The first of the native states in which the British initiated their new policy of intervention was one with which the French had busied themselves ten years earlier, the kingdom of Tanjore. There the ruler favoured by Governor Dumas, Sauhojee, had, after some years of misrule, been deposed; he now came to the British Company for assistance, offering to pay the expenses of the war and to give the fort and territory of Devicotah as the price of his re-establishment on the throne. The Company accordingly detailed a force of five hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred Sepoys, which started at the end of March 1749 for Trichinopoly. Sauhojee had engaged that its operations could be seconded by a general rising in his favour, but this promise was found to be illusory, and the expedition returned without effecting anything. Undismayed, however, by this first failure, the Company equipped a second force, and resolved this time to push straight for the prize offered by Sauhojee, the fort of Devicotah. Eight hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred Sepoys under command of Major Stringer Lawrence embarked for the mouth of the Coleroon, and landing on the south side of the river succeeded after a few days\' cannonade in battering a breach in the wall of the fort. A ship\'s carpenter then contrived a raft on which troops could be conveyed across the river, and Lawrence resolved to storm the fort forthwith. Clive led the storming party, which consisted of thirty-four Europeans and seven hundred[193] Sepoys, but, the Sepoys failing to support him, his little party of British was cut to pieces by the cavalry of the Tanjorines, and he himself narrowly escaped with his life. Lawrence thereupon resolved to throw the whole of his Europeans into the breach. The Tanjorine horse again attacked them as they advanced, but were crushed by their fire; and the British on entering the breach found the fort deserted. Lawrence accordingly took possession of the fort and territory, and the Company, having obtained all that it desired, promised Sauhojee a pension if he would undertake to give no more trouble in Tanjore. It was destined to pay dearly for this evil precedent, and for the paltry acquisition so ignobly gained.
July 23 Aug. 3.

Meanwhile momentous events elsewhere had led to fresh complications. In 1748 Nizam-ul-Mulk, the Viceroy of the Deccan, died, and his death was followed as usual by a quarrel over the succession to his throne. The successor nominated by the dead ruler was his grandson, Murzapha Jung; the rival was his second son, Nasir Jung; and, as was natural, both claimants cast about them for allies. It has already been related how Chunda Sahib, the devoted admirer of the French, had been captured by the Mahrattas in Trichinopoly in 1741. Ever since that time he had been kept in close confinement at Satara; the Mahrattas, who knew him by reputation as the ablest soldier that had been seen for years in the Carnatic, refusing to release him except for an impossible ransom. He had, however, a friend in Dupleix, who throughout his imprisonment had protected his wife and family in Pondicherry, and had contrived further to maintain with him a friendly correspondence. Murzapha Jung while travelling in search of help from the Mahrattas encountered Chunda Sahib at Satara, and at once perceived the value of such a man for an ally. Dupleix was called in, and took in the whole situation at a glance. If the force of the French arms could enthrone Murzapha Jung as viceroy, there would be little or nothing to hinder French[194] influence from becoming predominant in the Deccan, or, in other words, to prevent Dupleix from becoming practically if not nominally viceroy himself. He at once pledged himself to discharge Chunda Sahib\'s ransom, and immediately after his release allowed him to take into his pay two thousand Sepoys from the garrison of Pondicherry; agreeing also, on receipt of a further cession of territory near the town, to give him the assistance of four hundred European soldiers. With these and with the troops that he had collected, in all some six thousand men, Chunda Sahib joined himself to Murzapha Jung\'s army of thirty thousand men, and advanced with them against Arcot. The capture of this, the capital town of the Carnatic, would place the resources of that province at their disposal and win for them the first step to the throne of the Deccan. The old Nabob Anwarudeen had collected a force to oppose them, but he could bring forward no troops to match the disciplined infantry of the French. After a sharp action at Amoor he was defeated and slain: the victorious army entered Arcot on the following day, and the Carnatic was won.

Murzapha Jung having proclaimed himself Viceroy of the Deccan, and taken steps to assert his sovereignty, proceeded next with Chunda Sahib to Pondicherry, where they were received in great state by Dupleix, and in return rewarded him with yet another grant of the neighbouring territory. Meanwhile the English looked on, indignant but helpless, having barred their right to protest by their own foolish action at Tanjore. Boscawen did indeed take advantage of Anwarudeen\'s death to hoist the British flag over St. Thomé, as a masterless town which might be of profit to the Company; but for the rest the arm of the British seemed paralysed. Mohammed Ali, son of the dead Nabob Anwarudeen, who had fled from the field of Amoor to Trichinopoly, invoked the aid of the East India Company; but though profoundly distrustful of the friendship between Chunda Sahib and Dupleix, the[195] authorities sent but one hundred and twenty men to help him. This done, they actually permitted Boscawen to return to England with his fleet and transports, retaining but three hundred of his men in India to strengthen the British garrison. This was the moment for which Dupleix had longed. The one force which he dreaded was removed. It remained only for Murzapha Jung and Chunda Sahib to march to Trichinopoly and crush Mohammed Ali; and Southern India was gained once for all.
Dec. 20 31 .

Dupleix did not fail to urge this step upon his two allies; but they had spent so much money over their own enjoyment at Pondicherry that they had exhausted the treasure necessary for the decisive campaign. Judging that the easiest and speediest method of replenishing their empty purse would be to extort funds from the Rajah of Tanjore, they led their armies against that city and summoned it to surrender. The Rajah, Partab Singh, gained time by astute negotiation to summon the English and Murzapha Jung\'s rival, Nasir Jung, to his assistance; but the English hardly responded, and the Rajah, cowed by an attack of the French infantry on the defences of the city, agreed to pay the sum required of him. None the less, by continual haggling he continued to keep his enemies inactive before the walls until the news of Nasir Jung\'s approach, with a force of overwhelming strength, caused them to fall back in panic upon Pondicherry.
1750.
April 1 12 .

The favourable moment in fact had been lost, despite Dupleix\'s pressing entreaties that it might be seized. Nasir Jung had not only invaded the Carnatic with his own forces but had called Mohammed Ali and the British to his standard; and the East India Company, roused by the imposing numbers of his army, had sent him six hundred European soldiers under command of Stringer Lawrence in person. At the end of March the hostile armies stood within striking distance of each other midway between Pondicherry and Arcot, near the fortress of Gingee; but no blow was struck. A[196] mutiny of the French troops practically broke up Murzapha Jung\'s army; Murzapha himself surrendered to Nasir Jung; and the whole of Dupleix\'s grand combinations seemed to be shattered beyond repair. With inexhaustible energy, however, the French Governor set himself to restore the discipline of the troops, and meanwhile opened negotiations with Nasir Jung. Finding his overtures rejected he boldly surprised his camp by night with a handful of men, and with such effect that Nasir Jung retreated hurriedly to Arcot. The British, thus abandoned, retired likewise to Fort St. David, and the field was left open once more to the ambition of Dupleix.
Aug. 31 Sept. 11.
Dec. 5 16 .

Thoroughly understanding the Oriental character, he hastened to follow up this first blow with another. First he turned upon Mohammed Ali, who had been left in isolation near Pondicherry, dispersed his army, though vastly superior to his own, almost without loss of a man, and sent him flying northward. He then detached one of his best officers, M. de Bussy, with a handful of troops against the fugitives of Mohammed Ali\'s force which had rallied under the walls of Gingee; and Bussy not only routed them in the field but actually carried the fort of Gingee itself, for generations deemed an impregnable stronghold, by escalade. This feat, one of the most brilliant and marvellous ever achieved by Europeans in India, provoked Nasir Jung anew to try his fortune in the field and lured him on to his destruction. Notwithstanding the lateness of the season he collected a vast unwieldy host of a hundred thousand men and moved down to Gingee, only to find military operations absolutely impossible owing to the breaking of the monsoon. For three months he remained perforce inactive, while Dupleix sedulously fostered sedition and conspiracy in his camp. At last, in December, the French attacked and utterly defeated his army, while the conspirators made an end of Nasir Jung himself. Murzapha Jung was at once saluted as Viceroy of the Deccan, and a few days later was solemnly installed as[197] such at Pondicherry; Dupleix, in all the splendour of Oriental robes, sitting by his side as one of equal rank, to receive with him the homage of the subordinate princes. The French Governor was declared Nabob of the whole of the country south of the Kistnah to Cape Comorin, and Chunda Sahib was appointed Nabob of Arcot and of its dependencies under him; his former rival, Mohammed Ali, being only too glad to gain Dupleix\'s favour by renouncing all pretensions of his own. Finally, new privileges and concessions were showered on the French East India Company. To such a height indeed had French ascendency risen that Dupleix gave orders for the erection of a city with the pompous title of the Place of the Victory of Dupleix.
1751.
Jan. 4 15 .
June 18 29 .

Nothing now remained but to escort the new Viceroy of the Deccan to his capital at Aurungabad, a duty which was entrusted to Bussy. At one point in the march some opposition was encountered, which, though easily swept aside by the French artillery, proved fatal to Murzapha Jung. His vindictive temper led him forward to a personal contest of man to man, and while actually within reach of the goal of his ambition he was struck dead. The incident, untoward though it might appear at such a time, proved to be of little moment. One puppet would serve as well as another for Viceroy of the Deccan, so the actual sovereignty rested with Dupleix. Salabat Jung, a younger brother of Nasir Jung, was accordingly released by Bussy from the prison in which he was confined, and was elevated with general approval to the place of the potentate whose career had been so unfortunately cut short. Needless to say, he at once confirmed all former privileges to the French and added yet others to them. Finally, in June, the poor creature entered Aurungabad in state, attended by Bussy and his troops, who did not omit to take up their quarters permanently in the capital. Thus from the Vindhya mountains to the Kistnah the country was practically under the control of Bussy, while from the Kistnah to Cape Comorin Dupleix ruled[198] as actual vicegerent of the Mohammedan sovereign of the Deccan. The moment marks the zenith of French power in India.
March.
May.

Throughout these transactions the British had remained open-mouthed and inactive, so inactive that in October 1750 they had permitted their ablest soldier, Stringer Lawrence, to return to England. Thoroughly alarmed at the rapid progress of Dupleix\'s influence, and irritated by the ostentatious display of his sovereignty on its boundaries, the Company at last resolved to initiate a steady policy of opposition to the French in all quarters. There was but one pretext for intervention. Mohammed Ali, the son of the late Nabob Anwarudeen, while negotiating with Dupleix for the surrender of Trichinopoly, had never ceased to make piteous appeals for British assistance. Rather, therefore, than allow this last excuse for interference to be taken from them, the British authorities consented to give him help, and as a first instalment despatched three hundred British and as many Sepoys to Trichinopoly in February 1751. The main issue now turned on the possession of Trichinopoly, and Dupleix was not slow to recognise the fact. Chunda Sahib was already preparing to march upon the city with a native army of about eight thousand men, and to these Dupleix added four hundred French under an able officer. The British replied by equipping a further force of five hundred Europeans, one hundred Africans, and a thousand Sepoys, under the command of Captain Gingen, with Lieutenant Robert Clive for his commissariat-officer. Not daring to act as principal, for French and English were still nominally at peace, Gingen waited at Fort St. David until the middle of May, when he was joined by sixteen hundred of Mohammed Ali\'s troops. Vested by the advent of this rabble with the character of a legitimate auxiliary, he then marched southward to seize the pagoda of Verdachelum, which commanded the communications between Fort St. David and Trichinopoly. This was successfully accomplished; and having[199] received further reinforcements he moved south-westward to Volconda, on the road between Arcot and Trichinopoly, to intercept the advancing army of Chunda Sahib.
July 17 28 .

The result was disastrous for Gingen. After the exchange of a few cannon-shots the British troops were seized with panic, flung down their arms, and could not be rallied even by Clive himself. Gingen, finding them much shaken, thereupon fell back upon Trichinopoly. Chunda Sahib immediately followed them; and after three days of skirmishing the British crossed the river Coleroon and finally took refuge under the walls of the city. The enemy lost no time in closing in around them, and now the French could look upon their success as well-nigh assured. Almost the whole of the British force in India was cooped up in the city before them; there seemed to be no prospect of relief for them from any other quarter, and it was therefore necessary only to keep them strictly blockaded to make them prisoners in a body.

The British authorities in Fort St. David saw the danger, but could not divine how to avert it. A small force of Europeans had lately arrived from England, but every military officer was shut up in Trichinopoly, and there was not one at hand to take charge of a relieving force. None the less a convoy was equipped at the end of July and sent off with an escort of eighty Europeans and three hundred Sepoys under command of a civilian, Mr. Pigot, with Robert Clive, who had returned from the army after the retreat from Volconda, as second in command. Pigot conducted his convoy safely as far as Verdachelum and passed his reinforcement successfully into Trichinopoly, but both he and Clive were cut off while returning to Fort St. David, and only with the greatest difficulty evaded capture. Clive, now raised to the rank of captain, was presently sent into Tanjore with a second reinforcement, which, like its predecessor, contrived to make its way into Trichinopoly, and raised the strength of the British[200] battalion therein to six hundred men. But the French on their side could bring nine hundred Europeans to meet them; and the salvation of Trichinopoly, and of British power in India which lay bound up in it, seemed to be hopeless.
August.
Aug. 26 Sept. 6.

Clive grasped at once the significance of the situation, and without wasting further time over the blockaded city returned with all haste to Madras. The only hope for Trichinopoly, as he pointed out, lay in a vigorous diversion which should carry the war into the enemy\'s country. Though the bulk of the British forces might be shut up in Trichinopoly, the bulk of Chunda Sahib\'s army was equally tied down before it, and therefore the capital of the Carnatic must be left unguarded. Let a bold stroke be aimed at Arcot, and Chunda Sahib must either raise the siege of Trichinopoly to save it, or suffer a loss for which the gain of Trichinopoly would be poor compensation. The plan was audacious beyond measure, but the Governor, Mr. Saunders, a resolute and far-seeing man, perceived its merit; so reducing the garrisons of Madras and Fort St. David to the lowest point he equipped a force of two hundred Europeans and three hundred Sepoys, together with three field-guns, and placed Clive in command with unlimited powers. With this handful of men and eight officers, of whom four had like himself been taken from desk and ledger, Clive marched on the 6th of September from Madras.
Aug. 31 Sept. 11.

Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, and then the seat of Chunda Sahib\'s government, lies sixty-four miles to south and west of Madras. It was then an open town of about one hundred thousand inhabitants, with no defences but a ruined fort, which was held by a garrison of a thousand natives. Five days, including a halt of one day at Conjeveram, sufficed to bring Clive within ten miles of the city. At this point he again made a short halt, but resuming his march through a terrific thunderstorm pushed forward to the gates on the same evening. Rumour of his approach had gone before[201] him. Spies had reported that the British were striding on unconcerned through lightning, rain, and tempest; and the garrison, afraid to oppose a man who set the very elements at defiance, evacuated the fort without firing a shot.
Sept. 4 15 - 6 17 .
Sept. 23 Oct. 4.

Clive at once occupied the deserted fort, repaired the defences, mounted the guns that he found there, and made every preparation to resist a siege. The native garrison having encamped about six miles from the city, Clive made two successful sorties against them, in order to keep them in a becoming state of alarm; and hearing a week later that they had been reinforced to a strength of three thousand men, he burst suddenly upon their camp by night, killed several, sent the rest flying away in panic terror, and returned to the fort without the loss of a man. But by this time Chunda Sahib had heard of the misfortune to his capital, and had detached four thousand men from before Trichinopoly to recapture the fort. Dupleix, though greatly averse to any diminution of the blockading army, added one hundred French soldiers to this detachment, while other levies raised it to a total of ten thousand men. With this force Raju Sahib, Chunda Sahib\'s son, entered Arcot on the 4th of October and began the investment of the fort.
Sept. 24 Oct. 5.
Sept. 25 Oct. 6.
Oct. 30 Nov. 10.
Nov. 13 24 .
Nov. 14 25 .

On the very next day Clive made a bold sally with the object of driving the enemy from the town, but was driven back with the loss, very serious in view of his numbers, of two officers and thirty-one European soldiers killed and wounded. On the morrow the besiegers received further reinforcement, which raised their numbers to eleven thousand natives and one hundred and fifty Europeans; whereas Clive\'s garrison was by this time reduced to six score Europeans and two hundred Sepoys only. A fortnight later the enemy\'s battering train arrived, and on the 10th of November, a practicable breach having been made in the walls, Raju Sahib summoned Clive to surrender. He was answered by a message of contemptuous defiance; but knowing that[202] the supplies of the fort were running low, he hesitated to storm, in the hope of reducing the garrison by starvation. Meanwhile, however, Governor Saunders was pushing forward reinforcements, and had induced the Mahrattas, under the redoubtable Morari Rao, to throw in their lot with the British. Intelligence of this last put an end to Raju Sahib\'s inaction, and on the 24th of November he laid his plans for an assault. The day chosen was the festival of the brothers Hassan and Hussein, an anniversary on which Mohammedan fanaticism is inflamed always to its fiercest heat. Fortunately Clive had been warned by a spy of the intended attack, and had made such preparations as he could by training cannon on to the breach, and keeping relays of muskets loaded for the maintenance of a continuous fire. At dawn the enemy\'s troops swarmed up to the breach, while elephants, with their heads armoured by plates of iron, were brought forward to batter down the gates. But the fire of the British was too hot and deadly to be endured, and the elephants, galled by wounds, swerved back and trampled all around them under foot. Once only the storming-party seemed likely to gain ground, and then Clive, taking personal charge of one of the field-guns, dispersed them effectively with three or four rounds. After maintaining the attack for an hour the enemy fell back defeated. The French for some reason held aloof, and the bravest of the native leaders were killed. How hot the affair was while it lasted may be judged from the fact that Clive\'s garrison, though reduced to eighty Europeans and one hundred and twenty Sepoys, expended twelve thousand cartridges during the assault. The loss of the defenders was but six killed and wounded; that of the enemy was reckoned at not less than four hundred. On the following day Raju Sahib raised the siege and marched away, abandoning several guns and a great quantity of ammunition; and Clive was left in Arcot triumphant. The siege had lasted fifty days and had cost the little garrison one-fourth of its number in killed alone, besides a still[203] greater number wounded; but this was no heavy price to pay for the re-establishment of British prestige. The feast of Hassan and Hussein may justly be accounted the birthday of our empire in India.

On the evening of the day of the assault Clive was joined by a reinforcement of men and of four guns, which enabled him, after leaving a garrison in the fort, to take the field with two hundred Europeans and seven hundred Sepoys. Raju Sahib\'s army had in great measure disbanded itself during his retreat, none remaining with him except his small party of French and the men which he had brought with him from Trichinopoly. With these he retired westward to Vellore. There a reinforcement from Pondicherry increased the ............