New History of the Marathas v2.c33.26

v2.c33.26

Raghunathrao then proceeded in the direction of Dholpur to meet the Jat Jawahirsinh. He was in severe distress for want of money and was operating almost in a vacuum. Just then news arrived that Ahmad Shah Abdali had appeared in the Punjab and the two parties became anxious to avoid hostilities. Jat envoys met R'rao in his camp and communicated to him their master's readiness to pay him some nazar and serve under him when necessary. The proposal was accepted and Jawahir was invited to a personal interview. But the latter suspected treachery and went away without meeting the Maratha generalissimo. A temporary truce was concluded, the Jat agreeing to pay the balance of the subsidy promised to Holkar the year before, and accepting a small jagir southwest of Bharatpur. Raghunathrao was compelled to retrace his steps to the south, in great embarrassment for money, without accomplishing any tangible results during one and a half years of his much trumpeted expedition. In March 1767 he arrived in south Malwa and learning that Ahalyabai's son Malrao had died on the 27th of that month, decided to improve the occasion to his own selfish advantage, by seizing the hoarded wealth of that pious lady, on the pretext that the Holkar State was now heirless and deserved to be confiscated.