d Members of
Parliament.

His return produced a renewal of the activity of his enemies. They
filled London with stories of his rapacity. Sir Robert Fletcher,
whose shameful conduct during the mutiny of the officers I have
recorded, wrote against him a pamphlet which irritated him greatly.
He was hardly to be prevented from answering it. There were other
considerations which, at this time, affected his career. When the
general election at which he and his friends were returned had taken
place, the Ministry was presided over by the Duke of Grafton, Lord
Chatham being Lord Privy Seal and Lord North Chancellor of the
Exchequer. At the end of 1769 Chatham was forced by the state of his
health, which had long been bad, to resign; and in the January of the
year following, the Duke of Grafton resigned and was succeeded as
First Lord of the Treasury {198}by Lord North. Clive had not posed as
a supporter of either of these administrations. He had declared
himself to be a supporter of George Grenville, the head of the
Grenville Whigs, who were then in opposition. It has been claimed[2]
for him that Clive declined to commit himself to any party of the
Indian policy of which he was ignorant. But none of the members of
Lord North's Cabinet knew anything of India, and if Clive, commanding
seven votes, had been asked to join it, he might have educated his
colleagues on the subject. An opportunity of following such a course
seemed to occur when Mr. Wedderburn, an able lawyer and a personal
ally of Clive, joined the North Ministry, but Clive remained staunch
to the Grenville connexion, exercising but little influence, and
exposed all the time to the bitter shafts of his enemies, which
increased every day in intensity and venom. To make the situation
still less endurable George Grenville died (November, 1770).

[Footnote 2: Malcolm's _Clive_.]

Meanwhile affairs in India were not progressing satisfactorily. In
Bengal, indeed, Mr. Verelst, acting on the lines laid down by Clive,
had with the support of his colleagues succeeded in maintaining peace
and prosperity. But in Madras, the incursions of Haidar Ali, an
adventurer who by sheer ability and daring had climbed to the highest
place in the kingdom of Mysore, had caused the English in that
Presidency severe losses, and forced them to incur an expenditure
which deprived the Proprietors of Indian {199}Stock of all chance of
dividends for some time to come. To meet this financial embarra