'THE SWELL AND DASH OF A MIGHTY WAVE'[1]
[Footnote 1: 'The battle of Napoleon was the swell and dash of a
mighty wave before which the barrier yielded, and the roaring flood
poured onwards, covering all things.' Sir W. Napier's _Peninsular
War_.]
But there was one distinguished actor in the events I have recorded
who was by no means inclined to sit passively under the severe blow
which had but just upset all his calculations. This man was Dupleix,
the Governor of Pondicherry. The plan of taking Trichinopoli had been
his plan. To take that place he had used all the resources open to
him: he had, in fact, for that purpose pawned the resources of
Pondicherry. But one thing he had not done. He had not removed from
the court of the Subahdar the one competent general, Bussy-Castelnau,
generally known as Bussy, to carry out his ideas. He had bent all his
hopes on Law of Lauriston, nephew of the famous Scotch financier, and
who commanded the French troops before Trichinopoli. He leant,
however, on a reed, on which, when a man leaneth, it pierces
his hand. As a soldier under command Law was excellent. As a
Commander-in-chief he was pitiable, dreading responsibility,
timid, nervous, wanting in {61}every quality of a general. At the
moment Dupleix did not know this. He had seen Law fight well and
gallantly at the siege of Pondicherry: he had known him full of
self-confidence, and he had believed him capable of great things.
When, then, Clive struck that blow at the middlepiece of the Karnatik
dominion, which paralyzed the army before Trichinopoli, Dupleix,
whose brain had not been paralyzed, sent the most pressing orders to
Law not to care for events passing at Arcot, but to redouble his
efforts against the fortress he was besieging; to use every effort to
take the place before Clive's unexpected blow should produce its
natural consequences. To accomplish this end he despatched to him a
battering-train and all the Frenchmen he had available.
Dupleix could transmit his orders, but he could not send with them
the daring spirit which inspired them. Law had before Trichinopoli
900 French soldiers, of excellent quality, 2000 sipahis trained in
the French fashion, and the army of Chanda Sahib. It was a force to
attempt anything with in India. If a superior officer on the spot had
said to Law 'Attack!' he would have attacked with conspicuous
courage. But it was the weakness of his nature that, being in
command, he could not say the word himself. Therefore he did nothing.
But to Clive, recognizing all that was possible, ignorant only of the
character of the French commander, the situation seemed full of
danger. He {62}must strike again, and strike immediately. The
successful blow at the middlepiece must be followed up by a blow at
the head. That head was Trichinopoli. He prepared therefore, as soon
as the recruits expected from England should arrive, to march to that
place, and compel the raising of the siege.
Dupleix had divined all this. Once again was this young Englishman to
baffle him. As Law would not act he must devise some other means to
defeat him. Why, he said to himself, should I not take a leaf from
the Englishman's book, reconquer Arcot, possibly attack Madras, and
make it evident to the native princes that Pondicherry is still the
stronger? The idea pleased him, and he proceeded, in the most secret
manner, to act upon it.
Incited by the urgent requests and promises of Dupleix, Raja Sahib,
the beaten of Arni, quietly levied troops, and joined by a body of
400 Frenchmen, appeared suddenly before Punamallu on the 17th of
January. Punamallu is a town and fort in the Chengalpat district,
thirteen miles west-south-west from Madras. The town, but not the
fort, fell at once into the hands of the enemy. Had the allies then
marched on Madras they might have taken it, for it had but a garrison
of 100 men. They preferred, however, to march on Kanchipuram. There
they repaired the damages the English had done to the defences of the
great pagoda, and, leaving 300 sipahis to defend it, marched to
Vendalur, twenty-five miles to the south of Madras, and established
there a {63}fortified camp, whence they levied contributions on the
surrounding country. Their plan was so to coerce northern Arcot as to
compel the English to quit Trichinopoli, to save it.
They had succeeded in thoroughly alarming alike the English and the
petty chieftains in alliance with them when information of their
action reached Fort St. David. There Clive and Saunders were busily
engaged in preparing for the new expedition which the former was to
lead, as soon as the drafts from England should arrive, to the relief
of Trichinopoli. The information changed all their plans. Saunders at
once sent a pressing message to Bengal to despatch all available
English soldiers to Madras. Thither Clive proceeded; took command of
the 100 Englishmen forming its garrison; and ordered from Arcot
four-fifths of the troops stationed there. On the 20th of February
the troops from Bengal arrived: on the 21st the Arcot garrison was
within a march of Madras. On the following morning Clive quitted that
fort, and, joined as he marched forth by the men from Arcot, took the
direction of Vendalur, having, all told, 380 Englishmen, 1300
sipahis, and six field-pieces. His movements, however, had become
known to the enemy. These, therefore, had quitted Vendalur on the
night of the 21st; had marched by various routes to Kanchipuram; and,
re-uniting there, had pushed with all speed towards Arcot. There they
had made arrangements to be received, but their plot had been
discovered, and {64}finding their signals unanswered, they had
marched to Kaveripak, a town ten miles to the east of Arcot. There,
in front of the town, they encamped, in a position previously
carefully chosen as the one most likely to invite surprise, for which
they proceeded to thoroughly prepare themselves.
Clive, meanwhile, had been marching on Vendalur. He had made some way
thither when scouts reached him with the news that the birds had
flown, and in different directions. To gain further information he
continued his march and reached Vendalur. After staying there five
hours certain information reached him that he would find the enemy at
Kanchipuram. Thither he proceeded, and there he arrived at four
o'clock on the morning of the 23rd, having made a forced march, with
a rest of five hours, of forty-five miles. It was then nine o'clock
in the morning, and he resolved to rest for the day.
But, after his men had slept a few hours, the anxiety of Clive
regarding Arcot impelled him to break their slumbers, and order them
forward. They set out accordingly about one o'clock, and about sunset
came in sight of Kaveripak, but not of the French hidden in front of
it. The French leader, in fact, had laid his plans with the greatest
skill. A thick mango-grove, covered along two sides by a ditch and
bank, forming almost a redoubt, roughly fortified along the faces by
which the English must advance, covered the ground about 250 yards to
the left of the road looking eastwards. There the French {65}had
placed, concealed from view, their battery of nine guns and a portion
of their best men. About a hundred yards to the right of the road,
also looking eastwards, was a dry watercourse, along the bed of which
troops could march, sheltered, to a great extent, from hostile fire.
In this were massed the rest of the infantry, native and European.
The cavalry was in the rear, hidden by the grove, ready to be
launched on the enemy when they should reach the ground between the
watercourse and the grove. The men were on the alert, expecting
Clive.
The space at my disposal will not permit me to give the details of
the remarkable battle[2] which followed. It must suffice to say that
no battle that was ever fought brought into greater prominence the
character of its commander. In the fight before Kaveripak we see
Clive at his best. He had marched straight into the trap, and,
humanly speaking, was lost. It was his cool courage, his calmness in
danger, his clearness of mind in circumstances of extraordinary
difficulty, his wonderful accuracy of vision, the power he possessed
of taking in every point of a position, and of at once utilizing his
knowledge, that saved him. He was, I repeat, lost. He had entered the
trap, and its doors were fast closing upon him. Bravely did his men
fight to extricate him from the danger. Their efforts were
unavailing. Soon it came about that the necessity to retreat
{66}entered almost every mind but his own. Even the great historian
of the period, Mr. Orme, wrote that 'prudence counselled retreat.'
But to the word prudence Clive applied a different meaning. To him
prudence was boldness. What was to become of the British prestige, of
the British position in Southern India, if he, without cavalry, were
to abandon the field to an enemy largely provided with that arm, and
who would be urged to extraordinary energy by the fact that the
unconquered hero of Arcot had fled before them?
[Footnote 2: The reader who would care to read such a detailed
account will find it in the writer's _Decisive Battles of India_, ch.
ii.]
No: he would think only of conquering; and he conquered. After four
hours of fighting, all to his disadvantage, he resolved to act, _in
petto_, on the principle he had put into action when he first seized
Arcot. He would carry the war into the enemy's position. By a very
daring experiment he discovered that the rear of the wooded redoubt
occupied by the French had been left unguarded. With what men were
available he stormed it; took the enemy by surprise, the darkness
wonderfully helping him; and threw them into a panic. Of this panic
he promptly took advantage; forced the Frenchmen to surrender; then
occupied their strong position, and halted, waiting for the day. With
the early morn he pushed on and occupied Kaveripak. The enemy had
disappeared. The corpses of fifty Frenchmen and the bodies of 300
wounded showed how fierce had been the fight. He had, too, many
prisoners. His own losses were heavy: forty English and thirty
sipahis. {67}But he had saved Southern India. He had completely
baffled the cunningly devised scheme of Dupleix.
The consequences of the battle were immediately apparent. Northern
Arcot having been freed from enemies, Clive returned to Fort St.
David, reached that place the 11th of March, halted there for three
days, and was about to march to strike a blow at the other extremity,
Trichinopoli, when there arrived from England his old and venerated
chief, Stringer Lawrence. The latter naturally took command, and two
days later the force Clive had raised, and of which he was now second
in command, started with a convoy for Trichinopoli. On the 26th it
was met eighteen miles from that fortress by an officer sent thence
to inform Lawrence that the French had despatched a force to
intercept him at Koiladi, close to and commanding his line of
advance. By great daring, Lawrence made his way until he had passed
beyond the reach of the guns of the badly-commanded enemy and the
fort, and before daybreak of the following morning was joined by a
small detachment of the garrison: another, of greater force, met him
a little later. He had, in fact, practically effected a junction with
the beleaguered force at the outpost of Elmiseram when he learned
that the French were marching against him. They contented themselves,
however, with a fierce cannonade: for, as Clive advanced to
cover the movement of the rest of the force, they drew back, and
Lawrence, with his troops, and the convoy he was escorting, entered
{68}Trichinopoli. The French commander was so impressed by this feat
of arms, which gave the defenders, now assisted by Morari Rao and the
Dalwai of Mysore, a strength quite equal to his own, that he fell
back into the island of Seringham. There he was faced on one side by
Lawrence. To cut off his communications with the country on the
further side of the river Kolrun, Lawrence despatched Clive[3] with
400 English and some 700 sipahis, accompanied by some Maratha and
Tanjore cavalry, to occupy the village of Samiaveram, a village
commanding with three others the exit from the island on the only
practicable route. Clive set out on the 7th of April, occupied
Samiaveram the same day, and, two days later, made his position
stronger by storming and occupying the pagoda of Mansurpet, and the
mud fort of Lalgudi. There still remained Paichanda. The occupation
of this would complete the investment of the island on that side.
[Footnote 3: It is a striking testimony to the prestige Clive had
already acquired with the native princes that when Muhammad Ali, the
Dalwai, and Morari Rao were consulted by Lawrence as to co-operating
in the expedition, they consented only on the condition that Clive
should command.]
Meanwhile Dupleix, thoroughly disgusted with Law had despatched M.
d'Auteuil with a small force to take command in his place. Whilst
Clive was engaged in occupying the two places he had stormed, and was
preparing to attack the third, d'Auteuil was approaching the town of
Utatur, fifteen miles beyond Samiaveram, the headquarters of Clive.
He arrived {69}there on the 13th of April, and although his force--
120 Frenchmen, 500 sipahis, and four field-pieces--was far inferior
to that of Clive, he resolved to make a flank-march to the river and
open communications with Law. He sent messengers to warn that officer
of his intention, and to beg him to despatch troops to meet him. But
Clive captured one of these messengers, and resolved to foil his
plans.
D'Auteuil had set out on the morning of the 14th, but had not
proceeded far when he noticed the English force barring the way, and
returned promptly to Utatur. Clive then fell back on Samiaveram.
There was a strongly fortified pagoda, named Paichanda, on the north
bank of the Kolrun, forming the principal gateway into the island of
Seringham, which Clive had intended to take, but which, owing to the
movements of d'Auteuil, he had not yet attempted. On receiving the
message from d'Auteuil of which I have spoken, Law had resolved to
debouch by this gateway, and fall on Clive whilst he should be
engaged with d'Auteuil. But, when the time for action came, unable to
brace himself to an effort which might have succeeded, but which
possessed some element of danger, he despatched only eighty
Europeans, of whom one-half were English deserters, and 700 sipahis,
to march by the portal named, advance in the dark of the night to
Samiaveram, and seize that place whilst Clive should be occupied
elsewhere. The knowledge of English possessed by {70}the deserters
would, he thought, greatly facilitate the task.
His plan very nearly succeeded to an extent he had never
contemplated. Clive had returned from his demonstration against
d'Auteuil, and, worn out and weary, had laid himself down to sleep in
a caravanserai behind the smaller of the two pagodas occupied as
barracks by his men. They also slept. This was the position within
the village when a spy, sent forward by the leader of the surprising
party, returned with the information that Clive and his men were
there, and were sleeping. This news decided the commander to press on
and to seize the great Englishman where he lay. By means of his
deserters he deceived the sentries. One of the former, an Irishman,
informed the tired watchmen that he had been sent by Lawrence to
strengthen Clive. The party was admitted, and one of the garrison was
directed to lead its members to their quarters. They marched quietly
through the lines of sleeping Marathas and sipahis till they reached
the lesser pagoda. There they were again challenged. Their reply was
a volley through its open doors on the prostrate forms within it.
They went on then to the caravanserai and repeated their action
there.
Again was Clive surprised. Once more were the coolness, the clearness
of intellect, the self-reliance, of one man pitted against the craft
and wiles of his enemies. Once again did the one man triumph. He was,
I repeat, as much surprised as the least of his {71}followers. Let
the reader picture to himself the situation. To wake up in darkness
and find an enemy, whose numbers were unknown, practically in
possession of the centre of the town, in the native inn of which he
had gone peacefully to sleep but two hours before; his followers
being shot down; some of them scared; all just awakening; none of
them cognizant of the cause of the uproar; many of the intruders of
the same nation, speaking the same language as himself; all this
occurring in the sandy plains of India: surely such a situation was
sufficient to test the greatest, the most self-reliant, of warriors.
It did not scare Clive. In one second his faculties were as clear as
they had ever been in the peaceful council chamber. He recognized, on
the instant, that the attackers had missed their mark. They had
indeed fired a volley into the caravanserai in which he had lain with
his officers, and had shattered the box which lay at his feet and
killed the sentry beside him, but they had not stopped to finish
their work. Instantly Clive ran into one of the pagodas, ordered the
men there, some two hundred, to follow him, and formed them alongside
of a large body of sipahis who were firing volleys in every
direction, whom he believed to be his own men. To them he went,
upbraided them for their purposeless firing, and ordered them to
cease. But the men were not his men, but French sipahis. Before he
had recognized the fact, one of them made a cut at him with his
talwar, and wounded him. Still thinking they were {72}his own men,
Clive again urged them to cease fire. At the moment there came up six
Frenchmen, who summoned him to surrender. Instantly he recognized the
situation. Instantly his clear brain asserted itself. Drawing himself
up he told the Frenchmen that it was for them and not for him to talk
of surrender; bade them look round and they would see how they were
surrounded. The men, scared by his bearing, ran off to communicate
the information to their commander. Clive then proceeded to the other
pagoda to rally the men posted there. The French sipahis took
advantage of his absence to evacuate the town. The Frenchmen and the
European deserters meanwhile had occupied the lesser pagoda. They had
become by this time more scared than the surprised English. Their
leader had recognized that he was in a trap. His mental resources
brought to him no consolation in his trouble. He waited quietly till
the day broke, and then led his men into the open. But Clive had
waited too; and when the Frenchmen emerged, he received them with a
volley which shot down twelve of them. They hurried back to their
place of shelter, when Clive, wishing to stop the effusion of blood,
me to the front, pointed out to them their hopeless position, and
offered them terms. One of them, an Irishman, levelled his musket at
Clive, and fired point-blank at him. The ball missed Clive, but
traversed the bodies of two sergeants behind him. The French
commander showed his disapproval of the act by surrendering with his
whole force. Clive had {73}sent the Marathas and the cavalry to
pursue the French sipahis. These caught them, and cut them up, it is
said, to a man.
Thus ended the affair at Samiaveram. I have been particular in giving
the details which illustrate the action of Clive, because they bring
home to the reader the man as he was: a man not to be daunted, clear
and cool-headed under the greatest difficulties; a born leader;
resolute in action; merciful as soon as the difficulties had been
overcome: a man, as Carlyle wrote of another, not less distinguished
in his way, 'who will glare fiercely on an object, and see through
it, and conquer it; for he has intellect, he has will, force beyond
other men.'
The end was now approaching. On the 15th of May, Clive captured
Paichanda. He then marched on Utatur, forced d'Auteuil to retreat on
Volkonda, and, following him thither, compelled him (May 29) to
surrender. Three days later Law followed his example. The entire
French force before Trichinopoli gave itself up to Major Lawrence.
Its native allies did the same. The one regrettable circumstance in
the transaction was the murder of Chanda Sahib at the instance of his
rival.
After this, Clive returned to Fort St. David; was employed during the
fall of the year in reducing places which still held out against the
Nawab. This campaign tried his constitution, already somewhat
impaired, very severely, and on its conclusion, in the beginning of
October, he proceeded to Madras to rest {74}from his labours. There
he married Miss Maskeleyne, the sister of a fellow-writer, with whom,
in the earlier days of his Indian life, he had contracted a
friendship. But his health continued to deteriorate, and he was
forced to apply for leave to visit Europe. This having been granted,
he quitted Madras in February, 1753, full of glory. His character had
created his career. But for his daring, his prescience, his genius,
and his great qualities as a soldier, it is more than probable that
Dupleix would have succeeded in establishing the basis of a French
empire in Southern India.
{75}