198 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1804. 



vell-disciplined troops, ofTicercd by 

 Europeans, to surrender without 

 resistance to a British force,) a con- 

 siderable degree of internal commo- 

 tion prevailed in the vast empire of 

 the Mahratta states. 



This people, originally uniting, 

 as do the Tartar hordes, the pasto- 

 ral occupation with a warlike and 

 j)redatory spirit, had raised itself, in 

 the course of one hundred and sixty 

 years, to the first rank among the 

 nations of Asia. Happily for the 

 independence of the other pov/crs 

 of India, its vast strength and re- 

 sources, both civil and military, are 

 scarcely ever directed by a common 

 principle of aclion, which is indeed 

 at once forbidden by the nature of its 

 government, and the individual and 

 often opposite interests of its rulers. 



From a simple monarchy, found- 

 ed by the extraordinary abilities of 

 an adventurer, in the short period 

 of five and twenty years, from the 

 ATcakness of two succeeding princes, 

 it became a federative body of inde- 

 pendent chieftains, who yet, how- 

 ever, both as a common point of uni- 

 on, and from that unalterable princi- 

 ple in the cast of veneration for (he 

 original strain of the royal blood, ac- 

 knowledged an honorary fealty to 

 the descendants of thi'ir first sove- 

 reign, the rajah of Sattarah. This 

 revolution left the heredifarj' mo- 

 narch nothing but the name. His 

 prime minister, (which office became 

 also hereditary) under the designa- 

 tion of the peishwa, was xiniver- 

 sally allowed, by the whole Mah- 

 ratla confederacy, as his represen- 

 tative and their supreme head : he 

 established his court at Poonah, in 

 the centre of a valuable territory, in 

 part wrested from the imbecility of 

 the rajah, and part the spoils 

 of the neighbouring princes, whose 



dominio'.is fell successively into thd 

 hands of their more warlike neigh- 

 bours. Stimulated by the example 

 of the peishwa, the bukshi, or 

 commander in chief of the forces to 

 the rajah, made himself independent 

 in Berar. His family name was 

 Bhoonsla. Mular Rao Holkar, (a 

 military chieftain of note, among the 

 Wahrattas,) founded a dominion 

 upon the same principles, in part of 

 the fertile province of Malwa ; 

 while the remainder of that territo- 

 ry, and the whole of Candeish, be- 

 came subject to RanojeeScindiah,the 

 most distinguished warrior of his age 

 and country : a similiar usurpation 

 in the nourishing country of the 

 Guzcrat, established that province 

 in the family of Guickwar. Thus, 

 among five chiefs, (whose represen- 

 tatives, at the present day, enjoy 

 these territories as their birth-right) 

 namely, the Peishwa, Bhoonsla, 

 Ilolkar, Scindia, and Guckwar, was 

 the then Mahratta dominion divid- 

 ed, the rajah of Sattarah being confin- 

 ed within the walls of his capital, 

 w here his situation was that of actual 

 imprisonment and subjection to the 

 court of Poonah. 



At the commencement of the pre- 

 sent century, however, a succession 

 of able and Avarlike chieftains in the 

 great Mahratta families, and the fee- 

 bleness of the Mogul emperors, had 

 extended their possessions to a vast 

 extent. Their empire now compre- 

 hended all those western provinces 

 of the Deccan, w hich He between the 

 rivers Nerbndda and Krisna ; the 

 province of Berar, in the interior ; 

 that of Cnttack, on the eastern 

 shores of the peninsula, and the 

 whole of western Hindostan, ex- 

 cept the country of Moultan, the 

 Punjaub, and Sirhind. This exten- 

 sire dominion was, in length, fron> 



Delhi 



