A history of the Sikhs, from the origin of the nation to the battles of the Sutlej.

CHAP. IV

THE SIKHS COIN MONEY

99

The Delhi minister had about this time called in the 1758-61.
Marathas to enable him to expel Najib-ud-daula, who, by The arhis own address and power, and as the agent of Ahmad Shah thas at
Abdali, had become paramount in the imperial councils. Delhi,1758.
Ghazi-ud-din easily induced Raghuba, the Peshwa's
brother, to advance; Delhi was occupied by the Marathas,
and Najib-ud-daula escaped with difficulty. Adina Beg
found the Sikhs less willing to defer to him than he had
hoped; they were, moreover, not powerful enough to
enable him to govern the Punjab unaided, and he accordingly
invited the Marathas to extend their arms to the Indus. Maratha
He had also a body of Sikh followers, and he marched from aid against
theAfghans
the Jumna in company with Raghuba. Ahmad Shah's soughtby
governor of Sirhind was expelled, but Adina Beg's Sikh Adina Beg
allies incensed the Marathas by anticipating them in the
plunder of the town, which, after two generations of rapine,
they considered as peculiarly their right. The Sikhs eva- Raghuba
cuated Lahore, and the several Afghan garrisons retired and enters Lahore, and
left the Marathas masters of Multan and of Attock, as well appoints
as of the capital itself. Adina Beg became the governor of Adina Beg
viceroy of
the Punjab, but his vision of complete independence was the Punjab,
arrested by death, and a few months after he had established May 1758.
Adina Beg
his authority he was-laid in his grave.1 The Marathas dies, end of
seemed to see all India at their feet,_and they concerted 1758.
with Ghazi-ud-din a scheme pleasing to both, the reduction
of Oudh and the expulsion of the Rohillas.2 But the loss of
the Punjab brought Ahmad Shah a second time to the
banks of the Jumna, and dissipated for ever the Maratha
dreams of supremacy.3
The Durrani king marched from Baluchistan up the Ahmad
Indus to Peshawar, and thence across the Punjab. His Shah's fifth
expedition,
presence caused Multan and Lahore to be evacuated by the 1759-61.
Marathas, and his approach induced the Wazir Ghazi-uddin to take the life of the emperor, while the young prince,
1 Cf. Browne, India Tracts,ii. 19, 20; Forster, Travels,i. 317, 318;
Elphinstone, Kabul, ii. 290; and Grant Duff, History of the Marathds, ii. 132. Adina Beg appears to have died before the end of 1758.
2 Cf. Elphinstone, History of India, ii. 669, 670.
3 Najib-ud-daula, and the Rohillas likewise, urged Ahmad to
return, when they saw their villages set on flames by the Marathas.
(Elphinstone, India, ii. 670, and Browne, Tracts, ii. 20.)
H2