrison in the town for its defence.

Anwar-u-Deen, the nabob of Arcot, was not an inattentive observer of these proceedings.

The English, who, in compliance with his intreaties, had refrained from attacking the French, when they could have done so with advantage, expressed a hope that now, when their enemies had the superiority, the nabob would interpose his authority for their protection; but they neglected to accompany this reasonable request with that bribe or offering, which, in an Asiatic court, is deemed an indispensable concomitant of all solicitations for aid; and Dupleix, already deeply versed in Indian politics, neutralised the inclinations of the professed friend of the English, by promising to make him master of Madras, for the repossession of which he intimated that the English would pay a rich ransom. The evasions of the French governor, however, soon convinced the nabob that he had been duped; and he sent an army of 10,000 men, under his son, Maphuze Khan, to retake Madras, which he appears to have thought would be very easily effected. The French garrison, consisting of one battalion, desisted from hostilities as long as they could, but they were at last compelled to retaliate; and the repeated defeats of the besiegers soon obliged them to retreat to Arcot; and that court, whose troops had never before come in contact with disciplined soldiers, seemed as if awakened from the influence of a spell, and viewed with just alarm, in all its magnitude and consequences, the imminent danger they incurred by allowing such settlements to be made upon their shore.

Dupleix, having been considerably reinforced by troops left by La Bourdonnais, determined on the siege of Fort St. David (A. D. 1746), the second settlement of the English on the coast of Coromandel.[13]

The authorities entrusted with that settlement applied for aid to the nabob of Arcot; and that prince, who was full of resentment at the French, readily complied with their request, the English having consented to defray part of the expenses of their auxiliaries.

Maphuze Khan, and his brother, Mahomed Ali, were sent with a considerable body of troops, who, on their arrival, surprised a detachment of the French, that had been sent to take up an advanced position, and compelled them to retreat. The failure of this first, and of another attempt, on Fort St. David, induced Dupleix to try (and not without success) to detach the nabob from his connection with the English; who, deserted by their ally, appeared on the brink of ruin, when the fortunate arrival of an English fleet, under Admiral Griffin (March, 1747), obliged the French governor to draw all his troops within the walls of Pondicherry.

The drooping spirits of the inhabitants of Fort St. David were, at the same time, raised by reinforcements of troops from Tellicherry and Bombay. All these were placed under the orders of Major Lawrence, an officer of high reputation in his Majesty's service (Jan. 1748), who had been nominated to the command of all the Company's forces in India.

The bad success of the French in their attempts against Fort St. David was evidently owing to other causes than the valour of its garrison: but the period was now arrived when the French, in their turn, were to act upon the defensive.

Admiral Boscawen, after an unsuccessful attempt to make himself master of the Mauritius, anchored at Fort St. David with a very considerable armament. The siege of Pondicherry, which he immediately undertook, was the first military service in which Clive distinguished himself. The result was unfortunate, owing chiefly to the lateness of the season. Many questioned the skill of the gallant officer by whom it was conducted: his fame as a naval commander was justly high; but he had little, if any, experience of land service. It is, however, due to his reputation to remark, that he received no aid from the engineer, whose want of knowledge was apparent in every stage of this siege. Dupleix transmitted an account of it to all the princes of Coromandel, and to the Emperor of Delhi; and the result considerably increased his fame in every part of India.

He received, in return, compliments on his own prowess, and on the military character of his nation, which was, at this period, throughout Hindustan, considered greatly superior to that of the English.

The peace concluded between France and England (A. D. 1748) was expected to terminate hostilities in India; but the trading companies of each nation, having received great reinforcements of men, which they were afraid to disband while their rivals retained theirs, both parties appear to have resolved on employing them in the contests of the native princes. "The English," according to a contemporary historian[14], "in the line they pursued on this occasion, acted with great indiscretion; the French, with the utmost ambition."

Such are the only incidents to which it seems necessary to advert in this place. Any others requisite for understanding the transactions of Clive, will be mentioned in the course of the general narrative.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] For a description of this system, see Malcolm's Central India, vol. i. p. 66.

[2] Of these the most celebrated were, Vasco de Gama, Albuquerque, Nunez, and John de Castro.

[3] A settlement at Hooghly was first made in 1640, by agents from Surat, who obtained permission to establish themselves, through the intercession of Mr. Boughton, a surgeon then in great favour with the Emperor of Delhi. This settlement was afterwards moved to Calcutta in 1686.

[4] "It is not," Sir Thomas Roe observes, "a number of forts, residences, and factories that will profit you: they will increase charge, but not recompense it. The conveniency of one with respect to your sales and the commodity of investments, and the wise employing of your servants, is all you need."

[5] Mill, vol. i. p. 30.

[6] The name Deckan, or Deckhan, which means South, a very ancient name, continued to be given, when the power of the Moghul sovereigns of Delhi was in its zenith, to that part of the empire which lay to the southward of the Nerbuddah. This division which was called a Soubah, was governed by a Soubahdar, or Viceroy, whose authority was for a long period acknowledged by all the petty states within his circle, though many of these yielded neither tribute nor obedience unless compelled. When the house of Delhi declined, Nizam-ul-Mûlk succeeded in rendering the possession he held as a delegate of the emperor hereditary in his family; but the example of usurpation spread rapidly, and the other states, as they attained strength, threw off their dependence upon him and his descendants, till their sovereignty became limited to their present territories of Hyderabad. They still retain the title of Soubhadar of the Deckan; but, their power having been contracted by political events, their influence in that capacity is now confined to those territories over which their rule is established, which may be described as bounded by the river Taptee to the north, the Kishna to the south, the province of Bider to the west, and the northern Circars of Masulipatam and Guntoor to the east.

[7] The following note, communicated by a friend eminently acquainted with the history of India, will be perused with interest:—

"The country mentioned in the text by the name of Paeen-Ghât-Carnatic, was annexed, after its reduction, by the generals of Aurungzebe, to the Souba, or imperial province of Hyderabad, and in all the financial records it is mentioned as only a division of it. The grants of Jaghires, made at that time by the imperial government, were so numerous and considerable, as to leave very little of the revenues arising from it to be received into the treasury. Those who were most favoured by these grants of Jaghires were of a tribe known by the name of Noayets, or newcomers, from their late arrival in the Carnatic. Saadet Ali, the first nabob, as mentioned in Orme's history, was of that tribe; as were Mortiz-Ali, and many others, who were found in the possession of extensive Jaghires, when Nizam-ul-Mûlk came into the Carnatic, in 1743. That prince, in order to restore the Mogul authority, appointed a deputy of his own at Arcot, Anwer-u-deen Câwn, who was nowise related to, or connected with, the tribe of Noayets, and who was one of the officers who had came with him to the Carnatic.

"The person who afterwards made himself so conspicuous by his connection with the French, viz., Chunda Sahib, was also a Noayet. His real name was Hussein Dost Câwn. Duff Grant, in his late history of the Mahrattas, says, that this man was known by no other name when he was a prisoner at Sattarah.

"The appellation of Chunda Sahib was only given to him in his family when a boy. Yet it has continued to be used in history in distinguishing him; although, besides his name above-mentioned, the title of Shems-ul-Dowla was conferred on him by the Nizams in the French interest. It is not unlikely, that his being known to the English only by the name of Chunda Sahib was, in some measure, owing to his rival Mahomed Ali, supported by them, constantly designating him by that appellation, and rather contemptuously, Chunda being a vulgar appellation, often that of menial servants."—D. H.

[8] This army is stated to have consisted of 200,000 foot, and 80,000 horse.—Orme, vol. i. p. 51.

[9] Orme, vol. i. p. 52.

[10] "This settlement," according to Orme, vol. i. p. 65., "had been, about 100 years, the principal establishment of the English nation on the coast of Coromandel. It was built on a territory granted by the Great Mogul to the East India Company, which extended about five miles along the sea shore, and about one mile inland. The town consisted of three divisions; that to the south, extended about 400 yards in length from north to south, and about 100 yards in breadth. None but the English, or other Europeans under their protection, resided in this division, which contained about 50 good houses, an English and a Roman Catholic church, together with a residence for the factory, and other buildings belonging to the Company. It was surrounded with a slender wall, defended with four bastions, and as many batteries; but these were very slight and defective in their construction, nor had they any outworks to defend them. This quarter has long been known in Europe by the name of Fort St. George, and was in India called, for distinction, the White Town. On the north of this, and contiguous, was another division, much larger and worse fortified, in which were many very good habitations, belonging to the Armenian and to the richest of the Indian merchants, who resided in the Company's territory; this quarter was called the Black Town. Beyond this division, and to the north of it, was a suburb, where the Indian natives of all ranks had their habitations promiscuously. Besides these three divisions, which composed the town of Madras, there were two large and populous villages, about a mile to the southward of it, within the Company's territory; and these were likewise inhabited by Indian natives."

[11] The representations of Dupleix received more attention in France than those of La Bourdonnais; and that great man, instead of the high rewards to which he was entitled, was imprisoned four years in the Bastille. The injustice done him was too tardily acknowledged; and he died before another opportunity was afforded of elevating still more his own name, and of exposing the ingratitude of his country.

[12] "M. Dupleix was greatly assisted in all his transactions with the natives of India by his wife, a Creole, born and educated in Bengal, where he had married her, while he was there in the service of the French East India Company. Her knowledge of the Hindostanee language had been the means of introducing her to the family of Chunda Sahib, when they took refuge at Pondicherry, during his confinement at Sattarah with the Mahrattas: and this laid the foundation of the French intrigues with him. In all these, M. Dupleix's lady made herself conspicuous, by corresponding, in the name of her husband, with those who could be brought into action for favouring the French views of interference, and supporting the cause of Chunda Sahib. She then became known all over that country by the name of Jân Begum, which she assumed in the seal to all her letters. Her own Christian name was Jeanne, which gave some colour to her converting it into the Persian word on her seal, as familiar to Mahomedans.

"It must be acknowledged that the French at this time, viz., during M. Dupleix's government, had greatly the advantage of the English, by their superior knowledge of the languages and usages of the nations of India. Their Catholic missionaries, especially the Jesuits, who had travelled inland, had been very instrumental in their acquiring that knowledge; while the English confined themselves to their trade, and remained in total ignorance of any thing else. The French gave certain proofs of the superior information they had acquired, when they produced, at the conference with the English commissioners at Sadras, in 1754, the sunnuds or grants for the lands they had acquired in the Carnatic, which were all procured under the authority of the Mogul Emperor or his viziers; while those of the English were only from inferior agents of that government. It is true, that the sunnuds there produced by the French were objected to by the English as under the forged seals of emperors; yet it shows that they did not rest their claims on grants of inferiors, as the English did. It is, indeed, very remarkable, that the latter never, till a late period, possessed any others but those of the nabob Mahomed Ali in the Carnatic, excepting for the ground of their original factories. It was not till Lord Clive obtained regular grants from the Emperor Shah Aulum, in 1765, when he obtained the dewanee of the provinces of Bengal, that the English could produce any other grants but those obtained from the nabob whom they themselves had set up."—D. H.

[13] Orme (vol. i. p. 78.), speaking of this settlement, observes:—

"The East India Company was here in possession of a territory larger than that of Madras; it had been purchased about 100 years before from the Indian prince of the country, and their title to it was confirmed by the Mogul's viceroy, when the Moors conquered the Carnatic. The fort was situated near the sea, twelve miles to the south of Pondicherry: it was small, but better fortified than any of its size in India, and served as a citadel to the Company's territory. About a mile to the south of it, was situated the town of Cuddalore, in which the principal Indian merchants, and many of the natives dependent on the Company, resided. This town extended 1200 yards from north to south, and 900 from east to west: three of its sides were defended by walls flanked with bastions; that towards the sea was for the greatest part open; but a river passing from the westward, between Fort St. David and the town, flowed, just before it gains the sea, along the eastern side of the town, of which, whilst it washed the skirts on one hand, it was, on the other, separated from the sea by a mound of sand, which the surf throws upon the shore in most parts of the coast. To the westward of the fort, and within the Company's territory, were two or three populous villages, inhabited by the natives.

"The government of Fort St. David depended on that of Madras, to which it was immediately the next in rank; but, on the breach of the treaty of ransom, the Company's agents at Fort St. David regarding those of Madras as prisoners to the French, took upon themselves the general administration on the coast of Coromandel."

[14] Orme, vol. i. p. 7.

MEMOIRS OF LORD CLIVE.

CHAPTER I.

The family of Clive, established in Shropshire, since the time of Henry II., have, for a long period, possessed the small estate of Styche, in the parish of Moreton-Say, near Market-Drayton. At this seat of his ancestors, Robert Clive, the subject of this memoir, was born on the 29th of September, 1725.

His father, Richard Clive, married Rebecca, daughter of Nathaniel Gaskill, of Manchester, Esq., by whom he had a family of six sons, and seven daughters. He had been educated for the law, and continued, through a great part of his life, to practise that profession.

Mrs. Clive had two sisters, the one of whom, Elizabeth, was married, in 1717, to Daniel Bayley, Esq., of Hope Hall, near Manchester; and the other, Sarah, to the Right Hon. Hugh, eleventh Lord Sempill.

Mr. Clive's eldest son, Robert, while not yet three years of age, was sent to his uncle, Mr. Bayley, in whose family he was trained and educated for several years, as his own son.

In the end of the year 1728, the infant Clive seems to have had a dangerous attack of fever. "If I were given to be superstitious," says Mr. Bayley, writing to the Rev. Mr. King at Styche[15], "and to believe things ominous, I think I should omit writing to you; for it has been poor Bob's fate to grow worse, just after I have finished my letters. From the time of Andrew's leaving us till yesterday about five o'clock, he was worse than at any time yet; and the doctor discovered, by all his behaviour, that he apprehended full as much danger as ever; but since that time he has been much better, and we hope that then was the crisis of the fever. He slept pretty well last night; and, when awake, talked with his usual cheerfulness; and, I can say, is now better, and in a more hopeful way to recover than hitherto, if no relapse come upon him. He is, as you may well imagine, very weak; but the doctor doubts not his getting more strength if the fever continues (as it has begun) to leave him. This is what account I can now send: you will excuse haste. Our services wait on Madame Clive and all the family."

Two days after Mr. Bayley again writes Mr. King:—

"Monday Morning, Nine o'clock.

"Thank God, I do now inform you that Bob continues better, and is in a very likely way to recover. We hope that the crisis of the fever was on Saturday last about noon, it having abated ever since. His exceeding patience is also exchanged for as eminent a degree of crossness, which we take as a good omen of his mending. I am writing this close to his bed-side, and he is crying with the greatest impatience for me to lie on the bed with him; nor will he be quiet one moment, with all the fine words I can give him, which now makes me conclude abruptly," &c.

On the 11th of January, Mr. Bayley informs his correspondent, that Robert had had another severe attack of fever; from which, however, he was so far recovered as to be very merry and able to walk himself. In answer to some remarks of Mr. King, he details the symptoms, and mode of cure adopted. The fever seems to have been connected with the stomach, and yielded to the usual remedies.

Mr. Bayley, about a fortnight afterwards, informs Mr. King of his nephew's recovery:—

"Manchester, Jan. 26.[16] 1728.
"Sabbath Day evening, ten o'clock.
"Rev. and dear Sir,

"Yesterday Bob came down into the parlour, the first time. He goes on successfully with the bark, and is very merry, and good as it is possible. He is poor and thin; but in a brave way, and has a stomach for more meat than we dare give him. He can run about, and chatters continually, and is always asking questions, one of which I must enquire of you, before I can answer him; viz., when yourself and his aunt Fanny will come over to see him? We are all pretty well, and full of that joy which so happy any issue of so long and threatening an affliction naturally produceth. Our sincere respects and services to all: conclude me," &c.

"This afternoon, Bob, with some reluctance, suffered his aunt Bay[17] to go to chapel."

Young Clive seems to have resided chiefly with his aunt Bayley, down to at least the year 1732. In June of that year, Mr. Bayley gives his friend Mr. King some very characteristic traits of his nephew's temper. "I hope," says he[18], "I have made a little farther conquest over Bob, and that he regards me, in some degree, as well as his aunt Bay. He has just had a suit of new clothes, and promises by his reformation to deserve them. I am satisfied that his fighting (to which he is out of measure addicted) gives his temper a fierceness and imperiousness, that he flies out upon every trifling occasion: for this reason I do what I can to suppress the hero, that I may help forward the more valuable qualities of meekness, benevolence, and patience. I assure you, Sir, it is a matter of concern to us, as it is of importance to himself, that he may be a good and virtuous man, to which no care of ours shall be wanting."

These strong and early indications of future character, for he had not yet attained the age of seven, are not a little curious. The spirit of daring and of command seems to have been natural to him. The anxious care of his relations may have softened and soothed his impetuosity, but could not change the bent of his genius. The spirit of "the Hero," which already began to show itself, seems to have turned him from the peaceful sports of childhood, just as, at a later period, it called him to exchange his mercantile studies and occupations for the bustle and turmoil of war, so much more congenial to the ardour of his mind.

On the 26th of February, 1735, Clive lost his aunt Mrs. Bayley, but he continued on an affectionate footing in the family, and always reverted with pleasure to the years he had spent among them.

Mr. Richard Clive formed high hopes of his son while yet a child. This anticipation of his future greatness, which seems to have been founded more on the boy's display of courage and sagacity, than on his acquirements as a scholar, was confirmed by the opinion of Dr. Eaton, to whose school, at Lostocke, in Cheshire, he was sent when very young; and this respectable man had the foresight to predict, "that if his scholar lived to be a man, and opportunity enabled him to exert his talents, few names would be greater than his."

At the age of eleven, Robert Clive went from Lostocke to Market Drayton, where he was placed under the tuition of the Rev. Mr. Burslem. After a few years, he was sent to the public seminary of Merchant Taylors' school in London, whence he went again to a private school, kept by Mr. Sterling, at Hemel Hempstead, in Hertfordshire, with whom he remained till 1743, when he was appointed a writer in the service of the East India Company.

The few anecdotes that are preserved of the early life of Clive tend chiefly to show that he was endowed, in a remarkable degree, with that constitutional courage which so essentially promoted his rise in the military profession, and which, it is probable, led him to adopt it.

One well-authenticated and extraordinary instance is recorded of his boldness as a boy. The church at Market Drayton, which stands on the side of a hill, has a lofty steeple, near the top of which is a stone spout of the form of a dragon's head. It was with no slight surprise and alarm, his companions, and some of the inhabitants, saw young Clive seated on this spout, and evincing by his manner an indifference, if not insensibility, to the danger of his situation.[19]

Several of the oldest inhabitants of Market Drayton not only confirm this fact, but add, on the testimony of their parents, that Clive was wont to levy from some of the shopkeepers contributions in pence and trifling articles, in compensation to himself, and the little band he led, for abstaining from breaking their windows, and other mischievous tricks; and one old man mentioned to a gentleman[20], who resided near Styche, that he had been repeatedly told by a person who witnessed the action, that, when a little dam broke, which the boys had made across the gutter in the street, for the purpose of overflowing a small shop, with the owner of which they had quarrelled, Clive unhesitatingly threw his body into the gutter, and remained there till they had repaired their work of mischief.[21]

Such anecdotes are not likely to have been invented, though they would long ago have been forgotten, but for the celebrity of him, of whose daring and decided mind they gave such early proofs.

Clive, who, wherever he went, had the reputation of being a most unlucky boy, did not probably carry from school any great stock of acquired knowledge. He was impatient of control, and his application, in which, however, he was never deficient, was not directed to his books. This may have deceived those who measure a boy's talents by his progress in Latin and Greek. When in after-life he wrote to his father an account of his first successes, the remark of the old gentleman, who had probably been often fretted by his son's boyish waywardness, and neglect of his studies, was, "After all, the booby has sense."

He had, however, laid such a foundation at school, as enabled him, after his arrival at Madras, to employ to advantage the short leisure then accidentally afforded him, in that self-education, which, after all, is of all educations the most important. He seems at that later period to have revived his acquirements, when he felt that it was become necessary to apply them to practice in the concerns of life, and to have improved himself in some branches of useful knowledge in which he felt his deficiencies. Perhaps his progress in them was not the slower, that his proud mind felt that it was no longer watched by a master. But whatever may have been his book-learning, his character, even in the apparently thoughtless course of his schoolboy sports, was probably undergoing a training that had the strongest influence on his future success; and though to the common eye he seemed to be but indulging the youthful passion of excelling and leading his contemporaries in the trivial and passing pursuits that then formed the object of their common ambition, he was really, though unconsciously, by strengthening his active habits of firmness, perseverance, and self-possession, preparing himself for the more arduous undertakings that distinguished his future life.

Though Clive in his boyhood was idle, and impatient of control, he was, notwithstanding, an affectionate son and a kind brother; and he appears, from his earliest communications with his family after he quitted England, to have had a mind imbued with good principles and feelings. He always retained a deep sense of religion: at no period of his life did he ever indulge in or sanction light or irreverent conversation on religious subjects. Like many other eminent men, he seems to have owed much to his mother,—a woman remarkable for her virtues and talents, and who is reported to have shown much tact and good sense in soothing and managing the hasty, and occasionally violent, temper of her husband.

Clive left England in 1743, and from a letter to his father, which unfortunately is imperfect, it would appear that he reached Madras late in 1744, after a long and dangerous passage, during the whole course of which, however, he enjoyed a perfect state of health. The ship was detained for nine months at the Brazils, and afterwards put into the Cape of Good Hope. His forced stay in Brazil enabled him to gain an easy command of the Portuguese language, which was afterwards of use to him; but the length of the passage, and especially the long continuance of the ship in harbour, made his extraordinary expenses greater than usual. This delay was also the cause of his missing the gentleman to whom he had been recommended at Madras, who in the interim had gone home; a circumstance that made it necessary for him to incur a debt, for essential articles, to the captain in whose ship he went out, and of the extravagance of whose charges he complains, with apparent justice. This want of means, joined to the want of friends, made his situation at first rather uncomfortable. He returns warm and grateful thanks to his father for his kindness to him, especially in his education. The public servants at Madras he commends, as, in general, "a set of very prudent and industrious people;" but asks his father to use his influence to get him transferred to Bengal, as a more beneficial situation; or to use his interest to have him advanced to the rank of factor. Still, however, the young adventurer does not lose sight of his usual manly and independent habits of thinking, nor of his affectionate attachment to his friends: "I don't doubt," says he, "but you'll make use of all possible means for my advancement. The world seems to be greatly debased of late, and interest carries it entirely before merit, especially in this service; tho' I should think myself very undeserving were I only to build my foundation on the strength of the former. I have been contriving a scheme concerning my cousin Bobby, but whether it may take effect, or my uncle care to intrust him to these parts, I am entirely at a loss to know. The Company keep two clergymen at this presidency: now, as there is a vacancy for one of them, if you could get him elected for this place, I cannot foresee any better provision can be made for him in England." He describes the allowances of the clergy, and leaves the decision to his father's judgment. The whole of the last part of this letter being lost, we are left in the dark as to its date, and such other particulars as he may have communicated.

This defect is in part supplied by a letter to his uncle, Mr. Bayley, which has been fortunately preserved[22], and in which he describes the feelings, so natural to a young man of ardent affections, far from his friends and from home, who turns with longing to the scenes of infancy and youth. After apologising for his delay in writing, he proceeds:—"I shall always retain a due sense of gratitude for the many obligations and favours you have laid me under; and the pleasant and delightful days I have spent with my kind relations and friends in Lancashire refreshes and entertains my mind with very agreeable ideas. I must confess, at intervals, when I think of my dear native England, it affects me in a very particular manner; however, knowing it to be for my own welfare, I rest content and patient, wishing the views for which my father sent me here may, in all respects, be fully accomplished. If I should be so far blest as to revisit again my own country, but more especially Manchester (the centre of all my wishes), all that I could hope or desire for would be presented before me in one view."

In a letter to one of his cousins, written in February, 1745, he indulges in a strain of sentiment, so natural, and so creditable to a youthful mind, and gives so lively an idea of his feelings of loneliness, that a pretty large extract from it may not be considered as here misplaced:—

"Dear Cousin,

"The want of a proper conveyance is the only plea I can offer for not addressing you sooner. It is a long time since I enjoyed the pleasure of your company and conversation, and as both parties have been equally culpable, I beg that from henceforth the strictest amity may subsist between us. The bond of friendship, especially when united by the ties of blood, ought not to be dissolved on any consideration whatever; and I believe you'll agree with me, that the only effectual means to preserve it entire must be by letters, since the vast ocean which divides us so far asunder won't admit of it by word of mouth, and which I heartily wish may turn out to the mutual satisfaction of both of us. If there is any thing which may properly be called happiness here below, I am persuaded it is in the union of two friends, who love each other without the least guile or deceit, who are united by a real inclination, and satisfied with each other's merit: their hearts are full, and leave no vacancy for any other passion: they enjoy perpetual tranquillity, because they enjoy content." After laying his past omissions on the thoughtlessness of youth, and excusing himself for not describing the country, as so many histories give a much more correct idea of it than he could, after so short a residence, he continues:—"I shall only add, that the intemperance of the climate, together with the excessive heat of the sun, are very noxious to our health; and I really think the advantages which accrue to us here, are greatly overbalanced by the sacrifices we make of our constitutions. I have not been unacquainted with the fickleness of fortune, and may safely say I have not enjoyed one happy day since I left my native country. I am not acquainted with any one family in the place, and have not assurance enough to introduce myself without being asked. If the state I am now in will admit of any happiness, it must be when I am writing to my friends. Letters surely were first invented for the comfort of such solitary wretches as myself. Having lost the substantial pleasure of seeing them, I shall in some measure compensate this loss, by the satisfaction I shall find in their writings. When you write me, I beg it may be carelessly, and without study, for I had much rather read the dictates of the heart than those of the understanding. The pacquet is just now going to be closed, which hastens me to a conclusion sooner than I designed. I desire you to tender my duty to my uncle and aunt, love to my cousins, and service to all friends; and it will greatly add to the obligations of him, who esteems it his greatest happiness to be thought

"Your kind and loving Cousin,
"Robt. Clive."

Fort St. George, Feb. 16th, 1744-5.

These letters, though their rather laboured and incorrect style indicates the writer to have then had little practice in epistolary correspondence, show, however, the more essential qualities of excellent principles and an affectionate heart. His spirits seem already tinged by that melancholy which occasionally attended him through life. It is a curious, and not uninstructive sight, to observe the man who, in a few years, was to raise himself by his commanding talents and heroic daring, to an acknowledged pre-eminence above all his countrymen in the East, for several months after his first touching on the shores of that country, the scene of his future glory, acknowledging that he knew not one family in it, and shrinking with a sensitive diffidence from the exertion of introducing himself. Though affectionate, he was wayward and reserved. From this time till 1746, when Madras was taken, there are no accounts of him, except some anecdotes, tending to prove that he was very ill suited to the condition of life in which he was placed. His impatience of control, and wayward and impracticable firmness, never forsook him. On one occasion it appears that his conduct to the secretary under whom the writers were placed on their first arrival, was so inconsistent with the rules of official discipline, that the governor, to whom it was reported, commanded him to ask that gentleman's pardon. With this order he complied rather ungraciously; but the secretary immediately after, before his irritation had time to subside, having invited him to dinner,—"No, Sir," replied Clive, "the governor did not command me to dine with you."[23] He is stated to have hazarded, on more than one occasion, the loss of the service by acts of wildness: and a story was long current that, either in a fit of despair, or of low spirits, to which he was subject from his earliest years, he made, at this period, an attempt upon his own life. A companion, coming into his room in Writers' Buildings, was requested to take up a pistol and fire it out of the window: he did so. Clive, who was sitting in a very gloomy mood, sprang up, and exclaimed—"Well, I am reserved for something! That pistol," said he to his astonished friend, "I have twice snapped at my own head." This is not unlikely to be true, nor is its probability contradicted, by his never having spoken of it to any of his family after his return to England. But, while he properly threw a veil over the more violent ebullitions of his youth, he was fond of recurring to every act of early kindness which had been shown to him; and amongst these, he considered as one of the most important, his admission, soon after his arrival in India, into an excellent library belonging to the Governor of Madras. He now devoted much of his leisure to study, and there can be little doubt that it was at this time he laid the foundation of that knowledge, which was so soon to surprise and benefit his country.

When Madras was taken by the French Admiral La Bourdonnais (A. D. 1746), Clive became a prisoner of war, and like others gave his parole. It was agreed by the articles of capitulation that the English should surrender themselves prisoners of war; that the town should, in the first instance, be given up, but should be ransomed; and M. de la Bourdonnais gave his promise that he would settle the ransom on easy and moderate terms.[24] Dupleix, however, who was then at Pondicherry, ever at variance with the Admiral, insisted that Madras should be rased to the ground, and called upon the English officers to renew their parole to a governor whom he appointed. This infraction of the terms of capitulation was viewed with indignation by all, and construed into a release from the engagement into which they had entered. De la Bourdonnais, with regret, found himself unable to fulfil the conditions stipulated[25]; and Clive, accompanied by his friends Mr. Edmund Maskelyne, contrived, in the disguise of a native, to escape to Fort St. David.

Soon after his arrival at this place, he was engaged in a duel with an officer, to whom he had lost some money at cards, but who, with his companion, was clearly proved to have played unfairly. Clive was not the only loser; but the others were terrified into payment by the threats of those who had won their money. This example had no effect on him; he persisted in refusing to pay, and was called out by one of them who deemed himself insulted by his conduct. They met without seconds: Clive fired, and missed his antagonist, who immediately came close up to him, and held the pistol to his head, desiring him to ask his life, with which he complied. The next demand was, to recant his assertions respecting unfair play. On compliance with this being refused, his opponent threatened to shoot him. "Fire, and be d—d," said the dauntless young man; "I said you cheated; I say so still, and I will never pay you." The astonished officer threw away his pistol, saying, Clive was mad. The latter received from his young companions many compliments for the spirit he had shown; but he not only declined coming forward against the officer with whom he had fought, but never afterwards spoke of his behaviour at the card-table. "He has given me my life," he said, "and though I am resolved on never paying money which was unfairly won, or again associating with him, I shall never do him an injury."[26]

Clive, when at Madras, had, as before stated, access to the governor's library, and, according to his own account, this opportunity of improving himself was not neglected; but whatever knowledge he might have attained, his general habits appear to have continued the same; and it is probable these might have arrested his progress to distinction, had not the occurrence of a war with the French led to his adopting a profession, for which he was by disposition infinitely better fitted than for that which he abandoned.

Clive sought for and obtained an ensign's commission in the army in 1747, and was present with the troops with which Admiral Boscawen, in 1748, made an unsuccessful attack on Pondicherry. The young soldier became at once distinguished for his activity and forward gallantry. It is probable, however, that from having been a civilian, he was at first viewed with jealousy by his military companions. We are told that on one occasion, when an anxiety to obtain ammunition for the battery where he was posted led him, instead of sending a serjeant or corporal, to run himself to bring it, a remark was made, which implied that it was fear, not zeal, which caused him to leave his post at such a moment. This remark was repeated to Clive, who instantly went to the person by whom it was made, to insist upon a distinct acknowledgment or disavowal of the slander. The latter was attempted, but not to his satisfaction, and a challenge ensued. As they were retiring to settle this dispute, his opponent, irritated by some circumstance, struck him. Clive instantly drew his sword, but they were prevented fighting by persons who witnessed the transaction. A court of inquiry was held on their conduct, and the officer who had defamed Clive was ordered to ask his pardon in front of the battalion to which they belonged. The court, however, having taken no notice of the blow, Clive, when the service was over, insisted on satisfaction for that unpardonable insult. On this being refused, he waved his cane over the head of his antagonist, telling him he was too contemptible a coward to be beaten. The day after this transaction the person he had so disgraced resigned his commission.[27]

No one of these early disputes with his brother officers can be traced to a perverse[28] or quarrelsome temper. Clive appears in all to have been the party offended. The resolute manner in which he resented the injuries done to him raised his reputation for courage, and no doubt protected him from further insult and outrage.

From the date of Clive's entering the army till the year 1756, we have no letters or papers of his own that can throw any light upon this active and eventful period of his life; but the deficiency is well supplied by the plain narrative of the gallant commander[29] under whom he served, and by an able writer[30], who dwells upon the development of his character and his early exploits, with all the interest which their local importance was calculated to inspire in one, who, to his high qualifications as an historian, added the fullest acquaintance with the scenes and persons he so well describes.

A prince of the name of Sahojee, who had seven years before lost the throne of Tanjore, came to Fort St. David to solicit the English to restore him. He represented his title to the throne as just, and affirmed that he had numerous and powerful adherents, who would come forward the moment they saw him supported; but what had most weight with the gentlemen at Fort St. David was his offer to cede Devecotta, a town situated near the mouth of the Coleroon, the possession of which, it was thought, would prove most advantageous to the trade of the Company on the coast of Coromandel. The first expedition, which was sent under the command of Captain Cope, was early compelled to return, from the difficulties of the country and want of provisions: and the report of the commander described Sahojee as being totally destitute of those adherents of whom he had boasted.

The failure of this expedition served only to stimulate to another effort those who had the management of the Company's affairs. It was indispensable, they thought, to repair the disgrace incurred by a retreat before the troops of a native state, but they so far paid attention to the information given by Captain Cope, as to determine that the capture of Devecotta, not the restoration of Sahojee, should be their first object.

The second expedition, consisting of 800 Europeans and 1,500 sepoys, which was placed under the command of Major Lawrence, succeeded in taking Devecotta, and in making a treaty with the rajah of Tanjore, who ceded that fort with a small portion of territory to the Company, granting at the same time 4,000 rupees per mensem to the fugitive prince whose cause they had adopted, on condition that he was not again to disturb the peace of the country.

Clive, who had received the commission of a lieutenant, was on this service: he solicited Major Lawrence to allow him to lead the storm of the embankment thrown up to defend the breach: his request was readily complied with, for his reputation for gallantry stood high. Exposed to a severe fire, he passed with some difficulty a rivulet, with a design of taking the enemy's works in flank: the sepoys were in the rear, but part of them only crossed the rivulet, and these did not close up with the Europeans, who, as they were presenting their muskets to fire, were charged in the rear by a party of horse who were within forty yards, protected and concealed between the projecting towers of the fort. This attack was at once so rapid and impetuous that in an instant twenty-six of the platoon were cut down: four had been killed by the fire of the fort, and four only of the party remained alive. Clive, who narrowly escaped being cut down by the sabre of one of the horsemen, ran towards the sepoys, whom he found drawn up in good order. Their appearance checked the Tanjore horse, who, satisfied with their success, returned to the station from whence they had made their onset. Major Lawrence, on seeing what had occurred, advanced to the assault at the head of all the Europeans of his force, and was soon master of the fort. This event was soon followed by a treaty of peace with the king of Tanjore. (A. D. 1749.)

We have already seen how Anwar-u-Deen became possessed of his power in the Carnatic. The military chiefs, however, and the principal inhabitants of that country gave a reluctant obedience to his authority. The family of the former nabob continued to be popular; but the difficulty was to find a representative fit to contend for the government. The brother of Mahommed Saeed was yet too young, and Mortaza Ali, governor of Vellore, was deemed too cowardly and treacherous to merit elevation. All eyes were turned towards Chunda Sahib, who continued to linger in a Mahratta prison. He was a soldier of approved conduct and valour, and the generosity of his disposition recommended him to all classes. But, as the solicitude for his release increased, the demand of the Mahrattas for his ransom rose. The ambition of Dupleix at last ended all difficulties. This bold and able statesman saw no prospect of the French maintaining themselves in India through the profits of their limited commerce; but his acquaintance with the divided interests of the native princes led him to hope, that if he entered upon the arena of their politics, with a popular, if not a good cause, he might anticipate splendid and profitable results. He determined, therefore, to aid Chunda Sahib, with whose family, which had remained at Pondicherry, he made the necessary arrangement for his release. A sum of seven lacs of rupees was guaranteed to the Mahrattas as his ransom, and he left his prison, accompanied by a small party of horse. But fearing to enter the Carnatic with so few followers, he sought employment, in the hope of increasing their numbers. The first contest in which he engaged was most unfortunate. In a battle in which he aided the rajah of Chittledroog against the ranee (or queen) of Bednore, his son was killed, and himself made a prisoner; but, falling into the hands of some Mahommedan officers, he persuaded them not only to release him, but to join his standard on an expedition to Adoni, to unite with Muzuffer Jung, the son of a favourite daughter of Nizam-ul-Mûlk, who, on the death of that prince, had entered the lists to contend for the sovereignty of the Deckan against six of his uncles, each of whom was aspiring to the same high station.

Chunda Sahib was received with a cordial welcome, and he advised Muzuffer Jung to proceed instantly to the Carnatic, stating the strength and reputation he would gain by giving a nabob to that country, and promising to obtain the aid of a French corps to establish his own title in the Deckan. The proposal was immediately adopted. A body of 400 Europeans and 2000 sepoys joined from Pondicherry, and in the first battle, which was fought near Amboor, Anwar-u-Deen was slain. The French corps greatly distinguished themselves in this action, and above all Bussy, who on this day displayed to the admiring Mahommedan chiefs that valour and skill which laid the foundation of the merited fame he afterwards acquired.

Muzuffer Jung, after this victory, assumed all the state of subadar of the Deckan; and his first act was to issue a patent to his friend Chunda Sahib, appointing him nabob of the Carnatic. Much valuable time was lost by these chiefs in vain ceremonies at Arcot, and in a visit to Pondicherry, where they were received and treated in a magnificent manner by Dupleix.

(1749.) Maphuze Khan, the eldest son of Anwar-u-Deen, had been made prisoner on the day his father was killed; but Mahommed Ali, his younger brother, fled to Trichinopoly, from whence he strongly, but at first vainly, solicited the English for aid. The committee at Fort St. David saw too clearly the development of the great plans of Dupleix, nor were they ignorant that the success of these plans must involve the ruin of the interests of which they had charge. But they had not, like Dupleix, foreseen the events which were to occur, and had received no orders from England that could justify their entering upon a scene of extended operations; nor could they with a good grace remonstrate against the proceedings of the French. Their own conduct in aiding a pretender to the petty principality of Tanjore, though the object was comparatively insignificant, was not very dissimilar in mode, and as unjustifiable in principle, as the support given by Dupleix to Muzuffer Jung. Besides these reasons for temporary inaction, the English were anxious to repossess Madras, and the period fixed for its delivery by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle had arrived. The French gave it up with the fortifications much improved; but those of Fort St. David in the meanwhile had been much more so, and the Directors commanded that it should henceforward be deemed the superior settlement.

The English authorities had some time before entered into a correspondence with Nizam-ul-Mûlk, through his son Nasir Jung; and Admiral Griffin had called upon the subadar of the Deckan to exercise his authority in the dependant province of Arcot, in order to obtain reparation for the injuries they had sustained, particularly by the capture of Madras. This communication had been favourably received, and orders had been sent to Anwar-u-Deen to redress the evils of which the English complained; but these orders met with little or no attention.[31] The intercourse, however, which had been established with Nasir Jung was now revived; and when that prince, who had been proclaimed the successor to his father, marched towards the Carnatic to reduce his nephew Muzuffer Jung, and summoned Mahommed Ali to his standard, who carried with him 6000 of his own followers and a small body of English, the latter were, at Nasir Jung's request, reinforced by a body of 600 Europeans under Major Lawrence.

Nasir Jung, pleased with these proofs of allegiance and support, proclaimed Mahommed Ali Nabob of the Carnatic, with whose fortunes those of the English became from that day intimately associated. An able author[32], well qualified from the extent and accuracy of his observation to decide upon the true character of the events he describes, has justly ridiculed the attempts which have been made to defend the sacred right of inheritance claimed by any one of the candidates for power that now appeared upon the stage. The authority of the Emperor of Delhi over the south of India, during the long life of Nizam-ul-Mûlk, had been merely nominal. Nasir Jung rested his right of succession to his father on the falsely assumed pretext of his elder brother[33] having, in pursuit of his schemes of ambition at Delhi, resigned the office of subadar of the Deckan. Muzuffer Jung asserted his claim on a pretended will of his grandfather Nizam-ul-Mûlk: no proof was ever given of the existence of such a will; and if it did exist, it never could, according to Indian law or usage, be pleaded to the exclusion of the sons of that prince. Mahommed Ali claimed the title of nabob, to the exclusion of his elder brother Maphuze Khan, by virtue of a promise of Nizam-ul-Mûlk, now confirmed by the act of his son Nasir Jung; while Chunda Sahib put forward no claims beyond his own character, his near connection with the respected family of Saadet Ali, and the right of Muzuffer Jung, while exercising the power of subadar of the Deckan, to appoint whom he chose to be Nabob of Arcot.

These various pretensions, alike groundless as matters of right, were about to be referred to the sword, which alone could decide claims of such a character. The troops of the rival trading companies of England and France, though these nations were at peace, stood arrayed as mercenaries in the opposing ranks of Indian princes. Each endeavoured to cast the blame upon the other, as the cause of this hostility; but it is sufficiently obvious, that whatever pretext the English might have afforded by their petty unjustifiable attack upon Tanjore, they could not remain neuter when Dupleix took the part he did in Indian politics, without the imminent hazard of being deprived of all their privileges, if not expelled from their possessions on the coast of Coromandel. The great error they committed was, not to have foreseen the crisis which had now occurred, and not to have prevented Admiral Boscawen from returning to England, leaving them every way inferior in strength, both by land and sea, to their formidable opponents.

Muzuffer Jung and Chunda Sahib had wasted that time which should have been given to the attack of Trichinopoly, in levying tribute from the Rajah of Tanjore, who was also compelled to give a sum of money[34], and to make cession of territory to the French. Alarmed at the rapid advance of Nasir Jung, they hastened to Pondicherry, where they were reinforced by Dupleix, who, besides an advance of money, increased the French contingent to 2000 Europeans, a large body of sepoys, and a well-served train of artillery (A. D. 1750). This formidable corps gave every promise of success to Muzuffer Jung, whose army, having strongly entrenched themselves, waited the attack of their opponents with the fullest confidence of ultimate success. Their position was so excellent, that Major Lawrence advised Nasir Jung against an attack, but that prince replied, "That it did not become the son of Nizam-ul-Mûlk to retreat before such an enemy: he would," he said, "attack them in front." A cannonade took place the same day, and a general action was expected to ensue; but the French corps was suddenly disorganised by the resignation of no less than thirteen commissioned officers, who had been for some time discontented, and who disgraced themselves by abandoning the standard of their country at the very moment of action; at a period, too, when every personal consideration should have been sacrificed at the shrine of national glory, and when private interest should have given way before the public welfare. This mutiny (for such it was) appeared likely to spread, and the French commander was compelled to retreat towards Pondicherry. The defection of the corps on which they so much relied defeated all the hopes of Chunda Sahib and Muzuffer Jung. The former, with his adherents, accompanied the French corps; while the latter, fearing the dispersion or desertion of his army, hastened to throw himself on the mercy of his uncle, who proffered every kindness, but who, the moment he had him in his power, threw him into prison.

Dupleix evinced upon this occasion, that his was a character not to be depressed by reverses. He punished the guilty officers, brought to trial the commandant for retreating without orders, and took every step that could restore the discipline and efficiency of the French troops, or give spirit and confidence to their allies and adherents. The vain and dissolute Nasir Jung took little advantage of his success. A refusal to grant to his English allies a tract of territory near Madras,—the promised reward of their assistance,—induced Major Lawrence to return with his corps to Fort St. David; while the French, who had in part redeemed their reputation by a successful attack on a portion of the subadar's army, and by the capture of Masulipatam, now ventured to support Chunda Sahib in more extended operations against the principal strongholds in the Carnatic. Mahommed Ali earnestly entreated the aid of the English to defend his newly-acquired territory, representing the ruin which must attend their affairs on the success of the French. This aid was granted, on his consenting to pay the troops, but the failure in his engagements, and the weak and cowardly character of his military operations, led to its being withdrawn. He was soon afterwards defeated by the French, who followed up this success by one of still greater importance,—the capture by storm of Gingee, an almost inaccessible hill fortress.

The manner in which the works of a stronghold, hitherto deemed impregnable, were successively carried by Bussy, to whose valour and military skill the arduous task was assigned, struck awe into the natives of India, and was viewed by Europeans with astonishment. It had not been discovered (as it has since been by frequent similar successes in India), that where men rely upon steep and high mountains, and rugged or scarped rocks, as defences, other means and advantages are neglected; and if the assailants overcome those natural obstacles which have been deemed insuperable, the spirit of the defenders is gone, and they seldom, if ever, offer that bold and determined resistance, which the same troops have been found to do in half-walled towns, or villages, where, from the first, they could confide in nothing but their own firmness and courage.

The success of the French, but particularly their last exploit, roused Nasir Jung from that dream of security into which he had fallen. He recalled that part of his army which he had sent to Golconda, and commenced a correspondence with Dupleix. That able man, while he carried on a negotiation with this prince, had established a communication with some of the principal persons[35] in his camp, who, when their plot against him was matured, were to summon to their aid a French force of 4000 men encamped near Gingee. The treaty which Dupleix pretended a desire to negotiate was signed by Nasir Jung on the same day the conspirators sent in the concerted summons; but the latter reached its destination first, and the French force, under M. Delatouche, moved before daylight next morning to commence their attack on the camp of the subadar. They were opposed by the troops which remained firm to their duty; but the action was soon decided by Nasir Jung's death. The unsuspecting prince had repaired to the lines of the Patan chiefs, with the view of exciting them to exertion; but, as he raised himself on the seat of his elephant to salute the Nabob of Kurpa, two carabine balls pierced his body, and he instantly expired. His head stuck upon a spear, announced his fate to the army. Muzuffer Jung was released, and by nine o'clock of the same morning was, without opposition, installed as subadar of the Deckan, although no fewer than four brothers of the deceased were in camp.[36]

Dupleix had evinced throughout these extraordinary scenes a mixture of European and Asiatic character, which marked him as the fittest of all instruments for a government which cherished a wish, as it appears the French did at this period, to obtain, through the influence of alliances with native states, the superiority over all their European rivals in India; and gained, as he merited, a rich reward from Muzuffer Jung, both by a share in the treasures of the late subadar, and by a commission which constituted him governor over all the countries south of the Kistna; making Chunda Saheb his deputy of Arcot.

After all engagements were completed, the new subadar commenced his march towards Hyderabad, accompanied by a force of 300 Europeans, and 2000 sepoys. The French troops had, by their recent conduct, established with the natives of India a high military reputation, the maintenance of which could not have been entrusted to abler hands than those of Bussy, who was nominated to the command of the subsidiary force with Muzuffer Jung. That prince, however, was not destined long to enjoy the happy turn of his fortune. The Patan nabobs who raised him to the throne, cherished expectations which he could not gratify; and their turbulent spirit, not brooking delay, broke out into rebellion. In an attempt to reduce the insurgents, Muzuffer Jung was slain. The disastrous consequences which this event was likely to produce, were averted by the judgment and decision of Bussy, who instantly proclaimed Salabut Jung (the eldest of the imprisoned sons of Nizam-ul-Mûlk) Subadar of the Deckan. That prince, grateful for his unexpected elevation, confirmed all the engagements which his nephew had contracted with Dupleix, and the army continued its march to Hyderabad.

It has been necessary to say thus much regarding the different princes of the Deckan, from their connexion with the scenes which took place in the Carnatic, and which it would be impossible to understand without the explanations which have been given.

For the present, we leave Bussy and his force to the prosecution of the first great enterprise of an European power in the interior of India. The detail of the remarkable scene of warfare and of politics which awaited that extraordinary man, in the territories of Hyderabad, is foreign to the object of this memoir. We return, therefore, to the narration of events in the Carnatic, which becomes a more pleasing task, as our countrymen now ceased to be eclipsed, as they had hitherto been, by the brilliant characters both of the French military commanders and statesmen.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] Saturday Morning, Dec. 28th. 1728.

[16] Probably old style, and therefore 1729, N. S.

[17] Probably the name by which he designated his aunt Bayley.

[18] Manchester, June 9. 1732.

[19] His object is said to have been to get a smooth stone which lay on this projecting stone spout, for the pleasure of jerking it.—Biog. Brit. art. Clive.

[20] The Rev. Mr. Smithwick related this anecdote to me in 1827.

[21] Mr. Gilbert Davis confirms this anecdote, as having been told him at Shrewsbury, upwards of forty years ago.

[22] Dated Fort St. George, Dec. 10. 1744.

[23] Biog. Brit. art. Clive.

[24] Orme, vol. i. p. 68.

[25] Ibid. pp. 70, 71.

[26] Biographia Britannica (2d edit.), art. Clive, written by Henry Beaufoy, Esq. M. P., from family papers and information: see also, Chalmers' Biographical Dictionary.

[27] Biographia Britannica (2d edit.), art. Clive.

[28] Mr. Mill in his History of India (vol. iii. p. 105.), in reference to these early occurrences of Clive's life, describes him, at this period, as of a turbulent disposition; but the justice of the application of such an epithet is not borne out by the facts.

[29] Colonel Lawrence's Narrative.

[30] Orme, War in Hindustan.

[31] This inattention to orders is referred by some native agents of the company to the parsimony of the English governor, in not making presents to the nabob, which was contrasted with the liberality of Dupleix, who well knew how to gain his objects at such courts.

[32] Colonel Wilks.

[33] Ghazee-u-Deen.

[34] Two lacs of rupees were given to the French, and eighty-one villages were ceded belonging to Karical, which place the French had seized in 1736, and built a fort there.

[35] The Patan Nabobs of Kurpa, Karnoul, and Savanore were the chief persons in the conspiracy. They were discontented at the treatment they received from Nasir Jung. They were joined by Shandraz Khan, and other high officers of that prince. These latter are stated to have considered themselves disgraced by the imprisonment of Muzuffer Jung, whose submission they had obtained by the most sacred pledges of his being kindly treated.

[36] Wilks, vol. i. p. 269.

CHAP. II.

(A. D. 1750.) The government of Fort St. David had been assumed by Mr. Saunders, a man of sound sense and unconquerable firmness. Nothing could be more alarming than the situation in which he found the affairs of the Company. He saw immediately, that, unless Mahommed Ali was effectually supported, the Carnatic would fall into the possession of Chunda Sahib, from whom the Company could expect no favour; and the probability of this happening was greater, from the recent success of that chief, in obtaining possession of Madura, which literally confined Mahommed Ali to the single possession of Trichinopoly; almost every other place having acknowledged the authority of his rival. The government of Fort St. David had sent to the aid of Mahommed Ali a body of 600 men under Captain Cope; but the failure of an attempt made by this party to recover Madura depressed still more the spirits of the adherents of their ally, who was soon besieged by the united forces of Chunda Sahib and the French. This desperate state of his fortunes led to the renewal of his efforts to obtain more efficient aid from the English, to whom he not only offered a considerable territory contiguous to Madras, but agreed to pay the expenses of all the troops employed in his support. These offers, and the certain ruin in which the success of Chunda Sahib must involve the Company, would hardly have roused the Committee of Fort St. David, unauthorised as they were by their instructions from England, to depart from their neutrality, had not Dupleix insulted their forbearance by planting white flags, (to denote that they were French property) in almost every field[37] around their boundary, and some even within their limits.

The English troops on the coast were, at this period, much inferior in numbers to the French; and by an inexplicable confidence in the continuance of peace, Colonel Lawrence, whose character and experience constituted a great part of their military strength, had been permitted to return to England on private affairs. Notwithstanding these circumstances, Mr. Saunders determined to make an attempt to relieve Trichinopoly; and a body of 500 Europeans, 100 Caffres, and 1000 sepoys was detached under Captain Gingen, to join the party already in that garrison. Their march was delayed several weeks, to allow them to be joined by a party of Mahommed Ali's troops, the Committee being desirous to avoid appearing as principals in this war; choosing, like the French, rather to have their forces considered as mercenaries in the pay of the native prince whom they supported.

Clive, who had alternately been charged with civil and military duties, as the exigencies of the public service required, had resumed the civil branch of the service, soon after the reduction of Devecotta (A. D. 1749), when the pacification with the Rajah of Tanjore produced a temporary cessation from military operations; and was admitted to the same rank that he would have held, had he never quitted it. By the active friendship of Major Lawrence, he was appointed commissary for supplying the European troops with provisions. He had not been long settled at Madras, when a fever of the nervous kind attacked his constitution, and so much affected his spirits, that the constant presence of an attendant became necessary. For this complaint, which was accompanied with a hard swelling at the pit of his stomach, he went to Bengal during the cold season, and returned with his health much improved; but the hardship and fatigue which he soon after underwent in the field, while his health was yet imperfectly re-established, tended so much to shake his constitution, that, during the remainder of his life, except when his mind was actively engaged, the oppression on his spirits frequently returned.[38] In his official capacity of commissary, he now proceeded with Captain Gingen to Trichinopoly. (A. D. 1751, May.) As he did not then hold any station as a soldier, no share can be attributed to him in the disgraceful affair at Volconda[39], where the British troops were discomfited, more by the irresolution and want of judgment of their officers[40], than by the efforts or ability of their adversaries.

They retreated to Trichinopoly, pursued and harassed by the enemy, of whom there appears to have been such a dread, that they did not even occupy the pagoda of Seringham[41], though the strength of that post, and its vicinity to Trichinopoly, rendered it as tenable as it was important. It was instantly taken possession of by the French, and their ally Chunda Sahib, who thus, under the most favourable auspices, commenced their operations on a scene destined to be that of their ultimate defeat. There were at this period so few English officers of any experience, that the governor was compelled to send one of the members of council (Mr. Pigot), a man of known firmness and judgment, in charge of some recruits and stores to Trichinopoly. Clive, who had returned to Fort St. David, from Volconda, accompanied this party. On their way back from this service, these two gentlemen, who had an escort of but twelve sepoys, were attacked by a body of polygars, who with matchlocks harassed them in their march for some hours, and killed seven of the sepoys; when, the ammunition of the survivors being expended, they were ordered to disperse, and Mr. Pigot and Clive only saved themselves by the fleetness of their horses. Another small reinforcement was sent soon afterwards through Tanjore, in charge of Clive, promoted on this occasion to the rank of captain, which, after a sharp affair with a French detachment, succeeded in reaching Trichinopoly in safety. But Clive, on his return from that place, drew such a picture of the situation of the garrison, that the governor was satisfied the cause of Mahommed Ali could be saved only by efforts more considerable than any that had been yet made. Clive suggested, that, as Chunda Sahib had drawn away almost all his forces to invest Trichinopoly, an attack should be made upon his capital (Arcot). This suggestion was adopted; and he was, at his own request, nominated to the conduct of an enterprise, which, whether we consider the means employed, the obstacles to be surmounted, or the results that were produced, must ever rank high in the list of those achievements, where skill and energy supply the place of numbers; and, mocking every calculation, compel fortune, however reluctant, to pay homage to superior genius. But the capture and defence of Arcot forms too important a feature in the life of Clive to be slightly passed over; and as no man can ever give so clear and so eloquent a relation of this operation as the historian[42], who may almost be called an eye-witness of the actions he so admirably described, no apology is necessary for adopting his narrative; which, in its very minuteness, is as interesting as it is instructive; and, while it conveys a lesson to the mere European soldier, paints in true and vivid colours all that belongs to the character of the yet unimproved system of Asiatic warfare.

"The English battalion at Trichinopoly," says Orme, "did not exceed 600 men; whereas the French had 900, and the troops of Chunda Sahib outnumbered the Nabob's ten to one. The strength of the city, indeed, rendered the reduction of it very difficult; but the Nabob's army, at the same time that they were incapable of retrieving his affairs, exhausted his treasures, and his revenues were daily cut off by the enemy taking possession of the countries which furnished them.

"Captain Clive, on his return from Trichinopoly in the beginning of August, represented this situation of affairs to the Presidency, and proposed, as the only resource, to attack the possessions of Chunda Sahib in the territory of Arcot; offering to lead the expedition himself, which, he doubted not, would cause a diversion of part of the enemy's force from Trichinopoly. Fort St. David and Madras were left, the one with 100, the other with less than 50 men, in order to supply the greatest force that could be collected for this enterprise. The detachment, when completed, nevertheless, consisted of no more than 300 sepoys and 200 Europeans, with eight officers, six of whom had never before been in action; and four of these six were young men in the mercantile service of the Company, who, inflamed by his example, took up the sword to follow him. This handful of men, with only three field-pieces for their artillery, marched from Madras on the 26th of August, and on the 29th arrived at Conjeveram, a considerable town, with a large pagoda, lying about forty miles inland, where they received intelligence that the fort of Arcot was garrisoned by 1100 men; on which Captain Clive wrote word to Madras, desiring that two eighteen-pounders might be sent after him without any delay. On the 31st he halted within ten miles of Arcot, where the enemy's spies reported, that they had discovered the English marching with unconcern through a violent storm of thunder, lightning, and rain: and this circumstance, from their notions of omens, gave the garrison so high an opinion of the fortitude of the approaching enemy, that they instantly abandoned the fort, and a few hours after the English entered the city, which had no walls or defences, and marching through 100,000 spectators, who gazed on them with admiration and respect, took possession of the fort, in which they found a large quantity of lead and gunpowder, with eight pieces of cannon, from four to eight-pounders. The merchants had, for security, deposited in the fort effects to the value of 50,000l.; but these were punctually restored to the owners; and this judicious abstemiousness conciliated many of the principal inhabitants to the English interest. The fort was inhabited by 3000 or 4000 persons, who, at their own request, were permitted to remain in their dwellings.

"Captain Clive made it his first care to collect such provisions and materials as might enable him to sustain a siege; and foreseeing that the enemy would soon recover from their flight and return into the town, if he confined himself to the fort, determined to go in quest of them; and on the 4th of September marched out with the greatest part of his men and four field-pieces. In the afternoon he discovered the fugitive garrison, consisting of 600 horse and 500 foot, drawn up near Timery, a fort situated six miles south-west of the city. They had a field-piece managed by two or three Europeans, from which they fired at a great distance, and killed a camel and wounded a sepoy; but as soon as they saw the English within musket-shot, retreated to the hills in the rear; upon which the English returned to the fort.

"The troops marched out again on the 6th, and found the enemy drawn up within gun-shot of Timery, in a grove, enclosed with a bank and a ditch, about fifty yards in front of which was a large tank, surrounded likewise with a bank much higher than that of the grove; but by age and neglect the tank itself was almost choked up and dry. Their number now appeared to be 2000, and they had two field-pieces, which fired smartly as the English advanced, and killed three Europeans; on which accident the line advanced more briskly towards the enemy, who, frightened by the vivacity of their approach, did not think themselves safe in the grove, but hurried with precipitation into the tank, and began to fire from the banks, exposing so little of their bodies that the English fire did no execution amongst them, whilst theirs wounded several of the Europeans and sepoys. The troops were ordered, therefore, to move behind some neighbouring buildings, from which Ensign Glass was soon after detached with a platoon of forty men to attack one side of the tank, whilst another, under the command of Lieutenant Bulkley, pushed to attack the enemy in front. Both gained the banks, and gave their fire at the same instant amongst numbers crowded together in the tank, which immediately put them to flight. The troops then took possession of the village under the walls of the fort, and summoned the governor. Messages passed, during which his spies discovered that the English had no battering cannon, which intelligence determined him not to surrender. Several shells were therefore thrown into the fort from a cohorn mortar, which proved ineffectual. The troops marched back to Arcot, and the enemy's cavalry hovered round them as they retreated, but kept out of the reach of their fire.

"The garrison remained in the fort ten days, diligently employed in many necessary works; and the enemy, now augmented to 3000 men, imputing this intermission of their sallies to fear, encamped within three miles of the town, giving out that they intended to besiege the fort. Captain Clive determined to take advantage of their security, and on the 14th of September marched out two hours after midnight, with the greatest part of his garrison, and entering their camp by surprise, found them, as he expected, asleep. The troops beat up the camp from one end to the other, firing continually on numbers taking flight on all sides with shrieks and confusion. The terror was so great that very few made use of their arms, and even those few, after a single discharge made at random, mingled with the rest of the fugitives; and when the day broke, none of them remained in sight. This success was obtained without the loss of a man.

"The two eighteen-pounders, which had been demanded from Madras, with some military stores, were at this time on the road, but escorted only by a few sepoys; and the enemy, hoping to intercept them, sent a large detachment, which took possession of the great pagoda of Conjeveram. Thirty Europeans and fifty sepoys, with a field-piece, were sent from the fort to dislodge them, and, on their arrival found the pagoda abandoned; the enemy having retreated to a fort in the neighbourhood, where they were continually reinforced from the main body. Much depending on the safe arrival of the convoy, Captain Clive, reserving only thirty Europeans and fifty sepoys for the guard of the fort, sent all the rest to strengthen the detachment which escorted it. On this the enemy changed their design, and returned hastily to the city, in expectation that an assault, made on the fort during the absence of a great part of the garrison, would encourage the inhabitants to rise; and, in this confidence, their whole force, horse and foot, advanced as soon as it was dark, and surrounded the fort. Their musketry, from the adjacent houses, kept a continual fire upon the ramparts; and this attack producing no effect, a large body of horse and foot advanced promiscuously to the outer gate, endeavouring, by outcries, and the noise of their military music, to confound the attention of the garrison, from which they sustained several discharges of musketry without quitting their ground. At last some grenades were thrown amongst them, the explosion of which, frightening the horses, flung their cavalry into such confusion that they galloped away, trampling over the foot: but within an hour they recovered their spirits, and made such another attack at the other gate, where they were received and beaten off as at the first. Their infantry continued their fire until daybreak, when the English detachment with the convoy entered the town; upon which they abandoned it with precipitation.

"The inhabitants in the fort, satisfied with the treatment they had received from the garrison, betrayed no symptoms of insurrection during the attack.

"The acquisition of the fort of Arcot soon produced the effect which had been expected from it. Chunda Sahib detached 4000 of his troops, horse and foot, from Trichinopoly, who, in their route, were joined by his son Rajah Sahib with 150 Europeans from Pondicherry, and, together with the troops already collected in the neighbourhood of Arcot, entered the city on the 23d of September, and Rajah Sahib fixed his head-quarters in the palace of the Nabob.

"Captain Clive, finding himself on the point of being closely besieged, determined to make one vigorous effort to drive the enemy out of the town, which, if it did not succeed, might at least produce the good effect of impressing them with an opinion of the courage of his men. On the 24th at noon, the greatest part of the garrison, with the four field-pieces, sallied out of the north-west gate: this faced a street, which, after continuing about seventy yards in a direct line to the north, turned off to the east, and formed another street, at the end of which, on the left hand, was situated the Nabob's palace. This fronted another street, which, striking to the south, continued on the eastern side of the fort. The square interval between these three streets and the northern wall of the fort was filled with buildings and enclosures. Captain Clive, intending to place the enemy between two fires, ordered a platoon under the command of Ensign Glass to march up the street on the eastern side of the fort, which led up to the palace, and advancing himself, with the main body, along the street leading from the north-west gate, found the French troops, with four field-pieces, drawn up at the end of the cross street in front of the palace. Captain Clive's party no sooner came in sight of them, than a hot cannonade ensued in the cross street, at the distance of only thirty yards. The French in a few minutes were driven from their guns, and ran into the palace; but by this time the troops of Rajah Sahib had taken possession of all the houses in the street; and secure under this cover, kept up a continual fire from their musketry, with such good aim, that fourteen men, who pushed to bring away the French guns, were all either killed or wounded. There was on one side of the street a large choultry: these are buildings intended for the reception of travellers, covered, and enclosed on three sides with walls, but open in front, where, instead of a wall, the roof is supported by pillars.

"Captain Clive, to preserve his men, relinquished the intention of bringing off the enemy's cannon, and ordered them to enter the choultry; from hence the artillery-men, stepping out and retreating into it, immediately after they performed the services allotted to each of them, continued to load and fire their field-pieces, until they had recoiled into the north street. The troops then, quitting the choultry, joined their guns, and proceeded to the fort without meeting any further molestation. Ensign Glass's platoon returned at the same time: these had encountered, and put to flight three or four hundred of the enemy's sepoys, whom they found posted as an advanced guard in an inclosure adjoining to the street through which they intended to pass to the palace; where, by this interruption, they were prevented from arriving in time to render the service expected from them. The garrison suffered this day the loss of fifteen Europeans, who were either killed on the spot, or died afterwards of their wounds: amongst them was lieutenant Trenwith, who, perceiving a sepoy from a window taking aim at Captain Clive, pulled him on one side; upon which the sepoy, changing his aim, shot lieutenant Trenwith through the body. Lieutenant Revel, the only artillery officer, with sixteen other men, was likewise disabled. This sally would be condemned by the rules of war established in Europe, for they forbid the besieged to run such a risk, unless they are assured of greatly outnumbering the party they attack; but it is not reasonable to strain the rules calculated for one system to the service of another differing so widely from it, as the modes of war in Hindustan differ from those in Europe.

"The next day Rajah Sahib was joined by 2000 men from Vellore, commanded by Mortaza Ali in person; and took possession of all the avenues leading to the fort, which seemed little capable of sustaining the impending siege. Its extent was more than a mile in circumference; the walls were in many places ruinous; the rampart too narrow to admit the firing of artillery; the parapet low and slightly built; several of the towers decayed, and none of them capable of receiving more than one piece of cannon; the ditch was in most places fordable, in others dry, and in some choked up; there was between the walls of the fort and the ditch a space, about ten feet broad, intended for a fausse-braye; but this had no parapet at the scarp of the ditch. The fort had two gates, one to the north-west, the other to the east: both of them were large piles of masonry, projecting forty feet beyond the walls; and the passage from these gates was, instead of a drawbridge, a large causeway crossing the ditch. The garrison had, from their arrival, employed themselves indefatigably to remove and repair as many of these inconveniences and defects as the smallness of their number could attend to. They had endeavoured to burn down several of the nearest houses, but without success; for these, having no wood-work in their construction, excepting the beams which supported the ceiling, resisted the blaze; of these houses the enemy's infantry took possession, and began to fire upon the ramparts, and wounded several of the garrison before night, when they retired. At midnight Ensign Glass was sent with two men, and some barrels of gunpowder, to blow up the two houses which most annoyed the fort. This party was let down by ropes over the wall, and, entering the houses without being discovered, made the explosion, but with so little skill, that it did not produce the intended effect. At their return, the rope by which Ensign Glass was getting into the fort broke, and he was by the fall rendered incapable of further duty; so that, at the beginning of the siege, the garrison was deprived of the service of four of the eight officers who set out on the expedition; for one was killed, two wounded, and another returned to Madras; and the troops fit for duty were diminished to 120 Europeans and 200 sepoys; these were besieged by 150 Europeans, 2,000 sepoys, 3,000 cavalry, and 5,000 peons.

"The store of provisions in the fort was only sufficient to supply the garrison sixty days, which rendered it necessary to send away all the inhabitants, excepting a few artificers; and the enemy permitted them to pass through their guard without molestation. Amongst those who remained was a mason, who had been for many years employed in the fort. He gave information that there was an aqueduct under ground, known to very few, but which, if discovered by the enemy, would enable them to drain the only reservoir of water in the fort. The man was rewarded for this seasonable intelligence, and employed to prevent the mischief by choking up a part of the aqueduct within the walls. For fourteen days the enemy, not yet furnished with battering cannon, carried on the siege by firing from the houses with musketry, and a bombardment from four mortars. The bombardment did but little damage; and, to avoid the effect of the musketry, none of the garrison were suffered to appear on the ramparts, excepting the few immediately necessary to avoid a surprise; but, notwithstanding this precaution, several were killed, and more wounded: for the enemy, secure in the houses, and firing from resting-places, took such excellent aim, that they often hit a man when nothing but his head appeared above the parapet; and in this manner three serjeants were killed, who at different times singly accompanied Captain Clive in visiting the works. Mortaza Ali, a few days after his arrival, pretended to be dissatisfied with Rajah Sahib, and removed his troops to a different part of the city, from whence he sent a messenger inviting the garrison to make a sally on the quarters of Rajah Sahib, in which he offered to assist them with his whole force. Captain Clive mistrusted his professions; but, considering the advantage of keeping such a number of the enemy's troops inactive, pretended to approve of the proposal, and carried on for several days a correspondence, until Mortaza Ali, suspecting his scheme was detected, rejoined the army.

"On the 24th of October, the French troops received from Pondicherry two eighteen-pounders, and seven pieces of smaller calibre, and immediately opened a battery to the north-west, which was so well served, that their very first shot dismounted one of the eighteen-pounders in the fort, and the next entirely disabled it. The garrison mounted the other eighteen-pounder; and this, after a few shot, was likewise dismounted; after which, it was employed only in such parts of the fort, where it was not exposed to the enemy's artillery. The three field-pieces were likewise cautiously reserved to repulse the enemy when they should storm; so that their battery, firing without much opposition, in six days beat down all the wall lying between two towers, and made a practicable breach of fifty feet.

"In the meantime, the garrison were employed in making works to defend it. A trench was dug just under the rampart, and behind that, at some distance, another; both of which were scattered with crows'-feet, and behind them the walls of a house were pulled down to the height of a breast-work, from whence a row of palisadoes was carried along on each end of both trenches, and continued up the rampart to the parapet. A field-piece was planted on one of the towers which flanked the breach without, and two small pieces of cannon on the flat roof of a house within the fort, opposite to the entrance. In these employments, as, indeed, in all others, the officers contributed their labour equally with the common men; and the enemy, informed of these preparations to defend the breach, did not think it safe to attack it before they had made another. They had by this time burst one of their eighteen-pounders, and removed the other, with one nine-pounder, to a battery which they erected to the south-west.

"The garrison, intending to convince Rajah Sahib that they were in a condition to execute even labours not indispensably necessary, thickened the highest tower of the ramparts, and then raised on the top of it a mound of earth, to such a height as commanded the palace, over the interjacent houses. On the top of this mound they hoisted a vast piece of cannon, sent, according to the tradition of the fort, from Delhi, by Aurungzebe, and said to have been drawn by 1000 yoke of oxen. There were several iron balls belonging to it, each weighing seventy-two pounds. The cannon was laid on the mound, and loaded with thirty pounds of powder, which was fired by a train carried to a considerable distance on the ground. The shot went through the palace, to the no small terror of Rajah Sahib and his principal officers; and, as this was the only effect intended, the cannon was fired only once in the day, at the time when the officers assembled at the head-quarters: on the fourth day it burst.

"The enemy, as if they intended to retaliate this affront, filled up a large house, which commanded the eastern gate, with earth well rammed down, and upon this base raised a square mound of earth to such a height as commanded not only the gate, but likewise every part within the fort. From hence, they intended to fire on the rampart with musketry and two small pieces of cannon. They were suffered to go on with their work until they had completed it and mounted the cannon; when the garrison began to fire from the reserved eighteen-pounder, and in less than an hour, the mound gave way, and tumbled at once, with fifty men stationed on it, some of whom were killed, and many disabled.

"Notwithstanding the numbers of the enemy's guards which surrounded the fort, the garrison, by means of able spies, carried on a constant correspondence with Madras and Fort St. David; where the Company's agents were very solicitous to relieve them; and, having received some recruits from Europe, formed a party of 100 Europeans, who, with 200 sepoys, set out from Madras under the command of Lieutenant Innis. Before they had advanced thirty miles on their way to Arcot, they were surrounded in the town of Trivatore by 2000 of Rajah Sahib's troops, detached with twenty Europeans, and two field-pieces from the city. The English party, having no cannon, were so severely annoyed by the enemy's, that Lieutenant Innis, as the only resource, made a push with all his Europeans to drive them from their guns. The attempt succeeded, but not without a sharp contest, in which twenty of the English, and two of their officers were killed, and a greater number wounded. This loss deterred the rest from continuing their march, and they retreated to Poonamalee, a fort built by the Moors, and at this time belonging to the Company, fifteen miles west of Madras.

"On the 24th of October, the enemy opened their battery to the south-west. The part of the wall against which they directed their fire, was in a very ruinous condition; but it had the advantage of being much less exposed than any other to the fire from the houses. The garrison, therefore, kept up a constant fire of musketry against the battery, and several times drove the enemy out of it; but the breach, notwithstanding, increased every day.

"The retreat of Lieutenant Innis left the garrison little hopes of succour from the settlements; but at this time their spirits were raised by the hopes of other resources. A body of 6000 Mahrattas, under the command of Morari-row, had lain for some time encamped at the foot of the western mountains, about thirty miles from Arcot: they had been hired to assist Mahommed-Ali, by the king of Mysore; but the retreat of the English and the Nabob's troops to Trichinopoly, had been represented in the neighbouring countries so much to their prejudice, that the Nabob's affairs were thought to be desperate, and his allies were suspected of having little intention to support him; and from this persuasion the Mahrattas remained inactive. Captain Clive had found means to send a messenger to inform them of his situation, and to request their approach to his relief. The messenger returning safe to the fort, brought a letter from Morari-row, in which he said he would not delay a moment to send a detachment of his troops to the assistance of such brave men as the defenders of Arcot, whose behaviour had now first convinced him that the English could fight.

"Rajah Sahib, receiving intelligence of their intentions, sent a flag of truce on the 30th of October, with proposals for the surrender of the fort. He offered honourable terms to the garrison, and a large sum of money to Captain Clive; and, if his offers were not accepted, he threatened to storm the fort immediately, and put every man to the sword.

"Captain Clive, in his answer, reproached the badness of Chunda Sahib's cause; treated Rajah Sahib's offers of money with contempt; and said that he had too good an opinion of his prudence to believe that he would attempt to storm until he had got better soldiers than the rabble of which his army was composed. As soon as the messenger was despatched, the flag of truce was pulled down; but, the enemy not understanding the rules of European war, numbers of them remained near the ditch, parleying with the sepoys, and persuading them to desert. The crowd was several times warned to retire, but, continuing to disregard the injunction, was dispersed by a volley of small arms, which killed several of them.

"Lieutenant Innis's party, reinforced to the number of 150 Europeans, and with four field-pieces, was now advancing under the command of Captain Kilpatrick; and on the 9th of November a detachment of Mahrattas arrived in the neighbourhood, and intercepted some ammunition going to the enemy. They likewise attempted to enter the town; but, finding every street and avenue barricadoed, they contented themselves with plundering and setting fire to some houses in the skirts of it; after which they retreated.

"By this time the enemy had, from their battery to the south-west, made a breach much larger than that to the north-west, for it extended near thirty yards; but the ditch before it was full of water, and not fordable; and the garrison had counterworked this breach with the same kind of defences as the other.

"Rajah Sahib, exasperated by the answer he had received to his summons, and alarmed by the approach of the Mahrattas and the detachment from Madras, determined to storm the fort. In the evening, a spy brought intelligence of this to the garrison; and at midnight another came, with all the enemy's dispositions, and the hour of attack, which was to begin at the dawn of the day, by the signal of three bombs.

"Captain Clive, almost exhausted with fatigue, lay down to sleep, ordering himself to be awakened at the first alarm.

"It was the 14th of November, and the festival which commemorates the murder of the brothers Hassan and Hassein happened to fall out at this time. This is celebrated by the Mahommedans of Hindustan with a kind of religious madness, some acting and others bewailing the catastrophe of their saints with so much energy, that several die of the excesses they commit: they are likewise persuaded that whoever falls in battle against unbelievers, during any of the days of this ceremony, shall instantly be translated into the higher paradise, without stopping at any of the intermediate purgatories. To the enthusiasm of superstition was added the more certain efficacy of inebriation; for most of the troops, as is customary during the agitations of the festival, had eaten plentifully of bang, a plant which either stupifies, or excites the most desperate excesses of rage. Thus prepared, as soon as the morning broke, the army of Rajah Sahib advanced to the attack. Besides a multitude that came with ladders to every part of the walls that were accessible, there appeared four principal divisions; two of these divisions advanced to the two gates, and the other two were allotted to the breaches.

"Captain Clive, awakened by the alarm, found his garrison at their posts, according to the dispositions he had made. The parties who attacked the gates drove before them several elephants, who, with large plates of iron fixed on their foreheads, were intended to break them down; but the elephants, wounded by the musketry, soon turned, and trampled on those who escorted them. The ditch before the breach to the north-west was fordable; and as many as the breach would admit mounted it with a mad kind of intrepidity, whilst numbers came and sat down with great composure in the fausse-braye under the tower where the field-piece was planted, and waited there, to relieve those who were employed in the attack: these passed the breach, and some of them even got over the first trench before the defenders gave the fire: it fell heavily, and every shot did execution; and a number of muskets were loaded in readiness, which those behind delivered to the first rank as fast as they could discharge them. The two pieces of cannon from the top of the house fired likewise on the assailants, who in a few minutes abandoned the attack; when another body, and then another succeeded, who were driven off in the same manner. In the mean time bombs, with short fusees, which had been prepared and lodged in the adjacent rampart, were thrown into the fausse-braye, and by their explosion drove the crowd who had seated themselves there back again over the ditch.

"At the breach to the south-west the enemy brought a raft, and seventy men embarked on it to cross the ditch, which was flanked by two field-pieces, one in each tower. The raft had almost gained the fausse-braye, when Captain Clive, observing that the gunners fired with bad aim, took the management of one of the field-pieces himself, and, in three or four discharges, flung them into such confusion, that they overset the raft, and tumbled into the ditch; where some of them were drowned, and the rest, intent only on their own preservation, swam back and left the raft behind.

"In these different attacks, the enemy continued the storm for an hour; when they relinquished all their attempts of annoyance at once, and employed themselves earnestly in carrying off their dead. Amongst these was the commander of their sepoys, who fell in the fausse-braye of the northern breach. He had distinguished himself with great bravery in the attack, and was so much beloved by his troops, that one of them crossed the ditch, and carried off his body, exposing himself, during the attempt, to the fire of forty muskets, from which he had the good fortune to escape. It seemed as if the enemy expected that the garrison would permit them to fulfil this duty to their friends; but, finding that they suffered severely in attempting it, they at last retreated and disappeared. Their loss, during the storm, was computed to be not less than 400 men killed and wounded; of which very few were Europeans; for most of the French troops were observed drawn up, and looking on at a distance. Of the defenders, only four Europeans were killed, and two sepoys wounded. Many of the garrison being disabled by sickness or wounds, the number which repulsed the storm was no more than eighty Europeans (officers included), and 120 sepoys; and these, besides serving five pieces of cannon, expended 12,000 musket cartridges during the attack.

"Two hours after, the enemy renewed their fire upon the fort, both with their cannon and with musketry from the houses. At two in the afternoon they demanded leave to bury their dead; which was granted, and a truce allowed until four. They then recommenced, and continued their fire smartly till two in the morning, when, on a sudden, it ceased totally; and, at daybreak, intelligence was brought that the whole army had abandoned the town with precipitation. On receiving this joyful news, the garrison immediately marched into the enemy's quarters, where they found four pieces of artillery, four mortars, and a large quantity of ammunition, which they brought in triumph into the fort. During the time that the garrison were shut up in the fort, forty-five Europeans and thirty sepoys were killed, and a greater number of both wounded; most of whom suffered by the enemy's musketry from the houses.

"Thus ended this siege, maintained fifty days, under every disadvantage of situation and force, by a handful of men, in their first campaign, with a spirit worthy of the most veteran troops: and conducted by their young commander with indefatigable activity, unshaken constancy, and undaunted courage: and, notwithstanding he had at this time neither read books, nor conversed with men capable of giving him much instruction in the military art, all the resources which he employed in the defence of Arcot, were such as are dictated by the best masters in the science of war."[43]

I have it in my power, from authority I cannot doubt, to add to the account of this celebrated siege an anecdote, singularly illustrative of the character of the native troops of India. When provisions became so scarce that there was a fear that famine might compel them to surrender, the sepoys proposed to Clive to limit them to the water[44] in which the rice was boiled. "It is," they said, "sufficient for our support: the Europeans require the grain."

This fact is as honourable to Clive, as to those under his command; for the conduct of the native troops of India will always be found to depend upon the character of the officers under whom they are employed. Flattered and elevated by the confidence reposed in them, they will almost rival Europeans in their efforts to merit such consideration; but when their character and feelings are not understood, and a secondary place is assigned them, or when they are treated as an inferior class of troops, they soon become, from sinking in their own estimation, what ignorant and unskilful leaders have too often, in justification of their own failure, described them. From the nature and constitution of this part of our army, it cannot be otherwise; and there are abundant examples to prove, that where knowledge and talent are united in the commander, no fear need be entertained of his success in stimulating the native part of his force to every effort, of which patient suffering, under privation and fatigue, or active and daring valour in front of the enemy, is capable.

Clive took full advantage of the impressions made by his successful defence of Arcot. Having increased his force by a detachment from Fort St. David of two hundred Europeans and seven hundred sepoys, he took the small fort of Timery[45]; and aided by a party of Mahrattas, sent by Morari-row, the chief of Goothy, he did not hesitate, by a forced march, to meet a party of three hundred Europeans, two thousand horse, and two thousand five hundred sepoys, with four field pieces, which had been sent from Pondicherry to aid Rajah Sahib.

After a well-contested action, the French were completely routed; and night only saved them from destruction. The Mahrattas, who had displayed courage in the action, were most eager in the pursuit, in which they took four hundred horses, and Rajah Sahib's military chest, containing 100,000 rupees.[46]

These successes turned the tide of the public opinion, in that part of the country where they occurred, in favour of the English. The killahdar (or governor) of Arnee proclaimed his allegiance to Mahommed Ali; and six hundred French sepoys, having brought their arms, were enlisted, and added by Clive to the strength of his small force.

Clive next proceeded to the attack of Conjeveram, of which the French had made a post. The commandant compelled two English officers, Revel and Glass, who were their prisoners, to write, that if the place was attacked they should be exposed on the wall. They, however, added to the letter, that they made this communication by desire of the enemy, but trusted no consideration for them would for one instant stop operations. When battering cannon arrived, a breach was made; but the French garrison, dreading the just resentment which their conduct[47] had excited, did not await a storm, but abandoning the pagoda at night, left behind the two prisoners they had threatened to expose.

Clive, after destroying the defences of Conjeveram, and strengthening the garrison of Arcot, proceeded himself to Fort St. David, to report the details of his success, and to suggest further operations.

These successes had, at first, a favourable impression upon the affairs of Mahommed Ali, who still remained at Trichinopoly, where he was in daily expectation of being joined by a large force from Mysore, to the Regent of which country he had made great promises. He had been joined by a body of Mahrattas sent by Morari-row; but the comparatively small force of the English led their cautious commander, Captain Gingen, to limit himself to the defensive.

This excited a spirit of discontent in the garrison, and more in the Mahrattas, who, eager for action, upbraided the English for their want of enterprise, telling them[48], "they were not the same kind of men whom they had seen fight so gallantly at Arcot!"

In the beginning of the ensuing year (January, 1752), Rajah Sahib re-assembled a force, which amounted to four hundred Europeans, two thousand sepoys, and two thousand five hundred horse, with a train of artillery, and began to lay waste the territories of Mahommed Ali, plundering those of the English at Poonamalee, and burning their newly-erected houses at St. Thomas's Mount.

To arrest the progress of this party, a force of three hundred and eighty Europeans, one thousand three hundred sepoys, and six field pieces, was placed under Clive. He immediately[49] marched towards the enemy, who, notwithstanding their superiority in numbers, did not venture to meet him, but abandoned different strong positions on his approach; till he came so unexpectedly upon them at the village of Coverspak, that the leading men of his party received a discharge from their artillery, posted in a grove, before he was aware of their vicinity. To remedy the temporary confusion this created, Clive took advantage of a water-course to afford his infantry shelter, while he secured his baggage and prepared for an attack. His first efforts were unsuccessful, from the superiority of the enemy's artillery; and he soon saw that he must either capture it or retreat. The mango grove, in which it was placed, was defended in front by a steep bank and ditch; but the report of those he sent to reconnoitre the rear of their position, satisfied him it was open and not guarded. He instantly detached six hundred of his best men to make a detour, and attack the enemy in rear, while the main body pressed them in front. He had proceeded some distance with this detachment, in order to ensure its proper direction, when his temporary absence had nearly caused the defeat of the troops he left engaged in the water-course. These men, accustomed to look to him alone for victory, and discouraged by so large a party being detached, had given way; and on his return, it was not without great difficulty he rallied them, and made them recommence a firing, which was continued, and the enemy amused, till a volley from the party who had been sent to the rear announced their arrival and success at the same moment. For having reconnoitred the position by means of an officer who, speaking French, was mistaken for a friend, they had approached so close before they were discovered, that the enemy were thrown into inextricable confusion. Nine pieces of cannon were taken, and all fled, except a party of sixty Europeans, who surrendered:—fifty Frenchmen and three hundred sepoys were found dead upon the field. The loss of the English detachment was also severe. Forty Europeans and thirty sepoys were killed, and a much greater number were wounded:—but the effect produced by the skill and gallantry of Clive was decisive. The French force in this part of the Carnatic was destroyed, and the reputation of the British arms was restored, or rather founded, in India:—for before his brilliant successes no event had occurred which could lead the natives to believe that the English, as soldiers, were equal to the French.[50]

Clive was recalled to Madras to take charge of a considerable detachment destined to reinforce the garrison of Trichinopoly; but before he marched, Major Lawrence returned from England, and assumed the command. The young[51] and successful soldier placed himself under the veteran, whom he never ceased to regard with attachment and respect. Of the sentiments which Lawrence entertained towards him, we have the strongest proof in his narrative. When expressing his opinion of Clive's operations in the Carnatic, he observes, "The French bringing almost their whole force into the field with Chunda Sahib, and leaving Arcot but poorly defended, a scheme was laid to reduce part of that country to the Nabob's obedience. Captain Clive commanded the party. The expedition was attended with uncommon success, which some people were pleased to term fortunate and lucky; but in my opinion, from the knowledge I have of the gentleman, he deserved and might expect, from his conduct, every thing as it fell out. A man of an undaunted resolution, of a cool temper, and of a presence of mind which never left him in the greatest danger,—born a soldier, for, without a military education of any sort or much conversing with any of the profession, from his judgment and good sense he led an army like an experienced officer and a brave soldier, with a prudence that certainly warranted success. This young man's early genius surprised and engaged my attention, as well before as at the siege of Devecottah, where he behaved in courage and judgment much beyond what could be expected from his years; and his success afterwards confirmed what I said to many people concerning him."[52]

The object of this memoir neither admits nor requires a detail of the military operations or political transactions of which Trichinopoly and its vicinity now became the theatre. The chief contest was between the British and French; whose forces, though professedly only subsidiary to the native princes, were in fact principals, and fought for their existence in this part of India. It has been already stated, that Captain Gingen almost entirely confined himself within the walls of the fort, while the Nabob and his allies were under the protection of its guns. M. Law, with a superior body of Europeans, and Chunda Sahib were not only in possession of the strong pagoda of Seringham, and of the whole island betwixt the Caveri and Coleroon, but had advanced their batteries and posts to the south of the Caveri, to which they were now sufficiently bold to remove their encampments.

The arrival, however, of Major Lawrence with his reinforcement, his established fame, and the rising reputation of Clive, infused new life into the English and their allies. A spirited and successful affair, which was the consequence of an attempt made by the French to intercept the entrance of this party into the fort, gave earnest of that change in operations which was now to be expected, and M. Law, against the remonstrances of Chunda Sahib, and contrary to the instructions of Dupleix, on seeing Lawrence making preparations for a general attack of his position to the south of the Caveri, withdrew his troops to the island of Seringham, placing himself from that moment on the defensive. Every advantage of the retrograde motion of the French was taken by Major Lawrence.

This officer, equally distinguished for his judgment and spirit, had none of that petty jealousy which often leads men in superior stations to deny themselves and their country the full benefit of the extraordinary talents which may happen to belong to those under their command. Major Lawrence, perfectly appreciating the character of Clive, consulted him on all occasions. By his advice he divided his small force, at a hazard which a knowledge of the mind, or rather minds, of those opposed to him, could alone have justified. While half of his troops remained at Trichinopoly, the other half was placed in a position between Seringham and Pondicherry, in order to interrupt that intercourse on which the French depended for their support. The successful result of these operations was the capture and death of Chunda Sahib[53], and the surrender of the French troops. Whatever may have been the claim of Chunda Sahib to the station he assumed, and in which he was supported by his European allies, his personal character is entitled to more respect than that of any of the native actors who appeared on the scene during this short but eventful period. He was active, brave, and generous; and whenever he had the sole direction of affairs, evinced spirit and judgment. His fate was unhappy. When M. Law, reduced to distress in the pagoda of Seringham, told him he could no longer afford him protection, Chunda Sahib listened to a deceitful offer of Monackjee, the general of the Tanjore forces, who, instead of that kindness with which he had sworn to treat him, placed him in confinement, and hastened to inform those with whom he was co-operating (the English, the Nabob Mahommed Ali, the Mysorians, and the Mahrattas,) of the noble prize he had decoyed into his toils; but Monackjee, instead of that applause and profit he anticipated from his treachery, soon found, that while all resolved he should not retain his prisoner, each party was desirous of having him under their own charge. On seeing that they were on the point of quarrelling with his prince, and amongst each other, for the possession of Chunda Sahib's person, he determined, with a cruelty equal to his perfidy, to put that chief to death. The purpose was no sooner formed than executed; and the head of Chunda Sahib was sent to his rival and enemy, Mahommed Ali, who exhibited it to his army and followers, under circumstances meant to throw obloquy upon the deceased, but which, however sanctioned by usage, have, even in India, more commonly the effect of awakening personal resentment, and bringing shame upon those who indulge in such barbarous and unmanly triumphs over the remains of gallant though unfortunate enemies.

The surrender of the French and the death of Chunda Sahib, instead of terminating hostilities, and fixing Mahommed Ali in the sovereignty of the Carnatic, gave rise to disputes between that prince and his allies, which seemed to place peace at a greater distance than ever. Reduced to extremity, Mahommed Ali purchased the aid of Nundirauze, the regent of Mysore, by compliance with his exorbitant demands. The most important was the cession of Trichinopoly, to which the nabob was formally pledged by a written engagement, the performance of which was now demanded, but compliance evaded on a pretext that the period was not arrived when the nabob could give it up with safety, as many of the strongholds in the Carnatic were still in the hands of the enemy. The Mahratta leader, Morari-row, was called in as umpire. That gallant but wily chief, professing to be with both parties, had no desire but to possess[54] himself of the place in dispute. He strongly advised the Mysorian to insist on the fulfilling of the treaty, and became publicly the advocate for its performance, while, in private with Mahommed Ali, he ridiculed the idea of any one entertaining the expectation, that he ever should be so absurd as to give up (when he could keep it) a fortress which was now conveniently described[55] as the property of the Emperor of Delhi, and one which it would be treason in his delegate to surrender. But I quit this scene of evasion, intrigue, and perfidy, to describe the part which Clive took in the operations which terminated this short campaign in a manner so honourable to the British arms. (A. D. 1752.)

Major Lawrence, who, as he himself has observed, early discerned the extraordinary qualities of Clive, fostered them with a care which reflects the highest honour on his character. He attended on all occasions to the suggestions of the young soldier, and as cheerfully granted, as the other in every case deserved, the post of danger. In the actions which took place before they entered Trichinopoly, Clive was eminently distinguished by having occupied and maintained, under a most severe fire, a small building in front of the French battalion, which, by his advance and that of Captain Dalton with the grenadiers and some artillery, was compelled to retreat with the confederate force, from the position he had so judiciously seized.

But it was in the execution of the plan already noticed, of interrupting the intercourse between Seringham and Pondicherry, that Clive found the opportunity of exhibiting those powers of combination, self-possession, and intrepidity that were so conspicuous in his character. He suggested, as has been before stated, this bold operation to Major Lawrence, with whom he lived on terms of the strictest intimacy; and the latter, in adopting a plan which a contemporary historian describes "as risking the whole to gain the whole," trusted entirely for its success to the enterprise and judgment of his young friend: but Clive was the junior captain of his force, and it was not easy to appoint him to such an important command over the heads of so many officers, some of whom had acquired a just reputation. The difficulty Major Lawrence apprehended on this head was, however, soon put an end to by the open declaration of the allies, that they would not detach the portions of their troops necessary to form this corps under any other but him who had defended Arcot.

The force with which Clive marched[56] from Trichinopoly consisted of four hundred Europeans, seven hundred sepoys, three thousand Mahratta, and one thousand Tanjore horse, with eight pieces of artillery, two of which were battering guns. He passed the Coleroon before daylight, and occupied a pagoda called Samiaveram, seven miles north of that river, and on the high road betwixt Seringham and Utatore, a post of the French on their line of communication with Pondicherry. His first care was to strengthen this position, and to plant cannon so as to command the road both to the north and south.

Dupleix, on learning the situation of affairs at Trichinopoly, had detached a party of seven hundred men under Monsieur D'Autueil, who had orders to proceed to Seringham and take the command from M. Law, with whose conduct the French governor was much dissatisfied. The utmost importance was attached to intercepting this body of men; and Clive, on learning their arrival at Utatore, and that it was D'Autueil's intention to attempt the junction by a circuitous route, marched to oppose him, leaving a small part of his force to guard his post at Semiaveram; but on finding that D'Autueil, alarmed at his approach, had hastened back to Utatore, he lost no time in returning. M. Law, who heard of his leaving his post, but not of his return, detached[57], as soon as it was dark, a corps of eighty Europeans, and seven hundred sepoys, to attack the few troops he imagined to be remaining at Samiaveram. Of these men forty were English deserters. The extraordinary events which followed cannot be better related than in the words of the historian[58] to whom we have so often referred.

"The party arrived near the camp at midnight, when one of their spies informed the commanding officer, that the troops which had marched against M. D'Autueil had returned; but he, imputing the information either to cowardice or treachery, gave no credit to the spy, and proceeded; they were challenged by the advanced guard of English sepoys, on which the officer of the deserters, an Irishman, stept out and told them, that he was sent by Major Lawrence to reinforce Captain Clive: and the rest of the deserters, speaking English likewise, confirmed the assertion, and persuaded the sepoys so fully, that they omitted the usual precaution of asking the counter-word, which would certainly have discovered the stratagem, and sent one of their body to conduct the enemy to the head-quarters. They continued their march through a part of the Mahratta camp, without giving or receiving any disturbance, until they came to the lesser pagoda. Here they were challenged by the sentinels, and by others posted in a neighbouring choultry to the north of it, in which Captain Clive lay asleep. They returned the challenge by a volley into each place, and immediately entered the pagoda, putting all they met to the sword. Captain Clive, starting out of his sleep, and not conceiving it possible that the enemy could have advanced into the centre of his camp, imputed the firing to his own sepoys alarmed by some attack at the outskirts; he, however, ran to the upper pagoda, where the greatest part of his Europeans were quartered, who, having likewise taken the alarm, were under arms; and he immediately returned with two hundred of them to the choultry. Here he now discovered a large body of sepoys drawn up, facing the south, and firing at random. Their position, which looked to the enemy's encampment, joined to their confusion, confirmed him in his conjecture, that they were his own troops who had taken some unnecessary alarm. In this supposition, he drew up his Europeans within twenty yards of their rear, and then, going alone amongst them, ordered them to cease, upbraiding some with the panic he supposed them to have taken, and even striking others: at length, one of the sepoys, who understood a little of the French language, discovering that he was an Englishman, attacked and wounded him in two places with his sword; but, finding himself overpowered, ran away to the lower pagoda. Captain Clive, exasperated at this insolence from a man whom he imagined to be in his own service, followed him to the gate, where, to his great surprise, he was accosted by six Frenchmen. His usual presence of mind did not fail him on this critical occasion, but, suggesting to him all that had happened, he told the Frenchmen with great composure, that he was come to offer them terms, and if they would look out they would perceive the pagoda surrounded with his whole army, who were determined to give no quarter if any resistance were made. The firmness with which these words were delivered made such an impression, that three of the Frenchmen ran into the pagoda to carry this intelligence, whilst the other three surrendered their arms to Captain Clive, and followed him towards the choultry, whither he hastened, intending to order the Europeans to attack the body of sepoys, whom he now first knew to be his enemies; but these had already discovered the danger of their situation, and had marched out of the reach of the Europeans, who, imagining that they did this in obedience to Captain Clive's orders, made no motion to interrupt or attack them. Soon after, eight Frenchmen, who had been sent from the pagoda to reconnoitre, fell in with the English troops and were made prisoners; and these, with the other three whom Captain Clive had taken, were delivered to the charge of a serjeant's party, who, not knowing, in the time of darkness and confusion, that the enemy were in possession of the lower pagoda, carried them thither, and, on delivering them to the guard, found out their error; but such was also the confusion of the French in the pagoda, that they suffered the serjeant and his party to return unmolested. The rest of the English troops had now joined the others, and Captain Clive, imagining that the enemy would never have attempted so desperate an enterprise without supporting it with their whole army, deemed it absolutely necessary to storm the pagoda, before the troops who were in it could receive any assistance. One of the two folding-doors of the gateway had for some time been taken down to be repaired, and the other was strongly stapled down, so that the remaining part of the entrance would admit only two men abreast. The English soldiers made the attack, and continued it for some time with great resolution; but the deserters within fought desperately, and killed an officer and fifteen men, on which the attack was ordered to cease till daybreak; and, in the mean time, such a disposition was made as might prevent those in the pagoda from escaping, and at the same time oppose any other body which might come to their relief. At daybreak the commanding officer of the French, seeing the danger of his situation, made a sally at the head of his men, who received so heavy a fire, that he himself, with twelve others who first came out of the gateway, were killed by the volley; on which the rest ran back to the pagoda. Captain Clive then advanced into the porch of the gate, to parley with the enemy; and, being weak with the loss of blood and fatigue, stood with his back to the wall of the porch, and leaned, stooping forward, on the shoulders of two serjeants. The officer of the English deserters presented himself with great insolence, and, telling Captain Clive, with abusive language, that he would shoot him, fired his musket. The ball missed him, but went through the bodies of both the serjeants on whom he was leaning, and they both fell mortally[59] wounded. The Frenchmen had hitherto defended the pagoda, in compliance with the English deserters; but, thinking it necessary to disavow such an outrage, which might exclude them from any pretensions to quarter, their officer immediately surrendered. By this time, the body of the enemy's sepoys had passed out of the camp, with as little interruption as they had entered it: but orders having been sent to the Mahrattas to pursue them, Innis-Khan, with all his men, mounted at daybreak, and came up with them in the open plain, before they gained the bank of the Coleroon. The sepoys no sooner perceived them, than they flung away their arms, and attempted to save themselves by dispersing; but the Mahrattas, who never figure so much as in these cruel exploits, exerted themselves with such activity, that, according to their own report, not a single man of seven hundred escaped alive: it is certain that none ever appeared to contradict this assertion. Besides the escapes already mentioned, Captain Clive had another which was not discovered until the hurry of the day was over, when it was found that the volley, which the enemy fired into the choultry where he was sleeping, had shattered a box that lay under his feet, and killed a servant who lay close to him."

The mistakes of the night at Samiaveram were of a character more likely to be created by the imagination of a dramatic poet, to give incident and spirit to the sudden change of scene and action, than to take place in real military operations; but no occurrence of his life called forth in a more remarkable degree that quickness of perception and that calm self-possession for which Clive was distinguished.

Major Lawrence, not wishing to hazard again the important post of Samiaveram, sent a party of four hundred sepoys, five hundred Mahratta horse, and four field-pieces, under Captain Dalton, to watch the movements of Monsieur d'Autueil, who still remained at Utatore. The French outposts were driven back in the dusk of the evening; and the English, having been divided into two bodies, moved on the flanks of the line with the hopes of deceiving them into a belief that it was the whole of Clive's force which had come to assail them. The stratagem succeeded. D'Autueil not only drew his troops within the walls of the village, but evacuated it next morning, and retreated to Volcondah, leaving to Captain Dalton's corps the ammunition and supplies he had brought for the troops at Seringham. M. Law, who observed from the top of the pagoda at Seringham the movement of Captain Dalton's detachment, mistook it for that of Clive, and marched upon Samiaveram; but when he found the whole body of the English stationed there drawn up to receive him, he fell back on his position.

The detachment from Trichinopoly had received orders to return, but a sudden swelling of the Coleroon rendered that impracticable. Clive determined to take advantage of the state of the river to attack the French post of Pitchandah, on its northern bank, which M. Law could not now succour. Captain Dalton, being informed of his resolution, and not wishing to interfere with his command, immediately placed his corps under Clive's orders, and requested to be employed as a volunteer![60] A higher testimony to acknowledged superiority of character cannot be adduced than this temporary resignation of the claims of senior rank by a gallant and able officer, and that at the very moment when he was flushed with the success of the service on which he had been detached.

The camp of Chunda Sahib, near Seringham, was on the south bank of the Coleroon, opposite to Pitchandah. Clive, in order to annoy the enemy and to cover his operations against that place, converted into a six-gun battery a high mound on the north bank of the river, which had been raised to prevent its encroachment on the low land.[61] This mound completely commanded the enemy's camp[62], and was at the same time protected from the guns at Pitchandah. The disorder created by the opening of this battery was great; men, women, children, elephants, camels, horses, and bullocks were instantly seen in disordered flight from this unexpected danger, hastening to the banks of the river, which they were, however, forced to quit by the guns of Trichinopoly, and at last found shelter by forming an encampment out of reach of the English cannon, and at some distance from the pagoda of Seringham.

This operation upon the most defenceless part of the enemy's force probably produced more effect upon the minds of the allies of the French, than any of the more substantial successes of the war. The native armies of India are kept together by very loose ties: the strongest of these are the expectations which princes can hold out, to the chiefs that serve them, of future pay and reward—as these diminish or increase, their attachment ebbs or flows; but they seldom despair of a cause, till reverses so materially affect the safety of their numerous armed and unarmed followers, that they can no longer keep them together. The feelings of the latter have an extraordinary influence upon success; for as the chief receives little, if any, pay from the prince, he must support himself by loans from bankers and merchants residing in his camp, while his soldiers owe the food by which they are supported to the credit given them by the dealers in the bazaar. This reciprocal expectation and confidence is seldom shaken by any danger that is not close at hand. The bulk of the soldiers and camp followers are amused or deceived by false or exaggerated reports; but the incontrovertible proof which an attack like that of Clive gave, of their prince and his allies not being able to protect them, spread alarm through all ranks; and that alarm was soon rendered irremediable by the fall of Pitchandah.

The death of Chunda Sahib, the surrender of the French troops, and the dissensions to which these events gave rise between Mahommed Ali and his allies have already been recorded. Dupleix, who never desponded, seeing in these dissensions the means of retrieving the interests of his nation, fomented them by every means in his power; and his intrigues to gain the Mysorians and the Mahrattas were powerfully aided by his lady, who, born in India, and understanding not only the languages but the character of the natives, is stated to have been on this occasion, as on various others, of the greatest use to her ambitious husband.

The Regent of Mysore was promised Trichinopoly, and the Mahrattas plunder and money. Both had secretly entered into engagements, which they were encouraged to avow by the complete failure of an expedition[63] which the governor and committee of Fort St. David sent to attack Gingee, contrary to the expressed opinion of Major Lawrence. Fortunately, however, the presumption of Dupleix gave that able officer an opportunity of correcting the bad impression which had been thus made, by completely defeating a French force[64] (1752), under Monsieur Kirjean, a nephew of the governor, who had been compelled against his better judgment, by the orders of his too ardent uncle, to hazard this engagement. The Mahrattas, on the occurrence of this success, declared their continued adherence to the cause of Mahommed Ali, and were employed with Major Lawrence in reducing the country near Pondicherry. To aid this operation, a detachment was required to attack the forts of Chingliput and Covelong; but there were no troops to form it, except two hundred European recruits just landed at Madras, who are represented as being the very refuse of the jails of London, and five hundred newly raised sepoys. These men had neither character nor discipline, and seemed so little calculated to take forts, that no officer could be expected to risk his reputation at their head:—but Clive, though in a state of very impaired health,—the consequence of his former fatigues,—volunteered to accept this unpromising command, and marched with his small and ill-composed detachment, and four twenty-four pounders, to attack Covelong[65], a square fort, which, though it had no ditch, mounted thirty pieces of cannon, and was defended by fifty Europeans and three hundred sepoys.

A party having been sent in advance under Lieutenant Cooper, to take up a position in a garden six hundred yards from the fort, were attacked by the enemy: they stood for a short time, but, on Lieutenant Cooper being shot, were so dismayed that they fled with precipitation, and were with difficulty prevented by Clive from continuing their flight to Madras. The garden was retaken, a battery constructed, and a post formed on its left, near a large rock. The fire of the enemy, however, so disconcerted Clive's party, that they seemed prepared to fly at every alarm[66]: a shot which struck the rock, and with its splinters killed and wounded fourteen, so frightened the whole, that it was some time before they would again venture to expose themselves; and one of the advanced sentries was found, several hours afterwards, concealed in the bottom of a well!

Clive, wisely judging that shame would operate more powerfully than severity in reclaiming his men from such cowardice, exposed himself to the hottest of the enemy's fire, and his example brought them in a very few days to tolerable firmness; while their confidence in themselves and their leader was increased by the surrender of the fort, and still more by subsequent events.

The morning after Covelong was taken, Ensign Joseph Smith (a name destined to fill a large space in the future wars of Coromandel) discovered a large body of men advancing, which he justly considered to be a detachment from Chingliput to relieve Covelong. He communicated what he had seen to Clive, who, taking every precaution to prevent this corps from learning that the fort had fallen, laid an ambuscade on their route, and the concealed troops (so close and so well directed was their fire) killed one hundred men at the first volley:—many threw down their arms and fled, while the commanding officer of the corps, twenty-five Europeans, and two hundred and fifty sepoys, with two pieces of cannon, were taken.

The news of this disaster soon reached Chingliput[67] (1752). Clive was there almost as soon, and, knowing well the influence of the impression his success had made, he immediately advanced his battery from a distance of five hundred yards, where it was first constructed, to within two hundred of the outer wall, which he soon breached as well as the inner: but there was still the ditch to be filled; for this fort, strong in some parts by the impracticability[68] of approach, had been fortified with great care in others; and Clive, now confident in his men, determined on an assault. The French commandant, observing his preparations, offered to capitulate on the garrison being permitted to retire with the honours of war; terms which Clive very readily granted, as the place, if obstinately defended, still possessed means of formidable resistance.

It would be difficult to find an example, in any regular army, of one so young and of such a subordinate rank as Clive, having crowded into the short space of two years such a series of successful enterprises. He was not more than twenty-seven years of age, and had only within the last year been promoted to the rank of Captain. After being distinguished on several occasions by the most resolute valour, he had displayed at Arcot, and during the operations which followed that memorable siege, all the superior qualities of a military leader. In the wisdom with which he planned, and the ability and gallantry with which he executed, those operations which so materially contributed to the defeat and capture of the French at Seringham, he evinced a calmness of courage, a clearness of judgment, and a decision of spirit, which gave confidence to his own force, and struck terror into that of the enemy: and in his last expedition against Covelong and Chingliput he showed, that where real military talent exists in the leader, there is no description of troops with which he may not command success: he can frame the machine at the moment to his purpose, while the ordinary man of routine can only employ it when prepared to his hands. Some writers, seemingly desirous of detracting from the character which Clive thus early established, would insinuate that no marked superiority of talent was exhibited in these events, and have grounded their opinion on the comparative smallness of the numbers of regular troops, and the composition of the other parts of the forces engaged in these contests; but, with those who are qualified, by experience, to decide on this subject, and who can appreciate the difficulties these very circumstances created, Clive's reputation will rise in proportion to the smallness and unconnected nature of those means with which, at this early stage of his life, he accomplished objects so important to his country. It is not in the use of ordinary means that genius appears to most advantage: it has its amplest range, and its noblest triumph, where it labours amidst new and untried objects, and converts them to purposes for which they had always before been judged incompetent. And no commander of modern times saw more clearly, seized more powerfully, or used more successfully, than Clive, the various and often discordant materials placed within his reach. Even at this early period of his career, he diffused his own spirit around him. The troops under his direction, however dispirited before, believed that they were destined to victory and glory: and that victory and glory did invariably attend them, was owing to his genius alone.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] Orme vol. i. p. 171.

[38] Biog. Brit. art. Clive, p. 649.

[39] Orme, vol. i. p. 173.

[40] Captain Gingen had on this occasion recourse to a council of war, whose hesitation spread alarm among the troops. Orme, vol. i. p. 180.

[41] The island of Seringham lies between the Coleroon and Caveri. It is famous for the pagoda from which it derives its name.

[42] Orme.

[43] Orme, vol. i. p. 183-196.

[44] This water is called Canjee, and contains a sufficient infusion of the grain to be nutritive, resembling thin gruel.

[45] Orme, vol. i. p. 196.

[46] Id. ibid., p. 199.

[47] Besides the unwarrantable threat of exposing their prisoners, Orme (vol. i. p. 199.) states, that, though they gave quarter to the two officers, Revel and Glass, they had murdered in their litters five or six disabled soldiers, whom they took when on their route from Arcot to Fort St. David.

[48] Orme, vol. i. p. 206.

[49] He commenced his march, February 22. 1752.

[50] Clive, on his return to Fort St. David, marched by the new buildings of a town on the site where Nasir Jung was slain, to which the name of Dupleix-Fatiha Bad (or "the town of victory") had been given. A pompous pillar was in preparation to commemorate, in every eastern language, an event which the French deemed a great victory. Clive and his troops, viewing this transaction in a very different light, razed to the ground these monuments of pride.

[51] Clive was, at this period, only twenty-six years of age.

[52] Colonel Lawrence's Narrative, p. 14.

[53] When the affairs of Chunda Sahib became desperate, and he could no longer support his followers, the leaders of the parties of whom his army was composed, solicited permission to leave him, and this request was readily granted by that ill-fated prince, who told them they had only anticipated his wish, as he was no longer able to support them, but at the same time solemnly promised to liquidate their large arrears, should fortune ever again smile upon him.

[54] Orme, vol. i. p. 245.

[55] Id., ibid.