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RULERS OF INDIA
Edited by
Sir William Wilson Hunter, K.C.S.I, C.I.E.
M.A. (Oxford): Ll.D. (Cambridge)
LORD CLIVE
London
Henry Frowde
Oxford University Press Warehouse
Amen Corner, E.C.
New York
Macmillan & Co., 66 Fifth Avenue
[Illustration: The Indian Empire]
RULERS OF INDIA
LORD CLIVE
by
COLONEL G. B. MALLESON, C.S.I.
Oxford
At The Clarendon Press: 1893
Oxford
Printed at the Clarendon Press
By Horace Hart, Printer to the University
{5}
PREFACE
The following list represents the works of the last century which I
have consulted to write this _Life of Lord Clive_:
Orme's _History of Indostan_ (original edition); _The Siyaru-l
Muta-akherin_ of Ghulam Husain Khan (Review of Modern Times),
translated copy; Cambridge's _War in India_ (containing the Journal
of Stringer Lawrence); _The Memoir of Dupleix_ (in French); Grose's
_Voyage to the East Indies_; Ive's _Voyage and Historical Narrative_;
_Transactions in India from the commencement of the French War in
1756_ (published in 1786); Caraccioli's _Life of Lord Clive_;
Vansittart's _Narrative of the Transactions in Bengal_; Ironside's
_Narrative of the Military Transactions in Bengal in 1760-1_;
Verelst's _English Government in Bengal_; some numbers of the
_Asiatic Annual Register_; Kindersley's _Letters_; and Scrafton's
_Letters_; and, for the earlier period--that displaying the period
immediately preceding and following the dawn of genius--the recently
written extracts from the Madras records by Mr. G. W. Forrest.
Of works of scarcely less value published during the present century,
I have consulted the admirable volumes by Colonel Mark Wilks, which
bring the _History of Southern India_ down to the storming of
Seringapatam in 1799; _The Journal of Captain Dalton_, {6}one of the
heroes of Trichinopoli, written at the period of Clive's early
victories, but only given to the world, with a memoir of his career,
in 1886; Lord Stanhope's _History of England_; Malcolm's _Life of
Clive_; and above all, that mine of wealth to a searcher into the
details of Clive's services in Bengal, Colonel Broome's _History of
the Bengal Army_. Colonel Broome was my intimate and valued friend.
He knew more about the history of the rise of the English in India
than any man I ever met. He had made the subject a life-study. He had
read every tract, however old, every letter, however difficult to
decipher, every record of the period up to and beyond the time of Job
Charnock, and he was a past-master of his subject. He had collected
an enormous mass of materials, the more bulky of which were dispersed
at his untimely death. But I have seen and handled them, and I can
state most positively, from my own knowledge, that every item of
importance culled from them is contained in the admirable volume to
which I have referred, and which was published in 1850. There is,
alas, only that volume. Colonel Broome had set apart a vast mass of
materials for his second, and had resolved to complete the work at
Simla, to which place he was proceeding for the summer of, I think,
1870. But, in the course of transit, the box containing the materials
was mysteriously spirited away, and I have not heard that it was ever
found. From the nature of the documents collected I cannot but regard
the loss as irreparable.
G. B. MALLESON.
{7}
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGES
I. EARLY YEARS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9-15
II. SOUTHERN INDIA IN 1744 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16-22
III. HOW THE WAR IN THE KARNATIK AFFECTED THE FRENCH AND
ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23-31
IV. HOW THE FORTUNES OF ROBERT CLIVE WERE AFFECTED BY THE
HOSTILITIES BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH IN SOUTHERN
INDIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32-41
V. CLIVE DECIDES FOR THE CAREER OF A SOLDIER . . . . . . 42-50
VI. THE FIRST YEAR OF SOLDIERING AT TRICHINOPOLI AND ARCOT 51-59
VII. 'THE SWELL AND DASH OF A MIGHTY WAVE' . . . . . . . . 60-74
VIII. CLIVE IN ENGLAND; AND IN BENGAL . . . . . . . . . . . 75-89
IX. THE BATTLE OF PLASSEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90-106
X. HOW CLIVE DEALT WITH THE SPOILS OF PLASSEY: HIS
DEALINGS WITH MIR JAFAR; WITH THE PRINCES OF SOUTHERN
INDIA; WITH THE DUTCH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107-137
XI. THE SECOND VISIT OF CLIVE TO ENGLAND . . . . . . . . . 138-148
XII. THE REIGN OF MISRULE IN BENGAL . . . . . . . . . . . . 149-158
XIII. THE PURIFYING OF BENGAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159-170
XIV. THE POLITICAL AND FOREIGN POLICY OF LORD CLIVE: HIS
ARMY-ADMINISTRATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES . . . . . . . 171-191
XV. THE RETURN OF THE CONQUEROR-STATESMAN, AND THE
RECEPTION ACCORDED TO HIM BY HIS COUNTRYMEN: HIS
STRUGGLES; AND HIS DEATH . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192-212
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213-229
_NOTE_
The orthography of proper names follows the system adopted by the
Indian Government for the _Imperial Gazetteer of India_. That system,
while adhering to the popular spelling of very well-known places,
such as Punjab, Poona, Deccan, &c., employs in all other cases the
vowels with the following uniform sounds:--
_a_, as in wom_a_n: _a_, as in f_a_ther: _i_, as in k_i_n: _i_, as in
intr_i_gue: _o_, as in c_o_ld: _u_, as in b_u_ll: _u_, as in r_u_ral.
{9}
LORD CLIVE
CHAPTER I
EARLY YEARS
Towards the close of the year 1744 there landed at Madras, as writer
in the service of the East India Company, a young Englishman just
entering the twentieth year of his existence, named Robert Clive.
The earlier years of the life of this young man had not been
promising. Born at Styche, near Market Drayton, in Shropshire, he had
been sent, when three years old, to be cared for and educated at
Manchester, by a gentleman who had married his mother's sister, Mr.
Bayley of Hope Hall. The reason for this arrangement, at an age so
tender, is not known. One seeks for it in vain in the conduct and
character of his parents; for although his father is described as
irascible and violent, his mother was remarkable for her good sense
and sweet temper. To her, Clive was wont to say, he owed more than to
all his schools. But he could have seen but little of her in those
early days, for his home was always with the Bayleys, even after the
death of Mr. Bayley, and he was ever treated {10}there with kindness
and consideration. After one or two severe illnesses, which, it is
said, affected his constitution in after life, the young Robert,
still of tender years, was sent to Dr. Eaton's private school at
Lostocke in Cheshire: thence, at eleven, he was removed to Mr.
Burslem's at Market Drayton. With this gentleman he remained a few
years, and was then sent to have a brief experience of a public
school at Merchant Taylors'. Finally, he went to study at a private
school kept by Mr. Sterling in Hertfordshire. There he remained
until, in 1743, he was nominated to be a writer in the service of the
East India Company.
The chief characteristics of Robert Clive at his several schools had
been boldness and insubordination. He would not learn; he belonged to
a 'fighting caste'; he was the leader in all the broils and escapades
of schoolboy life; the terror of the masters; the spoiled darling of
his schoolmates. He learned, at all events, how to lead: for he was
daring even to recklessness; never lost his head; was calmest when
the danger was greatest; and displayed in a hundred ways his
predilection for a career of action.
It is not surprising, then, that he showed the strongest aversion to
devote himself to the study which would have qualified him to follow
his father's profession. A seat at an attorney's desk, and the
drudgery of an attorney's life, were to him as distasteful as they
proved to be, at a later period, to the eldest son of Isaac Disraeli.
He would have a career which promised action. If such were not open
to him {11}in his native land, he would seek for it in other parts of
the world. When, then, his father, who had some interest, and who had
but small belief in his eldest son, procured for him the appointment
of writer in the service of the East India Company, Robert Clive
accepted it with avidity.
Probably if he had had the smallest idea of the nature of the duties
which were associated with that office, he would have refused it with
scorn. He panted, I have said, for a life of action: he accepted a
career which was drudgery under a tropical sun, in its most
uninteresting form. The Company in whose service he entered was
simply a trading corporation. Its territory in India consisted of but
a few square miles round the factories its agents had established,
and for which they paid an annual rental to the native governments.
They had but a small force, composed principally of the children of
the soil, insufficiently armed, whose chief duties were escort duties
and the manning of the ill-constructed forts which protected the
Company's warehouses. The idea of aggressive warfare had never
entered the heads even of the boldest of the English agents. They
recognized the native ruler of the province in which lay their
factories as their overlord, and they were content to hold their
lands from him on the condition of protection on his part, and of
good behaviour and punctual payment of rent on their own. For the
combative energies of a young man such as Robert Clive there was
absolutely no field on Indian soil. The duties devolving on a writer
were {12}the duties of a clerk; to keep accounts; to take stock; to
make advances; to ship cargoes; to see that no infringement of the
Company's monopoly should occur. He was poorly paid; his life was a
life of dull routine; and, although after many years of toil the
senior clerks were sometimes permitted to trade on their own account
and thus to make large fortunes, the opportunity rarely came until
after many years of continuous suffering, and then generally when the
climate had exhausted the man's energies.
To a young man of the nature of Robert Clive such a life could not be
congenial. And, in fact, he hated it from the outset. He had left
England early in 1743; his voyage had been long and tiring: the ship
on which he sailed had put in at Rio, and was detained there nine
months; it remained anchored for a shorter period in St. Simon's Bay;
and finally reached Madras only at the close of 1744. The delays thus
occurring completely exhausted the funds of the young writer: he was
forced to borrow at heavy interest from the captain: the friend at
Madras, to whom he had letters of introduction, had quitted that
place. The solitary compensating advantage was this, that his stay at
Rio had enabled him to pick up a smattering of Portuguese.
We see him, at length arrived, entering upon those hard and
uninteresting duties to undertake which he had refused a life of far
less drudgery in England in a congenial climate and under a sun more
to be desired than dreaded. Cast loose in the profession he had
{13}selected, separated from relatives and friends, he had no choice
but to enter upon the work allotted to him. This he did sullenly and
with no enthusiasm. How painful was even this perfunctory
performance; how keenly he felt the degradation--for such he deemed
it--may be judged from the fact recorded by his contemporaries and
accepted by the world, that for a long time he held aloof from his
companions and his superiors. These in their turn ceased after a time
to notice a young man so resolute to shun them. And although with
time came an approach to intercourse, there never was cordiality. It
is doubtful, however, whether in this description there has not
mingled more than a grain of exaggeration. We have been told of his
wayward nature: we have read how he insulted a superior functionary,
and when ordered by the Governor to apologize, complied with the
worst possible grace: how, when the pacified superior, wishing to
heal the breach, asked him to dinner, he refused with the words that
although the Governor had ordered him to apologize, he did not
command him to dine with him: how, one day, weary of his monotonous
existence, and suffering from impecuniosity, he twice snapped a
loaded pistol at his head; how, on both occasions, there was a
misfire; how, shortly afterwards, a companion, entering the room, at
Clive's request pointed the pistol outside the window and pulled the
trigger; how the powder ignited, and how then Clive, jumping to his
feet, exclaimed, 'I feel I am reserved for better things.'
{14}These stories have been told with an iteration which would seem
to stamp them as beyond contradiction. But the publication of Mr.
Forrest's records of the Madras Presidency (1890) presents a view
altogether different. The reader must understand that the Board at
Fort St. David--at that time the ruling Board in the Madras
Presidency--is reporting, for transmission to Europe, an account of a
complaint of assault made by the Rev. Mr. Fordyce against Clive.
It would appear from this that Mr. Fordyce was a coward and a bully,
besides being in many other respects an utterly unfit member of
society. It had come to Clive's ears that this man had said of him,
in the presence of others, that he, Clive, was a coward and a
scoundrel; that the reverend gentleman had shaken his cane over him
in the presence of Mr. Levy Moses; and had told Captain Cope that he
would break every bone in his (Clive's) skin. In his deposition Clive
stated that these repeated abuses so irritated him, 'that he could
not forbear, on meeting Mr. Fordyce at Cuddalore, to reproach him
with his behaviour, which, he told him, was so injurious he could
bear it no longer, and thereupon struck him two or three times with
his cane, which, at last Mr. Fordyce returned and then closed in with
him, but that they were presently parted by Captain Lucas.'
The Board, in giving its judgement on the case, recapitulated the
many offences committed by Mr. Fordyce, the great provocation he had
given to Clive, and suspended him. With regard to Clive they
{15}recorded: 'lest the same,' the attack on Fordyce, 'should be to
Mr. Clive's prejudice, we think it not improper to assure you that he
is generally esteemed a very quiet person and no ways guilty of
disturbances.' It is to be inferred from this account that, far from
deserving the character popularly assigned to him, Clive, in the
third year of his residence in India, was regarded by his superiors
as a very quiet member of society.
Still, neither the climate nor the profession suited him. 'I have not
enjoyed,' he wrote to one of his cousins, 'a happy day since I left
my native country.' In other letters he showed how he repented
bitterly of having chosen a career so uncongenial. Gradually,
however, he realized the folly of kicking against the pricks. He
associated more freely with his colleagues, and when the Governor,
Mr. Morse, sympathizing with the young man eating out his heart from
ennui, opened to him the door of his considerable library, he found
some relief to his sufferings. These, at last, had reached their
term. Before Clive had exhausted all the books thus placed at his
disposal, events occurred which speedily opened to him the career for
which he had panted.
{16}