INDIA.] EXPEDITION UNDER CLIVE. 321 health of the latter was declining. Under these circumstances Mr. Orme, the historian, who was then a member of the Council at Madras, had the honour of suggesting the name of Clive; and Colonel Lawrence, no less to his credit, warmly supported the proposal. Adopting these views, the Presidency summoned Clive from Fort St. David, and appointed him chief of the intended expedition. Colonel Adlercron, much incensed, declared, in his zeal for the public service, that unless the command were vested in himself he would not allow the Royal Artillery or the King's guns and stores to proceed; and, though they were already on board, they were again disembarked by his orders. The young hero of Arcot, however, could still reckon on some of the best troops in the King's service, great part of the Thirty-ninth Foot. That gallant regiment, so conspicuous for many other services, - which for its brave deeds at Gibraltar bears on its colours the Castle and the Key, MONTIS INSIGNIA CALPE, - has no less nobly earned the lofty title, as founder of our Eastern empire: PRIMUS IN INDIS.* On the whole, the force entrusted to Clive amounted to 900 Europeans, and 1,500 Sepoys. The powers granted him were to be in all military matters independent of the Members of the Council of Calcutta; but his instructions were positive and peremptory, to return at all events and under any circumstances by the month of April next, about which time a French expedition was expected on the coast of Coromandel. The armament of Clive and Watson, having been delayed two months by quarrels at Madras, and two more *This regiment also distinguished itself in the campaigns of the Peninsula and South of France. At Hellette, writes the Duke of Wellington, "two attacks of the enemy were most gallantly received "and repulsed by the 39th." (To Earl Bathurst, February 20. 1814.) Even while these pages are passing through the press, this regiment has gained new and brilliant laurels on the field of Maharaj-poor. Lord Ellenborough speaks of it as follows, in his General Orders of January 4. 1844. Her Majesty's 39th Regiment had the peculiar for"tune of adding to the honour of having won at Plassey the first great battle which laid the foundation of the British empire in "India, the further honour of thus nobly contributing to this, as it may be hoped, the last and crowning victory by which that empire "has been secured." 66 66 VOL. IV. 66 by contrary winds at sea, did not enter the Hooghly until the middle of December. At the village of Fulta, near the mouth of the river, they found the fugitives from the British settlement, including the principal Members of the Council, who formed a Select Committee of direction. Having combined measures with them, Clive and Watson pushed forward against Calcutta. The scanty garrison left by Surajah Dowlah ventured to sally forth, under its commander, Monichund, but was easily routed with the loss of 150 men, Monichund himself receiving a shot through his turban. Calcutta, after one or two random discharges from the wall, was quietly abandoned to the English, who thus on the 2d of January 1757 again became masters of the place. Nay, more, after this first success, Clive and Watson advanced against the town of Hooghly, which they stormed and sacked with little loss. This was the first opportunity of distinction to Captain Coote, afterwards Sir Eyre. At these tidings, Surajah Dowlah, much irritated, but also in some degree alarmed, marched back from Moorshedabad at the head of 40,000 men. By this time intelligence had reached India of the Declaration of War between France and England, and the Nabob proposed to the French at Chandernagore that they should join him with their whole force, amounting to several hundred Europeans. But the memory of their reverses on the coast of Coromandel was still present in their minds, and they not only rejected the Nabob's overture, but made an overture of their own to the English for a treaty of neutrality. Formerly, they said, war had been waged in India between France and England while the two countries were in peace at home. Why not now reverse the rule, and maintain quiet in Bengal, though hostilities might prevail elsewhere? As, however, the French at Chandernagore did not, like the English at Calcutta, form a separate Presidency, but were dependent on the government of Pondicherry, they had not in truth the powers to conclude the treaty they proposed, and for this and other reasons it was finally rejected by the British chiefs.* * There is some contradiction between the several statements of this overture, but they are judiciously reconciled in a note to Mr. Thornton's History of India, vol. i, p. 214. INDIA.] 66 TREATY OF PEACE AND ALLIANCE. 323 During this time Surajah Dowlah had advanced close upon Fort William, at the head of his large but ill-disciplined and irregular army. Clive, considering the disparity of numbers, resolved to surprise the enemy in a night attack. According to his own account, "about "three o'clock in the morning I marched out with nearly my whole force; about six we entered the enemy's camp in a thick fog, and crossed it in about two hours, "with considerable execution. Had the fog cleared up, 66 as it usually does about eight o'clock, when we were "entire masters of the camp without the ditch, the action "must have been decisive; instead of which it thickened, "and occasioned our mistaking the way."* It may be added from other reports, that the loss of the English in the action which ensued was no less than 100 Sepoys and 120 Europeans, a great proportion of their little army. Yet if the object of Clive had been mainly to show the superiority of the Europeans in warfare, and to strike terror into the mind of the Nabob, that object was fully attained. Surajah Dowlah passed from an ignorant contempt of the English to a kind of timid awe; and though the latter feeling in his mind proved as evanescent as the former, it strongly inclined him at the time to peace on terms most favourable to his opponents. He agreed to grant them the confirmation of their previous privileges, -the right to fortify Calcutta in any manner they pleased, - the exemption of all merchandise under their passes from fees and tolls, and the restoration of or compensation for all such of their plundered effects as had been carried to the Nabob's account. Three days after a peace had been signed on these conditions the new-born friendship of the Nabob for the English, joined to some fear of a northward invasion from the Affghans, led him so far as to propose another article, for an intimate alliance, offensive and defensive. It seemed ignominious, and a stain on our national honour, to conclude such a treaty, or indeed any treaty, with the author of the atrocities of the Black Hole, while those atrocities remained without the slightest satisfaction, requital, or apology. But, as Clive had previously complained, the *Letter to the Secret Committee, February 22. 1757., gentlemen at Calcutta were then callous to every feeling but that of their own losses. "Believe me," says Clive, 66 they are bad subjects, and rotten at heart. . . . . The "riches of Peru and Mexico should not induce me to live 66 among them."*. - Nevertheless it must be observed, that, whatever may have been Clive's feelings on this occasion, he showed himself to the full as eager and forward as any of the merchants in pressing the conclusion of the treaty of alliance. Among the chiefs none but Admiral Watson opposed it, and it was signed and ratified on the 12th of February, the same day that it was offered. This new and strange alliance seemed to the English at Calcutta to afford them a most favourable opportunity for assailing their rivals at Chandernagore. Clive wrote to the Nabob applying for permission, and received an evasive answer, which he thought fit to construe as assent. Operations were immediately commenced; Clive directing them by land, and Watson by water. To the latter especially high praise is due. "Even at the pre"sent day," says Sir John Malcolm, "when the naviga"tion of the river is so much better known, the success "with which the largest vessels of this fleet were navi"gated to Chandernagore, and laid alongside the batteries "of that settlement, is a subject of wonder." † The French made a gallant resistance, but were soon overpowered, and compelled to surrender the settlement, on which occasion above 400 European soldiers became prisoners of war. The Nabob, who by this time had gone back to his capital, was most highly exasperated on learning the attack upon Chandernagore, which he had never really intended to allow. It produced another complete revolution in his sentiments. His former hatred against the English returned, but not his former contempt. On the contrary, he now felt the necessity of strengthening himself by foreign alliances against them, and with that view he entered into correspondence with M. de Bussy in the Deccan. His letters pressed that officer to march * Letter to the Governor of Madras, January 8. 1757. INDIA.] 66 INTRIGUES OF THE NABOB. 325 to his assistance against the Englishman, SABUT JUNG, "The daring in war," a well-earned title, by which Clive is to this day known among the natives of India. "These disturbers of my country," writes his Highness, "the Admiral and Sabut Jung,-whom may ill fortune "attend!—without any reason whatever are warring against the Governor of Chandernagore. I, who in all things seek the good of mankind, assist him in every 66 respect.. ....I hope in God these English will be punished..... Be confident; look on my forces as your "own."- Copies of these letters fell into the hands of the English, and left them no doubt as to the hostile designs of the Nabob. In the same spirit, Surajah Dowlah conferred secretly and more than once with M. Law, the chief of the French factory at Cossim-Bazar. This Law, a nephew of the Mississippi projector, had under his command a force, partly his own and partly of fugitives from Chandernagore, amounting to nearly 200 Europeans and Sepoys. It was now demanded by the English, in conformity with the treaty of alliance, that Surajah Dowlah should dismiss this small force from his dominions. On the other hand, Law warned the Nabob of the plots and conspiracies already rife at his own Court, and urged him to declare boldly and at once against the English. The Nabob, as usual with weak minds, adopted a middle course. He pretended to banish Law from the province as far as Patna, but continued to supply him secretly with money, and said, on his taking leave, that if there should happen any thing new, he would send for him again. "Send for me again!" replied the resolute Frenchman. "Be assured, my Lord "Nabob, that this is the last time we shall ever see "each other; remember my words; we shall never meet again." 66 At this time the English Resident at the Court of Moorshedabad was Mr. Watts, lately chief of the factory at Cossim-Bazar, and selected for his new office at the Nabob's own request. From the information he supplied, Clive reports as follows: "One day the Nabob tears my "letters, and turns out our vAKEEL (envoy), and orders "his army to march; the next countermands it; sends "for the Vakeel, and begs his pardon for what he has |