Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/435

 Chap. I.]

THE MOGUL EMPIRE IN DANGER.

401

Sattaaah. — From Duff's History of the Mahrattas

as Peishwa. The succession would liave been disputed; but fortunately for him, Ragojee Bosk, his most formidable opponent, was absent with his army in the Carnatic, on an expedition on which Bajee Rao had despatched him, mainly for the pm-pose of preventing him from plotting mischief nearer home. On hearinor of Bajee's death, he hastened back to Sattarah ; but as he came without his army, and found the Guicowar and the ^jr^/- nicllii, or delegate of the rajah, on whose co-opera- tion he had calculated, unprepared or indisposed to second him, he was obliged to abandon all thought of opposition, at least till a more favourable opportunity should arise. The deatli of Bajee Rao, and the time necessary to enable Balajee to secure himself in his new seat, gave Mahomed Shah a short respite from actual warfare. It was only a respite ; for the clouds of another storm were again gathering thick around him, and indeed from so many quarters, that it was difficult to say from which it was destined first to come. On the one hand Balajee Rao, advancing into Malwah, insisted that this province should, in terms of the treaty which had been made with Nizam-ul-Moolk, but which had never received the imperial sanction, be formally confirmed to him ; on the other hand the Rohillas, a recent Afghan colony occupying the tract which from them still bears the name of Rohilcund, had begun, under an able leader of the name of Ali Mahomed, to assume an alarming appearance. In themselves, indeed, the Rohillas were not so numerous }is to be verv formidable; but they belonored to the warlike race which had repeatedly devastated the fairest provinces of India, and the danger apprehended was, that in the event of a new invasion from the west, they would league with their countrjnnen. The idea of such an invasion wfis by no means chimerical. Ever since the visit of Nadir Shah, who on retiring declared the Indus to be the eastern boundary of the Persian monarchy, it had been threatened, and in consequence of recent political changes in Persia it was beccmiing a certainty.

Nadir Shah perished by the hands of assassins in June, 1747. He had latterly become a cruel tyrant, and deserved his fate; though it was not so nmch his cruelty as his fonn of Mahometan faith that provoked it. He was a Sun- nite, while the Persians were zealous Shiites. The repugnance between them was therefore invincible, and his death was the work of Pei-sian conspirators. But the same cause which made the Persians abhor his rule was its sn-eatest recommendation to the Afghans, who like him were Sunnites, and devotedly Vol. I. 51

AD. 1747.

liiiiiemlinf? dangers of the Mogul tiiipire.

Dentil of N'adir Shah.