239 
1883.] J. Beames —Notes on the History of northern Orissa. 
by the invasion of Nadir Shah and the sack of Delhi. The Governor of 
Orissa refused to obey Ali Yerdi, and the latter marched against him. The 
two armies met at Balasore and the native account is so precise that I am 
able to identify the exact spot where the battle took place. It is about a 
mile north of the Civil Station where a long ridge of high land, then 
clothed with woods, slopes down into the marshes between the Nuniajori 
and the Burhabalang rivers near the villages of Haripur and Dohopara.* 
The river surrounds this land on three sides, and in so strong a position 
Murshid might long have defied his adversary, who being cut off from the 
town could get no provisions and was in much distress. Murshid’s son-in- 
law, however, rashly moved out to attack the Nawab, and the result was a 
complete victory for the latter. Murshid and his party got on board a 
ship at Balasore and fled by sea to Masulipatam. The Raja of Rattanpur 
with much promptness carried off Murshid’s women and children from 
Cuttack: and delivered them to him in the south before Ali Yerdi could 
come up. 
Sayid Ahmad, the Nawab’s nephew, was made Governor, and ren¬ 
dered himself very unpopular by his tyranny. At last the people of Cut¬ 
tack rose against him and recalled Murshid Kuli. He would not come 
himself, but sent his son-in-law Bakir Khan, who was, however, conquered 
again on the banks of the Mahanadi in 1741 by Ali Verdi, who appointed 
Masum Khan Governor of Orissa. He thinking all danger now at an end, 
disbanded his troops who mostly returned to their own homes, and content¬ 
ed himself with an escort of five thousand horse and some infantry re¬ 
cruited in the province. In this defenceless state was Orissa, when a great 
calamity occurred which entirely changed the whole current of its history, 
and introduced the darkest and bitterest period of suffering that the 
harrassed and wasted province has ever known. 
fin the month of February 1743 (Phalgun 1150) the MarathasJ 
from Berar entered the province of Orissa. After the defeat of Murshid 
Kuli Khan by Ali Verdi Khan at Balasore in 1740, the traitor Mir Habib- 
ullali, dewan of the former, had secretly invited the Marathas to attack 
* To the traveller approaching Balasore from the north through the centre of 
Murshid’s position along the Calcutta Trunk ltoad the suitability of this particular 
spot for a camp of defence is very strikingly apparent. Balasore town and station 
lie along this high ridge with the swampy Nuniajori winding at its foot and the river 
just beyond. 
t The historical details here given are derived principally from Grant Duff's 
History of the Mahrattas ; the minor and local details from native tradition and the 
records of the Balasore office. 
X I write this word as the natives themselves do Marathd, the common 
spelling Mahratta is incorrect. 
