Mohawk river, as well as on the ground, called the German Flats, were destroyed.

Elated with so many advantages, the French were ambitious of distinguishing the campaign by some important blow. And no sooner did the marquis de Montcalm learn, that lord Loudon, with the main body of the English forces, had left New-York, than he determined to lay siege to fort William Henry. This fort had been built on the southern side of lake George, in order to cover the frontier of the British settlements, as well as to command the lake. The fortifications were good, and the place was defended by a garrison of two thousand five hundred men, commanded by colonel Monro. Nor were those its only security. An army of four thousand five hundred men, under the conduct of general Webb, was posted at no great distance, and a much greater force might have been assembled. The French forces, collected from CrownPoint, Ticonderoga, and the adjacent forts, together with a party of Indians and Canadians, are said to have amounted to nine thousand men. With these, and a good train of artillery, Montcalm advanced against the object of his enterprise, while general Webb beheld his approaches with an indifference bordering on infatuation, or intimately allied to baseness. In a word, the enemy meeting with no obstruction from the quarter whence they dreaded it most, obliged the English fort to surrender.

The garrison was allowed to march out with the honours of war. But the Indians in the French army, disregarding the articles of capitulation, fell upon the soldiers, and the savages in the English service, as soon as they left the place, pillaging them, dragging them out of their ranks, scalping, tomahawking, and exercising upon them every species of cruelty known among the natives of North-America. And what is yet more extraordinary, and what is to be hoped posterity will not

2. These barbarities are strongly delineated in many letters from the officers, after they arrived at New-York.

credit,

credit, two thousand Englishmen, with arms in their hands, and in danger every moment of becoming the victims of such violence, remained tame spectators of these barbarities, or sought safety only in flight!

The marquis de Montcalm, however, no less generous than brave, was able at length to quell the fury of the savages, and treated the sufferers with great humanity. Yet his summons to colonel Monro, when he began the siege, leaves room to suppose, that he meant in case of resistance, to strike terror into the British troops by a new display of Indian cruelty. "I am still able," says he, 66 to restrain the savages, and to oblige them to observe a "capitulation, as none of them have been killed; but this "controul will not be in my power inother circumstances3." : When intelligence of those new losses and disgraces arrived in England, the people, already sufficiently mortified, sunk into a general despondency. And certain moral and political writers, who foretold the ruin of the nation, and ascribed its misfortunes to a total corruption of manners and principles, and an utter extinction of the martial spirit, gained universal credit. But the more zealous friends of the new administration, in conjunction with the young officers of the army and navy, warmly vindicated the national character, and seemed to long for an opportunity to give the lie to the visionary prognostics of splenetic theory and croaking melancholy. In the meantime public opinion, ever fluctuating, and wholly governed by events, took a less gloomy direction. The first ray of hope came from the East.

When admiral Watson returned to the coast of Coromandel, after reducing the fortress of Gheria, the residence of the famous pirate Angria, he was informed of the loss of Calcutta, with all the horrid circumstances

3. Letter, dated August 3, 1757, and signed MONTCALM.

4. The most distinguished of these writers was Dr. Brown, whose estimate of the manners and principles of the times, abounding with awful predictions, was bought up and read with incredible avidity, and as 'much confided in as if he had been divinely inspired.

attending

attending it, and resolved upon revenge. He accordingly took on board Mr. Clive, now advanced to the rank of colonel, with part of the English East India company's troops at Madras, and sailed for the bay of Bengal. By a zealous co-operation of the sea and land forces, the forts of Buzbuzia and Tannah were speedily reduced. The town of Calcutta was recovered; and the English colours being once more hoisted on fort William, Mr. Drake and the members of the council, who had hitherto remained on board the ships in the river, were again put in possession of the government.

Not satisfied with this success, the British commanders made themselves masters also of the large town of Hughley, where the nabob had established his principal magazines. Enraged at so many losses, and dreading more, Surajah Dowlah assembled a great army, and marched toward Calcutta, determined severely to chastise the audacity of the invaders, and even finally to expel every Englishman from the province of Bengal. But he met with so warm a salute from colonel Clive, captain Coote, and other gallant officers, at the head of the company's troops, reinforced with six hundred sailors from the fleet, as induced him to sue for peace, and agree to such terms as the English commanders thought proper to dictate. He engaged to restore to the East India company, all their factories, goods, and money, which had been seized by his orders; to reinstate them in all their former privileges; and to allow them to extend their presidency over thirty-eight neighbouring villages, conformable to a disputed grant that had been obtained from the great mogul.

Informed of the new war between France and GreatBritain, and having nothing now to fear from the nabob, the English commanders resolved to turn their arms against the French factories in Bengal. Their first object was the reduction of Chandernagore, the principal French

5- Orme's Hist. Indost. book vii. Lond. Gazette, Sept. 20, 1757.

settlement

settlement in the province, and a place of great strength, situated a little higher on the river Hughley than Calcutta. In the expedition against this town and fort, colonel Clive commanded seven hundred European troops, and sixteen hundred sepoys, or soldiers of the country, habituated to the use of fire-arms. The squa dron, consisting of three sail of the line, and a sloop of war, was conducted by the admirals Watson and Pocock. The place was defended by six hundred Europeans, and three hundred sepoys, who gallantly disputed every post. But so powerful was the cannonade from the ships, as soon as they could bring their guns to bear upon the works, and from two batteries, mounted with twentyfour pounders, that assailed with a cross fire the two bastions of the fort against which the men of war laid their broadsides, that the garrison was obliged to surrender, after a short but vigorous conflict of three hours.

As conquest naturally expands the views of the conqueror, Clive, who was formed for vast undertakings, no sooner found himself in possession of Chandernagore, then he conceived the design of humbling still farther the nabob of Bengal, and of advancing to a yet greater height the interests of the English East India company. And the conduct of that prince furnished him with many pretexts for renewing hostilities.

Surajah Dowlah was backward in fulfilling the treaty he had lately concluded with the company. He attempted

to evade the execution of the chief articles of it; and he had entered into secret intrigues with the French, to whom he seemed disposed to afford protection in return for support. The English colonel, therefore, resolved to compel him to perform his stipulations; and, in case of refusal, to chastise him for his breach of faith, and even to divest him of his authority. In the last resolution he was comfirmed (if it was not suggested) by a discovery of the dissatisfaction of Meer Jaffier, commander in chief of the nabob's forces, and of the intrigues PP

VOL. V.

of

of Surajah Dowlah, with the French officers in the Decan.

The measures employed by Clive, to accomplish this revolution, do no less honour to his sagacity and address, as a politician, than to his vigour and skill, as a commander. While he conducted an intricate and dangerous negociation with Meer Jaffier, by means of his agents, he counterfeited friendship so artfully, as not only to quiet the suspicions of the nabob, but to induce him to dissolve his army; which had been assembled at Plassy, a strong camp to the south of his capital, before the taking of Chandernagore, in consequence of a report, that the English commander meant next to attack Muxadavad. Why do you keep your forces in the field," said he insidiously," after so many marks of friendship and con"fidence?-They distress all the merchants, and pre❝vent us from renewing our trade. The English cannot stay in Bengal without freedom of commerce. Do "not reduce us to the necessity of suspecting, that you "intend to destroy us as soon as you have an opportu"nity."

In order to quiet these pretended fears, Surajah Dowlah recalled his army, though not without great anxiety. "If," cried he, with keen emotion, "the colonel should deceive me!"-And the secret departure of the English agents from Muxadavad soon convinced him that he was deceived. He again assembled his army, and ordered it to re-occupy its former camp at Plassy; after having made Meer Jaffier, by the most solemn oaths upon the Koran, renew his obligations of fidelity and allegiance.

The English commander, who had hoped to take possession of that important post, was not a little disconcerted by this movement. The nabob had reached Plassy, twelve hours before him, at the head of fifty thousand

6. Orme, ubi sup.

foot,