Editing Robert Clive (section)

===Plassey===
{{main|Battle of Plassey}}
[[File:Lord Clive meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey.jpg|thumb|upright=1.6|Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive of Plassey, meeting with [[Mir Jafar]] after the Battle of [[Plassey]], by [[Francis Hayman]]. [[National Portrait Gallery, London]].]]

The whole hot season of 1757 was spent in negotiations with the Nawab of Bengal. In the middle of June Clive began his march from Chandannagar, with the British in boats and the sepoys along the right bank of the [[Hooghly River]]. During the rainy season, the Hooghly is fed by the overflow of the [[Ganges]] to the north through three streams, which in the hot months are nearly dry. On the left bank of the Bhagirathi, the most westerly of these, {{convert|100|mi|km}} above Chandernagore, stands Murshidabad, the capital of the Mughal viceroys of Bengal. Some miles farther down is the field of Plassey, then an extensive grove of mango trees.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

On 21 June 1757, Clive arrived on the bank opposite Plassey, in the midst of the first outburst of monsoon rain. His whole army amounted to 1,100 Europeans and 2,100 sepoy troops, with nine field-pieces. The Nawab had drawn up 18,000 horse, 50,000-foot and 53 pieces of heavy ordnance, served by French artillerymen. For once in his career Clive hesitated, and called a council of sixteen officers to decide, as he put it, "whether in our present situation, without assistance, and on our own bottom, it would be prudent to attack the Nawab, or whether we should wait till joined by some country (Indian) power." Clive himself headed the nine who voted for delay; Major [[Sir Eyre Coote, KB|Eyre Coote]] led the seven who counselled immediate attack. But, either because his daring asserted itself, or because of a letter received from Mir Jafar, Clive was the first to change his mind and to communicate with Major Eyre Coote. One tradition, followed by Macaulay, represents him as spending an hour in thought under the shade of some trees, while he resolved the issues of what was to prove one of the decisive battles of the world. Another, turned into verse by Sir [[Alfred Comyn Lyall|Alfred Lyall]], pictures his resolution as the result of a dream. However that may be, he did well as a soldier to trust to the dash and even rashness that had gained Arcot and triumphed at Calcutta since retreat, or even delay, might have resulted in defeat.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

After heavy rain, Clive's 3,200 men and the nine guns crossed the river and took possession of the grove and its tanks of water, while Clive established his headquarters in a hunting lodge. On 23 June, the engagement took place and lasted the whole day, during which remarkably little actual fighting took place. Gunpowder for the cannons of the Nawab was not well protected from rain. That impaired those cannons. Except for the 40 Frenchmen and the guns they worked, the Indian side could do little to reply to the British cannonade (after a spell of rain), which, with the 39th Regiment, scattered the host, inflicting on it a loss of 500 men. Clive had already made a secret agreement with aristocrats in Bengal, including [[Jagat Seth]] and [[Mir Jafar]]. Clive restrained Major Kilpatrick, for he trusted to Mir Jafar's abstinence, if not desertion to his ranks, and knew the importance of sparing his own small force.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} He was fully justified in his confidence in Mir Jafar's treachery to his master, for he led a large portion of the Nawab's army away from the battlefield, ensuring his defeat.

Clive lost hardly any European troops; in all 22 [[sepoys]] were killed and 50 wounded.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} It is curious in many ways that Clive is now best-remembered for this battle, which was essentially won by suborning the opposition rather than through fighting or brilliant military tactics. Whilst it established British military supremacy in Bengal, it did not secure the East India Company's control over Upper India, as is sometimes claimed. That would come only seven years later in 1764 at the [[Battle of Buxar]], where Sir [[Hector Munro, 8th Laird of Novar|Hector Munro]] defeated the combined forces of the Mughal Emperor and the [[Nawab of Awadh]] in a much more closely fought encounter.

[[Siraj Ud Daulah]] fled from the field on a camel, securing what wealth he could. He was soon captured by Mir Jafar's forces and later executed by the assassin Mohammadi Beg. Clive entered Murshidabad and established Mir Jafar as Nawab, the price which had been agreed beforehand for his treachery. Clive was taken through the treasury, amid £1,500,000 ({{inflation|UK|1500000|1757|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=-7}}) sterling's worth of rupees, gold and silver plate, jewels and rich goods, and besought to ask what he would. Clive took £160,000 ({{inflation|UK|160000|1757|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=-5}}), a vast fortune for the day, while £500,000 ({{inflation|UK|500000|1757|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=-7}}) was distributed among the army and navy of the East India Company, and provided gifts of £24,000 ({{inflation|UK|24000|1757|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=-5}}) to each member of the company's committee, as well as the public compensation stipulated for in the treaty.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

In this extraction of wealth Clive followed a usage fully recognised by the company, although this was the source of future corruption which Clive was later sent to India again to correct. The company itself acquired revenue of £100,000 ({{inflation|UK|100000|1757|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=-5}}) a year, and a contribution towards its losses and military expenditure of £1,500,000 sterling ({{inflation|UK|1500000|1757|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=-7}}). Mir Jafar further discharged his debt to Clive by afterwards presenting him with the quit-rent of the company's lands in and around Calcutta, amounting to an annuity of £27,000 ({{inflation|UK|27000|1757|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=-5}}) for life, and leaving him by will the sum of £70,000 ({{inflation|UK|70000|1757|fmt=eq|cursign=£|r=-5}}), which Clive devoted to the army.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

====Further campaigns====

=====Battle of Condore=====
While busy with the civil administration, Clive continued to follow up his military success. He sent Major Coote in pursuit of the French almost as far as [[Benares]]. He dispatched Colonel Forde to [[Vizagapatam]] and the northern districts of Madras, where Forde won the [[Battle of Condore]] (1758), pronounced by Broome "one of the most brilliant actions on military record".{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

=====Mughals=====
{{main|Treaty of Allahabad}}
[[File:Shah-alam-ii-mughal-emperor-of-india-reviewing-the-east-india-companys-troops-1781-1894 1247854.jpg|thumb|The [[Mughal Emperor]] [[Shah Alam II]], as a [[pensioner]] of the [[British East India Company]], 1781.]]

Clive came into direct contact with the Mughal himself, for the first time, a meeting which would prove beneficial in his later career. [[Shah Alam II|Prince Ali Gauhar]] escaped from [[Delhi]] after his father, the [[Mughal Emperor]] [[Alamgir II]], had been murdered by the usurping [[Vizier]] [[Ghazi ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung III|Imad-ul-Mulk]] and his [[Maratha Empire|Maratha]] associate [[Sadashivrao Bhau]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=S.R. Sharma |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4j_VLlGqVSoC&pg=PA767 |title=Mughal Empire in India: A Systematic Study Including Source Material |date=1 January 1999 |publisher=Atlantic Publishers & Dist |isbn=978-81-7156-819-2 |pages=767– |access-date=11 July 2012}}</ref>

Prince Ali Gauhar was welcomed and protected by [[Shuja-ud-Daula]], the [[Nawab of Awadh]]. In 1760, after gaining control over [[Bihar]], [[Odisha]] and some parts of the Bengal, Ali Gauhar and his Mughal Army of 30,000 intended to overthrow Mir Jafar and the Company in order to reconquer the riches of the eastern Subahs for the [[Mughal Empire]]. Ali Gauhar was accompanied by Muhammad Quli Khan, Hidayat Ali, Mir Afzal, Kadim Husein and Ghulam Husain Tabatabai. Their forces were reinforced by the forces of Shuja-ud-Daula and [[Najib-ud-Daula]]. The Mughals were also joined by [[Jean Law de Lauriston|Jean Law]] and 200 Frenchmen, and waged a campaign against the British during the [[Seven Years' War]].

Prince Ali Gauhar successfully advanced as far as [[Patna, India|Patna]], which he later besieged with a combined army of over 40,000 in order to capture or kill Ramnarian, a sworn enemy of the Mughals. Mir Jafar was terrified at the near demise of his cohort and sent his own son Miran to relieve Ramnarian and retake Patna. Mir Jafar also implored the aid of Robert Clive, but it was Major [[John Caillaud]], who defeated and dispersed Prince Ali Gauhar's army.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

=====Dutch aggression=====
While Clive was preoccupied with fighting the French, the Dutch directors of the outpost at [[Chinsurah]], not far from [[Chandernagore]], seeing an opportunity to expand their influence, agreed to send additional troops to Chinsurah. Despite [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Britain]] and the [[Dutch Republic]] not formally being at war, a Dutch fleet of seven ships, containing more than fifteen hundred European and Malay troops, came from [[Batavia, Dutch East Indies|Batavia]] and arrived at the mouth of the [[Hooghly River]] in October 1759, while [[Mir Jafar]], the Nawab of Bengal, was meeting with Clive in Calcutta. They met a mixed force of British and local troops at [[Chinsurah]], just outside [[Calcutta]]. The British, under Colonel [[Francis Forde (army officer)|Francis Forde]], defeated the Dutch in the [[Battle of Chinsurah]], forcing them to withdraw. The British engaged and defeated the ships the Dutch used to deliver the troops in a separate naval battle on 24 November. Thus Clive avenged the massacre of [[Amboyna massacre|Amboyna]]&nbsp;– the occasion when he wrote his famous letter; "Dear Forde, fight them immediately; I will send you the order of council to-morrow".

Meanwhile, Clive improved the organisation and drill of the [[sepoy]] army, after a European model, and enlisted into it many Muslims from upper regions of the Mughal Empire. He re-fortified Calcutta. In 1760, after four years of hard labour, his health gave way and he returned to England. "It appeared", wrote a contemporary on the spot, "as if the soul was departing from the Government of Bengal". He had been formally made Governor of Bengal by the Court of Directors at a time when his nominal superiors in Madras sought to recall him to their help there. But he had discerned the importance of the province even during his first visit to its rich delta, mighty rivers and teeming population. Clive selected some able subordinates, notably a young [[Warren Hastings]], who, a year after Plassey, was made [[resident (title)|Resident]] at the Nawab's court.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

The long-term outcome of Plassey was to place a very heavy revenue burden upon Bengal. The company sought to extract the maximum revenue possible from the peasantry to fund military campaigns, and corruption was widespread amongst its officials. Mir Jafar was compelled to engage in extortion on a vast scale{{citation needed|date=November 2022}} in order to replenish his treasury, which had been emptied by the company's demand for an indemnity of 2.8 ''[[crore]]s'' of rupees (£3 million).<ref>{{harv|Marshall|1987|p=83}}</ref>