The loot which Clive lifted from Murshidabad after winning the Battle of Plassey in 1757 made him the richest self-made man in Europe. In 2004, a Qatari royal bought a jade flask from his descendants for £3m. Its now in Islamic Museum in Doha.

Siraj-ud-daulah was to acquire much notoriety both among the British and the Indians. He was to succeed as the Nawab of Bengal in April 1756 at the age of 27. “Siraj-ud-daula has been pictured”, says the biographer of his vanquisher, Lord Clive, “as a monster of vice, cruelty and depravity. But though he may have suffered from the demoralizing effects of too much wealth and power at too early an age, he was in fact no more cruel than most eighteenth-century Eastern despots.

His main fault was weakness, which caused him to be fickle and indecisive; he was also arrogant, of changeable temper, and lacking in courage”.. There are few contemporary Bengali accounts of the Nawab; and almost all the principal sources for his life are the writings of such Englishmen as were responsible for his overthrow.

Robert Clive
Loot of Bengal
Richest self made in Europe
Nawab Siraj ud Daula
Nawab of Bengal
Last Nawab of Bengal
Execution of Nawab of Bengal

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