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

to be troublesome, enable the Company to take the sovereignty upon themselves.'

The discussions were still proceeding when there arrived an envoy from the Súbahdár, his son-in-law, Mír Muhammad Kásim, a man of ability, tact, great persuasive powers, no scruple, and, in a certain sense, a patriot. Mír Kásim had coveted the succession vacant by the death of Míran. He had divined the plans of the English; he hated them as the enemies of the race of conquerors who had ruled Bengal and its people for centuries. He despised them as venal: and he had resolved to use them for his own advantage. He had brought with him a bag full of promises, and, though nominally the representative of Mír Jafar, had come resolved to work for his own interests.

Admitted into the secret deliberations of the Council, Mír Kásim soon realized that, with the single exception of Major Calliaud, he could buy them all. Even the scrupulousness of Mr. Vansittart vanished before his golden arguments. He bought them. For certain specified sums of money to be paid by him to each member of Council,3 these official Englishmen covenanted to dethrone their ally of Plassey, Mír Jafar, and to seat on the masnad his son-in-law, Mír Kásim. Three days after the signature of the treaty Mír Kásim set out to make his preparations for the coming event, and two days afterwards Mr. Vansittart started for Murshidábád to break the news to Mír Jafar. His very first official act had been a violation of the principle prescribed to him by Clive as the one the non-indulgence in which would secure the English from all danger.

3 He included even Major Calliaud, but without the consent, and after the departure from India, of that officer.

The events which followed must be stated very briefly. Vansittart obtained from Mír Jafar his resignation. The one condition stipulated by the old man was that thenceforth he should reside, under the protection of the English, at Calcutta, or in its immediate vicinity. For that city he started the following morning (September 19). Mír Kásim proceeded to Patná to complete the arrangements which had followed the repulse of the invasion of Bihár by the troops of Sháh Alím, and was there formally installed by Sháh Alím himself as Súbahdár of Bengal, Bihár, and Orissa.

Mír Kásim possessed all the capacities of a ruler. He knew thoroughly the evils under which the three provinces were groaning, and he proceeded with all the energy of a nature which never tired to reform them. He moved his capital to Mungír, a town with a fortress, on the right bank of the Ganges, commanding Northern and Eastern Bihár, and nearly midway between Calcutta and Benares. He then proceeded to reform his infantry on the English system, enlisting in his service two well-known soldiers of mixed or Armenian descent, Samru and Markar, to command brigades of their own, and to aid in the training of the other soldiers. So far he achieved success. But when he proceeded to alleviate the misery of his people, he found that the fatal gift of the salt monopoly enabled the English to thwart all his efforts. For not only did the English use the authority they possessed to the great impoverishment of the soil, but they gave to their friends and dependents licences exempting from the payment of duty in such profusion, that the people of Bengal and Bihár suffered to an extent such as, in the present day, can with difficulty be credited. Never, on the one side, was there so insatiable a determination to become rich, no matter what misery might be thereby caused to others; never, on the other, a more honest endeavour, by sacrifices of any kind, to escape the ruin caused by such cruel exactions.

At last, when he had exhausted appeal after appeal to the Calcutta authorities, Mír Kásim recognized that his only chance of escape from the pressure too hard to be borne, was to appeal to the God of Battles. He was ready; the English, he believed, were not. He had excellent fighting material; generals who would not betray him. On the other hand, he knew that Clive and Calliaud had quitted India, and he did not believe that either had his equal amongst the men on the spot. Accordingly, just after he had received a demand from Calcutta, compliance with which would have completed the ruin then impending, he took the bold step of abolishing all transit duties, and of establishing free-trade throughout his territories. Anticipating the consequences of this bold act, he notified to his generals to be prepared for any movement the English might make.

Here, in the space allotted,4 it must suffice to state that the English, amazed that such a worm as the Súbahdár of the three provinces should dare to question their commands, sent two of their number to remonstrate with him. But, whilst they were negotiating, another Englishman, one of their own clique, a civil officer named Ellis, furious at the idea of stooping to negotiate, made preparations to seize the important city of Patná. At the head of a small force he did surprise (June 25, 1763) that city during the hours before daybreak, but the garrison of the citadel and of a large stone building refused to admit him. Little caring for this, he permitted his men to disperse to plunder. Meanwhile the commander of the Súbahdár's troops, Mír Mehdí Khán, had started for Mungír to represent to his master the turn events had taken. On his way thither, a few miles from the city, he encountered the troops in his master's service commanded by Markar, the Armenian. Markar, as in duty bound, at once marched on Patná, found the English still plundering, drove them out of the city, and forced them to take refuge in a factory outside of it. There he besieged them, and thence he forced them to retreat (June 29). Meanwhile the Súbahdár had despatched his other brigade, under Samru, to Baksar, to cut off the retreat of the English, whilst he urged Markar to follow them up. Markar followed, caught, and attacked them between the two places—the 1st of July—and completely defeated them. The English, of whom there were 300, aided by 2,500 natives, fought with their usual courage; but they were badly led, were discouraged, and were completely beaten. Those who did not fall on the field were taken prisoners, re-conveyed to Patná, and were there eventually put to death.

4 For a detailed account of the events preceding and following this action on the part of Mír Kásim, the reader is referred to the author's Decisive Battles of India, New Edition, pp. 133-174.

Such was the mode in which the war began. Had not the English possessed, though they knew it not until experience had taught them, a commander not inferior to any of the men who had done so much for the glory of their country in the East, it is probable that Mír Kásim, who, according to a contemporary writer,5 'was trained to arms,' and who 'united the gallantry of the soldier with the sagacity of the statesman,' would have driven them to their ships.

5 The author of an admirable book, written at the time, entitled, Transactions in India from 1756 to 1783.

From such a fate they were saved by the skill, the devotion, the supreme military talents of Major John Adams. This officer, placed in command, defeated Mír Kásim's army, after a very bloody battle, at Kátwá (July 19); again, a few days later, after a most stubborn resistance, at Gheriá. But neither of these battles was decisive of the war. When, however, the month following, Adams stormed the immensely strong position of Undwá Nala, defended by 40,000 men, and captured 100 pieces of cannon, Mír Kásim recognized that the war was over. He made no attempt to defend either Rájmahál, Mungír, or Patná. On the fall of the latter city (November 6) he fled to Oudh to take refuge there with the Nawáb-Wazír, and to instigate him to espouse his cause.

It is only necessary to add that he succeeded in persuading that prince to attempt the venture. He attempted it, however, only to repent his audacity, for, after much manoeuvring, the English, led by Munro, afterwards Sir Hector—who, after an interval of the incapable Carnac, had succeeded Adams, killed by the climate and the fatigues of the campaign—inflicted a crushing defeat upon him on the plains of Baksar (October 23, 1764); then Munro, pursuing his victorious course, occupied successively Benares, Chanár, and Allahábád. In March, 1765, the English overran Oudh, occupying Lucknow and Faizábád; then went on to beat the enemy at Karra, and again at Kálpi on the Jumna. Then the Nawáb-Wazír, 'a hopeless wanderer,' threw himself on the mercy of the conquerors. These behaved to him with conspicuous generosity, repaid by his successors in late years. The English frontier was, however, not the less advanced, practically, as far as Allahábád. Such was the military position when Clive returned to Calcutta as Governor in May, 1765.

Meanwhile the English, on the outbreak of the war with Mír Kásim, had restored Mír Jafar, receiving the usual gratuities for themselves and stipulating for exemptions from all duties except two and a half per cent. on salt. As for Mír Kásim, it is only necessary to add that he died some years later at Delhi in extreme poverty. With all his faults he was a patriot.

CHAPTER XIII