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124 gratitude, I have hitherto resolved to bear my part in this distracted scene, and if I live I will see the end of it .'

For the present, however, he had to keep his soul in patience as best he could. His opponents continued to worry and thwart him at every turn. They accused him of overtaxing the Zamíndárs and oppressing the ráyats under the revenue settlements of 1772, while they opposed his best efforts to remedy the evils of which they complained. They refused to aid him in protecting natives of rank from imprisonment for debt by order of the Supreme Court. The very loyalty which led him, sometimes against his better judgment, to work with the triumvirate rather than against them, failed to win for him a like concession in return.

If Hastings proposed one course of action, they were sure to follow another. In September, 1774, the Bombay Government had formed an alliance with Ragunáth Ráo, commonly called Raghuba, a Maráthá leader of old repute, uncle to the Peshwá, Náráyan Ráo, on whose death, in 1773, Raghuba got himself installed at Poona as his successor. But a rival party, headed by the able Nána Farnavís, ere long set up against him the posthumous son of the late Peshwá, under the title of Madhu Ráo II. The Maráthá leaders took different sides in the struggle that followed. Defeated in the field, Raghuba turned for help to the English at Bombay. The Court of Directors