brilliant presents offered him by the
native princes, and when Meer Jaffier left him a legacy of sixty
thousand pounds, he made the whole over to the Company, in trust, for
the officers and soldiers invalided in their service.

At the close of January, 1767, the state of his health compelled Lord
Clive to return to England. His reception at home was far from being
gratifying; his old enemies in the India House, reinforced by those
whose rapacity he had checked in Bengal, assailed him publicly and
privately; the prejudices excited against those who had suddenly made
large fortunes in India, were concentrated against him who was the
highest, both in rank and fortune; while his ostentatious display of
wealth and grandeur increased the unfavorable impression on the public
mind. The dreadful famine which desolated Bengal in 1770, was, with
strange perversity, attributed to Lord Clive's measures, and his
parliamentary influence was greatly weakened by the death of George
Grenville. Such was his position in the session of 1772, when the
state of India was brought before Parliament, and all the evils of its
condition made subjects of charge against the best of its rulers.
Clive met the storm with firmness. Lord Chatham declared that the
speech in which he vindicated himself at an early stage of the
proceedings was one of the finest ever delivered in the House of
Commons; his answers, when subjected to a rigid examination before a
committee of inquiry, were equally remarkable for their boldness and
candor. But there were some of his deeds which could not be justified,
and a vote of moderate censure on his conduct was sanctioned by the
House of Commons. This was a disgrace, for which the favor of his
sovereign, though it never varied, afforded him no consolation; his
constitution, already weakened by a tropical climate, began to give
way; to soothe the pains of mind and body he had recourse to the
treacherous aid of opium, which only aggravated both; at length, on
November 22, 1774, he died by his own hand.

That Clive committed many faults cannot be denied; and it is not
sufficient excuse to say that they were necessary to the founding of
the British empire in India. But his second administration, the
reforms he introduced into the government, and the system of wise
policy which he established, may well atone for his errors; indeed, it
has done so in India, where the natives not only respect his memory as
a conqueror, but vene