Excerpt
CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS
Towards the close of the year 1744 there landed at Madras, as writer in the service of the East India Company, a young Englishman just entering the twentieth year of his existence, named Robert Clive.
The earlier years of the life of this young man had not been promising. Born at Styche, near Market Drayton, in Shropshire, he had been sent, when three years old, to be cared for and educated at Manchester, by a gentleman who had married his mother's sister, Mr. Bayley of Hope Hall. The reason for this arrangement, at an age so tender, is not known. One seeks for it in vain in the conduct and character of his parents; for although his father is described as irascible and violent, his mother was remarkable for her good sense and sweet temper. To her, Clive was wont to say, he owed more than to all his schools. But he could have seen but little of her in those early days, for his home was always with the Bayleys, even after the death of Mr. Bayley, and he was ever treated there with kindness and consideration. After one or two severe illnesses, which, it is said, affected his constitution in after life, the young Robert, still of tender years, was sent to Dr. Eaton's private school at Lostocke in Cheshire: thence, at eleven, he was removed to Mr. Burslem's at Market Drayton. With this gentleman he remained a few years, and was then sent to have a brief experience of a public school at Merchant Taylors'. Finally, he went to study at a private school kept by Mr. Sterling in Hertfordshire. There he remained until, in 1743, he was nominated to be a writer in the service of the East India Company.
The chief characteristics of Robert Clive at his several schools had been boldness and insubordination. He would not learn; he belonged to a 'fighting caste'; he was the leader in all the broils and escapades of schoolboy life; the terror of the masters; the spoiled darling of his schoolmates. He learned, at all events, how to lead: for he was daring even to recklessness; never lost his head; was calmest when the danger was greatest; and displayed in a hundred ways his predilection for a career of action.
It is not surprising, then, that he showed the strongest aversion to devote himself to the study which would have qualified him to follow his father's profession. A seat at an attorney's desk, and the drudgery of an attorney's life, were to him as distasteful as they proved to be, at a later period, to the eldest son of Isaac Disraeli. He would have a career which promised action. If such were not open to him in his native land, he would seek for it in other parts of the world. When, then, his father, who had some interest, and who had but small belief in his eldest son, procured for him the appointment of writer in the service of the East India Company, Robert Clive accepted it with avidity.
Probably if he had had the smallest idea of the nature of the duties which were associated with that office, he would have refused it with scorn. He panted, I have said, for a life of action: he accepted a career which was drudgery under a tropical sun, in its most uninteresting form....