The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan

by H. G. Keene

This European executioner of Asiatic barbarity is generally believed to have been a native of Treves, in the Duchy of Luxemburg, who came to India as a sailor in the French navy. From this service he is said to have deserted to the British, and joined the first European battalion raised in Bengal. Thence deserting he once more entered the French service; was sent with a party who vainly attempted to relieve Chandarnagar, and was one of the small party who followed Law when that officer took command of those, who refused to share in the surrender of the place to the British. After the capture of his ill-starred chief, Reinhardt (whom we shall in future designate by his Indian sobriquet of " Sumroo," or Sombre) took service under Gregory, or Gurjin Khan, Mir Kasim's Armenian General.

Broome, however, adopts a somewhat different version. According to this usually careful and accurate historian, Reinhardt was a Salzburg man who originally came to India in the British service, and deserted to the French at Madras, whence he was sent by Lally to strengthen the garrison of the Bengal settlement. The details are not very material: Sumroo had certainly learned war both in English and French schools.

After the massacre of the British, Kasim and his bloodhound escaped from Patna (which the British stormed and took on the 6th of November), and found a temporary asylum in the dominions of Shojaa-ud-daulah. That nobleman solemnly engaged to support his former antagonist, and sent him for the present against some enemies of his own in Bundelkand, himself marching to Benares with his Imperial captive, as related in the preceding page.

1764. In February, 1764, the avenging columns of the British appeared upon the frontier, but the Sepoys broke into mutiny, which lasted some time, and was with difficulty and but imperfectly quelled by Colonel Carnac. Profiting by the delay and confusion thus caused, the allies crossed into Bihar, and made a furious, though ultimately unsuccessful attack upon the British lines under the walls of Patna on the 3rd of May. Shujaa-ud-daulah, the Nawab of Audh, temporarily retiring, the Emperor resumed negotiations with the British commander; but before these could be concluded, the latter was superseded by Major (afterwards Sir Hector) Monro. This officer's arrival changed the face of affairs. Blowing from guns twenty-four of the most discontented of the sepoys, the Major led the now submissive army westward to Buxar (Baksar), near the confluence of the Karamnassa with the Ganges, where the two Nawabs (for Kasim and the Audh Viceroy had now united their forces) encountered him to be totally routed on the 23rd October, 1764.

The Emperor, who had taken no part in the action, came into the camp on the evening of the following day. By the negotiations which ultimately ensued, the British at last obtained a legal position as administrators of the three Subahs, with the further grant of the Benares and Ghazipur sarkars as fiefs of the Empire. The remainder of the Subah of Allahabad was secured to the Emperor with a pecuniary stipend which raised his income to the nominal amount of a million a year of our money.

But the execution of these measures required considerable delay, and some further exercise of that pertinacious vigour which peculiarly distinguished the British in the eighteenth century.

Shujaa-ud-daulah fled first to Faizabad in his own territories; but, hearing that Allahabad had fallen, and that the English were marching on Lucknow, he had recourse to the Pathans of Rohilkand, whose hospitality he afterwards repaid with characteristic ingratitude. Not only did the chiefs of the Rohillas harbour the Nawab Vazir's family at Bareilly, but they also lent him the aid of 3,000 of their troops. Further supported by the restless Mahrattas of Malhar Rao Holkar, a chief who always maintained relations with the Musulmans, Shujaa returned to the conflict.

1765. It may be easily imagined that what he failed to do with the aid of Mir Kasim and his own territory, he did not effect with his present friends as an exile; and Kasim having fled, and Sumroo having entered the service of the Jats of Bhartpur, the Vazir consented to negotiate with the English; the latter, under strong pressure from Clive, who had lately returned to India, showing themselves perfectly placable, now that it had become impossible for them to insist upon the terms, so distasteful to an Eastern chief, which required the surrender of his infamous guests. General Carnac, who had resumed the command, gave the Nawab and his allies a final defeat near Cawnpore, and drove the Mahrattas across the Jamna. The treaty confirming the terms broached after the battle of Buxar was now concluded, and Audh, together with part of the Doab, made over to the Nawab Vazir Shujaa-ud-daulah, who, being thus reinstated as a feudatory of the British Diwans, returned to his own country, leaving Shah 'Alam at Allahabad as a British pensioner.

The terms accorded to the Emperor will be seen from the counterpart issued by him, part of which is subjoined:

" + + + Whereas, in consideration of the attachment and services of the high and mighty, the noblest of nobles, the chief of illustrious warriors, our faithful servants and loyal well-wishers, worthy of royal favour the English Company, we have granted to them the Diwani of the Soobahs of Bengal, Bahar, and Orissa, from the beginning of the spring harvest of the Bengal year 1171, as a free gift and fief (Al tumgha), without the association of any other person, and with an exemption from the payment of the tribute of the Diwan which used to be paid to this court; it is therefore requisite that the said Company engage to be security for the sum of twenty-six lakhs of rupees a year for our revenue (which sum has been imposed upon the Nawab), and regularly remit the same.