The history of the foundation of the English empire in India is full of paradoxes. The East India Company had no purpose beyond trade: they had been allowed to form settlements at various places, and like other landowners had a few armed men to protect them against possible violence; but they did not dream even of asserting their independence of the native princes. It was the French, not the English, who won the first victory against great odds over a native army, and so disclosed the arcanum imperii, the secret that European discipline would prevail against almost any numbers, and that native soldiers, trained in the European method and fighting alongside of European comrades, could be made almost equally effective. The restless ambition of Dupleix, striving to establish French dominion in southern India, led him to attack the English of Madras, as hereditary enemies at home as well as possible rivals in India. The English were driven to war in self-defence, and they found in Clive a leader who was nearly Dupleix's equal as a statesman, and was also, what Dupleix was not, a born general. Down to 1751 it had been supposed in India that the English could not fight: they had certainly shown no inclination for war. Clive's defence at Arcot, followed by his victory in the field over a very superior force commanded by a Frenchman, transferred to his countrymen that moral and military preponderance which Dupleix had gained for the French. No better illustration can be found of the principle that the boldest course is generally the safest, than Clive's victory at Cauveripak.[91]

The first step was thus gained involuntarily, as a consequence of French aggression: the second and more important step was the result of an unprovoked attack on Calcutta. In 1756 a spoilt boy became Nawab of Bengal, and at once proceeded to make war on the English settlements, which had virtually no means of resistance. On his capture of Calcutta, followed by the well-known catastrophe of the Black Hole, the Madras government sent all the force that could possibly be spared, under the command of Clive, to attempt to regain what had been lost. Clive's landing was followed by the easy recovery of Calcutta and by other successes, which terrified the Nawab into restoring all that the English had ever held in Bengal. Clive however had not forgotten Dupleix. The Seven Years' War had just broken out; it was more than probable that the French, whose influence was still paramount in the Deccan, would ally themselves with the Nawab, and so enable him to re-conquer Calcutta. Clive in fact was beginning to discern dimly, what we after the event can see plainly enough, the end to which affairs in India were tending. Given the political conditions, the Mogul empire utterly weak, and its nominal subordinates fiercely hostile to each other; given also the enormous preponderance conferred by European discipline; the time was approaching when some European nation would become supremely influential, the chief power in India, if not actually dominant. Moreover the only possible candidates for supremacy in India were France and England: and in view of the rivalry between them in America as well as in Europe, no postponement of the inevitable struggle in India was to be looked for. Neither side saw clearly the greatness of the stake for which they were contending, but each felt instinctively that there could be no security while the rival power retained a real hold on any part of India. The game was won for England on the field of Plassy by the political and military genius of Robert Clive.

The miserable Surajah Dowlah was no match for Clive in the cabinet, any more than in the field. Afraid of his neighbours, especially of the Mahrattas, he was distracted between desire to conciliate English support and dread of English power. The French settlement of Chandernagore was, like Calcutta, under the nominal suzerainty of the Nawab, and therefore though France and England were at war, Clive had no right to attack it without the Nawab's permission. The refusal was a grievance of which Clive made the most; he seized Chandernagore, and defied the native army that was marching to protect it. Surajah Dowlah had dreamed, in one of his vacillations towards a leaning on English support, of crushing with their aid the great nobles whose power was a danger to him. Hence some of them were ready to side with the English against him, and Clive ultimately made a regular treaty with one of them, Meer Jaffier, who was to be made Nawab, on payment of a large sum, as soon as Surajah Dowlah had with his assistance been overthrown. When Clive however found himself within reach of the Nawab's army, Meer Jaffier was still on openly friendly terms with his master, and in command of a division of the army. Clive had only general assurances that Meer Jaffier meant to keep his engagement with the English, which might or might not be sincere.

The circumstances of the case put any middle course really out of the question. Though various expedients were suggested, he must choose between retreat and attacking with 3000 men, of whom less than one-third were English, the Nawab's army of 50,000 men, on the chance of Meer Jaffier coming over to his side. While the choice was yet open, while a river still separated the two armies, Clive called his officers together. Councils of war proverbially do not fight, and this was no exception. The majority, with whom Clive himself voted, advised against immediate action. The minority, led by Eyre Coote, who afterwards won the victory of Porto Novo that broke Hyder Ali's power, declared for advancing. When the council was over, Clive, with whom as commander the final decision necessarily rested, went apart under a clump of trees, and there took the resolution on which the fate of India hung. Next morning his little army crossed the river, and by nightfall was face to face with the enemy; they bivouacked in a mango grove north of the village of Plassy, with the river close to them on the west, and the intrenchments which covered the Nawab's camp about a mile off to the north.

Early next morning (June 23, 1757) the Nawab's army moved out and took order for battle. On the right, half-a-mile north of the grove which sheltered Clive, and close to the river, were posted some guns manned by Frenchmen, behind which were massed the flower of the Nawab's troops, commanded by his one thoroughly trustworthy general Meer Mudin. The rest of the army extended thence in a long curve, formed with horse, foot, and artillery closely massed together, so far that its extremity almost surrounded Clive. The left portion, that nearest to the English, was commanded by the traitor Meer Jaffier, who still hesitated to take any decisive step. Clive formed his little army in order of battle, north of the grove, his one English regiment, the 39th,[92] in the centre, with his few small guns and his sepoys on each side. Cavalry he had none, while the enemy had some 15,000, besides twelve times his number of infantry, and five times his number of guns, mostly of heavier calibre. The enemy opened a cannonade, but did not attempt to come to close quarters: they had no need to do so, for their converging artillery fire would have sufficed to destroy the force exposed to it. Clive was in a trap, he could not advance on the French guns without ruinous loss, and exposing himself to being surrounded. Retreat was out of the question: all he could do was to take shelter in the mango grove, which was surrounded by banks, and await events, resolving at any rate to attack the Nawab at night. Then occurred an incident resembling that which preceded the battle of Crecy. A heavy storm wetted the powder of the Nawab's artillery, and reduced its fire to insignificance. Meer Mudin, thinking that the English guns were in equally evil case, boldly advanced with his cavalry to assail the position. But Clive's guns, which had been covered from the rain, received him with a discharge of grape, which drove the cavalry back in rout. Meer Mudin himself was killed, and with him died the Nawab's chance of victory. Timid and incapable, surrounded by men who were either traitors or cowards, the Nawab gave the order to withdraw within the intrenchments, and soon fled from the field. Meer Jaffier so far disobeyed orders, as not to withdraw within the lines; but to the last he never mustered up courage to make his treason complete and side openly with the English. Clive now saw that his opportunity was come; advancing boldly, he drove back the artillery which was manned by Frenchmen, in spite of their determined resistance. The enemy's army was still intact, but they were practically without leaders, the Nawab having fled, and some at least of the chief officers being desirous to see Clive successful. In a disorderly fashion they issued once more from their intrenched position, but Clive gave them no rest: pushing on from point to point he drove them from their camp, winning one of the most decisive and far-reaching victories recorded in history, at a cost of less than a hundred killed and wounded.

The battle of Plassy virtually gave the East India Company Bengal, Behar, and Orissa. Many other wars had to be waged, many battles won by skill and daring which equalled, if they did not surpass, Clive's exploits, before the English rule was so firmly established that it could give peace and security to its subjects. But those victories were facilitated by the profound impression produced on the native mind by Plassy. It was no unmeaning instinct which interpreted the famous prophecy about the Company's raj lasting a hundred years only, to mean that it would be overthrown when a century had elapsed since the battle of Plassy.

Twenty years later Hyder Ali, a Mahommedan adventurer who had usurped the throne of Mysore, made an attempt to oust the English from southern India. It was not until after a long and doubtful struggle that he was overcome: indeed he himself died before the conflict was over, and the comparative incompetence of his son contributed greatly to the triumph of the English. Decade by decade it became clearer that whether the East India Company liked it or not, English power must extend itself further and further, under penalty of perishing altogether. The original strictly commercial basis of the Company had not been forgotten, but new policy had been forced upon it, partly by the necessity of its position, partly by the intervention of Parliament. English officials in India no longer possessed the old opportunities for enriching themselves, which some of them had used with shameless rapacity, some with admirable disinterestedness. Good government, peace, security, were at any rate the avowed objects of the Indian administration, which had been more or less centralised ever since 1773 by the appointment of a governor-general. When in the first years of the nineteenth century one more native power attempted to expel the English, the supreme authority for this final conflict was in the hands of perhaps the ablest and most far-sighted statesman, whose name figures on the distinguished list of governors-general of India.

Colonel Meadows Taylor's remarkable tale Tara is probably less widely known than it deserves. Those who have read it, know what a fascinating picture it presents of the condition of life in India, at the epoch when the Mahratta power was founded. In the decline of the Mogul empire, during the latter part of the seventeenth century, a new Hindoo power was gradually built up, the original seat of which was in the difficult mountain country of the western Ghauts. Sivaji the founder appealed alike to the religious zeal and to the race feeling of the Hindoos, as against their alien Mahommedan rulers, without nominally repudiating allegiance to the emperor; the Mahratta power grew and spread, till it became supreme all over central India. Even in Bengal the raids of the Mahratta horsemen were a real danger: the first fortification of Calcutta, some years before Plassy, bears the name of the Mahratta Ditch. Late in the eighteenth century the Mahratta confederacy had fallen into somewhat the same condition politically as the Mogul empire. Their titular head, the Peishwa, was no more really supreme over the other Mahratta princes than the emperor at Delhi had been over the rulers of the Deccan and Bengal. About the time at which Mysore was finally passing into English hands, the ablest of the secondary Mahratta princes had gone near to making himself master of all India, outside the British sphere. He dominated the puppet emperor at Delhi; he had troops trained and officered by Europeans, besides the splendid cavalry which had always been the main strength of the Mahrattas. He was rapidly acquiring preponderant influence over the Peishwa and the other Mahratta states, and dreaming of using his power to expel foreigners from India, when his death broke up the whole fabric.

The new Sindia[93] did not inherit his father's abilities, but he pursued in a clumsy and hesitating way the same policy. The Peishwa broke loose from his influence, fomented a quarrel between him and Holkar, and then, frightened at the storm he had raised, appealed for protection to the English. Lord Wellesley seized the opportunity: by the treaty of Bassein the Peishwa put himself into leading-strings. Sindia tried in vain to revive his father's schemes for a complete union of the Mahratta states against the British power. The Peishwa was bound, Holkar jealous; only the rajah of Berar could be induced to join him in war. The two princes however commanded between them a very large army, comprising some 10,000 infantry trained and largely officered by Europeans, a large amount of excellent artillery, cavalry estimated at fully 40,000, and a mass of irregular infantry besides. Against this force Lord Wellesley could bring into the field, after providing for other needs, nearly 17,000 men, including the cavalry of his dependent allies the Peishwa and the rajah of Mysore. This army was commanded by his brother Arthur Wellesley, but in view of the many possibilities of the campaign, it was divided into two nearly equal parts, General Stevenson commanding the smaller. Poona, the Peishwa's capital, had to be guarded, the safety of provision trains ensured (for the Mahrattas had wasted the country), and the enemy prevented from entering the Deccan, it being known that they were trying to induce the Nizam to join them. Wellesley's capture of Ahmednugur rendered Poona safe, and he then moved towards Sindia, who on hearing the news instantly set out towards the Deccan. With his enormous mass of quick-moving cavalry, Sindia, having even a small start, could have reached Hyderabad if he had dared; but he lost heart on finding that Wellesley was marching after him, and turned north-eastwards, managing to avoid fighting until he had concentrated the whole of his army. Wellesley and Stevenson met and concerted a plan, by which they should follow different routes, a proceeding apparently rendered necessary by the narrowness of defiles to be traversed, and fall on the enemy simultaneously on August 24.

Early however on the 23rd Wellesley, when he had just completed an early morning march, was informed that the enemy was encamped within a few miles, but was preparing to move off. As this would frustrate the plan of attack concerted with Stevenson, Wellesley must either let them escape or attack at once with his own force only. He had but 4500 trained troops, including two English infantry regiments, the 74th and 78th, and the 19th light dragoons, the rest being sepoys: there were also nearly 5000 cavalry belonging to Mysore and to the Peishwa, but he had good reason to believe that the latter at least would desert him if trusted. On coming in sight of the enemy, Wellesley found them drawn up on the opposite side of the river Kaitna, the infantry massed on the left near the village of Assye, the cavalry on the right. He saw at once that in the confined space they occupied (the river, with a little tributary flowing into it, forms a sort of horse-shoe) the enemy could not possibly bring their enormous superiority in cavalry to bear. The point[94] where the Kaitna could be crossed, was on the enemy's left flank, within gun-shot of Assye, so that the troops were obliged to ford the river and form their line of battle under fire. The Mahrattas meanwhile had had time to make something of a fresh formation facing the British line, the left still resting on Assye, and a second line, formed of troops for which there was no room between the rivers, at an angle to the first. A competent enemy would have used some of his enormous masses of cavalry to charge Wellesley's forces while fording the river, but Sindia was not very competent, and his ally proved himself a coward. Better men than either, both before and after Assye, were apparently paralysed by the coolness with which the English commanders did the most audacious things: it was as if they either could not believe their eyes, or took for granted that there must be some reserve out of sight to support such an advance. Wellesley's plan was to move his right slowly forward on Assye, while his left pushed on rapidly to force back the enemy's right; if this were done, the whole of the enemy's army would be jammed together upon the little tributary of the Kaitna, unable to fight effectively. The 74th however, on the right, were too eager and advanced too fast; the overwhelming artillery fire from Assye killed the cattle of the few guns that accompanied them, and caused slaughter enough to check the infantry. Sindia ordered forward his cavalry to charge the disordered line, but Wellesley was too quick for him; bringing up the 19th light dragoons and the Madras cavalry he ordered them to charge at full speed against the advancing Mahrattas. Nothing could resist the shock: the Mahratta horsemen were driven behind their infantry, and the 74th had time to rally. Meanwhile Wellesley had been pushing forward his left, and by the time the village of Assye was carried, his left had swept round, and the whole of the enemy's masses were driven at the point of the bayonet back upon the little tributary of the Kaitna, which however was fordable. As the infantry showed signs of re-forming beyond the stream, Wellesley followed them up with his cavalry, and effectually dispersed all but the troops trained in European fashion, which however retreated without attempting to renew the action. The Mahratta horse had still to be dealt with: they had been sharply checked once, but their numbers had suffered little. Wellesley's cavalry succeeded, though not without a severe struggle, in driving them off the field. The victory was for the time complete, though the loss was heavy in proportion to the numbers engaged, the English regiments in particular suffering greatly.

It required a month's more campaigning, the capture of two or three fortresses, and another battle at Argaum, to complete the subjugation of the region south of the Vindhya hills. Simultaneously General Lake had been engaged in a campaign far away to the northwards, overthrowing Sindia's power in the basin of the Ganges. Having stormed the extremely strong fortress of Aligurh, he had defeated near Delhi a Mahratta army consisting largely of trained troops and commanded by a Frenchman, and had restored the blind Mogul emperor, who had long been a prisoner of Sindia, to his nominal throne. Two months after Assye, Lake destroyed on the hard-fought field of Laswaree the last army with which Sindia could keep the field. He and his ally practically submitted themselves to the English. Holkar tried his fortune later, with the same result.[95] If he had combined with Sindia in 1803 there might have been a better chance for the Mahrattas. The victory of Assye, which must on the whole be regarded as the decisive one of the Mahratta war, made the East India Company virtual masters of India. The Mogul emperor was their pensioner, the rulers of Oude, Mysore, the Deccan, their willing dependents. The Mahrattas gave more trouble before they fully submitted, and there was fighting in various other quarters at one time or another during the generation which followed Assye; but these wars were comparatively unimportant. Substantially it may be said that in the Mahratta war of 1803 the political genius of Lord Wellesley, aided by the military skill of his brother, completed the British conquest of India as far as the Sutlej.