Rulers of India: Lord Clive

by G. B. Malleson

We have fortunately from his own hand the principles which guided him, and which he hoped would guide his successors, in their relations to the other powers of India. In a State paper² written before his departure, he thus expressed his views: 'Our possessions should be bounded by the provinces.' 'We should studiously maintain peace; it is the groundwork of our prosperity. Never consent to act offensively against any Powers except in defence of our own, the King's, or the Nawáb-Wazír's dominions, as stipulated by treaty; and, above all things, be assured that a march to Delhi would be not only a vain and fruitless project, but attended with destruction to your own army, and perhaps put a period to the very being of the Company in Bengal.' In a word, to borrow the criticism of the author from whose work I have quoted, 'the English were to lie snugly ensconced in the three provinces of Bengal, Bihár, and Orissa. The frontier of Oudh was to form a permanent barrier against all further progress.' Such a policy might commend itself to the theorist, but it was not fitted for the rough throes of an empire in dissolution, its several parts disputed by adventurers. Within a single decade it was blown to the winds.³

² Early Records of British India, by Talboys Wheeler. In this interesting work the paper quoted from is given in extenso.

³ Wheeler.

There is one subject upon which it becomes me to touch slightly before considering the army administration. During one of his visits to Murshidábád it was discovered that, in his will, the late Súbahdár, Mír Jafar, had bequeathed five lakhs of rupees to Clive. The discovery was made after Clive, in common with the other servants of the Company, had bound himself not to accept any presents from natives of India. He could not therefore take the legacy himself. But the money was there—practically to be disposed of as he might direct. He resolved, with the approval of his Council, to constitute with it a fund for the relief of the officers and men of the Company's army who might be disabled by wounds or by the climate. Thus was formed the institution which, under the title of 'Lord Clive's Fund,' served to bring help and consolation to many poor and deserving servants of the Company for nearly a century. By a strange freak of fortune this fund reverted, in 1858, on the transfer of India to the Crown, to the descendants of the very man who could not, or believed he could not, accept it, when bequeathed to him, for himself.

Whilst dealing with the internal administration of the country, and arranging for the protection of its frontier, Clive had not been unmindful of the other duty strongly impressed upon him by the Court of Directors, that of examining the pay and allowances of their military officers, with special reference to an allowance known as Batta. Batta, in a military sense, represented the extra sum or allowance granted to soldiers when on field duty. Practically it had been granted on the following principle. Officers had been allowed a fixed monthly pay and allowances, not including batta, when they were serving in garrison. When they took the field they drew an extra sum as batta, known as full batta; but when they were detached to an out-station, not being actually in the field, they drew only half that amount, which was called half-batta. After the battle of Plassey, Mír Jafar, in the profusion of his gratitude, had bestowed upon the officers an additional sum equal to full batta. This was called 'double batta,' and as long as the army was in the field, fighting for the interests of that chief, he continued, with the sanction of the Council of Calcutta, to disburse that allowance. Mír Kásim, on his succession, had expressed his intention to continue this payment, and had assigned to the Company, for that purpose amongst others, the revenues of three districts. But the Court of Directors, not fully realizing that the transaction with Mír Kásim was one eminently advantageous to themselves, and forgetting that the receipt of the revenues of the three provinces was accompanied by an obligation, chose to forget the latter point, and accepting the revenues, issued peremptory orders to discontinue the disbursement of double batta. This order seemed so unjust that the then Council of Calcutta (1762), on receiving it, went thoroughly into the question, and, in a despatch to the Court, submitted the case for the officers in the strongest terms. The reply of the Court adds one proof to many of the unfitness of men not belonging to the ruling class to exercise supreme authority. The Directors refused the prayer of their servants on grounds which, by no artifice of despatch-writing, could be made to apply to the circumstances of the case.

That reply was dated the 9th of March, 1763. Just one month earlier the Calcutta Council had appointed a Special Committee on the spot to examine and report upon the question. But before the Committee could complete its inquiries there broke out that war with Mír Kásim, which called for the extraordinary exertions of the class whose claims were under examination. The services of Majors Adams and Carnac, two of the members of the Committee, were required in the field, and it was by the splendid exertions of the former and his officers that the Company was rescued from imminent peril. The inquiry dropped during the war.

But although the splendid exertions of the officers saved British interests in 1763, the Court of Directors did not the less persist in resolving to curtail their allowances. On the 1st of June, 1764, whilst the army, having conquered Mír Kásim, stood opposed to the forces of the Nawáb-Wazír of Oudh, they despatched the most precise orders that the allowance of double batta should be discontinued from the date of the receipt of their order. Probably the Court of Directors was the only ruling body in the world which would have dared to issue an order greatly curtailing allowances to an army in the field, opposed to greatly superior forces whose triumph would mean destruction to the Company. But this is but one instance of the dogged incapacity to rule with which the history of the Court of Directors abounds.

When the despatch reached India the army had but just gained the bloody and decisive battle of Baksar. The Calcutta Council dared not, at such a moment, carry out the orders of the Court. There were other reasons for delay. Lord Clive was on his way from England, and to him, probably, special instructions had been given.

We have seen the course which Lord Clive pursued with reference to the other branches of the administration. It was the end of the year 1765 before he touched the army. Then he issued instructions that from the 1st of January, 1766, the double batta should be withdrawn, except as regarded the second brigade, then stationed at Allahábád. This brigade, on account of the high prices of provisions at the station, and the expense of procuring the necessary supplies from Europe, was to be allowed double batta in the field, and the old original single batta in cantonments or in garrison, until it should be recalled within the provinces. This rule was to be applied to all troops beyond the Karmnásá. Clive directed further that the rest of the army should receive single batta when marching or in the field, and half single batta when in cantonment or in garrison, as at Mungír or Patná; but when at Calcutta or within the Presidency division the officers would receive no batta at all, but free quarters in lieu of it.