of June Clive arrived on the bank
opposite Plassey, in the midst of that outburst of rain which ushers in
the south-west monsoon of India. His whole army amounted to 1100
Europeans and 2100 native troops, with 9 field-pieces. The nawab had
drawn up 18,000 horse, 50,000 foot and 53 pieces of heavy ordnance,
served by French artillerymen. For once in his career Clive hesitated,
and called a council of sixteen officers to decide, as he put it,
"whether in our present situation, without assistance, and on our own
bottom, it would be prudent to attack the nawab, or whether we should
wait till joined by some country power?" Clive himself headed the nine
who voted for delay; Major (afterwards Sir) Eyre Coote led the seven who
counselled immediate attack. But, either because his daring asserted
itself, or because, also, of a letter that he received from Jafar Ali,
as has been said, Clive was the first to change his mind and to
communicate with Major Eyre Coote. One tradition, followed by Macaulay,
represents him as spending an hour in thought under the shade of some
trees, while he resolved the issues of what was to prove one of the
decisive battles of the world. Another, turned into verse by Sir Alfred
Lyall, pictures his resolution as the result of a dream. However that
may be, he did well as a soldier to trust to the dash and even rashness
that had gained Arcot and triumphed at Calcutta, and as a statesman,
since retreat, or even delay, would have put back the civilization of
India for years. When, after the heavy rain, the sun rose brightly on
the 22nd, the 3200 men and the 9 guns crossed the river and took
possession of the grove and its tanks of water, while Clive established
his headquarters in a hunting lodge, On the 23rd the engagement took
place and lasted the whole day. Except the 40 Frenchmen and the guns
which they worked, the enemy did little to reply to the British
cannonade which, with the 39th Regiment, scattered the host, inflicting
on it a loss of 500 men. Clive restrained the ardour of Major
Kilpatrick, for he trusted to Jafar Ali's abstinence, if not desertion
to his ranks, and knew the importance of sparing his own small force. He
lost hardly a white soldier; in all 22 sepoys were killed and 50
wounded. His own account, written a month after the battle to the secret
committee of the court of directors, is not less unaffected than that in
which he had announced the defeat of the nawab at Calcutta.
Suraj-ud-D