Rulers of India: Lord Clive

by G. B. Malleson

It is impossible not to feel sympathy for the youthful prince, surrounded by traitors, his one true adherent killed. Scarcely had Mír Jafar quitted him when there came to him another traitor, Rájá Duláb Rám, who commanded the army corps nearest to the position he had taken. The Rájá found his master in a state of great agitation. The English were showing themselves in the open; his own men were giving way; hope was vanishing quickly. Instead of encouraging the Súbahdár to fight it out, the treacherous Rájá gave fuel to his fears, told him the day was lost, and urged him to flee to Murshidábád. In an evil hour for his dynasty and for himself, Siráj-ud-daulá yielded to his persuasions, and, ordering his troops to retire within the intrenchment, mounted a swift dromedary, and fled, accompanied by 2000 horsemen, to his capital.

It was then two o'clock. The first hour since Clive's conference had been marked by the heavy rain; the second by the repulse of the Súbahdár's horsemen; the following up of the repulsed attack; the conversations of the Súbahdár with his two treacherous generals. By two o'clock the enemy's attack had completely ceased, and they were observed yoking their oxen preparatory to withdrawing within the intrenchment as the Súbahdár had ordered. There remained only on the ground that body of forty gallant Frenchmen under St. Frais, whom I have described as occupying the ground about the larger tank, that nearest to the grove. The post was an important one, for from it the English could have taken the retreating enemy in flank, and have inflicted heavy loss upon them. St. Frais was nearly isolated, but he, too, had seen the advantage the English would derive from occupying the position, and, faithful amid the faithless, he, with the gallantry of his nation, resolved to defend it until it should be no longer defensible.

There was with the army a very gallant officer, Major James Kilpatrick, who had greatly distinguished himself in Southern India, and who, on this occasion, commanded the Company's troops. Kilpatrick had noted the firm front displayed by St. Frais, the great advantage to be derived from occupying the position he held, the disadvantage of leaving him to hold it whilst the English force should advance. He resolved, then, to expel him: so sending word to Clive of his intentions, and of the reason which prompted his action, he marched with two companies towards St. Frais.

Clive, meanwhile, seeing the enemy's attack broken, yet deeming it better, not having received Mír Jafar's letter, to wait till the sun should have descended before making the decisive attack, had proceeded to the hunting-box to rest after so many hours of fatigue and excitement, to be followed, he believed, by many more, having first given orders that he should be informed of any change that might occur in the enemy's position. He was there when the message of Kilpatrick reached him. Rising, he hurried to the spot, met Kilpatrick as he was advancing to the assault, reprimanded him for having taken such a step without orders, but seeing him so far forward, he took himself the command of the detachment, sending back Kilpatrick to the grove to bring the remainder of the troops. When St. Frais recognized the earnestness of the English, and that he was entirely without support, he evacuated the post, and retreated to the redoubt at the corner of the intrenchment. There he placed his guns ready for action.⁸

⁸ This episode is not specially mentioned by Clive, but it rests on irrefragable evidence. Vide Orme, vol. ii. p. 176: see also Sir Eyre Coote's Narrative, also Malcolm's Life of Lord Clive, vol. i. p. 260.

Meanwhile, whilst the English force was thus advancing, the army corps commanded by Mír Jafar was observed to linger behind the rest of the retreating enemy. It was noticed, further, that when it had advanced almost abreast of the northern line of the grove, it faced to its left and advanced in that direction. For a time it seemed to the English officers as though the troops composing it were about to make a raid on their baggage, and a party with a field-piece was sent forward to check them. The corps then halted, remained so for a time, then slowly retired, taking, however, a direction which led it apart from the other corps of the enemy. We shall return to them in a few moments.

Whilst this corps was executing the manoeuvre I have described, Clive had advanced to a position whence he could cannonade the enemy's camp. The effect of this fire was to cause great loss and confusion amongst the troops of the Súbahdár, at the same time that the English, giving, by their advance, their flank to the French in the redoubt, suffered also. To put an end to this cross-fire Clive saw that the one remedy was to storm the redoubt. He was unwilling, however, to risk his troops in a severe contest with the French so long as the army corps, the movements of which I have described in the preceding paragraph, should continue to occupy its apparently threatening position. That corps might be the corps of Mír Jafar, but there was no certainty that it was so, for Clive had not then received Mír Jafar's letter, nor was he aware of the flight of the Nawáb. It was just at this critical moment that he observed the corps in question making the retrograde movement I have referred to. Then all doubt was over in his mind. It must, he was convinced, be the corps of his adherent. Certain now that he would not be molested, he hurled his troops against the redoubt and the hillock to the east of it. St. Frais displayed a bold front, but, abandoned almost immediately by his native allies, and deeming it wiser to preserve his handful of Europeans for another occasion, he evacuated the redoubt, leaving his field-pieces behind him. His resistance was the last opposition offered to the English. The clocks struck five as he fell back, thus tolling the memorable hour which gave to England the richest province in India; which imposed upon her the necessity to advance upwards from its basis until she should reach the rocky region called with some show of reason the 'Glacis of the Fortress of Hindustán.'

Just as the beaten and betrayed army was moving off with its impedimenta, its elephants, its camels, leaving to be scrambled for an enormous mass of baggage, stores, cattle, and camp equipage, Clive received messengers from Mír Jafar requesting an interview. Clive replied by appointing a meeting for the morrow at Dáudpur, a village twenty miles to the south of Murshidábád. Thither the bulk of the troops, their spirits cheered by the promise made them that they would receive a liberal donation in money, marched that evening; whilst a detachment under Eyre Coote went forward in pursuit, to prevent the enemy from rallying. After a short halt, to enable the commissariat to exchange their small and worn-out bullocks for the splendid oxen of the Súbahdár, the troops pressed on, and at eight o'clock the entire force was united at Dáudpur.

Such was the battle of Plassey. The loss of the English force was extremely small, amounting to seven Europeans and sixteen sipáhís killed, and thirteen Europeans and thirty-six sipáhís wounded. No officer was killed: two were wounded, but their names are not recorded. A midshipman of the Kent, Shoreditch by name, was shot in the thigh, whilst doing duty with the artillery. The enemy's casualties were far greater. It was calculated to be, in killed and wounded, about a thousand, including many officers. They had been far more exposed than the English. Writing, in the letter already referred to, of the phases of the action between two and five o'clock, Clive states that their horse exposed themselves a great deal; that 'many of them were killed, amongst the rest four or five officers of the first distinction.'

Clive had gained his victory. We have now to record the use that he made of it.