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situation through a variety of fortune, against the power of Aurung- 
zebe, until the year 1707, when death carried off the Mogul and 
Mahratta sovereign within a very short period of each other. On 
this event Tarrabhye , the widow of Rajee Ram, assumed the reins 
of the Mahratta government, although she had a son by her hus- 
band, then living, called Sevajee Raja; and rajee Ram left another 
son, named Sambajee Raja, by Rajusbhye , to whom also he was 
married. 
On the death of Aurungzebe, dreadful was the contest for suc- 
cession to the Mogul empire between his two sons, Sultan Aazim 
and Sultan Moazim, called also Azem Shah, and Mahommed 
Mauzim: the victor, treading in the footsteps of his cruel father, 
wore a crown of thorns, and deluged the musnud with fraternal 
blood: his three short-lived successors were dethroned and mur- 
dered by the Seyds, Abdalla and Hossan, who at length in 1729 
established Mahommed Shah on the vacant throne, which he oc- 
cupied until the irruption of Nadir Shah in 1738, when Delhi was 
plundered of all its money and jewels, the accumulated wealth 
of ages. The savage cruelties of Mahmood, Timur, and the 
northern conquerors were renewed, and again an hundred thou- 
sand of the wretched inhabitants were tortured and massacred to 
discover their hoarded treasures: the plunder amounted to seventy 
millions sterling, including the peacock-throne, which cost Aurung- 
ze'oe’s father eleven millions. After these devastations, Mahommed 
Shah was reinstated by his conqueror on a throne less splendid, 
and to the government of an empire then shook to its foundation. 
From that period, to the conclusion of a century which Aurung- 
zebe commenced in the meridian of power, wealth, and dignity. 
