Bengal, both civil and military, a volume would not be sufficient.
However, I have the satisfaction of informing you, that I have already
made a great progress towards reforming those enormous abuses of power,
which cry aloud for redress. The inhabitants have been laid under
contribution by both civil and military, their goods taken from them
at an under price, and presents of money have either been extorted
from them, or given for interfering in the affairs of government by
insisting on men of high employments being turned out, and others
appointed in their room. The gentlemen having the revenues of the
country, amounting to upwards of 3,000,000_l._ per annum at their
command, were making such hasty strides towards independency, that
in two years' time I am persuaded the Company would not have had one
servant upon this establishment above the rank of a writer. In short,
if the Directors do not behave with spirit and integrity, and the
Proprietors lay aside their animosities, they will become answerable
to the nation and to Parliament, for being the cause of losing the
greatest advantages which ever have happened to England since it has
been a nation.
"As for myself, although tempted on all sides by offers of riches
without bounds, I have refused every thing; and I am the greatest
villain upon earth, if either I or any one dependent upon or belonging
to me, with my knowledge, either directly or indirectly, benefit
ourselves the value of one farthing, except what shall be specified in
an account current which I intend laying before the Directors, upon my
arrival in England. Indeed, if I suffered myself to be corrupted, I
could not with any face undertake (in conjunction with the Committee
who have heartily and unanimously joined me) the reformations which are
essentially necessary for the Company's welfare.
"The King has granted to the Company for ever, with the approbation and
consent of the Nabob, all the revenues which shall remain after paying
him a certain tribute, and allowing a sum sufficient for the dignity
and support of the Nabob. The Company's income exceeds 2,000,000_l._
sterling per annum, and their civil and military expenses in future
never shall exceed 700,000_l._ per annum, in time of peace, and
1,000,000_l._ in time of war. For further particulars, let me refer
you to Mr. Walsh. With regard to the French forces, I shall put those
of the Company upon so respectable a footing, that all the powers of
Europe can have no chance of succeeding, without first landing, and
being supported by the powers of the country; and that appears very
impracticable, since I have lately acquired a grant from the King of
five northern provinces, those the French formerly possessed."
Clive's correspondence with his historian Orme appears at this period
to have revived, and he evidently looks to him as the transmitter of
his fame to posterity[98]:--
"I have wrote so many letters, and gone through such a scene of
public business, that I cannot attempt describing to you any part
of our proceedings in this part of the world. Scrafton, Walsh, and
Colonel Smith will furnish you with abundant matter of surprize and
astonishment. Let it suffice to say, that fortune seems determined
to accompany me to the last; every object, every sanguine wish, is
upon the point of being completely fulfilled, and I am arrived at the
pinnacle of all I covet, by affirming the Company shall, in spite of
all envy, malice, faction, and resentment, acknowledge they are become
the most opulent company in the world, by the battle of Plassey; and
Sir Hannibal Hotpot shall acknowledge the same.
"I am preparing plans in abundance for you. You shall have very exact
charts of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, and of the Mogul empire as far as
Delhi at least. A map of the Ganges likewise, and all the other rivers
of consequence."
The following letters to his cousin Harry and to his father are
pleasing proofs that his important occupations never cooled his mind
from his duties and feelings as a relation or a friend:--
"I have received[99] your letter of 22d of November, 1764, by which I
find you are all in health, though not so happy as when I was among
you. I make no doubt of once more contributing towards that happiness,
though not quite so soon as I expected, when in England, owing to the
length of our passage. I have pitched upon the beginning of December,
1766, for resigning this government; and nothing but my death shall
prevent it. General Carnac, myself, and the rest of our family, propose
coming most of the way overland; and shall, in all probability, be in
London some time in April, 1767.
"I have been seven hundred miles up the country, and have established
a firm and lasting peace, I hope, with the Great Mogul and his vizier,
Shuja Dowlah. I have seen much of his Majesty, and he has appointed
me one of his first omrahs, or nobles, of his empire, with an immense
title, not worth sixpence in England. Touching all these matters, I
must refer you to Mr. Walsh.
"I am glad you have put a stop to Stycke expenses: they became
enormous, and it will be time enough to go on with them upon my arrival
in England; but I approve greatly of your repairing Walcot, and making
it fit for Lady Clive's reception. The only concern I feel arises from
a conviction of what she must suffer from so long an absence.
"With regard to myself, I have full employment, and enjoy my health
rather better than in England, though I find I cannot bear the heat so
well as formerly, which makes me determined to quit the country as soon
as possible."
"I rejoice," he writes[100] to his father, "to hear from others,
though not from yourself, that, notwithstanding the accident which has
happened to one of your eyes, you retain both your spirits, appetite,
and health. It is impossible, without a miracle, to enjoy the blessings
of life in that perfection in our latter days as in the days of
youth; but I really think your temperance and the goodness of your
constitution will carry you through life with ease and satisfaction to
yourself to an age nearly equal to that of your aunt Judy.
"Although I enjoy better health than in England, India is by no means
agreeable to me, separated as I am from my wife, children, and dearest
relations. The length of our passage will make my absence one year more
than I intended, but this you may be assured of, that nothing shall
detain me in Bengal beyond the beginning of December, 1766; and I hope
to see you all in good health and spirits, some time in April, 1767.
"I have been seven hundred miles up the country, and have been very
conversant with His Majesty, the Great Mogul. He has made me one of the
first omrahs, or nobles, of his empire. I have concluded a peace for
the Company, which I hope will last, and obtained from the King a grant
of a revenue of 2,000,000_l._ sterling per annum for them for ever;
and, what is more, I have put them on a way of securing this immense
revenue, in such a manner that it is almost impossible to deprive the
Company of it, at least for some years to come.
"With regard to myself, I have not benefited, or added to my fortune
one farthing, nor shall I; though I might, by this time, have received
500,000_l._ sterling. What trifling emoluments I cannot avoid receiving
shall be bestowed on Maskelyne, Ingham, and Strachey, as a reward
for their services and constant attention upon my person. I am much
obliged to the Doctor for his care of my health: he is worth about
2000_l._ already. This ship, sent express, will bring the Company the
most important news they ever received; and, if they are not satisfied
with mine and the Committee's conduct, I will pronounce there is not
one grain of honour or integrity remaining in England. The reformation
I am making, in both the civil and military branches, will render
the acquisition of fortunes not so sudden, or certain, as formerly.
This, added to the shortness of my stay in India, induces me to think
Captain Sempill had better stay in England, where we may serve him by
our interest at home. Remember me in the most affectionate manner to
my mother. She has acted a great part in life. The uniformity of her
conduct with regard to her children must, at the same time it affords
her the most pleasing reflections, influence them to entertain the
highest respect and veneration for so deserving a parent. I will most
certainly write to her, and to my brothers and sisters, who have my
most affectionate wishes."
In numerous other private letters he dwells upon the same subject.][101]
* * * * *
Much of Clive's time was devoted to examining and improving the details
and management of different branches of the public service. The
increasing expense of the military establishment had been called to
his notice by the Directors, before he went to Bengal; and he entered
with great activity into the task of devising plans for reducing its
expenditure. Besides the heavy charge for double batta, he found the
charges for buildings and fortifications exhorbitantly high, and the
work never completed. Of the surgeons' accounts, too, he repeatedly
complains as enormous; and mentions that, on investigation, it was
found that men had been charged for, as being in the hospital, months
after they were dead. These abuses he attempted firmly and assiduously
to correct; and his known experience in military matters, joined with
the particular knowledge of commissariat concerns acquired while he
served in that department, enabled him to place the whole on a better
footing.
Though less conversant with revenue matters, he applied his powerful
mind to that subject also. It was his uniform practice to promote
the most intelligent and active men to the head of each line; and
in the revenue department he seems to have been fortunate in having
the co-operation of Mr. Verelst and Mr. Sykes. His plan, in revenue
concerns was, to innovate as little as possible; to avoid all
impositions burdensome to the cultivator, however productive; and to
support the respectability and usefulness of the upper classes of
natives, by maintaining them in as easy and opulent circumstances as
was practicable. He saw the mischief of the frequent changes in the
demands made upon the ryots, and proposed to introduce the system
of leases for their protection. The revenue seems to have been very
flourishing; and the ryots in easier circumstances in his time than
they were some years afterwards. Writing to Mr. Verelst[102], he says,
"The 20th of this month we hold the punah; and, by what I can learn,
the kistabundy for next year will amount to 172 lacs, which is 12 lacs
more than this year; to which, if you add 12 lacs of rupees which
Mahommed Reza Cawn proposes cutting off from the Nabob's allowance,
being for useless horse, elephants, buffaloes, camels, &c. the
increase will be 24 lacs. If we mean to avoid giving umbrage to the
European powers, and to keep up the appearance of the present form of
government, we ought not to exact one farthing of revenue more from
the province. For my own part, I think, after we have made this year's
experiment, and, by the regular payment of the rents, find we have
not over-rated the countries, that if Bengal was let out for five,
six, or seven years, it would be for the advantage of the Company,
of individuals, and add stability to our possessions by inspiring
the inhabitants with just ideas of our justice and moderation."
Writing, a few days after[103], to Mr. Palk, he touches on the same
subject:--"Abundance of business, and a good deal of bad health arising
from the heat of the weather, hath prevented me from being so punctual
a correspondent as I promised to be when I took my leave of you at
Madras. However, I will now acknowledge the receipt, as well as return
you thanks for your last letters of the 24th March and 4th April. We
have been already near a month at this place, in order to ascertain the
revenues of Bengal for next year. Upon the whole, what with cutting
off useless expenses and unnecessary kistabundy, the Company will
receive an increase for Bengal only of 24 lacs. Here, in my opinion,
we should hold our hands. To attempt farther increase will be drawing
the knot too tight. It will neither be to the honour or advantage of
the Company. In the end, it would be impolitic: individuals who are
of good families, who have been used to live in state, and who have
been intrusted with power, must have wherewithal to support some
part of that dignity which has always been kept up in this country."
In the course of the same year, in answering the letter of a public
servant who had proposed a plan for increasing a particular branch
of the revenue, he writes[104], "The Company's revenues are already
immense; nor can I think of increasing them by the least oppressive
mode. If, however, the abuses you mention be real, and can be remedied
without distressing the ryots, they shall not escape unnoticed." He was
decidedly hostile to the plan, which had been already introduced, of
letting lands by auction; and was anxious that the ryot should labour
in his fields at ease, free from the apprehension of change.[105]
It is quite unnecessary, as it would be painful, to enter into
particulars regarding the corruption which prevailed at this time in
every rank of the service: the fact is sufficiently known. Clive's
efforts to check it made him many and powerful enemies. In a letter
to Mr. Verelst, he mentions a member of council who, he found, had
conditioned to receive 150,000 rupees from the Rajah of Burdwan: he
desires that gentleman to ascertain the facts. "It may be necessary
to have such anecdotes," says he[106], "to frighten people into
their duty to the Company, if no other use be made of them. I hear a
certain gentleman employs spies to watch all our actions, yours and
Sykes's in particular; but we may serve him as Scipio did those sent
by Hannibal, lead them at noonday through every department in which we
are concerned, and then dismiss them, telling them they may go and tell
their masters all they know." Writing, on another occasion[107], to
Verelst and Sykes, when thwarted, from corrupt motives, by a man at the
very head of affairs:--"If you think," says he, "that I am endeavouring
to stem this torrent of corruption which threatens to overwhelm the
whole settlement, and if you feel within your own breasts that pleasing
satisfaction which I enjoy from a consciousness that I am acting upon
principles of honour and integrity, I am persuaded you will support the
measures we have so zealously adopted; and we shall at last triumph
over bad hearts and bad heads."--"Our disinterested conduct," says he
to another correspondent, when concluding the treaties with the King
and Vizier[108], "must be admired and applauded by all virtuous and
good men; and if there be men base enough to disapprove of what we are
about, we may all retire to live happy, and upon the testimony of a
good conscience." He frequently, in the midst of the opposition and
annoyances to which he was exposed, seeks for consolation in this manly
and honourable strain of thinking.
No man knew the sepoy force of India better, or employed it more
successfully, than Clive; and it is interesting to ascertain his
ideas, both on its composition, and the dangers that might be supposed
eventually to attend its use. "You mention the number of sepoys as
an alarming circumstance," says he, writing, after his return to
England[109], to one of the committees of Directors, "and I allow that
the Company's chief danger arises from thence, and from the discipline.
But I am of opinion, that so long as they are regularly paid, treated
with humanity, and not flattered with promises never meant to be
performed, no danger is to be apprehended. Sepoys are the most faithful
and attached people in the universe; and being also men of reason, they
are thoroughly convinced, that they are upon a much better footing with
us than they can be with any of the natives, be their rank what it may.
Their attachment, as I have observed, is strong; but they know no other
than to those who feed and clothe them. Much of the supposed danger
is avoided by our having separated and divided our sepoys into three
brigades, so that they can never make a revolution general, nor can
they hold cabals of an alarming nature. The best additional security
I can think of, is to have each battalion composed of an equal number
of Gentoos and Mussulmen, and to encourage a rivalship of discipline
between them."--"There is one step[110]," says he, on another occasion,
"to be taken with regard to the sepoys, which, I think, will bring them
to the greatest perfection sepoys can be brought to; viz. the officers
commanding the sepoys to run in that corps only; by which means,
all the officers will understand the language, without which it is
impossible to bring the sepoys to that pitch of discipline which will
make them truly formidable." It will be recollected that at this early
period of the service, regiments were but recently formed and brigaded;
and the officers were taken for the sepoy corps from the European
infantry, and were not yet attached permanently to the former.
The fatigue, bodily and mental, which Clive underwent during the
second year of his residence in India, when engaged in counter-acting
the seditious movements of the civil and military services, had the
unfavourable effects that might have been expected on a constitution
so exhausted as his; yet the strong invitations which he then received
from the Directors to remain another year in India, and his own desire
to strengthen and confirm the government which he had saved from
anarchy, and perhaps from ruin, induced him to revolve in his mind
the possibility of complying with their request; and in some of his
letters, written in the summer of 1766, he intimates a doubt whether he
may not attempt to remain another year to complete his work.
But in the end of October he was attacked by a bilious disorder,
which, increasing in severity, rendered him, early in November,
incapable of attending to business. It is, indeed, surprising that this
attack should have been so long delayed. From the moment he arrived
in Bengal, his mind had been kept invariably on the stretch, by a
succession of painful and trying exertions. He had travelled much in
the midst of the monsoon, and in the hottest season. On one occasion,
he writes to Mr. Verelst[111], "I have not had three hours' sleep any
day or night, since I left Mootyjil," a fortnight before; and, even
during the period when he thus travelled in a burning climate[112], he
continued anxiously corresponding at every interval of his journey,
on the subject of an alarming mutiny, which threatened destruction to
all his plans of public improvement. He had difficulties to encounter
on every side, reforms to be made, in which he was obliged to depend
for success, more on the energy of his own mind, than on the support
of the service, or of his coadjutors. He had the ungracious office
of interfering at every step with the pecuniary emoluments of the
majority of his countrymen of every class. Few constitutions could
have supported the anxiety he endured. A less vigorous mind would have
sunk under the fret and annoyance of nearly two years' warfare of this
exhausting kind: his constitution only sank under the fatigue. The
strongest proof how severe his illness became, is afforded by the total
interruption of his correspondence from the 29th of November to the
27th of December, during which period no letter appears to have been
written by himself, the correspondence being entirely conducted in his
name by Mr. Strachey. It has already been remarked that his regularity
and constancy in correspondence were quite exemplary. His letters of
business were answered the moment they were received. This steady
regularity, too often despised by inferior men, was one of the means by
which he did so much. With him it was grown into a habit; but the habit
was a proof of the energy of a mind eager to accomplish, in the most
perfect way, the business in which it is engaged.
It was during this illness that the letter, already alluded to, from
the Court of Directors, arrived[113], disapproving of the Society of
Trade, but loading him with praises for his beneficial management
of their affairs, entreating him to continue in the government for
another year, and holding out the hope of ample remuneration for the
sacrifice he was invited to make. It must be acknowledged, that the
request of the Court of Directors was couched in terms sufficiently
flattering. They approve of all that he had done. "When we consider,"
say they[114], "the penetration with which your Lordship at once
discerned our true interest in every branch, the rapidity with which
you restored peace, order, and tranquillity, and the unbiassed
integrity that has governed all your actions, we must congratulate your
Lordship on being the happy instrument of such extensive blessings
to those countries; and you have our sincerest thanks for the great
and important advantages thereby obtained for the Company."--"We
have the most perfect sense of your Lordship's disinterestedness in
every part of your conduct, and we shall not fail to represent this
to the proprietors, and shall, at the same time, inform them of the
many great advantages your Lordship has obtained for the Company;
but we fear, my Lord, past experience will teach them, as it does
us, that the permanency of those advantages will depend much on your
Lordship's continuing in India till you have seen the regulations
firmly established for the conducting those important affairs. Another
year's experience, and peaceable enjoyment of our acquisitions, might
fix them on a basis that might give hopes they may be as lasting as
they are great; and there is no doubt, my Lord, but the general voice
of the proprietors, indeed, we may say, of every man who wishes well to
his country, will be to join in our request, that your Lordship will
continue another year in India. We are very sensible of the sacrifice
we ask your Lordship to make, in desiring your continuance another
year in Bengal, after the great service you have rendered the Company,
and the difficulties you have passed through in accomplishing them,
under circumstances in which your own example has been the principal
means of restraining the general rapaciousness and corruption which
had brought our affairs so near the brink of ruin. These services, my
Lord, deserve more than verbal acknowledgments; and we have no doubt
that the proprietors will concur with us in opinion, that some solid
and permanent retribution, adequate to your great merits, should crown
your Lordship's labours and success."