Notes on Clive

• 29 September, 1725 - Born
• 1744 - Sent to India as clerk for East India Company, paid £5 per year plus £3 for expenses.
• 1751 - Leads successful defense of Arcot, accumulates enormous wealth.
• 1753 - Returns to England, marries.
• 1755 - Returns to India to act as governor of Fort St. David, loses £33,000 when one of his ships is wrecked.
• 1757 - Recaptures Calcutta, wins Battle of Plassey, presented with four tortoises from the Seychelles. William Pitt calls him the "heaven-born general" in Parliament.
• 1760 - Ill health, returns to England with a fortune of £300,000.
• 1761-64 - Awarded an Irish peerage and made Baron Clive of Plassey Co Clare, dedicates himself to reform of the governance of the East India Company.
• 1765 - Returns to India as Governor and Commander-in-Chief, suppresses Sepoy mutiny. Learns he has inherited £70,000 from Mir Jafar. Has family picture painted.
• 1766 - Secures personal title to the state of Bengal from the Mughal Emporer of India, becomes sovereign ruler of 30 million people.
• 1767 - Returns to England.
• 1769 - Builds Claremont, hires Capability Ground to do the landscape work.
• 1772 - Called before Parliament to answer charges of corruption, he says: "By God... I stand astonished at my own moderation...an opulent city lay at my mercy; its richest bankers bid against each other for my smiles : I walked through vaults which were thrown open to me alone, piled on either hand with gold and jewels!" Corruption charges eventually dismissed.
  
• 1774 - Addicted to opium and in constant pain, kills self with pen knife, aged 49.
• ?? - Statue erected in Whitehall. Inscription: "Credited with securing India."
• 1935 - Movie Clive of India, Don Ameche's first movie role.
• 1939 - Positive review of book Clive of Plassey in Time magazine.
• 2006 - Last tortoise dies.