Battle of Chinsurah
| Battle of Chinsurah | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Seven Years' War | ||||||||
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| Belligerents | ||||||||
.svg){kind=small} British East India Company
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 Dutch East India Company
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Nawab of Bengal | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | ||||||||
| Colonel Francis Forde Captain Charles Wilson |
Colonel Jean Baptiste Roussel (POW) | Mir Jafar | ||||||
| Strength | ||||||||
| 300 European infantry 800 local infantry 50 European cavalry 200 local cavalry 3 naval vessels |
150 Europeans (Chinsurah garrison) 300 locals (Chinsurah garrison) 700 Europeans (arriving troops) 800 Malays (arriving troops) |
100 cavalry | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | ||||||||
| 320 killed 300 wounded 550 captured 6 ships surrendered 1 grounded |
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The Battle of Chinsurah (also known as the Battle of Biderra) took place near Chinsurah, India on 25 November 1759 during the Seven Years' War between a force of British troops mainly of the British East India Company and a force of the Dutch East India Company which had been invited by the Nawab of Bengal Mir Jafar to help him eject the British and establish themselves as the leading commercial company in Bengal. Despite Britain and the Dutch Republic not formally being at war, the Dutch advanced up the Hooghly River. They met a mixed force of British and local troops at Chinsurah, just outside Calcutta. The British, under Colonel Francis Forde, defeated the Dutch, forcing them to withdraw. The British engaged and defeated the ships the Dutch used to deliver the troops in a separate naval battle on November 24.
Following the British capture and destruction of the French outpost at Chandernagore in 1757, Mir Jafar, the Nawab of Bengal, opened secret negotiations with representatives of the Dutch East India Company to bring troops into Dutch holdings in the area with the goal of using them against the British. Britain and the Dutch Republic were at peace, although tensions were high due to the Seven Years' War, and British East India Company administrator Robert Clive was preoccupied with fighting the French. The Dutch directors of the outpost at Chinsurah, not far from Chandernagore, seeing an opportunity to expand their influence, agreed to send additional troops to Chinsurah. A fleet of seven ships, containing more than fifteen hundred European and Malay troops, came from Batavia and arrived at the mouth of the Hooghly River in October 1759, while the Nawab was meeting with Clive in Calcutta.
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