Rulers of India: Lord Clive

by G. B. Malleson

The order was badly received by the officers. They had enjoyed the privilege of double batta and its accessories so long that they had come to regard such allowances as their right by prescription. They at once memorialized the Government with a view to obtain a modification. But the reply Clive invariably gave them was to the effect that the orders of the Court had left him no option in the matter. Driven into a corner, their regard for their interests got the better of their sense of discipline. The officers of the several brigades and regiments entered into a correspondence with one another, formed committees, and decided to wrench by force the rights, as they deemed them, of which the order of the Court had deprived them. In a word, the European army of India, officers and men—for the men were prepared to follow the lead of the officers—combined against the Government.

Space will not permit me, nor is it requisite, that I should detail the measures they adopted to bend the Government to their will. It must suffice to state that the mutiny was of a most formidable character. So complete was the organization of the conspiring officers, so well laid were their plans, so secret had been their measures, that, during the period of four months the organization was in progress, not a single whisper of it had reached the Government. Clive received the first intimation of it when he was officially informed of it by the commander of the first brigade—a man who sympathized with the movement and desired its success. At the moment the conspirators were ready for action. That they possessed the sympathy of the members of the Civil Service was shown by the fact that the latter subscribed 140,000 rupees to aid the movement, and supplied the conspirators with copies of the proceedings of the Government.

Formidable as was the situation no living man was so well qualified to deal with it as was Clive. In the hour of danger he soared above his fellows. The danger here was greater than the danger of Arcot; than at the surprises of Káveripák and of Samiáveram; than during the hour of doubt at Plassey. His opponents were his own men—men whom he had led to victory. They possessed all the fortified places, the guns, the material of war. From the frontier came rumours of the advance of a Maráthá army, 60,000 strong, to wrest Allahábád and Karra from his hand. But there he was, the same cool, patient, defiant man he had been when confronted by the bayonets of the French at Káveripák and Samiáveram. He knew that the Government he represented was in the most imminent danger, that if the mutineers should move forward, he had not the means to oppose them.

The manner in which Clive met this danger is a lesson for all time. Not for an instant did he quail. Never was he more resolved to carry out the orders he had issued regarding batta than when he was told, that, in the presence of the enemy on the frontier, the officers would resign their commissions if the order were not withdrawn.

For the moment, fortunately, the conspirators had resolved to await his action. He, then, would take the initiative. On the very day when he received the report of the existence of the conspiracy he formed a committee, composed of himself, General Carnac, and Mr. Sykes, to carry out the plan of action he had formed. First, he and they resolved to send immediately to Madras for officers. Then they passed a resolution declaring that any officer resigning his commission should be debarred from serving the Company in any capacity, and sent copies of it to the several brigades for distribution to all concerned. Clive then hurried to Murshidábád; he addressed the recalcitrant officers stationed there; spoke to them in terms firm, yet conciliatory; told them they were acting very wrongly and very foolishly; that they were infringing the very discipline which they knew to be the mainstay of an army; that although immediate success might be theirs, they must be beaten in the long run; that such conduct could only be pardoned on condition of immediate submission. Touched by the language of the man who had been to them an object of veneration, all the officers, two young lieutenants excepted, hesitated—then submitted absolutely. This success was followed by similar results at the other stations in the Presidency division, visited by Carnac and Sykes. In that division only two captains and a lieutenant continued recalcitrant.

There remained then only the important centres of Mungír, Bánkípur (Patná), and Allahábád, the officers stationed there being bound to each other by the most solemn engagements. At the first-named of these places the Commandant was Sir Robert Fletcher, himself a well-wisher to the plot. When the officers there simultaneously tendered their resignation, agreeing to serve for fifteen days longer without pay, Fletcher received them with sympathy, and told them he would forward their letter to headquarters. At Bánkípur, then the military cantonment of Patná, the commandant, Sir R. Barker, one of the superior officers who had accompanied Clive from England, acted far differently. Before replying, he communicated with Lord Clive, then at Murshidábád, and received from him instructions to place under arrest every officer whose conduct should seem to him to come under the construction of mutiny, and to detain such at Bánkípur until it might be possible to convene a general court-martial to try them. To render complete the necessary numbers of field-officers Clive promoted on the spot two officers known to be loyal. The Bánkípur officers followed, nevertheless, the conduct of their comrades at Mungír, and resigned in a body. Barker not only declined to accept those resignations, but arrested four of the ringleaders, and despatched them by water to Calcutta. This bold action paralyzed the recalcitrants, and followed up as it was by the journey of Clive to Mungír, accompanied by some officers who had come round from Madras, it dealt a blow to the mutineers from which they never completely rallied.

But at Allahábád the danger was still more menacing. There and at the station of Surájpur, only two officers, Colonel Smith, and a Major of the same name, were absolutely untainted: four were but slightly so, and could be depended upon to act with the Smiths in an emergency; all the others had pledged themselves to 'the cause.' Those of the latter stationed at Allahábád displayed their disaffection in the usual manner, whereupon Major Smith, commanding there, calling on the sipáhís to support him, placed under arrest every officer in the place, the four slightly tainted officers excepted. He then informed the mutinous officers that he would shoot down without mercy any and every officer who should break his arrest. This action was most effective. All the officers but six submitted and were allowed to return to duty. The six were deported to Patná, to be tried there. A similar course was followed by Colonel Smith at Surájpur, with the result, however, that nearly one half of the officers remained recalcitrant, and were despatched under arrest to Calcutta.

Meanwhile, at Mungír, the officers continued in a thorough state of disorganization, the commander, Sir Robert Fletcher, encouraging them. The day before Clive's arrival, an officer whom he had sent in advance, Colonel Champion, surprising the officers in full conclave, learned from them that they desired to recount their grievances to Clive in person. On learning this Clive directed them to parade with their men the following morning, giving directions simultaneously to Champion, to bring to the ground two battalions of sipáhís, under the command of Captain F. Smith, an officer known to be loyal. Then a very curious circumstance happened. Smith had but just entered the fort with his sipáhís when he noticed that the Europeans, infantry and artillery, were turning out to mutiny. Without a moment's hesitation he marched towards them with his sipáhís; seized, by a bold strategic movement, a mound which was the key of the position, completely dominating the ground on which the Europeans were drawn up. The latter, who were on the point of quitting the fort, noting the commanding position occupied by the sipáhís, halted and hesitated. Smith took advantage of the pause thus caused to tell them that unless they should retire instantly to their barracks he would fire upon them. At the moment Sir R. Fletcher came up, began to encourage the revolters, and to distribute money amongst them; suddenly, however, taking in the exact position, he changed his tone, ordered the recalcitrant officers to leave the fort within two hours, and reported the whole circumstance to Lord Clive. The officers left at once, and the incident closed for the day; but when, the following morning, Clive entered the fort, and addressed the assembled soldiers on the wickedness of their conduct, praised and rewarded the sipáhís for their behaviour, the men gave way. The mutiny, as far as Mungír was concerned, was over. Meanwhile the officers expelled by Fletcher had encamped within a short distance of Mungír, resolved to wait there the arrival of their comrades from other stations. But they had to deal with a man who would stand no trifling. Clive despatched to them an order to set out forthwith for Calcutta; and to quicken their movements he sent a detachment of sipáhís to see that his order was obeyed. After that there was no more mutiny at Mungír, or in the stations dependent upon it.

At Bánkípur the officers, notwithstanding the action of Sir R. Barker, previously noted, had sent their commissions en bloc to Lord Clive. But the news of the occurrences at Mungír startled and frightened them. When, then, Lord Clive arrived at Patná, he found the officers penitent and humble, and that his only task was to pardon. There, too, he learned with pleasure the successful action of the two Smiths at Allahábád and Surájpur. He remained then at Patná, to crush the last embers of the mutiny, and to arrange for the bringing to justice of the ringleaders. This last task he performed in a manner which tempered justice with mercy. Fletcher, who had played a double part, and whose actions were prompted by personal greed, was brought to a court-martial and cashiered. Five other officers were deported, but of these, one, John Neville Parker, was reinstated in 1769, and survived to render glorious service to the Company, giving his life for his masters in 1781.

The comparative ease with which Clive suppressed this formidable conspiracy was due to one cause alone. No sooner did Clive hear of the combination than, instead of waiting to be attacked, he seized the initiative: the mutineers allowed him to strike the first blow; standing on the defensive in their isolated positions, they gave the opportunity to Clive to destroy them in detail. It was the action which Napoleon employed against the Austrians in 1796, 1805, and in 1809. It is useless to speculate what might have been the result if Clive had stood, as the majority of men would have stood, on the defensive. By the opposite course he not only saved the situation, but achieving a very decisive victory, struck a blow at insubordination which gave an altered tone to the officers of the army, then as much hankering after ungodly pelf as were their brethren in the Civil Service. Never, throughout his glorious career as a soldier, did Clive's character and his conduct stand higher than when, in dealing out punishment for the mutiny which he, and he alone, had suppressed, he remembered the former services of the soldiers who had been led away, and gave them all, a few incorrigibles excepted, the opportunity to retrieve their characters on future fields of battle.