Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c36.s8: § 1. Najaf Khan's last Jat campaign
Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c36.s8
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§ 1. Najaf Khan's last Jat campaign
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During the four months in the middle of 1777, when Mirzā Najaf was involved in the Ghausgarh campaign and exaggerated rumours were flying round that the imperial army had been reduced to its last gasp, all over the country rebels began to raise their heads once more. Chief among them was Ranjit Singh, the Jat Rajah of Bharatpur, who now tried to win back his father's vast domains snatched away from him by the Mirzā a year ago. In this work he found a great helper in Pratap Singh, the aspiring chief of Macheri, who had just entered on the threshold of his career of independence and begun to fish in the ever-troubled waters of Mewāt and Shekhāwati.
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This Rao Pratap Singh, a Jaipur vassal of the Nāroka branch of the Kachhwa clan, had at first been banished by his overlord Mādho Singh of Jaipur, but had soon afterwards won his sovereign's pardon and restoration to his fiefs by his patriotic assistance in the battles with Jawahir Singh Jat in February 1768. During the next ten years (the reign of Prithi Singh, 1768-'78) he remained loyal. But when on 15th April 1778 the throne of Jaipur passed on to Sawai Pratāp Singh, an imbecile and feeble lad, the new sovereign's weakness and folly and the consequent confusion in his State roused his Nāroka vassal's dreams of territorial aggression and independence. The Macheri chief had already begun to fight for his own hand in the Agra-Mathura districts and Mewāt, now as the ally of the Jat Rajah and now as a partisan of the imperial general, as he found profitable.
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Hiring the aid of the Macheri chief and Ambāji Inglé (a Maratha captain posted in the Gwalior district), the Jat Rajah tried to recover Dig, then held by Najaf Khan's agent, but without success. His threat to Agra city also failed through the skilful defence measures of Muhammad Beg Hamadāni, Mirzā Najaf's local deputy. But the rebels made a successful night-raid on Farāh (15 miles north-west of Agra), slew the Mughal collector, looted the city, and turned the country up to the walls of Agra into a "lampless desolation" (July-August 1777.) No relief could be sent at that time to the hard pressed imperial agents in this region.
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This revival of Jat disturbances in the newly conquered Agra-Mathura district recalled Mirzā Najaf to the scene as soon as he was freed from the siege of Ghausgarh. Leaving Delhi on 25th November, 1777, only five days after his return to the capital from the Ruhela campaign, he pushed rapidly on towards Agra, putting the rebels down and setting up his own authority again. He stormed and demolished the mud fort of Sonkh (midway between Mathura and Kumbher), massacring three thousand of its Kuntel Jat defenders and selling their women and children into slavery. This one act of frightfulness had immediate effect, and his further advance was scarcely opposed. Kumbher, that famous stronghold of the Jats, was captured in a few days. Ranjit Singh and his step-mother Rāni Kishori fled to Bharatpur, which was next invested. In two months they were brought down to their knees. The Rāni personally waited on Mirzā Najaf and humbly appealed for mercy to her husband's house. The Mirzā had the statesmanship to convert a vanquished foe into a friend by restoring the Bharatpur region, with a revenue of seven lakhs of Rupees, to Ranjit Singh and leaving the fort of Kumbher to Kishori as a personal gift (c. February 1778)*
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§2. Rao Rajah of Macheri (Alwar), his war and peace with Najaf Khan.
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Meantime, while the Jat Rajah was invested in Bharatpur, Najaf had turned to settle accounts with the Macheri chief. This noble had utilised the recent eclipse of the Jat power to make himself master of Alwar and Lachmangarh by corrupting their Jat custodians. Mirzā Najaf advanced to Lachmangarh, 20 miles south-east of Alwar, and laid a regular siege to it.* His lieutenant, Himmat Bahādur Gosain, lured away the Maratha mercenary Ambāji by a higher bid. The Macheri chief became helpless, and sent to beg for peace, but the Mirzā rejected his offer. In the midst of these operations, the Rajah of Jaipur, Prithi Singh, had died, on 15th April, and a new scene opened at the imperial Court where the favourite Abdul Ahad Khan tried to thwart Najaf's work by making terms with Macheri and Jaipur over the Mir Bakhshi's head. Tempting the Emperor with the hope of getting the tributes of these two Rajahs himself without having to give a share to the Mir Bakhshi, he announced that the sovereign would march to that region in person. The Jaipur and Macheri chiefs sent envoys to Delhi and tried to secure easier terms than Mirzā Najaf's. They were welcomed at Court and promised royal orders extending protection over their masters and repudiating the action of the Mirzā. The slothful Shah Alam was forced by his overbearing favourite into making a formal start for this expedition by entering into marching tents at Tālkatorā outside Delhi (24th May.) The mere report of this step stiffened the Rajahs' resistance to Najaf.
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∗ Mirza Najaf's third Jat campaign.—DC. Ibrat. i. 317, 345-347. G. Ali iii. 118-120. Miskin 335.
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∗ On 20 May 1778, Mons. Visage writes that Najaf Khan was still besieging Lachmangarh. (Barbé, 247.)
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The commander-in-chief had to attend to this new danger first. He wrote to Abdul Ahad entreating him not to ruin their common master's cause by this interference at the moment of success; but the letter only misled the Kashmiri into thinking that Najaf was now helplessly at his mercy and could be easily squeezed out of his wealth and lands! Afrāsiyāb Khan who went to Delhi on a mission for smoothing the relations between these two chiefs, returned after twelve days of wasted efforts (21 April.) The Mirzā now took quick and decided action; he sent orders to his lieutenants Najaf Quli and Afrāsiyāb to march from their posts to Delhi and awe the Emperor into dismissing his marplot favourite. The news of this move at once cowed the cowardly Kashmiri intriguer; he dismissed the Jaipur and Macheri envoys with empty hands and made the puppet Emperor sneak back into his palace (29th May), saving his face by the pretext that he had delayed stepping out of the fort on the 24th so long that the auspicious hour had expired and an evil star had risen to the ascendant in the meantime, so that this journey must be cancelled for his safety!
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The Macheri envoys, cursing the spineless double-dealing minister, went back to their master, who had no help but to seek peace at Mirzā Najaf's hands by agreeing to pay an indemnity of 33 lakhs in three years,—out of which three lakhs were paid down and security given for the balance of the first instalment (c. 6 July 1778.) The three lakhs with which the Macheri chief had bought off the imperial generalissimo, were a loan from the Jaipur treasury, and the Nāroka now tried to evade repayment of it.* Therefore, the Jaipur diwān Khushhāli Rām Bohrā called in the aid of Mirzā Najaf.
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An imperial force under Zain-ul-abidin Khan (the son of a nephew of the Mir Bakhshi) was despatched and joined the Jaipur army. A confused and wavering battle followed on 8th August 1778, in which, after an initial success, the Macheri chief was deserted by his Maratha allies, and each side fell back on its camp. Next day the Nāroka, after again heavily subsidising the Maratha mercenaries, set off to raid Kot-Putli and other places in the Jaipur dominion with their help. But he thought it advisable to come to terms with the imperialists first and then turn his undivided forces to making annexations at the expense of the Jaipur kingdom.
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So the Macheri chief with his Maratha allies came to Lohāgarh, won over Nawal Singh (of Nawalgarh) and other discontented Shekhāwat vassals of Jaipur, and advanced to Najaf Khan's camp for paying a visit of submission. But he was suspected of harbouring the design of making a treacherous attack on the imperial general, and so Mirzā Najaf stood carefully on his guard. Rao Pratap Singh visited Najaf Khan, on 29th November 1778, but haughtily refused to pay any tribute. The Mirzā, through Gosain Himmat Bahādur, seduced Ambāji and his Marathas with a bribe of four lakhs, and with their aid surprised the Macheri camp early at dawn, a few days later. Pratap Singh, who had just bathed and was engaged in worshipping his idols, had barely time to cut his way through the ring of his enemies with a few followers; but "all his property and camp equipage, worth 20 lakhs of Rupees, and artillery were looted." The Rajputs fought desperately with the Mughals who barred their path, but effected their retreat to Rājgarh.
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∗ Ibrat. i. 347, says that Khush-hāli Rām [corr. Daulat Ram] Haldia, a fugitive from the Jaipur Court, who had become prime-minister of the Macheri Rajah, spitefully advised his new master not to pay!
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The imperialists now poured into Macheri territory, ravaging the country, capturing the fortalices and occupying the villages. It was already December and the complete submission of the Macheri chief to the Mughal invaders seemed imminent when the news came that Abdul Ahad was taking the Emperor out to Rajputana in order to rob Mirzā Najaf of his command in that region. So the Mirzā at once patched up a truce with the Nāroka, by agreeing to an indemnity of two lakhs only, and set off to meet this new threat to the very foundations of his power.*
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§ 3. Emperor's march to Jaipur; Rajah Sawai Pratap Singh offers homage and tribute, 1779.
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Shah Alam had no wish to give up his life of ease and pleasure in Delhi palace and face the hardships of a campaign or even those of marching and sleeping in tents. But he was completely in the power of his favourite. Abdul Ahad pointed out how Mirzā Najaf had been campaigning successfully against the Jat and Macheri Rajahs for a year but had not paid a single pice of revenue or the least share of the spoils of war into the public treasury. Moreover, the new Rajah of Jaipur was bound by custom to pay a heavy succession fee, which would be swallowed up by Mirzā Najaf unless the Emperor went to the scene in person. In the meantime, the troops raised by Ahad for the Emperor in Delhi were clamouring for their pay, which the empty royal treasury could not supply. If the Emperor marched into Rajputana the Rajahs and chiefs along his route were sure to present themselves and offer tribute in awe of majesty, without any resort to arms.
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The Emperor yielded and issued from Delhi palace on 10th November 1778. Najafgarh was reached on 17th December and then Rewari (where its Rajah Mitrasen Ahir interviewed and was saddled with a tribute of Rs. 1,25,000). On the 23rd the camp arrived at Kanud, 28 miles west of Rewari, when the local Rajah Bhagwant Singh was received in audience and a tribute of four lakhs was laid on him. Next day the camp was pitched beyond Narnaul (15 miles south of Kanud), to which Badil Beg was posted as imperial faujdar. In Rajputana proper, several local chiefs were received at Court,—Nawal Singh Shekhawat the Rajah of Nawalgarh on 31st Dec., Basant Singh the Rajah of Patan on 5th January 1779, and Nathu Singh the Rajah of Manoharpur (35 miles south of Patan) on 16th January. The furthest point reached was the village of Aminpur, in parganah Amirnagar, near Jaipur, on 17th January. Here the Kachhwa diwan Khushhālī Rām Bohrā came (19th) to arrange for his master’s presentation to the throne. But Mīrzā Najaf himself arrived in the camp (23rd) with a strong and well-equipped army, and after some argument with his rival it was settled that these two ministers should jointly fix the Jaipur tribute.
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∗ Rise of Rao Rajah Pratap S. of Macheri and his wars with Najaf Kh.—DC. Ibrat. i. 313-321, 347-353. G. Ali iii. 118, 120-125. Miskin 335 (brief.) Vamsh Bhask, v.
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On 19th February Sawāī Pratāp Singh was introduced to the Emperor by Najaf Khan. He presented a peshkash of two lakhs, and his tribute was settled by mutual agreement at 20 lakhs. The Emperor with his own finger put the tikā or paint-mark of Rajahship on his forehead, and then sent him back with many robes of honour and gifts ; all his territory, including Narnaul, was restored to him. Najaf Khan undertook to collect his tribute, and leaving Himmat Bahadur as his agent for the purpose, he set out in the royal train (26 February) for the return to Delhi, which was entered on 21st April.
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But the Macheri Rajah had again turned refractory, and on 26th March Najaf was given his congee from the imperial camp for punishing the rebel.*
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§ 4. Abdul Ahad with Prince Farkhunda Bakht invades Sarhind province.
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Abdul Ahad Khan, though holding the regency of the Empire, knew his own military weakness; he had been long planning how to secure an instrument for overthrowing Mirzā Najaf Khan. Zābita had shrunk from such an enterprise; the Jat Rajah and the Macheri Rao had been crushed by Najaf’s superior force and statesmanship; the Marathas were involved in a life and death struggle with the English and the domestic traitor Raghunath Dada. Only the Sikhs were left, and with them Abdul Ahad began to coquet.
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∗ Abdul Ahad's plots against Najaf ; Emperor's journey to Jaipur.—Ibrat. i. 316-319, 319-321, 353-357. G. Ali iii. 121-130. Muna Lal 207-215. Miskin 339. DC. (details.) Of Najaf Khan's operations against Macheri from April 1779 we have no information in any Persian work. CPC. v. 1568 gives some news about him written from Delhi on 26th and 29th July.
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On 23rd September 1778 he sent his lieutenant Bahrām Quli Khan to welcome Sāhib Singh and some other Sikh sardars who had encamped near the Shālimār gardens north-west of Delhi. Then he persuaded the Emperor to confer the title of Najib-ud-daulah II on Mallu Khan, a younger son of the great Najib and now a Sikh protege, as a counterpoise to Zābita Khan who had become an adherent of Mirzā Najaf, (28th Sept.) The day after this, Ahad himself visited the Sikh sardars in the garden of Yaqub Ali Khan and gave them robes of honour in the Emperor's name. The pampered allies of the impotent Government celebrated the Dasaharā day (1st Oct.) by riding out and demolishing a mosque at "the Guru's bangla" near Rikābganj and ravaging the cultivated fields. [DC.] "Jihad in the path of Allah" is contagious.
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Then followed the Emperor's journey to Jaipur which kept the Court away from Delhi till the 21st of April 1779. A new political game was now played. Abdul Ahad, seeing the path of his ambition barred on the east, south and west, turned to the north of Delhi and planned to establish his own authority in the name of the Emperor in the Pānipat region. For this purpose he had got his son-in-law Sayyid Ali Khan appointed faujdar of the Sonepat-Pānipat district (5 Feb. 1778.) But this tract was dotted with Sikh strongholds and some places in it were also held by Najaf Khan's collectors. Ahad's men could establish themselves there only by superior force.
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So, immediately after the return of the Court from Jaipur, Ahad called up the Sikh sardars of the Karnal district to his side for maturing a pact with them. The Emperor refused to admit them to his audience, as it would be acting contrary to Najaf Khan's avowed policy. Just then Rajah Amar Singh of Patiala sent an envoy with rich presents to Ahad to beg for imperial support. He was in chronic antagonism with the other Cis-Satlaj chiefs, and particularly with Baghel Singh. But the Sikh sardars then present in Delhi deluded the minister with false promises of their support in case he marched to the region north of Delhi and in concert with Amar Singh tried to restore imperial rule in the Cis-Satlaj districts; they even held out a vision of reconquering Lahore and Multan for the Empire!
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The old fool swallowed the bait, and urged the Emperor to set out on this campaign. Shah Alam declined; it was midsummer, he had recently had an attack of fever; and Najaf Khan could not be expected to join with the only efficient army under the royal banners. But Ahad overawed him by saying that if no expedition was undertaken the Sikh allies and the imperial troops would mob him for their outstanding subsidy and pay. The helpless sovereign ordered his son Mirzā Jahān Shah (Farkhunda Bakht) to march with the minister,—the eldest Jahāndār Shah having wisely evaded the task on the plea of illness.
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Abdul Ahad now got together a large horde of recruits and a train of artillery and set out from Delhi with the prince on 3rd June 1779, giving himself the airs of a generalissimo. As he moved north, along his route Mirzā Najaf’s collectors were expelled and his own agents installed in their places; those who resisted were attacked and their lands laid waste. When the expedition reached Karnāl, the local zamindar Gajpat Singh loyally waited on the prince and was forced to promise a tribute of two lakhs. Many other Sikh sardars also presented themselves and offered their adhesion in return for pay. “Gajpat Singh became Abdul Ahad’s chief confidant and factotum for all Government business in that region. By his advice the Khan advanced and enlisted every Sikh who came in search of service and he gave to every Sikh sardar who interviewed him elephants, aigrettes &c. according to his rank. He planted Sikh thanahs wherever the ryots had fled away from the villages in fear of the royal troops.” [Miskin, 340.]* He spent the rainy season near Karnal.
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∗ Abdul Ahad's Patiala campaign.—Br. Mus. Or. 25,021, ff. 246 b—270b (daily occurrences 9 Sep.—7 Oct. 1779.) Miskin 340-342 (present.) DC. Ibrat. ii. 1-5. G. Ali iii. 132-136. Muna Lal 216-220. CPC. v. 1568, 1509 (Ahad had raised 30,000 troops by May.) DY. i. 24 (Zābita cowed into neutrality.)
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§ 5. Abdul Ahad’s expedition fails; his disastrous retreat, October 1779.
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A fierce light beats upon Abdul Ahad’s character from the records of this campaign. We happily possess minute daily reports of his sayings and doings and the incidents around him for the critical four weeks between 9th September and 7th October which marked the turning point of this expedition. They vividly illustrate his utter incapacity for war and management of men alike, his lack of the sense of reality in politics and his weak vacillating character. He shows himself an imbecile old man, swayed this way and that by his counsellors or by his own changing caprice,— in contrast with his rival’s clearness of vision, firmness of will, and unfailing tact in dealing with others. Abdul Ahad had started with the two objects of taking possession of the Crownlands in the Sonepat district and exacting tribute from the numerous Sikh chieftains who had overspread the Panipat and Ambala districts. For accomplishing this task his instruments, in addition to the raw and nondescript levies recently raised by him, were some mercenary Sikh sardars whose brethren he was going to squeeze. His policy was further complicated by his relations with the Patiala Rajah. Alā Jat’s progeny, in addition to the land-hunger common to all chiefs, were puffed up with boundless pride in consequence of the territorial confirmation and superlative title which Amar Singh had bought from the Durrani conqueror. The hand of the Patiala Rajah was against every other Cis-Satlaj Sikh sardar of note, and their hands were against him. In particular, he treated Bhai Desu Singh of Kaithal as his vassal and tributary.
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Thus, a hopeless conflict was introduced into Abdul Ahad's policy when he marched north at the invitation of Amar Singh and yet proposed to get his work done by the help of the other local Sikhs. Their adhesion to him depended solely on the cash nexus, and was sure to be lost as soon as he began to default in paying their monthly hire or demanded tribute from their leaders. Amar Singh had called in the Mughal premier only because he hoped to crush his rivals easily by using the awe of the Emperor's authority and the prestige of his son's presence. Therefore, as soon as Abdul Ahad made terms with the other Sikh sardars (like Desu Singh) and extended his protection to them, he thereby antagonised Amar Singh and was driven to declare war against his ally of Patiala as the only means left for recovering the vast expenditure he had incurred in coming there at the call of that ally.
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Even then the imperial regent might have achieved a creditable degree of success and secured no inconsiderable payment of money, if he had possessed the practical wisdom to strike a bargain promptly and prefer a realisable moderate tribute to impossibly high demands. The royal minion who had spent all his life at Court and whose sole weapon was his smooth deceitful tongue, found himself utterly at sea amidst the conflicting interests and tangled politics of the Sarhind province. And he made the situation worse confounded by mingling his private passions with his public duties and daily shifting his ground, instead of firmly following one clear-cut policy, as Najaf Khan used to do.
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In the camp at Karnāl, Abdul Ahad was waited upon by Bhai Desu Singh, the chief of Kaithal. The regent, under the Machiavellian counsel of Gajpat Singh, on 12th September placed under arrest all the Sikh sardars then on a visit for paying their respects to him and the prince.* This stroke destroyed all men's trust in the imperial Government's good faith, and henceforth the Sikhs kept aloof from him in well-grounded suspicion. Ahad first asked for three lakhs of Rupees from Desu Singh, and when the latter agreed to two lakhs, the royal minister raised his demand to five lakhs! At last the Kaithal chief's diwan agreed to 6¼ lakhs on condition of Desu Singh’s estates being confirmed to him by imperial rescript and guarded from the Patiāla Rajah’s encroachment.
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∗ At night Gajpat Singh privately told Ahad, "It is difficult to extract money from Desu S. Therefore, as a political device, you arrest all the sardars including myself. Afterwards release us and keep Desu S. under confinement for realising the tribute." Majduddaulah, calling...[five sardars] inside his tent, arrested all of them. Then Tāj Md. Kh. reported that Gajpat and [three] others were agreeable to paying their tributes. Majd set them free, with the exception of Desu S. (Akh. 249 b).
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Unaware of the real limits to his armed strength and swollen with a pride which would have been justified only by the complete subjugation of the Sarhind provnice, Abdul Ahad vowed to punish Desu Singh for his share in the defeat and death of his brother Abul Qāsim in the Doab in March 1776; one day he threatened to annex to the Crown all the estates of the Kaithal chief; another day he demanded from his captive the surrender of all the guns and camp property of Abul Qāsim which he had looted after the Khan’s defeat and all the contributions levied from imperial territory by this Sikh raider during the past four years. [Akh. 250 b.]
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All this time Amar Singh, the foremost supporter of the invaders, kept himself aloof from the imperial camp. His diwan, however, came (13 Sept.) with bankers’ bills for five lakhs of Rupees in favour of Abdul Ahad, on condition of his marching back and not menacing Patiāla territory. He even offered to add a quarter lakh of Rupees as nazarāna for the honour of the prince’s visit. But Ahad angrily replied, “I have come here at your call. I shall exact from you all the money spent by me, in every way that I can.” [Akh. 249 a.] It had become a point of honour with Abdul Ahad to make Amar Singh come to a personal interview. He was so obsessed with the idea that he would not accept the Patiāla tribute from the Rajah’s diwan, even when the latter raised his bid to seven lakhs in the hope of inducing the imperial army to retreat. But after Ahad’s treatment of Desu Singh, the Patiāla Rajah would not venture within the Mughal minister’s reach. He fled away from his capital, leaving its defence to his wife and her brother Mahā Singh, while he sent to buy the aid of Jasā Singh, Tārā Singh Ghebā and other formidable Trans-Satlaj Sikh leaders. The loyal Gajpat stood security for Amar Singh’s tribute and urged Ahad to retire, but the imperial favourite was deaf to reason and entreaty alike. [Akh. 254 a.] He obstinately pushed on towards Patiāla and sent his vanguard to attack that fort and ravage the Rajah’s territory. He even tore up the bankers’ bills offered to him by the Patiāla diwan and insisted that Amar Singh must present himself at least once. The inevitable result followed this folly.
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Turning north-west from Karnāl, and crossing the Saraswati rivulet near Pehowā (23rd September), the main imperial army under the prince and the minister pushed on to Ghurām, 15 miles south-east of Patiāla, on the 28th. Their base remained here, while their vanguard consisting of Sikh auxiliaries and some Mughalia horsemen was sent ahead to raid the villages up to Patiāla and its environs. This they did for some time till they were driven back by Amar Singh’s allies newly arrived from beyond the Satlaj under Tārā Singh Ghebā and some other sardars, in a strong body of 15,000 horsemen. At the same time Abdul Ahad’s Cis-Satlaj mercenaries demanded the full payment of their promised pay before they would move one step in support of his campaign. [Akh. 265 b.] The friendly Sikhs negotiated between Ahad and Amar Singh and a deputation of them was, after much entreaty, induced to go to Patiāla (5th October) in order to persuade Amar Singh to come. The Rajah agreed and even fixed a day for the interview and set out from his capital, but went back from the way. Nothing but open war was left now, and Ahad sent up a strong division from his camp for attacking Patiāla. On the 7th a great battle was fought between them, Amar Singh fell back and shut himself up in his fort; the victorious imperialists encamped five miles outside Patiāla and laid siege to it. [Akh. 267 a, 270.]
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For two days there was an exchange of fire with the fort. It was ineffective, and Ahad was too faint-hearted or too wise to attempt an assault as the prince had rashly suggested. The tide now turned decisively against the imperialists. The condition of their camp was hopeless: “mutinies broke out in our army from the enmity between the Turks and the Afghans (the latter prompted by Zābita Khan), the refusal of Ghāzi Khan and other [Mughalia] captains to work as there was no money for paying their soldiers, and the tumult created by Hurmat Khan, the chief favourite of Abdul Ahad. After Tārā Singh had arrived and joined the Patiāla Rajah, most of the Sikh sardars lately engaged by the prince suddenly deserted him, being lured away by Amar Singh’s gold.” [G. Ali, iii. 134.] To crown the Delhi minister’s misery, another Sikh army, its number swollen by rumour to two lakhs of men, was reported to be coming in response to Amar Singh’s appeal for help.
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Abdul Ahad’s position was now utterly untenable. On 14th October, early at dawn, he began his retreat from the environs of Patiāla. The enemy continued in pursuit of him up to Pānipat; but Bhāg Singh and a few other loyal Sikh chiefs fought heroic rearguard actions against their own brethren.* Ahad kept his army together, sitting all day on his elephant and coolly surveying his troops in their running fight. The artillery proved the most effective defence of this compact and well-handled force against the myriads of Sikh horsemen hovering round. At Pānipat the pursuit ceased, and the harassed imperialists found their first camp and day of rest. They returned to Delhi on 5th November.
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∗ The prince’s presence undoubtedly proved the salvation of the Mughal army. The glamour of the imperial name had not yet totally disappeared, and the Sikhs shrank from going to an extreme in their attack on the Padishah’s son, contenting themselves with loot only. If Abdul Ahad had been alone, he would not have returned alive from this ill-judged and ill-conducted invasion.