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[1755-1756 A.D.]

CLIVE'S RETURN AS GOVERNOR (1756 A.D.) Within two years the health of Clive grew strong in his native air, and his spirit began to pine for active service. On the other hand, experience of his merits, and apprehension of a war with France, rendered both the king's ministers and the East India Company eager to employ him. From the former he received the rank of lieutenant colonel in the army, from the latter the office of governor of Fort St. David. Landing at Bombay with some troops in November, 1755, he found there Admiral Watson and a British squadron. There was little at that time on the coast of Coromandel to demand the exertions of these two commanders, and they thought the opportunity tempting to reduce in conjunction a formidable nest of pirates, about two degrees south of Bombay. Their spoils, valued at £120,000, were shared as prize-money between the naval and military captors.

Having performed this service in February, 1756, Clive pursued his voyage to Fort St. David, and took the charge of his government on the 20th of June the very day when the nawab of Bengal was storming Fort William. In fact a crisis had now occurred on the shores of the Hooghly, threatening the utmost danger, and calling for the utmost exertion.

SIRAJ-UD-DAULA

The viceroys of Bengal, like the viceroys of the Deccan, retained only a nominal dependence on the Mughal Empire. From their capital, Murshidabad (Moorshedabad) - -"a city," says Clive, "as extensive, populous, and rich as the city of London" - they sent forth absolute and uncontrolled decrees over the wide provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and Behar, ill-disguised by the mockery of homage to that empty phantom "the Kings of Kings" at Delhi. The old nawab, Ali Vardi Khan, had died in April, 1756, and been succeeded by his grandson, Siraj-ud-Daula (Surajah Dowlah), a youth only nineteen years of age. Siraj-ud-Daula combined in no small degree a ferocious temper with a feeble understanding. The torture of birds and beasts had been the pastime of his childhood, and the sufferings of his fellow-creatures became the sport of his riper years. His favourite companions were buffoons and flatterers, with whom he indulged in every kind of debauchery, amongst others, the immoderate use of ardent spirits. Towards the Europeans, and the English especially, he looked with ignorant aversion, and still more ignorant contempt. He was often heard to say that he did not believe there were ten thousand men in all Europe.

Differences were not slow to arise between such a prince as Siraj-ud-Daula and his neighbours, the British in Bengal. He seized the British factory at Kasimbazar, the port of Murshidabad upon the river, and he retained the chiefs of that settlement as his prisoners. Siraj-ud-Daula had heard much of the wealth at Calcutta; that wealth he was determined to secure; and he soon appeared before the gates at the head of a numerous army.

THE BLACK HOLE OF CALCUTTA (1756 A.D.)

The defences of Calcutta, notwithstanding the wrath which they had stirred in the nawab, were at this time slight and inconsiderable. For a garrison there were less than two hundred Europeans, and scarcely more than one thousand natives, hastily trained as militia, and armed with matchlocks.

No example of spirit was set them by their chiefs. On the contrary, the gov

[1756 A.D.] ernor, Mr. Drake, and the commanding officer, Captain Minchin, being struck with a disgraceful panic, embarked in a boat and escaped down the Hooghly.

Under these circumstances a civilian, Mr. Holwell, though not the senior servant of the company, was by the general voice called to the direction of affairs. At this time the nawab's artillery was already thundering at the walls, yet under every disadvantage Mr. Holwell protracted for two days longer the defence of the fort. When at length, on the evening of the 20th of June, all resistance had ceased, the nawab seated himself in the great hall of the factory, and received the congratulations of his courtiers on his prowess. Soon after he sent for Mr. Holwell, to whom he expressed much resentment at the presumption of the English in daring to defend their fort, and much dissatisfaction at his having found so small a sum-only 50,000 rupees - in their treasury. On the whole, however, he seemed more gracious than his character gave reason to expect, and he promised, "on the word of a soldier," as he said, that the lives of his prisoners should be spared.

Thus dismissed by the tyrant, and led back to the other captives, Mr. Holwell cheered them with the promise of their safety. We are told how, relieved from their terrors and unconscious of their doom, they laughed and jested amongst themselves. But their joy and their jesting were of short duration. They had been left at the disposal of the officers of the guard, who determined to secure them for the night in the common dungeon of the fort - a dungeon known to the English by the name of the Black Hole - its size only eighteen feet by fourteen; its airholes only two small windows, and these overhung by a low veranda. Into this cell-hitherto designed and employed for the confinement of some half dozen malefactors at a time—it was now resolved to thrust a hundred and forty-five European men and one Englishwoman, some of them suffering from recent wounds, and this in the night of the Indian summer-solstice, when the fiercest heat was raging! Into this cell accordingly the unhappy prisoners, in spite of their expostulations, were driven at the point of the sabre, the last, from the throng and narrow space, being pressed in with considerable difficulty, and the doors being then by main force closed and locked behind them.b

Nothing in history or fiction [says Macaulay], not even the story which Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the horrors which were recounted by the few survivors of that night. They cried for mercy. They strove to burst the door. Holwell, who even in that extremity retained some presence of mind, offered large bribes to the gaolers. But the answer was that nothing could be done without the nawab's orders, that the nawab was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody woke him.

Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled each other down; fought for the places at the windows; fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies; raved, prayed, blasphemed; implored the guards to fire among them. The gaolers in the meantime held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The nawab had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome work.

When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would not have known, staggered one by one out of the

[1756 A.D.] charnel-house. A pit was instantly dug. The dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung into it promiscuously and covered up.

But these things which after the lapse of years cannot be told or read without horror, awakened neither remorse nor pity in the bosom of the savage nawab. He inflicted no punishment on the murderers. He showed no tenderness to the survivors. Some of them, indeed, from whom nothing was to be gained, were suffered to depart; but those from whom it was thought that any thing could be extorted were treated with execrable cruelty. Holwell, unable to walk, was carried before the tyrant, who reproached him, threatened him, and sent him up the country in irons, together with some other gentlemen who were suspected of knowing more than they chose to tell about the treasures of the company. These persons, still bowed down by the sufferings of that great agony, were lodged in miserable sheds, and fed only with grain and water, till at length the intercessions of the female relations of the nawab procured their release. One Englishwoman had survived that night. She was placed in the harem of the prince at Murshidabad.

ENGLISH ALLIANCE WITH THE NAWAB

At Calcutta meanwhile Siraj-ud-Daula was lending a ready ear to the praises of his courtiers, who assured him that his reduction of the British settlement was the most heroic and glorious achievement performed in India since the days of Timur. In memory of the Divine blessing (for so he deemed it) he ordered that on his arms Calcutta should thenceforward bear the name of Alinagar-"the Port of God." Another edict declared that no Englishman should ever again presume to set foot within the territory. Then, leaving a garrison of three thousand men in Calcutta, and levying large sums, by way of contribution, from the Dutch at Chinsura and the French at Chandarnagar, Siraj-ud-Daula returned in triumph to his capital.

It was not till the 16th of August that tidings of the events of Calcutta reached Madras. Measures were then in progress for sending a detachment into the Deccan to counteract the influence of Bussy. But all other considerations were overborne by the cry for vengeance against Siraj-ud-Daula, and the necessity of an expedition to Bengal. It happened fortunately that Admiral Watson and his squadron had returned from the western coast and were now at anchor in the roads. It happened also, from the projected march to the Deccan, that the land-forces were at this period combined, and ready for action. The presidency summoned Clive from Fort St. David, and appointed him chief of the intended expedition.

THE BRITISH IN INDIA

On the whole the force entrusted to Clive amounted to nine hundred Europeans, and fifteen hundred 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 by contrary winds at sea, did not enter the Hooghly until the middle of December, and then they pushed forward against Calcutta. The scanty garrison left by Siraj-ud-Daula ventured to sally forth, but was easily routed with the loss of one hundred and fifty mer. Calcutta,

[1757 A.D.] after one or two random discharges from the wall, was quietly abandoned to the English, who thus on the 2nd 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 Еуго.

At these tidings, Siraj-ud-Daula, much irritated, but also in some degree alarmed, marched back from Murshidabad at the head of forty thousand men. By this time intelligence had reached India of the declaration of war between France and England, and the nawab proposed to the French at Chandarnagar 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 nawab's overture, but made an overture of their own to the English for a treaty of neutrality. As, however, the French at Chandarnagar 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.

During this time Siraj-ud-Daula 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. The loss of the English in the action which ensued was no less than one hundred sepoys and one hundred and twenty 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 nawab, that object was fully attained. Siraj-ud-Daula passed from an ignorant contempt of the English to a kind of timid awe. 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 nawab's account.

Three days after a peace had been signed on these conditions the new-born friendship of the nawab for the English, joined to some fear of a northward invasion from the Afghans, led him so far as to propose another article for an intimate alliance, offensive and defensive. It seemed ignominious, and a stain on the honour of England, 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 gentlemen at Calcutta were then callous to every feeling but that of their own losses. "Believe me," says Clive [in a letter to the governor of Madras], "they are bad subjects, and rotten at heart. The riches of Peru and Mexico should not induce me to live 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 Chandarnagar, Clive wrote to the nawab applying for permission, and received an evasive

[1757 A.D.] answer, which he thought fit to construe as assent. Operations were immediately commenced; Clive directing them by land, and Watson by water. The French made a gallant resistance, but were soon overpowered and compelled to surrender the settlement, on which occasion above four hundred European soldiers became prisoners of war.

The nawab, who by this time had gone back to his capital, was most highly exasperated on learning of the attack upon Chandarnagar, 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 Bussy in the Deccan. His letters pressed that officer to march 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. Copies of these letters fell into the hands of the English, and left them no doubt as to the hostile designs of the nawab.

CLIVE'S DUPLICITY TOWARDS OMICHUND

With this conviction strongly rooted in his mind, and the danger to Bengal full before his eyes, the bold spirit of Clive determined to set aside of his own authority the instructions commanding his immediate return to Madras. He entered eagerly into the conspiracy forming at Murshidabad to depose Sirajud-Daula, and to place on the throne the general of the forces, Mir Jafar. It may readily be supposed that in these negotiations Mir Jafar was liberal, nay lavish, in his promises of compensation to the company, and rewards to their soldiers. Still more essential was the engagement into which he entered, that on the approach of an English force, he would join their standard with a large body of his troops.

In these negotiations between the native conspirators and the English chiefs, the principal agent next to Mr. Watts was a wealthy Hindu merchant of the name of Omichund. A long previous residence at Calcutta had made him well acquainted with English forms and manners, while it had lost him none of the craft and subtlety that seemed almost the birthright of a Bengal. As the time for action drew near, he began to feel - not scruples at the treachery not even the apprehensions as to the success but doubts whether his own interests had been sufficiently secured. He went to Mr. Watts and threatened to disclose the whole conspiracy to Siraj-ud-Daula unless it were stipulated that he should receive thirty lacs of rupees, or 300,000l., as a reward for his services — which stipulation he insisted on seeing added as an article in the treaty pending between Mir Jafar and the English. Mr. Watts, in great alarm for his own life, soothed Omichund with general assurances, while he referred the question as speedily as possible to the members of the select comImittee at Calcutta.

The committee were equally unwilling to grant and afraid to refuse the exorbitant claim of Omichund. But an expedient was suggested by Clive. Two treaties were drawn up; the one on white paper intended to be real and valid and containing no reference to Omichund, the other on red paper with a stipulation in his favour, but designed as fictitious and merely with the object to deceive him. The members of the committee, like Clive, put their names without hesitation to both treaties; but Admiral Watson, with higher spirit, would only sign the real one. It was foreseen that the omission of such a

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