[1] "The Forty-Five": so called from the Scotch rising of 1745.
While the War of the Austrian Succession was in progress, the French
encouraged James II's grandson, Princle Charles Edward, the "Young
Pretender" (S535), to make an attempt on the English crown. He landed
(1745) on the northern coast of Scotland with only seven followers,
but with the aid of the Scotch Jacobites (SS495, 535) of the Highlands
he gained a battle over the English at Prestonpans, near Edinburgh.
Emboldened by his success, he now marched into Derbyshire, England, on
his way to London. He hoped that as he advanced the country would
rise in his favor; but finding no support, he retreated to Scotland.
The next year he and his adherents were defeated, with great slaughter
by "Butcher" Cumberland, as the Scotch called him, at Culloden, near
Iverness (1746). (See map facing p. 120.) The "Young Pretender" fled
from the battlefield to the Hebrides. After wandering in those
islands for many months he escaped to France through the devotion and
courage of the Scottish heroine, Flora Macdonald. When he left the
country his Highland sympathizers lost all hope. There were no more
ringing Jacobite songs, sung over bowls of steaming punch, of "Wha'll
be king but Charlie?" "Over the Water to Charlie," and "Wae's me for
Prince Charlie"; and when (1788) Prince Charles Edward died in Rome,
the unfortunate House of Stuart, which began with James I (1603),
disappeared from English history.[2]
[2] Devoted loyalty to a hopeless cause was never more truly or
pathetically expressed than in some of these Jacobite songs, notably
in those of Scotland, in honor of Prince Charles Edward, the "Young
Pretender," of which the following lines from "Over the Water to
Charlie" are an example:
"Over the water, and over the sea,
And over the water to Charlie;
Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go,
And live or die with Charlie."
Scott, "Redgauntlet"
544. War in the East; the Black Hole of Calcutta; Clive's Victories;
English Empire of India, 1751-1757.
The English acquired Madras, their first trading post in India, in the
reign of Charles I (1639). Later, they obtained possession of Bombay,
Calcutta, and other points, but they had not got control of the
country, which was still governed by native princes. The French also
had established an important trading post at Pondicherry, south of
Madras, and were now secretly planning through alliance with the
native rulers to get possession of the entire country. They had met
with some success in their efforts, and the times seemed to favor
their gaining still greater influence unless some decided measures
should be taken to prevent them.
At this juncture Robert Clive, a young man who had been employed as
clerk in the service of the English East India Company, but who had
obtained a humble position in the army, obtained permission to try his
hand at driving back the enemy. It was a work for which he was
fitted. He met with success from the first, and he followed it up by
the splendid victory of Arcot, 1751, which practically gave the
English control of southern India. Shortly after that, Clive returned
to England.
During his absence the native prince of Bengal undertook an expedition
against Calcutta, a wealthy British trading post. He captured the
fort which protected it (1756), and seizing the principal English
residents, one hundred and forty-six in number, drove them at the
point of the sword into a prison called the "Black Hole," a dungeon
less than twenty feet square, and having but two small windows.
In such a climate, in the fierce heat of midsummer, that dungeon would
have been too close for a single European captive; to crowd it with
more than sevenscore persons for a night meant death by all the
agonies of heat, thirst, and suffocation. In vain they endeavored to
bribe the guard to transfer part of them to another room, in vain they
begged for mercy, in vain they tried to burst the door. Their jailers
only mocked them and would do nothing.
When daylight came the floor was heaped with corpses. Out of the
hundred and forty-six prisoners only twenty-three were alive and they
were so changed "that their own mothers would not have known them."[1]
[1] Macaulay's "Essay on Clive."
When Clive returned he was met with a cry for vengeance. He gathered
his troops, recovered Calcutta, and ended by fighting that great
battle of Plassey, 1757, which was the means of permanently
establishing the English empire in India on a firm foundation. (See
map opposite.)