1757.

PLASSEY.

363.

He gave

council departed from his usual custom. his own vote first, and he voted against taking any immediate action. Naturally enough, the majority of the council of war voted with Clive, in spite of the strenuous opposition of Major Eyre Coote and a small minority. By a majority of thirteen to seven it was resolved not to fight.

It is needless to speculate on what would have been the fortunes of the English in Bengal if that vote had settled the question. Luckily, Clive was a man of genius, and was not either afraid to admit. that he had made a mistake or to change his mind. A short period of solitary reflection convinced him that he and the majority were wrong, and that Eyre Coote and the minority were right. He informed Eyre Coote of his new decision, gave the necessary orders, and the next day the battle of Plassey was fought and won.

It is not necessary here to go into the details of that momentous day. The desperate courage, daring, and skill of the English troops carried all before them : their cannonade scattered death and confusion into the Nabob's ranks. Within an hour an army of sixty thousand men was defeated, with astonishingly slight loss to the victors; Surajah Dowlah, abandoned at the judicious moment by one traitor, Meer Jaffier, was flying for his life in obedience to the insidious counsels of another traitor, Rajah Dulab Ram. From that hour Bengal became part of the English empire.

The fate of the different actors on the Indian side was soon decided. Meer Jaffier was duly invested

with the Nabob's authority over Bengal, Behar, and Orissa; Omichund, on learning the shameful trick of the Red Treaty, went mad, and died mad; Surajah Dowlah was soon captured and promptly killed by Meer Jaffier: the Black Hole was avenged.

Clive had now reached the pinnacle of his greatness. Victor of Plassey, governor of Bengal, he remained in India for three more resplendent years; he added to the number of his conquests by defeating the great enterprise of Shah Alum against Meer Jaffier, and shattered the Dutch descent upon the Hooghley-a descent secretly favoured by the evertreacherous Meer Jaffier-both on land and sea. Then, with laurel victory upon his sword and smooth success strewn before his feet, Clive resolved to return again to England. He sailed from India, full of honours, in 1760, the year in which George the Second died. When he arrived in England George the Third was king. Here for the moment we must leave him, the greatest living soldier of his country, with a career of practically unbroken glory behind him. He had reached his apogee. We shall meet with him again under less happy conditions, when the sun of Plassey had begun to set.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

CHANGES.

MEANWHILE Some changes were taking place in political affairs at home which were full of importance to the coming time. William Pitt had taken office; not, indeed, an office important enough for his genius, but still one which gave him an opportunity of making his power felt. The King still detested

him; all the more, perhaps, because it was now becoming more and more evident that the King would have to reckon with him as Prime Minister before very long. The stately form of Pitt was, indeed, already throwing a gigantic shadow before it. Henry Fox, too, was beginning to show himself an administrator and a debater, and, it may be added, a political intriguer, of all but consummate ability. Murray was beginning to be recognised as a great advocate, and even a great man. Lyttelton was still making brilliant way in politics, but was even yet hovering somewhat uncertain between politics and literature, destined in the end to become another illustration of the career marred for both fields by the effort to work in both fields. On the other hand, Chesterfield had given up office. He had had a

dispute with his colleagues when he was strongly in favour of making a peace, and they would not have it, and he left them to go their own way. He refused the title of duke which the King offered him. He withdrew for the remainder of his years to private life, saying, 'I have been behind the scenes both of pleasure and business; I have seen all the coarse pulleys and dirty ropes which exhibit and move all the gaudy machines; and I have seen and smelt the tallow candles which illuminate the whole decoration to the astonishment and admiration of the ignorant multitude.' He seldom spoke in Parliament afterwards; he was growing deaf and weary. In 1751 he broke silence, and with success, when he delivered his celebrated speech on the reform of the calendar. He was 'coached,' as we should say now, by two able mathematicians, the Earl of Macclesfield and Mr. Bradley. The ignorant portion of the public were greatly excited by what they considered the loss of eleven days, and were strongly opposed to the whole scheme. Years later, when Mr. Bradley was sinking under mortal disease, many people ascribed his sufferings to a judgment from heaven for having taken part in that 'impious undertaking.'

The impious undertaking' was a very needed scientific reform in the calendar, which had long before been adopted in some other countries. Julius Cæsar was the first great regulator of the calendar; his work in that way was not the least wonderful of his achievements. The calculations of his astronomers, however, were discovered in much later times to be

1751.

'GIVE US BACK OUR ELEVEN DAYS.' 367

'out' by eleven minutes in each year. When Pope Gregory the Thirteenth came to the throne of the Papacy, in 1572, he found that the eleven minutes had grown by mere process of time to eleven days. He started a new reform of the calendar, which was adopted at once in Italy, Spain, and Portugal. It gradually commended itself to France and Germany, and it was adopted by Denmark and Sweden in 1700. England only came into line with the reform of the calendar in 1751. The Act of Parliament which sanctioned the change brought in the use of the words 'New Style' and 'Old Style.' Only Russia and Greece now of European countries cling to the Old Style. But the New Style, as we have said, was bitterly resented by the mob in England, and everyone remembers Hogarth's picture of the patriot drunk in the gutter with his banner near him bearing the inscription 'Give us back our eleven days.'

Chesterfield laughed at the success of his speech on the reform of the calendar and made little of it. Perhaps he helped thus to explain the comparative failure of his whole career. Life was to him too much of a gibe and a sarcasm, and life will not be taken on those terms.

Lord Chesterfield was then out of the running, and Lord Granville's active career had closed. The men of the older school had had their day; the new men had pushed them from their stools. The The age of Walpole is closed. The age of Chatham is about to open.

Early in the year 1751 death removed one of the