The passing of these Acts was marked by attacks on Lord Clive. Burgoyne brought up a strong report from his Committee, and, on the 17th of May, moved a resolution charging Clive with having, when in command of the army in Bengal, received as presents two hundred and thirty-four thousand pounds. This was carried; but he then followed it by another, "That Lord Clive did, in so doing, abuse the power with which he was entrusted, to the evil example of the servants of the public." As it was well understood that Burgoyne's resolutions altogether went to strip Clive of the whole of his property, a great stand was here made. Clive was not friendless. He had his vast wealth to win over to him some, as it inflamed the envy of others. He had taken care to spend a large sum in purchasing small boroughs, and had six or seven of his friends and kinsmen sitting for these places in Parliament. He had need of all his friends. Throughout the whole of this inquiry the most persistent and envenomed attacks were made upon him. He was repeatedly questioned and cross-questioned, till he exclaimed, "I, your humble servant, the Baron of Plassey, have been examined by the select Committee more like a sheep-stealer than a member of Parliament." Then the House thought he had suffered enough, for nothing was clearer than that justice required the country which was in possession of the splendid empire he had won to acknowledge his services, whilst it noted the means of this acquisition. Burgoyne's second resolution was rejected, and another proposed by Wedderburn, the Solicitor-General, adopted, "That Robert, Lord Clive, did, at the same time, render great and meritorious services to this country." This terminated the attack on this gifted though faulty man. His enemies made him pay the full penalty of his wealth. They had struck him to the heart with their poisoned javelins. From a boy he had been subject to fits of hypochondriacal depression; as a boy, he had attempted his own life in one of these paroxysms. They now came upon him with tenfold force, and in a few months he died by his own hand (November 22, 1774).
ONE:The complaints of agricultural distress prevalent in England, with the sudden reaction from war prices at the establishment of peace, had become so loud and general this year that Parliament undertook to find a remedy. An agricultural committee had been appointed to inquire into the subject, and had produced a report which was far from satisfactory. On the 29th of April the House of Commons resolved itself into a committee to consider the report. Three different schemes were proposed for the relief of the farmers and landlordsthe first by the Marquis of Londonderry, the second by Mr. Ricardo, and the third by Mr. Huskisson. There was no scarcity of produce in England; on the contrary, it was very abundant, and the evil that oppressed the farmers was excessive cheapness, by which they were disabled from paying the high rents and heavy taxation entailed by the war. Some of the remedies proposed were sufficiently radical in their character. The most natural was the reduction of taxation by means of retrenchment in the public expenditure. Some proposed that the tithes should be alienated from the Church, and used for the purpose of reducing the national burdens. The largest party insisted upon the reduction of the interest of the National Debt, which was defended as an equitable measure on the ground of the increased value of the currency since the passing of Peel's Bill for the resumption of cash payments. The plan of relief proposed by Lord Londonderry consisted of the repeal of the annual malt tax, and the loan of a million by Exchequer Bills to the landed interest upon the security of warehoused corn.News of this most extraordinary defeat acted on the French, on all sides, like the concussion of some violent explosion. They fell back and fled in confusion before any enemy appeared. General Clausel, who was advancing from Logro?o with fifteen thousand men, fled back to Saragossa with such precipitation, and thence through the central Pyrenees into France, that he left all his artillery and most of his baggage on the road. The same was the case with General Foy, who fled from Bilbao to Bayonne in hot haste, with General Graham at his heels. Except at San Sebastian and Pampeluna, where the garrisons were soon besieged, the French were scarcely to be found in Spain, except those with Suchet in the south-east.
THREE:The year 1773 opened with an inquiry in Parliament into the abuses of the administration of affairs in India. There were great complaints of the wholesale rapacity and oppression perpetrated on the natives by the Company's servants. Before the close of the preceding year, a secret committee had been appointed to inquire into these abuses, and to take the matter out of the hands of Government, the Company proposed to appoint a number of supervisors to go out to India and settle the causes of complaint. The secret committee proposed a Bill to prevent this, as a scheme for merely evading a thorough inquiry and continuing the atrocities. Burke, who was a holder of India stock, defended the Company, and declared that such a Bill would annihilate the Company, and make the House of Commons the Company itself and the Speaker its chairman. He reminded them that the Company paid to Government four hundred thousand pounds a year, and that Government had connived at the maladministration which had been carried on. This certainly was, so far from a reason against the Bill, a reason why they should connive no longer; and the Bill was carried by a large majority.George Grenville succeeded to both Bute and Dashwood, becoming first Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the king announced that he had intrusted the direction of affairs to him, and the Lords Egremont and Halifax, the Secretaries of State, whence they soon acquired the name of "The Triumvirate." The Duke of Bedford quitted his post as ambassador at Paris, and was succeeded by the Earl of Hertford. The Earl of Sandwich became head of the Admiralty, and the Earl of Shelburne head of the Board of Trade. Old Marshal Ligonier was removed from the post of Master of the Ordnance to make way for the Marquis of Granby, but received a peerage. These changes being completed, the king closed the Session of Parliament on the 19th of April, with a speech, in which he declared the peace honourable to his Crown, and beneficial to his people.
From skirmishing at sea the British had now come to direct war with the people of North America. From the period of the American colonists obtaining their independence of Great Britain, they retained a peculiar animus against the mother country. In the war by which that independence was achieved by the aid of France, Holland, and Spain, which all combined to attack Britain on sea and land, the Americans displayed no traces of the magnanimity that usually accompanies bravery. They resorted to many dishonourable practices, amongst which was the breach of contract in retaining prisoners from the army of General Burgoyne. The same spirit continued to animate them afterwards. It was natural to suppose that their success would have the usual effect of making them forget enmity when the cause of it was gone by; but this was not the case. In all contests of Great Britain with revolutionary France, they rejoiced over any disasters which befel her, and were silent in the hour of her victories. Though they were bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, and our population was pouring over to swell their numbers, they displayed towards us a hostility that no other nation, France excepted, had ever shown.[328]INTERIOR OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN 1742.THE FLIGHT OF LAWLESS. (See p. 283.)[219]
