Page:A Brief History of the Indian Peoples.djvu/189

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
DECISIVE BATTLE OF BAXAR.
185


and threatened Patná, which the English had recovered. A more formidable danger appeared in the English camp, in the form of the first sepoy mutiny. It was quelled by Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Munro, who ordered twenty-four of the ringleaders to be blown from guns, an old Mughal punishment. In 1764, Major Munro won the decisive battle of Baxár, which laid Oudh at the feet of the conquerors, and brought the Mughal Emperor, Sháh Alam, as a suppliant to the English camp. The old deposed Nawáb of Bengal, Mír Jáfar, was brought forth from his retirement, and was again appointed Nawáb in place of Mír Kásim, who had risen against us. The English Council in Calcutta had thus twice found the profitable opportunity which they loved, of creating a new Nawab of Bengal, and of receiving the donations and large sums of money distributed to them by each of the Nawábs on his accession.

Olive's Second Governorship, 1765-1767.—But, in 1765, Clive (now Baron Clive of Plassey in the peerage of Ireland) arrived at Calcutta, as Governor of Bengal for the second time. Two landmarks stand out in his policy. First, he sought the substance, although not the name, of territorial power, under the fiction of a grant from the Mughal Emperor. Second, he desired to purify the Company's service, by prohibiting illicit gains, and guaranteeing a reasonable salary from honest sources. In neither respect were his plans carried out by his immediate successors. But our efforts at good government in India date from this second governorship of Clive in 1765, as our military supremacy had dated from his victory at Plassey in 1757.

Grant of the Díwání of Bengal, 1765.—Clive advanced rapidly up from Calcutta to Allahábád, and there settled in person the fate of nearly the northern half of India. Oudh was given back to the Nawáb Wazír, on condition of his paying half a million sterling towards the expenses of the war. The Provinces of Allahábád and Kora, lying between the Ganges and the Jumna, were handed over to the Emperor Sháh Alam, who in his turn granted to the English Company the díwaní or fiscal administration of [Lower] Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, and also the territorial jurisdiction of the Northern Circars. A puppet Nawáb was still maintained at Murshidábád, who received an