In an hour the forces of Surajah Dowlah were dispersed,
never to re-assemble. Only five hundred of the vanquished were slain;
but their camp, their guns, their baggage, innumerable wagons,
innumerable cattle, remained in the power of the conqueror. With a
loss of twenty-two soldiers killed and fifty wounded, Clive had
scattered an army of sixty thousand men, and had subdued an empire
larger and more populous than Great Britain."
58. This brilliant success of Clive added Plassey as one of the
battle-fields of the world which has shaped national destinies and
decided the fate of trillions of people. Though much was yet to be
done before the fruits of victory could be fully realized, Clive at
once became almost supreme in authority. Surajah Dowlah fled in
disguise, and disappeared from history in complete obscurity. Meer
Jaffler held Clive in slavish awe. He once reproved a native of high
rank for some trouble with the company's Sepoys. "Are you yet to
learn," he said, "who Colonel Clive is, and in what station God has
placed him?" The answer was: "I affront the colonel! I who never get
up in the morning without making three low bows to his jackass!"
59. The policy inaugurated by Clive was continued by his successors.
The British rule was extended by setting up native princes, or setting
them aside, as expediency dictated, until the whole vast region south
of the Himalayas passed under their control.
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