THE LIFE OF ROBERT. FIRST LORD CLIVE. BY THE REV. G. R. GLEIG, M.A., CHAPLAIN GENERAL TO THE FORCES, PREFACE. IT has been my object, in the following pages, to treat the individual of whom I write as a strictly historical character. I have endeavoured to describe his proceedings fairly; to assign no other motives to his actions than the circumstances of each separate case should seem to warrant; to obscure no virtue, to hide no fault, but to paint the man in his life and in his death with the same forgetfulness of all things except the requirements of truth which would actuate me were I dealing with the career of a statesman or a hero who had flourished in some remote age or in a foreign country. Considering that two entire generations have passed away since Lord Clive quitted the stage of life, I hope that I shall not be accused, while following this course, of any want of delicacy towards the feelings of individuals. The time must come, in every instance, when our natural jealousy of the reputation of an ancestor shall yield to the still higher demands of historical verity; and if the lapse of more than seventy years do not bring matters to this level, I am at a loss to conceive when either the historian or the biographer shall be free to instruct without deceiving the world. Lord Clive was a man far above the common measure in every feature of his character. If his excellences were conspicuous, it cannot be said that his faults shunned the light. It has been my earnest desire neither |