Such is the detail of a combination of officers, which threatened with the most imminent danger the newly established authority of the Company over the rich provinces of Bengal and Bahar. Never did Lord Clive display more prominently that superior knowledge of human nature, that intimate acquaintance with the feelings and motives of military men, or that firmness and decision by which alone those can be kept in subordination, than on this trying occasion. He never hesitated nor swerved from the resolutions he adopted on the first moment that he learnt the extent of the combination formed against the government. He was well supported by the members of the committee, of which General Carnac, commander of the troops, was a member; and with the conduct of the senior officer of the army, Colonel R. Smith, who commanded one of the brigades, as well as of Sir Robert Barker, who commanded another, he had every reason to be satisfied. The high opinion he entertained of Sir R. Fletcher as a gallant officer, his apparent zeal and constant communications, long misled Lord Clive into a confidence on his co-operation, which, had he been a man of less talent and less prompt decision, would have occasioned a ruinous compromise of the public interests. But that and all the other evil consequences which this alarming combination threatened, were subdued by his presence, and by the personal display of that calm and unyielding courage, which, in military bodies, extorts, even from those it subdues, respect and admiration.