LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
LORD CLIVE'S DEATH.
frO THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECTATOR.,
Sra,-In reference to the doubts in last week's Spectator as to the circumstances of Lord Clive's death, permit me to say that the accounts derived from those present leave no doubt that he died by his own hand.
His old Indian secretary and devoted friend, Henry Strachey, Mrs. Strachey, and Miss Ducarel, were in the house at the time. Lord Clive got up from the card-table and left the room. Not returning, Mr. Strachey said to his wife, " You had better go and see where my lord is." She went out, and found him lying with his throat cut with a penknife. She told the story to her son (my uncle), the late Sir Henry Strachey, in all its -details, and I have heard him repeat it more than once. His father, he said, could never bear to refer to the subject. When Mr. Gleig's "Life" came out, Sir Henry Strachey pointed out to me some details of the account of Lord Clive's death which
did not agree with those he had heard from his mother. And from this I infer that Mr. Gleig derived his information from the Ducarel family, and not from ours.
My uncle, who had the fullest means of knowing the facts, always treated as absurd the notion that Clive was haunted by remorse, or ever reproached himself for his political conduct in India or at home. In a letter exi-ting among our papers, Lord Clive writes :-" How miserable is my condition ! I have a disease which makes life insupportable, but which my doctors say will not shorten it one hour." And this is the simple and sufficient explanation of his act. It surely argues a misappre- hension of Clive's character-never ignoble in his ends, while hard and unscrupulous in his means-to fancy that he was a victim of remorse. His defence of himself iu the House of Commons gives his own estimate of his career. If the great Ger- man who so much resembles Clive in character, as to curls and means, were to find life " insupportable," would any one suspect him of remorse ?-I am, Sir, &c.,
Sutton Court. ED1YA AD STRACHEY.
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