Surâj-ud-daula, Nawâb of Bengal, had seized on it, suffocated a hundred and twenty-three of its inhabitants--many of them men in the best positions--in the Black Hole, and had returned to Murshidabad, whence he had issued orders for the destruction and confiscation of all English property in his dominions. Such was the ineptitude of England at that time in India, that two whole months elapsed ere Clive, in a fever of impatience, was allowed to start for retaliation. While we can imagine him fretting and fuming, we shall have time for a glance back to see who Surâj-ud-daula was, and what was the cause of his action. Ali-Verdi-Khân, who, it will be remembered, had ceded Orissa to the Mahrattas, had also snatched the Nawâbship from his master's son; a graceless youth, it must be admitted, while Ali-Verdi-Khân himself was, despite many horrid acts, a fairly just ruler. During his lifetime the English had no complaint; but at his death he committed a gross injustice on every soul in his dominions by appointing as his heir his grandson Surâj-ud-daula, a perfectly infamous young man. No one, apparently, had a good word to say for him, except those amongst whom he spent a vicious, depraved life. His aunt, Ghasîta Begum, at any rate, nourished no illusions concerning him, and being an ambitious woman, anxious to preserve her great fortune for future occasions of conspiracy, took immediate precautions while Ali-Verdi lay dying against any confiscation of her treasures. She employed one Kishen-dâs, a pretended pilgrim to Juggernath, to carry them off in boats down the Ganges. Once on the river, Kishen steered, not for the sea, but for Calcutta. It is difficult to say whether the Governor and Council knew what they were harbouring, but the fact remains that the treasures sought and found British protection, one Omichand, a Hindu merchant, giving Kishen-dâs hospitality. Surâj-ud-daula took the business very badly. He made a scene at his grandfather's death-bed, and accused the English of siding with the faction that was against his succession. Yet, when that succession was an accomplished fact, and the English agent appeared at his audience to apologise in set terms for a so-called mistake in turning away, as an impostor, from Calcutta, a spy who asserted he bore a letter from Surâj-ud-daula, the latter kept a calm countenance and said negligently that he had forgotten the incident. And yet it was no slight one; for there is little doubt that the Council were not quite satisfied with its own action.