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The Life of Robert Lord Clive; collected from the Family Papers, communicated by
the Earl of Powis. By Major-General Sir John Malcolm, K.C.B. 3 vols. 8vo.
London: 1836.
We have always thought it strange that, while the history of the Spanish empire
in America is familiarly known to all the nations of Europe, the great actions
of our countrymen in the East should, even among ourselves, excite little
interest. Every schoolboy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled
Atahualpa. But we doubt whether one in ten, even among English gentlemen of
highly cultivated minds, can tell who won the battle of Buxar, who perpetrated
the massacre of Patna, whether Sujah Dowlah ruled in Oude or in Travancore, or
whether Holkar was a Hindu, or a Muscleman. Yet the victories of Cortes were
gained over savages who had no letters, who were ignorant of the use of metals,
who had not broken in a single animal to labor, who wielded no better weapons
than those which could be made out of sticks, flints, and fish-bones, who
regarded a horse-soldier as a monster, half man and half beast, who took a
harquebusier for a sorcerer, able to scatter the thunder and lightning of the
skies. The people of India, when we subdued them, were ten times as numerous as
the Americans whom the Spaniards vanquished, and were at the same time quite as
highly civilized as the victorious Spaniards. They had reared cities larger and
fairer than Saragossa or Toledo, and buildings more beautiful and costly than
the cathedral of Seville. They could show bankers richer than the richest firms
of Barcelona or Cadiz, viceroys whose splendor far surpassed that of Ferdinand
the Catholic, myriads of cavalry and long trains of artillery which would have
astonished the Great Captain. It might have been expected, that every Englishman
who takes any interest in any part of history would be curious to know how a
handful of his countrymen, separated from their home by an immense ocean,
subjugated, in the course of a few years, one of the greatest empires in the
world. Yet, unless we greatly err, this subject is, to most readers, not only
insipid, but positively distasteful. Perhaps the fault lies partly with the
historians. Mr. Mill's book, though it has undoubtedly great and rare merit, is
not sufficiently animated and picturesque to attract those who read for
amusement. Orme, inferior to no English historian in style and power of
painting, is minute even to tediousness. In one volume he allots, on an average,
a closely printed quarto page to the events of every forty-eight hours. The
consequence is, that his narrative, though one of the most authentic and one of
the most finely written in our language, has never been very popular, and is now
scarcely ever read.
We fear that the volumes before us will not much attract those readers whom Orme
and Mill have repelled. The materials placed at the disposal of Sir John Malcolm
by the late Lord Powis were indeed of great value. But we cannot say that they
have been very skillfully worked up. It would, however, be unjust to criticize
with severity a work which, if the author had lived to complete and revise it,
would probably have been improved by condensation and by a better arrangement.
We are more disposed to perform the pleasing duty of expressing our gratitude to
the noble family to which the public owes so much useful and curious
information.
The effect of the book, even when we make the largest allowance for the
partiality of those who have furnished and of those who have digested the
materials, is, on the whole, greatly to raise the character of Lord Clive. We
are far indeed from sympathizing with Sir John Malcolm, whose love passes the
love of biographers, and who can see nothing but wisdom and justice in the
actions of his idol. But we are at least equally far from concurring in the
severe judgment of Mr. Mill, who seems to us to show less discrimination in his
account of Clive than in any other part of his valuable work. Clive, like most
men who are born with strong passions and tried by strong temptations, committed
great faults. But every person who takes a fair and enlightened view of his
whole career must admit that our island, so fertile in heroes and statesmen, has
scarcely ever produced a man more truly great either in arms or in council.
The Clives had been settled, ever since the twelfth century, on an estate of no
great value, near Market-Drayton, in Shropshire. In the reign of George the
First this moderate but ancient inheritance was possessed by Mr. Richard Clive,
who seems to have been a plain man of no great tact or capacity. He had been
bred to the law, and divided his time between professional business and the
avocations of a small proprietor.
He married a lady from Manchester, of the name of Gaskill, and became the father
of a very numerous family. His eldest son, Robert, the founder of the British
empire in India, was born at the old seat of his ancestors on the twenty-ninth
of September, 1725.
Some lineaments of the character of the man were early discerned in the child.
There remain letters written by his relations when he was in his seventh year;
and from these letters it appears that, even at that early age, his strong will
and his fiery passions, sustained by a constitutional intrepidity which
sometimes seemed hardly compatible with soundness of mind, had begun to cause
great uneasiness to his family. "Fighting," says one of his uncles, "to which he
is out of measure addicted, gives his temper such a fierceness and
imperiousness, that he flies out on every trifling occasion." The old people of
the neighborhood still remember to have heard from their parents how Bob Clive
climbed to the top of the lofty steeple of Market-Drayton, and with what terror
the inhabitants saw him seated on a stone spout near the summit. They also
relate how he formed all the idle lads of the town into a kind of predatory
army, and compelled the shopkeepers to submit to a tribute of apples and
half-pence, in consideration of which he guaranteed the security of their
windows. He was sent from school to school, making very little progress in his
learning, and gaining for himself everywhere the character of an exceedingly
naughty boy. One of his masters, it is said, was sagacious enough to prophesy
that the idle lad would make a great figure in the world. But the general
opinion seems to have been that poor Robert was a dunce, if not a reprobate. His
family expected nothing good from such slender parts and such a headstrong
temper. It is not strange therefore, that they gladly accepted for him, when he
was in his eighteenth year, a writer-ship in the service of the East India
Company, and shipped him off to make a fortune or to die of a fever at Madras.
Far different were the prospects of Clive from those of the youths whom the East
India College now annually sends to the Presidencies of our Asiatic empire. The
Company was then purely a trading corporation. Its territory consisted of few
square miles, for which rent was paid to the native governments. Its troops were
scarcely numerous enough to man the batteries of three or four ill-constructed
forts, which had been erected for the protection of the warehouses. The natives
who composed a considerable part of these little garrisons, had not yet been
trained in the discipline of Europe, and were armed, some with swords and
shields, some with bows and arrows. The business of the servant of the Company
was not, as now, to conduct the judicial, financial, and diplomatic business of
a great country, but to take stock, to make advances to weavers, to ship
cargoes, and above all to keep an eye on private traders who dared to infringe
the monopoly. The younger clerks were so miserably paid that they could scarcely
subsist without incurring debt; the elder enriched themselves by trading on
their own account; and those who lived to rise to the top of the service often
accumulated considerable fortunes.
Madras, to which Clive had been appointed, was, at this time, perhaps, the first
in importance of the Company's settlements. In the preceding century Fort St.
George had arisen on a barren spot beaten by a raging surf; and in the
neighborhood a town, inhabited by many thousands of natives, had sprung up, as
towns spring up in the East, with the rapidity of the prophet's gourd. There
were already in the suburbs many white villas, each surrounded by its garden,
whither the wealthy agents of the Company retired, after the labors of the desk
and the warehouse, to enjoy the cool breeze which springs up at sunset from the
Bay of Bengal. The habits of these mercantile grandees appear to have been more
profuse, luxurious, and ostentatious, than those of the high judicial and
political functionaries who have succeeded them. But comfort was far less
understood. Many devices which now mitigate the heat of the climate, preserve
health, and prolong life, were unknown. There was far less intercourse with
Europe than at present. The voyage by the Cape, which in our time has often been
performed within three months, was then very seldom accomplished in six, and was
sometimes protracted to more than a year. Consequently, the Anglo-Indian was
then much more estranged from his country, much more addicted to Oriental
usages, and much less fitted to mix in society after his return to Europe, than
the Anglo-Indian of the present day.
Within the fort and its precinct, the English exercised, by permission of the
native government, an extensive authority, such as every great Indian landowner
exercised within his own domain. But they had never dreamed of claiming
independent power. The surrounding country was ruled by the Nabob of the
Carnatic, a deputy of the Viceroy of the Deccan, commonly called the Nizam, who
was himself only a deputy of the mighty prince designated by our ancestors as
the Great Mogul. Those names, once so august and formidable, still remain.
There is still a Nabob of the Carnatic, who lives on a pension allowed to him by
the English out of the revenues of the provinces which his ancestors ruled.
There is still a Nizam, whose capital is overawed by a British cantonment, and
to whom a British resident gives, under the name of advice, commands which are
not to be disputed. There is still a Mogul, who is permitted to play at holding
courts and receiving petitions, but who has less power to help or hurt than the
youngest civil servant of the Company.
Clive's voyage was unusually tedious even for that age. The ship remained some
months at the Brazils, where the young adventurer picked up some knowledge of
Portuguese, and spent all his pocket-money. He did not arrive in India till more
than a year after he had left England. His situation at Madras was most painful.
His funds were exhausted. His pay was small. He had contracted debts. He was
wretchedly lodged, no small calamity in a climate which can be made tolerable to
an European only by spacious and well placed apartments. He had been furnished
with letters of recommendation to a gentleman who might have assisted him; but
when he landed at Fort St. George he found that this gentleman had sailed for
England. The lad's shy and haughty disposition withheld him from introducing
himself to strangers. He was several months in India before he became acquainted
with a single family. The climate affected his health and spirits. His duties
were of a kind ill-suited to his ardent and daring character. He pined for his
home, and in his letters to his relations expressed his feelings in language
softer and more pensive than we should have expected either from the waywardness
of his boyhood, or from the inflexible sternness of his later years. "I have not
enjoyed" says he "one happy day since I left my native country"; and again, "I
must confess, at intervals, when I think of my dear native England, it affects
me in a very peculiar manner.... If I should be so far blest as to revisit again
my own country, but more especially Manchester, the centre of all my wishes, all
that I could hope or desire for would be presented before me in one view."
One solace he found of the most respectable kind. The Governor possessed a good
library, and permitted Clive to have access to it. The young man devoted much of
his leisure to reading, and acquired at this time almost all the knowledge of
books that he ever possessed. As a boy he had been too idle, as a man he soon
became too busy, for literary pursuits.
But neither climate nor poverty, neither study nor the sorrows of a home-sick
exile, could tame the desperate audacity of his spirit. He behaved to his
official superiors as he had behaved to his schoolmasters, and he was several
times in danger of losing his situation. Twice, while residing in the Writers'
Buildings, he attempted to destroy himself; and twice the pistol which he
snapped at his own head failed to go off. This circumstance, it is said,
affected him as a similar escape affected Wallenstein. After satisfying himself
that the pistol was really well loaded, he burst forth into an exclamation that
surely he was reserved for something great.
About this time an event which at first seemed likely to destroy all his hopes
in life suddenly opened before him a new path to eminence. Europe had been,
during some years, distracted by the war of the Austrian succession. George the
Second was the steady ally of Maria Theresa. The house of Bourbon took the
opposite side. Though England was even then the first of maritime powers, she
was not, as she has since become, more than a match on the sea for all the
nations of the world together; and she found it difficult to maintain a contest
against the united navies of France and Spain. In the eastern seas France
obtained the ascendancy. Labourdonnais, governor of Mauritius, a man of eminent
talents and virtues, conducted an expedition to the continent of India in spite
of the opposition of the British fleet, landed, assembled an army, appeared
before Madras, and compelled the town and fort to capitulate. The keys were
delivered up; the French colors were displayed on Fort St. George; and the
contents of the Company's warehouses were seized as prize of war by the
conquerors. It was stipulated by the capitulation that the English inhabitants
should be prisoners of war on parole, and that the town should remain in the
hands of the French till it should be ransomed. Labourdonnais pledged his honor
that only a moderate ransom should be required.
But the success of Labourdonnais had awakened the jealousy of his countryman,
Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry. Dupleix, moreover, had already begun to
revolve gigantic schemes, with which the restoration of Madras to the English
was by no means compatible. He declared that Labourdonnais had gone beyond his
powers; that conquests made by the French arms on the continent of India were at
the disposal of the governor of Pondicherry alone; and that Madras should be
razed to the ground. Labourdonnais was compelled to yield. The anger which the
breach of the capitulation excited among the English was increased by the
ungenerous manner in which Dupleix treated the principal servants of the
Company. The Governor and several of the first gentlemen of Fort St. George were
carried under a guard to Pondicherry, and conducted through the town in a
triumphal procession under the eyes of fifty thousand spectators. It was with
reason thought that this gross violation of public faith absolved the
inhabitants of Madras from the engagements into which they had entered with
Labourdonnais. Clive fled from the town by night in the disguise of a Muscleman,
and took refuge at Fort St. David, one of the small English settlements
subordinate to Madras.
The circumstances in which he was now placed naturally led him to adopt a
profession better suited to his restless and intrepid spirit than the business
of examining packages and casting accounts. He solicited and obtained an
ensign's commission in the service of the Company, and at twenty-one entered on
his military career. His personal courage, of which he had, while still a
writer, given signal proof by a desperate duel with a military bully who was the
terror of Fort St. David, speedily made him conspicuous even among hundreds of
brave men. He soon began to show in his new calling other qualities which had
not before been discerned in him, judgment, sagacity, deference to legitimate
authority. He distinguished himself highly in several operations against the
French, and was particularly noticed by Major Lawrence, who was then considered
as the ablest British officer in India.
Clive had been only a few months in the army when intelligence arrived that
peace had been concluded between Great Britain and France. Dupleix was in
consequence compelled to restore Madras to the English Company; and the young
ensign was at liberty to resume his former business. He did indeed return for a
short time to his desk. He again quitted it in order to assist Major Lawrence in
some petty hostilities with the natives, and then again returned to it. While he
was thus wavering between a military and a commercial life, events took place
which decided his choice. The politics of India assumed a new aspect. There was
peace between the English and French Crowns; but there arose between the English
and French Companies trading to the East a war most eventful and important, a
war in which the prize was nothing less than the magnificent inheritance of the
house of Tamerlane.
The empire which Baber and his Moguls reared in the sixteenth century was long
one of the most extensive and splendid in the world. In no European kingdom was
so large a population subject to a single prince, or so large a revenue poured
into the treasury. The beauty and magnificence of the buildings erected by the
sovereigns of Hindostan amazed even travelers who had seen St. Peter's. The
innumerable retinues and gorgeous decorations which surrounded the throne of
Delhi dazzled even eyes which were accustomed to the pomp of Versailles. Some of
the great viceroys who held their posts by virtue of commissions from the Mogul
ruled as many subjects as the King of France or the Emperor of Germany. Even the
deputies of these deputies might well rank, as to extent of territory and amount
of revenue, with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, or the Elector of Saxony.
There can be little doubt that this great empire, powerful and prosperous as it
appears on a superficial view, was yet, even in its best days, far worse
governed than the worst governed parts of Europe now are. The administration was
tainted with all the vices of Oriental despotism, and with all the vices
inseparable from the domination of race over race. The conflicting pretensions
of the princes of the royal house produced a long series of crimes and public
disasters. Ambitious lieutenants of the sovereign sometimes aspired to
independence. Fierce tribes Of Hindus, impatient of a foreign yoke, frequently
withheld tribute, repelled the armies of the government from the mountain
fastnesses, and poured down in arms on the cultivated plains. In spite, however,
of much constant maladministration, in spite of occasional convulsions which
shook the whole frame of society, this great monarchy, on the whole, retained,
during some generations, an outward appearance of unity, majesty, and energy.
But, throughout the long reign of Aurungzebe, the state, notwithstanding all
that the vigor and policy of the prince could effect, was hastening to
dissolution. After his death, which took place in the year 1707, the ruin was
fearfully rapid. Violent shocks from without co-operated with an incurable decay
which was fast proceeding within; and in a few years the empire had undergone
utter decomposition.
The history of the successors of Theodosius bears no small analogy to that of
the successors of Aurungzebe. But perhaps the fall of the Carlovingians
furnishes the nearest parallel to the fall of the Moguls. Charlemagne was
scarcely interred when the imbecility and the disputes of his descendants began
to bring contempt on themselves and destruction on their subjects. The wide
dominion of the Franks was severed into a thousand pieces. Nothing more than a
nominal dignity was left to the abject heirs of an illustrious name, Charles the
Bald, and Charles the Fat, and Charles the Simple. Fierce invaders, differing,
from each other in race, language, and religion, flocked, as if by concert, from
the farthest corners of the earth, to plunder provinces which the government
could no longer defend. The pirates of the Northern Sea extended their ravages
from the Elbe to the Pyrenees, and at length fixed their seat in the rich valley
of the Seine. The Hungarian, in whom the trembling monks fancied that they
recognized the Gog or Magog of prophecy, carried back the plunder of the cities
of Lombardy to the depths of the Pannonian forests. The Saracen ruled in Sicily,
desolated the fertile plains of Campania, and spread terror even to the walls of
Rome. In the midst of these sufferings, a great internal change passed upon the
empire. The corruption of death began to ferment into new forms of life. While
the great body, as a whole, was torpid and passive, every separate member began
to feel with a sense and to move with an energy all its own. Just here, in the
most barren and dreary tract of European history, all feudal privileges, all
modern nobility, take their source. It is to this point, that we trace the power
of those princes who, nominally vassals, but really independent, long governed,
with the titles of dukes, marquesses, and counts, almost every part of the
dominions which had obeyed Charlemagne.
Such or nearly such was the change which passed on the Mogul empire during the
forty years which followed the death of Aurungzebe. A succession of nominal
sovereigns, sunk in indolence and debauchery, sauntered away life in secluded
palaces, chewing bang, fondling concubines, and listening to buffoons. A
succession of ferocious invaders descended through the western passes, to prey
on the defenseless wealth of Hindostan. A Persian conqueror crossed the Indus,
marched through the gates of Delhi, and bore away in triumph those treasures of
which the magnificence had astounded Roe and Bernier, the Peacock Throne, on
which the richest jewels of Golconda had been disposed by the most skilful hands
of Europe, and the inestimable Mountain of Light, which, after many strange
vicissitudes, lately shone in the bracelet of Runjeet Sing, and is now destined
to adorn the hideous idol of Orissa. The Afghan soon followed to complete the
work of the devastation which the Persian had begun. The warlike tribes of
Rajpootana, threw off the Muscleman yoke. A band of mercenary soldiers occupied
Rohilcund. The Seiks ruled or the Indus. The Jauts spread dismay along the
Jumna. The highlands which border on the western sea-coast of India poured forth
a yet more formidable race, a race which was long the terror of every native
power, and which, after many desperate and doubtful struggles, yielded only to
the fortune and genius of England. It was under the reign of Aurungzebe that
this wild clan of plunderers first descended from their mountains; and soon
after his death, every corner of his wide empire learned to tremble at the
mighty name of the Mahrattas. Many fertile viceroyalties were entirely subdued
by them. Their dominions stretched across the peninsula from sea to sea.
Mahratta captains reigned at Poonah, at Gualior, in Guzerat, in Berar, and in
Tanjore. Nor did they, though they had become great sovereigns, therefore cease
to be freebooters. They still retained the predatory habits of their
forefathers. Every region which was not subject to their rule was wasted by
their incursions. Wherever their kettle-drums were heard, the peasant threw his
bag of rice on his shoulder, hid his small savings in his girdle, and fled with
his wife and children to the mountains or the jungles, to the milder
neighborhood of the hyaena and the tiger. Many provinces redeemed their harvests
by the payment of an annual ransom. Even the wretched phantom who still bore the
imperial title stooped to pay this ignominious black-mail. The camp-fires of one
rapacious leader were seen from the walls of the palace of Delhi. Another, at
the head of his innumerable cavalry, descended year after year on the
rice-fields of Bengal. Even the European factors trembled for their magazines.
Less than a hundred years ago, it was thought necessary to fortify Calcutta
against the horsemen of Berar, and the name of the Mahratta ditch still
preserves the memory of the danger.
Wherever the viceroys of the Mogul retained authority they became sovereigns.
They might still acknowledge in words the superiority of the house of Tamerlane;
as a Count of Flanders or a Duke of Burgundy might have acknowledged the
superiority of the most helpless driveller among the later Carlovingians. They
might occasionally send to their titular sovereign a complimentary present, or
solicit from him a title of honor. In truth, however, they were no longer
lieutenants removable at pleasure, but independent hereditary princes. In this
way originated those great Muscleman houses which formerly ruled Bengal and the
Carnatic, and those which still, though in a state of vassalage, exercise some
of the powers of royalty at Lucknow and Hyderabad.
In what was this confusion to end? Was the strife to continue during centuries?
Was it to terminate in the rise of another great monarchy ? Was the Muscleman or
the Mahratta to be the Lord of India? Was another Baber to descend from the
mountains, and to lead the hardy tribes of Cabul and Chorasan against a
wealthier and less warlike race? None of these events seemed improbable. But
scarcely any man, however sagacious, would have thought it possible that a
trading company, separated from India by fifteen thousand miles of sea, and
possessing in India only a few acres for purposes of commerce, would, in less
than a hundred years, spread its empire from Cape Comorin to the eternal snow of
the Himalayas; would compel Mahratta and Mahommedan to forget their mutual feuds
in common subjection; would tame down even those wild races which had resisted
the most powerful of the Moguls; and, having united under its laws a hundred
millions of subjects, would carry its victorious arms far to the cast of the
Burrampooter, and far to the west of the Hydaspes, dictate terms of peace at the
gates of Ava, and seat its vassal on the throne of Candahar.
The man who first saw that it was possible to found an European empire on the
ruins of the Mogul monarchy was Dupleix. His restless, capacious, and inventive
mind had formed this scheme, at a time when the ablest servants of the English
Company were busied only about invoices and bills of lading. Nor had he only
proposed to himself the end. He had also a just and distinct view of the means
by which it was to be attained. He clearly saw that the greatest force which the
princes of India could bring into the field would be no match for a small body
of men trained in the discipline, and guided by the tactics, of the West. He saw
also that the natives of India might, under European commanders, be formed into
armies, such as Saxe or Frederic would be proud to command. He was perfectly
aware that the most easy and convenient way in which an European adventurer
could exercise sovereignty in India, was to govern the motions, and to speak
through the mouth of some glittering puppet dignified by the title of Nabob or
Nizam. The arts both of war and policy, which a few years later were employed
with such signal success by the English, were first understood and practiced by
this ingenious and aspiring Frenchman.
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