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Updated: June 7, 2025
Sir Eyre Coote, who had so boldly supported that bold policy which led to the victory of Plassey, nearly a quarter of a century later supported Hastings in the field with almost as much vigor as he had supported Clive in council, and saved British India, when it was assailed by the ablest of all its foes.
Sir Eyre Coote had, many years before, been conspicuous among the founders of the British empire in the East. At the council of war which preceded the battle of Plassey, he earnestly recommended, in opposition to the majority, that daring course which, after some hesitation, was adopted, and which was crowned with such splendid success.
That remarkable young warrior rose from his subordinate desk, laid aside his clerkly pen, and gathering a little band of fighters round him, defeated both French and natives in the remarkable siege of Arcot. Then came the hideous tale of the "black hole of Calcutta," and Clive achieved revenge and completed his work of conquest at Plassey .
The last to obtain a site of twenty acres from the moribund Mussulman Government at Moorshedabad was Denmark, two years before Plassey. In the half century the hut of the first Governor sent from Tranquebar had grown into the "beautiful little town" which delighted the first Baptist missionaries. Its inhabitants, under only British administration since 1845, now number 45,000.
Had the British not won the battles of Plassey and Buxar, the whole Empire would ere now have become the fighting ground of Sikhs, Rajputs, and Mahrattas. Hastings. Not only Haidarabad but all the other existing Musalman principalities of modern India owe their existence, directly, or indirectly, to the British intervention.
Prophecy, vague but persuasive, hinted that British rule, which dated in the Indian mind from the battle of Plassey in 1757, was doomed not to outlive its centenary.
At Plassey in 1757 and at Buxar in 1764, when the destinies of India were still in the balance, the British, though the backbone of the Company's forces, formed only a tithe numerically of the victorious armies that fought under Clive and Munro.
Clive hastened to Bengal, and with a little army of nine hundred Europeans and fifteen hundred Sepoys he gained a great victory at Plassey over the subahdar's army of fifty thousand men. Clive then replaced the subahdar of Bengal by a man whom he believed to be friendly to the English.
For thirty years after Plassey the Government of India had been learning its business, and in the process had injured both itself and the landed classes, as much as has been done in Ireland. From a mere trader it had been, more or less consciously, becoming a ruler.
It will be remembered how, after Clive had won Plassey, he came home full of riches and honours, obtained his peerage and bought his unique collection of rotten boroughs. He did not, however, remain long at home.
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