Lord Clive landed at Portsmouth on the 14th of July, 1767, and reached London on the following day. Though the sea-voyage probably preserved his life, it still left his constitution very much shattered; and, on his arrival in London, his physicians immediately recommended that he should repair to Bath, for the purpose of drinking the waters. He remained in town, therefore, only a few days to be presented to their Majesties, to whom he had brought letters and presents from the Nabob of Arcot; and, in the first days of August, he set out for Bath, taking in his way Wotton, the seat of his friend Mr. George Grenville. His disorder was a severe bilious complaint, attended with spasms, loss of appetite, and indigestion; a continuation or consequence of that derangement of the liver from which he had already suffered so much in Bengal.
On his arrival, he was warmly welcomed, not only by his family and numerous private friends, but by the men most distinguished for rank and talent in England, and by the Court of Directors, who owed him so much. While conducting the affairs of his country with such distinguished honour and success in India, he had not been forgotten in Europe, where his name occupied a high rank among those of the illustrious men, who had raised the fame of England to so high an eminence at that glorious period. His statue, with those of Admiral Sir George Pocock, and of General Lawrence, had been placed in the India House.[130] The first part of Orme's "History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan," had appeared in 1763, and had spread the renown of the hero of the story wherever the English language is read. When Clive, during his second government, had enlarged so much his own fame, and the fame and power of his country, he felt a natural desire that the elegant historian should continue his work, and commemorate these great events; and accordingly he furnished him with all the materials that he possessed for aiding his progress. "What think you," says he, with a just pride, in a letter to Orme, "of closing the third volume of your history with an account of the King (of Delhi's) being at last placed in a situation of affluence and grandeur, the Vizier Sujah-u-Dowlah being obliged to sue for peace, which was granted upon very honourable terms, and the Company being in possession of the revenues of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, amounting to 4,000,000l. sterling per annum, and the country in a state of perfect tranquillity?"[131] The subject was a fine one, every way worthy of the historian's talents; and the proposed enlargement would have given a suitable close and unity to his former labours. But Orme did not delight in bold and rapid sketches; and the perhaps excessive detail in which he indulged in his most interesting historical work, prevented him from at all entering on the history of these memorable transactions; so that, at the close of his third volume, he had not advanced beyond the year 1760, the time when Clive left the country after his first government. At the same time, it is not to be supposed that Clive escaped a large share of that envy, and of the consequent abuse, that generally attend the triumph of a fortunate commander. The many enemies whom he had made, filled the public papers, to a more than ordinary degree, with acrimonious attacks; and scattered pamphlets, full of misstatements and personalities, which affected his sensitive mind more than they deserved.
Though Lord Clive now filled so large a space in the eyes of his countrymen and of foreign nations, he was yet only in his forty-second year; an age at which he might still have looked forward to a long career of public service and of glory. It is much to be regretted that, circumstanced as he was, in possession of an ample fortune, with his talents in their fullest vigour, and with one of the first reputations of the age, he did not confine himself to the high ground on which he stood, and shun being once more forced into the dark, and unsatisfactory circle of Leadenhall Street politics. He was, however, unfortunately pressed by too many immediate interests, both of his own and of his friends, to suffer him to adopt a course which would have contributed so much to his future peace. He had spent his whole life in Indian affairs, which naturally, in his estimation, had a peculiar importance; and perhaps his active mind could not at once break off the ties which had so long attached him to the Company and its concerns.
He found, on his return, the affairs of the East India Company considerably more complicated than he had left them. The two parties of Mr. Rous and Mr. Sulivan still divided the Directors; but the accounts of the great accession of wealth acquired for the Company in Bengal had excited the cupidity of the British Government, which, impoverished by the expenses of a war carried on in every quarter of the globe, eagerly looked for a partial relief to the treasures that were to flow into England from her Eastern dominions. The same expectation naturally roused the Proprietors of India Stock, who insisted on enjoying the benefit of the happy change in the most obvious way, by an increase of their dividend. To embroil still more these adverse interests, the servants of the Company, who had resigned or been dismissed, in consequence of their malversation in office, returned to England, breathing revenge against the man whose honest vigour had stopped them in their career; and having employed, in the purchase of Company's stock, a part of the great wealth which they had accumulated, were able, by throwing their interest into the scale, to influence the proceedings of the Court of Proprietors, and, therefore, ultimately that of the Directors.
Three years before, Lord Clive had left England, immediately after gaining a victory over Mr. Sulivan and his party. But as that gentleman had long managed the Company's affairs, was widely connected, and still retained many friends, the new Directors had by no means an easy part to act. For the first year, Mr. Sulivan's interest continued to be so strong among the Directors, that Mr. Rous, the new Chairman, sometimes found it difficult even to muster a sufficient number to sign his ordinary letters. In the election of 1765, Mr. Boulton was chosen Chairman; and the stability of the party in office seeming to increase, considerable defection, as is usual in such cases, took place from the ranks of their opponents. They also carried the election in the following year (1766) completely, when Mr. Dudley was elected Chairman. Still, however, the party of Sulivan continued to be strong; and when Lord Chatham's ministry was formed, in July, 1766, Sulivan was understood to be favoured by them, through the interest of Lord Shelburne, who was his friend.
We have seen the alarming aspect of the Company's affairs, when Clive was induced[132] to forego the comforts of home, and once more to visit Bengal, for the purpose of retrieving them. He had not been long absent when the drooping hopes of the Proprietors having revived, they demanded an increase of the dividend. Clive, ever sanguine, was of opinion that they ought to have been indulged; but the difficulties were considerable. "Believe the word of a Director," says Mr. Scrafton, writing[133] to him, before the news of his great success had reached England; "Believe the word of a Director, that the Company must have many lacs, before they can increase their dividend. Consider, my Lord, what a vast sum of their capital has been locked up without interest in Mahommed Ali's debt, the vast fortifications, the fatal Manilla expedition, and the sum locked up in the support of French prisoners, for which no instalments are yet settled, all form prodigious deductions, which a year's revenue of the whole province of Bengal will barely replace; not to mention the dreadful breach in the Company's capital before the battle of Plassey." And Mr. Dudley, at a still later period, acknowledges[134] that the Company had contracted several hundred thousand pounds of debt at home during the war, for which demands were urgent.
But when the news reached England of the re-establishment of the Company's affairs, and of the great advantages that had been gained for them by the various treaties concluded by Clive, the joy of the Proprietors was extreme; the price of stock rose, and there was a general and more clamorous demand for an increase of dividend. During the war in India, it had been reduced from 8 to 6 per cent. The more prosperous state of affairs seemed now to justify a considerable increase.