European Accounts of Bihar in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century

European accounts constitute an important primary source for the study of the history of Bihar in the second half of the eighteenth century. The post-Plassey period which witnessed the establishment of the British rule again is much better illuminated by the European accounts, especially the British accounts, rather than by the local sources. The British rule survived the calamititous famine of 1770 and gradually stabilized itself. Thus began a new chapter in the colonial history of Bihar. The period is equally well-served by the European accounts and supplements a great deal of what we know from other sources. Thomas Twining left England in 1792 as an employee of the English East India Company. As a bureaucrat-academic, he tempers his observations with philosophical musings. Impressed by Rajmahal he writes, 'the ruins of Rajmahal being the most remarkable of any that are to be found in this part of India, I never passed this city without visiting them'.