His army numbered nearly seventy thousand men, of whom fifty thousand were infantry, armed with matchlocks, bows and arrows, pikes and swords.  He had in all fifty-three guns, mounted on platforms drawn by elephants and oxen.  The most efficient part of his artillery was commanded by Monsieur Sinfray, who had under him some fifty Frenchmen from Chandernagore.  The Nawab’s vanguard consisted of fifteen thousand men under his most trusty lieutenants, including Manik Chand and Mir Madan.  Rai Durlabh, the captor of Cossimbazar, and two other officers commanded separate divisions.

Dawn had hardly broken on June twenty-third, King George’s birthday, when Mir Madan with a body of picked troops, seven thousand foot, five thousand horse, and Sinfray’s artillery, moved out to the attack with great clamor of trumpets and drums.  The remainder of the Nawab’s army formed a wide arc about the north and east of the English position.  Nearest to the grove was Mir Jafar’s detachment.

The English were arranged in four divisions, under Majors Killpatrick, Grant and Coote, and Captain Gaupp.  These had taken position in front of the embankment, the guns on the left, the Europeans in the center, the Sepoys on the right.  Sinfray’s gunners occupied an eminence near the tank about two hundred yards in advance of the grove, and made such good play that Clive, directing operations from the Nawab’s hunting box, deemed it prudent to withdraw his men into the grove, where they were sheltered from the enemy’s fire.  The Nawab’s troops hailed this movement with loud shouts of exultation, and, throwing their guns forward, opened a still more vigorous cannonade, which, however, did little damage.

If Mir Madan had had the courage and dash to order a combined assault, there is very little doubt that he must have overwhelmed Clive’s army by sheer weight of numbers.  But he let the opportunity slip.  Meanwhile Clive had sent forward his two howitzers and two large guns to check Sinfray’s fire.

Midday came, and save for the cannonading no fighting had taken place.  Clive left the hunting box, called his officers together, and gave orders that they were to hold their positions during the rest of the day and prepare to storm the Nawab’s camp at midnight.  He was still talking to them when a heavy shower descended, the rain falling in torrents for an hour.  Wet through, Clive hastened to the hunting lodge to change his clothes.

Scarcely had he departed when the enemy’s fire slackened.  Their ammunition, having been left exposed, had been rendered almost entirely useless by the rain.  Fancying that the English gunners had been equally careless, Mir Madan ordered his horse to charge; but the Englishmen had kept their powder dry and received the cavalry with a deadly fire that sent them headlong back.  At this moment Mir Madan himself was killed by a cannonball, and his followers, dismayed at his loss, began a precipitate retreat to their intrenchments.