Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 18.12.2

18.12.2

With visible reluctance of mind, and a heart big with grief and despondence, he quitted his palace of Mansûr-gundj, and marched with those troops in which he reposed a confidence, that is, those belonging to Mir-meden, and to Radja Mohon-lal, and a few others, with which he arrived at Palassy. On the opposite side, Colonel Clive, with the troops of his own nation, and some bodies of Talingas, (the whole of his army not amounting to more than two or three thousand men), took post in the grove of Palassy, where he shewed himself in battle array. It was on a Thursday, the fifth of Shevval, in the year 1170; and there the fire of battle and slaughter, that had been hitherto kept alive under a heap of embers, now blazed out into flames. But as the nation of Hat-wearers have no equals in the art of firing their artillery and musquetry with both order and rapidity, there commenced such an incessant rain of balls and bullets, and such a hot endless firing, that the spectators themselves were amazed and confounded; and those in the battle had their hearing deafened by the continual thunder, and their eye-sight dimmed by the endless flashing of the execution. All this while Mir-djaafer-qhan, the author of all these evils and troubles, contented himself with standing at a distance with the troops under his command, exactly like one who had come only to see the engagement, although his sole aim was to effect Seradj-ed-doulah's downfall.