45» The Conquest of Chatg-aon, 1666 A,D, 



Bj Jadunath Sarkar, M.A., Professor, Patna College 



Introduction. 



The Bodleian Library's Persian MS. Bod. 589 (Sacbau and' 

 Ethe's Catalogue, No. 240) gives the earliest and most detailed 

 account of the conquest of Chatgaon bj Shaista Khan. The 

 value and a few defects of the work have been described by me 

 in this Journal for June, 1906- I give below a translation of the 

 passages relating to this subject, supplemented by translations 



from the ^Alamgim^mali, where it differs or supplies anything 

 new. 



It is to be noticed that Shihabuddin Talish makes no mention 

 of the siege of Chatgaon during the day followitjg the arrival of 

 the Mughal forces, and hence there is an inaccuracy of dates in 

 his account. The ^Alamgtrnamah^ on the other hand, gives a 

 different version of what happened after the first naval battle, 

 and almost ignores the important share which the Feringis had 

 in the naval victories of the Mughals, who were proverbially 

 averse to the sea. It also tells us that all the Feringis of Chat-^ 

 gaon did not desert to the Mughals in company with Captain 

 Moor. The pages are mentioned within square brackets. 



Decay of the Bengal Flotilla. 



r 



[P. 112, fe.] During the viceroyalty of Prince Shuj'a, when 

 great confusion was caused by his negligence, [113, a] the extor- 

 tion and violence of the clerks {mutasaddts) i-uined the parganahff 



gned 



flotilla). Many [naval] 



officers and workmen holding y^^2r or stipend were overpowered 

 by poverty and starvation. Day by day their distress and ruin 

 increased. When Mir Jumla came to Bengal as Viceroy, he 

 wished to make a new arrangement of the expenditure and 

 tafikhah of the flotilla, which amounted to 14 lacs of rupees. 

 After abolishing the old system, and just before beginning the 



re-organisation, he was overcome by the spells of Assam [ 



of the Assam queen's witchcraft J. Many naval officers and men 



too perished in the expedition ; so that at llir Jumla's death the^ 



flotilla was utterly ruined. 



[122, a.] [Early in 1664] the pirates came to Bagadia, a 

 dependency of Dacca, and defeated Munawwar Khan, zemindar, 

 Avho was stationed theie with the relics of the naicicSra — a few 

 broken and rotten boats— and bore the high title of cruising ad- 

 mira;] {sardar-i'sairah), Munawwar fled in confusion. Ism'ail 

 Khan Tarin and other Nawwabi officers, whom [Shaista Klian's- 



