"I must refer you to the Committee's letter for many particulars. I fear I shall not be able to send a list of military and artillery stores by this conveyance, which are very great, and will abundantly supply Calcutta. By the Nabob's letters, you will find of what a wavering and pusillanimous disposition he is. However, I am in hopes this last stroke will fix him. He has already performed almost every article of the treaty; paid Mr. Watts the three lacs of rupees; delivered up Cossimbazar, and all the other factories, with the money and goods therein taken. The gentlemen write from thence, that little or nothing is wanting.
"Our stay till August, which is now become unavoidable, will, I hope, settle every thing here in the most advantageous manner for the Company, and perhaps will induce the Nabob to give up all the French factories. This will be driving them out root and branch. I am well informed, without Chandernagore, the Islands must starve, and Pondicherry suffer greatly. My inclinations always tend towards the coast; and I hope to be with you, with a very considerable force, in September. The lateness of the season makes the passage now very uncertain; and the length of it would certainly cause the loss of a great part of our forces.
"It was with great reluctance Mr. Watson consented I should sign the articles of capitulation, though drawn out in his name, notwithstanding it was impossible the fort could ever have been taken without our assistance.
"We attacked the enemy six or seven days before the ships, and drove them from eleven batteries, one of them by the river side, of very heavy metal, under which were sunk four or five ships and vessels to prevent the passage of the squadron, which could never have been effected without mastering that battery. We erected one of five[109] twenty-four-pounders within a hundred yards of the south-east bastion, and another of three twenty-four-pounders within a hundred and fifty yards of the north-east bastion; besides which, we manned all the tops of the houses, and kept up such a fire of musketry, that the enemy could not appear either on the ramparts or bastions, by which means the fire was insignificant to what it would have been."
From this letter, and from one he wrote to Mr. Mabbot, the Chairman of the Directors, there can be no doubt that Clive's intention was to return to the coast as early as he could, and that he expected everything would be settled by September, when the season would be favourable for that voyage; but the jealousy and alarm of the Nabob at the rising power of the English were greatly increased by the fall of Chandernagore; and his character and past actions gave no security against his intrigues and hostility, unless overawed by the presence of a superior force, and the establishment of a commanding influence at his court. The President of the Committee at Calcutta was unequal to the duties now performed by Clive; nor was there one officer in Bengal upon whom these could devolve with the slightest hope of preserving, much less of improving, the advantages that had been obtained.
Placed in such circumstances, Clive, though he had received repeated orders to repair to Fort St. George, was not therefore exempted from the duty of exercising his judgment as to the course which it was best for the general interests of the Company that he should pursue; and he had to balance against that obedience which he owed, and was anxious to pay to his superiors, the imminent danger which his departure from Bengal would produce. The attack of Chandernagore had been indispensable to give security to the English against an European enemy: but the very success which had attended their arms upon this and other occasions was likely, with a prince of Suraj-u-Dowlah's character, to involve them in a further and more extensive scene of hostilities.
This Clive foresaw before that operation commenced; and, writing to the Committee at Calcutta upon this subject, he observed, "If you attack Chandernagore, you cannot stop there; you must go further. Having established yourself by force, and not by the consent of the Nabob, he by force will endeavour to drive you out again." In a private letter to Mr. Pigot, written a month after the fall of the French settlement[110], he gives a vivid description of the Nabob's character, and of the motives and feelings which he supposes to agitate his weak and vacillating mind, at a period critical both for himself and for the Company's establishments in Bengal.
"The most of the articles of the peace," he observes, "are complied with; yet, from the tyranny, cowardice, and suspicion of the Nabob, no dependence can be had upon him. No consideration could induce him to deliver up the French: it is true he has ordered them out of his dominions, and they are at some distance from his capital; but he has retained them secretly in his pay, and has certainly written to Monsieur Deleyrit and Bussy, to send men to his assistance. One day he tears my letters, and turns out our vakeel, and orders his army to march; he next countermands it, sends for the vakeel, and begs his pardon for what he has done. Twice a week he threatens to impale Mr. Watts: in short, he is a compound of every thing that is bad, keeps company with none but his menial servants, and is universally hated and despised by the great men. This induces me to acquaint you there is a conspiracy going on against him by several of the great men, at the head of whom is Jugget Seit himself, as also Cojah Wazeed. I have been applied to for assistance, and every advantage promised the Company can wish. The Committee are of opinion it should be given as soon as the Nabob is secured. For my own part, I am persuaded, there can be neither peace nor security while such a monster reigns."