412 THE INDIAN EMPIRE [CHAP.
in his favour a quarrel that had lasted over thirty years. At
Delhi itself, Najaf Khan, a Persian related by marriage to the
Oudh governor, came to the front; and before his death in
1782 he had recovered some portion of the country between
Delhi and Agra, and the fortress of Agra itself. But the
Marathas now acquired even more than their old position,
through the energy of Mlahadji Sindhia, aided by the military
talents and vigour of the Savoyard soldier of fortune, Benoit de
Boigne. During an interval of Maratha absence from Delhi
the grandson of Najib Khan made an attack on that city (i788),
seized and blinded the emperor Shah Alam, only to be himself
driven out to perish miserably. Sindhia and the European
officers commanding his trained infantry and artillery continued
to rule undisputed for fifteen years longer. The causes of the
hostility between the British and MarAthas, which led to the
war of i803, will be spoken of elsewhere. Suffice it to say
here that on September II, 1803, Lord Lake fought the
Marltha army within sight of Delhi and thoroughly defeated
it, taking sixty-eight pieces of cannon of different kinds and
sixty-one tumbrils of ammunition. The city of Delhi was
occupied and the Mughal empire ceased to exist.
The blind Shah Alam (born June 4, I728) died on
November I8, i80o6, and was succeeded in his barren title,
under the terms of the treaty with the British, by his son
Akbar Shah II (born April 24, 1760, died September 30, 1837);
and he in turn by his son, Bahadur Shah (born I775), who
was deported after the Mutiny to Rangoon, and died there on
November 7, i862.
W. IRVINE.
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