Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s2: § 2. Perron becomes supreme commander
Fall of the Mughal Empire v4.c56.s2
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§ 2. Perron becomes supreme commander
v4.c56.s2.1
Early next year (1802) Perron was summoned by his master to his court at Ujjain. He had his first audience of Daulat Rao Sindhia in that city on 29th March.* He was hailed by Sindhia almost as a deliverer, because there was all but civil war between Daulat Rao’s prime minister Jādav Rao Bhāskar and his father-in-law Sharzā Rao Ghātgé, each of them guarding his own house with many hundreds of armed followers. Sutherland was accused of collusion with Ghātgé in a plot for “cutting off Jādav Rao and several other sardārs of rank,” and Brownrigg of “having been a party in the intrigues of Sutherland”. But Perron sternly reasserted his authority over his army by arresting Brownrigg and threatening to court-martial Sutherland whose brigade was changed and he sent off from Sindhia’s side to Agra. Above all, Perron secured from his master a confirmation of his power, emoluments, and jāgirs and the custody of the seven most important forts in Hindustan by presenting 15 lakhs of Rupees to the insolvent Sindhia at his audience of leave-taking at Ujjain.
v4.c56.s2.2
∗ A full account of this interview and others that followed it was given by James Skinner, some 35 years later, to his biographer Fraser (i. 241-246). An absolutely contemporary and far more reliable account is found in the despatches of Resident Collins (present at Ujjain at the time), as printed in PRC. vol. ix, Nos. 47-54. H. Compton expresses his disbelief in Skinner's narrative, p. 273. Gulgulé D. silent. Perron left Ujjain on his return journey on 23rd April, and reached Aligarh at the beginning of May.
v4.c56.s2.3
This conference with his employer at Ujjain, marks a turning point in Perron’s life. Returning to his headquarters at Aligarh, he set himself solely to the task of ensuring his own retreat to France with all his hoarded millions. Perron was remarkable for his cool calculating nature and a business capacity more worthy of a tradesman than of a fighting general. He was very early convinced of the precarious nature of Sindhia’s Government and his own status as the head of Daulat Rao’s Europeanised army. He knew that in a conflict with the English, the bloated military power of Sindhia would burst like a bubble in a few weeks. Therefore during the sixteen months (from May 1802 to September 1803) that he continued in Sindhia’s service, his policy was secretly to complete his money-collection in Rajputana and Eastern Panjab, transfer his hoarded wealth to British banks, and negotiate with the English for his safe return to Europe. At the same time he continued publicly to give his master anti-British counsels, and to order his subordinates to fight the English to the last.
v4.c56.s2.4
For, even at the height of his power, Perron could not forget for a moment that his power had no real basis, and that every Maratha sardār was his natural enemy, and would seize every opportunity to poison their master’s ears against him and hurl this overgrown foreign instrument down. While the Durrāni menace lasted, they had per force to humour the master of the campoo, but that menace ended with the year 1798, and just after this Perron’s power and resources began to increase rapidly as he was the one loyal and thoroughly dependable servant of Daulat Rao* during the civil war in the Sindhia family.