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of the highest reputations. In after days, when Clive's uprightness and
stern reform of the Company's civil and military services made him many
enemies, a biography of him appeared under the assumed name of _Charles
Carracioli, Gent._ All the evidence is against the probability of its
scandalous stories being true. Clive as a young man occasionally
indulged in loose or free talk among intimate friends, but beyond this
nothing has been proved to his detriment. After he had been two years at
home the state of affairs in India made the directors anxious for his
return. He was sent out, in 1756, as governor of Fort St David, with the
reversion of the government of Madras, and he received the commission of
lieutenant-colonel in the king's army. He took Bombay on his way, and
there commanded the land force which captured Gheria, the stronghold of
the Mahratta pirate, Angria. In the distribution of prize money which
followed this expedition he showed no little self-denial. He took his
seat as governor of Fort St David on the day on which the nawab of
Bengal captured Calcutta, and thither the Madras government at once sent
him, with admiral Watson. He entered on the second period of his career.

Since, in August 1690, Job Charnock had landed at the village of
Sutanati with a guard of one officer and 30 men, the infant capital of
Calcutta had become a rich centre of trade. The successive nawabs or
viceroys of Bengal had been friendly to it, till, in 1756,
Suraj-ud-Dowlah succeeded his uncle at Murshidabad. His predecessor's
financial minister had fled to Calcutta to escape the extortion of the
new nawab, and the English governor refused to deliver up the refugee.
Enraged at this, Suraj-ud-Dowlah captured the old fort of Calcutta on
the 20th of June, and plundered it of more than two millions sterling.
Many of the English fled to ships and dropped down the river. The 146
who remained were forced into "the Black Hole" in the stifling heat of
the sultriest period of the year. Only 23 came out alive. The fleet was
as strong, for those days, as the land force was weak. Disembarking his
troops some miles below the city, Clive marched through the jungles,
where he lost his way owing to the treachery of his guides, but soon
invested Fort William, while the fire of the ships reduced it, on the
2nd of January 1757. On the 4th of February he defeated the whole army
of the nawab, which had taken up a strong position just beyond what is