in Council to-morrow,' and sent back the messenger with it.
The two victories were in all respects decisive. Never again did the Dutch trouble the tranquillity of India. Mír Jafar was cowed. Three days after the victory of Biderra, his son, Míran, arrived from Murshidábád with 6,000 horse, for the purpose, he explained, of exterminating the Dutch. Clive, always merciful in victory, gave to these, against their baffled confederate, the protection which he considered due to a foe no longer to be dreaded.
Clive now regarded the British position in Bengal so secure that he might return to England to enjoy there the repose and the position he had acquired. He had compressed into three years achievements the most momentous, the most marvellous, the most enduring, recorded in the history of his country. Landing with a small force below Calcutta in the last days of 1756, he had compelled the Súbahdár, who had been responsible for the Black Hole tragedy, though guiltless of designing it[1], to evacuate Calcutta, to witness without interfering his capture of Chandranagar. Determined, then, in the interests of his country, to place matters in Bengal on such a footing that a repetition of the tragedy of 1756 should be impossible, he resolved to replace Siráj-ud-daulá, himself the son of a usurper, by a native chieftain
- ↑ Siráj-ud-daulá had given instructions that the prisoners should be safely cared for, and had then gone to sleep. It was the brutality of his subordinate officers which caused the catastrophe.
