Rulers of India: Lord Clive

by G. B. Malleson

That, during this period, he had committed faults, is only to say that he was human. But, unfortunately, some of his faults were so grave as to cast a lasting stain on a career in many respects worthy of the highest admiration. The forging of the name of Admiral Watson, although the name was attached to the deed with, it is believed, his approval,¹⁶ was a crime light in comparison with the purpose for which it was done—the deceiving of the Bengálí, Aminchand. It is true that Aminchand was a scoundrel, a blackmailer, a man who had said: 'Pay me well, or I will betray your secrets.' But that was no reason why Clive should fight him with his own weapons: should descend to the arena of deceit in which the countrymen of Aminchand were past-masters. Possibly the atmosphere he breathed in such society was answerable, to a great extent, for this deviation from the path of honour. But the stain remains. No washing will remove it. It affected him whilst he still lived, and will never disappear.

¹⁶ In his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons Clive said regarding the fictitious treaty: 'It was sent to Admiral Watson, who objected to the signing of it; but, to the best of his remembrance, gave the gentleman who carried it (Mr. Lushington) leave to sign his name upon it.'

Then again, as to his dealings with Siráj-ud-daulá and Mír Jafar. The whole proceedings of Clive after his capture of Calcutta prove that he intended to direct all his policy to the removal of that young prince from the masnad. Some have thought that the Black Hole tragedy was the cause of this resolve. But this can hardly be so, for Mír Jafar, the commander-in-chief of the army which seized Calcutta in 1756, was equally implicated in that transaction. The suggestion that Siráj-ud-daulá was intriguing with the French at Haidarábád is equally untenable, for Clive knew he had little cause to fear their hostility. Clive not only expelled that prince, but, by his policy, his extortions, his insistance to obtain control of the saltpetre traffic, rendered it impossible for his successor to govern. Success attended his policy so long as he remained on the spot to control his subordinates, but it was inevitable that, sooner or later, there would come a revulsion. The warlike natives of Bihár had not been conquered, and they knew it. They had helped Clive, not that they should become subject to the foreigner from the sea, but that they might have a native ruler whom they trusted, in place of one whom they disliked. When they realized that the result of this change was not only subjection to the islanders, but impoverishment to themselves, they broke into what was called rebellion, and showed on many a bloody field that it was not they, only Siráj-ud-daulá, who had been conquered at Plassey.

This was the most dangerous legacy of the policy and action of Clive. He recognized its shadowy existence. He wrote to his successor, Mr. Vansittart, when he transferred to him his own office, that the only danger he had to dread in Bengal was that which might arise from venality and corruption. He might have added that the spoils of Plassey had created a state of society in which those vices were prominent; that the saltpetre monopoly, with the duties and exemptions which had followed its acquisition, had confirmed them. The Súbahdár himself recognized the new danger which would follow the departure of Clive. In his mind he was the moderator who, satisfied himself, would have stayed the hands of others. To quiet the newcomers there would be fresh rapacity, more stringent despoilings. He felt, to use the expression of the period when Clive quitted Bengal, that 'the soul was departing from the body.'

Clive made over charge to Mr. Holwell, of Black Hole notoriety, pending the arrival of Mr. Vansittart, the 15th of February, 1760. With the sanction of the Court he had nominated Major Calliaud to be Commander of the Forces. Four members of his Council retired about the same time as himself.

CHAPTER XI

THE SECOND VISIT OF CLIVE TO ENGLAND

During his administration of four years in Bengal Clive had been greatly hampered by the contradictory orders he had received from the Court of Directors. In that Court there were four parties: the party of alarmists at the aggrandizement of the Company's possessions in India; the party of progressists; the middle party, composed of men who would retain all that had been conquered, but who, not understanding the necessity which often compels a conqueror to advance that he may retain, would on no account sanction the proceeding of a step further; a fourth party bent only on acquiring plunder. As one or other of these parties obtained preponderance in the Court, so did the orders transmitted to India take their colour. In those days, it must be remembered, there was no Board of Control to regulate and, if necessary, to modify, even entirely to alter, the rulings of the General Court. Thus it was that the agent on the spot, finding the orders from England constantly changing, was driven to rely upon his own judgement, and to act on his own responsibility. This did not signify so much so long as there was, on the spot, holding supreme authority, a Clive or a Warren Hastings. But when the local chief authority was in the hands of men wanting alike in intellect, in high principle, and in nerve, the situation was likely to become dangerous in the extreme.