to resort secretly to Amrut Sir; and as the attention of the empire became, at subsequent periods, fixed on subjects that demanded an undivided force, the Sicques were not molested in visiting their favourite place of worship, which gradually rose into the capital of their narrow territory. Meer Munnoo*, the governor of Lahore in the reign of Ahmed Shah †, alarmed at an increase of power, the evils of which had been already manifested by the devastations of the Sicques in his own country, made a vigorous attack on them; and it is supposed that their force would then have been annihilated, had not this people found a strenuous advocate in his minister Korah Mul, who was himself of the Khualasah sect, and diverted Meer Munnoo from reaping the full fruits of the superiority he had gained.

ADINA BEG KHAN, an officer in the service of Meer Munnoo, had been sent with an army into the centre of the Sicque districts, which he overrun; and, encountering their army some time in the year 1749, had defeated it with great slaughter. A permanent accommodation

* The son of Kummer-ud-Dein, the Vizier of Mahomet Shah. †This prince succeeded to the Empire in 1747, and was deposed

in 1753.

This action was fought near the village of Mackavaul, in the northern districts of the Punjab.

was ultimately effected through the mediation of Korah Mul, between the Sicques and the governor of Lahore; who being engaged in operations that led to more interesting objects, the Sicques were left at liberty to acquire strength, and enlarge their territory, which extended from the vicinity of Lahore, to the foot of the mountains. Whilst Korah Mul lived, his influence over the Sicques confined them to their own limit, and restrained their depredations. But the death of this officer, who was slain in an action fought with the Afghans, and the tumult which arose at the decease of Munnoot, from the various competitors to the government of Lahore, enabled the Sicques to fix the basis of a power, which, though severely shaken at a subsequent period, has raised them from a law. less banditti to the rank of sovereigns of an extensive dominion. The charm which had so powerfully operated in augmenting and consolidating the spacious empire of the Indian Moghuls, and had in the eastern world proclaimed it invincible, was now broken; and a wide theatre was opened, in which every band of bold adventurers had an ample scope to exercise their courage, and where the most alluring objects were held out to the grasp of ambition * The death of Korah Mul happened in the year 1751.

+ Meer Munnoo died in the year 1752.

and avarice. The southern territories had been dismembered from the empire; and the Persians and Afghans, the Marhattas and the Sicques, had severally plundered and laid waste the northern provinces, and the capital.

AFTER the death of Meer Munnoo, and a rapid succession of fleeting governors, the government of Lahore devolved on Adina Beg Khan*; and the court of Delhi, in opposition to the arrangements of the Duranny Ahmed Shah, who had annexed the Lahore province to his dominion, avowedly supported the power which Adina Beg had assumed in the Punjab. The courage and military experience of this officer found an active employment in curbing the turbulent and rapacious spirit of the Sicques but aware of the advantages that would arise from a confederacy with a people whose depredations, accompanied with every species of rapine, could not be prevented without continued warfare, Adina Beg made an alliance with the Sicques, founded on a scheme of combined hostilities against the Afghans, whose territories he invited them to lay waste, without requiring participation of the booty. Every

* The officer who defeated the Sicques at the battle of Mackavaul.

The Afghans were at that time possessed of a tract of country, reaching from the Chinnaun river to the Indus.

infringement of the compact being severely resented by Adina Beg, the Sicques were rarely seen interrupting the peace of his government.

THE Court of Delhi, having by intrigue and occasional military aids, zealously contributed to promote the successes of the Lahore chief; Ahmed Shah brought an army in the year 1756 into India, to recover the possession of the Punjab, and to punish Ghaze-ud-Dein, the minister of Alumguir the Second, who had assumed an absolute authority in the capitalAdina Beg, an active supporter of the minister's interests, which were closely united with his own, not having a sufficient force to meet Ahmed Shah Duranny in the field, fled into the adjacent mountains, where he remained in concealment until the departure of the Afghan prince to his northern dominions.

In the year 1757, or 1758, a numerous army of Marhattas*, after subduing the adjacent territory, arrived in the city of Delhi, where their chiefs assumed an absolute sway. Adina Beg, aware of the benefits of an alliance with the Marhattas, represented to their chiefs, that

*They had been invited into Hindostan by Ghaze-ud-Dein, to support an administration which was detested by the people, and opposed by a party at court. Had not the arms of Ahmed Shah the Duranny prevailed over the Marhattas at the battle of Panni. frett, it is probable that the Mahometan power would have been extinguished in India.

the Punjab garrisons, weakened by the departure of Ahmed Shah, would fall an easy conquest to their arms, which he offered to reinforce with his party, and the influence he possessed in that quarter. The Marhatta army moved without delay into the Punjab, and, expelling the Afghans from Sirhend and Lahore, reduced to their power a tract of country that extended to the river Jaylum*. National commotions calling the principal Marhatta officers into the Decan, they appointed Adina Beg Khan, who had largely promoted their success, the governor of Lahore: but he died early in the following year, at an advanced age, highly celebrated in Upper India for his military and political talents.

THE Sicques, awed by the superiour power of the Marhattas, and fearful of incurring the resentment of Adina Beg, had not, during his government, carried their depredations into the low country. In the course of the several expeditions which the Afghans made into India under Ahmed Shah, they were severely harassed by the Sicques, who cut off many of their detached parties; and evinced, in the various schemes of annoying the Afghans, an indefatigable intrepidity.

AHMED Shah, having, in conjunction with

The fifth Punjab river from the eastward.