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Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c55: Chapter XLVI. Delhi Province, the Sikhs, and George Thomas

Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c55

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Chapter XLVI. Delhi Province, the Sikhs, and George Thomas

§ 1. Administrative divisions of North India under Sindhia

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When Mahādji Sindhia left North India for Punā at the beginning of 1792, he arranged for the administration of the Marātha dependencies in Hindustan during his absence by giving to each of his agents the charge of a particular province. Excluding Rajputana, where the Marāthas had only claims to tribute either for the Emperor or for their own sardārs, but no right to land, and Bundelkhand where they interfered only to profit by the eternal family quarrels among the fifty descendants of Chhatra Sāl Bundelā, there were six regions in which the Marāthas held territorial jurisdiction, though nominally subject to the paramountcy of the Mughal Emperor.

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The first of these was Delhi city, which included the Emperor's palace and family and a certain undefined area round the capital. But this area was very much smaller than the old subah of Delhi as known under Akbar's rule. The second was the Pānipat region, which was blocked on the north (and west) by a wall of Sikh opposition gradually hardening round Patiālā. The third was the district known as Hariānā or the country north and west of Delhi, and stretching up to the frontiers of the Mācheri and Jaipur kingdoms, in the Narnaul-Shekhāwati districts of the Kachhwā State.

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The fourth province was the Upper Doāb, popularly called the Mirāt-Sāharanpur district, where Holkar's agents were obstructing the intrusion of Sindhiā's collectors. The fifth was the Middle Doāb, with its centre at Koil (Aligarh), which, together with certain villages west of the Jamunā and south of Delhi formed the jāgir of De Boigne, yielding a total revenue now increased to 35 lakhs of rupees. Mālwa, though situated north of the Narmadā lay south of the Chambal river, and was therefore not regarded as a part of Hindustan proper. Nor was it included in the geography of the Deccan; but its ancient capital Ujjain was also Sindhiā's official capital.

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During the twelve years that lay between Mahādji's departure from the North and the imposition of Pax Britannica (1792-1803), all these regions were in a fluid unsettled condition, their boundaries were always shifting, and their administration disturbed by invasion, rebellion or brigandage. I shall tell their history during this period in broad outline only, and spare the reader the sickening details of the universal anarchy spread over so many diverse places.

§ 2. Shāh Nizāmuddin, Sindhiā's Resident in Delhi

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Mahādji Sindhiā when appointed Regent of the Mughal Empire, had to place a representative of his own at Delhi, in order to enforce his policy at the imperial Court and manage the Emperor. The duties of this officer were far more difficult and required far higher qualities for their smooth discharge than those of a British Resident in a feudatory Indian State. Only a man gifted with extraordinary intelligence, diplomatic tact, and combined strength of character and patience, could have served the needs of Sindhiā at the Delhi Court in those troubled early days of political change; and it was Sindhiā's misfortune that he could find no agent of such a character.

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Anand Rao Narsi Yerulkar who used to carry Mahādji's messages to the Emperor from 1780 to 1786, proved the reverse of the required diplomatic agent. In a drunken frolic during the Holi festival of March 1786, he gave mortal offence to Shah Alam by parading through the Marātha camp an old man and a boy, dressed out in rags and tinsel ornaments to caricature the pauper Emperor and his favourite daughter. Mahādji's son-in-law Lādoji Sitolé who was next sent to Delhi (in August 1786) as the Maratha Resident, proved a failure by reason of his lack of spirit; he ran away from the capital as soon as he heard of Mahādji’s repulse at Lālsot (August 1787). Then came the interruption of Ghulām Qādir’s ascendancy. After Mahādji had recovered his supremacy, he appointed in August 1789 a man whom he knew to be a *persona grata* with the Emperor and who he hoped would prove a moulder of Muslim opinion in the capital. This man was Shāh Nizāmuddin.

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Shāh Nizām-ud-din (popularly known as Shāhji, and also by his family title *Hazratji* or “His Holiness”), was descended on his father’s side from the celebrated Bāghdād saint Sayyid Muhiuddin Abdul Qādir Jilāni al-Hasani al-Husaini (d. 561 A.H.) from whom he was 18th in direct line. His mother was a daughter of another Islamic saint Khwājah Bāqi-billah of Delhi. His family migrated from Bāghdād to Burhānpur in the middle of the 17th century, and two generations later removed to Delhi. At the Mughal capital they used to give spiritual instruction to the people who were drawn by the report of their learning, piety and miraculous powers. Their disciples were wont to salute them as *Khudā-numā*, or the Revealer of God to man. In time their modest hermitage one mile outside the Agra Gate of Shah Jahān’s capital, grew into a baronial mansion with extensive gardens and out-houses (described by T. Twining in his *Travels*, 225-228.)

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The Emperor Shah Alam II in his devotion to all *mullās* and *faqirs* highly honoured Nizām-ud-din and cherished him at his Court. So great was his belief in the intelligence and zeal of this priest that he used to employ him from 1783 onwards as his agent in diplomatic missions to Sindhiā’s Marātha envoys accredited to his Court.

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The choice of Shāhji as his own Resident at the Delhi darbār was forced on Mahādji by his want of a capable Marātha agent. Shāhji’s merit lay in his spiritual influence over the weak-minded Emperor and the expected obedience of the people of the capital to such a generally respected personage. This hold of Shāhji on Mahādji Sindhiā was made doubly strong when the holy man married his son Amir Muhammad Khan to the grand-daughter of Sindhia’s Muslim guru, Shāh Mansur of Bir.

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Shāh Nizām-ud-din was Sindhiā’s subahdar of Delhi from August 1789 till June 1796, when he was removed.* But his long tenure of this office had the most unhappy consequences for Sindhiā’s interests. Like a typical darvish, Shāhji professed contempt for riches, while at the same time his greed for all moneys that came within his reach was boundless. As he pretended to have renounced wealth and to have vowed to live on alms of the smallest currency, namely a cowrie or Cyprœan shell, paid by each of his votaries, he was nicknamed the Cowrie Faqir. He laid out a new garden of his own by encroaching on some plots of land belonging to the Emperor and prince Akbar, and said that it was done with Sindhia’s permission!

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We must remember that Shāh Nizām-ud-din as Sindhiā’s deputy exercised only civil and diplomatic control over the Delhi province, though he bore the title of Subahdār or governor. But the military control of Delhi fort was entrusted to a Hindu officer, who was independent of Shāhji, with the result that the two constantly quarrelled and each served as a check on the other. After Sindhia’s recovery of Delhi fort in October 1788, Raja Hirā Singh of the Jāt ruling family of Ballabhgarh, was placed in Delhi as the qiladār.† His kinsman Ajit Singh did the duties of the post. On 21st August 1791, Khāndé Rao Hari took over charge as the new *qiladār*, but he had very soon to go away on campaign (1st September), leaving Kumār Bhawāni Singh to hold the fort, and this Bhawāni Singh, continued as *qiladār* for six years after, and had the inevitable friction with Shāhji. Lakhwā Dādā, after being appointed Daulat Rao’s viceroy of Hindustan, recognised Kumār Bhawāni Singh (*alias* Mān S., according to *D.C.*) as *qiladār* of Delhi (27 May 1795). On 24th December, 1796, Mān Singh was dismissed and Bhāu Tātyā (Lakhwā’s partisan) appointed to the post, from whom Pedron, by order of Perron, captured the fort of Delhi on 14th October 1798. Perron’s officer Louis Bourquien commanded in Delhi up to the British conquest in September 1803. (*DY.* ii. 30, 25. *Kālé Akh.* *DC.*)

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∗ In June 1796 Jaswant Rao Sindhiā (a great-grandson of Ranoji) became subahdār of Delhi after the dismissal of Shāhji, but Daulat Rao Sindhia replaced him by Shāh Hāji, a personal servant or Khawās of Prince Akbar Shah on 5th Feb. 1797. In May 1798 Nizām-ul-din (through his son) was reappointed by Sindhia to his old post and held it till July 1801. On 6th Oct. 1799, Prince Akbar and some other sons of Shāh Alam seized Nizām-ud-din, gave him a beating, and kept him confined in the fort for some days, after which he was released. The subahdāri was next given to Perron who held it till the British conquest. Perron discharged the duties of this office through his deputy Drugeon (his first choice, M. Bernier having been found incompetent). DY. DC. PRC. viii. 177, 178. ix. 257, 27.

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† For this Ballabhgarh Jat dynasty, see Agra and Calcutta Gazetteer (pub. 1842) pt. ii. p. 289. Delhi Dist. Gazetteer, 213. Hira Singh and Ajit S. were joint qiladārs. Ajit S. was murdered by his brother Zālim

§ 3. How Shāh Nizāmuddin starved the Emperor

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A friend of General De Boigne, in a letter written from Delhi to Colonel John Murray about July 1794, thus describes Shāhji’s scurvy treatment of his imperial ward: —

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“Sindhiā sets Shāh Nizām-ud-din over the Pādishāh as the greatest scoundrel they could find. He does not give a farthing of money to the Pādishāh or any of his people. . . . Regularly every day he furnishes the old king with two *seers* of *pilau* and eight *seers* of meat; this with two loaves of bread, about the length each of a cubit, to suffice for five persons,—(namely the Emperor, his doctor, Prince Akbar Shah, a little favourite daughter, and one of his 200 *begams* in turn.) The rest of the royal household, without distinction, Princes and Princesses, nay Queens and all eunuchs and female slaves, have two *seers* a day of barley flour for every three persons, which they are to bake for themselves. . . . The old Nizām of Hyderabad sent the King six years ago 6,000 gold *mohars*. They every farthing got into the Cowrie Father’s hands, and remain there”.

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S., on 20 April 1795, when his son Bahadur S. succeeded him. Bhawāni evidently bore the title of Kumar Bahadur or Bahadur S. (corrected from *DC.* and *Kālé Akh.*)

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De Boigne's reply written on 12th March 1795, though discounting a part of the above picture as "somewhat exaggerated," confirms the story of Shāhji's greed. He writes:—"The province (i.e., jāgir) in Shāhji's possession intended for the support of the royal family may produce about seven lakhs per annum. . . . Shāhji takes the greatest part of it for himself, and a great deal must be given to the Marātha chiefs, to be supported and continued in his office." [Compton, 83-86.]

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Nizām-ud-din's peculation of his sovereign's dues was made more unpalatable by his harshness of speech. In pontifical pride, heightened by his consciousness of power as the confidant of the Emperor's regent, this Cowrie Faqir addressed Shah Alam and his sons with a roughness of tongue which moved the helpless Emperor to tears and the young princes to ill-suppressed rage. The Marātha despatches from Delhi again and again describe Shāhji as sakht-go or harsh of speech, and the Persian news-letters repeatedly mention his chiding of the royal family.

§ 4. Shah Alam's vices

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But even if Shah Nizām-ud-din had possessed the suavity and patience of an angel, it would have been impossible for him to keep Shah Alam satisfied with his management. Sordid avarice and boundless sensuality had disgraced the character of Shah Alam ever since his return to Delhi after leaving British protection at Allahabad in 1771. He kept the swarm of princes and princesses confined in the palace-prison of Delhi fort on starvation allowances, and at the same time constantly added new beauties to his over-crowded harem. This was noticed by Comte de Modave in 1775. And neither age nor blindness had cooled the flames of passion in his blood after Ghulām Qādir's atrocities.

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This highly cultured French administrator, the Comte de Modave, who visited the imperial Court in 1775, writes of Shah Alam II:

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"He has been seized with a sordid avarice, which . . . has gone beyond all bounds. This monarch has two qualities which seem hereditary in his house: he is marvellously devout and very much given to women. He passes his life in their midst, having no less than 500 in his seraglio. . . . I have seen him surrounded by *faqirs* and *mullās*. . . These *mullās* leap up, dance, turn on their feet, their arms in the air, with a prodigious rapidity and make a hundred other extravagant acts. . . Sometimes the *mullās* approach his person extending their arms in front of them, their fists pressed one against the other. The Pādishāh rises up, applies his hands to the fists of the *mullās*, and then passes his hands, sanctified by that touch, to his face and to his beard with a seriousness which gives me a great desire to laugh.

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“The Pādishāh at present has 27 male children, all alive and swarming. . . It is reckoned that today in the fortress of Delhi there are more than 80 Shāhzāda prisoners, who are all provided with wives and most of them with children. . . Some of these Shāhzādas have only one rupee a day as subsistence allowance, others have two, three, four or five. . . All these princes of the blood imperial lead an extremely unhappy life; the money destined for their subsistence is not always regularly paid.”

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Three years later the gifted Swiss engineer Major Polier, during a long residence in Delhi, noticed the same thing: “Great fondness of flattery and too unreserved confidence in his ministers, . . . together with an inordinate love of women and a strong propensity to ease and indolence, form the less shining parts of Shah Alam’s character. . . The king has a numerous family, above 500 women and nearly 70 children, male and female, besides grand-children.” In 1804, when Lord Wellesley took over the charge of the Emperor from Sindhiā’s hands, he had to make provision for 45 children, male and female, of Shah Alam II then surviving, besides grand children.*

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∗ Modave, tr. by me in *Islamic Culture*, July 1937. Polier in P. C. Gupta’s *Shah Alam II and His Court*, 69-70. Wellesley, in his despatch dated 2 Jan. 1805. (*Delhi Dist. Gaz.*, p. 22.)

§ 5. Causes of Shah Alam's poverty—his domestic discords

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A royal family which bred with the fecundity of rabbits, needed an ever-increasing supply of money. The anarchy then raging all over the country reduced the actual collection from the Crownlands to less than a quarter of the standard revenue, while the blind old patriarch persisted in building up a secret hoard by laying aside some portion of the scanty sums that he every year received for his support. The inevitable result was beggarliness, starvation, and clamorous outbursts in the Delhi palace which never ceased till the British conquest.

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At the beginning of 1789, immediately after the hunting down of Ghulām Qādir, Mahādji supplied the Emperor with Rs. 300 a day in order to meet his immediate wants. This was a purely temporary arrangement. Soon afterwards permanent provision was made for the imperial household by assigning 32 mahals as *khālsa* with a net yield on paper of Rs. 16,91,000 a year, and these estates were farmed to contractors. The Emperor's monthly allowance having been fixed at Rs. 1,30,000, the revenue of these Crownlands could have provided the annually needed amount of 15½ lakhs, if the collections were normal. But the times were not normal, and the actual realisation from the farmers sank to four lakhs, that is, only a quarter of the expected revenue. Hence the imperial family had to live on quarter rations, or less, because a portion of the shrunken receipts was swallowed up by their keeper Shāh Nizāmuddin. Under British peace and British management, the actual collection from these Crownlands leaped up from four lakhs in 1807 to 15 lakhs in 1813. The Jamunā canals, which when assigned to Safdar Jang in 1750 used to yield 25 lakhs a year, were now choked up and unprofitable. (*DY.* i. 384, and 387, Kaye's *Metcalfe*, i, 365. *Asiatic Annual Register* for 1800, Misc. Tr. p. 37, Polier, on the canal.)

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But a shrunken income, made doubly painful by his growing miserliness, was not the only trouble in Shah Alam's household after his restoration to the throne. The polygamist was not happy with his numerous progeny. Soon after making Mahādji his regent, he had approached that chief and the English Government with a proposal for setting aside the claims of his eldest son Jawān Bakht and declaring a younger son, Akbar Shah as his heir. The reason was the superstitious belief that as the fugitive and penniless Shah Alam had learnt of his father's death and crowned himself Emperor (on 23rd Dec. 1759), while Akbar was in his mother's womb, this prince was born under the most auspicious star and he would bring glory to the imperial house if he filled the throne. But the Governor-General and Sindhiā alike refused to violate the rule of primogeniture. The question, however, was finally laid at rest by the death of Jawān Bakht in self-chosen exile at Benares on 31st May 1788.

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After Shah Alam had been rescued from the hands of the Ruhelā rebel, it was agitated in some political circles that, as blindness had now made him physically unfit to rule, he should be pensioned off, and Prince Akbar publicly installed as his heir in full possession of the powers of government. That prince was naturally eager for such a promotion. And then his father's love for him turned into hate. Shah Alam refused to part with his power and wealth and sounded the Marātha Court about declaring a still younger son his heir!

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The sons and nephews of Shah Alam, being driven to despair by their very niggardly allowances and the utter blankness of their future, one after another broke out of their prison-palace in Delhi and escaped to Oudh, the Deccan or Afghanistan.* These escapades created at the time some alarm and confusion but no real harm came out of them.

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∗ Escapes from Delhi palace,—Jawān Bakht (14 April 1784), Mirzāi, a Khwajāzāda descended from the daughter of Emperor Farrukh-siyar (25 Nov. 1789), Ahsan Bakht (when following the funeral procession of Empress Piyāri Begam, 4 Apr. 1790), Sulaiman Shukoh (c. March 1789), Sikandar Shukoh (on 22nd January, 1796). Similarly, two sons of Jawān Bakht left their home in Benares, namely Shigufta Bakht or Mirzā Hāji and Muzaffar Bakht or Mirza Juma, PRC. i. 243, 255. DC. DY. i & ii. Kālē Akh.)

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In despair of arguing Shah Nizāmuddin into greater liberality or honesty in payment, the Emperor once or twice wrote secret appeals to the British Resident with Sindhiā, to Sindhiā himself, to the Peshwā and the Durrāni Shāh, begging them to relieve his misery. Similarly Prince Akbar sent a secret complaint against Nizāmuddin to General De Boigne, the most influential officer of Sindhiā. The correspondence came to Nizāmuddin's knowledge and he sharply censured the king and the prince for this defiance of his authority as Sindhiā's agent and the sole medium of communication between the Delhi Court and the outer world. The trump card that the Cowrie Faqir could always put before Sindhia's inner council was the argument that such unauthorised diplomacy would enable "the English to thrust their feet into the Government of Delhi," and make the Pādishāh their vassal like the Nawāb of Oudh.

§ 6. Sindhia's friendly treaty with the Sikhs fails

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Mahādji Sindhiā after gaining the regency of the Delhi Empire, tried to come to an understanding with the Sikhs who had been dominating the Cis-Satlaj portion of the Delhi subah and raiding the upper Doab every year. (Ch. 35, § 8.) On 9th May 1785, a treaty of alliance with them was concluded, the mediators being Ambāji Inglé on the Marātha side and Mohan Singh and Dulchā Singh on behalf of the Sikh sardārs. Its terms were, (i) The Sikh sardārs were to join the imperial army with a contingent of 5,000 horse and receive in return a jāgir of ten lakhs of Rupees (in the Karnāl district), (ii) They undertook not to disturb the territory outside the limits of their jāgir, nor to levy rākhi (blackmail) in any possession of the imperial Government. But the Sikhs did not abide by the terms, and they could be hardly expected to do so, when we bear in mind their anarchical organisation under hundreds of petty captains, with no central authority to unite them or control their individual predatory activities. The boundary between the two powers was roughly a line west to east through Karnāl on the right bank of the Jamunā and another line through Shāmpur—Muzaffarnagar—Mirāt, on the left bank.

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Before the year 1785 was out, the Sikhs were already in open hostility to the Marātha administration of the north Delhi district. In December the Marātha governor had to fight and drive away the Sikh bands that had invaded Patiālā, the dominion of Sāhib Singh, an ally of the Marāthas. But Sikh raids into the upper Doāb and the north Delhi district, for collecting rākhi (two annas for every Rupee of the land revenue) continued during 1786 and 1787. Bāghel Singh of Chhalundi was the first Sikh chief to join Sindhiā's general for pay. But Mahādji's call on the Sikh jāgirdārs in the Cis-Satlaj country to pay the tribute due to the sovereign, antagonised them. Then came the Lālsot campaign in the middle of 1787 and the consequent downfall of Sindhiā's authority, which continued till December 1788.

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When Ambāji Inglé left Karnāl in June 1787 to join his master at Lālsot, his deputy Shyām Rao Bakhshi held charge of the north-Delhi district in name only, and could save himself from the swarming Sikh allies of Ghulām Qādir and the treacherous Bāghel Singh, only with the help of Begam Samru's troops. During Ghulām Qādir's ascendancy, the Sikhs professed to be his allies, but plundered his estates as ruthlessly as the imperial dominions.

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After the downfall of the Ruhelā usurper, early in 1789, strong Marātha forces gathered at Kunjpurā for restoring their authority in the Cis-Satlaj area and forming an alliance with the Raja of Patiālā and other local chiefs so as to keep the trans-Satlaj Sikhs out and ensure peace for the imperial territory there and in the upper Doāb by legalising the Sikh right to levy rākhi. But the plan failed: the needy Marātha governor pressed the Raja of Patiālā to pay his promised tribute, and the Raja met the demand by inviting the trans-Satlaj Sikhs, who came and enveloped the Marātha army. Peace was then made by Sindhiā granting a large jāgir to Bāghel Singh in return for his undertaking to keep his associate Sikh chiefs friendly to the Marātha Government. "Some of the Sikh chiefs accepted the role of peaceful feudatories (under the Marāthas). . . They undertook the fiscal management of certain parganas in the Doāb allotted to the maintenance of Sikh contingents. In other words, feudal tenures were bestowed upon them, in commutation of their claim to blackmail". Several Sikh chiefs now held estates in the Upper Doāb. They all agreed to protect the Doāb from their own retainers and the attacks of other Sikhs. About 1,000 Sikh collectors were allowed to be stationed in the Doāb to realise rākhi from the villages, and the Marātha officers helped them in this business. In fact, "by this course of policy the Government gave a varnish of legality to a system of exaction that could not be wholly suppressed." (Gupta, ii. 222, with quotations from Williams in Calcutta Review, 1875.)

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But even this surrender did not bring peace to that unhappy country. The Sikhs would not keep their word. A year had not passed after this agreement, when Sikh bands renewed their raids into the territories under Marātha rule. For many years afterwards a fluid state of anarchy and plunder continued in these regions. In short, Sikh raids were an annual occurrence in the Doāb every winter till the British conquest. The sickening details may be read in Atkinson's N.W.P. Gazetteer, vol. III. (Muzaffarnagar) or Dr. Hari Ram Gupta's History of the Sikhs, vol. II, Ch. 13 and 14. It will be enough to trace the course of events in outline here.

§ 7. Maratha dealings with Patiālā and other Sikhs

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It was in the best interest of the Marāthas to make some great local chief like the Raja of Patiālā their firm friend and use him as a buffer against the swarming Sikh hordes further west. But this wise policy, which the English instinctively adopted in the 19th century, could not be followed. Whenever Patiālā was threatened by Sikh confederacies from beyond the Satlaj, or disturbed by domestic quarrels, the Raja used to invite the Marāthas; and as certainly, when the invaders retired, he evaded paying the promised price of the aid. A chronic source of friction was Sindhiā's demand for the annual tribute which Patiālā like every other feudatory State owed to the Emperor and which Sindhiā, as regent had to collect. Whenever the Marāthas used threats, the Patiālā diwān or queen immediately called in the trans-Satlaj Sikhs and expelled the weak Marātha forces. No lasting solution of this problem could be reached. Rather, this public dispute was made worse by the private greed of the Marātha generals in the north Delhi district.

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When Mahādji Sindhiā left North India for the Deccan (early in 1792), his governor of Hindustan, Gopāl Bhāu, strengthened his posts in the Upper Doāb; he himself marched up from his base at Mathurā to Delhi (7th March), and appointed two senior officers, Ravloji Sindhiā and Mādho Rao Phālké, to the Doāb to guard it against the Sikhs. This Marātha viceroy had a new and powerful engine of war in De Boigne's disciplined brigades, and after he had taken post at Sonpat (c. 17th April 1792), the Sikhs were kept in awe for some time.

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In October 1793, a Sikh predatory band was driven away from the neighbourhood of Sāharanpur by Devji Gaulé and Bāpu Malhār. Khāndé Rao Hari expelled another band of raiders from the north of Delhi. But the Marātha generals had constantly to wage small wars in order to collect revenue from the walled villages and petty Nawābs of the whole country north and west of Delhi.

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Mahādji's policy was "to win the Sikhs over by goodwill and a policy of conciliation, and thus establish peace and order in North India by the active co-operation of the Sikhs." But in the anarchical condition of the Sikh bands, such a policy could not work, as "they understood only the argument of physical force."

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After Mahādji Sindhiā's death (in February 1794), his northern viceroy Gopāl Bhāu posted Bhairon Pant Tātyā at Sāharanpur, Devji Gaulé and Bāpu Malhār at Pānipat, Jivāji Ballāl and Ambāji Inglé at Sambhal, and Āpā Khāndé Rao (in charge of the Delhi district) at Jhajhar. The mutual jealousies of these officers and the mutiny of their troops from the chronic arrears of their pay, prevented Marātha rule from taking root and the country from returning to peace and prosperity. Begam Samru's disciplined brigade and solvent finances, however, awed the Sikh raiders into sparing her estates in the Upper Doāb for some years.

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In November 1794, Daulat Rao Sindhiā made Lakhwā Dādā his viceroy of the north in the place of Gopāl Bhāu, and at the end of the next year De Boigne left Sindhia's service to return to Europe. Lakhwā ordered his deputy Nānā Rao who was posted at Karnāl, to collect revenue from the Cis-Satlaj country. Fighting immediately broke out; the Patiālā queen and Bhangā Singh of Thāneshwar defeated Nānā Rao and drove him back to Delhi (October 1795). Immediately after this Marātha reverse, a body of five thousand Sikhs burst into the Upper Doāb: "The local militia made no stand against them. The Marātha garrisons in Sāharanpur were scattered like chaff before the wind." The garrison of the town of Sāharanpur retreated precipitately and took shelter in the fort of Jalālābād. But George Thomas, detached by Āpā Khāndé Rao, appeared with a portion of his Mewāt force and the Sikhs fled away at his approach. Lakhwā Dādā then (November 1795) appointed Thomas as Warden of the Marches to guard the Jamunā frontier of the Upper Doāb, with a contingent of 2,000 infantry, 200 horse and sixteen pieces of artillery; he was assigned the parganas of Pānipat, Sonpat, and Karnāl for their pay.

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Thomas found his task no easy one. Throughout the winter of 1796-97, Bāpu Malhār, the governor of Sāharanpur, exerted himself to restore some appearance of order, but the Sikh sardārs associated with him as allies, were found to be intriguing with their brethren in the Panjab and stirring up rebellion against the Marātha Government.* The Sikh commandant of the flourishing market-town of Shāmli, though a servant of Gurdat Singh of Ladwā (a vassal of Sindhiā), was detected in this treasonable correspondence: his fort was attacked by Thomas, and the entire garrison including the commandant and his family, were put to the sword, (c. Dec. 1796). Immediately after this victory, Thomas proceeded northwards to Lakhnāuti and helped Bāpu Malhār in subduing Bahrāmand Ali Khan, the rebel Turkoman jāgirdār of that place. He then recrossed the Jamunā and defeated the Sikh confederates in four successive actions near Karnāl (c. March 1797.)

§ 8. George Thomas, his early history

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Of all the European military adventurers in India George Thomas lived a life of the most romantic interest, marked by the brilliancy and briefness of a meteor.†

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∗ One large body of Sikh raiders, 14,000 strong, under Sāhib Singh of Patiālā, reached Hardwār, where on 10th April 1796, the last day of the great Kumbh fair, they suddenly looted and massacred the pilgrims. Some five hundred Hindu monks and merchants were put to the sword, many others were drowned in their attempt to escape across that swift current. A battalion of Oudh sepoys under an English captain, named Murray, who happened to be present there arrested the advance of the Sikh horse, who retired next day, plundering all that they found on the way. Gupta, ii. 262-268.

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† It is now possible to reconstruct the story of George Thomas's life in Northern India with accuracy of details and dates and to correct the narratives of W. Francklin and Louis Ferdinand Smith, who depended on the faded memory of an unlettered soldier--and may we add, his Irish brag?--or the romance woven a generation after his death by the Eurasian family of Skinner. L. F. Smith, though a contemporary and a practised writer, belonged to his enemy's camp and knew only the events of the last years of Thomas. A correspondent's letters from Lucknow, published in the *Asiatic Annual Register* for 1802, (Characters, pp. 55-57) probably written by L. F. Smith, are useful on a few points. But we now possess contemporary evidence of unimpeachable authenticity, namely, (i) the despatches of the Maratha Resident at Delhi, (ii) the news-letters written to the British Resident with Sindhia by his agents in the camps of Thomas and his opponents and incorporated in the Resident's letters to the Governor General, and (iii) weekly (sometimes daily) reports of occurrences in the Delhi Emperor's Court and the news from various places that came to that capital. These last are found in Persian manuscripts called *ākhbārāt*. It is therefore necessary to make heavy corrections in Francklin and

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Born of very poor Irish parents in Tipperary about 1756, he received no education and enlisted as a common sailor. On his ship touching at Madras about 1782, he deserted it and took to the roving life of a soldier of fortune under the wild jungle chiefs of the south known as poligars. He next served as a gunner in the Nizam's army, but tiring of this work in six months, he made his way on foot to Delhi (c. 1787), and was there taken into the European corps of Begam Samru.

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His tall manly form, wild courage, inborn power of command, and Irish humour and generosity, soon won the Begam's confidence and, it is said, her love also. After testing his capacity in the Emperor's campaign against Najaf Quli Khan (Ch. 36 § 7) and in many an encounter with the rebel peasantry, she made him collector of the sub-division of Tappal (32 miles n.w. of Aligarh) in her jāgir, which had a revenue of Rs. 70,000, and even married him to one of her adopted daughters,—evidently the child of some European officer in her corps. As a district magistrate, Thomas strongly suppressed law-breakers, scared away Sikh raiders, and nearly doubled the revenue collection of Tappal. Then came his dismissal.

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According to the story told by him, he had advised his mistress to economise by dismissing some of the useless French adventurers in her service. This set the French party at Sardhānā against him, and their leader Le Vasseau with whom the Begam was over head and ears in love convinced her that Thomas's real aim was to deprive her of her true friends and then carve an independent principality for himself out of her estate. The Marātha Resident at Delhi, however, reported that the Begam had dismissed Thomas for wenching (baté-bāzi). The Irish youth must have wearied of the faded charms of the old hag and consoled himself among the younger beauties of her large

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Smith and their modern derivatives, such as Atkinson's N. W. P. Gazetteer, volumes ii & iii, Herbert Compton's Particular Account, and Keene's Hindustan under the Free-lances.

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mestizo household. So, she dismissed him. But he refused to yield Tappal, and was attacked there, taken, and confined, (c. Sep. 1791.) Released at the intercession of Shāh Nizāmuddin (Mahādji's agent at the imperial court), Thomas made his way to Anupshahar, the northernmost British cantonment, and set up as a private captain of mercenaries on a small scale.

§ 9. George Thomas under Āpā Khāndé Rao

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But such a good fighter could not long remain unnoticed. Āpā Khāndé Rao, the Marātha governor of the country west of Delhi (Mewāt) engaged him (c. Oct. 1793) and placed a battalion of sepoys under him. He worked for this master for four years.

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Early in the year 1794, we find Thomas raising fresh troops, collecting revenue by force from the ever-refractory peasantry of Mewāt, and (in April) supporting his unpaid soldiery by looting Gurgāon and two other villages in Begam Samru's jāgir of Pādishāhpur taluq. As Āpā Khāndé Rāo enlarged the contingent of Thomas, he assigned to him Tijārā, Tapukrā and Firuzpur as fiefs for the maintenance of his troops, and he had to fight repeatedly before he could impose his authority on the wild unruly peasantry* (March-July 1794). Tijārā was occupied only after a fight, Bahādurgarh was looted by him, and Jhajhar captured. Soon afterwards Jhajhar, Pataudi and the neighbouring villages were added to his jāgir, raising his income (on paper) to 1½ lakhs of Rupees a year.

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In November 1795, Thomas was sent by Āpā Khāndé Rāo to the Sāharanpur district to drive away a horde of 5,000 Sikh raiders who were investing the fort of Jalālābād. Lakhwā Dādā then appointed Thomas as warden of the marches to guard the Jamunā frontier of the Upper Doāb, and raised his contingent to 2,000 infantry, 200 cavalry, and 16 pieces of artillery, and for their maintenance assigned to him the parganas of Pānipat, Sonpat and Karnāl. In July 1796, Thomas took a noble revenge. Begam Samru had been imprisoned by her troops and her step-son Zafaryāb Khan placed in power nine months before, (Oct. 1795). But on 9th July 1796, Thomas moved by her appeal, marched with his sepoys very secretly to Sardhānā, where he was joined by some troops in the Begam’s interest, with whom he had already concerted her restoration. The Marātha sardārs in Delhi were privy to the plot, and encouraged it. She was restored to the lordship of Sardhānā and sent her worthless step-son into confinement. (PRC. viii. 206.)

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∗ Thomas defeats Bakhtā, the rebel zamindār of Rewāri (DY. ii. 120), makes raids near Delhi (Sep. 1794. DY. ii. 128-129)--forces the nephew of Gangā Vishnu Āhir, rebel, to surrender his fort of Belji. (Oct. DY. ii. 136.)

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Throughout 1796, Thomas had to fight the Sikhs on both banks of the Jamunā and was always successful. (§ 7 ante.) But in 1797 his fortune took a turn for the worse. He had so long managed somehow or other to get on with Āpā Khāndé Rāo, inspite of Āpā’s jealousy, failure to keep his promises, and even treacherous plots against his life. Āpā died on 25th June 1797, and his nephew Vāman Rāo succeeded to his governorship and continued to keep Thomas in his service for some time.

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But the Maratha administration fast deteriorated. Thomas could not get the promised pay from his employer, and found the income of his sandy jāgir unequal to meet the expenses of his troops. So, he was driven to support his contingent by the plunder he got during the state of continual warfare in which he was engaged. In 1797 he made a raid from his base at Jhajhar upon the Jaipur town of Urikā (35 m. n. e. of Jhunjhunu) and took a ransom of Rs. 52,000 from it, but the town was destroyed by an accidental fire.

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§ 10. Battle of Fathpur, February 1798

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At the beginning of the next year (1798), Lakhwā Dādā ordered Vāman Rao to invade the Jaipur kingdom for collecting the tribute due. Thomas was offered a subsidy of half a lakh of rupees a month, and joined Vāman Rāo with three battalions of infantry (each 400 strong), 300 Ruhelā musketeers, 200 peasant militia of Hariānā, 90 horsemen, and fourteen pieces of artillery. The confederates set out from Karnāl and entered the Shekhāwati district in the north side of the Kachhwā kingdom, levying contributions from the villages on the way. Bāgh Singh of Khāndelā and other disloyal barons of that district welcomed and subsidised the invaders out of spite for their liege lord the Rajah of Jaipur.

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Thomas after severe fighting took possession of the fortified city of Fathpur, 30 miles north of Sikar, and made it his base. A large Jaipur army under Rodoji Khawās arrived, encamped eight miles from Fathpur, and on 8th February advanced to attack Thomas's position. But Rajput incapacity to co-ordinate movements and the personal cowardice of their supreme commander (who had followed the tailor's profession before his Rajah's favour made him prime minister) enabled Thomas and his highly capable lieutenant Morris to handle their very much smaller but highly disciplined corps so skilfully that the isolated attacks of the two wings of the Jaipur army were beaten back as they came up one after another. Then Rodoji ordered a general charge by his centre, consisting of 6,000 picked royal troops. But "this main body had by this time become a confused mass, without order, regularity, or method. . . Mr. Thomas perceiving them at a stand, commenced a heavy fire of grape-shot, when after sustaining much loss, the enemy retreated."

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A last desperate charge followed the retreat. It brought no change in the issue of the day, but redeemed the honour of the Rajputs. A dense body of Jaipur cavalry headed by Ranjit Singh, the chieftain of Chomu, advanced sword in hand to recover a pair of 24 pounder guns which their comrades had abandoned in the earlier retreat. The Marātha cavalry supporting Thomas fled away before the onset, and the Rajput horsemen breaking into Thomas's left wing pellmell with these fugitives, began to cut down a great number of his sepoys. "The moment was critical... Mr. Thomas, with the only gun that remained, which he loaded up to the muzzle, and about 150 of his followers, waited the event with fortitude. After permitting the enemy to approach within forty yards, he gave them three discharges of his gun accompanied by three volleys of musketry." The rout of the enemy was complete. The brave baron of Chomu was severely wounded, Bahādur Singh and Pāhār Singh (of the Khangārot branch) fell, but the two guns were recovered. On that long and bloody day, the Rajput casualties exceeded 2,000, while Thomas lost 300 men. But peace was soon made by Vāman Rao under orders of Daulat Rao Sindhiā.

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Disgusted with his Marātha employers, George Thomas now decided to set up an independent State of his own.

§ 11. George Thomas creates an independent principality in Hariānā

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Up to the end of 1797, George Thomas had been a regular servant of some lawful authority or other. But when Āpā Khāndé Rāo's successor terminated his services, Thomas became a private robber-captain for his living. As H. Compton writes, "Thrown solely on his own resources, Thomas became a free-booter pure and simple. He began to support himself by filibustering raids on the towns and villages of his neighbours, without any regard whatever for the elementary laws of property." In the intervals of his personal raids, he and his band of ruffians hired themselves out to any party that would pay them.

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As the base for such a rover's life, he chose the Noman's Land west of the Rewāri—Delhi—Karnāl districts and south of Patiālā, which bore the name of Hariānā, with the city and fort of Hānsi for his capital. Here he established what his biographers have called by the hyperbolical name of a kingdom, though it had only half the revenue of an average faujdāri or district in a province of the Mughal empire.

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The tract of land under the rule of George Thomas was oval in shape, with ill-defined and ever-shifting frontiers. It extended 32 to 48 miles in different directions. On the north lay the Ghaghar river which separated it from the lands under Sikh occupation; on the west the country of the predatory Bhāti tribe, beyond which lay the deserts of Bikāner. The south was bounded by the Rewāri district. In most parts of this tract, water is scarce. Hence the inhabitants have constructed wells, often 120 to 150 or even 200 feet deep. In the Hissār district there are 300 such wells.

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The northern part of Hariānā owes its life to the Ghaghar river, which remains lost in sand during nine months of the year, but overflows during the rainy season and spreads over the soil a rich fertilizing loam washed down from the Himālayan foot-hills, which yields an abundant crop of the finest wheat. The south and west parts are dry and the water has to be drawn up from very deep wells, because the rainfall is scanty and drought is frequent. Here in good seasons, they grow millets, pulse, barley and rice. But "the pasturage is uncommonly luxuriant. . . . The grass of Hariānā is of a superior quality, both as to wholesomeness and nourishment. Hence the cattle excel those of other parts." Even today the Hissār breed of bulls and cows is famous throughout India.

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After the autumn harvest has been gathered in, for seven months of the year the country presents an arid brown sandy surface to the eye, unrelieved by a single bush or tree. But as soon as the first showers of the monsoon begin to fall, within four days a magical transformation takes place; one morning the face of the country is suddenly seen to be covered with a soft green carpet stretching up to the horizon, from the sprouting plants. Hence it has been called Hariānā, or the Green country.

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This tract has been the battle ground of successive hordes of invaders for ten centuries or more, and as the tide of conquest has rolled away eastwards to Delhi or southwards to Rajasthan, Hariānā itself has been left uncared for and undefended as a very poor possession. This history has moulded the character of the people: "The natives of Hariānā, for a succession of ages having been in a constant state of warfare, possess great personal bravery: they are expert in the use of arms; but though brave they are in disposition cruel, treacherous and vindictive."

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The inhabitants of the town of Kānhori, where the "best and bravest men of Hariānā" lived, were "notorious for their thievish depredations." Men of this stamp were exactly suited to act as the retainers and plundering assistants of a bandit-army like that of George Thomas, just as the Pindhari looters followed the regular Marātha armies without pay but on condition of being allowed to live by plundering the enemy. So, he attached a band 200 of them to his brigade, to keep them out of mischief. Like master, like man. [Francklin, 122-133. Hissar Dist. Gaz.]

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Early in 1798, Thomas occupied Hānsi, and after a short sharp attack on Kānhori, gained possession of the whole southern portion of Hariānā, gradually extending his rule northwards to the Ghaghar river and northwards to the Bhāti frontier. At its best his new principality contained 14 parganas consisting of 253 villages, with a nominal rent roll of Rs. 2,86,000. In addition, he held from the Marāthas on service-tenure five parganas consisting of 151 villages and a nominal revenue of Rs. 1,44,000; these were Jhajhar, Bairi, Mandauti, Pataudi and Badli.

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§ 12. George Thomas lives by plunder

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Returning from the Jaipur expedition in April 1798, George Thomas established himself in the ancient and dilapidated town of Hānsi in the centre of Hariānā, remodelling and strengthening its ruined fort, and repairing the defensive wall of the city that lay at its foot (May). His gentle and just rule over his subjects and his manifest power to protect them from outside spoliators, soon repeopled that deserted town, and its population rose to 6,000 souls under his care. Here he established a mint and coined his own rupees (*sikka-i-ṣāhib*, anno hijeri 1214.) "I cast my own artillery, commenced making muskets, matchlocks and powder," as he wrote.

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In September he made a predatory incursion into Bikāner territory, stormed the fortified city of Jaitpur and plundered the places on the way. The Raja Surat Singh bought him off by paying one lakh. With these resources he trebled his original force of two battalions of infantry and 1,000 horse, and added more pieces of cannon. His power was feared and his aid courted by the great potentates in the neighbourhood. George Thomas's greatest asset was his character as a bold determined fighter and a born leader of men. But he lived solely by plunder and his resources in men and money* were too poor for any substantial or enduring conquest. In fact, his power and achievement have been greatly exaggerated by his European biographers. Even against the Sikhs, he was invincible only when opposed by their small disunited bands, because they had nothing to oppose to his artillery. But when a national danger drew most of the Sikh sardārs together, Thomas found himself speedily enveloped by their hordes and was starved into a hurried retreat. Against a disciplined opponent he could make no stand. But in one respect George Thomas stands conspicuously apart from the other European military adventurers in India. In the independent career of his last four years, he cut himself off from every civilized base—such as the English and French condottieri captains had in India. He worked in isolation with only one other European (Morris)* in his corps. Hence, the whole fabric of his army and "kingdom" rested solely on his personality. We must admit, though, that that personality was worthy of the age of the Spanish Conquistadores of the New World.

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∗ In De Boigne's corps a single infantry battalion (416 rank and file), cost Rs. 40,800 a year in salary only, excluding the pay of the two European commanders and the cost of the pieces of artillery attached to each battalion. Add to the amount the pay and allowances of an Indian commandant, and a battalion could not have cost G. Thomas less than Rs. 43,200 a year. Thus, three battalions and his artillery would have swallowed up two lakhs of Rupees, which was probably the utmost he ever actually realised from his Hariānā *jāgir*, with a rent roll of Rs. 2,86,000 on paper but never collected peacefully.

§ 13. George Thomas as "the Irish Rajah" fights Sikhs and Bhātis

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We shall now briefly trace the history of Thomas as "the Irish Rajah." On returning from Bikāner, he laid siege to Gokulgarh, a fort two miles from Rewāri and belonging to Sindhiā's local governor (late in September 1798.) It proved too strong a place for him. Early in November he was out on foray again. Leaving his camp at Bahādur-garh, he attacked Bhāg Singh, the Rajah of Jind, on being bribed by a dispossessed jāgirdār whose fief had been transferred to another man. His impetuous assault on Jind was repulsed with loss, and many other Sikh sardārs having now arrived to aid the Jind Raja, Thomas was forced into the defensive. The siege lasted for three months, out at last at the end of February 1799, he had to abandon the attempt and return to Hānsi, harassed by the Sikhs and the peasantry on the way. A peace was patched up, each side recognising the *status quo*. (March).

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Meantime Lakhwā Dādā, as the champion of Mahādji Sindhiā's widows, had risen against Daulat Rao's authority. But the loyal general Ambāji Inglé hired Thomas's force for half a lakh of Rupees a month, and the two together marched out of Kanud (*c.* 15 April 1799) to fight Lakhwā in Ajmir and Mewār. This campaign has been described in the history of Lakhwā Dādā (Ch. 43 § 6.) On 2nd November, Ambāji terminated the service of Thomas, who returned to Hānsi.

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In the middle of January 1800, Thomas invaded Patiālā at the call of princess Sāhib Kaur, who had been thrown into prison by her worthless brother, the Rajah of that State. Thomas took much plunder there and promptly returned to besiege Sirsā,* a fort belonging to the Muslim Bhāti tribe and to plunder the landholders. In July we find his contingent raised to "seven battalions of infantry, 500 cavalry, 20 field pieces of artillery and four howitzers, the whole well-equipped, regularly paid, and in strict subordination." (PRC. ix. 2, 3, 19.) His seven months campaign in the Bhāti country and capture of Bhātner brought him much wealth.

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∗ In the last year of his career, 1801, he was joined by two other European captains, Birch and Hopkins, and the young Eurasian Hyder Jang Hearsey, who had left Perron's brigades. Two European sergeants are also mentioned as under him.

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Next year, the princess Sāhib Kaur renewed hostilities against her brother, and Thomas again invaded Patiālā to support her, (beginning to January 1801.) This expedition has been magnified by himself and his biographers into a grand attempt for "the conquest of the Punjab and planting the British standard on the banks of the Attock" (i.e., the Indus.) At first his progress could not be checked, as the Sikh sardārs were disunited and torn by mutual jealousy. But in time the whole Khālsa force of that region came together, enveloped the invader, and cut him off from his base (end of March 1801). Thomas with great dexterity, took advantage of the internal dissensions of the Sikh forces and beat a hurried retreat to his dominions in safety, (April).†

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∗ Sirsā, in the Hisār district; but its territory has now been divided between the Hisar and Ferozpur districts of the Panjab. Sirsā fort is 50 m. n.w. of Hisar town.

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