Rulers of India: Lord Clive

by G. B. Malleson

The task of Clive in India had now been accomplished. Thoroughly had he carried through the mission entrusted to him. He had cleansed, as far as was possible, the Augean stable. He had given himself no recreation: he was completely worn out. He had announced to the Court of Directors so far back as 1765 his intention to resign as soon as he could do so without inconvenience to the public interests. The Court, in reply, whilst most handsomely acknowledging his services, had begged him to devote yet one year to India. When that letter reached him, December 1766, he had already accomplished all that, with the means and powers at his disposal, it was possible to carry through. He felt then that, broken in health, he might retire with honour from the country he had won for England. Having penned a valuable minute, laying down the principles which should guide the policy of his successor, based upon his own action during the preceding three years, he made over to one of his colleagues of the Select Committee, Mr. Verelst,⁴ the office of Governor, and nominating Colonel Richard Smith, then on the frontier, to be Commander-in-chief, Mr. Sykes, Mr. Carter, and Mr. Beecher, to form, with the Governor, the Select Committee, he bade farewell to his friends, and, on the 29th of January, 1767, embarked on board the good ship Britannia for England.

⁴ Mr. Sumner, whose weak character I have described, and who had been designated Lord Clive's successor, had been forced to resign his seat on the Select Committee.

CHAPTER XV

THE RETURN OF THE CONQUEROR-STATESMAN, AND THE RECEPTION ACCORDED TO HIM BY HIS COUNTRYMEN: HIS STRUGGLES; AND HIS DEATH

One of the ablest and most impartial of English historians, the fifth Earl Stanhope, has thus summed up his appreciation of the results of the second administration of Clive in India: 'On the whole it may be said that his second command was not less important for reform than his first had been for conquest. By this the foundations, at least, of good government were securely laid. And the results would have been greater still could Clive have remained longer at his post.' It was impossible he could remain. In December, 1766, his weakness was so great as to disable him from writing. He required rest, and as we have seen he embarked for England at the close of the month following, to find there, alas! no rest, but, on the contrary, the bitterest, the most persistent, the most unscrupulous enemies; their attacks prompted by the corrupt officials whom he had driven from the posts they had abused, and who were able, nevertheless, to enlist in their vile persecution statesmen of great renown holding high office under the Crown.

It is a pitiful tale, this persecution of a man who had rendered the most magnificent services to his country. The one blot minute investigation had been able to find in his career was the treatment of Aminchand. But Aminchand was a blackmailer who had threatened to betray a state-secret of enormous importance unless he were paid a sum out of all proportion to the services he rendered. Such a man deserves no commiseration. His treachery, if Clive had refused to subscribe to his terms, would have involved the death of thousands, and might have driven the English out of Bengal. Clive fought him with the same Asiatic weapon Aminchand had levelled against himself, and beat him. That his action was wrong in morals, unworthy of his lofty nature, is unquestionable. But it is not so certain that, under similar pressure, in circumstances so critical, those who most bitterly denounced him would have acted otherwise. Some writers have averred, and until recently it has been accepted, that the deceit drove Aminchand to madness. But inquiry has dissipated this fiction. He was, it is true, startled into insensibility by the discovery of the fact that he had been imposed upon, but, after visiting the shrine of a famous saint in Málwá, he returned to his business in Calcutta and prospered till his death. As to the other part of the same transaction, the signing of the name of Admiral Watson, Clive stated on oath, in his evidence before the House of Commons, that although the admiral had refused to sign the document, he had, to the best of his belief, permitted Mr. Lushington to affix his name; and certainly amongst those who benefited by the transaction was Admiral Watson himself, who, after the triumph of the conspirators, claimed even more than he received. But it was on these two points that the miscreants whom Clive, in his second administration, had driven from the posts they had sullied, and their allies, based a persecution which tortured the enfeebled frame of the conqueror.

Clive's real fault in the eyes of the leaders of the persecution was that he had become rich himself, and had prevented them from fattening on the plunder of the country he had conquered. To most men, in fact to all but a very few men, in England and in France, India was a terra incognita whither a certain few repaired young, and whence they returned, in the prime of their manhood, rich, and often with a great reputation. Why was it that such men were at once subjected to the vilest persecution? The fact that they were so is incontestable. Clive himself and Warren Hastings, whose reputation has recently been splendidly vindicated by two great Englishmen,¹ are cases in point in England; Dupleix and La Bourdonnais and Lally, in France. It is the saddest of sad stories; the men who had rendered the most brilliant services to their respective countries finding their bitterest enemies often amongst the Ministers of the Crown. There is little to discriminate between the conduct of parliamentary England and despotic France except in the degree of misery and punishment to which they alike subjected the most illustrious of their countrymen who had served in India.

¹ Sir Fitzjames Stephen in the case of Nanda-Kumár: Sir John Strachey in reference to the charges respecting Oudh and Rohilkhand.