Oh this day, the Council in Madras received Governor of Bengal Robert Clive’s letter dated May 1, 1766. Mir Jaffar, made the Nawab of Bengal after the Battle of Plassey, had been paying the British army officers “double batta”, double allowance. From January 1, 1766, Clive’s order withdrew the double batta and made the allowance equal to the amount being paid to officers elsewhere in India.
This led to the Bengal Army officers, white men, rise in protest. This event is known as the Batta Mutiny, or White Mutiny, or Monghyr Mutiny, one of the brigades being located at Mungher. Clive visited all the three brigades and suppressed the rebellion within May, but before that, on May 1, he had written to the Madras Council and to the Free Merchants for help, asking them to accept commissions to “hold in readiness for embarking on a moment’s warning all the Captains and Subalterns you can possibly spare for immediate service, as also such cadets and other gentlemen as you may think qualified to bear commissions; and we would recommend to you to lose no opportunity of securing means of conveying them hither…”
Madras had promptly obliged.