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Rh and civil wars on the part of the Hindu tributary chiefs, Sikhs and Mahrattas, broke out. Aurungzeb’s successors became the helpless instruments of conflicting chiefs. His grandson, Jahandar Shah, was, in 1713, deposed and strangled after a reign of one year; and Farrakhsiyyar, the next in succession, met with the same fate in 1719. He was succeeded by Mahommed Shah, in whose reign the Mahratta forces first made their appearance before the gates of Delhi, in 1736. Three years later the Persian monarch, Nadir Shah, after defeating the Mogul army at Karnal, entered Delhi in triumph. While engaged in levying a heavy contribution, the Persian troops were attacked by the populace, and many of them were killed. Nadir Shah, after vainly attempting to stay the tumult, at last gave orders for a general massacre of the inhabitants. For fifty-eight days Nadir Shah remained in Delhi, and when he left he carried with him a treasure in money amounting, at the lowest computation, to eight or nine millions sterling, besides jewels of inestimable value, and other property to the amount of several millions more.

From this time (1740) the decline of the empire proceeded unchecked and with increased rapidity. In 1771 Shah Alam, the son of Alamgir II., was nominally raised to the throne by the Mahrattas, the real sovereignty resting with the Mahratta chief, Sindhia. An attempt of the puppet emperor to shake himself clear of the Mahrattas, in which he was defeated in 1788, led to a permanent Mahratta garrison being stationed at Delhi. From this date, the king remained a cipher in the hands of Sindhia, who treated him with studied neglect, until the 8th of September 1803, when Lord Lake overthrew the Mahrattas under the walls of Delhi, entered the city, and took the king under the protection of the British. Delhi, once more attacked by a Mahratta army under the Mahratta chief Holkar in 1804, was gallantly defended by Colonel Ochterlony, the British resident, who held out against overwhelming odds for eight days, until relieved by Lord Lake. From this date a new era in the history of Delhi began. A pension of £120,000 per annum was allowed to the king, with exclusive jurisdiction over the palace, and the titular sovereignty as before; but the city, together with the Delhi territory, passed under British administration.

Fifty-three years of quiet prosperity for Delhi were brought to a close by the Mutiny of 1857. Its capture by the mutineers, its siege, and its subsequent recapture by the British have been often told, and nothing beyond a short notice is called for here. The outbreak at Meerut occurred on the night of the 10th of May 1857. Immediately after the murder of their officers, the rebel soldiery set out for Delhi, about 35 m. distant, and on the following morning entered the city, where they were joined by the city mob. Mr Fraser, the commissioner, Mr Hutchinson, the collector, Captain Douglas, the commandant of the palace guards, and the Rev. Mr Jennings, the residency chaplain, were at once murdered, as were also most of the civil and non-official residents whose houses were situated within the city walls. The British troops in cantonments consisted of three regiments of native infantry and a battery of artillery. These cast in their lot with the mutineers, and commenced by killing their officers. The Delhi magazine, then the largest in the north-west of India, was in the charge of Lieutenant Willoughby, with whom were two other officers and six non-commissioned officers. The magazine was attacked by the mutineers, but the little band defended to the last the enormous accumulation of munitions of war stored there, and, when further defence was hopeless, fired the magazine. Five of the nine were killed by the explosion, and Lieutenant Willoughby subsequently died of his injuries; the remaining three succeeded in making their escape. The occupation of Delhi by the rebels was the signal for risings in almost every military station in North-Western India. The revolted soldiery with one accord thronged towards Delhi, and in a short time the city was garrisoned by a rebel army variously estimated at from 50,000 to 70,000 disciplined men. The pensioned king, Bahadur Shah, was proclaimed emperor; his sons were appointed to various military commands. About fifty Europeans and Eurasians, nearly all females, who had been captured in trying to escape from the town on the day of the outbreak, were confined in a stifling chamber of the palace for fifteen days; they were then brought out and massacred in the court-yard.

The siege which followed forms one of the memorable incidents of the British history of India. On the 8th June, four weeks after the outbreak, Sir H. Barnard, who had succeeded as commander-in-chief on the death of General Anson, routed the mutineers with a handful of Europeans and Sikhs, after a severe action at Badliki-Serai, and encamped upon the Ridge that overlooks the city. The force was too weak to capture the city, and he had no siege train or heavy guns. All that could be done was to hold the position till the arrival of reinforcements and of a siege train. During the next three months the little British force on the Ridge were rather the besieged than the besiegers. Almost daily sallies, which often turned into pitched battles, were made by the rebels upon the over-worked handful of Europeans, Sikhs and Gurkhas. A great struggle took place on the centenary of the battle of Plassey (June 23), and another on the 25th of August; but on both occasions the mutineers were repulsed with heavy loss. General Barnard died of cholera in July, and was succeeded by General Archdale Wilson. Meanwhile reinforcements and siege artillery gradually arrived, and early in September it was resolved to make the assault. The first of the heavy batteries opened fire on the 8th of September, and on the 13th a practicable breach was reported.

On the morning of the 14th Sept. the assault was delivered, the points of attack being the Kashmir bastion, the Water bastion, the Kashmir gate, and the Lahore gate. The assault was thoroughly successful, although the column which was to enter the city by the Lahore gate sustained a temporary check. The whole eastern part of the city was retaken, but at a cost of 66 officers and 1104 men killed and wounded, out of the total strength of 9866. Fighting continued more or less during the next six days, and it was not till the 20th of September that the entire city and palace were occupied, and the reconquest of Delhi was complete. During the siege, the British force sustained a loss of 1012 officers and men killed, and 3837 wounded. Among the killed was General John Nicholson, the leader of one of the storming parties, who was shot through the body in the act of leading his men, in the first day’s fighting. He lived, however, to learn that the whole city had been recaptured, and died on the 23rd of September. On the flight of the mutineers, the king and several members of the royal family took refuge at Humayun’s tomb. On receiving a promise that his life would be spared, the last of the house of Timur surrendered to Major Hodson; he was afterwards banished to Rangoon. Delhi, thus reconquered, remained for some months under military authority. Owing to the murder of several European soldiers who strayed from the lines, the native population was expelled the city. Hindus were soon afterwards readmitted, but for some time Mahommedans were rigorously excluded. Delhi was made over to the civil authorities in January 1858, but it was not till 1861 that the civil courts were regularly reopened. The shattered walls of the Kashmir gateway, and the bastions of the northern face of the city, still bear the marks of the cannonade of September 1857. Since that date Delhi has settled down into a prosperous commercial town, and a great railway centre. The lines which start from it to the north, south, east and west bring into its bazaars the trade of many districts. But the romance of antiquity still lingers around it, and Delhi was selected for the scene of the Imperial Proclamation on the 1st of January 1877, and for the great Durbar held in January 1903 for the proclamation of King Edward VII. as emperor of India.

—The best modern account of the city is Delhi, Past and Present (1901), by H. C. Fanshawe, a former commissioner of Delhi. Other authoritative works are Cities of India (1903) and The Mutiny Papers (1893), both by G. W. Forrest, and Forty-one Years in India (1897), by Lord Roberts; while some impressionistic sketches will be found in Enchanted India (1899), by Prince Bojidar Karageorgevitch. See also the chapter on Delhi in H. G. Keene, ''Hist. of'' Hindustan ... to the fall of the Mughol Empire (1885). For the Delhi Durbar of 1903 see Stephen Wheeler, ''Hist. of the Delhi Coronation'' Durbar, compiled from official papers by order of the viceroy of India (London, 1904), which contains numerous portraits and other illustrations.