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 210 INDIA had dependent on it three factories, one at Mah6 on the Malabar coast, one at Karikal on the Ooromandel coast, and one at Chander- nagore in Bengal. The contest in India, though conducted with great energy and abil- ity by Dupleix and Bussy on the part of the French, and by Laurence and Olive on the part of the English, led at that time to no im- portant results, but was renewed in 1756. la that year Surajah Dowlah became subahdar or viceroy of Bengal, and, having always disliked the English, soon found a pretext for making war upon them. Commencing hostilities sud- denly, while the English were yet unprepared, he captured Calcutta ; and the English portion of the garrison of Fort William, amounting to 146 persons, of whom Mr. Holwell was the chief, were shut up in the " Black Hole," where all but 23 of them perished in a single night by suffocation. (See BLACK HOLE.) Clive soon retook Calcutta with a force from Ma- dras, captured Chandernagore and its French garrison, and after various other successes de- feated the subahdar's army in the decisive bat- tle of Plassey, June 23, 1757. In the Carnatic the French were completely defeated by the English on Jan. 22, 1760, in the battle of Wan- diwash. After Plassey Surajah Dowlah was dethroned and put to death, and his vizier Meer Jaffier raised to the vacant throne. The new sovereign granted to the English, as the price of their support, an immense sum of money, a large accession of territory, and per- mission to keep such of the French posts and factories as they could conquer. These trans- actions involved the English in a war with the emperor of Delhi, and with his vassal the na- waub of Oude. Both the emperor and the na- waub succumbed after a brief contest, and by the treaty of peace the emperor ceded to the British the provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, together with the maritime districts known as the Northern Circars. The real sov- ereign of the Northern Circars was a potentate called the nizam of the Deccan, who gave to the emperor of Delhi only a nominal allegiance. At first the nizam declined to acquiesce in the cession, but subsequently he consented to it on condition that the English should aid him with troops against Hyder All, the warlike and politic sovereign of Mysore. In the war that ensued the English, notwithstanding some successes, were so hard pressed that they sought to stop the progress of Hyder by negotiation, and at last concluded, in April, 1769, a treaty with him which resulted in a mutual restitution of conquests. In 1772 Warren Hastings as- sumed the administration of the East India company's affairs in Bengal, and in 1774 re- ceived the title of governor general, being the first officer so designated. In return for the cession of Benares, he furnished troops to aid the navvaub of Oude in the subjugation of Ro- hilcund. The first war with the Mahrattas soon broke out, and considerable conquests were made, which were nearly all given up by a peace hastily concluded with them in conse- quence of the breaking out in 1760 of a war with Hyder Ali, who died Dec. 7, 1782, while the war yet raged, leaving his kingdom to his son Tippoo Sahib, who in 1784 agreed to a trea- ty of peace. In 1781 Hastings aided the na- waub vizier of Oude, then deeply in debt to the Bengal government, in exacting from the be- gums or princesses of that state at least 760,- 000 of the apanages which had been allotted to them for their maintenance on the nawaub vizier's accession in 1756. Having resigned, he was succeeded as governor general by Sir J. McPherson in 1785 ; but before he embarked for England he caused the nawaub to restore most of the amount extorted from the begums. In December, 1789, Tippoo again became in- volved in war with the English by an attack upon the kingdom of Travancore, which was under their protection. Lord Cornwallis, con- spicuous in the history of the American revo- lution, became governor general of India in 1786, and conducted the contest with such energy, that in 1792 Tippoo was compelled to agree to a treaty by which he ceded to the English about half of his dominions, and paid them 3,300,000 in money. Sir John Shore, afterward Lord Teignmouth, became governor general in 1793, and in 1798 was succeeded by the earl of Mornington. In the latter year Tippoo was incited by emissaries of the French republic, then engaged in hostilities with Great Britain, again to make war on the British, which resulted in the storming of his capital, Serin- gapatam, and his own death in the conflict, May 4, 1799. His dominions were divided between the English and their ally the nizam, and the earl of Mornington was created Marquis Wel- lesley in recognition of his successful adminis- tration. In 1803 a war broke out between the English and the Mahrattas, which proved to be the most serious ever waged by them in India. It was conducted by Gen. Lake and by Sir Ar- thur Wellesley, afterward the duke of Welling- ton, and by the brilliant success of these great commanders was terminated in December with the destruction of the Mahratta power and a vast acquisition of territory by the East India company. In consequence of border forays and outrages, war was declared against the Gorka state of Nepaul in 1814, which resulted in a further augmentation of British territory. The same result followed the war of 1817-'18-with Holkar, the peishwa, and other powerful chiefs, in which the Mahratta power was finally sub- dued. Much trouble at this period was expe- rienced in central and southern India from a formidable force of mounted marauders called Pindarries, who acted as allies of the hostile Mahratta chiefs, and were defeated with them. A war with the Burmese in 1824'o led to large accessions of territory on the eastern frontier, comprising Assam, Aracan, and Tenasserim. The Afghan war, which began in 1839, after great disasters to the English arms, amply re- deemed by subsequent successes, terminated in