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All was now ready for action. Mr. Watts fled secretly from Moorshedabad. Clive
put his troops in motion, and wrote to the Nabob in a tone very different from
that of his previous letters. He set forth all the wrongs which the British had
suffered, offered to submit the points in dispute to the arbitration of Meer
Jaffier, and concluded by announcing that, as the rains were about to set in, he
and his men would do themselves the honor of waiting on his Highness for an
answer.
Surajah Dowlah instantly assembled his whole force, and marched to encounter the
English. It had been agreed that Meer Jaffier should separate himself from the
Nabob, and carry over his division to Clive. But, as the decisive moment
approached, the fears of the conspirator overpowered his ambition. Clive had
advanced to Cossimbuzar; the Nabob lay with a mighty power a few miles off at
Plassey; and still Meer Jaffier delayed to fulfill his engagements, and returned
evasive answers to the earnest remonstrances of the English general.
Clive was in a painfully anxious situation. He could place no confidence in the
sincerity or in the courage of his confederate; and, whatever confidence he
might place in his own military talents, and in the valor and discipline of his
troops, it was no light thing to engage an army twenty times numerous as his
own. Before him lay a river over which it was easy to advance, but over which,
if things went ill, not one of his little band would ever return. On this
occasion, for the first and for the last time, his dauntless spirit, during a
few hours, shrank from the fearful responsibility of making a decision He called
a council of war. The majority pronounced against fighting; and Clive declared
his concurrence with the majority. Long afterwards, he said that he had never
called but one council of war, and that, if he had taken the advice of that
council, the British would never have been masters of Bengal. But scarcely had
the meeting broken up when he was himself again. He retired alone under the
shade of some trees, and passed near an hour there in thought. He came back
determined to put everything to the hazard, and gave orders that all should be
in readiness for passing the river on the morrow.
The river was passed; and, at the close of a toilsome day's march, the army,
long after sunset, took up its quarters in grove of mango-trees near Plassey,
within a mile of the enemy. Clive was unable to sleep; he heard, through the
whole night the sound of drums and cymbals from the vast camp of the Nabob. It
is not strange that even his stout heart should no and then have sunk, when he
reflected against what odds, and for what a prize, he was in a few hours to
contend.
Nor was the rest of Surajah Dowlah more peaceful. His mind, at once weak and
stormy, was distracted by wild and horrible apprehensions. Appalled by the
greatness and nearness of the crisis, distrusting his captains, dreading every
one who approached him, dreading to be left alone, he sat gloomily in his tent,
haunted, a Greek poet would have said, by the furies of those who had cursed him
with their last breath in the Black Hole.
The day broke, the day which was to decide the fate of India. At sunrise the
army of the Nabob, pouring through many openings of the camp, began to move
towards the grove where the English lay. Forty thousand infantry, armed with
firelocks, pikes, swords, bows and arrows, covered the plain. They were
accompanied by fifty pieces of ordnance of the largest size, each tugged by a
long team of white oxen, and each pushed on from behind by an elephant. Some
smaller guns, under the direction of a few French auxiliaries, were perhaps more
formidable. The cavalry were fifteen thousand, drawn, not from the effeminate
population of Bengal, but from the bolder race which inhabits the northern
provinces; and the practiced eye of Clive could perceive that both the men and
the horses were more powerful than those of the Carnatic. The force which he had
to oppose to this great multitude consisted of only three thousand men. But of
these nearly a thousand were English; and all were led by English officers, and
trained in the English discipline. Conspicuous in the ranks of the little army
were the men of the Thirty-Ninth Regiment, which still bears on its colors,
amidst many honorable additions won under Wellington in Spain and Gascony, the
name of Plassey, and the proud motto, Primus in Indis.
The battle commenced with a cannonade in which the artillery of the Nabob did
scarcely any execution, while the few fieldpieces of the English produced great
effect. Several of the most distinguished officers in Surajah Dowlah's service
fell. Disorder began to spread through his ranks. His own terror increased every
moment. One of the conspirators urged on him the expediency of retreating. The
insidious advice, agreeing as it did with what his own terrors suggested, was
readily received. He ordered his army to fall back, and this order decided his
fate. Clive snatched the moment, and ordered his troops to advance. The confused
and dispirited multitude gave way before the onset of disciplined valor. No mob
attacked by regular soldiers was ever more completely routed. The little band of
Frenchmen, who alone ventured to confront the English, were swept down the
stream of fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah Dowlah were dispersed,
never to reassemble. Only five hundred of the vanquished were slain. But their
camp, their guns, their baggage, innumerable wagons, innumerable cattle,
remained in the power of the conquerors. With the loss of twenty-two soldiers
killed and fifty wounded, Clive had scattered an army of near sixty thousand
men, and subdued an empire larger and more populous than Great Britain.
Meer Jaffier had given no assistance to the English during the action. But, as
soon as he saw that the fate of the day was decided, he drew off his division of
the army, and, when the battle was over, sent his congratulations to his ally.
The next morning he repaired to the English quarters, not a little uneasy as to
the reception which awaited him there. He gave evident signs of alarm when a
guard was drawn out to receive him with the honors due to his rank. But his
apprehensions were speedily removed, Clive came forward to meet him, embraced
him, saluted him as Nabob of the three great provinces of Bengal, Bahar, and
Orissa, listened graciously to his apologies, and advised him to march without
delay to Moorshedabad.
Surajah Dowlah had fled from the field of battle with all the speed with which a
fleet camel could carry him, and arrived at Moorshedabad in little more than
twenty-four hours. There he called his councilors round him. The wisest advised
him to put himself into the hands of the English, from whom he had nothing worse
to fear than deposition and confinement. But he attributed this suggestion to
treachery. Others urged him to try the chance of war again. He approved the
advice, and issued orders accordingly. But he wanted spirit to adhere even
during one day to a manly resolution. He learned that Meer Jaffier had arrived,
and his terrors became insupportable. Disguised in a mean dress, with a casket
of jewels in his hand, he let himself down at night from a window of his palace,
and accompanied by only two attendants, embarked on the river for Patna.
In a few days Clive arrived at Moorshedabad, escorted by two hundred English
soldiers and three hundred sepoys. For his residence had been assigned a palace,
which was surrounded by a garden so spacious that all the troops who accompanied
him could conveniently encamp within it. The ceremony of the installation of
Meer Jaffier was instantly performed. Clive led the new Nabob to the seat of
honor, placed him on it, presented to him, after the immemorial fashion of the
East, an offering of gold, and then, turning to the natives who filled the hall,
congratulated them on the good fortune which had freed them from a tyrant. He
was compelled on this occasion to use the services of an interpreter; for it is
remarkable that, long as he resided in India, intimately acquainted as he was
with Indian politics and with the Indian character, and adored as he was by his
Indian soldiery, he never learned to express himself with facility in any Indian
language. He is said indeed to have been sometimes under the necessity of
employing, in his intercourse with natives of India, the smattering of
Portuguese which he had acquired, when a lad, in Brazil.
The new sovereign was now called upon to fulfill the engagements into which he
had entered with his allies. A conference was held at the house of Jugget Seit,
the great banker, for the purpose of making the necessary arrangements. Omichund
came thither, fully believing himself to stand high in the favor of Clive, who,
with dissimulation surpassing even the dissimulation of Bengal, had up to that
day treated him with undiminished kindness. The white treaty was produced and
read. Clive then turned to Mr. Scrafton, one of the servants of the Company, and
said in English, "It is now time to undeceive Omichund." "Omichund," said Mr.
Scrafton in Hindostanee, "the red treaty is a trick, you are to have nothing."
Omichund fell back insensible into the arms of his attendants. He revived; but
his mind was irreparably ruined. Clive, who, though little troubled by scruples
of conscience in his dealings with Indian politicians, was not inhuman, seems to
have been touched. He saw Omichund a few days later, spoke to him kindly,
advised him to make a pilgrimage to one of the great temples of India, in the
hope that change of scene might restore his health, and was even disposed,
notwithstanding all that had passed, again to employ him in the public service.
But from the moment of that sudden shock, the unhappy man sank gradually into
idiocy. He who had formerly been distinguished by the strength of his
understanding and the simplicity of his habits, now squandered the remains of
his fortune on childish trinkets, and loved to exhibit himself dressed in rich
garments, and hung with precious stones. In this abject state he languished a
few months, and then died.
We should not think it necessary to offer any remarks for the purpose of
directing the judgment of our readers, with respect to this transaction, had not
Sir John Malcolm undertaken to defend it in all its parts. He regrets, indeed,
that it was necessary to employ means so liable to abuse as forgery; but he will
not admit that any blame attaches to those who deceived the deceiver. He thinks
that the English were not bound to keep faith with one who kept no faith with
them and that, if they had fulfilled their engagements with the wily Bengalee,
so signal an example of successful treason would have produced a crowd of
imitators. Now, we will not discus this point on any rigid principles of
morality. Indeed, it is quite unnecessary to do so for, looking at the question
as a question of expediency in the lowest sense of the word, and using no
arguments but such as Machiavelli might have employed in his conferences with
Borgia, we are convinced that Clive was altogether in the wrong, and that he
committed, not merely a crime, but a blunder. That honesty is the best policy is
a maxim which we firmly believe to be generally correct, even with respect to
the temporal interest of individuals; but with respect to societies, the rule is
subject to still fewer exceptions, and that for this reason, that the life of
societies is longer than the life of individuals. It is possible to mention men
who have owed great worldly prosperity to breaches of private faith; but we
doubt whether it be possible to mention a state which has on the whole been a
gainer by a breach of public faith. The entire history of British India is an
illustration of the great truth, that it is not prudent to oppose perfidy to
perfidy, and that the most efficient weapon with which men can encounter
falsehood is truth. During a long course of years, the English rulers of India,
surrounded by allies and enemies whom no engagement could bind, have generally
acted with sincerity and uprightness; and the event has proved that sincerity
and uprightness are wisdom. English valor and English intelligence have done
less to extend and to preserve our Oriental empire than English veracity. All
that we could have gained by imitating the doublings, the evasions, the
fictions, the perjuries which have been employed against us, is as nothing, when
compared with what we have gained by being the one power in India on whose word
reliance can be placed. No oath which superstition can devise, no hostage
however precious, inspires a hundredth part of the confidence which is produced
by the "yea, yea," and "nay, nay," of a British envoy. No fastness, however
strong by art or nature, gives to its inmates a security like that enjoyed by
the chief who, passing through the territories of powerful and deadly enemies,
is armed with the British guarantee. The mightiest princes of the East can
scarcely, by the offer of enormous usury, draw forth any portion of the wealth
which is concealed under the hearths of their subjects. The British Government
offers little more than four per cent. and avarice hastens to bring forth tens
of millions of rupees from its most secret repositories. A hostile monarch may
promise mountains of gold to our sepoys on condition that they will desert the
standard of the Company The Company promises only a moderate pension after a
long service. But every sepoy knows that the promise of the Company will be
kept; he knows that if he lives a hundred years his rice and salt are as secure
as the salary of the Governor-General; and he knows that there is not another
state in India which would not, in spite of the most solemn vows, leave him to
die of hunger in a ditch as soon as he had ceased to be useful. The greatest
advantage which government can possess is to be the one trustworthy government
in the midst of governments which nobody can trust This advantage we enjoy in
Asia. Had we acted during the last two generations on the principles which Sir
John Malcolm appears to have considered as sound, had we as often as we had to
deal with people like Omichund, retaliated by lying and forging, and breaking
faith, after their fashion, it is our firm belief that no courage or capacity
could have upheld our empire.
Sir John Malcolm admits that Clive's breach of faith could be justified only by
the strongest necessity. As we think that breach of faith not only unnecessary,
but most inexpedient, we need hardly say that we altogether condemn it.
Omichund was not the only victim of the revolution. Surajah Dowlah was taken a
few days after his flight, and was brought before Meer Jaffier. There he flung
himself on the ground in convulsions of fear, and with tears and loud cries
implored the mercy which he had never shown. Meer Jaffier hesitated; but his son
Meeran, a youth of seventeen, who in feebleness of brain and savageness of
nature greatly resemble the wretched captive, was implacable. Surajah Dowlah was
led into a secret chamber, to which in a short time the minister of death were
sent. In this act the English bore no part and Meer Jaffier understood so much
of their feelings that h thought it necessary to apologies to them for having
avenge them on their most malignant enemy.
The shower of wealth now fell copiously on the Company and its servants. A sum
of eight hundred thousand pound sterling, in coined silver, was sent down the
river from Moorshedabad to Fort William. The fleet which conveyed this treasure
consisted of more than a hundred boats, and performed its triumphal voyage with
flags flying and music playing. Calcutta, which a few months before had been
desolate, was now more prosperous than ever. Trade revived; and the signs of
affluence appeared in every English house. As to Clive, there was no limit to
his acquisitions but his own moderation. The treasury of Bengal was thrown open
to him. There were piled up, after the usage of Indian princes, immense masses
of coin, among which might not seldom he detected the florins and byzants with
which, before any European ship had turned the Cape of Good Hope, the Venetians
purchased the stuffs and spices of the East. Clive walked between heaps of gold
and silver, crowned with rubies and diamonds, and was at liberty to help
himself. He accepted between two and three hundred thousand pounds.
The pecuniary transactions between Meer Jaffier and Clive were sixteen years
later condemned by the public voice, and severely criticized in Parliament. They
are vehemently defended by Sir John Malcolm. The accusers of the victorious
general represented his gains as the wages of corruption, or as plunder extorted
at the point of the sword from a helpless ally. The biographer, on the other
hand, considers these great acquisitions as free gifts, honorable alike to the
donor and to the receiver, and compares them to the rewards bestowed by foreign
powers on Marlborough, on Nelson, and on Wellington. It had always, he says,
been customary in the East to give and receive presents; and there was, as yet,
no Act of Parliament positively prohibiting English functionaries in India from
profiting by this Asiatic usage. This reasoning, we own, does not quite satisfy
us. We do not suspect Clive of selling the interests of his employers or his
country; but we cannot acquit him of having done what, if not in itself evil,
was yet of evil example. Nothing is more clear than that a general ought to be
the servant of his own government, and of no other. It follows that whatever
rewards he receives for his services ought to be given either by his own
government, or with the full knowledge and approbation of his own government.
This rule ought to be strictly maintained even with respect to the merest
bauble, with respect to a cross, a medal, or a yard of colored riband. But how
can any government be well served, if those who command its forces are at
liberty, without its permission, without its privity, to accept princely
fortunes from its allies? It is idle to say that there was then no Act of
Parliament prohibiting the practice of taking presents from Asiatic sovereigns.
It is not on the Act which was passed at a later period for the purpose of
preventing any such taking of presents, but on grounds which were valid before
that Act was passed, on grounds of common law and common sense, that we arraign
the conduct of Clive. There is no Act that we know of, prohibiting the Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs from being in the pay of continental powers, but it
is not the less true that a Secretary who should receive a secret pension from
France would grossly violate his duty, and would deserve severe punishment. Sir
John Malcolm compares the conduct of Clive with that of the Duke of Wellington.
Suppose,--and we beg pardon for putting such a supposition even for the sake of
argument,--that the Duke of Wellington had, after the campaign of 1815, and
while he commanded the army of occupation in France, privately accepted two
hundred thousand pounds from Lewis the Eighteenth, as a mark of gratitude for
the great services which his Grace had rendered to the House of Bourbon; what
would be thought of such a transaction? Yet the statute-book no more forbids the
taking of presents in Europe now than it forbade the taking of presents in Asia
then.
At the same time, it must be admitted that, in Clive's case, there were many
extenuating circumstances. He considered himself as the general, not of the
Crown, but of the Company. The Company had, by implication at least, authorized
its agents to enrich themselves by means of the liberality of the native
princes, and by other means still more objectionable. It was hardly to be
expected that the servant should entertain strict notions of his duty than were
entertained by his masters. Though Clive did not distinctly acquaint his
employers with what had taken place and request their sanction, he did not, on
the other hand, by studied concealment, show that he was conscious of having
done wrong. On the contrary, he avowed with the greatest openness that the
Nabob's bounty had raised him to affluence. Lastly, though we think that he
ought not in such a way to have taken anything, we must admit that he deserves
praise for having taken so little. He accepted twenty lacs of rupees. It would
have cost him only a word to make the twenty forty. It was a very easy exercise
of virtue to declaim in England against Clive's rapacity; but not one in a
hundred of his accusers would have shown so much self-command in the treasury of
Moorshedabad.
Meer Jaffier could be upheld on the throne only by the hand which had placed him
on it. He was not, indeed, a mere boy; nor had he been so unfortunate as to be
born in the purple. He was not therefore quite so imbecile or quite so depraved
as his predecessor had been. But he had none of the talents or virtues which his
post required; and his son and heir, Meeran, was another Surajah Dowlah. The
recent revolution had unsettled the minds of men. Many chiefs were in open
insurrection against the new Nabob. The viceroy of the rich and powerful
province of Oude, who, like the other viceroys of the Mogul was now in truth an
independent sovereign, menaced Bengal with invasion. Nothing but the talents and
authority of Clive could support the tottering government. While things were in
this state, a ship arrived with dispatches which had been written at the India
House before the news of the battle of Plassey had reached London. The Directors
had determined to place the English settlements in Bengal under a government
constituted in the most cumbrous and absurd manner; and to make the matter
worse, no place in the arrangement was assigned to Clive. The persons who were
selected to form this new government, greatly to their honor, took on themselves
the responsibility of disobeying these preposterous orders, and invited Clive to
exercise the supreme authority. He consented; and it soon appeared that the
servants of the Company had only anticipated the wishes of their employers. The
Directors, on receiving news of Clive's brilliant success, instantly appointed
him governor of their possessions in Bengal, with the highest marks of gratitude
and esteem. His power was now boundless, and far surpassed even that which
Dupleix had attained in the south of India. Meer Jaffier regarded him with
slavish awe. On one occasion, the Nabob spoke with severity to a native chief of
high rank, whose followers had been engaged in a brawl with some of the
Company's sepoys. "Are you yet to learn," he said, "who that Colonel Clive is,
and in what station God has placed him?" The chief, who, as a famous jester and
an old friend of Meer Jaffier, could venture to take liberties, answered, "I
affront the Colonel! I, who never get up in the morning without making three low
bows to his jackass!" This was hardly an exaggeration. Europeans and natives
were alike at Clive's feet. The English regarded him as the only man who could
force Meer Jaffier to keep his engagements with them. Meer Jaffier regarded him
as the only man who could protect the new dynasty against turbulent subjects and
encroaching neighbors.
It is but justice to say that Clive used his power ably and vigorously for the
advantage of his country. He sent forth an expedition against the tract lying to
the north of the Carnatic. In this tract the French still had the ascendancy;
and it was important to dislodge them. The conduct of the enterprise was
entrusted to an officer of the name of Forde, who was then little known, but in
whom the keen eye of the governor had detected military talents of a high order.
The success of the expedition was rapid and splendid.
While a considerable part of the army of Bengal was thus engaged at a distance,
a new and formidable danger menaced the western frontier. The Great Mogul was a
prisoner at Delhi in the hands of a subject. His eldest son, named Shah Alum,
destined to be, during many years, the sport of adverse fortune, and to be a
tool in the hands, first of the Mahrattas, and then of the English, had fled
from the palace of his father. His birth was still revered in India. Some
powerful princes, the Nabob of Oude in particular, were inclined to favor him.
Shah Alum found it easy to draw to his standard great numbers of the military
adventurers with whom every part of the country swarmed. An army of forty
thousand men, of various races and religions, Mahrattas, Rohillas, Jauts, and
Afghans, were speedily assembled round him; and he formed the design of
overthrowing the upstart whom the English had elevated to a throne, and of
establishing his own authority throughout Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar.
Meer Jaffier's terror was extreme; and the only expedient which occurred to him
was to purchase, by the payment of a large sum of money, an accommodation with
Shah Alum. This expedient had been repeatedly employed by those who, before him,
had ruled the rich and unwarlike provinces near the mouth of the Ganges. But
Clive treated the suggestion with a scorn worthy of his strong sense and
dauntless courage. "If you do this," he wrote, "you will have the Nabob of Oude,
the Mahrattas, and many more, come from all parts of the confines of your
country, who will bully you out of money till you have none left in your
treasury. I beg your Excellency will rely on the fidelity of the English, and of
those troops which are attached to you." He wrote in a similar strain to the
governor of Patna, a brave native soldier whom he highly esteemed. "Come to no
terms; defend your city to the last. Rest assured that the English are staunch
and firm friends, and that they never desert a cause in which they have once
taken a part."
He kept his word. Shah Alum had invested Patna, and was on the point of
proceeding to storm, when he learned that the Colonel was advancing by forced
marches. The whole army which was approaching consisted of only four hundred and
fifty Europeans and two thousand five hundred sepoys. But Clive and his
Englishmen were now objects of dread over all the East. As soon as his advance
guard appeared, the besiegers fled before him. A few French adventurers who were
about the person of the prince advised him to try the chance of battle; but in
vain. In a few days this great army, which had been regarded with so much
uneasiness by the court of Moorshedabad, melted away before the mere terror of
the British name.
The conqueror returned in triumph to Fort William. The joy of Meer Jaffier was
as unbounded as his fears had been, and led him to bestow on his preserver a
princely token of gratitude. The quit-rent which the East India Company were
bound to pay to the Nabob for the extensive lands held by them to the south of
Calcutta amounted to near thirty thousand pounds sterling a year. The whole of
this splendid estate, sufficient to support with dignity the highest rank of the
British peerage, was now conferred on Clive for life.
This present we think Clive justified in accepting. It was a present which, from
its very nature, could be no secret. In fact, the Company itself was his tenant,
and, by its acquiescence, signified its approbation of Meer Jaffier's grant.
But the gratitude of Meer Jaffier did not last long. He had for some time felt
that the powerful ally who had set him up, might pull him down, and had been
looking round for support against the formidable strength by which he had
himself been hitherto supported. He knew that it would be impossible to find
among the natives of India any force which would look the Colonel's little army
in the face. The French power in Bengal was extinct. But the fame of the Dutch
had anciently been great in the Eastern seas; and it was not yet distinctly
known in Asia how much the power of Holland had declined in Europe. Secret
communications passed between the court of Moorshedabad and the Dutch factory at
Chinsurah; and urgent letters were sent from Chinsurah, exhorting the government
of Batavia to fit out an expedition which might balance the power of the English
in Bengal. The authorities of Batavia, eager to extend the influence of their
country, and still more eager to obtain for themselves a share of the wealth
which had recently raised so many English adventurers to opulence, equipped a
powerful armament. Seven large ships from Java arrived unexpectedly in the
Hoogley. The military force on board amounted to fifteen hundred men, of whom
about one half were Europeans. The enterprise was well timed. Clive had sent
such large detachments to oppose the French in the Carnatic that his army was
now inferior in number to that of the Dutch. He knew that Meer Jaffier secretly
favored the invaders. He knew that he took on himself a serious responsibility
if he attacked the forces of a friendly power; that the English ministers could
not wish to see a war with Holland added to that in which they were already
engaged with France; that they might disavow his acts; that they might punish
him. He had recently remitted a great part of his fortune to Europe, through the
Dutch East India Company; and he had therefore a strong interest in avoiding any
quarrel. But he was satisfied that, if he suffered the Batavian armament to pass
up the river and to join the garrison of Chinsurah, Meer Jaffier would throw
himself into the arms of these new allies, and that the English ascendancy in
Bengal would be exposed to most serious danger. He took his resolution with
characteristic boldness, and was most ably seconded by his officers,
particularly by Colonel Forde, to whom the most important part of the operations
was entrusted. The Dutch attempted to force a passage. The English encountered
them both by land and water. On both elements the enemy had a great superiority
of force. On both they were signally defeated. Their ships were taken. Their
troops were put to a total rout. Almost all the European soldiers, who
constituted the main strength of the invading army, were killed or taken. The
conquerors sat down before Chinsurah; and the chiefs of that settlement, now
thoroughly humbled, consented to the terms which Clive dictated. They engaged to
build no fortifications, and to raise no troops beyond a small force necessary
for the police of their factories; and it was distinctly provided that any
violation of these covenants should be punished with instant expulsion from
Bengal.
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