Fall of the Mughal Empire v2.c27.s27.15

v2.c27.s27.15

On 5th September the Bhāu did indeed appeal to the Peshwā, but it was for money; he gives not the faintest idea of any military insufficiency on his side. Then followed the success at Kunjpurā (October), which elevated the spirit of the Maratha army of the North. Even on 1st November the Bhāu wrote to Govind Ballāl that he "had every hope of being able to swallow Abdāli up in a few days." [Raj. i. 261.] Another letter from his camp written four days later (by Krishna Joshi) shows his army in the same over-confident spirit. For a month after this, *i. e.*, up to the 7th of December, the Maratha troops retained their optimism ; they were daily roving round the Afghan camp and making spoils from its outskirts and distressing the enemy by cutting his supplies off, while Nāro Shankar from Delhi was successfully harrying the middle Doāb and parts of trans-Ganges by means of his detachments [SPD. ii. 197, Raj. i. 243.] Therefore, such a dominant force could have had no occasion or valid reason for demanding more man-power from the South. Money alone was needed by it, and that money could come only from the Maratha collectors in the North.