History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c41.97.4

v2.c41.97.4

A demand for *chauth* was also made in the same letter.⁴ The period of administration of Śivarām Bhaṭṭa was drawing to a close. A letter received on the 21st of April from Chimnā Sāhu informed the Governor that the former had been appointed *Sūbahdār* of Orissa. A letter addressed to Nawab Mir Ja'afar 'Alī states that his etter to Śivarām Bhaṭṭa was forwarded through an English gentleman stationed in Katak and encloses the reply of Śivarām. Three days later on the 24th, the usual congratulatory letter was despatched to the new Maratha *ṣubahdār* Chimnā Sāhu.⁵ The Governor of the English East India Company writes to the Nawāb Mir Ja'afar 'Alī on the 24th April, 1764, that Śivarām Bhaṭṭa had been imprisoned and that his friends were trying to rescue him. The Nawāb was assured that as the Marathas in Orissa were fighting between themselves they would have no time to interfere in the affairs of Bengal.¹ A letter received from Chimnā Sāhu confirms the news of the imprisonment of Śivaram Bhaṭṭa.² Śivarām Bhaṭṭa came to Orissa after its devastation for twelve years by the Mughal-Maratha wars. He found the province desolated and the boundaries roughly demarcated. He left it much more settled. His settlement of the revenues of Orissa was for a sum very much less in comparison with the last settlement of Shuja’-ud-dīn Muḥammad Khān :—