The English East India Company came to India for trade, but its main interest became territorial and commercial expansion. Its rule became effective after the conquest of Bengal. This chapter traces how the Company won Bengal, defeated the French, Mysore and the Marathas, built an administration (civil service, army, police, judiciary) and extended its empire through the Subsidiary Alliance and the Doctrine of Lapse.
1. Battle of Plassey (1757)
- Alivardi Khan, Nawab of Bengal, died in 1756; his grandson Siraj-ud-daulah ascended the throne.
- The Nawab captured the English factory at Kasimbazar; Fort William surrendered on 20 June 1756, but Robert Clive recovered Calcutta.
- Black Hole tragedy (1756): the Nawab's troops held 146 British prisoners of war overnight in a small dungeon room in Fort William; next morning 123 were found dead of suffocation.
- Treaty of Alinagar – 9 February 1757: Siraj-ud-daulah conceded practically all the British claims. The British then captured the French settlement of Chandranagore (March 1757).
- The battle was fought on 23 June 1757: the Company's forces under Robert Clive defeated Siraj-ud-daulah and his French allies.
- The Company gained huge wealth from the Bengal treasury. Plassey marks the beginning of British political sway in India.