Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c52.s1.3

v4.c52.s1.3

But quite other feelings animated the breast of the man who conducted the Government of Punā. Nānā Fadnis quaked in fear lest the victor of Patan and Mertā should push him away from the control of the Marātha Central Government which he had exercised for fourteen years now. Nānā was extremely unpopular on account of his parsimony and greed of power and wealth, and the rigid control and joyless decorum of his administrative policy. His miserliness in expenditure prevented the ambitious and the violent from "feeding themselves" at the public expense. But the economy of Nānā Fadnis was not the unselfish guardianship of the public funds that marked the administration of John De Witt (the Grand Pensionary of Holland) or of William Pitt (the Prime Minister of George III.) The Chitpāvan Machiavel (as his modern admirers in Punā love to call him) practised stringency in public expenditure only to increase his private hoard, which had in Oct. 1792 reached two krores of rupees by his own admission. No part of it was spent in strengthening the national defence or improving the people's lot. At the same time his grasping at all authority in the State and his personal vices (pandered to by Ghāsirām the Police Prefect of Punā) had raised against him a host of enemies, who fretted in impotent rage. Hence Nānā rightly feared a gathering of his enemies around Mahādji with a view to overwhelming him.