Fall of the Mughal Empire v3.c42.6

v3.c42.6

Delhi fort could have easily held out for months, if only there had been a man to lead its defence, for the river was now in high flood and the invading Ruhela army on the east bank was starving and daily dispersing. But Sindhia’s cause at Court was ruined by the incapacity and cowardice of his two agents there and his own bankruptcy which made the unpaid garrison of Delhi rise frequently in mutiny and mob these ministers throughout the Lālsot crisis. And now when Ghulām Qādir appeared at Shahdara, opposite the capital, Shāh Nizāmuddin rashly decided to play the soldier. Instead of defending Delhi by holding the line of the river as military experts advised him to do, he sent a force across the raging Jamuna to attack. The detachment was too small and “his raw levies had not yet learnt how to hold their muskets.” Immediately on landing on the east bank, they were attacked by the Ruhelas, led by a Frenchman named Baise (?), defeated in a twinkle and driven back into the river, where a few of them were drowned and the rest escaped, after abandoning all their muskets and one piece of artillery. Mādho Rao Phālké who had been sent to the eastern bank three days earlier with a small troop of Maratha horse, had no time to save this detachment and promptly admitted defeat by shutting himself up in Shahdara and finally surrendering to Ghulām Qādir. [DC. PRC. i. 164. Ibr. iii. 24-25 (full.) DY. i. 229.]