return to England, without producing a certificate of their good behaviour in the service of the Company; for such is his Majesty's declared resolution; and if they cannot obtain half-pay, how can they expect to be admitted upon full pay? The enclosed copy of a letter we have just despatched to the gentlemen of Council at Fort William, will inform you of the measure that must take place, if this unmilitary association be not dissolved. And I will add, for my own part, that any officer who resigns his commission, from no other cause of disgust than the Company's orders for the reduction of batta, shall be absolutely dismissed the service, and never restored. For their own sakes, I hope they will speedily resolve upon a change of conduct, and I doubt not you will use your utmost influence to bring them to a right sense of their duty. If my sentiments have any weight, you are at liberty to make this as public as you please, as also the copy of the letter to the Council." Lord Clive appears, throughout the whole of the violent proceedings of the officers, to have been convinced that the civil servants of the Company had instigated and aided the military in their mutinous acts; and in answer to a letter from Mr. Verelst[44], he observes,--"With regard to the assistance you say we may have from the civilians on an emergency, I can never consent to receive it, as I am certain they were the original cause of this mutinous association." When he learnt that the combination of officers had taken a formidable shape, he thus expresses himself, in a letter[45] to the same gentleman:--"I am determined to leave this place (Moorshedabad) on Tuesday next, and proceed with all expedition to Monghyr. Our business at this city, material as it is, must for a little while give way to the more pressing occasion which requires our presence at the army. If I find a fair opportunity, my endeavours to get some of the mutinous ringleaders shot will not be wanting. At all events, most of them shall be dismissed the service." Lord Clive, at this period, felt the greatest annoyance from the want of cordial support from Mr. Sumner, the senior member of the Committee; and, irritated as he was by the continued opposition of several of the members of Council, the discontent of the civil, and the violence of the military, we are not surprised at the first paragraph of a private letter, written at this period to Mr. Palk, Governor of Madras, under date the 6th of May, 1766. "Do you think," he asks, "History can furnish an instance of a man, with 40,000_l._ per annum, a wife and family, a father and mother, brother and sisters, cousins and relations in abundance, abandoning his native country, and all the blessings of life, to take charge of a government so corrupt, so headstrong, so lost to all principle and sense of honour, as this is?"