Safdar Jang not being applied to, remained sullenly aloof: the Emperor's letter to the Játs fell into the hands of Gházi-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 Sikundrábád, 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 Játs. 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 Gházi-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 Darbár, 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

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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 Jáhándár Sháh, 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. Gházi-ud-din was at the same time acknowledged as Vazir in the room of the Khán Khánán. 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 Khán was an Afghán soldier of fortune, who had attained the hand of the daughter of Dundi Khán, 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 Gháziud-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 Báwani mahal, which had formed the jagir of the Ex-Vazir Khán Khánán. 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 Doáb, and a few districts south of the Satlaj. Gujarat was overrun by the Mahrattas; Bengal, Bihár, and Orissa were occupied by the successor of Aliverdi Khán, Audh and Allahabad by Safdar Jang, the central Doáb by the Afghan tribe of Bangash, the province now called Rohilkand by the Rohillas. The Panjáb 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 Nizám. Small encroachments continued to be made by the English traders.

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CHAPTER V.

A.D. 1754-60.

Progress of Gházi ud-din—Ahmad Khán enters Dehli-Escape of the Prince Ali Gauhar-Murder of the Emperor-Ahmad the Abdáli advances on Dehli-End of Gházi'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 Khán Khánán, 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 Khán) 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 Multán, when ceded to the Afghans in the late reign, had been ultimately left in his charge by the new rulers. Ahmad the Abdáli 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 Abdáli 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 Afghán chief soon lent a ready ear to the representations of the Emperor's party,