"The character of Lord Clive is associated with the rise of our power in India, and in that view merits much of our attention. Whether we consider his military or political career; the knowledge he displayed of the natives of India, their institutions and government; his efforts to introduce order and principle into what was shapeless and without system; the promptness and courage with which he quelled a mutinous and insubordinate spirit in the military and civil officers of government; his use of victory, the efforts he made and recommended to consolidate the strength, and to improve the administration of our empire in the East; we are equally astonished at the extraordinary extent of the powers of his mind. Nevertheless, no man was ever more violently assailed and calumniated by his cotemporaries. When events, over which he had no control, disappointed those hopes which his successes had raised, his opponents took advantage of the change in the public mind, to reproach him with results, which were chiefly to be attributed to their own factions and mismanagement. The prejudices excited by their efforts have been continued by orators and authors, who, treating Indian subjects without reference to those local circumstances and considerations which peculiarly embarrass them, have pleased and satisfied general and uninformed men, by reducing the most complex points of policy to an easy abstract question. The necessity under which those who exercise power in India act, the comparative dangers they have to encounter or avoid, the means they have of executing one plan, or the want of means for another, the feelings and character of princes, and of nations, which they may flatter or offend, are to such persons matters of little consequence. Their conclusions are drawn from simpler sources, and they reject, as prejudiced and polluted, that minute information and local experience, which, if admitted, might destroy their favourite theories, or cast a doubt upon the validity of those fixed rules and principles by which they consider that the wisdom of every measure ought to be tried and decided. "With these persons the scene of Indian warfare and policy is degraded to a low level, and the actors reduced to insignificance when compared with those who appear upon the stage in the _western_ hemisphere. Nothing in India, if we refer to such authorities, is upon a great scale, except the errors and crimes of British rulers, to the actions of all of whom they apply a standard framed for a wholly different state of society and government. According to such self-constituted judges, the claim of Lord Clive to the admiration of posterity is very equivocal. But his fame will rise the more the particulars of his eventful life are made known. These will prove that his qualities as a statesman almost surpassed those he displayed as a military commander."