Rulers of India: Lord Clive - George Bruce Malleson (novels in english txt) 📗

room, about eighteen feet square, ill ventilated, and just capable of receiving them when packed together so closely as to render death certain to the majority. Vainly did they remonstrate; vainly did they send a message to the Nawáb: he was asleep, and no one dared to awaken him. Into that hole they were locked, and in it they remained until the light of day showed that the pestiferous atmosphere had been fatal to all of them except twenty-three. These were then released and taken before the Nawáb. Far from expressing regret for the sufferings of which he had been the involuntary cause, the Nawáb questioned them only about the place in which their treasure had been hidden. For, so far, he had been greatly disappointed at the result of his raid.

The story of the capture of Kásimbázár reached Madras on the 15th of July. The Governor immediately despatched a detachment of 230 European troops for the Húglí, under command of Major Kilpatrick, and this detachment reached its position off the village of Falta on the 2nd of August. For the moment we must leave it there.

It was not until three days after the arrival of Kilpatrick at Falta that information of the Black Hole outrage reached Madras. The position there was critical. The Governor was in daily expectation of hearing that war had been declared with France, and he had already parted with a large detachment of his best troops. The question was whether, in the presence of the possible danger likely to arise from France, he should still further denude the Presidency he administered. The discussion was long. Happily it was finally resolved to despatch to the Húglí every available ship and man. The discussion as to the choice of the commander was still more prolonged; but, after others had insisted on their rights, it was finally determined to commit the command of the land-forces to Clive—who had been summoned from Fort St. George to the consultation—in subordination, however, to Admiral Watson, commanding the squadron. It was not until the second week of October that every detail was settled, nor until the 16th of that month that the fleet sailed for the Húglí. The first ship reached the river, off Falta, the 11th of December. But with the exception of two, one laden with stores, the other grounding off Cape Palmyras, but both of which joined at a later period, the others reached their destination at periods between the 17th and 27th of that month.

The land-forces at the disposal of Clive consisted, including the few remnants of Kilpatrick's detachment,1 which had suffered greatly from disease, of 830 Europeans, 1200 sipáhís, and a detail of artillery. One ship, containing over 200, had not arrived, and many were on the sick-list.

1 Orme states that one-half of them had died and that only thirty were fit for duty.

On the 17th of December Watson had written to the Nawáb to demand redress for the losses suffered by the Company, but no answer had been vouchsafed. As soon then as all the ships, the two spoken of excepted, had assembled off Falta, Watson wrote again to inform him that they should take the law into their own hands. On the 27th the fleet weighed anchor, and stood upwards. On the 29th it anchored off Maiápur, a village ten miles below the fort of Baj-baj. It was obvious to both commanders that that fort must be taken; but a difference of opinion occurred as to the mode in which it should be assailed, Clive advocating the proceeding by water, and landing within easy distance of the place, Watson insisting that the troops should land near Maiápur, and march thence. Clive, much against his own opinion, followed this order. Landing, he covered the ten miles, and posted his troops in two villages whence it would be easy to attack the fort on the morrow. The troops, tired with the march, and fearing no enemy, then lay down to sleep. But the Governor of Calcutta, Manikchand, had reached Baj-baj that very morning with a force of 2000 foot and 1500 horse. He had noted, unseen, all the dispositions of Clive, and at nightfall he sallied forth to surprise him. The surprise took effect, in the sense that it placed the English force in very great danger. But it was just one of those situations in which Clive was at his very best. He recognized on the moment that if he were to cause his troops to fall back beyond reach of the enemy's fire, there would be a great danger of a panic. He ordered therefore the line to stand firm where it was, whilst he detached two platoons, from different points, to assail the enemy. One of these suffered greatly from the enemy's fire, but the undaunted conduct of the English in pressing on against superior numbers so impressed the native troops that they fell back, despite the very gallant efforts of their officers to rally them. Clive was then able to form his main line in an advantageous position, and a shot from one of his field-pieces grazing the turban of Manikchand, that chief gave the signal to retire. That night the fort of Baj-baj was taken by a drunken sailor, who, scrambling over the parapet, hailed to his comrades to join him. They found the place abandoned.

On the 2nd of January Calcutta surrendered to Clive. A great altercation took place between that officer and Watson as to the appointment of Governor of that town. Watson had actually nominated Major Eyre Coote, but Clive protested so strongly that, eventually, Watson himself took possession, and then handed the keys to Mr. Drake, the same Drake who had so shamefully abandoned the place at the time of Siráj-ud-daulá's attack. Three days later Clive stormed the important town of Húglí, once a Portuguese settlement, afterwards held by the English, but at the time occupied for the Nawáb.

Meanwhile that prince, collecting his army, numbering about 40,000 men of sorts, was marching to recover his lost conquest. To observe him Clive took a position at Kásipur, a suburb of Calcutta, now the seat of a gun-factory. As the Nawáb approached, the English leader made as though he would attack him, but finding him prepared, he drew back to await a better opportunity. By the 3rd of February the entire army of the Nawáb had encamped just beyond the regular line of the Maráthá ditch. Thither Clive despatched two envoys to negotiate with the Nawáb, but finding that they were received with contumely and insult, he borrowed some sailors from the Admiral, and, obtaining his assent to the proposal, resolved to attack him before dawn of the next day. Accordingly at three o'clock on the morning of the 4th of February, Clive broke up, and, under cover of one of those dense fogs so common in Bengal about Christmastime, penetrated within the Nawáb's camp. Again was he in imminent danger. For when, at six o'clock, the fog lifted for a few seconds, he found the enemy's cavalry massed along his flank. They were as surprised at the proximity as was Clive himself, and a sharp volley sent them scampering away. The fog again descended: Clive knew not exactly where he was; his men were becoming confused; and Clive knew that the step from confusion to panic was but a short one. But he never lost his presence of mind. He kept his men together; and when, at eight o'clock, there was a second lifting of the fog, and he recognized that he was in the very centre of the enemy's camp, he marched boldly forward, and not only extricated his troops, but so impressed the Nawáb that he drew off his army, and on the 9th signed a treaty, by which he covenanted to grant to the English more than their former privileges, and promised the restoration of the property he had seized at the capture of Calcutta. This accident of the fog and its consequences form, indeed, the keynote to the events that followed. The circumstances connected with it completely dominated the mind of the Nawáb; instilled into his mind so great a fear of the English leader that he came entirely under his influence, and, though often kicking against it, remained under it to the end. This feeling was increased when, some weeks later, Clive, learning that war had been declared between France and England, attacked and conquered the French settlement of Chandranagar (March 23), in spite of the Nawáb's prohibition. He displayed it to the world a little later, by dismissing from his court and exiling to a place a hundred miles distant from it a small detachment of French troops which he had there in his pay, commanded by the Law who had so misconducted the siege of Trichinopoli, and by recalling his army from Plassey, where he had posted it, to a point nearer to his capital.

Of Siráj-ud-daulá something must be said. The province which he ruled from his then capital of Murshidábád had been one of the great fiefs which the dissolution of the Mughal Empire had affected. The family which had ruled it in 1739 had had the stamp of approval from Delhi. But when the invasion of Nadír Sháh in that year overthrew for the time the authority of the Mughal, an officer named Alí Vardi Khán, who had risen from the position of a menial servant to be Governor of Bihár, rose in revolt, defeated and slew the representative of the family nominated by the Mughals in a battle at Gheriá, in January, 1741, and proclaimed himself Súbahdár. Alí Vardi Khán was a very able man. Having bribed the shadow sitting on the throne of Akbar and Aurangzeb to recognize him as Súbahdár of Bengal, Bihár, and Orissa, he ruled wisely and well. On his death in 1756 he had been succeeded by his youthful grandson, the Siráj-ud-daulá, who, as we have seen, had come, so fatally for himself, under the influence of Clive.

For all the actions of Clive at this period prove that he was resolved to place matters in Bengal on such a footing as would render impossible atrocities akin to that of the Black Hole. Were he to quit Bengal, he felt, after accomplishing the mission on which he had been sent, and that mission only, what security was there that the Súbahdár would not return to wreak a vengeance the more bitter from the mortifications he had had to endure? No, there was but one course he could safely pursue. He must place the Company's affairs on a solid and secure footing. Already he had begun to feel that such a footing was impossible so long as Siráj-ud-daulá remained ruler of the three provinces. As time went on the idea gathered strength, receiving daily, as it did, fresh vitality from the discovery that among the many noblemen and wealthy merchants who surrounded the Súbahdár there were many ready to betray him, to play into his own hand, to combine with himself as against a common foe.

Soon his difficulty was to choose the man with whom he should ally himself. Yár Lutf Khán, a considerable noble, and a divisional commander of the Siráj-ud-daulá's army, made, through Mr. Watts, the English agent at Kásimbázár, the first offer of co-operation, on the sole condition that he should become Súbahdár. It was followed by another from a man occupying a still higher position, from the Bakhshí, or Commander-in-chief, Mír Jafar Khán. This Clive accepted, receiving at the same time offers of adhesion from Rájá Duláb Ráo; from other leading nobles, and from the influential bankers and merchants of Murshidábád.

Then began those negotiations one detail of which has done so much to stain the name of the great soldier. The contracting parties employed in their negotiations one Aminchand, a Calcutta merchant of considerable wealth, great address, unbounded cunning, and absolutely without a conscience. When