Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c40.s5.1

v3.c40.s5.1

Mahadji took prompt action. Leaving Dig on 16th March and making daily marches without a halt, he reached Dāosā on the 24th. This place lies 32 miles east of Jaipur; the advanced division of the Maratha army under Rāyāji, stood near Sangāner, seven miles south of the Kachhwā capital. But seemingly diplomacy had not yet been exhausted. Peace envoys from Jaipur attended Mahadji’s camp discussing the amount of their tribute. But there was a conflict of counsel in his inner circle: the ever-sober Rānā Khan and the practical Rāyāji Pātil pressed him to accept a moderate tribute by way of compromise and retire immediately from Rajputana so as to avoid the increasing summer heat and to overawe his many secret enemies by occupying a more central position like Mathura. But the Rao Rajah and Khush-hali Ram appealed to his vanity by pointing out that after coming to the gates of Jaipur in person he could not, consistently with his dignity, retire with only the small tribute which had been offered to his servants before. The Macheri chief knew that if Sindhia got only a trifle from Jaipur he would try to recoup himself for the heavy expenses of this expedition by seizing Macheri territory. And Khush-hali Ram Bohra knew that with the coming back of his Haldia rival he had lost all his posts and property in Jaipur and could not return there and remain alive. These two therefore fed Mahadji’s ambition and pride by assuring him that at his mere appearance before the gates of Jaipur that city would fall in terror of his arms and that he would be able to annex the whole Kachhwa kingdom to his own dominions which would then stretch in unbroken extent from Ujjain to Delhi and from the Ganges to Ajmir. Faced by these two rival policies, Mahadji Sindhia seemed to have lost for a time his political vision and sense of reality. “He came under unlucky stars and his eyes were clouded by sloth,” as his admirer Khair-ud-din admits. He cried out in exasperation at the Jaipur Rajahs persistent breach of faith that he would “empty the Jaipur capital of its defenders and seize it, as he had done Gwalior and Gohad.” [Ibr. iii. 3, DY. i. 210.] The Rao Rajah and Khush-hali Ram and the other Jaipur refugees, having wormed their way into Mahadji’s confidence, proposed to him to make Mān Singh Rajah of half the Kachhwa kingdom as a Maratha *protegee* and rival to Sawai Pratap Singh. They themselves would act as his regents and recompense Sindhia for his armed aid by giving him bonds for the regular payment of the fixed tribute in future. [DY. i. 201.]