Chapter XXVII: Part III: The Modern Age (3)

Monsieur Godeheu was peaceful, painstaking, praiseworthy. He produced an ill-considered but plausible treaty which rather knocked the wind out of Clive's sails when he returned to Bombay in 1755 with Admiral Watson's fleet, fully prepared to attack the Dekkan from the north. He had to content himself with a campaign against the pirate-king of Anghria, in the course of which a momentous quarrel arose between the English and their Mahratta allies. The latter claimed a share of the plunder, the former refused it, asserting with righteous indignation that deliberate treachery had been proved up to the hilt against their so-called allies, and that consequently they were entitled to nothing. A sordid quarrel at best, which bore bitter fruit in years to come.

From this, Clive sailed to take up command at Madras, where he was met by disastrous news from Calcutta.

Surâj-ud-daula, Nawâb of Bengal, had seized on it, suffocated a hundred and twenty-three of its inhabitants--many of them men in the best positions--in the Black Hole, and had returned to Murshidabad, whence he had issued orders for the destruction and confiscation of all English property in his dominions. Such was the ineptitude of England at that time in India, that two whole months elapsed ere Clive, in a fever of impatience, was allowed to start for retaliation.

While we can imagine him fretting and fuming, we shall have time for a glance back to see who Surâj-ud-daula was, and what was the cause of his action.

Ali-Verdi-Khân, who, it will be remembered, had ceded Orissa to the Mahrattas, had also snatched the Nawâbship from his master's son; a graceless youth, it must be admitted, while Ali-Verdi-Khân himself was, despite many horrid acts, a fairly just ruler. During his lifetime the English had no complaint; but at his death he committed a gross injustice on every soul in his dominions by appointing as his heir his grandson Surâj-ud-daula, a perfectly infamous young man. No one, apparently, had a good word to say for him, except those amongst whom he spent a vicious, depraved life.

His aunt, Ghasîta Begum, at any rate, nourished no illusions concerning him, and being an ambitious woman, anxious to preserve her great fortune for future occasions of conspiracy, took immediate precautions while Ali-Verdi lay dying against any confiscation of her treasures. She employed one Kishen-dâs, a pretended pilgrim to Juggernath, to carry them off in boats down the Ganges. Once on the river, Kishen steered, not for the sea, but for Calcutta. It is difficult to say whether the Governor and Council knew what they were harbouring, but the fact remains that the treasures sought and found British protection, one Omichand, a Hindu merchant, giving Kishen-dâs hospitality.

Surâj-ud-daula took the business very badly. He made a scene at his grandfather's death-bed, and accused the English of siding with the faction that was against his succession. Yet, when that succession was an accomplished fact, and the English agent appeared at his audience to apologise in set terms for a so-called mistake in turning away, as an impostor, from Calcutta, a spy who asserted he bore a letter from Surâj-ud-daula, the latter kept a calm countenance and said negligently that he had forgotten the incident. And yet it was no slight one; for there is little doubt that the Council were not quite satisfied with its own action.

The Nawâb, however, was biding his time, and he soon found it. War was on the point of breaking out once more in Europe between France and England, and orders were, in consequence, sent out by the Directors of the Company to overhaul fortifications. Repairs were at once commenced. This was Surâj-ud-daula's opportunity. He first sent a haughty enquiry as to why, without leave, the English were building a new wall, and, pretending that the reply given was inadequate, followed up his first communication by marching to Kossimbazaar with his army, sending for Mr Watts the Governor, and with threats forcing him to sign an engagement to destroy, within fifteen days, all new works which had been begun at Calcutta, deliver up all the Nawâb's subjects he might call for, and refund any sums the Nawâb might have lost by passports of trade having been illegally granted.

Now, in dealing with these Indian disputes it is notoriously difficult to read through the written lines of the formulated plaint and counter-plaint, and reach the palimpsest below; that palimpsest of fine, complicated motive which invariably underlies the simplest plea, which makes even a petty debt case in India like an English A. B. C. scrawled over a Babylonian brick, covered closely with fly-foot stipplings. But here the stipulation regarding the Nawâb's subjects gives a clear clue. Whether Surâj-ud-daula had any just cause of complaint or not, his real grievance was the loss of his aunt's treasure.

This abject yielding of the English was fatal. Had any one of the type of Clive or John Nicholson been on the spot, events might have been very different; as it was, disaster and destruction followed. Surâj-ud-daula marched on Calcutta, receiving by the way the gift of two hundred barrels of gunpowder from our treaty-bound friends the French at Chandanagore! Reading the record of these few fateful days in June 1756 one knows not whether to laugh or to cry, to let pity or righteous wrath prevail, as the history of silly delay and still sillier activities unfolds itself. The feverish digging of absolutely untenable trenches, the three weeks' delay without any preparation whatever while letters were passing to and fro, the neglect to apply for reinforcements to other presidencies, the imprisonment of Omichand, the miserable fracas in his house, in which a Brahmin peon, mad with rage and professing fear lest high-caste women should be violated, rushed into his master's harem, killed a round dozen of innocent ladies, and then stabbed himself, reminds one of nothing but the fateful days of May a hundred years after, when Englishmen stood by and watched the Mutiny grow from a chance by-blow to a giant unrestrained. Calcutta was taken. Mr Drake, the governor, and Captain Minchin, the commandant, ran away. The ships weighed anchor and sailed out of gunshot, leaving one hundred and ninety deserted men in the fort. But if cowardice showed unabashed, courage was not lacking, and among those who showed it Mr Holwell deserves honourable mention. A civilian himself, he locked the gates of the fort to prevent further desertion, and final resistance being hopeless, did his best by diplomacy to avert absolute destruction. A hard task, for he lost twenty-five of his miserable garrison in one assault, and he lost the aid of more by drunkenness: for the soldiers got at the _arrack_ store.

Still, he might have succeeded but for the fact that the Nawâb lost his temper on finding that the treasury only contained £5,000! And he had imagined the English rich beyond dreams. He jumped to the conclusion that there must be treasure concealed, and when none was forthcoming, seems to have cared nothing for the personal safety he had guaranteed to Mr Holwell and his following of a hundred and forty men, women, and children.

The tale of the Black Hole of Calcutta is too well known to need repetition. The unfortunate company were herded at nightfall into a room eighteen feet square, and despite their agonising appeals for deliverance, left to suffocate. By daybreak only three-and-twenty remained alive.

And the ships which could have carried them off ere hostilities began, which even afterwards might have rescued them, were sailing merrily down the river, the full breeze of dawn bellying their sails.

It is an indelible disgrace!

Surâj-ud-daula, disappointed in plunder, retired to Murshidabad fulminating vain thunders against all things British, as he abandoned himself once more to infamous pleasures.

But Clive was on his track. Clive, filled-according to his letters--"with grief, horror, and resentment"; determined that the expedition should not "end with the retaking of Calcutta only, but that the Company's estate in these parts shall be settled in a better and more lasting condition than ever."

The story of his success is a long one, and is, unfortunately, marred by more than one doubtful, almost inexcusable act. But that he should utterly have escaped from the corruption of the whole atmosphere in India at this time is more than any one has any right to expect, even of a hero. He was but mortal, and from the time he was twenty, had had to steer his way through a perfect network of intrigue. Again, his complicity in much that happened is by no means assured, for we know that he was surrounded by enemies amongst his own countrymen, who, jealous of his success, angered with his blunt outspokenness, did not hesitate to injure him. Let us consider for a moment what Clive must have said to Captain Minchin, to Mr Drake, concerning their pleasure-trip down the Hooghly while their friends were suffocating in the Black Hole! We have his opinion of the "Bengal gentlemen" in his letters, which runs thus:--

"The loss of private property and the means of recovering it are the only objects which take up their attention. I would have you guard against everything these gentlemen can say; for, believe me, they are bad subjects and rotten at heart, and will stick at nothing to prejudice you and the gentlemen of the Committee. Indeed, how should they do otherwise when they have not spared one another? Their conduct at Calcutta finds no excuse even amongst themselves; the riches of Peru or Mexico should not induce me to dwell among them."

These are strong words, but they were written under strong emotion. Clive, arriving at Calcutta, after a most fatiguing march of skirmishes along the river, had been mortified by finding that Admiral Watson, who had sailed up it and captured the town after two hours' desultory cannonading, had already appointed a Captain Coote as military governor. This post, naturally, was Clive's by every right, and he objected strenuously. Matters went so far that the admiral threatened to fire on the fort if Clive refused to leave it, and though a compromise was effected, the affair shows the _animus_ against the young colonel.

He was hampered on all sides. We find him point-blank refusing to place himself under the orders of the Committee.

"I do not intend," he writes, "to make use of my power for acting separately from you, without you reduce me to the necessity for so doing; but as far as concerns the means of executing these powers, you will excuse me, gentlemen, if I refuse to give it up."

The very existence, therefore, of this friction makes caution necessary in judging of Clive's actions, since, except from his own admissions, we have nothing on which absolute reliance can be placed. He seems to have felt himself overmatched in every way. Certainly he proceeded with more caution than usual, except in regard to his attack on Surâj-ud-daula's camp outside the very walls of Calcutta.

Deputies had been sent overnight to interview the Nawâb with a view to negotiation, and had returned in confusion, lightless, by secret paths, convinced that they were to be assassinated. Huge eunuchs and attendants, made still more terrific by stuffed coats and monstrous turbans, had scowled at them--the Nawâb had been superciliously indifferent. Clive had about two thousand men under his command; the enemy, under Mir-Jâffar, Surâj-ud-daula's general, mustered forty thousand; but instant assault seemed necessary in face of that contemptuous discourtesy.

It began at dawn, and though, owing to fog, it was not so decisive as Clive had hoped, achieved its end, for the very next day the Nawâb proposed peace.

Now in this, again, we must read between the lines. The terms of peace which was duly signed--Clive feeling himself far too weak to continue war, for a time at any rate--were not acceptable to the Committee, for Clive refused to allow the claims of "private individuals to stand in the way of the interest of the Company." The treaty, in fact, was singularly easy on the Nawâb, but it must be remembered that Mr Holwell, who had himself been in the Black Hole, had exculpated Surâj-ud-daula from wilful participation in the ordering of it; indeed, there seems little doubt that it was due to the reckless indifference of subordinates. Thus we see here an honest endeavour on Clive's part to deal with Surâj-ud-daula fairly and squarely. He trusted him, disregarding Admiral Watson's warning that without a good thrashing _first_, treaties with natives were of no avail.

His subsequent disgust at finding this warning had been correct must be admitted in defence of his future actions. After endless intriguing, difficult to follow, and still more difficult when followed to understand--for the friction between Clive and his environment seems to obscure everything--the young colonel (he was but thirty) seems to have reverted to his desire to dislodge the French, with which his services had begun, and, war between the nations being opportunely declared, he attacked and took Chandanagore. This brought about, however, a complete revelation of the perfidy of Surâj-ud-daula, who in letters to the French governor (whom he calls "_Zubat-ul-Tujar_," the "Essence of Merchants"), abuses "_Sabut-Jung_" (the "Daring in War," by which name Clive is still known in India), and promises his heart-whole support. "Be confident," he writes, "look on my forces as your own."

Clive, conscious of having acted against general opinion in trusting the man, resented this personally. Then Surâj-ud-daula was practically a monster in human form. By twenty, his vices were hoary. So it may well have been honest disgust which made Clive first consider the possibility of deposing him in favour of Mîr-Jâffar. Pages have been written inveighing against the enormity of intriguing against a ruler with whom you have a treaty of peace. And it is mean according to Western ideals. Still, Clive did not shrink from it; his verdict is brief: "I am persuaded there can be neither peace nor security while such a monster reigns."

So he did not reign long. Mîr-Jâffar was deliberately nominated; a treaty, consisting of a preamble and thirteen articles, solemnly and secretly drawn up. In this Omichand, merchant, moneylender, spy, informer, a man of infinite influence at Murshidabad, was go-between. As reward for his services and silence--for otherwise he threatened to warn his real master Surâj-ud-daula--he insisted on receiving £200,000. But, in truth, this treaty reads like a huge bill, for in consideration of being made Nawâb, Mîr-Jâffar promised the Company to pay, as damages for the sacking of Calcutta, £1,000,000, to the English inhabitants thereof £500,000, to the natives £200,000, and to the Armenians £70,000.

These were immense sums, but they were the result of absurdly exaggerated estimates of the treasure in Murshidabad, which was currently reported to be at least £24,000,000.

So the farce of friendship went on with the Nawâb. It was a toss-up in the end whether Mîr-Jâffar would be faithful to his master or to the treaty, and on the very eve of the battle of Plassey, that is to say, 23rd June 1757, Clive was still undetermined whether to attempt the final blow or to refrain from it. His reputation would have benefited if he had; for England would have won in the end without subterfuge. Still, for all this excuse is to be found. Even the fact that Clive, in common with half the army and navy, was to receive a stipulated present--in his case a very large one--must not be counted, as it appears to be at the first blush, bribery and corruption. There was no law against the taking of douceurs; the employees of the Company, indeed, were ill paid because of such perquisites, without which they could not live. So, had he chosen to ask for a million of money, he could only have been counted extortionate in his demands. But the trick played upon Omichand with Clive's support and connivance seems--at least--despicable. Briefly, it comes to this. Englishmen were afraid of the scoundrel's blabbing, yet they were determined he should not have the £200,000 for which he stipulated. They therefore drew up two treaties, one with, one without, the stipulation. The one they showed to Omichand was forged; the other was really signed.

It seems almost incredible this should have been done by plain English gentlemen, let alone by one who in many ways was a hero; but so it was.

To avoid paying £200,000 out of revenues which did not belong to us, we resorted to fraud and forgery.

There is but one consolation in the case. Clive himself, the arch-actor, never regretted the act. When arraigned on this charge before the House of Commons he asserted proudly that he thought "it warrantable in such a case, and would do it again a hundred times. I had no interested motive in doing it, but did it with the design of disappointing the expectations of a rapacious man, for I think both art and policy warrantable in defeating the purposes of such a villain."

But was Omichand "the greatest villain upon earth" that Clive held him to be? Even this is doubtful, and our pity is his, no matter what he was, as we read the story, as told by Orme the historian, of the conference which was held the day after the battle.

"Clive and Scrafton went towards Omichand, who was waiting in full assurance of hearing the glad tidings.... Scrafton said to him in the Indostan language: 'Omichand! the red paper is a trick--you are to have nothing.' The words overpowered him like a blast of sulphur; he sank back fainting."

He did not recover the shock, but died a complete imbecile within the year.

No! Whatever way we look at this incident it offends eye and taste. For it was so needless. If Omichand was the double-dyed scoundrel he is said to have been, what more easy than to tell him when all was over: "Yes! the £200,000 is yours, but you shall not have it."

Clive, at any rate, was strong enough for that.

The incident prevents the remembrance of Plassey being a pure pleasure. It was victory complete so far as it went, and by the treaty with Mîr-Jâffar Clive's hope "that the Company's estate in these parts shall be settled in a better and more lasting condition than before" was fully justified; for not only was Calcutta given to it freehold, but also the land to the south of the town, as a _zemindari_ subject to the payment of revenue.

England had a real hold on Indian soil at last, and Clive had given it to her.

ROBERT CLIVE

A.D. 1757 TO A.D. 1767

It was in the year 1757, just one hundred years before the Mutiny, that the battle of Plassey was fought, and that by the enthronement of a Nawâb who owed everything to English arms the East India Company became practically lords paramount in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa.

It was in the same year that Upper India was once more disturbed by the inroad of Ahmed-Shâh, the Durrâni king of Kandahâr. Mahomed-Shâh, the Moghul emperor, had once repulsed him, and Ahmed-Shâh, the Afghân's namesake, son and successor of the Great Moghul, had, for the six years of his reign, watched the north-western frontier nervously.

But he died in 1754 without signs of the dread invasion.

It came, however, in Alamgîr the Second's time, through no fault of that distressful puppet, but owing to the arrogance of Ghâzi-ud-din, Grand Vizier, and eldest son of the old fox Asaf-Jâh. Heredity is strong. In his lifetime there was not a political pie in all India into which the latter's wily old finger did not dip, and now his descendants carried on the same game. Sâlabut-Jung, his son, was French nominee for the Nizâmship; Muzaffar-Jung, grandson, for the Nawâbship of the Carnatic. Nâzir-Jung, who perished miserably through the treachery of Dupleix, had been another candidate, and at the effete court of Delhi, Ghâzi-ud-din was virtually king. He chose to insult the widow of an Afghân governor of Lahôre, and Ahmed-Shâh, Durrâni, marched to avenge it.

The vengeance was deep and bitter. Delhi was laid waste; the horrors of Nâdir-Shâh being repeated and excelled, for the Durrâni had not the Persian's hold upon his troops. He also penetrated further down-country than did Nâdir, and harried the Gangetic plain as far as Muttra. The news of his raid, indeed, was one of the many factors in the problem of action or inaction which Clive had had to decide. But the heat drove the hardy northmen back to their hills, and Upper India reverted once more to its old peaceful life, Delhi to dreams. It was a drugged city in those days, winking sleepily in the sunlight, enduring ravishment patiently, returning when the stress was over to watch its pageant king sitting on his pinchbeck peacock throne, pretending to be all-powerful, looking out haughtily, with opium-dimmed eyes, upon a subject world, that in reality cared not one jot for the so-called descendants of the Great Moghul.

In Bengal the English had been king-makers without one reference to the sovereign power. In the very Punjâb itself, the Mahrattas, invited to his aid by Ghâzi-ud-din, came and mastered the length and breadth of the land. In truth, their star was in its zenith. Even in the Dekkan, despite the help of a French force under Monsieur Bussy-by far the ablest commander France ever sent to the East--Sâlabut-Jung could with difficulty keep in the field against them.

And France was beginning to find her hands full. War had been declared in Europe between her and England, and in 1758 the Comte de Lally, a man of great reputation, was sent out avowedly with the intention of breaking the English power in the East.

A bit of a braggadocio was Lally, and all unversed in Oriental likes and dislikes. He began ill by ousting Bussy, in whom the French allies believed utterly, much as the English allies believed in Clive. The secret of this belief may be evolved from the tale of the taking of Bobbili. It was an old fort held by an old family of Râjputs, and Bussy called on it to yield, assaulted it for three days, and finally, on the third night, sounded "cease firing," and waited for the morning to deliver his final blow.

Not a sound disturbed the silence of the night. The primrose dawn showed pale, the old fort rising stern against it. But the gates were open. Bussy entered with caution. The sentries at their posts were dead, the streets were empty, but in the arcades men lay sleeping their last sleep.

The palace doorkeepers were on duty--dead! As he and his staff hurried through the narrow passages, they could see through dark archways women lying huddled up in each other's arms--dead! The Hall of Audience was reached at last; and there, each in his place, the courtiers had drawn their last breath. But the chief was not on the throne; that was occupied by a year-old boy-baby, the beloved heir, playing unconcernedly with the heron's plume of his dead father, who, with his sword through his heart, lay with his head at the feet of his little son. Beside him was the only other living soul in Bobbili, the oldest inhabitant of the town.

Youth and age! The lesson was not unlearnt by Bussy, and Bobbili remains a chieftainship to this day.

Lally, however, was of different mettle. To him, surrounded by well-born, fashionable French officers, all things Eastern were beneath contempt. What was a Brahmin that he should not do what he was told to do, even though the order involved his being yoked cart-fellow with a sweeper?

It was not conducive to anything but discipline; and discipline in India is limited, like all other things, by caste.

Small wonder, then, that, opposed to such a leader as Captain, afterwards Sir Eyre Coote (for Clive could not leave Bengal), the French fortunes gradually failed, until in 1761 all hold on India was lost by the taking of Pondicherry. Poor Lally! He had pitted himself against Orientalism, and he failed miserably. Yet, once again, he did not deserve to be dragged to execution on a dung-cart for having been "insolent to His Majesty King Louis XVth's other officers" (which was a true count), "and for treason to His Majesty himself" (which was false). Of how many reputations has not India unjustly been the grave? Truly one can echo Lally's last words: "Tell my judges that God has given me grace to pardon them: but if I were to see them again, that grace might go."

It is a wonderfully human speech. One can forgive him much for it, but one cannot forgive his judges as he did; deep down, their meanness, their lack of wide outlook, rankles.

While Eyre Coote, however, was bringing the French power to its end for ever, Clive was consolidating the British hold in Bengal; and still under the stress of utterly uncongenial coadjutors.

"I cannot help feeling," he writes to the Select Committee, "that had the expedition miscarried you would have laid the whole blame upon me." And this was true.

The influx into Calcutta of close on £800,000, paid according to treaty from Surâj-ud-daula's treasure chest--which after all only contained, revenues counted, something under £7,000,000--seems to have roused rapacity on all sides. It is worthy of note, however, that Clive's part in the squabble which ensued is invariably on the side of justice. When Admiral Watson claimed his share of the loot as an actual, though not a formal member of the Select Committee, Clive at once saw the reasonableness of the claim, and set an example--which was not followed--of handing over his share of the additional portion which had to be made up. He also fought strenuously, and overcame, an attempt on the part of the military to exclude the navy from any share in the plunder. Indeed, his reply to the "Remonstrance and Protest" sent him by the soldiers is worthy of quotation.

"How comes it," he asks, "that a promise of money from the Nawâb _entirely negotiated by me_ can be deemed by you a matter of right and property?... It is now in my power to return to the Nawâb the money already advanced, and leave it to his option whether he will perform his promise or not. You have stormed no town and found no money there; neither did you find it on the plain of Plassey. In short, gentlemen, it pains me to remind you that what you are to receive is entirely owing to the care I took of your interests."

So, after pointing out that, but for this care, the Company would only have awarded them at the outside six months' pay, he finishes by upbraiding them with their disrespect and ingratitude, and placing the officers who brought him the remonstrance under arrest.

Now this letter, frank and straightforward, enables us to see the position as Clive saw it. The army was purely a mercenary army. From the day on which the English had sided with the Nawâb of Arcot it always had been mercenary. The natives had paid their allies. The question as to the advisability of this did not come in; the fact remained. Therefore, on the supposition that Surâj-ud-daula's wealth was enormous, enormous fees had been asked.

Blame, therefore, could only be given for rapacity, not for the actual taking of any fee. And the advantage to the Company of what had been accomplished was so incalculable that no complaint from _it_ was possible.

It had been an easy task to place Mîr-Jâffar on the throne, but it required all Clive's will-power to induce him to do as he was bid. The spoliation of Surâj-ud-daula's treasury had left the former in comparative poverty, and he resented being made by Clive to fulfil his engagements under the treaty. Still, he could not afford to quarrel with one who maintained the peace by crushing rebellion, apparently, by his mere presence.

Just, however, as he was hesitating over an attempt at independence, news came that the Wazîr of Oude was marching upon Bengal, and at the same time an envoy of the Mahrattas appeared, demanding £240,000 arrears of tribute. Fear threw him again into Clive's arms, who, however, had by this time come to see that in choosing Mîr-Jâffar as Nawâb, he had chosen one who would always be a thorn in the side of good government.

"He has no talent," he writes, "for gaining the love and confidence of his officers. His mismanagement of the country ... might have proved fatal ... no less than three rebellions were on foot at one time."

Still, by unceasing efforts, Clive is able to report in 1758 that the Nawâb seems now "so well fixed in his government as to be able, with a small degree of prudence, to maintain himself quietly in it." Under better management, money was flowing in, and the general outlook seemed bright. In the same year Clive was by popular acclaim appointed Governor of Bengal.

The Directors in London had unaccountably overlooked him, possibly because he ought really to have returned to Madras, but the Council in India felt that, without his personal influence with Mîr-Jâffar, their position was critical. The whole English position was, in truth, at this time dubious. The French had been at this period successful on the Coromandel Coast, and the prince-royal of Delhi, having quarrelled with his father, had left the court, and was on his way with a large army to claim the viceroyalty of Bengal. Now, open defiance of the claims of the Great Moghul family was rank sacrilege. Mîr-Jâffar, with a half-eye to ridding himself somehow of British influence, professed horror. Clive's thumb, however, was over him, and escape impossible. The prince-royal was curtly told that, as rebel to his father, he had no authority, and when the Wazîr of Oude arrived in support of the claim, both he and the prince were as curtly and decidedly beaten.

Mîr-Jâffar was now full of gratitude, and determined to give Clive (who, as a recognised official of the Court, ought to have had one) a _jaghir_, or grant of land for services done. No high official of any native ruler is without one. But Mîr-Jâffar was cunning. The _zemindari_, or land subject to revenue, which, under pressure, he had given to the Company was, he saw, really a screw which might be used against him at any time by refusal to pay the just dues.

He therefore hit on the happy idea of killing two birds with one stone. He would give the quit-rent of this to Clive, and leave him and his Company to fight it out between themselves! It really was very ingenious, very acute, as the opposition the plan aroused in the Council clearly proved. It is, in fact, amusing to read the many arguments advanced against it; all of which are in reality founded on the Company's inward determination to use the quit-rent as a set-off against the Nawâb.

He, however, had a perfect right to do as he did, and Clive himself is not to be blamed for sticking to a bargain which gave him some hold of his enemies and detractors. And yet when, after annihilating a Dutch expedition, and forcing on the promoters as conditions of peace that they should never again introduce or enlist troops or raise fortifications in India, Clive announced his intention of going to England on leave, the best part of Calcutta was on its knees to him begging him to reconsider his resolution.

Without him Mîr-Jâffar was a broken reed.

And the Nawâb himself was as urgent in appeal. Without Clive's help, how could he hope to keep the constant encroachments of the Company's servants within bounds?

But Clive was obdurate. He was clear-sighted, and he saw beyond the present. He saw, as he himself writes, that what the future might bring "was too extensive for a mere mercantile company," and he was eager to get home to impress England with his belief, and induce her to stretch out her right hand and take the rich heritage which might be hers. Whether in strict morality she had a right to do this is another matter. Clive thought she had, and in determining the point there can be no doubt whatever that (as he himself writes, "with a thorough knowledge of this country's Government, and of the genius of its people, acquired by two years' experience") one of the chief factors which weighed with him was his conviction that the people themselves "would rejoice in so happy an exchange as that of a mild for a despotic Government."

And that the British Government would be mild was by every evidence part of Clive's faith in himself and in his country. The natives loved him. Nowhere in all his history is there one hint of cruelty in his treatment of them, unless (as in the case of Omichand) hot anger at treachery rose up in him.

"He was the greatest villain upon earth--I would do it again a hundred times over."

Surely if ever Clive gains his deserved memorial, these words of his should find some place upon it in palliation of the offence which tarnished his reputation. An offence which, when all is said and done, has something of the nature of an unreasoning, impish, boyish trick about it which is reminiscent of other incidents in Clive's career, notably the firing of Aurungzebe's old gun at Arcot, and the _détour_ to smash up the victory-pillar of Dupleix.

So Clive went home, and, arriving at an opportune moment of national depression after a series of rebuffs abroad, was honoured as something of which England could be proud. He was given an Irish barony. "I could have bought an English one (which is usual), but that I was above," he writes. And yet, apparently, he was not above holding his tongue on many matters of national importance, because he was afraid of irritating the Court of Directors who had the payment of his _jâghir_ money. But Clive was ambitious, extraordinarily ambitious, at this time of his career.

"We must be nabobs ourselves," is a phrase which occurs in one of his letters; also this: "My future power, my future grandeur, all depend upon the receipt of the _jâghir_ money."

What scheme lay hidden in his brain? One thing is certain. He scrupled at little which would help him to its realisation. He failed, however, in getting a majority in the Council of Directors, though to do so he employed the discreditable tactics of his adversaries by manufacturing votes. In his defence it must be remembered that he was fighting single-handed against a corrupt monopoly, and that throughout the whole quarrel he never flinched from his purpose.

He took the question of his _jâghir_, which the Company refused to pay, into Chancery, but ere the case was investigated, news of so serious a nature was received from India that a sudden and imperious call for Clive to return arose on all sides. He had made our dominion in the East. Only he could save it from destruction.

The story of what had happened during his four years' absence may be briefly epitomised.

Alamgîr II., emperor at Delhi, had been murdered by his minister Ghâzi-ud-din from fear of his intriguing with Ahmed-Shâh, Durrâni, who was once more marching on the Punjâb. Backed by his Mahrattas, the minister thought himself secure; in this he was mistaken. True, the Mahrattas were in the zenith of their power, their artillery surpassed that of the Moghuls, the discipline of their army was better than it had ever been before, but they had in consequence lost something of their lightness, their alertness.

And they were too numerous. When they finally found themselves entrenched on the old historic battle-plain of Pâniput awaiting Ahmed-Shâh's advance, they numbered no less than three hundred thousand. Excellent foragers though they were, supplies soon ran short. On the other hand, Ahmed-Shâh, with the confederacy of Mahomed princes which had joined forces with him, mustered but a third of that number. He saw his advantage, and waited, replying to his Indian allies' importunities to attack: "This is a matter of war; leave it to me." Night after night his small red tent was pitched in front of his entrenchments, whence he watched his enemy. "Do you sleep," he would say contemptuously to the Indian chiefs; "I will see no harm befalls you."

So the day came at last when the Mahrattas were forced by hunger to attack. They fought well; but by eventide two hundred thousand of them lay dead in heaps on the Pâniput plain. Nearly all the great chiefs were slain or wounded, and Bâla-ji, the Peishwa, himself died on the way back to Poona, it is said from a broken heart. Ahmed-Shâh, Durrâni, returned to Kandahâr and did not again enter India.

In consequence of his father's murder the prince-royal, in natural succession, became the Great Moghul. As such it became impossible to further ignore his claims. But he could be, and was, again beaten, together with his ally the Nawâb of Oude. Matters at Murshidabad, however, deprived of Clive's guidance, had gone from bad to worse. Mr Vansittart, Clive's successor in the Governorship, seems to have been weak, and in addition could count on no support in his council save that of Warren Hastings. The end being that Mîr-Jâffar was virtually deposed for misgovernment, and his son-in-law Mîr-Kâssim placed on the throne. It was not a clean business, and Mîr-Jâffar, full of resentment, retired to live in Calcutta on a pension.

Things, however, did not improve under Mîr-Kâssim, though the Prince-Royal-Emperor, who was still hovering on the frontiers, was interviewed by Mr Carnac (doubtless bearing a satisfactory present), and an arrangement entered into by which, in consideration of being confirmed in the Nawâbship, Mîr Kâssim should pay an annual tribute of £240,000. It is easy to be generous with other folks' money!

Thus secured from invasion, Mîr-Kâssim began to try and fill his treasuries, and instantly complained, as Mîr-Jâffar had complained, of the injury done to him and his subjects by the rule which permitted private trade to the servants of the Company, who, not satisfied with using their public position to assist them, claimed the right to be free of all duties, thus ousting the native trader from all markets.

It was manifest, gross injustice; but here again Mr Vansittart and Warren Hastings were alone in condemning it.

Afraid to strike at the root of the evil, while continuing the absolutely indefensible right to private trade, they agreed with the Nawâb that the usual duty should be paid.

This raised a storm in Calcutta, where a full meeting of Council decided by ten to two that the agreement should not stand.

The Nawâb retaliated in kind. Since the Council persisted in their claim, he would extend its bearings to his own subjects. All could now trade free, and let the devil take the hindmost!

It was a fair retort. They tried to intimidate him, but he had the bit between his teeth. Diplomacy had had its day; it was now war to the knife!

Within a month or two the massacre at Patna took place, in which two hundred Englishmen lost their lives in cold blood; but not before the Presidency troops had entered Murshidabad, deposed Mîr-Kâssim, who fled, and reinstated Mîr-Jâffar.

It was a tissue of mistakes from beginning to end, which Major Munro's subsequent victory at Buxar over the combined forces of the Prince-Royal-Emperor (who had not yet managed to recover his capital Delhi), the Wazîr of Oude, and Mîr-Kâssim did little to rectify. For Mîr-Jâffar died shortly after of old age, and the Council was left without a Nawâb to squeeze! After much discussion, however, they decided on putting up Nujâm-ad-daula, an illegitimate son of Mîr-Jâffar's.

Such was the state of affairs when Clive, to whom, in view of the painful state of disorder in Bengal, absolute power had been given, arrived in Calcutta on his second period of Governorship in the beginning of May 1765.

His first act was to decline discussion.

"I was determined," he writes, "to do my duty to the public, though I should incur the odium of the whole settlement. The welfare of the Company required a vigorous exertion, and I took the resolution of cleansing the Augean stable."

He began the work at once, and, undeterred by opposition, did not rest till he had placed the Indian Civil Service on the upward path to its present honoured and honourable position. Perquisites and presents were swept away; unbiassed authority given in exchange.

The only real political work of the next two years was his treatment of, and treaty with, the Prince-Royal-Emperor, Shâh-Âlam, who was more than ever a puppet king after the victory at Buxar, when he had thrown himself on the protection of the English. So anxious, indeed, was he to secure this, that before the answer to his petition was received from Calcutta, he encamped every night as close to the British army as he could for safety!

The treaty into which he then entered contained an important stipulation that the Company should assist him to recover the territories usurped by his late ally Sûjah-daula, Wazîr of Oude.

Hearing of this the Wazîr immediately prepared for resistance by joining forces with Ghâzi-ud-din, the murderous minister at Delhi, and with some bands of Rohillas and Mahrattas.

But they were poor allies, and Clive, coming to the problem with his clear head, proceeded to settle it with a high hand. Sûjah-daula was left with his territories, save for the district around Allahabâd, which was ceded to Shâh-Âlam, the so-called emperor, who was also to receive £260,000 a year as the revenue of Bengal. This was to be payable, not as in the past, by the Nawâb, but by the East India Company itself, who thus became the real masters of the country, and so responsible for its administration, its defences; the Nawâb, Nujâm-ud-daula, reverting to the position of pensioner, a position which he accepted gladly with the remark: "Thank God! I shall now have as many dancing-girls as I please!"

That the bargains were hard all round none can deny, but it is difficult to see, as has been stated, that Clive derived any pecuniary benefit from them.

On the contrary, it may be observed that special precautions were taken to ensure the legality of the compromise which Clive had entered into with the Directors regarding his _jâghir_, when the public interests, by recalling him to duty, had made some quicker settlement of the question than that of a Chancery suit necessary. Now this compromise, which gave him the revenues for ten years only, or till his death, whichever was the shortest period, was not very favourable to Clive. Its continuance, therefore, should not be urged, as it often is, as proof of his rapacity.

The problem which next employed him was one of extreme difficulty. It was an enquiry into the conduct of officers in regard to their new covenants which prohibited the receiving of presents. As a result of this, ten officials who were dismissed for corruption went naturally to join the ranks of Clive's many enemies.

The question of private trade still remained, and was more difficult of settlement. For the salary of a member of Council was but £350, and he could not keep up the dignity of his position on less than £3,000.

Clive settled this in a somewhat makeshift way, but it is worthy of note that though as governor his pay was largely enhanced by the new scheme, he did not personally take one penny of it, for he had declared his intention of not deriving any pecuniary advantage from his position. The money was spent in augmenting the salaries of his office. All this caused much indignation; many of the Council retired, and to fill their places Clive had the temerity to import outsiders. No sooner was this over than almost every officer of the army mutinied over the withdrawal of double _batta_, or war allowances. No less than two hundred commissions were resigned, and the outlook was black.

Clive set his teeth, and though one of the brigades sent in their resignations _en bloc_ in the very face of an enemy, he won through by indomitable firmness, unending patience. The officers of the European regiment at Allahabâd gave most trouble, but a battalion of sepoys, marching 104 miles in fifty-four hours, brought them to reason sharply.

So, when the fight was over, and the ringleaders--only six officers--were tried and punished most leniently (the Mutiny Act of the Company's service proving defective), Clive founded the military fund which still goes by his name, and which has been, and is still, a boon to many a poor widow. Its nucleus was Clive's gift of £63,000.

But his health was failing. His last act ere leaving for England--never to return--in 1767 was to attend a conference between Shâh-Âlam's representatives, Sûjah-daula, now the Nawâb of Oude, and some Mahratta deputies. The question was a proposal to regain Delhi for the emperor, with the aid of the Company's troops.

Clive at once negatived it. He saw the Mahrattas were now the only possible enemies to peace from whom danger was to be apprehended, and he declined to aid them in any way. On the contrary, he urged the foundation of a confederacy to repel their incursions.

This was his last attempt at diplomacy. He left for England, to find disgrace and disillusionment awaiting him. He had made hundreds, almost thousands of enemies by his just reforms, and with a British public ready, as ever, to be gulled, they had their opportunity. There is no more pitiful and pitiable reading than these records--and in the case of Burke's famous impeachment of Warren Hastings they run to volumes--of these tortuous attempts to twist Western standards of ethics to fit Oriental actions. Putting aside the _animus_, the devilish desire for revenge which inspires most of them, the absolute ignorance of what may be called the atmospheric conditions of India in them remains appalling.

True, Clive had taken £180,000 as his share, when Mîr-Jâffar was enthroned. What then? It was a trifle in comparison with the _sunnuds_ gifted to _omrahs_ of the court by many a native principality and power to those who served it well. And there was no rule against the reception of honours or presents. Certainly, also, as one follows Clive through all his great services, one can but say that rapacity shows far less in him than in his compeers; one can but echo the words in which the Company, at the time of his departure, summed up those services.

"Your own example has been the principal means of restraining the general rapaciousness and corruption which had brought our affairs to the brink of ruin."

Now, however, by the machinations of those whom he had checked, he was brought to plead for bare honour before the bar of the House of Lords.

"Before I sit down I have one request to make this Assembly, and that is, that when they come to decide upon my honour they will not forget their own."

So he appealed, and the appeal was not fruitless: England was spared the disgrace which France had brought on herself by her treatment of Labourdonnais, Dupleix, and Lally.

But the verdict, that "Robert, Lord Clive, as Commander-in-Chief, had taken a sum of £280,000," but that "at the same time he had rendered great and meritorious services to his country," was not one to satisfy Robert Clive.

He was ill; he suffered from an excruciating disease which opium alleviated, and he ended all his troubles by an overdose of the drug a few months after the day when, with an intolerable sense of injustice at his heart, he quitted the tribunal before which he had been so maliciously arraigned.

For, as he said in his defence, sixteen long years had passed since the offence--if offence there had been--was committed; sixteen long years of silence, of confidence well repaid by faithful service.

HYDER-ALI ET ALIA

A.D. 1767 TO A.D. 1773

While Clive was laying the foundation-stones both of the Indian Empire and the Indian Civil Service in Bengal, Madras had had its share of wars and rumours of wars. It will be impossible, however, to treat of them in detail. All that can be done is to pick out of the seething mass of intrigue, of incident, those things which are necessary to be known, in order that future events shall find their proper pigeon-hole.

The Peace of Paris, signed in 1763, gave back to France her possessions on the Coromandel Coast, and further stipulated that the English nominee, Mahomed-Ali, Nawâb of Arcot, should be recognised by both parties as lawful Nawâb of the Carnatic, and Sâlabut-Jung, the French nominee, as Nizâm of the Dekkan.

Regarding the latter, there is grim humour in the fact, that three years before the Peace was signed poor Sâlabut had been ousted and imprisoned by his brother Nizâm-Ali, and that he was promptly murdered by him the moment news of the treaty reached India! It is not always safe to have the support of the ignorant!

But the Treaty of Paris did more mischief than the murder of the poor prince. It put wind into Mahomed-Ali's head, embroiled him with the Nizâm, led to complications with the Madras Company, which in the year 1765 found itself in the unenviable position of having to pay £900,000 to the Nizâm as tribute for the Northern Circars, instead of holding them rent free from the Great Moghul, as arranged for by Lord Clive. It was a gross piece of mismanagement, and carried with it the perfectly monstrous provision that the Company should furnish troops ready to "settle, in everything right and proper, the affairs of His Highness's government." That is to say, the Nizâm had the right to call the tune without paying the piper!

[Map: India to A.D. 1757]

The very first thing he did was to involve England in a war with Hyder-Ali, an adventurer _pur et simple_ who, beginning by being an uncontrolled youth divided between licentious pleasure and life in the woods, free, untamed as any wild creature, forced himself up from one position to another till he held half the territories of the Râjah of Mysore, and had usurped the whole government of that country. Lawless, fierce, without any scruples of any kind, he sided first with one ally then with another, until finally, in 1766, he found himself faced with the fact that Mâhdu Rao the Mahratta, the Nizâm, and the Company, were leagued together for his destruction. The latter had, some time previously, tried to bribe him to proper behaviour, but had failed; for he was, briefly, quite untamable.

Hyder-Ali set to work with his usual fierce energy. He first deliberately bought off the Mahratta mercenaries by parting with certain outlying portions of his stolen territories, and the gift of £350,000 out of his bursting treasures. It was a big bribe, but Hyder-Ali's finances could stand it; for he was a super-excellent robber, with a well-organised army of free-lances for backers.

Meanwhile, the Nizâm's forces and those of the Company under Colonel Smith were approaching Mysore from different sides. It was agreed, however, that the two armies should, when they reached fighting distance, join forces in one camp, so as to show their inviolable unity. But alas! when this happy consummation was reached, the English troops had the mortification of seeing the Nizâm's troops march out as they marched in!

Hyder had been successful with his money-bags once more, and after an absurd and futile farce of palavering on the part of the Company, Colonel Smith prepared to face the enemy's seventy thousand men and one hundred and nine guns with his own meagre seven thousand and sixteen guns. It is astonishing to think how he won his battle and managed to retreat in safety, though he had against his poor thousand of cavalry over forty-two thousand of mounted men, pure freebooters by trade. He seems to have had mettle, this almost unheard-of Colonel Smith, for immediately he received reinforcements he resumed the offensive, and after a time completely defeated Hyder and the Nizâm at Trincomalee. Concerning this battle a nice little story is told. The Nizâm, as is the custom of Eastern potentates, had taken his favourite women with him to the fight mounted on elephants, which stood in line at the rear. The Nizâm, seeing the tide of war going against him, gave orders for the elephants to turn and retire, when from one howdah arose a clear, scornful, feminine voice: "This elephant has not been taught so to turn; he follows the standard of Empire."

And follow it he did, standing alone amid shot and shell, till the royal standards, flying in hot haste, gave him the lead.

But not even this sort of thing could avail. And Hyder's money-bags failed him also in an attempt to suborn an English commandant, who replied to the second flag of truce sent in with a bribe, that if Hyder-Ali wished to spare the lives of his ambassadors, he had better refrain from sending more, as they would be hanged in his sight.