Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c54.s12.18

v4.c54.s12.18

Jaswant Rao’s invasion brought down on Mahārāshtra a still greater curse than the desolation of fields and the slaughter of men. The last fruit of civil war is the loss of national liberty, and Holkar’s triumph made the Peshwā an English vassal. On 25th October, even before the battle joined outside Punā, Bāji Rāo had secretly sent to Resident Close a written agreement* to cede lands worth 25 lakhs of Rupees a year in return for a British protective force of six battalions of sepoys to be permanently stationed in his dominions. That afternoon, abandoning his capital long before the Sindhian army had ceased to resist, the last of the Peshwās fled to Konkan, wandered about for some weeks to avoid Holkar’s pursuing bands, and at last took refuge in an English ship, which landed him at their port of Bassein on 6th December 1802. Here, on the last day of the year he signed the Treaty of Bassein, by which he acknowledged British overlordship in full. It was now the lawful duty of the E. I. Company to restore Bāji Rāo to his throne in Punā, which city was then in Holkar’s occupation and where the victor had set up Amrit Rao Raghunāth as Peshwā in the place of Bāji Rao, whose flight to foreign parts was deemed as equivalent to abdication. British forces, under the leadership of the future Duke of Wellington entered Punā on 20th April 1803, and Bāji Rao was brought back and formally restored to his throne as a British puppet on 13th May, exactly like Mir Jafar who had been seated on the *masnad* of Bengal by Clive on 29th June 1757.*