reached its zenith. He
was the chosen companion and confidant of the new Nizam of the Deccan;
he was made Governor {262} of India from the river Kristna to Cape
Comorin; he pomped it with more than Oriental splendor in the
pageantries of triumph at Pondicherry; he set up on the scene of his
victory a stately column, bearing in four languages inscriptions
celebrating his fame; he had treasure, power, and influence even to his
ambitious heart's content. When Mirzapha Jung died, shortly after his
accession to the government of the Deccan, Dupleix held equal influence
over his successor. He might well have believed that his glory was
complete, his plans perfected; he might well have believed that he
could afford to smile at the feeble efforts which the English made to
stay his progress.

[Sidenote: 1751--The defence of Arcot]

He soon ceased to smile. Clive, then five-and-twenty years old, urged
upon his superiors that Trichinopoly must soon fall before famine and
leaguer, that with the overthrow of the House of Anaverdi Khan the
power of the French over India would be established, and the power of
the English in India destroyed. The great deed to be done was to raise
the siege of Trichinopoly. This Clive coolly proposed to do by
effecting a counter-diversion in besieging Arcot, the favored home of
the Nabobs. With a little handful of an army--200 Europeans and 300
Sepoys--Clive marched through the wildest weather to Arcot, captured
it, and prepared to hold his conquest. We may perhaps here be
permitted to say that in using, as we shall continue to do, the old
familiar forms of spelling the names of Indian towns and of Indian
princes, we do so not in ignorance of the fact that in many, if not
most cases, they present but a very poor idea indeed of the actual
Oriental sounds and spelling. The modern writers on Indian history
adopt a new and more scientific spelling, which makes Arcot Arkat, and
Trichinopoly Trichinapalli. But, all things considered, it seems best
for the present to adhere to those old forms which have become, as it
were, portion and parcel of English history.

Chunda Sahib, who was besieging Trichinopoly, immediately despatched
4000 men against Arcot, which, {263} joining with the defeated garrison
and a few French, made up a muster of some 10,000 men under Rajah
Sahib, Chunda Sahib's son, against a garrison of little more than 300.
The defence of Arcot is one of the most brilliant episodes in