Robert Clive and the East India company

Posted in Famous battles, Historical articles, History, Trade, War on Monday, 30 May 2011

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This edited article about the East India company originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 953 published on 26 April 1980.

Plassey, picture, image, illustration

The Battle of Plassey, 1757, was Clive’s greatest victory. Picture by Severino Baraldi

The rich profits to be made from the muslins, silks and spices of the Orient first brought the English to the shores of India. On the last day of the year 1600, Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to an association of London merchants, giving them sole trading rights with the East.

Under the name of the English East India company the merchants dispatched ships carrying silver and gold for the purchase of Indian products. To store the goods obtained by trade, they built warehouses in towns and trading stations along the west coast of India. These English merchants were, however, comparatively new arrivals in the East: their presence was far from welcomed, either by the Portuguese, who had been trading there for over a century, or by the Dutch, who took advantage of every opportunity to harm the English newcomers. It soon became clear to the directors of the East India company that soldiers as well as warships would be needed to protect their growing commercial interests.

At first the company established very small garrisons, often consisting of no more than one officer and perhaps 30 men. In 1640 they did, however, take the wise precaution of beginning the construction of Fort St George at Madras. The troops needed to man its walls were recruited partly in Britain and partly from the European population in India: garrisons were often cosmopolitan, and included a number of Indian Christians of Portuguese descent who were known as topasses.

The physical and moral qualities of the men who were recruited often left a great deal to be desired. The men offering themselves for service in India frequently did so as a way of escaping from the workings of justice or to evade family or business responsibilities. The voyage to India gave a greater chance of concealment from pursuit than would service in the British Army and it even held out the possibility of building a new life under a false identity, with the chance of rich rewards.

The British Houses of Parliament found it difficult to accept that a company of merchants should be allowed to form its own private army and did all they could to hinder the work of the company’s recruiting officers. Finding sufficient men could therefore be a problem and anyone coming forward as a recruit was usually gladly accepted with no questions asked – whether he was from Newgate Prison, a lunatic asylum, or the gutter.

If the quality of the men seemed poor, that of the officers employed in the company’s army was at first little better. On the foundation of the company the directors had decided not to employ gentlemen, so they were forced to seek their officers from the poorer classes of society. The fact that the pay was extremely low did not help their search and they were forced to commission many unlikely characters – one officer came direct from a travelling circus, while others had been stewards and barbers.

Once in India the officers found that their duties during peacetime occupied only a small proportion of their duty hours and they filled in the remainder of the day as best they could – by interfering in the running of the company, carrying out their own unauthorised moneymaking schemes, or simply by getting drunk.

For the first century and a half of the company’s existence this motley collection of mercenaries and soldiers of fortune seemed adequate protection against the declining threat of the Dutch and Portuguese. The troops might be untrained in field manoeuvres, but they were, after all, only expected to man the ramparts and keep the population of the trading townships in order. But the peace of the European settlements was to be rudely shattered when the struggle between Britain and France in Europe was extended to India in the middle of the 18th century.

The French, under their energetic and ambitious governor Dupleix, seized upon the outbreak of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1740 as an opportunity to rid themselves of the English. The French had a considerable number of troops available since they had for many years used Indian recruits, known as sepoys, to swell their armies. In 1746 a French force of 1,500 Europeans and sepoys overcame the 200-man garrison of Fort St George and Madras was forced to surrender. British supremacy at sea prevented any further French successes and Madras was returned to the East India company at the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle – but it was obvious that the company’s position in India could only be secured by hard fighting.

The company began to search for better officers, amalgamated its garrison companies into regiments, and copied the French in training Indian sepoys to take their place in the battle line. In addition the British decided to play the French at their own game by seeking allies among the Indian princes. They were also fortunate in securing the services of Robert Clive.

Clive, the son of a Shropshire squire, had joined the company as a clerk but had soon developed a taste for soldiering and transferred to military duties. He proved to be a brilliant leader who understood how to use his sepoys to their best advantage; in a series of battles and sieges he repeatedly defeated the French and their Indian allies. His most famous victory of all, at Plassey in June, 1757, was also his last battle in India.

Clive’s successes against the French had so alarmed Siraj-ud-Daula, the nawab of Bengal, that he decided to defeat the British with his own army. Clive had already made a secret treaty of alliance with one of the nawab’s discontented generals, Mir Jafar, and he counted on the general’s troops to offset Siraj-ud-Daula’s superior numbers.

When Clive arrived at the appointed rendezvous he found no sign of Mir Jafar but he did discover an enemy army of 50,000 men supported by artillery and elephants, Clive’s force of 750 British troops and 2,500 sepoys had no choice but to fight.

The opening artillery cannonade was interrupted by a torrential rainstorm but the British gunners succeeded in keeping their powder dry and their steady fire deterred the Indian cavalry from charging. The opposing guns, useless with wet powder, fell silent and Clive’s small force began to advance, driving the enemy back into their camp. Siraj-ud-Daula fled for his life and his army broke up in a rout which stretched for nearly six miles.

The loss to Clive’s force was only 72 killed and wounded and the victory he gained was the first, vital step in establishing British dominion in India. The East India company was no longer only a collection of merchants trading for profit; it had become a power of the first order and for the next one hundred years its soldiers of fortune were to extend its influence over the whole sub-continent.

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