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Through the crowded streets I urged my way, escorted by a handful of Meer Jaffier's horsemen, and seeing on every hand the tokens of the anarchy which had followed upon the news of Plassy. The people were abroad, lights gleamed in every direction, men ran hither and thither, and doors stood open with no one to guard the entrance. As we drew near to the palace of the Nabob the confusion increased.
Fortunately for me Colonel Clive had provided me with an excuse for my journey in the shape of a letter to Surajah Dowlah, in which the Colonel renewed his expressions of friendship, but demanded the withdrawal of the Nabob's army from Plassy.
Colonel Clive will protect you, if necessary, against the Morattoes. But you may depend upon it he will never believe in your friendship till your troops are withdrawn from Plassy." The Nabob seemed to meditate upon these words for a few minutes, during which nobody ventured to speak to him. Then he looked at me again, seeming as if he would search my heart.
Baron Plassy, a far greater man in the same field of achievement, is, compared with Hastings, little known the title not being remembered even by the mass of his countrymen to-day as part of the reward to Robert Clive for founding the British Empire in India. But the importance of the President's Impeachment does not depend upon the fame of his accusers or upon the length of his trial.
So completely were the roads closed by the rebel sepoys, that news of their condition did not reach Lucknow, only fifty miles distant, till near the termination of the affair. The 23rd of June 1857 was the centenary of the battle of Plassy, and the sepoys believed on that day they should finally throw off the British yoke.
"I rose to a certain height over Plassy, and perceiving Villette, which I did not despair of reaching in spite of the misfortune that had happened to me, I attached a rope of my rigging to my leg, not being able to make use of my left hand, which I had wrapped in my handkerchief on account of the sword-wound it had received.
He traced the whole history of the Indian government from the day of Plassy, and substantiated the right of the home government and Parliament to remodel it as they might judge best, by proving that ever since the passing of Pitt's first bill, in 1784, the Company had been constantly subject to Parliamentary control.
It is a grim truth that all through the eighteenth century, all through the great Whig speeches about liberty, all through the great Tory speeches about patriotism, through the period of Wandewash and Plassy, through the period of Trafalgar and Waterloo, one process was steadily going on in the central senate of the nation.
Such was his judgment, in which I was obliged to agree; though I confess I had a liking for Meer Jaffier, and felt much pity for him in his subsequent misfortunes. It was one o'clock, an hour after midnight, when our little army of three thousand men arrived and took up their quarters in the grove of Plassy.
Who has not admired that noble speech of my Lord Clive, when reproached on his return from India with making rather too free with jaghires, lakhs, gold mohurs, diamonds, pearls, and what not? "Upon my life," said the hero of Plassy, "when I think of my opportunities, I am surprised I took so little!"
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