Committee to Lord Clive became manifest. The order originally proposed
was soon departed from, and the inquiry pointedly turned against
him, with many symptoms of personal animosity. The first and second
reports,--the former containing examinations of witnesses, regarding
the circumstances attending the revolutions of 1757 and 1760, the
presents then given, and the grant of Lord Clive's jaghire,--the latter
relating to the grievances connected with the inland trade in the time
of Mr. Verelst,--were hurried on, and presented on the 26th of May
following, just before the rising of the session, and printed in the
Journals of the House.
Governor Johnstone took a leading part in their proceedings, and his
views gave a particular turn to their labours, and that by no means
favourable to Lord Clive. His plan seemed to be to show, that it had
long been the custom to receive presents in India; that large presents
had been received by Lord Clive, at the revolution in 1757, and by
Mr. Vansittart and others in that of 1760; and that, therefore, the
sums received by his brother, Mr. John Johnstone, on the accession of
the young prince in 1765, stood on equally good grounds. The argument
was, in one respect, at least, defective; for while, in the first
instances, there existed no prohibition against receiving presents, in
the last case, the Council had lying before them, covenants with the
Company expressly restraining them from the receipt of presents, which
covenants they had put aside, to avail themselves of the opportunity
afforded by their own wrong, of enriching themselves by illicit
advantages.
The publication of these examinations, of course, increased the
ferment, which had begun to prevail on the subject of Indian affairs,
and they were much talked of and discussed during the recess of
Parliament that followed. Things had long been retrograding in India.
So far back as May, 1769, the disastrous news from Madras, of Hyder's
success, had produced a fall of 60 per cent. in the price of India
stock. This the Directors had treated as an evil speedily to be
removed. But that event was closely followed by news of a famine in
Bengal in the following year; while trade declined, difficulties of
every kind increased, and the debt of Calcutta was rapidly rising.
Still, however, the Directors went on, in hopes of a favourable
change, and from year to year, while their means diminished, the rate
of dividend was increased; till, in 1770, it had reached 12 per cent.
The extent of the bills from Bengal had excited alarm even then; but
in the face of them, the Directors, at the first quarterly court in
1771, communicated their opinion, that the dividend should be raised
a quarter per cent. for the ensuing half year; thus completing the
12-1/2 per cent., the highest annual dividend that by the act was
allowed to be drawn in the most prosperous circumstances. Their return
to power they had owed to the assistance of the party which demanded
a rise of dividend, and they were resolved to retain its support by
a perseverance in their favourite object. Lord Clive had opposed
the whole course of conduct of the Directors, their contract with
Government, and the system which they pursued, both at home and abroad;
though with little other effect than that of drawing on himself their
active hostility. The inquiries in Parliament, however, had weakened
the power of the Directors. The state of the Company's affairs could
not now be permanently concealed. They found difficulties thickening
around them. They were divided among themselves. Their expenses abroad
threatened, not only to swallow up all the revenue of the country, but
to burden them in both countries with an intolerable load of debt. By
their recent engagements with Government they had given ministers a
right to interfere in their concerns, and, in fact, placed themselves
in their power. They contrived, however, to procrastinate, and to avoid
any crisis, until the Parliament had risen.
A few days after the session was concluded[180], a grand installation
of the Knights of the Bath took place[181], when Lord Clive was
installed as a knight of the order, having been appointed several years
before. In September the same year, upon the death of the Earl of
Powis, lord-lieutenant of the county of Salop, he considered himself,
from the extent of his property in the county, and the importance of
his public services, as entitled to succeed him in the office. At the
same time he felt some difficulty, being resolved that, situated as
matters were, he would ask nothing of Ministers that could subject
him to the appearance of courting their favour. Some of his friends
advised him at once to ask a private audience of His Majesty, and
to explain his claims without intervention. But this his good sense
forbade; for Ministers, if they had not encouraged, had at least shown
no disapprobation of the personal manner in which the proceedings of
the Select Committee had been directed; and he justly considered it as
dangerous to run the risk of making his Sovereign and the Ministers,
who, at this period, had gained a decided ascendency over all the
different parties in the country, his declared enemies. "I cannot be
of your opinion," says he, writing on this subject to his friend Mr.
Strachey[182], "because I think that things are not yet ripe for an
open rupture. Until my conduct in Parliament is decided upon, I do not
desire the King and his Ministers to be my declared enemies. In such a
situation I should certainly not meet with much applause from the House
for my conduct in the East Indies; and I wish at least that the members
of the House, when they come to decide, may have no other motive for an
unfavourable decision but envy; that, indeed, is too strongly implanted
in the human breast to be removed." It soon appeared, however, that
Lord Rochford had mentioned his name to his Majesty, who received
it favourably; and a friend writes him that he believes that Lord
North had really formed no plan on the subject (as Lord Clive seems
to have apprehended), and would be very happy to have an opportunity
of offering him the lieutenancy. "If it appears," says his friend,
"that success is clear, you will only have to take the steps which
the decorums of bestowing favours require; princes and ladies never
are supposed to offer, but to grant, their favours, and expect to be
asked what they have determined to give." Lord Clive, in conclusion,
writes to Mr. Strachey; "I expect W. here in a day or two; and if he
brings me a favourable account, I shall lose no time in going to town
and demanding a private audience, that I may explain myself fully to
his Majesty. I will not receive the lieutenancy through the channel
of a minister." In this resolution, the result of a natural feeling
of resentment, he probably relaxed; and his nomination of course took
place, at least formally, on the recommendation of Lord North. Writing,
on the 9th of October, to Mr. Strachey, he says, "Dear Strachey, I
have the pleasure to inform you that I kissed the King's hand to-day,
upon being appointed Lieutenant of the county of Salop. Afterwards I
had a private audience, when I pushed the matter ably and well, to
that degree as I could perceive the King was very much affected. The
answer was favourable, but not determined; but I think it would be
imprudent to treat more on the subject in a letter, and must therefore
defer farther explanation until I have the pleasure of seeing you. The
King talked upon Indian affairs for near half an hour; and I had an
opportunity of mentioning your services and abilities."
He had also an interview with Lord North; and that amiable man and
good-natured minister seems to have succeeded in appeasing, to a
certain degree, his irritated feelings. "Lord North," says he[183],
"when I saw him, seemed industriously to avoid entering upon the
subject of India affairs; and I do verily believe, from sheer
indolence of temper, he wishes to leave every thing to Providence
and the Directors; and that he means nothing more by the meeting of
Parliament[184], than to enable the Company to find money to discharge
the demands that are at present made upon them. However, it behoves me
to be prepared for every thing; for which purpose, you will perhaps
say, I have been building castles in the air. Enclosed I send you a
sketch of my ideas, which, I flatter myself, might be carried into
execution by an able, steady, and upright minister. I don't wish to
take you from your other business unnecessarily, but I wish you would
take this sketch in hand, and methodise it. I would have you dwell
fully and strongly upon the present situation of our affairs in India,
and show, beyond a possibility of refutation, the approaching ruin
of our possessions in the East, if vigorous measures be not speedily
pursued. Your own experience and knowledge, added to my sentiments,
expressed both in my speech and in the political paper laid before
Lord North, will enable you to make a great progress in this matter;
and upon my arrival in town what is wanting may be supplied. I will
not patiently stand by, and see a great empire, acquired by great
abilities, perseverance, and resolution, lost by ignorance and
indolence. If Administration should think proper to see our affairs
abroad in the same light as I do, _'tis well_. If not, I shall have
done my duty. Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat, may with a
vengeance be applied to the Court of Directors appointing M(onckton)
and five of their own body Supervisors. Private letters from India give
a most dreadful account of the luxury, dissipation, and extravagance of
Bengal."
It should seem that the plan here mentioned was afterwards prepared
and presented to Lord North. It is dated the 24th of November, two
days before the opening of Parliament. It embraces the whole system of
Indian Government at home and abroad, and must have been a valuable
contribution[185] at a moment when Parliament was called, for the
express purpose of considering the state of the Company's concerns.
In December, the same year, he was appointed Lord Lieutenant of
Montgomeryshire.
Meanwhile, the Parliament had hardly risen for the summer, when the
difficulties in the Company's affairs which have been alluded to,
became too great to be concealed. Though the Directors had long
suffered inconvenience from the want of funds, the first unsurmountable
difficulty in the means of discharging the demands on them was said to
be observed by their cashier in the beginning of July, 1772. This he
communicated to Mr. Sulivan; a Committee of Treasury was called, and
there was laid before them an estimate of the probable receipts and
payments for the months of July, August, September, and October, when
it appeared that they could command only 954,200_l._, to meet demands
amounting to 2,247,200_l._, leaving a deficiency of 1,293,000_l._ On
the 15th of July it was resolved to apply to the Bank for a loan of
400,000_l._ for two months, which was granted; and, on the 29th of
July, a further loan of 300,000_l._ was asked, but only 200,000_l._
received. At a Committee of Treasury, held on the 11th of August
1772, the Chairman and Deputy Chairman acquainted the Members, that
they had waited on Lord North to present to his Lordship the state
of the Company's affairs, and had represented that the sum of near
1,000,000_l._ sterling would be necessary to be borrowed to carry on
the circulation of the Company's affairs, and that of this million
about 500,000_l._ would be left undischarged in the month of March
following, when the whole produce of the September sale would probably
be received.[186] The first Lord of the Treasury is said to have
received their proposals with dryness and reserve, and referred them
to Parliament for satisfaction. They had once more recourse to the
plan of appointing supervisors, with full powers for the regulation of
their affairs abroad; and after various delays, six gentlemen[187] were
named, who agreed to accept the difficult and invidious office.
Ministers, in these circumstances, and when called upon to sanction
a loan of such an amount, could not avoid taking a direct share in
the affairs of the Company. The Parliament was called before the
holidays, for the express purpose of adopting some efficient measures
to recover their affairs from the confusion into which they had fallen.
His Majesty, in his speech from the throne, on the 26th of November,
observed, "When I received information of the difficulties in which
the Company appears to be involved, I determined to give you an early
opportunity of informing yourselves fully of the true state of their
affairs, and of making such provisions for the common benefit and
security of all the various interests concerned as you shall find best
adapted to the exigencies of the case."
The necessity of some remedy was sufficiently plain; but there was
a deficiency of knowledge and of facts. The Minister now clearly
perceived, from the line of inquiry into which the Select Committee had
deviated, and the temper of some of the members, that their labours,
whatever other effects they might have, were not likely to afford such
information as would enable Parliament, in the present exigency, to
regulate or even to understand the Company's affairs. Lord North,
the same day on which the Address was voted, after adverting to the
distressed situation of the Company, a distress which he ascribed
chiefly to the complicated union of civil and political power with
their commercial affairs, expressed his conviction that, embarrassed
as they were for the moment, they were still in full health, and, with
a temporary assistance, fully able to meet and discharge all their
engagements; that, by the measure which he had to propose, their secret
and confidential transactions would be known but to a few, so that
no unfair advantage could be taken. He concluded by moving that, for
the better ascertaining the real condition of the Company's affairs,
a Committee of Secresy be appointed to inquire into the state of the
East India Company; and for that purpose to inspect the books and
accounts of the said Company, and to report to the House what they
find material therein, in respect to the debts, credits, and effects
of the Company; as also to the management and present situation of the
Company's affairs, together with their observations thereupon. It was
also referred to them to report their opinion of the steps taken by the
Company of sending out Supervisors.
In the debate that ensued, Colonel Burgoyne thought it necessary to
vindicate the late Committee from the aspersions which he imagined
had been thrown on it by insinuations that the present embarrassed
state of the Company's affairs was in any degree to be attributed
to the mode of inquiry that it had adopted: he expatiated largely
on what the Committee had done, and with much warmth affirmed, from
his own knowledge, that their inquiries would disclose such a scene
of iniquity, rapine, and injustice, such unheard-of cruelties, such
violations of every rule of morality, religion, and good government,
as were never before discovered; that in the whole investigation he
could not find a sound spot whereon to lay his finger, it being all
one mass of the most unheard-of villanies, and the most notorious
corruption. That, if the proposed Committee was intended to supersede
former inquiry, he could look upon it in no other light than a design
to protect the guilty, and serve the purpose of stockjobbing. Lord
North said, that he did not mean to impede the revival of the Select
Committee. His motion was agreed to, and a Committee of thirteen
appointed. The Select Committee of last year was also continued.
In a few days the new appointed Secret Committee, in consequence of the
reference made to them, gave in a Special Report, recommending that
a Bill should be brought in to restrain the Company, for a limited
time, from sending out Supervisors. The rapidity with which this
recommendation was produced, drew from Mr. Burke the observation, that
"Ministers, finding that the Select Committee of last year, a lawful
wife publicly avowed, was barren, and had produced nothing, had taken
a neat little snug one, which they called a Secret Committee, and
that this was her first-born. Indeed," added he, "from the singular
expedition of this extraordinary delivery, I am apt to think she was
pregnant before wedlock." The Bill, when introduced, was violently
opposed, as oppressive and unconstitutional; and supported on the
grounds of the mixed nature of the Company, which was not merely a
trading corporation, but a political body, an union of the merchant
and magistrate; and that the appointment of Supervisors was really
an interference with the Parliament, which was busily engaged in
investigating the abuses, that the commission professed to be intended
to correct. The East India Company were heard against it by Counsel.
Mr. Burke opposed the Bill with his usual exuberance of reason and wit:
he said, that the arguments of the Counsel must have left conviction
on the mind of every gentleman who retained the least regard to
national faith. He ridiculed the inefficiency of the two Committees
then sitting. "One (the Select Committee) has been so slow in their
motions, that the Company have given up, long since, all hopes of
redress from them; and the other, (the Secret) has gone on altogether
so rapidly, that they do not know where they will stop. Like the fly of
a jack, the latter has gone, hey-go-mad! the other, like the ponderous
lead at the other end; and in that manner, Sir, have roasted the East
India Company." He charged the Minister with supineness, who, though
himself the cause of the ruin of the Company, had done nothing, but
came to the House to ask them to do what was his business. That, in
1767, an inquiry into the affairs of the Company was set on foot; that
Parliament sat day after day for forty-one days, and broke up without
doing any thing at all. "It was near about that period," he continued,
"that a discovery was made that the India Company had obtained an
acquisition of great wealth. It seems, Sir, that a lady of great
fortune in India, who had been ungenerously dealt with by her stewards,
was unlucky enough to engage the attention of Parliament, who, perhaps
envious of the booty being divided without their having any share, paid
their addresses to the lady, but whether to her person or fortune you
must determine; for, Sir, they were very eager to embrace her; they
pretended to rescue her from the rapacity of her stewards, yet, as
soon as they touched the very good fortune of 400,000_l._ per annum,
they left the lady to destruction. In this manner, Sir, the last
Parliament acted; and, after pretending to redress the grievances
of the Company, got up, after forty-one days' painful and laborious
sitting, without coming to any conclusion at all. What has the Select
Committee of this Parliament been, but a mock inquiry?" Sir William
Meredith, who was a Member of that Committee, retorted Mr. Burke's
comparison not unhappily. "He compares the two Committees," said he,
"to a jack; the Secret one is like the flier of a jack, the other like
the weight. I agree with him in the simile, but draw a very different
conclusion. Sir, between the heavy ponderous weight at one end, and
the quick motion of the flier, the dish is prepared, and rendered fit
for digestion." In the course of the debate, Lord Clive observed, "I
will trespass upon the indulgence of the House but a few moments. I
am sorry, Sir, to find the India Company contending with Parliament,
because, whenever their rights to territorial possessions are examined
into, they will be disputed, and the Crown become the actual possessor
of them. No man, Sir, has been more liberally rewarded by the Company
than I have been; and though the learned sages of the law have very
ably argued the cause of their clients, yet, Sir, I feel myself
influenced by motives which they cannot feel, gratitude and interest;
and Sir, if ever I should be forgetful of the one, which God forbid,
the other would teach me to attend to the affairs of the Company. Sir,
I consider the interests of the nation and the Company as inseparable;
and, with respect to the Supervisors, I was and continue to be against
it; but at the same time, I consider this Bill as an exertion, indeed,
of parliamentary authority, yet extremely necessary; and I could wish
that the Company had met this House half way, instead of petitioning,
and quarrelling with the mouth that is to feed them. With respect to
the gentlemen nominated for the supervision, they are themselves the
best judges, whether their abilities and integrity are equal to the
important service in which they were to engage. Had they, Sir, known
the East Indies as well as I do, they would shudder at the bare idea of
such a perplexing and difficult service. The most rigid integrity, with
the greatest disinterestedness,--the greatest abilities with resolution
and perseverance,--must be united in the man or men who undertake to
reform the accumulating evils which exist in Bengal, and which threaten
to involve the nation and the Company in one common ruin." The Bill
was carried by a large majority, and finally passed both Houses.
It would seem as if the Court of Directors had resolved, that
whenever their affairs came before Parliament, they should, as far
as depended on them, contrive to find Lord Clive employment in his
private concerns. When the bill of last session was to be proposed,
certain heavy charges had been brought up against him, and hung out
as a terror. When the present session was about to open, and much
attention expected to be paid to Indian affairs, Lord Clive, on the
4th November, received an intimation from the Court of Directors, that
they had taken the opinions of counsel relative to the loss sustained
by the Company from the payment of the balances due to the renters of
salt-pans in Bengal, out of their treasury; the commission received by
him upon the revenues of Bengal, after his departure thence; and the
interest due on sums paid for duties on salt, betle-nut, and tobacco;
and were advised that he, and the rest of the gentlemen concerned in
the payment of these balances, were liable to make good the same; that
they were accountable for interest on the duties on salt, &c., and that
his Lordship was not entitled to the commission on the revenues; and
therefore calling upon him to make good those demands, but expressing
an earnest wish for an amicable adjustment, to save the expense and
disagreeable circumstances of a suit in equity. After many delays
in procuring even a statement of the amount of the demands thus
intended to be made on him, his Lordship agreed to refer the whole to
arbitrators, as they desired, and named on his side Mr. Madocks, an
eminent counsel; when the Directors insisted that the referees should
be merchant arbitrators; Lord Clive, with every appearance of reason,
contended that the differences between them consisted of questions of
law and government; and that, had they been commercial, a lawyer was
not an improper arbitrator: in short, that they were receding from
their own proposal; which gave reason to suspect that what they had in
view was, not a decision, but a lawsuit. His Lordship judged correctly,
for the Directors ordered a suit to be instituted.[188]
Early in the year 1773, the Court of Directors, seeing the Company's
concerns more and more burthened on every side, and having no means of
answering the demands upon them, were compelled to apply to Government
for a loan of 1,500,000_l._, for four years. This measure placed them,
if possible, more completely than ever in the hands of the Ministry;
and the Parliament, for the next four months, was entirely occupied
with a series of motions, reports, and petitions, connected with their
affairs. The debates of that period, which are very important, belong
rather to the history of the East India Company and of the times,
than to the Memoirs of Lord Clive. In the line of his politics being
decidedly opposed to the measures of the Directors, which he considered
as fatal to the prosperity of the Company, and being of opinion that
their territorial acquisitions must be held as being acquired for the
State, he generally voted with the Minister, but without joining his
party.