 It was an exporter of silk and cotton textiles, steel, saltpeter, and agricultural and industrial produce.With the defeat of the Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the British East India Company gained the right to collect taxes from the principality of Bengal.The city formally passed to the control of the British East India Company in 1793 and Dhaka got plugged into the imperial mercantile networks of the British Empire.