THE POLITICAL AND FOREIGN POLICY OF LORD CLIVE: HIS
ARMY-ADMINISTRATION AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
On the 25th of June Clive started on his tour northward. His presence
was urgently needed on the frontier, for he had to deal with two
humiliated princes, the Nawab-Wazir of Oudh, and the actual inheritor
of the empire of the Mughal, Shah Alim, now a houseless fugitive, his
capital occupied by the Afghans, possessing no resources but such as
might accrue from the title which he bore.
At Murshidabad, which he took on his way upwards, Clive had to settle
with the young Subahdar the system which it would be incumbent upon
him to introduce into the three provinces, as governor under the
over-lordship of the English. The positions of the native ruler and
the western foreigner had become completely inverted since the
period, only nine years distant, when Siraj-ud-daula marched against
Calcutta to expel thence those who were his vassals. The system to be
imposed now on the Subahdar provided that he should become a
{172}Nawab-Nazim, responsible for the peace and for the maintenance
of public order in the three provinces, for the administration of
justice, and for the enforcing of obedience to the law; that there
should be a Diwan, or chief minister, empowered to collect the yearly
revenue of the provinces, responsible for all disbursements, and for
the payment of the surplus into the Imperial treasury. This system
had prevailed in the time of the Emperor Aurangzeb. But there was
this important difference. In Clive's scheme, whilst Nujm-ud-daula
would be Nawab-Nazim, the East India Company would occupy, from that
time forth and for ever, the position of Diwan; and the Imperial
treasury would be the treasury of the Company. The scheme was agreed
to by the young Nawab and his surroundings. But in working it, one
part was found to place a power that would be abused in the hands of
the Nawab-Nazim. Accordingly, a few months later, that prince was
relieved of the responsibility for the maintenance of the public
peace, for the administration of justice, and for the enforcing of
obedience to the law. In a word, the Company became the rulers of the
three provinces, the Nawab-Nazim a cypher. Nay, more, the sum of
money which the Nawab-Nazim was to have at his disposal was limited
to fifty-three lakhs of rupees; from this he was to defray the entire
expenses of his court. Was it for such a result, might the shade of
Mir Jafar inquire, that the nobles of the three provinces combined to
betray Siraj-ud-daula?
{173}After having thus settled the affairs of the Company at
Murshidabad, Clive proceeded by way of Patna to Benares, to meet
there his friend General Carnac and the suppliant Nawab-Wazir of
Oudh. This interview was, in the eyes of Clive, likely to be fraught
with the most important consequences, for he was bent on the securing
of a frontier for the English possessions such as would offer the
best points of defence against invasion; for, in his view, it was to
be permanent.
It ought not to be attributed as a great political fault to Clive
that his mind had not realized the fact that to maintain it is often
necessary to advance. In a word, it would be most unfair to judge the
action of 1765-6 by the lights of the experience of the century which
followed. Up to the year 1757 the unwarlike inhabitants of Bengal had
been the prey of the Mughal or the Maratha. But in 1765, so far as
could be judged, neither was to be feared. The Maratha power had
suffered in 1761, on the field of Panipat, near Delhi, one of the
most crushing defeats ever inflicted on a people, and Clive had no
power of divining that the genius of a young member of one of their
ruling families, who escaped wounded from the field, would, in a few
years, raise the Maratha power to more than its pristine greatness.
As for the Mughal, his power was gone for ever; the representative
prince was at the very moment a fugitive at Allahabad, not possessed
of a stiver. What was there to be feared from him or from his family?
In the {174}three provinces the English possessed the richest parts
of India. It was surely good policy, he argued, if he could by treaty
with his neighbours, and by occupying the salient points which
covered them, render them unassailable.
After some preliminary conversation with the Nawab-Wazir, Clive found
that it would be necessary to proceed to Allahabad to confer there
with the titular emperor, Shah Alim. He found that prince full of
ideas as to the possibility of recovering with the aid of Clive his
lost possessions in the north-west. Nothing was further from Clive's
mind than an enterprise of that character, and, with his accustomed
tact he soon convinced the two princes that it was necessary first to
settle the English frontier before discussing any other subject. He
then proceeded to develop his plan. He demanded the cession of the
fortress of Chanar to the English; the provinces of Karra and
Allahabad to the Emperor, to be held, on his behalf, by the English;
the payment by the Nawab-Wazir of fifty lakhs, for the expenses of
the war just concluded; an engagement from him never to employ or
give protection to Mir Kasim or to Samru; permission to the East
India Company to trade throughout his dominions, and to establish
factories within them. The Nawab-Wazir agreed to every clause except
to that regarding the factories. He had observed, he stated, that
whenever the English established a footing in a country, even though
it were only by means of a commercial {175}factory, they never budged
from it; their countrymen followed them; and in the end they became
masters of the place. He then pointed out how, in nine years, the
small factory of Calcutta had absorbed the three provinces, and was
now engaged in swallowing up places beyond their border. He would
not, he finally declared, submit his dominions to the same chance.
Recognizing his earnestness, and having really no desire to plant
factories in Oudh, Clive wisely gave way on that one point. He
carried, however, all the other points. It was further arranged that
the Zamindar of Benares, who had befriended the English during the
war, should retain his possessions in subordination to the
Nawab-Wazir; that a treaty of mutual support should be signed between
the English, the Nawab-Wazir, and the Subahdar of the three
provinces; and that should English troops be required to fight for
the defence of the Nawab-Wazir's country, he should defray all their
expenses.
Subsequently at Chapra, in Bihar, Clive met the Nawab-Wazir, the
representative of Shah Alim, agents from the Jat chiefs of Agra, and
others from the Rohilla chiefs of Rohilkhand. The avowed purpose of
the meeting was to form a league against Maratha aggression, it
having been recently discovered that that people had entered into
communications with Shah Alim for the purpose of restoring him to his
throne. Then it was that the question of the English frontier was
discussed. It was eventually agreed that one {176}entire brigade
should occupy Allahabad, to protect that place and the adjoining
district of Karra;[1] that a strong detachment of the second brigade
should occupy Chanar; two battalions Benares; and one Lucknow. On his
side the Emperor granted firmans bestowing the three provinces upon
the East India Company 'as a free gift without the association of any
other person,' subject to an annual payment to himself and successors
of twenty-six lakhs of rupees, and to the condition that the Company
should maintain an army for their defence.
[Footnote 1: Karra was a very important division and city in the time
of the Mughals, and is repeatedly referred to by the native
historians whose records appear in Sir H. Elliot's history. See vols.
ii, iii, iv, v and viii. The city is now in ruins.]
On the 19th of May following the Subahdar of the three provinces
died. The arrangements made by Clive had deprived the position of all
political importance. The individuality of the person holding that
once important office was therefore of little importance. The next
heir, a brother, naturally succeeded. The only change made on the
occasion was the reduction of the allowance for all the expenses of
the office from fifty-three to forty-one lakhs of rupees.
On one point Clive continued firm. Although, practically, the English
had now become the masters of the three provinces, the Subahdar only
the show-figure, he insisted that the former should still remain in
the background. The revenue was still to be collected in {177}the
name, and nominally on behalf of the native prince. The utmost he
would permit in a contrary direction was to appoint English
supervisors, to see that the native collectors did their duty. Beyond
that he would not go. In the eyes of the world of India the three
provinces were to continue a _Subah_, administered by a Subahdar. The
control of the English was to remain a matter for arrangement with
the actual ruler, their real power only to be prominently used when
occasion might require, and then, likewise, in the name of the
Subahdar.
We have fortunately from his own hand the principles which guided
him, and which he hoped would guide his successors, in their
relations to the other powers of India. In a State paper[2] written
before his departure, he thus expressed his views: 'Our possessions
should be bounded by the provinces.' 'We should studiously maintain
peace; it is the groundwork of our prosperity. Never consent to act
offensively against any Powers except in defence of our own, the
King's, or the Nawab-Wazir's dominions, as stipulated by treaty; and,
above all things, be assured that a march to Delhi would be not only
a vain and fruitless project, but attended with destruction to your
own army, and perhaps put a period to the very being of the Company
in Bengal.' In a word, to borrow the criticism of the author from
whose work I have quoted, 'the English were to lie snugly
{178}ensconced in the three provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa.
The frontier of Oudh was to form a permanent barrier against all
further progress.' Such a policy might commend itself to the
theorist, but it was not fitted for the rough throes of an empire in
dissolution, its several parts disputed by adventurers. Within a
single decade it was blown to the winds.[3]
[Footnote 2: _Early Records of British India_, by Talboys Wheeler. In
this interesting work the paper quoted from is given _in extenso_.]
[Footnote 3: Wheeler.]
There is one subject upon which it becomes me to touch slightly
before considering the army administration. During one of his visits
to Murshidabad it was discovered that, in his will, the late
Subahdar, Mir Jafar, had bequeathed five lakhs of rupees to Clive.
The discovery was made after Clive, in common with the other servants
of the Company, had bound himself not to accept any presents from
natives of India. He could not therefore take the legacy himself. But
the money was there--practically to be disposed of as he might
direct. He resolved, with the approval of his Council, to constitute
with it a fund for the relief of the officers and men of the
Company's army who might be disabled by wounds or by the climate.
Thus was formed the institution which, under the title of 'Lord
Clive's Fund,' served to bring help and consolation to many poor and
deserving servants of the Company for nearly a century. By a strange
freak of fortune this fund reverted, in 1858, on the transfer of
India to the Crown, to the descendants of the very man who could not,
or believed he could not, accept it, when bequeathed to him, for
himself.
{179}Whilst dealing with the internal administration of the country,
and arranging for the protection of its frontier, Clive had not been
unmindful of the other duty strongly impressed upon him by the Court
of Directors, that of examining the pay and allowances of their
military officers, with special reference to an allowance known as
Batta. Batta, in a military sense, represented the extra sum or
allowance granted to soldiers when on field duty. Practically it had
been granted on the following principle. Officers had been allowed a
fixed monthly pay and allowances, not including batta, when they were
serving in garrison. When they took the field they drew an extra sum
as batta, known as full batta; but when they were detached to an
out-station, not being actually in the field, they drew only half
that amount, which was called half-batta. After the battle of
Plassey, Mir Jafar, in the profusion of his gratitude, had bestowed
upon the officers an additional sum equal to full batta. This was
called 'double batta,' and as long as the army was in the field,
fighting for the interests of that chief, he continued, with the
sanction of the Council of Calcutta, to disburse that allowance. Mir
Kasim, on his succession, had expressed his intention to continue
this payment, and had assigned to the Company, for that purpose
amongst others, the revenues of three districts. But the Court of
Directors, not fully realizing that the transaction with Mir Kasim
was one eminently advantageous to themselves, and forgetting that the
receipt of the revenues of the three provinces {180}was accompanied
by an obligation, chose to forget the latter point, and accepting the
revenues, issued peremptory orders to discontinue the disbursement of
double batta. This order seemed so unjust that the then Council of
Calcutta (1762), on receiving it, went thoroughly into the question,
and, in a despatch to the Court, submitted the case for the officers
in the strongest terms. The reply of the Court adds one proof to many
of the unfitness of men not belonging to the ruling class to exercise
supreme authority. The Directors refused the prayer of their servants
on grounds which, by no artifice of despatch-writing, could be made
to apply to the circumstances of the case.
That reply was dated the 9th of March, 1763. Just one month earlier
the Calcutta Council had appointed a Special Committee on the spot to
examine and report upon the question. But before the Committee could
complete its inquiries there broke out that war with Mir Kasim, which
called for the extraordinary exertions of the class whose claims were
under examination. The services of Majors Adams and Carnac, two of
the members of the Committee, were required in the field, and it was
by the splendid exertions of the former and his officers that the
Company was rescued from imminent peril. The inquiry dropped during
the war.
But although the splendid exertions of the officers saved British
interests in 1763, the Court of Directors did not the less persist in
resolving to curtail their {181}allowances. On the 1st of June, 1764,
whilst the army, having conquered Mir Kasim, stood opposed to the
forces of the Nawab-Wazir of Oudh, they despatched the most precise
orders that the allowance of double batta should be discontinued from
the date of the receipt of their order. Probably the Court of
Directors was the only ruling body in the world which would have
dared to issue an order greatly curtailing allowances to an army in
the field, opposed to greatly superior forces whose triumph would
mean destruction to the Company. But this is but one instance of the
dogged incapacity to rule with which the history of the Court of
Directors abounds.
When the despatch reached India the army had but just gained the
bloody and decisive battle of Baksar. The Calcutta Council dared not,
at such a moment, carry out the orders of the Court. There were other
reasons for delay. Lord Clive was on his way from England, and to
him, probably, special instructions had been given.
We have seen the course which Lord Clive pursued with reference to
the other branches of the administration. It was the end of the year
1765 before he touched the army. Then he issued instructions that
from the 1st of January, 1766, the double batta should be withdrawn,
except as regarded the second brigade, then stationed at Allahabad.
This brigade, on account of the high prices of provisions at the
station, and the expense of procuring the necessary supplies from
Europe, was to be allowed double batta in the field, {182}and the old
original single batta in cantonments or in garrison, until it should
be recalled within the provinces. This rule was to be applied to all
troops beyond the Karmnasa. Clive directed further that the rest of
the army should receive single batta when marching or in the field,
and half single batta when in cantonment or in garrison, as at Mungir
or Patna; but when at Calcutta or within the Presidency division the
officers would receive no batta at all, but free quarters in lieu of
it.
The order was badly received by the officers. They had enjoyed the
privilege of double batta and its accessories so long that they had
come to regard such allowances as their right by prescription. They
at once memorialized the Government with a view to obtain a
modification. But the reply Clive invariably gave them was to the
effect that the orders of the Court had left him no option in the
matter. Driven into a corner, their regard for their interests got
the better of their sense of discipline. The officers of the several
brigades and regiments entered into a correspondence with one
another, formed committees, and decided to wrench by force the
rights, as they deemed them, of which the order of the Court had
deprived them. In a word, the European army of India, officers and
men--for the men were prepared to follow the lead of the
officers--combined against the Government.
Space will not permit me, nor is it requisite, that I should detail
the measures they adopted to bend the {183}Government to their will.
It must suffice to state that the mutiny was of a most formidable
character. So complete was the organization of the conspiring
officers, so well laid were their plans, so secret had been their
measures, that, during the period of four months the organization was
in progress, not a single whisper of it had reached the Government.
Clive received the first intimation of it when he was officially
informed of it by the commander of the first brigade--a man who
sympathized with the movement and desired its success. At the moment
the conspirators were ready for action. That they possessed the
sympathy of the members of the Civil Service was shown by the fact
that the latter subscribed 140,000 rupees to aid the movement, and
supplied the conspirators with copies of the proceedings of the
Government.
Formidable as was the situation no living man was so well qualified
to deal with it as was Clive. In the hour of danger he soared above
his fellows. The danger here was greater than the danger of Arcot;
than at the surprises of Kaveripak and of Samiaveram; than during the
hour of doubt at Plassey. His opponents were his own men--men whom he
had led to victory. They possessed all the fortified places, the
guns, the material of war. From the frontier came rumours of the
advance of a Maratha army, 60,000 strong, to wrest Allahabad and
Karra from his hand. But there he was, the same cool, patient,
defiant man he had been when confronted by the bayonets of the
{184}French at Kaveripak and Samiaveram. He knew that the Government
he represented was in the most imminent danger, that if the mutineers
should move forward, he had not the means to oppose them.
The manner in which Clive met this danger is a lesson for all time.
Not for an instant did he quail. Never was he more resolved to carry
out the orders he had issued regarding batta than when he was told,
that, in the presence of the enemy on the frontier, the officers
would resign their commissions if the order were not withdrawn.
For the moment, fortunately, the conspirators had resolved to await
his action. He, then, would take the initiative. On the very day when
he received the report of the existence of the conspiracy he formed a
committee, composed of himself, General Carnac, and Mr. Sykes, to
carry out the plan of action he had formed. First, he and they
resolved to send immediately to Madras for officers. Then they passed
a resolution declaring that any officer resigning his commission
should be debarred from serving the Company in any capacity, and sent
copies of it to the several brigades for distribution to all
concerned. Clive then hurried to Murshidabad; he addressed the
recalcitrant officers stationed there; spoke to them in terms firm,
yet conciliatory; told them they were acting very wrongly and very
foolishly; that they were infringing the very discipline which they
knew to be the mainstay of an army; that although immediate success
might be theirs, they must be beaten {185}in the long run; that such
conduct could only be pardoned on condition of immediate submission.
Touched by the language of the man who had been to them an object of
veneration, all the officers, two young lieutenants excepted,
hesitated--then submitted absolutely. This success was followed by
similar results at the other stations in the Presidency division,
visited by Carnac and Sykes. In that division only two captains and a
lieutenant continued recalcitrant.
There remained then only the important centres of Mungir, Bankipur
(Patna), and Allahabad, the officers stationed there being bound to
each other by the most solemn engagements. At the first-named of
these places the Commandant was Sir Robert Fletcher, himself a
well-wisher to the plot. When the officers there simultaneously
tendered their resignation, agreeing to serve for fifteen days longer
without pay, Fletcher received them with sympathy, and told them he
would forward their letter to headquarters. At Bankipur, then the
military cantonment of Patna, the commandant, Sir R. Barker, one of
the superior officers who had accompanied Clive from England, acted
far differently. Before replying, he communicated with Lord Clive,
then at Murshidabad, and received from him instructions to place
under arrest every officer whose conduct should seem to him to come
under the construction of mutiny, and to detain such at Bankipur
until it might be possible to convene a general court-martial to try
them. To render {186}complete the necessary numbers of field-officers
Clive promoted on the spot two officers known to be loyal. The
Bankipur officers followed, nevertheless, the conduct of their
comrades at Mungir, and resigned in a body. Barker not only declined
to accept those resignations, but arrested four of the ringleaders,
and despatched them by water to Calcutta. This bold action paralyzed
the recalcitrants, and followed up as it was by the journey of Clive
to Mungir, accompanied by some officers who had come round from
Madras, it dealt a blow to the mutineers from which they never
completely rallied.
But at Allahabad the danger was still more menacing. There and at the
station of Surajpur, only two officers, Colonel Smith, and a Major of
the same name, were absolutely untainted: four were but slightly so,
and could be depended upon to act with the Smiths in an emergency;
all the others had pledged themselves to 'the cause.' Those of the
latter stationed at Allahabad displayed their disaffection in the
usual manner, whereupon Major Smith, commanding there, calling on the
sipahis to support him, placed under arrest every officer in the
place, the four slightly tainted officers excepted. He then informed
the mutinous officers that he would shoot down without mercy any and
every officer who should break his arrest. This action was most
effective. All the officers but six submitted and were allowed to
return to duty. The six were deported to Patna, to be tried there. A
similar course was followed by Colonel Smith at {187}Surajpur, with
the result, however, that nearly one half of the officers remained
recalcitrant, and were despatched under arrest to Calcutta.
Meanwhile, at Mungir, the officers continued in a thorough state of
disorganization, the commander, Sir Robert Fletcher, encouraging
them. The day before Clive's arrival, an officer whom he had sent in
advance, Colonel Champion, surprising the officers in full conclave,
learned from them that they desired to recount their grievances to
Clive in person. On learning this Clive directed them to parade with
their men the following morning, giving directions simultaneously to
Champion, to bring to the ground two battalions of sipahis, under the
command of Captain F. Smith, an officer known to be loyal. Then a
very curious circumstance happened. Smith had but just entered the
fort with his sipahis when he noticed that the Europeans, infantry
and artillery, were turning out to mutiny. Without a moment's
hesitation he marched towards them with his sipahis; seized, by a
bold strategic movement, a mound which was the key of the position,
completely dominating the ground on which the Europeans were drawn
up. The latter, who were on the point of quitting the fort, noting
the commanding position occupied by the sipahis, halted and
hesitated. Smith took advantage of the pause thus caused to tell them
that unless they should retire instantly to their barracks he would
fire upon them. At the moment Sir R. Fletcher came up, began to
encourage the revolters, and to distribute {188}money amongst them;
suddenly, however, taking in the exact position, he changed his tone,
ordered the recalcitrant officers to leave the fort within two hours,
and reported the whole circumstance to Lord Clive. The officers left
at once, and the incident closed for the day; but when, the following
morning, Clive entered the fort, and addressed the assembled soldiers
on the wickedness of their conduct, praised and rewarded the sipahis
for their behaviour, the men gave way. The mutiny, as far as Mungir
was concerned, was over. Meanwhile the officers expelled by Fletcher
had encamped within a short distance of Mungir, resolved to wait
there the arrival of their comrades from other stations. But they had
to deal with a man who would stand no trifling. Clive despatched to
them an order to set out forthwith for Calcutta; and to quicken their
movements he sent a detachment of sipahis to see that his order was
obeyed. After that there was no more mutiny at Mungir, or in the
stations dependent upon it.
At Bankipur the officers, notwithstanding the action of Sir R.
Barker, previously noted, had sent their commissions _en bloc_ to
Lord Clive. But the news of the occurrences at Mungir startled and
frightened them. When, then, Lord Clive arrived at Patna, he found
the officers penitent and humble, and that his only task was to
pardon. There, too, he learned with pleasure the successful action of
the two Smiths at Allahabad and Surajpur. He remained then at Patna,
to crush the last embers of the mutiny, and to arrange {189}for the
bringing to justice of the ringleaders. This last task he performed
in a manner which tempered justice with mercy. Fletcher, who had
played a double part, and whose actions were prompted by personal
greed, was brought to a court-martial and cashiered. Five other
officers were deported, but of these, one, John Neville Parker, was
reinstated in 1769, and survived to render glorious service to the
Company, giving his life for his masters in 1781.
The comparative ease with which Clive suppressed this formidable
conspiracy was due to one cause alone. No sooner did Clive hear of
the combination than, instead of waiting to be attacked, he seized
the initiative: the mutineers allowed him to strike the first blow;
standing on the defensive in their isolated positions, they gave the
opportunity to Clive to destroy them in detail. It was the action
which Napoleon employed against the Austrians in 1796, 1805, and in
1809. It is useless to speculate what might have been the result if
Clive had stood, as the majority of men would have stood, on the
defensive. By the opposite course he not only saved the situation,
but achieving a very decisive victory, struck a blow at
insubordination which gave an altered tone to the officers of the
army, then as much hankering after ungodly pelf as were their
brethren in the Civil Service. Never, throughout his glorious career
as a soldier, did Clive's character and his conduct stand higher than
when, in dealing out punishment for the {190}mutiny which he, and he
alone, had suppressed, he remembered the former services of the
soldiers who had been led away, and gave them all, a few
incorrigibles excepted, the opportunity to retrieve their characters
on future fields of battle.
The task of Clive in India had now been accomplished. Thoroughly had
he carried through the mission entrusted to him. He had cleansed, as
far as was possible, the Augean stable. He had given himself no
recreation: he was completely worn out. He had announced to the Court
of Directors so far back as 1765 his intention to resign as soon as
he could do so without inconvenience to the public interests. The
Court, in reply, whilst most handsomely acknowledging his services,
had begged him to devote yet one year to India. When that letter
reached him, December 1766, he had already accomplished all that,
with the means and powers at his disposal, it was possible to carry
through. He felt then that, broken in health, he might retire with
honour from the country he had won for England. Having penned a
valuable minute, laying down the principles which should guide the
policy of his successor, based upon his own action during the
preceding three years, he made over to one of his colleagues of the
Select Committee, Mr. Verelst,[4] the office of Governor, and
nominating Colonel Richard Smith, then on the frontier, to {191}be
Commander-in-chief, Mr. Sykes, Mr. Carter, and Mr. Beecher, to form,
with the Governor, the Select Committee, he bade farewell to his
friends, and, on the 29th of January, 1767, embarked on board the
good ship _Britannia_ for England.
[Footnote 4: Mr. Sumner, whose weak character I have described, and
who had been designated Lord Clive's successor, had been forced to
resign his seat on the Select Committee.]
{192}