It must, however, be added — although the Vazir's character was not such as to render him altogether entitled to such justifications — that the latter of those engagements had been better fulfilled by himself than by the Pathans. For while, on the one hand, he had driven the Mahrattas out of the country, the Protector Rahmat Khan, on his part, had neither collected the wage of that service from the other chiefs, nor paid it himself. Moreover, the Vazir's proceedings were only directed against the usurping Protector and his actual adherents; and he was joined by Zabita and some Rohilla chiefs, while others, among whom were the sons of the late Dundi Khan, held aloof altogether, and Faizula Khan, the son of the first founder of the Rohilla power, Ali Mohammad, and in every way the most respectable of the clan, though he would not desert an old friend in his hour of need, yet strongly disapproved of his proceedings, and urged him to fulfil his compact and pay the Vazir's claim. The bribe by which Zabita had been detached from the confederacy, was an assignment of the district in the neighbourhood of Meerut, which had cleared itself of Mahratta occupation under the late Vazir's rule. 1774. — In October, 1773, the fort of Etawa fell, and the last Mahratta forces were driven from the Doab. The next two or three months were occupied in vain negotiations on the part of the Vazir with the Rohillas; and in more serious combinations with the Imperial Government, and with the British. And in January, 1774, the allied armies moved forward. On the 12th of April the British entered Rohilkand; the Protector, when finally summoned to pay what he owed, having replied by a levee en masse of all who would obey his summons. At the same time, the Emperor ordered out a column which he accompanied for a few marches; and issued patents confirming the Vazir Shujaa-ud-daula in his Doab conquests, as also in the grant already made by the British of Korah and Allahabad. This latter circumstance removes all ground for calling in question the cession of those provinces by their temporary masters, and shows that the Emperor was conscious of his own inability to hold them, or to grant them to enemies of Audh and of England. On the 23rd of the same month (April) the British army completely surprised the camp of the Protector, who was defeated and slain, after a brave but brief resistance at Kattra. Faizula was pardoned and maintained in his own patrimonial fief of Rampur (still held by his descendants), while the rest of the province was occupied, with but little further trouble, by the Vazir, in strict conformity to an Imperial firman to that effect.