"The loss of private property and the means of recovering it are the only objects which take up their attention. I would have you guard against everything these gentlemen can say; for, believe me, they are bad subjects and rotten at heart, and will stick at nothing to prejudice you and the gentlemen of the Committee. Indeed, how should they do otherwise when they have not spared one another? Their conduct at Calcutta finds no excuse even amongst themselves; the riches of Peru or Mexico should not induce me to dwell among them." These are strong words, but they were written under strong emotion. Clive, arriving at Calcutta, after a most fatiguing march of skirmishes along the river, had been mortified by finding that Admiral Watson, who had sailed up it and captured the town after two hours' desultory cannonading, had already appointed a Captain Coote as military governor. This post, naturally, was Clive's by every right, and he objected strenuously. Matters went so far that the admiral threatened to fire on the fort if Clive refused to leave it, and though a compromise was effected, the affair shows the _animus_ against the young colonel. He was hampered on all sides. We find him point-blank refusing to place himself under the orders of the Committee. "I do not intend," he writes, "to make use of my power for acting separately from you, without you reduce me to the necessity for so doing; but as far as concerns the means of executing these powers, you will excuse me, gentlemen, if I refuse to give it up." The very existence, therefore, of this friction makes caution necessary in judging of Clive's actions, since, except from his own admissions, we have nothing on which absolute reliance can be placed. He seems to have felt himself overmatched in every way. Certainly he proceeded with more caution than usual, except in regard to his attack on Surâj-ud-daula's camp outside the very walls of Calcutta. Deputies had been sent overnight to interview the Nawâb with a view to negotiation, and had returned in confusion, lightless, by secret paths, convinced that they were to be assassinated. Huge eunuchs and attendants, made still more terrific by stuffed coats and monstrous turbans, had scowled at them--the Nawâb had been superciliously indifferent. Clive had about two thousand men under his command; the enemy, under Mir-Jâffar, Surâj-ud-daula's general, mustered forty thousand; but instant assault seemed necessary in face of that contemptuous discourtesy. It began at dawn, and though, owing to fog, it was not so decisive as Clive had hoped, achieved its end, for the very next day the Nawâb proposed peace.