promote, ruinous to the Company and oppressive to the country," and went on to say "we earnestly recommend to your Lordship to exert your utmost influence to conciliate the affections of the country powers, to remove any jealousy they may entertain of our unbounded ambition, and to convince them that we aim not at conquest and dominion, but at security for carrying on a free trade equally beneficial to them and to us";[1] yet practically the triumph of Clive at the India House in 1765, previous to his last mission, had meant the triumph of the policy of territorial aggrandizement, as the event soon proved. Of this policy the chief opponent was Lawrence Sullivan, long the rival of Clive and the friend of Shelburne. He was desirous of confining the action of the Company within the terms of their charter as a trading corporation, denying the expediency of their holding a territorial revenue.[2] Vansittart, once Governor of Bengal, wished the Company to retain their present territories, but not to extend them.[3] It was generally agreed that the annual election of the directors acted as a shield to corruption, that the qualification for a vote at the India House ought to be raised—it was now the possession of £500 of stock—and that fictitious votes should if possible be abolished, but there agreement stopped, and meanwhile it rained schemes.
In this position Shelburne found Indian affairs. His accession to office had been received with apprehension by the friends of Clive, with joy by those of Sullivan.[4] But though fully aware that danger threatened them, the Court of Proprietors in September 1766, maddened with the thirst of gain, and careless that their first duty was to reduce their large liabilities, proposed, in defiance of the wishes of the directors, to raise the dividend at once from six to ten per cent. in the current half-year. The ministers thereupon sent a warning note. But advice was useless. "Nothing," writes Shelburne to Chatham, "can be so
