A History of the Mahrattas v2.c45.29

v2.c45.29

It was with extreme reluctance that Nizam Ally agreed to surrender the person of his minister. Musheer Ool Moolk urged him to the measure, especially as, under the circumstances in which they found themselves, they did not consider the other conditions so immoderate as might have been expected. The minister was delivered over to a party of two hundred Mahrattas, by whom he was escorted to their camp. The Peishwa met him at the outskirts and received him with distinction, but his person was carefully guarded. The Mahrattas were rejoiced to excess by this triumph, and a remark of the young Peishwa, when rallied by Nana Furnuwees on the melancholy which his countenance betrayed at the time of Musheer Ool Moolk’s arrival, was as just as from him it was interesting. ‘I grieve,’ said he, ‘to observe such degeneracy as there must be on both sides, when such a disgraceful submission has been made by the Moghuls, and our soldiers are vaunting of a victory obtained without an effort.’ There were scarcely two hundred men lost by both those two great armies in the battle, though a considerable number of the Moghuls were killed in the subsequent confusion and during the time they were surrounded; but to this day it is one of the great boasts of the old Sillidars in the Mahratta villages, that they were present in the glorious field of Kurdla.