Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c37.s3.11

v3.c37.s3.11

This reversal of alliances needs explanation. Ever since his undesired seclusion in Allahabad fort, Shah Alam's heart had been growing sorer and sorer against the English. After their treaty with him in 1765 they had promised to escort him to his capital. To his demands for the fulfilment of this promise, the English generals had again and again replied that they would do so when the rainy season was over. Year followed year, but those rains seemed never to come to an end. At last the recluse of Allahabad had taken fortune into his own lands and made his way to his fathers' capital with Maratha help, unaided by a single British officer. Even the districts of Allahabad and Kora,—his own ancient and legitimate territory, which they had left to him in 1765, had been afterwards unceremoniously taken away by them and sold to the Wazir of Oudh. This Wazir, though a servant of his Government and a vassal of his empire, had been protected by British arms in defying his sovereign by refusing to pay the customary fine on succession and the annual surplus revenue of his fertile subahs, and even to share with him the imperial jagirs in Rohilkhand which he had usurped with British aid; and he had persistently defaulted in his duty of attending his lawful sovereign's levee as a functionary bound by his office tenure.