Part 49

The unsatisfactory treaty entered into with Surajah Dowlah had been pressed upon Clive by the Calcutta merchants, who "thought the alliance would enable them to get rid of the rival French station at Chandernagore. The Subahdar gave a doubtful answer to their proposal to attack this settlement, which Clive interpreted as an assent. The French were overpowered, and surrendered their fort. Surajah Dowlah was now indignant against his recent allies; and sought the friendship of the French officers. Clive, called by the natives 'the daring in war,' was also the most adroit, and,—for the truth cannot be disguised,—the most unscrupulous in policy. The English resident at the Court of Moorshedabad, under Clive's instructions, encouraged a conspiracy to depose the Subahdar, and to raise his general, Meer Jaffier, to the supreme power. A Hindoo of great wealth and influence, Omichund, engaged in this conspiracy. After it had proceeded so far as to become the subject of a treaty between a Select Committee at Calcutta and Meer Jaffier, Omichund demanded that a condition should be inserted in that treaty, to pay him thirty lacs of rupees as a reward for his service. The merchants at Calcutta desired the largest share of any donation from Meer Jaffier, as a consideration for themselves, and were by no means willing that £300,000 should go to a crafty Hindoo. Clive suggested an expedient to secure Omichund's fidelity, and yet not to comply with his demands—to have two treaties drawn; a real one on red paper, a fictitious one on white. The white treaty was to be shown to Omichund, and he was to see with his own eyes that he had been properly cared for. Clive and the Committee signed this; as well as the red treaty which was to go to Meer Jaffier. Admiral Watson refused to sign the treacherous document. On the 19th of May, 1773, Clive stood up in his place in the House of Commons, to defend himself upon this charge against him, amongst other accusations. He boldly acknowledged that the stratagem of the two treaties was his invention;—that admiral Watson did not sign it; but that he should have thought himself authorised to sign for him in consequence of a conversation; that the person who did sign thought he had sufficient authority for so doing. 'He (Clive) forged admiral Watson's name, says lord Macaulay. … The courage, the perseverance, the unconquerable energy of Clive have furnished examples to many in India who have emulated his true glory. Thank God, the innate integrity of the British character has, for the most part, preserved us from such exhibitions of 'true policy and justice.' The English resident, Mr. Watts, left Moorshedabad. Clive wrote a letter of defiance to Surajah Dowlah, and marched towards his capital. The Subahdar had come forth from his city, as populous as the London of a century ago, to annihilate the paltry army of 1,000 English, and their 2,000 Sepoys disciplined by English officers, who dared to encounter his 60,000. He reached the village of Plassey with all the panoply of oriental warfare. His artillery alone appeared sufficient to sweep away those who brought only eight field pieces and two howitzers to meet his fifty heavy guns. Each gun was drawn by forty yoke of oxen; and a trained elephant was behind each gun to urge it over rough ground or up steep ascents. Meer Jaffier had not performed his promise to join the English with a division of the Subahdar's army. It was a time of terrible anxiety with the English commander. Should he venture to give battle without the aid of a native force? He submitted his doubt to a Council of War. Twelve officers, himself amongst the number, voted for delay. Seven voted for instant action. Clive reviewed the arguments on each side, and finally cast away his doubts. He determined to fight, without which departure from the opinion of the majority, he afterwards said, the English would never have been masters of Bengal. On the 22nd of June [1757], his little army marched fifteen miles, passed the Hooghly, and at one o'clock of the morning of the 23rd rested under the mangoe-trees of Plassey. As the day broke, the vast legions of the Subahdar,—15,000 cavalry, 45,000 infantry,—some armed with muskets, some with bows and arrows, began to surround the mangoe-grove and the hunting-lodge where Clive had watched through the night. There was a cannonade for several hours. The great guns of Surajah Dowlah did little execution. The small field-pieces of Clive were well served. One of the chief Mohammedan leaders having fallen, disorder ensued, and the Subahdar was advised to retreat. He himself fled upon a swift camel to Moorshedabad. When the British forces began to pursue, the victory became complete. Meer Jaffier joined the conquerors the next day. Surajah Dowlah did not consider himself safe in his capital; and he preferred to seek the protection of a French detachment at Patna. He escaped from his palace disguised; ascended the Ganges in a small boat; and fancied himself secure. A peasant whose ears he had cut off recognised his oppressor, and with some soldiers brought him back to Moorshedabad. In his presence-chamber now sat Meer Jaffier, to whose knees the wretched youth crawled for mercy. That night Surajah Dowlah was murdered in his prison, by the orders of Meer Jaffier's son, a boy as blood-thirsty as himself."

_C. Knight, Popular History of England, volume 6, chapter 14._

ALSO IN: _G. B. Malleson, Founders of the Indian Empire: Clive, chapters 8-10._

_G. B. Malleson, Lord Clive (Rulers of India)._

_G. B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India, chapter 3._

_E. Thornton, History of British Empire in India, volume 1, chapter 4._

INDIA: A. D. 1757-1772. Clive's Administration in Bengal. Decisive war with the Moghul Emperor and the Nawab of Oudh. English Supremacy established.

"The battle of Plassey was fought on June 23, 1757, an anniversary afterwards remembered when the Mutiny of 1857 was at its height. History has agreed to adopt this date as the beginning of the British Empire in the East. But the immediate results of the victory were comparatively small, and several years passed in hard fighting before even the Bengalis would admit the superiority of the British arms. {1718} For the moment, however, all opposition was at an end. Clive, again following in the steps of Dupleix, placed Mir Jafar upon the Viceregal throne at Murshidabad, being careful to obtain a patent of investiture from the Mughal court. Enormous sums were exacted from Mir Jafar as the price of his elevation. … At the same time, the Nawab made a grant to the Company of the zamindari or landholder's rights over an extensive tract of country round Calcutta, now known as the District of the Twenty-four Parganas. The area of this tract was 882 square miles. In 1757 the Company obtained only the zamindari rights—i. e., the rights to collect the cultivator's rents, with the revenue jurisdiction attached [see below: A. D. 1785-1793]. The superior lordship, or right to receive the land tax, remained with the Nawab. But in 1759, this also was granted by the Delhi Emperor, the nominal Suzerain of the Nawab, in favour of Clive, who thus became the landlord of his own masters, the Company. … Lord Clive's claims to the property as feudal Suzerain over the Company were contested in 1764; and on the 23d June, 1765, when he returned to Bengal, a new deed was issued, confirming the unconditional jagir to Lord Clive for ten years, with reversion afterwards to the Company in perpetuity. … In 1758, Clive was appointed by the Court of Directors the first Governor of all the Company's settlements in Bengal. Two powers threatened hostilities. On the west, the Shahzada or Imperial prince, known afterwards as the Emperor Shah Alam, with a mixed army of Afghans and Marhattas, and supported by the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, was advancing his own claims to the Province of Bengal. In the south, the influence of the French under Lally and Bussy was overshadowing the British at Madras. The name of Clive exercised a decisive effect in both directions. Mir Jafar was anxious to buy off the Shahzada, who had already invested Patna. But Clive marched in person to the rescue, with an army of only 450 Europeans and 2,500 sepoys, and the Mughal army dispersed without striking a blow. In the same year, Clive despatched a force southwards under Colonel Forde, which recaptured Masulipatam from the French, and permanently established British influence throughout the Northern Circars, and at the court of Haidarabad. He next attacked the Dutch, the only other European nation who might yet prove a rival to the English. He defeated them both by land and water; and their settlement at Chinsurah existed thenceforth only on sufferance. From 1760 to 1765, Clive was in England. He had left no system of government in Bengal, but merely the tradition that unlimited sums of money might be extracted from the natives by the terror of the English name. In 1761, it was found expedient and profitable to dethrone Mir Jafar, the English Nawab of Murshidabad, and to substitute his son-in-law, Mir Kasim, in his place. On this occasion, besides private donations, the English received a grant of the three Districts of Bardwan, Midnapur, and Chittagong, estimated to yield a net revenue of half a million sterling. But Mir Kasim soon began to show a will of his own, and to cherish dreams of independence. … The Nawab alleged that his civil authority was everywhere set at nought. The majority of the Council at Calcutta would not listen to his complaints. The Governor, Mr. Vansittart, and Warren Hastings, then a junior member of Council, attempted to effect some compromise. But the controversy had become too hot. The Nawab's officers fired upon an English boat, and forthwith all Bengal rose in arms [1763]. Two thousand of our sepoys were cut to pieces at Patna; about 200 Englishmen, who there and in other various parts of the Province fell into the hands of the Muhammadans, were massacred. But as soon as regular warfare commenced, Mir Kasim met with no more successes. His trained regiments were defeated in two pitched battles by Major Adams, at Gheriah and at Udha-nala; and he himself took refuge with the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, who refused to deliver him up. This led to a prolongation of the war. Shah Alam, who had now succeeded his father as Emperor, and Shuja-ud-Daula, the Nawab Wazir of Oudh, united their forces, and threatened Patna, which the English had recovered. A more formidable danger appeared in the English camp, in the form of the first sepoy mutiny. This was quelled by Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Munro, who ordered 24 of the ringleaders to be blown from guns, an old Mughal punishment. In 1764, Major Munro won the decisive battle of Baxar [or Buxar], which laid Oudh at the feet of the conquerors, and brought the Mughal Emperor as a suppliant to the English camp. Meanwhile, the Council at Calcutta had twice found the opportunity they loved of selling the government of Bengal to a new Nawab. But in 1765, Clive (now Baron Clive of Plassey in the peerage of Ireland) arrived at Calcutta, as Governor of Bengal for the second time. Two landmarks stand out in his policy. First, he sought the substance, although not the name, of territorial power, under the fiction of a grant from the Mughal Emperor. Second, he desired to purify the Company's service, by prohibiting illicit gains, and guaranteeing a reasonable pay from honest sources. In neither respect were his plans carried out by his immediate successors. But the beginning of our Indian rule dates from this second governorship of Clive, as our military supremacy had dated from his victory at Plassey. Clive landed, advanced rapidly up from Calcutta to Allahabad, and there settled in person the fate of nearly half of India. Oudh was given back to the Nawab Wazir, on condition of his paying half a million sterling towards the expenses of the war. The Provinces of Allahabad and Kora, forming the greater part of the Doab, were handed over to Shah Alam himself, who in his turn granted to the Company the diwani or fiscal administration of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and also the territorial jurisdiction of the Northern Circars. A puppet Nawab was still maintained at Murshidabad, who received an annual allowance from us of £600,000. Half that amount, or about £300,000, we paid to the Emperor as tribute from Bengal. Thus was constituted the dual system of government, by which the English received all the revenues and undertook to maintain the army; while the criminal jurisdiction, or nizamat, was vested in the Nawab. In Indian phraseology, the Company was diwan and the Nawab was nizam. The actual collection of the revenues still remained for some years in the hands of native officials. … Lord Clive quitted India for the third and last time in 1767. {1719} Between that date and the governorship of Warren Hastings, in 1772, little of importance occurred in Bengal beyond the terrible famine of 1770, which is officially reported to have swept away one-third of the inhabitants. The dual system of government, established in 1765 by Clive, had proved a failure. Warren Hastings, a tried servant of the Company, distinguished alike for intelligence, for probity, and for knowledge of oriental manners, was nominated Governor by the Court of Directors, with express instructions to carry out a predetermined series of reforms. In their own words, the Court had resolved to 'stand forth as diwan, and to take upon themselves, by the agency of their own servants, the entire care and administration of the revenues.' In the execution of this plan, Hastings removed the exchequer from Murshidabad to Calcutta, and appointed European officers, under the now familiar title of Collectors, to superintend the revenue collections and preside in the courts. Clive had laid the territorial foundations of the British Empire in Bengal. Hastings may be said to have created a British administration for that Empire."

_Sir W. W. Hunter, India (article in Imperial Gazetteer of India) volume 4, pages 389-394._

ALSO IN: _W. M, Torrens, Empire in Asia: How we came by it, chapters 4-6._

_Sir C. Wilson, Lord Clive, chapters 7-9._

_G. B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India, chapter 7._

INDIA: A. D. 1758-1761. Overthrow of French domination in the Carnatic. The decisive Battle of Wandiwash.

"In 1758 the fortunes of the French in India underwent an entire change. In April a French fleet arrived at Pondicherry. It brought a large force under the command of Count de Lally, who had been appointed Governor-General of the French possessions in India. … No sooner had he landed at Pondicherry than he organised an expedition against Fort St. David; but he found that no preparations had been made by the French authorities. There was a want alike of coolies, draught cattle, provisions, and ready money. But the energy of Lally overcame all obstacles. … In June, 1758, Lally captured Fort St. David. He then prepared to capture Madras as a preliminary to an advance on Bengal. He recalled Bussy from the Dekhan to help him with his Indian experiences; and he sent the Marquis de Conflans to succeed Bussy in the command of the Northern Circars. [A strip of territory on the Coromandel coast, which had been ceded to the French in 1752 by Salabut Jung, Nizam of the Dekhun, was so called; it stretched along 600 miles of seaboard, from the Carnatic frontier northwards.] … The departure of Bussy from the Northern Circars was disastrous to the French. The Raja of Vizianagram revolted against the French and sent to Calcutta for help. Clive despatched an English force to the Northern Circars, under the command of Colonel Forde; and in December, 1758, Colonel Forde defeated the French under Conflans [at Condore, or Kondur, December 9], and prepared to recover all the English factories on the coast which had been captured by Bussy. Meanwhile Count de Lally was actively engaged at Pondicherry in preparations for the siege of Madras. He hoped to capture Madras, and complete the destruction of the English in the Carnatic; and then to march northward, capture Calcutta, and expel the English from Bengal. … Lally reached Madras on the 12th of December, 1758, and at once took possession of Black Town. He then began the siege of Fort St. George with a vigour and activity which commanded the respect of his enemies. His difficulties were enormous. … Even the gunpowder was nearly exhausted. At last, on the 16th of February, 1759, an English fleet arrived at Madras under Admiral Pocock, and Lally was compelled to raise the siege. Such was the state of party feeling amongst the French in India, that the retreat of Lally from Madras was received at Pondicherry with every demonstration of joy. The career of Lally in India lasted for two years longer, namely from February, 1759, to February, 1761; it is a series of hopeless struggles and wearying misfortunes. In the Dekhan, Salabut Jung had been thrown into the utmost alarm by the departure of Bussy and defeat of Conflans. He was exposed to the intrigues and plots of his younger brother, Nizam Ali, and he despaired of obtaining further help from the French. Accordingly he opened up negotiations with Colonel Forde and the English. Forde on his part recovered all the Captured factories [taking Masulipatam by storm, April 7, 1759, after a fortnight's siege], and drove the French out of the Northern Circars. He could not however interfere in the domestic affairs of the Dekhan, by helping Salabut Jung against Nizam Ali. In 1761 Salabut Jung was dethroned and placed in confinement; and Nizam Ali ascended the throne at Hyderabad as ruler of the Dekhan. In the Carnatic the French were in despair. In January, 1760, Lally was defeated by Colonel Coote at Wandiwash, between Madras and Pondicherry. Lally opened up negotiations with Hyder Ali, who was rising to power in Mysore; but Hyder Ali as yet could do little or nothing. At the end of 1760 Colonel Coote began the siege of Pondicherry. Lally … was ill in health and worn out with vexation and fatigue. The settlement was torn by dissensions. In January, 1761, the garrison was starved into a capitulation, and the town and fortifications were levelled with the ground. A few weeks afterwards the French were compelled to surrender the strong hill-fortress of Jingi, and their military power in the Carnatic was brought to a close." On the return of Count Lally to France "he was sacrificed to save the reputation of the French ministers. … He was tried by the parliament of Paris. … In May, 1766, he was condemned not only to death, but to immediate execution."

_J. T. Wheeler, Short History of India, part 3, chapter 2._

"The battle of Wandewash, … though the numbers on each side were comparatively small, must yet be classed amongst the decisive battles of the world, for it dealt a fatal and decisive blow to French domination in India."

_G. B. Malleson, History of the French in India, chapter 12._

ALSO IN: _G. B. Malleson, Decisive Battles of India, chapter 4._

INDIA: A. D. 1767-1769. The first war with Hyder Ali.