Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c37.s4.4

v3.c37.s4.4

Mahadji Sindhia was for some time confident of the success of such a coalition,—with a confidence born of ignorance. He asserted again and again that the pressure on Western India by Colonel Goddard,, and later on Malwa by Camac, could be relieved and the English driven into a corner by Holkar and Sindhia from Central India and Bhonsla from Nagpur sweeping into Bengal with their countless horse and practising their light foray tactics (*qazzaqi*), which were sure of success. "The Emperor's artillery fires slowly, the English guns fire more quickly; but this advantage of the latter would be neutralized by *qazzaqi* and even their guns would be captured"! [*DY.* i. 6 & 9.] What the Maratha moss-troopers could do by the raiding tactics so dear to the hearts of their old-style leaders was found out by the best exponent of that school of warfare, Malhar Rao Holkar, once against the Abdali and twice when opposed to English discipline. Mahadji had not yet seen the work of De Boigne and his disciplined organisation, and he naturally shared the same illusion. A vast Maratha army for this North Indian campaign was expected to be fitted out by that hereditary insolvent the Peshwa, who could not even pay his Delhi envoy's salary, so that Hingané was driven to live in a beggarly style shameful to the foreign representative of a great Power and even to starve; as a fellow-sufferer bitterly put it, "Owing to my indebtedness every day is an *ekādashi* or *Shiva-rātri* to me!" [*DY.* i. 10, 81.]