Rulers of India: Lord Clive, George Bruce Malleson [sci fi books to read txt] 📗
- Author: George Bruce Malleson
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Again was Clive surprised. Once more were the coolness, the clearness of intellect, the self-reliance, of one man pitted against the craft and wiles of his enemies. Once again did the one man triumph. He was, I repeat, as much surprised as the least of his followers. Let the reader picture to himself the situation. To wake up in darkness and find an enemy, whose numbers were unknown, practically in possession of the centre of the town, in the native inn of which he had gone peacefully to sleep but two hours before; his followers being shot down; some of them scared; all just awakening; none of them cognizant of the cause of the uproar; many of the intruders of the same nation, speaking the same language as himself; all this occurring in the sandy plains of India: surely such a situation was sufficient to test the greatest, the most self-reliant, of warriors. It did not scare Clive. In one second his faculties were as clear as they had ever been in the peaceful council chamber. He recognized, on the instant, that the attackers had missed their mark. They had indeed fired a volley into the caravanserai in which he had lain with his officers, and had shattered the box which lay at his feet and killed the sentry beside him, but they had not stopped to finish their work. Instantly Clive ran into one of the pagodas, ordered the men there, some two hundred, to follow him, and formed them alongside of a large body of sipáhís who were firing volleys in every direction, whom he believed to be his own men. To them he went, upbraided them for their purposeless firing, and ordered them to cease. But the men were not his men, but French sipáhís. Before he had recognized the fact, one of them made a cut at him with his talwar, and wounded him. Still thinking they were his own men, Clive again urged them to cease fire. At the moment there came up six Frenchmen, who summoned him to surrender. Instantly he recognized the situation. Instantly his clear brain asserted itself. Drawing himself up he told the Frenchmen that it was for them and not for him to talk of surrender; bade them look round and they would see how they were surrounded. The men, scared by his bearing, ran off to communicate the information to their commander. Clive then proceeded to the other pagoda to rally the men posted there. The French sipáhís took advantage of his absence to evacuate the town. The Frenchmen and the European deserters meanwhile had occupied the lesser pagoda. They had become by this time more scared than the surprised English. Their leader had recognized that he was in a trap. His mental resources brought to him no consolation in his trouble. He waited quietly till the day broke, and then led his men into the open. But Clive had waited too; and when the Frenchmen emerged, he received them with a volley which shot down twelve of them. They hurried back to their place of shelter, when Clive, wishing to stop the effusion of blood, me to the front, pointed out to them their hopeless position, and offered them terms. One of them, an Irishman, levelled his musket at Clive, and fired point-blank at him. The ball missed Clive, but traversed the bodies of two sergeants behind him. The French commander showed his disapproval of the act by surrendering with his whole force. Clive had sent the Maráthás and the cavalry to pursue the French sipáhís. These caught them, and cut them up, it is said, to a man.
Thus ended the affair at Samiáveram. I have been particular in giving the details which illustrate the action of Clive, because they bring home to the reader the man as he was: a man not to be daunted, clear and cool-headed under the greatest difficulties; a born leader; resolute in action; merciful as soon as the difficulties had been overcome: a man, as Carlyle wrote of another, not less distinguished in his way, 'who will glare fiercely on an object, and see through it, and conquer it; for he has intellect, he has will, force beyond other men.'
The end was now approaching. On the 15th of May, Clive captured Paichanda. He then marched on Utátur, forced d'Auteuil to retreat on Volkonda, and, following him thither, compelled him (May 29) to surrender. Three days later Law followed his example. The entire French force before Trichinopoli gave itself up to Major Lawrence. Its native allies did the same. The one regrettable circumstance in the transaction was the murder of Chánda Sáhib at the instance of his rival.
After this, Clive returned to Fort St. David; was employed during the fall of the year in reducing places which still held out against the Nawáb. This campaign tried his constitution, already somewhat impaired, very severely, and on its conclusion, in the beginning of October, he proceeded to Madras to rest from his labours. There he married Miss Maskeleyne, the sister of a fellow-writer, with whom, in the earlier days of his Indian life, he had contracted a friendship. But his health continued to deteriorate, and he was forced to apply for leave to visit Europe. This having been granted, he quitted Madras in February, 1753, full of glory. His character had created his career. But for his daring, his prescience, his genius, and his great qualities as a soldier, it is more than probable that Dupleix would have succeeded in establishing the basis of a French empire in Southern India.
The visit of Clive to England was scarcely the success hoped for. His fame had preceded him, and the Court of Directors had assured him, through the Governor of Madras, that they had 'a just sense of his services.' Perhaps the person who had been the most astonished at his brilliant success was his own father. He had remarked, when he first heard of his victories, that 'the booby had some sense after all.' But then it must be recollected that the father had seen but little of the boy during his childhood and growing years, and that his unfavourable impression had been derived probably from the aversion shown by the lad to enter his own profession. But even he, now, was prepared to follow the stream, and give a hearty reception to the defender of Arcot. So, at first, Clive was fêted and toasted in a manner which must have convinced him that his services were appreciated. The Court of Directors carried out the promise I have referred to by giving a great banquet in his honour, and by voting him a diamond-hilted sword as a token of their esteem. This honour, however, Clive declined unless a similar decoration were also bestowed upon the chief under whom he had first served, Major Stringer Lawrence.
Clive had earned sufficient money to live with great comfort in England. He did not look forward then to return to India as an absolute certainty. Rather he desired to enter Parliament, and await his opportunity. It happened that the year following his arrival the dissolution of the existing Parliament gave him an opportunity of contesting the borough of St. Michael in Cornwall. He was returned as a supporter of Mr. Fox, but the return was petitioned against, and although the Committee reported in his favour, the House decided, from a purely party motive, to unseat him. This disappointment decided Clive. He had spent much money, and with this one result—to be thwarted in his ambition. He resolved then to return to the seat of his early triumphs, and applied to the Court for permission to that effect.
The Court not only granted his request, but obtained for him the commission of lieutenant-colonel in the royal army, and named him Governor and Commander of Fort St. David, with succession to the Governorship of Madras.
Clive took with him to India three companies of artillery and 300 infantry. He was instructed to convey them to Bombay, and, joined by all the available troops of the Company and their Maráthá allies, to endeavour to wrest the Deccan from French influence. But, just as he was sailing, he discovered that, through royal influence, Colonel Scott of the Engineers, then on the spot, had been nominated to the command, with himself as his second. Not caring to take part in an expedition in which his own voice would not be the decisive voice, Clive was anxious to proceed to take up his government at Fort St. David, when, on his arrival, he learned the death of Colonel Scott. This event recalled him to the original plan. But another complication ensued. Very shortly before he had arranged to march there came the information that the French and English on the Coromandel coast had entered into a treaty, binding on the two nations in India, not to interfere in the warlike operations of native princes. The Deccan project, therefore, had to be abandoned.
Another promptly took its place. A small fort built by the great Sivají on a small island in the harbour of Viziadrug, called by the Muhammadans Gheriá, had for many years past been made the headquarters of a hereditary pirate-chief, known to the world as Angria. This man had perpetrated much evil, seizing territories, plundering towns, committing murders, robbing peaceful vessels, and had made his name feared and detested along the entire length of the Malabar coast. The necessity to punish him had long been admitted alike by the Maráthás and the English. The year preceding the Bombay Government had despatched Commodore Jones with a squadron to attack Angria's possessions. Jones accomplished something, but on arriving before Dábhol he was recalled on the ground that the season was too late for naval operations on that coast.
In the autumn of the following year Admiral Watson came out to assume command of the squadron. It had by this time become more than ever necessary to bring the affair to a definite conclusion, and, as Clive and his troops were on the spot, the Bombay Government, acting with the Maráthás, resolved to despatch the fleet and army to destroy the piratical stronghold. Of the expedition, which reached its destination in February, it is sufficient to state that in two days it destroyed Gheriá. Thence Clive pursued his voyage to the Coromandel coast, and arrived at Fort St. David on the 20th of June.
On that very day there occurred in Calcutta the terrible tragedy of the Black Hole. The Súbahdár of Bengal, Bihár, and Orissa, the Nawáb Siráj-ud-daulá, had, for some fancied grievance, prompted probably by the hope of plunder, seized the English factory at Kásimbázár, near his capital of Murshidábád, plundered it, imprisoned the garrison, and had thence marched against Calcutta. He attacked that settlement on the 15th of June, and after a siege of four days, conducted with great want of leading on the part of the English, obtained possession of it. The English Governor, Mr. Drake, the senior military officer, and many others, had fled for refuge on board the ships in the river Húglí, which immediately had weighed anchor and stood downwards, leaving about 145 men, some of them high in office, and one lady, Mrs. Carey, a prey to the enemy. These were seized and taken before the Nawáb and his commander of the forces, Mír Jafar by name. The Nawáb spoke kindly to them, and ordered that they should be guarded for the night, having no intention whatever, there is the strongest reason to believe, that any harm should befall them. But, owing to the natural cruelty or indifference of their guards, they were thrust, after the departure of the Nawáb, into a small
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