900 A jew Notes on the subject oj [No. 155. 



dominion attained ; these events accumulating on each other, involv- 

 ed the whole of Upper India in anarchy and confusion, and completed 

 the destruction of the Mogul empire. As affecting Hindoosthan in 

 general, they caused the minds of all men to be fixed on one great 

 question, till the decision of which there could only exist two great 

 parties ; viz. Who shall be masters, the Mahrattas or the Affghans ? As 

 affecting Rohilcund in particular, the crisis of affairs united together 

 by one common interest, the ruler of Oudh, then Shoojah~ud-Dowla, 

 and the Rohilla chiefs, Hajiz Re hmut Khan, Nujeeb-ud-Dowla, and 

 all the minor leaders of the clan ; and for a brief period, the chivalry 

 both of Oudh and Rohilcund was engaged in a common cause. The 

 battle of Paneeput might very probably have ended in a different 

 manner, if the Dooranee Shah had not been thus assisted, and if he 

 had not found on his side in that bloody field Affghans of the Hin- 

 doosthanee colony, as brave and undegenerate as his own Abdallees, 

 fresh from the rugged passes of Affghanistan. "Who on the evening of 

 the 6th January 1761 a.d. contemplating that great battle field, and re- 

 flecting on its results, could have guessed or believed that the fate of 

 India had really already been decided not five years before on an ob- 

 scure swamp in Bengal ? or, have foreseen, that in regard to the scep- 

 tre of Hindoosthan, the slaughter of that day had been a fruitless 

 sacrifice ; that the Affghans almost from that very hour would be 

 strangers to the soil ; that the Mahrattas, then supposed to be an 

 almost annihilated power, would again contest the throne of India 

 with foreigners, but, of a still more distant origin and still more 

 distinctive race ; or, that, finally, peace and plenty would smile on 

 that very plain, invited to the land, neither by Mahommedan nor 

 Hindoo, but by the Christians of a Western Atlantic isle! Yet, 

 to Rohilcund at least, (whereto my tale must return,) far different 

 from peace and plenty were to be the intermediate gifts of the English 

 race. When Hajiz Rehmut Khan flushed with his share of victory, 

 returned to his own country, it may be assumed, that, even if no higher 

 aspirations for the good of his subjects expanded his breast, he still 

 fondly hoped that the good fortune of his race and family would hence- 

 forth be permanent ; that his last battle had been fought, and that he 

 might be allowed to end his days in quiet and happiness. Alas ! the 

 lapse of thirteen short years, not all ill- spent, we may hope, brought to 



