glish memories called him
to Bengal. Bengal, the delta of the Ganges, was the richest and most
fertile of all the provinces of India. Its rice, its sugar, its silk,
and the produce of its looms, were famous in European markets. Its
Viceroys, like their fellow-lieutenants, had become practically
independent of the Emperor, and had added to Bengal the provinces of
Orissa and Behar. Surajah Dowlah, the master of this vast domain, had
long been jealous of the enterprise and wealth of the English traders;
and, roused at this moment by the instigation of the French, he appeared
before Fort William, seized its settlers, and thrust a hundred and fifty
of them into a small prison called the Black Hole of Calcutta. The heat
of an Indian summer did its work of death. The wretched prisoners
trampled each other under foot in the madness of thirst, and in the
morning only twenty-three remained alive. Clive sailed at the news with
a thousand Englishmen and two thousand sepoys to wreak vengeance for the
crime. He was no longer the boy-soldier of Arcot; and the tact and skill
with which he met Surajah Dowlah in the negotiations by which the
Viceroy strove to avert a conflict were sullied by the Oriental
falsehood and treachery to which he stooped. But his courage remained
unbroken. When the two armies faced each other on the plain of Plassey
the odds were so great that on the very eve of the battle a council of
war counselled retreat. Clive withdrew to a grove hard by, and after an
hour's lonely musing gave the word to fight. Courage, in fact, was all
that was needed. The fifty thousand foot and fourteen thousand horse who
were seen covering the plain at daybreak on the 23rd of June 1757 were
soon thrown into confusion by the English guns, and broke in headlong
rout before the English charge. The death of Surajah Dowlah enabled the
Company to place a creature of its own on the throne of Bengal; but his
rule soon became a nominal one. With the victory of Plassey began in
fact the Empire of England in the East.

[Sidenote: Pitt and Frederick.]

The year of Plassey was the year of a victory hardly less important in
the West. In Europe Pitt wisely limited himself to a secondary part.
There was little in the military expeditions which marked the opening of
his ministry to justify the trust of the country; for money and blood
were lavished on buccaneering expeditions against the French coasts
which did small damage to the enemy. But incident