Fall of the Mughal Empire v1.c12.s2.26

v1.c12.s2.26

Jayāppā Sindhia arrived on 6th January, 1751 and united forces with Malhar. "The question of ranson (khandani) had been settled before, but now a new demand was made that one-third or at least one-fourth of the territory of Jaipur should be made over to the Marathas by a written deed. This alienated the Rajah and the Rajputs." In the meantime vassals, especially a large contingent of Shekhāwat warriors, had gathered round the new king and Madho Singh’s policy changed: he would no longer remain a dependant of the Marāthas, but planned to free himself from their insatiable greed by means of murder. He invited the Maratha chiefs to a dinner, arranging to poison their food and kill their personal escorts by the same means. He pressed his request again and again. Malhar at first consented, but on Jayappa’s flat refusal, he too declined. Then for some days Madho Singh set Brāhmans to cook sweetmeats for the Maratha soldiers, at the end of which he mixed poison with them. He even poisoned the drinking water, using two maunds of white arsenic for the purpose! “But God preserved our generals. Jayappa and Ummed Singh Hada hindered the crime. So, Madho Singh buried the noxious food in the ground.” His next plan was to invite Tātyā Gangādhar and other Maratha agents to a conference and there murder them. He ordered his porters to let the *pālkis* of these four men come to his palace and then close the city gates to their followers. But it so happened that the Maratha chiefs could not all come to him together and made appointments for each at a different time, and so this plot too failed. [S. P. D. ii. 31, xxvii. 65.]