eighteenth of his age, Robert Clive embarked for Madras. The ship in which he sailed was ill-found, and was detained some months in the Brazils, during which time he applied himself to gain a knowledge of the Portuguese language. He thus did not reach India until 1744, and the consequence of the protracted voyage was, that he had expended all his money, and was obliged to borrow, and at a rate of interest which irritated and distressed him. He was at this time wayward and improvident, and it is therefore no wonder that we find him liable to paroxysms of extreme despondency. It is said that in one of these he attempted suicide. The circumstance is referred to by Boswell and Johnson; and the story, as given by Mr. Gleig, is this:

"One day he withdrew to his own room in Writers' Buildings, and there shut himself up. An hour or two afterwards one of his companions knocked at the door, and was admitted. He found Clive seated in a remote corner of the apartment, with a table near him, on which lay a pistol. Take it and fire it over the window,' said Clive, pointing to the weapon. His friend did so; and no sooner was the report heard, than Clive, springing from his seat, exclaimed- I feel that I am reserved for some end or another. I twice snapped that pistol at my own head, and it would not go off!"

Mr. Gleig gives the anecdote as apocryphal; but we are inclined altogether to disbelieve it. It is improbable that a pistol which, when twice snapped, missed fire, should go off at last; but what is more material, and to us decisive, is, that though fond of referring to the occurrences of his early life in India, Lord Clive was never known to mention this circumstance. Moody and improvident as he then was, with bad habits, and without religion, we do not believe that he ever contemplated that crime. The following incident rests on better grounds, and is more characteristic. It took place when he fled, as we formerly mentioned, from Madras to Fort St. David :

"For some time after his arrival in the latter place, Clive appears to have led a life of unprofitable idleness. His services were not required in a factory

already overstocked with clerks, whom the progress of hostilities compelled, in a great measure, to suspend their commercial undertakings; and he sought sometimes at the gaming-table that escape from dejection which he could not find either in study, or in the duties of his station. It happened upon a certain occasion that two officers, with whom he had been engaged in play, were detected in the act of cheating. They had won considerable sums of money from various persons present, and among the rest from Clive; but he having satisfied himself of the nature of their proceedings, refused to pay. A quarrel ensued, and one of them demanded satisfaction. The combatants met without seconds to settle the dispute, and Clive, having the first fire, delivered it to no purpose, and stood at the mercy of his adversary. The latter walking up, presented his pistol at Clive's head, and desired him to ask his life. This was done without hesitation; but when the other went to demand an apology, and the retractation of the charge of cheating, Clive refused to give either.

Then I will shoot you,' exclaimed the bully.

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Shoot, and be d-d!' replied Clive. 'I said you cheated; I say so still, and I will never pay you.'

"The officer, declaring the young man to be mad, threw away his weapon, and there the matter ended; for Clive, when urged to bring the whole case under the cognizance of the authorities, declined to do so, and religiously abstained from referring, even in private society, to the behaviour of his late opponent at cards.

"I will not do him an injury on any account,' was his answer. I will never pay what he unfairly won; but he has given me my life, and from me he shall take no hurt under any circumstances."" -Gleig's Life of Clive, p. 10.

While at St. David's, Clive volunteered his services in the defence of that fort, and the character he was making for intrepidity, no doubt assisted him in exchanging his writership for a commission in the army, which he obtained early in the year 1747. He was from that moment almost constantly employed in active duties, and gained on several occasions the marked approbation of his commanders, especially at the attack on a fort named Devi Cottah, where he was appointed to lead the forlorn hope.

We now resume our general narrative, and, at the same time, reach the period of an exploit which gave cele

brity to the name of Clive, and formed an epoch in the history of British India.

Chunda Sahib, Nabob of Arcot, aided by the French, was laying siege to Trichinopoly, the only stronghold in the Carnatic which was now left to our faithful friend Mohammed Ali; and in order to make a diversion in his favour, Clive conceived the plan of attacking Arcot, the nabob's capital. The force at his disposal was so small, that this attempt at a diversion appeared to be too daring; but as it afforded something like hope for their parting cause, it was adopted. We transcribe from Mr. Gleig's book a short description of the place :

"Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, at the period when the Carnatic formed a separate province of the Souhbadarry of the Deccan, stands upon the left bank of the river Palar, and, like most other Indian cities of similar importance, consists of a pettah, or tower, and a citadel. The present city is of modern growth, having been built by the Mahommedans in 1716, on or near the site of the Soramundalum of Ptolemy. The citadel, of which the outlines still remain, was accounted, even in the middle of the last century, a place of no great strength. It had the defect, not uncommon in eastern fortresses, of being surrounded on all sides by the town, of which the houses came up to the glacis, and commanded the ramparts. It was very extensive, too, measuring upwards of a mile in circumference; and of the towers which flanked the defences at intervals, several were in ruins, while the remainder were so circumscribed in their dimensions, as not to admit of more than a single piece of ordnance being mounted on each. The walls, badly built at the first, were already loose, and portions had fallen down; the ramparts were too narrow to accommodate a field-piece in action; a low and slight parapet imperfectly screened them; and the ditch, beside being more or less choked up, had a space of ten feet between it and the bottom of the counterscarp, intended, without doubt, for a fausse braye, but left unfinished. Finally, the two gates by which the fortress communicated with the town, were placed in clumsy covered-ways, which projected at least forty feet beyond the walls, and opened upon causeways or mounds run through the ditch, without any cut or opening for the span of a drawbridge having been let into them.

"In this place, of which the popula

tion might be estimated at a hundred thousand or more, the nabobs of the Carnatic were accustomed to hold their court. They inhabited a gorgeous palace, and looked round from it upon streets, narrow as those of eastern towns generally are, but built with considerable regularity. The bazaars or market-places were good, and well supplied; and a manufactory of cloth, besides giving employment to a portion of the inhabitants, brought in a considerable revenue to the viceregal treasury. All these had fallen into the hands of Chunda Sahib, immediately after the battle which cost Annas-u-deer his life, and the place was occupied by a garrison of his troops, of which the strength was represented as amounting to eleven hundred men."-Gleig's Life of Clive, pp. 33-4.

On the 26th of August, 1751, Clive left Madras to assail this celebrated city. His force consisted of two hundred European solders, three hundred sepoys, and an artillery train of three light field-pieces. As they approached Arcot, they encountered a fearful storm, and the spies from the town seeing them advance in order through it, returned in terror, and made an exaggerated report of their strength. The Mahommedan governor, in consequence, evacuated the citadel, and the English marched into it. Arcot was thus won; but the greater difficulty remained of defending it against the large force which Clive knew would be sent to retake it. He accordingly made instant preparations to resist a siege. He sent to Madras for two 18-pounders, availed himself of light cannon which he found in the place, laid in provisions, and repaired the defences as best he could. During all this time, he was exposed to constant attacks from the Mahommedan force, which, though it had evacuated the town, had taken up a good position in the neighbourhood, and was considerably increased. When the guns, for which he had sent to Madras, were on their way, Clive learned that the enemy were watching in a large body to take them, and he accordingly despatched for their protection his whole force, excepting only thirty Europeans and fifty sepoys, reserved to guard the fort. Apprised of his condition, the Moguls, instead of attacking the guns, assailed the citadel, but Clive, with his small garrison,

made so bold a defence, that he beat them off, and at daylight on the following morning had the happiness to see his troops returning with the guns and stores.

The occupation of Arcot operated precisely as Clive had anticipated. The nabob detached a large force from before Trichinopoly, and his son, Rajah Sahib, approached with ten thousand men, of whom one hundred and fifty were French soldiers, to regain his father's capital:

"For fifty days he pressed the siege with all the vigour of which an Indian general was capable. A constant fire of musketry from the houses on the glacis swept the ramparts. Heavy guns battered in the breach, until they brought down a wide extent of wall, and the utmost vigilance was exerted in order to prevent supplies of provisions from being conveyed into the place. Clive, on his part, was indefatigable, and the devoted courage of his handful of troops passes all praise. Indeed here, as, in our own time, in the noble defence of Jellalabad, European and native rivalled each other in heroism and endurance. It was during the height of this siege that an instance of self-devotion on the part of the native soldiers occurred, of which the memory can never fade away. The stock of rice beginning to fail, the sepoys waited upon Clive, and besought him that he would restrict his issues to their European comrades. All that they desired, or, indeed, would accept, was the water in which the grain had been boiled; and upon this thin gruel they sustained the labours of the siege for many days."- Gleig's Life of Clive, p. 36.

An offer was made to Clive, of a large sum, if he would surrender the town; but this was rejected with scorn. The besieged, too, made several bold sallies, and though some lives were sacrificed, which could ill be spared, the spirit of our soldiers was sustained, and the natives were impressed with a high idea of their valour. There

was a Mahratta chief named Morari Rou, who, with six thousand horse, was hovering on the frontiers of the Carnatic,_ _waiting the issue of the siege of Trichinopoly, to see which side he would take. Clive contrived to communicate with him, and, struck with admiration of the English, the Mahratta agreed to assist them; and his standards were soon seen from the

towers. Rajah Sahib had thus no course but to attempt to take the place by storm, and his assault is well described by Mr. Gleig:

"The 14th of November is a day kept holy by the worshippers of Mohammed, in honour of the murder of the brothers, Hassar and Hossur,two of the most illustrious of the saints and martyrs in their calendar. The festival is observed in Hindostan with an exceed

ing fervour, the devotees deepening the sentiment by the free use of bang, an intoxicating drug, of which one of the effects is either to stupify altogether, or to inflame the individual who is under its influence into madness. Rajah Sahib fixed this day for his final assault on the citadel of Arcot, in the well-grounded conviction that numbers who, under ordinary circumstances, might have done their duty, and no more, would, when inspired by the combined influence of religious zeal and intoxication, force their way through all opposition, or perish in the attempt. He could not, however, conceal his purpose from Clive, who made every necessary disposition to thwart it, and who lay down to rest only after he had seen that all was in readiness for the storm. It came with the dawn of the morning, and lasted in its fury about an hour. Four columns advanced to the attack of four different points, two assailing the breaches, two endeavouring to force open the gates. The latter process they attempted by driving before them elephants, having their foreheads covered with plates of iron; the former they executed, some by passing over the ruins which choked the ditch, others endeavouring to cross where the water was deep, upon a raft. The elephants, galled by the musketry of the garrison, turned round, and trampled upon their own people. The assailants who endeavoured to clamber over the fallen masses of rubbish, were cut down by discharges from behind the pa rapet; and Clive, directing with his own hand a field-piece at the raft, cleared it in a moment. In a word, the enemy was repulsed at every point, in spite of the frantic efforts of those who led them, and drew off, leaving not fewer than four hundred dead bodies in the ditch, or scattered over the piece of ground which interposed between it and the bottom of the wall.

"Clive's loss in this encounter was very trifling. It amounted to no more than five or six men; and well was it for him that the casualties did not prove more serious. His corps, originally small, had become so reduced by hard service, that there remained to meet this

final assault no more than eighty European and one hundred and twenty sepoy soldiers; while the whole of his officers, with but a solitary exception, were placed hors de combat. Perhaps, too, he had reason to be thankful that the enemy, discouraged by the extent of their losses, and fearful of an attack from the Mahrattas in their rear, did not renew the attempt. They continued, however, throughout the day, and until the night was far advanced, to harass him with a constant musketry-fire from the houses, which they intermitted only for an hour or two, in order to bury their dead. But this suddenly ceased about one or two o'clock in the morning of the 15th, when intelligence came in that they had retreated; and a patrol sent out to ascertain whether the case were so, brought back a report that not a man remained in the town."—Ibid, pp. 37-8.

French contingents suffered severely in that battle; and a regiment of sepoys, six hundred strong, who were in their service, deserted with their arms, and joined Clive. The Ma

hommedan Governor of Arnee also joined him, with the force under his command. Other successes followed with, as it seemed, hardly the intervention of a halt. Clive also levelled to the ground a column which Dupleix had erected, commemorative of the foundation of the French empire in the East, together with a town which he had built around it, and called by his name. He then advanced to the relief of Trichinopoly, and aided his superior officer, Major Lawrence, in delivering it from a long blockade. M. Law, the French engineer, who directed the siege, retired with the force under his command; but, being pursued, was, after some skirmishing, compelled to capitulate. On one of these last occasions, when attacked at night, in the village of Samiaveram, Clive had more

than a single escape. The French,

in making the attack, had placed in their van forty English deserters, who answered the challenge of the English sentries, and thus took them by surprise. As Clive sprang from his mattress, a musket-ball struck the chest on which he lay; and at the close of the affair, one of the deserters, while speaking about submission, "fired at him," says Mr. Gleig, "and killed two non-commissioned officers, on whose shoulders he leant, loss of blood having rendered him unable to stand upright."

It is to the honour of Dupleix, that amidst these sore disasters he did not despair. His great ally, Chunda Sahib had perished; the European force, on which he most relied, was gone; and he was deprived of almost every stronghold which he had possessed in the Carnatic. Still he was not without resources, and he availed himself of them with admirable ability. He had one friend, and he was well acquainted with the courts and politics of India. It is true that the new Nabob of the Carnatic was the nominee of the English;

but the ruling prince of the Deccan had gained his throne by means of the courage and military skill of M. Bussy, the agent of Dupleix, by whose influence he was now altogether swayed. Dupleix made every effort to induce the Soubahdur of the Deccan, as this prince was called, to dethrone the new-made nabob of the Carnatic, who had been heretofore regarded as his dependent. He also freely expended his private fortune in intriguing with our allies; and it accordingly became known that he was likely to re-appear with fresh vigour in the field. When this intelligence was conveyed to Europe, the rival companies both expressed extreme aversion to the renewal of a war. Their commercial profits had woefully decreased; and, as in comparison with this, they cared little for territory or renown, they anxiously applied to their respective governments to have an arrangement concluded which should secure them peace. In consequence of this, a negotiation was entered on, and the result was, that Dupleix was superseded, and a treaty signed which was most advantageous to the English. This abrupt and unlooked-for termination of all his ambitious hopes was rendered the more galling to Dupleix, by his reception in

France. He received little acknowledgment for his stupendous exertions, and no remuneration for his large personal losses. It appeared, by his accounts, that he had advanced about £400,000 sterling during the war, being partly his own money, and partly funds borrowed from the French merchants of Pondicherry, on his bonds. This the French East India Company refused to pay, on the ground that he had exceeded his authority; and when he commenced a lawsuit to enforce his rights, the ministry interfered, quashed the proceedings in the king's name, and awarded to him the iniquitous satisfaction of letters of protection against his creditors, He lived for a while in retirement, and died unnoticed. Such was the career of Dupleix, the ablest of the French in India; and it brings painfully but forcibly to our mind, that of our own Asiatic statesman, Hastings, whom he resembled in the largeness of his views, in self-sacrifice and energetic zeal, and, we blush to say it, in the character of his fate.

The affairs of the company in India being now regarded as in a highly prosperous condition, Clive returned to England, where, though he had but the rank of captain, and had not yet attained his twenty-eighth year, he was received with public honours, entertained at corporation dinners, and presented by the court of directors with a diamond-hilted sword, which, with a becoming modesty he declined to accept, until his senior officer, the veteran Lawrence, had received another. He had amassed a considerable fortune, but he embarked in an election contest, and his habits were in other respects so expensive, that he would in all probability have been soon embarrassed, were it not that, after an interval of two years, he was called on to return to India. War had again broken out between France and England, and the former, repining at the advantages she had lost, was determined to encourage and support her agents in their efforts to restore and extend her influence in the East. The

English, too, had a more immediate, and a still more formidable enemy, in a first-rate native power, the Nabob of Bengal. Under these circumstances, Clive was given the commission of a lieutenant-colonel by the Crown, and appointed to the command of an artillery and infantry force, with which he embarked for India in 1755. His orders were to act, in the first place, against the French in the Deccan, but soon after his arrival he was compelled to proceed to Bengal, to avenge one of the foulest acts of cruelty which ever stained the annals of mankind, and which, it is well to remark, led almost directly to the establishment of our dominion in India.

He

The Carnatic had hitherto been the theatre of our Eastern conflicts; the scene was now to change to Bengal, the richest, most populous, and most powerful of all the subdivisions of the Mogul empire. Suraj-u-Doulah, the young nabob of that province, was rash, ignorant, and unfeeling. threatened to extirpate the English, and thought that it would be as easy to accomplish as to express his wish, "For," said he, "there are not ten thousand men in all Europe, and how can they retaliate?" On some pretext for being displeased, this prince moved his powerful army towards Calcutta, and as he approached the gates, the governor, the few military, and all who could, fled to the ships in terror, a terror not unfounded. When the last boat had pushed off, the nabob's troops were entering the town, and there were still one hundred and ninety Europeans who had no means of escape. These took refuge in the fort, where they were assailed by the nabob's troops, to whom, after a gal lant but vain defence, they were com pelled to surrender. Their number was now reduced to one hundred and forty-six, and, as the evening drew on, the guards marched them to a small chamber, which had served as the pri son of the fortress, and was called the black-hole. It was a room eighteen feet by fourteen, ill-ventilated by two small windows, which were barred