With Clive in India; Or, The Beginnings of an Empire

by G. A. Henty

  Chapter 5: Madras.

  After the young writers had seen the native town, they returned to thebeach, and spent the afternoon watching the progress of landing thecargo of the Lizzie Anderson. They were pleased to see their ownluggage safely ashore; as it would have been greatly damaged, had theboat containing it been swamped; a misfortune which happened toseveral of the boats laden with cargo. It was very amusing, each timethat one of these boats arrived, to see a crowd of natives rush downinto the water, waist deep, seize it, and drag it up beyond the nextwave. Many of them would be knocked down, and some swept out by theretreating wave, only to return on the next roller. All could swimlike fish, and any of these events were greeted with shouts oflaughter by the rest.

  When the packages were landed a rope was put round them, and throughthis a long bamboo pole was inserted, which would be lifted on to theshoulders of two, four, or six porters, according to its weight; andthese would go off, at a hobbling sort of trot, with their burden tothe factory.

  Their own baggage was taken up to the quarters allotted to them, andat the hour named for dinner the newcomers met, for the first time,those with whom they were to be associated. All were dressed in whitesuits, and Charlie was struck with the pallor of their faces, and thelistless air of most of them. The gentleman to whom they had firstbeen introduced made them acquainted with the others.

  "How refreshingly healthy and well you look!" a young man of some sixand twenty years old, named Johnson, said. "I was something like that,when I first came out here, though you'd hardly think it now. Eightyears of stewing, in this horrible hole, takes the life and spiritsout of anyone.

  "However, there's one consolation. After eight or ten years of quilldriving in a stuffy room, one becomes a little more one's own master,and one's duties begin to be a little more varied and pleasant. Onegets a chance of being sent up, occasionally, with goods; or on somemessage or other to one of the native princes, and then one getstreated like a prince, and sees that India is not necessarily sodetestable as we have contrived to make it here. The only bearabletime of one's life is the few hours after dinner, when one can sit ina chair in the veranda, and smoke and look at the sea. Some of thefellows play billiards and cards; but if you will take my advice, youwon't go in for that sort of thing. It takes a lot out of one, andfellows that do it are, between you and me, in the bad books of thebigwigs. Besides, they lose money, get into debt, and all sorts ofmischief comes of it."

  The speaker was sitting between Charlie and Peters, and was talking ina tone of voice which would not be overheard by the others.

  "Thank you," Charlie said. "I, for one, will certainly take youradvice. I suppose one can buy ponies here. I should think a good rideevery morning early, before work, would do one good."

  "Yes, it is not a bad thing," Johnson said. "A good many fellows doit, when they first come out here. But after a time they lose theirenergy, you see, though some do keep it up.

  "What appetites you fellows have! It does one good to see you eat."

  "I have not the least idea what we are eating," Charlie said,laughing; "but it's really very nice, whatever it is. But there seemsan immense quantity of pepper, or hot stuff of some kind or other;which one would have thought, in this tremendous heat, would have madeone hotter instead of cooler."

  "Yes," their new friend answered. "No doubt all this pepper and currydo heat the blood; but you see, it is done to tempt the appetite. Meathere is fearfully coarse and tasteless. Our appetites are poor, andwere it not for these hot sauces, we should eat next to nothing.

  "Will you have some bananas?"

  "They are nice and cool," Peters said as, having peeled the long fruitas he saw his companion doing, he took a bite of one; "but they havevery little taste."

  "Most of our fruit is tasteless," Johnson said, "except, indeed, themango and mangostine. They are equal to any English fruit in flavour,but I would give them all for a good English apple. Its sharpnesswould be delicious here.

  "And now, as you have done, if you will come and sit in the veranda ofmy room, we will smoke a cigar and have something cool to drink; and Iwill answer, as well as I can, the questions you've asked me about thestate of things here."

  When they had seated themselves in the extremely comfortable canechairs, in a veranda facing the sea, and had lit their cigars, theirfriend began:

  "Madras isn't much of a place, now; but you should have seen it beforethe French had it. Our chiefs think of nothing but trade, and carenothing how squalid and miserable is the place in which they makemoney. The French have larger ideas. They transformed this place;cleared away that portion of the native town which surrounded thefactory and fort, made wide roads, formed an esplanade, improved andstrengthened the fortifications, forbade the natives to throw alltheir rubbish and offal on the beach; and made, in fact, a decentplace of it. We hardly knew it when we came back, and whatever theCompany may have thought, we were thoroughly grateful for the Frenchoccupation.

  "One good result, too, is that our quarters have been greatlyimproved; for not only did the French build several new houses, but atpresent all the big men, the council and so on, are still living atFort Saint David, which is still the seat of administration. So yousee, we have got better quarters; we are rid of the stenches andnuisances of the native town; the plague of flies which made our lifea burden is abated; and we can sit here and enjoy the cool sea breeze,without its being poisoned before it reaches us by the heaped up filthon the beach.

  "It must have wrung Dupleix's heart to give up the place over whichthey expended so much pains, and after all it didn't do away with thefighting. In April we sent a force from Fort Saint David--before wecame back here--four hundred and thirty white soldiers and a thousandSepoys, under the command of Captain Cope, to aid a fellow who hadbeen turned out of the Rajahship of Tanjore. I believe he was a greatblackguard, and the man who had taken his place was an able rulerliked by the people."

  "Then why should we interfere on behalf of the other?" Charlie asked.

  "My dear Marryat," their host said compassionately, "you are veryyoung yet, and quite new to India. You will see, after a time, thatright has nothing at all to do with the dealings of the Company, intheir relations to the native princes. We are, at present, littlepeople living here on sufferance, among a lot of princes and powerswho are enemies and rivals of each other. We have, moreover, asneighbours, another European colony considerably stronger than we are.The consequence is, the question of right cannot enter into theconsiderations of the Company. It may be said that, for every pettykingdom in Southern India, there are at least two pretenders, veryoften half a dozen. So far we have not meddled much in their quarrels,but the French have been much more active that way. They always sidewith one or other of these pretenders, and when they get the man theysupport into power, of course he repays them for their assistance. Inthis manner, as I shall explain to you presently, they have virtuallymade themselves masters of the Carnatic, outside the walls of FortSaint David and this place.

  "Well, our people thought to take a leaf out of the French book, andas the ex-rajah offered us, in payment for our aid, the possession ofDevikota, a town at the mouth of the river Kolrun, a place likely tobe of great use to us, we agreed to assist him. Cope, with the landforces, had marched to the border of the Tanjore territory, and theguns and heavy baggage were to go by sea.

  "But, unfortunately, we had a tremendous gale just after they sailed.The admiral's flagship, the Namur, of seventy-four guns; the Pembroke,of sixty; and the hospital ship, Apollo, were totally lost; and therest of the fleet scattered in all directions. Cope entered theTanjore territory, but found the whole population attached to the newrajah. It was useless for him, therefore, to march upon Tanjore, whichis a really strong town, so he marched down to Devikota, where hehoped to find some of the fleet. Not a ship, however, was to be seen,and as without guns Cope could do nothing, he returned here, as we hadjust taken possession again.

  "Then he went to Fort Saint David, and there was a gr
eat discussionamong the bigwigs. It was clear, from what Cope said, that our man hadnot a friend in his own country. Still, as he pointed out, Devikotawas a most important place for us. Neither Madras nor Fort Saint Davidhas a harbour; and Devikota, therefore, where the largest ships couldrun up the river and anchor, would be of immense utility to us.

  "As this was really the reason for which we had gone into the affair,it was decided to repeat the attempt. By this time Major Lawrence, whocommands the whole of the Company's forces in India, and who had beentaken a prisoner in one of the French sorties at the siege ofPondicherry, had been released. So he was put at the head of theexpedition; and the whole of the Company's English troops, eighthundred in all, including the artillery; and fifteen hundred Sepoys,started on board ship for Devikota. I must tell you that Lawrence is afirst-rate fellow, the only really good officer we have out here, andthe affair couldn't have been in the hands of a better man.

  "The ships arrived safely at the mouth of the Kolrun, and the troopswere landed on the bank of the river opposite the town, where Lawrenceintended to erect his batteries; as, in the first place, the shorebehind the town was swampy, and in the second the Rajah of Tanjore,who had got news of our coming, had his army encamped there to supportthe place. Lawrence got his guns in position and fired away, acrossthe river, at the earthen wall of the town. In three days he had abreach. The enemy didn't return our fire, but occupied themselves inthrowing up an entrenchment across the side of the fort.

  "We made a raft and crossed the river, but the enemy's matchlock menpeppered us so severely that we lost thirty English and fifty Sepoysin getting over. The enemy's entrenchment was not finished, but infront of it was a deep rivulet, which had to be crossed.

  "Lawrence gave the command of the storming party to Clive. He is oneof our fellows; a queer, restless sort of chap, who was really no goodhere, for he hated his work and always seemed to think himself amartyr. He was not a favourite among us, for he was often gloomy anddiscontented, though he had his good points. He was straightforwardand manly, and he put down two or three fellows here, who had beengiven to bully the young ones, in a way that astonished them.

  "He would never have made a good servant of the Company, for he sohated his work that, when he had been out here about a year, he triedto blow out his brains. He snapped the pistol twice at his head, butit didn't go off, though it was loaded all right. Strange, wasn't it?So he came to the conclusion that he wasn't meant to kill himself, andwent on living till something should turn up."

  "Yes," Charlie said; "Doctor Rae spoke to us about him during thevoyage. He knew him at the siege of Fort Saint David, andPondicherry."

  "Yes," Johnson said. "He came out there quite in a new light. He gottransferred into the military service, and was always in the middle ofthe fighting. Major Lawrence had a very high opinion of him, and soselected him to lead the storming party. It really seems almost as ifhe had a charmed life. Lawrence gave him thirty-three Englishsoldiers, and seven hundred Sepoys. The rest of the force were tofollow as soon as Clive's party gained the entrenchments. Clive ledthe way with his Europeans, with the Sepoys supporting behind, and gotacross the rivulet with a loss of only four men. He waited on theother bank till he saw the Sepoys climbing up, and then again led theEnglish on in advance towards the unfinished part of the entrenchment.

  "The Sepoys, however, did not move, but remained waiting for the mainbody to come up. The enemy let Clive and his twenty-nine men get onsome distance in advance, and then their cavalry, who had been hiddenby a projection of the fort, charged suddenly down on him. They wereupon our men before they had time to form, and in a minute twenty-sixof them were cut to pieces. Clive and the other three managed to getthrough the Tanjore horsemen and rejoin the Sepoys. That was almost asnarrow a shave for his life as with the pistol.

  "Lawrence now crossed with his main body and advanced. Again theTanjore horsemen charged; but this time we were prepared, and Lawrencelet them come on till within a few yards, and then gave them a volleywhich killed fourteen and sent the rest scampering away. Lawrencepushed forward. The garrison, panic stricken at the defeat of theircavalry, abandoned the breach and escaped to the opposite side of thetown, and Devikota was ours.

  "A few days later we captured the fortified temple of Uchipuran. Ahundred men were left there, and these were afterwards attacked by theRajah of Tanjore, with five thousand men; but they held their own, andbeat them off. A very gallant business, that!

  "These affairs showed the rajah that the English could fight; a pointwhich, hitherto, the natives had been somewhat sceptical about. Theywere afraid of the French, but they looked upon us as mere traders. Hehad, too, other things to trouble him as to the state of the Carnatic,and so hastened to make peace. He agreed to pay the expenses of thewar, and to cede us Devikota and some territory round it; and to allowthe wretched ex-rajah, in whose cause we had pretended to fight, apension of four hundred a year, on condition that we kept him shut upin one of our forts.

  "Not a very nice business on our side, was it? Still, we had gainedour point, and, with the exception of the ex-rajah, who was a bad lotafter all, no one was discontented.

  "When the peace was signed, our force returned to Fort Saint David.While they had been away, there had been a revolution in the Carnatic.Now this was rather a complicated business; but as the whole situationat present turns upon it; and it will, not improbably, cause ourexpulsion from Southern India; I will explain it to you as well as Ican.

  "Now you must know that all Southern India, with the exception of astrip along the west coast, is governed by a viceroy, appointed by theemperor at Delhi. He was called the Subadar of the Deccan. Up till theend of 'forty-eight, Nizam Ul-Mulk was viceroy. About that time hedied, and the emperor appointed his grandson, Muzaffar Jung, who wasthe son of a daughter of his, to succeed him. But the subadar had leftfive sons. Four of these lived at Delhi, and were content to enjoytheir life there. The second son, however, Nazir Jung, was anambitious man, who had rebelled even against his father. Naturally, herebelled against his nephew.

  "He was on the spot when his father died, while the new subadar wasabsent. Nazir, therefore, seized the reins of government, and all theresources of the state. The emperor has troubles enough of his own atDelhi, and Muzaffar had no hope of aid from him. He therefore went toSatarah, the court of the Mahrattas, to ask for their assistance.

  "There he met Chunda Sahib. This man was the nephew of the last nawabof the Carnatic, Dost Ali. Dost Ali had been killed in a battle withthem, in 1739; and they afterwards captured Trichinopoli, and tookChunda Sahib, who commanded there, prisoner; and had since kept him atSatarah. Had he been at liberty he would, no doubt, have succeeded hisuncle, whose only son had been murdered; but as he was at Satarah, theSubadar of the Deccan bestowed the government of the Carnatic uponAnwarud-din.

  "Chunda Sahib and Muzaffar Jung put their heads together, and agreedto act in concert. Muzaffar, of course, desired the subadarship of theDeccan, to which he had been appointed by the court of Delhi. ChundaSahib wanted the nawabship of the Carnatic, and advised his ally toabandon his intention of asking for Mahratta aid, and to ally himselfwith the French. A correspondence ensued with Dupleix, who, seeing theimmense advantage it would be to him to gain what would virtually bethe position of patron and protector of the Subadar of the Deccan, andthe Nawab of the Carnatic, at once agreed to join them.

  "Muzaffar raised thirty thousand men, and Chunda Sahib sixthousand--it is always easy, in India, to raise an army; with acertain amount of money, and lavish promises--marched down and joineda French force of four hundred strong, commanded by D'Auteuil.

  "The nawab advanced against them, but was utterly defeated at Ambur,the French doing pretty well the whole of the work. The nawab waskilled, and one of his sons, Maphuz Khan, taken prisoner. The other,Muhammud Ali, bolted at the beginning of the fight. Arcot, the capitalof the Carnatic, surrendered next day.

  "Muzaffar Jung proclaimed himself Subadar of the Deccan, and appointedChund
a Sahib Nawab of the Carnatic. Muzaffar Jung conferred uponDupleix the sovereignty of eighty-one villages adjoining the Frenchterritory. Muzaffar, after paying a visit to Pondicherry, remained inthe camp with his army, twenty miles distant from that place. ChundaSahib remained, as the guest of Dupleix, at Pondicherry.

  "On the receipt of the news of the battle of Ambur, Mr. Floyer, who isgovernor at Fort Saint David, sent at once to Chunda Sahib toacknowledge him as nawab; which, in the opinion of everyone here, wasa very foolish step. Muhammud Ali had fled to Trichinopoli, and sentword to Mr. Floyer that he could hold the place, and even reconquerthe Carnatic, if the English would assist him. I know that AdmiralBoscawen, who was with the fleet at Fort Saint David, urged Mr. Floyerto do so, as it was clear that Chunda Sahib would be a mere tool inthe hands of the French.

  "When Chunda Sahib delayed week after week at Pondicherry, Mr. Floyerbegan to hesitate, but he could not make up his mind, and AdmiralBoscawen, who had received orders to return home, could no longer actin contravention to them, and was obliged to sail.

  "The instant the fleet had left, and we remained virtuallydefenceless, Chunda Sahib, supplied with troops and money by Dupleix,marched out from Pondicherry and joined Muzaffar Jung, with the avowedintention of marching upon Trichinopoli. Had he done this at once, hemust have taken the place, and it was a question of weeks and daysonly of our being turned altogether out of Southern India. Nothing,indeed, could have saved us.

  "Muzaffar Jung and Chunda Sahib, however, disregarding the plan whichDupleix had marked out for them, resolved, before marching onTrichinopoli, to conquer Tanjore, which is the richest city inSouthern India. The rajah had, only a few weeks before, made peacewith us; and he now sent messengers to Nazir Jung, Muzaffar's rival inthe Deccan, and to the English, imploring their assistance. Bothparties resolved at once to grant it, for alone both must have beenoverwhelmed by the alliance between the two Indian princes and theFrench; and their only hope of a successful resistance to thiscombination was in saving Trichinopoli.

  "The march of these allies upon Tanjore opened the road toTrichinopoli; and Captain Cope, with a hundred and twenty men, were atonce despatched to reinforce Muhammud Ali's garrison. Of this littleforce, he sent off twenty men to the aid of the Rajah of Tanjore, andthese, under cover of the night, passed through the lines of thebesiegers and into the city, which was strongly fortified and able tostand a long siege.

  "The English at once entered into a treaty with Nazir Jung, promisinghim six hundred English troops; to assist him in maintaining hissovereignty of the Deccan, and in aiding to place Muhammud Ali in thenawabship of the Carnatic.

  "Tanjore held out bravely. For some weeks the rajah had thrown dust inthe eyes of Chunda Sahib, by pretending to negotiate. Then, when theallies attacked, he defended the city for fifty-two days, at the endof which one of the gates of the town had been captured, and the citywas virtually at the mercy of the besiegers. He again delayed them byentering into negotiations for surrender. In vain Dupleix continued tourge Chunda Sahib to act energetically, and to enter Tanjore.

  "Chunda Sahib, however, although he has a good head for planning, isirresolute in action. His troops were discontented at the want of pay.The French contingent also was demoralized, from the same cause. Thetroops feared to engage in a desperate struggle, in the streets of atown abounding with palaces, each of which was virtually a fortress;especially as it was known that Nazir Jung was marching, with allspeed, to fall upon their rear. So at last the siege was broken up,and the army fell back upon Pondicherry.

  "Meanwhile Cope's detachment of a hundred men, with six thousandnative horsemen, escorted Muhammud Ali to join Nazir Jung at Valdaur,fifteen miles from Pondicherry. Lawrence was busy at work at FortSaint David, organizing a force to go to his aid. Dupleix saw that itwas necessary to aid his allies energetically. The army, on its returnfrom the siege of Tanjore, was reorganized; the French contingentincreased to two thousand men; and a supply of money furnished, fromhis private means.

  "The army set out to attack Nazir Jung and his ally at Valdaur. Whenthe battle began, however, the French contingent mutinied and refusedto fight; and the natives, panic stricken by the desertion of theirallies, fell back on Pondicherry. Chunda Sahib accompanied his men.Muzaffar Jung surrendered to his uncle, the usurper.

  "In three or four days the discipline of the French army was restored,and on the 13th of April it attacked and defeated a detachment ofNazir Jung's army; and a few days later captured the strong temple ofTiruvadi, sixteen miles from Fort Saint David.

  "Some months passed before the French were completely prepared; but onSeptember the first, D'Auteuil, who commanded the French, and ChundaSahib attacked the army of the native princes, twenty thousand strong,and defeated it utterly, the French not losing a single man. MuhammudAli, with only two attendants, fled to Arcot, and the victory renderedChunda Sahib virtual master of the Carnatic.

  "Muzaffar Jung, after his surrender to his uncle, had been loaded withchains, and remained a prisoner in the camp; where, however, hemanaged to win over several of the leaders of his uncle's army. Gingeewas stormed by a small French force, and the French officer thereentered into a correspondence with the conspirators, and it wasarranged that, when the French army attacked Nazir Jung, these shoulddeclare against him.

  "On the 15th December the French commander, with eight hundredEuropeans, three thousand Sepoys, and ten guns, marched against NazirJung, whose army of twenty-five thousand men opposed him. These,however, he defeated easily. While the battle was going on, theconspirators murdered Nazir Jung, released Muzaffar Jung, and salutedhim as subadar. His escape was a fortunate one, for his uncle hadordered him to be executed that very day.

  "Muzaffar Jung proceeded to Pondicherry, where he was received withgreat honors. He nominated Dupleix Nawab of the Carnatic andneighbouring countries, with Chunda Sahib as his deputy, conferred thehighest dignities upon him, and granted the French possession of allthe lands and forts they had conquered. He arranged with Dupleix aplan for common action, and agreed that a body of French troops shouldremain permanently at his capital."