THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MUGHAL EMPIREtimely support from the French. The French admiral, Suffren, was able to
hold his own against the British at sea, and French troops landed in South
India in order to join forces with Haider. At this stage, in 1782, Haider
died but his equally brilliant son, Tipu Sultan, continued the war and, in
1784, imposed the peace treaty of Mangalore on the governor of
Madras—which was very favourable to him. Hastings was furious when he
heard about it. In fact Tipu achieved this success when the general
situation had already once more turned in favour of the British. The French
troops under de Bussy—who had returned to India for a final campaign—
had left Tipu in 1783 when they received the news that the war against the
British had ended in Europe. So Tipu, who had staked his success on the
French card, was badly disappointed—and yet he was able to conclude a
peace treaty which was to his advantage.
When Hastings left India in 1785 to defend himself in London—he had
been impeached by his critics in Parliament—the foundations of the British
empire in India which he had laid were not yet secure. Tipu had not been
vanquished and Mahadaji now raised his head and challenged the British
in a way he had not dared to do as long as Hastings was around. Jointly,
Tipu and Mahadaji could have destroyed these foundations; each, however,
followed his own course of action and in the end the British were bound to
triumph. Mahadaji had occupied Delhi in 1771 and had installed the Great
Mughal there; for the next eleven years he was fully tied up with the
warfare in the Maratha country. But just as the peace treaty of Salbei had
permitted the British to concentrate on Haider and Tipu, Mahadaji was
now free to consolidate his hold on northern India. In 1785 the powerless
Great Mughal made Mahadaji the general administrator of the Mughal
empire, and in this capacity Mahadaji dared to ask the British to pay up
the share of the revenues of Bengal which they owed to the Great Mughal.
Mahadaji needed money urgently because he had to maintain a large army
in order to control the then turbulent regions of northern India. Sikhs, Jats,
Rajputs and Rohillas pursued their respective interests—sometimes fighting
each other, sometimes joining forces to oppose an outside enemy. The
Great Mughal’s jurisdiction had shrunk to the outer limits of his capital. A
contemporary saying claimed: ‘The empire of Shah Alam extends from
Delhi to Palam.’ (Palam is the site of the present airport at Delhi.) But even
there he was not safe. In 1788 the Rohillas sacked Delhi and blinded the
hapless Great Mughal. Mahadaji, who was just fighting the Rajputs, came
too late to his rescue. Even Mahadaji’s victory over the Rohillas in 1789
could not restore the central power, however, and when he died (1795)
there was nobody left in India who could aspire to a position of
supremacy.
In South India Tipu Sultan had consolidated his position. After the
war against the nizam and the Marathas he turned to the west coast and
also rallied his forces for a renewed attack on the British. In spite of