ing unpopularity of the Nawab to attempt a revolution at the capital. Mir Jáfir, husband of the Nawáb's aunt and the commander of a division in the army, had offered to aid in the deposition of Siráj-ud-daula; and negotiations were opened with him through Mr. Watts, the British officer resident at the court of Murshidabad. In the midst of this tangle of treason and counter-treason, Amin Chand suddenly proved mutinous, threatening to reveal the whole plot to the Nawáb unless the agreement with Mir Jáfir contained a clause guaranteeing him a sum equivalent to about a million sterling. The news set the council in a ferment; the lives of Watts and his associates, perhaps the whole success of the scheme, depended on Amin Chand's silence; it was determined to secure this by deceit. Two treaties were to be prepared, one on red paper, to be shown to Amin Chand as containing the clause for which he stipulated, the other, on white paper, to be the valid engagement. The Admiral refused to sign the false treaty, and his signature was recorded by another hand.* Both treaties having been signed, in his turn, by Jáfir, Amin Chand came down to Calcutta, and the plot went its course.

While these momentous but questionable operations were proceeding in Bengal, events had been proceeding in other parts of India which proved to have a bearing on the future. The hopes of the Nawáb had been sustained not only by his correspondence with Bussy, but by news from the north-west.

After the departure of Gházi-ud-din from Delhi in the end of 1750, the titular vazirate was in the hands of Safdar Jang, of Lucknow, but the actual office of minister had been undertaken by Gházi's nephew, Mir Shaháb-ud-din, a youth of but sixteen years old, but full of all manner of craft and criminal

Not "forged," as Macaulay puts it in his "Edinburgh Review" article on Clive. Watson, though unwilling to put his hand to the false treaty, told the others that "they might do as they pleased," which Clive considered sufficient authority.-V. Elphinstone, "Rise of British Power," chap. viii.

audacity. One of his first steps was to procure the assassination of the favourite of the Emperor; this was in 1752, and a violent tumult immediately followed, raised by partizans of the country party, or Iranians, whose head was Safdar Jang. About the end of 1753 the Turanian party triumphed ; Safdar Jang was driven from court after long and violent contentions, and the young Turkmán seemed master of the situation. But the Játs, supported by the Mahrattas, under Holkar, continued to trouble his repose; and, discovering that they were secretly supported by the Emperor, the audacious youth seized and deposed the futile monarch, and set on the throne a son of Jahándár Sháh-killed in 1713. He then attempted to carry on the government of the small remains of the Empire in his puppet's name. The new Emperor took the ambitious title of Alamgir II.

The dominions of Babar and Akbar and the first Alamgir were now reduced to a few districts in the immediate neighbourhood of the capital. Rajputána and Gwalior, Malwa and Gujarát, had all ceased to pay tribute; the Játs were independent, under Suraj Mall; the Farukhabád Afgháns held the Central Duáb, their kinsfolk across the Ganges lorded it in Rohilkhand. Audh and Allahabad had been formed into a principality under Safdar Jang; the condition of the eastern provinces we have seen. Elsewhere the Mahrattas were supreme, save where they were kept at bay by the English or the Nizám, or where, in the extreme south, Tanjore, Travancore, and Mysore maintained a precarious independence under native Rájas. In the Punjab the Afgháns were paramount, though a Turkmán nobleman, named Mir Manu, professed to hold the country as Viceroy of the Emperor. On his death

the new Vazir, who had taken the title of his lately-deceased uncle, Gházi-ud-din, attempted to assert his supremacy. In the beginning of 1757, however, Ahmad Abdáli came down, drove the Vazir out, and proceeded to plunder Delhi and the sur

rounding country. The Afghán leader took his departure in November, going into cantonments at Anupshahr, on the upper Ganges, leaving a valiant Pathán, named Najib Khán, in charge of affairs at Delhi.

Some notion of what was going on in these regions may have stimulated the ill-starred Siráj-ud-daula in his tergiversations with Clive. On the side of the Mahrattas, also, he may have entertained hopes. That enterprising community had now been, for some seventeen years, under the presiding rule of Báláji, the heads of the clans of Sindia and Holkar being their most prominent military leaders. From their partitioned fiefs in Málwa these chiefs led their horsemen wherever booty was to be obtained or territory annexed. They took service at Delhi under Gházi; and only awaited the departure of the Abdáli to make a swoop on the Punjab. One of the means adopted by Clive to frighten the Nawab of Bengal was to inform him that the Peshwa was coming.

At last, the links of the steel net for the Nawab of Bengal being all forged, the show of friendship was discarded. With a small but well-disciplined force Clive marched on the intrenched camp at Plassy.

[To authorities already cited the student may add Elphinstone's "Rise of British power in the East," London, 1887. Mr. Cotton, Elphinstone's last biographer, agrees with the author's own modest estimate, that he "had no talent for narration." Nevertheless, the book is based on much research among original papers and contemporary writings, and is attractive by reason of its ripe wisdom and elevated tone. All the works of Orme are important,, but scarce and bulky. Some idea of their value may be formed from Mr. Talboys Wheeler's little work, "Orme's Hindustan," Madras, 1862. Information on the siege of Calcutta by Siráj-ud-daula will be found accurately and agreeably conveyed in "Echoes from Old Calcutta,” H. E. Busteed, Calcutta, 1882.]

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CHAPTER VII.

THE HINDU REVIVAL AND RISE OF BRITISH POWER.

Section 1: The English settlement in Bengal, and the Hindu revival.— Section 2: The restoration of the Empire and decline of the

Mahratta Confederacy.-Section 3: State of Hindustan to the first ministry of Sindia, 1784.

SECTION I.--It was the 13th June when Mr. Watts, with three subordinates, reached the camp of Clive at Katwa, having ridden the seventy miles from Murshidabad without halting. A declaration of war was at once sent to the Nawáb, and the latter replied by a letter of defiance and by marching his army to Plassy. It consisted of 15,oco cavalry, 35,coo infantry and over forty heavy guns. To oppose him Clive could only muster Soo Europeans. with 2,100 sepoys, and eight field-pieces. If the Nawab's forces were faithful and fairly led the enterprise looked ill indeed; and Clive was informed that Jáfir had been reconciled to the Nawab, and that the plot was at an end. If he made one more march, and crossed the river, he would find himself in the presence of an overwhelming enemy. The situation was one to try the strongest nerves. Clive's first thought-unlike him as it sounds-was to write to Calcutta for instructions. He then called a council-of-war, and did not conceal his opinion that the wisest plan would be to encamp where they were and invite the help of native allies; the opinion of the officers was divided. But after the council broke up, Clive passed an hour in solitude, at the end of which he returned to the lines, and ordered an immediate advance.

About midnight of the 22-23rd the little army arrived within

earshot of the enemy, and took post in a walled mangoorchard, about a mile beyond the village of Plassy, the Nawab's army occupying the intrenchment formerly mentioned as having been constructed in the neighbourhood three months before. At eight in the morning the British advanced in line, with the river on their left. They saw on their right three divisions of the enemy, so disposed that unless they prevailed they would be surrounded with their backs to the river. In the centre of Clive's line were the Europeans, and some field-pieces were advanced on his left front. On the enemy's extreme right was a redoubt, guarded by a party of French, next came two divisions and a half, led by officers who, it was thought, might be faithful to the Nawáb; on the left came the division of Mir Jáfir, on whose fidelity no absolute dependence could be placed by either side. If he helped Clive to conquer he would be Nawab of Bengal in the room of his master; if he thought that, even for such a stake, the game was too hazardous, he might take the British in the rear and complete their ruin. The best hope was that he would abide the event. Accordingly, after a sharp duel of artillery, in which the British were necessarily overmatched, Clive withdrew his men into the shelter of the walled orchard, from whose shelter he once more opened fire from his field-pieces. His idea probably, at that moment, was to wait in the grove till dark, and then make a night attack on the intrenchment. In the course of the forenoon, however, heavy rain fell: the British gunners kept off the effects by aid of tarpaulin, but the enemy's tumbrils were soon soaking. The Nawáb's best general then advanced to storm the position, but the British replied with a fire of grape, which laid him low with many of his men.

On hearing the news the Nawáb mounted a swift dromedary and fled in the direction of his capital, leaving the army to the charge of Mir Jáfir and his colleagues, one at least of whom was favourable to that officer's projects. They at once