Riyaz al-salatin 111.3.8

111.3.8

As it was the rainy season, Mir Habib deputed Mir Mihdi with a detachment of musketeers on boats for collecting revenue from the mahals across the Ganges. But Mir Mihdi, from fear of Mahabat Jang, did not land. The agents of the Zamindars proceeded to Mir Habib, and paying him large sums obtained guards for the immunity of their tracts from the ravages and loot of Mahratta freebooters. The wealthy nobility and gentry, to save their family honour, quitted their homes, and migrated across the Ganges. The whole tract from Akbarnagar (Rajmahal) to Mednipur and Jalisar (Jalasore) came into the possession of the Mahrattas. Those murderous freebooters drowned in the rivers a large number of the people, after cutting off their ears, noses and hands. Tying sacks of dirt to the mouths of others, they mangled and burnt them with indescribable tortures. Thus they desolated and dishonoured the family and children of a whole world. Mahabat Jang, making strenuous efforts towards the chastisement and expulsion of the insolent enemy, set about collecting troops and armaments. Requisitioning to Murshidabad a large flotilla of boats from the neighbourhood of Jahangirnagar (Dacca), from the Jilengi, from Maldah, and Akbarnagar (Rajmahal), &c., he constructed a road leading to Katwah. From the eastern bank of the Bhagirati he detached for bridge-making twelve thousand pioneers and sappers on boats, and attended to the comforts of the army.