1798. — The latter, meanwhile, as though there were no such persons as Afghans or English within the limits of India, was engaging in domestic affairs of the most paltry character. His marriage (1st March) with the daughter of the Ghatgai, Shirji Rao, put him into the hands of that notorious person, whose ambition soon entangled the young chief in the obscure and discreditable series of outrages and of intrigues regarding his uncle's widow, known as the War of the Bais. The cause of these ladies being espoused by Madhoji's old commander, Lakwa Dada, whom the younger Sindhia had, as we have seen, raised to the Lieutenant-Generalship of the Empire, a serious campaign (commenced in May) was the result. Sindhia's army (nominally the army of the Emperor) was under the chief command of Ambaji Inglia, and in 1798 a campaign of some magnitude was undertaken, with very doubtful results. The ladies first retreated to the camp of the Peshwa's brother, Imrat Rao, but were captured by a treacherous attack ordered by Sindhia's general, and undertaken by M. Drugeon, a French officer, at the head of two regular brigades, during the unguarded hours of a religious festival. This was an overt act of warfare against Sindhia's lawful superior, the Peshwa, in whose protection the ladies were, and threw the Peshwa into the hands of the British and their partizans. Sindhia, for his part, entered into negotiations with the famous usurper of Mysore, Tippu Sultan, who was the hereditary opponent of the British, and who soon after lost his kingdom and his life before the Mahrattas could decide upon an open espousal of his cause.