Thus supported, the bucolic sagacity of the Ját Rája began for the first time to fail him, and he made demands which seemed to threaten the small remains of the Moghul Empire. Najib-ud-daulah took his

measures with characteristic promptitude and prudence. Summoning the neighbouring Musalman chiefs to the aid of Islam and of the empire, he took the field at the head of a small but well-disciplined Moghul army, and soon found the opportunity to strike a decisive blow.

In this campaign the premier was so fortunate as to obtain solid assistance from the Biloch chiefs of Farokhnagar and Bahadurgarh, who were in those days powerful upon both banks of the Jamna up to as far north as Saharánpur on the eastern, and Hansi on the western side. The actual commencement of hostilities between Suraj Mal and the Moghuls arose from a demand made by the former for the Faujdárship (military prefecture) of the small district of Farokhnagar. Unwilling to break abruptly with the Ját chief, Najib had sent an envoy to him, in the first instance, pointing out that the office he solicited. involved a transfer of the territory, and referring him to the Biloch occupant for his consent. The account of the negotiation is so characteristic of the man and the time, that I have thought it worth preserving, The Moghul envoy introduced himself-in conformity with Eastern custom-by means of a gift, which, in this instance, consisted of a handsome piece of flowered chintz, with which the rural potentate was so pleased that he ordered its immediate conversion into a suit of clothes. Since this was the only subject on which the Ját chief would for the present converse, the Moghui proposed to take his leave, trusting that he might

reintroduce the subject of the negotiations at a more favourable moment. "Do nothing rashly, Thákur Sáhib," said the departing envoy; "I will see you again to-morrow." "See me no more," replied the inflated boor, "if these negotiations are all that you have to talk of." The disgusted envoy took him at his word, and returned to Najib with a report of the interview. "Is it so ?" said the premier. "Then we must fight the unbeliever; and if it be the pleasure of the Most High God, we will assuredly smite him."

But before the main body of the Moghuls had got clear of the capital, Suraj Mal had arrived near Shahdara on the Hindan, within six miles of Dehli; and, had he retained the caution of his earlier years, he might have at once shut up the Imperialists in their walled city. But the place being an old huntingground of the Emperor's the Thákur's motive in coming had been chiefly the bravado of saying that he had hunted in a royal park, and he was therefore only attended by his personal staff. While he was reconnoitring in this reckless fashion, he was suddenly recognised by a flying squadron of Moghul horse, who surprised the Játs, and killed the whole party, bringing the body of the chief to Najib. The minister could not at first believe in this unhoped-for success, nor was he convinced until the envoy who had recently returned from the Ját camp identified the body by means of his own piece of chintz, which formed its raiment. Meanwhile the Ját army was marching up in fancied security from Sikandrabad, under Jowahir Singh, the son of their chief, when they were suddenly charged by the Moghul advanced guard, with the head* * Some accounts say the hand and arm.

*

of Suraj Mal borne on a horseman's lance as their standard.* In the panic which ensued upon this ghastly spectacle, the Játs were thoroughly routed and driven back into their own country. This event occurred towards the end of the year.

Foiled in their unaided attempt, they next made a still more signal mistake in allying themselves with Malhar Rao Holkar, who, as we have seen, was secretly allied to the Musalmans. At first they were very successful, and besieged the premier for three months in Dehli; but Holkar suddenly deserted them, as was only to have been expected had they known what we know now; and they were fain to make the best terms that they could, and return to their own country, with more respectful views towards the empire and its protector.

But the young Thákur's thirst of conquest was by no means appeased, and he proceeded in 1765 to attack Mádhu Sing, the Rájput ruler of Jaipur, son of the Kachwaha Rájá Jai Singh,† who had lately founded a fine city there in lieu of the ancestral site, Amber. Descended from Kusha, the eldest son of the Hindu demigod Rama, this tribe appears to have been once extensive and powerful,, traces of them being still found in regions as far distant from each other as Gwalior and the liorthern Doáb. (Vide Elliot, in voc.)

*It is curious that a similar effect was produced upon a party of Jat insurgents by a British officer in 1857.-Vide descriptions of Sáh Mal's rising in the Meerut District, by Mr. Dunlop, C.B., "Services of the Khakee Resale," &c. London: R. Bentley.

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Jai Singh was an eminent astronomer, and constructed the celebrated Jantar-Mantar" Observatory for the Emperor Mohammad Shah about A.D. 1730.- Vide Keeue's "Handbook for Dehli."

In this attempt Jowáhir appears to have been but feebly sustained by Sumroo, who immediately deserted to the victors,* after his employer had been routed at the famous Lake of Pokar, near Ajmir. Jowáhir retreated first upon Alwar, thence he returned to Bhartpur, and soon after took up his abode at Agra, where he not long afterwards was murdered, it is said at the instigation of the Jaipur Rájá. A period of very great confusion ensued in the Ját State; nor was it till two more of the sons of Suraj Mal had perished -one certainly by violence-that the supremacy of the remaining son, Ranjit Singh, was secured. In his time the Ját power was at its height; he swayed a country thick with strongholds, from Alwar on the N.W. to Agra on the S.W., with a revenue of two millions sterling, and an army of 60,000 men. n.f

Meantime the Mahrattas, sickened by their late encounter with Carnac (p. 78), and occupied with their own domestic disputes in the Deccan, paid little or no attention to the affairs of Hindustan ; and the overtures made to them by the Emperor in 1766, from Allahabad, were for the time disregarded, though it is probable that they caused no little uneasiness in the British Presidency, where it was not desired that the Emperor should be restored by such agency.

At this period Najib, as minister in charge of the metropolis and its immediate dependencies, though skilfully contending against many obstacles, yet had not succeeded in consolidating the empire so much as to render restoration a very desirable object to * Vide Skinner's "Memoirs," i. 283.

+ Dow, vol. ii. Dow wrote in 1767, and described the then state of Hindustan.

an Emperor living in ease and security. Scarcely had the premier been freed from the menace of the Eastern Játs by his own prowess and by their subsequent troubles, than their kindred of the Pánjab began to threaten Dehli from the west. Fortunately for the minister, his old patron, the Abdáli, was able to come to his assistance; and in April, 1767, having defeated the Sikhs in several actions, Ahmad once more appeared in the neighbourhood of Pánipat, at the head of 50,000 Afghan horse.

He seems to have been well satisfied with the result of the arrangements that he had made after crushing the Mahrattas in the same place six years before; only that he wrote a sharp reprimand to Shujäá-ud-daulah for his conduct towards the Emperor. But this, however well, deserved, would not produce much effect on that graceless politician, when once the Afghan had returned to his own country. This he soon after did, and appeared no more on the troubled scene of Hindustan.*

Profiting by the disappearance of their enemy, the Mahrattas, having arranged their intestine disputes, crossed the Chambal (a river flowing eastward into the Jamna from the Ajmir plateau), and fell upon the Jaipur country towards the end of 1768. Hence they passed into Bhartpur, where they exacted tribute, and whence they threatened Dehli in 1769. Among their leaders were two of whom much will be seen hereafter. One was Mádhoji Sindhia-"Patel" +

* Dow, writing at this time, thought he meant to assume the empire.

+ Patel is described by Captain Grant-Duff to mean the head man of a Mahratta village. There is nothing like this office in England, but perhaps the old Saxon "Headborough," or the