Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s10.4

v2.c27.s10.4

A long diplomatic tussle had been going on at the Court of Lucknow between the Maratha envoys and the agents of Abdālī for securing the adhesion of Shujā. While the Nawāb of Oudh was hesitating to which of these two powerful sides he should add his weight, the Bhāu hoped that the arrival of his army near Delhi would put heart into Shujā to reject Abdālī’s invitation, or at least keep him neutral by the fear of a Maratha invasion of his realm if he openly declared against them. Following this policy, the Bhāu from Mālwa had ordered Govind Ballāl to collect boats near Etāwa for enabling the grand army to bridge the Jamunā, cross into the Doāb, drive out the Afghan outposts, and thus insert a wedge between the Abdālī camp and Shujā’s dominions. But Govind failed to secure any boats, the rains began very early this year, and by the end of June the water-level of the Jamunā was too high to allow fording. To spoil the Maratha plan more thoroughly, while Govind with his unreinforced contingent could neither raid Shujā’s province across the Ganges, nor make reprisals on Najib’s jagirs in the upper Doāb, the Maratha posts in the middle Doāb were menaced by a southward march of Najib Khan and Jahān Khan, in the middle of May, when the Bhāu was still far away beyond the Chambal. The Afghans besieged the Maratha *thānahs* of Etāwa