Siege of Calcutta
The Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, aimed to seize Calcutta to punish the company for the unauthorised construction of fortifications at Fort William.
A trading post had been established in the area of Calcutta at the end of the seventeenth century by the East India Company, who purchased the three small villages that would later form the base of the city, and began construction of Fort William to house a garrison.
[1] The attitude of the Nawabs of Bengal, the regional governors of the territory, had been one of limited toleration towards the European traders (the French and Dutch as well as the British); they were permitted to trade, but taxed heavily.
But with war, though as yet undeclared, being waged between the two nations in Europe, officials at Calcutta and Chandernagore decided that their long-neglected defenses needed to be strengthened in case hostilities erupted in Bengal.
[2] When the newly enthroned nawab learned of the new fortifications, he immediately ordered them to halt their work and to raze any new construction, promising to protect both foreign enclaves from attack as his grandfather had before him.
The French, realizing just how tenuous their position in Bengal really was, meekly replied that they were not building foreign fortifications, merely repairing their existing structures.
[3] Acting Governor Drake combined a disastrous incapacity for planning and decision making with a degree of personal arrogance that had already alienated most of his fellow countrymen.
[1] The East India Company's chief engineer, John O'Hara, advised the council to demolish the buildings surrounding the fort so the defenders could have a clear shot at an enemy attacking from any direction.
They decided instead to draw up a defensive line that encompassed the Company Enclave that huddled about Fort William, leaving the sprawling expanse of native dwellings and marketplaces known as "Black Town"--home to well over 100,000 Indians—to the mercy of the attacking army.
[1] Defensive preparations were hampered by the disappearance of native manpower, as their lascars fled along with most of Black Town's population as the news of Siraj ud Daula's approach spread.
Omichand recently had lost the prestigious position of chief investing and purchasing agent for the East India Company in its transaction with the Bengalis.
A narrative by one John Zephaniah Holwell, plus the testimony of another survivor to a select committee of the House of Commons, placed 146 Company prisoners into a room measuring 18 by 15 feet, with only 23 surviving the night.
The result was a recognition of the status quo in the Treaty of Alinagar, signed on the 9th, which permitted the East India Company to remain in possession of the city and to fortify it, as well as granting them an exemption from duties.
Siraj was forced to send much of his army westwards to protect his territory from Ahmad Shah Durrani, leaving him militarily weak; this, coupled with personal unpopularity at home and extensive political machinations at court, gave the East India Company an opportunity to try to replace him with a new Nawab.
The result was the Battle of Plassey, on 23 June 1757, which was a decisive defeat for Siraj - betrayed by Mir Jafar, a military commander who had agreed to change sides.
