The Edinburgh Review, Volume 70

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A. and C. Black, 1840

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Page 327 - ... gloomily in his tent, haunted, a Greek poet would have said, by the furies of those who had cursed him with their last breath in the Black Hole. The day broke — the day which was to decide the fate of India.
Page 328 - The battle commenced with a cannonade, in which the artillery of the Nabob did scarcely any execution while the few field-pieces of the English produced great effect. Several of the most distinguished officers in Surajah Dowlah's service fell.
Page 327 - Long afterwards, he said, that he had never called but one council of war, and that, if he had taken the advice of that council, the British would never have been masters of Bengal. But scarcely had the meeting broken up when he was himself again.
Page 310 - The sepoys came to Clive, not to complain of their scanty fare, but to propose that all the grain should be given to the Europeans, who required more nourishment than the natives of Asia. The thin gruel, they said, which was strained away from the rice, would suffice for themselves. History contains no more touching instance of military fidelity, or of the influence of a commanding mind.
Page 320 - When they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were joking ; and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated ; they entreated ; but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them.
Page 328 - No mob attacked by regular soldiers was ever more completely routed. The little band of Frenchmen who alone ventured to confront the English, were swept down the stream of fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah Dowlah were dispersed, never to reassemble. Only five hundred of the vanquished were slain. But their camp, their guns, their baggage, innumerable waggons, innumerable cattle, remained in the power of the conquerors.
Page 341 - Bengal, the misgovernment of the English was carried to a point such as seems hardly compatible with the very existence of society. The Roman proconsul, who, in a year or two, squeezed out of a province the means of rearing marble palaces and baths on the shores of Campania, of drinking from amber, of feasting on...
Page 193 - ... unfeigned assent and consent as aforesaid, and subscribed the declaration aforesaid, and shall not take and subscribe the oath following : I, AB, do swear that it is not lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take arms against the king...
Page 112 - Talking of the manner of Mr. Pitt's speaking, he said ' There he would stand, turning up his eyes to heaven, that witnessed his perjuries, and laying his hand in a solemn manner upon the table, that sacrilegious hand that had been employed in tearing out the bowels of his mother country !
Page 320 - Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody woke him. Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled each other down, fought for the places at the windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among them.

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