trivial token of their coming doom by sending, in the first place, to seize and carry off all their knives and forks, which might have been weapons in their hands. Next day, the 5th of October, in the evening, was the time of slaughter. Then the prison-house was surrounded by Sumroo and his band. Then the butchery of the prisoners was begun. It is said that they made all the resistance in their power, by throwing bottles and stones at their murderers. But, of course, in vain. Some were cut to pieces with sabres, others shot down with musketry, and then barbarously mutilated. In both cases, the mangled limbs were flung into two wells, which were afterwards filled up with stones. Of the whole number of intended victims, only one was spared; a surgeon known to the Nabob, and William Fullarton by name.

**

The reduction of Patna by the English, which speedily followed the atrocious act within its walls, completed their conquest of Bengal. Under their auspices, Meer Jaffier was once more proclaimed as Nabob throughout the province. But, meanwhile, the thrusting forth of Meer Cossim-the dispossession by an European force of one of the native Princes

seemed to the latter an act far more atrocious than the Massacre of Patna. It gained favour for the exile at the Court of Oude; and the Court of Oude was then among the most powerful in India. Sujah Dowlah, besides the resources of his own vast province, could wield at his pleasure the authority', slender though it might be, that yet adhered to the Imperial name. The titular Emperor of Delhi, Shah Alum, had taken refuge with him, and had named him his Visier. Shah Alum, in real truth, was an exile and a

* Scott's Bengal, p. 427., and Thornton's History of India, vol. i. p. 448. But Mr. Thornton appears in error of two days as to the date of this transaction.

** The narrative of Mr. Fullarton, as the sole survivor of the Massacre, and as addressed to the Board at Calcutta, is (for whatever reason) extremely meagre. It is printed in the Third Report of the East India Committee, 1773, No. 62. Of his earlier letter, dated Nov. 3. 1763, in which he seems disposed to avoid any narrative at all, I obtained a MS. copy from the India House, through the kindness of my friend Sir James Weir Hogg.

INDIA.]

BATTLE OF BUXAR.

223

wanderer, his very capital, Delhi, being held against him by Mahratta invaders, and half laid in ruins by their fury; but amidst every privation, in the eyes of the people he was still the "Great Mogul."

Thus combining, the three princes advanced at the head of an army well provided with artillery, and which numbered 50,000 men. On the other side, the English with their utmost exertions could bring into the field no more than 8,000 Sepoys and 1,200 Europeans. Their commander, Major Adams, having died, his place was filled by Major, afterwards Sir Hector, Munro. But such in their ranks was the state of insubordination, nay, even mutiny, that the new chief found it necessary to make a most severe example of the ringleaders. He began by directing four and twenty native soldiers to be blown from the mouth of cannon. On this occasion, a touching incident occurred. When the orders were first given to tie four of these men to the guns from which they were to be blown, four others of the soldiers stepped forward and demanded the priority of suffering as a right, they said, which belonged to men who had always been first in the post of danger; and the claim thus preferred was allowed. An officer who was an eye-witness of the scene observes: "I belonged on this occasion to a detach"ment of marines. They were hardened fellows, and some "of them had been of the execution-party that shot Admiral "Byng; yet they could not refrain from tears at the fate and "conduct of these gallant grenadier Sepoys."*

Having thus in some measure, as he hoped, awed the disaffected, Munro led his troops to Buxar, a position above Patna, more than one hundred miles higher up the Ganges. There, in October 1764, he was attacked by the army of Oude. The battle was fierce, but ended in a brilliant victory to the English; the enemy leaving 130 pieces of cannon and 4,000 dead upon the field.

On the day after the battle, Shah Alum, having with

Memoir by Captain Williams, as cited in Malcolm's Life of Clive, vol. ii. p. 300.

some followers made his escape from the army of his own Visier, drew near to the English camp. So long as he had been dependent on the Durbar of Oude, the English had shown little willingness to acknowledge his authority, but no sooner did he join their ranks and appear a ready instrument in their hands, than he became to them at once the rightful Sovereign of Hindostan. They concluded a treaty with him, he undertaking to yield them certain districts, and they to put him in possession of Allahabad and the other states of the Nabob of Oude.

The battle of Buxar, though so great a victory, did not decide the war. Major Munro failed in two attempts to storm the hill-fort of Chunar on the Ganges, a fort in which all the treasures of Cossim were thought to be contained; and Sujah Dowlah obtained the aid of Holkar, a powerful Mahratta chief. Nevertheless he sent to sue for peace. But Munro refused all terms, unless both Cossim and Sombre were first given up to punishment. Nor was his purpose changed by the offer of a large sum of money for himself. With a higher spirit than Vansittart's, he cried: "If the "Nabob would give me all the Lacs in his treasury, I would "make no peace with him until he had delivered up those "murdering rascals; for I never could think that my recei"ving eleven or twelve Lacs of Rupees was a sufficient "atonement for the blood of those unfortunate gentlemen at "Patna."

Sujah Dowlah thought his honour concerned upon the other side. He refused to surrender the two exiles, but proposed an expedient altogether worthy and Asiatic Prince, that he would give secret orders for the assassination of Sombre, in the presence of any person whom the English General might send to witness the deed. That expedient being, of course, rejected, the war was resumed. A new tide of successes poured in upon the English. Early in 1765, they reduced the fortress of Chunar, scattered far and wide the force of the enemy, and entered in triumph his great city of Allahabad.

INDIA.]

STRUGGLES AT THE INDIA HOUSE.

225

Through all these last years of strife it is gratifying to observe, not merely the valour, but also the mercy and forbearance, of the English owned, at least in private, by their enemies. The skill of Oriental scholars has laid open to us the records of a Mussulman historian of that period - the eye-witness, in some part, of the scenes which he describes: "It must be acknowledged," says he, "to the honour of "those strangers, that as their conduct in war and in battle "is worthy of admiration, so, on the other hand, nothing is "more modest and more becoming than their behaviour to an 'enemy. Whether in the heat of action, or in the pride of success and victory, these people seem to act entirely ac"cording to the rules observed by our ancient chiefs and "heroes." But at the same time, and, no doubt, with equal truth, this historian cannot forbear lamenting the grievous suffering and misrule endured by the helpless Bengalees after the departure of Lord Clive. "Oh God!" thus in another passage citing the Koran, he concludes: "Oh God! come to the assistance of thy afflicted servants, and deliver "them from the oppressions they bear!"*

66

66

Meanwhile, the transactions in India which followed the departure of Clive had produced no slight amount of discord and cabals in England. These were heightened by the want of any strong and well framed authority in either country for Eastern affairs. In India, whether at Calcutta, at Madras, or at Bombay, the Governor was entitled to no more than one voice in the Council, with the advantage, should the numbers be found equal, of a second, or the casting vote. Moreover, the three Presidencies being as yet upon an equal footing, and with no central seat of power, were constant rivals, each envious of the other's successes, each believing that undue favour was accorded to the rest. In England, the

* Seir Mutakhareen, vol. ii. pp. 102. and 166. These curious contemporary annals were written in Persian by Gholam Hossein, a nobleman of India, and first translated into English by a renegade Frenchman, who took the name of Haji Mustapha. His translation, which is now before me, was published at Calcutta in 1789, and comprises three quarto volumes. Another version has been undertaken by Colonel Briggs, in two volumes; of which, however, only the first (London, 1832,) has appeared.

Mahon, History. VII.

15

whole body of twenty-four Directors was renewed by annual election. On such occasions, and indeed on many others, the India House became the scene of the most violent debates, and the keenest party-struggles. There were parties formed on every sub-division of selfish interests; the party of Bombay, the party of Madras, the party of Bengal, the party of Mr. Sulivan, the party of Lord Clive. Greater than all these, perhaps, in point of numbers, was the party anxious only for the high rate and the punctual payment of their Dividends. Nor were these cabals altogether unconnected with the greater parties in the State. Mr. Sulivan, the paramount Director until the appearance of Clive, was supported by Lord Bute. Clive at that time was a follower of Pitt. Thus no one incentive to violence and rancour was wanting from these contests at the India House. At that time every share of 500l. conferred a vote, and the manufactory of fictitious votes was carried on to a gigantic scale. Clive, according to his own account, spent in this manner no less a sum than 100,000 7.* It was not till 1765, that this evil practice was arrested by an Act of Parliament, which required that each Proprietor, before he voted, should take an oath that the Stock entered in his name was really and in truth his own, and had been so for the last twelve months.

Sulivan and Clive had not at first been enemies. But, as Clive complains, in a private letter: "Sulivan has never "reposed that confidence in me which my services to the "East India Company entitle me to. The consequence has "been that we have all along behaved to one another like "shy cocks; at times, outwardly expressing great regard and "friendship for each other." ** Besides, there was a great divergence in their views of Indian affairs. Sulivan was disposed to favour the gentlemen of Bombay, and Clive the gentlemen of Bengal. Sulivan looked mainly to commerce, and Clive mainly to empire. At last, an open breach ensued

*Life by Malcolm, vol. ii. p. 211.

** To Mr. Vansittart, November 22. 1762.