The time of Clive's return to England was now approaching. Before his departure he endeavoured to secure the appointment of Forde to command the army in Bengal, but this the Court of Directors for some unknown reason declined to sanction. Ten years later, Forde, on Clive's recommendation, was sent back to India as one of three supervisors who were appointed to inquire into every department of Indian administration. The frigate in which they sailed touched at the Cape on the 27th September 1769, and was never heard of again. It has been suggested that Clive's pertinacity in endeavouring to promote the interests of Forde was one of the chief causes of the estrangement which, after Clive's return to England, arose between him and Lawrence Sullivan, a leading member of the Court of Directors, with whom he was on friendly terms both before and for some little while after his return home. Coote had visited England before Clive's return, and Sullivan, it was said, was much impressed by him, and owing to his preference for Coote induced his brother Directors to ignore the claims of Forde. They were both very able soldiers, but there can be no doubt that, after Forde's brilliant conduct of the siege of Masulipatam and the results of that siege, it was not creditable to his countrymen that his services should have been left, as they were, entirely unrecognised. In these days of decorations, bestowed with a lavish hand, and too often given for services of a very mediocre quality, an attentive student of Indian history is amazed to learn that Forde was allowed to go to his grave without having received a decoration or honours of any description. CHAPTER XI EVENTS IN MADRAS-CLIVE'S UNFAVOURABLE OPINION OF THE COURT OF DIRECTORS—HIS LETTER TO ENGLAND. DURING all this time Clive had not failed to bestow very close attention upon the affairs of Madras. Lally, as we have said, had landed at Pondicherry in 1758, and had shortly afterwards sent a force against Fort St David, which after a very weak defence capitulated, the garrison surrendering as prisoners of war. Clive was highly indignant at this surrender, and in writing to his friend Stringer Lawrence, expressed in no measured terms his contempt for the poltroonery of the garrison. Lally afterwards laid siege to Madras, but receiving no support from the French Admiral, and having no money to pay his troops, was obliged to raise the siege in about two months. In the following year, 1760, just before Clive left India, Coote, who H had been sent to Madras, defeated the French at Wandiwash, and a year later Pondicherry surrendered. Before embarking for England, Clive was again called upon to repel an invasion of Behár by the Sháhzáda. This was done under his orders by Major Calliaud, who had been sent up from Madras with reinforcements. After bidding farewell to the Nawab at Murshidabad, Clive returned to Calcutta on the 14th January 1760, and on the 25th of the following month he embarked for England, leaving the Government in the hands of Mr Holwell, pending the arrival from Madras of Mr Vansittart, who had been appointed to succeed him. Clive had for some time entertained a very unfavourable opinion of the administrative capacity of the Court of Directors, and in a letter to the elder Pitt, dated the 7th January 1759, he had suggested, though in somewhat guarded language, the expediency of transferring to the Crown the supreme control of the administration of Indian affairs, thus anticipating by nearly a century the measure which, after the Mutiny of 1857, was carried out by the Government of Lord Derby. The following is the text of the letter:— < To the Rt. Honble. WILLIAM PITT, one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State. 'SIR,-Suffer an admirer of yours at this distance to congratulate himself on the glory and advantage which are likely to accrue to the nation by your being at its head, and at the same time to return his most grateful thanks for the distinguished manner you have been pleased to speak of his successes in these parts, far indeed beyond his deservings. 'The close attention you bestow on the affairs of the British nation in general has induced me to trouble you with a few particulars relative to India, and to lay before you an exact account of the revenues of this country, the genuineness you may depend upon, as it has been faithfully extracted from the Minister's books. 'The great revolution that has been effected here by the success of the English arms, and the vast advantages gained to the Company by a treaty concluded in consequence thereof, have, I observe, in some measure engaged the public attention; but much more may yet in time be done if the Company will yet exert themselves in the manner the importance of their present possessions and future prospects deserves. I have represented to them in the strongest terms the expediency of sending out and keeping up constantly such a force as will enable them to embrace the first opportunity of further aggrandising themselves; and I dare pronounce, from a thorough knowledge of this country government, and of the genius of the people, acquired by two years' application and |