166 THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONShad taken up residence in Calcutta to benefit from the company's
protection and had suffered heavy losses in the course of the nawab's
seizure and occupation of the city. This Omichund, the historian
Macaulay tells us with the candor of an age that did not know
political correctness, was well equipped by his business experience to
mediate between the English and the nawab's court. "He possessed
great influence with his own race, and had in large measure the
Hindoo talents, quick observation, tact, dexterity, perseverance, and
the Hindoo vices, servility, greediness, and treachery."
It was Omichund's task to lull and gull the nawab. This he did.
Thanks to his inventions and fictions, the planning proceeded apace;
but the more it advanced, the more everything depended on the
discretion of Omichund. A word from him could destroy the
conspiracy. And just at this point Clive began to hear disquieting
news, that Omichund was hinting at betrayal unless he got a huge
compensation. Huge? He asked for 300,000 pounds sterling (say
150 million of today's dollars), and what's more, he wanted this
commitment written into the treaty that would seal the installation
of Mir Jafar on the throne of Bengal.
Clive was outraged. This was blatant dishonesty. It was also
greedy. He decided to repay cross with double cross and had two
treaties drawn up—one real, on white paper, making no mention of
Omichund; the other false, on red paper, with a clause in the
merchant's favor. Not all Englishmen were ready to connive at this
fraud: Admiral Watson refused to sign the red version, an omission
that would surely arouse Omichund's suspicions. So Clive—as much
be hanged for a cow as a sheep—forged the admiral's signature.
Now it was time for action. The confident nawab took up arms.
Clive and his English troops—the kind of men, as he put it, who had
never turned their back—routed him at Plassey (1757). The nawab
fled the field and then his throne. The winners met to divide the
spoils. Omichund came to the conference full of expectation, for
Clive had treated him up to the last minute with unfailing
consideration. The white treaty was then read. No mention of
Omichund. Turning to Clive, he had his answer: "The red treaty is a
trick. You are to receive nothing." The poor man swooned, was
revived, but never regained his senses. Gradually he sank into
lethargy and bewilderment. Once a man of sharp reasoning and
simple dress, he now walked pointiessly about in lavish, bejeweled
accouterments. Within a few months he was dead.
Macaulay, normally sympathetic to Clive, draws the line at this