In Clive's Command: A Story of the Fight for India

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I have not attempted in this story to give a full account of the career of Lord Clive. Thathas been done by my old friend, Mr. Henty, in "With Clive in India." It has alwaysseemed to me that a single book provides too narrow a canvas for the display of a life sofull and varied as Clive's, and that a work of fiction is bound to suffer, structurally andin detail, from the compression of the events of a lifetime within so restricted a space. Ihave therefore chosen two outstanding events in the history of India--the capture ofGheria and the battle of Plassey--and have made them the pivot of a personal story ofadventure. The whole action of the present work is comprised in the years from 1754 to1757.But while this book is thus rather a romance with a background of history than anhistorical biography with an admixture of fiction, the reader may be assured that theinformation its pages contain is accurate. I have drawn freely upon the standardauthorities: Orme, Ives, Grose, the lives of Clive by Malcolm and Colonel Malleson, andmany other works; in particular the monumental volumes by Mr. S.C. Hill recentlypublished, "Bengal in 1756-7," which give a very full, careful and clear account of thatnotable year, with a mass of most useful and interesting documents. The maps ofBengal, Fort William and Plassey are taken from Mr. Hill's work by kind permission ofthe Secretary of State for India. I have to thank also Mr. T. P. Marshall, of Newport, forsome valuable notes on the history and topography of Market Drayton.For several years I myself lived within a stone's throw of the scene of the tragedy of theBlack Hole; and though at that time I had no intention of writing a story for boys, I hopethat the impressions of Indian life, character and scenery then gained have helped tocreate an atmosphere and to give reality to my picture. History is more than a mererecord of events; and I shall be satisfied if the reader gets from these pages an idea, however imperfect, of the conditions of life under which all empire builders labored inIndia a hundred and fifty years ago.