Implying that the managers set out to ruin certain performers, including herself, Mrs. Clive accuses them of putting on "a better Face to the Town" by publishing (inaccurate) salary figures—a ploy to get public sanction for lower salaries. Mrs. Clive alludes to salaries published ostensibly by Fleetwood in the papers (e.g., Gentleman's Magazine, XIII, October 1743, 553), where the pay of such lights as Garrick, Macklin, Pritchard, and Clive in the 1742-1743 season is made to seem higher than the salaries of such worthies as Wilks, Betterton, Cibber, and Oldfield in the 1708-1709 season. The actors, in presenting their case (Gentleman's Magazine, XIII, November 1743, 609), hit at Fleetwood for citing 1708-1709 salaries, for "the Stage [then] both of Drury-Lane and the Hay-market, were in so wretched a Condition ... as not to be worth any body's Acceptance." The players use instead salaries of the 1729 players "to place the salaries of the present Actors in a true light," since the stage in that year flourished. In 1729, Wilks, the highest paid actor, earned more than his later equal, Garrick. All other principals' salaries were comparable.
The main complaint of Fleetwood's company, then, was not only base salary but the "Fallacy" of the manager's account and his "setting down besides the Manager's Charges, every benefit Night, what is got by the Actor's own private Interests in Money and Tickets, as also the Article of 50L for Cloaths, added to the Actresses Account, which is absolutely an Advantage to the Manager, as they always lay out considerably more." This evidence, if not in itself damning to Fleetwood's designs toward his actors, at least indicates the internecine breach at Drury Lane. (The inter-theater conflict, important for its effect on repertory and morale, is adequately examined in theater histories and lies outside my interests in this essay.)
Mrs. Clive admits, however, that reduced, unpaid, or "handled" salaries were not the first fear of the actors; it was instead, she says, the fear of what "would happen from an Agreement supposed to be concluded betwixt the two Managers, which made 'em apprehend, that if they submitted to act under such Agreements, they must be absolutely in the Managers Power." As the writer of The Case Between the Managers (p. 11) presents it, a conversation between a personified Covent Garden and Drury Lane would have gone like this: "Well, but, Brother Drury, we can manage that matter [how to keep audiences]—Suppose you and I make a Cartel; for instance, agree for every other Theatre, and oblige ourselves by this Cartel to reduce by near one half the Salaries of our principal Performers—I'gad, we may cramp 'em rarely this way—they must serve us at any rate we tax their Merit at, for they'll then have no where else to go to." Drury Lane responds, "D—n me, if that is not divinely thought—my dear Friend, give me a Kiss."
Late in the summer of 1743, several months before the salary figures described above, Garrick, Macklin, Clive, and Mrs. Pritchard among the principal players attempted to obtain another license to set up their own company in the Haymarket: shades of 1733. They applied to the Chamberlain Grafton—who denied it, in part perhaps because put out that Garrick commanded over L500 a year. There was no chance, therefore, to sidestep the monopoly effected by the licensing act. Leading the secession, Garrick agreed with his colleagues to stay out until redress was forthcoming. Redress did not come, the defectors lost, Fleetwood won. He starved them in not out, Garrick was persuaded to return to Drury Lane (which he does in early December, 1743) by the entreaties of several of the destitute seceded players who asked him to accede to Fleetwood's terms. As Garrick explains to Macklin (see note 2), he did so because he had the economic welfare of his fellow actors at heart. Macklin infuriated with him and Clive disappointed in him, both refused to accept Garrick's decision, and hence became renegade. Macklin, uninvited back by Fleetwood, admired Olive's decision to have no part in signing a petition presented to her by her fellow defectors who understood that the refusal of a separate license dissolved their bond. Macklin writes in his Reply to Mr. Garrick's Answer (p. 27) that "it ought to be known that when this Letter was carried to Mrs. Clive, and her Name to it desired, she had the Honour and Spirit to refuse, upon any Consideration, to be made so ridiculous a Tool to so base a Purpose."
Others were not so generous as Macklin. The author of The Disputes between the Director of D——y, and the Pit Potentates, one "B.Y.," champions the cause of the non-principal players against such as Mrs. Clive, "for the low-salary'd Players are always at the labouring Oar, and at constant Expence, while the rest are serv'd up once or twice in a Week each, as very fine Dishes," one of whom, he says, is Mrs. Clive, an "avaritious" person whom he is confident "has found, and feels, her Error by this Time."[[17]] The writer then details the particular hardships of Mrs. Roberts, Mrs. Horton, and Mr. Mills, hardships caused by such greedy principals as Clive. B.Y. obviously chose to ignore the compassion of Mrs. Clive for the low-salaried players expressed in her Case.
Evidence that Mrs. Clive was in no position to be avaricious and that a debilitating cartel in fact existed is found in her own essay. When the defected players returned to Drury Lane (except Macklin, whom Fleetwood considered the cause of the theater's troubles) late in 1743, Fleetwood offered Mrs. Clive a salary incompatible with her talent and lower than his previous "agreements" with her. Clive says, "They were such as I was advis'd not to accept, because it was known they were proposed for no reason but to insult me, and make me seek for better at the other Theatre; for I knew it had been settled, by some dark Agreement, that Part of the Actors were to go to Covent-Garden Theatre, and others to Drury-Lane."
Led to believe that she would find comfort and acceptance at Covent Garden based on previous encouragement by Rich to have her join his company,[[18]] Mrs. Clive realized that the dark agreement was a fact, for "When I apply'd to him, he offered me exactly the same which I had refused at the other Theatre." She managed a bit more salary, however, and out of necessity agreed to play. More rankling to Mrs. Clive than basic salary was her being forced to pay for her benefit. The extant Clive-Garrick correspondence points to the pride she took in not only a "clear" benefit but one held during that part of the month she dictated. As is the case with salary, the basis for this complaint was unreasonable manipulation by the managers, loss of freedom, and an unjustified break with tradition: "I had had one Mrs. Clive did not regularly play for Rich until December 1743, from which time she "determined to stay there," doing all in her power to please her audiences and him. Yet she "found, by his Behaviour to me, it was designed I should not continue with him." Clive's specific exposition of Rich's mistreatment of her is a portrait of an actress aware of her worth and of a manager at his worst. Fired from Covent Garden—against custom and justice—at the end of the season without being told, Mrs. Clive could not arrange to play in Ireland, where she was a great favorite,[[19]] for Rich's cheat did not become clear to her until summer was too far advanced. Clive says it all when she observes "it is unlawful to act any where but with them." Fleetwood was the only alternative for the next season, and he still owed her £160. 12s. At the time of Clive's Case (October, 1744) Fleetwood had not yet contacted her for engagement at Drury Lane even though he could not "but know I am disengag'd from the other Theatre." Nor could have Clive expected much of a salary from him even if he did call on her since the last season he offered her "not near half as much as he afterwards agreed to give another Performer, and less than he then gave to some others in his Company." Mrs. Clive could not but conclude that the managers were in league to distress her.[[20]] In the final third of her essay, Mrs. Clive presents a rather touching account of the personal costs of a piece of legislation which was itself manipulated and "interpreted in the narrow sense of forming the legal safeguard to the patent monopoly."[[21]] The "Ladies" who had promised their protection to Mrs. Clive obviously were influential in convincing Rich to re-hire her, for less than one month after the appearance of Clive's Case the Prince of Wales and his Princess sponsored at the Haymarket a concert for her benefit,[[22]] and her name is regularly listed in the Covent Garden playbills soon after. The absence of publicity from Mrs. Clive, or about her, suggests that her second short year at Covent Garden was fairly acceptable to all concerned, although Portia in The Merchant of Venice was hardly her forte. The next season finds her back at Drury Lane, where she reigns uncontested queen of comedy for more than twenty years. In addition to the return of Clive, the 1745-1746 season (one poor in attendance and new plays) at Drury Lane is noteworthy because of a reinstated Macklin, a de-throned Fleetwood, a new manager (Lacy), a well-balanced company soon to be augmented by player-manager Garrick, prospects for a bright future—and a theatrical monopoly stronger than ever.[[23]] In the latter regard Mrs. Clive's case is revealing in that it gives a new emphasis to the epithet His Majesties' Servants.[[24]]