ROBERT, LORD, the founder of the British empire in India, was born September 29, 1725, at Styche, near Market-Drayton, Shropshire, where his father was a lawyer and small proprietor. In his youth his strong will and fiery passions caused considerable uneasiness to his family, and gave no small annoyance to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, who were glad to purchase immunity from the depredations of Clive and his companions by the payment of a petty tribute. After having been sent from school to school without making any progress in his education, his parents gladly accepted the offer of a writership for him in the service of the East India Company at Madras, where he landed in 1744. In this new situation he had to submit to the greatest privations, while his shy disposition kept him aloof from society. His haughty spirit was always breaking out in acts of insubordination, which frequently hazarded his situation. For these he was compelled to make a prompt apology; but so keenly did he feel the ignominy of submission that he twice attempted to destroy himself, and was saved on both occasions by the pistol which he snapped at his own head failing to go off. A more congenial field was opened up for the display of his abilities in the actions which followed the aggressions of Duplex on the Company's station at Madras. (His exploits from this period are amply detailed under HINDOSTAN.) In 1767 he returned to England for the last time; but on his arrival he found himself assailed by a powerful party of those whose rapacity he had checked by his reforms, and suspected by those who were indignant at all Eastern abuses. He boldly vindicated the latter part of his administration; but his earlier diplomacy presented more vulnerable points of attack. On these his adversary, Burgoyne, fastened; and the commons were compelled to vote the illegality of his acquisitions, especially of the large sums which he had received from Meer Jaffier. They indignantly refused, however, to acknowledge that he had abused his powers; and, in recollection of his distinguished actions, unanimously passed a motion to the effect that he had rendered great and meritorious services to his country. From this time forward his health began to decline, and in inaction his constitutional misery returned with tenfold violence. To obtain ease from physical suffering he had recourse to opium, and became gradually enslaved to the use of that drug. His health gradually sunk under a complication of maladies, and his mental faculties became at last seriously impaired. He perished by his own hand November 22, 1774.