Five months later we sailed up the Thames, and set foot once more on English soil.
One thing only detained me in London. This was the delivery of the letter which Colonel Clive had entrusted to me for Mr. Pitt.
It was a privilege which I could not rate too highly to be thus made the intermediary between the two greatest Englishmen of my time, men of a type that seems now to be lost among us. Since Colonel Clive we have had no victorious captain, and since Mr. Pitt, no mighty minister, and hence it is that our country, which under the rule of a Cromwell or a Pitt, hath risen to be the arbiter of Europe, and held all nations in awe, is now sunk, under the sway of feeble intellects, to a precarious position, the mock of every power, and saved only by her fleets from absolute destruction.
I do not find it easy to describe my sensations when I was ushered into the presence of the Great Commoner, and saw before me that majestic figure, with the profile of a Roman conqueror, and a glance hardly less terrible to encounter than the full blaze of the sun. When I have stood before the Nabob of Bengal, throned in the midst of his Court, I have seen in front of me nothing but a peevish, debauched young man, but when I came into the room where Mr. Pitt was I felt that I was in the presence of a ruler of men. His attitude, his commanding gestures, and the stately manner he had of slowly moving his head round upon his neck to look at you, made a most tremendous impression; and I found it easy to believe the stories of men having risen to speak against him in the House of Commons, and then shrunk back miserably into their seats at a mere look from this extraordinary person.
Mr. Pitt’s manner of reading Colonel Clive’s despatch further impressed me. He broke the seals, seemed to do no more than give it a few devouring glances, and then laid it aside as though he were already master of its contents.
“You are Ensign Ford?” he demanded abruptly, fixing his eye upon me.
“I am, sir.”
“Colonel Clive tells me in this letter that you possess his confidence. Do you think, if I were to tell you my sentiments verbally, you could transmit them faithfully to your employer?”
“I will do my best, sir,” I replied, not a little astonished at this proposal. But I have considered the matter since, and I can see that there were many things which Mr. Pitt might not wish to write with his own hand, though he had no objection to their being repeated by me.
“In this letter,” he proceeded, “Colonel Clive makes a very startling proposal, which is no less than that English troops should be sent out sufficient to conquer the whole of Bengal, and that thereafter the administration of all the Indian territories should be taken out of the hands of the Company and brought immediately under the Crown. Now what I wish you to tell him from me in reply is this, that I am bound to consider his proposal not merely as it affects our situation abroad, but also as it bears upon our government at home. I am the minister, not of a despotic empire like France or Spain, but of a free people, and I must not suffer anything which may assist the Crown to encroach upon our liberties. Those liberties rest upon the necessity which our kings are under of asking us to tax ourselves for their support. Give them a foreign empire like that of Spain in the Americas, and you run a danger of rendering them independent. The wealth arising from the revenues of Indostan would enable the Crown to keep up a standing army in time of peace, without the consent of Parliament. Moreover, the administration of these territories would give occasion for the creation of great numbers of offices and pensions, by means of which our people might be fatally corrupted.