CHAPTER I.

Ver.04.29.93*END*

Etext prepared by Ken West, maghreb@pcisys.net

The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan, by H. G. Keene

THE FALL OF THE MOGHUL EMPIRE OF HINDUSTAN,

A NEW EDITION,

WITH CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS.

1887

PREFACE.

Two editions of this book having been absorbed, it has been

thought that the time was come for its reproduction in a form

more adapted to the use of students. Opportunity has been taken

to introduce considerable additions and emendations.

The rise and meridian of the Moghul Empire have been related in

Elphinstone's " History of India: the Hindu and Mahometan Period;

" and a Special Study of the subject will Also be found in the "

Sketch of the History of Hindustan" published by the present

writer in 1885. Neither of those works, however, undertakes to

give a detailed account of the great Anarchy that marked the

conclusion of the eighteenth century, the dark time that came

before the dawn of British power in the land of the Moghul. Nor

is there is any other complete English book on the Subject.

The present work is, therefore, to be regarded as a monograph on

the condition of the capital and neighbouring territories, from

the murder of Alamgir II. in 1759 to the occupation of Dehli by

Lake in 1803. Some introductory chapters are prefixed, with the

view of showing how these events were prepared; and an account of

the campaign of 1760-1 has been added, because it does not seem

to have been hitherto related on a scale proportioned to its

importance. That short but desperate struggle is interesting as

the last episode of mediΎval war, when battles could be decided

by the action of mounted men in armour. It is also the sine qua

non of British Empire in India. Had the Mahrattas not been

conquered then, it is exceedingly doubtful if the British power

in the Bengal Presidency would ever have extended beyond Benares.

The author would wish to conclude this brief explanation by

reproducing the remarks which concluded the Preface to his second

edition.

"There were two dangers," it was there observed; "the first, that

of giving too much importance to the period; the second, that of

attempting to illustrate it by stories — such as those of Clive

and Hastings — which had been told by writers with whom

competition was out of the question. Brevity, therefore, is

studied; and what may seem baldness will be found to be a

conciseness, on which much pains have been bestowed."

"The narrative," it was added, "is one of confusion and

transition; and chiefly interesting in so far as it throws light

on the circumstances which preceded and caused the accession of

the East India Company to paramount power in India." The author

has only to add an expression of his hope that, in conjunction

with Mr. S. Owen's book, what he has here written may help to

remove doubts as to the benefits derived by the people of India

from the Revolution under consideration.

Finally, mention should be made of Mr. Elphinstone's posthumous

work, "The Rise of British Power in the East." That work does

not, indeed, clash with the present book; for it did not enter

into the scope of the distinguished author to give the native

side of the story, or to study it from the point of view here

presented. For the military and political aims and operations of

the early British officers in Madras and Bengal, however,

Elphinstone will be found a valuable guide. His narrative bears

to our subject a relation similar to that of the "Roman de Rou"

to the history of the Carling Empire of Northern France.

OXFORD, 1887.

CONTENTS.

PART I.

CHAPTER I

Preliminary Observations on Hindustan and the City of Dehli

CHAPTER II.

Greatness of the Timurides

Causes of Empire's decline

Character of Aurungzeb

Progress of disruption under his descendants

Muhamadan and Hindu enemies

The stage emptied

CHAPTER III.

Muhamad Shah

CHAPTER IV.

Ahmad Shah

Alamgir II.

CHAPTER V,

Afghan invasion

CHAPTER VI.

Overthrow of Mahrattas at Panipat

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

A.D. 1760-67.

1760. Movements of Shahzada Ali Gohar, after escaping

from Dehli

Shojaa-ud-Daulal

His Character

Ramnarayan defeated

M. Law

1761. Battle of Gaya

1762. March towards Hindustan

1763. Massacre of Patna

1764. Flight of Kasim and Sumroo

Battle of Buxar

1705. Treaty with British

1767. Establishment at Allahabad

Legal position

CHAPTER II.

A.D. 1764-71.

1764. Najib-ud-Daula at Dehli

Mirza Jawan Bakht Regent

The Jats

The Jats attacked by Najib

Death of Suraj Mal

1765. Jats attack Jaipur .

1766. Return of Mahrattas

1767. Ahmad Abdali defeats Sikhs .

1768. Mahrattas attack Bhartpur

1770. Rohillas yield to them

Death of Najib-ud-Daula

State of Rohilkand

Zabita Khan .

1771. Mahrattas invite Emperor to return to Dehli

CHAPTER III.

A.D. 1771-76

Agency of Restoration .

Madhoji Sindhia

Emperor's return to Dehli . . . .

1772. Zabita Khan attacked by Imperial force under Mirza

Najaf Khan

Flight of Zabita

Treaty with Rohillas

Zabita regains office

Mahrattas attack Dehli .

1773. Desperation of Mirza Najaf .

Mahrattas attack Rohilkand .

Opposed by British

Advance of Audh troops

Restoration of Mirza

Abdul Ahid Khan .

Suspicious conduct of Rohillas

Tribute withheld by H. Rahmat

1774. Battle of Kattra

1775. Death of Shojaa-ud-Daula

Zabita Khan rejoins Jats

Najaf Kuli Khan

Successes of Imperial army

1776. Zabita and the Sikhs

Death of Mir Kasim

CHAPTER IV.

A.D. 1776-85

Vigour of Empire under M. Najaf

Zabita rebels again

1777. Emperor takes the field .

And the rebellion is suppressed

Sumroo's Jaigir

1778. Abdul Ahid takes the field against the Sikhs

Unsuccessful campaign

1779. Sikhs plunder Upper Doab

Dehli threatened, but relieved

1780. Mirza Najaf's arrangements

Popham takes Gwalior

Death of Sumroo

1781. Begam becomes a Christian

1782. Death of Mirza

Consequent transactions

Afrasyab Khan becomes Premier

Mirza Shaffi at Dehli

1783. Murder of Shaffi

Action of Warren Hastings

1784. Flight of Shahzadah Jawan Bakht

Madhoji Sindhia goes to Agra

Afrasyab murdered

1785. Tribute demanded from British, but refused

Death of Zabita

Sindhia supreme

Chalisa Famine

State of Country

CHAPTER V.

A.D. 1786-88.

1786. Gholam Kadir succeeds his father Zabita

Siege of Raghogarh

1787. British policy

Measures of Sindhia

Rajput confederacy

Battle of Lalsot

Mohammed Beg's death

Defection of his nephew Ismail Beg

Greatness of Sindhia

Gholam Kadir enters Dehli

But checked by Begam Sumroo and Najaf Kuli

Gholam Kadir joins Ismail Beg

1788. Battle of Chaksana

Emperor proceeds towards Rajputana

Shahzada writes to George III.

Najaf Kuli rebels

Death of Shahzada

Siege of Gokalgarh

Emperor's return to Dehli

Battles of Fatihpur and Firozabad

Confederates meet at Dehli

Sindhia is inactive

Benoit de Boigne

CHAPTER VI.

A.D. 1788

Defection of Moghuls and retreat of Hindu Guards

Confederates obtain possession of palace

Emperor deposed

Palace plundered

Gholam Kadir in the palace

Emperor blinded

Approach of Mahrattas

Apprehensions of the spoiler

Moharram at Dehli

Explosion in palace

Gholam Kadir flies to Meerut

His probable intentions

His capture and punishment

Sindhia's measures

Future nature of narrative

Poetical lament of Emperor

PART III.

CHAPTER I.

A.D. 1788 - 94.

Sindhia as Mayor of palace

British policy

1789. Augmentation of Sindhia's Army

1790. Ismail Beg joins the Rajput rising

Battle of Patan

Sindhia at Mathra

Siege of Ajmir

Jodhpur Raja

Battle of Mirta

Rivals alarmed

French officers

1792. Sindhia's progress to Puna

Holkar advances in his absence

Ismail Beg taken prisoner

Battle of Lakhairi

Sindhia rebuked by Lord Cornwallis

His great power

Rise of George Thomas

1793. He quits Begam's service

Sindhia at Punah

1794. His death and character

CHAPTER II.

A.D. 1794 - 1800.

Daulat Rao Sindhia

Thomas adopted by Appa Khandi Rao

1795. Revolution at Sardhana

Begum delivered by Thomas

Becomes a wiser woman

Movements of Afghans

Battle of Kurdla

1796. De Boigne retires

1797. General Perron

Musalman intrigues

Afghans checked

Succession in Audh

1798 War of the Bais

1799. Afghans and British, and treaty with the Nizam

Rising of Shimbunath

Thomas independent

Revolt of Lakwa Dada

1801. Holkar defeated at Indor

Power of Perron

CHAPTER III.

A.D. 1801-3.

Feuds of Mahrattas

Perron attacks Thomas

Thomas falls

1802. Treaty of Bassein

1803. Marquis of Wellesley

Supported from England

Fear entertained of the French

Sindhia threatened

Influence of Perron

Plans of the French

The First Consul.

Wellesley's views

War declared

Lake's Force

Sindhia's European officers

Anti-English feelings, and fall of Perron

Battle of Dehli

Lake enters the capital

Is received by Emperor

No treaty made

CHAPTER IV.

CONCLUSION

Effect of climate upon race

Early immigrants

Early French and English

Empire not overthrown by British

Perron's administration

Changes since then

The Talukdars

Lake's friendly intentions towards them

Their power curbed

No protection for life, property, or traffic

Uncertain reform without foreign aid

Concluding remarks

APPENDIX.

THE FALL OF THE MOGHUL EMPIRE OF HINDUSTAN.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

Preliminary Observations on Hindustan and the City of Dehli.

THE country to which the term Hindustan is strictly and properly

applied may be roughly described as a rhomboid, bounded on the

north-west by the rivers Indus and Satlej, on the south-west by

the Indian Ocean, on the south-east by the Narbadda and the Son,

and on the north-east by the Himalaya Mountains and the river

Ghagra. In the times of the emperors, it comprised the provinces

of Sirhind (or Lahore), Rajputana, Gujrat, Malwa, Audh (including

Rohilkand, strictly Rohelkhand, the country of the Rohelas, or

"Rohillas" of the Histories), Agra, Allahabad, and Dehli: and the

political division was into subahs, or divisions, sarkars or

districts; dasturs, or sub-divisions; and parganahs, or fiscal

unions.

The Deccan, Panjab (Punjab), and Kabul, which also formed parts

of the Empire in its widest extension at the end of the

seventeenth century, are omitted, as far as possible, from

notice, because they did not at the time of our narration form

part of the territories of the Empire of Hindustan, though

included in the territory ruled by the earlier and greater

Emperors.

Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa also formed, at one time, an integral

portion of the Empire, but fell away without playing an important

part in the history we are considering, excepting for a very

brief period. The division into Provinces will be understood by

reference to the map. Most of these had assumed a practical

independence during the first quarter of the eighteenth century,

though acknowledging a weak feudatory subordination to the Crown

of Dehli.

The highest point in the plains of Hindustan is probably the

plateau on which stands the town of Ajmir, about 230 miles south

of Dehli. It is situated on the eastern slope of the Aravalli

Mountains, a range of primitive granite, of which Abu, the chief

peak, is estimated to be near 5,000 feet above the level of the

sea; the plateau of Ajmir itself is some 3,000 feet lower.

The country at large is, probably, the upheaved basin of an

exhausted sea which once rendered the highlands of the Deccan an

island like a larger Ceylon. The general quality of the soil is

accordingly sandy and light, though not unproductive; yielding,

perhaps, on an average about one thousand lbs. av. of wheat to

the acre. The cereals are grown in the winter, which is at least

as cold as in the corresponding parts of Africa. Snow never

falls, but thin ice is often formed during the night. During the

spring heavy dews fall, and strong winds set in from the west.

These gradually become heated by the increasing radiation of the

earth, as the sun becomes more vertical and the days longer.

Towards the end of May the monsoon blows up from the Indian Ocean

and from the Bay of Bengal, when a rainfall averaging about

twenty inches takes place and lasts during the ensuing quarter.

This usually ceases about the end of September, when the weather

is at its most sickly point. Constant exhalations of malaria take

place till the return of the cold weather.

After the winter, cacurbitaceous crops are grown, followed by

sowings of rice, sugar, and cotton. About the beginning of the

rainy season the millets and other coarse grains are put in, and

the harvesting takes place in October. The winter crops are

reaped in March and April. Thus the agriculturists are never out

of employ, unless it be during the extreme heats of May and June,

when the soil becomes almost as hard from heat as the earth in

England becomes in the opposite extreme of frost.

Of the hot season Mr. Elphinstone gives the following strong but

just description: — "The sun is scorching, even the wind is hot,

the land is brown and parched, the dust flies in whirlwinds, all

brooks become dry, small rivers scarcely keep up a stream, and

the largest are reduced to comparative narrow channels in the

midst of vast sandy beds." It should, however, be added, that

towards the end of this terrible season some relief is afforded

to the river supply by the melting of the snow upon the higher

Himalayas, which sends down some water into the almost exhausted

stream-beds. But even so, the occasional prolongation of the dry

weather leads to universal scarcity which amounts to famine for

the mass of the population, which affects all classes, and which

is sure to be followed by pestilence. Lastly, the malaria noticed

above as following the monsoon gives rise to special disorders

which become endemic in favouring localities, and travel thence

to all parts of the country, borne upon the winds or propagated

by pilgrimages and other forms of human intercourse. Such are the

awful expedients by which Nature checks the redundancy of a

non-emigrating population with simple wants. Hence the

construction of drainage and irrigation-works has not merely a

direct result in causing temporary prosperity, but an indirect

result in a large increase of the responsibilities of the ruling

power. Between 1848 and 1854 the population of the part of

Hindustan now called the North-West Provinces, where all the

above described physical features prevail, increased from a ratio

of 280 to the square mile till it reached a ratio of 350. In the

subsequent sixteen years there was a further increase. The latest

rate appears to be from 378 to 468, and the rate of increase is

believed to be about equal to that of the British Islands.

There were at the time of which we are to treat few

field-labourers on daily wages, the Metayer system being

everywhere prevalent where the soil was not actually owned by

joint-stock associations of peasant proprietors, usually of the

same tribe.

The wants of the cultivators were provided for by a class of

hereditary brokers, who were often also chandlers, and advanced

stock, seed, and money upon the security of the unreaped crops.

These, with a number of artisans and handicraftsmen, formed the

chief population of the towns; some of the money-dealers were

very rich, and 36 per cent. per annum was not perhaps an extreme

rate of interest. There were no silver or gold mines, external

commerce hardly existed, and the money-price of commodities was

low.

The literary and polite language of Hindustan, called Urdu or

Rekhta, was, and still is, so far common to the whole country,

that it everywhere consists of a mixture of the same elements,

though in varying proportions; and follows the same grammatical

rules, though with different accents and idioms. The constituent

parts are the Arabised Persian, and the Prakrit (in combination

with a ruder basis, possibly of local origin), known as Hindi.

Speaking loosely, the Persian speech has contributed nouns

substantive of civilization, and adjectives of compliment or of

science; while the verbs and ordinary vocables and particles

pertaining to common life are derived from the earlier tongues.

So, likewise, are the names of animals, excepting those of beasts

of chase.

The name Urdu, by which this language is usually known, is said

to be of Turkish origin, and means literally "camp." But the

Moghuls of India first introduced it in the precincts of the

Imperial camp; so that as Urdu-i-muali (High or Supreme Camp)

came to be a synonym for new Dehli after Shahjahan had made it

his permanent capital, so Urdu-ki-zaban meant the lingua franca

spoken at Dehli. It was the common method of communication

between different classes, as English may have been in London

under Edward III. The classical languages of Arabia and Persia

were exclusively devoted to uses of law, learning, and religion;

the Hindus cherished their Sanskrit and Hindi for their own

purposes of business or worship, while the Emperor and his Moghul

courtiers kept up their Turkish speech as a means of free

intercourse in private life. The Chaghtai dialect resembled the

Turkish still spoken in Kashgar.

Out of such elements was the rich and still growing language of

Hindustan formed, and it is yearly becoming more widely spread

over the most remote parts of the country, being largely taught

in Government schools, and used as a medium of translation from

European literature, both by the English and by the natives. For

this purpose it is peculiarly suited, from still possessing the

power of assimilating foreign roots, instead of simply inserting

them cut and dried, as is the case with languages that have

reached maturity. Its own words are also liable to a kind of

chemical change when encountering foreign matter (e.g., jau,

barley: when oats were introduced some years ago, they were at

once called jaui — "little barley").

The peninsula of India is to Asia what Italy is to Europe, and

Hindustan may be roughly likened to Italy without the two

Sicilies, only on a far larger scale. In this comparison the

Himalayas represent the Alps, and the Tartars to the north are

the Tedeschi of India; Persia is to her as France, Piedmont is

represented by Kabul, and Lombardy by the Panjab. A recollection

of this analogy may not be without use in familiarizing the

narrative which is to follow.

Such was the country into which successive waves of invaders,

some of them, perhaps, akin to the actual ancestors of the Goths,

Huns, and Saxons of Europe, poured down from the plains of

Central Asia. At the time of which our history treats, the

aboriginal Indians had long been pushed out from Hindustan into

the mountainous forests that border the Deccan; which country has

been largely peopled, in its more accessible regions, by the

Sudras, who were probably the first of the Scythian invaders.

After them had come the Sanskrit-speaking race, a congener of the

ancient Persians, who brought a form of fire-worshipping, perhaps

once monotheistic, of which traces are still extant in the Vedas,

their early Scriptures. This form of faith becoming weak and

eclectic, was succeeded by a reaction, which, under the auspices

of Gautama, obtained general currency, until in its turn

displaced by the gross mythology of the Puranas, which has since

been the popular creed of the Hindus.

This people in modern times has divided into three main

denominations: the Sarawagis or Jains (who represent some sect

allied to the Buddhists or followers of Gautama); the sect of

Shiva, and the sect of Vishnu.

In addition to the Hindus, later waves of immigration have

deposited a Musalman population — somewhat increased by the

conversions that occurred under Aurangzeb. The Mohamadans are now

about one-seventh of the total population of Hindustan; and there

is no reason to suppose that this ratio has greatly varied since

the fall of the Moghuls.

The Mohamadans in India preserved their religion, though not

without some taint from the circumjacent idolatry. Their

celebration of the Moharram, with tasteless and extravagant

ceremonies, and their forty days' fast in Ramzan, were alike

misplaced in a country where, from the movable nature of their

dates, they sometimes fell in seasons when the rigour of the

climate was such as could never have been contemplated by the

Arabian Prophet. They continued the bewildering lunar year of the

Hijra, with its thirteenth month every third year; but, to

increase the confusion, the Moghul Emperors also reckoned by

Turkish cycles while the Hindus tenaciously maintained in matters

of business their national Sambat, or era of Raja Bikram Ajit.

The Emperor Akbar, in the course of his endeavours to fuse the

peoples of India into a whole, endeavoured amongst other things

to form a new religion. This, it was his intention, should be at

once a vindication of his Tartar and Persian forefathers against

Arab proselytism, and a bid for the suffrages of his Hindu

subjects. Like most eclectic systems it failed. In and after his

time also Christianity in its various forms has been feebly

endeavouring to maintain a footing. This is a candid report, from

a source that cannot but be trusted, of the result of three

centuries of Missionary labour.

"There is nothing which can at all warrant the opinion that the

heart of the people has been largely touched, or that the

conscience of the people has been affected seriously. There is no

advance in the direction of faith in Christ, like that which

Pliny describes, or Tertullian proclaims as characteristic of

former eras. In fact, looking at the work of Missions on the

broadest scale, and especially upon that of our own Missions, we

must confess that, in many cases, the condition is one rather of

stagnation than of advance. There seems to be a want in them of

the power to edify, and a consequent paralysis of the power to

convert. The converts, too often, make such poor progress in the

Christian life, that they fail to act as leaven in the lump of

their countrymen. In particular, the Missions do not attract to

Christ many men of education; not even among those who have been

trained within their own schools. Educated natives, as a general

rule, will stand apart from the truth; maintaining, at the best,

a state of mental vacuity which hangs suspended, for a time,

between an atheism, from which they shrink, and a Christianity,

which fails to overcome their fears and constrain their

allegiance." — Extract from Letter of the Anglican Bishops of

India, addressed to the English Clergy, in May, 1874.

The capital cities of Northern India have always been Dehli and

Agra; the first-named having been the seat of the earlier

Musalman Empires, while the Moghuls, for more than a full

century, preferred to hold their Court at Agra. This dynasty,

however, re-transferred the metropolis to the older situation;

but, instead of attempting to revive any of the pristine

localities, fixed their palace and its environs upon a new--and a

preferable—piece of ground.

If India be the Italy of Asia, still more properly may it be said

that Dehli is its Rome. This ancient site stretches ruined for

many miles round the present inhabited area, and its original

foundation is lost in a mythical antiquity. A Hindu city called

Indraprastha was certainly there on the bank of the Jamna near

the site of the present city before the Christian era, and

various Mohamadan conquerors occupied sites in the neighbourhood,

of which numerous remains are still extant. There was also a city

near the present Kutb Minar, built by a Hindu rajah, about 57

B.C. according to General Cunningham. This was the original (or

old) Dilli or Dehli, a name of unascertained origin. It appears

to have been deserted during the invasion of Mahmud of Ghazni,

but afterwards rebuilt about 1060 A.D. The last built of all the

ancient towns was the Din Panah of Humayun, nearly on the site of

the old Hindu town; but it had gone greatly to decay during the

long absence of his son and grandson at Agra and elsewhere.

At length New Dehli—the present city—was founded by Shahjahan,

the great-grandson of Humayun, and received the name, by which it

is still known to Mohamudans, of Shahjahanabad. The city is seven

miles round, with seven gates, the palace or citadel one-tenth of

the area. Both are a sort of irregular semicircle on the right

bank of the Jamna, which river forms their eastern arc. The plain

is about 800 feet above the level of the sea, and is bordered at

some distance by a low range of hills, and receiving the drainage

of the Mewat Highlands. The greatest heat is in June, when the

mean temperature in the shade is 92‘ F.; but it falls as low as

53‘ in January. The situation—as will be seen by the map—is

extremely well chosen as the administrative centre of Hindustan;

it must always be a place of commercial importance, and the

climate has no peculiar defect. The only local disorder is a very

malignant sore, which may perhaps be due to the brackishness of

the water. This would account for the numerous and expensive

canals and aqueducts which have been constructed at different

periods to bring water from remote and pure sources. Here

Shahjahan founded, in 1645 A.D., a splendid fortified palace,

which continued to be occupied by his descendants down to the

Great Revolt of 1857.

The entrance to the palace was, and still is, defended by a lofty

barbican, passing which the visitor finds himself in an immense

arcaded vestibule, wide and lofty, formerly appropriated to the

men and officers of the guard, but in later days tenanted by

small shopkeepers. This opened into a courtyard, at the back of

which was a gate surmounted by a gallery, where one used to hear

the barbarous performances of the royal band. Passing under this,

the visitor entered the 'Am-Khas or courtyard, much fallen from

its state, when the rare animals and the splendid military

pageants of the earlier Emperors used to throng its area.

Fronting you was the Diwan-i-Am (since converted into a canteen),

and at the back (towards the east or river) the Diwan-i-Khas,

since adequately restored. This latter pavilion is in echelon

with the former, and was made to communicate on both sides with

the private apartments.

On the east of the palace, and connected with it by a bridge

crossing an arm of the river, is the ancient Pathan fort of

Salimgarh, a rough and dismal structure, which the later Emperors

used as a state prison. It is a remarkable contrast to the rest

of the fortress, which is surrounded by crenellated walls of high

finish. These walls being built of the red sandstone of the

neighbourhood, and seventy feet in height, give to the exterior

of the buildings a solemn air of passive and silent strength, so

that, even after so many years of havoc, the outward appearance

of the Imperial residence continues to testify of its former

grandeur. How its internal and actual grandeur perished will be

seen in the following pages. The Court was often held at Agra,

where the remains of a similar palace are still to be seen. No

detailed account of this has been met with at all rivalling the

contemporary descriptions of the Red Palace of Dehli. But an

attempt has been made to represent its high and palmy state in

the General Introduction to the History of Hindustan by the

present writer.

Of the character of the races who people the wide Empire of which

Dehli was the metropolis, very varying estimates have been

formed, in the most extreme opposites of which there is still

some germ of truth. It cannot be denied that, in some of what are

termed the unprogressive virtues, they exceeded, as their sons

still exceed, most of the nations of Europe; being usually

temperate, self-controlled, patient, dignified in misfortune, and

affectionate and liberal to kinsfolk and dependents. Few things

perhaps show better the good behaviour — one may almost say the

good breeding — of the ordinary native than the sight of a crowd

of villagers going to or returning from a fair in Upper India.

The stalwart young farmers are accompanied by their wives; each

woman in her coloured wimple, with her shapely arms covered

nearly to the elbow with cheap glass armless. Every one is

smiling, showing rows of well-kept teeth, talking kindly and

gently; here a little boy leads a pony on which his white-bearded

grandfather is smilingly seated; there a baby perches, with eyes

of solemn satisfaction, on its father's shoulder. Scenes of the

immemorial East are reproduced before our modern eyes; now the

"flight into Egypt," now St. John and his lamb. In hundreds and

in thousands, the orderly crowds stream on. Not a bough is broken

off a way-side tree, not a rude remark addressed to the passenger

as he threads his horse's way carefully through the everywhere

yielding ranks. So they go in the morning and so return at night.

But, on the other hand, it is not to be rashly assumed that, as

India is the Italy, so are the Indian races the Italians of Asia.

All Asiatics are unscrupulous and unforgiving. The natives of

Hindustan are peculiarly so; but they are also unsympathetic and

unobservant in a manner that is altogether their own. From the

languor induced by the climate, and from the selfishness

engendered by centuries of misgovernment, they have derived a

weakness of will, an absence of resolute energy, and an

occasional audacity of meanness, almost unintelligible in a

people so free from the fear of death. Many persons have thought

that moral weakness of this kind must be attributable to the

system of caste by which men, placed by birth in certain grooves,

are forbidden to even think of stepping out of them. But this is

not the whole explanation. Nor, indeed, are the most candid

foreign critics convinced that the system is one of unmixed evil.

The subjoined moderate and sensible estimate of the effects of

caste, upon the character and habits of the people is from the

Bishops' letter quoted above. "In India, Caste has been the bond

of Society, defining the relations between man and man, and

though essentially at variance with all that is best and noblest

in human nature, has held vast communities together, and

established a system of order and discipline under which

Government has been administered, trade has prospered, the poor

have been maintained, and some domestic virtues have flourished."

Macaulay has not overstated Indian weaknesses in his Essay on

Warren Hastings, where he has occasion to describe the character

of Nand Komar, who, as a Bengali man-of-the-pen, appears to have

been a marked type of all that is most unpleasing in the Hindoo

character. The Bengalis, however, have many amiable

characteristics to show on the other side of the shield, to which

it did not suit the eloquent Essayist to draw attention. And in

going farther North many other traits, of a far nobler kind, will

be found more and more abundant. Of the Musalmans, it only

remains to add that, although mostly descended from hardier

immigrants, they have imbibed the Hindu character to an extent

that goes far to corroborate the doctrine which traces the morals

of men to the physical circumstances that surround them. The

subject will be found more fully treated in the concluding

chapter.

CHAPTER II.

A.D. 1707-19.

Greatness of Timur's Descendants—Causes of the Empire's

Decline—Character of Aurangzeb—Progress of Disruption under his

Successors—Muhamadan and Hindu enemies—The Stage emptied.

For nearly two centuries the throne of the Chaghtais continued to

be filled by a succession of exceptionally able Princes. The

brave and simple-hearted Babar, the wandering Humayun, the

glorious Akbar, the easy but uncertain-tempered Jahangir, the

magnificent Shahjahan, all these rulers combined some of the best

elements of Turkish character — and their administration was

better than that of any other Oriental country of their date. Of

Shahjahan's government and its patronage of the arts — both

decorative and useful — we have trustworthy contemporary

descriptions. His especial taste was for architecture; and the

Mosque and Palace of Dehli, which he personally designed, even

after the havoc of two centuries, still remain the climax of the

Indo-Saracenic order, and admitted rivals to the choicest works

of Cordova and Granada.

The abilities of his son and successor ALAMGIR, known to

Europeans by his private name, AURANGZEB, rendered him the most

famous member of his famous house. Intrepid and enterprising as

he was in war, his political sagacity and statecraft were equally

unparalleled in Eastern annals. He abolished capital punishment,

understood and encouraged agriculture, founded numberless

colleges and schools, systematically constructed roads and

bridges, kept continuous diaries of all public events from his

earliest boyhood, administered justice publicly in person, and

never condoned the slightest malversation of a provincial

governor, however distant his province. Such were these emperors;

great, if not exactly what we should call good, to a degree rare

indeed amongst hereditary rulers.

The fact of this uncommon succession of high qualities in a race

born to the purple may be ascribed to two main considerations. In

the first place, the habit of contracting, marriages with Hindu

princesses, which the policy and the latitudinarianism of the

emperors established, was a constant source of fresh blood,

whereby the increase of family predisposition was checked. Few if

any races of men are free from some morbid taint: scrofula,

phthisis, weak nerves, or a disordered brain, are all likely to

be propagated if a person predisposed to any such ailment marries

a woman of his own stock. From this danger the Moghul princes

were long kept free. Khuram, the second son of Jahangir, who

succeeded his father under the title of Shah Jahan, had a Hindu

mother, and two Hindu grandmothers. All his sons, however, were

by a Persian consort — the lady of the Taj.

Secondly, the invariable fratricidal war which followed the

demise of the Crown gave rise to a natural selection (to borrow a

term from modern physical science), which eventually confirmed

the strongest in possession of the prize. However humanity may

revolt from the scenes of crime which such a system must perforce

entail, yet it cannot be doubted that the qualities necessary to

ensure success in a struggle of giants would certainly both

declare and develop themselves in the person of the victor by the

time that struggle was concluded.

It is, however, probable that both these causes aided ultimately

in the dissolution of the monarchy.

The connections which resulted from the earlier emperors' Hindu

marriages led, as the Hindus became disaffected after the

intolerant rule of Aurangzeb, to an assertion of partisanship

which gradually swelled into independence; while the wars between

the rival sons of each departing emperor gave more and more

occasion for the Hindu chiefs to take sides in arms.

Then it was that each competitor, seeking to detach the greatest

number of influential feudatories from the side of his rivals,

and to propitiate such feudatories in his own favour, cast to

each of these the prize that each most valued. And, since this

was invariably the uncontrolled dominion of the territories

confided to their charge, it was in this manner that the reckless

disputants partitioned the territories that their forefathers had

accumulated with such a vast expenditure of human happiness and

human virtue. For, even from those who had received their

titledeeds at the hands of claimants to the throne ultimately

vanquished, the concession could rarely be wrested by the

exhausted conqueror. Or, when it was, there was always at hand a

partisan to be provided for, who took the gift on the same terms

as those upon which it had been held by his predecessor.

Aurangzeb, when he had imprisoned his father and, conquered and

slain his brothers, was, on his accession, A.D. 1658, the most

powerful of all the Emperors of Hindustan, and, at the same time,

the ablest administrator that the Empire had ever known. In his

reign the house of Timur attained its zenith. The wild Pathans of

Kabul were temporarily tamed; the Shah of Persia sought his

friendship; the ancient Musalman powers of Golconda and Bijapur

were subverted, and their territories rendered subordinate to the

sway of the Empire; the hitherto indomitable Rajputs were subdued

and made subject to taxation; and, if the strength of the

Mahrattas lay gathered upon the Western Ghats like a cloud risen

from the sea, yet it was not to be anticipated that a band of

such marauders could long resist the might of the great Moghul.

Yet that might and that greatness were reduced to a mere show

before his long reign terminated; and the Moghul Empire resembled

— to use a familiar image — one of those Etruscan corpses which,

though crowned and armed, are destined to crumble at the breath

of heaven or at the touch of human hands. And still more did it

resemble some splendid palace, whose gilded cupolas and towering

minarets are built of materials collected from every quarter of

the world, only to collapse in undistinguishable ruin when the

Ficus religiosa has lodged its destructive roots in the

foundation on which they rest. Thus does this great ruler furnish

another instance of the familiar but everneeded lesson, that

countries may be over-governed. Had he been less anxious to stamp

his own image and superscription upon the palaces of princes and

the temples of priests; upon the moneys of every market, and upon

every human heart and conscience; he might have governed with as

much success as his free thinking and pleasure-seeking

predecessors. But he was the Louis Quatorze of the East; with

less of pomp than his European contemporary, but not less of the

lust of conquest, of centralization, and of religious conformity.

Though each monarch identified the State with himself, yet it may

be doubted if either, on his deathbed, knew that his monarchy was

dying also. But so it was that to each succeeded that gradual but

complete cataclysm which seems the inevitable consequence of the

system which each pursued.

One point peculiar to the Indian emperor is that the persecuting

spirit of his reign was entirely due to his own character. The

jovial and clement Chaghtai Turks, from whom he was descended,

were never bigoted Mohamadans. Indeed it may be fairly doubted

whether Akbar and his son Jahangir were, to any considerable

extent, believers in the system of the Arabian prophet. Far

different, however, was the creed of Aurangzeb, and ruthlessly

did he seek to force it upon his Hindu subjects. Thus there were

now added to the usual dangers of a large empire the two peculiar

perils of a jealous centralization of power, and a deep-seated

disaffection of the vast majority of the subjects. Nor was this

all. There had never been any fixed settlement of the succession;

and not even the sagacity of this politic emperor was superior to

the temptation of arbitrarily transferring the dignity of

heir-apparent from one son to another during his long reign.

True, this was no vice confined exclusively to Aurangzeb. His

predecessors had done the like; but then their systems had been

otherwise genial and fortunate. His successors, too, were

destined to pursue the same infatuated course; and it was a

defeated intrigue of this sort which probably first brought the

puppet emperor of our own time into that fatal contact with the

power of England which sent him to die in a remote and

dishonoured exile.

When, therefore, the sceptre had fallen from the dead man's

hands, there were numerous evil influences ready to attend its

assumption by any hands that were less experienced and strong.

The prize was no less than the possession of the whole peninsula,

estimated to have yielded a yearly revenue of the nominal value

of thirty-four millions of pounds sterling, and guarded by a

veteran army of five hundred thousand men.

The will of the late emperor had left the disposal of his

inheritance entirely unsettled. "Whoever of my fortunate sons

shall chance to rule my empire," is the only reference to the

subject that occurs in this brief and extraordinary document.

His eldest surviving son consequently found two competitors in

the field, in the persons of his brothers. These, however, he

defeated in succession, and assumed the monarchy under the title

of BAHADUR SHAH. A wise and valiant prince, he did not reign long

enough to show how far he could have succeeded in controlling or

retarding the evils above referred to; but his brief occupation

of the monarchy is marked by the appearance of all those powers

and dynasties which afterwards participated, all in its

dismemberment, and most in its spoil. Various enemies, both Hindu

and Musalman, appeared, and the Empire of the Chaghtai Turks was

sapped and battered by attempts which, though mostly founded on

the most selfish motives, involved a more or less patriotic

feeling. Sikhs, Mahrattas, and Rajputs, all aimed at

independence; while the indigenous Mohamadans, instead of joining

the Turks in showing a common front to the common enemy, weakened

the defence irrecoverably by opposition and rivalry.

In the attempt to put down the Sikhs, Bahadur died at Lahor, just

five years after the death of his father. The usual struggle

ensued. Three of the princes were defeated and slain in detail;

and the partisans of the eldest son, Mirza Moizudin, conferred

upon him the succession (by the title of JAHANDAR SHAH), after a

wholesale slaughter of such of his kindred as fell within their

grasp. After a few months, the aid of the governors of Bihar and

Allahabad, Saiyids of the tribe of Barha, enabled the last

remaining claimant to overthrow and murder the incapable Emperor.

The conqueror succeeded his uncle under the title of FAROKHSIAR.

The next step of the Saiyids, men of remarkable courage and

ability was to attack the Rajputs; and to extort from their

chief, the Maharajah Ajit Sing, the usual tribute, and the hand

of his daughter for the Emperor, who, like some of his

predecessors, was anxious to marry a Hindu princess. But the

levity and irresolution of the Emperor soon led to his being, in

his turn, dethroned and slaughtered. The race was now quite worn

out.

A brief interregnum ensued, during which the all-powerful Saiyids

sought to administer the powers of sovereignty behind the screen

of any royal scion they could find of the requisite nonentity.

But there was a Nothing still more absolute than any they could

find; and after two of these shadow-kings had passed in about

seven months, one after the other, into the grave, the usurpers

were at length constrained to make a choice of a more efficient

puppet. This was the son of Bahadur Shah's youngest son, who had

perished in the wars which followed that emperor's demise. His

private name was Sultan Roshan Akhtar ("Prince Fair Star"), but

he assumed with the Imperial dignity the title of MOHAMMAD SHAH,

and is memorable as the last Indian emperor that ever sat upon

the peacock throne of Shah Jahan.

The events mentioned in the preceding brief summary, though they

do not comprehend the whole disintegration of the Empire, are

plainly indicative of what is to follow. In the final chapters of

the First Part we shall behold somewhat more in detail the

rapidly accelerating event. During the long reign of Mohammad

foreign violence will be seen accomplishing what native vice and

native weakness have commenced; and the successors to his

dismantled throne will be seen passing like other decorations in

a passive manner from one mayor of the palace to another, or

making fitful efforts to be free, which only rivet their chains

and hasten their destruction. One by one the provinces fall away

from this distempered centre. At length we shall find the throne

literally without an occupant, and the curtain will seem to

descend while preparations are being made for the last act of

this Imperial tragedy.

CHAPTER III.

A.D. 1719-48

Muhammad Shah — Chin Kulich Khan, his retirement from Dehli —

Movements of the Mahrattas — Invasion of Nadir Shah — Ahmad Khan

repulsed by the Moghuls.

GUIDED by his mother, a person of sense and spirit, the young

Emperor began his reign by forming a party of Moghul friends, who

were hostile to the Saiyids on every conceivable account. The

former were Sunnis, the latter Shias; and perhaps the animosities

of sects are stronger than those of entirely different creeds.

Moreover, the courtiers were proud of a foreign descent; and,

while they despised the ministers as natives of India, they

possessed in their mother tongue — Turkish — a means of

communicating with the Emperor (a man of their own race) from

which the ministers were excluded. The Saiyids were soon

overthrown, their ruin being equally desired by Chin Kulich, the

head of the Turkish party, and Saadat Ali, the newly-arrived

adventurer from Persia. These noblemen now formed the rival

parties of Turan and Iran; and became distinguished, the one as

founder of the principality of Audh, abolished in 1856, the other

as that of the dynasty of Haidarabad, which still subsists. Both,

however, were for the time checked by the ambition and energy of

the Mahrattas. Chin Kulich was especially brought to his knees in

Bhopal, where the Mahrattas wrung from him the cession of Malwa,

and a promise of tribute to be paid by the Imperial Government to

these rebellious brigands.

This was a galling situation for an ancient nobleman, trained in

the traditions of the mighty Aurangzeb. The old man was now

between two fires. If he went on to his own capital, Haidarabad,

he would be exposed to wear out the remainder of his days in the

same beating of the air that had exhausted his master. If he

returned to the capital of the Empire, he saw an interminable

prospect of contempt and defeat at the hands of the

Captain-General Khan Dauran, the chief of the courtiers who had

been wont to break their jests upon the old-fashioned manners of

the veteran.

Thus straitened, the Nizam, for by that title Chin Kulich was now

beginning to be known, took counsel with Saadat, the Persian, who

was still at Dehli. Nadir Shah, the then ruler of Persia, had

been for some time urging on the Court of Dehli remonstrances

arising out of boundary quarrels and similar grievances. The two

nobles, who may be described as opposition leaders, are believed

to have in 1738 addressed the Persian monarch in a joint letter

which had the result of bringing him to India, with all the

consequences which will be found related in the History of

Hindustan by the present writer, and in the well-known work of

Mountstuart Elphinstone.

It would be out of place in this introduction to dwell in detail

upon the brief and insincere defence of the Empire by Saadat

'Ali, in attempting to save whom the Khan Dauran lost his life,

while the Nizam attempted vain negotiations. The Persians, as is

well-known, advanced on Dehli, massacred some 100,000 of the

inhabitants, held the survivors to ransom, and ultimately retired

to their own country, with plunder that has been estimated at

eighty millions sterling, and included the famous Peacock Throne.

The Nizam was undoubtedly the gainer by these tragic events. In

addition to being Viceroy of the Deccan, he found himself

all-powerful at Dehli, for Saadat 'Ali had died soon after the

Khan Dauran. Death continuing to favour him, his only remaining

rival, the Mahratta Peshwa, Baji Rao, passed away in 1740, on the

eve of a projected invasion of Hindustan. In 1745 the Province of

Rohelkhand became independent, as did the Eastern Subahs of

Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa. Leaving his son to represent him at

Dehli, the Nizam settled at Haidarabad as an independent ruler,

although he still professed subordination to the Empire, of which

he called himself Vakil-i-Mutlak, or Regent.

Shortly after, a fresh invader from the north appeared in the

person of Ahmad Khan Abdali, leader of the Daurani Afghans, who

had obtained possession of the frontier provinces during the

confusion in Persian politics that succeeded the assassination of

Nadir. But a new generation of Moghul nobles was now rising,

whose valour formed a short bright Indian summer in the fall of

the Empire; and the invasion was rolled back by the spirit and

intelligence of the heir apparent, the Vazir's son Mir Mannu, his

brother-in-law Ghazi-ud-din, and the nephew of the deceased

Governor of Audh, Abul-Mansur Khan, better known to Europeans by

his title Safdar Jang. The decisive action was fought near

Sirhind, and began on the 3rd March, 1748. This is memorable as

the last occasion on which Afghans were ever repulsed by people

of India until the latter came to have European leaders. The

death of the Vazir took place eight days later. This Vazir

(Kamr-ul-din Khan), who had long been the head of the Turkish

party in the State, was the nominal leader of the expedition, in

conjunction with the heir-apparent, though the chief glory was

acquired by his gallant son Mannu, or Moin-ul-din. The Vazir did

not live to share the triumph of his son, who defeated the enemy,

and forced him to retire. The Vazir Kamr-ul-din died on the 11th,

just before the retreat of the Afghans. A round shot killed him

as he was praying in his tent; and the news of the death of this

old and constant servant, who had been Mohammad's personal friend

through all the pleasures and cares of his momentous reign,

proved too much for the Emperor's exhausted constitution. He was

seized by a strong convulsion as he sate administering justice in

his despoiled palace at Dehli, and expired almost immediately,

about the 16th of April, A.D. 1748.

CHAPTER IV.

A.D. 1748-54.

Ahmad Shah — The Rohillas — Ghazi-ud-din the younger —

Perplexities of the Emperor — Alamgir II. placed on the throne.

SELDOM has a reign begun under fairer auspices than did that of

Ahmad Shah. The Emperor was in the flower of his age; his

immediate associates were men distinguished for their courage and

skill; the Nizam was a bar to the Mahrattas in the Deccan, and

the tide of northern invasion had ebbed out of sight.

There is, however, a fatal element of uncertainty in all systems

of government which depend for their success merely upon personal

qualities. The first sign of this precarious tenure of greatness

was afforded by the death of the aged Nizam Chin Kulich, Viceroy

of the Deccan, which took place immediately after that of the

late Emperor.

The eldest son of the old Nizam contended with the nephew of the

deceased Saadat — whose name was Mansur, but who is better known

by his title of Safdar Jang — for the Premiership, or office of

Vazir, and his next brother Nasir Jang held the Lieutenancy of

the Deccan. The command in Rajputan, just then much disturbed,

devolved at first on a Persian nobleman who had been his Bakhshi,

or Paymaster of the Forces, and also Amir-ul-Umra, or Premier

Peer. His disaster and disgrace were not far off, as will be seen

presently. The office of Plenipotentiary was for the time in

abeyance. The Vazirship, which had been held by the deceased

Kamr-ul-din was about the same time conferred upon Safdar Jang,

who also succeeded his uncle as Viceroy or Nawab of Audh. Hence

the title, afterwards so famous, of Nawab-Vazir.

Having made these dispositions, the Emperor followed the

hereditary bent of his natural disposition, and left the

provinces to fare as best they might, while he enjoyed the

pleasures to which his opportunities invited him. The business of

state fell very much into the hands of a eunuch named Jawid Khan,

who had long been the favourite of the Emperor's mother, a Hindu

danseuse named Udham Bai, who is known in history as the Kudsiya

Begam. The remains of her villa are to be seen in a garden still

bearing her name, on the Jamna side a little beyond the Kashmir

Gate of New Dehli. For a time these two had all at their command;

and the lady at least appears to have made a beneficent use of

her term of prosperity. Meanwhile, the two great dependencies of

the Empire, Rohilkand and the Panjab, become the theatre of

bloody contests.

The Rohillas routed the Imperial army commanded by the Vazir in

person, and though Safdar Jung wiped off this stain, it was only

by undergoing the still deeper disgrace of encouraging the Hindu

powers to prey upon the growing weakness of the Empire.

Aided by the Mahrattas under Holkar and by the Jats under Suraj

Mal, the Vazir defeated the Rohillas at the fords of the Ganges;

and pushed them up into the malarious country at the foot of the

Kumaon mountains, where famine and fever would soon have

completed their subjugation, but for the sudden reappearance in

the north-west of their Afghan kindred under Ahmad Khan the

Abdali.

The Mahrattas were allowed to indemnify themselves for these

services by seizing on part of the Rohilla country, and drawing

chauth from the rest; consideration of which they promised their

assistance to cope with the invading Afghans; but on arriving at

Dehli they learned that the Emperor, in the Vazir's absence, had

surrendered to Ahmad the provinces of Lahor and Multan, and thus

terminated the war.

An expedition was about this time sent to Ajmir, under the

command of Saadat Khan, the Amir-ul-Umra, the noble of the Shiah

or "Iranian" party already mentioned as commanding in Rajputan,

and who was also the Imperialist Viceroy of Agra. He wasted his

time and strength, however, in an attack upon the Jats, through

whose country the way went. When at last he neared Ajmir he

allowed himself to be entangled in the local intrigues which it

was the object of his expedition to suppress. He returned after

about fifteen months of fruitless campaigning, and was dismissed

from his office by the all-powerful Jawid, Ghazi-ud-din succeeded

as Amir-ul- Umra.

Almost every section of the History of Ahmad Shah abstracted by

Professor Dowson (VIII.) ends with some sinister allusion to this

favourite eunuch and his influence. The Emperor had nothing to

say as to what went on, as his mother and Jawid were the real

rulers. The Emperor considered it to be most suitable to him to

spend his time in pleasure; and he made his Zanana extend a mile.

For weeks he would remain without seeing the face of a male

creature. There was probably no sincere friend to raise a

warning; and the doom deepened and the hand wrote upon the wall

unheeded. The country was overrun with wickedness and wasted with

misery. The disgrace of the unsuccessful Saadat returning from

Ajmir, was enhanced by his vainly attempting to strike a blow at

the Empress and her favourite. They called in the Turkish element

against him, and contrived to alienate his countryman, Safdar

Jang, who departed towards his Viceroyship of Audh; leaving the

wretched remains of an Empire to ferment and crumble in its own

way.

The cabinet of the Empress was now, in regard to Ghazi-ud-din and

the Mahrattas, in the position of a necromancer who has to

furnish his familiars with employment on pain of their destroying

him. But an escape seemed to be afforded them by the projects of

Ghazi-ud-din, who agreed to draw off the dangerous auxiliaries to

aid him in wresting the Lieutenancy of the Deccan from his third

brother Salabat Jang who had possessed himself of the

administration on the death of Nasir Jang, the second son and

first successor of Chin Kulich, the old Nizam. He was to be

represented at Dehli by a nephew.

Gladly did the Persian party behold their rival thus depart;

little dreaming of the dangerous abilities of the boy he had left

behind. This youth, best known by the family affix of

Ghazi-ud-din (2nd), but whose name was Shahabuddin, and who is

known in native histories by his official title of Aamad-ul-Mulk,

was son of Firoz Jang, the old Nizam's fourth son. He at once

assumed the head of the army, and may be properly described,

henceforth, as "Captain-General." He was but sixteen when the

news of his uncle's sudden death at Aurangabad was brought to

Dehli. Safdar Jang, returning from Lucknow, removed the Emperor's

chief favourite, Jawid, by assassination (28th August, 1752) and

doubtless thought himself at length arrived at the goal of his

ambition. But the young Ghazi, secretly instigated by the weak

and anxious monarch, renewed against the Persian the same war of

Turan and Iran, of Sunni and Shia, which in the last reign had

been waged between the uncle of the one and the grandfather of

the other. The only difference was that both parties being now

fully warned, the mask of friendship that had been maintained

during the old struggle was now completely dropped; and the

streets of the metropolis became the scene of daily fights

between the two factions. Many splendid remains of the old cities

are believed to have been destroyed during these struggles. The

Jats from Bhurtpore came up under Suraj Mal, their celebrated

leader, and plundered the environs right and left. The Vazir's

people, the Persian partly, breached a bastion of the city wall,

and their victory seemed near at hand. But Mir Mannu, the famous

Viceroy of the Punjab — who was Ghazi's near kinsman — sent a

body of veterans to aid the Moghul cause; the account is

confused, but this seems to have turned the tide. The Moghuls, or

Turks, for the time won; and Ghazi assumed the command of the

army. The Vazirship was conferred on Intizam-ud-daulah the Khan

Khanan (a son of the deceased Kamr-ul-din, and young Ghazi's

cousin), while Safdar Jang falling into open rebellion, called

the Jats under Surajmal to his assistance. The Moghuls were thus

led to have recourse to the Mahrattas; and Holkar was even

engaged as a nominal partizan of the Empire, against his

co-religionists the Jats, and his former patron the Viceroy of

Audh. The latter, who was always more remarkable for sagacity

than for personal courage, soon retired to his own country, and

the hands of the conqueror Ghazi fell heavily upon the

unfortunate Jats.

The Khan Khanan and the Emperor now began to think that things

had gone far enough; and the former, who was acquainted with his

kinsman's unscrupulous mind and ruthless passions, persistently

withheld from him a siege-train which was required for the

reduction of Bhartpur, the Jat capital. The Emperor was thus in a

situation from which the utmost judgment in the selection of a

line of conduct was necessary for success, indeed for safety. The

gallant Mir Mannu, son of his father's old friend and servant

Kamar-uddin, was absent in the Panjab, engaged on the arduous

duty of keeping the Afghans in check. But his brother-in-law, the

Khan Khanan, was ready with alternative projects, of which each

was courageous and sensible. To call back Safdar Jung, and openly

acknowledge the cause of the Jats, would probably cost only one

campaign, well conceived and vigorously executed. On the other

hand, to support the Captain-General Ghazi honestly and without

reserve, would have secured immediate repose, whilst it crushed a

formidable Hindu power.

The irresolute voluptuary before whom these plans were laid could

decide manfully upon neither. He marched from Dehli with the

avowed intention of supporting the Captain-General, to whom he

addressed messages of encouragement. He at the same time wrote to

Surajmal, to whom he promised that he would fall upon the rear of

the army (his own !), upon the Jats making a sally from the

fortress in which they were besieged.

Safdar Jang not being applied to, remained sullenly aloof: the

Emperor's letter to the Jats fell into the hands of Ghazi-ud-din,

the Captain-General, who returned it to him with violent menaces.

The alarmed monarch began to fall back upon his capital, pursued

at a distance by his rebellious general. Holkar meanwhile

executed a sudden and independent attack upon the Imperial camp,

which he took and plundered at Sikundrabad, near Bolandshahr. The

ladies of the Emperor's family were robbed of everything, and

sent to Dehli in country carts. The Emperor and his minister lost

all heart, and fled precipitately into Dehli, where they had but

just time to take refuge in the palace, when they found

themselves rigorously invested.

Knowing the man with whom they had to deal, their last hope was

obviously in a spirited resistance, combined with an earnest

appeal to the Audh Viceroy and to the ruler of the Jats. And it

is on record in a trustworthy native history that such was the

tenor of the Vazir's advice to the Emperor. But the latter,

perhaps too sensible of the difficulties of this course from the

known hostility of Safdar Jang, and the great influence of

Ghazi-ud-din over the Moghul soldiery, rejected the bold counsel.

Upon this the Vazir retired to his own residence, which he

fortified, and the remaining adherents of the Emperor opened the

gates and made terms with the Captain-General. The latter then

invested himself with the official robes of the Vazirate (5th

June, 1754) and convened the Moghul Darbar, from which, with his

usual address, he contrived to obtain as a vote of the cabinet

what was doubtless the suggestion of his own unprincipled

ambition. "This Emperor," said the assembled nobles, "has shown

his unfitness for rule. He is unable to cope with the Mahrattas:

he is false and fickle towards his friends. Let him be deposed,

and a worthier son of Timur raised to the throne." This

resolution was immediately acted upon; the unfortunate monarch

was blinded and consigned to the State prison of Salim Garh,

adjoining the palace; and a son of Jahandar Shah, the competitor

of Farokhsiar, proclaimed Emperor under the sounding title of

Alamgir II., July, 1754 A.D. The new Emperor (whose title was due

to the fact that his predecessor — the great Aurangzeb — had been

the first to bear it) was in the fifty-fourth year of his age. He

was a quiet old devotee, whose only pleasures were reading

religious books and attending divine service. His predecessor was

not further molested, and lived on in his captivity to his death

in 1775, from natural causes, at the age of fifty. Ghazi-ud-din

was at the same time acknowledged as Vazir in the room of the

Khan Khanan. That officer was murdered about five years later,

according to Beale (Orl. Bl. Dicty in voc.) So also the

Siyar-ul-mutikharin.

One name, afterwards to become very famous, is heard of for the

first time during these transactions; and, since the history of

the Empire consists now of little more than a series of

biographies, the present seems the proper place to consider the

outset of his career. Najib Khan was an Afghan soldier of

fortune, who had attained the hand of the daughter of Dundi Khan,

one of the chieftains of the Rohilkand Pathans. Rewarded by this

ruler with the charge of a district, now Bijnaur, in the

north-west corner of Rohilkand, he had joined the cause of Safdar

Jang, when that minister occupied the country; but on the

latter's disgrace had borne a part in the campaigns of

Ghazi-ud-din. When the Vazir first conceived the project of

attacking the government, he sent Najib in the command of a

Moghul detachment to occupy the country, about Saharanpur, then

known as the Bawani mahal, which had formed the jagir of the

Ex-Vazir Khan Khanan. This territory thus became in its turn

separated from the Empire, and continued for two generations in

the family of Najib. Though possessing the unscrupulous nature of

his class, he was not without the virtues that are found in its

best specimens. He was active, painstaking, and faithful to

engagements; when he had surmounted his early difficulties he

proved a good administrator. He ruled the dwindled Empire for

nine years, and died a peaceful death, leaving his charge in an

improved and strengthened condition, ready for its lawful

monarch. He was highly esteemed by the British in India.— (v. inf

89 )

The dominions of Akbar and Aurangzeb had now indeed fallen into a

pitiable state. Although the whole of the peninsula still

nominally owned the sway of the Moghul, no provinces remained in

the occupation of the Government besides part of the upper Doab,

and a few districts south of the Satlaj. Gujarat was overrun by

the Mahrattas; Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa were occupied by the

successor of Aliverdi Khan, Audh and Allahabad by Safdar Jang,

the central Doab by the Afghan tribe of Bangash, the province now

called Rohilkand by the Rohillas. The Panjab had been virtually

abandoned; the rest of India had been recovered by the Hindus,

with the exception of such portions of the Deccan as still formed

the arena for the family wars of the sons of the old Nizam. Small

encroachments continued to be made by the English traders.

CHAPTER V

A.D. 1754-60.

Progress of Ghazi ud-din — Ahmad Khan enters Dehli — Escape of

the Prince Ali Gauhar — Murder of the Emperor — Ahmad the Abdali

advances on Dehli — End of Ghazi's career.

No sooner was the revolution accomplished than the young

kingmaker took effective measures to secure his position. He

first seized and imprisoned his relation the Khan Khanan, whose

office he had usurped, as above stated. The opportune death of

Safdar Jang (17th October, 1754) removed another danger, while

the intrepidity and merciless severity with which (assisted by

Najib Khan) he quelled a military mutiny provoked by his own

arbitrary conduct, served at once as a punishment to the

miserable offenders and a warning to all who might be meditating

future attacks.

Of such there were not a few, and those too in high places. The

imbecile Emperor became the willing centre of a cabal bent upon

the destruction of the daring young minister; and, though the

precautions of the latter prevented things from going that

length, yet the constant plotting that went on served to

neutralize all his efforts at administration, and to increase in

his mind that sense of misanthropic solitude which is probably

the starting-point of the greatest crimes.

As soon as he judged that he could prudently leave the Court, the

Minister organized an expedition to the Panjab, where the gallant

Mir Mannu had been lately killed by falling from his horse. Such

had been the respect excited in men's minds towards this

excellent public servant, that the provinces of Lahor and Multan,

when ceded to the Afghans in the late reign, had been ultimately

left in his charge by the new rulers. Ahmad the Abdali even

carried on this policy after the Mir's death, and confirmed the

Government in the person of his infant son. The actual

administrators during the minority were to be the widow of Mannu

and a statesman of great local experience, whose name was Adina

Beg. This man was a Hindu by origin, a, self-made man, bold and

intelligent.

It was upon this opportunity that the Vazir resolved to strike.

Hastily raising, such a force as the poor remnant of the imperial

treasury could furnish, he marched on Lahor, taking with him the

heir apparent, Mirza Ali Gauhar. Seizing the town by a coup de

main, he possessed himself of the Lady Regent and her daughter,

and returned to Dehli, asserting that he had extorted a treaty

from the Afghan monarch, and appointed Adina Beg sole

Commissioner of the provinces.

However this may have been, the Court was not satisfied; and the

less so that the success of the Minister only served to render

him more violent and cruel than ever. Nor is it to be supposed

that Ahmad the Abdali would overlook, for any period longer than

his own convenience might require, any unauthorized interference

with arrangements made by himself for territory that he might

justly regard as his own. Accordingly the Afghan chief soon lent

a ready ear to the representations of the Emperor's party, and

swiftly presented himself at the head of an army within twenty

miles of Dehli. Accompanied by Najib Khan, (who was in secret

correspondence with the invader,) the Minister marched out to

give battle; and so complete was the isolation into which his

conduct had thrown him, that he learned for the first time what

was the true state of affairs when he saw the chief part of the

army follow Najib into the ranks of the enemy, where they were

received as expected guests.

In this strait the Minister's personal qualities saved him.

Having in the meantime made Mannu's daughter his wife, he had the

address to obtain the intercession of his mother-in-law; and not

only obtained the pardon of the invader, but in no long time so

completely ingratiated himself with that simple soldier as to be

in higher power than even before the invasion.

Ahmad Khan now took upon himself the functions of government, and

deputed the Minister to collect tribute in the Doab, while Sardar

Jahan Khan, one of his principal lieutenants, proceeded to levy

contributions from the Jats, and Ahmad himself undertook the

spoliation of the capital.

From the first expedition Ghazi returned with considerable booty.

The attack upon the Jats was not so successful; throwing

themselves into the numerous strongholds with which their country

was dotted, they defied the Afghan armies and cut off their

foraging parties in sudden sallies. Agra too made an obstinate

defence under a Moghul governor; but the invaders indemnified

themselves both in blood and plunder at the expense of the

unfortunate inhabitants of the neighbouring city of Mathra, whom

they surprised at a religious festival, and massacred without

distinction of age or sex.

As for the citizens of Dehli, their sufferings were grievous,

even compared with those inflicted twenty years before by the

Persians of Nadir Shah, in proportion as the conquerors were less

civilized, and the means of satisfying them less plentiful. All

conceivable forms of misery prevailed during the two months which

followed the entry of the Abdali, 11th September, 1757, exactly

one hundred years before the last capture of the same city by the

avenging force of the British Government during the Great Mutiny.

Having concluded these operations, the invader retired into

cantonments at Anupshahar, on the Ganges, and there proceeded to

parcel out the Empire among such of the Indian chiefs as he

delighted to honour. He then appointed Najib to the office of

Amir-ul-umra, an office which involved the personal charge of the

Palace and its inmates; and departed to his own country, from

which he had lately received some unsatisfactory intelligence.

The Emperor endeavoured to engage his influence to bring about a

marriage which he desired to contract with a daughter of the

penultimate Emperor, Muhammad Shah: but the Abdali, on his

attention being drawn to the young lady, resolved upon espousing

her himself. He at the same time married his son Timur Shah to

the daughter of the heir apparent, and, having left that son in

charge of the Panjab, retired with the bulk of his army to

Kandahar.

Relieved for the present from his anxieties, the Minister gave

sway to that morbid cruelty which detracted from the general

sagacity of his character. He protected himself against his

numerous enemies by subsidizing a vast body-guard of Mahratta

mercenaries, to pay whom he was led to the most merciless

exactions from the immediate subjects of the Empire. He easily

expelled Najib (who since his elevation must be distinguished by

his honorific name of Najib ud daula, "Hero of the State"): he

destroyed or kept in close confinement the nobles who favoured

the Emperor, and even sought to lay hands upon the heir apparent,

Ali Gohar.

This prince was now in his seven-and-thirtieth year, and

exhibited all those generous qualities which we find in the men

of his race as long as they are not enervated by the voluptuous

repose of the Palace. He had been for some time residing in a

kind of open arrest in the house of Ali Mardan Khan, a fortified

building on the banks of the river. Here he learned that the

Minister contemplated transferring him to the close captivity of

Salim Garh, the state prison which stood within the precincts of

the Palace. Upon this he consulted with his companions, Rajah

Ramnath and a Musalman gentleman, Saiyid Ali, who with four

private troopers agreed to join in the hazardous enterprise of

forcing their way through the bands which by this time invested

the premises. Early the following morning they descended to the

courtyard and mounted their horses in silence.

There was no time to spare. Already the bolder of the assailants

had climbed upon the neighbouring roofs, from which they began to

fire upon the little garrison, while their main forces guarded

the gateway. But it so happened that there was a breach in the

wall upon the river side, at the rear of the premises. By this

the Prince and his friends galloped out, and without a moment's

hesitation plunged their horses into the broad Jamna. One alone,

Saiyid Ali, stayed behind, and single-handed held the pursuers at

bay until the prince had made good his escape. The loyal follower

paid for his loyalty with his life. The fugitives found their way

to Sikandra, which was the centre of Najib's new fief; and the

Prince, after staying some time under the protection of the

Amir-ul-Umra, ultimately reached Lucknow, where, after a vain

attempt to procure the co-operation of the new Viceroy in an

attack upon the British, he was eventually obliged to seek the

protection of that alien power.

Ahmad the Abdali being informed of these things by letters from

Dehli, prepared a fresh incursion; the rather that Adina Beg,

with the help of the Mahrattas had at the same time chased his

son, Timur Shah, from Lahor; while with another force they had

expelled Najib from his new territory, and forced him to seek

safety in his forts in the Bawani Mahal. The new Viceroy of Audh

raised the Rohillas and his own immediate followers in the

Abdali's name; the Mahrattas were driven out of Rohilkand; and

the Afghans, crossing the Jamna in Najib's territory to the north

of Dehli, arrived once more at Anupshahar about September, 1759,

whence they were enabled to hold uninterrupted communication with

Audh.

The ruthless Ghazi was now almost at the end of his resources. He

therefore resolved to play his last card, and either win all by

the terror of his monstrous crime, or lose all, and retire from

the game.

The harmless Emperor, amongst his numerous foibles, cherished the

pardonable weakness of a respect for the religious mendicants,

who form one of the chronic plagues of Asiatic society. Taking

advantage of this, a Kashmirian in the interest of the Minister

took occasion to mention to Alamgir that a hermit of peculiar

sanctity had recently taken up his abode in the ruined fort of

Firozabad, some two miles south of the city, and (in those days)

upon the right bank of the Jamna, which river has now receded to

a considerable distance. The helpless devotee resolved to consult

with this holy man, and repaired to the ruins in his palanquin.

Arrived at the door of the room, which was in the N.E. corner of

the palace of Firoz Shah, he was relieved of his arms by the

Kashmirian, who admitted him, and closed the entrance. A cry for

aid being presently heard was gallantly responded to by Mirza

Babar, the emperor's son-in-law, who attacked and wounded the

sentry, but was overpowered and sent to Salim Garh in the

Emperor's litter. The latter meanwhile was seized by a savage

Uzbek, named Balabash, who had been stationed within, and who

sawed off the defenceless monarch's head with a knife. Then

stripping off the rich robe he cast the headless trunk out of the

window, where it lay for some hours upon the sands until the

Kashmirian ordered its removal. The date of this tragic event is

between the 10th and 30th of November, 1759 (the latter being the

day given by Dowson, vol. viii. p. 243). The late Minister,

Intizam-ud-Daula, had been murdered by order of his successor

three days earlier. A grandson of Kam Bakhsh (the unfortunate son

of Aurangzeb) was then taken out of the Salim Garh and proclaimed

Emperor by the sonorous title of "Shah Jahan II." But he is not

recognised on the list of emperors, and his reign — such as it

was — lasted but a moment. Ghazi - (or Shahab) ud-din attempted

to reproduce the policy of the Sayyids by governing behind this

puppet; but the son of the murdered emperor proclaimed himself in

Bihar (v. inf.), and Ahmad the Abdali moved against Ghazi, as we

shall see in the next chapter. Discretion was the only part of

valour left, and the young and unscrupulous politician fled to

Bhartpur, where he found a temporary asylum with Suraj Mal.

As this restless criminal here closes his public life, it may be

once for all mentioned that he reluctantly and slowly retired to

Farukhabad, where he remained till Shall Alam came there in 1771

(inf. p. 98); that being driven from thence at the Restoration he

once more became a wanderer, and spent the next twenty years of

his life in disguise and total obscurity; till being accidentally

discovered by the British police at Surat, about 1791, he was, by

the Governor-General's orders, allowed to depart with a small sum

of money to Mecca, the refuge of many a Mohamadan malcontent.

Returning thence he visited Kabul, where he joined one of the

Dehli princes in an attempted invasion of India. The prince went

mad at Multan, and Ghazi, leaving him there, went on to

Bandelkhand, where he received a grant of land on which he

chiefly passed the remainder of his days. He died in 1800, and

was buried at Pakpatan in the Panjab (v. Journal of the As. Soc.

of Bengal, No. CCXXVI. 1879, pp. 129, ff.)

The vengeance of the Abdali, therefore, fell upon the unoffending

inhabitants of the capital — once more they were scourged with

fire and sword. Leaving a garrison in the palace, the Abdali then

quitted the almost depopulated city, and fell back on his old

quarters at Anupshahar, where he entered into negotiations with

the Rohillas, and with the Nawab of Audh, of which the result was

a general combination of the Musalmans of Hindustan with a view

of striking a decisive blow in defence of Islam. But these events

will form the subject of a separate chapter.

CHAPTER VI.

The Campaign of Panipat.

THE Mahratta confederacy was in 1759 irresistible from the

borders of Berar to the banks of the Ganges. On one side they

were checked by the Nizam and Haidar, on the other by

Shujaa-ud-daula, the young ruler of Audh. Between these limits

they were practically paramount. To the westward a third

Mohamadan power, the newly-formed Daurani empire, was no doubt a

standing menace; but it is very possible that, with Ahmad Shah,

as with the other Moslem chiefs, arrangements of a pacific nature

might have been made. All turned upon the character and conduct

of one man. That man was Sadasheo Rao, the cousin and minister of

the Mahratta leader, the Peshwa, into whose hands had fallen the

sway of Mahratta power. For their titular head, the descendant of

Sivaji the original founder, was a puppet, almost a prisoner,

such as we, not many years ago, considered the Mikado of Japan.

The state of the country is thus described by a contemporary

historian, quoted by Tod: — "The people of Hindustan at this

period thought only of personal safety and gratification. Misery

was disregarded by those who escaped it; and man, centred solely

in self, felt not for his kind. This selfishness, destructive of

public, as of private, virtue, became universal in Hindustan

after the invasion of Nadir Shah; nor have the people become more

virtuous since, and consequently are neither happy nor more

independent."

Ahmad Khan (known as "the Abdali"), whom we are now to recognise

as Ahmad Shah, the Daurani emperor, returned to Hindustan (as

stated in the last chapter) late in the summer, and marched to

Dehli, when he heard of the murder of Alamgir II. The execrable

Shahabuddin (or Ghazi-ud-din the younger) fled at his approach,

taking refuge with the Jats. Mahratta troops, who had occupied

some places of strength in the Panjab, were defeated and driven

in. The capital was again occupied and plundered, after which the

Shah retired to the territory of his ally Najib, and summoned to

his standard the chiefs of the Rohillas. On the other hand the

Mahrattas, inviting to their aid the leaders of the Rajputs and

Jats, moved up from the South. They possessed themselves of the

capital in December 1759.

The main force of the Mahrattas that left the Deccan consisted of

20,000 chosen horse, under the immediate command of the minister,

Sadasheo, whom for convenience we may in future call by his title

of "the Bhao." He also took with him a powerful disciplined corps

of 10,000 men, infantry and artillery, under a Mohamadan soldier

of fortune, named Ibrahim Khan. This general had learned French

discipline as commandant de la qarde to Bussy, and bore the

title, or nickname, of "gardi," a souvenir of his professional

origin.

The Bhao's progress was joined by Mahratta forces under Holkar,

Sindhia, the Gaikwar, Gobind Pant, and others. Many of the Rajput

States contributed, and Suraj Mal brought a contingent of 20,000

hardy Jats. Hinduism was uniting for a grand effort; Islam was

rallied into cohesion by the necessity of resistance. Each party

was earnestly longing for the alliance of the Shias under Shujaa,

Viceroy of Audh, whose antecedents led men on both sides to look

upon them as neutral.

The Bhao had much prestige. Hitherto always victorious, his

personal reputation inspired great respect. His camp, enriched

with the plunder of Hindustan, was on a scale of unwonted

splendour. "The lofty and spacious tents," says Grant-Duff,

"lined with silks and broadcloths, were surmounted by large

gilded ornaments, conspicuous at a distance..... Vast numbers of

elephants, flags of all descriptions, the finest horses,

magnificently caparisoned .... seemed to be collected from every

quarter .... it was an imitation of the more becoming and

tasteful array of the Moghuls in the zenith of their glory." Nor

was this the only innovation. Hitherto the Mahrattas had been

light horsemen, each man carrying his food, forage, bedding, head

and heel ropes, as part of his accoutrements; marching fifty

miles after a defeat, and then halting in complete readiness to

"fight another day." Now, for the first time, they were to be

supported by a regular park of artillery, and a regular force of

drilled infantry. But all these seeming advantages only

precipitated and rendered more complete and terrible their

ultimate overthrow.

Holkar and Suraj Mal, true to the instincts of their old

predatory experience, urged upon the Bhao, that regular warfare

was not the game that they knew. They counselled, therefore, that

the families and tents, and all heavy equipments, should be left

in some strong place of safety, such as the almost impregnable

forts of Jhansi and Gwalior, while their clouds of horse harassed

the enemy and wasted the country before and round him. But the

Bhao rejected these prudent counsels with contempt. He had seen

the effect of discipline and guns in Southern war; and, not

without a shrewd foresight of what was afterwards to be

accomplished by a man then in his train, resolved to try the

effect of scientific soldiership, as he understood it. The

determination proved his ruin; not because the instrument he

chose was not the best, but because it was not complete, and

because he did not know how to handle it. When Madhoji Sindhia,

after a lapse of twenty years, mastered all Asiatic opposition by

the employment of the same instrument, he had a European general,

the Count de Boigne, who was one of the great captains of his

age; and he allowed him to use his own strategy and tactics.

Then, the regular battalions and batteries, becoming the nucleus

of the army, were moved with resolution and aggressive purpose,

while the cavalry only acted for purposes of escort,

reconnoissance, and pursuit. In the fatal campaign before us, we

shall find the disciplined troops doing all that could fairly be

expected of them under Asiatic leaders, but failing for want of

numbers, and of generalship.

On arriving at Dehli, the Bhao surrounded the citadel in which

was situated the palace of the emperors. It was tenanted by a

weak Musalman force, which had been hastily thrown in under the

command of a nephew of Shah Wali Khan, the Daurani Vazir. After a

brief bombardment, this garrison capitulated, and the Bhao took

possession and plundered the last remaining effects of the

emperors, including the silver ceiling of the divan khas, which

was thrown into the melting-pot and furnished seventeen lakhs of

rupees ( £170,000).

Ahmad, in the meantime, was cantoned at Anupshahr, on the

frontier of the Rohilla country, where he was compelled to remain

while his negotiations with Shujaa were pending. So came on the

summer of 1760, and the rainy season was at hand, during which,

in an unbridged country, military operations could not be carried

on. All the more needful that the time of enforced leisure should

be given to preparation. Najib, the head of the Rohillas, was

very urgent with the Shah that Shujaa should be persuaded to take

part against the Mahrattas. He pointed out that, such as the

Moghul empire might be, Shujaa was its Vazir. As Ahmad Shah had

hitherto been foiled by the late Nawab Safdar Jang, it was for

his majesty to judge how useful might be the friendship of a

potentate whose predecessor's hostility had been so formidable.

"But," added the prudent Rohilla, "it must be remembered that the

recollection of the past will make the Vazir timorous and

suspicious. The negotiation will be as delicate as important. It

should not be entrusted to ordinary agency, or to the impersonal

channel of epistolary correspondence."

The Shah approved of these reasonings, and it was resolved that

Najib himself should visit the Vazir, and lay before him the

cause which he so well understood, and in which his own interest

was so deep. The envoy proceeded towards Audh, and found the

Vazir encamped upon the Ganges at Mahdi Ghat. He lost no time in

opening the matter; and, with the good sense that always

characterized him, Najib touched at once the potent spring of

self. Shia or Sunni, all Moslems were alike the object of

Mahratta enmity. He, Najib, knew full well what to expect, should

the Hindu league prevail. But would the Vazir fare better?

"Though, after all, the will of God will be done, it behoves us

not the less to help destiny to be beneficent by our own best

endeavours. Think carefully, consult Her Highness, your mother: I

am not fond of trouble, and should not have come all this

distance to see your Excellency were I not deeply interested."

Such, as we learn from an adherent of Shujaa's, was the substance

of the advice given him by the Rohilla chieftain.

The nature of these negotiations is not left to conjecture. The

narrative of what occurred is supplied by Kasi Raj Pandit, a

Hindu writer in the service of the Nawab Vazir, and an

eye-witness of the whole campaign. He was present in both camps,

having been employed in the negotiations which took place between

the Mahrattas and Mohamadans; and his account of the battle (of

which a translation appeared in the Asiatic Researches for 1791,

reprinted in London in 1799) is at once the most authentic that

has come down to our times, and the best description of war ever

recorded by a Hindu.

Shujaa-ud-daulah, after anxious deliberation, resolved to adopt

the advice of his Rohilla visitor. And, having so resolved, he

adhered honestly to his resolution. He sent his family to

Lucknow, and accompanied Najib to Anupshahr, where he was warmly

received by the Daurani Shah, and his minister Shah Wali Khan.

Shortly after, the united forces of the Moslems moved down to

Shahdara, the hunting-ground of the emperors, near Dehli, from

which, indeed, it was only separated by the river Jamna. But, the

monsoon having set in, the encounter of the hostile armies was

for the present impossible. The interval was occupied in

negotiation. The Bhao first attempted the virtue of Shujaa, whom

he tempted with large offers to desert the Sunni cause. Shujaa

amused him with messages in which our Pandit acted as go-between;

but all was conducted with the knowledge of Najib, who was fully

consulted by the Nawab Vazir throughout. The Shah's minister,

also, was aware of the transaction, and apparently disposed to

grant terms to the Hindus. Advantage was taken of the

opportunity, and of the old alliance between Shujaa and the Jats,

to shake the confidence of Suraj Mal, and persuade him to abandon

the league, which he very willingly did when his advice was so

haughtily rejected. It was the opinion of our Pandit, that a

partition of the country might even now have been effected had

either party been earnest in desiring peace. He did not evidently

know what were the Bhao's real feelings, but probably judged him

by the rest of his conduct, which was that of a bold, ambitious

statesman. From what he saw in the other camp, he may well have

concluded that Najib had some far-seeing scheme on foot, which

kept him from sincerely forwarding the proposed treaty. Certainly

that astute Rohilla was ultimately the greatest gainer from the

anxieties and sufferings of the campaign. But the first act of

hostility came from the Bhao, who moved up stream to turn the

invader's flank.

About eighty miles north of Dehli, on the meadowlands lying

between the Western Jamna Canal and the river (from whose right

bank it is about two miles distant), stands the small town of

Kunjpura. In the invasion of Nadir Shah, it had been occupied by

a force of Persian sharpshooters, who had inflicted much loss on

the Moghul army from its cover. Induced, perhaps, by the

remembrance of those days, Ahmad had made the mistake of placing

in it a garrison of his own people, from which he was now

separated by the broad stream of the Jamna, brimming with

autumnal floods. Here the Bhao struck his first blow, taking the

whole Afghan garrison prisoners after an obstinate defence, and

giving up the place to plunder, while the main Afghan army sat

idle on the other side.

At length arrived the Dasahra, the anniversary of the attack of

Lanka by the demigod Ram, a proverbial and almost sacred day of

omen for the commencement of Hindu military expeditions. Ahmad

adopted the auspices of his enemy and reviewed his troops the day

before the festival. The state of his forces is positively given

by the Pandit, as consisting of 28,000 Afghans, powerful men,

mounted on hardy Turkoman horses, forty pieces of cannon, besides

light guns mounted on camels; with some 28,000 horse, 38,000

foot, and about forty guns, under the Hindustani Musalmans. The

Mahrattas had more cavalry, fewer foot, and an artillery of 200

guns; in addition to which they were aided, if aid it could be

called in regular warfare, by clouds of predatory horsemen,

making up their whole force to over 200,000, mostly, as it turned

out, food for the sabre and the gun.

On the 17th of October, 1760, the Afghan host and its allies

broke up from Shahdara; and between the 23rd and 25th effected a

crossing at Baghpat, a small town about twenty-four miles up the

river. The position of the hostile armies was thus reversed; that

of the northern invaders being nearer Dehli, with the whole of

Hindustan at their backs, while the Southern defenders of their

country were in the attitude of men marching down from the

north-west with nothing behind them but the dry and war-wasted

plains of Sirhind. In the afternoon of the 26th, Ahmad's advanced

guard reached Sambalka, about half-way between Sonpat and

Panipat, where they encountered the vanguard of the Mahrattas. A

sharp conflict ensued, in which the Afghans lost a thousand men,

killed and wounded, but drove back the Mahrattas on their main

body, which kept on retreating slowly for several days,

contesting every inch of the ground until they reached Panipat.

Here the camp was finally pitched in and about the town, and the

position was at once covered by digging a trench sixty feet wide

and twelve deep, with a rampart on which the guns were mounted.

The Shah took up ground four miles to the south, protecting his

position by abattis of felled timber, according to his usual

practice, but pitching in front a small unprotected tent from

which to make his own observations.

The small reverse of the Mahrattas at Sambalka was soon followed

by others, and hopes of a pacific solution became more and more

faint. Gobind Pant Bundela, foraging near Meerut with 10,000

light cavalry, was surprised and slain by Atai Khan at the head

of a similar party of Afghans. The terror caused by this affair

paralysed the Bhao's commissariat, while it greatly facilitated

the foraging of the Shah. Shortly after, a party of 2,000

Mahratta horsemen, each carrying a keg of specie from Dehli, fell

upon the Afghan pickets, which they mistook for their own in the

dark of night. On their answering in their own language to the

sentry's challenge, they were surrounded and cut up by the enemy,

and something like £200,000 in silver was lost to the Bhao.

Ibrahim and his disciplined mercenaries now became very clamorous

for their arrears of pay, on which Holkar proposed that the

cavalry should make an immediate attack without them. The Bhao

ironically acquiesced, and turned the tables upon Holkar, who

probably meant nothing less than to lead so hare-brained a

movement.

During the next two months constant skirmishes and duels took

place between parties and individual champions upon either side.

In one of these Najib lost 3,000 of his Rohillas, and was very

near perishing himself; and the chiefs of the Indian Musalmans

became at last very urgent with the Shah to put an end to their

suspense by bringing on a decisive action. But the Shah, with the

patience of a great leader, as steadily repressed their ardour,

knowing very well that (to use the words of a modern leader on a

similar occasion) the enemy were all the while "stewing in their

own-gravy." For this is one of the sure marks of a conqueror,

that he makes of his own troubles a measure of his antagonist's

misfortunes; so that they become a ground, not of losing heart,

but of gaining courage.

Meanwhile the vigilance of his patrol, for which service he had

5,000 of his best cavalry employed through the long winter

nights, created almost a blockade of the Mahrattas. On one

occasion 20,000 of their camp-followers, who had gone to collect

provisions, were massacred in a wood near the camps by this

vigilant force.

The Bhao's spirit sank under these repeated blows and warnings,

and he sent to the Nawab Vazir, Shujaa-ud-daulah, to offer to

accept any conditions that might still be obtainable. All the

other chiefs were willing, and the Shah referred them to the

Rohillas. But Najib proved implacable. The Pandit went to the

Rohilla leader, and urged on him every possible consideration

that might persuade him to agree. But his clear good sense

perceived the nature of the crisis. "I would do much," he said,

"to gratify, the Nawab and show my respect for his Excellency.

But oaths are not chains; they are only words, things that will

never bind the enemy when once he has escaped from the dangers

which compel him to undertake them. By one effort we can get this

thorn out of our sides."

Proceeding to the Shah's tent he obtained instant admission,

though it was now midnight. Here he repeated his arguments;

adding that whatever his Majesty's decision might be was

personally immaterial to himself. "For I," he concluded, "am but

a soldier of fortune, and can make terms for myself with either

party." The blunt counsel pleased the Shah. "You are right,

Najib," said Ahmad, "and the Nawab is misled by the impulses of

youth. I disbelieve in the Mahratta penitence, and I am not going

to throw you over whom I have all along regarded as the manager

of this affair. Though in my position I must hear every one, yet

I promise never to act against your advice."

While these things were passing in the Moslem camp, the

Mahrattas, having exhausted their last resource by the plunder of

the town of Panipat, sent all their chiefs on the same evening to

meet in the great durbar-tent. It was now the 6th of January, and

we may fancy the shivering, starving Southerners crouched on the

ground and discussing their griefs by the wild torchlight. They

represented that they had not tasted food for two days, and were

ready to die fighting, but not to die of hunger. Pan was

distributed, and all swore to go out an hour before daybreak and

drive away the invaders or perish in the attempt.

As a supreme effort, the Bhao, whose outward bearing at durbar

had been gallant and dignified, had despatched a short note to

our Pandit, who gives the exact text. "The cup is full to the

brim, and cannot hold another drop. If anything can be done, do

it. If not, let me know plainly and at once; for afterwards there

will be no time for writing, or for speech." The Pandit was with

Shujaa, by the time this note arrived — the hour was 3 A.M. — and

he handed it to his master, who began to examine the messenger.

While he was so doing, his spies ran in with the intelligence

that the Mahrattas had left their lines. Shujaa, at once hastened

to the Shah's tent.

Ahmad had lain down to rest, but his horse was held ready saddled

at the entry. He rose from his couch and asked, "What news?" The

Nawab told him what he had heard. The Shah immediately mounted

and sent for the Pandit. While the latter was corroborating the

tidings brought by his master, Ahmad, sitting on his horse, was

smoking a Persian pipe and peering into the darkness. All at once

the Mahratta cannon opened fire, on which the Shah, handing his

pipe to an orderly, said calmly to the Nawab, "Your follower's

news was very true I see." Then summoning his prime minister,

Shah Wali, and Shah Pasand the chief of his staff, he made his

dispositions for a general engagement when the light of day came.

Yes, the news was true. Soon after the despatch of the Bhao's

note, the Mahratta troops broke their fast with the last

remaining grain in camp, and prepared for a mortal combat; coming

forth from their lines with turbans dishevelled and

turmeric-smeared faces, like devotees of death. They marched in

an oblique line, with their left in front, preceded by their

guns, small and great. The Bhao, with the Peshwa's son and the

household troops, was in the centre. The left wing consisted of

the gardis under Ibrahim Khan; Holkar and Sindhia were on the

extreme right.

On the other side the Afghans formed a somewhat similar line,

their left being formed by Najib's Rohillas, and their right by

two brigades of Persian troops. Their left centre was led by the

two vazirs, Shujaa-ud-daulah and Shah Wali. The right centre

consisted of Rohillas, under the well-known Hafiz Rahmat and

other chiefs of the Indian Pathans. Day broke, but the Afghan

artillery for the most part kept silence, while that of the

enemy, losing range in its constant advance, threw away its

ammunition over the heads of the enemy and dropped its shot a

mile to their rear. Shah Pasand Khan covered the left wing with a

choice body of mailed Afghan horsemen, and in this order the army

moved forward, leaving the Shah at his usual post in the little

tent, which was now in rear of the line, from whence he could

watch and direct the battle.

On the other side no great precautions seem to have been taken,

except indeed by the gardis and their vigilant leader, who

advanced in silence and without firing a shot, with two

battalions of infantry bent back to their left flank, to cover

their advance from the attack of the Persian cavalry forming the

extreme right of the enemy's line. The valiant veteran soon

showed the worth of French discipline, and another division such

as his would have probably gained the day. Well mounted and

armed, and carrying in his own hand the colours of his own

personal command, he led his men against the Rohilkhand columns

with fixed bayonets, and to so much effect that nearly 8,000 were

put hors de combat. For three hours the gardis remained in

unchallenged possession of that part of the field.

Shujaa-ud-daulah, with his small but compact force, remained

stationary, neither fighting nor flying, and the Mahrattas

forebore to attack him. The corps between this and the Pathans

was that of the Daurani Vazir, and it suffered severely from the

shock of an attack delivered upon them by the Bhao himself at the

head of the household troops. The Pandit, being sent through the

dust to inform Shujaa of what was going on, found Shah Wali

vainly trying to rally the courage of his followers, of whom many

were in full retreat. "Whither would you run, friends," cried the

Vazir, "your country is far from here."

Meanwhile, on the left of the Mohamadan line, the prudent Najib

had masked his advance by a series of breastworks, under cover of

which he had gradually approached the hostile force. "I have the

highest stake to-day," he said, "and cannot afford to make any

mistakes." The part of the enemy's force immediately opposed to

him was commanded by the then head of the Sindhia house, who was

Najib's personal enemy. Till noon Najib remained on the

defensive, keeping off all close attacks upon his earthworks by

continuous discharges of rockets. But so far the fortune of the

day was evidently inclined towards the Mahrattas. The Mohamadans'

left still held their own under the two Vazirs and Najib; but the

centre was cut in two, and the right was almost destroyed.

Victory seemed to await the Mahrattas.

Of the circumstances which turned the tide and gave the crisis to

the Moslems, but one account necessarily exists. Hitherto we have

had the guidance of Grant-Duff for the Mahratta side of the

affair, but now the whole movement was to be from the other side,

and we cannot do better than trust the Pandit. Dow, the only

other contemporary author of importance — if we except Gholam

Hosain, who wrote at a very remote place — is most irremediably

inaccurate and vague about all these transactions. The Pandit,

then, informs us that, during those earlier hours of the

conflict, the Shah had watched the fortunes of the battle from

his tent, guarded by the still unbroken forces on his left. But

now, hearing that his right was reeling and his centre was

defeated, he felt that the moment was come for a final effort. In

front of him the Hindu cries of Har! Har! Jai Mahadeo! were

maintaining an equal and dreadful concert with those of Allah!

Allah! Din! Din! from his own side. The battle wavered to and fro

like that of Flodden as described by Scott. The Shah saw the

critical moment in the very act of passing. He therefore sent 500

of his own body-guard with orders to arise all able-bodied men

out of camp, and send them to the front at any cost. 1,500 more

he sent to encounter those who were flying, and slay without pity

any who would not return to the fight. These, with 4,000 of his

reserve troops, went to support the broken ranks of the Rohilla

Pathans on the right. The remainder of the reserve, 10,000

strong, were sent to the aid of Shah Wali, still labouring

unequally against the Bhao in the centre of the field. The Shah's

orders were clear. These mailed warriors were to charge with the

Vazir in close order, and at full gallop. As often as they

charged the enemy in front, the chief of the staff and Najib were

directed to fall upon either flank. These orders were immediately

carried out.

The forward movement of the Moslems began at 1 P.M. The fight was

close and obstinate, men fighting with swords, spears, axes, and

even with daggers. Between 2 and 3 P.M. the Peshwa's son was

wounded, and, having fallen from his horse, was placed upon an

elephant. The last thing seen of the Bhao was his dismounting

from another elephant, and getting on his Arab charger. Soon

after the young chief was slain. The next moment Holkar and the

Gaikwar left the field. In that instant resistance ceased, and

the Mahrattas all at once became helpless victims of butchery.

Thousands were cut down; other thousands were drowned in

escaping, or were slaughtered by the country people whom they had

so long pillaged. The Shah and his principal commanders then

retired to camp, leaving the pursuit to be completed by

subordinate officers. Forty thousand prisoners are said to have

been slain. Among the prisoners was Ibrahim, the valiant and

skilful leader of the gardis. Though severely wounded, he was

taken care of in Shujaa's tents, where his wounds received

surgical attention. Shujaa also endeavoured to extend protection

to the head of the house of Sindhia. A subordinate member of the

clan, the afterwards celebrated Madhoji — who was to become in

his turn master of the whole country — fled from the field; and

the late Colonel Skinner used to describe how this chief — in

whose service he at one time was — would relate the mental

agonies he endured on his light Deccanee mare from the lobbing

paces and roaring breath of a big Northern horse, on which he was

pursued for many miles by an Afghan, greedy of blood and booty.

Jankoji, the then head of the family, was killed next day, a

victim to the enmity of Najib, whose policy included

relentlessness. Ibrahim Gardi was taken from Shujaa by a mixture

of force and fraud. He was put into the charge of the Afghan

Vazir, and died in that charge a week after. A headless body,

supposed to be that of the Bhao, was found some twenty or thirty

miles off. The body, with that of the Peshwa's son, received the

usual honours of Hindu cremation at the prayer of the Nawab

Shujaa. Several pretenders to the name of this Oriental Sebastian

afterwards appeared from time to time; the last was in captivity

in 1782, when Warren Hastings procured his liberation.

After these things the allies moved to Dehli; but the Daurani

troops became mutinous and quarrelsome; and they parted on ill

terms. Shujaa marched back to Mahdi Ghat, whence he had come six

months before, with the titular appointment of Vazir of the

Empire. The Shah, having written to the fugitive Shah Alam, to

salute him as emperor, got what money he could out of the

exhausted treasury and departed to his own country. Najib Khan

remained at Dehli under the title of Najib-ud-daulah, with a son

of the absent emperor as ostensible regent. Having made these

dispositions, Ahmad the Abdali returned to his own country, and

only once again interposed actively in the affairs of the Indian

peninsula.

Such was the famous Campaign of Panipat, the first disaster, on a

great scale, of the power of the Mahratta confederacy, and the

besom which swept the land of Hindustan for the advent of the

British.

It appears that, at this period, the Shahzada had applied to

Colonel Clive for an Asylum in Calcutta, while the Colonel was at

the same time in receipt of a letter from the minister at Dehli —

the unscrupulous Ghazi-ud-din — calling on him to arrest the

prince as a rebel and forward him to Court in custody. Clive

contented himself by sending him a small present in money. About

the same time, however, Clive wrote to Lord Chatham (then Prime

Minister, and Mr. Pitt), recommending the issue of orders

sanctioning his demanding the Viceroyship of the Eastern Subahs

on behalf of the King of England; an application which he

guaranteed the Emperor's granting on being assured of the

punctual payment of fifty lakhs a year, the estimated fifth of

the revenues. "This," he says, "has of late been very ill-paid,

owing to the distractions in the heart of the Moghul Empire,

which have prevented the Court from attending to their concerns

in those distant provinces." Although nothing came of these

proceedings, they are here noted as the presage of future events.

PART II.

CHAPTER I.

The English — Shujaa-ud-daulah — Shahzada enters Bihar; his

character — Ramnarayan defeated — M. Law — Battle of Gaya — March

towards Hindustan — Massacre of Patna — Flight of Kasim and Sumro

— Battle of Buxar — Treaty with British — Text of Treaty —

Establishment at Allahabad — Emperor's establishment —

Authorities cited — Broome's Bengal Army — Legal position.

THE events related in the foregoing introductory chapters had led

to a complete obscuration of the Timuride family and power.

Whether or no that dynasty was to resume its sway once more

depended entirely on the turn that events were to take at this

crisis; and chiefly on what might happen in the eastern provinces

of Bihar and Bengal, where a new power was rapidly making itself

felt. To that quarter, therefore, general attention was

henceforth drawn; and the new power — the English — began to be,

by common consent, treated as arbiter of the future. The Nawab of

Audh was also an important element in the problem, as it then

appeared; and the return of the ruler of Kabul to the plains

where he had so lately struck a blow that seemed decisive, was a

matter of almost daily expectation.

1759. — When in 1759 the heir to what was left of the empire of

Hindostan had gallantly cut his way through the myrmidons sent

against him by the ruthless Minister, he crossed the Jamna and

took refuge with Najib-ud-daulah, the Afghan, who was then at

Saharanpur in the Fifty-Two Parganas. But finding that noble

unable to afford him material support, and still fearing the

machinations of his enemy, he gradually retired to Lucknow,

intending perhaps to wait there until the return of the Abdali

leader might afford him an opportunity of turning upon the

Mohamadan and Hindu rebels.

The present viceroy of Audh was Shujaa-ud-daulah, the son of the

famous Safdar Jang, whom he equalled in ability, and far exceeded

in soldierly qualities. On his first succession to his father's

now almost independent fief he was young, and content with the

unbounded indulgence of those bodily faculties with which he was

largely endowed. He is described as extremely handsome, and above

the average stature; with an acute mind, somewhat too volatile;

and more prone by nature to the exercises of the field than to

the deliberations of the cabinet. But neither was the son of

Safdar Jang likely to be brought up wholly without lessons in

that base and tortuous selfishness which, in the East even more

than elsewhere, usually passes for statecraft; nor were those

lessons likely to be read in ears unprepared to understand them.

Shujaa's conduct in the late Rohilla war had been far from frank;

and he was particularly unwilling to throw himself irredeemably

into the cause of a ruined sovereign's fugitive heir. Foiled in

his application to the Viceroy of Audh, the Shahzada (Prince)

then turned to a member of the same family who held the Fort and

District of Allahabad, and was named Mohammad Kuli Khan. To this

officer he exhibited an imperial patent in his own name for the

lieutenancy of Bahar, Bengal, and Orissa, which were then the

theatre of wars between the British traders of Calcutta and the

family of the usurping Viceroy of those Subahs, Aliverdi Khan.

The Prince proposed to Mohammad Kuli that they should raise the

Imperial standard and reduce both competitors to their proper

level. The governor, a man of ambition and spirit, was warmly

encouraged to this scheme by his relation, the Viceroy of Audh

(for reasons of his own, which we shall speedily discover, Shujaa

highly approved of the arrangement); and a powerful official,

named Kamgar Khan, promised assistance in Bihar. Thus supported,

the Prince crossed the frontier stream (Karamnassa) in November,

1759, just at the time that his unfortunate father lost his life

in the manner related above. (Part I. chapter v.)

1760. — In the distracted state of the country it was more than a

month before the news of this tragedy arrived in camp, which was

then pitched at a village called Kanauti, in Bihar. The Prince

immediately assumed the succession, and, as a high aim leads to

high shooting, his title was to be nothing short of "sovereign of

the known world," or SHAH ALAM. He is recorded to have ordered

that his reign should be reckoned from the day of his father's

"martyrdom"; and there are firmans of his patent-office still

forthcoming in confirmation of the record. He was at once

recognised as emperor by all parties; and, for his part, he

wisely confirmed Shujaa-ud-daulah as Vazir; while he intrusted

the command of the army in Hindustan, in the room of the assassin

Ghazi, to Najib-ud-daulah, the Abdali's nominee.

Having made these arrangements he proceeded to collect revenue

and establish himself in Bihar. He was at this time a tall,

portly man, forty years old, or thereabout, with the

constitutional character of his race, and some peculiarities of

his own. Like his ancestors, he was brave, patient, dignified,

and merciful; but all contemporary accounts support the view

suggested by his whole history, and debit him with defects which

more than balanced these great virtues. His courage was rather of

the nature of fortitude than of that enterprising boldness which

was absolutely necessary in his situation. His clemency did great

harm when it led him to forgive and ignore all that was done to

him, and to lend his ear and his hand to any person of stronger

will who was nearest to him at the moment. His patience was of a

kind which ere long degenerated into a simple compromise with

fortune, in which he surrendered lofty hopes for the future in

exchange for immediate gratifications of sense. In a word,

writers unacquainted with English history have combined to

produce a picture which bears a strong likeness, both in features

and position, to that of Charles the Second of Britain, after the

death of his father.

The Eastern Subahs were at this time held by Clive's nominee, Mir

Jafar Khan, known in English histories as Meer Jaffier, and the

Deputy in Bihar was a Hindu man of business, named Raja

Ramnarayan. This official, having sent to Murshidabad and

Calcutta for assistance, attempted to resist the proceedings of

his sovereign; but the Imperial army defeated him with

considerable loss, and the Hindu official, wounded in body and

alarmed in mind, retired into the shelter of Patna, which the

Moghuls did not, at that time, think fit to attack.

Meantime, the army of the Nawab having been joined by a small

British contingent, marched to meet the Emperor, who was worsted

in an engagement that occurred on the 15th of February, 1760. On

this the Emperor adopted the bold plan of a flank march, by which

he should cut between the Bengal troops and their capital,

Murshidabad, and possess himself of that town in the absence of

its defenders. But before he could reach Murshidabad, he was

again overtaken and repulsed by the activity of the English (7th

April), and, being by this time joined by a small body of French

under a distinguished officer, he resolved to remain in Bihar and

set about the siege of Patna.

These French were a party of about one hundred officers and men

who had refused to join in the capitulation of Chandarnagar three

years before, and had since been wandering about the country

persecuted by their relentless victor Clive. Their leader was the

Chevalier Law, a relation of the celebrated speculator of the

Regency; and he now hastened to lay at the feet of the Royal

adventurer the skill and enterprise of his followers and himself.

His ambition was high and bold, perhaps more so than his previous

display of abilities might well warrant. But he soon saw enough

of the weakness of the Emperor, of the treachery and low motives

of the Moghul nobles, to contract the hopes his self-confidence

had fostered. To the historian Gholam Hossain Khan he said: —

"As far as I can see, there is nothing that you could call

government between Patna and Dehli. If men in the position of

Shujaa-ud-daulah would loyally join me, I could not only beat off

the English, but would undertake the administration of the

Empire."

The very first step in this ambitious programme was never to be

taken. Whilst the Emperor with his new adherents — (and a hundred

Frenchmen under even such a leader as Law were as strong as a

reinforcement of many thousand native troops under a faithless

Moghul)—whilst these strangely matched associates were

beleaguering Patna, Captain Knox, at the head of a small body of

infantry, of which only 200 men were European, ran across the 300

miles between Murshidabad and Patna in the space of thirteen

days, and fell upon the Imperial army, whom he utterly routed and

drove southward upon Gaya. The Imperial army was now commanded by

Kamgar Khan; for Mohammad Kuli had returned to Allahabad, and

been murdered by his unscrupulous cousin Shujaa, who seized upon

the province and fort. The Emperor, as is evident from his

retreating southward, still hoped to raise the country in his

favour, and his hopes were so far justified that he was joined by

another Moghul officer, named Khadim Hossain. Thus reinforced, he

again advanced on Patna opposed by Knox, who in his turn had been

joined by a Hindu Raja named Shatab Rai. Another defeat was the

result, and the baffled sovereign at length evacuated the

country, and fled northward, pursued by the whole united forces

of the British and the Bengal Nawab. The son of the latter,

however, being killed in a thunderstorm in July, the allied

armies retired to cantonments at Patna, and the pertinacious

Imperialists once more posted themselves between that place and

the capital, at their old station of Gaya.

1761. — Early next year, therefore, the Anglo-Bengali troops once

more took the field, and encountering the Imperialists at Suan,

near the city of Bihar, gave them a fresh overthrow, in which Law

was taken prisoner, fighting to the last, and refusing to

surrender his sword, which he was accordingly permitted to

retain.

Next morning the British commander paid his respects to the

Emperor, who was now quite weary of the hopeless struggle he had

been maintaining for nearly two years, and who willingly departed

towards Hindustan. He had by this time heard of the battle of

Panipat, and of the plans formed by the Abdali for the

restoration of the empire; and there is reason to believe that,

but for the jealousy of Mir Kasim, whom a late revolution

(brought about by the English) had placed in the room of Mir

Jafar, the Emperor would have been at once reinstated at Dehli

under British protection. Before he went he created Mir Kasim

Subahdar; and the fiscal administration also vested in him, the

English having so determined. The Emperor was to have an annual

tribute of £240,000.

1762. — As affairs turned out there was much to be done and

suffered by the British before they had another opportunity of

interfering in the affairs of Hindustan; and a strange series of

vicissitudes impended upon the Emperor before he was to meet them

in the palace of his fathers. On his way to the northwest he fell

into the hands of the ambitious Nawab Vazir of Audh, who had

received the Abdali's orders to render the Emperor all

assistance, and who carried out the letter of these instructions

by retaining him for some two years in an honourable confinement,

surrounded by the empty signs of sovereignty, sometimes at

Benares, sometimes at Allahabad, and sometimes at Lucknow.

1763. — In the meanwhile the unscrupulous heroes who were

founding the British Government of India had thought proper to

quarrel with their new instrument Mir Kasim, whom they had so

lately raised to the Masnad of Bengal. This change in their

councils had been caused by an insubordinate letter addressed to

the Court of Directors by Clive's party, which had led to their

dismissal from employ. The opposition then raised to power

consisted of all the more corrupt members of the service; and the

immediate cause of their rupture with Mir Kasim was about the

monopoly they desired to have of the local trade for their own

private advantage. They were represented at that Nawab's Court by

Mr. Ellis, the most violent of their body; and the consequence of

his proceedings was, in no long time, seen in the murder of the

Resident and all his followers, in October, 1763. The scene of

this atrocity (which remained without a parallel for nearly a

century) was at Patna, which was then threatened and soon after

stormed by the British; and the actual instrument was a

Franco-German, Walter Reinhardt by name, of whom, as we are to

hear much more hereafter, it is as well here to take note.

This European executioner of Asiatic barbarity is generally

believed to have been a native of Treves, in the Duchy of

Luxemburg, who came to India as a sailor in the French navy. From

this service he is said to have deserted to the British, and

joined the first European battalion raised in Bengal. Thence

deserting he once more entered the French service; was sent with

a party who vainly attempted to relieve Chandarnagar, and was one

of the small party who followed Law when that officer took

command of those, who refused to share in the surrender of the

place to the British. After the capture of his ill-starred chief,

Reinhardt (whom we shall in future designate by his Indian

sobriquet of " Sumroo," or Sombre) took service under Gregory, or

Gurjin Khan, Mir Kasim's Armenian General.

Broome, however, adopts a somewhat different version. According

to this usually careful and accurate historian, Reinhardt was a

Salzburg man who originally came to India in the British service,

and deserted to the French at Madras, whence he was sent by Lally

to strengthen the garrison of the Bengal settlement. The details

are not very material: Sumroo had certainly learned war both in

English and French schools.

After the massacre of the British, Kasim and his bloodhound

escaped from Patna (which the British stormed and took on the 6th

of November), and found a temporary asylum in the dominions of

Shojaa-ud-daulah. That nobleman solemnly engaged to support his

former antagonist, and sent him for the present against some

enemies of his own in Bundelkand, himself marching to Benares

with his Imperial captive, as related in the preceding page.

1764. — In February, 1764, the avenging columns of the British

appeared upon the frontier, but the Sepoys broke into mutiny,

which lasted some time, and was with difficulty and but

imperfectly quelled by Colonel Carnac. Profiting by the delay and

confusion thus caused, the allies crossed into Bihar, and made a

furious, though ultimately unsuccessful attack upon the British

lines under the walls of Patna on the 3rd of May.

Shujaa-ud-daulah, the Nawab of Audh, temporarily retiring, the

Emperor resumed negotiations with the British commander; but

before these could be concluded, the latter was superseded by

Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Monro. This officer's arrival

changed the face of affairs. Blowing from guns twenty-four of the

most discontented of the sepoys, the Major led the now submissive

army westward to Buxar (Baksar), near the confluence of the

Karamnassa with the Ganges, where the two Nawabs (for Kasim and

the Audh Viceroy had now united their forces) encountered him to

be totally routed on the 23rd October, 1764.

The Emperor, who had taken no part in the action, came into the

camp on the evening of the following day. By the negotiations

which ultimately ensued, the British at last obtained a legal

position as administrators of the three Subahs, with the further

grant of the Benares and Ghazipur sarkars as fiefs of the Empire.

The remainder of the Subah of Allahabad was secured to the

Emperor with a pecuniary stipend which raised his income to the

nominal amount of a million a year of our money.

But the execution of these measures required considerable delay,

and some further exercise of that pertinacious vigour which

peculiarly distinguished the British in the eighteenth century.

Shujaa-ud-daulah fled first to Faizabad in his own territories;

but, hearing that Allahabad had fallen, and that the English were

marching on Lucknow, he had recourse to the Pathans of Rohilkand,

whose hospitality he afterwards repaid with characteristic

ingratitude. Not only did the chiefs of the Rohillas harbour the

Nawab Vazir's family at Bareilly, but they also lent him the aid

of 3,000 of their troops. Further supported by the restless

Mahrattas of Malhar Rao Holkar, a chief who always maintained

relations with the Musulmans, Shujaa returned to the conflict.

1765. — It may be easily imagined that what he failed to do with

the aid of Mir Kasim and his own territory, he did not effect

with his present friends as an exile; and Kasim having fled, and

Sumroo having entered the service of the Jats of Bhartpur, the

Vazir consented to negotiate with the English; the latter, under

strong pressure from Clive, who had lately returned to India,

showing themselves perfectly placable, now that it had become

impossible for them to insist upon the terms, so distasteful to

an Eastern chief, which required the surrender of his infamous

guests. General Carnac, who had resumed the command, gave the

Nawab and his allies a final defeat near Cawnpore, and drove the

Mahrattas across the Jamna. The treaty confirming the terms

broached after the battle of Buxar was now concluded, and Audh,

together with part of the Doab, made over to the Nawab Vazir

Shujaa-ud-daulah, who, being thus reinstated as a feudatory of

the British Diwans, returned to his own country, leaving Shah

'Alam at Allahabad as a British pensioner.

The terms accorded to the Emperor will be seen from the

counterpart issued by him, part of which is subjoined:—

" + + + Whereas, in consideration of the attachment and services

of the high and mighty, the noblest of nobles, the chief of

illustrious warriors, our faithful servants and loyal

well-wishers, worthy of royal favour the English Company, we have

granted to them the Diwani of the Soobahs of Bengal, Bahar, and

Orissa, from the beginning of the spring harvest of the Bengal

year 1171, as a free gift and fief (Al tumgha), without the

association of any other person, and with an exemption from the

payment of the tribute of the Diwan which used to be paid to this

court; it is therefore requisite that the said Company engage to

be security for the sum of twenty-six lakhs of rupees a year for

our revenue (which sum has been imposed upon the Nawab), and

regularly remit the same.

"Given on the 8th Safar, in the sixth year of our reign."

The Nawab was to continue Subahdar, the Company was to be his

colleague for purposes of civil and fiscal administration, they

were to support the Nawab's (Nizamat) expenses, and to pay the

tribute (Nazarana) in his name.

The Emperor's establishment during the next few years is thus

described by a British officer who enjoyed his intimacy: — "He

keeps the poor resemblance of a Court at Allahabad, where a few

ruined omrahs, in hopes of better days to their prince, having

expended their fortunes in his service, still exist, the ragged

pensioners of his poverty, and burden his gratitude with their

presence. The districts in the king's possession are valued at

thirty lakhs, which is one-half more than they are able to bear.

Instead of gaining by this bad policy, that prince, unfortunate

in many respects, has the mortification to see his poor subjects

oppressed by those who farm the revenue, while he himself is

obliged to compound with the farmers for half the stipulated sum.

This, with the treaty payment from the revenues of Bengal, is all

Shah Alum possesses to support the dignity of the Imperial house

of Timor. [Dow. ii. 356, A.D. 1767.]

The following further particulars respecting Shah 'Alam's Court

at this period are furnished by Gholam Hossain, and should be

noted here as relating to personages of some of whom we shall

hear more anon.

Mirza Najaf Khan, the Imperial General, was a Persian noble of

high, even of royal, extraction, and destined to play a

conspicuous part in the events related in a large portion of the

remainder of this history. It will suffice, for the present, to

state that, having been a close follower of Mohammad Kuli, he

joined the British after that Chief's murder (Vide Sup. p. 68)

and was by them recommended to the Emperor for employment. He

received a stipend of one lakh a year, and was nominated Governor

of Kora, where he occupied himself in the suppression of

banditti, and in the establishment of the Imperial authority.

Under the modest state of steward of the household,

Manir-ud-daulah was the Emperor's most trusted councillor and

medium of communication with the English. Raja Ram Nath, whom we

saw accompanying the prince in his escape from Dehli, continued

about him; but the chief favourite was an illiterate ruffian

called by the title Hissam-ud-daulah, who stooped to any baseness

whereby he could please the self-indulgent monarch by pandering

to his lowest pursuits. The duties of the office of Vazir were

delegated by Shujaa to his son Saadat Ali, who afterwards

succeeded him as Nawab of Audh.

Fallen as the Emperor truly was, and sincerely as we may

sympathize with his desire to raise the fortunes of his life, it

might have been well for him to have remained content with the

humble but guaranteed position of a protected Titular, rather

than listen to the interested advice of those who ministered, for

their own purposes, to his natural discontent.

In this chapter I have been partly referring to Mill. Not only is

that indefatigable historian on his strongest ground when

describing battles and negotiations of the British from civil and

military despatches recorded at the India House, but in treating

of the movements of the native powers he has had access to a

translation of the very best native work upon the subject — the

Siar-ul-mutakharin — which was written by Ghulam Hossain Khan, a

Musalman gentleman of Patna, himself an eye-witness of many of

the scenes described. His account of the capture of Law, for

example, given at length in a foot-note to Mill's short account

of the action of Gaya after which the affair occurred, is full of

truthfulness and local colour.

Since, however, the events were already amply detailed, and the

best authorities exhausted in a standard work accessible to most

English readers; and since, moreover, they did not occur in

Hindustan, and only indirectly pertained to the history of that

country, I have not thought it necessary to relate them more

minutely than was required to elucidate the circumstances which

led to the Emperor Shah Alam becoming, for the first time, a

pensioner on British bounty, or a dependent on British policy.

Those who require a complete account of the military part of the

affair will find it admirably given in Broome's Bengal Army, a

work of which it is to be regretted that the first volume alone

has hitherto been made public. Of the value of this book it would

be difficult to speak too highly. Coming from the pen of an

accomplished professional man, it sets forth, in a manner no

civilian could hope to rival, the early exploits of that army of

which the author was a member. It may be well to note, in

concluding this chapter, what appears to have been at this time

the legal relation of the British settlers in Bengal towards the

Government of the Empire. In 1678 the Company's Agents had

obtained a patent conferring upon them the power of trading in

Bengal. In 1696 they purchased from the Nawab the land

surrounding their factory, and proceeded to protect it by rude

fortifications. A number of natives soon began to settle here

under the protection of the British; and when the Nawab, on this

account, was desirous of sending a judicial officer to reside

among them, the factors staved off the measure by means of a

donation in money. The grant of land and permission of a formal

kind for the fortifications followed in 1716 on Mr. Hamilton's

cure of the Emperor Farokhsiar. During all this period tribute

continued to be paid (nominally at least) to the Emperor; but in

1759, by espousing, as stated in the beginning of this chapter,

the cause of Mir Jafar, the British committed acts of open

rebellion against the Sovereign. By the treaty of Benares,

however, they returned to their nominal allegiance, and became

once more subjects, tenants and even subordinate officials of the

Great Moghul ( Vide Judgment of Lord Brougham in the case of the

Mayor of Lyons v. East India Company). Elphinstone (Rise of Brit.

Power, 438ΔΔ) finds this "treaty difficult to explain." But the

fact is that all the contemporaneous powers concerned looked upon

the Empire as the legitimate source of authority; and not only

then but for many years after. The British had no legal status

until they received the Emperor's grant; and to think of the

arrangement as "a treaty" may be a source of misapprehension.