The author has already related how he obtained leave to visit Sháh-Jahánábád, and left the army for this purpose when it had reached Pánípat. The Emperor had taken his departure from the town the day before the writer reached it. Strange to relate, numbers of people of every degree followed the royal standards. Some thought thus to enjoy a pleasant excursion through the Panjáb, while others were of opinion that a battle would be fought and won in the neighbourhood of the town, and that their absence would only be of short duration. The writer sought in vain for a house within the walls in which to place his wife and family; he could find no suitable one. Under these circumstances, he resolved to leave his family in their usual residence outside the town. The security of the entrances to the lane was looked to, and armed servants above the ordinary number were entertained. The author now prepared to return to the army, and sent on his advanced tents.
But just at this time a report spread through the city of the death of Amíru-l umará and the capture of Burhánu-l Mulk. Many were the false reports circulated, which there is no need to record here, and such was the state of the town that, but for the vigilance of Kotwál Hájí Fúlád Khán, it must have been plundered, and the Persian army would have found the work done. The kotwál, no ordinary man, was at his post day and night; his exertions were unceasing, and, wherever there was an appearance of sedition, he seized and punished the guilty parties. The roads were infested with malefactors, and there was safety for none.
Having received certain tidings of the Persians having formed a circle around the royal army, and rendered ingress to the camp impossible, the author was compelled to relinquish his design of proceeding thither. He therefore turned his attention to his means of defence. Sentries were placed, and the dárogha and the writer himself patrolled the bázárs at night to collect news. A supply of lead, powder, and rockets was laid in, and distributed among the people of the quarter, who began to take heart. Thus the nights were spent in watching, and the days in the society of friends. This state of things continued until the arrival of Burhánu-l Mulk Bahádur and Tahmásp Khán Jaláir, the latter the representative of the Persian Sháh.
The result of Muhammad Sháh's visit to the Persian Emperor has been seen. Some days later, on the 24th of the month, Ásaf Jáh was deputed to finally settle sundry matters; but, through some unknown cause, this personage failed in his mission, and was detained in the camp. Muhammad Sháh himself, neglecting the remonstrances of a few well-wishers who advised a further appeal to arms, then paid a second visit to the Persian Emperor on the 26th. Muhammad Sháh, as a result of this interview, found it advisable to continue in the Persian camp, and ordered a part of the royal camp equipage to be brought. This was accordingly done. By degrees all the chief nobles of the State joined His Majesty. To all appearance they acted according to their inclination, but in truth under compulsion. Nasakchís were ordered to be in attendance on them; these in reality were but spies on their actions. How strange are the freaks of fortune! Here was an army of 100,000 bold and well-equipped horsemen, held as it were in captivity, and all the resources of the Emperor and his grandees at the disposal of the Kazalbásh! The Mughal monarchy appeared to all to be at an end.
A proclamation was issued to the army that all might depart
who chose, as His Majesty himself was about to return to Sháh-
When the Sháh's camp equipage arrived from Sháhábád, the two Emperors set out. They made the journey seated together on an elevated car. Muhammad Sháh entered the citadel (ark) of Sháh-Jahánábád in great pomp on the 8th of Zí-l hijja, seated in his car; the conqueror followed on the 9th mounted on a horse. By a strange cast of the dice two monarchs who, but a short while before, found the limits of an empire too narrow to contain them both, were now dwellers within the same four walls!
The next day Nádir Sháh returned the Indian ruler's visit, and accepted the presents offered by the latter. When the Sháh departed, towards the close of the day, a false rumour was spread through the town that he had been severely wounded by a shot from a matchlock,* and thus were sown the seeds from which murder and rapine were to spring. The bad characters within the town collected in great bodies, and, without distinction, commenced the work of plunder and destruction. A discharge of firearms and other missiles was continued throughout the night. The darkness of the night and the difficulty of recognizing friend or foe were the cause of numbers of the Kazalbáshís being slain in the narrow lanes of the town. Scarce a spot but was stained with their blood.
On the morning of the 11th an order went forth from the Persian Emperor for the slaughter of the inhabitants. The result may be imagined; one moment seemed to have sufficed for universal destruction. The Chándní chauk, the fruit market, the Daríbah bázár, and the buildings around the Masjid-i Jáma' were set fire to and reduced to ashes. The inhabitants, one and all, were slaughtered. Here and there some opposition was offered, but in most places people were butchered unresistingly. The Persians laid violent hands on everything and everybody; cloth, jewels, dishes of gold and silver, were acceptable spoil.
The author beheld these horrors from his mansion, situated in the Wakílpura Muhalla outside the city, resolved to fight to the last if necessary, and with the help of God to fall at least with honour.* But, the Lord be praised, the work of destruction did not extend beyond the above-named parts of the capital. Since the days of Hazrat Sáhib-kirán Amír Tímúr, who captured Dehlí and ordered the inhabitants to be massacred, up to the present time, A.H. 1151, a period of 348 years, the capital had been free from such visitations. The ruin in which its beautiful streets and buildings were now involved was such that the labour of years could alone restore the town to its former state of grandeur.
But to return to the miserable inhabitants. The massacre lasted half the day, when the Persian Emperor ordered Hájí Fúlád Khán, the kotwál, to proceed through the streets accompanied by a body of Persian nasakchís, and proclaim an order for the soldiers to desist from carnage.* By degrees the violence of the flames subsided, but the bloodshed, the devastation, and the ruin of families were irreparable. For a long time the streets remained strewn with corpses, as the walks of a garden with dead flowers and leaves. The town was reduced to ashes, and had the appearance of a plain consumed with fire. All the regal jewels and property and the contents of the treasury were seized by the Persian conqueror in the citadel. He thus became possessed of treasure to the amount of sixty lacs of rupees and several thousand ashrafís; plate of gold to the value of one kror of rupees, and the jewels, many of which were unrivalled in beauty by any in the world, were valued at about fifty krors. The Peacock throne* alone, constructed at great pains in the reign of Sháh Jahán, had cost one kror of rupees. Elephants, horses, and precious stuffs, whatever pleased the conqueror's eye, more indeed than can be enumerated, became his spoil. In short, the accumulated wealth of 348 years changed masters in a moment.
Nawáb Sáhib Wazíru-l mamálik* contributed thirty lacs of rupees, besides elephants and his most valuable jewels. Nawáb Ásaf Jáh also suffered an equal loss. The property of Burhánu-l Mulk, who had died shortly after the arrival of the Persians, was likewise seized. It amounted to about a kror of rupees, and had been brought from Oudh.
On the 26th of Zí-l hijja was celebrated, with great pomp, the marriage of Násir Mirzá, son of the Persian Emperor, to a daughter of Murád Bakhsh, third son of his late Majesty Sháh Jahán. The ruler of Hindústán presented the bridgroom with a dress of honour, a necklace of pearls, a jíghah and a dagger set with pearls, and an elephant with trappings of gold.