of the members of the Civil Service was shown by the fact
that the latter subscribed 140,000 rupees to aid the movement, and
supplied the conspirators with copies of the proceedings of the
Government.

Formidable as was the situation no living man was so well qualified
to deal with it as was Clive. In the hour of danger he soared above
his fellows. The danger here was greater than the danger of Arcot;
than at the surprises of Kaveripak and of Samiaveram; than during the
hour of doubt at Plassey. His opponents were his own men--men whom he
had led to victory. They possessed all the fortified places, the
guns, the material of war. From the frontier came rumours of the
advance of a Maratha army, 60,000 strong, to wrest Allahabad and
Karra from his hand. But there he was, the same cool, patient,
defiant man he had been when confronted by the bayonets of the
{184}French at Kaveripak and Samiaveram. He knew that the Government
he represented was in the most imminent danger, that if the mutineers
should move forward, he had not the means to oppose them.

The manner in which Clive met this danger is a lesson for all time.
Not for an instant did he quail. Never was he more resolved to carry
out the orders he had issued regarding batta than when he was told,
that, in the presence of the enemy on the frontier, the officers
would resign their commissions if the order were not withdrawn.

For the moment, fortunately, the conspirators had resolved to await
his action. He, then, would take the initiative. On the very day when
he received the report of the existence of the conspiracy he formed a
committee, composed of himself, General Carnac, and Mr. Sykes, to
carry out the plan of action he had formed. First, he and they
resolved to send immediately to Madras for officers. Then they passed
a resolution declaring that any officer resigning his commission
should be debarred from serving the Company in any capacity, and sent
copies of it to the several brigades for distribution to all
concerned. Clive then hurried to Murshidabad; he addressed the
recalcitrant officers stationed there; spoke to them in terms firm,
yet conciliatory; told them they were acting very wrongly and very
foolishly; that they were infringing the very discipline which they
knew to be the mainstay of an army; that although immediate success
might be theirs, they must be beaten {185}in the long run; that such
conduct could only be pardoned on condition of immediat