D.—THE HISTORICAL PERSONAGES INTRODUCED.
In consequence of the abundant information obtainable, there is little scope for imagination in the treatment of the historical personages brought into the story as secondary characters. Messrs Holwell, Eyre, Bellamy (father and son), Mapletoft, le Beaume, Watts, and Hastings, and Governor Drake and his two friends, stand revealed either in their own writings or those of their contemporaries. The characters of the five captains commanding the Calcutta forces are drawn for us by Holwell, but students of the original narrative will observe that I have substituted the name of Captain Colquhoun for that of Buchanan. So also the brilliant young civilian who survived the Black Hole to become Clive’s instrument in the matter of the false treaty is called in the text by the name of Fisherton. It may be objected that the character of Drake and his fellow deserters is drawn too exclusively from the records of those who suffered by their cowardice in forsaking Fort William, but to that I may reply that neither Grant in his MS. defence, nor Manningham in his evidence before the House of Commons Committee, succeeds in shedding any more agreeable light on the disgraceful exploit, while Drake’s opinion of the affair is shown by his having, in conjunction with the Council, sentenced Captains Grant and Minchin to be dismissed the Service, for following his own example. Grant, it may be remarked, was afterwards reinstated, in view of his unsuccessful efforts to induce the President to return to the help of those left in the Fort, and he took part in the hostilities which culminated at Plassey.
Admiral Watson’s character is described in detail by Ives, and sketched at some length by Watts, while the chance allusions of other writers concur in assuring us of his extreme amiability as a man, and his high qualities as a commander. (His tomb, like that of young William Speke, is still to be seen at the Old Cathedral, Calcutta, and it may be news to some Londoners to learn that there is a monument to him in the north transept of Westminster Abbey.) The remarkable indecision displayed by Clive before the engagement at Plassey is historical, and appears to have been due to one of those fits of depression to which he was subject. The name of Sinzaun will not be found in the records of the period, but we learn from Grant that the Nawab’s artillery at the siege of Fort William was under the command of a French renegade, who called himself the Marquis de St Jacques, while the last stand at Plassey was made by a small company of French under a leader called St Frais, whose name was spelt Sinfray by the English and the natives, and who was not killed, as is erroneously stated in the index to Malleson’s ‘Life of Clive,’ but lived to fight another day.