453
(1858-1893.)
1872. Sirjohn Strachey (officiating).1872. Lord Napier of Merchistoun(officiating).
1872. Lord (aft. Earlof) Northbrook.
1884. Earl of Dufferin (afterwards
1888. Marquess of Lansdowne,
In 1758, Clive was appointed by the Court of Directors the Clive, firstfirst Governor of all the Company’s Settlements in Bengal.
Two Powers threatened hostilities. On the west, the Shahzada I75 s;or Imperial prince, known afterwards as the Emperor ShahAlam, with a mixed army of Afghans and Marathas, andsupported by the Nawab Wazlr of Oudh, was advancing hisown claims to the Province of Bengal. In the south, theinfluence of the French under Lally and Bussy was over-shadowing the British at Madras.
The vigour of Clive exercised a decisive effect in bothdirections. Mir Jafar was anxious to buy off the Shahzada,who had already invested Patnti. But Clive marched in scattersperson to the rescue, with an army of only 450 Europeans and ° udh2500 Sepoys, and the Mughal army dispersed without striking army ’a blow. Clive also despatched the force southward from overcomesBengal under Colonel Forde, in 1759, which recaptured m
Masulipatam from the French , and permanently establishedBritish influence throughout the Northern Circars, and at thecourt of Haidarabad . He next attacked the Dutch , the onlyother European nation who might yet prove a rival to theEnglish . He defeated them both by land and water; and defeatstheir Settlement at Chinsurah existed thenceforth only on Dutch -sufferance.
From 1760 to 1765, Clive was in England. He had left Misman-no system of government in Bengal, but merely the tradition t ’
that unlimited sums of money might be extracted from thenatives by the terror of the English name. In 1761 it wasfound expedient and profitable to dethrone Mir Jafar, theEnglish Nawab of Murshidabad, and to substitute his son- Mir Kasimin-law, Mir Kasim, in his place. On this occasion, besides set • U P>private donations, the English received a grant of the three