ccrue to them as fighting men. A mixed Committee, composed of
representatives of each branch of the military service, had decided
against the claims of the sailors to draw from both sources, and
Clive was appealed to to confirm it. But Clive, who, in matters of
discipline, was unbending, overruled the decision of the Committee,
placed its leader, Captain Armstrong, under arrest, and dissolved the
Committee. In a dignified letter Clive pointed out to the Committee
their error, and drew from them an apology. But the feeling rankled.
It displayed itself a little later in the acquittal of Captain
Armstrong by a court-martial. In other respects the distribution of
the money was harmful, for it led to excesses among officers and men,
and, consequently, to a large increase of mortality.

Meanwhile the new Subahdar began to find that the State-cushion was
not altogether a bed of roses. The enormous sums demanded by his
English allies, and by other adherents, had forced him, as soon as
Clive had left for Calcutta, to apply the screw to the wealthier of
his new subjects. Even his fellow-conspirators felt the burden. Raja
Dulab Ram, whom he had made Finance Minister, with the right to
appropriate to himself five per cent. on all payments made by the
Treasury, retired in dudgeon to his own palace, summoned his friends,
and refused all intercourse with Mir Jafar. The Raja of Purniah and
the Governor of {115}Bihar went into rebellion. The disaffection
reached even the distant city of Dhaka, where the son of Sarfaraz,
the representative of the ancient family ruling in Bengal, lived in
retirement and hope. Under these circumstances Mir Jafar, though he
well knew what it would cost him, made an application for assistance
to Clive.

The English leader had expected the application. He had recognized
long before that, in the East, power depends mainly on the length of
the purse, and that, from having exhausted his treasury, Mir Jafar
would be forced to sue to him _in forma pauperis_. Clive had studied
the situation in all its aspects. The blow he had given to native
rule by the striking down of the late Subahdar had rendered absolute
government, such as that exercised by Siraj-ud-daula, impossible.
Thenceforth it had become indispensable that the English should
supervise the native rule, leaving to the Subahdar the initiative and
the semblance. Clive had reason to believe that whilst Mir Jafar
would be unwilling to play such a role, he w