pounds sterling a year. The whole of this splendid estate, sufficient to support with dig. nity the highest rank of the British peerage, was now conferred on Clive for life.

This present we think Clive justified in accepting. It was a present which, from its very nature, could be no secret. In fact, the Company itself was his tenant, and, by its acquiescence, signified its approbation of Meer Jaffier's grant.

the European soldiers, who constituted the main strength of the invading army, were killed or taken. The conquerors sat down before Chinsura; and the chiefs of that settlement, now thoroughly humbled, consented to the terms which Clive dictated. They engaged to build no fortifications, and to raise no troops beyond a small force necessary for the police of their factories; and it was distinctly provided that any violation of these covenants should be punished with instant expulsion from Bengal.

But the gratitude of Meer Jaffier did not last long. He had for some time felt that the powerful ally who had set him up might pull him Three months after this great victory, Clive down, and had been looking round for support sailed for England. At home, honours and against the formidable strength by which he rewards awaited him--not indeed equal to his had himself been hitherto supported. He knew claims or to his ambition; but still such as, that it would be impossible to find among the when his age, his rank in the army, and his natives of India any force which would look original place in society are considered, must the Colonel's little army in the face. The be pronounced rare and splendid. He was French power in Bengal was extinct. But the raised to the Irish peerage, and encouraged to fame of the Dutch had anciently been great in expect an English title. George the Third, the Eastern seas; and it was not yet distinctly who had just ascended the throne, received known in Asia how much the power of Hol- him with great distinction. The ministers paid land had declined in Europe. Secret commu-him marked attention; and Pitt, whose innications passed between the court of Moorshe-fluence in the House of Commons and in the dabad and the Dutch factory at Chinsura; and country was unbounded, was eager to mark urgent letters were sent from Chinsura, exhort- his regard for one whose exploits had contriing the government of Batavia to fit out an ex-buted so much to the lustre of that memorable pedition which might balance the power of the period. The great orator had already in ParEnglish in Bengal. The authorities of Batavia, liament described Clive as a heaven-born geeager to extend the influence of their country-neral, a man who, bred to the labour of the still more eager to obtain for themselves a share of the wealth which had recently raised so many English adventurers to opulenceequipped a powerful armament. Seven large ships from Java arrived unexpectedly in the Hoogley. The military force on board amounted to fifteen hundred men, of whom about onehalf were Europeans. The enterprise was well-timed.

desk, had displayed a military genius which might excite the admiration of the King of Prussia. There were then no reporters in the gallery; but these words, emphatically spoken by the first statesman of the age, had passed from mouth to mouth, had been transmitted to Clive in Bengal, and had greatly delighted and flattered him. Indeed, since the death of Wolfe, Clive was the only English general of whom Clive had sent such large detachments to his countrymen had much reason to be proud. oppose the French in the Carnatic, that his The Duke of Cumberland had been generally army was now inferior in number to that of unfortunate; and his single victory having the Dutch. He knew that Meer Jaffer secretly been gained over his countrymen, and used favoured the invaders. He knew that he took with merciless severity, had been more fatal to on himself a serious responsibility, if he attack- his popularity than his many defeats. Coned the forces of a friendly power; that the Eng-way, versed in the learning of his profession, lish ministers could not wish to see a war with and personally courageous, wanted vigour and Holland added to that in which they were capacity. Granby, honest, generous, and brave already engaged with France; that they might as a lion, had neither science nor genius. Sackdisavow his acts; that they might punish him. ville, inferior in knowledge and abilities to none He had recently remitted a great part of his for- of his contemporaries, had incurred, unjustly tune to Europe, through the Dutch East India as we believe, the imputation most fatal to the Company; and he had therefore a strong inte- character of a soldier. It was under the comrest in avoiding any quarrel. But he was mand of a foreign general that the British had satisfied, that if he suffered the Batavian triumphed at Minden and Warburg. The armament to pass up the river and join the gar-people, therefore, as was natural, greeted with rison at Chinsura, Meer Jaffier would throw himself into the arms of these new allies, and that the English ascendency in Bengal would be exposed to most serious danger. He took his resolution with characteristic boldness, and was most ably seconded by his officers, particularly by Colonel Forde, to whom the most important part of the operations was intrusted. The Dutch attempted to force a passage. The English encountered them both by land and water. On both elements the enemy had a great superiority of force. On both they were sig nally defeated. Their ships were taken. Their troops were put to a total rout. Almost all

pride and delight a captain of their own, whose native courage and self-taught skill had placed him on a level with the great tacticians of Germany.

The wealth of Clive was such as enabled him to vie with the first grandees of England. There remains proof that he had remitted more than a hundred and eighty thousand pounds through the Dutch East India Company, and more than forty thousand pounds through the English Company. The amount which he sent home, through private houses, was also con siderable. He invested great sums in jewels then a very cominon mode of remittance fron

at present; for, then, every share of five hun dred pounds conferred a vote. The meetings were large, stormy, even riotous,--the debates indecently virulent. All the turbulence of a Westminster election, all the trickery and corruption of a Grampound election, disgraced the proceeding of this assembly on questions of the most solemn importance. Fictitious votes were manufactured on a gigantic scale. Clive himself laid out a hundred thousand pounds in the purchase of stock, which he then divided among nominal proprietors on whom he could depend, and whom he brought down in his train to every discussion and every ballot. Others did the same, though not to quite so enormous an extent.

India. His purchases of diamonds, at Madras alone, amounted to twenty-five thousand pounds. Besides a great mass of ready money, he had his Indian estate, valued by himself at twenty-seven thousand a year. His whole annual income, in the opinion of Sir John Malcclm, who is desirous to state it as low as possible, exceeded forty thousand pounds; and incomes of forty thousand pounds at the time of the accession of George the Third, were at least as rare as incomes of a hundred thousand pounds now. We may safely atfirm that no Englishman who started with nothing, has ever, in any line of life, created such a fortune, at the early age of thirty-four. It would be unjust not to add, that he made a creditable use of his riches. As soon as the battle of Plassey had laid the foun- The interest taken by the public of England dation of his fortune, he sent ten thousand in Indian questions was then far greater than at pounds to his sisters, bestowed as much more present, and the reason is obvious. At present on other poor friends and relations, ordered his the writer enters the service young; he climbs agent to pay eight hundred a year to his pa- slowly; he is rather fortunate, if, at forty-five, rents, and to insist that they should keep a car- he can return to his country, with an annuity riage, and settled five hundred a year on his of a thousand a year, and with savings amountold commander Lawrence, whose means were ing to thirty thousand pounds. A great quanvery slender. The whole sum which he ex-tity of wealth is made by English functionaries pended in this manner, may be calculated at fifty thousand pounds.

He now set himself to cultivate parliamentary interest. His purchases of land seemed to have been made in a great measure with that view; and after the general election of 1761, he found himself in the House of Commons, at the head of a body of dependants whose support must have been important to any administration. In English politics, however, he did not take a prominent part. His first attachments, as we have seen, were to Mr. Fox; at a later period he was attracted by the genius and success of Mr. Pitt; but finally he connected himself in the closest manner with George Grenville. Early in the session of 1764, when the illegal and impolitic persecution of that worthless demagogue Wilkes had strongly excited the public mind, the town was amused by an anecdote, which we have seen in some unpublished memoirs of Horace Walpole. Old Mr. Richard Clive, who, since his son's elevation, had been introduced into society for which his former habits had not well fitted him, presented himself at the levee. The king asked him where Lord Clive was. "He will be in town very soon," said the old gentleman, loud enough to be heard by the whole circle, "and then your majesty will have another vote."

in India; but no single functionary makes a very large fortune, and what is made is slowly, hardly, and honestly earned. Only four or five high political offices are reserved for public men from England. The residencies, the secretaryships, the seats in the boards of revenue and in the Sudder courts, are all filled by men who have given the best years of life to the service of the Company; nor can any talents however splendid, nor any connections however powerful, obtain those lucrative posts for any person who has not entered by the regular door, and mounted by the regular gradations. Seventy years ago, much less money was brought home from the East than in our own time. But it was divided among a very much smaller number of persons, and immense sums were often accumulated in a few months. Any Englishman, whatever his age might be, might hope to be one of the lucky emigrants. If he made a good speech in Leadenhall Street, or published a clever pamphlet in defence of the chairman, he might be sent out in the Company's service, and might return in three or four years as rich as Pigot or as Clive. Thus the India House was a lottery-office, which invited everybody to take a chance, and held out ducal fortunes as the prizes destined for the lucky few. As soon as it was known that there But in truth all Clive's views were directed was a part of the world where a lieutenanttowards the country in which he had so emi-colonel had one morning received, as a present, nently distinguished himself as a soldier and a an estate as large as that of the Earl of Bath statesman; and it was by considerations relat- or the Marquis of Rockingham, and where it ing to India that his conduct as a public man in seemed that such a trifle as ten or twenty thou England was regulated. The power of the Com-sand pounds was to be had by any British pany, though an anomaly, is, in our time, we are firmly persuaded, a beneficial anomaly. In the time of Clive, it was not merely an anomaly, but a nuisance There was no Board of Control. The Directors were for the most part mere traders, ignorant of general politics, ignorant of the peculiarities of the empire which had so strangely become subject to them. The Court of Proprietors, wherever it chose to interfere, was able to have its way. That court was more numerous as well as powerful than

functionary for the asking, society began to exhibit all the symptoms of the South Sea year-a feverish excitement, an ungovernable impatience to be rich, a contempt for slow, sure, and moderate gains.

At the head of the preponderating party in the India House, had long stood a powerful, able, and ambitious director of the name of Sullivan. He had conceived a strong jealousy of Clive, and remembered with bitterness the audacity with which the late Governor of Ben

gal had repeatedly set at naught the authority of the distant Directors of the Company. An apparent reconciliation took place after Clive's arrival; but enmity remained deeply rooted in the hearts of both. The whole body of Directors was then chosen annually. At the election of 1763, Clive attempted to break down the power of the dominant faction. The contest was carried on with a violence which he describes as tremendous. Sullivan was victorious, and hastened to take his revenge. The grant of rent which Clive had received from Meer Jaffier was, in the opinion of the best English lawyers, valid. It had been made by exactly the same authority from which the Company had received their chief possessions in Bengal, and the Company had long acquiesced in it. The Directors, however, most unjustly determined to confiscate it, and Clive was compelled to file a bill in Chancery against them.

his fallen predecessor. The immense popula tion of his dominions was given up as a prey to those who had made him a sovereign, and who could unmake him. The servants of the Company obtained-not for their employers, but for themselves-a monopoly of almost the whole internal trade. They forced the natives to buy dear and sell cheap. They insulted with perfect impunity the tribunals, the police, and the fiscal authorities of the country. They covered with their protection a set of native dependants who ranged through the provinces spreading desolation and terror wherever they appeared. Every servant of a British factor was armed with all the power of his master, and his master was armed with all the power of the Company. Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, while thirty millions of human beings were reduced to the last extremity of wretchedness. They had been accustomed to live under tyranny, But a great and sudden turn in affairs was but never under tyranny like this. They at hand. Every ship from Bengal had for found the little finger of the Company thicker some time brought alarming tidings. The in- than the loins of Surajah Dowlah. Under their ternal misgovernment of the province had old masters they had at least one resource: reached such a point that it could go no further. when the evil became insupportable, they rose What, indeed, was to be expected from a body and pulled down the government. But the of public servants exposed to temptation such English government was not to be so shaken that, as Clive once said, flesh and blood could off. That government, oppressive as the most not bear it;-armed with irresistible power, oppressive form of barbarian despotism, was and responsible only to the corrupt, turbulent, strong with all the strength of civilization. It distracted, ill-informed Company, situated at resembled the government of evil genii, rasuch a distance, that the average interval be- ther than the government of human tyrants. tween the sending of a despatch and the receipt Even despair could not inspire the soft Benof an answer was above a year and a half! galee with courage to confront men of English Accordingly, during the five years which fol- breed-the hereditary nobility of mankind, lowed the departure of Clive from Bengal, the whose skill and valour had so often triumphed misgovernment of the English was carried to in spite of tenfold odds. The unhappy race a point, such as seems hardly compatible with never attempted resistance. Sometimes they the very existence of society. The Roman pro-submitted in patient misery. Sometimes they consul, who, in a year or two, squeezed out of fled from the white man, as their fathers had a province the means of rearing marble palaces been used to fly from the Mahratta; and the and baths on the shores of Campania, of drink-palanquin of the English traveller was often ing from amber, of feasting on singing-birds, carried through silent villages and towns, which of exhibiting armies of gladiators and flocks of the report of his approach had made desolate. camelopards-the Spanish viceroy, who, leav- The foreign lords of Bengal were naturally obing behind him the curses of Mexico or Lima,jects of hatred to all the neighbouring powers; entered Madrid with a long train of gilded and to all, the haughty race presented a dauntless coaches and of sumpter-horses, trapped and front. Their armies, everywhere outnumbered, shod with silver-were now outdone. Cruelty, were everywhere victorious. A succession of indeed, properly so called, was not among the commanders formed in the school of Clive, still vices of the servants of the Company. But maintained the fame of their country. "It must cruelty itself could hardly have produced great- be acknowledged," says the Mussulman histoer evils than were the effect of their unprinci- rian of those times, "that this nation's presence pled eagerness to be rich. They pulled down of mind, firmness of temper, and undaunted their creature, Meer Jaffier. They set up in bravery, are past all question. They join the his place another Nabob, Meer Cossim. But most resolute courage to the most cautious Meer Cossim had talents and a will; and, prudence: nor have they their equal in the ar though sufficiently inclined to oppress his sub- of ranging themselves in battle array and jects himself, he could not bear to see them fighting in order. If to so many military quali ground to the dust by oppressions which yield-fications they knew how to join the arts of goed him no profit-nay, which destroyed his vernment-if they exerted as much ingenuity revenue in its very source. The English ac- and solicitude in relieving the people of God, cordingly pulled down Meer Cossim, and set as they do in whatever concerns their military up Meer Jaffier again; and Meer Cossim, after affairs, no nation in the world would be preferrevenging himself, by a massacre surpassing able to them, or worthier of command; but the in atrocity that of the Black Hole, fled to the people under their dominion groan everydominions of the Nabob of Oude. At every where, and are reduced to poverty and distress. one of these revolutions, the new prince di-Oh God! come to the assistance of thine vided among his foreign masters whatever afflicted servants, and deliver them from the could be scraped together from the treasury of oppressions they suffer."

Clive rose. As to his estate, he said, he would make such propositions to the Directors as would, he trusted, lead to an amicable settlement. But there was a still greater difficulty. It was proper to tell them that he never would undertake the government of Bengal while his enemy Sullivan was chairman of the Company. The tumult was violent. Sullivan could scarcely obtain a hearing. An overwhelming majority of the assembly was on Clive's side. Sullivan wished to try the result of a ballot. But, by the by-laws of the Company, there can be no ballot except on a requisition signed by nine proprietors; and though hundreds were present, nine persons could not be found to set their hands to such a requisi-power to triple his already splendid fortune, to tion.

all obstacles began to bend before that iron gal. Clive saw clearly that it was absurd to courage and that vehement will. The receiv- give men power, and to expect that they would ing of presents from the natives was rigidly be content to live in penury He had justly prohibited. The private trade of the servants concluded that no reform could be effectual of the Company was put down. The whole which should not be coupled with a plan for settlement seemed to be set, as one man, liberally remunerating the civil servants of the against thes measures. But the inexorable Company. The Directors, he knew, were not governor declared that, if he could not find disposed to sanction any increase of the salasupport at Fort William, he would procure it ries out of their own treasury. The only elsewhere; and sent for some civil servants course which remained open to the governor, from Madras to assist him in carrying on the was one which exposed him to much misreadministration. The most factious of his op- presentation, but which we think him fully ponents he turned out of their offices. The rest justified in adopting. He appropriated to the submitted to what was inevitable; and in a support of the service the monopoly of salt, very short time all resistance was quelled. which has formed, down to our own time, a principal head of Indian revenue; and he di

But Clive was far too wise a man not to see that the recent abuses were partly to be ascrib-vided the proceeds according to a scale which ed to a cause which could not fail to produce seems to have been not unreasonably fixed. similar abuses as soon as the pressure of his He was in consequence accused by his enestrong hand was withdrawn. The Company mies, and has been accused by historians, of had followed a mistaken policy with respect to disobeying his instructions-of violating his the remuneration of its servants. The salaries promises of authorizing that very abuse were too low to afford even those indulgences which it was his especial mission to destroy, which are necessary to the health and comfort-namely, the trade of the Company's serof Europeans in a tropical climate. To lay vants. But every discerning and impartial by a rupee from such scanty pay was impos- judge will admit, that there was really nothing sible. It could not be supposed that men of in common between the system which he set even average abilities would consent to pass up and that which he was sent to destroy. the best years of life in exile, under a burning The monopoly of salt had been a source of sun, for no other consideration than these stinted revenue to the governments of India before wages. It had accordingly been understood, Clive was born. It continued to be so long from a very early period, that the Company's after his death. The civil servants were agents were at liberty to enrich themselves by clearly entitled to a maintenance out of the their private trade. This practice had been revenue, and all that Clive did was to charge seriously injurious to the commercial interests a particular portion of the revenue with their of the corporation. That very intelligent ob- maintenance. He thus, while he put an end server, Sir Thomas Roe, in the reign of James to the practices by which gigantic fortunes the First, strongly urged the Directors to apply had been rapidly accumulated, gave to every a remedy to the abuse. "Absolutely prohibit British functionary employed in the East the the private trade," said he, "for your business means of slowly, but surely, acquiring a comwill be better done. I know this is harsh. petence. Yet, such is the injustice of mankind, Men profess they come not for bare wages. that none of those acts which are the real stains But you will take away this plea if you give of his life, has drawn on him so much obloquy great wages to their content; and then you as this measure, which was in truth a reform know what you part from." necessary to the success of all his other reforms.

In spite of this excellent advice the Company adhered to the old system, paid low sala- He had quelled the opposition of the civil ries, and connived at the by-gains of its ser- service: that of the army was more formidavants. The pay of a member of Council was ble. Some of the retrenchments which had only three hundred pounds a year. Yet it was been ordered by the Directors affected the innotorious that such a functionary could hardly terests of the military service; and a storm live in India for less than ten times that sum; arose, such as even Cæsar would not willingly and it could not be expected that he would be have faced. It was no light thing to encounter content to live even handsomely in India with- the resistance of those who held the power of out laying up something against the time of his the sword, in a country governed only by the return to England. This system, before the sword! Two hundred English officers engaged conquest of Bengal, might affect the amount of in a conspiracy against the government, and the dividends payable to the proprietors, but determined to resign their commissions on the could do little harm in any other way. But same day, not doubting that Clive would grant the Company was now a ruling body. Its ser- any terms rather than see the army, on which vants might still be called factors, junior mer- alone the British empire in the East rested, left chants, senior merchants. But they were in without commanders. They little knew the truth proconsuls, proprætors, procurators of unconquerable spirit with which they had u extensive regions. They had immense power. deal. Clive had still a few officers round his Their regular pay was universally admitted to person on whom he could rely. He sent to be insufficient. They were, by the ancient Fort St. George for a fresh supply. He gave usage of the service, and by the implied per- commissions even to mercantile agents wh mission of their employers, warranted in en- were disposed to support him at this crisis; riching themselves by indirect means; and and he sent orders that every officer who re this had been the origin of the frightful oppres- signed should be instantly brought up to Cal. sion and corruption which had desolated Ben-cutta. The conspirators found that they

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