CHAPTER XXI
_COLONEL CLIVE'S MESSAGE_
So now my career in the East Indies was over, and I set my face toreturn home.
The first person to whom I communicated my intention was ColonelClive. He was at first astonished, and told me so.
"Why do you mean to leave me now, when all our affairs are prospering,and you have nothing to do but to stay on and enrich yourself? I havehad it in my mind to promote you; indeed, I think you know that I amyour good friend."
"I do, indeed, sir," I answered, "and I am most grateful for all yourkindness to me. But it is right that I should tell you I am here inconsequence of wrong-doing, which has, as I can now see, pursued mysteps and caused me to be harassed with troubles and misfortunes fromthe very beginning to this hour."
"Why, what wrong have you been guilty of?" asked the Colonel, muchinterested. "I could have sworn you were the most honest young man inmy company."
"I have run away from my home, sir. I have deceived and disobeyed myfather and, I fear, caused great sorrow to my loving mother. I allowedmyself to be tempted to leave them secretly, under cover of afalsehood, and to join a crew of privateers, who turned out to bepirates, the comrades of those whom you destroyed at Gheriah. In theircompany I fell into evil courses, and finally plunged into a murderouscontest with one of my own flesh and blood. These things have long satheavy on my mind. I have perceived their evil consequences, I havebeen visited with a bitter punishment, and I am now determined to goback to my parents and to obtain their forgiveness before it is toolate."
Colonel Clive looked at me with some sympathy, mingled with wonder.
"I believe you have decided rightly," he said at last, when I hadfinished. "God forbid that I should keep you from making your peacewith those who love you." His tone softened as he added: "My story isdifferent to yours. I didn't run away; I was driven, pitchforked outof doors, and stuck into a miserable billet at Madras, where I nearlyate my heart out with loneliness and repining. When I returned toEngland it was not to ask forgiveness, but to give it, if a son cantake it upon himself to forgive his parent. No matter, all that ispast now, and I believe my family have found out that I am worth thelove they have to give me. Look here, my boy, I have no business totalk like this to you; but, after all, we can't be always thinking ofrupees and Moorish tricks. Since you are bent on going to England, youshall start in the ship which I am sending from Calcutta with the newsof our late proceedings, and I will give you a letter, which you areto deliver privately into the hands of Mr. Pitt."
At this name I looked up with flushing cheeks.
"The great Mr. Pitt?" I exclaimed.
"Yes, the great Mr. Pitt," returned Colonel Clive, with a slightinflection of bitterness in his tone. "But you are right, Ford, he isa very great man, and though his battles have been won within the fourwalls of St. Stephen's Chapel, while we lesser men have to fight invery different scenes, far be it from me to grudge all honour to theman who was the first to do honour to me. He is fortunate in havingfor his theatre the senate of a great kingdom of Europe, I unfortunatein having for mine a remote country of which half Europe has neverheard. Still, I recognise his merits, and it is for that reason I amaddressing myself to him on a subject which is near to my heart."
The Colonel paused for a few moments.
"But I cannot have you return to England empty-handed," he resumed."What is your share of the gratuity promised to the army I do not yetknow, but I tell you what you shall do: go into the treasury, andhelp yourself while there is time."
I stared at this permission, but Colonel Clive merely nodded his head,and turned to write the letter he had spoken of. Perceiving that hewas in earnest, I went off to the Nabob's palace, and made my way tothe treasury, where I found Mr. Watts and some others busily engagedin taking an inventory of everything it contained, which was to beshipped down the river in boats to Calcutta.
I walked through the rooms looking about me. Never in my life have Iseen, nor am I like to see such a sight again. So much treasure wasthere scattered around me, that I could scarce believe it when Mr.Watts told me that the whole was insufficient to meet the sums pledgedby Meer Jaffier. In every room I feasted my eyes upon the light ofcountless jewels. Silver was heaped on every floor, and gold on everyshelf. Great green jade jars contained nothing but uncut gems. Allkinds of weapons were there, their very shapes disguised under thegold and jewel-work which loaded them. There were chairs of ivory, anda table of solid agate-stone. Massy chains of gold trailed fromdrawers, and bricks of silver were built up into banks along thewalls. It was a confusion of magnificence, a very litter of preciousthings.
I informed Mr. Watts of the permission which Colonel Clive had givenme to help myself, and he confirmed it.
"Take what you please," he said carelessly. "You will find theemeralds run larger than any other stone, but some of them are flawed.There is a pretty string of rubies somewhere that it might be worthwhile to choose. The biggest diamond is already promised, but thereare several lesser ones, uncut, which I should judge to be worth fromtwenty to forty thousand rupees each."
He returned to his catalogue, and I to my exploration. After rejectingmany necklaces and crowns that I did not deem to be of sufficientsplendour, I finally fixed upon a tulwar, which I found in a box ofmother-of-pearl by itself. The handle was set with an enormoussapphire, and the hilt incrusted with diamonds, some of them as big asmy thumbnail. I was afterwards offered three thousand pounds for it bya Gentoo merchant in Calcutta, but preferred to bring it home with me,where it afterwards fetched more than double that sum at a goldsmith'sin Covent Garden.
Nor was this all that I brought away with me, for when I went to takeleave of Meer Jaffier, he presented me, as a mark of his esteem, witha very handsome dress of gold cloth, and a string of pearls, valuedafterwards at a thousand pounds. So that I was now become a rich man.
We buried Marian at night, by the Nabob's permission, in a corner ofthe garden of the seraglio. The chaplain of the thirty-ninth regimentconducted the service, and I caused a slab of marble to be set up tomark the grave, inscribed simply with her name and the date of herdeath. This tomb, I have been told, still stands, and is pointed outto English visitors to Moorshedabad as the grave of the Englishwomanwho was imprisoned in the Black Hole.
The following day, having received Colonel Clive's letter, and biddenhim an affectionate farewell, I embarked with Rupert upon one of thebarges which were carrying the treasure down to Calcutta. The fleetstarted in procession, and went down the river, with music playing ondeck, flying flags by day, and coloured lanterns by night, till wereached the English settlement. There I found old Muzzy, patientlywaiting for me, and full of pride in the victory, in which he wasprone to attribute a great share to me.
Five months later we sailed up the Thames, and set foot once more onEnglish soil.
One thing only detained me in London. This was the delivery of theletter which Colonel Clive had entrusted to me for Mr. Pitt.
It was a privilege which I could not rate too highly to be thus madethe intermediary between the two greatest Englishmen of my time, menof a type that seems now to be lost among us. Since Colonel Clive wehave had no victorious captain, and since Mr. Pitt, no mightyminister, and hence it is that our country, which under the rule of aCromwell or a Pitt, hath risen to be the arbiter of Europe, and heldall nations in awe, is now sunk, under the sway of feeble intellects,to a precarious position, the mock of every power, and saved only byher fleets from absolute destruction.
I do not find it easy to describe my sensations when I was usheredinto the presence of the Great Commoner, and saw before me thatmajestic figure, with the profile of a Roman conqueror, and a glancehardly less terrible to encounter than the full blaze of the sun. WhenI have stood before the Nabob of Bengal, throned in the midst of hisCourt, I have seen in front of me nothing but a peevish, debauchedyoung man, but when I came into the room where Mr. Pitt was I feltthat I was in the presence of a ruler of men. His attitude, hiscommandin
g gestures, and the stately manner he had of slowly movinghis head round upon his neck to look at you, made a most tremendousimpression; and I found it easy to believe the stories of men havingrisen to speak against him in the House of Commons, and then shrunkback miserably into their seats at a mere look from this extraordinaryperson.
Mr. Pitt's manner of reading Colonel Clive's despatch furtherimpressed me. He broke the seals, seemed to do no more than give it afew devouring glances, and then laid it aside as though he werealready master of its contents.
"You are Ensign Ford?" he demanded abruptly, fixing his eye upon me.
"I am, sir."
"Colonel Clive tells me in this letter that you possess hisconfidence. Do you think, if I were to tell you my sentimentsverbally, you could transmit them faithfully to your employer?"
"I will do my best, sir," I replied, not a little astonished at thisproposal. But I have considered the matter since, and I can see thatthere were many things which Mr. Pitt might not wish to write with hisown hand, though he had no objection to their being repeated by me.
"In this letter," he proceeded, "Colonel Clive makes a very startlingproposal, which is no less than that English troops should be sent outsufficient to conquer the whole of Bengal, and that thereafter theadministration of all the Indian territories should be taken out ofthe hands of the Company and brought immediately under the Crown. Nowwhat I wish you to tell him from me in reply is this, that I am boundto consider his proposal not merely as it affects our situationabroad, but also as it bears upon our government at home. I am theminister, not of a despotic empire like France or Spain, but of a freepeople, and I must not suffer anything which may assist the Crown toencroach upon our liberties. Those liberties rest upon the necessitywhich our kings are under of asking us to tax ourselves for theirsupport. Give them a foreign empire like that of Spain in theAmericas, and you run a danger of rendering them independent. Thewealth arising from the revenues of Indostan would enable the Crown tokeep up a standing army in time of peace, without the consent ofParliament. Moreover, the administration of these territories wouldgive occasion for the creation of great numbers of offices andpensions, by means of which our people might be fatally corrupted.
"I would have you further point out to Colonel Clive on my behalf,"continued Mr. Pitt, "that those Indians, whom he proposes to make ourfellow subjects, are accustomed to be the slaves of a despot, andbeing such, they may become dangerous instruments to make slaves ofus. I should dread to see the sovereigns of this country callingthemselves emperors in the Indies, and valuing that character abovethat of kings of Great Britain. Believe me, young man, it is not easyfor a nation to play the despot abroad without losing its freedom athome; as I have frequently observed that those who had returned tothis country after holding great places in the East, have shownthemselves indifferent to the rights of the subject here."
All this, and much more, did Mr. Pitt say to me, of which I havepreserved only these meagre recollections. But how feeble an image dothe written words preserve of the eloquence with which he spoke, theenthusiasm which kindled in his eye when he touched upon ourliberties, and the warning emphasis he laid upon his expressions aboutthe power of the Crown! I felt almost as though I had been the bearerof propositions for some unnatural treason, and I was not a littlerelieved when Mr. Pitt finally concluded by bidding me thank ColonelClive very heartily for his civility in writing to him, and promisedto carefully consider of his suggestions.
To this he added some very high compliments to the Colonel's greatabilities and military glory, all of which I transmitted in a letterto Mr. Clive shortly afterwards. And I have set down the above warningof the great patriot minister in this place, for the instruction ofposterity, in case a time should ever arrive when the people of thiscountry, in their too eager grasping after foreign conquests contraryto the nature of an island, which is to rest content within theborders of its own seas, shall find they have bartered away thepriceless heritage of their own freedom, and sunk into a mere unheededfraction of a dominion which they no longer wield.