present form the most central part of the Mahratta dominions. The original meaning of the term Marhat, like that of most other proper names, is unknown; but that the name of the nation in question, is a derivative from it, cannot be doubted: for the testimony of Ferishta may be received without the smallest suspicion of error, or of design to establish a favourite opinion; when it is considered that he wrote, at a period, when the inhabitants of the province of MARHAT did not exist as an independent nation; but were blended with the other subjected Hindoos of the Deccan. Besides the testimony of Ferishta, there is that also of Nizam-ulDeen,* an author who wrote at an earlier period; and who relates, in his general history of Hindoostan, that one of the kings of Delhi, made an excursion from Deogur (Dowlatabad) into the neighbouring province of MARHAT.+

Sevajee may be considered as the founder of the MAHRATTA EMPIRE. His ancestry is not very clearly ascertained; but the most commonly received opinion, is, that his grandfather was an illegitimate son of a RANA of Oudipour, the chief of the Rajpoot princes; the antiquity of whose house may be inferred from Ptolemy. (See the Memoir, page 230.) The mother of this illegitimate son is said to have been an obscure person, of a tribe named Bonsola (sometimes written Bouncello, and Boonsla), which name was assumed by her son, and continued to be the family name of his descendants, the Rajahs of Sattarah, and Berar. Having, after the death of his father (the Rana of Oudipour) suffered some indignities from his brothers, on the score of his birth, he retired in disgust to the Deccan, and entered into the service of the King of Bejapour (vulgarly Visiapour). The reputation of his family, added to his own personal merit, soon obtained for him a distin

Nizam-ul-Deen was an officer in the court of Acbar; and wrote a general history of Hindoostan, which he brought down to the 40th year of that emperor.

+ This also occurs in Ferishta's history of Hindoostan. It was in the reign of Alla I. A. D. 1312. See also page lii of the Introduction.

guished rank in the armies of the King of Visiapour, in which he was succeeded by his son. But his grandson, Sevajee, who was born in 1628, disdaining the condition of a subject, embraced an early opportunity (which the distractions then existing in the Visiapour monarchy, afforded him) of becoming independent. So rapid was the progrefs of his conquests, that he was grown formidable to the armies of the Mogul empire, before Aurungzebe's accession to power; having, before that period, seized on the principal part of the mountainous province of Baglana, and the low country of Concan, situated between it and the western sea. He had also acquired from the kingdom of Visiapour, the important fortress of Pannela, which commanded an entrance into the heart of it, from the side of Baglana; together with several other places of strength. In the Carnatic he had possession of Gingee, together with an extensive district round it:* and this perhaps may be considered rather as an usurpation of one of the Visiapour conquests, than as an acquisition made from the original sovereign of the Carnatic: for the King of Visiapour appears to have pofsefsed the southern part of the Carnatic, including Tanjore. Great part of the history of Sevajee will be found in Mr. Orme's Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire, and is well worth the reader's attention. At his death, which happened in 1680, his domains extended from the northern part of Baglana, near Surat, to the neighbourhood of the Portuguese districts of Goa, along the sea coast; but probably not very far inland, beyond the foot of the Gauts, and other ranges of mountains, which may be considered as branches of them; for Aurungzebe's army kept the field in Visiapour at that period, and necefsarily straitened Sevajee's quarters on that side. These

• The French obtained the grant of Pondicherry in 1674, from a Rajah of Gingee, who acknowledged the King of Narsinga as his superior; but this latter was, at the same time, dependent on Visiapour. Sevajee took pofsefsion of Gingee about the year 1677, and confirmed the above grant in 1680.

+ I am ignorant of the period when the Mahratta prince, whose descendants now hold Tanjore, came into the pofsefsion of it.

conquests were the fruits of hardy and persevering valour; partly acquired in despite of Aurungzebe, then in the zenith of his power. Sevajee had also plundered Surat and Golconda; and even attacked Goa, when the Portuguese power was at its height. His son Sambajee, though possessed of considerable ability both as a statesman and a soldier, fell a sacrifice to debauchery. In one of his loose excursions he was treacherously seized on, and cruelly put to death by Aurungzebe, in 1689. This, however, produced no submission on the part of the Mahrattas, who still increased in power, though not so rapidly as before. The Roman state had scarcely a hardier infancy; and the mountains of Gatte, which shelter from the stormy monsoon the countries that are situated to the leeward of them, afforded also a shelter to this rising

state.

Sahoo, or Sahoojee (vulgarly, Saow, or Sow Rajah), succeeded his father Sambajee, at a very early age; and as he inherited the ability and vigour of mind of his immediate ancestors, and reigned more than 50 years, great part of it at a season the most favourable for the aggrandizement of a state that was to rise on the ruins of another, the Mahratta power grew up to the wonderful height that we have beheld it at. For the confusions occasioned by the disputed succession among Aurungzebe's sons, and their descendants, opened a wide field to all adventurers; and particularly to this hardy and enterprizing people, bred in the school of war and discipline, and who had shewn themselves able to contend even with Aurungzebe himself. The conquests achieved under Sahoojee, are astonishing to those who do not know that Hindoostan is so full of military adventurers, that an army is soon collected by an enterprizing chief, who holds out to his followers a prospect of plunder; which the then distracted state of the empire afforded the most ample means of realizing. At the time of Sahoojee's death, which happened in 1740, the Mahratta state or empire had swallowed up the whole tract from the western sea to Orifsa; and from Agra to

the Carnatic and almost all the rest of Hindoostan, Bengal excepted, had been over-run and plundered. They were engaged in almost every scene of war and politics, throughout the whole country; although it does not appear that they took any part in the contest between Nadir Shah and Mahomed, in 1738-9; except by availing themselves of the absence of Nizam-al-Muluck, to commit depredations on his territories in the Deccan. Probably they thought that more advantage would arise to them, from the disorders consequent on Nadir Shah's invasion, than by their assisting the emperor in repelling him: we are also to consider the advanced age of Sahoojee, at that time.

It is difficult to trace the progrefs of the Mahratta conquests, according to the order of time, in which they were made. We find them taking part in the disputes between Aurungzebe's descendants at Delhi, as early as 1718: but it was not till 1735, that they found themselves strong enough to demand a tribute from the emperor, Mahomed Shah. Mahomed Shah. This demand terminated, as we have before observed, in the acquisition of the greatest part of the fine province of Malwa; and in a grant of a fourth part of the net revenues of the other provinces in general. This proportion being named in the language of Hindoostan, a CHOUT, occasioned the future demands of the Mahrattas to be denominated from it: although they are by no means limited to that proportion, except in cases where an express compact has taken place: as in some instances, between the Berar Mahrattas and the present Nizam of the Deccan. They also, about the year 1736, took part in the disputes between the Nabobs of Arcot, in the Carnatic; within which district, the principal European settlements on the coast of Coromandel, are situated: which disputes eventually engaged the French and English East-India Companies, in scenes of hostility for several years, as has been before observed.

Ram Rajah, who succeeded Sahoojee, in 1740, was a weak prince and it happened in the Mahratta state, as in all despotic

m

states of rapid growth, and recent formation, that great part of what was gained by the ability of one despot, was lost by the imbecility of another. The two principal officers of the state, the Paishwab, or minister, and the Bukshi, or commander in chief, agreed to divide the dominions of their master: Bajirow, the paishwah, assuming to himself the government of the western provinces; and Ragojee, the bukshi, the eastern provinces: the former continuing at Poonah, the ancient capital; the other fixing his residence at Nagpour in Berar.

The paishwah is said to have confined the Ram Rajah to the fortrefs of Sattarah (about 50 miles from Poonah) and then administered the government in his name. It is more probable, from other accounts, that Sahoojee, during the latter part of his reign, had, by a long and unrevoked delegation of power to the paishwah, prepared the minds of the people for this measure; which, to them, hardly appeared to be a change: as Sahoojee, in a manner, shut himself up in Sattarah, and seldom appeared in any act of government. There is some degree of analogy between this part of the history of the paishwahs, and that of the mayors of the palace, in France.

So violent a partition of the empire by its ministers, encouraged, as might be expected, the usurpations of others, according to the degree of power, or opportunity, possessed by each: so that in the course of a few years, the state became, from an absolute monarchy, a mere confederacy of chiefs; and the loosest example of feudal government in the world. The two chiefs of the divided empire pursued each their plans of conquest, or negociation, separately; on the general principle of respecting each others rights. The local situation of the Berar chief, who was lefs powerful than the other, led him to a close connexion with the Nizam; though not profefsedly in opposition to the Poonah chief.

in

The invasion of Bengal (of the causes of which we have spoken page lxix) was undertaken by both the Mahratta states in 1742,