India Through the Ages Part 37

Major Lawrence, meanwhile, in the south, had been fairly successful.

The siege of Trichinopoly raised, the French, who had done all the artillery work, retreated to Pondicherry.

But complications arose. Mahomed-Ali, Nawab of Arcot, showed indisposition to press his advantage, and to his great chagrin Major Lawrence discovered that Trichinopoly itself had been promised to the Mysore king, one of Mahomed-Ali's native allies. The Nawab himself was ready to repudiate his promise; the English, it is to be feared, did not favour straightforward fulfilment. The result was a hollow compromise, which in its results showed that honesty would have been the best policy. For the next two years, therefore, Trichinopoly became the scene of constant warfare, and such was the stress of battle that raged round the unfortunate town, that in November 1753 not a tree was left standing near it, and the British detachment and convoy which finally relieved it was forced to go six or seven miles to get a stick of firewood.

The story of the final and futile a.s.sault of the French is a thrilling one, especially the incident of the night-attack frustrated by the falling into a disused well of a soldier, whose musket going off, alarmed the garrison, thus rendering of no avail a previous wholesale tampering with the guard. For the French had no hesitation in using underhand means; in this, indeed, lay the strength of Dupleix. On this occasion, anyhow, they suffered for it, since, pinned between the outer ramparts and an inner one, four hundred out of six hundred Frenchmen were either killed, wounded, or taken prisoner.

The year 1740 brought a mutual fatigue of warfare both to the French and the English East India Company. They called a truce to a.s.sert that they had never really been at war, the hostile interlude being merely the amus.e.m.e.nts of mercenaries.

But the whole affair was comic. The Council-of-Negotiation which met at a neutral little Dutch settlement was as unreal as the patents produced on both sides in support of the claims of their puppets.

There were seven on the French side for the murdered Muzaffar-Jung's successor, Salabut, including one from the Great Moghul. The English, too, had patents for their puppet Mahomed-Ali, also including one from the Great Moghul. Now it is possible that both these contradictory patents were genuine--anything was possible in the India of 1754--but the English one was not produced, and the French one had a wrong seal!

So the affair ended in added exasperation.

But in truth France and England's attention was now awakening to the unceasing hostilities in India. International conferences were held in London, where the Secretary of State, in order to be prepared for refusal of his terms, fitted out a fleet for Eastern waters. The menace proved successful. France, never greatly enamoured of her Eastern Company, gave away the game by sending out one Monsieur G.o.deheu to take over the Governorship from Dupleix.

It was a bolt out of the blue. Whatever his faults may have been, the latter had spent his life for, and risked his whole fortune in, the Company. He never recovered the blow, but went home, sought bare justice by a lawsuit, and died ruined, broken-hearted, ere his case was decided. So England has no monopoly in ingrat.i.tude to her public servants.

Monsieur G.o.deheu was peaceful, painstaking, praiseworthy. He produced an ill-considered but plausible treaty which rather knocked the wind out of Clive's sails when he returned to Bombay in 1755 with Admiral Watson's fleet, fully prepared to attack the Dekkan from the north. He had to content himself with a campaign against the pirate-king of Anghria, in the course of which a momentous quarrel arose between the English and their Mahratta allies. The latter claimed a share of the plunder, the former refused it, a.s.serting with righteous indignation that deliberate treachery had been proved up to the hilt against their so-called allies, and that consequently they were ent.i.tled to nothing.

A sordid quarrel at best, which bore bitter fruit in years to come.

From this, Clive sailed to take up command at Madras, where he was met by disastrous news from Calcutta.

Suraj-ud-daula, Nawab of Bengal, had seized on it, suffocated a hundred and twenty-three of its inhabitants--many of them men in the best positions--in the Black Hole, and had returned to Murshidabad, whence he had issued orders for the destruction and confiscation of all English property in his dominions. Such was the inept.i.tude of England at that time in India, that two whole months elapsed ere Clive, in a fever of impatience, was allowed to start for retaliation.

While we can imagine him fretting and fuming, we shall have time for a glance back to see who Suraj-ud-daula was, and what was the cause of his action.

Ali-Verdi-Khan, who, it will be remembered, had ceded Orissa to the Mahrattas, had also s.n.a.t.c.hed the Nawabship from his master's son; a graceless youth, it must be admitted, while Ali-Verdi-Khan himself was, despite many horrid acts, a fairly just ruler. During his lifetime the English had no complaint; but at his death he committed a gross injustice on every soul in his dominions by appointing as his heir his grandson Suraj-ud-daula, a perfectly infamous young man. No one, apparently, had a good word to say for him, except those amongst whom he spent a vicious, depraved life.

His aunt, Ghasita Begum, at any rate, nourished no illusions concerning him, and being an ambitious woman, anxious to preserve her great fortune for future occasions of conspiracy, took immediate precautions while Ali-Verdi lay dying against any confiscation of her treasures. She employed one Kishen-das, a pretended pilgrim to Juggernath, to carry them off in boats down the Ganges. Once on the river, Kishen steered, not for the sea, but for Calcutta. It is difficult to say whether the Governor and Council knew what they were harbouring, but the fact remains that the treasures sought and found British protection, one Omichand, a Hindu merchant, giving Kishen-das hospitality.

Suraj-ud-daula took the business very badly. He made a scene at his grandfather's death-bed, and accused the English of siding with the faction that was against his succession. Yet, when that succession was an accomplished fact, and the English agent appeared at his audience to apologise in set terms for a so-called mistake in turning away, as an impostor, from Calcutta, a spy who a.s.serted he bore a letter from Suraj-ud-daula, the latter kept a calm countenance and said negligently that he had forgotten the incident. And yet it was no slight one; for there is little doubt that the Council were not quite satisfied with its own action.

The Nawab, however, was biding his time, and he soon found it. War was on the point of breaking out once more in Europe between France and England, and orders were, in consequence, sent out by the Directors of the Company to overhaul fortifications. Repairs were at once commenced. This was Suraj-ud-daula's opportunity. He first sent a haughty enquiry as to why, without leave, the English were building a new wall, and, pretending that the reply given was inadequate, followed up his first communication by marching to Kossimbazaar with his army, sending for Mr Watts the Governor, and with threats forcing him to sign an engagement to destroy, within fifteen days, all new works which had been begun at Calcutta, deliver up all the Nawab's subjects he might call for, and refund any sums the Nawab might have lost by pa.s.sports of trade having been illegally granted.

Now, in dealing with these Indian disputes it is notoriously difficult to read through the written lines of the formulated plaint and counter-plaint, and reach the palimpsest below; that palimpsest of fine, complicated motive which invariably underlies the simplest plea, which makes even a petty debt case in India like an English A. B. C.

scrawled over a Babylonian brick, covered closely with fly-foot stipplings. But here the stipulation regarding the Nawab's subjects gives a clear clue. Whether Suraj-ud-daula had any just cause of complaint or not, his real grievance was the loss of his aunt's treasure.

This abject yielding of the English was fatal. Had any one of the type of Clive or John Nicholson been on the spot, events might have been very different; as it was, disaster and destruction followed.

Suraj-ud-daula marched on Calcutta, receiving by the way the gift of two hundred barrels of gunpowder from our treaty-bound friends the French at Chandanagore! Reading the record of these few fateful days in June 1756 one knows not whether to laugh or to cry, to let pity or righteous wrath prevail, as the history of silly delay and still sillier activities unfolds itself. The feverish digging of absolutely untenable trenches, the three weeks' delay without any preparation whatever while letters were pa.s.sing to and fro, the neglect to apply for reinforcements to other presidencies, the imprisonment of Omichand, the miserable fracas in his house, in which a Brahmin peon, mad with rage and professing fear lest high-caste women should be violated, rushed into his master's harem, killed a round dozen of innocent ladies, and then stabbed himself, reminds one of nothing but the fateful days of May a hundred years after, when Englishmen stood by and watched the Mutiny grow from a chance by-blow to a giant unrestrained. Calcutta was taken. Mr Drake, the governor, and Captain Minchin, the commandant, ran away. The ships weighed anchor and sailed out of gunshot, leaving one hundred and ninety deserted men in the fort. But if cowardice showed unabashed, courage was not lacking, and among those who showed it Mr Holwell deserves honourable mention. A civilian himself, he locked the gates of the fort to prevent further desertion, and final resistance being hopeless, did his best by diplomacy to avert absolute destruction. A hard task, for he lost twenty-five of his miserable garrison in one a.s.sault, and he lost the aid of more by drunkenness: for the soldiers got at the _arrack_ store.

Still, he might have succeeded but for the fact that the Nawab lost his temper on finding that the treasury only contained 5,000! And he had imagined the English rich beyond dreams. He jumped to the conclusion that there must be treasure concealed, and when none was forthcoming, seems to have cared nothing for the personal safety he had guaranteed to Mr Holwell and his following of a hundred and forty men, women, and children.

The tale of the Black Hole of Calcutta is too well known to need repet.i.tion. The unfortunate company were herded at nightfall into a room eighteen feet square, and despite their agonising appeals for deliverance, left to suffocate. By daybreak only three-and-twenty remained alive.

And the ships which could have carried them off ere hostilities began, which even afterwards might have rescued them, were sailing merrily down the river, the full breeze of dawn bellying their sails.

It is an indelible disgrace!

Suraj-ud-daula, disappointed in plunder, retired to Murshidabad fulminating vain thunders against all things British, as he abandoned himself once more to infamous pleasures.

But Clive was on his track. Clive, filled-according to his letters--"with grief, horror, and resentment"; determined that the expedition should not "end with the retaking of Calcutta only, but that the Company's estate in these parts shall be settled in a better and more lasting condition than ever."

The story of his success is a long one, and is, unfortunately, marred by more than one doubtful, almost inexcusable act. But that he should utterly have escaped from the corruption of the whole atmosphere in India at this time is more than any one has any right to expect, even of a hero. He was but mortal, and from the time he was twenty, had had to steer his way through a perfect network of intrigue. Again, his complicity in much that happened is by no means a.s.sured, for we know that he was surrounded by enemies amongst his own countrymen, who, jealous of his success, angered with his blunt outspokenness, did not hesitate to injure him. Let us consider for a moment what Clive must have said to Captain Minchin, to Mr Drake, concerning their pleasure-trip down the Hooghly while their friends were suffocating in the Black Hole! We have his opinion of the "Bengal gentlemen" in his letters, which runs thus:--

"The loss of private property and the means of recovering it are the only objects which take up their attention. I would have you guard against everything these gentlemen can say; for, believe me, they are bad subjects and rotten at heart, and will stick at nothing to prejudice you and the gentlemen of the Committee. Indeed, how should they do otherwise when they have not spared one another? Their conduct at Calcutta finds no excuse even amongst themselves; the riches of Peru or Mexico should not induce me to dwell among them."

These are strong words, but they were written under strong emotion.

Clive, arriving at Calcutta, after a most fatiguing march of skirmishes along the river, had been mortified by finding that Admiral Watson, who had sailed up it and captured the town after two hours'

desultory cannonading, had already appointed a Captain Coote as military governor. This post, naturally, was Clive's by every right, and he objected strenuously. Matters went so far that the admiral threatened to fire on the fort if Clive refused to leave it, and though a compromise was effected, the affair shows the _animus_ against the young colonel.

He was hampered on all sides. We find him point-blank refusing to place himself under the orders of the Committee.

"I do not intend," he writes, "to make use of my power for acting separately from you, without you reduce me to the necessity for so doing; but as far as concerns the means of executing these powers, you will excuse me, gentlemen, if I refuse to give it up."

The very existence, therefore, of this friction makes caution necessary in judging of Clive's actions, since, except from his own admissions, we have nothing on which absolute reliance can be placed.

He seems to have felt himself overmatched in every way. Certainly he proceeded with more caution than usual, except in regard to his attack on Suraj-ud-daula's camp outside the very walls of Calcutta.

Deputies had been sent overnight to interview the Nawab with a view to negotiation, and had returned in confusion, lightless, by secret paths, convinced that they were to be a.s.sa.s.sinated. Huge eunuchs and attendants, made still more terrific by stuffed coats and monstrous turbans, had scowled at them--the Nawab had been superciliously indifferent. Clive had about two thousand men under his command; the enemy, under Mir-Jaffar, Suraj-ud-daula's general, mustered forty thousand; but instant a.s.sault seemed necessary in face of that contemptuous discourtesy.

It began at dawn, and though, owing to fog, it was not so decisive as Clive had hoped, achieved its end, for the very next day the Nawab proposed peace.

Now in this, again, we must read between the lines. The terms of peace which was duly signed--Clive feeling himself far too weak to continue war, for a time at any rate--were not acceptable to the Committee, for Clive refused to allow the claims of "private individuals to stand in the way of the interest of the Company." The treaty, in fact, was singularly easy on the Nawab, but it must be remembered that Mr Holwell, who had himself been in the Black Hole, had exculpated Suraj-ud-daula from wilful partic.i.p.ation in the ordering of it; indeed, there seems little doubt that it was due to the reckless indifference of subordinates. Thus we see here an honest endeavour on Clive's part to deal with Suraj-ud-daula fairly and squarely. He trusted him, disregarding Admiral Watson's warning that without a good thrashing _first_, treaties with natives were of no avail.

His subsequent disgust at finding this warning had been correct must be admitted in defence of his future actions. After endless intriguing, difficult to follow, and still more difficult when followed to understand--for the friction between Clive and his environment seems to obscure everything--the young colonel (he was but thirty) seems to have reverted to his desire to dislodge the French, with which his services had begun, and, war between the nations being opportunely declared, he attacked and took Chandanagore.

This brought about, however, a complete revelation of the perfidy of Suraj-ud-daula, who in letters to the French governor (whom he calls "_Zubat-ul-Tujar_," the "Essence of Merchants"), abuses "_Sabut-Jung_"

(the "Daring in War," by which name Clive is still known in India), and promises his heart-whole support. "Be confident," he writes, "look on my forces as your own."

Clive, conscious of having acted against general opinion in trusting the man, resented this personally. Then Suraj-ud-daula was practically a monster in human form. By twenty, his vices were h.o.a.ry. So it may well have been honest disgust which made Clive first consider the possibility of deposing him in favour of Mir-Jaffar. Pages have been written inveighing against the enormity of intriguing against a ruler with whom you have a treaty of peace. And it is mean according to Western ideals. Still, Clive did not shrink from it; his verdict is brief: "I am persuaded there can be neither peace nor security while such a monster reigns."

So he did not reign long. Mir-Jaffar was deliberately nominated; a treaty, consisting of a preamble and thirteen articles, solemnly and secretly drawn up. In this Omichand, merchant, moneylender, spy, informer, a man of infinite influence at Murshidabad, was go-between.

As reward for his services and silence--for otherwise he threatened to warn his real master Suraj-ud-daula--he insisted on receiving 200,000. But, in truth, this treaty reads like a huge bill, for in consideration of being made Nawab, Mir-Jaffar promised the Company to pay, as damages for the sacking of Calcutta, 1,000,000, to the English inhabitants thereof 500,000, to the natives 200,000, and to the Armenians 70,000.

These were immense sums, but they were the result of absurdly exaggerated estimates of the treasure in Murshidabad, which was currently reported to be at least 24,000,000.

So the farce of friendship went on with the Nawab. It was a toss-up in the end whether Mir-Jaffar would be faithful to his master or to the treaty, and on the very eve of the battle of Pla.s.sey, that is to say, 23rd June 1757, Clive was still undetermined whether to attempt the final blow or to refrain from it. His reputation would have benefited if he had; for England would have won in the end without subterfuge.

Still, for all this excuse is to be found. Even the fact that Clive, in common with half the army and navy, was to receive a stipulated present--in his case a very large one--must not be counted, as it appears to be at the first blush, bribery and corruption. There was no law against the taking of douceurs; the employees of the Company, indeed, were ill paid because of such perquisites, without which they could not live. So, had he chosen to ask for a million of money, he could only have been counted extortionate in his demands. But the trick played upon Omichand with Clive's support and connivance seems--at least--despicable. Briefly, it comes to this. Englishmen were afraid of the scoundrel's blabbing, yet they were determined he should not have the 200,000 for which he stipulated. They therefore drew up two treaties, one with, one without, the stipulation. The one they showed to Omichand was forged; the other was really signed.

It seems almost incredible this should have been done by plain English gentlemen, let alone by one who in many ways was a hero; but so it was.

To avoid paying 200,000 out of revenues which did not belong to us, we resorted to fraud and forgery.

There is but one consolation in the case. Clive himself, the arch-actor, never regretted the act. When arraigned on this charge before the House of Commons he a.s.serted proudly that he thought "it warrantable in such a case, and would do it again a hundred times. I had no interested motive in doing it, but did it with the design of disappointing the expectations of a rapacious man, for I think both art and policy warrantable in defeating the purposes of such a villain."

But was Omichand "the greatest villain upon earth" that Clive held him to be? Even this is doubtful, and our pity is his, no matter what he was, as we read the story, as told by Orme the historian, of the conference which was held the day after the battle.