Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

abandoning one strong position after another. But, after a good chase, he came up with them near the village of Covrepauk, and thoroughly defeated them, after a hard-fought battle. The French then fled to the protecting walls of Pondicherry, and Clive, with nine pieces of their cannon, and some prisoners, returned to Fort St. David.

After other exploits, in this same year, 1752, Clive, with 200 recruits, who had just been landed from England at Madras, 500 newly raised Sepoys, and with four twenty-four pounders attacked Covelong, an important fort in the Carnatic, about twenty miles south of Fort St. David, which mounted 30 pieces of cannon, and was garrisoned by 50 French and 300 sepoys. Clive's recruits are represented as being the very refuse of our London prisons. But as this extraordinary man had become a general suddenly and as if by inspiration, so had he the faculty of making soldiers in a week out of vagabonds and cut-purses. At first his jail-birds showed some trepidation, but Clive shamed them out of their fears, and by the time the fort surrendered the fellows were heroes.

From Covelong, Clive and his little force flew to Chingliput, a fort distant about forty miles, and garrisoned by French and natives in their service. Chingliput fell, as did every place that Clive attacked in person.

M

PLASSEY.

A. D. 1757. June 23.

EVERY reader must be familiar with the dismal tale of the Black Hole of Calcutta. That factory had been attacked on the 16th June, 1756, by Suraj-u-Dowlah, the new nabob of Bengal, a young, dissolute, rapacious, and cruel tyrant; and it had fallen, not because the English garrison was so weak in numbers, but because there was not an officer of skill and spirit to command it. Had Robert Clive been there, the vast barbaric host would have been discomfited and put to the rout on the first day of their siege; but Clive, who had gone to England on sick leave, was far away from Bengal at this critical moment.

The barbarities practised on the English, and the horrible death of 123 of them in the Black Hole, called aloud for vengeance; and Suraj-u-Dowlah was such a monster that no security could be enjoyed either by the English or by the natives in Calcutta, so long as he sat upon the musnud at Moorshedabad, and ruled over Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa. But Clive, "The Daring in War," was soon preparing to come against him.*

On the 16th October, 1756, Clive and Admiral Watson set sail from Madras for the Hooghly. The force consisted of five of his Majesty's ships, and five of the Company's, having on board 900 European infantry and 1,500 sepoys. Five hundred more sepoys were expected from Bombay. It was not until the 22nd December that Clive reached the Fulta, a village on the left bank of the Hooghly, about twenty miles in a straight line below Calcutta. Here he found the mournful English fugitives from that city. With a small part of this

* Clive's exploits gained him from the natives the name of Sabut Jung, or the Daring in War.

force the Daring in War beat the nabob's general Monichund, who had come down from Calcutta with 3,000 horse and foot; captured the force of Budge-Budge; sent the natives scampering up the country; and, on the 2nd January, 1757, took possession of the fort and town of Calcutta, without losing a man.

So complete was the panic of the Nabob's troops that Major Coote, with only fifty Europeans and one hundred sepoys, scoured the country for miles, destroying or capturing a vast quantity of rice and other provisions, and making good booty besides. At the end of January, Suraj-u-Dowlah, with horrible threats and imprecations came down from Moorshedabad, with an immense army of cavalry and infantry. Clive was utterly without cavalry, having only one horse which had been brought from Madras; but with 1,500 soldiers, Europeans and sepoys, and 600 brave English sailors who had been landed from the fleet, he thoroughly beat the tyrant at a short distance from the city, and compelled him to implore for peace. As Clive expected that the Nabob would be joined by 400 or 500 Frenchmen from the neighbouring factory of Chandernagore, he granted him peace for the present.

No sooner had Suraj-u-Dowlah returned to his capital and recovered from his panic than he sent emissaries to Golconda to invite that brave and skilful French officer, M. Bussy, with his troops, into Bengal.

Losing no time, Clive and Admiral Watson went up the Hooghly, bombarded Chandernagore, and took that important stronghold, although it was garrisoned by 900 French.

After playing off all the tricks of Eastern diplomacy and state-craft, Suraj-u-Dowlah drew together an immense army at Plassey, where he encamped, in the expectation of being joined by M. Bussy and his disciplined Frenchmen, and by other confederates. By degrees nearly every man, horse, elephant, musket, fire-lock, and cannon he possessed were collected in that strong and commanding position. But there was treachery in the camp, and the Nabob was believed to have rendered himself odious to a great part of the army. Meer Jaffier, a Mahommedan soldier of fortune, and the commander-in-chief of the forces, engaged to abandon the Nabob and join the English with such troops as he could bring over with him; but the conduct of this chief was so unsteady, so

doubly treacherous and equivocating, that little reliance could be placed on any engagement he made.

Clive resolved to attack Suraj-u-Dowlah, and, though not without reluctance, Admiral Watson agreed to send 200 of his sailors with him.

Marching steadily on from Chandernagore, Clive reached Patlee on the 16th June, and detached Captain Coote to take Cutwah, a mud fort, about twelve miles higher up, and commanding the passage of the river Cossimbuzar. After firing a few shots the garrison fled out of the fort, wherein Coote found rice enough to supply an army of 10,000 men for a whole year. In the evening Clive came up with his main body and encamped in the plain; but the next day the rain, setting in with terrible violence, obliged him to seek shelter for his army in the houses and mud huts of the town of Cutwah, which stood near the fort.

On the 17th June a letter was received from Meer Jaffier; but it was very unsatisfactory. Clive determined not to cross the river of Cossimbuzar-the holiest branch of the Ganges-until he should obtain some further securities or assurances from Jaffier. On the 20th, the anniversary of the Black Hole tragedy, two emissaries from that chief stole into our camp, and assurances were given that the chief would be true to his word, and that he would be sure to join Clive with at least 3,000 of the Nabob's horse. But the rogue had lied so often that it was impossible to believe him.

The mind of the English commander was naturally disquieted by suspicion and misgivings. With the assistance of Meer Jaffier's 3,000 horse, he made sure of victory, but without this accession of force he almost despaired if not of victory, of being able to turn it to good account, as his very small army was wholly destitute of cavalry. The greatness of the stake for which he was playing with so small an army, the heavy responsibility that lay upon him, rendered him irresolute and nervous, and he had recourse, for the first and last time in his life, to a council-of-war. Having on the morning of the 21st, assembled his officers to the number of fifteen, he proposed the following questions:-" Whether the army should immediately cross into the island of Cossimbuzar, and at all risks attack the Nabob? or whether, availing themselves of the great quantity of rice which they had

taken at Cutwah, they should maintain themselves there during the rainy season, and in the mean time invite the Mahrattas to enter the province and join them?" Contrary to the established practice, Clive gave his opinion first-and it was, that they should remain where they were. Majors Kilpatrick and Grant with six other officers agreed with Clive; but Captain Coote differed with him, and his opposite opinion was supported by six other officers. Coote's notion was "that the common soldiers were at present confident of success; that a stop so near the enemy would naturally quell this ardour; that the arrival of the French troops with M. Law would add strength to the Nabob's force, and vigour to his councils; that they would surround the English army and cut off its communication with Calcutta, when distresses not yet foreseen might ruin it as effectually as the loss of a battle." He therefore advised that they should either advance and decide the contest immediately, or immediately return to Calcutta. But Clive's majority of nine had scarcely carried the question against Coote's seven, when Clive himself felt dissatisfied at the decision, and his mind began to resume its vigour and firmness. To collect his thoughts he retired alone to a grove of mango-trees a little beyond the town of Cutwah; he remained there for an hour in deep meditation; but then he returned to his quarters with the word "Forward" on li lips; and, without consulting or caring for the council-of-war, he gave his orders that the army should cross the river on the following morning.

At the hour appointed, at sunrise, the troops were put in motion: they had all crossed the river by four in the afternoon, and after a rapid march they encamped, long after sunset, in a mango grove near Plassey, and within a mile of the enemy. Clive, kept awake by his anxious thoughts, heard during the whole night the drums, trumpets, and cymbals of the Nabob's host, who had been warned of the approach of the English, and were making their barbaric music to dispel drowsiness. Suraj-u-Dowlah, who was in the camp at Plassey, was as sleepless as Clive; his army was immense, but he had no personal courage, and no confidence in his chiefs. It appears that he counted most on a few French artillerymen who had joined him. At last the day

« ZurückWeiter »