On this day, the British East India Company scored a major victory in its early days in India, when its commander-in-chief Alexander Champion defeated the Rohillas and ended the Rohilla War.
The Rohillas were Afghans who had come to India during the 18th century, when the Mughal empire had begun to decline, and occupied Rohilkhand, now in Uttar Pradesh.
The war had Warren Hastings, British Governor-General of Bengal, helping Shuja-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Oudh, defeat the Rohillas by lending the East India Company’s troops.
Champion led the British in the battle, in which the Rohilla leader Hafiz Rahmat Ali Khan was killed. The Rohillas fled to the mountains.
Hastings’s decision later formed a charge in his impeachment, but he was vindicated by the British Parliament.
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