HERE LIES INTERRED THE BODY OF CHARLES WATSON, ESQ., VICE-ADMIRAL OF THE WHITE, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF HIS MAJESTY'S NAVAL FORCES IN THE EAST INDIES, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE THE 16TH DAY OF AUGUST, 1757, IN THE 44TH YEAR OF HIS AGE. Gheria taken, February 13th, 1756. Calcutta freed, January 11th, 1757. Chandernagore taken, March 23rd, 1757. Exegit monumentum ore perennius. On the boy's tomb is inscribed: HERE LYES THE BODY OF WILLIAM SPEKE, AGED 16, SON OF HENRY SPEKE, ESQ., CAPTAIN OF HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP _KENT_. HE LOST HIS LEG AND LIFE IN THAT SHIP AT THE CAPTURE OF FORT ORLEANS, THE 24TH MARCH, ANNO 1757. Having punished the French for their refusal to afford assistance to our beleaguered countrymen and countrywomen in Calcutta, Clive now determined to march against the Nawab Surajah Dowlah. On June 13, having received fresh reinforcements on this occasion from Bombay, he left Chandernagore at the head of 3,000 men, with ten guns. Of these about 1,000 were English--the 39th Foot, under Major Eyre Coote, some gunners of the Royal Artillery who had accompanied the 39th from England, and detachments of the Bengal, Madras, and Bombay European regiments. The Englishmen were conveyed in boats up the Hooghly; the sepoys marched along the banks. On June 23 Clive found himself face to face with Surajah Dowlah's army at Plassey, a town on the River Hooghly, about 100 miles due north of Calcutta. The odds were hopelessly unequal--Clive with 3,000 men and ten light field-guns on the one side; Surajah Dowlah with 55,000 men, of whom 15,000 were cavalry, and fifty guns of all calibres on the other. Had Englishmen ever been in the habit of counting the odds, the Indian Empire would never have been ours. Neither Clive nor Coote were men to quail before difficulties. From eight until eleven our infantry lay motionless, the field-guns only maintaining an unequal duel with the more numerous artillery of the enemy, which were being served--and very badly served--by some Frenchmen in the service of the Nawab. Plassey was the foundation-stone of British supremacy in Bengal, as Arcot was in Madras; yet the fight was, from the soldier's standpoint, a very hollow one. Dawn broke with the odds immeasurably in favour of the Mogul host. At sunset that host was in full retreat, and yet our total losses were but 11 English and 13 sepoys killed, the wounded being 22 and 21 respectively. Such was the price we paid for the establishment of British rule over what is known as the Province of Bengal. CASUALTIES AT PLASSEY.