ROBERT CLIVE

The following is the research project submitted in complete fulfilment of the

course of History for obtaining the degree B.A., L.L.B. (Hons.) during the
academic session 2019-2020.

Submitted by

Dakshita Dubey

Roll No. - 2117

Submitted To

Dr PriyaDarshini

May, 2020

Chanakya National Law University,

Nyaya Nagar,

Mithapur,

Patna, 800001
 INDEX
Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION
Chapter 2 THE FIRST JOURNEY TO THE EAST
 FIRST CARNATIC WAR
 SECOND CARNATIC WAR
Chapter 3 THE SECOND JOURNEY TO THE EAST
 FALL AND RECAPTURE OF CALCUTTA
 WAR WITH SIRAJ-UD-DAULAH
- Battle of Plassey
Chapter 4 THE THIRD JOURNEY TO THE EAST
 THE MUGHAL FIRMAN
 ATTEMPTS AT ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM
Chapter 5 RETIREMENT AND DEATH
Chapter 6 CONCLUSION
Chapter 7 BIBLIOGRAPHY
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First of all I am very grateful to my subject teacher Dr PriyaDarshini without the kind
support of whom and help the completion of the project would have been a herculean task for
me. She took out time from her busy schedule to help me to complete this project and
suggested me from where and how to collect data.

I acknowledge my family and friends who gave their valuable and meticulous advice which
was very useful and could not be ignored in writing the project. I want to convey most
sincere thanks to my faculties for helping me throughout the project.

Thereafter, I would also like to express my gratitude towards our seniors who played a vital
role in the compilation of this research work.

I would also like to express my gratitude towards the library staff of my college which
assisted me in acquiring the sources necessary for the compilation of my project.

Last, but not the least, I would like to thank the Almighty for obvious reasons.

Dakshita Dubey
 DECLARATION
I hereby declare that the work reported in the BA LL. B (Hons.) Project Report entitled
“Robert Clive” submitted at Chanakya National Law University, Patna is an authentic record
of my work carried out under the supervision of Dr PriyaDarshini. I have not submitted this
work elsewhere for any other degree or diploma. I am fully responsible for the contents of
my Project Report.
 INTRODUCTION
Robert Clive was born at Styche, the Clive family estate, near Market Drayton in Shropshire,
on 29 September 1725 to Richard Clive and Rebecca (née Gaskell) Clive. The family had
held the small estate since the time of Henry VII. The family had a lengthy history of public
service: members of the family included an Irish chancellor of the exchequer under Henry
VIII, and a member of the Long Parliament. Robert's father, who supplemented the estate's
modest income as a lawyer, also served in Parliament for many years, representing
Montgomeryshire. Robert was their eldest son of thirteen children; he had seven sisters and
five brothers, six of whom died in infancy. When he was older, he and a gang of teenagers
established a protection racket that vandalised the shops of uncooperative merchants in
Market Drayton. Clive also exhibited fearlessness at an early age. He is reputed to have
climbed the tower of St Mary's Parish Church in Market Drayton and perched on a gargoyle,
frightening those down below.

Together with Warren Hastings he was one of the key early figures setting in motion what
would later become British India. Blocking impending French mastery of India, and eventual
British expulsion from the continent, Clive improvised a military expedition that ultimately
enabled the EIC to adopt the French strategy of indirect rule via puppet government. Hired
by the EIC to return a second time to India, Clive conspired to secure the Company's trade
interests by overthrowing the Ruler of Bengal, the richest state in India. Back in England, he
used his loot from India to secure an Irish barony, and a seat for himself in Parliament.

Robert Clive

THE FIRST JOURNEY TO THE EAST (1744-1753)

The land Clive arrived in was divided into a number of successor states to the Mughal
Empire. Over the forty years, since the death of the Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, the power
of the emperor had gradually fallen into the hands of his provincial viceroys or Subahdars.
The dominant rulers on the Coromandel Coast were the Nizam of Hyderabad, Asaf Jah I, and
the Nawab of the Carnatic, Anwaruddin Muhammed Khan. The nawab nominally owed
fealty to the nizam, but in many respects acted independently. Fort St. George and the French
trading post at Pondicherry were both located in the nawab's territory.

The relationship between the Europeans in the region was influenced by a series of wars and
treaties in Europe, and by commercial rivalries for trade on the subcontinent. Through the
17th and early 18th centuries, the French, Dutch, Portuguese, and British had vied for control
of various trading posts, and for trading rights and favour with local Indian rulers. The
European merchant companies raised bodies of troops to protect their commercial interests
and latterly to influence local politics to their advantage. Military power was rapidly
becoming as important as commercial acumen in securing India's valuable trade, and
increasingly it was used to appropriate territory and to collect land revenue.

FIRST CARNATIC WAR

In 1720 France effectively nationalized the French East India Company, and began using it to
expand its imperial interests. This became a source of conflict with the British in India with
the entry of Britain into the War of the Austrian Succession in 1744. The Indian theatre of
the conflict is also known as the First Carnatic War. Hostilities in India began with a British
naval attack on a French fleet in 1745, which led the French Governor-General Dupleix to
request additional forces. On 4 September 1746, Madras was attacked by French forces led
by La Bourdonnais. After several days of bombardment, the British surrendered and the
French entered the city. The British leadership was taken prisoner and sent to Pondicherry. It
was originally agreed that the town would be restored to the British after negotiation but this
was opposed by Dupleix, who sought to annex Madras to French holdings. The remaining
British residents were asked to take an oath promising not to take up arms against the French;
Clive and a handful of others refused, and were kept under weak guard as the French
prepared to destroy the fort. Disguising themselves as natives, Clive and three others eluded
their inattentive sentry, slipped out of the fort, and made their way to Fort St. David (the
British post at Cuddalore), some 50 miles (80 km) to the south. Upon his arrival, Clive
decided to enlist in the Company army rather than remain idle; in the hierarchy of the
Company, this was seen as a step down. Clive was, however, recognized for his contribution
in the defence of Fort St. David, where the French assault on 11 March 1747 was repulsed
with the assistance of the Nawab of the Carnatic, and was given a commission as ensign.

In the conflict, Clive's bravery came to the attention of Major Stringer Lawrence, who
arrived in 1748 to take command of the British troops at Fort St. David. During the 1748
Siege of Pondicherry Clive distinguished himself in successfully defending a trench against a
French sortie: one witness of the action wrote Clive's "platoon, animated by his exhortation,
fired again with new courage and great vivacity upon the enemy." The siege was lifted in
October 1748 with the arrival of the monsoons, but the war came to a conclusion with the
arrival in December of news of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Madras was returned to the
British as part of the peace agreement in early 1749.

SECOND CARNATIC WAR

The death of Asaf Jah I, the Nizam of Hyderabad, in 1748 sparked a struggle to succeed him
that is known as the Second Carnatic War, which was also furthered by the expansionist
interests of French Governor-General Dupleix. Dupleix had grasped from the first war that
small numbers of disciplined European forces (and well-trained sepoys) could be used to tip
balances of power between competing interests, and used this idea to greatly expand French
influence in southern India. For many years he had been working to negotiate the release of
Chanda Sahib, a longtime French ally who had at one time occupied the throne of Tanjore,
and sought for himself the throne of the Carnatic. Chanda Sahib had been imprisoned by the
Marathas in 1740; by 1748 he had been released from custody and was building an army at
Satara.
Upon the death of Asaf Jah I, his son, Nasir Jung, seized the throne of Hyderabad, although
Asaf Jah had designated as his successor his grandson, Muzaffar Jung. The grandson, who
was ruler of Bijapur, fled west to join Chanda Sahib, whose army was also reinforced by
French troops sent by Dupleix. These forces met those of Anwaruddin Mohammed Khan in
the Battle of Ambur in August 1749; Anwaruddin was slain, and Chanda Sahib victorious
entered the Carnatic capital, Arcot. Anwaruddin's son, Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah, fled
to Trichinopoly where he sought the protection and assistance of the British. In thanks for
French assistance, the victors awarded them a number of villages, including territory
nominally under British sway near Cuddalore and Madras. The British began sending
additional arms to Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah and sought to bring Nasir Jung into the
fray to oppose Chanda Sahib. Nasir Jung came south to Gingee in 1750, where he requested
and received a detachment of British troops. Chanda Sahib's forces advanced to meet them,
but retreated after a brief long-range cannonade. Nasir Jung pursued, and was able to capture
Arcot and his nephew, Muzaffar Jung. Following a series of fruitless negotiations and
intrigues, Nasir Jung was assassinated by a rebellious soldier. This made Muzaffar Jung
nizam and confirmed Chanda Sahib as Nawab of the Carnatic, both with French support.
Dupleix was rewarded for French assistance with titled nobility and rule of the nizam's
territories south of the Kistna River. His territories were "said to yield an annual revenue of
over 350,000 rupees".

Robert Clive was not in southern India for many of these events. In 1750 Clive was afflicted
with some sort of nervous disorder, and was sent north to Bengal to recuperate. It was there
that he met and befriended Robert Orme, who became his principal chronicler and
biographer. He returned to Madras in 1751.

SECOND JOURNEY TO INDIA (1755-1760)

In July 1755, Clive returned to India to act as deputy governor of Fort St. David at
Cuddalore. He arrived after having lost a considerable fortune en route, as the Doddington,
the lead ship of his convoy, was wrecked near Port Elizabeth, losing a chest of gold coins
belonging to Clive worth £33000. Nearly 250 years later in 1998, illegally salvaged coins
from Clive’s treasure chest were offered for sale, and in 2002 a portion of the coins were
given to the South African government after protracted legal wrangling.

Clive, now promoted to lieutenant-colonel in the British Army, took part in the capture of the
fortress of Gheriah, a stronghold of the Maratha Admiral Tuloji Angre. The action was led by
Admiral James Watson and the British had several ships available, some Royal troops and
some Maratha allies. The overwhelming strength of the joint British and Maratha forces
ensured that the battle was won with few losses. A fleet surgeon, Edward Ives, noted that
Clive refused to take any part of the treasure divided among the victorious forces as was
custom at the time.

FALL AND RECAPTURE OF CALCUTTA (1756–57)

Following this action Clive headed to his post at Fort St. David and it was there he received
news of twin disasters for the British. Early in 1756, Siraj Ud Daulah had succeeded his
grandfather Alivardi Khan as Nawab of Bengal. In June, Clive received news that the new
Nawab had attacked the British at Kasimbazar and shortly afterwards on 20 June he had
taken the fort at Calcutta. The losses to the Company because of the fall of Calcutta were
estimated by investors at £2,000,000. Those British who were captured were placed in a
punishment cell which became infamous as the Black Hole of Calcutta. In stifling summer
heat, it was alleged that 123 of the 146 prisoners died as a result of suffocation or heat stroke.
While the Black Hole became infamous in Britain, it is debatable whether the Nawab was
aware of the incident.

By Christmas 1756, as no response had been received to diplomatic letters to the Nawab,
Admiral Charles Watson and Clive were dispatched to attack the Nawab's army and remove
him from Calcutta by force. Their first target was the fortress of Baj-Baj which Clive
approached by land while Admiral Watson bombarded it from the sea. The fortress was
quickly taken with minimal British casualties. Shortly afterwards, on 2 January 1757,
Calcutta itself was taken with similar ease.

Approximately a month later, on 3 February 1757, Clive encountered the army of the Nawab
itself. For two days, the army marched past Clive's camp to take up a position east of
Calcutta. Sir Eyre Coote, serving in the British forces, estimated the enemy's strength as
40,000 cavalry, 60,000 infantry and thirty cannons. Even allowing for overestimation this
was considerably more than Clive's force of approximately 540 British infantry, 600 Royal
Navy sailors, 800 local sepoys, fourteen field guns and no cavalry. The British forces
attacked the Nawab's camp during the early morning hours of 5 February 1757. In this battle,
unofficially called the 'Calcutta Gauntlet', Clive marched his small force through the entire
Nawab's camp, despite being under heavy fire from all sides. By noon, Clive's force broke
through the besieging camp and arrived safely at Fort William. During the assault, around
one tenth of the British attackers became casualties. (Clive reported his losses at 57 killed
and 137 wounded.) While technically not a victory in military terms, the sudden British
assault intimidated the Nawab. He sought to make terms with Clive, and surrendered control
of Calcutta on 9 February, promising to compensate the East India Company for damages
suffered and to restore its privileges.
 (Clive's solitary reflection before the Battle of Plassey)

WAR WITH SIRAJ UD DAULAH

As Britain and France were once more at war, Clive sent the fleet up the river against the
French colony of Chandannagar, while he besieged it by land. There was a strong incentive
to capture the colony, as capture of a previous French settlement near Pondicherry had
yielded the combined forces prizes valued at £130,000. After consenting to the siege, the
Nawab unsuccessfully sought to assist the French. Some officials of the Nawab's court
formed a confederacy to depose him. Jafar Ali Khan, also known as Mir Jafar, the Nawab's
commander-in-chief, led the conspirators. With Admiral Watson, Governor Drake and Mr.
Watts, Clive made a gentlemen's agreement in which it was agreed to give the office of
viceroy of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha to Mir Jafar, who was to pay £1,000,000 to the
Company for its losses in Calcutta and the cost of its troops, half a million to the British
inhabitants of Calcutta, £200,000 to the native inhabitants, and £70,000 to its Armenian
merchants.
Clive employed Umichand, a rich Bengali trader, as an agent between Mir Jafar and the
British officials. Umichand threatened to betray Clive unless he was guaranteed, in the
agreement itself, £300,000. To dupe him a second fictitious agreement was shown to him
with a clause to this effect. Admiral Watson refused to sign it. Clive deposed later to the
House of Commons that, "to the best of his remembrance, he gave the gentleman who carried
it leave to sign his name upon it; his lordship never made any secret of it; he thinks it
warrantable in such a case, and would do it again a hundred times; he had no interested
motive in doing it, and did it with a design of disappointing the expectations of a rapacious
man." It is nevertheless cited as an example of Clive's unscrupulousness.

(Plassey Battery Royal Artillery" of the British Military)

BATTLE OF PLASSEY (1757)

The whole hot season of 1757 was spent in negotiations with the Nawab of Bengal. In the
middle of June Clive began his march from Chandannagar, with the British in boats and the
sepoys along the right bank of the Hooghly River. During the rainy season, the Hooghly is
fed by the overflow of the Ganges to the north through three streams, which in the hot
months are nearly dry. On the left bank of the Bhagirathi, the most westerly of these, 100
miles (160 km) above Chandernagore, stands Murshidabad, the capital of the Mughal
viceroys of Bengal. Some miles farther down is the field of Plassey, then an extensive grove
of mango trees.
On 21 June 1757, Clive arrived on the bank opposite Plassey, in the midst of the first
outburst of monsoon rain. His whole army amounted to 1,100 Europeans and 2,100 sepoy
troops, with nine field-pieces. The Nawab had drawn up 18,000 horse, 50,000-foot and 53
pieces of heavy ordnance, served by French artillerymen. For once in his career Clive
hesitated, and called a council of sixteen officers to decide, as he put it, "whether in our
present situation, without assistance, and on our own bottom, it would be prudent to attack
the Nawab, or whether we should wait till joined by some country (Indian) power." Clive
himself headed the nine who voted for delay; Major Eyre Coote led the seven who
counselled immediate attack. But either because his daring asserted itself, or because of a
letter received from Mir Jafar, Clive was the first to change his mind and to communicate
with Major Eyre Coote. One tradition, followed by Macaulay, represents him as spending an
hour in thought under the shade of some trees, while he resolved the issues of what was to
prove one of the decisive battles of the world. Another, turned into verse by Sir Alfred Lyall,
pictures his resolution as the result of a dream. However, that may be, he did well as a soldier
to trust to the dash and even rashness that had gained Arcot and triumphed at Calcutta since
retreat, or even delay, might have resulted in defeat.

After heavy rain, Clive's 3,200 men and the nine guns crossed the river and took possession
of the grove and its tanks of water, while Clive established his headquarters in a hunting
lodge. On 23 June, the engagement took place and lasted the whole day, during which
remarkably little actual fighting took place. Gunpowder for the cannons of the Nawab were
not well protected from rain. That impaired those cannons. Except for the 40 Frenchmen and
the guns they worked, the Indian side could do little to reply to the British cannonade (after a
spell of rain), which, with the 39th Regiment, scattered the host, inflicting on it a loss of 500
men. Clive had already made a secret agreement with aristocrats in Bengal, including Jagat
Seth and Mir Jafar. Clive restrained Major Kilpatrick, for he trusted to Mir Jafar's abstinence,
if not desertion to his ranks, and knew the importance of sparing his own small force. He was
fully justified in his confidence in Mir Jafar's treachery to his master, for he led a large
portion of the Nawab's army away from the battlefield, ensuring his defeat.

Clive lost hardly any European troops; in all 22 sepoys were killed and 50 wounded. It is
curious in many ways that Clive is now best-remembered for this battle, which was
essentially won by suborning the opposition rather than through fighting or brilliant military
tactics. Whilst it established British military supremacy in Bengal, it did not secure the East
India Company's control over Upper India, as is sometimes claimed. That would come only
seven years later in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar, where Sir Hector Munro defeated the
combined forces of the Mughal Emperor and the Nawab of Awadh in a much more closely
fought encounter.

Siraj Ud Daulah fled from the field on a camel, securing what wealth he could. He was soon
captured by Mir Jafar's forces and later executed by the assassin Mohammadi Beg. Clive
entered Murshidabad and established Mir Jafar as Nawab, the price which had been agreed
beforehand for his treachery. Clive was taken through the treasury, amid a million and a half
sterling's worth of rupees, gold and silver plate, jewels and rich goods, and besought to ask
what he would. Clive took £160,000, a vast fortune for the day, while half a million was
distributed among the army and navy of the East India Company, and provided gifts of
£24,000 to each member of the company's committee, as well as the public compensation
stipulated for in the treaty.

In this extraction of wealth Clive followed a usage fully recognized by the company,
although this was the source of future corruption which Clive was later sent to India again to
correct. The company itself acquired revenue of £100,000 a year, and a contribution towards
its losses and military expenditure of a million and a half sterling. Mir Jafar further
discharged his debt to Clive by afterwards presenting him with the quit-rent of the company's
lands in and around Calcutta, amounting to an annuity of £27,000 for life, and leaving him by
will the sum of £70,000, which Clive devoted to the army.
 (Plassey Monument in the battlefield)

THIRD JOURNEY TO INDIA (1765-1767)

(Clive meeting with Emperor Shah Alam II, 1765)

On 3 May 1765 Clive landed at Calcutta to learn that Mir Jafar had died, leaving him
personally £70,000. Mir Jafar was succeeded by his son-in-law Kasim Ali, though not before
the government had been further demoralized by taking £100,000 as a gift from the new
Nawab; while Kasim Ali had induced not only the viceroy of Awadh, but the emperor of
Delhi himself, to invade Bihar. At this point a mutiny in the Bengal army occurred, which
was a grim precursor of the Indian rebellion of 1857, but on this occasion, it was quickly
suppressed by blowing the sepoy ringleader from a gun. Major Munro, "the Napier of those
times", scattered the united armies on the hard-fought field of Buxar. The emperor, Shah
Alam II, detached himself from the league, while the Awadh viceroy threw himself on the
mercy of the British.

MUGHAL FIRMAN
In return for the Awadhian provinces Clive secured from the emperor one of the most
important documents in British history in India, effectively granting title of Bengal to Clive.
It appears in the records as "firman from the King Shah Aalum, granting the diwani rights of
Bengal, Bihar and Odisha to the Company 1765." The date was 12 August 1765, the place
Benares, the throne an English dining-table covered with embroidered cloth and surmounted
by a chair in Clive's tent. It is all pictured by a Muslim contemporary, who indignantly
exclaims that so great a "transaction was done and finished in less time than would have been
taken up in the sale of a jackass". By this deed the company became the real sovereign rulers
of thirty million people, yielding a revenue of four million sterling.

On the same date Clive obtained not only an imperial charter for the company's possessions
in the Carnatic, completing the work he began at Arcot, but a third firman for the highest of
all the lieutenancies of the empire, that of the Deccan itself. This fact is mentioned in a letter
from the secret committee of the court of directors to the Madras government, dated 27 April
1768. The British presence in India was still tiny compared to the number and strength of the
princes and people of India, but also compared to the forces of their ambitious French, Dutch
and Danish rivals. Clive had this in mind when he penned his last advice to the directors, as
he finally left India in 1767:

"We are sensible that, since the acquisition of the dewany, the power formerly belonging to
the soubah of those provinces is totally, in fact, vested in the East India Company. Nothing
remains to him but the name and shadow of authority. This name, however, this shadow, it is
indispensably necessary we should seem to venerate."

ATTEMPTS AT ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM

Having thus founded the Empire of British India, Clive sought to put in place a strong
administration. The salaries of civil servants were increased, the acceptance of gifts from
Indians was forbidden, and Clive exacted covenants under which participation in the inland
trade was stopped. Unfortunately, this had very little impact in reducing corruption, which
remained widespread until the days of Warren Hastings. Clive's military reforms were more
effective. He put down a mutiny of the British officers, who chose to resent the veto against
receiving presents and the reduction of batta (extra pay) at a time when two Maratha armies
were marching on Bengal. His reorganisation of the army, on the lines of that which he had
begun after Plassey, neglected during his absence in Great Britain, subsequently attracted the
admiration of Indian officers. He divided the whole army into three brigades, making each a
complete force, in itself equal to any single Indian army that could be brought against it.

RETIREMENT AND DEATH

Clive left India for the last time in February 1767. In 1768, he lived for a time at the Chateau
de Larzac in Pézenas in the Hérault département of the Languedoc-Roussillon region in
southern France. Local tradition says that he was responsible for introducing the local pastry
makers of Pézenas to a sweet pastry, Le petit pâté de Pézenas, the size and shape of a large
cotton reel with a sweet centre, and that he (or, more likely, his chef) had brought the recipe
from India as a refined version of the savoury keema naan.[49] Pézenas is now known for
these delicacies.

Plaque in memory of Lord Clive in Pézenas (France)

Later in 1768, Clive was made a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and in the same year
served as treasurer of the Salop Infirmary in Shrewsbury.

In 1769, he acquired the house and gardens at Claremont near Esher and commissioned
Lancelot "Capability" Brown to remodel the garden and rebuild the house.

In 1772 Parliament opened an inquiry into the Company's practices in India. Clive's political
opponents turned these hearings into attacks on Clive. Questioned about some of the large
sums of money he had received while in India, Clive pointed out that they were not contrary
to accepted company practice, and defended his behaviour by stating "I stand astonished at
my own moderation" given opportunities for greater gain. The hearings highlighted the need
for reform of the Company, and a vote to censure Clive for his actions failed. Later in 1772,
Clive was invested Knight of the Bath (eight years after his knighthood had been awarded),
and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire.

There was a great famine in Bengal between 1769 and 1773, which reduced the population of
Bengal by a third. It was argued that the activities and aggrandizement of company officials
was to blame for the famine, particularly the abuse of monopoly rights on trade and land tax
used for the personal benefit of company officials. These revelations and the subsequent
debates in parliament reduced Clive's political fortunes considerably.

Clive continued to be involved in ongoing Parliamentary discussions on company reforms.

During these, in 1773, General John Burgoyne, one of Clive's most vocal enemies, pressed
the case that some of Clive's gains were made at the expense of the Company and the
government. Clive again made a spirited defence of his actions, and closed his testimony by
stating "Take my fortune, but save my honour." The vote that followed completely
exonerated Clive, who was commended for the "great and meritorious service" he rendered
to the country. Immediately thereafter Parliament began debating the Regulating Act of
1773, which significantly reformed the East India Company's practices.

On 22 November 1774 Clive died, aged forty-nine, at his Berkeley Square home in London.
There was no inquest on his death and it was variously alleged he had stabbed himself or cut
his throat with a penknife or had taken an overdose of opium, while a few newspapers
reported his death as due to an apoplectic fit or stroke. One 20th-century biographer, John
Watney, concluded: "He did not die from a self-inflicted wound...He died of a heart attack
brought on by an overdose of drugs". While Clive left no suicide note, Samuel Johnson wrote
about his motives, Clive, he wrote "had acquired his fortune by such crimes that his
consciousness of them impelled him to cut his own throat". Though Clive's demise has been
linked to his history of depression and to opium addiction, the likely immediate impetus was
excruciating pain resulting from illness (he was known to suffer from gallstones) which he
had been attempting to abate with opium. Shortly beforehand, he had been offered command
of British forces in North America which he had turned down. He was buried in St
Margaret's Parish Church at Moreton Say, near his birthplace in Shropshire.

Clive was awarded an Irish peerage in 1762, being created Baron Clive of Plassey, County
Clare; he bought lands in County Limerick and County Clare, Ireland, naming part of his
lands near Limerick City, Plassey. Following Irish independence, these lands became state
property. In the 1970s a technical college, which later became the University of Limerick,
was built at Plassey.
 CONCLUSION

Robert Clive, (29 September 1725 – 22 November 1774), was the first British Governor of
the Bengal Presidency. He began as a British military officer and East India Company (EIC)
official who established the military and political supremacy of the EIC by seizing control of
Bengal and eventually the whole of the Indian subcontinent and Myanmar - and briefly
Afghanistan. He is credited with seizing control of a large swathe of India (now Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) and parts of Southeast Asia and
the wealth that followed, for the Company, in the process turning himself into a multi-
millionaire.

Clive was one of the most controversial figures in all British military history. His
achievements included establishing control over much of India, and laying the foundation of
the entire British Raj, though he worked only as an agent of the East India Company, not the
British government. For his methods and his self-aggrandisement, he was vilified by his
contemporaries in Britain, and put on trial before Parliament. Of special concern was that he
amassed a personal fortune in India. Modern historians have criticised him for atrocities, for
high taxes, and for the forced cultivation of crops which exacerbated famines.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

WEBSITES:
1) en.wikipedia.org

2) www.brittanica.com

3) i-scholar.org

BOOKS:

1) Clive: The Life and Death of a British Emperor by Robert Harvey

2) Lord Clive by George Bruce Mallison