8.1.10 to 8.1.11

His settlement of the company's affairs was less skillful. First, he accepted not only full compensation for loss to the East India Company and the Calcutta citizens but also large payments to himself and the council. He himself received in all �234,000 in cash, a Mughal title of nobility, and an estate, or jagir, with an annual rental of about �30,000. This example opened the way to a flood of corruption that nearly ruined both Bengal and the company and which Clive himself later struggled to control. Second, he obtained from the Nawab the practical exemption from internal duties not only of the company's goods but also of the private trade of the company's servants as well. Since the company possessed paramount force and its servants believed in working on their own behalf, this had a most harmful effect on the economy of Bengal. Though stained by corruption and duplicity, Clive's first government was a tour de force of generalship and statecraft. He had snatched the richest province of India out of the hands of his political superiors and with the authority of the Mughal regime. Returning to England in February 1760, he was given an Irish peerage as Baron Clive of Plassey in 1762 and was knighted in 1764. He was described by William Pitt (afterward 1st earl of Chatham) as "a heaven-born general." He became member of Parliament for Shrewsbury, purchased an estate, and tried to use his Indian wealth to carve out an English political career. But he had to reckon with the current jealousy toward any upstart, however brilliant, the unpopularity of returned Indian "nabobs," and suspicions within the East India Company resulting from his suggestion to Pitt that the state should take over its territories. His critics, led by a former friend who was then chairman of the company, tried to cut off the income from his Indian estates. Though they failed to ruin him, they did prevent him from becoming a national statesman.