Montcalm and Wolfe.—Battle of Quebec.
But events of far greater import had happened in America during this summer. Pitt had sketched out a concentric attack on Canada from three sides. General Amherst had taken Ticonderoga, the fort that had baffled Abercrombie in the previous year, while another expedition captured Fort Niagara and the other western strongholds of the French. But the main blow was struck in the North. An English fleet appeared in the St. Lawrence and put ashore General Wolfe, Pitt's favourite officer, with an army of 8000 men. Montcalm hurried to the spot with all the French regulars in the province, and a horde of Canadian militia, and hastened to the defence of Quebec, the capital of the land. The place was very strongly placed, being protected on two sides by the rivers St. Lawrence and St. Charles, and watched by Montcalm's entrenched camp at Beauport. After failing to break the French lines, Wolfe ventured on a hazardous flank attack. The cliffs overhanging the St. Lawrence were believed to be inaccessible, as there was only a single precipitous goat-track which mounted them, and this was protected by a guard. But Wolfe resolved to risk the danger of assaulting them. His men dropped down the river in boats under cover of the night, reached the foot of the crags, and crept up one after another on hands and knees, pulling themselves up by the aid of trees and shrubs. The French picket at the top was surprised and fled. Thus Wolfe had 4000 men in line on the ground above the cliffs, "the Heights of Abraham," before the day dawned. When they became visible to Montcalm, he was forced to come out of his impregnable lines and fight in the open, under pain of losing Quebec. There followed a short sharp conflict, in which the English had from the first the advantage. The Canadian militia fled in panic, the French regulars were cut to pieces, and Montcalm himself was mortally wounded. But Wolfe had also been struck down in the moment of victory; he lived just long enough to hear that the battle was won, and died on the field (September 13, 1759). He was only thirty-three, and, had he survived, would have had a long career of glory before him. But to have conquered America for England was in itself a sufficient title to immortality. For the battle of Quebec was the decisive day in the history of the continent.
Canada surrenders to the English.
The wrecks of the French army evacuated the capital, and fell back on Montreal. Thither they were followed in the next spring both by the forces under Amherst, which had ascended the Hudson, and by Wolfe's army from Quebec. Surrounded by vastly superior numbers, de Vaudreuil, the viceroy of Canada, was forced to lay down his arms, and surrender the remnant of the French possessions in the north. Thus ended in ignominious failure the great scheme which Montcalm had formed for securing inland America for his king, and penning the English colonists between the ocean and the Alleghanies. The British flag now waved without a rival from the North Pole to the boundary of Spanish America.
Clive retakes Calcutta.
Meanwhile events of importance had been happening in the far East. While England was laying her hand on the Western Continent, she was also winning her first territorial dominions in India. We have already told the tale of the Black Hole and the fall of Calcutta. Its sequel has yet to be related. Just when the news of Suraj-ud-Dowlah's wicked doings reached Madras, Clive chanced to return from England, where he had been for two years on leave. The task of chastising the nawab was at once made over to him. He was entrusted with one regiment of British troops, the 39th, which bears on its colours the honourable legend Primus in Indis, and with 2000 Madras sepoys. With this small force he did not hesitate to invade the vast but unwarlike province of Bengal. He forced his way up the Hoogly and recovered Calcutta with ease. But he hesitated some time before advancing into the interior, to strike at the nawab's capital of Moorshedabad.
Battle of Plassey.—The English masters of Bengal.
Soon, however, he learnt that Suraj-ud-Dowlah was hated by his subjects, and that his own ministers were ready to betray him. Armed with this knowledge, Clive advanced from Calcutta as far as the village of Plassey, where he found himself in face of the nawab's hordes, 50,000 irregular horse and foot of the worst quality. The English were attacked but feebly and half-heartedly, for the enemy had no confidence in their prince. Moreover, Mir Jaffar, who commanded one wing of his army, had sold himself to Clive for the promise of his master's throne, and held aloof all day, like Northumberland at Bosworth Field. At the hour of noon Clive bade his men charge, and the contemptible soldiery of Suraj-ud-Dowlah fled before the assault, though they outnumbered the English by eighteen to one. Only the nawab's French artillerymen stood firm, and were bayoneted at their guns. This battle, which gave England the rich realm of Bengal, was won with a loss of only 72 men to the victors. Clive soon seized Moorshedabad and installed Mir Jaffar as nawab in his master's room. The deposed tyrant was caught by his successor and promptly strangled. Mir Jaffar ruled for the future as the dependent of England, paid the East India Company a tribute, and acted as their vassal. Thus Bengal, though not annexed, was for all practical purposes made a part of the British empire.
Clive sullied his laurels by two acts which show the unscrupulous character that was allied with his great talents. Before Plassey, a Bengali named Omichund discovered the intrigue with Mir Jaffar, and threatened to reveal it to the nawab. Clive bought him off by a forged promise of money signed with the name of Admiral Watson. When the danger was over, he avowed his forgery to the traitor, who thereupon went mad with rage and disappointed greed. After Plassey Clive committed his second fault, by accepting for his private use huge sums of gold which Mir Jaffar offered him. When taunted with this, he only replied that "he was astonished at his own moderation, considering the enormously larger amount that he might have asked and received" (1757). After settling Bengal and defeating an attempt to reconquer it made by Shah Alum, the heir of the Great Moguls, Clive returned to England in 1759, to be saluted as the conqueror of the East.
Battle of Wandewash. Capture of Pondicherry.