A History of the Mahrattas v1.c24.30

v1.c24.30

¹ The notorious Shujah-ud-Dowlah, who afterwards confined the English in the black hole, on the capture of Calcutta, 20th June, 1756. [Sirāj-ud-daula, whom Grant Duff wrongly calls Shujah-ud-Dowlah, was born in 1140 A.H. (= August 1727 to July 1728). He was the grandson of Allahvardī Khān, being the son of the Nawāb’s youngest daughter, a dissolute woman. He revolted against his grandfather in 1750; but Allahvardī Khān showed no resentment, confirmed the youth’s right of succession, and allowed him to control the government. Sirāj-ud-daula, whose proper name was Mīrzā Muhammad (or Mahmūd), succeeded to his grandfather’s throne in 1169 A.H. (= October 1755 to September 1756), and was killed at Murshidābād, after the battle of Plassy in 1757, by order of Mīr Jāfar’s son, Mīran. (O.H.I., pp. 488, 494.) See footnote on page 487 post. Ives (Voyage from England to India, 1773) states that at the time of his death Sirāj-ud-daula had not quite completed his twenty-fifth year. As a matter of fact he must have been twenty-nine or thirty years of age in 1757. (See Add. and Corr. to O.H.I., under p. 488 n., giving reference to Bengal Past and Present, xii. 244.)]