Clive would find out that it was for
Ochterlony; and he would think Ochterlony was a battle. And he would
think it was a great one, too, and he would say, "With three thousand I
whipped sixty thousand and founded the Empire--and there is no monument;
this other soldier must have whipped a billion with a dozen and saved the
world."
But he would be mistaken. Ochterlony was a man, not a battle. And he
did good and honorable service, too; as good and honorable service as has
been done in India by seventy-five or a hundred other Englishmen of
courage, rectitude, and distinguished capacity. For India has been a
fertile breeding-ground of such men, and remains so; great men, both in
war and in the civil service, and as modest as great. But they have no
monuments, and were not expecting any. Ochterlony could not have been
expecting one, and it is not at all likely that he desired one--certainly
not until Clive and Hastings should be supplied. Every day Clive and
Hastings lean on the battlements of heaven and look down and wonder which
of the two the monument is for; and they fret and worry because they
cannot find out, and so the peace of heaven is spoiled for them and lost.
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