George Smith

“ And to add to the evil, Meer Ali Morad intrigued with both sides so effectually that he betrayed the Ameers on the one hand, while he deluded Sir Charles Napier to their destruction on the other. Ellenborough was led on till events were beyond his control, and his own just and merciful instructions were forgotten. Sir Charles Napier made more than one confession like this: "We have no right to seize Sind, yet we shall do so, and a very advantageous, useful, and humane piece of rascality it will be." ”

“ Some miles farther down is the field of Plassy, then an extensive grove of mango trses, of which enough yet remains, in spite of the changing course of the stream, to enable the visitor to realize the scene. On the 21st June Clive arrived on the bank opposite Plassy, in the midst of that outburst of rain which ushers in the south-west monsoon of India. His whole army amounted to 1100 Europeans and 2100 native troops, with 10 field-pieces. The nawab had drawn up 18,000 horse, 50,000 foot, and 53 pieces of heavy ordnance, served by French artillerymen. ”

“ He lost hardly a white soldier ; in all 22 sepoys were killed and 50 wounded. His own account, written a month after the battle to the secret committee of the court of directors, is not less unaffected than that in which he had announced the defeat of the nawab at Calcutta. Suraj-ud-Dowlah fled from the field on a camel, secured what wealth he could, and came to an untimely end. Clive entered Moorshedabad, and established Jaffier Ali in the position which his descendants have ever since enjoyed, as pensioners, but have not unfrequently abused. ”

“ But there was this difference in Olive s favour, due not more to the circumstances of the time than to the object of his policy he gave peace, security, prosperity, and such liberty as the caso allowed of to a people now reckoned at 240 millions, who had for centuries been the prey of oppression, while Napoleon warred only for personal ambition, and the absolutism ho established has left not a wreck behind. During the three years that Clive remained in England he sought a political position, chiefly that he might influence the course of events in India, -which he had left full of promise. ”

“ They formed a confederacy to depose him, at the head of which was Jaffier Ali Khan, his commander-in-chief. Associating with himself Admiral Watson, Governor Drake, and Mr Watts, Clive made a treaty in which it was agreed to give the office of souba, or viceroy of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, to Jaffier, who was to pay a million sterling to the Company for its losses in Calcutta and the cost of its troops, half a million to the English inhabitants of Calcutta, 200,000 to the native inhabitants, and 70,000 to its Armenian merchants. ”

“ Sind had hardly been disposed of when troubles arose on both sides of the governor-general, who was then at Agra. On the north the disordered kingdom of the Sikhs was threatening the frontier. In Gwalior to the south, the feudatory Mahratta state, there were a strong and large mutinous army, a Bauee only twelve years of age, an adopted chief of eight, and factions in the council of ministers. ”

“ The pretender, Chunda Sahib, had been made nawab of the Carnatic with Dupleix s assistance, while the British had taken up the cause of the more legitimate successor, Mahomed Ali. Chunda Sahib had left Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, to reduce Trichinopoly, then held by a weak English battalion. Clive offered to attack Arcot that he might force Chunda Sahib to raise the siege of Trichinopoly. But Madras and Fort St David could supply him with only 2^0 Europeans and 300 sepoys. Of the eight officers who led them, four were civilians like Clive himself, and six had never been in action. ”

“ When Sultan Mahmoud, in 1024, sacked the Hindu temple of Somnauth on the north-west coast of India, he carried off, with the treasures, the richly-studded sandal-wood gates of the fane, and set them up in his capital of Ghuznee. The Mahometan puppet of the English, Shah Shooja, had been asked, when ruler of Afghanistan, to restore them to India ”

“ The political morality of the time in Europe, as well as the comparative weakness of the Company in India, led Clive not only to meet the dishonesty of his native associate by equal dishonesty, but to justify his conduct by the declara tion, years after, in Parliament, that he would do the same again. It became necessary to employ the richest Bengalee trader, Omichund, as an agent between Jaffier Ali and the English officials. Master of ths secret of the confederacy against Suraj-ud-Dowlah, the Bengalee threatened- to betray it unless he was guaranteed, in the treaty itself, 300,000. ”

“ In after days, when Clive s uprightness and stern reform of the Company s civil and military services made him many enemies, a biography of him appeared under the assumed name of Charles Carradoli, Cent. All the evidence is against the probability of its scandalous stories being true. Clive s early life seems occasionally to have led him to yield to one of the vices of his time, loose or free talk among intimate friends, but beyond this nothing has been proved to his detriment. After he had been two years at home tie state of affairs in India made the directors anxious for his return. ”

“ Instead of citing the authority of the forgotten treaty of Burhanpore, the governor-general might have pled the public security he did talk of " humanity " as a reason for demanding that the state should be intrusted to one regent. Our nominee proved incompetent, his rival showed himself a traitor ; Tara Ranee was herself little more than a child ; and the Prrctorians controlled the whole. Ellenborough reviewed the danger in the un answerable minute of 1st November 1845, and told Sir Hugh Gough to advance. ”

“ The lieutenant-governorship of Bengal, with some additions since Olive s time, now contains sixty millions of people, and yields an annual revenue of twelve millions sterling, of which eight goes every year to assist in the good government of the rest of India. But Olive, though thus moderate and even generous to an extent which called forth the astonishment of the natives, had all a statesman s foresight. ”

“ The same judgment which marked his later criticism of others was wanting when he held the almost irresponsible power of governor-general, to make his rule as useful as it was remarkable. If men like Durand and Wilberforce Bird helped him by the Dossession of the official and ethical ELLEN BO HOUGH 147 virtues which he lacked, we must not forget that Sir Charles Napier led his Government and himself still farther to that extreme of rashness and impulse which was his bane. ”

“ The three greatest of these were- the nawab of the Deccan, or South and Central India, who ruled from Hyderabad, the nawab of Bengal, whoso capital was Moorshedabad, and the nawab or vizier of Oudh. The prize lay between Dupleix, who had the genius of an administrator, or rather intriguer, but was no soldier, and Clive, the first of a century s brilliant succes sion of those " soldier-politicals," as they are called in tho East, to whom, ending with Sir Henry Lawrence, Great Britain owes the conquest and consolidation of its greatest deperdency. ”

“ Having thus founded the empire of British India, Olive s painful duty was to create a pure and strong administration, such as alone would justify its possession.by foreigners. The civil service was de-orientalized by raising the miserable salaries which had tempted its members to be corrupt, by forbidding the acceptance of gifts from natives, and by exacting covenants under which participation in the inland trade was stopped. ”

“ The 146 who remained, were forced into "the Black Hole" in the stifling heat of the sultriest period of the year. Only 23 came out alive. The fleet was as strong, for those days, as the land force was weak. ”

“ In the accompanying agreement, offensive and defensive, C appears under the name by which J.e was dwn; the natives of India, Sabut Jung, or the daring in war. The hero of Arcot had, at Angria s stronghold, and now again under the walls of Calcutta, established his reputa tion as the first captain of the time. With 600 British soldiers, 800 sepoys, 7 field-pieces and 500 sailors to draw them, he had routed a force of 34,000 men with 40 pieces of heavy cannon, 50 elephants, and a camp that extended upwards of four miles in length. ”

“ Jlimltcs QfEuidcnce taken before the Select Committee on Indian Territories, June 1852 ; volume i. of the Calcutta Review; the Friend of India, during the years 1842—45; and a curious little attack on his Gwalior policy by the Maharaja’s superintcmling surgeon, John Hope, The House of Seinded: A Sketch (Longmans, 1863) . General Colin Maekcnzie’s pamphlets and Sir John Kaye's writings throw further light on the treatment of the captives. The numerous books by and against Sir Charles Napier, 011 the conquest of Sind, should be consulted. ”