Rulers of India: Lord Clive Part 8

Our admiration for him at this epoch of his career will be the greater when we realize that the administrative reforms I have mentioned were only a part of the duties which devolved upon him.

Simultaneously with the dealing with them he had to devote his time and attention to other matters of the first importance. To the consideration of these I shall ask the reader's attention in the next chapter.

{171}

CHAPTER XIV THE POLITICAL AND FOREIGN POLICY OF LORD CLIVE: HIS ARMY-ADMINISTRATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES

On the 25th of June Clive started on his tour northward. His presence was urgently needed on the frontier, for he had to deal with two humiliated princes, the Nawab-Wazir of Oudh, and the actual inheritor of the empire of the Mughal, Shah Alim, now a houseless fugitive, his capital occupied by the Afghans, possessing no resources but such as might accrue from the t.i.tle which he bore.

At Murs.h.i.+dabad, which he took on his way upwards, Clive had to settle with the young Subahdar the system which it would be inc.u.mbent upon him to introduce into the three provinces, as governor under the over-lords.h.i.+p of the English. The positions of the native ruler and the western foreigner had become completely inverted since the period, only nine years distant, when Siraj-ud-daula marched against Calcutta to expel thence those who were his va.s.sals. The system to be imposed now on the Subahdar provided that he should become a {172}Nawab-n.a.z.im, responsible for the peace and for the maintenance of public order in the three provinces, for the administration of justice, and for the enforcing of obedience to the law; that there should be a Diwan, or chief minister, empowered to collect the yearly revenue of the provinces, responsible for all disburs.e.m.e.nts, and for the payment of the surplus into the Imperial treasury. This system had prevailed in the time of the Emperor Aurangzeb. But there was this important difference. In Clive's scheme, whilst Nujm-ud-daula would be Nawab-n.a.z.im, the East India Company would occupy, from that time forth and for ever, the position of Diwan; and the Imperial treasury would be the treasury of the Company. The scheme was agreed to by the young Nawab and his surroundings. But in working it, one part was found to place a power that would be abused in the hands of the Nawab-n.a.z.im. Accordingly, a few months later, that prince was relieved of the responsibility for the maintenance of the public peace, for the administration of justice, and for the enforcing of obedience to the law. In a word, the Company became the rulers of the three provinces, the Nawab-n.a.z.im a cypher. Nay, more, the sum of money which the Nawab-n.a.z.im was to have at his disposal was limited to fifty-three lakhs of rupees; from this he was to defray the entire expenses of his court. Was it for such a result, might the shade of Mir Jafar inquire, that the n.o.bles of the three provinces combined to betray Siraj-ud-daula?

{173}After having thus settled the affairs of the Company at Murs.h.i.+dabad, Clive proceeded by way of Patna to Benares, to meet there his friend General Carnac and the suppliant Nawab-Wazir of Oudh. This interview was, in the eyes of Clive, likely to be fraught with the most important consequences, for he was bent on the securing of a frontier for the English possessions such as would offer the best points of defence against invasion; for, in his view, it was to be permanent.

It ought not to be attributed as a great political fault to Clive that his mind had not realized the fact that to maintain it is often necessary to advance. In a word, it would be most unfair to judge the action of 1765-6 by the lights of the experience of the century which followed. Up to the year 1757 the unwarlike inhabitants of Bengal had been the prey of the Mughal or the Maratha. But in 1765, so far as could be judged, neither was to be feared. The Maratha power had suffered in 1761, on the field of Panipat, near Delhi, one of the most crus.h.i.+ng defeats ever inflicted on a people, and Clive had no power of divining that the genius of a young member of one of their ruling families, who escaped wounded from the field, would, in a few years, raise the Maratha power to more than its pristine greatness.

As for the Mughal, his power was gone for ever; the representative prince was at the very moment a fugitive at Allahabad, not possessed of a stiver. What was there to be feared from him or from his family?

In the {174}three provinces the English possessed the richest parts of India. It was surely good policy, he argued, if he could by treaty with his neighbours, and by occupying the salient points which covered them, render them una.s.sailable.

After some preliminary conversation with the Nawab-Wazir, Clive found that it would be necessary to proceed to Allahabad to confer there with the t.i.tular emperor, Shah Alim. He found that prince full of ideas as to the possibility of recovering with the aid of Clive his lost possessions in the north-west. Nothing was further from Clive's mind than an enterprise of that character, and, with his accustomed tact he soon convinced the two princes that it was necessary first to settle the English frontier before discussing any other subject. He then proceeded to develop his plan. He demanded the cession of the fortress of Chanar to the English; the provinces of Karra and Allahabad to the Emperor, to be held, on his behalf, by the English; the payment by the Nawab-Wazir of fifty lakhs, for the expenses of the war just concluded; an engagement from him never to employ or give protection to Mir Kasim or to Samru; permission to the East India Company to trade throughout his dominions, and to establish factories within them. The Nawab-Wazir agreed to every clause except to that regarding the factories. He had observed, he stated, that whenever the English established a footing in a country, even though it were only by means of a commercial {175}factory, they never budged from it; their countrymen followed them; and in the end they became masters of the place. He then pointed out how, in nine years, the small factory of Calcutta had absorbed the three provinces, and was now engaged in swallowing up places beyond their border. He would not, he finally declared, submit his dominions to the same chance.

Recognizing his earnestness, and having really no desire to plant factories in Oudh, Clive wisely gave way on that one point. He carried, however, all the other points. It was further arranged that the Zamindar of Benares, who had befriended the English during the war, should retain his possessions in subordination to the Nawab-Wazir; that a treaty of mutual support should be signed between the English, the Nawab-Wazir, and the Subahdar of the three provinces; and that should English troops be required to fight for the defence of the Nawab-Wazir's country, he should defray all their expenses.

Subsequently at Chapra, in Bihar, Clive met the Nawab-Wazir, the representative of Shah Alim, agents from the Jat chiefs of Agra, and others from the Rohilla chiefs of Rohilkhand. The avowed purpose of the meeting was to form a league against Maratha aggression, it having been recently discovered that that people had entered into communications with Shah Alim for the purpose of restoring him to his throne. Then it was that the question of the English frontier was discussed. It was eventually agreed that one {176}entire brigade should occupy Allahabad, to protect that place and the adjoining district of Karra;[1] that a strong detachment of the second brigade should occupy Chanar; two battalions Benares; and one Lucknow. On his side the Emperor granted firmans bestowing the three provinces upon the East India Company 'as a free gift without the a.s.sociation of any other person,' subject to an annual payment to himself and successors of twenty-six lakhs of rupees, and to the condition that the Company should maintain an army for their defence.

[Footnote 1: Karra was a very important division and city in the time of the Mughals, and is repeatedly referred to by the native historians whose records appear in Sir H. Elliot's history. See vols.

ii, iii, iv, v and viii. The city is now in ruins.]

On the 19th of May following the Subahdar of the three provinces died. The arrangements made by Clive had deprived the position of all political importance. The individuality of the person holding that once important office was therefore of little importance. The next heir, a brother, naturally succeeded. The only change made on the occasion was the reduction of the allowance for all the expenses of the office from fifty-three to forty-one lakhs of rupees.

On one point Clive continued firm. Although, practically, the English had now become the masters of the three provinces, the Subahdar only the show-figure, he insisted that the former should still remain in the background. The revenue was still to be collected in {177}the name, and nominally on behalf of the native prince. The utmost he would permit in a contrary direction was to appoint English supervisors, to see that the native collectors did their duty. Beyond that he would not go. In the eyes of the world of India the three provinces were to continue a _Subah_, administered by a Subahdar. The control of the English was to remain a matter for arrangement with the actual ruler, their real power only to be prominently used when occasion might require, and then, likewise, in the name of the Subahdar.

We have fortunately from his own hand the principles which guided him, and which he hoped would guide his successors, in their relations to the other powers of India. In a State paper[2] written before his departure, he thus expressed his views: 'Our possessions should be bounded by the provinces.' 'We should studiously maintain peace; it is the groundwork of our prosperity. Never consent to act offensively against any Powers except in defence of our own, the King's, or the Nawab-Wazir's dominions, as stipulated by treaty; and, above all things, be a.s.sured that a march to Delhi would be not only a vain and fruitless project, but attended with destruction to your own army, and perhaps put a period to the very being of the Company in Bengal.' In a word, to borrow the criticism of the author from whose work I have quoted, 'the English were to lie snugly {178}ensconced in the three provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa.

The frontier of Oudh was to form a permanent barrier against all further progress.' Such a policy might commend itself to the theorist, but it was not fitted for the rough throes of an empire in dissolution, its several parts disputed by adventurers. Within a single decade it was blown to the winds.[3]

[Footnote 2: _Early Records of British India_, by Talboys Wheeler. In this interesting work the paper quoted from is given _in extenso_.]

[Footnote 3: Wheeler.]

There is one subject upon which it becomes me to touch slightly before considering the army administration. During one of his visits to Murs.h.i.+dabad it was discovered that, in his will, the late Subahdar, Mir Jafar, had bequeathed five lakhs of rupees to Clive.

The discovery was made after Clive, in common with the other servants of the Company, had bound himself not to accept any presents from natives of India. He could not therefore take the legacy himself. But the money was there--practically to be disposed of as he might direct. He resolved, with the approval of his Council, to const.i.tute with it a fund for the relief of the officers and men of the Company's army who might be disabled by wounds or by the climate.

Thus was formed the inst.i.tution which, under the t.i.tle of 'Lord Clive's Fund,' served to bring help and consolation to many poor and deserving servants of the Company for nearly a century. By a strange freak of fortune this fund reverted, in 1858, on the transfer of India to the Crown, to the descendants of the very man who could not, or believed he could not, accept it, when bequeathed to him, for himself.

{179}Whilst dealing with the internal administration of the country, and arranging for the protection of its frontier, Clive had not been unmindful of the other duty strongly impressed upon him by the Court of Directors, that of examining the pay and allowances of their military officers, with special reference to an allowance known as Batta. Batta, in a military sense, represented the extra sum or allowance granted to soldiers when on field duty. Practically it had been granted on the following principle. Officers had been allowed a fixed monthly pay and allowances, not including batta, when they were serving in garrison. When they took the field they drew an extra sum as batta, known as full batta; but when they were detached to an out-station, not being actually in the field, they drew only half that amount, which was called half-batta. After the battle of Pla.s.sey, Mir Jafar, in the profusion of his grat.i.tude, had bestowed upon the officers an additional sum equal to full batta. This was called 'double batta,' and as long as the army was in the field, fighting for the interests of that chief, he continued, with the sanction of the Council of Calcutta, to disburse that allowance. Mir Kasim, on his succession, had expressed his intention to continue this payment, and had a.s.signed to the Company, for that purpose amongst others, the revenues of three districts. But the Court of Directors, not fully realizing that the transaction with Mir Kasim was one eminently advantageous to themselves, and forgetting that the receipt of the revenues of the three provinces {180}was accompanied by an obligation, chose to forget the latter point, and accepting the revenues, issued peremptory orders to discontinue the disburs.e.m.e.nt of double batta. This order seemed so unjust that the then Council of Calcutta (1762), on receiving it, went thoroughly into the question, and, in a despatch to the Court, submitted the case for the officers in the strongest terms. The reply of the Court adds one proof to many of the unfitness of men not belonging to the ruling cla.s.s to exercise supreme authority. The Directors refused the prayer of their servants on grounds which, by no artifice of despatch-writing, could be made to apply to the circ.u.mstances of the case.

That reply was dated the 9th of March, 1763. Just one month earlier the Calcutta Council had appointed a Special Committee on the spot to examine and report upon the question. But before the Committee could complete its inquiries there broke out that war with Mir Kasim, which called for the extraordinary exertions of the cla.s.s whose claims were under examination. The services of Majors Adams and Carnac, two of the members of the Committee, were required in the field, and it was by the splendid exertions of the former and his officers that the Company was rescued from imminent peril. The inquiry dropped during the war.

But although the splendid exertions of the officers saved British interests in 1763, the Court of Directors did not the less persist in resolving to curtail their {181}allowances. On the 1st of June, 1764, whilst the army, having conquered Mir Kasim, stood opposed to the forces of the Nawab-Wazir of Oudh, they despatched the most precise orders that the allowance of double batta should be discontinued from the date of the receipt of their order. Probably the Court of Directors was the only ruling body in the world which would have dared to issue an order greatly curtailing allowances to an army in the field, opposed to greatly superior forces whose triumph would mean destruction to the Company. But this is but one instance of the dogged incapacity to rule with which the history of the Court of Directors abounds.

When the despatch reached India the army had but just gained the b.l.o.o.d.y and decisive battle of Baksar. The Calcutta Council dared not, at such a moment, carry out the orders of the Court. There were other reasons for delay. Lord Clive was on his way from England, and to him, probably, special instructions had been given.

We have seen the course which Lord Clive pursued with reference to the other branches of the administration. It was the end of the year 1765 before he touched the army. Then he issued instructions that from the 1st of January, 1766, the double batta should be withdrawn, except as regarded the second brigade, then stationed at Allahabad.

This brigade, on account of the high prices of provisions at the station, and the expense of procuring the necessary supplies from Europe, was to be allowed double batta in the field, {182}and the old original single batta in cantonments or in garrison, until it should be recalled within the provinces. This rule was to be applied to all troops beyond the Karmnasa. Clive directed further that the rest of the army should receive single batta when marching or in the field, and half single batta when in cantonment or in garrison, as at Mungir or Patna; but when at Calcutta or within the Presidency division the officers would receive no batta at all, but free quarters in lieu of it.

The order was badly received by the officers. They had enjoyed the privilege of double batta and its accessories so long that they had come to regard such allowances as their right by prescription. They at once memorialized the Government with a view to obtain a modification. But the reply Clive invariably gave them was to the effect that the orders of the Court had left him no option in the matter. Driven into a corner, their regard for their interests got the better of their sense of discipline. The officers of the several brigades and regiments entered into a correspondence with one another, formed committees, and decided to wrench by force the rights, as they deemed them, of which the order of the Court had deprived them. In a word, the European army of India, officers and men--for the men were prepared to follow the lead of the officers--combined against the Government.

s.p.a.ce will not permit me, nor is it requisite, that I should detail the measures they adopted to bend the {183}Government to their will.

It must suffice to state that the mutiny was of a most formidable character. So complete was the organization of the conspiring officers, so well laid were their plans, so secret had been their measures, that, during the period of four months the organization was in progress, not a single whisper of it had reached the Government.

Clive received the first intimation of it when he was officially informed of it by the commander of the first brigade--a man who sympathized with the movement and desired its success. At the moment the conspirators were ready for action. That they possessed the sympathy of the members of the Civil Service was shown by the fact that the latter subscribed 140,000 rupees to aid the movement, and supplied the conspirators with copies of the proceedings of the Government.

Formidable as was the situation no living man was so well qualified to deal with it as was Clive. In the hour of danger he soared above his fellows. The danger here was greater than the danger of Arcot; than at the surprises of Kaveripak and of Samiaveram; than during the hour of doubt at Pla.s.sey. His opponents were his own men--men whom he had led to victory. They possessed all the fortified places, the guns, the material of war. From the frontier came rumours of the advance of a Maratha army, 60,000 strong, to wrest Allahabad and Karra from his hand. But there he was, the same cool, patient, defiant man he had been when confronted by the bayonets of the {184}French at Kaveripak and Samiaveram. He knew that the Government he represented was in the most imminent danger, that if the mutineers should move forward, he had not the means to oppose them.

The manner in which Clive met this danger is a lesson for all time.

Not for an instant did he quail. Never was he more resolved to carry out the orders he had issued regarding batta than when he was told, that, in the presence of the enemy on the frontier, the officers would resign their commissions if the order were not withdrawn.

For the moment, fortunately, the conspirators had resolved to await his action. He, then, would take the initiative. On the very day when he received the report of the existence of the conspiracy he formed a committee, composed of himself, General Carnac, and Mr. Sykes, to carry out the plan of action he had formed. First, he and they resolved to send immediately to Madras for officers. Then they pa.s.sed a resolution declaring that any officer resigning his commission should be debarred from serving the Company in any capacity, and sent copies of it to the several brigades for distribution to all concerned. Clive then hurried to Murs.h.i.+dabad; he addressed the recalcitrant officers stationed there; spoke to them in terms firm, yet conciliatory; told them they were acting very wrongly and very foolishly; that they were infringing the very discipline which they knew to be the mainstay of an army; that although immediate success might be theirs, they must be beaten {185}in the long run; that such conduct could only be pardoned on condition of immediate submission.

Touched by the language of the man who had been to them an object of veneration, all the officers, two young lieutenants excepted, hesitated--then submitted absolutely. This success was followed by similar results at the other stations in the Presidency division, visited by Carnac and Sykes. In that division only two captains and a lieutenant continued recalcitrant.

There remained then only the important centres of Mungir, Bankipur (Patna), and Allahabad, the officers stationed there being bound to each other by the most solemn engagements. At the first-named of these places the Commandant was Sir Robert Fletcher, himself a well-wisher to the plot. When the officers there simultaneously tendered their resignation, agreeing to serve for fifteen days longer without pay, Fletcher received them with sympathy, and told them he would forward their letter to headquarters. At Bankipur, then the military cantonment of Patna, the commandant, Sir R. Barker, one of the superior officers who had accompanied Clive from England, acted far differently. Before replying, he communicated with Lord Clive, then at Murs.h.i.+dabad, and received from him instructions to place under arrest every officer whose conduct should seem to him to come under the construction of mutiny, and to detain such at Bankipur until it might be possible to convene a general court-martial to try them. To render {186}complete the necessary numbers of field-officers Clive promoted on the spot two officers known to be loyal. The Bankipur officers followed, nevertheless, the conduct of their comrades at Mungir, and resigned in a body. Barker not only declined to accept those resignations, but arrested four of the ringleaders, and despatched them by water to Calcutta. This bold action paralyzed the recalcitrants, and followed up as it was by the journey of Clive to Mungir, accompanied by some officers who had come round from Madras, it dealt a blow to the mutineers from which they never completely rallied.

But at Allahabad the danger was still more menacing. There and at the station of Surajpur, only two officers, Colonel Smith, and a Major of the same name, were absolutely untainted: four were but slightly so, and could be depended upon to act with the Smiths in an emergency; all the others had pledged themselves to 'the cause.' Those of the latter stationed at Allahabad displayed their disaffection in the usual manner, whereupon Major Smith, commanding there, calling on the sipahis to support him, placed under arrest every officer in the place, the four slightly tainted officers excepted. He then informed the mutinous officers that he would shoot down without mercy any and every officer who should break his arrest. This action was most effective. All the officers but six submitted and were allowed to return to duty. The six were deported to Patna, to be tried there. A similar course was followed by Colonel Smith at {187}Surajpur, with the result, however, that nearly one half of the officers remained recalcitrant, and were despatched under arrest to Calcutta.

Meanwhile, at Mungir, the officers continued in a thorough state of disorganization, the commander, Sir Robert Fletcher, encouraging them. The day before Clive's arrival, an officer whom he had sent in advance, Colonel Champion, surprising the officers in full conclave, learned from them that they desired to recount their grievances to Clive in person. On learning this Clive directed them to parade with their men the following morning, giving directions simultaneously to Champion, to bring to the ground two battalions of sipahis, under the command of Captain F. Smith, an officer known to be loyal. Then a very curious circ.u.mstance happened. Smith had but just entered the fort with his sipahis when he noticed that the Europeans, infantry and artillery, were turning out to mutiny. Without a moment's hesitation he marched towards them with his sipahis; seized, by a bold strategic movement, a mound which was the key of the position, completely dominating the ground on which the Europeans were drawn up. The latter, who were on the point of quitting the fort, noting the commanding position occupied by the sipahis, halted and hesitated. Smith took advantage of the pause thus caused to tell them that unless they should retire instantly to their barracks he would fire upon them. At the moment Sir R. Fletcher came up, began to encourage the revolters, and to distribute {188}money amongst them; suddenly, however, taking in the exact position, he changed his tone, ordered the recalcitrant officers to leave the fort within two hours, and reported the whole circ.u.mstance to Lord Clive. The officers left at once, and the incident closed for the day; but when, the following morning, Clive entered the fort, and addressed the a.s.sembled soldiers on the wickedness of their conduct, praised and rewarded the sipahis for their behaviour, the men gave way. The mutiny, as far as Mungir was concerned, was over. Meanwhile the officers expelled by Fletcher had encamped within a short distance of Mungir, resolved to wait there the arrival of their comrades from other stations. But they had to deal with a man who would stand no trifling. Clive despatched to them an order to set out forthwith for Calcutta; and to quicken their movements he sent a detachment of sipahis to see that his order was obeyed. After that there was no more mutiny at Mungir, or in the stations dependent upon it.

At Bankipur the officers, notwithstanding the action of Sir R.

Barker, previously noted, had sent their commissions _en bloc_ to Lord Clive. But the news of the occurrences at Mungir startled and frightened them. When, then, Lord Clive arrived at Patna, he found the officers penitent and humble, and that his only task was to pardon. There, too, he learned with pleasure the successful action of the two Smiths at Allahabad and Surajpur. He remained then at Patna, to crush the last embers of the mutiny, and to arrange {189}for the bringing to justice of the ringleaders. This last task he performed in a manner which tempered justice with mercy. Fletcher, who had played a double part, and whose actions were prompted by personal greed, was brought to a court-martial and cas.h.i.+ered. Five other officers were deported, but of these, one, John Neville Parker, was reinstated in 1769, and survived to render glorious service to the Company, giving his life for his masters in 1781.

The comparative ease with which Clive suppressed this formidable conspiracy was due to one cause alone. No sooner did Clive hear of the combination than, instead of waiting to be attacked, he seized the initiative: the mutineers allowed him to strike the first blow; standing on the defensive in their isolated positions, they gave the opportunity to Clive to destroy them in detail. It was the action which Napoleon employed against the Austrians in 1796, 1805, and in 1809. It is useless to speculate what might have been the result if Clive had stood, as the majority of men would have stood, on the defensive. By the opposite course he not only saved the situation, but achieving a very decisive victory, struck a blow at insubordination which gave an altered tone to the officers of the army, then as much hankering after unG.o.dly pelf as were their brethren in the Civil Service. Never, throughout his glorious career as a soldier, did Clive's character and his conduct stand higher than when, in dealing out punishment for the {190}mutiny which he, and he alone, had suppressed, he remembered the former services of the soldiers who had been led away, and gave them all, a few incorrigibles excepted, the opportunity to retrieve their characters on future fields of battle.

The task of Clive in India had now been accomplished. Thoroughly had he carried through the mission entrusted to him. He had cleansed, as far as was possible, the Augean stable. He had given himself no recreation: he was completely worn out. He had announced to the Court of Directors so far back as 1765 his intention to resign as soon as he could do so without inconvenience to the public interests. The Court, in reply, whilst most handsomely acknowledging his services, had begged him to devote yet one year to India. When that letter reached him, December 1766, he had already accomplished all that, with the means and powers at his disposal, it was possible to carry through. He felt then that, broken in health, he might retire with honour from the country he had won for England. Having penned a valuable minute, laying down the principles which should guide the policy of his successor, based upon his own action during the preceding three years, he made over to one of his colleagues of the Select Committee, Mr. Verelst,[4] the office of Governor, and nominating Colonel Richard Smith, then on the frontier, to {191}be Commander-in-chief, Mr. Sykes, Mr. Carter, and Mr. Beecher, to form, with the Governor, the Select Committee, he bade farewell to his friends, and, on the 29th of January, 1767, embarked on board the good s.h.i.+p _Britannia_ for England.

[Footnote 4: Mr. Sumner, whose weak character I have described, and who had been designated Lord Clive's successor, had been forced to resign his seat on the Select Committee.]

{192}

CHAPTER XV THE RETURN OF THE CONQUEROR-STATESMAN, AND THE RECEPTION ACCORDED TO HIM BY HIS COUNTRYMEN: HIS STRUGGLES; AND HIS DEATH

One of the ablest and most impartial of English historians, the fifth Earl Stanhope, has thus summed up his appreciation of the results of the second administration of Clive in India: 'On the whole it may be said that his second command was not less important for reform than his first had been for conquest. By this the foundations, at least, of good government were securely laid. And the results would have been greater still could Clive have remained longer at his post.' It was impossible he could remain. In December, 1766, his weakness was so great as to disable him from writing. He required rest, and as we have seen he embarked for England at the close of the month following, to find there, alas! no rest, but, on the contrary, the bitterest, the most persistent, the most unscrupulous enemies; their attacks prompted by the corrupt officials whom he had driven from the posts they had abused, and who were able, nevertheless, to enlist in their vile {193}persecution statesmen of great renown holding high office under the Crown.

It is a pitiful tale, this persecution of a man who had rendered the most magnificent services to his country. The one blot minute investigation had been able to find in his career was the treatment of Aminchand. But Aminchand was a blackmailer who had threatened to betray a state-secret of enormous importance unless he were paid a sum out of all proportion to the services he rendered. Such a man deserves no commiseration. His treachery, if Clive had refused to subscribe to his terms, would have involved the death of thousands, and might have driven the English out of Bengal. Clive fought him with the same Asiatic weapon Aminchand had levelled against himself, and beat him. That his action was wrong in morals, unworthy of his lofty nature, is unquestionable. But it is not so certain that, under similar pressure, in circ.u.mstances so critical, those who most bitterly denounced him would have acted otherwise. Some writers have averred, and until recently it has been accepted, that the deceit drove Aminchand to madness. But inquiry has dissipated this fiction.

He was, it is true, startled into insensibility by the discovery of the fact that he had been imposed upon, but, after visiting the shrine of a famous saint in Malwa, he returned to his business in Calcutta and prospered till his death. As to the other part of the same transaction, the signing of the name of Admiral Watson, Clive stated on oath, in his evidence {194}before the House of Commons, that although the admiral had refused to sign the doc.u.ment, he had, to the best of his belief, permitted Mr. Lus.h.i.+ngton to affix his name; and certainly amongst those who benefited by the transaction was Admiral Watson himself, who, after the triumph of the conspirators, claimed even more than he received. But it was on these two points that the miscreants whom Clive, in his second administration, had driven from the posts they had sullied, and their allies, based a persecution which tortured the enfeebled frame of the conqueror.

Clive's real fault in the eyes of the leaders of the persecution was that he had become rich himself, and had prevented them from fattening on the plunder of the country he had conquered. To most men, in fact to all but a very few men, in England and in France, India was a _terra incognita_ whither a certain few repaired young, and whence they returned, in the prime of their manhood, rich, and often with a great reputation. Why was it that such men were at once subjected to the vilest persecution? The fact that they were so is incontestable. Clive himself and Warren Hastings, whose reputation has recently been splendidly vindicated by two great Englishmen,[1]

are cases in point in England; Dupleix and La Bourdonnais and Lally, in France. It is the saddest of sad stories; the men who had rendered the most brilliant {195}services to their respective countries finding their bitterest enemies often amongst the Ministers of the Crown. There is little to discriminate between the conduct of parliamentary England and despotic France except in the degree of misery and punishment to which they alike subjected the most ill.u.s.trious of their countrymen who had served in India.

[Footnote 1: Sir Fitzjames Stephen in the case of Nanda-k.u.mar: Sir John Strachey in reference to the charges respecting Oudh and Rohilkhand.]