"CAMP NEAR CALCUTTA,
"_23d Febry. 1757_."
The terms of the treaty were exceedingly favorable to the company. All
the privileges formerly granted to the English were renewed, all trade
covered by English passes was freed, all property of the company or of
its servants or tenants which had been taken by the Nawab's officers to
servants was to be restored; the English were to fortify Calcutta, and
to coin money as they might deem proper. The Nawab, on February 11th,
began his return march to his capital, previously commissioning
Omichand, in whose garden the late battle had been fought, to propose a
treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, with the English. This
treaty was accepted and signed by Clive and Watson, not without some
hesitation on the part of the latter, who, the day after the fight in
the outskirts of Calcutta, advised Clive to renew his attack. Clive,
however, dreaded a combination between the French and the Nawab, and
regarded the French settlement at Chandernagor as a serious danger to
Calcutta. He had learned, when at Hugli, that war had been again
declared between England and France, and before leaving Madras he had
been instructed by the government there that, in the event of a war with
France again breaking out in Europe, he was to capture Chandernagor.
After the capture of Chandernagor, Clive's distrust of the Nawab was
intensified, not only by the information supplied by Mr. Watts of his
intrigues with the French, but by his refusal to allow the passage of a
few Sepoys and of supplies of ammunition and stores to the English
factory at Kasimbazar. Meanwhile Clive received from Watts information
of a plot which had been formed by some of the leading personages at the
Nawab's court to dethrone him. These persons were Raja Dulab Ram, the
finance minister; Mir Jafar, the commander-in-chief of the army; and Yar
Latif Khan, a man not of the first rank, who would seem to have started
the conspiracy, stipulating that, if it succeeded, he should be made
nawab. There is some ground, however, for supposing that the original
suggestion emanated from Jaggat Seth, a wealthy banker, who had received
personal insults from the Nawab. Another person of considerable weight
who was also implicated in the plot was Omichand, the wealthy Hindu in
whose garden the Nawab's camp had been pitched on that foggy night in
February when Clive marched through it. On that occasion he sustained a
somewhat heavy loss, but inflicted a much heavier loss upon the troops
of the Nawab, and thereby frightened the latter into treating for peace.
At an early stage of the proceedings Clive received overtures from Mir
Jafar, the commander-in-chief, who offered to aid the English against
the Nawab on condition that he should succeed him. The events which
followed included what in some respects were the most brilliant, and
were certainly the most questionable, incidents in Clive's career. While
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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