In the year 1796, when the political condition of Western India was much confused, he seized upon Hoshangabad and the lower Nerudda valley. In the two following years he had gained the fortes of Chauragarh, Tezgarh, and Mandla from the Chief of Saugor, as also the fort of Dhamoni from another Bundela chieftain. In 1797 Yashwant Rao Holkar fled for shelter to Nagpur but found only a prison.     The Nagpur kingdom was now at his greatest extent and included, under Raghuji II, practically the whole of the present Central Provinces and Berar, besides Orissa, and some of the Chota Nagpur States. The revenue of these territories was about a crore of rupees. Raghuji’s army consisted of 18,000 house and 25,000 infantry, of which 11,000 were regular battalions, besides 4000 Arabs.  His field artillery included about go pieces of ordnance. The military force was for the most part raised outside the limits of the state; the cavalry being recruited from Poona, while besides the Arabs, adventures from Northern India and Rajputana were largely enlisted in the infantry. Up to 1803 the Maratha administration was on the whole successful. The Bhonslas, at least the first four of them, were military chiefs with the habits of rough sliders, connected by blood and by constant familiar intercourse with all their principal officers. Descended from the class of cultivators, they ever favoured and fostered that order, and though rapacious were seldom cruel to the people. Of Janoji, the successor of Raghuji I, it is recorded that the king old not spare himself, being referred to in the smallest as well as the greatest matters of state; nor did any inconvenience or delay to the public service arise from this system, for even when not sitting actually in Darbar the Raja was always accessible to any person who had business to propound to him. Early in the morning he held his Darbar in an open verandah looking in to the street, visible to the people, and accessible to their personal calls for justice and redress of injuries. He sat on his throne with his sword and shield before him and all the ministers and military chiefs attended and carried on their daily business in this presence. The etiquette of the Court of Nagpur was never burdensome, the Raja receiving a Stranger of any rank nearly as his equal, rising to take his salure and embrace him. It is noticeable that under the Marathas no regular judicature existed. The revenue officers could take cognizance of civil and criminal cases, while the headmen if villages had v\certain minor magisterial powers. In important cases an appeal lay to the Raj, who decided after discussion in open Darbar as on an affair of state.