Shuja, convinced that a great victory was imminent, wrote to Calcutta as the vizier of the Emperor, with an ultimatum to the EIC. In his letter he cast the Company as ungrateful aliens – unruly and disobedient rebels against the legitimate Mughal order who had usurped ‘different parts of the royal dominions … Hand over all the territory in your possession,’ he demanded, ‘and cease to interfere with the government of the country.
