History of Orissa from the Earliest Times to the British Period v2.c41.354

v2.c41.354

On the first July 1796 the zamindari of Nayabasan was refused to Rāṇī Sumitrā Deī by the Governor-General in Council. In a letter, dated 17th September, 1803, the Secretary to the Government agreed to the suspension of arrears of revenue due from her, about Rs. 1500, on account of the present crisis. This proves that Nayabasan had been restored to Sumitrā Deī. Evidently this was one of the measures previously adopted for the destruction of the Maratha Empire, when step by step the Marquess of Wellesley made ready to destroy Maratha supremacy in India. The destruction of Tipu was completed in 1799. The Niẓām was despoiled of the districts gained by him after the last war with Mysore. The English became secure on the South and the Western flanks of the Peshwa’s territory. Nay, the whole western flank was at the disposal of the English, as after the first subsidiary treaties the dominions of the Niẓām and the Gaikwāḍ of Baroda lay at the mercy of the English Company. By the totally unjustified mulction of the Nawāb Sa’adat ’Alī Khān of Lucknow of the Ṣūbahs of Allahabad and Kora and of the province of Rohilkhand, recently conquered by his English friends, British frontiers became contiguous with those of Mahārāja Daulat Rao Śinde, the most dangerous enemy of the British in India. As a conciliatory measure the Governor-General consented, on the 7th of November, to the proposal from the Board of Revenue about restoring Nayabasan to Rāṇī Sumitrā Deī. The Board reported on the 14th of November, 1800, that Rāṇī Sumitrā Deī had punctually discharged the public revenue but as she possessed large territories in the Maratha kingdom it could not be expected that she would come and reside in British Territory. The Board therefore recommended that a sanad for the zamindari of Nayabasan, etc., should be granted to Sumitrā Deī. All this formality was needless. The cession of the zamindari of Nayabasan to Sumitrā Deī, whose husband, Rājā Dāmodar Bhañja, had forfeited it, was the first step towards the conquest of Orissa, just as the conquest of Mysore and the mulction of Allahabad, Kora and Rohilkhand were of the Third Maratha War.