CHAPTER XVII REMARKABLE POINTS IN THE CAREER OF CLIVE CLIVE'S CHARACTER INCONSISTENCIES IN IT MOUNTSTUART ELPHINSTONE'S ESTIMATE OF CLIVE -PUBLIC INGRATITUDE EVINCED TOWARDS CLIVE THE career of Clive was a very remarkable one, whether we consider the position and reputation which he, beginning life as a clerk in the service of a mercantile company, was able to achieve at a very early age; or the combination of administrative capacity in civil affairs with military genius of the highest order; or the difficulties under which he laboured, arising from a temperament peculiarly susceptible of nervous depression, and from a physique by no means strong; or the shortness of the time in which his work was done. Perhaps the most extraordinary part of the story is the very few years which it took to lay the foundation of the British Indian Empire. Clive received his first military commission in 1747, and his first course of service in India was brought to a close in February 1753. In that brief period, amounting to less than six years, Clive by his defence of Arcot, by his victory at Kaveripák, and by the other operations in which he was engaged in the South of India, at the age of twenty-seven established his reputation as a military commander. His second visit to India, which included Plassey and the establishment of British ascendancy in Bengal, lasted only from 27th November 1755 to 25th February 1760, or little more than four years. His third and last visit, in which he laid the foundations of regular government in Bengal, was cut short by ill health in twenty-two months. Clive's real work in India thus occupied, all told, a little less than twelve years. In spite of all that has been written about Clive, a considerable amount of misconception regarding his true character exists even to this day. The common estimate of him still is that he was a brave and able, but violent and unscrupulous man. The prejudice against him which embittered the latter years of his life, although in a great degree unfounded, has not yet entirely passed away. In a modern poem, entitled 'Clive's Dream before Plassey,' Clive is thus apostrophised :'Violent and bad, thou art Jehovah's servant still, And e'en to thee a dream may be an Angel of His will. Macaulay's statement that 'Clive, like most men who are born with strong passions and tried by strong temptations, committed great faults, but that our island has scarcely ever produced a man more truly great either in arms or in council,' is not only more 1 Ex Eremo, poems chiefly written in India, by H. G. Keene. London, 1855. generous but more just. The transactions upon which Clive has been chiefly attacked are the fraud upon Omichand and the pecuniary arrangement with Mir Jafar. For the fraud upon Omichand it is impossible to offer any defence. It was not only morally a crime, but, regarded merely from the point of view of political expediency, it was a blunder of a kind which, if it had been copied in after times, would have deprived our Government in India of one of the main sources of its power-the implicit confidence of the natives in British faith. It is sometimes suggested, in defence of Clive's action in this matter, that Watts and some of the other parties to the conspiracy against the Nawab were in the power of the latter, and that their lives would certainly have been sacrificed had Omichand disclosed the conspiracy; but this argument ignores the fact that Omichand's silence would have been equally purchased by meeting his demand, instead of resorting to a discreditable trick which left an indelible stain upon Clive's reputation and upon the British name. For the acceptance of the sum of money, large as it was, which Mír Jafar presented to Clive after Plassey, and of the Jagir which he subsequently conferred upon him, there is something to be said, if not in justification, at all events in extenuation. The East India Company at that time tacitly sanctioned the acceptance by their servants of presents from the native powers, paying them miserable salaries, but allowing them to enrich themselves by trade and presents. That Clive would have scorned for the sake of personal gain, under any circumstances, to take a course which he knew to be inconsistent with the interests of his country, is proved by the whole of his career, and among other instances by his conduct in making war on his own responsibility upon the Dutch, at the time when a great part of his fortune was in hands of the Dutch East India Company. And whatever errors he committed in the two transactions above referred to, those errors were nobly redeemed by the energetic onslaught which he made during his second government of Bengal upon the system of oppression, extortion and corruption which then prevailed. ་ It is not easy to define Clive's character. Like many other characters, it was full of inconsistencies. Brave and daring, magnanimous and generous, possessing an inflexible will, and in every sense a leader of men, he was not free from some of the defects which are usually associated with a vain and petty nature. He was greedy of praise and resented detraction. By no means tolerant of opposition, he yet, when convinced of the ability of a man whom he disliked, was willing, as a matter of public duty, to employ him. Perhaps the most philosophic estimate of his character is that embodied in Mr Mountstuart Elphinstone's preface 1 to the Rise and Progress of the British Power in the East,' in which the following 1 Sec Appendix III. remarks are especially noteworthy: Clive's estimate of his own services, great as they were, by no means fell short of their actual value. This does not arise from any indulgence of vanity on his part; but there is no occasion on which they can promote his views or interest, where they are not brought forward in an exaggerated form, with a boldness and consciousness of worth that command our respect and overcome our dislike to self-praise. Hence arose a marked peculiarity of Clive's character. After the enormous extent to which he profited by his situation, he delights to dwell on his integrity and moderation, and speaks of greed and rapacity in others with scorn and indignation. Convinced that the bounty of Mir Jafar fell short of his claims on the Company, he inveighs against his successors who receive presents which they had not earned, and speaks of them with disgust as the most criminal as well as the meanest of mankind. Nor are these sentiments assumed to impose upon the public. They are most strongly expressed in his most confidential letters, and appear to be drawn forth by the strength of his feelings. In no stage of his life did Clive appear with more dignity than during his persecution. His boasts of merit and service now appear as a personal resistance to calumny and oppression; the spirit with which he avowed and gloried in his acts which excited the most clamour and odium, his independence towards his judges, his defiance of P |