Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 6, 2025
Eleven months elapsed, and it was not till Lord Clive reached the place of his destination that the covenants were executed: and they were not executed then without some degree of force. Soon afterwards the treaty was made with the country powers by which Sujah ul Dowlah was reëstablished in the province of Oude, and paid a sum of 500,000l. to the Company for it.
Surajah Dowlah was unblessed with the faintest glimmerings of statesmanship; it seemed to his enfeebled mind that it would be not only a very good thing to drive the English out of Bengal, but that it would be also an exceedingly easy thing to do. Had not the English dogs fortified their settlement without his permission?
"Surajah Dowlah instantly assembled 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.
But though Surajah Dowlah may have grounds for complaint against the Council here, I can't think he will carry his resentment so far as to injure the peaceable inhabitants of Calcutta." I turned towards her, amazed. "What do you say?" I cried. "You speak as though you were in the Nabob's interests! Have you been listening to the talk of some Moor or other?
Moreover, Meer Jaffier, whose alliance with the English, whose treason to Surajah Dowlah, was an important part of the scheme, was not to be counted upon. He hesitated, unwilling to fling his fortunes into the English scale before he was convinced that the English were certain of success, although he was himself one of the most important factors in the possibility of that success.
After Colonel Clive and the new Nabob had discussed the situation for a short time, it was agreed between them that Meer Jaffier should proceed at once with his force to the capital to check any attempt at rallying on the part of Surajah Dowlah. Colonel Clive, with the English army, was to follow more slowly.
But even those who write to-day, more than a century and a quarter after that time; those in whose minds the memories are fresh of the butcher's well at Cawnpore and the massacre on the river-bank; those to whom the names of Nana Sahib and Azimoolah Khan sound as horridly as the names of fiends even those can still think of the Blackhole as almost incomparable in horror, and of Surajah Dowlah as among the worst of Oriental murderers.
Clive proceeded with his usual promptitude; he routed the garrison which the nabob had placed in Fort William, recovered Calcutta, and took Hoogly by storm. Surajah Dowlah, who was as cowardly as he was cruel, now sought to negotiate peace, but at the same time he secretly urged the French to come to his assistance. This duplicity could not be concealed from Clive and Watson.
Then came the madman's march on Calcutta, the horror of the Black Hole, and the flight of the Governor and the Company's servants to the little fort at Falta in the Hughli below Calcutta. Communications were entered upon between Governor Drake in Falta Island and Hastings at Murshidabad with a view to coming to terms with Suraj ud Dowlah.
Nay, it seemed as if even the faint-hearted Bengalee, who had crouched at the feet of Surajah Dowlah, who had been mute during the administration of Vansittart, would at length find courage in despair. No Mahratta invasion had ever spread through the province such dismay as this inroad of English lawyers.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking