BABER. 
221 
cers to intercede in his behalf; these delegates having 
obtained Baber’s forgiveness for their superior, return- 
ed to the foil; with a commission of peace, and Gualior 
was surrendered to the emperor, who at length reach- 
ed his capital, after an absence of more than eight 
months. Peace and order being everywhere esta- 
blished throughout Baber’s extensive dominions, he 
seems to have entertained hopes of enjoying the 
fruits of his conquests, by passing the remainder of 
his days in repose from the toils of war, if not from 
the cares of empire. He was now master of all the 
principal provinces of Hindostan to the north. Ben- 
gal and Bahar, and the whole Gangetic plain from 
the Bay of Bengal to the Himalaya mountains, were 
either directly subject to the Moghul dominion, or 
tributary to the new monarch. His discretion in 
the appointments to provincial governments was no 
less remarkable than the wisdom with which he held 
so many loose and ill-compacted parts together ; and 
he showed himself even more able as a legislator 
than he had proved as a conqueror. His constitu- 
tion had already suffered considerably from the in- 
temperance in which he too frequently indulged dur- 
ing many years of incessant activity, and it became 
but too evident to him that repose was necessary to 
recruit his jaded body and harassed mind. Though 
not an old man in years, for he was still under 
fifty, the infirmities of age began to warn him 
that the energy of youth had already subsided, and 
that he was no longer able to bear those exertions 
which had finally placed him at the head of the most 
extensive empire in the East. He had happily suc- 
u 3 
