considerable: but, that difficulty once overcome, the fall of the place could be calculated on as certain. The Tiger got into position at 7 A. M. on the 23rd March; and, by 9 o'clock, the batteries were silenced, their parapets destroyed, and a flag of truce hung out by the garrison, upon which the cannonade was suspended. We do not think that the land forces materially influenced the reduction of the place; for though batteries had been erected, which opened their fire at sunrise, it appears to have been of little effect; whereas one well directed broadside from the Tiger, on its coming into action, completely cleared the defences of the ravelin next the river. It is the number of guns, which can concentrically be brought to bear on one spot, and the vast weight of shot, which can at the same instant be hurled by them upon a fortress, that renders the broadside of a man-of-war so effectual: and here, as at Algiers, and, in subsequent times, at Beirút, the enemy found it impossible to resist the fury of its power.

A sum of £130,000 sterling was acquired by the capture of Chandernagore: and the way was now paved for the destruction of the Nawab. Ignorant and irresolute, that prince at one time flattered the English, and the next instant strove to attach the French to his person: but finally he dismissed Monsieur Law, who had been chief of the French factory at Cossimbazar, and to whom all those, who had escaped from Chandernagore, had fled, and thus formed a considerable party. The Nawab thus detached from him all those, who had the most interest in protecting him, while, at the same time, he continually weakened the fidelity of his own subjects by his cruelty and licentiousness.

It

The crooked policy, which was pursued at this time by the chiefs of the English factory, does not necessarily come under review in a consideration of the military details of the campaign: but it would be unpardonable to omit all notice of the conduct of our officers on this occasion. is difficult for us now to realize the position in which they were then placed; without any thoughts of conquest, they found themselves solicited and courted by the most influential parties in the province to aid in overthrowing a ruler, whom able historians have united in painting as a monster, and as one who had uniformly exhibited himself as hostile to the English and their trade. The temptation to aid in this meritorious work was too strong to be resisted; and the moral delinquency of Clive and his confederates consisted in their plotting the destruction of Suraj-ud-dowlah, at the same

moment that they were outwardly professing friendship for him. Clive was evidently led into these dishonourable negotiations by the representations made to him of the character and cruelty of the Nawab, and the chances which were afforded by the excited feelings of his subjects against him, for the recovery and extension of the English power and trade. We look upon it as unfortunate, that any treaty was made with the Nawab in the first instance, and think that full reparation should have been exacted for our unfortunate officers and men, who fell victims to his cruelty in the Black Hole. Had Clive taken a higher and a bolder tone, he would not have left this stain upon his memory, and the English could not have been reproached with unfaithfulness in their engagements.

Three months were consumed in negociations with the conspirators and, on the 13th of June, the whole force, which had assembled at Chandernagore, commenced their route-the Europeans with the ammunition and stores in boats, and the sepoys marching along the right bank of the river. On the same day, Mr. Watts, who had up to this time continued on terms of apparent amity with the Nawab, made his escape from Múrshedabad, and, with the gentlemen who were at Cossimbazar, fled to Aghardip, and thence in a small boat proceeded down the river to meet the expedition. His flight overwhelmed the Nawab with terror. He had been about to attack Mir Jaffir's house, when he heard of it: but he immediately endeavored to patch up a hollow truce with that old friend of his grandfather, and strove to detach him from the confederation. The Nawab moved out with all his force on the 19th, but halted at Munkarah; and Clive with all his force had, the previous evening, arrived at the small fort of Kutwa, where he found sufficient grain to supply an army of 10,000 men for a year. The rains set in with great violence on the 20th; but Clive felt he had now advanced too far to retreat; and, after some hours of mature reflection, on the 21st, and in opposition to the advice and opinion of a council of war, he determined to cross the river, and attack the Nawab. His situation at that moment was not devoid of peril. At a distance of 150 miles from his ships, and without either support or reserves, he could but cast all upon one throw; and, if he lost, with a rapid river in his rear, he was sure to be annihilated. Notwithstanding these considerations, there is no doubt that he acted right, not perhaps so much in a military point of view, as in a political; for we cannot believe, upon a careful review of the case, that Clive ever coolly calculated upon engaging and defeating the

vast force of the Nawab with 3,000 men and six guns. He was merely to play his part in the coming action, and the conspirators were to do the rest for him. Thus we find Clive taking up such a position at Plassey, as enabled him to sustain during the whole day the ineffectual cannonade of the Muhammadans; and, although he kept up a fire from his own guns on the enemy, yet his anger, when Major Kilpatrick advanced to attack the enemy's guns, showed that he wished rather to wait upon events, than to strive to bend them to his purpose. The conspirators persuaded the Nawab to retire from the action; and then the whole native army, ignorant of the intentions of their chiefs, and suspecting that each man was more a traitor than himself, speedily fled from the plain. The small French force made a decided stand; but, partly from the fire of Clive's guns, and partly from the pressure of the crowd of fugitives, they soon also gave way, and Clive remained master of the field.

Ours is not perhaps a very flattering view of an action, which generally has been considered so famous: but we do not think the praise, which has been bestowed on Clive and his army for their intrepidity, misplaced, although the courage exhibited by them, was more of a moral, than of a physical, nature. Had Mir Jaffier not been a traitor, Clive would probably have been destroyed; and to compare this action with the victories gained over the intrepid Mexicans by Cortez, is to assimilate things which are totally dissimilar. There was no fighting worth speaking of; and had a mob of totally unarmed men of equal numbers been assembled together, they could scarcely have opposed less resistance to the English than the Nawab's army did; or, if moved by such an extreme panic, as was exhibited on this occasion, could they well have separated with less loss. We are told that Clive cannonaded a body of 50,000 men for a whole day; yet their casualties only amounted to 500 killed and an equal number wounded: while on his own side, there were only 23 killed and 49 wounded.

After the battle, Clive hastened on towards Múrshedabad, and, on the 29th, he entered the city; when all the arrangements were made for the installation of the new Nawab, Mir Jaffier Khan, and the payment of the different sums to the English leaders, and the army and navy. A sum of Rs. 72,71,666, in coined silver, was paid as a first instalment, and a large part of the force was employed in the welcome duty of escorting it to Calcutta. Many disputes however arose as to the proper division of the spoil; and, when some of the military officers drew

up and signed a protest, remonstrating with Clive for the part which he found it necessary to take, he instantly put them all in arrest, and sent the ringleaders to Calcutta. His con

duct, in apportioning so much of the gifts of Mir Jaffier to Admiral Watson and the fleet, shows a generous nature; and the following letter, to the officers of the army who remonstrated on that occasion, is characteristic of the man:

GENTLEMEN, I have received both your remonstrance and protest. Had you consulted the dictates of your own reason, those of justice, or the respect due to your commanding officer, I am persuaded such a paper, so highly injurious to your own honour as officers, could never have escaped you.

You say you were assembled at a council to give your opinion about a matter of property. Pray, Gentlemen, how comes it that a promise of a sum of money from the Nabob, entirely negotiated by me, can be deemed a matter of right and property? So very far from it, it is now in my power to return to the Nabob the money already advanced, and leave it to his option whether he will perform his promise or not. You have stormed no town, and found the money there; neither did you find it in the plains of Plassey, after the defeat of the Nabob. In short, Gentlemen, it pains me to remind you, that what you are to receive is entirely owing to the care I took of your interest. Had I not interfered greatly in it, you had been left to the Company's generosity, who perhaps would have thought you sufficiently rewarded in receiving a present of six months' pay; in return for which, I have been treated with the greatest disrespect and ingratitude; and, what is still worse, you have flown in the face of my authority, for over-ruling an opinion, which, if passed, would have been highly injurious to your own reputation, being attended with injustice to the Navy, and been of the worst consequences to the cause of the nation and the Company.

I shall, therefore, send the money down to Calcutta, give directions to the agents of both parties to have it shroffed; and when the Nabob signifies his pleasure (on whom it solely depends) that the money be paid you, you shall then receive it, and not before.

Your behaviour has been such, that you cannot expect I should interest myself any further in your concerns. I therefore retract the promise, I made the other day, of negotiating either the rest of the Nabob's promise, or the one-third, which was to be received in the same manner as the rest of the public money, at three yearly equal payments.

I am, Gentlemen,

Your most obedient, humble servant,

ROBT. CLIVE.

We must rapidly pass over much of what follows in Captain Broome's work. A detachment under Major Coote was sent in pursuit of the French, who had fled to the northward: but they succeeded in making good their retreat, and took refuge at Benares: and the detachment, after suffering considerable hardships at such an inclement season of the year, and having advanced as far as Chuprah, considered it prudent to return to Patna, which they reached on the 13th of August. The immediate object of the expedition was not accomplished; but it was useful as showing

the determination of the English character; and it was possibly the means of keeping the Rajah Ram Narain of Patna from openly joining with the French, or raising his standard in revolt against the new Nawab. The situation, in which this prince now found himself, was by no means agreeable. The great Hindu and Muhammadan leaders at Patna, Midnapore, Dacca and Purneah, together with Rajah Dulub Ram, the Dewan and Chief of the Hindu faction, were all more or less inimical to him: and those, who did not actually revolt, were only restrained from it through fear of the English: wherever this fear did not extend, revolts and insurrections arose. was the state of the province of Bengal for several years.

Such

Meanwhile, Clive sedulously applied himself to raising and training a body of native infantry of a superior descriptionthose formerly entertained in this Presidency having been very inferior. When he first landed, he commenced what was a new system in Bengal, and supplied the men, not only with European arms and accoutrements, but with similar clothing to that of the Europeans, and drilled and exercised them in the same manner. Most of the men so raised were Muhammadans; for the natives of the province did not make good soldiers, and the Muhammadans, who came from the Upper Provinces to seek service with the native princes, were a much finer race of men than the people of Bengal. Clive had already raised and equipped one battalion, and the organization of the second was steadily progressing. The judgment, which he shewed in the formation of this force, is worthy of great praise, although he was by no means the first person, who sought to raise a native force after a European model. On Clive's return to Calcutta, after arranging affairs at Múrshedabad, he first turned his attention to the state of the fortifications in Fort William, which had been commenced in the close of the previous year, and were progressing but slowly. He soon had the outline of the enciente completed: and, in September 1758, the ravelins and the covered way were finished.

The Court of Directors, previous to the receipt of the intelligence of their brilliant prospects in Bengal, and of how much they were indebted to the one leading man there, had appointed a new council for Bengal, making no mention at all of Colonel Clive; but, when the orders came out, it was felt that it would have been highly injudicious to act upon them, and Clive continued at the head of the Government. The time was indeed critical and few could have been found in India, who would have ventured to undertake the responsibility which Clive did. He exhibited far greater qualities as a statesman and a ruler