53. "Nor was the rest of Surajah Dowlah more peaceful. His mind, at once weak and stormy, was distracted by wild and horrible apprehensions. Appalled by the greatness and nearness of the crisis, distrusting his captains, dreading every one who approached him, dreading to be left alone, lie sat gloomily in his tent, haunted, a Greek poet would have said, by the Furies of those who had cursed him with their last breath in the Black Hole.
54. "The day broke—the day which was to decide the fate of India. At sunrise the army of the Nabob, pouring through many openings of the camp, began to move toward the grove where the English lay. Forty thousand infantry, armed with firelocks, pikes, swords, bows and arrows, covered the plain. They were accompanied by fifty pieces of ordnance of the largest size, each tugged by a long team of white oxen, and each pushed on from behind by an elephant. Some smaller guns, under the direction of French soldiers, were perhaps more formidable.
55. "The cavalry were fifteen thousand, drawn from the bolder races which inhabit the northern provinces; and the practiced eye of Clive could perceive that the men and horses were more powerful than those of the Carnatic. The force opposed to this great multitude consisted of only three thousand men; but of these, nearly one thousand were English, and all were led by English officers and trained in the English discipline.
56. "The battle commenced with a cannonade, in which the artillery of the Nabob did scarcely any execution, while the field-pieces of the English produced great effect. Several officers in Surajah Dowlah's service fell. Disorder began to spread through his ranks. His own terror increased every moment. One of the conspirators advised him to retreat. This advice, agreeing as it did with what his own terrors suggested, was readily received. He ordered his army to fall back, and this order decided his fate. Clive snatched the moment, and ordered his troops to advance.
57. "The confused and dispirited multitude gave way before the onset of disciplined valor. No mob attacked by regular soldiers was ever more completely routed. The little band of Frenchmen, who alone ventured to confront the English, were swept down the stream of the fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah Dowlah were dispersed, never to re-assemble. Only five hundred of the vanquished were slain; but their camp, their guns, their baggage, innumerable wagons, innumerable cattle, remained in the power of the conqueror. With a loss of twenty-two soldiers killed and fifty wounded, Clive had scattered an army of sixty thousand men, and had subdued an empire larger and more populous than Great Britain."
58. This brilliant success of Clive added Plassey as one of the battle-fields of the world which has shaped national destinies and decided the fate of trillions of people. Though much was yet to be done before the fruits of victory could be fully realized, Clive at once became almost supreme in authority. Surajah Dowlah fled in disguise, and disappeared from history in complete obscurity. Meer Jaffler held Clive in slavish awe. He once reproved a native of high rank for some trouble with the company's Sepoys. "Are you yet to learn," he said, "who Colonel Clive is, and in what station God has placed him?" The answer was: "I affront the colonel! I who never get up in the morning without making three low bows to his jackass!"
59. The policy inaugurated by Clive was continued by his successors. The British rule was extended by setting up native princes, or setting them aside, as expediency dictated, until the whole vast region south of the Himalayas passed under their control. The weak trading companies of 1755 have blossomed out into an empire.
60. British India to-day, in extent of territory and in absolute safety, is immeasurably greater than that of the Moguls in the height of their glory. The first wild exercise of irresponsible power has been corrected, and governmental affairs under British rule are now administered on the foundation of substantial justice. The peasant no longer flies from governmental officers to the more merciful companionship of the cobra and tiger, and all who toil find protection as never before. The races of the Orient have been brought face to face with the arts and sciences of the West, and untold millions have cause to bless the day when Robert Clive was forced to close the ledger and take up the sword.