1756.]

49

THE dreadful news of the event at Calcutta reached Madras early in August, and excited the keenest

resentment he felt at the recent events at Cal

universal cry for vengeance. If ever Britain had a cause for war, she had it now against the monstrous Surajah Dowlah, and her people would have been unworthy of an empire had they failed to punish the author of crimes so terrible. So great was the ardour in Madras, that within fortyeight hours an expedition up the Hooghly was determined upon, and it was the universal desire of the Council that the command of the troops, only 2,400 in all, should be given to Clive, "to punish a prince" who, as Macaulay says in his Essay, "had more subjects than Louis XV., or the Empress Maria Theresa."

On the 11th of October, 1756, Clive wrote to the directors, expressing the great horror, grief, and

and glory, and to win him the name of "Clive the Avenger "-" Clive the Daring in War."

Five days subsequently, the expedition sailed from Madras Roads. The squadron consisted of the Kent (sixty-four guns), bearing the flag of Admiral Watson; the Cumberland (seventy), with that of Rear-Admiral Pococke; the Tiger (sixty); Salisbury (fifty); the Bridgewater (sloop, twenty); the Company's ships, and two transports. The land force consisted of 900 Europeans, 250 of whom belonged to H.M. 39th Regiment, and 1,500 sepoys. "The weather proved so extremely tempestuous," says Captain Schomberg, "attended with other disasters, that the admiral did not reach Balasore Roads before the 5th of December.

The Cumberland, Salisbury, and Blaze (fireship) parted company in great distress." The first was under the necessity of putting into Vizagapatam; the second rejoined the admiral some days after his arrival in the river; but the Blaze never reached Bengal. All this caused a loss of 250 bayonets from the original strength, together with the heavy artillery on board of the Cumberland.

As the river pilots refused to take charge of large ships over the shoals, Captain Speke, who had been frequently in Bengal, undertook to do so, having no doubt of its being practicable; and by his skill and judgment they were all brought to anchor in safety, on the 15th of December, off Fulta, a town on the eastern bank of the swampy and jungly Hooghly, where the anchorage is quiet and protected from the sea, and lies twenty-five miles below Calcutta.

not to be described," says Clive in his despatch. On reaching a point in rear of the redoubt, the detachment, now weary, halted, some in a deep hollow, others apart in a grove, and the artillerymen beside their guns, which were pointed to command the road by which any fugitives from the fort might be expected to come.

"It is difficult," says his biographer, "to account for the absence of common vigilance which both Clive and his brother-officers displayed on this occasion. Not a picket nor a sentry appears to have been planted; while the men, weary with their march, were permitted to go to sleep without orders, and at a distance from their arms."

Monichund, the nabob's governor, if not a hero, but rather the reverse, was both wary and cautious. His spies had tracked Clive throughout the whole of this movement, and beheld its rather unsoldier

At Madras, letters had been procured from Mr. Pigot, the governor, Mohammed Ali, Nabob of Arcot, and Salabut Jung, Subahdar of the Deccan, exhorting Surajah Dowlah to redress the wrongs he had done at Calcutta; and these missives, with others written by Admiral Watson and LieutenantColonel Clive, were sent open to Monichund, now governor of Calcutta, who replied that he dared not send such menacing documents to his imperious master; and on this, it was resolved to bring matters to the issue of the cannon at once.

On the 27th, the squadron moved up the river, and two days after was brought abreast of Fort BuzBuzia, otherwise Budge-budge, on which a heavy cannonade was opened, and maintained till evening, by which time the enemy's guns were silenced; but there was no indication of a surrender, as when darkness fell they kept up a smart fusilade, and volleys of fire arrows, which streaked the gloom with arcs of red light. On board the Kent a council of war was held, and it was resolved to carry the fort by storm next morning; and in order to strengthen the troops, a detachment of seamen was landed, under Captain King, R.N., while Clive took on shore 500 bayonets, and proceeded, under the direction of Indian guides, to make a détour across a country full of swamps and intersected by numerous rivulets, for the purpose of taking the garrison prisoners if attempting to escape.

As there were no draught bullocks, his infantry had to sling their firelocks, and drag two fieldpieces and a limber. "The men suffered hardships

Issuing out of Buz-Buzia, to which he had come the day before, at the head of 2,000 foot and 1,500 horse, he came upon the slumbering bivouac, into which he poured a volley of matchlock-balls and

arrows.

Clive amply redeemed his error by the coolness and promptitude with which he repelled the danger. Not a soldier was permitted to quit his ground, and though the line was formed without much order, it stood firm under the fire, which it was not permitted to return. Two parties from the flanks were thrown forward in double-quick time, to take in reverse the assailants, who had now crowded into a village, where they were attacked with that unfailing British argument, the bayonet, which gave the artillerymen time to rush into the hollow and bring up the guns, with which they opened a fire that soon quelled the enemy; and on Monichund receiving a musket-ball through his turban, he thought only of flight; and Orme is correct in surmising that, "had the cavalry advanced and charged the troops in the hollow at the same time that the infantry began to fire upon the village, it is not improbable that the war would have been concluded on the very first trial of hostilities."

The instant that Monichund fled, the troops. marched to the village adjoining the fort, and found the Kent, which had outsailed them, anchored abreast of it. The assault was deferred until next day, when to assist in it, 250 seamen were landed. One of these, a Scotsman named Strachan, “having just received his allowance of grog, found his spirits too much elated to think of sleeping," and straggling close to the fort, scrambled over the rampart, and seeing no one there, hallooed to the advanced guard that he had "taken the fort!" It

1757-1

was found to be evacuated. On being reprimanded by Admiral Watson, Strachan swore that he would never take another fort as long as he lived. | He was afterwards wounded in one of the actions under Admiral Pococke, and became a pensioner of the Chest at Chatham.

Clive now marched along by land, while Admiral Watson sailed up the river. On the 2nd January, 1757, the armament was off Calcutta, and a few broadsides from the fleet expelled the garrison, and sent them flying after their fugitive general, Monichund, while, without the loss of a life, the place was retaken, the somewhat unworthy Mr. Drake was reinstated in his office of governor, and all the merchandise was found in the condition in which it had been left when the Council fled, as the viceroy had ordered it to be reserved for himself; but every private dwelling had been sacked and wrecked.

Within a week and a day after, Clive, impetuous and rapid in all his movements, was before the important fortress and town of Hooghly, the batteries of which bristled with heavy guns, and were manned by 3,000 of Surajah Dowlah's Bengalese, who fled almost at the first cannon-shot, and so complete now was the panic existing among the forces of the nabob, that Major Coote, with 150 Europeans and sepoys, was able, with ease, to scour the country for miles, and destroy or capture, as suited him, vast stores of rice and other provisions, including £15,000 taken at Hooghly.

The sepoys were left to garrison Hooghly, while the Europeans returned to Calcutta, with spoil to the value of a lac and a half of rupees. This was on the 19th January.

Surajah Dowlah, having by this time massed another enormous host at Moorshedabad, and believing Clive's army-if it deserved the name— to be smaller than it was, began his march for Calcutta full of vengeance and ferocity, and uttering the most terrible menaces.

Clive was prepared for him, and, resolved not to be hemmed up in the miserable fortress, he erected a fortified camp northward of the town, and at the distance of a mile and a half from the Hooghly, thus effectually providing that no enemy from the northward should be able to violate the Company's territory, without at least developing his designs. This done, and a garrison being thrown into a redoubt or castle at Perring's Point, Clive established his outposts, and waited with all patience the turn events might take.*

Luckily Clive was furnished with artillery and stores from the Marlborough, before the 30th of

* Gleig.

51

January, when the nabob crossed the river about ten miles above Hooghly, and as he continued his march, the country people who had supplied the "Unbelievers" with provisions, concealed their property and fled. On many occasions Clive felt severely the want of that most necessary arm in war-cavalry.

Thus, on the 30th he wrote to the nabob a conciliatory letter, proposing peace; Surajah Dowlah, it is said, returned a courteous answer; but continued the march of his swarthy hordes, whom he knew Clive could only confront by a literal "handful." Lord Macaulay alleges that the overtures were made by Surajah Dowlah, and that he offered to restore to the British their settlements with compensation for the injuries done; while Admiral Watson was opposed to peace or truce being either made or accepted by Great Britain. His idea was simply this that as to places previously in our possession, we had captured them; as to compensation, we could take it with cold steel.

On the whole, the sturdy admiral felt that till Surajah Dowlah found his viceroyalty over Bengal in danger, and, after losses and defeats, was compelled to sue for peace, he would ever remain a treacherous, though flexible enemy, and one ever ready for war, if it could be made with the hope of success; and, by striking a bold and decisive blow, Admiral Watson believed that a permanent peace might be secured.

The French at Chandernagore—a station which they had obtained on the west bank of the Hooghly, sixteen miles distant from Calcutta, so far back as 1676-declined joining the Indian army, and disgusted, perhaps as Europeans, by recent events at Calcutta, made proposals to the British for a constant truce between them and Bengal, notwithstanding any war between the two crowns in Europe, or any other part of the world.

By the 3rd February, all the villages north-eastward of Calcutta were seen in flames, indicating thus, by rapine, the march of the nabob's army. Reluctant to take any step which might render the pacification to which he looked forward impracticable, Clive beheld, without opposition, this swarm of semi-barbarous warriors take possession of a great road which, stretching north and south, conducted to a stone bridge; and about noon some of their pillagers penetrated into a suburb of Calcutta occupied by the humbler natives; but a sally from Perring's Redoubt repulsed them with loss, after which the nabob's army entrenched itself in a large garden, a mile south-eastward of the British camp.

About an hour before night came on-there is no twilight in India-Colonel Clive, with the

greatest part of his forces and six field-guns, issued from his camp, and attempted to drive them from their post; but they threw out cavalry who pressed upon his flanks, and replied to his fire by nine guns of heavier calibre, and after a small loss, he was compelled to fall back.

Meanwhile the cowardly nabob still remained some miles distant, and, pretending to negotiate, requested the attendance of certain deputies at a village near Calcutta, to arrange the terms of peace. After some trouble, two who went-Messrs. Walsh and Scrafton-found him close to the city, in a house actually within the Mahratta Ditch; and, after an angry altercation about delivering up their swords, which they resolutely refused to do, they were admitted to an audience. Surajah Dowlah, stern and stately, surrounded by all the terrors of utter despotism, was seated on the musnud, and had about him "the principal of his officers, and the tallest and grimmest of his attendants, who, to impress them, and to look more stout and truculent, had dressed themselves in wadded garments, and put enormous turbans on their heads. During the conference these fellows sat scowling at the two Englishmen, as if they only waited the nabob's nod to murder them."

Uninfluenced by this, they stoutly remonstrated with the nabob for thus violating the territory of the Company, and delivered to him a paper containing the terms on which Clive alone would make peace. Without deigning to reply, the haughty nabob abruptly broke up the meeting, and as Walsh and Scrafton left the apartment, Omichund, a Hindoo to whom the house belonged, whispered them in the ear, to "have a care for their lives!" Thus, instead of going to the tent of the nabob's minister, as they had intended to do, the deputies carefully ordered their attendants to extinguish their torches, and through the darkness and confusion, fled back to the camp of Clive, who resolved to bring matters to a stern issue next morning.

Having ascertained that the greater portion of the Indian artillery was still in the rear, on being strengthened by 600 seamen from the fleet, armed with firelocks, about an hour before daybreak he moved from his camp in silence, and formed his forces, consisting of 650 Europeans of the line, 100 artillerymen, 600 seamen under Captain Warwick, R.N., and 800 sepoys, "in a single column of threes in front, facing towards the south."

The 39th Regiment took post in rear of a wing of sepoys, the other wing succeeding them; in continuation of these came the six field-pieces,

drawn partly by seamen and partly by lascars, who carried the spare ammunition. Clive, like all the rest of the officers, was on foot, and, at a given signal, the whole advanced, covered by a few patrols.

"About three in the morning," he reports in his letter to the secret committee, "I marched out nearly my whole force, leaving only a few Europeans with 200 new-raised Bucksarees to guard our camp. About six, we entered the enemy's camp in a thick fog, and crossed it in about two hours with considerable exertion. Had the fog cleared up, as it usually does, about eight o'clock, when we were entire masters of the camp without the ditch, the action must have been decisive, instead of which it thickened, and occasioned our mistaking the way."

While it was yet dark, the head of the column would seem to have fallen upon an outpost of the enemy, which, after the discharge of a few matchlocks and rockets, retreated, though not until one of their missiles made a sepoy's cartridge-box to explode, thus causing some disorder in our ranks; but the columns still pressed on, till they came near the quarters of the nabob, and then for the first time since their advance did they become aware of an impending attack. The clank of hoofs was heard coming rapidly from the direction of the Mahratta Ditch. The fog parted like a curtain for an instant, and a well-mounted line of glittering Persian cavalry was seen within twenty yards of their flank. The troops halted, and poured in a volley with such terrible effect, that the enemy was swept away before it, "as dust is swept aside by the breath of the whirlwind."

Once more the onward march was resumed over the dead and dying Persians, but slowly, the infantry firing random platoons into the fog, and the artillery discharging balls obliquely to clear the direction of the column, and yet protect its progress. After surmounting a causeway which was raised several feet above the adjacent district, the troops became entangled in deep and muddy fields, over which, though intersected by innumerable ditches and watercourses, it was necessary to drag the guns.

By nine o'clock the fog rose, and the awkward position of our troops became distinctly visible. Then the enemy's horse made repeated attempts to charge them both in front and rear, but were repulsed on every occasion by the welldirected fire of this handful of brave fellows, who were outnumbered beyond all calculation. The enemy's guns bore on them severely, while they had to abandon two of their own, which were hope

* Malcolm.