Rulers of India: Lord Clive by George Bruce Malleson (ebook offline reader .txt) 📖

he and they resolved to send immediately to Madras for officers. Then they passed a resolution declaring that any officer resigning his commission should be debarred from serving the Company in any capacity, and sent copies of it to the several brigades for distribution to all concerned. Clive then hurried to Murshidábád; he addressed the recalcitrant officers stationed there; spoke to them in terms firm, yet conciliatory; told them they were acting very wrongly and very foolishly; that they were infringing the very discipline which they knew to be the mainstay of an army; that although immediate success might be theirs, they must be beaten in the long run; that such conduct could only be pardoned on condition of immediate submission. Touched by the language of the man who had been to them an object of veneration, all the officers, two young lieutenants excepted, hesitated—then submitted absolutely. This success was followed by similar results at the other stations in the Presidency division, visited by Carnac and Sykes. In that division only two captains and a lieutenant continued recalcitrant.

There remained then only the important centres of Mungír, Bánkípur (Patná), and Allahábád, the officers stationed there being bound to each other by the most solemn engagements. At the first-named of these places the Commandant was Sir Robert Fletcher, himself a well-wisher to the plot. When the officers there simultaneously tendered their resignation, agreeing to serve for fifteen days longer without pay, Fletcher received them with sympathy, and told them he would forward their letter to headquarters. At Bánkípur, then the military cantonment of Patná, the commandant, Sir R. Barker, one of the superior officers who had accompanied Clive from England, acted far differently. Before replying, he communicated with Lord Clive, then at Murshidábád, and received from him instructions to place under arrest every officer whose conduct should seem to him to come under the construction of mutiny, and to detain such at Bánkípur until it might be possible to convene a general court-martial to try them. To render complete the necessary numbers of field-officers Clive promoted on the spot two officers known to be loyal. The Bánkípur officers followed, nevertheless, the conduct of their comrades at Mungír, and resigned in a body. Barker not only declined to accept those resignations, but arrested four of the ringleaders, and despatched them by water to Calcutta. This bold action paralyzed the recalcitrants, and followed up as it was by the journey of Clive to Mungír, accompanied by some officers who had come round from Madras, it dealt a blow to the mutineers from which they never completely rallied.

But at Allahábád the danger was still more menacing. There and at the station of Surájpur, only two officers, Colonel Smith, and a Major of the same name, were absolutely untainted: four were but slightly so, and could be depended upon to act with the Smiths in an emergency; all the others had pledged themselves to 'the cause.' Those of the latter stationed at Allahábád displayed their disaffection in the usual manner, whereupon Major Smith, commanding there, calling on the sipáhís to support him, placed under arrest every officer in the place, the four slightly tainted officers excepted. He then informed the mutinous officers that he would shoot down without mercy any and every officer who should break his arrest. This action was most effective. All the officers but six submitted and were allowed to return to duty. The six were deported to Patná, to be tried there. A similar course was followed by Colonel Smith at Surájpur, with the result, however, that nearly one half of the officers remained recalcitrant, and were despatched under arrest to Calcutta.

Meanwhile, at Mungír, the officers continued in a thorough state of disorganization, the commander, Sir Robert Fletcher, encouraging them. The day before Clive's arrival, an officer whom he had sent in advance, Colonel Champion, surprising the officers in full conclave, learned from them that they desired to recount their grievances to Clive in person. On learning this Clive directed them to parade with their men the following morning, giving directions simultaneously to Champion, to bring to the ground two battalions of sipáhís, under the command of Captain F. Smith, an officer known to be loyal. Then a very curious circumstance happened. Smith had but just entered the fort with his sipáhís when he noticed that the Europeans, infantry and artillery, were turning out to mutiny. Without a moment's hesitation he marched towards them with his sipáhís; seized, by a bold strategic movement, a mound which was the key of the position, completely dominating the ground on which the Europeans were drawn up. The latter, who were on the point of quitting the fort, noting the commanding position occupied by the sipáhís, halted and hesitated. Smith took advantage of the pause thus caused to tell them that unless they should retire instantly to their barracks he would fire upon them. At the moment Sir R. Fletcher came up, began to encourage the revolters, and to distribute money amongst them; suddenly, however, taking in the exact position, he changed his tone, ordered the recalcitrant officers to leave the fort within two hours, and reported the whole circumstance to Lord Clive. The officers left at once, and the incident closed for the day; but when, the following morning, Clive entered the fort, and addressed the assembled soldiers on the wickedness of their conduct, praised and rewarded the sipáhís for their behaviour, the men gave way. The mutiny, as far as Mungír was concerned, was over. Meanwhile the officers expelled by Fletcher had encamped within a short distance of Mungír, resolved to wait there the arrival of their comrades from other stations. But they had to deal with a man who would stand no trifling. Clive despatched to them an order to set out forthwith for Calcutta; and to quicken their movements he sent a detachment of sipáhís to see that his order was obeyed. After that there was no more mutiny at Mungír, or in the stations dependent upon it.

At Bánkípur the officers, notwithstanding the action of Sir R. Barker, previously noted, had sent their commissions en bloc to Lord Clive. But the news of the occurrences at Mungír startled and frightened them. When, then, Lord Clive arrived at Patná, he found the officers penitent and humble, and that his only task was to pardon. There, too, he learned with pleasure the successful action of the two Smiths at Allahábád and Surájpur. He remained then at Patná, to crush the last embers of the mutiny, and to arrange for the bringing to justice of the ringleaders. This last task he performed in a manner which tempered justice with mercy. Fletcher, who had played a double part, and whose actions were prompted by personal greed, was brought to a court-martial and cashiered. Five other officers were deported, but of these, one, John Neville Parker, was reinstated in 1769, and survived to render glorious service to the Company, giving his life for his masters in 1781.

The comparative ease with which Clive suppressed this formidable conspiracy was due to one cause alone. No sooner did Clive hear of the combination than, instead of waiting to be attacked, he seized the initiative: the mutineers allowed him to strike the first blow; standing on the defensive in their isolated positions, they gave the opportunity to Clive to destroy them in detail. It was the action which Napoleon employed against the Austrians in 1796, 1805, and in 1809. It is useless to speculate what might have been the result if Clive had stood, as the majority of men would have stood, on the defensive. By the opposite course he not only saved the situation, but achieving a very decisive victory, struck a blow at insubordination which gave an altered tone to the officers of the army, then as much hankering after ungodly pelf as were their brethren in the Civil Service. Never, throughout his glorious career as a soldier, did Clive's character and his conduct stand higher than when, in dealing out punishment for the mutiny which he, and he alone, had suppressed, he remembered the former services of the soldiers who had been led away, and gave them all, a few incorrigibles excepted, the opportunity to retrieve their characters on future fields of battle.

The task of Clive in India had now been accomplished. Thoroughly had he carried through the mission entrusted to him. He had cleansed, as far as was possible, the Augean stable. He had given himself no recreation: he was completely worn out. He had announced to the Court of Directors so far back as 1765 his intention to resign as soon as he could do so without inconvenience to the public interests. The Court, in reply, whilst most handsomely acknowledging his services, had begged him to devote yet one year to India. When that letter reached him, December 1766, he had already accomplished all that, with the means and powers at his disposal, it was possible to carry through. He felt then that, broken in health, he might retire with honour from the country he had won for England. Having penned a valuable minute, laying down the principles which should guide the policy of his successor, based upon his own action during the preceding three years, he made over to one of his colleagues of the Select Committee, Mr. Verelst,4 the office of Governor, and nominating Colonel Richard Smith, then on the frontier, to be Commander-in-chief, Mr. Sykes, Mr. Carter, and Mr. Beecher, to form, with the Governor, the Select Committee, he bade farewell to his friends, and, on the 29th of January, 1767, embarked on board the good ship Britannia for England.

4 Mr. Sumner, whose weak character I have described, and who had been designated Lord Clive's successor, had been forced to resign his seat on the Select Committee.

CHAPTER XV