GOLCONDA^159This broader purpose did not aim at monopoly as in Indonesia. The
EIC was ready to let others into the Indian market—except perhaps the
French, who chose to challenge them politically. Still, the EIC's power
and privilege gave it a decisive advantage in an ostensibly level field.
Employees of the company were quick to seize the opportunity, not
only trading on their own account but lending their name and virtual
authority to native servants and business associates ready to pay for the
favor.
In a world of Muslim pride and xenophobia, this British assertion
brought humiliation high and low, for the turnpike man at the customs
station as much as for the prince in his palace. These infidel pretensions
undermined the dignity and legitimacy of the viceroyal authorities and
led to war between the Nawab of Bengal and the company; and war
will always provide grounds for grievance and hate. So here: the young
prince Suraj-ud-Dowlah (Sirajuddaullah) decided to teach the British
a lesson and in 1756 took Calcutta against the merest shadow of re
sistance. He then perpetrated "that great crime, memorable for its sin
gular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous retribution by which it
was followed."^17 This was the massacre of the "Black Hole," a cham
ber 18 by 15 feet with only two small, barred windows. Into this box
the nawab's men jammed one hundred forty-six prisoners on a steamy-
stifling June night—civilians as well as soldiers, including a few women.
Pleas and protests went up, but the nawab had retired to sleep and
could not to be disturbed. The cries ebbed. In the morning only
twenty-three prisoners were still alive.
The crime demanded reprisal, and local representatives of John
Company were only too pleased to have a go at it.^18 As soon as a fleet
could be armed, it sailed up from Madras with a small detachment of
British and sepoy troops under the command of Robert Clive, a young
civil servant of the company, a desk man with a genius for war. Because
of adverse winds, the ships took some two months to sail up the Bay
of Bengal and enter the Hugli River. There the British easily recaptured
Calcutta, imposed a huge indemnity on ud-Dowlah, and compelled
restoration of all company privileges. For the nawab, an expensive
night's sleep.
But that was not the end of the story. The war in Europe between
Britain and France had its echo in Bengal, where the nawab courted the
French for the best of reasons—revenge and the opportunity to escape
from his engagements. Another Moghul miscalculation. Apprised of
these maneuvers, the British under Clive attacked and captured the
French trading station at Chandernagore (Chandarnagar), a festering