The French were keen rivals of the Company in the trade of India, and
constantly took advantage of native troubles to score a point in the
game. Clive had come to Bengal with the full intention of making the
Company, whose servant he was, supreme; and having secured the treaty
with Sirajuddaula he resolved to turn his arms against the French. They
were suspected of helping the Nawab in his expedition against Calcutta:
it was known that the Nawab, treating his engagements with reckless
levity and faithlessness, was trying to persuade Bussy, the French
commander in the Dekkan, to help him to expel the British from Bengal.
There was excuse enough for an attack on Chandernagore.
But before Clive could open hostilities, he was required, by an old
arrangement with the Mogul, to obtain permission from the Nawab. This
permission was at length got from him by Omichand. The sack of Calcutta
by the Nawab had caused Omichand great loss, and, hoping in part to
retrieve it, he made his peace with Clive and the Council, and was then
selected to accompany Mr. Watts when he went as British representative to
Murshidabad. The wily Sikh, working always for his own ends, contrived to
make the unstable young despot believe that the French were tricking him,
and in a fit of passion he sealed a letter allowing Admiral Watson to
make war upon them. He repented of it immediately, but the letter was
gone.
On the day after it reached the admiral, March twelfth, 1757, Clive sent
a summons to Monsieur Renault, the governor of Chandernagore, to
surrender the fort.
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