A History of the British Army, Vol. 2 / First Part—to the Close of the Seven Years' War

by Sir J. W. Fortescue

Even then, though the French had not joined Surajah Dowlah, Clive was loth to encounter his army without reinforcements, and made a last effort at negotiation; but, on the return of his commissioners without success, he decided to make an attempt upon the enemy's camp on the morrow. At midnight six hundred sailors were landed from the men-of-war, and with these, six hundred and fifty European infantry, a hundred gunners with six guns, and eight hundred Sepoys Clive started before dawn for the Nabob's encampment. His advance was made in a long column of three men abreast, with the artillery in rear; and day had just broken when he struck against the enemy's advanced posts and drove them back. With the coming of the light there came also a dense fog, through which the column continued to move forward, successfully repulsing an attack of the enemy's cavalry as it went, until a causeway was reached, running at right angles to the line of march, which led to the Nabob's quarters within the Mahratta Ditch. There the head of the column changed direction to the right, as it had been bidden, but in the perplexity caused by the fog found itself under the fire of the British field-guns in the rear, and broke up to seek shelter. This movement misled the rear of the column; and very soon the entire force was in hopeless confusion. The enemy opening fire with their cannon increased the disorder; and Clive had much ado to keep his men together. Finally when the fog lifted he found himself surrounded by the enemy's cavalry; and though he succeeded in driving them off he was obliged, owing to the fatigue of his troops, to abandon the attack and return to camp. His losses amounted to one hundred Europeans and fifty Sepoys killed and wounded, against which there seemed little gain to be set. The men indeed were not a little disheartened, and complained with some bitterness of the rashness of their leader.

Feb. 9.
March.
June 4.
June 13.

But if the British were discouraged, much more so was the Nabob. Blind and uncertain though the action had been, he had lost six hundred men and five hundred horses, while the idea of a British force calmly perambulating his camp was utterly distasteful and disquieting to him. Five days later he concluded a treaty whereby he agreed to restore all property taken at Calcutta and to revive all other privileges formerly granted to the British; an agreement which was expanded forty-eight hours afterwards into an offensive and defensive alliance. Clive then proposed to attack the French at Chandernagore, but this the Nabob positively forbade. In March, however, reinforcements of three companies of infantry and one of artillery arrived from Bombay, and Clive resolved to make the attack notwithstanding the Nabob's prohibition. On the 7th of March the army began its march up the river; the siege was opened a week later, and the fort, which held no very strong garrison, was soon forced to capitulate. This defiance of his wishes increased at once the Nabob's dread of the British and his anxiety to evade the obligations of the treaty. The miserable creature writhed under the masterful spirit of Clive. He made overtures to Bussy, to the Mahrattas, to any one whom he thought able to help him out of his difficulties: sometimes he threatened the English, sometimes he apologised to them; and Clive, thoroughly distrustful of this abject ally, determined to keep the whole of his army in Bengal to watch him and hold him to his obligations. Meanwhile aid suddenly reached the British from an unexpected source. The followers of the Nabob, alienated by his folly, his insults, and his caprice, began to fall away from him. Discontent ripened into disaffection, and disaffection into conspiracy. Overtures were presently made to the authorities at Calcutta to join in a plot for the overthrow of Surajah Dowlah and for the setting up of Meer Jaffier, hitherto his commander-in-chief but now foremost among the conspirators, in his place. Long negotiations followed, which have become famous for the blot which, rightly or wrongly, they have left upon the memory of Clive. Finally Meer Jaffier signed the treaty which bound the English to win for him the throne of Bengal, Orissa, and Behar, and engaged himself in return to make over to them all French factories within those provinces, as well as a slight accession of territory about Calcutta, and to give compensation for the damage inflicted by Surajah Dowlah. Meer Jaffier, however, had displayed considerable irresolution during the negotiations, and the secret of the conspiracy had already begun to leak out, so that it became necessary to clench the arrangement by immediate action. Accordingly on the 13th of June, Clive, who had been throughout the leading and deciding spirit, set his force in motion from Chandernagore upon Moorshedabad, and on the following day sent a letter to the Nabob which amounted virtually to a declaration of war.

Before the letter arrived Surajah Dowlah had awaked to his peril and sent emissaries to treat with Meer Jaffier; nay, throwing off all royal state he visited his former vassal in person to entreat humbly for reconciliation. Meer Jaffier yielded; the agreement between the two men was ratified by the usual oaths on the Koran; and Surajah Dowlah, returning a defiant answer to Clive, ordered the whole of his army to assemble some twelve miles due south of Moorshedabad at the village of Plassey.

June.

Meanwhile Clive continued his advance up the Hooghly, the Europeans travelling by water in boats, the Sepoys marching along the western bank. His force consisted in all of nine hundred Europeans, two hundred half-bred Portuguese and twenty-one hundred Sepoys, with ten guns. On the 16th he halted at Paltee, on the Cossimbazar river above its junction with the Jelingeer, and sent forward Major Eyre Coote to secure the fort of Cutwa, twelve miles farther up, which commanded the passage of the river. The governor of the fort was one of the conspirators against Surajah Dowlah, but he met Coote's overtures with defiance, and on the deployment of the British force for attack set fire to the defences and retired together with his garrison. Clive's force encamped in the plain of Cutwa that night; but the behaviour of the Governor was calculated to disquiet him, for Meer Jaffier's letters only reported vaguely that he himself, though reconciled to the Nabob, intended none the less to abide by the treaty with the British. Distrusting so ambiguous a declaration Clive decided not to cross the river into what was called the Island of Cossimbazar,[341] until his doubts should be resolved. On the 20th further letters arrived from Meer Jaffier tending somewhat to allay Clive's misgivings as to his good faith, but holding out little hope of assistance in the coming operations; while simultaneously there came a letter from one of Clive's agents which gave some reason for doubting Meer Jaffier's sincerity. Much perplexed Clive summoned a council of war, and put it to the twenty officers therein assembled whether it would be better to cross the river and attack the Nabob at all hazards, or to halt at Cutwa, where supplies were abundant, until the close of the rainy season, and meanwhile to invoke the assistance of the Mahrattas. He gave his own opinion first in favour of remaining at Cutwa, and was followed by thirteen of the officers, including so bold a soldier as Kilpatrick. Coote and six more, however, gave their votes for immediate action or return to Calcutta. Clive broke up the council, retired alone into an adjoining grove for an hour, and on his return issued orders to cross the river on the morrow.

June 23.

At sunrise of the 22nd the army began the passage of the river, and by four in the afternoon it stood on the eastern bank. Here another letter reached Clive from Meer Jaffier, giving information as to the intended movements of the Nabob. Clive's answer was that he should advance to Plassey at once, and on the following morning to Daoodpoor, six miles beyond it; and that if Meer Jaffier failed to meet him there, he would make peace with Surajah Dowlah. The troops accordingly proceeded on their way, Europeans by water, Sepoys by land; but owing to the slow progress of the boats against the stream, it was one o'clock in the morning before they had traversed the fifteen miles to the village of Plassey. Here they were surprised to learn from the continued din of drums and cymbals that the Nabob's army was close at hand; for they had expected to meet with it farther north. Solaced by this rude music the men lay down in a mango-grove to sleep; but the officers that slept were few, and Clive was not one of them.

The grove of Plassey extended north and south for a length of about half a mile, with a width of about three hundred yards. The trees were planted in regular rows, and the whole was surrounded by a slight bank and by a ditch beyond it, choked with weeds and brambles. The grove lay at an acute angle to the river, the northern corner being fifty yards and the southern two hundred yards from the bank. A little to the northward of it and on the edge of the river stood a hunting-house of the Nabob, surrounded by a garden and wall. A mile to northward of this house the river makes a huge bend to the south-west in the form of a horse-shoe, containing a peninsula of about a mile in diameter, which shrinks at its neck to a width of some five hundred yards from stream to stream. About three hundred yards to south of this peninsula an entrenchment had been thrown up, which ran for above a furlong straight inland and parallel to the grove, and then turned off at an obtuse angle to the north-eastward for about three miles. The whole of the Nabob's army was encamped within this entrenchment and the peninsula, and the angle itself was defended by a redoubt. Some three hundred yards to the east of the redoubt, but outside the entrenchment, stood a hillock covered with trees; half a mile to southward of this hillock lay a small tank, and yet a hundred yards farther south a second and much larger tank, both of them surrounded by a mound of earth.

At dawn the Nabob's forces began to stream by many outlets from the camp towards the grove, a mighty host of thirty-five thousand foot, eighteen thousand horse, and fifty pieces of artillery. The cannon were for the most part of large calibre and were carried, together with their crews and ammunition, on large stages, which were tugged by forty or fifty yoke of oxen in front and propelled by elephants from behind. Forty or fifty French adventurers under M. St. Frais, who had formerly been of the garrison of Chandernagore, took post with four light field-guns at the larger tank, which was nearest to the grove; while two heavy guns under a native officer were posted to St. Frais's right and between him and the river. In support of these advanced parties were five thousand horse and seven thousand foot under the Nabob's most faithful general, Meer Murdeen. The rest of the hostile army extended itself in a huge curve from the hillock before the entrenchments to within half a mile of the southern angle of the grove. Thus the British could not advance against the force in their front without exposing themselves to overwhelming attack on their right flank.