CHAPTER XXI
The Adventurers and their Times
The passing of the era of adventure—The early English communities in the East—How they lived—Their religious observances—The first Indian convert—The pomp observed by the chief officials—Their dress—Few Englishmen in India—Drinking habits of the men—Literary tastes—What expatriation to the East meant in the seventeenth century—The debt Britain owes to the early adventurers
WHEN the three great centres of British influence in India had been definitely fixed a new era was entered upon in which life ran in more regular channels. Adventures there were for the adventurous as there always will be in India while "the East is East and the West is West"; but the struggle of the race towards their settled destiny assumed a distinctly new phase which carried it away from the arena in which it had hitherto irregularly been prosecuted. Men now played their part on a mightier stage with more or less definitely assigned parts. They were the leaders of armies and the makers and unmakers of kingdoms; they organized the rule of provinces and they settled the fate of dynasties; they were builders rather than prospectors or pioneers. It may, perhaps, even be questioned whether the greatest of them—Clive, Hastings, and the rest of their brilliant contemporaries—were adventurers in the fullest sense of the term. Like their congeners of a later generation they were the chosen in-
309
