DEATH OF SEVAJEE. 
21 5 
manded from his predatory followers the fealty of 
subjects.. 
Within three years after his coronation, he had 
made himself master of some of the strongest fortresses 
in the Carnatic, pushing his victories almost to the walls 
of Madras on the one side, and to those of Seringa- 
patam on the other. He, however, suffered a signal 
defeat by the Mogul army, and was obliged to retreat 
to his capital, which he indeed reached in safety, but 
extreme fatigue, acting upon a constitution already 
broken by years of unremitting exertion, terminated 
his life at the age of fifty-three. He who began to 
shake off the yoke of subjection to a mighty empire, 
with a few hold but unprincipled adventurers, left 
behind him a principality which has survived that 
of the Moguls, once the most powerful and extensive 
in the Eastern world. He is among the most extra- 
ordinary of those heroes whom history celebrates as the 
founders of empires. 
The rise and fall of states are the great moral 
phases in the revolution of ages, that produce so 
powerful an influence upon the vast political machine 
by which the civil and social condition of enlighten- 
ed man is maintained and regulated. They often 
change the whole aspect of kingdoms, giving new 
features and new positions to society, and generally 
adding something to the aggregate stock of good, 
which, according to the dictates of a narrow philosophy, 
appears so frequently to arise out of evil. It is in- 
deed curious to observe from what insignificant begin- 
nings the most mighty empires have arisen, from the 
early Babylonian ascendancy to the most recent of 
