Clive's force was at this period greatly reduced from sickness: he could not bring into the field more than five hundred and fifty Europeans, and fifteen hundred natives. He complains, in all his letters, of the bad effects the prize-money had produced, both on the health and discipline of those under his command. He had applied for, and obtained leave of the Admiral, Sir George Pocock, to employ the detachment of His Majesty's troops in Bengal; but the conduct of the officers (with two exceptions) made him decline accepting their unwilling services.
"Notwithstanding your offer," he observes in his reply[193] to the Admiral, "of putting the King's detachment under my command on this expedition, I am sorry to inform you I cannot accept it, without prejudicing the service; for all the officers (Captain Weller[194] and Captain Coote excepted) have expressed by letter a disinclination to go upon it. Under these circumstances, I think it is better for the Company to be served by those who are willing, and may be attached to their service, than by persons who seem to have lost all remembrance of what they owe to them! For my own part, though I have before represented to you the many disadvantages I must labour under, during the present expedition, I shall endeavour to surmount them, and be ready to render the Company all the service, which every wellwisher to his country is bound to do."
The rising talents of Major Coote were already employed in the command of a detachment. The death of Major Kilpatrick, an officer who had been highly distinguished throughout the scenes above described, occasioning a vacancy in the command of the military at Bengal, Clive recommended that the station should be offered to Colonel Forde[195], an officer of whom he entertained the highest opinion. The terms, in which this offer was conveyed, are honourable to the reputation of him to whom it was made, and reflect great credit on Clive's discernment; for no opportunities had been yet afforded to Colonel Forde of developing those talents as a soldier, which soon afterwards rendered him so distinguished. Notwithstanding the encouragement offered, from the distinction obtained by Coote and Forde, when Adlercron's regiment went to England a short time after, none of the other officers belonging to it availed themselves of the option given them, of remaining in the Company's service, except Captain Carnac, who joined Clive, by whom he was early noticed; and his subsequent career in Bengal did ample credit to the judgment of his penetrating commander.