Conclusion

CLIVE'S work in India was now completed; his health, never vigorous, was seriously impaired; he sailed the last time from India at the end of January 1767. I do not propose to follow him further, or to discuss those events which led to the Parliamentary inquiry of 1772, at which the Baron of Plassey ¹ was questioned like a sheep-stealer. That first blundering attempt to regulate the British administration in India belongs rather to the history of another illustrious statesman, Warren Hastings. It only remains to attempt to estimate the value of Clive's services. In the first place, his defence of Arcot and his vigorous co-operation with Lawrence in the campaign of 1752 brought about the downfall of Dupleix. He then showed that penetration and vigour which were afterwards to give extraordinary success to his political action. But he was not alone in that. The English success in the Carnatic against Dupleix must be ascribed to Lawrence and Saunders as well as to Clive. He was, in fact, at school. Lawrence was an eminently capable soldier, Saunders an eminently capable politician. Without them there could have been no defence of Arcot or surrender of Srirangam. Nor could Clive observe, without learning from, the ambitious schemes of Dupleix. There he saw plainly marked the limitations within which Company's servants were confined, the need of eliminating or avoiding European opposition, the facility with which a durbar might for a time at least be controlled. The lessons thus learnt were of incalculable value to him in the later part of his career.