The Fall of the Moghul Empire of HindustanKeene, H. G. (Henry George)
History
The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan
Keene, H. G. (Henry George)
India -- History -- 18th century; Mogul Empire -- History
But Shujaa's son and successor was a weak voluptuary, who never
left his own provinces; and although the Mirza, his deputy in the
Vazirship and real locum tenens, received for his lifetime the
reward of his merits, yet he was unable of himself to give a
permanent consolidation to the tottering fabric.
It has been seen that he was meditating a campaign against the
Jats, whom Zabita's recent fall had again thrown into discontent,
when summoned to Rohilkand, in 1774. In fact, he had already
wrested from them the fort of Agra, and occupied it with a
garrison of his own, under a Moghul officer, Mohammad Beg, of
Hamadan. Not daunted by this reverse, Ranjit Singh, the then
ruler of that bold tribe the Jats, advanced upon the capital, and
occupied Sikandrabad with 10,000 horse. The forces left in Dehli
consisted of but 5,000 horse and two battalions of sepoys; but
they sufficed to expel the intruder. He shortly afterwards,
however, returned, reinforced by the regulars and guns under
Sumroo; but by this time the Mirza was returned from Rohilkand,
and after the rains of 1774, marched against them, aided by a
chief from Hariana, named after himself Najaf Kuli Khan, who
brought into the field some 10,000 troops. This man, who was a
good soldier and a faithful follower of the minister, was a
converted Hindu, of the Rathur tribe; a native of the Bikanir
country bordering on Rajputana Proper to the south, and to the
north on Hariana and other states immediately surrounding the
metropolis. Having been in service at Allahabad, under the father
of Mohammad Kuli, the connection and early patron of the Mirza,
he became a Mohammadan under the sponsorship of the latter, and
ever after continued a member of his household. At the time of
which I write, he had been appointed to the charge of districts
returning twenty lakhs a year, with the title of Saif-ud-daulah.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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