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ment in Hindostan, the Mahrattas acquired again a decided preponderance among the native states of India. Only Mysore, in the height of its greatness, for a short time disputed their supremacy; but when that throne was first shaken, and then subverted, the foreign power by which this triumph had been achieved became the only rival to the Mahrattas; and the question soon arose, which of the two was to rule the southern peninsula. Before coming to the grand struggle, however, some internal movements of this government, and some previous transactions with the English presidencies, will demand our notice.

Sevajee had ruled with nearly absolute power over his rude followers, and the reverence cherished for his name enabled him to transmit the Mahratta sceptre to his posterity. But princes born to a throne were little likely to possess the active and daring hardihood necessary for treading in the steps of such a progenitor. Indulging in ease and voluptuousness, they gradually intrusted the arduous concerns of government and war to their ministers and generals. Then followed a consequence almost inevitable in oriental systems: the minister, or still more the general, in whose hands the actual administration was lodged, and who had the disposal of all favours and offices, soon became the depositary of the real power, whom the sovereign would have sought in vain to displace, being in fact his master and that of the kingdom. Yet a certain reverence attached to the original race, and the recollections connected with the history of its founder would have made it unsafe actually to depose the legitimate rajah. It was much easier and safer to maintain him in ease and luxury, as a splendid pageant, deprived of all real authority; which was in truth exercised in his name by the individual who presided in the council or army.

This consummation, which always took place in two or three generations, was, in the case now before us, precipitated by a remarkable accident. At the capture of Raree, in 1690, by the troops of Aurengzebe, the grandson of Sevajee and his mother fell into the hands of the conquerors. They were carried to the Mogul country, where Begum Sahib, the emperor's daughter, took an interest in the young and illustrious captive, and obtained permission to educate him under her own eye. Aurengzebe, in visiting his

daughter, saw and contracted a fondness for the youth, whom, instead of his proper name of Sevajee, he used to address by that of Shao, which alluded, in an ironical manner, to the thievish vocation of his ancestors. He married him successively to the daughters of two considerable chiefs of his own nation, and celebrated his nuptials by rich presents, among which was the sword of his father, taken in his capital, and distinguished in the East under the name of Bhowanee.

After the death of Aurengzebe, Shao remained with that emperor's son Azim, who, wishing to excite divisions in the Mahratta nation, then carrying on a furious predatory warfare against the Moguls, sent home the young prince. During his absence the regency had been held by his cousin Rajah Ramah, and afterward by the widow of that officer, Tara Bye, who felt exceedingly inclined to continue in the exercise of her high functions; but the people retained such an attachment to the direct line of Sevajee that she was obliged to give way, and Shao, in March, 1708, was seated on the throne of his ancestors. During a long reign he displayed some ability, and did not absolutely sink from his place as a sovereign; yet the debilitating influence of hereditary succession was heightened by his education in the heart of the Mogul seraglio. He soon discovered a lively taste for pleasure, and a disposition to devolve on others the burdensome cares of government. Fortunately for himself, or at least for the greatness of the state, he placed his chief confidence in Ballajee Wishwanath. This future head of the Mahratta confederacy occupied originally an inferior situation in the revenue; and at his first rise had so little of the adventurous character of his tribe, that he could not sit upon horseback without a man on each side to support him. His consummate talents and address, however, soon raised him to high consideration with Shao, whose object was rather to re-establish order, and cement his power by a conciliatory system, than to lead his countrymen in their predatory campaigns. By a most able negotiation, this minister extricated his master from a quarrel with Angria, and induced that powerful chief to own his supremacy. Shao was so highly pleased with him on this occasion, that he raised him to the dignity of peishwa, usually translated general; but which, embracing as it did all the branches of administration, seems

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to have had more analogy to the office of vizier in the Ottoman 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, encouraged agriculture, and reduced all the branches of administration 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 himself 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 Wishwanath. 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 dominion, 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 Subahdar 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 banks 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 dispute 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 military 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

dexterity with which he executed this menial function, he attracted the notice of that commander, and laid the foundation of his own greatness. These two chiefs, having distinguished themselves by several military exploits, rose gradually, till at length they were intrusted with separate commands. Favoured by the general propensity of the Hindoos to obey only their immediate superiors, they subsequently acquired an independent political power.

The office of peishwa was now nearly established as hereditary, and the eldest son of Bajee Rao, who prefixed to his father's name that of Ballajee, after some opposition from Raghojee Bhonslay, another aspirant, succeeded to this high station. The disputes with this last chieftain, however, and other occurrences, suspended the design of subverting the imperial throne. The ordinary exaction of chout, or a fourth of the tribute, was stipulated to be paid by the Mogul, while Raghojee made the most desolating inroads into Bengal. In 1749 Shao died, when the dignity of rajah, which had been in some degree maintained by his personal character as well as his descent from Sevajee, sank into total insignificance. Ballajee even intended to suppress it altogether, especially as there was some doubt as to the legitimacy of the young prince nominated to the succession; but after some consideration he determined to preserve, though with reduced state and expense, this shadow of royalty. His measures were strenuously opposed by Suckwar Bye, the favourite wife of the late rajah; but that lady, among other manœuvres, had rashly announced an intention to devote herself to the flames on the death of her husband. The peishwa contrived, even while apparently dissuading her from fulfilling this design, to bring it before her family and the public in such a manner as made it impossible for her, according to Indian ideas, to avoid this dreadful sacrifice. Having gained over Raghojee Bhonslay, and transferred the seat of government from Satara to Poonah, the peishwa became the sole and undisputed head of the Mahratta confederation. For several years he was involved in foreign connexions, the wars and politics of the Deccan and Carnatic, and the reduction of the piratical power of Angria. The last of these objects gave rise to certain achievements of a memorable description, in which the English bore the most conspicuous part.

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The coast of the Concan, between Bombay and Goa, which belongs to the Mahratta territory, has always been the seat of tribes who exercised in piratical expeditions those predatory habits which elsewhere impelled them to inroads by land. In the middle of the seventeenth century, during the first rise of the Mahrattas, and while they were carrying on a maritime war with the Mogul, one of their officers, Conajee Angria, conceived the design of founding an independent kingdom. He was greatly aided by the natural barrier of precipitous rocks, which along this coast rises out of the sea, like the hill-forts from the Indian plain. On the two insulated cliffs of Gheria and Severndroog reigned this chief and his successors of the same name, where they became more and more formidable, till at length they felt themselves able to cope with the greatest European powers, and even aspired to the dominion of the Indian seas. They made many valuable captures from different nations, who, through dread of their power, could not proceed along these coasts without a convoy. In February, 1754, a Dutch squadron of three ships, carrying 50, 36, and 18 guns respectively, was attacked, and the whole either burned or taken. The British then considered themselves called upon to take vigorous steps for putting down this growing and dangerous power; and the Mahrattas willingly afforded their co-operation. In March, 1755, Commodore James sailed with a squadron against Severndroog, where Angria's fleet was stationed; but his ships, on the approach of the enemy, slipped their cables and ran out to sea. They were of light construction, and the crews, by fastening to flag. staffs their robes, quilts, and even turbans, caught every breath of wind, and completely outsailed the English. The commodore then steered for the place itself, which was found to consist of several forts on the island and opposite coast, the works of which were either cut out of the solid rock, or strongly framed of blocks ten or twelve feet square. By throwing in bombs, however, which blew up a large magazine, and caused a general conflagration in the principal stronghold, he spread such an alarm, that the inhabitants and garrison successively evacuated the different stations. Rear-admiral Watson, having arrived with a much larger fleet, proceeded to the attack of Gheria, the capital, which Colonel Clive undertook to blockade on the land side. On VOL. II.-M