The political events which followed, and the intrigues which led to our subsequent hostilities with Sooraj-ul-Dowlah, it is not our province to detail. We purpose only to relate events with which the corps is connected, and accordingly we next join Clive on the 21st June at Cutwah. With his little army, we find 100 artillerymen, eight 6–pounder guns, and two howitzers, commanded by Captain Jennings. In the council of war which sat, Captain Jennings’s vote was given for an immediate attack (as recorded in the Life of Clive, while in Sir Eyre Coote’s evidence before the Secret Committee, the names and votes of the members are found very differently recorded. Sir Eyre Coote’s is more probably the correct list, as he spoke from memoranda); the majority were for delay, but Clive, after dissolving the council, followed the dictates of his own bold spirit, and directed the army to cross the river, which was done, and by midnight of the 22nd, the army had reached Plassey. The next day the battle took place; it was chiefly a distant cannonade. The guns were placed three on each flank of the Europeans, and the remainder about 200 yards in advance of the left division of sipahis, sheltered by some brick-kilns, to check the fire of the enemy’s guns, manned by the French party, and posted at a tank in front. The shot from the British guns which missed those opposed to them, took effect on the bodies of cavalry and infantry in the rear. The cannonade was sustained till noon, when rain falling damaged the enemy’s ammunition, and forced them to slacken their fire. The English fire continued, and Major Kirkpatrick, advancing with a party, drove the French from the tank, and the English guns were pushed on. Meer Jaffier, with his troops, at this time advanced, intending to join the British, but was opposed and driven back by a party and the fire of a field-gun, under Mr. Johnston, a volunteer. The whole of the guns now cannonaded the enemy’s camp from the high banks of the tank; the enemy came out, and Clive advanced, posting half his troops and guns at a smaller tank in advance, and the rest on a rising ground about 200 yards to their left; the French field-pieces renewed their fire, and the enemy’s cavalry prepared to charge, but were always driven back by the quick firing of the English field artillery; the enemy beginning to draw off, the whole British army advanced, and driving them from a redoubt and mound, part of the intrenchment of their camp, about five in the afternoon completed the victory which laid the foundation of our Eastern empire.