19. The East India Company. 1600-1698.-The superabundant energy of the English race, for which Pitt provided an outlet in America, made itself also felt, without assistance from the home Government, in Asia. The East India Company, an association of private merchants, was constituted by a charter from Elizabeth in 1600, for the purpose of trading in the East. Its most important commerce was for some time with the spice islands of the Eastern Archipelago, but its trade in that quarter was ultimately ruined by the Dutch. In India itself, on the other hand, its factories were secured from violence by the protection of the Great Moguls, the descendants of the Mahomedan conquerors of Northern India, who had at one time fixed their capital at Agra, and at another at Delhi, and who had strengthened their power by a policy of toleration which enabled them to obtain military support from Hindoos as well as from Mussulmans. At the end of the seventeenth century the East India Company held three posts in India. By the permission of a ruler of the Carnatic it had, in 1639, acquired a piece of ground on which Fort St. George and the town of Madras were built. In 1668 Charles II. made over to the Company Bombay, which he had acquired from Portugal by his marriage with Catharine of Braganza. In 1696 the Company built Fort William on a piece of ground on the Hoogly, leased from the Mogul, and round the fort the town of Calcutta speedily grew up.

Officer with fusil and gorget. 1759.

20. Break up of the Empire of the Great Mogul. 1658-1707. In the meanwhile, Aurungzebe, whose long reign extended from 1658 to 1707 (that is, from the year of the death of Cromwell to the year of the union with Scotland), weakened the Mogul empire, partly by departing from the tolerant policy of his predecessors, and thus alienating his Hindoo warriors by attacks on their religion, and partly by an extension of conquest in the Deccan, or Southern India, whereas the earlier dominions of his predecessors had been confined to the north, properly known as Hindustan. Aurungzebe

1707

THE EMPIRE OF THE MOGULS

759

provoked a reaction against his Mahomedan empire in his own lifetime, and the Hindoo chieftain Sivaji founded a powerful Hindoo state amongst the Mahrattas of the highlands of the western Deccan. When Au

rungzebe died, in 1707,
his vast empire fell to
pieces. His lieutenants
were known as Subah-
dars, or viceroys, under
whom were Nawabs or
governors of smaller
districts. Both Subah-
dars and Nawabs, and
even Hindoo Rajahs,
who had hitherto been
allowed by the Great
Mogul to rule in de-
pendence on himself
over territories which
their ancestors had
governed as
reigns, now raised them-
selves to practical sove-
reignty. Yet they con-
tinued to acknowledge
nominally their de-
pendence on the feeble
successors of Aurung-
zebe at Delhi, just as
a king of Prussia or an
elector of Bavaria no-
minally acknowledged
the supremacy of the
Emperor. Each ruler
quarrelled and fought
with his neighbour, and

sove

Uniform of Militia, 1759.

the Mahratta armies gained post after post, and the Mahratta horsemen plundered and devastated far and wide.

21. The Mahratta Confederacy. 1707-1744. The Mahratta power seemed likely to become predominant in the whole of India, when it was threatened with disintegration in consequence of the decadence of the House of Sivaji, as marked as the decadence of

the Moguls. After an interval of anarchy, power was grasped by an official known as the Peishwah, who ruled at Poonah, and who-though a descendant of Sivaji was always counted as the nominal sovereign-practically controlled the forces of what now became the confederacy of the Mahratta chieftains. Whether the Mahratta

themselves offered advantages to a European

power would, under any circumstances, have mastered the whole of India, it is impossible to say. It was checked by the existence of a French settlement at Pondicherry and of an English settlement at Madras. Both these places were on the coast of the Carnatic, and consequently far removed from the centre of the Mahratta power. There were still Mahomedan rulers in that part of India who were the enemies of the Mahrattas, and whose disputes amongst who might strengthen

himself by taking part in their quarrels. Dupleix, the French governor of Pondicherry, was the first to perceive this, and was also the first to enlist native soldiers, who came to be known in England as sepoys, and to drill them to fight after the European fashion.

22. Le Bourdonnais and Dupleix. 1744-1750.-When war was declared between France and England in 1744, the French force in the East was superior to the English; but the French, unfortunately for them, had two commanders, Le Bourdonnais, governor of the Isle of France-now known as the Mauritiusand Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry. In 1746 Le Bourdonnais captured Madras, but Dupleix hampered his move

1748-1751

CLIVE

761

ments and drove him to return to France, where the Government, instead of giving him the honour due to him, threw him into prison. In 1748 Dupleix, who was as able as he was unscrupulous, successfully defended Pondicherry against an attack from the British, who were now supported by the arrival of a fleet. In 1748 the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle compelled him to surrender Madras; but it did not compel him to refrain from pushing his fortune further. The Subahdar of the Deccan, the Nizam-ul-Mulk (whose successors are known by the title of Nizam, which they have derived from him), died in 1748, and left rival claimants to his power. Dupleix sent French sepoys to support one of the claimants, whilst the English sent English sepoys to support the other. The French candidate defeated his rival, and was installed as Nizam, whilst Dupleix was himself appointed governor of the Carnatic from the river Kistna to Cape Comorin, by his own puppet the new Nizam. The native Nawab of the Carnatic was subordinated to him. The English settlement at Madras seemed to be incapable of offering further resistance to the French.

23. Dupleix and Clive. 1751-1754.—The English were still traders, not warriors, but amongst the clerks in Madras was a young man of twenty-five, Robert Clive. He early showed his undaunted bravery. Having accused an officer of cheating at cards, he was challenged to a duel. His antagonist walked up to him, held his pistol to his head, and bade him withdraw the accusation. "Fire!" cried Clive. "I said you cheated, and I say so still, and I will never pay you." The officer threw down his pistol, saying that Clive was mad. In 1751, when Dupleix, paying no attention to the treaty of peace which had been signed in Europe between England and France, threatened Madras, Clive, having volunteered as a soldier, was sent to seize Arcot, the capital of the Nawab of the Carnatic, who was dependent on Dupleix. Clive carried with him a force of sepoys, and as he approached Arcot continued his march, though a violent thunderstorm was raging. The garrison of Arcot was so astonished at his fearlessness in facing the storm that they fled in a panic, leaving the place in his hands. Shortly, however, a vast force of the native allies of France laid siege to Arcot, and Clive and his men were all but starved. So complete was the ascendency which Clive had gained over his sepoys that when they discovered that all the provisions except a little rice had been exhausted they begged that he and the few Englishmen with him would take the rice. As for themselves, they would be content with the water in which the rice 3 D

III.