Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 2.djvu/71

 ROBERT, LORD CLIVE 249 in Batavia, urging them to take this opportunity of raising a rival power to the English in India ; and their advice was taken. Seven large ships from Java, having on board 1,500 troops, appeared unexpectedly in the Hoogly. Though England was at peace with Holland, Clive resolved to attack them without de- lay. The ships were taken and the army routed. Chinsurah was invested by the conquerors, and was only spared on the condition that no fortifications should be built, and no soldiers raised, beyond those that were necessary for the police of the factories. Three months afterward he returned to England, where he was received with a profusion of honors ; he was raised to the Irish peerage, and promised an Eng- lish title. George III., who had just ascended the throne, received him with marked distinction, and the leading statesmen of the day vied with each other in showing him attention. By judicious purchases of land he was enabled to ac- quire great parliamentary influence, and by large purchases of India stock he was enabled to form a strong party in the Court of Proprietors. The value of such support was soon shown ; the Court of Directors, instigated by Mr. Sullivan, the personal enemy of Lord Clive, withheld the rent of the jaghire that he had received from Meer Jaffier, and it was necessary to institute a suit in chancery to enforce payment. But Clive's greatest strength was derived from the misconduct of his suc- cessors in the government of Bengal. " Rapacity, luxury, and the spirit of insubordination," says a late writer, " spread from the civil service to the officers of the army, and from the officers to the soldiers. The evil continued to grow till every messroom became the seat of conspiracy and cabal, and till the Sepoys could only be kept in order by wholesale executions." Individuals were en- riched, but the public treasury was empty, and the government had to face the dangers of disordered finances, when there was war on the frontiers and disaff'ec- tion in the army. Under these circumstances it was generally felt that Clive alone could save the empire which he had founded. Lord Clive felt the strength of his position. He refused to go to India so long as his enemies had preponderating power in the Court of Directors ; an overwhelming majority of the proprietors seconded his wishes, and the Sullivan party, lately triumphant, was deprived of power. Having been nominated gov- ernor-general and commander-in-chief of the British possessions in Bengal, he sailed for India, and reached Calcutta in May, 1765. He at once assembled the council, and announced his determination to enforce his two great reforms the prohibition of receiving presents from the natives, and the prohibition of private trade by the servants of the Company. The whole settlement seemed to be set, as one man, against these measures ; but Clive declared that if the functionaries in Calcutta refused obedience, he would send for some civil servants from Madras to aid him in conducting the administration. As he evinced the strength of his resolution by dismissing the most factious of his opponents, the rest be- came alarmed and submitted to what was inevitable. Scarcely had the governor-general quelled the opposition of the civil service