THOMAS, JACOB, son of the celebrated 18th century adventurer and soldier of fortune, George Thomas, an Irish sailor who had carved out a small kingdom for himself in the wastelands of Haryana. Jacob Thomas was in the service of Begam Samru before he joined Maharaja Ranjit Singh`s army in

PERRON, PIERRE CUILLIER (1755-1834), in chief and all powerful deputy in northern India. Perron endeavoured to extend Maratha influence up to the River Sutlej. When in 1800 the British emissary, Mir Yusaf `Ali Khan, came on a mission to the court of RanjTt Singh, Perron did not wish an entente

SAHIB KAUR, BIBI (1771-1801), warrior and leader of men who played a prominent part in the history of the cis Sutlej states from 1793 to 1801, was the elder sister of Raja Sahib Singh of Patiala. Born in 1771, Sahib Kaur was married at an early age to Jaimal

SCINDIA, DAULAT RAO (1780-1827), Maratha chief of Gwalior, who in the closing decades of the eighteenth century succeeded in becoming viceregent of the shrunken Mughal empire. Pie held in his power the blind titular emperor Shah Alam, whom he had rescued from the clutches of the Ruhilas, and ruled

THOMAS, GEORGE (1756-1802), Irish soldier of fortune, deserted the British navy in India in 1781 in which he had served as a gunner. He first joined a band of mountain robbers in south India and then took up service in the army of the Nizam of Hyderabad as a gunner,