Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 2.djvu/70

 *. 248 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS Avere embarked on board Admiral Watson's squadron ; the passage was rendered tedious by adverse winds, but the armament arrived safely in Bengal. Clive proceeded with his usual promptitude ; he routed the garrison which the nabob had placed in Fort William, recovered Calcutta, and took Hoogly by storm. Surajah Dowlah, who was as cowardly as he was cruel, now sought to negotiate peace, but at the same time he secretly urged the French to come to his assist- ance. This duplicity could not be concealed from Clive and W^atson. They de- termined accordingly to attack Chandernagore, the chief possession of the French in Bengal, before the force there could be strengthened by new arrivals either from the South of India or Europe. Watson directed the expedition by water ; Clive by land. The success of the combined movements was rapid and com- plete. The fort, the garrison, the artillery, the military stores, all fell into the hands of the English, and nearly five hundred European troops were among the prisoners. Soon after, Clive marched to attack Surajah Dowlah near Plassey. At sun- rise on the morning of June 23, 1757, the army of the nabob, consisting of 40,- 000 infantry and 15,000 cavalry, supported by fifty pieces of heavy ordnance, ad- vanced to attack the English army, which did not exceed three thousand men in all, and had for its artillery but a few field-pieces. But the nabob had no con- fidence in his army, nor his army in him ; the battle was confined to a distant cannonade, in which the nabob's artillery was quite ineffective, while the English field-pieces did great execution. Surajah's terror became greater every moment, and led him to adopt the insidious advice of a traitor, Meer Jaffier, and order a retreat. Clive saw the movement, and the confusion it occasioned in the undis- ciplined hordes ; he ordered his battalions to advance, and, in a moment, the hosts of the nabob became a mass of inextricable confusion. In less than an hour they were dispersed, never again to reassemble ; though only five or six hundred fell ; their camp, guns, baggage, with innumerable wagons and cattle, remained in the hands of the victors. With the loss of only 22 soldiers killed and 50 wounded, Clive had dispersed an army of 60,000 men, and conquered an empire larger and more populous than Great Britain. Surajah Dowlah fled from the field of battle to his capital, but, not deeming himself safe there, he tried to escape by the river to Patna. He was subsequently captured, and bar- barously murdered by the son of Meer Jaffier. In the meantime Clive led Meer Jaffier in triumph to Moorshedabad, and installed him as nabob. Immense sums of money were given to the servants of the company ; Clive received for his share between two and three hundred thousand pounds. Nor was this all : Shah Alum, the son of the Emperor of Delhi, having invaded Ben- gal, Clive delivered Meer Jaffier from this formidable enemy, and was rewarded with the jaghire or estate of the lands south of Calcutta, for which the company were bound to pay the nabob a quit-rent of about thirty thousand pounds annu- ally. But the gratitude of Meer Jaffier did not last long ; weary of his depend- ence on the English, he sought an alliance with the Dutch, who had a factory at Chinsurah. The authorities of this place sent earnest letters to their countr}^men