Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s7.t1.89

v1.c20.s7.t1.89

Malhār Rāo Holkar invades Mewār. Famine, A.D. 1764.—The ties of blood or of princely gratitude are feeble bonds if political expediency demands their dissolution; and Madho Singh, when firmly established on the throne of Amber, repaid the immense sacrifices by which the Rana had effected it by assigning his fief of Rampura, which he had not a shadow of right to alienate, to Holkar: this was the first limb severed from Mewar.¹ Holkar had also become the assignee of the tribute imposed by Bajirao, but from which the Rana justly deemed himself exempt, when the terms of all further encroachment in Mewar were set at nought. On the plea of recovering these arrears, and the rent of some districts ² on the Chambal, Malhar, after many threatening letters, invaded Mewar, and his threats of occupying the capital were only checked by draining their exhausted resources of six hundred thousand pounds.³ In the same year ⁴ a famine afflicted them, when flour and tamarinds were equal in value, and were sold at the rate of a rupee for one pound and a half. Four years subsequent to this, civil war broke out and continued to influence all posterior proceedings, rendering [427] the inhabitants of this unhappy country a prey to every invader until 1817, when they tasted repose under British protection.