The miserable Surajah Dowlah was no match for Clive in the cabinet, any more than in the field. Afraid of his neighbours, especially of the Mahrattas, he was distracted between desire to conciliate English support and dread of English power. The French settlement of Chandernagore was, like Calcutta, under the nominal suzerainty of the Nawab, and therefore though France and England were at war, Clive had no right to attack it without the Nawab's permission. The refusal was a grievance of which Clive made the most; he seized Chandernagore, and defied the native army that was marching to protect it. Surajah Dowlah had dreamed, in one of his vacillations towards a leaning on English support, of crushing with their aid the great nobles whose power was a danger to him. Hence some of them were ready to side with the English against him, and Clive ultimately made a regular treaty with one of them, Meer Jaffier, who was to be made Nawab, on payment of a large sum, as soon as Surajah Dowlah had with his assistance been overthrown. When Clive however found himself within reach of the Nawab's army, Meer Jaffier was still on openly friendly terms with his master, and in command of a division of the army. Clive had only general assurances that Meer Jaffier meant to keep his engagement with the English, which might or might not be sincere.
The circumstances of the case put any middle course really out of the question. Though various expedients were suggested, he must choose between retreat and attacking with 3000 men, of whom less than one-third were English, the Nawab's army of 50,000 men, on the chance of Meer Jaffier coming over to his side. While the choice was yet open, while a river still separated the two armies, Clive called his officers together. Councils of war proverbially do not fight, and this was no exception. The majority, with whom Clive himself voted, advised against immediate action. The minority, led by Eyre Coote, who afterwards won the victory of Porto Novo that broke Hyder Ali's power, declared for advancing. When the council was over, Clive, with whom as commander the final decision necessarily rested, went apart under a clump of trees, and there took the resolution on which the fate of India hung. Next morning his little army crossed the river, and by nightfall was face to face with the enemy; they bivouacked in a mango grove north of the village of Plassy, with the river close to them on the west, and the intrenchments which covered the Nawab's camp about a mile off to the north.