Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s14.3

v2.c27.s14.3

Shujā's clear-sighted advisers saw that the victory of the Abdāli king would in no way injure their master's interests, while a Maratha triumph would be ruinous to him. Ahmad Shah, as every one knew, was determined not to live in India nor create an Indian empire of his own; he was sure to go away after his Indian expeditions, leaving Delhi and its government in the hands of his Indo-Muslim supporters. But the Marathas were natives of the land, their northern ambition was boundless and had been fully unmasked since their Delhi expedition of August 1757. They had been openly demanding the surrender of Shujā’s most lucrative cities, Allahabad and Benares, and he had barely managed to evade compliance with this demand up to now, but could not hope to practise his delaying tactics for ever. Their design to annex Bihār as soon as they would be free from their entanglement with Abdālī, had been publicly avowed in 1759, and once in possession Bihār, they were sure to seize Shujā’s province of Allahabad, which would otherwise have interposed a troublesome alien wedge between their territories east and west of it. It was therefore Shujā’s true interest to defeat the Maratha designs in the North.