"The behaviour of the council has convinced me they are children and fools, as well as knaves, and I am not at all concerned, on the Company's account, that they have demeaned themselves in the manner you represent; for we may now, with great propriety, let the sentiments of humanity give way to justice. For my own part, I am determined, as one, to show them no more mercy; indeed it now becomes necessary, as well for our own vindication as for the advantage of the Company, to make an example of them, and represent them in their proper colours to the Court of Directors.
"I wish you would get ready the Dinagepoor Rajah's evidence, as well as the evidence of others, concerning Mr. Gray's conduct at Malda, against we assemble at Calcutta; and also what other evidences of other gentlemen whose conduct deserves our censure. I can't help thinking Leycester has been guilty of other misdemeanours at Dacca, &c. Burdett I am sure has."
In a letter[[253]] from Lord Clive to the Directors, he has the following observations upon this subject:—"Upon my arrival, I am sorry to say, I found your affairs in a condition so nearly desperate, as would have alarmed any set of men whose sense of honour and duty to their employers had not been estranged by the too eager pursuit of their own immediate advantages. The sudden, and, among many, the unwarrantable acquisition of riches, had introduced luxury in every shape, and in its most pernicious excess. These two enormous evils went hand in hand together through the whole presidency, infecting almost every member of each department. Every inferior seemed to have grasped at wealth, that he might be enabled to assume that spirit of profusion which was now the only distinction between him and his superior. Thus all distinction ceased; and every rank became, in a manner, upon an equality. Nor was this the end of the mischief; for a contest of such a nature among our servants necessarily destroyed all proportion between their wants and the honest means of satisfying them. In a country where money is plenty, where fear is the principle of government, and where your arms are ever victorious, it is no wonder that the lust of riches should readily embrace the proffered means of its gratification, or that the instruments of your power should avail themselves of their authority, and proceed even to extortion, in those cases where simple corruption could not keep pace with their rapacity. Examples of this sort, set by superiors, could not fail of being followed, in a proportionable degree, by inferiors. The evil was contagious, and spread among the civil and military, down to the writer, the ensign, and the free merchant."
In the answer from the Court of Directors to this letter[[254]] from Clive, they observe; "We have the strongest sense of the deplorable state to which our affairs were on the point of being reduced, from the corruption and rapacity of our servants, and the universal depravity of manners throughout the settlements. The general relaxation of all discipline and obedience, both military and civil, was hastily tending to a dissolution of all government. Our letter to the Select Committee expresses our sentiments of what has been obtained by way of donation; and to that we must add, that we think the vast fortunes acquired in the inland trade have been obtained by a scene of the most tyrannic and oppressive conduct that ever was known in any age or country."
In the letter of the same date as that of Lord Clive[[255]], from the Select Committee of Calcutta above referred to, they express themselves bound to lay open to the view of the Directors a series of transactions too notoriously known to be suppressed, and too deeply affecting their interest, the national character, and the existence of the Company in Bengal, to escape unnoticed and uncensured. "Transactions," they add, "which seem to demonstrate that every spring of this government was smeared with corruption, that principles of rapacity and oppression universally prevailed, and that every spark of sentiment and public spirit was lost and extinguished in the unbounded lust of unmerited wealth."
Lord Clive, in a letter to Mr. Sykes of the 20th August, informs him of the happy conclusion of his mission to Benares, and of his having obtained from the King the grant of the dewannee, or deed, for the administration of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa; an arrangement to which he very justly attaches the greatest value, and which may be viewed as having crowned his efforts as a hero and a statesman, in fixing firm the foundation of the British empire in India.[[256]] It is difficult, at the present day, to appreciate that wisdom which appeared to attach a value to the form, almost beyond the substance, of power. It is impossible to satisfy those who judge such questions by philosophic rules, or others who apply a European standard to Indian policy, of the weight of the reasons which led Clive to give the consequence he did to an act, that may appear to them as being more likely to augment, than to lessen, the numerous obstacles which already opposed the good government of our Eastern territories. It is not easy to convince such persons of the degree in which he was enabled, by this grant, to reconcile to the rule of strangers the various communities which formed the vast population of India; nor can we compute the amount of strength which it took away from princes, who had long been enemies to those Europeans whom they deemed invaders and usurpers, but who were, from the moment the grant was made, in the eyes of a great proportion of their subjects, if not in their own, sanctioned in the exercise of the power they had attained, by the authority of one who, however fallen, was still considered the legitimate source of all rank and authority over that empire of which he was hardly more than the nominal head.
Philosophers may smile at such impressions, may despise those who act on such grounds; but as the bulk of human beings, in every country, are swayed by impressions and prejudices more than by reason, wise and great statesmen will continue to establish authority, and preserve peace, by adapting their measures to the habits and feeling of the community, instead of acting on theories which, taken in the abstract, have an appearance of wisdom, but reduced to practice, by running counter to the character and condition of the great mass of men, for whose benefit they are intended, produce bitter fruits from fair but deceitful blossoms.
Previous to the conclusion of the negotiations at Patna, Mr. Verelst[[257]], acting under the instructions of Lord Clive, had succeeded in obtaining the acquiescence of the Nabob of Moorshedabad and his ministers, to an engagement, by which it is stipulated, that 50 lacs of rupees should be assigned for his support[[258]], and that of his family, while the remaining revenue was allotted to the payment of restitutions, expenses of the army, and allowance to the King.
Lord Clive, in a letter which announced to the Court of Directors his having made peace, and obtained rights and privileges that gave them resources which, well managed, were more than competent to maintain the East India Company in that political power which a rapid succession of events had forced upon them, entered fully upon the subject of the future administration of their affairs, and, above all, the necessity of a complete reform in their civil and military establishments, which, in Bengal, he describes to be in the worst possible state, owing to many causes, but to none more than the rise of youth to wealth and high station, before they had either prudence or judgment; a rise inevitably succeeded by their falling into a state of indolence and luxury, that led to the increase of the evils it was his anxious object, and that of the Select Committee, to remedy.
The measures he adopted to enforce obedience to the orders of the Directors, regarding certain classes of their servants discontinuing trade, were accompanied by a distribution among the seniors, of a proportion of the profits of the salt monopoly, in shares accordant with their rank. These shares, though large, were considered as nothing by men who were enjoying the enormous profits that resulted from the privileges which their influence and authority gave them as merchants. This arrangement, consequently, caused great discontent among those whose interests it affected; which was increased by his removal of civil servants from many minor stations in the provinces, and ordering all free merchants, except those that were specifically licensed, to return to the presidency. An effectual check was also put, at this period, to that system of violence with which the native gomastahs, or agents of civil servants and free merchants, continued to enforce the passing their goods, not only without paying duties, but without dustucks or passes[[259]], which were granted when it was deemed expedient or proper, on application. There is, in Clive's letter books, much correspondence upon this subject; the whole tenor of which proves, that the effort made by the committee to stop the inland trade, was one of the principal causes of that combination of civil servants, which rapidly increased in number and violence, when it was known, that Clive had requested that four of the senior and best qualified civil servants of Madras should be immediately sent to Bengal, in order to strengthen his administration of the latter presidency.