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The names at the head of the chapter commemorate a number of long-forgotten Indian campaigns, waged against desperate odds and extending over many years. The Colar Goldfields, Dindigul Cigars, and the Nundy Droog Mine are names of pleasant memories to the fortunate shareholders in those concerns. Little did soldier or sepoy think that those fields on which he shed his blood in order to maintain British supremacy in India would thus become familiarized to British speculators. For us, their successors, it is humiliating to feel that the heroic forging of the link which connects them with the military history of our Empire should have been long since forgotten. A few words in retrospect are necessary.
In the year 1600 a charter was granted by Parliament to the East India Company, and within ten years factories had been established at Surat, to the north of Bombay, and Petapolam, to the north of Madras. We were not the first-comers in the field, for both Dutch and Portuguese had been for many years engaged in commerce with the East. In 1612 our first troubles arose with the Portuguese, whom we defeated at Surat, and since then no question of their supremacy has arisen. Fifty years later the French had firmly established themselves at Masulipatam and Pondicherry, on the south-east coast, as well as at Chandernagore, a few miles above Calcutta, and for the next 150 years the rivalry between France and England was the cause of much strife. The policy of the French was to stand well in with the native rulers, to organize their armies on a European model, and so, with their aid, to drive the English out of India.
At the commencement of the eighteenth century Calcutta, Bombay, and Madras were our chief centres, the former with factories stretching to Patna, in the northwest. The influence of the Governor of Bombay extended from the settlement at Ahmedabad, in the north, to Calicut, on the west or Malabar coast, whilst Madras had under its rule all factories on the eastern coast from Vizagapatam to Cuddalore. The British East India Company of those days boasted of but little Government support; the French company was fast becoming a military rather than a commercial force. In 1750 the French had driven us out of Madras, and were virtually rulers of Southern India, and the bulk of our forces were besieged in Trichinopoly. Fortunately for England, even in her darkest hour a man has arisen to cope with and surmount her difficulties. Amongst the writers or clerks in the employ of the factory at Madras was one Robert Clive. He, with rare prescience, argued that, as the bulk of the French forces, aided by their ally, the ruler of the Carnatic, were employed in the reduction of Trichinopoly, therefore Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, in all probability lay unguarded. Mr. Saunders, the Governor of Madras, cordially supported the plan advocated by the young writer, which was to carry the war into the enemy's country, and to seize Arcot, the capital, by a coup de main.
ROBERT, LORD CLIVE.
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Arcot, August 31, 1751.
This honour is alone borne by the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the lineal descendants of the gallant band of Englishmen in the service of the East India Company at Madras, who in the year 1751, under the incomparable Clive, laid the foundation of our Indian Empire. In those days Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic, was a city of about 100,000 inhabitants, dominated by a fort almost in ruins. It lies some sixty miles south-west of Madras, and Clive determined not only to effect the relief of Trichinopoly, then besieged by the French, but also to strike at French supremacy by seizing the capital of their most powerful ally, the Sovereign of the Carnatic. He left Madras on September 6, 1751, in command of a small force of 200 Englishmen and 300 sepoys, with but three field-guns. Of his officers, eight in number, four, like him, were "writers" in the Company's factory. Five days later Clive had thrown himself into the half-ruined fort of Arcot, which had been hastily evacuated by its garrison, mounted the guns, which had been abandoned, repaired the defences, and made every preparation for a siege. A month later the siege commenced in earnest, 10,000 trained troops of the Nawab, aided by 300 French, drawing a close cordon round the fort, whilst a siege-train directed by Frenchmen opened fire on its walls. Macaulay, in his brilliant essay on Lord Clive, has borne eloquent testimony to the heroism both of the leader and the led (I have not the space to dwell on the details of the siege)—how the sepoys, with starvation staring them in the face, brought their rations of rice to their English comrades, with the remark that the water in which it was boiled was sustenance enough for them; and how, after being beleaguered for fifty days, in which he had lost one-third of his force, Clive repelled a final assault, and was enabled to assume the offensive against his disheartened and discomfited foes.
Arcot was a prelude to a campaign in which many gallant actions were fought—actions long since forgotten, and which are unrecorded on our colours. Trichinopoly and Covrepauk are no less worthy of emblazonment than Reshire or Koosh-ab. But, alas! no connection can now be traced between the sepoys who fought under Clive and the regiments of our native army, whilst the identity of the First Madras Europeans has for a whole generation been hidden under the title of "Royal Dublin Fusiliers."