Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c55.s8.6

v4.c55.s8.6

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