Firishta's History (Gulshan-i Ibrāhīmī) 101.3

101.3

The King having promoted several young persons of his own age to high rank, made them the companions of his pleasures and excesses. It was frequently his custom, in fits of intoxication, to ride through the city with his drunken associates and put persons to death, though guilty of no crime. Having learned that Mirza Khan had privately brought Shah Kasim, brother to Moortuza Nizam Shah, from the fort of Soonere, and concealed him in his house with a view to create a revolution in his favour, the King became alarmed, and confined the minister. The next day, however, finding the accusation false, he restored him to his employments, and gave him his full confidence; and Mirza Khan, in order to prevent future suspicion, advised the King to put to death the surviving males of the royal family. At his instance fifteen princes were accordingly murdered in one day. Not long after this event, the power of Mirza Khan becoming irksome to the King's companions, they again accused him of treachery, and the King believing it, would in his drunken hours exclaim at one time that he would behead him with his own hand, and at another, that he would have him trod to death by elephants.