Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/475

 CHAi>. IV.J CLIVE'S EAKLV Jll.STUliV. 4-H

and patient, wishing the views for which my ftither sent me here may, in a.d. 1749. all respects, be fuUy accomplished." To a cousin of his own age he opens his heart more fully, and writes as follows: — " I really think the advantages which accrue to us here are greatly overbalanced by the sacrifices we make of our con- stitutions. I have not been unacquainted with the fickleness of fortune, and may safely say, I have not enjoyed one hapjiy day since I left my native country. I am not acquainted with any one family in the place, and have not assurance enough to introduce myself without being asked. If the state 1 am now in will admit of any happiness, it must be when I am ■vTiting to my friend.s. Letters surely were first invented for the comfort of such solitary wretches as myself."

These extracts have a tinge of the melancholy to which he was constitu- <"J've'8con-

° *' _ Ktitutional

tionally subject, and which wius doubtless aggravated not merely by the loneli- naiunchoiy ness referred to in them, but also by an employment to which he appears from the very first to have had a decided avei"sion. As yet the character of the Company was almost entirely mercantile, and the wi-iter spent his time very nuich as ordinary clerks do in large commercial establishments. While thus employed Olive's temper occasionally gave way, and the secretary imder whom writers wei"e placed on their first airival was so ofl!ended at something he had said or done, that he complained of him to the governor. He was ordered to ask the secretary's pardon, and complied ; but shortly after, when that gentleman with great kindness, wishing to bury the pivst in oblivion, invited him to dinner, he received the ungracious, svn-ly, and half vindictive answer, "No, sir; the governor did not command me to dine with you." Other intemperate acts, hazarding the loss of his situation, are recorded ; and he is even said to liave made an attempt on his own life. The account given is, that an acipiaintsmce calling upon him was asked to take up a pLstol which was lying in the room, and fire it out of the window. On seeing that it went oflf, Clive, who was sitting in a very gloomy mood, started up, as if astonished, and exclaimed, "Well, I am reserved for something! That pistol I have twice snapped at my own head." The last act of his life makes this story not improbable, and yet it cannot be considered js perfectly authenticated.

If want of congenial employment was one of the main causes of this wild "■» '^*«ix'

J 1 1 1 *^ 1 after the

and reckless conduct, the remedy was at hand. Labourdonnais' attack on oai.tureof Madras in IT^G must, for the time at least, have converted every servant of the Company within it into a soldier. No record remains of the manner in which Clive comjwrted himself, but it can scarcely be doubted that had defence been attempted he would have been found among the foremost. As it was, he onl}' shared the fate of his fellows, and was still resident in the town as a piisoner of war, when Dupleix, by gi'ossly violating the terms of caj)itulation, freed him from his parole, and left him at liberty to consult his convenience or safety in any way he pleased. On this occasion he was one of those who escaped, dis- VoL. I. 56