Very different was the case with the French; when the basis of the Treaty of 1763 was proposed it was absolutely refused. It was plainly asserted that the very object of the war had been to annihilate that treaty, and hints were thrown out that England would be expected to surrender even a large part of her East Indian dominions. "Your arms are too long," said M. de Vergennes, "why not be satisfied with Bengal?" Before the year was over events happened which caused the French to lower their tone. The fall of Yorktown and the subsequent failure of the arms of England had made them believe that her power was gone, and they confidently looked forward to the success of two great enterprises then on foot to complete her discomfiture. De Grasse, with a large fleet, was to join the Spanish fleet in the West Indies, take troops on board, and seize Jamaica. The fall of Minorca had set De Crillon free to complete the fall of Gibraltar, with a vast armament which he had been engaged in organizing. To Rodney was intrusted the duty of protecting Jamaica; he determined to prevent the junction of the enemy's fleets. A line of frigates within signal distance extended from St. Lucia to the French position at Martinique, and the enemy had not been two hours at sea before he was in pursuit. After some ineffectual efforts he succeeded in getting to the windward of the enemy, and on the 10th of April brought the French fleet to action. The number of the fleets was exactly equal. The superiority in number of men and weight of metal was in favour of the French. The battle is famous for the introduction into naval tactics of the manœuvre called breaking the line. Before this time it was usual to meet the enemy in line, to close up ship to ship, and win the battle chiefly by hard fighting. The new manœuvre consisted in advancing in column against the enemy's line, passing through it, thus breaking it in half, and enveloping one of the halves with the whole fleet. On the present occasion its use resulted in a complete victory. The English took or destroyed eight ships; the loss of the French was very great, being much increased by the crowded state of their vessels, which had on board the soldiers intended for the Jamaica expedition.

In spite of this great success, the ministry continued its efforts at peace, but so long as there was any hope of securing better terms by the capture of Gibraltar the French would not come to the point. Nor did the change of ministry caused by the death of Rockingham change the aspect of affairs. Gibraltar had now been three years besieged. British fleets had twice forced the blockade and relieved the garrison. General Elliot's defence was vigorous, and inspired his troops with confidence. In the last November a great sally had destroyed the greater part of the enemy's works, but now a final effort of the united house of Bourbon was to be made. De Crillon, fresh from his success at Minorca, took the command, and neglecting the attack from the land side, set his hopes on a terrific bombardment to be conducted from the sea. He constructed ten huge floating batteries, with walls of wood and iron seven feet thick, shot proof and bomb proof; a fleet of more than forty first-rates was in the harbour, and a fire from 400 pieces of artillery, in answer to which the English could produce but 100, was to annihilate the fortress. Elliot was not disheartened; trusting to the natural strength of the place in other directions, he concentrated the whole of his fire upon the terrible batteries. For a long while they seemed absolutely impenetrable, but at length the constant stream of red hot shot took effect, and at mid-day their fire slackened. Before midnight the largest of them burst into flames, and eight out of the ten were on fire during the night. The siege was over, and the fleet, which still waited in the hope of meeting Lord Howe on his arrival with a relieving squadron, was driven from the harbour by the weather before he came, so that he was able to enter and relieve the garrison unmolested.

This great success, following so close upon the West Indian victory, made it plain to the allies that England was by no means so prostrate as they had imagined, and there was no longer much difficulty in settling the preliminaries of a peace. France accepted readily the offers which had been rejected in the earlier part of the year. The English ceded the little islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon in the St. Lawrence, and the African establishments of Senegal and Goree. In the West Indies everything was restored to the same condition as before the war, with the exception of Tobago, which was given to France. In the East Indies the French were permitted to retain their commercial establishments, but without military occupation. The treaty for the destruction of Dunkirk was formally given up. With these slight Terms of peace. Jan 20, 1783. concessions France had to be satisfied. Spain kept Minorca; and the Floridas were given up to her—better terms than she had a right to expect. England received in exchange the Bahamas, which she had already reconquered, and the right of cutting logwood in Honduras. Holland, with whom the English Government had in vain attempted a separate treaty, gained nothing by her rejection of those overtures, but was obliged to agree to a mutual restoration of conquests, with the exception of the seaport town of Negapatam, which remained to the English. A provisional treaty had already been made with America, by which the independence of the States was formally declared, boundaries settled, and commercial relations re-established. The only difficulty was the claim for compensation for loss of property raised by the American loyalists. This however was waived.

The duty of concluding these treaties had not fallen to the same ministry as had begun them. The composition of the Rockingham ministry had not been such as to secure its stability; it consisted, as has been said, of two distinct and equally balanced parties. A rivalry between the leaders of these parties was inevitable, especially when one of them was a man so self-asserting and so conscious of his claims as Fox. United for a moment under the nominal leadership of Rockingham, a man of great influence though of slender ability, their union was at once dissolved at the death of that nobleman. Fox refused to serve under Shelburne, to whom the King at once offered the Premiership, and though several of the old ministers retained their places, the greater part followed their leader, and a split, which proved to be final, arose The Shelburne ministry. July 1782. between the two sections of the Whigs. The new ministry included, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Pitt, as yet but twenty-three years of age. Already his oratorical power and his aspiring genius had made him one of the first men of the House, and he was regarded as a worthy successor of Chatham. Till this period he and Fox had been on friendly terms, and usually on the same side on political questions, but he had his father's hatred of faction, or the introduction of personal motives into politics, and bitterly reproached Fox for his conduct in leaving the Government. Henceforward they were avowed opponents. Fox's own explanation of his conduct was as follows. He said that he had written by the King's orders to Mr. Grenville, then at Paris, to authorize him to offer to the American agents "to recognize the independence of the United States in the first instance, and not to reserve it as a condition of peace." At the same time an official letter, for the same purpose, was sent by the Earl of Shelburne to Sir Guy Carleton in America. Mr. Fox, suspecting that this measure though consented to in the Cabinet, had not the entire approbation of some of his colleagues, had, in order to prevent any misconception, purposely chosen the most forcible expressions that the English language could supply; and he confessed that his joy was so great on finding that the Earl of Shelburne, in the letter to Sir Guy Carleton, had repeated his very words, that he carried it immediately to the Marquis of Rockingham, and told him that their distrust and suspicions of that noble lord's intentions had been groundless, and were now done away. "Judge then," said he, "of my grief and astonishment when, during the illness of my noble friend, another language was heard in the Cabinet, and the noble Earl and his friends began to consider the above letter as containing offers only of a conditional nature, to be recalled if not accepted as the price of peace. Finding myself thus ensnared and betrayed, and all confidence destroyed, I quitted a situation in which I found I could not remain either with honour or safety."

The Whig love of office had not been satiated by an eight months' tenure of it, nor had Lord North's party taken kindly to their loss of power, and in their greedy desire for personal aggrandizement, the leaders, who a few months before were speaking of each other as the most corrupt of the human species, found it consistent with their dignity to combine to eject Lord Shelburne's Government. They chose as their test question the terms of the peace. Lord North, probably, conscientiously believed that they might have been more favourable. Fox had himself offered much larger concessions to Holland, and had not disapproved either of the American or French terms, nor did he now offer the smallest suggestion as to what better terms might have been procured. In parliamentary influence, however, the coalition was quite irresistible, and at the opening of the session in the spring Lord Shelburne found himself in a minority The coalition ministry under Portland. April 1783. upon resolutions which had been moved condemnatory of the peace. He at once resigned. After a few ineffectual struggles the King had to accept the coalition ministry. Nothing could have been more distasteful to him; he found himself suddenly robbed of the whole advantage of twenty years of political scheming; he had triumphed on the fall of the Chatham administration, and for years had been served, as he would wish to be served, by a very able, popular, upright, but obsequious minister, only now to be thrown back, apparently bound hand and foot, into the hands of the hated Whig oligarchy. His policy had produced a disastrous war, an enormous augmentation of the National Debt, and an all but universal cry for a better system of economical government and national representation; while the Whigs, taking advantage of the opportunity which the ill success of royal Government gave them, had succeeded in regaining, as it appeared, an unassailable superiority. In parliamentary influence they were overwhelming; they numbered among their party Fox and North, the two ablest debaters in the House, and Burke, the greatest orator. They had also the long official experience of Lord North's party. Against them were the few remaining members of the old Chatham party, with no influence on which to rely, and upheld almost solely by the brilliant promise of young Pitt. The nominal head of the new Government was the Duke of Portland, for, as usual with coalitions, a man of no great ability was elected as the nominal chief. Fox and North were equal Secretaries of State, Lord John Cavendish was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Cabinet was completed by Lord Keppel, Carlisle, and Stormont. The great strength of the new ministry was speedily shown; a second Bill for parliamentary reform was rejected by the large majority of 144.

This ministry, which seemed so irresistible, was doomed to be of short duration, and the factious movement, which seemed to have thwarted for ever the policy of the King, proved in the sequel the means of establishing his policy for the rest of the reign. The cause of this sudden change of fortune was the necessity for some legislation with regard to the affairs of India, but before relating the final struggle it will be necessary to give a brief sketch of the course of events in that country.

At first this trade was small but very lucrative. The attention of the Company was chiefly directed to the exclusion of interlopers, or Foundation of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta. free traders, who interfered with their monopoly. Their chief factories were Surat, near Bombay, which brought them into immediate conflict with the Portuguese, against whom they assisted the native princes, and Bantam, in Java, which placed them in conflict with the Dutch, at whose hands, in 1623, they suffered the famous outrage known as the Massacre of Amboyna, where ten Englishmen were put to death upon their confession of conspiracy against the Dutch extorted by torture. Both these positions were obviously inconvenient, and tended to permanent hostilities. Some more secure situation was desirable, and in 1640 the Rajah of the Carnatic allowed the Company to purchase ground close to the deserted Portuguese settlement of St. Thomé; and the Fort of St. George and the town of Madras rapidly rose to importance. This town took the place of Bantam. The marriage-treaty of Charles II. with Catherine of Braganza gave the town and island of Bombay to the English, and it took the place of Surat. In Bengal all three rival powers had factories upon the Hooghly, a branch of the Ganges. Not long after the transference of their business from Surat to Bombay the English became involved in some petty hostilities in Bengal, and were compelled to resign their factory, and found a home lower down the river at a village called Chutternuttee. They were in fact in great danger of being driven from the country, but they managed to mollify the anger of Aurungzebe, who was at that time on the throne of the Moguls, and in 1698 obtained a lease of the village, there built Fort William, and founded the town of Calcutta. The Revolution in England threatened for a time to destroy the India Company. A great rival company, called the New India Company, was formed, and was supported by the majority of the Commons. But finally, in 1708, the quarrels were adjusted, and the Companies coalesced to prevent the destruction of both, which threatened to follow their eager competition. Their whole capital was made to consist of £3,200,000, lent to Government at five per cent.; and they had the right of borrowing one million and a half more. Repeated prolongations of their privileges were made; in 1712 to 1736, in 1730 to 1769, in 1743 to 1783. Their three settlements formed separate presidencies or seats of government, unconnected one with the other, each governed by a president and Decline of Portuguese and Dutch competition. council. Events in Europe had practically destroyed the rivalry of Portugal, which had lost its energy, and moreover, in its dislike of Spain, had become the close ally of the English. The stress even of the Dutch competition was very greatly slackened. That country also, in its dread of France, was generally friendly to England, and from the position of its settlements its commercial importance was rather in the islands than in the mainland of India.

In the midst of the prevalent dissolution a new and most dangerous rival of the English Company arose. This was the French Company which had been established under Louis XIV., and which, like the English and Dutch, had an establishment upon the Hooghly called Chandernagore; a settlement eighty miles south of Madras called Pondicherry; and to represent our settlement on the Malabar coast, the two islands of the Mauritius or Isle of France, and the Isle of Bourbon, won respectively from the Dutch and Portuguese. In 1744, when the Companies first came into active competition, two men of great genius were at the head of the French Presidencies; Labourdonnais at the Mauritius, and Dupleix at Pondicherry. The dissolution of the Mogul Empire has been not inaptly compared to the break-up of the Western Empire of Charles the Great. All the provincial governors who were at all in a position to do so, while keeping up for a time their nominal dependence upon the central court of Delhi, rendered themselves practically independent. It was of this state of dissolution that Dupleix, with singular ability, took advantage. As he gazed upon the shattered fragments of the decaying empire, on the rising independence of Hindoo rajah, mogul and nabob, and observed the constantly increasing power of the Mahrattas from the Western Ghauts, Dupleix formed the opinion that India was not for the natives, but for European conquerors, and as Dutch enterprise had sought another direction, and Portugal was Grandeur of Dupleix's schemes. a failing power, the only countries that could compete for the high position were France and England. Having settled upon his opponents, he settled also upon his means of offence. The French Company and its officers must become at once the nominal feudatories of the Mogul Empire, and without present conquest must so mingle in all the affairs of the native princes, and so assist them by means of native levies drilled in the European fashion, as virtually to master them all. In other words, he invented that system by the application of which the English power has subsequently been formed. The war of the Austrian Succession, which broke out in 1744, supplied him with his opportunity. A network of alliances was formed around the English settlement, and kept together by the skill of Dupleix and of his wife, a woman of Portuguese extraction and of extraordinary talents. But Dupleix's activity was crossed by the equal energy of Labourdonnais, who, with a fleet hastily gathered, captured Madras. The English inhabitants surrendered upon terms, the town was to be repurchased for £440,000. This was in strict accordance with the views of the French Government, but not in accordance with the views of Dupleix, who wished to drive the English from the Peninsula. A hot dispute arose between the two governors. Dupleix induced Labourdonnais to withdraw upon a false promise of surrendering Madras; and Labourdonnais returning to France, was there, with the ingratitude the French always showed to their colonial governors, subjected to several years of imprisonment and a trial, which was the immediate cause of his death. Retaining Madras, and with the aid of the Nabob of Arcot, Dupleix was proceeding, in 1747, to complete his conquest by the capture of Fort St. David. The approach of the English fleet saved the fortress, and even enabled the English to make a counter attack upon Pondicherry. It failed, and the fame of Dupleix and the French Success of Dupleix. was at its height among the natives when the Peace of 1748 compelled the restitution of conquests. But the plans of Dupleix were such that no war between the nations was necessary to enable him to carry them on. It was native quarrels he desired, and such quarrels arose at the death of the old Nizam El Mulk of the Deccan. His throne was disputed by his son Nazir Jung and his grandson Mirzapha Jung. At the same time Chunda Sahib appeared as a claimant for the viceroyalty of the Carnatic. Both the pretenders found their cause adopted by Dupleix, who understood well how secure his position would be did he succeed in establishing by his own power a Nizam of the Deccan and a Nabob of the Carnatic. Aided by the Marquis de Bussy, as great as a soldier as Dupleix was as a diplomatist, in 1749 the pretenders and the French won a victory at Amboor, in which the reigning nabob was killed. His son, Mahomet Ali, took the title of Nabob of Arcot, but was obliged to retire to Trichinopoly, while the whole country was in the hands of his rival. Thus successful in arms in the Carnatic, Dupleix was equally so by intrigue in the Deccan. In 1750, as the French approached Nazir Jung's army, a conspiracy which Dupleix had hatched broke out, and Nazir was murdered. Mirzapha acknowledged his debt of gratitude to the French, and it was at Pondicherry that he entered upon his rank, rewarding his European allies with the government of the whole country from Cape Comorin to the Kistna. Dupleix appeared to have gained his object. The Company of which he was the governor was accepted as a ruling power in India; the great princes of the neighbourhood both owed him their crowns. The only place still holding out against his authority was Trichinopoly, and thither he directed all his efforts.

It was then that England at last found a champion in Robert Clive. Unable to summon troops sufficient to relieve Trichinopoly, he determined to attack Arcot as a diversion. The plan succeeded. Arcot fell almost without a struggle. 10,000 men were detached from the armies of Dupleix and Chunda Sahib at Pondicherry, but their attempt to recapture Arcot was a signal failure; and when Clive secured the assistance of a band of Mahratta horse under Morari Row, the siege was raised, and was followed by a victory over Rajah Sahib, son of Chunda Sahib. Taking the Pagoda of Conjeveram on the way, Clive, in 1752, turned towards Fort St. David, but was recalled to fight Rajah Sahib, whom he again conquered in the battle of Coverpauk. He was then at leisure, in conjunction with Major Lawrence, who had come to assume the command, to raise the siege of Trichinopoly; and when the besiegers were themselves besieged in the islands of Seringham in the river Cauvery, and when Chunda Sahib was there killed, the failure of Dupleix's measures was complete. The war indeed continued some time longer. Bussy upheld the French nominee, Salabat Jung, in the Deccan; Dupleix still kept up hostilities in the Carnatic. But as his fortunes failed, his employers deserted him. In 1754 he was recalled. A treaty was made between the Companies, and Dupleix died in poverty and misery a few years afterwards in Paris.

In 1753 ill health had compelled Clive to go to England. In 1755 he returned to India as Governor of Fort St. David, of which he took possession on the 20th June 1756, having on his way assisted in the destruction of Gheriah, the sea-girt stronghold of the pirate Angria, who had long been the terror of the Bombay merchants. On the very day of Clive's arrival at Madras, Surajah Dowlah, the Nabob of Bengal, a young man of about nineteen years of age, cruel, effeminate, and debauched, had captured Fort William and Calcutta. Shelter afforded to a defaulting revenue officer of his, and the increase of the fortifications of Fort William, roused a quarrel between him and the English. He advanced upon Calcutta and captured it, and the The Black Hole of Calcutta. June 1756. world was horrified by the tragedy of the Black Hole. The prisoners, 146 in number, were thrust into a narrow chamber some twenty feet square, whence, after a night of unspeakable horrors, but twenty-three wretched survivors were dragged the following morning before Surajah Dowlah and sent as prisoners to his capital at Moorshedabad. The horrors of the Black Hole of Calcutta were beyond expression terrible; the heat of the night was intense, and as the agonies of thirst and suffocation came upon them, the prisoners struggled to the windows for a mouthful of fresh air, careless that they trod to death their fallen comrades; they insulted the guards in hopes that they would fire upon them; many died in raving madness. Mr. Holwell, the chief of those who survived, was so broken that he was unable to walk from the prison. When the news of this fearful event reached Madras, it was at once determined to take vengeance upon the Nabob. After some difficulties Clive was appointed to the command, and though four months were wasted, partly by contrary winds, partly by the jealousy of the various English commanders, by the middle of January 1757 Calcutta was regained. This success and a night attack upon his army excited in the mind of the Nabob such a dread of the English that he consented to enter into an alliance with them. The temporary cessation of hostilities with the natives and the arrival of reinforcements gave Clive an opportunity to destroy the French settlement of Chandernagore, although the Nabob, to whom the presence of the French as a counterpoise to the English was of great importance, had taken it under his protection. This act of open contempt for his authority excited Surajah Dowlah's anger anew, and afraid to oppose the English openly he entered into secret negotiations with the French, and intreated M. Bussy to march from the Clive's treaty with Meer Jaffier. Deccan to his assistance. His intrigues became known, and were met by counter intrigues: it was determined to depose him, and to place Meer Jaffier, his general, on the throne; and in order to deceive one of his agents named Omichund, who threatened to betray the conspiracy unless bribed by an enormous sum of money, Clive was guilty of forging the name of Admiral Watson. The treaty to which the false signature was appended promised the bribe, but was a sham treaty. On the real treaty which Admiral Watson had signed Omichund received nothing. The plot being ripe, Clive openly advanced towards Moorshedabad, the Nabob's capital, and on the 23rd June 1757 won Battle of Plassey. June 23, 1757. with his troops, numbering in all some 3000 men, the great victory of Plassey over 30,000 of the Nabob's troops. That battle secured the power of England in Bengal. Surajah Dowlah fled; Meer Jaffier was placed upon the throne. A sum of nearly £3,000,000 was paid to the Company, to which was given the entire property of Calcutta itself as far as 600 yards beyond the Mahratta ditch, and the zemindary or feudal tenure on payment of rent of all the country between Calcutta and the sea. The English thus had firm footing in Bengal, and before 1760, when Clive was again compelled to seek England, he had made two other steps in advance. In support of Meer Jaffier, he had advanced against and conquered Shah Allum, the Great Mogul, and for ever freed himself from competition of the Dutch by capturing the whole of a large squadron which they had sent to the assistance of their factory at Chinsurah in opposing the advance of the English.

The following year saw the final fall of the French power in India. While Clive was securing Bengal, the breaking out of the Seven Years' War had renewed the hostilities in the Carnatic. On this occasion Lally was the champion of the French. But able and vigorous as a soldier, his ill-usage of the natives, his eager temper and satirical tongue, surrounded him with disaffection both among the Indians and his own troops. At first his advent was marked with success. In the course of 1758 he captured and destroyed Fort St. David and retook Arcot. But, early in the following year, the disaffection of his troops and the arrival of Admiral Pocock prevented him from bringing to a successful issue an assault on Madras, and from this time onwards the English retained constant superiority. Colonel Coote, a soldier of Clive's training, took the command; and on the morning of the 22nd January 1760, won over the French the great battle of Wandewash. The European troops alone were engaged. It differed from other Indian battles in this respect, and was a national victory won upon Indian soil. Coote's sepoys, on congratulating him on his victory, thanked him for having shown them a battle such as they had never yet seen. The battle of Wandewash did for Madras what Plassey did for Bengal. The troops of the English and their allies gradually closed in round Pondicherry, and in spite of a firm and splendid resistance, that sole remaining stronghold of the French power surrendered in January 1761; and Lally, like his predecessors, returned to France only to meet with persecution from his employers, and finally death upon the scaffold. The Portuguese, Dutch, and French had thus all disappeared from the political world of India, though they still kept up trading stations at Pondicherry, Chandernagore, and Chinsurah. England had secured a sovereign position in its three Presidencies.

The further growth of the Empire was at the expense of native tribes, and carried on in the midst of strange domestic mismanagement. The English Government at Calcutta, left without the guiding hand of Clive, soon drifted into fresh quarrels with the natives. Mr. Vansittart was left as governor, and already, in 1760, he had thought it desirable to remove Meer Jaffier, the Company's creature, from the throne of Moorshedabad, and replace him by Meer Cossim, his son-in-law. The step was an unwise one. The new viceroy was of less malleable materials than his predecessor, and speedily came to look with great anger at the constant breaches of the revenue laws perpetrated by the English traders. He quarrelled especially with a gentleman who occupied the advanced factory of Patna high up the Ganges. To be out of the influence of Calcutta, he withdrew his capital from Moorshedabad to Monghir, and all seemed tending towards war. It was in vain that Mr. Vansittart went himself to Monghir, arranged for the payment of inland duties, and received as a sign of peace a present of £70,000. An embassy sent from Calcutta to complete the pacification was fallen on and murdered at Moorshedabad, and under the circumstances war became inevitable. The advance of the English was rapid and triumphant; Moorshedabad fell, and after a nine days' siege Monghir itself was taken. The Nabob found it necessary to fly, but before he fled, with the assistance of a renegade Massacre of Patna. 1763. Frenchman called Sombre, he committed a crime similar to that of the Black Hole of Calcutta. On the 5th October 1763 the whole of the English residents of the Patna factory (150 in number), enclosed within their prison walls, were shot down or cut to pieces, and their mangled remains thrown into two wells. One alone escaped. The Rajah and his instrument Sombre fled into the district of a neighbouring nabob, Sujah Dowlah of Oude, at whose court was tarrying, in a condition between exile and prisoner, the Mogul Shah Allum, who had been driven from his throne at Delhi by the advance of the Mahrattas. Sujah Dowlah had been appointed vizier, and virtually wielded all the power that was left to the descendants of the Moguls. With these allies Sujah Dowlah advanced to meet the English, and suffered, Battle of Buxar. Oct. 1764. on the 23rd of October, at Buxar, higher up the river than Patna, a terrible defeat at the hands of Major Munro. The fruit of the victory was the person of Shah Allum himself, and backed now by his authority, the English pressing on in their victorious course, the following year entered Allahabad, the chief city of Oude.

Victory in war and increased dominion had only increased the maladministration of the India Company, which reached such a pitch, that in 1765 it became necessary again to despatch Clive to the scene of action. This was not done without the most vigorous opposition. Two great parties had long divided the India House in London. Mr. Sullivan had for some time exercised a paramount authority there. Clive had appeared as his rival. Both parties lavished their wealth in creating votes, and a factious struggle arose in the heart of the Company. At length the general voice seemed to declare that Clive alone could restore order in the mismanaged Presidency. Clive saw his opportunity. He publicly refused to go out as long as Sullivan occupied the place of chairman of the Court of Directors. The proprietors were so frightened by this threat, that when the day of election of directors arrived, Sullivan found himself unable to carry more than half of Clive returns to India. May 1765. his list of directors, and Clive's friends were triumphant. He was sent out with full powers, and authorized to override the opinion of the Council, although usually the governor was entitled to only one vote. The struggle for bribes and ill-gotten gain was carried on to the moment of his arrival. Only a few days before he landed the viceroyalty of Bengal had been sold, contrary to all justice, to the illegitimate son of Meer Jaffier for £140,000. But the scene was speedily changed. In two days Clive and the Committee who accompanied him had mastered the state of affairs and declared their dictatorial authority. At the dread of his name alone Sujah Dowlah sought peace. He compelled Meer Cossim and his agent Sombre, who had organized the massacre of Patna, to leave his dominions, and a treaty was made in accordance with Clive's view, that for the present it was better to strengthen than increase our dominions. By this treaty Sujah Dowlah retained his provinces, surrendering only the districts of Corah and Allahabad, which were given as an imperial dominion to Shah Allum. In return the provinces of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar, were granted for all administrative purposes to the Company, who thus became nominal as well as real princes of India. The Nabob of Bengal was pensioned with a yearly income. This was the beginning of a system which played a great part in our Indian history. By this means the Company were secured a revenue of two millions. But even yet Clive thought it imprudent to place the administration in European hands, and selected as native Prime Minister a Mahommedan, Mahomed Reza Khan. This choice was made deliberately, in spite of the claims of Nuncomar, the chief of the Bengal Brahmins. The rivalry between these two chiefs bore notable fruit afterwards. Having settled our difficulties with the natives, Clive turned to domestic reforms; he deprived the military of a large allowance, called "double batta," which they had received from Meer Jaffier, and quelled, with incomparable vigour and sagacity, a mutiny which arose in consequence; he forbade civilians to receive presents from the native princes, and restrained officials from engaging in private trading, while he himself set an admirable example of disinterestedness. Unfortunately he was unable to superintend the execution of his plans, but was compelled by ill health to return to England (Jan. 1767).

While the events that have been mentioned were going on in Bengal, the southern Presidency had had its own difficulties to contend with. Immediately above the plains of the Carnatic lies the hill country of Mysore, and there a new power had been established by the ablest opponent we ever met in India, Hyder Ali. A Mahommedan of low birth, a freebooter, a rebel, and commander-in-chief of the Mysore army, he succeeded at last in establishing himself on the throne of the Hindoo Rajah. Sometimes in confederation with the Nizam of the Deccan, sometimes with the Mahrattas of the Western Ghauts, Hyder kept up a continual war with the English. His army of 100,000 men was organized in the European fashion. Though unable to write, his retentive memory enabled him to be a most dangerous diplomatist, and though beaten in the field, his activity kept the English army in constant movement and exhausted the Company's resources. To such an extent was this the case, that Clive's reforms were counterbalanced, and in 1769 Indian stock fell sixty per cent.

Such threatening appearances in the commercial career of the Company, the constant scandal of their factious struggle in London, and the anomaly becoming every day more striking of a body of merchants exercising, and exercising very badly, sovereign rights over large conquered districts, excited the attention of Parliament. Chatham, as has been mentioned, intended to have enforced the rights of the Crown; and the Company only escaped some interference of the kind by offering to establish supervisors of its own and to pay the English Government £400,000 a year. But in 1773 matters had become much worse; a fearful famine had devastated Bengal, corpses choked and infected the Ganges, the fish and fowl became uneatable, more than half the population are said to have been swept away. It was Famine in Bengal. 1770. felt that no properly conducted Government could have permitted such an evil; and when in 1772 the united effects of the Madras wars and the Bengal famine reduced the funds of the Company to so low an ebb that they had to demand of Parliament a loan of a million sterling, legislation became inevitable. At the beginning of the year a Committee of inquiry had reported, and again in the autumn another secret committee had been named; upon their report Lord North formed what is known as the Regulating Regulating Act, 1773. Act. By this he granted the Company their loan, relieved them of their annual tribute to the State, and allowed them to export their bonded tea, with what disastrous effects in America has been already seen. In exchange he confined their interest to six per cent. till the loan was paid, and afterwards to eight per cent.; and, proceeding to the organization of their government, he established a supreme court upon the English model, made the Governor of Bengal Governor-General of India, and appointed by name in Parliament a new Council. Warren Hastings, already Governor of Bengal, was made the first Governor-General; Barwell, a member of the existing Council, was continued in his office; General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Philip Francis, were named as the new members. During the discussions relative to this Act much blame had been thrown on Clive, and though a formal vote of censure was mollified by the words, that "Robert Lord Clive did at the same time render great and meritorious services to his country," Death of Clive. the trouble he underwent preyed upon a morbid mind and a body weakened by disease so much that he committed suicide (Nov. 1774).

The interest which has hitherto centred upon Clive is now transferred to the career of Warren Hastings. An Indian statesman by profession, and thoroughly acquainted with the wants both of native and European populations, he had entered upon the duties of the Government of Bengal in 1772. The post was not a light one: in India a people in the last stages of distress, a Government full of abuses, a small dominant population who believed their sole duty was to acquire wealth rapidly; in England a factious and fluctuating body of governors whose chief object was high dividends. Such Hastings Governor-General. were the conditions under which Hastings had to act. A change in the management of the land tax produced a larger revenue with less oppression; the country, freed from marauders, was in a better condition to pay taxes; but this was little. Rumours were afloat that Reza Khan, the finance minister, was peculating largely. On the accusation of Nuncomar, his old rival, he was apprehended by Hastings, who either believed the charges or acted in obedience to the Company's orders. On examination he was acquitted, but not replaced in his office, nor was Nuncomar appointed to succeed him; the administration was kept in English hands. The Viceroy, an infant, was deprived of half his allowance, and a quarrel having arisen between our old ally Shah Allum, who had made friends with the Mahrattas, and the English, Allahabad and Corah were resumed and sold to the Vizier of Oude for fifty lacs of rupees. More than that, for a further sum of forty lacs English troops were basely let to that prince to destroy his enemies, the neighbouring Afghan conquerers of Rohilcund. All these measures seem to have been dictated primarily by a desire for an increased revenue. It was at this crisis that the Regulating Act took effect, and the new councillors arrived in the Hooghly. The man of the most importance and activity among them was Philip Francis, who is now generally accepted as being the author of "Junius' Letters." The other two always voted with him, and all three came out with strong prejudices and a determination to oppose Hastings. The new Governor-General therefore found himself at once in a permanent minority, for, as before, he had but one vote in the Council. Barwell, the Indian member of the new Council, always voted with him. There arose therefore a fierce struggle for power, and the new councillors made haste to seek on all sides grounds for attacking Hastings. It was understood that they were willing to receive any charges against him. Nuncomar, who had been heavily disappointed at not receiving the vacant place of Reza Khan, charged him with having been bribed to pardon that great official; and Francis and his partisans determined to confront Nuncomar with Hastings at the council board. The Governor-General rightly refused to preside at what was virtually his own trial; but upon his dissolving the Council the three new members declared it not dissolved, and continued the inquiry. Fortune placed in the hands of Hastings the means of freeing himself from this awkward dilemma. A private charge of forgery was brought against Nuncomar, and he was tried before the new supreme court. It is impossible to say how far this charge was fostered by Hastings, he himself asserted upon oath that he had nothing whatever to do with it; at all events it was carried to its conclusion, and Sir Elijah Impey and his colleagues found the charge proved, and condemned Nuncomar to death. Impey, an old schoolfellow of Hastings, whose career showed him not to be above suspicion, is by many held to have acted corruptly; but his colleagues entirely agreed with him, nor does it seem that he did anything worse than import into India the habits and feelings of Europe when he suffered the sentence of death to be carried out. No doubt this was a shock to the moral feelings of the Hindoos, to whom forgery was not the grave offence that it is to us. However this may be, the death of Nuncomar secured the supremacy of Hastings. There was no one brave enough to bring charges either true or false against one whose vengeance seemed to have struck down the head of their religion. His supremacy was soon still further secured; by the death of Monson he found himself, by means of his own casting vote, master of the Council. One more violent struggle took place, after which he was able to act according to his own judgment, although constantly thwarted by Francis. In the height of his difficulties he had lodged a conditional resignation with his agent in London, and his agent, alarmed by the news from India, had presented it. Suddenly, in the midst of his triumph in Calcutta, a ship arrived with a new member of the Council and the news that the Governor-General had resigned. Hastings positively refused to ratify the act of his agent, which he declared was unauthorized by him. The bitter contest which arose from this subject was brought before the Supreme Court of Justice for arbitration. Sir Elijah Impey again settled the question in Hastings' favour.