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The same species of dark and criminal policy, which, in the present 

 century, induced Nizam-al-Muluck, the self-constituted sovereign of 

 Deccan, to invite Nadir Shah from Persia to invade the Superior 

 India, and which ultimately proved the destruction of an empire 

 which he meant only to convulse, in order to escape punishment 

 amidst that convulsion, seems to have been the principal cause of the 

 Tartar and Persian chiefs originally gaining any permanent footing 

 on the Indian shore. Abounding in every species of production that 

 could allure the avarice or gratify the luxury of Eastern despots ; 

 with treasure in gold and jewels to pay the vast armies which their 

 fears and their cruelty compelled them to maintain ; with the richest 

 manufactures to ornament the body, and with the choicest fruits, 

 odours, and spices, with which to indulge, even to satiety, the de- 

 lighted senses ; that envied country needed not the invitation of the 

 domestic traitor to draw down upon its fruitful territories the horrors 

 and devastation inseparable from invasion. That, however, was 

 precisely the case with respect to the first interference of foreigners 

 with their internal government ; for, we are expressly informed by 

 their own historians, that it was principally owing to civil dissen- 

 sions springing up among themselves, that the aid of Persia was first 

 demanded in the time of Feredun, sixth sovereign of the Pishdadian 

 dynasty, who naturally took advantage of those distractions to bend 

 India, at least in tributary obedience, to the power of Persia ; but 

 the Persian invasions of India will be the particular subject of the 

 succeeding chapter. 



The old tradition, also, frequently intimated above, that the 

 Indians were originally emigrated Iranians, undoubtedly had its 

 effect in urging on their foes, both on the northern and western fron- 

 tiers, to attempt their subjugation; for, it must here be observed, that, 

 though the monarchs of IRAN and TUEAN were perpetually en- 

 gaged in hostilities, they were descended from the same primordial 



