last
brought about in 1748 the conclusion of a peace at Aix-la-Chapelle, by
which England surrendered its gains at sea, and France its conquests on
land. But the peace was a mere pause in the struggle, during which both
parties hoped to gain strength for a mightier contest which they saw
impending. The war was in fact widening far beyond the bounds of Germany
or of Europe. It was becoming a world-wide duel which was to settle the
destinies of mankind. Already France was claiming the valleys of the
Ohio and the Mississippi, and mooting the great question whether the
fortunes of the New World were to be moulded by Frenchmen or Englishmen.
Already too French adventurers were driving English merchants from
Madras, and building up, as they trusted, a power which was to add India
to the dominions of France.

[Sidenote: Clive.]

The intercourse of England with India had as yet given little promise of
the great fortunes which awaited it. It was not till the close of
Elizabeth's reign, a century after Vasco de Gama had crept round the
Cape of Good Hope and founded the Portuguese settlement on the Goa
Coast, that an East India Company was founded in London. The trade,
profitable as it was, remained small in extent; and the three early
factories of the Company were only gradually acquired during the century
which followed. The first, that of Madras, consisted of but six
fishermen's houses beneath Fort St. George; that of Bombay was ceded by
the Portuguese as part of the dowry of Catharine of Braganza; while Fort
William, with the mean village which has since grown into Calcutta, owes
its origin to the reign of William the Third. Each of these forts was
built simply for the protection of the Company's warehouses, and guarded
by a few "sepahis," sepoys, or paid native soldiers; while the clerks
and traders of each establishment were under the direction of a
President and a Council. One of these clerks in the middle of the
eighteenth century was Robert Clive, the son of a small proprietor near
Market Drayton in Shropshire, an idle daredevil of a boy whom his
friends had been glad to get rid of by packing him off in the Company's
service as a writer to Madras. His early days there were days of
wretchedness and despair. He was poor and cut off from his fellows by
the haughty shyness of his temper, weary of desk-work, and haunted by
home-sickness. Twice he attempted suicide; and it was only on the
failure of his second attempt that he