Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/117

 In India the English and French trading companies became involved in wars which arose between native rivals for power in the Deccan and in the Carnatic. The conflict between the English and French was immediately brought about by the ambition of Dupleix, the head of the French factory at Pondicherry ; but apart from this, the position of the two companies in relation to the native states was such that sooner or later the political ascendency of one or the other must have become essential to their prosperity, if not to their continued existence. Dupleix was the first practically to recognise this important fact, and had it not been for Olive it is quite possible that he would have succeeded in obtaining for the French that position in India to which the English eventually attained. The struggle arose in connection with rival claims for the offices of subahdar, or viceroy of the Deccan, and of nawab of the Carnatic. The holders of the first of these posts, though nominally subordinate to the emperors of Delhi, had long been practically independent. They were the real over-lords of the greater part of the south of India, recognised as such by, and receiving tribute from, the nawabs of the Oarnatic. On the death, in 1748, of Nizam ul Mulk, the last really powerful subahdar of the Deccan, the succession of his son, Nazir Jung, was disputed by Mirzapha Jung, one of his grandsons ; and shortly afterwards a somewhat similar dispute arose regarding the nawabship of the Carnatic, at that time held by Anwaruddin Khan, whose claim was contested by Chanda Sahib, the son-in-law of a former nawab. The two claimants having united their forces, a battle was fought on 3 Aug. 1749 at Ambur, in which Anwar ud din Khan was killed, his eldest son taken prisoner, and his second son, Mahomed Ali, afterwards better known as the Nawab Walajah, compelled with a small body of adherents to take refuge at Trichinopoly. The victory on this occasion was mainly due to the aid rendered by Dupleix, who, having espoused the cause of Mirzapha Jung and Chanda Sahib, sent them a contingent of four hundred French soldiers and two thousand sepoys, trained under French officers. Nazir Jung was killed shortly afterwards by one of his tributaries, and was succeeded as subahdar by his rival, Mirzapha Jung, who, in his turn, met his death in a revolt of some of his Pathan soldiers, when on his way to Hyderabad with an escort of French troops under M. Bussy. Meanwhile Mahomed Ali, whose cause had been espoused by the English authorities at Fort St. David, was besieged at Trichinopoly by a large force under

Chanda Sahib, and it was while this siege was in progress that Clive, having been sent to Trichinopoly with the reinforcements already referred to, conceived the idea of compelling Chanda Sahib to raise the siege, by seizing Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic. Clive's proposal was sanctioned by the governor of Fort St. David, and on 26 Aug. 1751 Clive marched from Madras in command of a detachment of five hundred men, of whom only two hundred were English, and three field pieces of artillery. Of the English officers, eight in number, who accompanied Clive, six had never been in action, and four were young men in the mercantile service of the company, who, fired by the example of Clive, had volunteered to join the expedition. On reaching Conjeveram, about forty miles from Madras, Clive, learning that the garrison in the fort of Arcot was eleven hundred strong, despatched a message to Madras for two more guns to be sent after him. The little force reached Arcot on 31 Aug., making the last march in a violent thunderstorm, and arriving to find the fort evacuated by the enemy, who, it was said, were so much alarmed by the accounts they had received of the unconcern with which Clive's force had pursued its march through the thunderstorm, that they fled in a panic. Clive occupied the fort without encountering any opposition, and at once set to work to lay in provisions for undergoing a siege. During the first week after his arrival he marched out twice with the greater part of his force to beat up the quarters of the fugitive garrison, which had taken up a position some six miles from Arcot. Two unimportant encounters took place, after which Clive and his men remained for some ten days in the fort, engaged in strengthening the works. At the end of that time the enemy, augmented by reinforcements from the neighbourhood to three thousand men, and encouraged by the cessation of Clive's sallies, took up a position within three miles of Arcot, where Clive surprised them by a night attack and put them to flight without the loss of a single man. A few days later, having detached a considerable part of his force to strengthen the detachment coming from Madras in charge of the guns for which he had applied, he was attacked by and repulsed a large body of the enemy. The occupation by the English of the fort of Arcot very speedily produced the effect which Clive had anticipated, in inducing Chanda Sahib to detach a portion of his force from Trichinopoly. On 23 Sept. four thousand of Chanda Sahib's troops, reinforced by a hundred and fifty French soldiers from Pondicherry, and by the troops already collected in the neigh-