A History of the Mahrattas v2.c56.42

v2.c56.42

² [Zālim Singh, the blind Regent, ruled Kotah from 1771 for more than fifty years, and though the territory which he governed was not extensive, he made himself feared and respected by all his neighbours. In 1758 he had succeeded to the Faujdāri of Kotah, and in 1761 secured a victory for the Kotah troops over the army of Jaipur at Bhatwāra. About 1809 Sindia nominated Zālim Singh to the office of governor (Subha) of Mēwār, for which the latter paid about 1,50,000 rupees; but Sindia subsequently changed his mind and confirmed Ambājī Inglia instead. He, however, did not return the money to Zālim Singh. (Broughton, Letters, &c., 1892 ed., p. 28.) A supplementary article, added in 1818 to the treaty of 1817 with the British Government, vested the entire administration of Kotah in the Rāj Rāna Zālim Singh and his heirs in perpetuity. Zālim Singh, styled by Tod the Machiavelli of Rājpūtāna, died in 1824, and was succeeded by his son, Mādho Singh, who proved unfit for office. In 1834 it was resolved, with the consent of the Mahārāo of Kotah, to dismember the State and create the new principality of Jhalāwār as a separate provision for the descendants of Zālim Singh. (I.G., 1907, xiv. 115–16, and xv. 412.)]