Mr. Grenville, after he left office, acknowledged the receipt of this letter and some small presents from the Cape. He refers, in this communication, to the change of administration which had so recently occurred; and I quote his observations less from their connection with the life of Clive than from the value which attaches to every sentiment of one of the most honourable and eminent statesmen who belonged to this period of English history.

"I take this opportunity," Mr. Grenville observes^[189], "of repeating to your Lordship my thanks, for the honour of your letter from the Brazils, and for the sensible and useful observations contained in it; which I immediately endeavoured to make the best use of in my power. I have since then received an account of your very obliging present of some wine, a sea-dog, and some birds from the Cape. The sea-dog was unluckily lost in the voyage home, by jumping overboard, and the birds I have not yet been able to get; but when I return to town, I shall apply to Mr. Walsh for his assistance. The wine is safely lodged in my cellars, and by the account of it, I make no doubt will prove excellent.

"Your Lordship will have heard long before this letter can reach your hands, of the change which the King has been advised to make in his administration, in consequence of which I have no longer the honour to be in his Majesty's service. You will certainly have received many comments upon this very sudden (and, from the situation of public affairs when it happened, very unexpected) alteration; but as I am too nearly concerned in this event to make them, I will only say, that I sincerely wish it may be productive of benefit to the King and to the kingdom, instead of being attended with that confusion and disorder which is generally expected, if the present system should continue, though that is thought not likely. For my own part, I can only say, that I am in the same opinions, and shall endeavour to promote the same plan for the public business out of office, which I did whilst I had the honour to hold one. In these sentiments, those who are now in his Majesty's service will probably not agree with me; but on the other hand, I have reason to hope for the approbation of those who have done me the honour to approve my conduct. I shall earnestly wish in every situation, to preserve the good opinion and kindness which my friends have so strongly expressed towards me upon the present occasion, and to cultivate the good will and friendship which your Lordship has shown to me. Our accounts here of the state in which you will find affairs in the East Indies are too uncertain for me to be able to make any pertinent observations upon them; I will, therefore, content myself with expressing to you my warmest and most hearty wishes, that you may be attended with the same success and honour to yourself, and the same benefit to the public, in your present command, as your former conduct in those countries so deservedly acquired."

Lord Clive had been flattered during his stay in England, by having a vote passed that his statue should be placed in the India House along with those of General Lawrence and Sir George Pocock. A medal^[190] had also been struck at the desire of the Society for Promoting Arts and Commerce, in commemoration of the victory of Plassey, and its great and important results. These honourable marks of regard and respect could not but be gratifying; and, combined as they were with the enjoyment of domestic^[191] happiness, and the society of friends to whom he was attached, they naturally rendered him very reluctant again to leave his native country. The bad health he had for the first twelvemonth after his return made him dread the effects of an English winter; but latterly he appears to have overcome that feeling, though we meet, in his letters, with occasional expressions of despondency, which indicate that depression of spirits consequent on the nervous attacks to which he continued to be subject.

Lord Clive purchased, as his town residence, the lease of the excellent and spacious house, which still belongs to his family, in Berkeley Square. He made several improvements on Styche; but the house and lands being on a limited scale for his fortune, he bought the estate of Walcot, and employed a celebrated architect^[192] to render the mansion suitable to the residence of his family. His kind attentions to his parents appear to have been greater than ever; and when on the eve of returning to India, though his agents' letters show that the purchases he had made and the stoppage of his jaghire had so embarrassed him, that he had no money at command, he generously gave a bond to each of his five sisters for 2,000l., in addition to the present to the same amount which he had before given them.

Lord Clive carried to India Mr. Strachey, and Captain Maskelyne, a brother to Lady Clive. He exerted his utmost efforts to forward the interests of her other brother, Mr. Nevil Maskelyne of Cambridge; and these efforts, supported as they were by the great science and high character of that gentleman, obtained for him the Regius professorship at Woolwich.^[193]

Mr. George Clive, who (as has been before stated) brought home a moderate fortune, improved it by marriage; and was too comfortably settled to return to India. Mr. Scrafton had become a Director; but his grave duties do not appear to have deprived him of his usual high spirits. In one letter, he warns Lord Clive, that he is now in a different relation to him, being "one of his honourable masters." In another, he gives a humorous account of some of their mutual acquaintances and friends.

"I add this letter," he observes, "to give you an account of that arch Tory Harry^[194], who, having shook off a load of gout at Mortlake, is come to town so pert, so envenomed with toryism, that he is quite unsufferable. He goes about boasting of your Lordship's conversion, abuses Mr. Pitt, impeaching his patriotism and honour, because a private gentleman has left him an estate which he swears he has no right to, and that the will should be set aside, for that the man who made it must have been non com.; trumps up the Duchess of Marlborough's legacy, the Hanover millstone, &c. &c.; swears Lord Bute is the only man of merit, and Tories the only true patriots. * * * * Young Walcot has married a parson's daughter sans un sol; and Walsh has married a country-house, that will run away with more money, and give him more plague, than half the wives in England. Poor Daddy King is half eat up with the gout; has just one hand left to play at cards, and the free use of his tongue, so that he has as much enjoyment of his faculties as if his whole body were at ease."

Lord Clive's friend Mr. Pigot returned to England before his Lordship left it: his fortune^[195] was reported to be very large; and through the influence it enabled him to establish, he attained first a baronetcy, and afterwards a peerage.

Mr. Orme had settled in England; and from his correspondence appears (at this time) to have been engaged in finishing the second part of his history. In a letter^[196] now before me, he complains of the obstructions which forms create to his examination of the records of the India House; while he expresses his hope of meeting more facility from the kind attentions of Lord Clive. Writing to that nobleman, he observes, "I have had permission to poke into the records of the India House, and have discovered excellent materials for the exordium of my second volume; but the difficulty of getting them away is immense, for every scrap of an extract that I desire is submitted to the consideration of the Court of Directors; so that in three months, and after making twenty-five journeys to the House, I have not got half what I want. All because they wo'n't lend me old books, of which not a soul in England suspected the existence until my rummages discovered them. I am afraid, my Lord, that these gentlemen suspect that I shall make a fortune by my book; and therefore think all the trouble and impediments I meet with to be what I have no reason to complain of, as it is in the way of trade.

"You, my Lord, have treated me differently; and pray continue to do so. Make me a vast map of Bengal, in which not only the outlines of the province, but also the different subdivisions of Burdwan, Beerboom, &c. may be justly marked. Get me a clear idea of the different offices and duties of Duan, Bukhshee, Cadgee, Cutwall, and all other great posts in the government. Take astronomical observations of longitude, if you have any body capable of doing it. I send you a skeleton of the Bengal map I intend for my second volume, and I will hereafter send you the first sheets of the book itself; which will contain matter entirely new, even to us East Indians; but that cruel India House, and my paper constitution, keep me back most terribly."

Among those he had left in India, Lord Clive regarded none with more sincere friendship than Major Carnac^[197]; and when he feared that that officer would resign the service from disgust at the treatment he had received, he wrote him in the most urgent manner, to take no such precipitate step. He informs him, in one letter^[198], that he had exerted himself to the utmost, and would continue to do so while he lived, to promote his views; and "if any accident happens to me," he adds, "I have left you an annuity of 300l. per annum."

Mr. Amyatt had established himself very high in the opinion of Lord Clive, with whom he maintained, for several years, a very intimate correspondence, to which frequent reference has been made. Lord Clive thought equally well of this gentleman's talent and integrity; and was deeply grieved at hearing of his death. He had, it is true, recommended Mr. Vansittart to be his successor, in preference to Mr. Amyatt; but the latter was quite satisfied that this was done from a conscientious conviction of Mr. Vansittart's superior competency to the station; and he knew that Lord Clive had endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to obtain for him the succession of the government of Bengal, which had been given to Mr. Spencer, a member of Council at Bombay, a gentleman whom Clive had recommended to be at the head of his own presidency, but against whose present nomination he remonstrated in the strongest manner, on the ground of his abilities and character (though respectable) not being such as to warrant the supersession of so many civil servants at Bengal, and particularly of Mr. Amyatt.

We have often had occasion to notice the intimate footing on which Clive had lived for many years with Mr. Vansittart, and the high opinion he entertained of his virtue and abilities. Though condemning the dethronement of Meer Jaffier, he ascribed the chief blame of that measure to Mr. Holwell, and believed that his friend Van. (as he termed him) had acted from necessity: but when Cossim Ali was left uncontrolled to pursue his own course, and the Governor, acting on the system of non-interference with the Nabob's authority, abandoned to his mercy the rich Hindus and others, who had long looked to the English for protection, Clive was unqualified in his condemnation of a policy which he deemed calculated to injure the reputation, and with it the strength, of the British Government. The opinions he gave on this subject were in direct opposition to those contained in the minutes and memorials published by Mr. Vansittart in defence of his conduct; and their wide difference on a subject of such importance led to their being of opposite parties in the India House.

Mr. Sulivan became the advocate of Mr. Vansittart, whose modesty, moderation, and great virtue he contrasted with the bold, grasping ambition of Lord Clive; and this circumstance, more than any other, tended to loosen those bonds by which the two friends had been so long united.

When persons are in the situation of Lord Clive and Mr. Vansittart, every trifle obtains importance, and serves to widen the breach. Lord Clive appears to have been, during the whole of his residence in England, very desirous to establish himself well at court. Among other attentions, he studied to gratify the curiosity of the King, by obtaining for him some of the most remarkable animals of the East. He wrote^[199] several times to Mr. Vansittart to aid him in this object. Some time after his application, Lord Clive received a letter from that gentleman, intimating that he had sent home two elephants^[200], a rhinoceros, and a Persian mare, which he requested his Lordship would, along with his brother, Mr. Arthur Vansittart, present to his Majesty.

When these animals reached England, Mr. A. Vansittart requested Lord Clive would accompany him to court, to present them. The following answer to this letter shows the first impression which this transaction made upon his Lordship's mind.

"Upon the receipt of your letter," Lord Clive observes, "enclosing a copy of a paragraph from your brother, I can plainly perceive, that Mr. Vansittart, declining to comply with the request I made him, of purchasing and sending home, on my account, an elephant, to be presented to his Majesty by me, has taken that hint to send one home on his own. This unkind treatment I neither deserved nor expected from Mr. Vansittart. I am persuaded his Majesty will not think I am wanting in that respect which is due to him, if I decline presenting, in another person's name, an elephant which I intended to present in my own. At the same time, I shall take care his Majesty be informed of the cause of my desiring to be excused attending you to his Majesty, with Mr. Vansittart's presents."

An explanation took place upon this subject; and it appears by a letter^[201] from Lord Clive to Mr. Vansittart in the following year, that some blame attached to the captain of the ship, who acted, according to Lord Clive's opinion, at the instigation of Mr. Sulivan. But it is a justice we owe to the memory of the latter gentleman to state, that Lord Clive was in such a frame of mind at the time he listened to this accusation, as readily to believe that every thing (whether public or private) which tended to annoy or injure him originated with or was aggravated by, his rival for supremacy at the India House.

Though several causes combined to interrupt that cordiality which had once subsisted between Lord Clive and Mr. Vansittart, no open rupture took place. The latter had left Calcutta before his successor arrived, and returned to his native country with a moderate fortune^[202], and a character for integrity that was never impeached, even by those who censured most severely the weakness and impolicy of many measures of his government.

Lord Clive, in the hurry of leaving England, forgot to include Mr. Call, the chief engineer at Madras (with Mr. Campbell^[203] and Mr. Preston), in his recommendation for a brevet commission as Colonel. He wrote^[204] from Rio Janeiro to the Chairman, Mr. Rous, entreating he would rectify his mistake, and prevent so excellent an officer being hurt by neglect. In the same letter he called his attention, in a very forcible manner, to the merits of Colonel Forde.

"If Caillaud," he observes, "should not go to the coast of Coromandel, pray do not forget Colonel Forde, who is a brave, meritorious, and honest officer. He was offered a jaghire by the Subah of the Deckan, but declined taking it upon terms contrary to the interest of the Company. Lord Clive, General Lawrence, and Colonel Coote, have received marks of the Directors' approbation and esteem; Colonel Forde has received none. The two captains who fought and took the Dutch ships in the Ganges received each a piece of plate; but Colonel Forde, the conqueror of Masulipatam, who rendered the Company a much greater service by the total defeat of all the Dutch land forces in Bengal, has not been distinguished by any mark of the Company's favour."

I here close the account of Clive's second visit to his native country, in which he resided more than three years. I have been minute in relating the events of this period. They had, both as they related to the friendships he formed and improved, and the hostility which his open and warm temper provoked, a serious influence upon his future career; and a knowledge of them is quite essential, both to the developement of his character, and to the understanding of the subsequent part of these volumes.