[1][2][3][4] He had long been resident at Calcutta (Kolkata), where he had acquired a large fortune by providing the investment for the British East India Company, and also by acting as intermediary between the English and the local court at Murshidabad.

In a letter of William Watts of later date, he is represented as saying to the Nawab (Siraj ud-Daulah): Several houses owned by him in Calcutta are mentioned in connection with the fighting that preceded the tragedy of the Black Hole in 1756, and it is on record that he suffered heavy financial losses at that time.

When the truth was revealed to Omichund after Plassey, Macaulay states (following Robert Orme) that he sank gradually into idiocy, languished a few months, and then purportedly died.

When all things were prepared, and the evening of the event was appointed, Omichund informed Mr. Watts, who was at the court of the nabob, that he insisted upon thirty lacks of rupees, and five per cent.

The event took place, and success attended it; and the House, I am fully persuaded, will agree with me, that, when the very existence of the Company was at stake, and the lives of these people so precariously situated, and so certain of being destroyed, it was a matter of true policy and of justice to deceive so great a villain."