A.D. 1757 TO A.D. 1767
It was in the year 1757, just one hundred years before the Mutiny, that the battle of Plassey was fought, and that by the enthronement of a Nawâb who owed everything to English arms the East India Company became practically lords paramount in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa.
It was in the same year that Upper India was once more disturbed by the inroad of Ahmed-Shâh, the Durrâni king of Kandahâr. Mahomed-Shâh, the Moghul emperor, had once repulsed him, and Ahmed-Shâh, the Afghân's namesake, son and successor of the Great Moghul, had, for the six years of his reign, watched the north-western frontier nervously.
But he died in 1754 without signs of the dread invasion.
It came, however, in Alamgîr the Second's time, through no fault of that distressful puppet, but owing to the arrogance of Ghâzi-ud-din, Grand Vizier, and eldest son of the old fox Asaf-Jâh. Heredity is strong. In his lifetime there was not a political pie in all India into which the latter's wily old finger did not dip, and now his descendants carried on the same game. Sâlabut-Jung, his son, was French nominee for the Nizâmship; Muzaffar-Jung, grandson, for the Nawâbship of the Carnatic. Nâzir-Jung, who perished miserably through the treachery of Dupleix, had been another candidate, and at the effete court of Delhi, Ghâzi-ud-din was virtually king. He chose to insult the widow of an Afghân governor of Lahôre, and Ahmed-Shâh, Durrâni, marched to avenge it.
The vengeance was deep and bitter. Delhi was laid waste; the horrors of Nâdir-Shâh being repeated and excelled, for the Durrâni had not the Persian's hold upon his troops. He also penetrated further down-country than did Nâdir, and harried the Gangetic plain as far as Muttra. The news of his raid, indeed, was one of the many factors in the problem of action or inaction which Clive had had to decide. But the heat drove the hardy northmen back to their hills, and Upper India reverted once more to its old peaceful life, Delhi to dreams. It was a drugged city in those days, winking sleepily in the sunlight, enduring ravishment patiently, returning when the stress was over to watch its pageant king sitting on his pinchbeck peacock throne, pretending to be all-powerful, looking out haughtily, with opium-dimmed eyes, upon a subject world, that in reality cared not one jot for the so-called descendants of the Great Moghul.
In Bengal the English had been king-makers without one reference to the sovereign power. In the very Punjâb itself, the Mahrattas, invited to his aid by Ghâzi-ud-din, came and mastered the length and breadth of the land. In truth, their star was in its zenith. Even in the Dekkan, despite the help of a French force under Monsieur Bussy-by far the ablest commander France ever sent to the East--Sâlabut-Jung could with difficulty keep in the field against them.
And France was beginning to find her hands full. War had been declared in Europe between her and England, and in 1758 the Comte de Lally, a man of great reputation, was sent out avowedly with the intention of breaking the English power in the East.
A bit of a braggadocio was Lally, and all unversed in Oriental likes and dislikes. He began ill by ousting Bussy, in whom the French allies believed utterly, much as the English allies believed in Clive. The secret of this belief may be evolved from the tale of the taking of Bobbili. It was an old fort held by an old family of Râjputs, and Bussy called on it to yield, assaulted it for three days, and finally, on the third night, sounded "cease firing," and waited for the morning to deliver his final blow.
Not a sound disturbed the silence of the night. The primrose dawn showed pale, the old fort rising stern against it. But the gates were open. Bussy entered with caution. The sentries at their posts were dead, the streets were empty, but in the arcades men lay sleeping their last sleep.