26. "The struggle lasted about an hour. Four hundred of the assailants fell. The garrison lost only five or six men. The besieged passed an anxious night, looking for a renewal of the attack. But when day broke the enemy were no more to be seen. They had retired, leaving the English several guns and a large quantity of ammunition.
27. "Clive immediately began offensive operations. Re-enforced by seven hundred English troops and sepoys from Madras, and effecting a junction with the auxiliary Mahratta force, he soon overran all the Northern Carnatic. He gained a complete victory over Rajah Sahib's army of five thousand natives and three hundred Frenchmen. At this time Major Lawrence arrived from England and assumed the command. An expedition marched to the assistance of Mohammed Ali at Trichinopoly. The besiegers were defeated, and Chunda Sahib was put to death by the Mahrattas, into whose hands he fell.
28. "The English were now masters of the Carnatic, and the French influence was broken. Steadily the English power was extended over the Deccan and all Southern India. Dupleix struggled against his fate in vain, no French armament came to his assistance. His company condemned his policy and furnished him with no aid. But still he persisted, bribed, intrigued, promised, lavished his private fortune, and everywhere tried to raise new enemies to the government at Madras, but all to no purpose. At length, when his last hope for empire died out, broken in fortune and spirits, he returned to his native country to die obscure and neglected.
29. "Clive went back to England for a brief space, but after a year or two he returned to India as governor of Madras. His first service after his return was to rout out a nest of pirates which had for a long time maintained a stronghold upon the coast. He then turned his attention to reform in the company's business, and to strengthening British influence with the natives in all directions. Before two months had expired he received intelligence which called forth all the energies of his bold and active mind.
THE STORY OF THE BLACK HOLE.
30. "Of the large provinces into which the Mogul Empire was divided the wealthiest was Bengal. No part of India possessed such natural advantages, both for agriculture and commerce. The Ganges, rushing through a hundred channels to the sea, has formed a vast plain of rich mold which, even under the tropical sky, rivals the verdure of an English April. The rice-fields yield an increase such as is elsewhere unknown. Spices, sugar, vegetable oils are produced with marvelous exuberance. The rivers afford an inexhaustible supply of fish. The desolate islands along the sea-coast, overgrown with noxious vegetation and swarming with deer and tigers, supply the cultivated districts with salt. The great stream which fertilizes the soil is at the same time the chief highway of Eastern commerce. On its banks, and on those of its tributary waters, are the wealthiest marts, the most splendid capitals, and the most sacred shrines of India. In numbers its inhabitants exceed 60,000,000; a population greater than that of England and France combined.
31. "The race by which this rich tract was peopled, enervated by a soft climate and accustomed to peaceful employments, bore the same relation to other Asiatics which the Asiatics generally bear to the bold and energetic children of Europe. Whatever the Bengalee does, he does languidly. His favorite pursuits are sedentary. He shrinks from bodily exertion, and, though voluble in dispute and able in the war of chicane, he seldom engages in a personal conflict, and scarcely ever enlists as a soldier. There never, perhaps, existed a people so thoroughly fitted by nature and by habit for a foreign yoke.
32. "The great commercial companies of Europe had long possessed factories in Bengal. The French, the Dutch, and the English had stations on the Hoogly, the chief branch of the Ganges. Of these the English Fort William, on the site of the present city of Calcutta, was nearest the sea. A church and ample warehouses rose in the vicinity, a row of spacious houses, belonging to the chief officers of the East India Company, lined the banks of the river, and in the neighborhood had sprung up a large and busy native town. For the ground on which the settlement stood, the English paid rent to the government, and were permitted to have practical control of their own domain.
33. "The province of Bengal had long been governed by a viceroy of the Mogul, who had become practically independent. In 1756 the sovereignty descended to a youth under twenty years of age, who bore the name of Surajah Dowlah. Oriental despots are perhaps the worst class of human beings, and this unhappy boy was one of the worst specimens of his class. His understanding was naturally feeble, and his temper unamiable. His education had been such as would have enervated even a vigorous intellect, and perverted even a generous disposition. He was unreasonable, because nobody ever dared to reason with him, and selfish, because he had never been made to feel himself dependent on the good will of others.
34. "Early debauchery had unnerved his body and his mind. He indulged immoderately in the use of ardent spirits, which inflamed his weak brain almost to madness. His chosen companions were flatterers sprung from the dregs of the people. It is said that he had arrived at the last stage of human depravity, when cruelty becomes pleasing for its own sake, when the sight of pain as pain is an agreeable excitement. It had early been his amusement to torture beasts and birds, and when he grew up he enjoyed with still greater relish the misery of his fellow-creatures.