History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c83.s5.2

v5.c83.s5.2

By October 1686 the English forces at Hughli had increased to nearly 400 men,—Englishmen, Portuguese half-breeds, and Rajput mercenaries, with two men-of-war and two frigates. Shaista Khan, the governor of Bengal, on his part, had not been negligent. He had concentrated 300 horse and 3,000 foot at Hughli to guard the town from any surprise by the English, whose assembling of force had become known. Abdul Ghani, the faujdar of the town, stopped the trade of the English, forbade the supply of provisions to them, and placed the local market out of bounds for English troops. On the 28th of the month, three English soldiers, in trying to enter the market in defiance of this order, were wounded and carried prisoner to the faujdar. An advance made by Captain Leslie from the English factory (near Golghat) to rescue them was beaten back with loss, and the thatched huts surrounding the factory were set on fire to arrest their progress. The Mughal battery, midway between the faujdar's residence and the factory, opened fire on the enemy's shipping in the river. But reinforcements soon arrived from the English camp three miles down the river, took the battery spiking the guns, and advanced further, sacking and burning the faujdar's house and the town lying beyond it. In the evening the English ships came abreast of Hughli, captured a ship of the Mughal's, and "kept firing and battering most part of the night and next day, and making frequent sallies on shore, burning and plundering all they met with." Long before this the faujdar had fled away in disguise in a boat.