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

by G. A. Henty

Accordingly, he broke up his camp at Utatua in the night, abandoned his stores, and retreated hastily upon Valconda. Dalton then marched to Samieaveram, and placed his force at Clive's disposal; and, to prevent any disputes arising as to precedence and rank, offered himself to serve under him as a volunteer.

Not only D'Auteuil, but Law, was deceived by Dalton's march. From the lofty towers of Seringam he saw the force marching towards Utatua, believed that Clive with his whole force had left Samieaveram, and did now what he should have before done—crossed the river with all his troops.

Clive's lookout on the temple of Mansurpet perceived what was going on, and signalled the news to Clive, who at once set out with his whole force; and, before Law was prepared to issue out from Paichandah, Clive was within a mile of that place. Law might still have fought with a fair chance of success, as he was far stronger than his enemy, but he was again the victim of indecision and want of energy, and, covered by Paichandah, he fell back across the river again.

On the 15th of May Clive captured Paichandah, and then determined to give a final blow to D'Auteuil's force; which had, he learned, again set out to endeavour to relieve Law. He marched to Utatua to intercept him.

D'Auteuil, hearing of his coming, instantly fell back again to Valconda. The native chief of this town, however, seeing that the affairs of the French were desperate; and willing, like all his countrymen, to make his peace with the strongest, had already accepted bribes from the English; and upon D'Auteuil's return, closed the gates and refused to admit him. Clive soon arrived, and D'Auteuil, caught between two fires, surrendered with his whole force.

Had Law been a man of energy, he had yet a chance of escape. He had still seven or eight hundred French troops with him, two thousand Sepoys, and four thousand of Chunda Sahib's troops. He might, then, have easily crossed the Kavari at night and fallen upon Lawrence, whose force there now was greatly inferior to his own. Chunda Sahib, in vain, begged him to do so. His hesitation continued until, three days after the surrender of D'Auteuil, a battering train reached Lawrence; whereupon Law at once surrendered, his chief stipulation being that the life of Chunda Sahib should be spared.

This promise was not kept. The unfortunate prince had preferred to surrender to the Rajah of Tanjore, who had several times intrigued secretly with him, rather than to Muhammud Ali or the English, whom he regarded as his implacable enemies. Had he placed himself in our hands, his life would have been safe. He was murdered, by the treacherous rajah, within twenty-four hours of his surrender.

With the fall of Seringam terminated the contest for the supremacy of the Carnatic, between the English and French, fighting respectively on behalf of their puppets, Muhammud Ali and Chunda Sahib. This stage of the struggle was not a final one; but both by its circumstances, and by the prestige which we acquired in the eyes of the natives, it gave us a moral ascendency which, even when our fortunes were afterwards at their worst, was never lost again.

Muhammud Ali had, himself, gained but little in the struggle. He was, indeed, nominally ruler of the Carnatic, but he had to rely for his position solely on the support of the English bayonets. Indeed, the promises, of which he had been obliged to be lavish to his native allies, to keep them faithful to his cause, when that cause seemed all but lost, now came upon him to trouble him; and so precarious was his position, that he was obliged to ask the English to leave two hundred English troops, and fifteen hundred of their Sepoys, to protect the place against Murari Reo, and the Rajahs of Mysore and Tanjore.

The fatigues of the expedition had been great and, when the force reached the seacoast, Major Lawrence was forced to retire to Fort Saint David to recover his health; while Clive, whose health had now greatly broken down, betook himself to Madras; which had, when the danger of invasion by the French was at an end, become the headquarters of the government of the presidency.