To this statement Mr. Sulivan, of course, might give only such credit as he was disposed; but, as it happened, some account of the debate having appeared in the public newspapers, Dr. Campbell wrote to inform Lord Clive that he had found the sections mentioned by Mr. Sulivan, and was ready to deliver them to his Lordship's order. They were accordingly recovered next day, and immediately sent to the Court of Directors, and were found not to have the smallest reference to the jaghire.
But though Lord Clive had it in his power to meet and answer thus speedily these reflections upon his character, it is very evident that this good fortune was partly owing to accident; and that, in many similar instances, the most honourable and the most cautious of men might have found it altogether impossible to explain, at the moment, or at all, charges thus brought against them, at the distance of many years, when the minute circumstances had dropped from their memory, when documents had been mislaid or lost, or witnesses had fallen under the stroke of death. Several persons, whose acts were alluded to in the various reports, complained bitterly of this, as well as that the injury was not known till it had become in some measure irreparable by publication.
At length the storm which had so long been gathering against Lord Clive in the Select Committee, burst upon his head. The Committee had taken a historical view of the whole incidents, military and political, that had occurred in Bengal for seventeen years before; and Lord Clive and most of the chief agents who had been engaged in them had been repeatedly examined. Colonel Burgoyne, who, on the 8th and 21st of April, had brought up the Third and Fourth Reports of the Committee, called the attention of the House to them on the 10th of May[193], and, after alluding to the disagreeable situation in which he was placed, declared that the Reports contained an account of crimes shocking to human nature; that all the disasters that had befallen the Company and their affairs in the East could be traced back to the dethronement of Suraj-u-Dowlah, and the establishment of Meer Jaffier; a revolution, he said, effected by the blackest perfidy. He dwelt upon the circumstances of that event, in which Lord Clive took the leading part; the fictitious treaty by which Omichund was induced to desert his master; the forging, as he alleged, of Admiral Watson's name to that treaty, when the Admiral himself refused to subscribe it; the subsequent agreement with Meer Jaffier, and the immense sums received by the Select Committee of Calcutta, and others of the principal agents, under the name of presents or donations, but which, being, as he asserted, extorted by the influence of military force, did, like all acquisitions by treaty with foreign powers, of right belong to the State. He also attacked the proceedings of General Caillaud and others; and after expatiating on the enormities which the Reports had brought to light, he concluded by moving the following resolutions:—"1. That all acquisitions made under the influence of a military force, or by treaty with foreign Princes, do of right belong to the State. 2. That to appropriate acquisitions so made to the private emolument of persons entrusted with any civil or military power of the State, is illegal. 3. That very great sums of money and other valuable property have been acquired in Bengal, from Princes and others of that country, by persons entrusted with the military and civil powers of the State, by means of such powers, which sums of money and valuable property have been appropriated to the private use of such persons."
Colonel Burgoyne intimated to the House that, if these resolutions met with their approbation, he would not stop there, but would follow them up with vigour; and that his object was to compel such as had acquired sums of money in the way alluded to, to make full and complete restitution to the public.
The motion was seconded by Sir William Meredith; who said that there were only two possible ways to bring about a reformation in the East Indies,—the one by law, the other by example. That as to law, he could not comprehend how it was practicable to enforce laws made at such a distance: that the constitution of the present government of Bengal was defined to be a union of the sovereign and merchant; and that Mr. Vansittart explained what was the law by which these merchant-sovereigns exercised their supreme power: their rule of selling was to take as much as they pleased, while the rule by which they bought was to pay as little as they pleased. That the evils complained of were to be corrected not by law only, but by example; and deplored the stain brought upon the British name by the transactions which the Reports before the House disclosed.
Mr. Wedderburn answered, at considerable length, the principal assertions of the speakers that preceded him; and showed the incompetency of the evidence on which some of the facts rested, and the erroneous and unjust conclusions that had been drawn from others, so far as concerned Lord Clive. As to the forgery of Admiral Watson's name to the treaty with Omichund (he continued), it would be needless to analyse it, because the noble Lord has declared that, had it been necessary, he himself readily would have done it, and certainly done right in politics, to take that or any other means to destroy in an enemy so great a tyrant. He concluded by saying, that the resolutions before the House were founded in envy and illiberal principles; they were narrow, pointed at individuals, and neglecting future reformation, which ought to be the grand object of the inquiry; and above all, that there was in the Reports an indecision and defect of evidence that must render every thing done on their authority arbitrary and illegal. Mr. Attorney-General Thurlow defended the resolutions, and answered Mr. Wedderburn's speech.
In the course of the debate Lord Clive rose, and defended himself with great dignity and force. He pointed out the mistakes in matters of fact in the Reports, and in the speeches founded on them. He took a review of his own public life and services, and especially of that part of them that had been brought into question. He claimed the rewards and the honours bestowed on him as justly his due; lamented the abuse that had been made of the public press, and the mode resorted to of slandering the character of all orders of men without distinction: that for his part, he had been called villain, scoundrel, thief, murderer, assassin, &c.; but that he need not complain, as even Majesty itself had not escaped this implacable fury. What he regretted was the cause of virtue and public spirit, which must inevitably suffer, if this abuse was permitted to go unpunished; since the greatest inducement to men of superior talent to stand forth and distinguish themselves in their country's cause, was the hope of fair fame and just applause. Having explained the circumstances of the revolution, so far as he was concerned, and defended the legality of all the presents he had received, both in point of law and of justice, and alluded to the honours he had received for the very acts now questioned, he concluded by saying, "If the record of my services at the India House, if the defence I have twice made in this House, and if the approbation I have already met with, is not an answer to the attack that has been made upon me, I certainly can make none."
The two first resolutions passed without a division; and the third was also carried, though after some opposition.
Encouraged by this success, Colonel Burgoyne, on the 17th of May, prepared to bring home these general propositions to the individuals concerned; and, in the first place, pointed his charges against Lord Clive. He began by making some remarks on the invidious situation in which he was placed by the conscientious discharge of his duty. "The task of a public accuser was never a pleasing, but was sometimes a necessary one. Envy and malignity were the vices of little minds, and he disclaimed them. The House, in its movements, had only followed the cry of the public. Instances of rapacity and injustice had occurred in our Eastern possessions, that were known to all the world; an inordinate desire of wealth had had full play, and had led to transactions which had stigmatised those immediately concerned in them, and affected even the British name. That it was the duty of the House, as guardians of the nation's honour, to apply a remedy; and as the vice had been general, so must the punishment. It was a case in which no partial or limited censure would suffice to remove the evil, or to wipe off the stain from the country. The whole system on which the agents in the various revolutions had been remunerated, or rather had remunerated themselves, was most exceptionable and illegal. The first principle that he would lay down was, that it was impossible that any civil or military servant, in treating with a foreign Prince or State, could lawfully bargain for, or acquire, property for himself. This principle had uniformly been departed from in all the transactions which had been laid before the House. It would be necessary to point out who the persons were who had so acquired property, and the particular circumstances under which it had been acquired. Death had removed some of these persons, and their case would therefore be a matter of future consideration. That it was proper to consider the state of India at the time when the money was received. A mighty change had just taken place in that country, and in the Company's affairs. In the year 1757, when the English ascendancy was established, the Company was raised, as by the power of magic, from the situation of merchants to that of sovereign Princes, and, in their delirium, they at once forgot their charters; while their servants, become ministers, and rulers of the Governors of provinces and Princes, looked with contempt on the slow returns of trade and merchandise, since they saw before them a shorter and surer way to opulence. What was the consequence? The power thus placed in their hands was not tenderly employed. Revolution followed revolution; and, at each successive change, the treasures of the Prince were lavished to glut the rapacity of the agents by whom it was effected. At last, when the whole treasures of the Princes were exhausted, they did not stop short, but took possession of the country itself, at the same time that they retained the name of the puppet whom they set up, only to confound all ideas of right and justice. In the revolution of 1757, effected by Lord Clive, great stress had been laid on its necessity; but every succeeding revolution had been sustained on the same ground,—a ground that never would be wanting. It appeared that, by the treaty with Sujah-u-Dowlah, the Company were confirmed in all the privileges they had formerly enjoyed; the Company had their factories restored; and to individuals who had suffered, a compensation was made. Surely, in such circumstances, the Nabob had a right to expect to be able to preserve a state of neutrality among the different nations who had factories in his dominions; yet, on the breaking out of the war with France, it was thought proper to violate the treaty just concluded, by attacking Chandernagore. The Select Committee were not unanimous on this point. Becher was for neutrality, Drake had no opinion at all. The violent counsels of Clive prevailed. It was argued, that having gone so far we must go farther; that having established ourselves by force, we had made the Nabob our enemy, and that in consequence he must always be ready to join our enemies; and some circumstances of his conduct, said to indicate a hostile feeling, were pointed out. But, in fact, when we broke with him, and hurled him from his high eminence, Suraj-u-Dowlah had been guilty of no overt act of hostility; all that was alleged, were various suspicions that he meant to break the treaty." He detailed the circumstances attending the deposition of Meer Jaffier; the various sums received by Lord Clive, amounting to 2,080,000 rupees, or 234,000l. sterling; and contended that they were received contrary to justice and right.
He acknowledged that, in the Dutch affair, Lord Clive had shown perfect magnanimity and disinterestedness.