Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/130

122 but the vizier Kimmir-ul-dien, who had held this office ever since the accession of Mahomed, continued inviolably attached to his sovereign. None of the subsequent events of the government of Delhi affect immediately the present object of our narrative, until the year 1748; when an army of Afghans from Candahar, invaded the northern provinces under the command of Ahmed the Abdalli, so called from his tribe. This man was treasurer to Nadir Schah, when assassinated on the 8th of June 1747, in Persia; on which event, he went off with all the treasure under his care, and in less than six months established himself in the sovereignty of all the provinces of Indostan ceded to the Persians in 1739, and of as large a territory on the other side of the mountains. Ahmed Schah, the eldest son of Mahomed, with the vizier, marched against the Abdalli; various encounters ensued with various success, and during a cannonade the vizier was slain by a straggling cannon ball, whilst at prayers in his tent. His death afflicted the emperor so violently, that after passing the night in lamentations, he expired the next day sitting on his throne, in a fit brought on by the agony of his grief. The prince Ahmed, leaving the command of the army to Munnu the son of the deceased vizier, immediately returned from the army to Delhi, and was acknowledged emperor without opposition, in the month of April 1748.

The death of Mahomed Schah was in a few months succeeded by another of greater consequence to Indostan: it was that of Nizam-al-muluck, Soubah of the Decan, who, notwithstanding his whole life had passed in the utmost intrigues, anxieties, and iniquities of oriental ambition, arrived to the uncommon age of 104 years.

He left five sons; the eldest, Ghazi-o'-dean, inherited all the ambition and wickedness of his father, with a more enterprising and intrepid spirit. Nizam-al-muluck, when returning to the Decan, after the retreat of Nadir Schah, had obliged the weak Mahomed to confer the offices of paymaster and captain-general of the army on this son; in which posts he continued at the court, employing his power, as his lather before him, against the authority of his sovereign, and soon became the patron of all the turbulent or disaffected omrahs in the empire. On the death of his father, he obtained the succession to the soubahship of the Decan from the emperor Ahmed Schah: but was too much engaged in other affairs at Delhi to proceed to this government.