Suraj-u-Dowlah had endeavoured to persuade his predecessor, Aliverdi Khan, that the English were plotting against him, and giving protection to his subjects. The moment he succeeded to the throne, he demanded that Kishendass should be delivered up; but the extraordinary mode in which this demand was made, through a man[175] who came clandestinely to Calcutta, and went first to Omichund's house, gave rise to a belief that this communication was part of an intrigue to re-establish the importance of the latter person. With such impressions, and having intercepted, after the commencement of hostilities, a letter from Ram Bam Sing (the Nabob's head spy) to Omichund, advising him to remove his effects from Calcutta, it is not surprising that the Committee should have suspected their former contractor to be one of the principal instigators of the attack with which the English settlement was threatened. A conviction of this fact led to his being seized, and imprisoned in the fort. His guest Kishendass, and his brother-in-law[176] Hazarimul, were also made prisoners: the search after the latter was attended with circumstances of violence, which led to the death of several of Omichund's family.
When Calcutta was taken, Omichund and Kishendass were released, and treated with civility by the Nabob; a circumstance which confirmed some in the belief of their treachery: but, as the former lost money and property to an amount of four lacs of rupees, it is sufficiently obvious that, though he might have stimulated the Nabob's anger against the English, he never could have desired results which involved his own ruin. But it is a common fate of such intriguers to raise the storm they cannot control, and by whose fury they themselves are overwhelmed.
The dismissal of Omichund from his employ as contractor for the investment, his imprisonment, and the cruel fate of part of his family, were circumstances calculated to have separated him for ever from any connection with the English: but all feelings and passions in his mind were absorbed by the desire of gain. To that object his abilities, which were considerable, were invariably and unceasingly directed. He had established himself, after Calcutta was taken, at the Nabob's court; first ingratiating himself with the favourite of that prince, Mohun Lal; and afterwards with Suraj-u-Dowlah himself. When Clive came to Calcutta, Omichund was the ready medium to aid in promoting peace, and had so far established himself in favour, that Mr. Watts, when he went to Moorshedabad, was permitted to employ him in his negotiations.