Nadir, after he had issued the fatal orders, went into the small mosque of Roshin-u-dowlah, which stands near the centre of the city, and remained there in a deep and silent gloom that none dared to disturb. At last the unhappy Mahomet Shah, attended by two of his ministers, rushed into his presence, exclaiming, "Spare my people!" Nadir replied, "The Emperor of India must never ask in vain," and he instantly commanded that the massacre should cease. The prompt obedience which was given to this command is remarked by all his historians as the strongest proof of the strict discipline which he had introduced into his army.
The number of persons slain on this occasion has been differently estimated, and from the nature of the scene it could not be correctly ascertained. An author who has been often referred to conjectures that about one hundred twenty thousand perished; while another European writer nearly doubles this amount. But an Indian historian of respectability reduces this exaggerated estimate to the moderate calculation of eight thousand persons: and there is every reason to conclude that his statement is nearer the truth than any of those which have been mentioned. Two nobles who were supposed to have caused the riot fled, with conscious guilt, to a small fortress near Delhi. They were pursued, taken, and put to death with those who were deemed their accomplices, who amounted to about four hundred persons.
A very few days after the occurrence of these events, a marriage was celebrated between the second son of Nadir and a princess of the imperial house of Timur; and the succession of festivities that attended these nuptials gave a color of joy to scenes which abounded with misery; but the majority of the inhabitants of Delhi appear to have been of a light and dissolute character. We are indeed told by an Indian author that numbers regretted the departure of the Persians. The drolls and players of the capital began, immediately after they went away, to amuse their countrymen with a ludicrous representation of their own disgrace; and the fierce looks and savage pride of their conquerors, which had been so late their dread, became in these imitations one of their chief sources of entertainment.
Nadir remained at Delhi fifty-eight days (1739). Before he quitted it, he had a long and secret conference with Mahomet Shah, in which it is supposed he gave him such counsel as he deemed best to enable him to preserve that power to which he was restored. To all the nobles of the court he spoke publicly, and warned them to preserve their allegiance to the Emperor, as they valued his favor or dreaded his resentment. To those who were absent he wrote in similar terms; he informed them that he was so united in friendship with Mahomet Shah that they might be esteemed as having one soul in two bodies; and, after desiring them to continue to walk in the path of duty to the imperial house of Timur, he concluded these circular-letters in the following words: "May God forbid! but if accounts of your rebelling against your Emperor should reach our ears we will blot you out of the pages of the book of creation."
The conqueror had behaved with considerable moderation and kindness toward the chief omrahs of the court of Delhi; but he must have despised their luxurious and effeminate habits. We, indeed, learn his sentiments from a remarkable anecdote. When speaking one day to Kummer-u-din, who was then vizier, he demanded how many ladies he had? "Eight hundred fifty," was the reply. "Let one hundred fifty of our female captives," said Nadir, "be sent to the vizier, who will then be entitled to the high military rank of a mim-bashee, or commander of a thousand."
The march of Nadir from India was literally encumbered with spoil. The amount of the plunder that he carried from that country has been estimated variously. The highest calculation makes it upward of seventy millions sterling; the lowest is considerably more than thirty. A great part of this was in precious stones, of which Nadir was immoderately fond. When on his march from India he was informed that several of the most valuable crown-jewels had been secreted by some of his followers, he made this a pretext for searching the baggage of every man in his army, and appropriating all the jewels that were found to himself. The soldiers murmured, but submitted; and their not resisting this despotic act is an extraordinary proof of the subordination which he had established. He was, however, in general kind and liberal to his troops: he had given to each man a gratuity of three months' pay at the fall of Kandahar; he gave them as much more after the victory of Karnal; and they received a still greater bounty before he marched from Delhi.
The troops of Nadir, we are told, suffered much in their retreat from India by the intense heat to which they were exposed. Their passage over the rivers of the Punjab and the Indus was delayed by accidents to the temporary bridges which he had constructed, and in one instance by the threatened attack of the mountaineers of Kabul, whose forbearance the proud conqueror did not disdain to purchase; and when we consider the nature of the country through which he had to pass, the immense train of baggage with which his army was accompanied, and the danger that might have arisen from the slightest confusion, we cannot blame the prudence with which he acted upon this occasion.
The greatest expectation was excited in Persia at the prospect of the return of their victorious monarch. The inhabitants of that country had already felt the benefit of his triumphs. He had commanded that all taxes should be remitted for three years: and they began to anticipate scenes of unheard-of joy and abundance. The most exaggerated reports were circulated of the vast riches which their sovereign and his soldiers had acquired; and all conceived that Nadir was disposed to enjoy himself, from the number of artificers and musicians which he brought from India. Curiosity, too, was eager to behold the train of elephants which attended his march. That noble animal had become a stranger to the plains of Persia; and the natives of that country were only familiar with its shape from seeing its figure represented in the sculpture of ancient times. Sanguine minds were led, by a natural association of ideas, to believe that their present ruler was the destined restorer of their country to its former glory; and the conqueror was hailed, at his return, as a hero whose fame had eclipsed that of a Sapor or a Nushirwan.
The soldiers of Nadir were, we are informed, after the expedition to India, most anxious for repose; but that Prince was too well acquainted with the consequences of this indulgence to permit them to enjoy it. He had, after he passed the Indus, led them through the deserts of Sind to the attack of a feudatory chief, who had established himself in the government of that province. This ruler had courted Nadir Shah when he first threatened the invasion of India, as he deemed such a measure favorable to his views of independence; but when his possessions were made over to the Persian monarch he changed his policy; and, lodging all his treasure and property in the fortress of Amerkote, made a feeble attempt at opposition; but his capital was taken and plundered, and he was compelled to surrender himself to the mercy of the conqueror; who, however, satisfied with his submission and the possession of his wealth, restored him to the government of the province, which he agreed henceforth to hold as a tributary to the crown of Persia.
After this expedition Nadir marched to Herat, where he made a proud display of the jewels and plunder he had acquired in India; among which the most remarkable was the celebrated throne of the Emperor of Delhi, made in the shape of a peacock, and ornamented with precious stones of every description. This gorgeous exhibition took place on June 4, 1740; and on that day and several others the court, army, and populace were amused with pageants, shows, and entertainments of every kind; but Nadir, though satisfied that this public celebration of triumph was calculated to raise his fame with his subjects and to gratify the vanity of his soldiers, appears always to have dreaded the danger of inaction. He moved his army from Herat; and after meeting his son, Reza Kuli, and bestowing valuable presents upon him and the other princes of his family, he moved toward Bulkh, where he had ordered preparations to be made for his crossing the Oxus to punish the sovereign of Bokhara, who, unmindful of his established alliance, had taken advantage of his absence in India to make inroads into the province of Khorasan.