Page:The story of the Indian mutiny; (IA storyofindianmut00monciala).pdf/27

 indeed at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle; but though there came peace in Europe between the two nations, their East India Companies remained at jealous war. Dupleix, mixing in the intrigues of native ambition, made himself, for a time, predominant in the south; and we seemed like to lose all hold here, but for the appearance on the scene of one who was to prove arbiter of India's destinies.

Every one knows how the young subaltern Robert Clive, by his gallant defence of Arcot, suddenly sprang into fame, and at once turned the scale of prestige in favour of his countrymen. The French went on losing influence, till, in 1761, it was the turn of their settlements to be conquered. Dupleix died in disgrace with his ungrateful sovereign, while Clive was heaped with honours and rewards, soon earned by services in another field of action.

Before the French were fully humbled in the south, he had been summoned to Calcutta to chastise the despicable Nawab of Bengal, Surajah Dowlah, for that notorious atrocity of the "Black Hole," where nearly a hundred and fifty Englishmen were shut up in a stifling den not twenty feet square, from which few of them came out alive. Following Dupleix's example, Clive plunged into political intrigue,