No man knew the sepoy force of India better, or employed it more successfully, than Clive; and it is interesting to ascertain his ideas, both on its composition, and the dangers that might be supposed eventually to attend its use. "You mention the number of sepoys as an alarming circumstance," says he, writing, after his return to England[109], to one of the committees of Directors, "and I allow that the Company's chief danger arises from thence, and from the discipline. But I am of opinion, that so long as they are regularly paid, treated with humanity, and not flattered with promises never meant to be performed, no danger is to be apprehended. Sepoys are the most faithful and attached people in the universe; and being also men of reason, they are thoroughly convinced, that they are upon a much better footing with us than they can be with any of the natives, be their rank what it may. Their attachment, as I have observed, is strong; but they know no other than to those who feed and clothe them. Much of the supposed danger is avoided by our having separated and divided our sepoys into three brigades, so that they can never make a revolution general, nor can they hold cabals of an alarming nature. The best additional security I can think of, is to have each battalion composed of an equal number of Gentoos and Mussulmen, and to encourage a rivalship of discipline between them."—"There is one step[110]," says he, on another occasion, "to be taken with regard to the sepoys, which, I think, will bring them to the greatest perfection sepoys can be brought to; viz. the officers commanding the sepoys to run in that corps only; by which means, all the officers will understand the language, without which it is impossible to bring the sepoys to that pitch of discipline which will make them truly formidable." It will be recollected that at this early period of the service, regiments were but recently formed and brigaded; and the officers were taken for the sepoy corps from the European infantry, and were not yet attached permanently to the former.

The fatigue, bodily and mental, which Clive underwent during the second year of his residence in India, when engaged in counter-acting the seditious movements of the civil and military services, had the unfavourable effects that might have been expected on a constitution so exhausted as his; yet the strong invitations which he then received from the Directors to remain another year in India, and his own desire to strengthen and confirm the government which he had saved from anarchy, and perhaps from ruin, induced him to revolve in his mind the possibility of complying with their request; and in some of his letters, written in the summer of 1766, he intimates a doubt whether he may not attempt to remain another year to complete his work.

But in the end of October he was attacked by a bilious disorder, which, increasing in severity, rendered him, early in November, incapable of attending to business. It is, indeed, surprising that this attack should have been so long delayed. From the moment he arrived in Bengal, his mind had been kept invariably on the stretch, by a succession of painful and trying exertions. He had travelled much in the midst of the monsoon, and in the hottest season. On one occasion, he writes to Mr. Verelst[111], "I have not had three hours' sleep any day or night, since I left Mootyjil," a fortnight before; and, even during the period when he thus travelled in a burning climate[112], he continued anxiously corresponding at every interval of his journey, on the subject of an alarming mutiny, which threatened destruction to all his plans of public improvement. He had difficulties to encounter on every side, reforms to be made, in which he was obliged to depend for success, more on the energy of his own mind, than on the support of the service, or of his coadjutors. He had the ungracious office of interfering at every step with the pecuniary emoluments of the majority of his countrymen of every class. Few constitutions could have supported the anxiety he endured. A less vigorous mind would have sunk under the fret and annoyance of nearly two years' warfare of this exhausting kind: his constitution only sank under the fatigue. The strongest proof how severe his illness became, is afforded by the total interruption of his correspondence from the 29th of November to the 27th of December, during which period no letter appears to have been written by himself, the correspondence being entirely conducted in his name by Mr. Strachey. It has already been remarked that his regularity and constancy in correspondence were quite exemplary. His letters of business were answered the moment they were received. This steady regularity, too often despised by inferior men, was one of the means by which he did so much. With him it was grown into a habit; but the habit was a proof of the energy of a mind eager to accomplish, in the most perfect way, the business in which it is engaged.

It was during this illness that the letter, already alluded to, from the Court of Directors, arrived[113], disapproving of the Society of Trade, but loading him with praises for his beneficial management of their affairs, entreating him to continue in the government for another year, and holding out the hope of ample remuneration for the sacrifice he was invited to make. It must be acknowledged, that the request of the Court of Directors was couched in terms sufficiently flattering. They approve of all that he had done. "When we consider," say they[114], "the penetration with which your Lordship at once discerned our true interest in every branch, the rapidity with which you restored peace, order, and tranquillity, and the unbiassed integrity that has governed all your actions, we must congratulate your Lordship on being the happy instrument of such extensive blessings to those countries; and you have our sincerest thanks for the great and important advantages thereby obtained for the Company."—"We have the most perfect sense of your Lordship's disinterestedness in every part of your conduct, and we shall not fail to represent this to the proprietors, and shall, at the same time, inform them of the many great advantages your Lordship has obtained for the Company; but we fear, my Lord, past experience will teach them, as it does us, that the permanency of those advantages will depend much on your Lordship's continuing in India till you have seen the regulations firmly established for the conducting those important affairs. Another year's experience, and peaceable enjoyment of our acquisitions, might fix them on a basis that might give hopes they may be as lasting as they are great; and there is no doubt, my Lord, but the general voice of the proprietors, indeed, we may say, of every man who wishes well to his country, will be to join in our request, that your Lordship will continue another year in India. We are very sensible of the sacrifice we ask your Lordship to make, in desiring your continuance another year in Bengal, after the great service you have rendered the Company, and the difficulties you have passed through in accomplishing them, under circumstances in which your own example has been the principal means of restraining the general rapaciousness and corruption which had brought our affairs so near the brink of ruin. These services, my Lord, deserve more than verbal acknowledgments; and we have no doubt that the proprietors will concur with us in opinion, that some solid and permanent retribution, adequate to your great merits, should crown your Lordship's labours and success."

Clive was not insensible to the voice of praise, and still less to the call of ambition; but no principle was stronger with him than a sense of duty. He had truly observed, some time before, in writing to Mr. Palk[115], "It seems I am strongly solicited to remain in India another year, and a promise is to be made me about perpetuating my jaghire. If I could render the Company more essential service by stopping than returning, and the situation of affairs made such a sacrifice necessary, I should not hesitate one moment about complying with their request, without being tempted by the bait of a jaghire. This does not appear to be the case at present; and, I think, all that depends on me will be effected in the space of two or three months; and, if the necessity of continuing another year does not appear in a stronger light than it does at present, I shall most certainly depart in January or February next." The letter of the Directors, just quoted, arrived on the 8th of December, after his complaint had made an alarming progress; and it appears, by a letter of Mr. Strachey, of the 13th, that Lord Clive had made up his mind, as a matter of necessity, to embark for England in about a month from that time. In a letter to his friend Mr. Palk, of the 30th of the same month, he says, "My state of health will not permit me more than to acknowledge the receipt of your several favours of the 20th, 27th, and 30th of September, and 7th, 11th, and 27th of October. The discussion of political points I cannot attempt at present, though I find myself recover daily. The Court of Directors have been very strenuous in soliciting me to continue another year in India. They have loaded me with compliments, and given me as much additional power as I could have wished. But the situation of the Company's affairs does not require that I should sacrifice another year in this climate; and even if it did call upon me to make such a sacrifice, it would be in vain. The very severe attack of bile that I have been struggling with for many weeks puts it beyond a doubt, that I could not survive, and be of use to the Company in India another year."

His constitution from his youth had been subject to nervous attacks. He now suffered from derangement of the biliary system, which affected his health to a degree from which it never fully recovered, and which may be considered as having finally hastened his end. It was occasionally attended with spasms, of which the violence endangered his life. In the intervals of comparative ease, however, he continued to direct the affairs of the government. He had used great exertions to improve the civil service, on which depended the prosperity of the country. Many of those then at the head of it, from various causes, were unfit to have any great share in conducting the administration of public affairs. Some were too exclusively devoted to self-interest, and were lax in their principles. The rapid fortunes that had been made of late years had sent home a considerable proportion of the most active of the older servants; others had been forced to resign, or had been dismissed for malversation in office; and many others had fallen in the massacre of Patna. Those next in succession were in general young men of no experience, of luxurious and dissipated habits, who, having been brought up in a bad school, were strangers to subordination and to the restraints of duty. Clive, sensible that to place such men near the head of a government, was to undo all that he had done, and that no government can be carried on without fit instruments, had asked from the Madras Government four of its ablest civil servants[116], who were accordingly sent, and placed in Council. This necessary act made him unpopular, and created many and powerful enemies. But Clive was not a man to shrink back from his course when supported by conscious rectitude, and by a firm persuasion that he was acting for the benefit of his employers and of the public. He supported the Madras servants against all the combinations formed to disgust and annoy them, and at his departure left them all high in office. By that, and similar acts of energy, he did all that one individual could do to remedy a vicious system; and had his plans been firmly executed by his successors, and supported instead of being opposed and tampered with by the Court of Directors, the history of India for the ensuing twenty years might have afforded a brighter and more pleasing retrospect than, unfortunately, it now does.

Clive was in particular most desirous that, after his departure, the Select Committee, the real engine of government, should be composed of the ablest and most upright men in the country. He left the chief direction of affairs with perfect confidence in the hands of Mr. Verelst, a man of honour and intelligence[117]; but he was anxious to add to his strength by placing about him other men of talent. Among these he was particularly desirous that Mr. Sykes, in whom he had great confidence, should reside in Calcutta, to be near the seat of government: but that gentleman preferred remaining in the situation he then held as resident at Moorshedabad. Clive's remonstrances on this occasion are very honourable to him:—"I have received your letter," says he[118], "urging many reasons against your residing at Calcutta, when Mr. Verelst came to the chair. Your intention of declining the government, I must confess, is the only one that seems to carry any weight. Your situation I believe, is a very agreeable one, and your conduct, I am persuaded, will bring advantage to the Company and honour to yourself. Yet let us not forget, Sykes, the principles upon which you and I have hitherto acted, of sacrificing private convenience to public good. To doubt my friendship, because I cannot carry it to such lengths, is not to know me. I have loved you as a brother; yet a brother cannot alter my sentiments of what is right and wrong. If you are fully convinced that your health will not permit you to live in Calcutta, and for that reason, among others, you mean to decline the government, there may be reasons given in abundance for remaining in your present station; and, among the rest, that of your being the most fit for such an employment. To conclude: this matter must be decided by my successor, Mr. Verelst, after my departure. I have given you my sentiments, which are consistent with my friendship for you, and my duty to the Company."

A letter to Mr. Cartier, one of the last he wrote in India, shows a similar anxiety for the public interest. Mr. Cartier, like Mr. Sykes, wished to take no active share in the general concerns of the government, but to remain, performing local duties, at an out station. Lord Clive, who had a favourable opinion of his qualifications, had urged him to conquer this repugnance; and Mr. Cartier finally gave his consent. "The receipt of your friendly letter[119]," says Lord Clive, "and your acceptance of being nominated one of the Select Committee, with so much cordiality, has afforded me more real satisfaction than I have felt for these many months. I can now leave India with satisfaction to myself, because I leave it in tranquillity, and the chief management of these important and extensive concerns in the hands of men of honour, and approved probity and abilities.

"Be assured, my good Sir, you will not have to encounter many of those disagreeable circumstances which you seem to apprehend in your letter to Mr. Verelst. That unthankful task has fallen to my lot. The Select Committee, and Committee of Inspection, have already made every regulation for the public good which can be desired or thought of; so that it only rests with you, gentlemen, to keep matters in the same channel, and not to relax in your authority, or let yourselves down, by declining to support the dignity of your station.

"A gentleman endowed, like Mr. Cartier, with a good capacity and solid judgment, of a generous and disinterested way of thinking, cannot fail of proving a very deserving servant to the Company, and of acquiring honour for himself, if he will but have a little more confidence in himself." After assuring him that, if he finds his new situation at Calcutta agreeable, he will use his interest to have him named Mr. Verelst's successor in the government, he continues:—"The state of my health is such, that I cannot continue in it (the government) another year, with any prospect of doing the Company service: indeed, I do not think I should survive another month; I have, therefore, determined to resign the government.