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

by G. A. Henty

"No, sir; I'm ashamed to say that I know nothing at all about India, except that the Company have trading stations at Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta."

"I will tell you about it," the doctor said. "It is as well that you should understand the position of affairs, at the place to which you are going. You must know that the Company hold the town of Madras, and a few square miles of land around it, as tenants of the Nawab of the Carnatic, which is the name of that part of India. The French have a station at Pondicherry, eighty-six miles to the sou'west of Madras. This is a larger and more important town than Madras, and of course the greatest rivalry prevails between the English and French.

"The French are much more powerful than the English, and exercise a predominating influence throughout the Carnatic. The French governor, Monsieur Dupleix, is a man of very great ability, and far-seeing views. He has a considerable force of French soldiers at his command, and by the aid which he has given to the nawab, upon various occasions, he has obtained a predominating influence in his councils.

"When war was declared between England and France, in the year '44, the English squadron under Commodore Barnet was upon the coast, and the Company sent out orders to Mr. Morse, the governor of Madras, to use every effort to destroy the French settlement, of whose rising power they felt the greatest jealousy. Dupleix, seeing the force that could be brought against him, and having no French ships on the station, although he was aware that a fleet under Admiral La Bourdonnais was fitting out and would arrive shortly, dreaded the contest, and proposed to Mr. Morse that the Indian colonies of the two nations should remain neutral, and take no part in the struggle in which their respective countries were engaged. Mr. Morse, however, in view of the orders he had received from the Company, was unable to agree to this.

"Dupleix then applied to the nawab who, at his request, forbade his European tenants to make war on land with each other, an order which they were obliged to obey.

"In July, 1746, La Bourdonnais arrived with his fleet, and chased the small English squadron from the Indian seas. Dupleix now changed his tactics, and regardless of the injunction which he himself had obtained from the nawab, he determined to crush the English at Madras. He supplied the fleet with men and money, and ordered the admiral to sail for Madras. The fleet arrived before the town on the 14th of September; landed a portion of its troops, six hundred in number, with two guns, a short distance along the coast; and on the following day disembarked the rest, consisting of a thousand French troops, four hundred Sepoys, and three hundred African troops, and summoned Madras to surrender.

"Madras was in no position to offer any effectual resistance. The fort was weak and indefensible. The English inhabitants consisted only of a hundred civilians, and two hundred soldiers. Governor Morse endeavoured to obtain, from the nawab, the protection which he had before granted to Dupleix, a demand which the nawab at once refused.

"I was there at the time, and quite agreed with the governor that it was useless to attempt resistance to the force brought against us. The governor, therefore, surrendered on the 21st. The garrison, and all the civilians in the place not in the service of the Company, were to become prisoners of war; while those in the regular service of the Company were free to depart, engaging only not to carry arms against the French until exchanged. These were the official conditions; but La Bourdonnais, influenced by jealousy of Dupleix, and by the promise of a bribe of forty thousand pounds, made a secret condition with Mr. Morse, by which he bound himself to restore Madras in the future, upon the payment of a large sum of money. This agreement Dupleix, whose heart was set upon the total expulsion of the English, refused to ratify.

"A good many of us considered that, by this breach of the agreement, we were released from our parole not to carry arms against the French; and a dozen or so of us, in various disguises, escaped from Madras and made our way to Fort Saint David, a small English settlement twelve miles south of Pondicherry. I made the journey with a young fellow named Clive, who had come out as a writer about two years before. He was a fine young fellow; as unfitted as you are, I should think, Marryat, for the dull life of a writer, but full of energy and courage.

"At Fort Saint David we found two hundred English soldiers, and a hundred Sepoys, and a number of us, having nothing to do at our own work, volunteered to aid in the defence.