Part 15 (1/2)

48. ”The moment for action came. Mr. Watts, the English agent, secretly fled and took refuge in Calcutta. Clive put his troops in motion, and wrote to the Nabob a letter in which he set forth the English wrongs, and concluded by saying that, as the rains were about to set in, he and his men would do themselves the honor of waiting upon his Highness for an answer.

49. ”Surajah Dowlah instantly a.s.sembled his whole force and marched to encounter the English. It had been arranged 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 overcame his ambition. Clive advanced to the river which separated him from his foe. The Nabob lay with a mighty power a few miles off at Pla.s.sey. Meer Jaffier delayed, and returned evasive answers to the remonstrances of the English general.

THE BATTLE AND ITS RESULTS.

50. ”Clive was in an anxious and painful situation. He could place no confidence in the sincerity or the courage of his confederate; and whatever confidence he might have 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 return.

51. ”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 p.r.o.nounced 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 their advice the British would never have been masters of Bengal. But scarcely had the meeting broke up than he was himself again. He retired alone under the shade of some trees, and pa.s.sed an hour there in thought. He came back determined to take the risk, and gave orders that all should be in readiness for pa.s.sing the river on the morrow.

52. ”The river was pa.s.sed; and, at the close of a toilsome day's march, the army, long after sunset, took up its quarters in a grove of mango-trees near Pla.s.sey, within a mile of the enemy. Clive was unable to steep; he heard through the night the sound of drums and cymbals from the vast camp of the Nabob. It is not strange that even his stout heart should now and then have sunk, when he reflected against what odds, and for what a prize, he was in a few hours to contend.

53. ”Nor was the rest of Surajah Dowlah more peaceful. His mind, at once weak and stormy, was distracted by wild and horrible apprehensions. Appalled by the greatness and nearness of the crisis, distrusting his captains, dreading every one who approached him, dreading to be left alone, lie sat 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.

54. ”The day broke--the day which was to decide the fate of India. At sunrise the army of the Nabob, pouring through many openings of the camp, began to move toward the grove where the English lay. Forty thousand infantry, armed with firelocks, pikes, swords, bows and arrows, covered the plain. They were accompanied by fifty pieces of ordnance of the largest size, each tugged by a long team of white oxen, and each pushed on from behind by an elephant. Some smaller guns, under the direction of French soldiers, were perhaps more formidable.

55. ”The cavalry were fifteen thousand, drawn from the bolder races which inhabit the northern provinces; and the practiced eye of Clive could perceive that the men and horses were more powerful than those of the Carnatic. The force opposed to this great mult.i.tude consisted of only three thousand men; but of these, nearly one thousand were English, and all were led by English officers and trained in the English discipline.

56. ”The battle commenced with a cannonade, in which the artillery of the Nabob did scarcely any execution, while the field-pieces of the English produced great effect. Several officers in Surajah Dowlah's service fell. Disorder began to spread through his ranks. His own terror increased every moment. One of the conspirators advised him to retreat. This advice, agreeing as it did with what his own terrors suggested, was readily received. He ordered his army to fall back, and this order decided his fate. Clive s.n.a.t.c.hed the moment, and ordered his troops to advance.

57. ”The confused and dispirited mult.i.tude gave way before the onset of disciplined valor. 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 the fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah Dowlah were dispersed, never to re-a.s.semble. Only five hundred of the vanquished were slain; but their camp, their guns, their baggage, innumerable wagons, innumerable cattle, remained in the power of the conqueror. With a loss of twenty-two soldiers killed and fifty wounded, Clive had scattered an army of sixty thousand men, and had subdued an empire larger and more populous than Great Britain.”

58. This brilliant success of Clive added Pla.s.sey as one of the battle-fields of the world which has shaped national destinies and decided the fate of trillions of people. Though much was yet to be done before the fruits of victory could be fully realized, Clive at once became almost supreme in authority. Surajah Dowlah fled in disguise, and disappeared from history in complete obscurity. Meer Jaffler held Clive in slavish awe. He once reproved a native of high rank for some trouble with the company's Sepoys. ”Are you yet to learn,” he said, ”who Colonel Clive is, and in what station G.o.d has placed him?” The answer was: ”I affront the colonel! I who never get up in the morning without making three low bows to his jacka.s.s!”

59. The policy inaugurated by Clive was continued by his successors.

The British rule was extended by setting up native princes, or setting them aside, as expediency dictated, until the whole vast region south of the Himalayas pa.s.sed under their control. The weak trading companies of 1755 have blossomed out into an empire.

60. British India to-day, in extent of territory and in absolute safety, is immeasurably greater than that of the Moguls in the height of their glory. The first wild exercise of irresponsible power has been corrected, and governmental affairs under British rule are now administered on the foundation of substantial justice. The peasant no longer flies from governmental officers to the more merciful companions.h.i.+p of the cobra and tiger, and all who toil find protection as never before. The races of the Orient have been brought face to face with the arts and sciences of the West, and untold millions have cause to bless the day when Robert Clive was forced to close the ledger and take up the sword.

CHAPTER X.

_LEXINGTON AND BUNKER HILL._

1. The Pilgrims had pa.s.sed away. Long years had elapsed since the last of the New England fathers had exchanged the earthly for the heavenly kingdom. The grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of the first immigrants possessed the soil. No aliens they, seeking a refuge in an unknown land, but the st.u.r.dy possessors of homes where they were born, and around which cl.u.s.tered all tender family ties. The pa.s.sionate love for England, filtered through three generations, had moderated to a filial respect without impairing filial obedience.

2. Marvelous the change in outward conditions of that century and a half! Wave after wave of intelligent activity had pa.s.sed over the land. Settlers' fires hunted the track of Indians westward bound. On the site of primeval forests, fields of grain s.h.i.+mmered in the sun.

The rude hut, hastily built for shelter, had given place to the comfortable farm-house and the elegant mansion. Village and city had grown up in the centers of trade. The mechanic arts had slowly made their way. Change vast, weighty, permanent--not sudden, but orderly growth--fruit of seed sown, but none the less marvelous for that.

3. Internal change had accompanied the external. Spiritual growth had gone hand in hand with increase of life's comforts. Persecution as a means of conversion had disappeared before common dangers and sufferings. Intolerance had toned down into a mild form of bigotry.

The shovel-hat of the parson and the flowing robes of the magistrate had lost much of their superst.i.tious significance. The hard, self-imposed restraints of the Puritans had become less rigid at home and in public. Individual life was freer, fuller, and more complete.

4. So sped the years until after the French war--until the last of England's rivals had been effectually subdued. Now England, for the first time, seems to have been brought face to face with her st.u.r.dy offspring. Now she deliberately made up her mind to make him useful--pay her debts, fight her enemies, subserve her interests first and always. So, with bl.u.s.tering words about rights, she imposed burdens, with significant hints in regard to chastis.e.m.e.nts; she withheld privileges; the cheris.h.i.+ng mother in word and deed proving to be a veritable step-mother with the hardest of hearts.

5. Here trouble began. The son had an equal share with the parent in Agincourt and _Magna Charta._ He was confiding and unsuspicious, but the experience of three generations in the wilds had accustomed him to freedom, and had given him hardihood. His shoulders were broad, but it was difficult to bind burdens upon them against his will. As the policy of the parent dawned upon him, first came incredulous questioning, ”What does this mean?”--then protest, showing the injury and suggesting ”There must be some mistake!”--last, conviction of intended injustice, the hot wrath, and the emphatic statement, ”I will not obey!” The angry note of defiance was heard rolling along the Atlantic coast from New England to Georgia. Descendants of Roundheads, Cavaliers, and Huguenots forgot their ancient prejudices and united against this common danger. Patrick Henry responded to the sentiments of Otis and Adams, and Virginia sent friendly greetings to the commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts.

6. The madness that afflicted the last years of the life of George III seems to have taken possession of the British ministry. Exaction followed exaction in increasing intensity and number. The history of coercive legislation can scarcely find a parallel to that of the British Parliament for the fifteen years following the fall of Quebec.

Withal, no excuse was ever made for injustice done, no sympathy was ever expressed for suffering inflicted, but all communication conveyed the stern purpose to subdue. Hungry for affection, the half-grown offspring turned his face toward England for the smallest caress, and the east wind brought back across the Atlantic full in his face the sharp crack of a whip.

7. Then came a period of aggression and resistance. The Stamp Act was pa.s.sed, but stamp could not be sold, and the lives of stamp-venders became miserable. Soldiers crowded citizens upon Boston Common; citizens mobbed the soldiers; soldiers fired, killing five citizens, and were saved from destruction only by the active interference of the patriot leaders. This affray marked the first shedding of blood, and has gone into history as ”The Boston Ma.s.sacre.” Tea was taxed, but the matrons took to catnip and sage, and no tea was sold. Three cargoes of taxed tea were sent into Boston harbor, but a war-whoop was heard; the vessels were boarded by a band of painted savages, tomahawk in band; the tea-chests were broken up and the tea was thrown into the water. This last act demanded special punishment, and the Boston Port Bill shut up the port of Boston, allowing no s.h.i.+p to go in or out. The sympathetic people of Salem and Marblehead placed wharf and warehouse at the disposal of Boston merchants, softening the blow as much as possible. Relief to the suffering poor of Boston poured in from all sides, and the British ministry saw that the whole people were making common cause in resistance to oppression.