Robert Clive reaches for an unreliable pistol

It’s an irony that the world’s largest-ever empire owes so much to a weapon that failed to work rather than the countless ones used on its behalf that did. A recurring fault in a pistol owned by an obscure teenager not only helped kick-start the British Empire, it had a greater effect on the last 300 years of Indian history than any single event other than the birth of Mahatma Gandhi.

Robert Clive, a tearaway lad packed off to India by his father, was only 18 or 19 when he attempted to commit suicide. Bored, homesick and often falling foul of his employers, he was gripped with a terrible depression. One day, unable to abide it any longer, he took out his pistol, aimed it at his head and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. He steeled himself afresh, pressed the gun to his head and pulled the trigger again. Once more, the gun refused to fire. Seized with the notion that these two occurrences were a sign that the Fates had spared him – and that they would not have done so without reason – the young man put the gun away and resolved to achieve some great work with his life.

It is now believed by many historians that Clive suffered from bipolar disorder and that this attempt at suicide occurred at a time when his mental illness had thrown him into a deep depression. Certainly he had exhibited very chaotic behaviour up to that point and, as events 30 years later were to show, he remained susceptible to bouts of depression.

The future 1st Baron Clive of Plassey was born to Rebecca and Richard Clive at Styche Hall, near Market Drayton, Shropshire, on 29 September 1725. The family lived on a small estate that had been passed down the generations since it had been granted to them by Henry VII. Several members of the family had gone on to secure a name for themselves in public office, with Robert’s father serving as MP for Montgomeryshire. Robert himself was one of 13 children, only seven of whom survived past infancy, and at no point in his childhood did he show any signs whatsoever that he might replicate the minor glories of his forebears.

His parents, unable to afford the upkeep of Styche Hall and feed their many children, sent Robert away to Manchester at the age of three to be fostered by childless relatives. There he was so spoiled that when he returned to his parents six years later he was completely ungovernable. Indeed, it’s a wonder that he didn’t end up in prison. He progressed from bizarre anti-social behaviour such as climbing the tower of a local church to sit on a gargoyle and leer at anyone who passed by, to setting up and running a protection racket, terrorising the shopkeepers of Market Drayton into handing over money to his gang of teenage hoodlums. Along the way, he contrived to get himself expelled from three schools.

It’s not entirely surprising, therefore, that his father despaired of the young Robert. He secured his wayward son a job as a clerk with the East India Company and sent him off to India in March 1743. Robert had only been at this posting for a year or so when his attempted suicide took place.

Spurred by the belief that his life had been spared for a purpose, Robert wasted no time in putting himself in a situation where he might end the lives of others. He signed up for military service with the East India Company’s private army, received his commission as an ensign, and before long took part in various battles against the French, Britain’s arch-rival in the struggle for colonial supremacy in India. He soon gained a reputation for valour and by 1749 he was made captain of commissary. This put him in charge of the supply of provisions to British forces in India and he was not blind to the possibilities the position afforded him, quickly amassing a personal fortune. Clearly you can take the boy out of Market Drayton but you can’t take Market Drayton out of the boy.

Two years later, he volunteered his services to help relieve Trichinopoly where Mohammed Ali, Britain’s preferred choice for nawab (local ruler), was being besieged by the French choice, Chanda Sahib. With just 500 men, Clive captured the latter’s capital, Arcot, forcing Chanda Sahib to send 10,000 of his troops back from Trichinopoly to attempt to retake it. Clive held out for 50 days in Arcot until reinforcements arrived, then started a guerrilla campaign against the French forces and their allies. Trichinopoly was eventually relieved and Mohammed Ali was confirmed as nawab, his status eventually being recognised twelve years later in the Treaty of Paris of 1763. This effectively gave Britain (in the guise of the East India Company) control of southern India.

In 1753, Clive sailed back to Britain in triumph, fêted as a military hero whom future Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder would hail as a ‘heaven-born general’. His reputation and riches (an estimated £234,000) made him quite the eligible young man – he was still only 27 on his return. He married a woman named Margaret Maskelyne and began to restore Styche Hall to its former glories. Running out of money by 1755, he went back to India, now elevated to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and deputy governor of Fort St David. His actions over the following five years were to leave their mark on both India and Britain for the next two centuries.

His first move was to seize back Calcutta, which had been captured by the nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud Daula. The nawab’s soldiers had been responsible for the notorious Black Hole of Calcutta incident, in which 123 British troops died of heat stroke or suffocation in a vastly overcrowded cell. However, Clive’s greatest victory was yet to come.

In 1757, he persuaded Siraj ud Daula’s military commander, Mir Jafar, to switch allegiances – promising to make him nawab if he did so. On 23 June, after a couple of days of hesitation, Clive’s 3,000 troops – two-thirds of whom were sepoys – attacked Siraj ud Daula’s roughly 70,000-strong army, a force that was backed by French artillery. Mir Jafar duly betrayed his master, leading away a very large proportion of the nawab’s soldiers, and Clive’s humble outfit won the day, suffering fewer than 100 casualties. Mir Jafar was rewarded with the nawabship of Bengal. The Mughal emperor of India, Shah Alam, was forced to sign a document that handed over the task of collecting taxes in Bengal to the East India Company. Mir Jafar rewarded – or was coerced into rewarding – his English co-conspirator, filling Clive’s coffers to bursting point (when he returned to Britain in 1760 his fortune had grown to around £2.5m – worth £23m today). Britain, or the East India Company – the distinction was often blurred – had become the supreme power in India and had begun the process of sucking it dry of its wealth and resources, starting by emptying the contents of the treasury of Bengal into 100 boats and sailing off with it.

Clive went on to further successes, both in India and Britain, becoming governor of Bengal (twice), an Irish peer, a knight, a member of parliament for Shrewsbury and later its mayor, and the 1st Baron Clive of Plassey. He bade farewell to India for the final time in 1767.

His vast wealth and the morally ambiguous means – to say the least – by which he had acquired it led to him becoming embroiled in a protracted trial in Britain on corruption charges. He was eventually acquitted, but questions concerning his integrity were raised right up until the end of his life.

It may have been a combination of his physical and mental health problems that led to Clive’s death in 1774 at the age of 49. He suffered with stomach pains – for which he took opium in ever-larger doses – and appears to have been afflicted by the depression that had been his unwelcome companion for much of his adult life.

On 22 November 1774, his body was discovered at his Berkeley Square home in London. It is more than likely that he took his own life (though his family strongly denied it at the time). If that was the case, the suicide was hushed up, in part to avoid a scandal but also to allow a burial in consecrated ground. Robert Clive lies today in the churchyard of St Margaret’s at Moreton Say, Shropshire, his last resting place unmarked but for a plaque nearby that bears the legend Primus in Indis (‘First in India’).

We therefore cannot be absolutely certain about how Clive came to die – it is variously rumoured that he took an overdose; slit his throat with a paperknife; or shot himself, the Fates failing to intervene a second time. Had Clive’s first attempt been as successful, the course of British, Indian and French history would almost certainly have taken a very different turn. India might have avoided the wholesale pillaging of her wealth, the devastating famines caused by Clive’s agricultural policies, and the legacy he left: two centuries of the Raj. France might well have seen her own influence in India flourish rather than being unceremoniously snuffed out. And as for Clive’s influence on Britain, the former troubled tearaway is credited not only with securing India as a vassal state for the nation but also with providing the impetus for the creation of the British Empire. This in turn gave Britain the wherewithal to finance the Industrial Revolution and maintain its place as a major power into the 20th century.

According to historian William Dalrymple, Clive’s activities in India would also inadvertently furnish the English language with a new word. A Hindustani slang term was popularised in Britain in the late 18th century and lives on today: ‘loot’.