Commentary of Robert Clive: Speech in Commons

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The document is an extract from English Historical Documents, it is a political speech given by Robert Clive in 1772. At this time the East India Company had plunged into a financial crisis and was confronted to a second severe opposition accusing Robert Clive and other nabobs of illegally acquiring money during his governorship. Robert Clive was a British soldier for the East India Company, he was elected to Parliament in 1760. His victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757 permitted the Company to expand its power over India. In that way Robert Clive was an important member of this colonial government as he twice became governor of Bengal from 1755 to 1760 and then from 1764 to 1767. During his second governorship he tried to fight corruption that had quickly become one of the main issues of the relationship between the company’s servants and locals. The subject of corruption is the one discussed in this speech that is given in the commons in front of the members of the British parliament. Robert Clive’s point is to defend the system established in India and while doing so he tries to explain the benefits and limits of the so-called “corruption”, knowing that Robert Clive himself was accused of allowing corruption and having made profits of he is clearly trying to clear his name and reputation. How is Robert Clive defending the conduct of company’s servants in India? First we will see how he describes the situation of India and its people and then in a second part we will focus on the defense against the accusations of corruption itself. At the very beginning of the text, Clive gives a description of India and its people. He only uses a series of adjectives to qualify the locals that are divided into two groups according to him, on one side there are the poorer “servile, mean, submissive, and humble” and on the other the richer one “they are luxurious, effeminate,
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