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Rh was done — the deceiving of the Bengálí, Aminchand. It is true that Aminchand was a scoundrel, a blackmailer, a man who had said: 'Pay me well, or I will betray your secrets.' But that was no reason why Clive should fight him with his own weapons: should descend to the arena of deceit in which the countrymen of Aminchand were past-masters. Possibly the atmosphere he breathed in such society was answerable, to a great extent, for this deviation from the path of honour. But the stain remains. No washing will remove it. It affected him whilst he still lived, and will never disappear.

Then again, as to his dealings with Siráj-ud-daulá and Mír Jafar. The whole proceedings of Clive after his capture of Calcutta prove that he intended to direct all his policy to the removal of that young prince from the masnad. Some have thought that the Black Hole tragedy was the cause of this resolve. But this can hardly be so, for Mír Jafar, the commander-in-chief of the army which seized Calcutta in 1756, was equally implicated in that transaction. The suggestion that Siráj-ud-daulá was intriguing with the French at Haidarábád is equally untenable, for Clive knew he had little cause to fear their hostility. Clive not only expelled that prince, but, by his policy, his extortions, his insistance to obtain control of the saltpetre traffic, rendered it impossible for his successor to govern. Success attended his policy so long as he remained on the spot to control his subordinates, but it was inevitable that, sooner or later, there would come