THREE:Pichegru, on his part, having driven back Clairfait, turned round on the Duke of York, who lay at Tournay. There he met with a severe repulse, and fell back with heavy loss; but Clairfait having again advanced to regain Courtrai, Pichegru once more engaged and defeated him. Clairfait then fell back into Flanders, to cover Ghent, Bruges, and Ostend. Pichegru, urged on against his better judgment by St. Just, who was the Commissioner from the Convention, sent Kleber and Marceau across the Sambre to attack General Kaunitz; but Kaunitz gave the French a severe defeat, killing four thousand of them; and had the Austrians been as rapid as they were brave, they might have nearly exterminated the whole of the French division. This success inspirited the Allies to advance actively, but the Duke of York, not taking into account the habitual slowness of German troops, shot ahead, expecting to fall in with Clairfait's columns at Turcoing; but there he only found the French, under Souham and Bonnaud, who well nigh enveloped him by their vast numbers, totally defeated, and nearly took him prisoner. This gave such a panic to the Austrians, that the entire army fell back, and Francis II., thoroughly discouraged, withdrew from the command and left it to the Prince of Coburg. The Duke of York rallied, and maintained his ground at Tournay against Pichegru, and Kaunitz followed up his advantage against Kleber and Moreau, driving them across the Sambre; but these were only temporary successes. Jourdain, finding no Prussians in the Moselle, drew nearer to the camp of Pichegru. There were various conflicts at Ypres, Charleroi, and on the plains of Fleurus. The Allies drove the French three times across the Sambre, but they returned with fresh and never-ending forces, and compelled the Allies to a general retreat. Bruges opened its gates to the French; Pichegru, aided by Moreau, compelled the Duke of York to retire successively on Oudenarde, Tournay, and Antwerp, places filled with the fame of Marlborough. At Antwerp the Duke of York was joined by Lord Moira, with ten thousand men, intended originally for La Vende, but too late to prevent the massacre of Savenay. The English garrison quitted Ostend, and came round to Antwerp; and the British occupied that town, whilst Clairfait lay at Louvain, and the two armies, unitedly, protected Mechlin.Clive, a young clerk of the Company's, at Madras, had deserted his desk, taken a commission, and, as early as 1748, had distinguished himself by baffling the French commanders Dupleix and Bussy, at Pondicherry. In 1751 he had taken Arcot from Chunda Sahib, the Viceroy of the Carnatic, and, aided by the Mahrattas, defeated Rajah Sahib, the son of Chunda, in a splendid victory at Arnee. In 1752 he raised the siege of Trichinopoly, where the Nabob of Arcot was besieged by the French. In 1755, landing at Bombay from England, he, with Admiral Watson, made an expedition to Gheriah, the stronghold of the celebrated pirate Angria, demolished it, and seized the spoils, valued at one hundred and twenty thousand pounds. In 1757 he took Calcutta from the Nabob Surajah Dowlah, the ally of the French, who had captured it, and shut up the English prisoners in the memorable Black Hole, where, in one night (June 20, 1756), out of one hundred and forty-six persons, one hundred and twenty-three perished. Clive also captured the city of Hooghly, defeated Dowlah, and compelled him to cede the town and vicinity. He then drove the French from their factory of Chandernagore; marched forward on Moorshedabad, defeated Surajah Dowlah in a battle extraordinary for the rout of an immense army by a mere handful of men, at Plassey (1757); deposed him, and seated on his throne Meer Jaffier. From this day dates British supremacy in India.