A History of the Mahrattas v2.c36.84

v2.c36.84

Colonel Goddard immediately assumed command of the troops, and a few days afterwards commenced his march from Rajegurh in Bundelcund towards the Nerbuddah. His route lay by Mooltan, Khemlassa, Beilsah, Bhopaul, and Hoossingabad; at the last-mentioned place he forded the Nerbuddah on the 2d December. Before Colonel Goddard had quitted the Bundelcund territory, Ballajee Punt, the Mahratta officer stationed at Sagur, by whose machinations Leslie’s progress was at first arrested, after many professions of friendship, made a perfidious attack on the baggage of the army, in which he was completely foiled. The conduct of the Nabob of Bhopaul was precisely the reverse of that of the Mahratta officer; he treated the English with the greatest confidence and hospitality, furnished them with every supply and every possible assistance, at the risk of incurring future enmity from the Mahrattas, without the support of his new friends. This generous behaviour on the part of the Nabob was never forgotten; and it laid the foundation of a friendship which in modern times has been laudably extended to his descendants by the British Government.