This raised a storm in Calcutta, where a full meeting of Council decided by ten to two that the agreement should not stand.
The Nawâb retaliated in kind. Since the Council persisted in their claim, he would extend its bearings to his own subjects. All could now trade free, and let the devil take the hindmost!
It was a fair retort. They tried to intimidate him, but he had the bit between his teeth. Diplomacy had had its day; it was now war to the knife!
Within a month or two the massacre at Patna took place, in which two hundred Englishmen lost their lives in cold blood; but not before the Presidency troops had entered Murshidabad, deposed Mîr-Kâssim, who fled, and reinstated Mîr-Jâffar.
It was a tissue of mistakes from beginning to end, which Major Munro's subsequent victory at Buxar over the combined forces of the Prince-Royal-Emperor (who had not yet managed to recover his capital Delhi), the Wazîr of Oude, and Mîr-Kâssim did little to rectify. For Mîr-Jâffar died shortly after of old age, and the Council was left without a Nawâb to squeeze! After much discussion, however, they decided on putting up Nujâm-ad-daula, an illegitimate son of Mîr-Jâffar's.
Such was the state of affairs when Clive, to whom, in view of the painful state of disorder in Bengal, absolute power had been given, arrived in Calcutta on his second period of Governorship in the beginning of May 1765.
His first act was to decline discussion.
"I was determined," he writes, "to do my duty to the public, though I should incur the odium of the whole settlement. The welfare of the Company required a vigorous exertion, and I took the resolution of cleansing the Augean stable."
He began the work at once, and, undeterred by opposition, did not rest till he had placed the Indian Civil Service on the upward path to its present honoured and honourable position. Perquisites and presents were swept away; unbiassed authority given in exchange.
The only real political work of the next two years was his treatment of, and treaty with, the Prince-Royal-Emperor, Shâh-Âlam, who was more than ever a puppet king after the victory at Buxar, when he had thrown himself on the protection of the English. So anxious, indeed, was he to secure this, that before the answer to his petition was received from Calcutta, he encamped every night as close to the British army as he could for safety!