not venture to speak for him. He thunder and lightning of the skies. would doubtless remember that the The people of India, when we subdued world is full of institutions which, them, were ten times as numerous a though they never ought to have been the Americans whom the Spaniards set up, yet, having been set up, ought|vanquished, and were at the same time not to be rudely pulled down; and quite as highly civilised as the victorious that it is often wise in practice to be Spaniards. They had reared cities larger content with the mitigation of an abuse and fairer than Saragossa or Toledo, which, looking at it in the abstract, we and buildings more beautiful and costly might feel impatient to destroy. than the cathedral of Seville. They could show bankers richer than the richest firms of Barcelona or Cadiz, viceroys whose splendour 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. We have done; and nothing remains but that we part from Mr. Gladstone with the courtesy of antagonists who bear no malice. We dissent from his opinions, but we admire his talents; we respect his integrity and benevolence; and we hope that he will not suffer political avocations so entirely to engross him, as to leave him no leisure for literature and philosophy. LORD CLIVE. (JANUARY, 1840.) The Life of Robert Lord Clive; collected from the Family Papers, communicated by the Earl of Powis. By MAJORGENERAL 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 Hindoo or a Mussulman. 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 labour, who wielded no better weapons than those which could be made out of sticks, fiints, 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 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 skilfully 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 arrangeK K ment. 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. We are more disposed to per-sustained by a constitutional intreform the pleasing duty of expressing pidity which sometimes seemed hardly our gratitude to the noble family to compatible with soundness of mind, which the public owes so much useful had begun to cause great uneasiness to and curious information. 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 neighbourhood still remember to have heard from their parents how Bob Clive climbed to the top of the lofty steeple of MarketDrayton, 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 halfpence, 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 The Clives had been settled, ever general opinion seems to have been since the twelfth century, on an estate that poor Robert was a dunce, if not a of no great value, near Market-Dray-reprobate. His family expected noton, in Shropshire. In the reign of thing good from such slender parts and George the First this moderate but such a headstrong temper. It is not ancient inheritance was possessed by strange therefore, that they gladly acMr. Richard Clive, who seems to have cepted for him, when he was in his been a plain man of no great tact or eighteenth year, a writership in the capacity. He had been bred to the service of the East India Company, law, and divided his time between pro-and shipped him off to make a fortune fessional business and the avocations of or to die of a fever at Madras. a small proprietor. He married a lady Far different were the prospects of from Manchester, of the name of Gas- Clive from those of the youths whom kill, and became the father of a very the East India College now annually numerous family. His eldest son, sends to the Presidencies of our Asiatic Robert, the founder of the British em-empire. The Company was then purely pire in India, was born at the old seat a trading corporation. Its territory of his ancestors on the twenty-ninth of consisted of a few square miles, for 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, 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 | rope, than the Anglo-Indian of the were armed, some with swords and present day. shields, some with bows and arrows. Whenin the fort and its precinct, the The business of the servant of the Com- English exercised, by permission of the pany was not, as now, to conduct the native government, an extensive aujudicial, financial, and diplomatic busi-thority, such as every great Indian ness of a great country, but to take landowner exercised within his own 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. 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. 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 Madras, to which Clive had been ap-on a pension allowed to him by the pointed, was, at this time, perhaps, the English out of the revenues of the profirst in importance of the Company's vince which his ancestors ruled. There settlements. In the preceding century Fort St. George had arisen on a barren spot beaten by a raging surf; and in the neighbourhood 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, Clive's voyage was unusually tedious after the labours of the desk and the even for that age. The ship remained warehouse, to enjoy the cool breeze some months at the Brazils, where the which springs up at sunset from the young adventurer picked up some Bay of Bengal. The habits of these knowledge of Portuguese, and spent mercantile grandces appear to have all his pocket-money. He did not been more profuse, luxurious, and os- arrive in India till more than a year tentatious, than those of the high ju- after he had left England. His situadicial and political functionaries who tion at Madras was most painful. His have succeeded them. But comfort funds were exhausted. His pay was was far less understood. Many devices small. He had contracted debts. Ho which now mitigate the heat of the cli- was wretchedly lodged, no small calamate, preserve health, and prolong life, mity in a climate which can be made were unknown. There was far less in- tolerable to an European only by tercourse with Europe than at present. spacious and well placed apartments. The voyage by the Cape, which in our He had been furnished with letters of time has often been performed within recommendation to a gentleman who three months, was then very seldom might have assisted him; but when he accomplished in six, and was some-landed at Fort St. George he found that times 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 Eu 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 bon took the opposite side. Though duties were of a kind ill suited to his .... 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 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. 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 ascendency. 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 colours 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 honour 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 rased 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 About this time an event which at Governor and several of the first genfirst seemed likely to destroy all his tlemen of Fort St. George were carhopes in life suddenly opened before ried under a guard to Pondicherry, and him a new path to eminence. Europe conducted through the town in a trihad been, during some years, distracted umphal procession under the eyes of by the war of the Austrian succession. fifty thousand spectators. It was with George the Second was the steady ally reason thought that this gross violation of Maria Theresa. The house of Bour-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 Mussulman, and took refuge at Fort St. David, one of the small English settlements subordinate to Madras. guls 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 travellers 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 virtue of commissions from the Mogul ruled as many subjects as the King of France or the Emperor of Germany. Even the deputics of these deputies might well rank, as to extent of territory and amount of revenue, with the Grand Duke of Tuscany, or the Elector 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 en-great viceroys who held their posts by tered 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 of Saxony. 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. 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 Clive had been only a few months in vices inseparable from the domination the army when intelligence arrived that of race over race. The conflicting prepeace had been concluded between tensions of the princes of the royal Great Britain and France. Dupleix house produced a long series of crimes was in consequence compelled to restore and public disasters. Ambitious lieuMadras to the English Company; and tenants of the sovereign sometimes asthe young ensign was at liberty to re-pired to independence. Fierce tribes sume his former business. He did in- of Hindoos, impatient of a foreign yoke, deed return for a short time to his desk. frequently withheld tribute, repelled the He again quitted it in order to assist armies of the government from the Major Lawrence in some petty hostili- mountain fastnesses, and poured down ties with the natives, and then again in arms on the cultivated plains. returned to it. While he thus wavering spite, however, of much constant malbetween a military and a commercial administration, in spite of occasional life, events took place which decided convulsions which shook the whole his choice. The politics of India as- frame of society, this great monarchy, sumed a new aspect. There was peace be- on the whole, retained, during some tween the English and French Crowns; generations, an outward appearance but there arose between the English of unity, majesty, and energy. But, and French Companies trading to the throughout the long reign of AurungEast a war most eventful and impor-zebe, the state, nowithstanding all that tant, a war in which the prize was no- the vigour and policy of the prince thing less than the magnificent inheri- could effect, was hastening to dissotance of the house of Tamerlane. lution. After his death, which took The empire which Baber and his Mo-place in the year 1707, the ruin was In |