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

and during these the name of Lord Clive had not been spared. The attacks against him were led principally by General Burgoyne, a natural son of Lord Bingley, best known in history as the commander who surrendered a British army, 5,791 strong, to the American colonists.4 In April, 1772, this officer had become Chairman of a Select Committee composed of thirty-one members, to inquire and report on Indian affairs. Another Committee, called Secret, and composed of thirteen members nominated by ballot, was appointed, on the motion of Lord North, in November of the same year, to take into consideration the whole state of the Company's affairs. Into the other proceedings of these committees this volume has no cause to enter; but they had scarcely been constituted when they began to let fly their arrows at Lord Clive. The chief cause of these attacks is so well stated by the sober-minded historian,5 that I cannot refrain from quoting his remarks. 'Besides the public wrongs of which he (Lord Clive) stood accused, there was also, it may be feared, a feeling of personal envy at work against him. His vast wealth became a more striking mark for calumny when contrasted with the financial embarrassments of the Directors in whose service he had gained it. And his profusion, as ever happens, offended far more persons than it pleased. He had bought the noble seat of Claremont from the Duchess Dowager of Newcastle, and was improving it at lavish cost. He had so far invested money in the smaller boroughs that he could reckon on bringing into Parliament a retinue of six or seven friends or kinsmen. Under such circumstances the Select Committee, over which Burgoyne presided, made Clive their more especial object of attack. They drew forth into the light of day several transactions certainly not well formed to bear it, as the forgery of Admiral Watson's signature, and the fraud practised on Aminchand. But at the same time they could not shut out the lustre of the great deeds he had performed. Clive himself was unsparingly questioned, and treated with slight regard. As he complains, in one of his speeches: "I their humble servant, the Baron of Plassey, have been examined by the Select Committee more like a sheep-stealer than a member of this House." And he adds, with perfect truth: "I am sure, Sir, if I had any sore places about me, they would have been found: they have probed me to the bottom; no lenient plasters have been applied to heal; no, Sir, they were all of the blister kind, prepared with Spanish flies and other provocatives."' 4 At Saratoga, October 17, 1777. 5 Lord Stanhope's History of England, vol. vii. pp. 353-4.

Throughout these attacks Clive never lost his calmness or his presence of mind. Never once did his lofty spirit quail. He stood there still the unconquered hero, ready to meet every charge, sometimes retorting, but always nobly, on his adversaries. His friends rallied gallantly round him. His particular friend, Mr. Wedderburn, then Solicitor-General, gave him a support as valuable as it was unstinted. When his administration in Bengal was spoken of by his old enemy, Mr. Sulivan, in the House in a manner which, whilst not directly attacking it, conveyed the impression that there was a great deal more in the background, Clive went through every phase of his career in Bengal, defending his own action in a style which gained for him admiration. It was not, however, until the month of May, 1773, that General Burgoyne defined the vague charges which had theretofore supplied the place of argument, and brought them forward, as a vote of censure, in three resolutions. These resolutions ran as follows: (1) 'that all acquisitions made under the influence of a military force, or by treaty with foreign princes, did of right belong to the State'; (2) 'that to appropriate acquisitions so made to the private emoluments of persons entrusted with any civil or military power of the State is illegal'; (3) 'that very great sums of money, and other valuable property, had been acquired in Bengal from princes and others of that country by persons entrusted with the civil and military powers of the State by means of such powers; which sums of money and valuable property have been appropriated to the private use of such persons.'

These resolutions named nobody. But in the speech in which they were introduced Burgoyne took care that there should be no doubt as to the person against whom they were directed. He dwelt, with a bitterness not to be surpassed, on all the delinquencies, real and imaginary, of the conqueror of Bengal. He traced all the misfortunes which had subsequently happened to the Company to the treasonable compact which had dethroned Siráj-ud-daulá and placed Mír Jafar on his seat, and denounced the conduct of the authors of that transaction as 'black perfidy.' He denounced, also, in terms equally severe, the treatment of Aminchand; the forging of the name of Admiral Watson; the agreement, which, he said, had extorted from Mír Jafar enormous sums, under the guise of presents, to the leading servants of the Company in Bengal. On the second administration of Clive, which was really a long struggle against the corruption by which he was surrounded, Burgoyne railed as bitterly and as unsparingly. Nor was he content with merely railing. Before he sat down he declared that if the House should pass his resolutions he would not stop there, but would proceed to follow them up with others, his object being to compel those who had acquired large sums of money in the manner he had denounced to make a full and complete restitution.

The Solicitor-General, Wedderburn, conducted the defence for Clive, and it was noticeable that the party styled 'the King's Friends,' amongst many others, gave him their support. The Attorney-General, Thurlow, supported Burgoyne, and the Prime Minister, Lord North, voted with him. The voting on these resolutions did not, however, indicate the real sense of the House, for many of those who supported them thought it would be better for the cause of Clive that the further resolutions threatened by Burgoyne should be proceeded with in order that a decisive vote should be taken on a motion implicating Clive by name rather than on resolutions of a vague and general character. The resolutions, then, were carried.

Burgoyne then proceeded, as he had promised, to follow up his victory. On the 17th of May he brought forward the following resolution: 'That it appears to this House that the Right Honourable Robert, Lord Clive, Baron of Plassey, in the kingdom of Ireland, about the time of the deposition of Siráj-ud-daulá, and the establishment of Mír Jafar on the masnad, through the influence of the powers with which he was entrusted as member of the Select Committee and Commander-in-chief of the British forces, did obtain and possess himself of two lakhs of rupees as Commander-in-chief, a further sum of two lakhs and eighty thousand rupees as member of the Select Committee, and a further sum of sixteen lakhs or more, under the denomination of a private donation, which sums, amounting together to twenty lakhs and eighty thousand rupees, were of value, in English money, of two hundred and thirty-four thousand pounds; and that in so doing the said Robert Clive abused the power with which he was entrusted, to the evil example of the servants of the public, and to the dishonour and detriment of the State.'

No one could say that these charges were not sufficiently pointed. Clive met them with his accustomed resolution. He rejoiced that the real issue had come at last; that the great jury of the nation, the House of Commons, was, after so long an interval devoted to calumny, to abuse, to vague and shadowy charges, to record its vote on the real question. On their decision on this resolution he would stand or fall. The alternative which his fiercest fights had presented to him, the necessity to conquer or to be disgraced, was presented to him here. He had won those fights by the exercise rather of his lofty moral qualities than by his skill as a soldier, and by the exercise of the same qualities he would win this one also. And he did win it. After Burgoyne, introducing his resolution, had traversed the same ground he had followed in the preceding resolutions, and had concluded by calling upon the House, like the old Roman heroes, 'to strike when the justice of the State requires it,' Clive rose to defend himself. Recapitulating the services he had rendered, he reminded the House that the transactions in Bengal, upon which Burgoyne relied for a conviction, had been known in their general tenour to the Company and the Crown when they had thanked him, not once but repeatedly, for his services. He proceeded then to expose the interested and revengeful motives of the clique which had instigated the attack, not sparing even those in high places who, from various causes, had allowed themselves to sanction it. Turning from that point, he asked prominent attention to the fact that the India Office, now his accuser, had almost forced him to proceed for the second time to Bengal, and had expressed a deep regret that his health had not allowed him to stay there longer. 'After certificates such as these,' he added, 'am I to be brought here like a criminal, and the very best parts of my conduct construed into crimes against the State?' Stating then that the resolution, if carried, would reduce him to depend on his paternal inheritance of £500 per annum, he continued: 'But on this I am content to live; and perhaps I shall find more real content of mind and happiness than in the trembling affluence of an unsettled fortune. But, Sir, I must make one more observation. If the definition of the hon. gentleman (Colonel Burgoyne) and of this House, that the State, as expressed in these resolutions, is, quoad hoc, the Company, then, Sir, every farthing I enjoy is granted to me. But to be called upon, after sixteen years have elapsed, to account for my conduct in this manner, and after an uninterrupted enjoyment of my property, to be questioned, and considered as obtaining it unwarrantably, is hard indeed; it is a treatment I should not think the British Senate capable of. But if such should be the case, I have a conscious innocence within me that tells me my conduct is irreproachable. Frangas non flectes.6 My enemies may take from me what I have; they may, as they think, make me poor, but I shall be happy. I mean not this as my defence, though I have done for the present. My defence will be heard at that bar, but before I sit down I have one request to make to this House: that when they come to decide upon my honour, they will not forget their own.'

6 'You may break, but you shall not bend, me.'

The debate was adjourned, and in the few days following some witnesses gave evidence at the bar of the House. Lord Clive's evidence, given before the Select Committee, was also read there. In the debate that followed, Mr. Stanley proposed to omit the words inculpating the honour of Clive. Mr. Fuller seconded this amendment, going even further, and striking out the sentence referring to the exercise of undue influence. His suggestion was accepted, and the House proceeded to discuss the amendment as so altered. After a protracted debate the division was called for, when it was found that 155 members had voted for the amendment and 95 against it. This victory stripped Burgoyne's resolutions of all their sting. Vainly did a member of his party attempt to restore the battle by moving that Clive had abused the powers intrusted to him in acting as he avowedly had acted. The House refused to re-open that