Clive

by Robert Harvey

  This time he was in active pursuit of a military career. Later historians have often portrayed his career as a succession of accidents and suggested that he was destined for obscurity as deputy governor in Madras. In fact, there was a hidden agenda in the Company’s directives to Clive. As a highly effective military commander, he was embarked for Bombay, where he was to launch a daring new stage in the British campaign to root the French out of India and conquer their territories – particularly as war between Britain and France in Europe was judged to be imminent.

  Dupleix had been defeated. But the target this time was to be Dupleix’s old ally, the Marquis de Bussy, who controlled central India through a reluctant puppet, the Nizam of Hyderabad, Nawab of the Deccan, Salabat Jang. De Bussy also all but controlled the huge swathe of territory, the Northern Circars, between the Carnatic and Bengal. Clive’s mission was to threaten an attack from Bombay in the west into Salabat Jang’s possessions in the centre, and force him to break with the French.

  The plan involved an alliance with the Marathas and the despatch of a large naval convoy from Britain, including 300 royal troops and three companies of artillery. The aim was to expand the area of India under British control from around a fifth, in the south, to nearly half – although at the expense of the French, rather than the native princes.

  Clive himself had been promoted to lieutenant-colonel, and was greeted when he went aboard ship with a nine-gun salute. The journey this time was comfortable and uneventful, and they reached Bombay after only six months. This time Margaret was spared the disagreeable presence of Orme, and had her young cousins to keep her amused.

  * * *

  Bombay was something of a backwater compared to Fort St George and Fort William. It consisted of a fortress surrounded by a large town, the prosperous merchant houses close to the citadel, the less so further away. It was positioned on ‘the island’, a peninsula, and there was no distinction between ‘black town’ and ‘white town’: unusually, the races were largely integrated in the Moorish-style settlement.

  The magnificent British architecture of the east-coast settlements was absent. Bombay was occupied by only the less ambitious and successful British traders; in addition, it had a reputation for disease. Clive, however, found Bombay ‘in a very flourishing condition’. But if he liked Bombay – and he seems to have been in an extraordinarily outgoing mood, no doubt at the prospect of returning to a continent where he was so famous – the locals didn’t like him.

  He threw a ball to liven things up within a month of his arrival. But the down-to-earth British settlers disapproved of him and his wife and young cousins ‘running about the town from morning to night, laughing immoderately at just nothing, affecting to be very noisy and loud and making a great rout and bustle about nothing, witty chits flying about like wildfire’, as they appeared to the crabby wife of a local doctor.

  She later commented with provincial primness, ‘Madam Jane rules that family entirely and both the Colonel and Mrs Clive cannot do anything without first asking Miss Jenny. Don’t you think their economy must cut a pretty figure to be governed and directed by a child, for I reckon Jenny very little better … The Colonel … [appears] to me very weak and ridiculous, not in this affair alone but in many other respects … The Madrassers don’t like Bombay, we are all too reserved and grave for them,’ she griped. Hardly weak, but insouciant, Clive appears to have behaved with the exultation of a young man promoted fast with two pretty girls in tow.

  He was to be disappointed in his military venture. In January 1755 an agreement had been signed by Governor Pigot of Madras and Dupleix’s successor at Pondicherry, M. Godeheu, which provided that neither side would now interfere in the internal affairs of Indian princes. Britain thus accepted the status quo, leaving de Bussy in charge of Hyderabad.

  Empire-building for the time being was over. The prosaic down-to-earth burghers of Bombay firmly argued that Clive’s proposed attack on Salabat Jang would violate the spirit of the agreement. Clive and Pigot both argued that the agreement applied only to the Carnatic, but the council at Bombay would not discuss the matter further and refused to approve the venture. It seemed that Clive would have little to do at Bombay except socialise, and then take up his appointment as deputy governor in Madras.

  However, a month after Clive’s arrival, the British naval squadron arrived in Bombay on its way to reinforce Madras in the expected war against the French. It was under the command of Vice-Admiral Charles Watson and Rear-Admiral George Pocock. The flighty, pretty Jenny soon fell in love with Captain Thomas Latham, commander of the Tiger. The council at Bombay decided to take advantage of this sudden increase in its military punch to deal with a matter of intense parochial concern: to rid the Indian Ocean of its worst pirate chieftain, Tulaji Angria.

  * * *

  Clive’s next adventure might have been scripted by the classic Italian adventure writer Emilio Salgari. Tulaji was the bastard son of Kanoje Angria, a descendant of the Maratha leader Sivajo in the late sixteenth century. Kanoje had set himself up as an autonomous chieftain on land, robbing shipping routes along the coast and building up a huge fortune. He died in 1728 having repeatedly beaten off European attacks. Tulaji was, if anything, even more ferocious. The British garrison had to maintain an expensive naval presence to protect its shipping, and other craft were regularly raided by the small fast-moving sailboats – grabs – and 40-oared galleys – gallivats – operating out of Gheria.

  Gheria was a rocky fastness with a fort, believed to be as impregnable as Gibraltar. In December a ship under Commodore James was sent to reconnoitre it but was attacked by the small fleet in the harbour. He reported that the fortress was sited on a large rock connected to the mainland by a spur of sand about a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide.

  On the isthmus itself there were shipyards where the grabs and gallivats were built, while the harbour was by the entrance to a small river. The rock itself was a sheer cliff, but no more than 50 feet high. Two sets of walls and a series of towers housing Angria’s garrison were perched on top. James reported that the fortress was not as impregnable as widely believed.

  The British had been negotiating with the leader of the local Marathas, Balaji Rao, to obtain his co-operation in attacking the fort. He was offered some of the land around Gheria, as well as the pirate stronghold – a promise the British had no intention of keeping unless they actually needed his help.

  As to the huge spoils believed to be within the stronghold, the British quarrelled bitterly about their shares: Clive was to command the land forces, and demanded an equal amount to Watson and Pocock together. Being only a lieutenant-colonel – the equivalent to a captain in the navy – he was entitled to much less. At length Watson sensibly settled by offering to make up Clive’s share from his own. Pocock refused to budge. The Marathas were completely excluded from these considerations.

  Early in February 1756, no fewer than 14 ships set out for Gheria with 800 European troops and 1,000 sepoys on board. As soon as this large force was sighted off the rock, Tulaji Angria knew he was in serious trouble, and left the fort in a hurry to negotiate with the Marathas, now about 100 miles away, in an attempt to secure their support.

  The day after the ships’ arrival, some of Angria’s men came out in a boat to visit Watson’s flagship, where he showed them the size of his guns and advised them to surrender peacefully. Hours later, however, the guns of the fort opened fire on the British fleet. This was now drawn up in two lines, and responded with a barrage from no fewer than 150 guns. Soon the entire pirate fleet was ablaze, and the fire reached the magazine, which exploded with a tremendous roar, and then spread to part of the fort.

  Clive’s land force went ashore largely to prevent the Maratha army, whose intentions were uncertain, from reaching the fort. Even if they only joined in the fighting, it was feared that they would demand a large share of the spoils. Meanwhile, the relentless naval bombardment continued.

  On 13 February, after just two
days, Gheria surrendered and Angria was seized by the Marathas. Clive feared that if it had held out, he would have had to storm the fortress from land, which would have cost him many men. As it was, only 20 were killed or seriously wounded. The Marathas, who by now had reached the landward side of the fort, offered an English officer, Captain Andrew Buchanan, a large amount of money to let them through. Buchanan – unusually for the time, when such considerations were routinely accepted – threatened to cut off the Maratha commander’s head by way of reply. ‘A very easy conquest,’ commented Clive truthfully – and, for once, modestly.

  Disappointingly, the pirates’ treasure trove turned out to be worth about £140,000, of which Clive took £5,000. When Watson offered to contribute £1,000 to bring him up to Pocock’s share, Clive refused, saying he had been arguing about principle, not money. Ten English and three Dutch slaves, who had been badly abused, were released. Angria’s family, weeping, surrounded Watson when he landed, saying they had lost their father and their fortune. Moved, Watson offered to be ‘their father and their friend’ and even wept himself.

  After a heated argument, the Marathas were allowed to take possession of the fortress – stripped of its wealth. The British force left. The battle had been a walkover, but could have proven tricky if the Marathas has joined Tulaji, or if the fortress had held out. The most impregnable pirate stronghold in India had been crushed, albeit by a vastly superior force.

  * * *

  On 17 April, after six months in Bombay, during which he quarrelled bitterly with the burghers over their court-martial of one of his officers, Clive and Margaret, who was pregnant again, set sail in Admiral Watson’s convoy for Fort St David to take up his appointment as deputy governor, arriving a fortnight later. The welcome in Madras was a warm one: Clive was greeted by the governor, his old friend Pigot, and by the military commander, his old boss, Lawrence, with warm affection. Margaret’s brother Mun was on hand to embrace her, as was her cousin John Walsh and Jane’s brother Thomas.

  A less sincere welcome came from the scheming Orme, who had been zealously attempting to supplant Clive as the putative next governor, and who had been openly engaged in doing down Clive’s reputation, which, as his biographer, he was to some extent creating – and benefiting – from. Orme indulged in further mischief-making by suggesting that the former governor, Saunders, had objected to Clive’s promotion. In fact, Saunders had been turned against Clive in the first place by Orme’s malice.

  On 22 June 1756, at the age of only 30 (not that unusual for Indian appointments), Clive arrived as commander of Fort St David, the guns barking a salute, the first lady of the settlement a girl of just 20. He was attended by a retinue of servants, was carried around on formal occasions in a palanquin, and his official residence was the Garden House, in whose grounds he had fought a skirmish. He was deferred to by everyone.

  Margaret revelled in her new-found importance and, accompanied by Jenny and an old friend, Philadelphia Austen (Jane Austen’s aunt), felt among friends, refreshingly refusing to become spoilt or pompous. The peace of the settlement must have been some consolation when tragedy struck unexpectedly: she was informed that her second son had died in England. Clive, always impatient, rushed about, enforcing justice, penalising black marketeers who had been levying an unofficial tariff against goods coming over the Bounds Hedge, demanding more troops from Madras for his garrison against the possibility of French attack, auditing the settlement accounts.

  But it looked as though he was in for a long five years as pronconsul of this colonial enclave – a far cry from the excitements of Arcot, Arni, Kaveripak and Trichinopoly, and his frustrated political ambitions. Clive, the shooting star of his generation, had settled down by 30 into the job of stodgy provincial governor.

  BOOK TWO

  EMPEROR, 1756–1764

  CHAPTER 11

  Bengal

  Some 36 hours before Clive embarked on his new and dull duties, a number of British soldiers and civilians suffocated and were trampled to death in their own vomit, excrement and blood in a tiny cell in the once elegant Fort William in Calcutta, now a smouldering ruin.

  Certain events in history acquire an importance entirely disproportionate to their innate significance. They start a chain-reaction. Such an event was the Bengali seizure of Calcutta from the British, which was followed the same night by the massacre known as the Black Hole of Calcutta. As many as 123, or as few as 18, may have died during that terrible night. Far worse and larger massacres have occurred before and since. Yet somehow this particular incident became the focus for the indignation of an entire nation, midwife to the birth of the British empire in India.

  Macaulay, one of the most judicious of historians in regard to the faults of his countrymen, as his famous essay on Warren Hastings shows, conveys the sensation of pure outrage evoked by the crime. His spellbinding prose, written over 60 years after the event, captures the emotions aroused by the Black Hole, the single event upon which the morality for establishing the British Raj in India is based.

  The English captives were left at the mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air holes were small and obstructed. It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty halls and the constant waving of fans. The number of prisoners was one hundred and forty-six. When they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were joking; and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated; they entreated, but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them.

  Nothing in the history of fiction, not even the story which Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer, approaches the horrors which were recounted by the few survivors of that night. They cried for mercy. They strove to burst the door. Holwell who, even in that extremity, retained some presence of mind, offered large bribes to the gaolers. But the answer was that nothing could be done without the Nabob’s orders, that the Nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody woke him.

  Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled each other down, fought for the places at the windows, fought for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the murderers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed, blasphemed, implored the guards to fire among them. The gaolers in the meantime held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter at the frantic struggles of their victims. At length the tumult died away in low gaspings and moanings.

  The day broke. The Nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be opened. But it was some time before the soldiers could make a lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to do its loathsome work. When at length a passage was made, twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would not have known, staggered one by one out of the charnel house. A pit was instantly dug. The dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung into it promiscuously, and covered up.

  Lust for money and territory have never been enough for empire builders. Even for the British in the eighteenth century, moral justification and indignation were still more important. Terrible as it was, the Black Hole provided the pretext for the events that created the Raj.

  The Black Hole was also to propel Robert Clive, a prematurely successful young man enjoying a premature retirement, to his destiny as the first and only British emperor by conquest, enticing him inexorably up the Hugli, one of the tributar
ies of the Ganges, India’s greatest river, into the heart of a continent whose fate he was to transform. There he confronted the darkness that lay within himself – later, as with Warren Hastings, his successor but one, to be exposed to the pitiless glare of public scrutiny. The Bengali occupation of Calcutta and the Black Hole sucked Clive and the British in India into a vortex of power and temptation such as few men have been exposed to before or since.

  * * *

  The fall of Calcutta, much more than the fall of Madras to the French years before, was an almost entirely self-inflicted wound for the British. Represented as a naked and ignoble act of aggression by an oriental despot, in fact it was the logical outcome of a series of increasingly stupid, high-handed and arrogant actions against a prince insecure on his newly acquired throne.

  To understand the débâcle represented by the fall of Calcutta – one which in turn could only be expunged by accusing the Indians of a monstrous atrocity – it is necessary to understand the nature of the settlement. Of the three main British enclaves in India – Bombay, Madras and Calcutta – the last was undoubtedly the most thriving and cosmopolitan. This was because it controlled the bulk of the trade of India’s richest province, Bengal, to the outside world. To the Bengalis it was not just a pimple on their periphery, as Bombay and Madras were to the Indian princes of the interior: it was the tap through which passed most of the commerce of the province.

  The fertile lower Ganges basin provided the basis of an economy second to none in India. More so than in other parts of India – perhaps also because of the oppressively hot and humid climate – the Bengali temperament was suited to commerce and making money, rather than war. Bengal suffered from this unmartial spirit in that its riches were immensely attractive to the more warlike tribes to the north and the west. Again, Macaulay’s description, while exaggerated, has not been bettered: