Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan.djvu/49

Book VI. the most fierce and obstinate that had for many years been fought in Indostan. Allaverdy had foreseen the fury of their onsets, and remained in the rear in order to rally his own troops. Nevertheless, the Pitans would in all probability have been victorious, had he not interspersed his cavalry with matchlock men; who, firing with aim, shot, one after another, most of their principal officers, and at last Sumsheer Khan himself, just as he had cut his way to the elephant on which Allaverdy superintended the battle. His death, as usual, decided the victory. The Pitans hastened back to Patna, where they remained gathering together their own effects, and plundering whatsoever they could find valuable belonging to the inhabitants, until the army of Bengal appeared in sight, when they quitted the city, and crossing the Ganges, marched away to their own country.

Allaverdy having settled the government of Behar, returned before the rainy season to Muxadavad. The Morattoes, after the defeat of Sumsheer Khan, divided into several detachments, of which some infested Behar, some Bengal, and others Orixa; but their operations were not formidable enough to call Allaverdy himself again into the field: and he committed the conduct of the war to his general Meer Jaffier, who was continually employed in interrupting or dislodging their parties.

The war, ever since the retreat of Ballerow in 1743, had been principally carried on by the Morattoes of Ragogee Bonsola from Behar, joined sometimes by partizans and adventurers from other countries. In 1749, Ragogee assisted Nazirjing in his expedition into the Carnatic with 10,000 horse, under the command of his son Jonagi, which, with other expeditions, disabled him from recruiting the losses sustained by his army in Bengal, which was continually diminishing by fight or fatigue. In the beginning of the next year Meer Jaffier pent up 5000 of their horse in the mountains of Behar, and put more than one half of them to the sword.

At this time much confusion reigned at Delhi. The army of the Emperor Hamed Schah, commanded by his vizir Seifdar Jung, had been routed in the preceding year by the Rohillas, a tribe of Pitans