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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text
Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1891 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII Sindhia In Apogee The good news of de Boigne''s successes in Rajputana formed some kind of compensation to Madhoji as he pondered over the circumstances of the political situation in his favourite cantonment of Mathura. This was a place of peculiar sanctity in Hindu opinion; but its chief recommendation to the judgment of Sindhia was not, perhaps, so much its sanctity as its strategic and political advantages. About half-way between his arsenal at Agra and the capital of the empire at Delhi, it commanded the Jat country and afforded easy access, by way of Gwalior, to Malwa and the Deccan. Now, when he was becoming uneasy in regard to the attitude of the British and of the Nana, he determined to leave de Boigne in charge of his interests in Hindustan and make a personal appearance at the Court of Poona. We have already (v. Chap. II) sketched the state of things at the Maratha capital up to the Treaty of Salbai in 1782. Since then Raghuba had been put into confinement, and Madhava Rao II, brother of the murdered Narayan Rao, had been set up as Peshwa,the L % control of affairs being assumed by the Nana. Malhar Rao''s son''s widow having approved of this arrangement allowed her henchman, Takuji, to lead the forces of Indore, sometimes against Mysore, sometimes against Sindhia''s Rajput and Musalman enemies. Numberless instances are on record of the wisdom and benevolence of this lady--whose honoured name was Ahalya Bai--and she was a good friend to Sindhia to the end of his public life: on one occasion supplying an emergent necessity of his with a generous gift of thirty ldkhs, disguised as a loan of which repayment was never demanded. Ahalya Bai resided at Indore--still the capital of the Holkar dominions, a short distance south...
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