6. As an immediate result of the battle Surajah Dowlah was deposed, and Meer Jaffier made nawab. Clive was taken by the new nawab into the royal treasury of Bengal, and there, walking between heaps of gold and silver and cases filled with jewels, he was invited to help himself. He accepted about two hundred thousand pounds, and became the real ruler of Bengal. Much had yet to be done to place the power of the British in Bengal on a firm footing, but that result was achieved before Clive sailed for England (1760). 7. Whilst Clive was securing Bengal, his friend, Colonel Eyre Coote, was doing much, in southern India, to raise the British and lower the French in the eyes of the native soldiers. A decisive engagement was fought between the troops of the two rivals at Wandewash, south of Madras, in 1760. This battle is unique in the warfare of India, being fought between Europeans only. The native soldiers, on both sides, deliberately held back to let the strangers have a fair fight. The French were routed, and their prestige soon faded from the native mind. Coote's sepoys, in congratulating their general on his victory, warmly thanked him for having shown them how a battle should be fought. By the end of another year Pondicherry was surrendered to Coote, and no spot of Indian soil remained under the French flag. It is true Pondicherry was restored to France at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War (1763), but only on condition that it should be held simply for purposes of trade. Britain, on the other hand, retained possession of Bengal and bade fair to become, ere long, the ruling power in India. 8. To help England to build her Indian empire on a sound basis, our hero returned to India (1765) as governor of Bengal, with the title of Lord Clive. He soon set himself the most difficult task of his life, and that was to put an end to the corrupt practices of the officials of the Company, who were growing rapidly rich by accepting bribes to act unjustly. The whole body of officials seemed to be set, as one man, against the reforms of the new governor, but his iron will was too strong for them all. 9. By his just and honest government Clive became the friend of the Hindoo, and at the same time the true friend of his own country; for if the first establishment of British rule in India was due to British valour, its continuance is due to British truthfulness, justice and fair-dealing. All that we could have gained by being as false and subtle as the Orientals themselves were wont to be, is as nothing compared with what we have gained by being the one power in India whose word could be trusted. It is a thing of which we may be justly proud, that no oath, however binding, no hostage, however precious, inspires one tithe of the confidence which is produced by the "yea, yea" and "nay, nay" of a British envoy. CHAPTER IV. Time of Trial and Triumph (1763-1815). (1) TIGHTENING OUR HOLD ON INDIA.