of the entire districts south of Calcutta then rented by the East India Company.
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 Húglí, twenty miles above Calcutta. Chinsurah was a subordinate station, but, until the contests between the Nawáb and the English, it had been a profitable possession. We have seen how, under the pressure of Clive, Mír 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
