1738.]

In the towns captured, they massacred, with wanton barbarity, men, women, and children, and even dug up the bodies of the dead, that they might become food for birds and beasts of prey. They were led by a chief called Bandu, who had been bred a religious ascetic, and who combined with bold and daring counsels a sanguinary

nature.

Bahadur Shah had to march against them in person, and compelled them to retire to the mountains, where Bandu took refuge in a fort, which, though surrounded, was too strong to be stormed. The Sikhs cut a passage through at the point of the sword, and a man was taken, who gave himself up as Bandu, that the latter might escape. The emperor, though sufficiently struck by the prisoner's noble self-devotion to spare his life, yet was ungenerous enough to send him in an iron cage to Delhi.*

Shah, 80,000 strong, laid siege to Candahar, and pushing on, crossed the Indus by a bridge of boats, and advanced into the Punjaub, massacring alike Hindoos and Mohammedans.

Delhi was taken and sacked. From sunrise to sunset that magnificent city was given up to the fury of 20,000 soldiers; and slaughter, rapine, and outrage reigned in their most horrible forms. Nadir's sole object was plunder. He seized the imperial treasures and the jewels of the famous "peacock throne"-a mass of priceless gems. He plundered all the Omrahs of the empire, and the common inhabitants, employing every species of the most inhuman torture to extort contributions. Many died under these cruelties, and many slew themselves to escape them.

After a residence of fifty-eight days, he marched from Delhi, carrying off with him treasure, in money, plate, and jewels, to the value of £30,000,000 sterling.

Farokshir had been seven years on his bloody throne, when again the Mahrattas, and the Sikhs under Bandu, invaded him. The latter was made prisoner, and conveyed to Delhi with a hundred and forty others, all of whom were beheaded, while their unfortunate leader was tortured to death. The emperor soon after was assassinated, and succeeded by a young prince of the blood, who died in three months, to be succeeded by another youth, who died—most probably by poison-within a shorter period. Long ere this, the Mahratta drum had been heard in every part of the empire, and wherever it was beaten, carnage, ravage, and plunder ensued.

Mohammed Shah was now set upon the throne, and under him, the empire of the Great Mogul crumbled away. The Hindoos and Mohammedans began to fight constantly, even in Delhi; and the Shiahs and Soonees, the two rival Moslem sects, slaughtered each other. Under the rule of the Nizam-ul-Mulk, the Deccan was rent from the empire; the Rohillas seized upon the northern provinces, and in 1739, all went still more to wreck and ruin, when the Persians, under the great Nadir * Bohn's "India ;" "Hist, of the Punjaub," &c.

humiliation and defeat, that a kind of lethargy, born of despair, seized him. His capital was a ruin; his treasury empty; his army destroyed; the sources of revenue gone; the Mahrattas threatened him on the south, while the Afghans hung like a thundercloud on the mountains of the north-west; and now it was that, amidst this dissolution and dismemberment of his own mighty empire, the British began to lay the sure and solid foundation of theirs.

About this time Angria the pirate greatly infested the Indian seas, his flotilla being always recruited by the military and other stores captured from British ships. An expedition was fitted out against him in 1737. Among those commanding the Company's troops were William Mackenzie, son of the Earl of Cromartie, formerly of the Scots Brigade; and among the Company's sea officers Patrick, son of James, Lord Torphichen. But the whole force perished in a tempest; and Angria and his brother, also a pirate, held the seas against all comers, till naval operations were taken against them by Commodore Bagwell.

After long watching for Angria, on the 22nd of December, 1738, he at last descried this ferocious wretch, who was for so long the terror of the Eastern seas, issuing with nine grabs and thirteen gallivats from the strong port of Gheriah, which opens in a point of land that juts out into the ocean 170 miles southward of Bombay, and forms a good landlocked harbour. The fortress here was the abode and stronghold of Angria. Grabs were threemasted, square-rigged vessels of about 200 tons,

The commodore bore down upon them, and though their force was greatly superior to his, they fled from his cannon, and took shelter in Rajahpore. Their swift sailing rendered them successful in flight; and though they suffered from Bagwell's broadsides, they contrived to elude him, and in

compelled to make prizes of his grabs, gallivats, and fishing boats. Nevertheless Menajee seized upon the isle of Elephanta, so celebrated for its wonderful cave and mythological sculptures, which have been so often described, and which lies only seven miles south-west of Bombay. When at last reduced to misfortune by the neglect of his brother, he became the sycophant of the British, and humbled himself to beg their aid-but for a time only.

spite of his vigilance, while he pursued them, some of their ships captured certain British merchantSoon after this craven flight from Bagwell's little squadron, four large East Indiamen were attacked by a powerful flotilla belonging to the same pirate chief. A single ship of the commercial squadron beat them off with severe loss; though the British in their sea encounters with these pirates were deficient in promptitude, their physical strength, however, caused them to be greatly dreaded, while their capacity to handle large ships inspired wholesome fear.

The other Angria, named Menajee, by his violence, insolence, and daring spirit, alternated by strange cowardice, was a source of perpetual

The union of the clashing interests of the rival Indian companies, the tranquillity and commercial prosperity, all contributed to increase the value of our growing possessions in the East, and to encourage the Company to seek their extension. "Every year some branch in India was lopped off the Mogul tree; some adventurer succeeded in making an independent sovereign state out of a smaller or larger portion of that empire; there was a constant destruction and reconstruction, or attempts at it. The mass of the population had now a much stronger aversion to the Mussulmans than to European Christians. They showed a marked preference for our rule and protection; and at Surat, Bombay, Fort St. David, Calcutta, and

The commodore bore down upon them, and though their force was greatly superior to his, they fled from his cannon, and took shelter in Rajahpore. Their swift sailing rendered them successful in flight; and though they suffered from Bagwell's broadsides, they contrived to elude him, and in

compelled to make prizes of his grabs, gallivats, and fishing boats. Nevertheless Menajee seized upon the isle of Elephanta, so celebrated for its wonderful cave and mythological sculptures, which have been so often described, and which lies only seven miles south-west of Bombay. When at last reduced to misfortune by the neglect of his brother, he became the sycophant of the British, and humbled himself to beg their aid-but for a time only.

spite of his vigilance, while he pursued them, some of their ships captured certain British merchantmen. Soon after this craven flight from Bagwell's little squadron, four large East Indiamen were attacked by a powerful flotilla belonging to the same pirate chief. A single ship of the commercial squadron beat them off with severe loss; though the British in their sea encounters with these pirates were deficient in promptitude, their physical strength, however, caused them to be greatly dreaded, while their capacity to handle large ships inspired wholesome fear.

The other Angria, named Menajee, by his violence, insolence, and daring spirit, alternated by strange cowardice, was a source of perpetual

The union of the clashing interests of the rival Indian companies, the tranquillity and commercial prosperity, all contributed to increase the value of our growing possessions in the East, and to encourage the Company to seek their extension. "Every year some branch in India was lopped off the Mogul tree; some adventurer succeeded in making an independent sovereign state out of a smaller or larger portion of that empire; there was a constant destruction and reconstruction, or attempts at it. The mass of the population had now a much stronger aversion to the Mussulmans than to European Christians. They showed a marked preference for our rule and protection; and at Surat, Bombay, Fort St. David, Calcutta, and