Revival: Dupleix and Clive (1920): The Beginning of Empire by Henry Herbert Dodwell

Author:Henry Herbert Dodwell [Dodwell, Henry Herbert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Great Britain, Europe, Modern, India & South Asia, Asia, 18th Century, History, General
ISBN: 9781351344463
Google: KFEPEAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 43332546
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER III

THE SUPREMACY OF THE CARNATIC

WHILE Clive had been establishing English influence in Bengal, English and French had renewed the struggle for the control of the Carnatic. Nor was this without a clear bearing on the affairs of Bengal. Just as Dupleix' war at Trichinopoly had secured Bussy from molestation at Aurangabad, so now the fighting which swayed between Madras and Pondichéry secured Bengal from a French invasion. Clive recognised this by sending Forde to attack the French in the Northern Circars. The Madras Council expressed their consciousness of the fact with great clearness. They judged the safety of all the Company's possessions “to depend on the fate of Madras, which is the barrier the enemy must first force.”1 And again: “It is to be considered,” they write to Coote, “that not only the possessions on this Coast depend on our maintaining ourselves here against all the efforts of the war, but also that … if we can only keep the enemy at bay here and secure by that means the commerce of Bengal, the advantage is evidently on our side.”2 The truth of this is evinced by the effects which ill news from the Carnatic at once produced on the attitude of Mir Jafar.3

Even after Godeheu's treaty, warlike inclinations had flourished at Madras and Pondichéry; but Leyrit had been forced to send reinforcements to Bussy in May 1756, and Pigot had sent Clive's expedition to Bengal. When news of war arrived,4 therefore, neither nation was capable of any large offensive action in the Carnatic. For the moment neither Madras nor Pondichéry was much better garrisoned than it had been in the old days before the beginning of the troubles. The Madras Council, ignorant of the higher game at which he was then flying, complained bitterly of Clive's not returning to the Coast after he had taken Chandernagore.1 At the end of April, Forde was sent to attack Nellore, where the Renter had thrown off his allegiance to Muhammad Ali; but he failed completely in an attempt to storm the town.2 In May, Adlercron took the field in person, but achieved nothing.3 It was indeed fortunate that he did not encounter an enemy, for “during the late march of the army none of the regulations or precautions absolutely necessary to be observed by a commanding officer were taken. By this reason all the inhabitants left their villages and the troops were exposed to inconveniences never before experienced.”4 The Council were in a fever to induce Adlercron to quit the command and leave it to Forde or Lawrence; and as he obstinately refused, Lawrence was persuaded to serve as a volunteer under him. Meanwhile, the efforts of the French had been limited to the capture of a small fort to the westward of the French territories,5 and an attempt to surprise Trichinopoly. In May, the commandant, Caillaud,6 was absent to the southward, with a large part of the garrison, engaged in one of those fruitless attempts to establish order among the poligars which Orme details with merciless exactitude.

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