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96 ever the British settlements in Bengal. To have adopted the former of these courses would have manifested the highest degree of folly; to have chosen the latter would have argued the extreme of pusillanimity. Nothing remained but to anticipate the active hostility of the Soubahdar to deprive him of the advantage of choosing his own time for terminating the hollow peace which subsisted – in form indeed, but scarcely in fact; and by a bold and vigorous stroke to destroy the power which, if left unmolested, would ere long fall upon the English in a spirit of rancorous hate, deeply seated, long cherished, and envenomed by the mortifying recollection of recent defeat.

"But, besides the hopelessness of permanently maintaining relations of peace with Suraja Dowlah, there was another motive to a prompt and decisive course. The contest which had been waged for years between the English and French for the supremacy in India was not decided, and the depression of the English would have been accompanied by the elevation of their European enemies. The Soubahdar concluded a treaty of alliance with the English, by which the enemies of either of the contracting parties were to be regarded as enemies of both. He then sought the friendship of the French, with whom his allies were at war, and intreated the aid of the former to drive the latter out of Bengal. Such were the grounds on which the war with Suraja Dowlah was commenced, and their sufficiency can scarcely be denied, except by those who question the lawfulness of war altogether.

"The praise due to the choice of a wise and vigorous course, in preference to wretched expedients, which sooner or later must have led to the destruction of the British interests, belong exclusively to Clive. But the applause which is justly due to his statesmanlike views cannot, however, be extended to all the means to which he resorted in realising them. He cannot be blamed for uniting with Meer Jaffier, because, when the deposition