Muzaffar-Jung, thus set free once more, resumed the Nizâmship of the Dekkan, and all went merry as a marriage bell. Both he, the Pathân nobles who had formed the bulk of the conspirators, and Dupleix, had their share of the two and a half millions of treasure said to have been taken from Nâsir-Jung; and much of it was spent in various elaborate festivities, notably in the official installation of Muzaffar; he, in his turn, nominating Dupleix as official Governor for the Great Moghul in all countries south of the Kistna. All the revenues of these countries were to pass through him, and no coins save those minted by the French at Pondicherry were to be current coin of the realm.
It was a tremendous victory for France. The English, who had hitherto been fairly content to exist in India on sufferance, heard their enemy's boast, that ere long the Moghul himself would tremble at the name of Dupleix, with absolute stupefaction. So stunned were they that they did not even object to the commander of their forces choosing this most inopportune moment to return on leave to England.
Fortunately, however, for them, thieves are apt to fall out. The Pathân nobles, discontented with their share of the plunder, once more became conspirators, with the result that Muzaffar-Jung, the creature of the French, was killed.
Fortunately, also, for the honour of England, a man called Robert Clive had been born in Shropshire six-and-twenty years before, and after several years of uncongenial employment as a clerk, had in 1747 received an ensign's commission, from which he had risen in 1751 to the rank of Captain.
And now, when the power of the French was in its zenith, he appeared, young, arrogant, determined to try a sword's conclusions with that past-master of diplomacy, Dupleix.
But before we pass on to the most honourable, the most exciting chapter in the history of British India, a look round must be given to see what had been going on in the far-away north, which lay almost out of touch with Trichinopoly, Arcot, Pondicherry, Madras, the Carnatic, Jingi, Masulipatâm, all those places on which the fingers of France and England had been laid more or less tentatively.
Mahomed-Shâh had died after having successfully resisted the invasion of the Durrâni or Afghân prince, Ahmed-Khân, who, fired by Nâdir-Shâh's example, tried in 1748 to imitate his exploit. He was badly beaten at Sirhind, close to the old battlefield of Pânipat. Before this Ali-Verdi-Khân, Governor of Bengal, had revolted, and become independent; but in his turn had suffered reverse at the hands of the Mahrattas, and had to yield up the province of Orissa.
The latter race had been much exercised over the succession to the throne, for the puppet Sâho, who, combined first with Bâji-rao and afterwards with Bâla-ji, had exercised sovereignty for so long, had no children. The right of adoption, therefore, was his, and, his wife's influence being paramount on personal points, he was inclined to choose the Râjah of Kolapur. This, however, did not suit Bâla-ji. He therefore induced the old queen, Tara-Bhâl, to trump up a tale of a posthumous son of her son, whose birth had been concealed from fear of danger to the child. Sâho, almost imbecile by this time, was deluded into believing the tale of a collateral heir, and ere dying, secretly signed an instrument giving the regency to Bâla-ji, on condition of his supporting the claims of Tara-Bhâi's supposed grandson.
But the ghost of a grandmother thus raised proved a curse to the Peishwa, for Tara-Bhâi, old as she was, did not lack energy or ambition, and at the time of Muzaffar-Jung's death in 1751, she had taken the opportunity of Bâla-ji's absence in the south to meet and crush the combined advance of the French under General Bussy and the puppet they had instantly set up in Muzaffar's place, to proclaim her own story a pure fiction, put the pretended heir into chains, and assert herself Queen of the Mahrattas.
Truly the impossibility at this time of putting reliance on any one's word, the fluctuations of faith, the unforeseen, unexpected complications arising from the general fluidity of morals, makes history read like undigested melodrama.