Shivaji and His Times c8.s7.13

c8.s7.13

At 11 o'clock in the morning of Wednesday, 6th January, 1664, Shivaji arrived at Surat and pitched his tent in a garden a quarter of a mile outside the Burhanpur or eastern gate. The night before he had sent two messengers with a letter requiring the governor and the three most eminent merchants and richest men in the city, viz., Haji Said Beg, Baharji Borah, and Haji Qasim, to come to him in person immediately and make terms, otherwise he threatened the whole town with fire and sword. No answer had been given to the demand, and the Maratha horsemen, immediately after their arrival on the 6th, entered the defenceless and almost deserted city, and after sacking the houses began to set fire to them. A body of Shivaji's musketeers was set "to play upon the castle, with no expectation to take it, but to keep in and frighten the governor and the rest that had got in, as also [to prevent] the soldiers of the castle from sallying out upon them whilst the others plundered and fired [the houses.]" The garrison kept up a constant fire, but the fort-guns inflicted more damage on the town than on the assailants. Throughout Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, this work of devastation was continued, every day new fires being raised, so that thousands of houses were consumed to ashes and two-thirds of the town destroyed. As the English chaplain wrote, "Thursday and Friday nights were the most terrible nights for fire. The fire turned the night into day, as before the smoke in the day-time had turned day into night, rising so thick that it darkened the sun like a great cloud."