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RECAPTURE OF CALCUTTA
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Falta. Here in the cool season he married the widow of a Captain Campbell, who had come over with Kilpatrick from Madras only to die of the prevalent disease. The two seem to have lived happily together until the lady's death in 1759. Her first child had died in early infancy, and the second survived her but a few years.

In December, 1756, Admiral Watson's fleet brought to Falta the long-expected succours from Madras. The troops were commanded by Colonel Robert Clive, whose capture and heroic defence of Arcot, in the war between the rival Nawábs of the Karnatic, had marked him out as a born leader of men in trying crises. Under chiefs so capable as Clive and Watson the shame of Drake's flight from Calcutta, with all that flowed therefrom, was speedily atoned for by the recapture of Fort William and by the vigorous movements which impelled Suráj-ud-daulá, to sign the treaty of February, 1757. Hastings himself served as a volunteer in Clive's small army, and made himself useful in negotiating terms of peace with the bewildered Súbahdár.

The treaty was short-lived. At the first news of another French war in Europe, Clive and Watson hastened to attack and capture the French settlement of Chandarnagar in the teeth of the Súbahdár's commands and menaces. By the end of June, 1757, Plassey had been fought and won; and the successful plotter, Mír Jafar Khán, was installed by Clive at Murshidábád, in the place of the death-doomed Suráj-