low the English name has fallen! I could not help paying the tribute of a few tears to the glory of the English nation, which is so irretrievably lost, I fear. However, I swear by the Great Being who sounds hearts and to whom we are all responsible, if there is anything after this life, I have come here, with a soul above all corruptions, determined to exterminate these terrible and ever-growing evils or to die hard." {323} It was with a resolute sincerity that Clive undertook and accomplished the difficult task with which he had been charged. In eighteen months he reformed all abuses and constructed a new administration on intelligent and sensible bases. Private commerce was denied to the agents of the company, whose salaries were at the same time increased. It was absolutely forbidden to receive any presents from natives. When the resistance of the Calcutta employés threatened for a time to nullify his plans, the inflexible governor announced that he would procure agents elsewhere, and he brought from Madras those whom he wanted. The most obstinate were left destitute; the others yielded. A military plot was discovered and baffled; the ringleaders were arrested, judged, and cashiered. Clive exhibited in regard to them a mingled kindness and severity. He was threatened with an attempt at assassination: he smiled disdainfully. "These officers," he said, "are Englishmen, not murderers." The sepoys remained faithful to him. The Hindoo princes who had recently sought to revolt asked for peace. The English power and the company's authority in Bengal were forever established when Lord Clive, exhausted by fatigue and sickness, departed for England in 1767. He had refused all the presents which had been offered to him, making a gift to the company, in favor of the invalid officers and soldiers of the army, of a considerable legacy which Meer Jaffier had left him. {324}