A History of the Mahrattas v1.c27.51

v1.c27.51

It having been determined that Sewdasheo Rao should take command of the army during the ensuing season, whilst the civil administration was committed to Rugonath Rao, the troops were assembled for the purpose of proceeding to the northward, when accounts arrived of the success of an intrigue for the surrender of Ahmednugur, which was betrayed into the hands of a Bramin agent of Sewdasheo Rao by Kuwee Jung, the Moghul Killidar, for a sum of money. A war with Hyderabad immediately ensued. Sulabut Jung and Nizam Ally were ill-prepared for this event; their army was in arrears and mutinous; an insurrection caused by Soorya Rao, the Deshmookh of Neermul, had just been quelled; and the resources of the country, during the late factious intrigues, had been neglected or wasted. But the disgrace of relinquishing without a struggle the ancient capital of the Nizam Shahee Kings, the reduction of which, a century and a half before, had cost so much Moghul blood, prevailed over the sober dictates of prudence, and the main army, without preparation or equipment, but with a vast quantity of baggage and cumbersome artillery moved towards Beder and thence to Dharoor. Sulabut Jung and Nizam Ally, attended by a small force of seven or eight thousand men, were moving towards Oodgeer.