Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/284

242 vizir himself had been meditating seriously over a proposal from the Marathas that he should join them in an attack upon the Rohillas and in making a partition of their country. But he was wise enough to see that by joining a band of robbers to plunder his neighbour's house, he would bring them the sooner to his own door; and on the whole he thought the safer step would be an alliance with the English, whose troops would make him sure of success in the field, and whose avowed interest lay in strengthening him as a barrier against the Marathas.

The vizir, therefore, at an interview with the Governor-General at Benares in 1773, desired the assistance of an English force to put him in possession of Rohilkhand, alleging that the Rohillas had broken their treaty by withholding the subsidy from him, and promising liberal payment for the service. To this proposition Hastings, after some deliberation and hesitation on both sides, finally consented. "Our ally," he wrote to his Council, "would obtain by this acquisition a complete compact state shut in effectually from foreign invasions by the Ganges, while he would remain equally accessible to our forces either for hostility or protection. It would give him wealth, of which we shall partake, and give him security without any dangerous increase of power; ... by bringing his frontier nearer to the Marathas, for whom singly he is no match, it would render him more dependent on us and connect the union more firmly between us."

The united forces accordingly invaded Rohilkhand