In 1795, Shah Zaman, like his father and grandfather, decided to revive his fortunes and fill his treasuries by ordering a full-scale invasion of Hindustan – the time-honoured Afghan solution to cash crises. He descended the Khyber Pass and moved into the walls of the Mughal fort of Lahore to plan his raid on the rich plains of north India, ‘spreading his owl-like shadow over the Punjab’.12 By this time, however, India was increasingly coming under the sway of the East India Company. Under its most ambitious Governor General, Lord Wellesley, the elder brother of the Duke of Wellington, the
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