Introduction

• The earliest English settlement in eastern India dates back to 1633 when they established their factories at Hariharpur and Balasore in Orissa.
• The first English factory in Bengal was established at Hugli in 1651 under permission of Sultan Shuja, the Viceroy of Bengal who granted them the privilege of trading in return for a fixed annual payment of duties worth Rs.3000.
• Soon they established their factories at Qasim Bazar, Patna and other regions nearby. The main items of English trade were silk, cotton piece goods, saltpetre and sugar. Through a series of Farman in 1651, 1656 and 1672 the British were exempted from custom duties in return for fixed sums to be paid by the Company to the Indian authorities.
• In 1698, the English obtained the Zamindari of the villages of Sutanuti, Kalikata and Govindpur on payment of Rs. 1200. Here the English built Fort Williams around its factory and Sir Charles Eyre was the first president of the Fort Williams.
• In 1717, the Company secured valuable privileges under a royal Farman by the Mughal Emperor Farrukh Siyar which granted the Company the freedom to export and import their goods in Bengal without paying taxes and also the right to issue passes or dastaks for free movement of goods.
• The Company’s servants were permitted to trade but were not covered by this Farman. As a result, they had to pay the same taxes as Indian merchants. This Farman became the perpetual source of conflict between the Company and the Nawabs of Bengal.
• This also meant a loss of revenue to the Bengal government. The officials of the Company on the other hand misused the dastaks to evade taxes on their private trade. Both Murshid Quli Khan and Alivardi Khan had objected to misuse of the dastaks by the Company officials. The Company in turn left no opportunity to defy the authority of the nawabs.

Siraj-ud-Daula (1756-1757)

• Conflict began when Siraj-ud-Daula succeeded Alivardi Khan to the throne of Bengal. The new Emperor faced serious challenge from his rivals Ghasiti Begum of Dacca and Shaukat Jang of Purnea and was also suspicious of the English. He was strictly against the royal Farman and wanted to trade with the English on the same basis as in the times of Murshid Quli Khan without any privileges.
• The English on the other hand prepared themselves for yet another round of Anglo-French struggle in Europe. The French had established their settlement at Chandernagore. The main causes of dispute between Nawab Siraj-ud-Daula and the English were the misuse of the dastaks by the servants of the Company, the refusal to pay taxes on their goods to the Nawab and the levying of duties on the Indian goods entering Calcutta which was in their control.
• Problem arose when the English began to fortify Calcutta as part of the preparations of war with the French without the permission of the Nawab. Siraj- ud-Daula asked both the French and the English to pull down their fortifications and considered them an attack on the Nawab’s sovereignty. The French Company complied but the English refused to obey the orders.
• Siraj-ud-Daula was young and short-tempered and could not tolerate this defiance. He responded by seizing the English factory at Qasim Bazar and subsequently Fort Williams was captured at Calcutta on 20^th June 1756. It was during this occupation of Calcutta that the so-called Black-Hole incident occurred.
• It is known that about 146 English prisoners were confined on one hot summer night in a small room of Fort Williams and only twenty-three of them survived. This is remembered as a tragedic episode. Leaving Calcutta in the hands of Manikchand, Siraj-ud-Daula returned to Murshidabad to celebrate his victory, letting the English escape with their ships. He committed the mistake of underestimating the enemy.
• Meanwhile the English escaped to Fulta, a small island and awaited aid from Madras. A strong naval and military force arrived from Madras under Col. Clive and Admiral Watson. Hugli was plundered and Calcutta re-occupied in the beginning of 1757.
• The Nawab was forced to sign the Treaty of Alinagar on 9th February 1757, wherein all the demands of the English were conceded. The nawab was asked to restore the rights and immunities of the Company and to compensate them for the losses they had suffered in the war.

The Battle of Plassey (1757)

• By that time the English had decided to remove Siraj from the position of the nawab and place a puppet in his place. They conspired with the leading men of the Nawab’s court such as Manikchand, the official in-charge of Calcutta, Aminchand, a rich merchant, Jagat Seth, a well-known banker, Mir Jafar, the Mir Bakshi, and Rai Durlabh, the Nawab’s general.
• It was decided to place Mir Jafar on the throne of Bengal. On 23rd June 1757, the rival forces met each other in the battlefield of Plassey about thirty kilometres from Murshidabad.
• A major part of the Nawab’s army led by the traitors Mir Jafar and Rai Durlabh did not participate in the fighting. A handful of Nawab’s forces fought under the leadership of Mir Madan and Mohan Lai and were defeated. The Nawab tried to flee but was captured and put to death. Mir Jafar was proclaimed the Nawab of Bengal.