A History of the Mahrattas v1.c30.7

v1.c30.7

A.D. 1767.—The Mahratta court seem to have perceived the object of this combination, and Mahdoo Rao, without waiting for his ally, if such he could be termed, crossed the Kistna in the month of January, and before the end of March took Sera, Ouscotta, and Mudgerry, released the Ranee of Bednore¹ and her adopted son, who had been confined in Mudgerry, and after levying thirty lacks of rupees² of tribute from Hyder and collecting nearly seventeen³ more from different parts of the Carnatic, was prepared to return to Maharashtra before Nizam Ally had made his appearance. When the English and Nizam Ally wished to have brought forward their pretensions to share in the Mahratta tribute, their envoys were treated with broad and undisguised ridicule.¹ It is not positively known whether Mahdoo Rao was apprised of the ultimate design of the alliance between Nizam Ally and the English, nor is it ascertained what agreement existed between Nizam Ally and the Mahrattas, but we have an unsupported assertion of Nizam Ally’s minister, Rookun-ud-dowlah, that his master had been duped by the Mahrattas for the third time²; at all events it could not have escaped the observation of Mahdoo Rao, that the English in the war against Hyder voluntarily appeared as auxiliaries to one of two contracting parties, and that, upon the subjugation of Hyder, Nizam Ally, by the English aid, could dictate, as the Mahrattas probably otherwise would have done, in any partition of his territories. This proceeding, therefore, on the part of Mahdoo Rao, which has been alluded to as ordinary Mahratta artifice to anticipate the plunder,³ was a measure perfectly justifiable for the purpose of effecting an important political object and disconcerting the plans of his enemies. He recrossed the Kistna in the end of May, leaving the Moghuls and their allies to settle with Hyder as they best could.