Rulers of India: Lord Clive by George Bruce Malleson (portable ebook reader .txt) 📕
Of India generally it is sufficient to say that from the year 1707, when the Emperor Aurangzeb died, authority had been relaxing to an extent which was rapidly bringing about the disruption of the bonds that held society together. The invasion of Nadír Sháh followed by the sack of Delhi in 1739 had given the Mughal dynasty a blow from which it never rallied. Thenceforward until 1761, when the third battle of Pánípat completed the catastrophe, the anarchy was almost universal. Authority was to the strongest. The Sallustian motto, 'Alieni appetens sui profusus,' was the rule of almost every noble; the agriculturists had everywhere abundant reason to realize 'that the buffalo was to the man who held the bludgeon.'[1]
[Footnote 1: Th
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Though not a supporter of the Bute Administration, Clive did not refrain from volunteering to it his advice when the preliminaries of peace between France and England were under discussion. Both Powers were resolved that the peace should extend to their possessions in India. Clive wrote therefore to Lord Bute suggesting the terms upon which, in his opinion, it was absolutely necessary for the safety of the East India Company he should insist. Prominent among these were (1) the absolute limitation of the number of troops the French might retain in Southern India, and (2) a prohibition to admit into Bengal Frenchmen other than those engaged in commercial enterprises. Lord Bute so far followed the advice as to induce the French to agree not to maintain troops either in Bengal or the Northern Sirkárs. But when he would go further, and, on the suggestion of Mr. Lawrence Sulivan, Chairman of the Court of Directors, make the recognition of certain native princes a clause in the projected treaty between the two Powers, Clive, with his habitual prescience, denounced the clause as fraught with consequences most disastrous to the position of England in India, and persuaded the Minister to withdraw it.
The gentleman above referred to, Mr. Lawrence Sulivan, had become, from pure motives of jealousy, one of the bitterest enemies of Clive. Sulivan had served in India without distinction, but had succeeded in amassing there a handsome fortune, and being a man of bold address and pushing manners, had become a Director of the Company. Whilst Clive was still in India Sulivan had professed the most unbounded admiration for him and his achievements, and, by thus professing, had obtained the support of the followers of Clive when he made a bid for the Chairmanship of the Court. This he secured, and, being a man of considerable self-assertion and determination, succeeded in becoming the dictator of the Council. Up to that time he had given his support to Clive, but no sooner did he hear of the departure of his hero for England, than, dreading the effect of his arrival upon his own influence, he had become his most bitter opponent. He it was who stimulated his colleagues to object to the donation of the jágír to Clive, mentioned in a previous page. The grounds to the objection were rather hinted at than expressed, for in those days the Court could not deny the right of the Súbahdár to bestow, or of Clive to accept, so handsome a gift. The real motive was to exclude Clive from a seat in the India House, and for a time Sulivan succeeded.
The hostility of Sulivan found an outcome in the progress of political affairs. Clive had voted against the Peace of Paris (February 10, 1763). Lord Bute, indignant at the opposition his measure encountered, had made his power felt by dismissing three dukes from their lord-lieutenancies, and he was very angry with Clive. He then sought and obtained the alliance of Sulivan to crush him. Up to that point Clive had remained quiescent; but at this new outrage he turned. Very shortly afterwards Sulivan came before the Court of Proprietors for re-election. To defeat him Clive had purchased a large amount of India Stock and divided it amongst his friends. At the show of hands there was a large majority against Sulivan, but when the ballot-box was appealed to the position was reversed, and Sulivan and his majority were returned. For the moment Clive's defeat was crushing, and he prepared to meet the consequences of it. His opponents did not delay to show their hands. Again was the question of the jágír mooted. The eminent counsel employed by Clive gave an opinion that the Court had no case. However, the Sulivan party persevered. Just on the eve of the trial, however, there came news from India which produced a revolution of opinion in the Court. The reports from Calcutta showed that the combined avarice, greed, misgovernment, and tyranny of the civil authorities left by Clive in Calcutta had produced a general uprising; had almost undone the great work Clive had accomplished; that there was no one on the spot who could be trusted to restore order; but that unless such a task were committed to a competent man, the possessions of the Company in Bengal would be in the greatest danger. This intelligence caused a panic in the India House. Instinctively the name of Clive came uppermost to every lip. The Proprietors were summoned to meet in full Court. Panic-stricken, they forced upon Clive the office, not merely of President, but of Governor-General, with very full powers. That their conduct regarding the jágír might not be pleaded by him as an objection to accept office, the Proprietors passed a resolution that the proceedings regarding the jágír should be stopped, and that the right of Clive to it should be officially recognized.
This was indeed a triumph. The policy, reculer pour mieux sauter, had been eminently justified. But Clive was as generous in victory as he had been great in defeat. He declined to profit by the enthusiasm of the Proprietors. Declaring that he had a proposal to make regarding the jágír, which he was confident the Court would accept, he proceeded to declare that it would be impossible for him to proceed to India leaving behind him a hostile Court and a hostile chairman; that at least the existing chairman must be changed. He carried the Proprietors with him, and measures were taken for a fresh election.
This election took place on the 25th of April, 1764. At it one-half of the candidates proposed by Sulivan were defeated, he himself being returned by a majority of one only. The chairman and deputy-chairman elected were both supporters of Clive. In the interval (March, 1764) Clive had been nominated Governor-General and Commander-in-chief of Bengal. To draw the fangs of the Council in Calcutta, four gentlemen were nominated to form with him a Select Committee authorized to act on their own authority, without reference to the Council.
One word, before the great man returns to the scenes of his triumphs, clothed with the fullest authority, regarding the instrument used by Mr. Sulivan and his friends to torture him. No sooner had the new Court been elected than Clive made to it his suggestion regarding the jágír. He proposed, and the Court agreed, that for a period of ten years, the company should pay to him the full amount of the jágír rents, unless he should die before, when the payments would cease; the ultimate disposal of the jágír to be made when the occasion should arise.
These matters having been settled, the officers to serve under him having been selected by himself, Clive, attended by two of the four members who had been appointed by the Court to accompany him, Messrs. Sumner and Sykes, embarked for Calcutta the 4th of June, 1764. Lady Clive did not go with him. She had to remain in England to superintend the education of her children.
Clive had chosen Mr. Vansittart to succeed him as President of the Council in Bengal because he believed he had recognized in him a man who would do all in his power to put down the growing system of venality and corruption. I have already shown how he had written to him before he quitted India. The words he had used were: 'The expected reinforcements will, in my opinion, put Bengal out of all danger but that of venality and corruption.' But Clive had not sufficiently considered that the very fact that the new President had been selected from Madras instead of from amongst the men who had served under his immediate orders was likely to cause jealousy among the latter; that Vansittart, notwithstanding his estimated lofty moral nature,1 had no strength of character; no such persuasive powers as could win men to his side; no pre-eminent abilities; no force of will, such as Clive himself would have displayed, to dominate or, in case of great emergency, to suspend a refractory colleague. He was but one of the herd, well-meaning, opposed in principle to the venality and corruption then in vogue, but, in every sense of the term, ordinary. Even with respect to the two vices he denounced, he was an untried and untempted man.
1 One anecdote will demonstrate the extent of the 'lofty moral nature' attributed by Clive to Mr. Vansittart. After Clive had been a year or so in England he wrote to Vansittart requesting him to select for him and despatch to him an elephant, as he wished to present one to the King. Vansittart chose and despatched the elephant for presentation to his Majesty, not as a gift from Clive, but as from himself.His capacity for rule was put to the test very soon after he had assumed the reins of office. Those reins had not, as I have said, been handed to him by Clive. He had taken them from Mr. Holwell at the very end of July (1760). In the interval an event had occurred which had changed the general position in Bengal. Five months after Clive had quitted Calcutta (July 2, 1760) Míran, the only son of the Súbahdár, Mír Jafar, was struck dead by lightning. The reader may recollect the passage in his letter to Mr. Pitt, wherein Clive referred to this young man. He had described him as 'so cruel, worthless a young fellow, and so apparently an enemy to the English, that it will be almost unsafe trusting him with the succession.' If another successor, with an unquestionable title, had been immediately available, the death of Míran would have been no calamity. But there was no such successor. The next son in order of succession had seen but thirteen summers. Outside of that boy and his younger brothers were many claimants, not one of them with an indefeasible title. Mír Jafar himself was older even than his years. It devolved then, with the tacit consent of the nobles, on the Council at Calcutta, to nominate the successor to Míran. Such was the state of affairs when Mr. Vansittart arrived, and took his seat as President of the Council.
It happened that there were in Bengal at this time two officers who had rendered conspicuous service to the State, Majors Calliaud and Knox. During the very month in which Clive had quitted Calcutta, these officers had marched with such English troops and sipáhís as were available, to assist in the repelling of an invasion made by the titular King of Delhi, prompted, it was believed, by Míran, and had repulsed, with great loss to the enemy, an attempt made to storm the city of Patná. Vansittart, who knew Calliaud well alike as a friend and as a man trusted by Clive, summoned him to attend the Council upon the deliberations of which the future of Bengal depended. The discussions were long and somewhat heated. The party in the Council which represented most accurately the opinions of Clive, as rendered in his letter to Mr. Pitt, already referred to,2 was of opinion that whilst Mír Jafar should be allowed to reign during the remainder of his life, opportunity should be taken of his death to transfer the direct administration to the English. If this opportunity had been taken to carry out some such policy it is probable that the evils which followed would have been avoided.
2 Clive's letter had been written during the life of Míran. After detailing his character and the growing infirmities of Mír Jafar, he had added: 'so small a body as 2000 Europeans will secure us against any apprehensions from either the one or the other; and, in case of their daring
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