victorious course of Forde, although not of its more solid
result.

Before he had quitted Patna, Mir Jafar had conferred upon him, as a
personal jagir,[12] the Zamindari {124}of the entire districts south
of Calcutta then rented by the East India Company.

[Footnote 12: A jagir is, literally, land given by a government as a
reward for services rendered. A Zamindari, under the Mughal
government, meant a tract, or tracts of land held immediately of the
government on condition of paying the rent of it. By the deed given
to Clive, the East India Company, which had agreed to pay the rents
of those lands to the Subahdar, would pay them to Clive to whom the
Subahdar had, by this deed, transferred his rights. It may here be
added that the Company denied the right of Clive to the rents which
amounted to 30,000 pounds per annum, and great bitterness ensued. The
matter was ultimately compromised.]

Clive had scarcely returned to Calcutta when there ensued
complications with the Dutch.

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Holland had posed in
the East as a rival, often a successful rival, of the three nations
which had attempted to found settlements in those regions. She had
established a monopoly of trade with the Moluccas, had possessed
herself of several islands in the vicinity of the Straits, had
expelled Portugal from Malacca (1641), from Ceylon (1658), from the
Celebes (1663), and from the most important of her conquests on the
coasts of Southern India (1665). In the beginning of the eighteenth
century the Dutch-Indian Company possessed in the east seven
administrations; four directorial posts; four military commands; and
four factories. The Company was rich, and had but few debts.

Amongst the minor settlements it had made was the town of Chinsurah,
on the Hugli, twenty miles above Calcutta. Chinsurah was a
subordinate station, but, until the contests between the Nawab and
the English, it had been a profitable possession. We have seen how,
under the pressure of Clive, Mir Jafar had made to the English some
important trade-concessions. It was certain that sooner or later,
these would affect the trade, the profits, and the self-respect, of
the European rivals of Great Britain. Prominent as traders amongst
these were the Dutch. Amongst {125}the changes which they felt most
bitterly were (1) the monopoly, granted to the English, of the
saltpetre trade; (2) the right to search all vessels coming up the
Hugli; (