RI*E OF THE PEISMWAS. 131 



to have had more analogy to the office of vizier in the Otto- 

 man empire. Ballajee soon engrossed the whole power, 

 and ruled wisely and ably, but rather as a legislator than a 

 warrior. He contrived, by ties of common interest, to unite 

 together the somewhat discordant and turbulent elements 

 of which the Mahratta confederacy was composed, and to 

 fit them for those united efforts that afterward rendered them 

 so formidable. He introduced order into the finances, en- 

 couraged agriculture, and reduced all the branches of ad- 

 ministration into a regular system. 



After a brief government of six years, which, however, 

 was found sufficiently long to effect these important objects, 

 Ballajee died in October, 1720, leaving two sons, the eldest 

 of whom, Bajee Rao or Row, had been trained under his 

 own eye both to business and arms, and had proved him- 

 self in the former equal, in the latter superior, to his 

 parent and preceptor. He urged his master to much bolder 

 schemes of ambition than had occupied the views of Wish- 

 wanath. He pointed out the Mogul empire, in which all 

 the Indian ideas of greatness were centred, reduced now to 

 such a state of weakness and disunion that it presented an 

 easy prey to the first bold assailant. Shao, though not 

 personally a soldier, was dazzled by these prospects°of do- 

 minion, and gave his entire sanction to the designs of his 

 minister. The peishwa, however, disturbed by domestic 

 rivalry, and involved in a contest with the nizam, or Subah- 

 dar of the Deccan, could not for some years follow up his 

 views of aggrandizement. Having at length assembled his 

 forces, and begun his march to the main seat of Mogul 

 power, he was seized with a sudden illness, and died on the 

 batiks of the Nerbudda in 1740, after holding his high 

 office for nineteen years. Under him two chiefs, Holkar 

 and Sindia, who, with their posterity, were destined to dis- 

 pute the sovereignty of Hindostan, rose from very low stations 

 into considerable importance. The former, a Mahratta of 

 the class of sudra or labourers, had, by his militarv talents 

 and spirit, collected a small party of horse, with which he 

 attached himself to the army of the peishwa. Sindia, 

 though claiming descent from a family of the high-born 

 tribe of Rajpoots, belonged to a decayed and illegitimate 

 branch, and had sunk so low that he began his career by 

 carrying the peishwa's slippers; yet by the diligence and 



