The circumstances under which Lord Clive had to act, and the difficulties he had to overcome, are well stated by his successor, Mr. Verelst, in a work which he subsequently published in defence of his own conduct.
"The impolitic arrangement of affairs[62] was among the least evils of the Company's situation, antecedent to Lord Clive's arrival. The dissolution of government in Calcutta kept pace with that of the country. A general contempt of superiors, a habit of equality among all orders of men, had obliterated every idea of subjection. To reclaim men from dissipation, to revive a general spirit of industry, to lead the minds of all from gaudy dreams of sudden-acquired wealth to a patient expectation of growing fortunes, were no less difficult in execution than necessary to the existence of the Company. Large sums of money, obtained by various means, had enabled many gentlemen to return to Europe. This cause, superadded to the massacre of Patna, occasioned a very quick succession in the service, which encouraged a forward spirit of independency, and produced a total contempt of public orders, whenever obedience was found incompatible with private interest. To check such impatient hopes, where youths aspired to the government of countries at an age scarcely adequate to the management of private affairs, four gentlemen, being called from Madras, were admitted into Council.
"The universal discontent among the civil servants which had arisen from the late measures, restraining the power of individuals, was hereby greatly increased; and, united with the mutinous spirit of the military officers, broke forth, the following year, into a flame, which threatened destruction to the English empire in Bengal.
"This event, though among the transactions of a later period, may, not improperly, be here explained. The military in Bengal had for several years enjoyed an indulgence beyond those in the other settlements of the Company, which first arose from the bounty of the Subahdar, when they were employed in his service. By the advice of an officer who had long commanded the Company's troops upon the coast of Coromandel, with great reputation to himself and honour to the nation, representing this extraordinary allowance as destructive of discipline, the Directors, in their public letters, had frequently ordered the double batta to be withdrawn.[63] Such directions, in a settlement where all idea of subordination was lost, and where the conduct of the superior servants respecting their own interests could ill be reconciled with a rigid exaction of obedience to the Company's commands in others, produced little effect. One feeble effort was made; but a remonstrance from the military induced a ready submission on the part of the Governor and Council. The Select Committee, very justly conceiving, that a regard to private interest would not justify a disobedience to the positive injunction of their superiors[64], resolved to carry the measure into immediate execution."
A historian little disposed to take a favourable view of Lord Clive's motives or actions, commenting upon his conduct on this trying occasion, observes[65]; "It was one of these scenes, however, in which he was admirably calculated to act with success. Resolute and daring, fear never turned him aside from his purpose, or deprived him of the most collected exertions of his mind in the greatest emergencies. To submit to the violent demands of a body of armed men, was to resign the government."
This praise, reserved as it is, has value coming from such a quarter; but it is fair to state, that the historian formed his judgment on this and other acts of Lord Clive solely from public records. He has not, like the writer of these pages, had access to that private correspondence, by which he has been enabled to examine every letter or note which Clive received or wrote daily to persons of all ranks and classes; nor could he trace his feelings, as the writer has done, at every hour of this great crisis, during which, it appears from the most authentic documents, that his mind was not only cool and unshaken, but that, though often ruffled with honest indignation at proofs of cowardice, treachery, and guilt, he was never betrayed into one act unworthy of his private or his public character. He not only warned all of the dangers into which they were rushing headlong, but personally entreated them to remain in the path of duty; or, when they had left it, to return. In the prosecution of the most guilty he never mingled his own name; on the contrary, we find him extending to all such as had attacked him personally, as much clemency and consideration as was compatible with the public interests; and this kindness not only reached those who deceived him most grossly, but was extended to an unfortunate individual who, in a moment of rage, had threatened to become his assassin. On the other hand, when warmth of temper and impatience led him, as it sometimes did, to express himself with unkindness, if not harshness, to those whose efforts and zeal did not keep pace with his own, we find him treating their remonstrances in a manner which, from its frankness and tone of friendship, was alike calculated to establish his own superiority, and to gain their respect, if not their attachment.
There is no event of his life in which Lord Clive showed more knowledge of human nature, and a more intimate acquaintance with all the elements which compose military bodies, than on this occasion. While he visited with severity of punishment bold offenders, he gave the most delicate attention to the high feelings of honour, which had kept others free from guilty associations. When, under an impression that there was a defect in the articles of war, he would restore none of those who had joined the combination, until they signed a contract to serve a certain period, he made no such call upon those who had been true to their duty. The contract might be necessary, he said; but men who had undergone such a trial ought not to be insulted with a suspicion that any further tie was required to bind their allegiance. They repaid this confidence by voluntarily insisting upon signing the contract, into which officers with whom they continued to serve had been compelled to enter.
Lord Clive appears, from both his public and private letters, to have estimated the complete victory he had obtained on this occasion beyond any he ever gained in the field: and, in fact, it was with reason that he did so. Considering that upwards of two hundred officers had not only combined, but had pledged themselves by every tie that could bind men, to oppose authority, Clive had solid ground for exultation in the success of measures, planned and executed by himself, the result of which was to restore subordination, to vindicate an insulted Government, and to save the country from ruin. And this achievement was the more gratifying, from being attended with comparatively few consequences that were ultimately injurious to any great body of individuals. It must, moreover, have been satisfactory to Lord Clive, to know that this combination had not its source in any of those evil designs by which such mutinous proceedings are often marked. It originated in the too long continuance of a temporary grant, of an extra allowance, to which young officers (and almost all concerned were such) soon adapted their expenditure; and when luxuries, recommended by the climate and character of the service, became necessaries, they were not likely to recognise the justice of the distinction, which had been made by the Directors, between the boon of a Nabob (which the double batta first was), and a direct payment from the treasury of Government, which it became after the Company had obtained the grant of the Dewannee.
The opposition which the officers offered to the reduction of their allowances, was in some measure countenanced by the local Government, which had evaded the execution of the orders issued by the Directors for the abolition of double batta. Nor is it very surprising, that the officers should have heedlessly rushed on the extreme measure of resigning their commissions, when we advert to the encouragement which their combination had received from an officer of the rank and reputation of Sir Robert Fletcher; and to the sympathy and support which had been expressed and afforded by the civilians, among whom were some who held confidential situations under the Government, and others who were believed to have great influence in England: these persons were, as well as the military, discontented with the revisions and reductions which Lord Clive had adopted. Under these circumstances, and under the impression that their services could not be dispensed with, at a time when the country was not only unsettled, but threatened with invasion by a large Mahratta army, the officers felt confident that the Governor must have yielded to their demands. But in thus judging, they appear to have little understood the character of him with whom they had to contend; and when they were met, not only with an unyielding spirit, but treated at once as criminals, and every measure adopted for their punishment, they fell without a struggle. They had prepared no means to go beyond their first act; and this, though it was by some brought forward as a proof of want of forethought and weakness, was, in fact, a proof of their innocence of any deliberate intention to injure the interests of their country: though, but for the overruling genius of Clive, the most fatal injury would assuredly have been the consequence of the success of their guilty combination; for, had they succeeded, the civil Government would have lost all respect, and the usurpation of the public authority, by a combination of officers, would have given an example to their men which, if followed, would have been alike destructive of all discipline, and have terminated in the subversion of the English government in Bengal.