Page:History of the French in India.djvu/391

 EXTRAORDINARY INTRIGUES AT AURANGA'BAD. 367 Abdali had, indeed, combined with the hostile attitude chap. . VIII of the Bohillas, and the consequent intrigues at the ' court of Delhi, to detain Ghazi-ud-din at that capital 1751. longer than he had anticipated. By degrees, however, the difficulties in the way of his departure were removed, and in the month of September, 1752, he reached Aurangabad with an army computed at 150,000 men. Then began those intricacies of intrigue such as are seen only in an oriental court. There were assembled at Aurangabad, Ghazi-ud-din, whose real and avowed object was to obtain the sovereignty of the Dakhan, and to obtain which he was ready to sacrifice a portion of it to the Marathas ; on the side of that people, Balaji, supported by Holkar and the Bhonsla, was endeavour- ing to persuade each of the rivals to offer him a higher bid than the other. Salabat Jang had there no avowed representative, although his minister, Saiyid Lashkar, was present at the conferences. This man, however, the better to carry out his plans, had persuaded his master to connive at the fiction that he had been dis- missed from the office of Diwan, and Tiad, therefore, proceeded as a discontented noble to the confederates. In this way, he urged, he could better worm out their secrets. His real object, however, was to cement to the utmost of his power the alliance between the Marathas and Ghazi-ud-din, with the view of expelling Salabat Jang, and, with him, the French general and his troops. The right of Ghazi-ud-din, as the eldest son of his father, gave him in this dispute a moral influence, which was not without its effect on the nobles of the Dakhan, and which very much disturbed Salabat Jang himself. It is possible that under the circumstances, and in the face of the Maratha alliances, which Ghazi- ud-din had at length cemented by the offer of a consi- derable sacrifice of territory, he might have been inclined to listen to a compromise, when an event occurred which