While Lord Clive was every day more and more desirous of disengaging himself from the vexatious and unsatisfactory annoyances of Leadenhall Street politics, yet unwilling to forsake altogether the means which they afforded him of promoting the interest of his friends, and of influencing beneficially the government of our Indian empire, as to the fate of which it was impossible that he could be indifferent, the progress of events drew him once more conspicuously forward on the stage of public life, and desperate attempts were made to ruin at once his fortune and his reputation. It was his fate to suffer, not for his vices or errors, but for his virtues. His upright and honourable discharge of his painful duties, during his second government of Bengal, was at the root of all the persecutions which he afterwards endured. The men whom he made his enemies, by a firm yet temperate exercise of authority, resolved, if they could not justify their own conduct, to embitter, to the utmost of their power, the feelings of the statesman who had disturbed them in the career of unlawful gain. They had attempted to injure him in the courts at the India House. The changes in public affairs now enabled them to point an attack against him on a larger theatre, in the British Parliament.
We have seen that the rumours of the boundless wealth of India, the extent of the provinces conquered, and the amount of the revenue acquired, had raised the question to whom those conquests belonged,—to the trading company that had made them, or to the country and sovereign under whose auspices they were made? and that, to prevent the decision of this question, for which neither party was perfectly prepared, a compromise had been entered into between Government and the Directors, in 1767, and afterwards renewed. But disasters and mismanagement in India and at home had, in the course of a few years, reduced the Company's affairs to such distress that, far from being able to pay the sum stipulated, it became very problematical if they would be able to discharge their ordinary debts. The Directors were willing to throw the blame on their servants abroad, whom they charged for acting contrary to their orders; while they, on their part, defended themselves as they best could from the imputations cast upon them. Reports of oppression in India were widely circulated; and the private fortunes rapidly accumulated, that were every day brought home from that country (fortunes large in themselves and exaggerated by report), were held by many sufficiently to prove the truth of the charges.
The British Ministry, at that moment, contained no man of extraordinary talent, and its members were averse to any extensive views of civil polity: besides, they had their hands too full of American affairs, and of internecine quarrels, which ran very high, to leave them any wish to launch into the wide ocean of Indian concerns, of which, in common with all the rest of the nation, they were profoundly ignorant. At the same time, the progress of events made it necessary that something should be attempted. So early as May, 1771, the Ministers, who were aware that from no individual could so much and so sound information and advice be received as from Lord Clive, had shown a desire to confer with him. As he had always been a steady supporter of the politics of Mr. Grenville, who had long been in opposition, he was not then in habits of personal communication with any of the leading members of the Government. To obviate this difficulty recourse was had to Mr. Wedderburn, the Solicitor-General and Lord Clive's personal friend, who wrote him a letter[168], in which he observes, "There are no public news in town. We had a little mobbing last night[169], but not to any great excess. My neighbour, the Speaker, had his windows mauled exceedingly; but, by great good fortune, the gentlemen were so busy with his that they left mine untouched.
"Lord Rochford[170], a few days ago, desired that I would ask your Lordship if you would allow him to talk over Indian affairs with you. He says that it is his duty to bestow more attention than has hitherto been employed upon an object of the utmost consequence to the nation, and that he wishes to improve or to form his ideas from your conversation. I told him it was uncertain when you would return to town; but I was persuaded, your zeal for the public service would incline you to assist Government with your advice, whenever that subject was taken into serious consideration. I believe the answer was such as your Lordship would have wished me to make; and I must do him the justice to say, he held a very proper language upon the subject of India, and seemed to feel the importance of it."
Lord Clive, in his answer[171], observes, "I am happy to find Lord Rochford thinks so justly of the importance of our possessions in the East Indies; and yet in these times of (discord) and confusion, much, I fear, cannot be expected from his laudable endeavours to benefit the public by securing and improving our acquisitions in those parts. When I returned to England in the year 1767, my thoughts were much taken up with the flattering prospect of assisting Government to complete a work which I had only begun; and I intimated as much to the King in a private audience which I was honoured with soon after my arrival; but a tedious and severe illness prevented me from carrying my ideas into execution, and afforded me leisure for reflection. The result was, that I soon perceived that unless a settled administration, possessed of both resolution and power adequate to the object, undertook thoroughly to engage Parliament in the business, no material advantage could be obtained for the nation by any light I could give. After my recovery, I had many conversations with Mr. Grenville upon the subject, who, to the last, was of the same way of thinking. Mr. Strachey has, with the materials I have furnished him, undertaken that task; but I think he cannot complete the work in less than eighteen months. You are acquainted with my design of going to the Spa, and spending the next winter in Italy. I can only be in London a few days at the latter end of July. If that time should be convenient to Lord Rochford, and he will signify his pleasure by a few lines, I shall be ready to pay my respects to his Lordship, and give him all the verbal information in my power."
A severe return of ill health seems to have prevented Lord Clive from visiting the Spa, and, probably, from meeting Lord Rochford. But the continuation of unfavourable reports from India, and the approaching meeting of Parliament, made the Ministers more desirous than ever of some communication of opinions with him. The Solicitor-General accordingly wrote his Lordship the following letter:—
"My dear Lord,
"I have been confined to the house since my arrival in town, by a cold, till this morning, that I was obliged to go to Lord North's. As soon as the business which brought me to him was finished, he began upon the subject of the East Indies; to which, he said, the attention of Administration was now very seriously turned. He seemed to feel strongly the necessity of taking some steps immediately for the preservation of so important an object, and the difficulty of forming any proper measure for that purpose. From the tenor of the conversation it appeared to me that no idea had as yet presented itself that could be the foundation of any plan; and he expressed the strongest wish to receive that instruction upon the subject which your Lordship alone can give him. I took it upon me to say that your Lordship had never given any Administration reason to think that you would decline doing that service to the public, but that you had never been called upon; nor had it ever appeared to be an object of real attention to Government. He seemed very desirous that I should acquaint you how much it was now become the object of their most earnest attention, and that it would give him the utmost satisfaction to be able to form his own ideas upon yours. I did not undertake the commission with so much frankness as I should have done, if it had been only to go from Downing Street to Berkeley Square; and this evening I received the enclosed letter, which I was desired to convey to your Lordship.