Page:History of India Vol 6.djvu/343

 MOSLEM PREJUDICE AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS 277 reached the emperor Shah Jahan, and when Kasim Khan was sent to Bengal as governor, he received secret orders to suppress them and to take their fortress. Kasim Khan accordingly proceeded to Hugli and laid siege to it. The detail of his skilful arrangements and strenuous exertions would be of great length; suffice it to say that, by the aid of boats, and by the advance of his forces both by land and water, he brought down the pride of those people and subdued their fortress after a siege of three months. Nearly fifty thousand peasants of that place came out and took refuge with Kasim Khan. Ten thousand persons, Firingis and natives, perished in the course of the siege. Fourteen hundred Firingis, and a number of persons who had been made Christians by force, were taken prisoners. Nearly ten thousand persons, innocent natives and cap- tives of those people, were set free. More than a thou- sand Mussulmans of the imperial army fell in the course of the siege.' A fuller description of the port and of the manner in which Shah Jahan drove out the " infidel Firingis," in 1632 A. D., is given by Abd-al-Hamid, of Lahore, in his Padshah Namah. ' Under the rule of the Bengalis, a party of Frank merchants who were residents of Sandip came trading to Satganw. One league above that place, they occu- pied some ground on the bank of the estuary, where they erected several houses in the Bengali style on the pretext that buildings were necessary for their trans- actions in buying and selling. In course of time, through