CLIVE had found it a comparatively easy task to put Siraj-ud-daulah to flight and place Mir Jafar on the masnad. To keep him there, and induce him to govern with wisdom and vigour, was a task of greater difficulty. This was partly owing to the indifferent character and very moderate abilities of the new nabob, but still more to the circumstances in which he was placed. His fellow-conspirators naturally expected to share largely in the fruits of his success, and took offence when the rewards which they received fell short of the extravagant value which they attached to their services. The distribution of large sums of money had been anticipated; but in the very first days of the government, the greater part of what had been found in Siraj-ud-daulah’s treasury had been required to meet the first instalments due to the Company, and pay the enormous sums granted or extorted under the name of presents to their servants. Thus, at the outset, when nothing but a liberality approaching to lavishness could have gratified the selfishness of the nabob’s courtiers, and conciliated the good-will of the population generally, he was compelled either to practise a niggardliness which made him contemptible, or to have recourse to measures of extortion which made him detested. When pursuing the object of his ambition, Mir Jafar had readily promised everything that was asked of him. The performance was then both distant and conditional, and many things might occur before it could either be asked or enforced; and he had imagined, as Orme expressly states, that “his liberalities to individuals, who were the heads of the English nation, would relax their strictness in the public terms.” In plainer words, he thought that the large sums which he had given as presents would have operated as bribes, and disposed the recipients to overlook defalcations where the interests of the Company only were concerned. Great, therefore, was his disappointment, not unmingled with indignation, when he found Clive sternly insisting “on the payments of the treaty monies as they became due.”
There was another kind of interference which touched the nabob more nearly, and is said to have been regarded by him with abomination. The authority of a nabob within his own province was absolute, and Mir Jafar, when seated on the masnad, was not disposed to relinquish any of the powers which had been exercised by his predecessors. He had partialities and hatreds, and did not choose that commands in the army, or the administration of the government, should be intrusted to any but his own favourites. He accordingly meditated many changes; but when he would have carried them into effect, he was mortified above measure to find that another consent beside his own was necessary. Some of these changes would have been violations of promises made and even sworn to; others of them would have been contrary to sound policy; and on these and similar grounds Clive did not hesitate to tell him bluntly that he would not permit them. Who then is master? was the question which the nabob put to himself; and from that moment his resolution was taken to emancipate himself from British ascendency. He was careful, however, to do nothing which could excite the least suspicion of a change in his feelings; and therefore, while Clive continued at Murshidabad, nothing could exceed the deference paid to all his wishes and opinions, and both the nabob and his son lived with him on terms of intimacy and familiarity.
On the 14th of September, 1757, Clive having set out for Calcutta, leaving Watts, Manningham, and Scrafton at Murshidabad, to transact the Company’s affairs, Mir Jafar lost no time in endeavouring to carry out his own views. The leading agents in the conspiracy which overthrew Siraj-ud-daulah were Hindus. Through them chiefly the previous negotiation with Clive and the other servants of the Company had been carried on; and it was therefore probable that through them also their future influence in the government would be exercised. Reasoning thus, the nabob’s first object was to curtail, and, if possible, extinguish the power of the Hindus. At the head of them stood Raidurlabh the diwan. With him, therefore, it was proposed to begin, but with the greatest caution, for Raidurlabh, aware of the feeling with which he was regarded at court, not only stood upon his guard, but had obtained from Clive a guarantee of personal safety. The first step taken against him was indirect, and was important only as an indication of what might be expected to follow. Ramram Singh, who, besides being head of the spies, was Raja of Midnapore, was summoned to Murshidabad to settle the accounts of his district. Being considerably in arrear, and suspicious of what was intended, he did not go in person, but sent his brother and nephew, who were immediately thrown into prison. Raidurlabh, with whom Ramram Singh had always been closely connected, believed that this violent proceeding was the precursor of a similar requisition to himself, and established connections in different quarters, determined, if necessary, to repel force by force. He was even suspected of having stirred up two rebellions—one by Ramram Singh, who, on hearing how his brother and nephew had been treated, assembled 2,000 horse and 5,000 foot, with which he threatened to retire into the jungles with which his country abounded; and the other by Ogul Singh, whom Siraj-ud-daulah had appointed governor of Purnea.
These revolts, both headed by Hindus, and presumed to have been instigated by Raidurlabh, drove Mir Jafar from his course of dissimulation, and made him avow his determination to treat Raidurlabh as a rebel. A kind of open hostilities were accordingly declared; and the diwan, while still continuing to hold his office, not only refused to visit the nabob, but assembled a force of 1,000 men to set him at defiance. Through the influence of Clive an apparent reconciliation was effected, and an interview took place, at which the nabob and his diwan swore “oblivion of former distrusts and future friendship.” Nothing could be more false and hollow; and Raidurlabh, while he evinced suspicion by keeping his house under pretence of sickness, gave a decided proof of hostility by refusing to allow the troops under his own control to take part in the expedition to Purnea.
While peace was thus maintained with difficulty in the very centre of Bengal, the frontiers were assuming a threatening aspect. In Dacca a conspiracy to seize the fort was headed by Ammani Khan, a son of Sarfaraz Khan, the nabob who preceded Ali Vardi; and though prematurely discovered, was not put down without the aid of troops furnished by the Company. In the opposite direction, in Bihar, a formidable rebellion seemed so imminent that Clive left Calcutta and put himself at the head of his troops to march directly for Patna. The rumour which prevailed was that Ramnarain, to whom a strong suspicion of disaffection still attached, had formed an alliance with Suja-ud-daulah, the Nabob of Oudh, and that they were preparing to unite their forces with the view of marching into Bengal. Another rumour was, that the elevation of Mir Jafar to the masnad was disapproved at Delhi, and that an intrigue was on foot to proclaim Mirza Mundi, the infant son of Siraj-ud-daulah’s brother, as nabob. This latter rumour was traced to Miran, Mir Jafar’s eldest son, and with what wicked intention soon appeared; for on the morning of the 10th November, 1757, Murshidabad was thrown into consternation by the announcement that a band of ruffians, hired by Miran, had broken into the palace of Ali Vardi’s widow, where the infant was living under the charge of his grandmother, the widow of Zaindi Ahmed, and murdered him. It was added that both the widows had shared the same fate. They had only been seized and sent off in boats to Dacca, the rumour of their murder having been circulated, and even their fictitious funeral performed, to prevent any attempt that might have been made for their rescue, had it been known that they were still alive. The one murder, however, was barbarity enough to make both the nabob and his son generally detested, though the former declared that he neither sanctioned it nor knew of it till it was perpetrated. If credit was given to this declaration, it was surely a dismal reflection for the inhabitants of Bengal that they were already under a government which connived at such crimes, and had the prospect of being, sooner or later, subjected to the government of the very wretch who perpetrated them. Happily, however, as will be seen, this prospect was never realized.
On the 25th of November, 1757, Clive arrived with his troops at Murshidabad, and on the 30th set out at the head of 550 Europeans and 1,500 sepoys to join the nabob’s army which had advanced on the expedition to Purnea, as far as Rajamahal. Clive’s presence alone sufficed to put down the rebellion. In less than a week after his arrival Ogul Singh was taken prisoner, and all the chiefs in league with him submitted or fled the country. The threatened rebellion in Bihar still remained; and the nabob, who was bent on removing Ramnarain, urged an immediate advance on Patna. Clive saw his advantage, and refused to move until all the pecuniary claims and stipulations of the treaty should be satisfactorily arranged. This was impossible without the assistance of Raidurlabh, through whose office as diwan all money bills and patents behaved to pass. The nabob was thus in a dilemma. He must either forego the expedition to Patna, or effect a reconciliation with Raidurlabh under such conditions as would not allow him afterwards to recede. The latter course, which was indeed the only rational one, was strongly advocated by Clive. Through his mediation, and with the security of his guarantee, Raidurlabh, who had previously refused to quit Murshidabad, arrived in the camp, and the nabob and diwan once more made a solemn renunciation of their suspicions and animosities. The preliminary obstacle being thus removed, the parts of the treaty still remaining unfulfilled were easily arranged. The payment of twenty-three lacs of rupees, actually due, was provided for by order on the treasury at Murshidabad for one-half of the amount, and by tuncaws or orders, payable as the revenues should be realized, by the Phoujdar of Hughli and the Rajas of Burdwan and Krishnagar, for the other half. Other nineteen lacs, payable in April, were secured by other tuncaws on the same districts. Patents were also executed, empowering the Company to take possession of the ceded lands south of Calcutta, with the authority of zamindari, but subject to a reserved annual payment to the nabob of 222,958 rupees. The revenue of these lands, like that of many others in the province, was allowed by the Mughul government to the actual nabob as jaghir, or a pension for his expenses. We shall hear of it again.
Clive was now ready to accompany the nabob to Patna, but naturally required to be informed, before starting, as to the precise object of the expedition. The nabob, seeing it useless to dissemble, avowed his intention to remove Ramnarain, and give the government to some one of his more immediate dependants. The nabob, in forming this resolution, had overlooked the difficulties which might be anticipated in executing it. Clive was more discerning; and after pointing out the possible alliances which Ramnarain might form, and then raise the standard of independence, suggested that it would be better to conciliate than to oust him. This suggestion must have been made under a conviction that Ramnarain did not entertain the treasonable designs imputed to him; but nothing could be more distasteful to the nabob, as it both interfered with his design of giving the government of Bihar to his own brother, and would contribute to strengthen, whereas he was now intent on diminishing British influence. An opinion of Clive, distinctly stated and enforced by sound argument, could not, however, be lightly set aside; and it was therefore arranged, after much irresolution and tergiversation on the part of the nabob and his counsellors, that Clive should write a letter to Ramnarain, inviting an interview and assuring him of safety and favour. Meantime the army continued its march on Patna in three divisions, Clive with his troops leading the van, Raidurlabh with his force of 10,000 men following, and the nabob with the main body bringing up the rear. By the way letters arrived from Delhi, advising that patents, confirming Mir Jafar in the nabobship, had been made out. They had been delayed merely because the exhausted treasury at Murshidabad could not furnish the money expected at the Mughul court, where all things had become venal. In granting titles on the occasion Clive had not been forgotten, for he was informed through the Seths that he had been created a munsubdar of 6,000 horse, under several pompous names. Ramnarain, as the army advanced, continued taking measures for his defence. Clive’s letter had not yet reached him; but as soon as he received it he gave proof of the full confidence which it inspired by complying with its invitation, and embarking in his boats on the Ganges to pay Clive a visit. He arrived on the 25th of January, and the next day proceeded, in company with Mr. Watts, to wait upon the nabob, who received him with all the honours due to his rank, yet not refraining from certain slights indicative of his real feelings. So equivocal, indeed, was his conduct, that Clive’s suspicions were roused, and Ramnarain and Raidurlabh, who had previously been at variance, resolved to make common cause.
Matters were in this unsatisfactory state when startling intelligence arrived. The Nabob of Oudh, it was said, had resumed his aggressive designs, and was about to advance from Lucknow, accompanied by a large body of Maratha horse, and the European troops of M. Law who had been living under his protection at Allahabad. Mir Jafar was filled with alarm, more especially after a Maratha chief arrived to demand twenty-four lacs of rupees as the arrears of tribute due from Bengal. He was now as submissive as he had previously been disposed to be insolent; and in order to conciliate Clive, whose services had again become indispensable to him, he fulfilled the obligations which he had undertaken in regard to Ramnarain, by formally confirming him in his office of deputy-governor of Bihar. Clive was not slow to take advantage of the nabob’s altered feelings, and requested for the Company a monopoly of all the saltpetre made within his dominions. The nabob made many objections, and ultimately consented with great reluctance. The terms offered were indeed the highest at which the saltpetre monopoly had ever been farmed, but he knew that the stipulated rent was the utmost he could receive from the Company; whereas in the case of a native renter, he had an unlimited power of exaction in the shape of presents. On obtaining this rather questionable monopoly, Clive proceeded to enforce another claim, the justice of which could not be denied. The stipulated monthly pay of his troops in the nabob’s service was a lac a month, and though nearly four months had already been consumed in the campaign, only two lacs had been received. The demand of the arrears, both under this head and others which had accumulated, in consequence of the difficulty of realizing anything from the tuncaws, was not arranged without difficulty, because the alarms from Oudh and the Marathas having died away, the nabob had returned to his tortuous policy, and was again intriguing for the removal of Ramnarain. Clive’s sagacity and firmness disconcerted his schemes, and Ramnarain remained in possession of his dignity, while the whole army returned by slow marches towards Murshidabad.
Clive’s opinion of Mir Jafar had undergone considerable modification. His first communications with him when the conspiracy was planned, had impressed him favourably, and he speaks of him in one of his letters as a man of sense. When he placed him on the masnad, he congratulated the courtiers present on their good fortune in having received so excellent a sovereign. His language was now different. In a letter to the select committee of directors he says:—“I am concerned to mention that the present nabob is a prince of little capacity, and not at all blessed with the talent of gaining the love and confidence of his principal officers. His mismanagement threw the country into great confusion in the space of a few months, and might have proved of fatal consequence to himself, but for our known attachment to him. No less than three rebellions were on foot at one time.” In a letter to Mr. Pigott, written from Patna, his language is still plainer and more significant:—“The nabob’s conduct is weak beyond conception; and you may be assured, whenever we are wanting in a force to overawe and protect him, ruin will ensue. You cannot imagine the trouble I have had these three weeks past in our march to this place; and since his arrival, he has been wanting to make his brother, who is a greater fool than himself, Nabob of Bihar, in prejudice of Ramnarain, a Gentoo, universally beloved and respected, and that in breach of his promises to me, whom he desired to write to him, to engage him to come down and pay his respects. Not one of his rajas would come to, or treat with him, without letters of assurance from me.” He had no reason, however, to repent of his march to Patna. “Before we took the field,” he observes, “it was with the greatest difficulty the nabob could be prevailed upon to issue out of his treasury 10,000 rupees; and since my joining him, he has already paid twenty-five lacs, and given security for the payment of ten more.” A subsequent letter to the directors is in still more hopeful terms. Referring to the tuncaws or assignments on the revenues of certain districts, he says, that through them “the discharge of the debt is now become independent of the nabob, which precaution is become absolutely necessary, as his calls for money are greater than he can answer. Nothing but a total revolution in the government can well interrupt your payments.” He afterwards adds:—“All domestic troubles are now happily ended; and the nabob seems so well fixed in his government, as to be able, with a small degree of prudence, to maintain himself quietly in it. For ourselves, we have been so fortunate in these transactions, as to attach to us the most considerable persons in the kingdom; and, by the constancy with which we successively supported Ramram Singh, Raidurlabh, and Ramnarain, to acquire the general confidence and make our friendship be solicited on all sides. On the whole we may pronounce, that this expedition, without bloodshed, has been crowned with all the advantages that could be expected or wished to the nabob and the Company.
On the march from Patna, the nabob halted to amuse himself with hunting, and pay a pilgrimage to a celebrated tomb in the vicinity of Rajamahal. Clive continuing to proceed, accompanied by Raidurlabh, reached Murshidabad on the 15th of May, 1758. The state of the city astonished him. The markets were deserted, the shops shut, many of the principal families were preparing to send away their effects, and signs of trepidation were everywhere apparent. On inquiry, he learned that Miran, who was still more impatient than his father for the removal of Ramnarain and Raidurlabh, had no sooner learned that the latter was accompanying Clive in his return to the capital, than he quitted it with great precipitation, giving out that he had reason to suspect designs against his own life, and had therefore resolved to join his father. His conduct struck terror into the inhabitants, who saw nothing before them but the devastation and bloodshed of a new revolution. Clive might well be angry, for the charge of treasonable designs was levelled at him as well as Raidurlabh, and he therefore wrote the nabob, complaining in the sharpest terms of Miran’s conduct, and declaring that he would no longer remain in Bengal sacrificing zeal to distrust. This decided course brought both the nabob and Miran to their senses, and they both apologized in the most submissive terms. The nabob, even abandoning his sports and intended pilgrimage, hastened home; but Clive, still too much offended to desire an interview, had previously set out for Calcutta, ordering 2,000 of the sepoys to follow, and the rest, together with all the Europeans, to remain at Kassimbazar.
On the 20th of June, the Company’s ship Hardwicke arrived from England, bringing accounts of the arrangements which the directors had made in consequence of the loss of Calcutta. By their first arrangement, made in August, 1757, they committed the government to a select committee of five, of whom Clive was to be president; but in the following November, they appointed a council of ten, in which the four senior members were to preside alternately each for three months. Intelligence of both arrangements reached Calcutta for the first time by the Hardwicke, another vessel, though previously despatched with the August arrangement, not having yet arrived. The directors had been legislating in the dark, and far from wisely. A rotatory government would have been, under any circumstances, a clumsy device, and the revolution which had recently taken place, but of which the directors were not cognizant, made it wholly impracticable. In this new and strangely constituted council, Clive had no place. It has been said that no slight was intended, as the directors had assumed, on what must have appeared good grounds, that he had returned to Madras. It would, however, have been at least more courteous to have acted on the supposition that circumstances might have occurred to prevent his departure, and to have assigned him the place to which his past services entitled him. The appointment might have been made conditionally, on his being still in Bengal; and hence, even if his previous departure should have rendered the appointment ineffectual, it would still have been gratifying as a public testimony to his merit. It is certain that Clive himself felt aggrieved, and made no secret of it.
If Clive was indignant, the new members of council were above measure perplexed. They were naturally proud of their new dignity, but felt that any attempt to conduct the government without him would be worse than futile. They were aware that nothing but fear could induce the nabob to remain faithful to the obligations he had undertaken; and that the moment he was set free from the commanding influence which Clive alone had over him, the large sums of money still remaining due under the treaty never would be paid, and all its other stipulations would either be violated or indirectly evaded. Influenced by such considerations, they took the only course which seemed open to them, and addressed a letter to Clive, in which, after stating the objections to the rotatory governorship, and their readiness “at this juncture of affairs to waive all personal honours and advantages,” they made him “an offer of being president of the Company’s affairs in Bengal, till a person is appointed by the Honourable Company.” He had previously been sounded on the subject by Mr. Watts, whose name stood first in the rotation, and declared his determination not to accept. He was above being influenced by spiteful feelings, and gave strong reasons for his intended refusal, when he said:—“Both the public and my private advices, I think, plainly discover that the presidency of Bengal was by no means intended for me by the court of directors; and a temporary acceptance can only expose me, upon the further alterations which may arrive from Europe, to circumstances of disgrace in the eyes of the country government, which, I believe, it is unnecessary for me to remark, might be prejudicial to the Company’s affairs.” If the directors had, as he here supposes, deliberately resolved to exclude him from the office of president, this objection was unanswerable; but further consideration, and especially the very friendly tenor of a letter from Mr. Payne, their chairman, convinced him that their omission of his name might be explained without construing it into an intended slight; and he accepted the offer in a letter, in which he says:—“Though I think I have cause to be dissatisfied with the court of directors, for laying me aside in their new form of government, without any reason assigned, after having named me as head of the general committee in the letter of the 3rd of August last, yet, animated by the noble example of public spirit which you have set me, I have determined to waive all private considerations, where the general good is concerned; and as there is no doubt but the government of a single person, involved as we are now with the country powers, must have infinite advantage over that complicated form of government established from home, I shall, from that motive (though both my health and private concerns strongly require my returning to Europe), accept the offer you have done me the honour to make me, till such time as our employers have appointed a president in the usual form.” This was a manly as well as fortunate decision, for it eventually proved, instead of contradicting, to have only anticipated the final wishes of the directors, who no sooner heard of the victory of Plassey, than they abandoned their new fangled rotatory scheme, and formally appointed Clive governor of Bengal.
The Company’s affairs were certainly in a critical state, and required all Clive’s wisdom and energy. The successes of the French on the Coromandel coast could not be concealed from the nabob, and the natural consequence was to make him hopeful that he might yet be able to carry out all his favourite schemes, though it should be in defiance of Clive and the Company. The British troops in Bengal had also suffered a serious diminution by the expedition to the Northern Circars. In these circumstances, Clive felt it necessary to slacken the rein which he had hitherto held on the nabob’s movements, and overlook many things which, at a more favourable time, he would have peremptorily interdicted. As an additional means of conciliating his goodwill, he invited him to Calcutta. His own instalment as governor furnished an appropriate occasion; and Mir Jafar, with all his train, descending the Hughli in a splendid fleet of boats, was entertained for several days with pomp and festivity.
The mere love of pleasure, though always strong in Mir Jafar, was not his only inducement to pay this visit. He deemed it prudent to be absent from his capital during certain changes which he was most anxious to accomplish, but the responsibility of which he was unwilling to incur. Raidurlabh had been maintained in his place as diwan, contrary to his avowed determination to eject him. Miran had suggested a means of getting rid of him, and the father, well aware of the savage nature of his son, left him to accomplish his object in his own way. In this he obtained important aid from Nanda Kumar, a Hindu, who, after having long been in the confidence of Raidurlabh, had conceived the idea of elevating himself upon his ruin. When the tuncaws granted for the payment of the treaty monies proved unproductive, Nanda Kumar artfully insinuated that the fault lay with Raidurlabh; and volunteered, that if full authority were given him, he would make the amount forthcoming. The offer was too welcome not to be accepted, and Nanda Kumar thus became an ostensible agent of the Company, while Raidurlabh lost his interest with them, and could no longer calculate on their protection. This change of feeling was soon made known to the nabob and his son, who lost no time in turning it to account. Raidurlabh, aware of the extent of his danger, requested leave to retire with his family and effects to Calcutta. Even this was refused him, unless he previously furnished money for the payment of the troops, who were clamouring for their arrears. While matters were in this state, the nabob set out on his Calcutta visit. Only two days after he was gone, Miran surrounded Raidurlabh’s house with a body of troops, and was preparing to seize his person, when the Company’s agents came to the rescue, just in time to save his life, by sending him off to Calcutta under escort. Miran, enraged at the escape of his principal victim, vented his spite on the members of his family, and detained them as prisoners, till Warren Hastings, who had succeeded Scrafton as the Company’s resident at Murshidabad, was able to send them also to Calcutta. It would be useless to detail the series of intrigues which followed, and in which the nabob and his son, still bent on the destruction of Raidurlabh, showed that there were no means too base for them to employ in order to accomplish it.
The nabob, while thus occupied with despicable intrigues, received startling intelligence from the west. Shah Alam, the eldest son of the Mughul emperor, Alamgir II, and then better known by the title of Shahzada, belonging to him as heir apparent to the throne, had arrived at Benares in the beginning of 1759, at the head of an army of 8,000 men. His father was virtually a prisoner in the hands of the vizir Ghazi-ud-din, and he himself had only escaped similar thraldom by suddenly quitting Delhi. This step appears to have been taken with the sanction of his father, who had previously conferred upon him the government of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. This sanction, however, was not avowed, and hence the shahzada appeared in a double character. According to one view, he was his father’s representative, and carried all the weight which, notwithstanding the low condition to which the empire had fallen, was still attached to the name of the Mughul. According to another view, he was a rebellious son, who had quitted his father’s court without permission, and was engaged in treasonable designs. This double character put it in the power of the different governors to adopt the view which was most accordant with their inclination or their interest, and hence many stood aloof while others flocked to his standard. The most powerful chief who had openly espoused his cause was Muhammed Kuli Khan, the governor of Allahabad; but it was understood that Suja-ud-daulah, Nabob of Oudh, though he kept artfully in the background, was disposed to join him as soon as he saw any probability of success, and would bring with him an important auxiliary, in the person of M. Law with his French party.
The object of the shahzada was not concealed. Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa belonged to him as viceroy, and he was coming to claim his rights. It thus appeared that Mir Jafar was about to be treated as an usurper, and could only maintain possession by defying the heir apparent of the Mughul empire. How durst he engage in such a warfare, which appeared to him almost sacrilegious? How could he hope to succeed in it with troops which were constantly mutinying, and would in all probability be no sooner brought in sight of the enemy than they would desert to him? In this emergency, everything depended upon Clive, who immediately saw the part he had to act, and entered into it with his accustomed ardour and decision. In a letter to Hastings, directing him to give confidence to the court of Murshidabad, he says:—“The dissensions between the nabob and his people give me much more concern than the news of the shahzada’s motions, as there would be little fear from the latter, did the former take the proper measures to secure his being well served.” The nabob, in his perplexity, had thoughts of purchasing the shahzada’s retreat. Clive, hearing of it, wrote as follows:—“I have just heard a piece of intelligence which I can scarce give credit to; it is, that your excellency is going to offer a sum of money to the king’s son. If you do this, you will have Suja-ud-daulah, the Marathas, and many more, come from all parts to the confines of your country, who will bully you out of money till you have none left in your treasury. If your excellency should pursue this method, it will be furnishing the king’s son with the means to raise forces, which, indeed, may endanger the loss of your country. What will be said if the great Jafar Ali Khan, subah of this province, who commands an army of 60,000 men, should offer money to a boy who has scarcely a soldier with him? I beg your excellency will rely on the fidelity of the English, and of those troops which are attached to you.”
Clive, while thus pledging himself to Mir Jafar, was well aware that he might have made most advantageous terms with the opposite party. The shahzada sent agents to him, who made him, to use his own language, “offers of provinces upon provinces, with whatever my heart could desire;” and delivered him a letter from their master, who addressed him as “The Most High and Mighty, Protector of the Great, Colonel Sabat Jung Bahadur,” and concluded thus:—“In this happy time, with a view of making the tour of Patna and Bengal, I have erected my standard of glory at this place. It is my pure intention to bestow favour upon you, the high and mighty, and all faithful servants, agreeable to their conduct. This world is like a garden of flowers, interspersed with weeds and thorns. I shall therefore root out the bad, that the faithful and good ryots (God willing) may rest in peace and quietness. Know you, who are great, that it is proper you should pay a due obedience to this my firman, and make it your business to pay your respects to me like a faithful servant, which will be great and happy for you. It is proper you should be earnest in doing thus, when, by the blessing of God, you stand high in my favour. Know this must be done.”
Clive dismissed the agents with a warning not to come near him again, for if they did, he would “take their heads for their pains.” The letter he answered as follows:— “I have had the honour to receive your highness’s firman. It gives me great concern to find that this country must become a scene of troubles. I beg leave to inform you, that I have been favoured with a sanad from the emperor, appointing me a munsubdar of the rank of 6,000 foot and 5,000 horse, which constitutes me a servant of his; and as I have not received any orders, either from the emperor or vizir, acquainting me of your coming down here, I cannot pay that due regard to your highness’s orders I would otherwise wish to do. I must further beg leave to inform you, that I am under the strictest engagements with the present subhadar of these provinces to assist him at all times, and it is not the custom of the English nation to be guilty of insincerity.” In declining the interview which the shahzada’s letter obviously invited, on the ground that he had not “received any orders” from the court of Delhi, Clive took stronger ground than he was probably aware of at the time, as afterwards appeared when Mir Jafar sent him an imperial edict which he had received. It was in the following terms:—“Know that you are under the shadow of my favour. Some ill-designing people have turned the brain of my beloved son, Muhammed Ali Gohur (the shahzada), and are carrying him to the eastern part of the empire, which must be the cause of much trouble and ruin to my country. I therefore order you, who are my servant, to proceed immediately to Patna, and secure the person of my son and keep him there. You are likewise to punish his attendants, that other people may take warning thereby. In doing this you will gain my favour and have a good name.”
Though Clive spoke and wrote slightly of the shahzada and his invasion, there was grave cause for alarm. Ramnarain, the governor of Bihar, was suspected of being in league with the enemy, whose forces had rapidly increased to 30,000 or 40,000, while the whole force which the presidency could muster amounted only to about 450 Europeans and 2,500 sepoys. At the head of these Clive set out, and after a short halt at Murshidabad—where he lectured the nabob on his misconduct, which, by forfeiting the confidence of all classes of his subjects, had the natural consequence of inviting foreign invasion, and at the same time “complied with the nabob’s solicitation to ride on the same elephant with him, and adopted any measure that could support him in his administration”—he hastened on for Patna, which was now actually besieged and in imminent danger of being taken. Ramnarain at first endeavoured to make friends of both parties, and actually paid a visit to the shahzada’s camp, apparently for the purpose of ascertaining what terms he could obtain from him. Ultimately, however, on ascertaining that Clive had taken the field, he had no doubt that he would prove victor, and therefore bestirred himself to do away with the suspicions raised by his previous tampering with the enemy. His defence was valiant, and repeated assaults were successfully repulsed, though two bastions were at one time carried. The result, however, was still doubtful, when the appearance of a detachment which Clive had sent forward under Ensign Matthews threw the besiegers into despair, and they abandoned the siege with the utmost precipitation. The confederates who had joined the shahzada had been using him merely as an instrument to accomplish their own ends. The Nabob of Oudh, in particular, though he had been the chief instigator to the invasion, only turned it to account by seizing upon Allahabad while the governor was absent, and then, to shake himself free of all responsibility, would not even allow the shahzada to seek an asylum in his territories. The unhappy prince, thus almost deserted by his followers, proposed to throw himself on British protection; but Clive, who saw how dangerous a guest he might prove, refused to receive him. As a mere act of humanity, however, he sent him a sum of money to relieve his present necessities.
The nabob’s joy at this deliverance was great in proportion to his fears, and he manifested his obligation to Clive by a grant which was equal in value to all that he had previously bestowed upon him, and which was destined to become the subject of much unpleasant discussion. Shortly after Clive obtained his dignities from Delhi, he wrote to Jagat Seth, to say “that the nabob had made him an omrah of the empire without a jaghir.” The answer was, that “the nabob never granted jaghirs in Bengal; that Orissa was too poor, but that he might have one in Bihar.” Nothing more appears to have been done in the matter till the expulsion of the shahzada, when the nabob, either recollecting Clive’s application or having been reminded of it, declared his intention to use every means in his power to obtain an order from Delhi for a jaghir, because, as Mr. Hastings expresses it in a letter to Clive, he was “ashamed that you should do so much for him without the prospect of reaping any advantage to yourself by it.” On a subsequent occasion, when Mr. Sykes was acting temporarily for Mr. Hastings at Murshidabad, the nabob returned to the subject, and, after observing that “he had frequently had it in his thoughts but never entered seriously upon it till now,” stated that Jagat Seth had fallen upon a method of obviating all difficulties by giving for the jaghir “the quit-rent arising from the lands ceded to the Company to the southward of Calcutta.” This, he thought, “would interfere the least with his government, and stood the clearest in relation to the Company’s affairs.”
It is impossible to doubt that the nabob was right when he said that the quit-rent was the jaghir which would least interfere with his government. In fact Jagat Seth, when he suggested it, must have had a shrewd suspicion that no part of the quit-rent would ever be brought into the Murshidabad treasury. The nabob was already owing the Company far more than he was able to pay; and therefore, had he retained the right to it, it would only have been to see it mentioned as a sum which the Company had retained in their own hands as a reduction pro tanto of their debt. To him, therefore, it was utterly worthless as a source of revenue, and he lost nothing by parting with it. The case of the Company was so very different, that it is difficult to understand what the nabob meant when he said that it was the jaghir which “stood the clearest in relation to the Company’s affairs.” On the contrary, it would be easy to show that the transference of the quit-rent to one of their servants placed them in a far worse position than before. So long as the quit-rent was payable to the nabob, they could always use it as a set-off against him. It was of the nature of a security, which they could always make available for the repayment of their advances. But the moment it was validly transferred to Clive, or any other British subject, the payment of it could be enforced in the British courts of law, like any other debt. Its character was thus entirely changed, and its value as a security was entirely lost. On this ground alone the Company might well object to the conversion of the quit-rent into what was called Clive’s jaghir. But there were other considerations which, without affecting the legality of the jaghir, showed it to be at the least unseemly and inexpedient. The Company might, without any loss of dignity, consent to hold their ceded lands under the Nabob of Bengal, but was it fair or becoming to set a new landlord over their heads, and make them the tenants of one of their own servants? It ought always to have been recollected, that however great Clive’s services might have been, they were really the services of those who had employed him, and that therefore, if the nabob was in a position to renounce the quit-rent, the renunciation ought to have been made in the Company’s favour. It deserves also to be observed, that at the time when the jaghir was granted the government of Bengal could not be considered as settled. One great revolution had already taken place, and others to all appearance could not be distant. Was it not more than probable that ere long the country which was already virtually ruled by the Company would be actually transferred to them? In that case the quit-rent would necessarily fall. With what decency or justice, then, could any one attempt during this interval of transition to bind it down upon them as a permanent burden, to be made effectual if necessary by a decree of the Court of Chancery? The estimated annual value of the jaghir was about £30,000. This, at ten years’ purchase, is £300,000; and thus, for the services of less than three years in Bengal, Clive had received, in addition to his ordinary pay and emoluments, considerably more than £500,000 sterling.
The invasion of the shahzada had scarcely been defeated, when an alarm of an unexpected, though not less threatening description arose from a very different quarter. The Dutch had beheld the British successes in Bengal with envy and apprehension. The French factories had been annihilated. Was it not possible that theirs might share a similar fate? It is true that while the British and Dutch were at peace, this could hardly happen by open violence; but the same thing might be accomplished by underhand means. The danger to which an important branch of the Dutch trade had recently been exposed by the establishment of a saltpetre monopoly in favour of the English Company, was a case in point. Others of a similar nature might be expected to follow, and therefore the true policy was to place their settlement on a footing which would command respect, or if necessary enforce it. There is some inconsistency in the motives by which the Dutch are said to have been actuated. According to one account, they had refused to recognize the revolution which had given the nabobship of Bengal to Mir Jafar, and, fearing his vengeance, determined to prepare a force, which would enable them to defy it. According to another account, they had come to an understanding with Mir Jafar, and with his sanction fitted out an armament which, arriving at a time when the English Company’s troops had been diminished by the expedition to the Northern Circars, would enable him to shake himself free of the yoke which they had imposed upon him. It is impossible to decide between the conflicting motives thus attributed to the Dutch. The only important question for Clive, was to decide on the course which ought to be pursued when the armament should make its appearance. He had early made up his mind to repel it at all hazards, though he was well aware how difficult it would be to justify the proceeding. When remonstrated with by some of his friends on the responsibility he would incur by opposing the passage of the armament of a friendly power up the Ganges, he answered that “a public man may occasionally be called upon to act with a halter round his neck.” On this principle he was prepared to act, but he was careful at the same time not to omit any precaution which might, ostensibly at least, place him in the right and the Dutch in the wrong.
The nabob, even if he had given his sanction to the Dutch armament, was not prepared to avow it, and Clive therefore had little difficulty in procuring from him an order “to oppose and prevent any foreign troops being brought into his country.” This order the treaty made with the nabob bound him to obey; and hence, in opposing the Dutch, he could now assert that he was acting, not in his own name, but in that of the Bengal government. This was an important point gained, for it had the effect of depriving the Dutch of the character of allies, in which they desired to appear, and exhibiting them in that of aggressors. Accordingly, when their first ship carrying a body of troops arrived, they were obliged to pretend that Nagapatam was her destined port, and that having been driven from it by stress of weather, she would again leave the Hughli as soon as she had obtained a supply of water and provisions. Clive refused to give any credit to this pretence, and a detachment, composed partly of the nabob’s and partly of the Company’s troops, took possession of the fort of Tanna and the battery opposite to it, with orders to search all boats and vessels passing up the river. This proceeding called forth strong remonstrances from the representatives of the Dutch company at Chinsura, but Clive persisted, asserting that he was acting in obedience to the nabob’s orders, and in fulfilment of obligations to which he was solemnly bound by treaty.
In October, 1759, the Dutch armament, consisting of six or seven capital ships crowded with soldiers, arrived at Fulta. When the intelligence was received, Mir Jafar was living in Calcutta as Clive’s guest. His evident confusion left little doubt that he had been playing a deceitful part; but he made light of the matter, and on leaving Calcutta boasted that he would soon chastise the insolence and disobedience of the Dutch. How he meant to fulfil this boast appeared a few days after, when a letter was received from him stating that he had granted the Dutch some indulgence in their trade, and that “they had engaged to leave the river with their ships and troops as soon as the season would permit.” The season could never be more favourable for their departure than at that very time, and this fact, joined to other suspicious circumstances, made it certain that the nabob either had had an understanding with the Dutch from the very first, or had been convinced by them that his own tortuous policy would be best promoted by allowing them to bring up their troops if they could. Clive was thus once more in a dilemma; but as the nabob had not withdrawn his previous orders, he was still able to assert that he was acting under them. Hence, when the Dutch, deeming themselves ripe for action, sent a kind of manifesto, in which they recapitulated their alleged grievances, and vowed vengeance and reprisals if their boats were searched and their passage up the river obstructed, he answered in name of the Company, that “we had given no insult to their colours, or attacked or touched their property, or infringed their privileges; that with respect to their bringing troops into Bengal, the nabob knew best how far it was incumbent on him to preserve the peace and tranquillity of his country; that their boats had been stopped and searched, and the advance of their troops opposed by orders from the viceroy, and under the emperor his master’s colours, and by his troops; that they must therefore apply to him, and that we were ready to interpose our friendly offices to mitigate his resentment.” After giving this answer, which under the circumstances may be thought, as he himself admits, to have “savoured somewhat of audacity,” he lost no time in preparing to follow out the decisive course which he had resolved to adopt. His means, however, were not very adequate. There were only three British ships in the river to oppose the Dutch squadron of seven. The troops, also, were far fewer in number, and instead of being concentrated, were obliged to be arranged in two separate detachments—the larger one being stationed under Captain Knox at Tanna, where the passage of the river could be best disputed; while the other, under Colonel Forde, now returned from the Circars, proceeded northward to intercept the Dutch troops should any attempt be made to march them to Chinsura by land.
Amid these preparations, what Clive’s feelings were will be best explained in his own words. “We found our sentiments a good deal embarrassed, doubting whether we should stand justified to our country and employers in commencing hostilities against an ally of England, supposing they should persist in passing the batteries below with their ships and troops. In this situation, we anxiously wished the next hour would bring us news of a declaration of war with Holland; which we had indeed some reason to expect by our last advices from England.” Fortunately, the Dutch themselves removed all scruples by being the first to commence hostilities. Having seized a number of the grain boats and other vessels belonging to the Company, they tore down their colours, transferred the stores to their own ships, and treated their crews as prisoners. Hostilities being thus openly declared, they proceeded up the river, while the three British vessels, under command of Commodore Wilson, followed at a short distance in their wake. The orders given to the commodore were to pass the Dutch and anchor above the batteries. Before he had time to execute them, the commencement of hostilities had changed the position of affairs and caused the transmission of a new order, “to demand immediate restitution of our ships, subjects, and property, or to fight, sink, burn, and destroy the Dutch ships on their refusal.” On the 23rd of November, when this order was sent, the Dutch landed 700 European and about 800 native troops; the very next day Commodore Wilson obeyed the order, and after an engagement of two hours gained a complete victory. All the vessels of the Dutch squadron struck their flag except one, which endeavoured to escape, and was also taken. On hearing of the landing of the Dutch troops, the detachment stationed at Tanna under Captain Knox quitted it, and marched to reinforce that under Colonel Forde, who had previously repulsed an attack made upon him at Chandernagore, and pursued the fugitives with some slaughter to the very barriers of Chinsura. Having been joined by Captain Knox, he was preparing to invest it, when he learned that the Dutch troops which had been landed from the ships had arrived on the plain of Bedara, and been there joined by part of the Chinsura garrison, which had eluded his vigilance. It is said that he had not then received authority to fight, but seeing the advantage of his position, wrote a note, stating that “if he had the order in council, he could attack the Dutch with a fair prospect of destroying them.” Clive received the note while playing at cards, and, without quitting the table, answered in pencil, “Dear Forde, fight them immediately. I will send you the order of council tomorrow.” He obeyed, and was as successful as he had anticipated. His force, consisting of only 330 Europeans and about 800 sepoys, after a short and bloody engagement, put to total rout an enemy consisting of 700 Europeans, and a still larger number of native troops. The Dutch, now completely humbled, asked submissively for terms, and on acknowledging themselves the aggressors and agreeing to pay costs and damages, obtained the restitution of their ships.
The affair, however, was not yet over. Miran, the nabob’s son, arrived in the neighbourhood of Chinsura at the head of about 7,000 horse. Aware of the suspicions which attached to his father and himself, as having instigated, or at least connived at the Dutch expedition, he would have endeavoured to wipe them off by the severity of his proceedings, had not Clive, after being written to in the most supplicating terms, interposed his mediation, and obtained peace for the Dutch on the following conditions:—That they should never negotiate war, introduce or enlist troops, or raise fortifications in the country; that they should be allowed to keep 125 European soldiers, and no more, for the service of their factories of Chinsura, Kassimbazar, and Patna; and that they should forthwith send away all their other troops with the ships which had brought them.
The defeat of the Dutch armament was the last service of importance which Clive rendered before he took his departure for England. He had for some time been preparing for this event, but when he announced it as determined, all classes in Bengal concurred in regarding it as a public calamity. Mir Jafar had often winced under his reproofs, and deeply resented his interference as often as he was thwarted in some favourite object. He was aware, however, that in cases of real difficulty he could calculate on receiving effectual assistance from him, and he was therefore filled with alarm when he thought of the difficulties to which he might be reduced after he was left to his own resources, and the uncertain support of the individual who might be called to occupy without being able to fill Clive’s place. The shahzada was again on the frontier meditating a new invasion. How would he be able to repel it? Nor was this all. The ascendency which the Company had acquired had opened a door to innumerable abuses; and the revenues of the government, as well as the general prosperity of the population, had been seriously diminished by the preposterous exemptions claimed and the gross oppression often practised by the officials of the Company in carrying on trade, and giving permits to others to carry on trade, for their own individual profit. All such abuses Clive had ever shown a willingness to keep within bounds. Would his successor be similarly disposed? and if he were, would he be equal to the task? Under the influence of such considerations, Mir Jafar would gladly have purchased Clive’s continued residence in Bengal at almost any price. The leading civil servants of the Company were equally urgent in pressing him to postpone his departure. Warren Hastings, in particular, addressed to him a long letter, in which, while expressing his belief that the nabob was “both by interest and inclination heartily attached to the English,” he argued that the people about him would use every possible means to alienate his affections, and that as he was “but of an irresolute and unsettled temper, it would be impossible for him, after Clive’s absence emboldened them to throw off the mask, to hold out against the united influence of so many evil counsellors.” Next he reminded him of “the dangers we are threatened with from our natural enemies the French, which, by your resignation of the service, will be doubled upon us, and in which it is very probable the nabob will stand neuter.” After mentioning a fact confirmatory of this view, he adds, “I do not advance this as an argument that the nabob is inclinable to the French; but I think it would not be difficult to persuade him that it would be for his interest to suffer the French to come into this country again, both for the increase of his revenues (a very prevailing argument) and to balance the power of the English.” The last argument is drawn from the state of matters at the Mughul court. “I know not,” he says, “in what light you may regard the proposal lately made from Delhi, or whether the consideration of the further advantages that may result from a nearer connection with that court (in which your intervention appears of indispensable necessity) deserve to be thrown into the scale; though I must own it is my opinion that nothing can contribute so much to establish the power of the English in this country on the most solid and lasting foundation as an interest properly established at that court.”
None of these arguments had sufficient weight to change Clive’s resolution. Some of them, indeed, rather tended to confirm it, as they satisfied him that some of the most important objects pointed at might be more effectually secured by his presence in England than by his continued residence in Bengal. In the beginning of 1759 he addressed a letter to the celebrated British minister William Pitt, afterwards Earl of Chatham, in which he unfolded his views as to the future of India. After referring to the great revolution which had been effected, he goes on to say, “Much more may yet in time be done if the Company will 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 aggrandizing themselves; and I dare pronounce, from a thorough knowledge of this country’s government, and of the genius of the people, acquired by two years’ application and experience, that such an opportunity will soon offer.” The reigning subahdar, he adds, still “retains his attachment to us, and probably while he has no other support will continue to do so; but Mussulmans are so little influenced by gratitude, that should he ever think it his interest to break with us, the obligations he owes us would prove no restraint.” Moreover, “he is advanced in years, and his son is so cruel, worthless a young fellow, and so apparently an enemy to the English, that it will be almost unsafe trusting him with the succession. So small a body as 2,000 Europeans will secure us against any apprehensions from either the one or the other; and, in case of their daring to be troublesome, enable the Company to take the sovereignty upon themselves.” In taking this step there would be no opposition on the part of the people, who “would rejoice in so happy an exchange as that of a mild for a despotic government;” nor on the part of the Mughul, whose sanction might easily be obtained “provided we agreed to pay him the stipulated allotment out of the revenues, viz. fifty lacs yearly.” Indeed, adds Clive, “application has been made to me from the court of Delhi to take charge of collecting this payment, the person intrusted with which is styled the king’s diwan, and is the next person both in dignity and power to the subah. But this high office I have been obliged to decline for the present, as I am unwilling to occasion any jealousy on the part of the subah; especially as I see no likelihood of the Company’s providing us with a sufficient force to support properly so considerable an employ, and which would open a way for our securing the subahship to ourselves.”
An obvious objection to the accomplishment of these views could not escape the notice of Clive, and he therefore continues thus: “So large a sovereignty may possibly be an object too extensive for a mercantile company; and it is to be feared they are not of themselves able, without the nation’s assistance, to maintain so wide a dominion. I have therefore presumed, sir, to represent this matter to you, and submit it to your consideration, whether the execution of a design, that may hereafter be carried to still greater lengths, be worthy of the government’s taking it in hand. I flatter myself I have made it pretty clear to you that there will be little or no difficulty in obtaining the absolute possession of these rich kingdoms; and that with the Mughul’s own consent, on condition of paying him less than a fifth of the revenues thereof.” Dwelling on this argument, which he justly believed to be the most potent of all, he continues thus: “Now I leave you to judge, whether an income yearly of upwards of £2,000,000 sterling, with the possession of three provinces abounding in the most valuable productions of nature and art, be an object deserving the public attention; and whether it be worth the nation’s while to take the proper measures to secure such an acquisition—an acquisition which, under the management of so able and disinterested a minister, would prove a source of immense wealth to the kingdom, and might in time be appropriated in part as a fund towards diminishing the heavy load of debt under which we at present labour.”
This letter was delivered by Mr. Walsh, who had been Clive’s secretary, and was mentioned in it as one who was “a thorough master of the subject,” and “able to explain the whole design, and the facility with which it may be executed.” After some delay he was admitted to an interview with the minister, who spoke of the matter darkly, acknowledging that the affair was “very practicable,” but, at the same time, “of a very nice nature,” and left him with the impression that the Company would be allowed to do what they pleased. The account of this interview did not reach Clive till he had sailed for England. The absence of any information as to the effect of his letter may have been one of the reasons for hastening his departure, but the immediate occasion of it was the disgust produced by a letter from the directors. In answer to an address from the European inhabitants of Calcutta, he did not scruple to say that the ill-treatment received in that letter had fully determined him “in throwing up the service,” and, in common with Messrs. Holwell, Playdell, Sumner, and M’Guire, members of council, he commented upon it in the plainest terms, characterizing the diction of it “as most unworthy yourselves and us, in whatever relation considered, either as masters to servants, or gentlemen to gentlemen.” He would have been able, however, to overcome this passing disgust and remain at his post, had he not felt convinced that he might be more usefully employed at home in awakening the Company to their true interests, and exerting his influence to control the violent factions into which the court of directors was at this time divided.
Clive sailed from India on the 25th of February, 1760. Before leaving he had secured the appointment of Mr. Vansittart as his successor in the government, and of Colonel Calliaud as commander of the army. The latter appointment took effect immediately; but the former, as Mr. Vansittart had been previously attached to the presidency of Madras, was deferred for a time, and Mr. Holwell, by virtue of seniority, became temporary governor. During his short tenure of office Mr. Holwell laboured hard, and was successful in convincing his colleagues that another revolution in Bengal was necessary. Hence, when Mr. Vansittart arrived in July to assume the government, the whole scheme was laid before him. Mir Jafar was to be persuaded, or if necessary forced into a resignation of all executive authority, and to rest satisfied with a merely nominal sovereignty, while the reality was to be exercised by Mir Kasim, his son-in-law. Mr. Vansittart, as a stranger, was naturally disposed to be guided by the local experience of his council, and on their representations, much more than his own independent convictions, concurred in the proposed revolution. Before proceeding to explain its nature and results, it will be necessary to turn for a little to some important military operations.
Calliaud had arrived from Madras with a reinforcement of troops, toward the end of November, 1759. As the reappearance of the shahzada on the frontier had spread general alarm, he set out for Murshidabad with 350 Europeans, 1,000 sepoys, and six pieces of cannon. He was there joined by 15,000 horse and twenty-five pieces of cannon, under the command of Miran, and proceeded in the direction of Patna. During the march, intelligence arrived that the Emperor Alamgir II, during the confusion produced by a new invasion of the Abdalis, had been murdered by his vizir, Ghazi-ud-din, and consequently that the shahzada had become the legal possessor of the imperial throne. His former title was therefore exchanged for that of Shah Alam, and it was now impossible to resist him on the same grounds as formerly. He could no longer be regarded as a fugitive from his father’s court, but as invested with all the rights of the Mughul. The empire, however, was completely dismembered, and the different nabobs and governors, though still to some degree overawed by the name, continued to pursue any course which seemed most conducive to their own interest, as if totally unaffected by the change in succession which had taken place. The only individual of political importance who espoused the cause of the new emperor was the Nabob of Oudh. He had been invested with the office of vizir of the empire, and behaved at least to make some show of espousing his cause. He did it, however, with so much lukewarmness, that Shah Alam was little benefited, and soon found his resources totally inadequate to any great enterprise. He was able, with some difficulty, to make his appearance once more before Patna. Ramnarain, the governor, whose fidelity to Mir Jafar had been suspected during the previous attack, seemed now to be animated with a superabundant zeal, and, contrary to the express injunctions of Calliaud, who had warned him against risking an engagement till he himself should arrive, marched out, in the hope of gaining glory, and only sustained a disgraceful defeat. Patna itself would probably have fallen had not Calliaud hastened forward, and completely repaired the disaster. The emperor in his flight reached the town of Bihar, and there took the bold step of marching directly into Bengal. Calliaud, thus left behind, no sooner became aware of his movements, than he hastened back as fast as the perverse delays of Miran would allow; and by the aid of boats, which carried his infantry rapidly down the Ganges, while the horse followed by land, came up with the enemy on the 7th of March. The emperor, thus brought to bay, dexterously avoided an engagement by striking into a mountainous tract; and, after many hardships, made his appearance on the plains only thirty miles west of Murshidabad. Had he executed his plan with the same boldness with which he had conceived it, he might have made a successful dash at the capital, and even taken Mir Jafar himself prisoner. But he lingered till Calliaud, who had been following on his track, was again within reach of him. Thus frustrated in his object, he profited by the obstructions which Calliaud experienced from the refusal of the nabob to furnish him with cavalry, and retraced his steps to Patna. Here he was joined by M. Law, with his French party; and though repulsed in two assaults, was preparing for a third, which promised to be successful, when the arrival of a detachment sent forward by Calliaud, under Captain Knox, proved the death-blow to all his hopes. This officer, who had made a flying march, remarkable for its rapidity, arrived unseen by the enemy, took them by surprise, and compelled them precipitately to raise the siege.
The only chief who now remained zealous in Shah Alam’s service was the governor of Purnea, who had collected an army and was on the march to join him. Calliaud, accompanied as before by Miran, set out from Rajamahal to give him battle; and while on the march received intelligence that it had been fought and won by Captain Knox. This gallant officer having been ordered to harass the enemy’s rear, crossed from Patna to the other side of the Ganges with only 200 Europeans, a battalion of sepoys, and about 300 horse. He had determined to surprise the enemy’s camp during the night, but missed his way, and when morning dawned, found himself in presence of a force of 12,000. Being nearly surrounded, he could scarcely have made his escape. Nor did he attempt it. With his mere handful of troops, he boldly risked the encounter, and after a conflict of six hours proved victorious. The governor of Purnea, thus unable to cope with a small detachment, had no inclination to face the main army under Calliaud and Miran; who, following up the pursuit, overtook him and captured his heavy baggage and artillery. In the hope of gaining the large treasures which he was reported to have with him, he was still pursued, though the rains had set in with unusual violence. This pursuit proved fatal to Miran. After it had continued four days, his tent was struck by lightning on the 2nd of July, 1760. It contained, beside himself, a story-teller, and a servant employed in patting his feet. They all perished. Miran, who by his crimes had merited this awful end, left none to regret him; but to prevent the confusion and probable disbanding of his army, the fatality was concealed for several days, and Calliaud succeeded in reaching Patna in safety.
When Miran’s death became known at Murshidabad, the troops broke out in mutiny, and surrounding the palace threatened the nabob with instant death, if he did not immediately satisfy their arrears of pay. His treasury was empty, and peace was only restored by the interposition of Mir Kasim, the nabob’s son-in-law, who advanced a present sum of three lacs of rupees, and became security for the payment of the rest of the arrears within a specified time. Mir Kasim, in granting this assistance, had stipulated that he should be regarded as the next in succession to the nabobship. At this very time he was aspiring to the possession of it without waiting for succession; and when sounded on the subject by Mr. Holwell, had signified his readiness in a manner which ought to have satisfied that gentleman how unworthy he was of the least countenance. His proposal was to seat himself on the masnad, by causing his father-in-law to be assassinated. Mr. Holwell says that “he expressed much astonishment and abhorrence at the overture,” and distinctly told Mir Kasim “that unless he dropped all mention, as well as every intention and attempt of the measure he had intimated, the conference must end there.” Mir Kasim, so far from being abashed, could not even understand Mr. Holwell’s scruples, which only made him fear that he “was not so much his friend as he hoped and expected.” Strange to say, the negotiation with this would-be assassin was still continued, and issued in a formal treaty, by which Mir Jafar was to be stripped of everything but the name of sovereign, and Mir Kasim was forthwith to be invested with the whole executive authority. On the part of the Company, it was stipulated that the sum due to them should be paid, that the districts of Burdwan, Midnapore, and Chittagong should be assigned to them for the maintenance of a sufficient force in Bengal, and that five lacs of rupees should be given as a present for the war in the Carnatic.
The pretexts for this treaty were the contempt and detestation which Mir Jafar had provoked by his misgovernment, his inability to contend with the difficulties with which he was surrounded, and the state of the Company’s finances, which made it absolutely necessary that their existing claims on the government should be satisfied, and those which could not fail to arise in future be secured beforehand by some material guarantee. When all these things are admitted, the gross injustice and impolicy of the new revolution are still manifest. Whatever the demerits of Mir Jafar might be, they could scarcely be greater than those of the man who, though bound to him by the closest affinity, would have carved a way to the throne by assassinating him. The pecuniary difficulties could not be diminished by the substitution of a new nabob, who brought no new resources of his own, nor could the general confusion of the government be diminished by abrupt revolutionary changes. Besides, the Company stood bound by solemn treaty to maintain Mir Jafar on the throne, and there could not be a greater breach of faith than the arbitrary determination to depose him. But it is unnecessary to examine the ostensible pretexts for this dishonourable and iniquitous proceeding, since the real motive, though carefully concealed at the time, was soon disclosed, and proved that the leaders in the new revolution, while pleading public principle, had only been consulting their avarice. On the very night when the agreement with Mir Kasim was signed, he made a tender of twenty lacs of rupees to the members of the select committee. They were not refused; but it was deemed decent to decline acceptance till the affairs of the country were settled, and the finances were flourishing. They might have waited long for such a period; and as Mir Kasim seemed in no hurry to renew his offer, they refreshed his memory, and demanded payment. Of the money thus shamefully extorted, £30,000 went into the pocket of Mr. Holwell. Mr. Vansittart, after refusing to concur in the demand of payment, surmounted his scruples, and accepted £58,000 as his share.
All these arrangements had been made without the knowledge of Mir Jafar, who became acquainted with them for the first time when a deputation of the council of Calcutta waited upon him, for the purpose of conferring with him generally upon matters of government. Mr. Vansittart, who headed the deputation, laboured to impress the nabob with the abuses of his administration, and having thus wrung from him an expression of his willingness to be guided by the advice of his English friends, suggested the propriety of employing some one among “the nabob’s children” to set affairs in order. The old nabob was thus gradually led to confess that old age and grief for the death of Miran had incapacitated him for struggling with difficulties, and that none of his relations seemed so capable as Mir Kasim of giving him aid. The point which had all along been cunningly aimed at, was now gained; and it was proposed that Mir Kasim should be sent for. This proposal, and the haste with which it was urged, aroused the nabob’s suspicions, and he withdrew, complaining of fatigue. It was expected that the business would be resumed next day; but as the nabob made no communication, the deputies threw off the mask, and sent a letter acquainting him that all their measures were taken, and that Colonel Calliaud was ready to execute them if necessary by force. The information threw him into a transport of rage, and he complained bitterly of the treachery of which he had been the dupe. Ultimately disdaining to accept of a nominal sovereignty, or to trust his life in the hands of a son-in-law, of whose blood-thirsty character he was too well aware, he accepted of the pension offered to him, and took up his residence in Calcutta.
It was impossible that a transaction marked by so much duplicity and injustice could prosper. The inhabitants, indeed, looked on with comparative indifference to a change of masters which, if it promised little amelioration of their condition, could scarcely make it worse than it was. The first bitter fruits were reaped in Calcutta itself, where the council became divided into two parties—the one cordially approving, and the other decidedly condemning the revolution which had been effected. To the former, of course, belonged those whose pecuniary circumstances had been greatly improved by it; while the other consisted, not indeed exclusively, but mainly of those who, not having been members of the select committee, did not share in the extorted money, and could consequently boast of being actuated by pure and disinterested motives. Even had Mr. Vansittart not furnished too good a handle for the vituperation of this party, there were circumstances in his nomination which made it anything but acceptable. He had been brought from a different presidency, and was thus viewed by several members of the council as an intruder, who, without any better qualification than the recommendation of Clive, had broken in upon the rotation which must, sooner or later, have put them in possession of the highest object of their ambition. Thus at the very time when the unsettled state of Mir Jafar’s government was held a sufficient ground for dethroning him, the council chamber of Calcutta was itself the scene of acrimonious discussions and violent dissensions. The governor from the very first had a bare majority, and was ere long left in a minority by the dismissal of his principal supporters. They had signed the remonstrance which Clive drew up before he sailed, and in which he complained in no measured terms of the language employed in the general letter of the directors. They in their turn were equally offended with the remonstrance, and vindicated their dignity by ordering that any one of the subscribers still in their service should forthwith be dismissed, and not only dismissed, but sent home to England. In this way some of the most experienced members of council were lost to it, at the time when they could least be spared, and were supplied in some instances by men equally devoid of experience and temper.
The kind of internal administration which Mir Kasim, now installed as nabob, was about to pursue, remained for a short time uncertain. Shah Alam was again hovering on the frontier, and it was necessary, before settling the home government, to be relieved from the expense and alarm of a foreign war. Accordingly, Major Carnac, who had assumed the command of the British army in India, fixed his headquarters at Patna in the beginning of January, 1761, and as soon as the rains ceased, commenced the campaign. Shah Alam was only at a short distance to the west, and being overtaken before he could muster an adequate force, was easily defeated. Law had joined him with his Frenchmen, and was taken prisoner. Carnac’s instructions were rather to negotiate than fight. An offer of the diwani had, as we have already seen, been made to Clive; and Mr. Vansittart, following out his views, was disposed to think that the time when it would no longer be advisable to decline it, might soon arrive. But, even apart from this consideration, it seemed important to form such a connection with the emperor as would secure the sanction of his name to whatever measures it might be thought necessary to adopt. Carnac accordingly, instead of following up his victory, solicited an interview, and after some demur was permitted to visit Shah Alam in his camp. A friendly understanding was easily formed, and they returned together to Patna. Here, Mir Kasim, after betraying great jealousy of the new connection which the Company had thus formed, was induced to acknowledge Shah Alam as emperor, and received formal investiture from him of the provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, on an engagement to pay an annual revenue of twenty-four lacs of rupees. Shah Alam shortly after took his departure for the west, intending to endeavour to obtain possession of his capital. Carnac escorted him to the confines of Bihar, and, on parting, received a new offer of the diwani for the Company.
Mir Kasim being thus relieved from all apprehension of a foreign invader, was able to give his undivided attention to domestic affairs, and displayed abundance of vigour, though of a more than questionable description. The greatest difficulty of his predecessor had been an empty treasury. It was this which kept his army constantly in a state of mutiny, and furnished the council of Calcutta with the only plausible ground for deposing him. Mir Kasim’s first object therefore was to supply himself with money, both to meet present demands and supply funds for future emergencies. With this view he was rigid in calling the collectors and farmers of the public revenue to account. When balances were due, he was undoubtedly entitled to exact them, but the mere wealth of the parties was often held to be sufficient evidence of their guilt, and large sums were extorted by cruelty and terror. Of all the subordinate governors none was supposed to have accumulated so much wealth as the Hindu Ramnarain; and Mir Kasim, who hated him as cordially as Mir Jafar had done, was determined at once to gratify his hatred and his avarice by destroying him. It was necessary, however, to proceed with caution. Ramnarain had obtained a guarantee of his personal safety from Clive, and had subsequently rendered important service by resisting the attempts of Shah Alam and his confederates to obtain a permanent footing in the province. He was thus under the special protection of the Company, and seemed consequently secure from direct personal violence. Still he was liable to account. Mir Kasim called upon him to do so, and was met by delays and evasions. This was just as he had anticipated; and he had little difficulty in making out a plausible case of complaint to the governor and council of Calcutta. How could he carry on the government, and how, moreover, could he discharge the obligations he had undertaken to the Company, if, through their interference, one of the largest collectors of the revenue was emboldened to withhold payment, and even set him at defiance? Unfortunately the civil and military authorities took opposite views on the subject. Major Carnac and Colonel Coote, who had superseded him on his arrival from Madras, believed that Mir Kasim, in calling for accounts, was merely employing a subterfuge to further his designs on Ramnarain’s life. They had too good grounds for this belief; for they were not only aware of the nabob’s anxiety to get the Hindu into his power, but had been offered large bribes to connive at it. Mr. Vansittart, on the other hand, seeing nothing but what was reasonable in Mir Kasim’s demand, insisted that every facility should be given him. Coote and Carnac still refusing to abandon the course which they had taken, and which they held to be the only one consistent with honour and equity, a violent quarrel ensued; and Mr. Vansittart, with the sanction of a majority of his council, took the extraordinary step of recalling both these officers to Calcutta. The remainder of the plot was easily carried out. Ramnarain, deprived of the protection which had been solemnly pledged to him, was seized by his remorseless enemy, pillaged, and thrown into prison.
If Mr. Vansittart’s object in thus shamefully sacrificing Ramnarain, was to bind Mir Kasim to British interests, the result must have miserably disappointed him. A quarrel of a much more serious nature immediately arose. Mr. Ellis, a violent and arrogant man, had been appointed head-factor at Patna, and acted, from the first day he entered upon office, as if his object had been not to conciliate, but to exasperate the native government. His folly soon produced its proper fruits; and Mir Kasim, stung to the quick by repeated insults which disgraced him in the eyes of his subjects, began to meditate revenge. The abuses practised under the name of private trade had long been a subject of bitter complaint. Mir Jafar had not been a month on the masnad when he remonstrated against the loss sustained by the public revenue by claims of exemption from custom on the part of European officials of the Company, or natives professing to be authorized by them. The trade of the Company was wholly foreign, and was consequently confined to imports and exports. By express treaty, neither of these were liable to customs or transit duties. This exemption was perfectly understood, and could not be challenged. But besides the foreign trade there was a most important inland trade, for which no such exemption could be claimed. The Company, in fact, had no concern with it. Their servants, however, very indifferently paid by fixed salaries, were allowed to engage in it, and derived from it the better part of their incomes. This was in itself a great abuse, and ultimately became a crying injustice. Not satisfied with being placed on a footing with native traders, the European officials not only availed themselves of the dastaks or passports of their employers, to smuggle goods which they were never designed to cover, but boldly asserted that they were entitled to carry on private trade for their own behoof duty free. The native traders were thus virtually excluded from their own markets, since it was impossible for them, while burdened with duties, to compete with those who paid none. They were hence reduced to the alternative of either becoming commercial agents to the British officials, or of paying large sums to them for the privilege of being permitted to trade in their name. In either case the public revenue was grossly defrauded. Mir Kasim had previously complained of the abuse, and after the insults of Mr. Ellis had exasperated him, was determined no longer to tolerate it. There cannot be a doubt that in this he had justice on his side, and did not draw an exaggerated picture when, in a letter addressed to the governor, in March, 1762, he said, “From the factory of Calcutta to Kassimbazar, Patna, and Dacca, all the English chiefs, with their gomastaks, officers, and agents in every district of the government, act as collectors, renters, and magistrates, and setting up the Company’s colours, allow no power to my officers. And besides this, the gomastaks and other servants in every district, in every market and village, carry on a trade in oil, fish, straw, bamboos, rice, paddy, betel-nut, and other things; and every man with a Company’s dastak in his hand regards himself as not less than the Company.” This statement is fully borne out by Mr. Hastings, who, in a letter to Mr. Vansittart, dated only a month later, describes the evil complained of as “a grievance which calls loudly for redress; and will, unless duly attended to, render ineffectual any endeavours to create a firm and lasting harmony between the nabob and the Company.”
The course which ought to have been pursued is obvious. The private trade of the Company’s servants ought to have been absolutely interdicted, or at all events subjected to such regulations as would at once protect the revenue and the native trader. But by whom were these regulations to be made? The members of council in Calcutta were themselves the worst offenders, and having the power of legislation in their hands, were determined that, happen what might, they would never allow it to be used for the purpose of curtailing their emoluments. Mr. Vansittart, feeling himself powerless, was not bold enough to lay the axe to the root of the evil, and proposed, as a compromise, that the trade should be open to the Company’s servants as before, but subject to the payment of the regular duties. After much keen debate, he obtained, or thought he had obtained, full powers from the council to make an amicable settlement. With this view he had an interview with the nabob, and obtained his reluctant consent to an arrangement by which, to prevent the inconvenience of repeated stoppages, the goods of the Company’s servants engaged in private trade were to pay a duty of nine per cent on the prime cost in one slump sum. This was far less than was exacted from the native traders, and Mr. Vansittart returned, in the belief that if he had erred in any part of the bargain, it was only in having exacted too favourable terms for the Company’s servants. It must hence have been with some surprise and indignation that, when the terms were divulged, he found them bitterly assailed by all the members of his council except Mr. Hastings. At a full meeting of council, specially called to consider the subject, ten members voted that the private trade of the Company’s servants was like the public trade of their masters, duty free, and that the only article on which they ought to pay anything, and that more from courtesy than legal obligation, was a duty of 2½ per cent on salt. Not satisfied with passing the disgraceful resolution, they caused it to be forthwith notified to the nabob.
It is probable that the nabob, though he expressed disappointment at this notification, was not wholly dissatisfied with it. He saw that the grievances of which he complained could not be effectually remedied by the arrangement concluded with Mr. Vansittart, and he was therefore not unwilling that the whole question should once more be thrown open. He was thus at liberty to take the course which seemed to him most expedient. As the servants of the Company, backed by the council at Calcutta, insisted on trading free, he would no longer offer any opposition, but on the contrary would extend the privilege to all classes of the population, by announcing that in future no duties whatever would be levied on the inland trade. He had repeatedly threatened to take this step, but it was so obviously destructive of one of the main sources of the public revenue, that it was taken for granted he would never carry it into effect. Great then was the disappointment and consternation at Calcutta when it was known that the private trade monopoly under which so many fortunes had been made, and so much extortion practised, was cut up by the roots. The council showed on this occasion that there was no amount of extravagance and iniquity which they were not prepared to commit. No fewer than eight of the members, under the false and hypocritical pretext that the interests of their employers would be injuriously affected, recorded it as their opinion that the nabob was bound to exact duties from his own subjects and leave the Company’s servants free. Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Hastings again stood alone in resisting this monstrous decision. After adopting it, they actually sent a deputation to the nabob in the hope of being able to persuade or terrify him into acquiescence. But the quarrel was now irreconcilable, and nothing but the sword could decide it.
While the deputies, Messrs. Amyatt and Hay, were vainly endeavouring to accomplish the object of their extraordinary mission, some boats loaded with arms for the British troops at Patna were stopped by native officers. The deputies demanded their instant release, but the nabob positively refused unless Mr. Ellis was removed from his office as head-factor, or the troops of which in that capacity he had the control were withdrawn. This step was followed by another still more decided. When the deputies proposed to depart, Mr. Hay was told that he must remain as an hostage for the safety of some of the nabob’s servants who had been imprisoned at Calcutta. It was vain to dream any longer of amicable accommodation, and both sides began to prepare for open war. The rashness of Mr. Ellis precipitated the event. He had for some time been alarming the presidency with accounts of the dangers with which he conceived himself to be surrounded, and urging them to invest him with discretionary powers, in order that he might be able to act on any emergency without waiting for specific instructions from Calcutta. His request was unfortunately granted, and he no sooner learned the reception which the deputies had met with, than regarding it as an open declaration of war, he ordered out the troops, and by a sudden onset made himself master of the town of Patna. The citadel, however, stood out; and the troops, who had fled on the first surprise, having returned, regained the town almost as easily as they had lost it. It was now the turn of the British to act on the defensive, and they retired to their factory for that purpose. After a short resistance, they found their position untenable, and betaking themselves to boats, hastened up the Ganges towards Chhapra. Here the commander of the district attacked them, and they were obliged to surrender. The factory of Kassimbazar was taken and plundered at the same time; and all who had been taken at both places were sent off prisoners to the strong fort of Monghyr. When Mr. Ellis attacked Patna Mr. Amyatt had only begun to journey homeward. A party sent after him by the nabob endeavoured to detain him. He resisted, and in the scuffle which ensued lost his life.
As soon as hostilities were thus commenced, the presidency, as if they were absolute lords of the country, issued a proclamation on the 7th of July, 1763, deposing Mir Kasim, and replacing Mir Jafar on the masnad. The old nabob had continued to reside in Calcutta, and though now more unfitted than ever for government, by age and disease, had ambition enough to aspire to it. As a matter of course he accepted whatever conditions were proposed to him, and undertook in particular to re-establish the monopoly of private trade in favour of the Company’s servants, by allowing their goods to pass duty free, while those of the natives were heavily burdened. These proceedings placed Mr. Vansittart in a very awkward predicament, but he attached his signature to all the documents, subject, however, to the salvo, that he did it without prejudice to his former declarations and opinions. The Company’s army, consisting of 750 Europeans, together with a considerable number of sepoys and native cavalry, had previously started, under the command of Major Adams, from the neighbourhood of Chandernagore, and proceeded northward to Augadeep, not far from Katwa, where they were joined by Mir Jafar, now on the way to resume possession of the capital. Mir Kasim, determined not to yield it without a struggle, had thrown up entrenchments, and occupied them with an army, formidable not only from its numbers, but from containing a considerable number of sepoys, regularly trained in European discipline, and commanded by an European adventurer of the name of Sumru, who was of Swiss origin, and had been a sergeant in the French army. After a short but decisive action, fought on the 24th of July, Mir Kasim’s entrenchments were stormed, and Murshidabad was entered without opposition. The victors, after a short delay, continued their march up the banks of the Hughli, and on reaching Suty, on the 2nd of August, found the enemy encamped on the plain of Gheriah, and prepared to offer battle. It was much more keenly contested than before, but, after a conflict of four hours, at one time with doubtful issue, British valour again prevailed, and gained a complete victory.
Mir Kasim, while his troops were thus fighting, had kept aloof from danger within the fort of Monghyr, venting his rage and gratifying his savage nature by several atrocious murders. Among his victims were Ramnarain, who had never been released from the prison to which he was consigned when Mr. Vansittart shamefully abandoned him, and two members of the famous banking family of the Seths. As if these murders had inspired him with courage, he made bold to quit his fort and joined his army, which had now taken up a strong position at Oudanulla or Oondwah Nullah, a strong fort situated near the right bank of the Ganges, eight miles south of Rajamahal. Mir Kasim is said to have had 60,000 men within the entrenchment, which was defended by 100 pieces of cannon. The British barely mustered in all 3,000, and yet with these succeeded in both capturing the fort and storming the entrenchment. After this defeat Mir Kasim’s temporary courage forsook him, and he hastened back to Monghyr, followed by the wreck of his army. The British pursued, invested the fort, and after a short siege compelled, or, as it has been alleged, bribed it to surrender. Mir Kasim had previously placed himself beyond the reach of danger, and was residing at Patna when he learned that Monghyr had fallen. He had for some time been meditating a horrid massacre; for Major Adams, when advancing upon that fort, had received a letter from him, in which, after an ominous allusion to his prisoners, he concluded thus: “Exult not upon the success which you have gained, merely by treachery and night assaults, in two or three places, over a few jamidars sent by me. By the will of God you shall see in what manner this shall be revenged and retaliated.” The only answer that could be returned was to denounce his brutality, and threaten it with signal vengeance. He cared not, for the fall of Monghyr had made him desperate, and he issued the inhuman order to butcher all the prisoners. It was at once executed to the very letter by Sumru, who, by his own hand and that of his emissaries, slaughtered every one of the prisoners except Dr. Fullarton, whose professional services had caused Mir Kasim to except him. The number of Englishmen thus murdered in cold blood exceeded 200. Among them were Mr. Ellis, who almost merited his fate, and Mr. Hay, a member of council, and the fellow-deputy of Mr. Amyatt on the absurd mission about private trade.
Mir Kasim, aware that he had placed himself beyond the pale of mercy, did not await the arrival of the British at Patna, but hastened to cross the Karamnasa, which formed part of the boundary between Bihar and the territories of the Nabob of Oudh. The garrison he left made a spirited but unavailing defence, and the town was taken by storm on the 6th of November. Though there was now little hope of overtaking the bloodstained fugitive, the pursuit was continued; and the British army, early in December, encamped on the banks of the Karamnasa in order to watch the motions of Mir Kasim, who had assumed a more formidable appearance than ever in consequence of having formed a junction with the Emperor Shah Alam and Suja-ud-daulah, the Nabob of Oudh, who, as has been already mentioned, had been appointed his vizir. When he crossed the river they were both at Allahabad preparing for an expedition against Bundelkhand. They received him with all the respect due to his rank as nabob, and promised him their assistance to recover the provinces from which he represented himself as most unjustly expelled. To show that he was not undeserving of their assistance, he volunteered to head the expedition against Bundelkhand with his own troops, and was so successful that his new confederates were impressed with a favourable opinion of his cause, and declared their determination to unite as soon as the season would admit in a common invasion of Bengal.
The presidency, notwithstanding the successes which had attended their arms, were by no means free from apprehension. Mir Jafar’s name carried no weight with it, and they found themselves involved in a war which mere distance made difficult and expensive, and which, if permitted to spread, might soon extend over the greater part of Northern India. They were therefore extremely urgent that Major Carnac, who had again been appointed to the chief command, should at once assume the aggressive, or at all events maintain the advanced position which had been taken up. Unfortunately, it seemed to him impracticable to do either. His troops were disaffected. They thought that their previous services had not been sufficiently rewarded, and had been worked upon by emissaries of the enemy, who succeeded in convincing not a few that the most effectual way of bettering their circumstances would be by changing masters. Desertion, accordingly, became alarmingly frequent; and when the enemy began to advance, Carnac, afraid to risk the encounter, retired upon Patna. The enemy followed, in hope of interposing between him and the town; and when they failed, came up boldly in front of the walls under which he was encamped, and offered him battle. However unwilling he might be, it was scarcely in his power to decline it. On the morning of the 13th of May, the enemy commenced with a cannonade, and under cover of it made a general attack, which was kept up with great spirit, and was not finally repulsed till evening began to close. The British, thus far victorious, were unable to derive any advantage from their victory; while the enemy, instead of retiring, kept hovering about, watching an opportunity to repeat their attack.
During the continuance of this unsatisfactory state of matters, negotiations were repeatedly attempted. Carnac, as a preliminary, demanded the delivery of Mir Kasim and Sumru. The vizir not only refused, but demanded the cession of the whole province of Bihar. Between parties entertaining such opposite views, there could be no agreement, and yet the semblance of negotiating was kept up for several weeks. The only thing gained was time, and this was of considerable importance, for in the interval the difficulty of maintaining an army in the field had greatly increased; and the emperor and his vizir becoming suspicious of each other’s good faith, betrayed a willingness to treat separately. The emperor, in particular, offered to enter into regular alliance with the Company. It became unnecessary to make a final choice between these overtures before the confederacy was broken up, by the sudden departure of the vizir, who, alarmed for the safety of his own territories, threatened by a strong detachment which Carnac had sent across the Ganges, hastened off to defend them.
Major Carnac was succeeded by Major Hector Monro, who arrived with a reinforcement which he brought by sea from Bombay. He found the mutinous spirit which had crippled his predecessor’s operations still prevalent. On the very day of his arrival, a whole battalion of sepoys set off with their arms and accoutrements to join the enemy. A body of troops sent in pursuit, came upon them while asleep, and brought them back as prisoners. It was absolutely necessary to make an example, and Monro was determined that it should be of a kind sufficient to strike terror. Having picked out twenty-four who were understood to be the most criminal of the mutineers, he brought them before a court-martial of native officers, who found them guilty, and sentenced them to any kind of death the commander should appoint. He immediately ordered that four of them should be blown away from guns. When they were tied up for this purpose, four grenadiers who had been condemned, stepped forward and requested that, as they had always had the post of honour, they should be the first to suffer. This extraordinary precedence was allowed them. After they had suffered, the sepoys intimated through their European officers that they would not allow any more to be executed. Monro was not to be thus deterred. After loading the field-pieces with grape, and placing them at intervals in the line of Europeans, he ordered the sepoys to ground their arms, intimating that, on the least symptom of refusal, he would order the artillery to fire upon them. They were completely overawed, and looked on without a murmur, while sixteen more were blown from the guns. Four remained, but with no intention to respite them, for they were immediately sent off to another cantonment, where, from the frequency of desertion from it, it appeared that the example of an execution was particularly required.
The mutinous spirit being thus quelled, Monro brought the troops out of cantonments as soon as the cessation of the rains permitted, and on the 15th of September commenced his march westward at the head of any army consisting of 857 Europeans, 5,297 sepoys, and 918 native cavalry, in all 7,072 men, with twenty field-pieces. After encountering some resistance at the passage of the Sone, where some breastworks had been thrown up, and suffering considerable annoyance from cavalry which hung on his line of march, he arrived on the 22nd of October at the town and fort of Buxar, situated on the right bank of the Ganges, nearly equidistant between Patna and Benares. Here the Vizir Suja-ud-daulah and Mir Kasim were occupying an entrenched camp, with an army estimated variously from 40,000 to 60,000 men. Their position, having the Ganges on the left and Buxar in the rear, was strong, but confident in their numbers they disdained to act on the defensive, and on the morning of the 23rd were seen advancing to the attack. Monro’s intention to surprise the camp during the previous night had been frustrated by the failure of the spies whom he had sent out to return with the necessary information, and he had now no option but to fight in open day on ground which the enemy had chosen. The battle lasted three hours, and appears to have been stoutly contested, for even after the enemy saw themselves defeated they retired slowly instead of breaking into a tumultuous flight. Their greatest loss was sustained at the crossing of a stream, over which there was a bridge of boats. The vizir seeing the British in close pursuit ordered the bridge to be broken down. About 2,000 of his troops thus left behind were drowned or slain. This order to destroy the bridge was, in the opinion of Major Monro, the best piece of generalship which Suja-ud-daulah showed that day. But for it, he said, “I would either have taken or drowned his whole army in the Karamnasa, and come up with his treasure and jewels, and Kasim Ali Khan’s jewels, which, I was informed, amounted to between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000”. Besides the 2,000 who perished at the bridge, the enemy lost other 2,000 in the field of battle, together with 130 pieces of cannon. The British loss was also severe, amounting in killed and wounded to 847, or rather more than a ninth of their whole force.
The victory of Buxar was immediately followed by overtures of peace both from the emperor and Suja-ud-daulah. The former, indeed, was so far reduced in his fortunes that he scarcely ventured to assume the character of an independent prince, and offered to submit to any terms that might be dictated to him. The only return he asked was protection against his own vizir, who, he complained, was treating him as a state prisoner. The British commander having no authority to treat, wrote to Calcutta for instructions, but so determined was the emperor to escape from the thraldom in which he was held that in the interval before the instructions arrived he kept close to the British army, and every night encamped for safety as near them as he could. At last, when a favourable answer arrived from Calcutta, the protection which he had previously enjoyed on mere sufferance was regularly granted, and he was recognized as no longer the enemy but the ally of the Company.
Suja-ud-daulah was equally anxious for the cessation of hostilities, and offered to purchase it by paying twenty-five lacs of rupees as the expenses of the war, twenty-five lacs to the army, and eight lacs to the commander. One indispensable requisite was still wanting—the delivery of Mir Kasim and Sumru. To this Suja-ud-daulah still refused his assent. He seemed to be influenced in his refusal by a feeling of honour, and yet this could hardly be, for at this very time, Mir Kasim, so far from being treated with the hospitality due to a guest, was suffering the greatest indignity, and had almost been reduced to beggary by extortion and the violent seizure of his treasures. In regard to Sumru, scruples of honour were not even pretended. The reason assigned for not delivering him was, that being at the head of the battalions of sepoys he was his own master, and would resist any attempt to make him a prisoner. The true reason was different. Sumru, on finding that Mir Kasim was no longer able to be his paymaster, had abandoned him, and was now with his sepoys enlisted in the vizir’s service. He was, therefore, unwilling to part with him. At length, however, on finding that the delivery of him was still insisted on as an indispensable preliminary to the conclusion of a treaty, he endeavoured to effect a singular compromise by proposing that, instead of being delivered up, he should be assassinated. The plan was to give an entertainment, and murder him in the midst of its festivities. To make sure of the right man, deputies from the English camp who knew Sumru’s person were to be present and witness the death. It is almost unnecessary to say that the proposed compromise was at once rejected, and the negotiation was broken off.
At the commencement of the negotiation, the British army had advanced to Benares. On its termination it resumed its march in the direction of Allahabad. At the same time a strong detachment was sent into the territories of Oudh proper, and succeeded in effecting the capture of Lucknow, the capital. Another enterprise undertaken by the main army was less successful. The strong fort of Chunar, or Chunargarh, situated on the right bank of the Ganges, lay so near the line of march that it was deemed imprudent to leave it behind in the enemy’s possession. Its site was a sandstone rock, rising abruptly from the river to the height of 104 feet, and continuing to ascend till it reached the height of 146 feet. The whole area, inclosed by a rampart, measured 750 yards in length by 300 in breadth. It was supposed that, notwithstanding the strength of its position and its fortifications, it might be carried by a night attack. The attempt was made and failed; but the place was subsequently carried after a regular breach had been effected. A still more important success was obtained by the capture of Allahabad, which, though strongly fortified, made only a feeble resistance. The emperor, still excluded from Delhi, immediately took up his residence in Allahabad, which, with a considerable tract of surrounding country, had been guaranteed to him by a treaty which the presidency had concluded with him in name of the Company. This was only a first instalment of a much more extensive guarantee, for he was ultimately to be put in possession of the whole territories of Suja-ud-daulah, his late vizir, with whom he was now openly at war. The presidency, however, had, in giving this guarantee, undertaken more than their superiors would allow them to perform, and the part of the treaty relating to the other territories was destined, as will be seen, to become a dead letter.
During these transactions, another event, fraught with more important consequences, had taken place. Mir Jafar, after his restoration to the masnad, had accompanied the army, and remained the reluctant spectator of a war which he would willingly have terminated by a cession of territory or any other sacrifice. His treasury was as empty as ever, and in addition to war expenses at the rate of five lacs a month, he had not only heavy arrears to the Company to discharge, but was pestered by their servants with indefinite demands of compensation for losses. In his eagerness to resume a throne which it would have been his wisdom to decline, he had agreed to this so-called compensation, which consisted for the most part of imaginary claims of damage for the stoppage of private trade. This compensation, when he agreed to it, was estimated at ten lacs, but continued mounting up, till at last it exceeded more than five times the original estimate. In the hope of more readily obtaining payment, the council brought the old nabob down to Calcutta, where the constant irritation in which he was kept brought on a serious illness. It proved fatal; for, after languishing a few weeks, he was with difficulty removed to Murshidabad, and died there in the beginning of February, 1765.
The question of succession remained to be settled, and was immediately taken up by the presidency, who, having the power of nomination completely in their hands, saw many reasons for proceeding without delay to exercise it. The only individuals who could be regarded as rival claimants were Mir Jafar’s eldest surviving son, Najm-ud-daulah, and a grandson by his eldest son Miran. Both of them were illegitimate, and therefore without any valid legal title. Had they been legitimate, the better title was in Najm-ud-daulah according to the Muhammedan law, which, instead of continuing the succession by representation, always prefers a surviving son to a grandson. In another respect Najm-ud-daulah was preferable. He was about twenty, while Miran’s son was only a boy of about six years of age. This difference, indeed, was of little consequence, as the nabob was in future to be a mere puppet, while all power was to centre in the Company. Such being the real object, something might have been gained by appointing a nabob who was incapable of acting from nonage. This, however, was counterbalanced by a serious disadvantage. An infant nabob could hardly be supposed capable of making presents, and yet it may be affirmed, without any breach of charity, that on these presents the nabob-makers of Calcutta were far more intent than on the interests of their employers. The fact is undeniable; for at the very time when Mr. Spencer, who had succeeded Mr. Vansittart as governor, and his council shared among them so-called presents to the amount of £139,357 for raising Najm-ud-daulah to the masnad, new covenants interdicting the servants of the Company from receiving presents had been sent out by the court of directors, and were lying unexecuted on the council table. Private trade also had been interdicted; but in regard to it the authority of the directors was in like manner defied, and the new nabob was expressly taken bound to leave the private trade on its old footing. In the other arrangements, the interests of the Company not running counter to those of their servants were more carefully attended to, and the whole powers of government, civil and military, were transferred to them. They were to undertake the whole defence of the country, employing for that purpose the revenues of the assigned districts of Burdwan, Midnapore, and Chittagong, together with five lacs of rupees to be paid monthly by the nabob from other sources; and were to have a complete control over the whole civil administration by means of a deputy nabob, or naib-subah, whom the nabob bound himself to appoint by their advice, and not to dismiss without their sanction. This deputy, invested with the whole executive authority, was in fact the real nabob. Najm-ud-daulah, aware of this, was extremely anxious to appoint Nanda Kumar, a Hindu, whom we have already seen supplanting his patron Raidurlabh by a series of intrigues. He had possessed and abused the confidence of Mir Jafar, and acquired an unbounded influence over Najm-ud-daulah, whom he hoped to employ as the instrument of his villainy; but the presidency, thoroughly acquainted with his character, refused to ratify his appointment, and succeeded in securing it for Muhammed Reza Khan, who was in every respect far better entitled to it.
The leading events which took place after Clive’s departure from India having been traced, it will now be necessary to follow him to England, and attend to the transactions in which he was there taking a prominent part. The time of his arrival was most opportune for his fame. Disaster had everywhere been following the British arms, and India was the only quarter in which the national pride could find any gratification. His achievements there were consequently magnified even beyond their deserts, and all classes vied in doing him honour. He was not indisposed to turn this tide of favour to account, but an attack of illness so severe that “for twelve months,” to use his own language, “it was difficult to pronounce whether he was to live or die,” frustrated many of his intentions, and even deprived him of a part of the reward which he thought due to his merit. In a letter to Major Carnac he says, “If health had not deserted me on my first arrival in England, in all probability I had been an English peer, instead of an Irish one, with the promise of a red riband. I know I could have bought the title (which is usual), but that I was above, and the honours I have obtained are free and voluntary. My wishes may hereafter be accomplished.” His ambition, it thus appears, was not satisfied; and he had the mortification to see the ministry through whom he anticipated higher advancement displaced. He was the more disconcerted because his interest at court and in parliament, which he had sedulously laboured to establish, failed him at the very time when he was confidently calculating upon it to defeat an attack which had been darkly threatened by the court of directors. Though the proceeds of his jaghir had been regularly paid by the Bengal presidency to his agents in India, the directors, who were suffering under great pecuniary embarrassment, felt much dissatisfied, and Mr. Sullivan, the chairman, gave him to understand that the secret committee would communicate with him on the subject. He himself seems not to have been without misgivings, and for some time pursued a course which displayed none of his characteristic fearlessness, and was in fact more prudential than chivalrous. In a letter to Mr. Amyatt he says, “My friends advise me to do nothing to exasperate them (the directors), if they are silent as to my jaghir. Indeed, it is an object of such importance that I should be inexcusable if I did not make every other consideration give way to it; and this is one of the reasons why I cannot join openly with the Bengal gentlemen in their resentments. It depends upon you, my friend, to make me a free man, by getting this grant confirmed from Delhi, and getting such an acknowledgment from under the hands of the old nabob and the new nabob, as may enable me to put all our enemies at defiance.”
It is painful to see such a man as Clive reduced to the necessity of gagging himself, and confessing that he could not act as a “free man,” because he was afraid of giving offence which might prove injurious to his pecuniary interests. The worst of it is, that he seems unconscious of the degradation which he was thus voluntarily imposing upon himself, and hence again and again brings it under the notice of his correspondents as if it were a matter of which he had not the least cause to be ashamed. In a letter to Mr. Pybus, of Madras, after describing Sullivan as “the reigning director,” and as “keeping every one out of the direction who is endowed with more knowledge, or would be likely to have more weight and influence than himself,” he continues thus: “This kind of political behaviour has exasperated most of the gentlemen who are lately come from India, particularly those from Bengal. They are surprised I do not join in their resentments; and I should think it very surprising if I did, considering I have such an immense stake in India. My future power, my future grandeur, all depend upon the receipt of the jaghir money. I should be a madman to set at defiance those who at present show no inclination to hurt me.” He was thus, according to his own confession, acting in a public matter from a selfish and sordid motive. Peace on such terms was at best a hollow truce; and accordingly, no sooner was Clive convinced that the dominant party in the court of directors might be turned out, than he declared open war against it. In order to influence the election of 1763 he manufactured an enormous number of votes. The qualification was then £500, and he employed £100,000 in this very discreditable manoeuvre. The other party, backed by the Bute ministry, to which Clive was opposed, were equally unscrupulous, and scenes of the most scandalous nature were exhibited. At the meetings of the general courts of proprietors Clive’s party had so decided a majority that he considered the victory as gained. He had entirely miscalculated. Sullivan, supported by all the influence of government, and by the great body of proprietors, who had established an influence with the existing directors, and were eagerly waiting for the fulfilment of promises which had been made to them, carried his list by a triumphant majority.
Clive, being thus defeated in a contest in which he ought never to have engaged, was not left long in doubt as to the course which his opponents meant to pursue. One of the first uses which they made of their victory was to transmit orders to the Bengal presidency to stop all further payments on account of Lord Clive’s jaghir, and furnish an account of all the payments previously made. There was much indecent haste and vindictiveness in this proceeding; but what else was to be expected from the victors in a contest in which the combatants on both sides had from the first shown that they were not to be restrained by any ordinary scruples? Clive felt, or affected to feel astonishment at the harsh measure dealt out to him by the directors, and immediately took the only remedy which seemed open to him, by instituting a suit in Chancery. It would be painful to dwell on the proceedings, and fortunately it is not necessary, as the merits of the case were never judicially investigated, and it was taken out of court by a compromise. The intelligence of the massacre at Patna, of the violent dissensions in the council at Calcutta, and of the commencement of a war, of which it was impossible to foretell the issue, put a sudden end to all the petty squabblings among the directors, and was followed by a loud and general call for Clive’s return to India. As he had founded the British empire there, so he was regarded as the only man capable of saving it from the destruction with which it was threatened. Clive had it now in his power to make his own terms; and, though he cannot be charged with taking an undue advantage of his position, he certainly showed his determination not to yield a single point which he deemed of importance.
The first question which called for settlement was that of the jaghir. The general court of proprietors would at once have set it at rest, by deciding it entirely in his favour; but he thought it unbecoming to dispose of a grave question of law by a resolution proposed and carried in a moment of excitement, and he therefore begged delay, that he might be able to submit a proposal which he trusted would lead to an amicable adjustment. The question of appointment was not settled without a keen and even doubtful contest. No fewer than four general courts were held on the subject. The two first were principally occupied with preliminary matters. At the third the subject was brought formally under discussion by a motion that the nomination of Mr. Spencer as governor of Bengal should be referred back to the court of directors for their re-consideration. The object of the motion, of course, was to cancel the nomination, and thus prepare the way for Lord Clive’s appointment. But, after a warm debate, it was lost by a majority of 184 to 141. The Clive party, thus defeated, prepared for a new struggle by a wholesale manufacture of votes; and at a subsequent meeting, held on the 12th of March, 1764, carried the following resolution:—“That it was the desire of the general court that Lord Clive be requested to take upon him the station of president of Bengal and the command of the Company’s military forces, upon his arrival at that presidency.”
The directors having no alternative but to make an appointment which they would most willingly have resisted, contented themselves with instructing their secretary to send Clive a letter enclosing a copy of the above resolution, and informing him of their readiness to provide for his passage in the manner that might be most convenient for him. His answer was equally laconic. “I have received your letter enclosing copy of the last resolution of the general court. I must desire you will return the directors my thanks for their offers of preparing every convenience for my passage.” While such feelings existed, cordial co-operation was impossible; and therefore Clive was right when, at a subsequent general court, held on the 21st of March, he declined to declare his acceptance of the appointment till the issue of the approaching election of directors was known. He made no secret of his motives. It was his positive determination not again to enter the service of the Company while Mr. Sullivan filled the chair, for “it would be in vain for him to exert himself as he ought in the office of governor and commander-in-chief of their forces, if his measures were to be thwarted and condemned at home, as they probably would be, by a court of directors, under the influence of a chairman, whose conduct upon many occasions had evinced his ignorance of East India affairs, and who was also known to be his personal and inveterate enemy.” The election which was thus to decide the whole matter proved favourable to Clive’s supporters. Both the chairman and deputy were his friends; and Sullivan was run so closely, that he carried his seat in the direction by only a single vote. All obstacles were now removed, and Clive’s acceptance was immediately declared. The lawsuit as to the jaghir was also arranged in terms of a compromise which Clive himself proposed, and by which the Company engaged to pay him the quit-rent for ten years, or during his life, if he should not live so long. What was to become of it afterwards does not appear to have been openly declared, but the understanding was, that the Company, who had previously farmed out the lands included under the jaghir at £100,000, while their quit-rent fell short of £30,000, were, in the event of Clive’s death, to be absolute proprietors.
At the time of Clive’s reappointment, affairs in Bengal were understood to have fallen into such disorder, that it would be necessary to make his powers almost absolute. His own suggestion was, that he should be intrusted with “a dispensing power in the civil and political affairs,” that is, as he himself explains it, “that whensoever I may think proper to take any resolution entirely upon myself, that resolution is to take place.” The directors did not confer these absolute powers, at least in the form in which he asked them; but they did what was almost equivalent to it, by making him the head of a select committee, consisting, besides himself, of four individuals, appointed on his recommendation, and made so far independent of the council, as to be empowered to act whenever they judged proper without consulting it. Two of the members of the committee, Messrs. Sumner and Sykes, accompanied Clive from England; the others, General Carnac and Mr. Verelst, were already in India. Among other arrangements to which an understanding was come, the most important related to the private trade, and to the receiving of presents. In February, 1764, while the old directors were still in office, they had taken up the former subject and disposed of it greatly to their credit, by the following passage in their general letter to the Bengal presidency:—“One grand source of the disputes, misunderstandings, and difficulties, which have occurred with the country government, appears evidently to have taken its rise from the unwarrantable and licentious manner of carrying on the private trade by the Company’s servants, their gomastaks, agents, and others, to the prejudice of the subah, both with respect to his authority and the revenues justly due to him; the diverting and taking from his natural subjects, the trade in the inland part of the country, to which neither we, nor any other persons whatsoever dependent upon us, or under our protection, have any manner of right. In order, therefore, to remedy all these disorders, we do hereby positively order and direct, that, from the receipt of this letter, a final and effectual end be forthwith put to the inland trade in salt, betelnut, tobacco, and all other articles whatsoever, produced and consumed in the country.” This interdict on private trade was fully approved by Clive, who, in a letter addressed to the directors, 27th April, 1764, thus expressed himself:—“Strict and impartial justice should ever be observed; but let that justice come from ourselves. The trade, therefore, of salt, betel, and tobacco having been one cause of the present disputes, I hope these articles will be restored to the nabob, and your servants absolutely forbid to trade in them. This will be striking at the root of the evil.” Unfortunately, these enlightened and disinterested views did not find favour with the general court of proprietors, who, in a meeting held 18th May, adopted the following resolution:—“That it be recommended to the court of directors to reconsider the orders sent to Bengal, relative to the trade of the Company’s servants in the articles of salt, betel, and tobacco, and that they do give such directions for regulating the same, agreeable to the interests of the Company and the subah, as to them may appear most prudent, either by settling here at home the restrictions under which this trade ought to be carried on, or by referring it to the governor and council of Fort William, to regulate this important point in such a manner as may prevent all further disputes between the subah and the Company.” In consequence of this recommendation, the previous orders of the directors were modified, and it was left to the governor and council, after “consulting the nabob, to form a proper and equitable plan for carrying on the inland trade.” On the subject of presents the orders of the directors were more peremptory, and new covenants, dated May, 1764, were sent out to be executed by all servants, civil and military, of the Company, binding them to pay to the Company all presents received from natives, if the amount exceeded 4,000 rupees, and not to accept of any present exceeding 1,000 rupees in value without the consent of the presidency.
Clive sailed from England on the 4th of June, 1764, and had so tedious a passage that he did not reach Madras till the 10th of April, 1765. Here he learned, for the first time, that the war in Bengal had been brought to a conclusion, and that the terms of peace were so completely in the power of the Company, that it was “scarcely hyperbole to say, Tomorrow the whole Mughul empire is in our power.” In the same letter, written privately to Mr. Rous, chairman of the court, seven days after his arrival at Madras, he added, “We must become nabobs ourselves in fact, if not in name, perhaps totally so without disguise, but on this subject I cannot be certain till my arrival in Bengal.” At this time, though he knew of Mir Jafar’s death, he was not aware of the steps which had been taken to appoint a successor; but he was so satisfied that the Company was about to enter on a new course of prosperity, which would greatly advance the value of its stock, that he wrote on the same day to his agent in London, desiring that whatever money he had in the public funds, or anywhere else, and as much as could be borrowed in his name, should be, “without loss of a minute, invested in East India stock.”
Clive arrived in Calcutta on the 3rd of May, and lost no time in commencing the exercise of his extraordinary powers. Some of the members of council, conscious of the awkward position in which they stood, were disposed to take advantage of some ambiguous expressions which occurred in the commission to the select committee, and to put their own interpretation upon them; but Clive denied their right even to inquire, and gave them to understand that it would be full time to give their opinion when the select committee judged it necessary to ask it. By taking this high ground he intimidated the boldest of his opponents, though he at the same time provoked a hostility which afterwards followed him to England, and subjected him to imputations and insults which his proud spirit proved unable to endure. Difficulties, however, so far from deterring him, only stimulated him to exertion. “I was determined,” as he afterwards expressed it, “to do my duty to the public, though I should incur the odium of the whole settlement. The welfare of the Company required a vigorous exertion, and I took the resolution of cleansing the Augean stable.” This opprobrious epithet is by no means inappropriate; for in every class of the Company’s servants, from the highest to the lowest, the great actuating principle was avarice, manifested without any regard to decency, and in the form most insulting and oppressive to the native population. It is impossible, however, to forget how much of the corruption might have been traced to the bad example which Clive himself had set, and there is therefore something painfully incongruous in the high-flown style which he sometimes employs. Thus, in a letter written to General Carnac, three days after he had entered upon office, he says, “Tomorrow we sit in committee, when I make no doubt of discovering such a scene as will be shocking to human nature. The council,” he adds, “have all received immense sums for this new appointment (of a nabob), and are so shameless as to own it publicly. Hence we can account for the motive of paying so little respect to me and the committee;” and then, warming as he proceeds, breaks out into the following exclamation:—“Alas! how is the English name sunk! I could not avoid paying the tribute of a few tears to the departed and lost fame of the British nation (irrecoverably so, I fear). However, I do declare, by that Great Being who is the searcher of all hearts, and to whom we must be accountable, if there must be an hereafter, that I am come out with a mind superior to all corruption, and that I am determined to destroy those great and growing evils, or perish in the attempt.” The cutting retort to which he laid himself open in using this language seems never to have occurred to him.
The covenants which interdicted all the servants of the Company from accepting presents had arrived in the previous January, some weeks before the death of Mir Jafar, and consequently were in possession of the council when they set them at defiance, by taking presents on the succession of Najm-ud-daulah. They had endeavoured to evade the obligation by the very bold but flimsy device of allowing the covenants to remain unexecuted. When questioned on the subject, they hypocritically pretended that their apparent contempt of authority was, in fact, an act of deference to it, for the signing of the covenants was a matter of so much consequence that they could not think of settling anything final about them till Lord Clive’s arrival. That this ludicrous excuse might no longer avail, one of the first resolutions of the select committee was that “the covenants be executed immediately.” When this resolution was read to the council they argued strenuously for delay, and only yielded on being told that the only alternative was to sign or be suspended from the service. It is not unworthy of notice that when the covenants were afterwards transmitted to the army for signature, General Carnac, though commander-in-chief, and a member of the select committee, refused. It was, however, on special grounds. He had received a present of 80,000 rupees from Balwant Singh, Raja of Benares. The covenants bore a date antecedent to that of the present; but, as he was not aware of their existence, he refused to sign till the date was altered, so as not to lay him open to the charge of having violated them. Another present to a much larger amount, given him by Shah Alam, whose necessitous circumstances must have made it very inconvenient, was bestowed after he had received notice of the covenants. The sum was two lacs of rupees, equal, according to the rate of exchange at the time, to £23,333; making, with the previous present from Balwant Singh, a total of £32,666. The latter present was so clearly illegal that Carnac accepted it, subject to the approval of the directors, and in the meantime lodged it in the treasury of the presidency. To sanction such a present; at the very time when the signature of the covenants was enforced under the penalty of suspension from the service, was to establish a very extraordinary precedent; and yet, in such different lights does the same thing appear, according as personal predilections are affected by it, that Clive strenuously supported the present in the following terms:—“I shall only say that Carnac has acted with such moderation and honour in the service of the Company, and with such good deference and attention towards his majesty the Great Mughul, that the directors must be the most ungrateful of men, if they do not by the return of this ship, or the first conveyance, order him this money, with a due encomium on his services, disinterestedness, and modesty.” Truly, if Carnac, after pocketing one present, which was only saved from illegality by an accident, and hankering after another which was clearly illegal, and which the directors could not sanction without stultifying themselves, deserved such an encomium, Clive should not have boasted much of “cleansing the Augean stable.” In regard to the private trade, the regulations adopted were by no means such as might have been anticipated from the views which Clive had expressed before leaving England. At that time he considered the abolition of it necessary in order “to strike at the root of the evil,” whereas he fully sanctioned, if he did not actually originate a scheme by which the present trade, instead of being thrown open to all the inhabitants on equal terms, was converted, at least in three of its leading articles, into a rigorous monopoly in favour of the Company’s servants. The scheme is said to have been rendered expedient in consequence of a most important change which took place at this time in the circumstances of the Company, and it is therefore only fair before judging of it to have this change fully in view.
The Emperor Shah Alam had, as we have seen, thrown himself on British protection, and entered into a treaty, in which the most important stipulations in his favour were that he should immediately be put in possession of Allahabad, and assisted in conquering all the territories which belonged to the Nabob of Oudh. This was a very serious undertaking, though there seemed little reason to doubt that the army which had already achieved so many successes would be able to accomplish it. The nabob, however, was determined not to yield without a struggle, and endeavoured to repair the disaster at Buxar, by forming alliances with Ghazi-ud-din, the vizir (who, after murdering Alamgir, usurped possession of the districts around Delhi), with certain of the Rohilla chiefs, and with a body of Marathas. This confederacy was far more formidable in appearance than in reality. The members, pursuing separate ends, had no common interest, and rendered their promised aid so tardily and so feebly that the nabob’s affairs became desperate. As a last resource he recurred to negotiation, and was delighted to find that he could obtain liberal terms. The impolicy of the treaty which had been made with the emperor had become apparent, and it was determined to modify, or if necessary set aside its most important provisions. At last, after long hesitation, it had been resolved to accept of the diwani of the three provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa, and thus by transferring the collection of the revenues as well as the military defence of the country to the Company, put an end to the possibility of future collision with the nabob.
The accomplishment of this important work was reserved for Clive, who was the first to suggest it, and had repeatedly explained the grounds on which he was convinced that it must sooner or later become absolutely necessary. On the 24th of June, Clive left Calcutta on this important mission, and proceeded first to Murshidabad, where he obtained the consent of Najm-ud-daulah to several important modifications in the treaty made with him when he was raised to the masnad. He would fain have placed himself under the guidance of Nanda Kumar, and was greatly dissatisfied that Muhammed Reza Khan had been forced upon him as deputy or naib-subah. Without yielding to his complaints, advantage was taken of them to limit the exorbitant power of Reza Khan, by associating with him as colleagues the old diwan Raidurlabh, and the banker Jagat Seth, and at the same time exercising a vigilant superintendence over all the three, by means of a British resident. This, however, was only preliminary to a still greater change. Under the treaty the military defence of the country was undertaken by the Company, who obtained for that purpose a permanent assignment of the districts of Burdwan, Midnapore, and Chittagong. With this important exception, all the other revenues belonged to the nabob, who levied them in his own name, and for his own behoof, under deduction of the annual tribute payable to the Mughul. By the new arrangement the nabob was converted into a mere pensionary, and, instead of drawing an indefinite revenue, was restricted to an annual pension of fifty lacs of rupees. In future this was to be his only interest in the revenue, and he was to receive it not directly from the collectors, but at second-hand from the Company, who in consequence became his paymasters. There cannot be a doubt that the nabob would gladly have escaped from the degrading conditions thus imposed upon him. Resistance, however, was out of the question, and unreserved compliance was his only alternative. The transaction which made the Company absolute masters of the three provinces of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa was now completed, but a ratification was still deemed necessary.
Low as the fortunes of the Mughul had fallen he was still nominally supreme, and continued to be appealed to as the valid disposer of kingdoms, long after he had ceased to have any real authority within them. It was desirable, therefore, that the Company, in appropriating the whole civil and military power of the three provinces, should obtain his sanction. In this there was little difficulty, as he had voluntarily offered, when he threw himself on their protection, to comply with any terms which they might be pleased to dictate. Clive accordingly after accomplishing his object at Murshidabad, by reducing the nabob to the condition of a pensioner, pursued his tour in the direction of Allahabad, that he might there, in conjunction with General Carnac, obtain from Shah Alam a formal sanction of the new revolution which he had just accomplished. It is not to be denied that Shah Alam had good cause to complain of the treatment he received on this occasion. When he entered on possession of Allahabad and the adjoining districts, it was under a treaty which promised him the ultimate possession of all the territories which belonged to Suja-ud-daulah. Instead of this he was now informed that he must rest satisfied with the small extent of territory already conferred upon him, and with the annual payment of twenty-six lacs of rupees from Bengal. Besides this tribute he had right to a jaghir in that country which yielded several lacs, and to a large amount of arrears, but when he claimed them, was simply told that he must look on all past arrangements as cancelled. In future he, too, was to be nothing more than a mere pensioner of the Company. There is something almost ludicrous in the double character which Shah Alam was thus made to assume. In the one he is seen higgling with the representatives of the Company, and vainly endeavouring to increase the amount which they had allotted for his maintenance; in the other, he assumes all the airs of an absolute sovereign, and gives away vast and populous provinces by a mere stroke of the pen. It is not unworthy of notice that, at the time when the grant of the diwani of the three provinces, yielding a revenue estimated at from £3,000,000 to £4,000,000 sterling, was obtained, Clive’s jaghir was not forgotten, the reversion of it after he should have enjoyed it for ten years, or on his death, if it should sooner happen, being expressly bestowed on the Company. This reversion, it is almost unnecessary to observe, was previously included in the grant of the diwani, and hence the only thing gained by granting it specially, was to give legal effect to the arrangement respecting the jaghir, which had previously been made between Clive and the directors.
The only person who had reason to congratulate himself on the liberal treatment which he received was Suja-ud-daulah. He had been the most formidable and inveterate enemy of the Company, and had not only taken Mir Kasim and Sumru under his protection, though perfectly cognizant of the horrid massacres which they had perpetrated, but had placed himself at the head of a confederacy avowedly leagued for the purpose of expelling the British altogether from the country. There would, therefore, have been no injustice in carrying out the treaty which engaged to deprive him altogether of his territories, and transfer them to Shah Alam. Indeed, it was not justice, but policy, that dictated the more favourable terms which he received after a series of disastrous defeats had compelled him to throw himself unconditionally on the mercy of his conquerors. The Company had never been ambitious of territorial aggrandizement; and after repeatedly declining the diwani of the three provinces, had at last accepted it, more from necessity than choice. So long as the revenues were payable to the nabob, his interests were at variance with those of the Company and their agents, and misunderstandings and collisions were constantly occurring. The acceptance of the diwani by the Company seemed the only effectual remedy, and on this ground alone it was recommended by the select committee, and at last sanctioned with some degree of reluctance by the court. The great object now was to make possession safe and permanent by the formation of such a frontier as would give the best security against foreign invasion, and afford the necessary leisure for the introduction of important internal improvements. In the treaty with Shah Alam, this object had been overlooked. The only effect of putting him in possession of the territories of Suja-ud-daulah would have been to protract hostilities indefinitely. Too feeble to provide for his own defence within the country, he never could have made head against the Afghans and Marathas, who were watching an opportunity to extend their conquests.
It was to such considerations as these that Suja-ud-daulah owed the favour which was shown him. He was the hereditary prince, and both from his position and his talents was supposed most capable of interposing an effectual barrier between the possessions of the Company and the foreign invaders who had long been intent on gaining a footing in them. To fit him for the part thus assigned him, it was necessary not only to leave his strength unimpaired, but to convince him, by generous treatment, that he could not advance his interest more effectually than by linking his own fortunes with those of the Company, and entering into close alliance with them. Accordingly, when Clive set out to conclude the treaty with Suja-ud-daulah, the select committee, doubtless echoing his own sentiments, furnished him with a paper of instructions, in which they say, “Experience having shown that an influence maintained by force of arms, is destructive of that commercial spirit which we ought to promote, ruinous to the Company, and oppressive to the country, we earnestly recommend to your lordship, that you will exert your utmost endeavours to conciliate the affections of the country powers, to remove any jealousy they may entertain of our unbounded ambition, and to convince them we aim not at conquest and dominion, but security in carrying on a free trade equally beneficial to them and to us. With this view policy requires that our demands be moderate and equitable, and that we avoid every appearance of an inclination to enlarge our territorial possessions. The sacrifice of conquests, which we must hold on a very precarious tenure, and at an expense more than equivalent to their revenues, is of little consequence to us; yet will such restitutions impress them with a high opinion of our generosity and justice. For these reasons we think Suja-ud-daulah should be reinstated in the full possession of all his dominions, with such limitations only as he must see are evidently calculated for our mutual benefit. We would decline insisting upon any terms that must prove irksome to his high spirit, and imply a suspicion of his sincerity.
A treaty in which the party able to dictate terms felt disposed to act so generously was easily arranged, and Suja-ud-daulah gladly consented to pay fifty lacs of rupees as the expense of the war, in return for the restitution of his whole territories, except the districts of Kora and Allahabad previously ceded to Shah Alam, and for a mutual alliance by which the contracting parties became bound to assist each other against all foreign invaders. The difficulty in regard to Mir Kasim and Sumru no longer existed. The former had taken refuge among the Rohillas, the latter had entered the service of the Jats, and Suja-ud-daulah did all that could be required of him, when he engaged never to give any countenance or protection to either. The only point as to which he ventured to demur was a proposal that the Company should be empowered to establish factories within his territories. In this he probably suspected a repetition of the same process by which Bengal had been wrested from its original rulers, and therefore objected so strongly that the point was not pressed, and it was merely stipulated that the Company should have liberty to trade duty free. This liberty, however, was scarcely regarded as a boon, for at this time the three provinces were supposed to be the proper limits both of trade and of conquest. In regard to the former, the presidency could foresee no benefit to the Company from maintaining settlements at so vast a distance; while in regard to the latter, even Clive declared in a letter to the directors, shortly after concluding the treaty, “My resolution was, and my hopes will always be to confine our assistance, our conquest, and our possessions to Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. To go further is, in my opinion, a scheme so extravagantly ambitious and absurd, that no governor and council in their senses can ever adopt it, unless the whole scheme of the Company’s interest be first entirely new modelled.”
When Clive returned to Calcutta in September, a series of irksome duties lay before him. He had enforced the signature of the covenants interdicting presents, but as large sums had been received after the covenants had arrived, and were therefore, though unexecuted, legally binding, it was judged necessary to institute a strict inquiry in regard to them. This inquiry was, indeed, unavoidable, for Najm-ud-daulah, dissatisfied with the arrangement which had forced Muhammed Reza Khan upon him as naib-subah, no sooner heard of Clive’s arrival than he hastened to Calcutta, and made it a formal complaint that the naib had emptied his treasury by paying away twenty lacs of rupees in presents to the members of council. Muhammed Reza Khan’s defence was that he was not a voluntary agent, but on receiving intimation of the sums which the members of council expected had no option but to pay them. The recipients of the so-called presents denied that they had used either force or terror. This was perhaps true, but the inquiry proved that they had intimated their expectations in a way which made it impossible to refuse them, and the sentence therefore was not unjust, which, on the ground of this misconduct, dismissed Mr. Spencer, the governor, and nine other leading officials from the Company’s service.
The question of private trade still remained. The directors had, as we have seen, endeavoured to strike at the root of the evil, by sending out an order, on the 8th of February, 1764, prohibiting the servants of the Company from engaging in it. This judicious order they had been obliged to recall, in consequence of the interference of the general court of proprietors; and accordingly, in a letter sent out in the same ship in which Clive sailed from England, while they still expressed their conviction that the existing regulations as to the private inland trade were “so injurious to the nabob and the natives that they could not, in the very nature of them, tend to anything but the producing general heartburning and dissatisfactions,” and required that their order of the 8th of February should in the meantime be enforced, they told the committee “to consult the nabob as to the manner of carrying on the inland trade, and thereupon to form a proper and equitable plan for that purpose, and transmit the same to the directors, accompanied by such explanations, observations, and remarks, as might enable them to give their sentiments and directions thereupon, in a full and explicit manner.” This letter contained the only special instructions which Clive and the select committee had received on the subject; and it was therefore to have been expected that in any arrangement subsequently adopted, the spirit at least, if not the letter of these instructions would be carefully observed. This, however, was not the case. On the contrary, a scheme was framed by which the three leading articles of the inland trade—salt, betel, and tobacco—were converted into a strict monopoly for the exclusive behoof of the servants of the Company. This scheme, which was diametrically opposed to the instructions of the directors, could only be justified by the great change of circumstances which had taken place. When the directors wrote, they understood that the nabob was still in actual possession of the revenues, and consequently had a special interest in suppressing the abuses by which their amount had been so seriously diminished. The case was now completely altered. By the grant of the diwani, the whole revenues of the country had been transferred to the Company, and the nabob was only to receive a pension of a definite amount. It was therefore no longer of any consequence to him how the revenues were managed, so long as he was sure of receiving payment of his fifty lacs. So far was the existing nabob from feeling the degrading position to which he was thus reduced, that Clive says:—“He received the proposal of having a sum of money for himself and household at his will with infinite pleasure;” and, on retiring from the interview, exclaimed, “Thank God, I shall now have as many dancing girls as I please.” There was thus no occasion to pay any regard to the nabob in the new arrangement, all modes of carrying on the inland trade being now to him equally indifferent. The only interests to be protected were those of the Company and of the natives, and Clive thought that the plan which the select committee had devised would at once secure this protection and accomplish another object of vital importance. The salaries of the Company’s servants were totally inadequate, and the private inland trade was the chief source from which they had been accustomed to make fortunes or to obtain maintenance. Now therefore, when this source was at once peremptorily cut off, they saw nothing before them but a sudden descent from affluence to beggary. The salary of a member of council was only £350, and it was perfectly notorious that the establishment which his position in society rendered necessary could not be kept up at less than £3,000. The directors, in abolishing the inland trade, ought to have given due weight to this consideration, and been prepared when they suppressed an obnoxious source of income to provide another. This they entirely failed to do; and hence Clive considered himself entitled to supply the omission by the least objectionable means at his disposal.
The plan adopted was as follows:—A society or partnership was formed, and vested with the exclusive rights to carry on the trade in salt, betel-nut, and tobacco. The partners consisted of the Company’s servants, arranged in three classes, and the stock was divided among them in certain definite shares. To the first class were allotted thirty-five shares, distributed thus—the governor, five shares, the general or commander-in-chief, three shares; the second in council, three shares; the other ten members of council and two colonels, two shares each. To the second class were allotted twelve shares, or two-thirds of a share each to eighteen persons—namely, one chaplain, three lieutenant-colonels, and fourteen senior merchants. To the third class were allotted nine shares, being one-third of a share each to twenty-seven persons—namely, four majors, four first surgeons at the presidency, two first surgeons at the army, one secretary in council, one sub-accountant, one Persian translator, and one sub-export-warehouse keeper. To compensate the Company, who in their new position as diwan were entitled to draw a considerable revenue from the monopolized articles, an ad valorem duty of 35 per cent, estimated to produce £100,000 per annum, was paid, and as a security to the natives some precautions were taken to prevent the enhanced price naturally produced by a monopoly. Though nothing can be more objectionable in principle than the payment of public officers by the profit of a monopoly of the articles which, next to rice, formed in Bengal the principal necessaries of life, there cannot be a doubt that the sums realized were sufficient to furnish ample salaries to all who had the privilege of sharing in it. Clive’s calculation was that from the partnership a colonel would draw £7,000 per annum. This being the profit on two shares, each share must have yielded £3,500; and hence, the five reserved to himself as governor, must have given an income of £17,500. As he had declared his determination not to derive any pecuniary advantage from his re-appointment, he appropriated the whole of the profits thus received to the members of his household, and more especially to his brother-in-law, his secretary, and his surgeon, all of whom had accompanied him from England. The court of directors, on being made acquainted with the plan, adhered to their former views, and in their general letter to the select committee wrote as follows:—“Much has been urged by our servants at different times in favour of the right to this trade, which we have always treated as a most absurd claim. The words of the phirmaund are, ‘Whatever goods the English Company shall bring or carry, &c., are duty free.’ To suppose that the court of Delhi could mean by these words, a monopoly of the necessaries of life over their own subjects, is such an absurdity that we shall not lose time or words in trying to refute it. With respect to the Company, it is neither consistent with their honour nor their dignity to promote such an exclusive trade, as it is now more immediately our interest and duty to protect and cherish the inhabitants, and to give them no occasion to look on every Englishman as their national enemy, a sentiment we think such a monopoly would necessarily suggest. We cannot, therefore, approve the plan you have sent us, for trading in salt, betel-nut, and tobacco, or admit of this trade in any shape whatever, and do hereby confirm our orders for its entire abolition.” These orders were too explicit to be directly disobeyed; but the execution of them was suspended on the ground, that before they were received the contract for the second year had been formed, and it was therefore impossible, “without ruin to individuals and confusion to the public,” to fix an earlier date for the abolition than the 1st of September, 1767. Even this date was extended to enable the society to collect their debts and realize their capital, and their operations did not cease till September, 1768.
Another arrangement which Clive made at this time was deserving of more praise, though it subjected him to a larger amount of obloquy. Owing to the resignations, voluntary or compulsory, which had taken place in the council of Calcutta, and the bad spirit manifested by some of those who remained, it became necessary in supplying vacancies to deviate from the ordinary routine and appoint those only who, from character and experience, might be both able and willing to carry out the reforms which had already been introduced or were still contemplated. It seemed vain to look for such persons within the Bengal presidency. The most eligible had perished in the Patna massacre, and the select committee did not hesitate to declare that the whole list of junior merchants within the presidency, did not contain the names of more than three or four individuals whom they “could possibly recommend to higher stations at present”. They therefore, on their own responsibility, subject of course to the approval of the directors, applied to the Madras presidency for four of their ablest civil servants, and on their arrival gave them seats in the council. It was not to be expected that a measure which not only broke in upon the established rule of seniority, but virtually charged those who would have succeeded under that rule with incompetency, would escape severe animadversion and violent opposition. The whole settlement was thrown into a ferment, and the individuals who conceived their interests to be injuriously affected, not contented with subscribing a formal memorial of complaint, took the less justifiable step of attempting to effect their object by means of private associations, which Clive denounced as “destructive of that subordination without which no government can stand.” Failing to obtain their main object, the members engaged to persist in a series of petty and insulting annoyances. No visits were to be paid to the president; no invitations from him or any other member of the select committee were to be accepted; and the new counsellors from Madras were to be treated with neglect and contempt. In pursuing this course they were abetted by some of the highest officials. Two members of council signed their memorial “in testimony of their sense of the injustice done to the younger servants,” and the secretary of the council took such a prominent part in the association that he was deprived of his office and suspended from the service. Clive had not much difficulty in dealing with the insubordination of the civil servants, but a much more serious task was awaiting him. The greater part of the European officers in the army had become disaffected and were on the point of mutinying.
According to a plan framed by Clive the army had been formed into three brigades, each consisting of a regiment of European infantry, a company of artillery, six battalions of sepoys, and a troop of native cavalry. The first brigade, under Colonel Sir Robert Fletcher, was stationed at Monghyr; the second, under Colonel Smith, at Allahabad; and the third, under Colonel Sir Robert Barker, at Bankipur, about four miles west of Patna. From the earliest time the officers, serving in India had, while on active service, received in addition to their ordinary pay an allowance known by the name of batta. After the battle of Plassey, Mir Jafar, on whom the payment of the troops devolved, doubled this allowance, and from that period accordingly double batta had been paid. So long as the nabob drew the revenues and paid the army out of them, the Company did not share the burden. The case was altered first when certain districts were assigned for payment of the troops, and still more when the Company obtained the grant of the whole diwani. Thereafter, the maintenance of the troops was borne entirely by the Company, and every deduction that could be made was so much added to their income. Influenced by this consideration and the financial difficulties with which they were struggling, the directors were desirous to enforce economy wherever practicable, and among other measures resolved to abolish the allowance of double batta. At the time when it was first granted, Clive had distinctly warned the army to regard it as an indulgence which they owed entirely to the personal feelings of the nabob, and which the Company would not be disposed to continue. The directors accordingly no sooner felt the burden than they began to complain of it, and sent out positive orders that double batta should be abolished. The very proposal was received with so much indignation, and called forth such strong remonstrances from the officers, that the governor and council were intimidated, and chose rather to disobey the orders than incur the obloquy and risk the danger of carrying them into execution.
The directors, determined not to be thus defeated, called Clive’s attention particularly to the subject, and in the instructions which he took out with him on his re-appointment, repeated their orders for the abolition of double batta in the most peremptory form. He was determined to execute them; and had no sooner brought the war to a termination by the treaties concluded with Shah Alam and Suja-ud-daulah, than an intimation was given by the select committee that double batta should cease on the 1st of January, 1766. An exception was made in favour of the second brigade, both because its station at Allahabad was beyond the limits of the Company’s territory, and it might be considered while watching the threatened invasion of a large body of Marathas to be actually in the field. On returning into cantonments it was to be reduced to single batta, while the brigades at Bankipur and Monghyr were to draw half batta only. Within the presidency, except during marching or actual service, no batta at all was allowed.
The abolition took place at the time appointed, and with the supposed acquiescence of the officers, who appeared to have abandoned the opposition which they had often threatened. Clive, delighted with the result, left Calcutta in the end of March, 1766, and proceeded northward with General Carnac, for the purpose of regulating the collections of revenue for the ensuing year. He was thus employed at Murshidabad, when he was startled by a letter from the council at Calcutta, dated 19th April, enclosing a remonstrance against the reduction of batta, signed by nine captains, twelve lieutenants, and twenty ensigns of the third brigade, stationed, as we have seen, at Bankipur, in the neighbourhood of Patna. This was alarming: but the extent of the danger was not suspected till the 28th of April, when a letter was received from Sir Robert Fletcher, in command of the first brigade, stationed at Monghyr. He stated that the officers seemed determined to make another attempt for the recovery of batta, and had intimated their intention to resign their commissions at the end of the month, though they would continue to serve in May as volunteers. This letter inclosed another from Sir Robert Barker, which mentioned in more explicit terms his discovery of a serious combination, which there was reason to apprehend was not confined to his own brigade. On further inquiry, it appeared that the combination extended to the whole army, and had originated at Monghyr, as early as December, 1765. It was, in fact, a regularly organized plot. The officers belonging to it took an oath binding them to secrecy, and to preserve, at the hazard of their own lives, the life of any one of their associates whom a court-martial might condemn to death. Each, moreover, engaged under a penalty of £500, not only to resign his commission, but not again to accept of it till double batta was restored. As an additional security, a fund was formed for the indemnification of those who might be cashiered, or the purchase of commissions for them in the king’s service. To this fund civilians were said to have subscribed to the amount of £16,000. At first the second brigade, stationed at Allahabad, refused to join in the plot. As they were actually in the field, an exception had been made in their favour, and the reduction of batta was not to take place in their case till they should be placed in cantonments. On this ground they stood aloof for a time, but ultimately the influence of the officers in the other brigades prevailed, and they made common cause with them. The number of commissions collected for resignation amounted to nearly 200.
Clive was just the man to deal with such a crisis. The only case in which he appears to have ever thought of concession was in that of the second brigade. A large body of the Marathas was in motion, and a battle was daily expected. In these circumstances Colonel Smith was instructed, in the event of being reduced to the utmost extremity, to make peace with the malcontents. In regard to the other brigades the most decisive steps were taken. Besides sending forward all the officers in whom he could confide, Clive caused urgent letters to be written to Madras, requesting that all officers who could possibly be spared should be forthwith despatched for Bengal. The free merchants at Calcutta were also urged to accept of commissions, temporarily or permanently, while all the officers who resigned were ordered to be sent down to Calcutta to be there tried by court-martial. These measures completely disconcerted the malcontents. They had made sure of victory without providing against defeat, and no sooner saw the probability of failure than all their confidence forsook them. Either because they feared to take so bold a step or deemed it unnecessary, they had not attempted to enlist the sympathies of the common soldiers; and when the struggle came found that they had grossly miscalculated. By their resignations they had simply excluded themselves from the service, and made way for others who were ready to supply their place. On the 15th of May, when Clive arrived at Monghyr, the confederacy was already broken up. Two days before, when the officers who had resigned were ordered to quit the garrison, the European soldiers got under arms intending to follow them. The sepoy battalion was immediately called out, and order was without much difficulty restored. It seemed, indeed, that the European soldiers were acting under misapprehension. They had imagined that Sir Robert Fletcher was himself one of the malcontents, and were astonished when they found him taking part against them instead of putting himself at their head. On being thus undeceived they at once returned to their duty. It soon appeared that the opinion which they had formed of their commander was not unfounded. The very day of Clive’s arrival Sir Robert Fletcher acknowledged that he had known of the combination of the officers since January, though he had not mentioned it in any official communication till late in April. His excuse was, that he had seemed to approve of the scheme in order that nothing might be done without his knowledge. This was too flimsy to be received, and further inquiry having left little room to doubt that he was an abettor, if not the actual originator of the mutiny, he was at a later period brought to a court-martial and dismissed the service.
From Monghyr Clive proceeded without loss of time to Bankipur, where he arrived on the 20th of May. Though most of the officers of the third brigade stationed here had resigned their commissions, only a few had insisted on their immediate acceptance, and been accordingly sent off for Calcutta. The rest had only resigned prospectively against a given day, and were still continuing to do duty. The moment Clive arrived, all idea of further contumacy was abandoned, and they were glad to be permitted to retract their resignations under the somewhat humiliating condition of engaging to serve for three years, and not to resign at any time without giving a year’s notice. The second brigade, though the last to join the combination, appears to have been the most reluctant to abandon it. The greater part of the troops composing it had been marched above 100 miles beyond Allahabad, and were watching the movements of 60,000 Marathas who had arrived at Kalpi, under the command of Balaji Rao. The enemy being thus in sight, the British officers were bound for the time at least to have reserved their grievances. Instead of this honourable course, they took advantage of their position, and sought to extort a compliance with their demands, by tendering their resignations in a body with only two exceptions. Those who resigned immediately were sent off to Calcutta; the others who resigned prospectively were glad before the arrival of the period which they had fixed to be permitted to retrace their steps. The officers of the European regiment in garrison at Allahabad were not so easily intimidated, and did not yield till a battalion of sepoys arrived from the camp, having performed a march of 104 miles in fifty-four hours.
The mutiny was now suppressed mainly through the indomitable firmness which Clive manifested in his own person, and was able to transfuse into all who acted immediately under him. It only remained to inflict punishment on those who, from their rank or their violence, were regarded as the most criminal. From the very first Clive had declared that the law must take its course, and that the ringleaders at least would suffer death. Lenient measures, however, prevailed. Only six officers were tried, and though they were all found guilty of mutiny no capital sentence was pronounced. Clive’s sense of discipline was thus very imperfectly satisfied; but a defect had been discovered in the mutiny act for the Company’s service, making it doubtful if the proceedings under it were legally valid, and it was therefore wisely resolved to lean to the side of mercy. On this ground the mildness of the sentences pronounced by the court-martial can be easily justified. It is more difficult to justify the conduct of the directors in refusing, in several instances, to give effect even to these sentences, and more especially in reinstating Sir Robert Fletcher, whom we shall again see installed as commander-in-chief at Madras, and taking a prominent part in a transaction only less discreditable than that for which he had been previously cashiered.
At the very time when Clive was thus called to maintain the discipline of the army against the great body of its officers, he had announced his determination to confer upon it the very liberal donation which, largely augmented first by the nabob and afterwards by the Company, constitutes what is still known by the name of “Clive’s Fund.” Mir Jafar, on his death-bed, had expressed a wish to leave Clive a legacy of five lacs of rupees. It has been insinuated that this sum was a legacy only in name, and was in fact a present by which the members of Mir Jafar’s family not only wished to manifest their gratitude for the elevation which they owed to the victor of Plassey, but hoped to conciliate his future favour. If it was only a present, it was evidently struck at by the new covenants, and nothing could have been more preposterous than that the governor specially appointed to enforce these covenants should set an example of violating them; if it was truly a legacy, the propriety of accepting it was still more than doubtful, because, although not contrary to the letter, it was evidently at variance with the spirit of the covenants, and furnished an easy method of perpetuating the abuse which they were meant to suppress. Clive felt the difficulty, and was conscious that, whatever became of the money, he could not appropriate it to himself without incurring the obnoxious charge of breaking the promise he had repeatedly made, not to derive any pecuniary benefit from his re-appointment. In these circumstances it occurred to him that as the abolition of double batta was about to be enforced, it would be at once a graceful and appropriate compensation to employ the legacy in establishing a fund out of which not only officers and soldiers disabled by wounds, disease, or length of service, but also their widows might be pensioned. The announcement of this determination set at rest the questions which the bequest would naturally have raised; and the court of directors, wisely abstaining from giving any opinion as to its true character or legal validity, unanimously resolved, that “his lordship be empowered to accept of the said legacy or donation, and they do highly approve of his lordship’s generosity in bestowing the said legacy of five lacs in so useful a charity; and they hereby consent and agree to accept of the trust of the said fund, and will give directions that the same be carried into execution in legal and proper form.” The five lacs of rupees produced, according to the rate of exchange at the time, £62,833, 6s. 8d. To this Saif-ul-daulah, the brother and successor of Najm-ud-daulah, who died at Murshidabad, in May, a few days after Clive set out to quell the mutiny, added three lacs of rupees, equivalent to £37,000. On the 6th of April, 1770, when the deed establishing the fund was formally executed, the accumulated interest amounted to £24,128. The whole capital of the fund thus amounted to £123,961, 6s. 8d., and at 8 per cent, the rate of interest which the Company agreed to pay, produced an annual income of £9,912, to be expended in pensions.
After suppressing the mutiny Clive proceeded with General Carnac to Chhapra, where a kind of congress was held. It was attended by Suja-ud-daulah, Shah Alam’s minister, and deputies from the Marathas. Shah Alam, hitherto excluded from Delhi, was bent on gaining possession of it, and had engaged the assistance of the Marathas for that purpose, by assuring them that the Company’s troops would form part of the expedition. Clive at once declared against this proposal, in which he saw only ruin to Shah Alam himself, and a warfare which might throw the whole empire into confusion. Instead of an alliance with the Marathas, whom he regarded as the only enemies from whom serious danger was now to be apprehended, he was desirous of forming a confederacy against them, and laid the foundations of a treaty by which the Company, the Nabob of Oudh, the Jat, and the Rohilla chiefs, were mutually to assist each other in resisting the demands and repelling the incursions of the Marathas. Before the terms were finally arranged, Clive, attaching little importance to the assistance to be derived from such distant allies, took his departure and arrived at Calcutta on the 30th of July. The disagreeable service in which he had been engaged, the exertion he had been obliged to make, and a climate to which his constitution was ill adapted, had seriously affected his health. He had previously intimated his determination to return to Europe, and in answer to a letter from the directors earnestly requesting him to continue in the government for another year, replied, “It is now a month since I have been in so deplorable a state of health as to be wholly unable to attend to business, and it is past a doubt I cannot survive the malignity of this climate another year.” The directors, in urging their request, had said, “When we consider the penetration with which your lordship at once discerned our true interest in every branch, the rapidity with which you restored peace, order, and tranquillity, and the unbiased integrity that has governed all your actions, we must congratulate your lordship on being the happy instrument of such extensive blessings to those countries; and you have our sincerest thanks for the great and important advantages thereby obtained for the Company.” Nor did they confine themselves to thanks. After arguing that “another year’s experience and peaceful enjoyment of our acquisitions might fix them on a basis that might give great hopes they may be as lasting as they are great,” they continued thus—“We are very sensible of the sacrifice we ask your lordship to make in desiring your continuance another year in Bengal, after the great service you have rendered the Company, and the difficulties you have passed through in accomplishing them, under circumstances in which your own example has been the principal means of restraining the general rapaciousness and corruption which had brought our affairs to the brink of ruin. These services, my lord, deserve more than verbal acknowledgments; and we have no doubt that the proprietors will concur with us in opinion, that some solid and permanent retribution, adequate to your great merits, should crown your lordship’s labours and success.”
Clive was not insensible to the high encomium pronounced on his services, nor indifferent to the reward which, though only vaguely described as “some solid and permanent retribution,” was understood to be nothing less than a grant of his jaghir in perpetuity; but the state of his health admitted of no answer, and he was moreover convinced that every material object contemplated in his re-appointment having been accomplished, the evils apprehended from his departure were in a great measure imaginary. The army, again brought into due subordination, was more than a match for any foreign power which might be tempted to provoke hostilities; the double batta and other expenses which bore most heavily on the treasury had been subjected to due retrenchment; Mr. Verelst, for whom the governorship was destined, as well as the select committee, who were to continue in office, was disposed to give full effect to the improvements which had been introduced; and the Company, now in possession of an independent revenue, which the least sanguine estimated at not less than £1,000,000 sterling, seemed about to enter on a career of unprecedented prosperity.
Clive sat in the select committee for the last time on the 16th of January, 1767, and on the 29th finally quitted Bengal for England in the Britannia. His measures had encountered much opposition, and excited in many of those who considered their interests to be injuriously affected by them a vindictive spirit, which they afterwards took an opportunity of gratifying. The general feeling of the presidency was, however, decidedly in his favour, and was not inaccurately expressed by the select committee in a letter addressed to the directors shortly after his departure. Comparing the state of Bengal as he found it and as he left it, they observed, “We beheld a presidency divided, headstrong, and licentious; a government without nerves; a treasury without money; and a service without subordination, discipline, or public spirit. We may add, that amidst a general stagnation of useful industry and of licensed commerce, individuals were accumulating immense riches, which they had ravished from the insulted prince and his helpless people, who groaned under the united pressure of discontent, poverty, and oppression. Such was the condition of this presidency and these provinces. Your present situation need not be described. The liberal supplies to China, the state of your treasury, of your investment, of the service, and of the whole country, declare it to be the strongest contrast to what it was.” His reception in England was flattering. In other quarters of the world disaster had generally attended the British arms. Their triumphs in India thus presented a striking contrast, which brought Clive more prominently into view, and obliged even those who would have detracted from his merits to keep a prudent silence. Nor was applause the only reward which he received. The proprietors of the Company, instead of requiring to be prompted by the directors, took the initiative in recommending that the possession of the jaghir should be extended to him and his representatives ten years beyond the period which had been previously fixed, and a resolution to this effect was ultimately carried by the unanimous vote of a general court.
It is necessary to add, that this magnificent grant was accompanied with circumstances which diminished the gratification derived from it. Clive had left India in miserable health, and had very imperfectly recovered on the homeward voyage. While he was thus suffering, fame and emolument were comparatively indifferent to him, and he appears to have been more offended at the hostility or lukewarmness of some on whose friendship he had calculated, than delighted at the universal recognition of his merit. The grant of the diwani had raised extravagant hopes in the proprietors, who had begun in consequence to clamour for a largely increased dividend. The directors, better acquainted with the actual position of the Company’s affairs, were anxious for delay. The additional revenue confidently predicted had not yet been realized, and extraordinary expenses had been incurred which would more than absorb it for some time to come. The directors being thus opposed to the wishes of the proprietors, naturally endeavoured to justify their opposition by giving an unfavourable view of their finances. Some of them even, in order to justify this view, spoke somewhat disparagingly of their new territorial acquisitions, and objected to the extended grant of the jaghir as extravagant. Clive felt indignant, and hesitated not to say that the directors in thus acting were endeavouring to gain their own ends at his expense. This misunderstanding cooled some of his supporters, and made it more easy for his enemies to mature their meditated attack upon him. Not a few of those whose malversations he had punished in Bengal had returned to England with their ill-gotten gains, and become large purchasers of India stock. The influence which they acquired in this way was so great, that after an action had been raised for the purpose of obliging some of the greatest delinquents to disgorge the sums which they had illegally received in the name of presents, they succeeded in inducing the general court to recommend the withdrawal of the action, and guarantee them from future proceedings by a vote of indemnity. The sympathy with notorious delinquency manifested by this vote was ominous, and Clive, shattered in health and depressed in spirits, retired into the country, not without a strong presentiment of the harsh scrutiny to which, through the relentlessness of enemies and the lukewarmness of friends, his whole public life was soon to be subjected.
In consequence of the revolution effected by Clive’s achievements in Bengal, a new era in the history of India commenced. On their original character of merchants the Company had engrafted that of conquerors, and were henceforth to rule with absolute sway over myriads who had previously known or heard of them only as traders. Hitherto, while the relation with the natives was of a less intimate and more precarious nature, they have occupied a very subordinate place in the narrative, and any reference made to their manners and customs has only been incidental. A more intimate acquaintance with them must now be formed. The country though it has changed its rulers still remains theirs, and the policy of the measures adopted by government depends on the manner in which their interests are affected by them. But how can this be understood without a previous knowledge of their social position? No people can be governed on abstract principles. Their peculiarities, including even their most irrational prejudices, must be consulted, since the very same laws under which one nation would be prosperous and happy might produce universal discontent and wretchedness in another. It is absolutely necessary, therefore, both that those who rule and those who confine themselves to the humbler task of reviewing the policy of rulers, should first of all acquaint themselves with the leading features of the population. In the case of India the remarkable forms under which society presents itself make the knowledge of them as interesting as it is indispensable, and the temporary suspension of the narrative will be fully compensated by the insertion of a detail, as ample as our limited space will allow, of whatever is most singular in the opinions and practices of Hindus. To this, accordingly, the next book of our history will be devoted.