Merchant Kings

by Stephen R. Bown

  The cost of the wars escalated, consuming an increasing share of the profits. And not all the battles favoured the company troops.

  The situation was again tenuous: certainly the French had been defeated, but might the company be ousted from its golden perch by local, perhaps more legitimate, rulers? The company’s stock plummeted. The British government feared for its lost tax revenue and diminished international prestige. Perhaps the hero of Plassey could turn the situation around?

  Clive and his supporters certainly thought so, but only on the condition that Sulivan be deposed and Clive’s jagir be confirmed for ten years. The shareholders complied, placed Clive in charge of three thousand additional troops and granted him additional powers in Bengal: he would only have to share power with a council of four, and the selection of the four councillors was left up to him. Growing bored and quarrelsome in England, Clive was eager for a triumphant return to India: there, scheming and warring and high stakes made life’s gambles far more interesting than dealing with pasty-faced bureaucrats and politicians in foggy England, where his struggles seemed irritating and pointless. In India he would again be a man of action, a controller of destiny in a place where great events were transforming the world, not just another bickering member of England’s political class.

  Clive sailed to Calcutta in 1765 , arriving to hear the shocking news that Major Hector Munro had won a fantastic victory for the company: he had defeated the combined forces of the rebelling nawab, a neighbouring prince in Oudh and the titular emperor Shah Alam ii. Munro’s armies were continuing to advance. Clive felt that the company had already gone too far for a trading enterprise and that its operations in Bengal were a mess. It was too much of a gamble, he thought, too risky and dangerous to keep marching on Delhi like Spanish conquistadores. Chaos threatened northern India. Clive issued orders to halt the company’s army from continuing its advance on Delhi and recalled the troops. He returned the land to the ruler of Oudh. “To go further,” he wrote to London, “is in my opinion a scheme so extravagantly ambitious and absurd that no governor and council in their senses can adopt it, unless the whole system of the Company’s interest be first entirely new-modelled.” He seems to have begun to anticipate the problems that would soon arise from the company’s military adventuring in India. The manpower to assume the government of such a great number of people, many times the population of England, simply did not exist. Conquest, Clive knew, had to be done with the collusion and subservience of local rulers, even if those rulers would no longer have any real power apart from the company that had placed them on the throne and that had the ability to remove them from power if their behaviour and actions did not please. The company could be all-powerful, but the veneer of legitimacy had to be maintained.

  On August 12, 1765, Clive met the Emperor Shah Alam ii and presided over a hasty ceremony in a casual setting around a dining table in Clive’s travelling command tent. The emperor, with a scrawl of his pen, gave the company a “firmaund from the King Shah Aalum, granting the dewany of Bengal, Behar and Orissa to the company, 1765.” With this official overlordship over nearly thirty million people the company was now an imperial power—the beginning of British rule in India. “We are sensible that, since the acquisition of the dewany, the power formerly belonging to the soubah of those provinces is totally, in fact, vested in the East India Company. Nothing remains to him but the name and shadow of authority,” Clive wrote to his directors in London. “This name, however,” he noted, “this shadow, it is indispensably necessary we should seem to venerate.” He was uncharacteristically acting like a governing statesman and less like a plundering barbarian or conquistador—he had, after all, made a vast fortune doing what he was now trying to prevent others from doing in his wake.

  Private greed, boundless ambition and fluid morals had led to the company’s success in conquering Bengal, but these characteristics were no longer valuable in governing the territory.

  Clive was an intelligent and astute man, not without honour and a sense of duty and obligation; he knew the corporate culture would undermine and destroy the company’s gilded position if it did not change. Its long-term profit depended on immediate change. It would not be easy, challenging entrenched positions of entitlement, shattering dreams of power and wealth among a group of people for whom those things represented the entire reason for their being in India—their chance to leap social and material boundaries and return to England far above their previous station, an opportunity not available under any other conditions. Chances were, Clive would be resented and resisted as a hypocrite.

  Nevertheless, he set about improving the civil administration: he forbade company officers from accepting “gifts”—bribery or other forms of graft—despite his own substantial gift of the jagir that would be plumping up his fortune for years to come; he increased salaries; he tried to limit the company’s monopoly so as not to constrict and strangle the local economy; he introduced a pension fund for the company’s army and seeded it with a substantial donation of his own; and he reorganized and streamlined the army, weeding out corruption where possible and creating three separate brigades, each of sufficient force to confront any other single army fielded by an Indian prince.

  Disobedient officers who challenged Clive’s reforms were arrested, placed on ships and returned to England. Clive fired people who disagreed with him and removed their duty-free trade passes. He was not delicate in how he went about his rapid and dramatic changes, and he seemed not to care how he was perceived—it was now part of his duty, and he would see it done. One of his own council members was so startled at his dictates that he wrote, “Clive is really our king. His word is law and he laughs at contradictions.” But the work tired Clive and broke his health. Depressed and ill, he departed for home in February 1767, having spent only twenty-two months in India and leaving much work undone. The corruption was only mildly dampened, perhaps only driven from view.

  7

  EVER FREE FROM SELF-DOUBT, CLIVE WROTE TO HIS friend and hagiographer Robert Orme in 1767, a year before he left India for the last time, that “Fortune seems determined to accompany me to the last; every object, every sanguine wish is upon the point of being completely fulfilled and I am arrived at the pinnacle of all I covet, by affirming the Company shall, in spite of all the envy, malice, faction and resentment, acknowledge they are become the most opulent company in the world, by the battle of Plassey.” But he would soon have cause to rue his earlier optimism.

  Clive had accomplished great things, and he knew it. Nevertheless, he wanted others to know it too, and he was still working on polishing the myth of his grandeur and destiny, of a man protected by providence, not aware that it was about to be shattered by detractors envious of his meteoric rise. Clive was preoccupied with managing his image—perhaps to create a justification for his incredible accumulation of wealth. Surely he knew that the tales Orme had spun were not entirely accurate, but he wanted great things from life, and participating in a little stretching of the truth seemed harmless. In doing so, however, Clive never worried about trampling on the aspirations of others; he could rise like a comet—meteoric, bright and fast, transcending the rigid boundaries that separated and ordered British society—but he ruled out this same trajectory for others.

  He angered the people he had bested and the people whose fortunes had been stunted by his attempts to limit corruption. He angered people because he was arrogant and outspoken. There were many who would love to see him fall.

  When Clive arrived in London, he was not well. Describing himself as “sick and weak,” he probably suffered from a combination of ailments, a cocktail of illnesses contracted in India that likely included malaria, gallstones and an unknown “nervous complaint” as well as recurrent bouts of depression. He self-medicated with opium. Irritable and short-tempered, he did not resettle well into his former life as Baron Clive. He alienated some of his long-time comrades before dashing off to Europe for nine months of travel and recuperation, ret
urning to London late in 1768. When he arrived, he was once again embroiled in company and national politics. His personal, political and business enemies circled. The people he had offended, insulted, thwarted and challenged lay in wait.

  In India, it was becoming apparent that the company was incapable of governing its vast new territories. As it staggered into the role of government, it could not shed its original self-interested grasping mentality. It had access to incredible treasure in the form of taxes, but it had acquired responsibilities as well—this revenue could not, as some wanted, be siphoned from Bengal as profit. Running a country, as the company was belatedly learning, is not a profitable venture for shareholders. Taxes in Bengal rose by 20 per cent, placing a terrible burden on the local populace. Much of the amount raised was plundered by corrupt company and local officials; in no way was it deployed for the benefit of Bengalis. It was merely a system of extraction, taking from many people to enrich a handful of well-placed company officials. As Holden Furber writes in Rival Empires of Trade in the Orient, 1600–1800, “faced with the consequences of Plassey, the British governing classes became convinced that the company’s activities should be made to benefit the ‘public’ as well as the company and its servants. By the ‘public’ these eighteenth-century gentleman meant the ‘nation’ in the sense in which they understood that term; they were not thinking of distributing the company’s profits to the poor but rather of reducing the national debt.” If India were to be plundered, the British state should share in a greater amount of the proceeds. Were not royal troops and officers of the Royal Navy involved in the battles won by Clive and others for the company? Why should the company derive all the benefits, when public funds had been expended? That these privileged few nabobs should return richer than anyone, and challenge the established hierarchy in doing so, was becoming a serious irritant.

  Despite Clive’s promise of opulence and riches for the East India Company and the return of ever-increasing numbers of swaggering nabobs, the company’s fortunes were not so rosy. Managing an empire amid the political chaos and opportunism that was post-Mughal India proved not to be universally profitable for the company. Most of the profit seemed to bypass it and accrue to the nabobs. Military engagements with various Indian princes consumed vast profits and threatened the company’s landholdings, and rumours of French political meddling were again on the rise, causing a precipitous drop in the price of its stock. A devastating famine in Bengal, exacerbated by incompetent rulers and the plundered resources of the state, caused millions to starve to death. Perhaps a third of the population died, severely damaging the economy for years and resulting in more losses for the company. In Britain, these problems were placed, not inappropriately, at the feet of the nabobs who were lampooned in the press—particularly Clive, who was portrayed as boorish, uncultivated and unscrupulous.

  In 1772 a politically motivated parliamentary inquiry into the conduct of the company, and of Clive personally, unearthed many sordid details of their actions in India. Episodes of bribery, corruption, trickery and other deceptive behaviour came to light. The evidence against Clive was supplied and amplified by his numerous critics. James P. Lawford writes in Clive: Proconsul of India that “the one-time absolute ruler of vast provinces, the arbiter of the fate of millions, had to submit to the cross-questioning of a virtually unknown chairman and of a man actuated only by malice; he had to listen while all that he had achieved was questioned and belittled.” Occasionally Clive’s own testimony raised eyebrows, as occurred when he described the great mountains of treasure laid before him for his choosing after the Battle of Plassey: the jewels, gold and silver bullion, coins, priceless art and antiques. In a speech in his own defence he implored the gathered parliamentarians to “consider the situation in which the victory of Plassey placed me. A great prince was dependent on my pleasure; an opulent city lay at my mercy; its richest bankers bid against each other for my smiles; I walked through vaults which were thrown open to me alone, piled on either hand with gold and jewels. Mr. Chairman, at this moment I stand astonished at my own moderation.” One can only imagine the parliamentarians’ response to this audacious claim.

  But Clive was an astute and intelligent man, a schemer, persuader and great orator. He calmly answered his critics while defending his actions in India, proclaiming himself offended and insulted that he was being treated “more like a sheep-stealer than a member of this House.” His old enemy Lawrence Sulivan he marked out for particular attention, describing him and other London-based company directors as a cluster of gluttonous swine, “devouring turtle and all kinds of viands out of season and in season, and swilling themselves with whole hogsheads of claret, champagne and burgundy.” Despite his theatrics and a masterful defence against the charges of corruption, greed and dishonesty, Clive could not deflect a proposal by a detractor and ally of Sulivan’s, Major-General John Burgoyne, “that all acquisitions made under the influence of military force or by treaty with foreign princes did of right belong to the State.” Burgoyne asserted that restitution was therefore the only right course. He continued that Clive “had illegally acquired the sum of 234 ,000 pounds to the dishonour and detriment of the State.” His argument went that “it was impossible that any civil or military servant, in treating with a foreign Prince or state, could lawfully bargain for, or acquire property for himself.” This rationale seems perfectly logical today, but at the time it was all too common to accept “gifts” in the Eastern trade. Clive remarked that “Presents in India are coeval with the Company. As soon as we began to raise fortifications the Company’s chiefs began to receive presents . . . There has not been a commander of his Majesty’s Squadron, nor a commander of His Majesty’s Land Forces, nor a governor, nor any chief who has not received presents.”

  Nevertheless, Clive sensed disgrace and financial ruin. In his final speech in the House of Commons, he took a cringing, placatory approach to his defence. He pledged his innocence and claimed it was unjust “to punish a man for what he could not know he could be guilty of.” He spoke of honour and of how his will would not be broken: “I have only one thing more, that is a humble request to the House. I make it not for myself, but for them. The request is this, when they come to decide upon my honour, they will not forget their own.” He retired in nervous tension to one of his many mansions to await the verdict that could ruin everything he had accomplished, a verdict that could not only claim all his wealth but also destroy his legacy— the legend of the great Clive, the invincible Clive, the Clive who truly deserved his position and status.

  After waiting for one nerve-wracking day, he was acquitted and even offered slight praise: “That Lord Clive did, at the same time, render great and meritorious services to this country.” But for him, the year-long fight had been demoralizing. A famous portrait of this aging merchant king, done in 1773 by Sir Nathaniel Dance, shows a slightly paunchy man weighted down by the heavy finery of his garments. His eyes droop and his mouth is straight; his jowls sag, and there is no sparkle in his gaze, giving the general impression of a glum toad. Clive retired from public life in May 1773, and a few months later departed for France by himself, not returning to London until late June.

  He remained depressed and in physical pain, and in November 1774 , a year and a half after his public ordeal, he stabbed himself in the throat with a penknife in his London manor, leaving no note or explanation. He was forty-nine years old and was survived by his wife and four children.

  One of Clive’s many biographers, Michael Edwardes, has observed that “Clive’s ‘rapacity’ has been condemned by Victorian moralisers, modern ‘radical’ historians, and Indian nationalists. The privileges and profits demanded and obtained by him and by others were no more than the perquisites of power which Indian rulers and their supporters accepted as of right.” Clive truly believed that he deserved his vast fortune, that he had done no wrong in plundering a foreign land—the vast bulk of his fortune, indeed that of all the nabobs of the era, had not been derived fro
m successful and honest trade, but rather from corruption and bribery. He could hardly be blamed for his cynicism about other titled and wealthy English families, who no doubt had derived their status and wealth from equally unsavoury actions in the near or distant past. Clive probably did restrain his plundering after the Battle of Plassey; he could have taken even more than he did, there being no one to stop him. He also could have kept all the treasure to himself and not shared it with his officers or contributed to the company soldiers’ pension fund. Clive has never been accused of personal cruelty or violence, merely of grandiosity and of accumulating great wealth from crumbling empires that presented opportunities for his vast ambition. the 1772 parliamentary inquiry into the English East India Company began the slow unravelling of the company’s powers. Despite vigorous resistance by its shareholders and supporters in Parliament, Lord North’s Act of 1773 , arising from the airing of the company’s dirty laundry during the inquiry, changed both the way the company would operate and the way in which Bengal would be ruled. The act brought the British government officially into the affairs of India. The English East India Company would no longer be an entirely independent entity. Its powers were severely curtailed: no longer could it declare war; no longer could it make decisions that affected both national and international affairs. The part of India it controlled would now have a governor general, a council and a supreme court.

  A decade later, in 1784 , Pitt’s India Bill introduced further controls on the company’s behaviour, giving Parliament a voice in all decisions relating to India’s political, military and commercial affairs through a board of control. By the late eighteenth century, the company’s monopoly began to be viewed as anachronistic by the new breed of free traders of the burgeoning Industrial Revolution, who saw India as a destination to ship manufactured goods to rather than as a source of imported silk, saltpetre and spices. Nevertheless the company continued to expand, exerting its military dominance in Singapore, Malaya, Burma and Hong Kong. Although more of the subcontinent came under British control, it was not the company’s army that did the conquering, but the king’s, particularly under Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, who subdued great swaths of the Indian interior and placed millions more people under the company’s control.