disdainful confidence on the one side, and with a craven fear on the other.

The situation which Pitt occupied at the close of the reign of George the Second was the most enviable ever occupied by any public man in English history. He had conciliated the king; he domineered over the House of Commons; he was adored by the people; he was admired by all Europe. He was the first Englishman of his time, and he had made England the first country in the world. The Great Commoner, the name by which he was often designated, might look down with scorn on coronets and garters. The nation was drunk with joy and pride. The Parliament was as quiet as it had been under Pelham. The old party distinctions. were almost effaced; nor was their place yet supplied by distinctions of a still more important kind. A new generation of country squires and rectors had arisen who knew not the Stuarts. The Dissenters were tolerated; the Catholics not cruelly persecuted. The Church was drowsy and indulgent. The great civil and religious conflict which began at the Reformation seemed to have terminated in universal repose. Whigs and Tories, Churchmen and Puritans, spoke with equal reverence of the Constitution, and with equal enthusiasm of the talents, virtues, and services of the minister.

A few years sufficed to change the whole aspect of affairs. A nation convulsed by faction, a throne assailed by the fiercest invective, a House of Commons hated and despised by the nation, England set against Scotland, Britain set against America, a rival legislature sitting beyond the Atlantic, English blood shed by English bayonets, our armies capitulating, our conquests wrested from us, our enemies hastening to take vengeance for past humiliation, our flag scarcely able to maintain itself in our own seas, such was the spectacle which Pitt lived to see. But the history of this great revolution requires far more space than we can at present bestow. We leave the Great Commoner in the zenith of his glory.

LIII.

AN EMPIRE WON IN THE EAST.-MACAULAY.

[It was the good fortune of Pitt that, at the beginning of his ministry, and without any direct agency of his own, a great triumph of the English arms in India came to enhance the glory of his triumphs in Europe and America. Robert Clive, who had already distinguished himself in the service of the East India Company,* was appointed governor of Fort St. David by the Company in 1757. Entering into negotiations with the disaffected subjects of the nabob, or nawab, of Bengal, he won the battle of Plassey over the native army, on the 23d of June. This victory firmly established the hitherto wavering British power in the East, and enabled it to enter upon the career of conquest which has since given it the whole of India.]

THE nabob had feared and hated the English, even while he was still able to oppose to them their French rivals. The French were now vanquished, and he began to regard the English with still greater fear and still greater hatred. His weak and unprincipled mind oscillated between servility and insolence. One day he sent a large sum to Calcutta, as a part of the compensation due for the wrongs which he had committed. The next day he sent a present of jewels to Bussy, exhorting that distinguished officer to hasten to protect Bengal "against Clive, the daring in war, on whom," says his highness, "may all bad fortune attend." He ordered his army to march against the English. He countermanded his orders. He tore Clive's letters. He then sent answers in the most florid language of compliment. He ordered Watts out of his presence, and threatened to impale him. H: again sent for Watts, and begged pardon for the insult. In the mean time his wretched maladministration, his folly, his dissolute manners, and his love of the lowest company, had disgusted all classes of his subjects-soldiers, traders, civil functionaries, the proud and ostentatious Mohammedans, the * A company of London merchants who, in 1600, had acquired, by charter, a monopoly of the trade with India.

timid, subtle, and parsimonious Hindus. A formidable confederacy was formed against him, in which were included Roydullub, the minister of finance; Meer Jaffier, the principal commander of the troops; and Jugget Seit, the richest banker in India. The plot was confided to the English agents, and a communication was opened between the malcontents at Moorshedabad and the committee at Calcutta.

In the committee there was much hesitation; but Clive's voice was given in favor of the conspirators, and his vigor and firmness bore down all opposition. It was determined that the English should lend their powerful assistance to depose Surajah Dowlah, and to place Meer Jaffier on the throne of Bengal. In return, Meer Jaffier promised ample compensation to the Company and its servants, and a liberal donative to the army, the navy, and the committee. The odious vices of Surajah Dowlah, the wrongs which the English had suffered at his hands, the dangers to which our trade must have been exposed, had he continued to reign, appear to us fully to justify the resolution of deposing him. But nothing can justify the dissimulation which Clive stooped to practice. He wrote to Surajah Dowlah in terms so affectionate that they, for a time, lulled that weak prince into perfect security. The same courier who carried this "soothing letter," as Clive calls it, to the nabob, carried to Mr. Watts a letter in the following terms: "Tell Meer Jaffier to fear nothing. I will join him with five thousand men who never turned their backs. Assure him I will march night and day to his assistance, and stand by him as long as I have a man left.”

It was impossible that a plot which had so many ramifications should long remain entirely concealed. Enough reached the ears of the nabob to arouse his suspicions. But he was soon quieted by the fictions and artifices which the inventive genius of Omichund* produced with miraculous readiness.

* A native merchant, once very wealthy, who, together with Mr. Watts, was employed by Clive to negotiate with the nabob.

All was going well; the plot was nearly ripe, when Clive learned that Omichund was likely to play false. The artful Bengalee had been promised a liberal compensation for all that he had lost at Calcutta. But this would not satisfy him. His services had been great. He held the thread of the whole intrigue. By one word breathed in the ear of Surajah Dowlah he could undo all that he had done. The lives of Watts, of Meer Jaffier, of all the conspirators, were at his mercy, and he determined to take advantage of his situation, and to make his own terms. He demanded three hundred thousand pounds sterling as the price of his secrecy and of his assistance. The committee, incensed by the treachery and appalled by the danger, knew not what course to take. But Clive was more than Omichund's match in Omichund's own arts. The man, he said, was a villain. Any artifice which would defeat such knavery was justifiable. The best course would be to promise what he asked. Omichund would soon be at their mercy; and then they might punish him by withholding from him, not only the bribe which he now demanded, but also the compensation which all the other sufferers of Calcutta were to receive.

His advice was taken. But how was this wary and sagacious Hindu to be deceived? He had demanded that an article touching his claims should be inserted in the treaty between Meer Jaffier and the English, and he would not be satisfied unless he saw it with his own eyes. Clive had an expedient ready. Two treaties were drawn up, one on white paper, the other on red-the former real, the latter fictitious. In the former Omichund's name was not mentioned; the latter, which was to be shown to him, contained a stipulation in his favor.

But another difficulty arose. Admiral Watson had scruples about signing the red treaty. Omichund's vigilance and acuteness were such that the absence of so important a name would, probably, awaken his suspicions. But Clive was not

a man to do any thing by halves. We almost blush to write it. He forged Admiral Watson's name.

All was now ready for action. Mr. Watts fled secretly from Moorshedabad. Clive put his troops in motion, and wrote to the nabob in a tone very different from that of his previous letters. He set forth all the wrongs which the British had suffered, offered to submit the points in dispute to the arbitration of Meer Jaffier, and concluded by announcing that, as the rains were about to set in, he and his men would do themselves the honor of waiting on his highness for an

answer.

Surajah Dowlah instantly assembled his whole force, and marched to encounter the English. It had been agreed that Meer Jaffier should separate himself from the nabob, and carry over his division to Clive. But, as the decisive moment approached, the fears of the conspirator overpowered his ambition. Clive had advanced to Cossimbuzar; the nabob lay, with a mighty power, a few miles off at Plassey; and still Meer Jaffier delayed to fulfill his engagements, and returned evasive answers to the earnest remonstrances of the English general.

Clive was in a painfully anxious situation. He could place no confidence in the sincerity or in the courage of his confederate; and, whatever confidence he might place in his own military talents and in the valor and discipline of his troops, it was no light thing to engage an army twenty times as numerous as his own. Before him lay a river over which it was easy to advance, but over which, if things went ill, not one of his little band would ever return. On this occasion, for the first and for the last time, his dauntless spirit, during a few hours, shrank from the fearful responsibility of making a decision. He called a council of war. The majority pronounced against fighting, and Clive declared his concurrence with the majority. Long afterward he said that he had never called but one council of war, and that, if he had taken the