mdmd(4) - Notes: Clive of India

[Paul Mackin]

Boswell would have been more correct than Johnson in modern America
(U.S.), and in Britain too I'd guess. Few in OUR culture do
away with themselves because of bad conscience or bad history.
Should we infer from this that Wicks is a more reliable
teller of events than M or D?

Prolly not. Back then, there WAS this noble possibility. Some still
remember those days. Who has not heard the elderly matron sigh:
In my day a man like that would have shot himself? She may have
been talking about something else but the point is still valid.

What point is that, Mason?

			P.
AS Rounce wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 17 Jul 1997, Brian D. McCary wrote:
> 
> > 130.29    Clive of India: Soldier and later commander in the private
> > army of the EIC, who re captured Calcutta in 1757, among other
> > exploits.  Became British Goveneur of Bengal in the 1 756-1762 time
> > period.  Made a Baron in 1862.
> 
> And is popularly (though not definitely) thought to have committed
> suicide in 1774. Samuel Johnson has a go at him:
> 
>      "Will you not allow, sir, that vice does not hurt a man's
>      character so as to obstruct his prosperity in life, when you know
>      that [Lord Clive] was loaded with wealth and honours; a man who had
>      acquired his fortune by such crimes, that his consciousness of them
>      impelled him to cut his own throat."
>      (Boswell, *Life of Johnson*, Tues 12th May 1778)
> 
> Boswell defends Clive: "...he cut his throat becasue he was weary of
> still life; little things not being sufficient to move his great mind."
> Whatever the truth of the matter, Clive of India is an emblem of the
> double-sided 18c; adored by the people as a symbol of national
> greatness, he was afflicted with fits of depression and guilt, hence his
> well-known use of opium, as mentioned by Mason on p.141. Maskelyne's
> failure to use the influence of his brother-in-law is partly explained
> by his realising the limits of this influence, and partly (I assume) by
> fears that he will go the way of his brother-in-law.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Adam Rounce