Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/200

172 munificence of Mádhají, who thus showed his gratitude for the unequalled services rendered to him during the late campaigns. Certain it is that, renouncing his military career, he proceeded to Lakhnao, and there on the advice of his old friend, Claude Martin, engaged in mercantile speculations which speedily augmented his capital. He was still engaged in these when he received from Mádhají pressing solicitations to re-enter his service, accompanied by an assurance that he would be at liberty to carry out the measures he had formerly proposed.

The fact was that Mádhají Sindia had not found his position by any means so assured as, in the first moment of his triumph, it had appeared to him. The Patán army had been beaten and dispersed, but its soldiers still existed. He was menaced from the north by the Afgháns, from the west by the Rájpúts, whilst he had perhaps even more to dread from the jealousy of Náná Farnawís, the minister of the Péshwa, and from the scarcely veiled hostility of the other chiefs of the Maráthás.

He felt the want, then, of just such a body of troops as de Boigne had proposed to raise, — troops who would surpass all his other troops in skill and discipline; who would obey one man, and that man impervious to intrigue, devoted to himself alone. In this extremity he bethought him of de Boigne: and upon that thought there speedily followed the missive of which I have spoken.

De Boigne was not deaf to the demand. Arranging,