Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s7.t1.4

v1.c20.s7.t1.4

Nizamu-l-mulk had completely emancipated himself from his allegiance, and signalized his independence, by sending the head of the imperial general, who [416] ventured to oppose it, as that of a traitor, to the emperor. He leagued with the Rajputs, and instigated Bajirao to plant the Mahratta standard in Malwa and Gujarat. In defending the former, Dayya Bahadur fell;¹ and Jai Singh of Amber, being nominated to the trust, delegated it to the invader, and Malwa was lost. The extensive province of Gujarat soon shared the same fate; for in the vacillating policy of the court, the promise of that government to the Rathors had been broken, and Abhai Singh, son of Ajit, who had expelled Sarbuland Khan² after a severe contest, following the example of his brother prince of Amber, connived with the invaders, while he added its most northern districts to Marwar. In Bengal, Behar, and Orissa, Shujau-d-daula, and his deputy Allahwirdi Khan,³ were supreme, and Safdar Jang⁴ (son of Saadat Khan) was established in Oudh. The basest disloyalty marked the rise of this family, which owed everything to Muhammad Shah. It was Saadat Khan who invited Nadir Shah, whose invasion gave the final stab to the empire; and it was his son, Safdar Jang, who, when commandant of the artillery (*mir-i-atish*), turned it against his sovereign's palace, and then conveyed it to Oudh. Of the Diwans of Bengal we must speak only with reverence; but, whether they had any special dispensation, their loyalty to the descendant of Farrukhsiyar has been very little more distinguished than that of the satraps enumerated, though the original tenure of Bengal is still apparent, and the feudal obligation to the suzerain of Delhi manifested, in the homage of *petite serjanterie*, in transmitting with the annual fine of relief (one hundred mohars) the spices of the eastern archipelago. Yet of all those who gloried in the title of *fidwi padshah-i-ghazi*, the only ‘slave of the victorious king,’ who has been generous to him in the day of his distress, is the Diwan of Bengal, better known as the English East India Company. In the hour of triumph they rescued the blind and aged descendants of the illustrious Babur from a state of degradation and penury, and secured to him all the dignity and comfort which his circumstances could lead him to hope; and the present state of his family, contrasted with the thraldom and misery endured while fortune favoured the Mahratta, is splendid. Yet perhaps the most acute stroke of fortune to this fallen monarch was when the British governor of India lent his aid to the descendant of the rebellious Safdar Jang to mount the throne of Oudh, and to assume, in lieu of the title of wazir of the empire, that of king. We can [417] appreciate and commiserate the feeling; for the days of power were yet too recent ¹ for Akbar Sani (the second) to receive such intelligence without a shock, or without comparing his condition with him whose name he bore. It is well to pause upon this page of eastern history, which is full of instruction; since by weighing the abuses of power, and its inevitable loss through placing a large executive trust in the hands of those who exercised it without sympathy towards the governed, we may at least retard the day of our decline.