bred to a profession, was disposed to look with disdain on interlopers, he had yet liberality enough to acknowledge that Clive was an exception to common rules. "Some people," he wrote, " are pleased to term Captain Clive fortunate and lucky; but, in my opinion, from the knowledge I have of the gentleman, he deserved and might expect from his conduct everything 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 on an army like an experienced officer and a brave soldier, with a prudence that certainly warranted success."

army, in which were four hundred French | tary tactics, and, like all men regularly troops, appeared almost under the guns of Fort St. George, and laid waste the villas and gardens of the gentlemen of the English settlement. But he was again encountered and defeated by Clive. More than a hundred of the French were killed or taken-a loss more serious than that of thousands of natives. The victorious army marched from the field of battle to Fort St. David. On the road lay the City of the Victory of Dupleix, and the stately monument which was designed to commemorate the triumphs of France in the East. Clive Dupleix' pillar and city ordered both the city and destroyed. the monument to be rased to the ground. He was induced, we believe, to take this step, not by personal or national malevolence, but by a just and profound policy. The town and its pompous name, the pillar and its vaunt- The French had no commander to oping inscriptions, were among the devices pose to the two friends. Dupleix's by which Dupleix had laid the public Dupleix, not inferior in military mind of India under a spell. This spell talents for negotiation and incapacity. it was Clive's business to break. The intrigue to any European who has borne natives had been taught that France was a part in the revolutions of India, wa confessedly the first power in Europe, and not qualified to direct in person military that the English did not presume to dis-operations. He had not been bred a pute her supremacy. No measure could soldier, and had no inclination to become be more effectual for the removing of this one. His enemies accused him of perdelusion than the public and solemn de-sonal cowardice; and he defended himself molition of the French trophies.

in a strain worthy of Captain Bobadil. The government of Madras, encouraged He kept away from shot, he said, because by these events, determined to send a silence and tranquillity were propitious to strong detachment, under Clive, to rein- his genius, and he found it difficult to force the garrison of Trichinopoly. But pursue his meditations amidst the noise of just at this conjuncture Major Lawrence firearms. He was thus under the necesarrived from England, and assumed the sity of entrusting to others the execution Clive fights chief command. From the of his great warlike designs; and he under Major waywardness and impa- bitterly complained that he was ill served. Lawrence. tience of control which had He had indeed been assisted by one officer characterized Clive, both at school and in of eminent merit, the celebrated Bussy. the counting-house, it might have been But Bussy had marched northward with expected that he would not, after such the Nizam, and was fully employed in achievements, act with zeal and good-looking after his own interests, and those humour in a subordinate capacity. But Lawrence had early treated him with kindness; and it is bare justice to Clive to say, that, proud and overbearing as he was, kindness was never thrown away upon him. He cheerfully placed himself under the orders of his old friend, and exerted himself as strenuously in the second post as he could have done in the first. Lawrence well knew the value of such assistance. Though himself gifted with no intellectual faculty higher than plain good sense, he fully appreciated the powers of his brilliant coadjutor. Though he had made a methodical study of mili

of France, at the court of that prince. Among the officers who remained with Dupleix, there was not a single man of talent; and many of them were boys, at whose ignorance and folly the common soldiers laughed.

The English triumphed everywhere. The besiegers of Trichinopoly were themselves besieged and compelled to capitulate. Chunda Sahib fell into the hands of the Mahrattas, and was put to death, at the insti- Dupleix, and gation probably of his com- decline of the petitor, Mahommed Ali. The spirit of Dupleix, however, was un

Reverses of

French power

conquerable, and his resources inex-fugitives to the gates of Chingleput, laid haustible. From his employers in Europe siege instantly to that fastness, reputed he no longer received help or countenance. one of the strongest in India, made a They condemned his policy. They al- breach, and was on the point of storming lowed him no pecuniary assistance. They when the French commandant capitulated sent him for troops only the sweepings of and retired with his men. the galleys. Yet still he persisted, intrigued, bribed, promised;-lavished his private fortune, strained his credit, procured new diplomas from Delhi, raised up new enemies to the government of Madras on every side, and even among the allies of the English Company. But all was in vain. Slowly, but steadily, the power of Britain continued to increase, and that of France to decline.

The health of Clive had never been good during his residence in India, and his constitution was now so much impaired that he determined to return to England. Before his departure he undertook a service of considerable difficulty, and performed it with his usual vigour and dexterity. The forts of Covelong and Chingleput were occupied by French garrisons. It was determined Covelong and to Chingleput. send a force against them. But the only force available for this purpose was of such a description that no officer but Clive would risk his reputation by commanding it. It consisted of five hundred newly-levied sepoys and two hundred recruits who had just landed from England, and who were the worst and lowest wretches that the Company's crimps could pick up in the flash-houses of London. Clive, ill and exhausted as he was, undertook to make an army of this undisciplined rabble, and marched with them to Covelong. A shot from the fort killed one of these extraordinary soldiers; on which all the rest faced about and ran away, and it was with the greatest difficulty that Clive rallied them. On another occasion the noise of a gun terrified the sentinels so much, that one of them was found, some hours later, at the bottom of a well. Clive gradually accustomed them to danger, and, by exposing himself constantly in the most perilous situations, shamed them into courage. He at length succeeded in forming a respectable force out of his unpromising material. Covelong fell. Clive learned that a strong detachment was marching to relieve it from Chingleput. He took measures to prevent the enemy from learning that they were too late, laid an ambuscade for them on the road, killed a hundred of them with one fire, took three hundred prisoners, pursued the

return to England.

Clive returned to Madras victorious, but in a state of health which rendered it impossible for him to remain there long. He married at this time a Clive's young lady of the name of marriage, and Maskelyne, sister of the eminent mathematician, who long held the post of Astronomer-Royal. She is described as handsome and accom. plished, and her husband's letters, it is said, contain proofs that he was devotedly attached to her.

Almost immediately after the marriage, Clive embarked with his bride for England. He returned a very different person from the poor slighted boy who had been sent out ten years before to seek his fortune. He was only twenty-seven; yet his country already respected him as one of her first soldiers. There was then general peace in Europe. The Carnatic was the only part of the world where the English and French were in arms against each other. The vast schemes of Dupleix had excited no small uneasiness in the city of London; and the rapid turn of fortune, which was chiefly owing to the courage and talents of Clive, had been hailed with great delight. The young captain was known at the India House by the honourable nickname of General Clive, and was toasted by that appellation at the feasts of the Directors. On his arrival in England he found himself an object of general interest and admiration. The East India Company thanked him for his services in the warmest terms, and presented him with a sword set with diamonds. With rare delicacy, he declined to receive this token of gratitude, unless a similar compliment was paid to his friend and commander, Lawrence.

It may easily be supposed that Clive was most cordially welcomed home by his family, who were delighted by his success, though they seem to have been hardly able to comprehend how their naughty idle Bobby had become so great a man. His father had been singularly hard of belief. Not until the news of the defence of Arcot arrived in Eng. land was the old gentleman heard to growl out, that after all the booby had something in him. His expressions of approbation became stronger and stronger

520

son.

Michael's.

as news arrived of one brilliant exploit | 1832. He was opposed by Lord Sandwich,
Olive returned
after another; and he was at length whose influence had long been paramount
immoderately fond and proud of his there; and Fox exerted
himself strenuously in Sand- M.P. for St.
wich's behalf. Clive, who
had been introduced to Fox, and very
kindly received by him, was brought
was returned. But a petition was pre-
forward on the Sandwich interest, and
sented against the return, and was backed
by the whole interest of the Duke of
Newcastle.

1754.

Clive's relations had very substantial reasons for rejoicing at his return. Considerable sums of prize-money had fallen to his share, and he had brought home several thousands, some of which he expended in extricating his father from pecuniary difficulties, and in redeeming The remainder he the family estate. appears to have dissipated in the course of about two years. He lived splendidly, dressed gaily even for those times, kept a carriage and saddle horses, and, not content with these ways of getting rid of his resorted to the most specdy and money, effectual of all modes of evacuation-a contested election followed by a petition. At the time of the General Election of 1754 the Government was in a very sinThere was scarcely any gular state. formal Opposition. The Jacobites had been cowed by the issue of the last Rebellion. The Tory party State of the Tory party in had fallen into utter contempt. It had been deserted by all the men of talents who had belonged to it, and had scarcely given a symptom of life during some years. The small faction which had been held together by the influence and promises of Prince Frederick had been dispersed by his death. Almost every public man of distinguished talents in the kingdom, whatever his early connections had been, was in office, and called himself a Whig. But this extraordinary appearance of concord was quite delusive. The administration itself was distracted by bitter enmities and conflicting pretensions. The chief object of its members was to depress and supplant each other. The Prime Minister, Newcastle, weak, timid, jealous, and perfidious, was at once detested and despised by the most important members of his Government, and by none more than by Henry Fox, the Secretary at War. This able, daring, and ambitious man seized every opportunity of crossing the First Lord of the Treasury, from whom he well knew that he had little to dread and little to hope; for Newcastle was through life equally afraid of breaking with men of parts and of promoting them.

Newcastle had set his heart on returning two members for St. Michael, one of those wretched Cornish boroughs which were swept away by the Reform Act in

The case was heard, according to the
usage of that time, before a committee
of the whole House. Questions respecting
Judicial impartiality
elections were then considered merely as
party questions.

was not even affected. Sir Robert Wal-
pole was in the habit of saying openly,
that in election battles there ought to be
no quarter. On the present occasion the
excitement was great. The matter really
at issue was, not whether Clive had been
properly or improperly returned; but
whether Newcastle or Fox was to be
master of the new House of Commons,
and consequently First Minister. The
contest was long and obstinate, and suc-
cess seemed to lean sometimes to one side
and sometimes to the other. Fox put
forth all his rare powers of debate, beat
half the lawyers in the House at their
own weapons, and carried division after
division against the whole influence of
the Treasury. The committee decided in
Clive's favour. But when the resolution
The remnant of the
was reported to the House, things took a
different course.
Tory Opposition, contemptible as it was,
had yet sufficient weight to turn the scale
between the nicely balanced parties of
Newcastle and Fox.
Tories could only despise. Fox they
hated as the boldest and most subtle poli-
tician, and the ablest debater among the
Whigs; as the steady friend of Walpole,
as the devoted adherent of the Duke of
Cumberland. After wavering till the last
moment they determined to vote in a
body with the Prime Minister's friends.
The consequence was, that the House, by
a small minority, rescinded the decision of
the committee, and Clive was unseated.

Newcastle the

Ejected from Parliament, and straitavail ened in his means, he naturally began to and the Government were eager A treaty look again towards India. The Company themselves of his services. favourable to England had indeed been concluded in the Carnatic. Dupleix had been superseded, and had returned with

521

the wreck of his immense fortune to sulman despot, and of the Mahratta Europe, where calumny and chicanery freebooter, Bengal was known through soon hunted him to his the East as the garden of Eden, as the Embarks again for India grave. But many signs rich kingdom. Its population multiplied in 1755. indicated that a war be- exceedingly. Other provinces were tween France and Great Britain was nourished from the overflowing of its at hand, and it was therefore thought granaries; and the ladies of London and desirable to send an able commander to Paris were clothed in the delicate prothe Company's settlements in India. The duce of its looms. The race by whom Directors appointed Clive Governor of this rich tract was peopled, enervated by Fort St. David. The King gave him the a soft climate and accustomed to peaceful commission of a lieutenant-colonel in the avocations, bore the same relation to other British army, and in 1755 he again sailed Asiatics which the Asiatics generally bear to the bold and energetic children of Europe.

for Asia.

The first service in which he was employed after his return to the East was the reduction of the stronghold of Gheriah. This fortress, built on a craggy promontory, and almost surrounded by the ocean, was the den of a pirate named Angria, whose barks had long been the terror of the Arabian Gulf. Admiral Watson, who commanded the English squadron in the Eastern seas, burned Angria's fleet, while Clive attacked the fastness by land. The place soon fell, and a booty of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling was divided among the conquerors.

The Castilians have a pro

verb, that in Valencia the earth is water and the men women; and the description is at least equally applicable to the vast plain of the Lower Ganges. Whatever the Bengalee does, he does languidly. His favourite pursuits are sedentary. He shrinks from bodily exertion; and, though voluble in dispute, and singularly pertinacious in the war of chicane, he seldom engages in a personal conflict, and scarcely ever enlists as a soldier. We doubt whether there be a hundred genuine Bengalees in the whole army of the East India Company. There never, perhaps, existed a people so thoroughly fitted by

After this exploit Clive proceeded to his government of Fort St. David. Before he had been there two months, he re-nature and by habit for a foreign yoke. ceived intelligence which called forth all the energy of his bold and active mind.

Of the provinces which had been subject to the house of Tamerlane, the wealthiest was Bengal. No part of India possessed such natural advantages, both for agriculture and commerce. The Ganges, rushing through a hundred channels to the sea, has formed a vast plain of rich mould, which, even Fertility and wealth of under the tropical sky, Bengal. rivals the verdure of an English April. The rice fields yield an increase such as is elsewhere unknown. Spices, sugar, vegetable oils, are produced with similar exuberance. The rivers afford an inexhaustible supply of fish. The desolate islands along the sea-coast, overgrown by noxious vegetation, and swarming with deer and tigers, supply the cultivated districts with abundance of salt. The great stream which fertilizes the soil is, at the same time, the chief highway of Eastern commerce. On its banks, and on those of its tributary waters, are the wealthiest marts, the most splendid capitals, and the most sacred shrines of India. The tyranny of man had for ages struggled in vain against the overflowing bounty of nature. In spite of the Mus

The great commercial companies of Europe had long possessed factories in Bengal. The French were settled, as they still are, at Chandernagore on the Hoogley. Lower European down the stream, the Companies English had built Fort in Bengal. William. A church and ample warehouses rose in the vicinity. A row of spacious houses, belonging to the chief factors of the East India Company, lined the banks of the river; and in the neighbourhood had sprung up a large and busy native town, where some Hindoo merchants of great opulence had fixed their abode. But the tract now covered by the palaces of Chowringhee contained only a few miserable huts thatched with straw. A jungle, abandoned to water-fowl and alligators, covered the site of the present Citadel, and the Course, which is now daily crowded at sunset with the gayest equipages of Calcutta. For the ground on which the settlement stood, the English, like other great landholders, paid rent to the government; and they were, like other great landholders, permitted to exercise a certain jurisdiction within their domain.

The great province of Bengal, together with Orissa and Bahar, had long been

governed by a viceroy, whom the English called Aliverdy Khan, and who, like the other viceroys of the Mogul, had become virtually independent. He died in 1756, and the sovereignty descended to his grandson, a youth under twenty, who Surajah bore the name of SuraDowlah, the jah Dowlah. Oriental Nabob. despots are perhaps the worst class of human beings; and this unhappy boy was one of the worst specimens of his class. His understanding was naturally feeble, and his temper naturally unamiable. His education had been such as would have enervated even a vigorous intellect, and perverted even a generous disposition. He was unreasonable, because nobody ever dared to reason with him; and selfish, because he had never been made to feel himself dependent on the good-will of others. Early debauchery had unnerved his body and his mind. He indulged immoderately in the use of ardent spirits, which inflamed his weak brain almost to madness. His chosen companions were flatterers, sprung from the dregs of the people, and recommended by nothing but buffoonery and servility. It is said that he had arrived at that last stage of human depravity when cruelty becomes pleasing for its own sake-when the sight of pain as pain, where no advantage is to be gained, no offence punished, no danger averted, is an agreeable excitement. It had early been his amusement to torture beasts and birds; and, when he grew up, he enjoyed with still keener relish the misery of his fellow-creatures.

From a child Surajah Dowlah had hated the English. It was his whim to do so; and his whims were never opposed. He had also formed a very exaggerated notion of the wealth which might be obtained by plundering them; and his feeble and uncultivated mind was incapable of perceiving that the riches of Calcutta, had they been even greater than he imagined, would not compensate him for what he must lose, if the European trade, of which Bengal was a chief seat, should be driven by his violence to some other quarter. Pretexts for a quarrel were readily found. The English, in expectation of a war with France, had begun to fortify their settlement without a special permission from the Nabob. A rich native, whom he longed to plunder, had taken refuge at Calcutta, and had not been delivered up. On such grounds as these Surajah Dowlah marched with a great army against Fort William.

Panic at Fort
William.

The servants of the Company at Madras had been forced by Dupleix to become statesmen and soldiers. Those in Bengal were still mere traders, and were terrified and bewildered by the approaching danger. The governor, who had heard much of Surajah Dowlah's cruelty, was frightened out of his wits, jumped into a boat, and took refuge in the nearest ship. The military commandant thought that he could not do better than follow so good an example. The fort was taken after a feeble resistance; and great numbers of the English fell into the hands of the conquerors. The Nabob seated himself with regal pomp in the principal hall of the factory, and ordered Mr. Holwell, the first in rank among the prisoners, to be brought before him. He abused the insolence of the English, and grumbled at the smallness of the treasure which he had found; but promised to spare their lives, and retired to rest.

Then was committed that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous The prisoners retribution by which it was confined followed. The English capin the Black Hole, tives were left at the mercy of the guards; and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the summer solstice-the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty halls, and the constant waving of fans. The number of the prisoners was one hundred and forty-six. When they were ordered to enter the cell they imagined that the soldiers were joking; and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated; they entreated; but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them.

Nothing in history or fiction-not even the story which Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer→→