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78 of the following year, the Maráthás fell back across the Ganges before a combined movement of troops from Oudh and Bengal. A few months later the bulk of the Peshwá's army was marching southwards across the Narbadá, laden with the plunder of many provinces, to prepare for new enterprises nearer home.

Meanwhile, the luckless Emperor Sháh Alam had realised the full meaning of those friendly offers which had lured him back to the Palace of the Mughals. He found himself a mere State-dummy in the hands of his new patron, Madhaji Sindhia, who made use of the imperial name to cover his own schemes for retrieving the losses of Pánípat. After a campaign in which he had taken part, his new allies kept for themselves the booty they had promised to share with him. They fomented disturbances around Delhi, and attacked the forces which he sent to put them down. His best general, Mirzá Najaf Khán, was beaten back by the hosts of Tukaji Holkar, and before the year's end Delhi opened its gates to the Maráthá conquerors. The helpless monarch had to disown his brave defender, and to make over into Maráthá keeping those very provinces of Kora and Allahábád which Clive had restored to him in 1765.

All this happened in 1772. It was clearly impossible for the English masters of Bengal to let these provinces, which linked Behar with Oudh, pass into the hands of their most formidable foes. By Hastings' order, both of them were straightway