logically require their retirement from the countrya step they did not feel at all called upon to take. This appears the moral of the acquittal. Even Macaulay, who objects to the decision of the Peers acquitting Hastings as inadmissible at the bar of history, nevertheless confesses that it was generally approved by the nation. At all events, this particular affair was dropped out of the charges even before the impeachment began.

But, however important to the existence of the British in India might be the possession of this frontier territory by the strongest ally they could secure, the conduct of the Emperor (or rather of Mirza Najaf, in whose hands he was not quite a free agent) remains the special subject of inquiry in this place. I think, however, that both the minister and his master were quite justified in wishing to transfer the province of Rohilkand from the hands of Rahmat to those of the Vazir. It has been already seen that the Pathan usurpers of that province had always been foes of the Moghul power, since the first rebellion of Ali Mohammad, with the solitary exception of the campaign of 1761, when they joined their Abdáli kinsman at Pánipat. It has also been seen that the fords by which the Ganges could be crossed in the cold weather were in their country, but that they could never hold them; and that, lastly, they were known to have been lately in treaty with the Mahrattas, without reference. to the interests of the Empire. Eastern politicians are not usually or especially scrupulous; but, when it is remembered that the Rohillas were feudatories who had neither the will nor the power to be faithful, it must follow that here were substantial considerations of vital importance to the Dehli Government, sufficient

to give them a fair inducement to sanction the enterprise of one who was their chief minister and most powerful supporter.

Of Shujäá's own motives there is not so much palliation to offer. He had often received aid from the Rohillas, and was under personal obligations to them, which ought to have obliterated all earlier memories of a hostile character;* and, whatever grounds the Emperor may have had for consenting to an attack upon the Pathans, or the British for aiding the same, none such are likely to have seriously actuated the Vazir in his individual character. If he thought the Rohillas were inclined to negotiate with the Mahrattas, he must have seen how those negotiations had been broken off the instant he came to their assistance; and if he wished to command the movements of the Mahrattas, he might first have endeavoured to strengthen the hands of the Imperial Government, and to cordially carry out his share of the treaty of 1772.

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 Khán, 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 Zábita and some minor Rohilla chiefs, while others, among whom were the sons of the late Dundi Khán, held aloof altogether,

* Vide Chap. i. p. 73.

and Faizula Khán, 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 Zábita 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 Etáwa fell, and the last Mahratta forces were driven from the Doáb. 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 levée 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 Shujäá-ud-daulah in his Doáb conquests, as also in the grant already made by the British of Korah

*This is the date given by Captain Hamilton, who adds the following singular account of the condition of the Rohillas at the time, from a native Rohilla source:-" A surprising degree of animosity and discord had long since arisen in Rohilkand, and each person was earnestly bent upon the eradication of his neighbour and, in order to effect that object, ready to enter into league with foreigners and invaders." Meanwhile, we have it from the same authority that the original (non-Rohilla) population of the country was rack-rented, while life and property were without protection.

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.*

The army of the Empire, under Mirza Najaf Khán, the Deputy Vazir, had not arrived in time to participate actively in this brief campaign; but the Vazir acknowledged the importance of the moral support that he had received from the Empire by remitting to court a handsome fine, on his investiture with the administration of the conquered territory. He also gave the Mirza some reinforcement, to aid him in his pending operations against the Játs of Bhartpur. Zábita Khán was at the same time expelled from his lately acquired fief at Meerut, but was again put in charge next year; a proof, were proof required, of the

* Hamilton. This writer, who professes to follow Rohilla historians, as far as possible, states that there are no records of the people being ill-used, further than that seventeen or eighteen thousand of the soldiery were deported and settled in the neighbouring territories of Zábita Khán. "The Hindoo inhabitants, about 700,000, were in no way effected." So much for the alleged depopulation of Rohilkand.

weakness of the Home administration of Majad-uddaulah, who (it need hardly be said) received a bribe on the occasion.

Anticipating a little, we may notice that the Viceroy of Audh, at the very climax of his good fortune, met the only enemy whom neither force can subdue nor policy deceive. Shujäá-ud-daulah died in January, 1775; and as it was not possible for so conspicuous a public character to pass away without exciting popular notice, the following explanation of the affair was circulated at the time; which, whether a fact or a fiction, deserves to be mentioned as the sort of ending which was considered in his case probable and appropriate. It was believed that, the family of Rahmat Khán having fallen into his hands, Shujäá-ud-daulah sent for one of the fallen chief's daughters, and that the young lady, in the course of the interview, avenged the death of her father by stabbing his conqueror with a poisoned knife. "Although," says the author of the Siar-ul-Mutákharin, who is the authority for the story, "there may be no foundation of truth in this account, yet it was at the time as universally believed as that God is our Refuge.'

The editor of the Calcutta translation of 1789 asserts that he had satisfactory proof of the truth of this story. The Viceroy died of a cancer in the groin; and the women of his Zanana, who were let out on the occasion, and with one of whom he (the translator) was acquainted, had made a song upon the subject. They gave full particulars of the affair, and stated that the young lady-she was only seventeenhad been put to death on the day the Viceroy received the wound. (S. U. M., III. 268.)

The death of the Viceroy-Vazir, however occasioned,