ment of death was visited upon some of the East India Company's officers and servants by the Moghul. This severe lesson made a deep impression on the English. They resumed their humble position as traders on sufferance. They never thought of conquest again. It was not until every man who had been concerned in that business had long been in his grave, that the English dared so much as to think of making another war. Though the Moghuls rapidly became powerless after the death of Aurungzebe, the blows struck by anticipation in their behalf protected them for forty years against the ambition of the intrusive Occidentals, and even for some time after Nadir Shah's Persian invasion had demonstrated that their dynasty was as weak as that of Lodi had been found when Baber came into the land. Whether the English have been right or wrong in making themselves masters of India, it is certain that they were forced upon the work against their own wishes and inclinations, and in self-defence. The very expedition which Clive made use of to effect the subjugation of Bengal had been undertaken on defensive grounds; and so fearful was even that great man of the consequences of a union of the forces of the Moghul with those at the command of the French in the East, that he was at first desirous of making peace with Surajah Doulah himself. When the arrival of reinforcements had induced him to take a bolder course, and the destruction of that fierce viceroy had been resolved upon, it was not until after much doubt and hesitation, and against his original judgment, that that course of action was entered upon which ended in the victory of Plassey. He knew the risk that was run in fighting a pitched battle against force nearly twenty times larger than his own; and had the viceroy been either a respectable ruler or a good soldier, the English, humanly speaking, must have then failed as signally as their predecessors of 1687; but as he was as destitute of humanity as of courage and skill, and could neither animate his followers by affection nor command them by force of character, he was utterly routed. Not six hundred men fell in the battle of Plassey, on both sides, and most of these were on the side of the vanquished. Seldom has it happened that so mighty a change has been effected with so little slaughter. One is reminded of the battles fought by the few Romans under Lucullus against the entire array of the Armenian monarchy.
Had circumstances not led to the display of British power at the time when great prizes were sure to follow even from minor exertions, England never could have become mistress of India. Had the English remained traders forty years longer,—or even for half that time, perhaps,—they would have encountered very different foes from those which they overthrew so easily when forced to fight for property and life. India was breaking up in 1757, and the process of reformation as about to begin. Had not the English been brought into the vast arena, either a number of powerful monarchies would have been formed, or the whole country would have passed under some new dynasty, which would have revived the power of the state with that rapidity which is so often exhibited in the East, when new and able men assume the reins of government. Hyder Ali might have made himself the master of all India, had it been his lot to contend only with native rulers and native races. Had this been the course of events, and had circumstances brought him into collision with the East India Company when he had made himself the Moghul's successor, can it be believed that he would have experienced any more difficulty in dealing with them than was found by Aurungzebe? We know that the English found in Hyder a very able foe, with but limited means at his disposal, and when they were masters of half the country, and had been almost uniformly victorious. Can it be supposed that they could have effected anything against all India,
