We have left Hossëin-aaly-khan at the head of an army become victorious against all appearances to the contrary. After so important a victory, he returned to Aorengabad, his capital, where he spent his time in introducing order and subordination everywhere, when he heard from the province of Qhandess, that Cand8-behary, one of the principal Marhatta Generals in the Radja Sah8’s service, was committing enormous excesses in that province where he enjoyed an extensive command. It is observable that, although that country was within the Viceroyalty of Decan, and of course of Hossëin-aaly-khan’s jurisdiction, yet it had, as well as the other provinces of that extensive country, a Marhatta Commander, upon a par with the Imperial Governor himself, and whose business was to manage, on his master’s part, the cho8t or quarter, that is, that part of the gross revenue allot­ted him by treaties. This strange custom had found its way all over the Decan, ten or twelve years after the demise of the Emperor Aoreng-zib, at a time of troubles and civil wars, and when the Princes of the Imperial blood, fully occupied by their own intestine broils, had no thoughts to spare on those distant parts. This Marhatta General, having lined the road from B8rhanp8r up to Surat, the principal port of India, with a number of mud-forts which he had garrisoned, made nothing of stopping merchants and whole caravans, and exacting one-quarter of their goods; to which exaction if they submitted, all was well; else, he used Depredations and successes of the Mar­hatta, Cand8-behary. to get the goods plundered by the way, and the merchants ran­somed at so much a head. Such arbitrary practices having raised a general clamour against him, the Viceroy dispatched his own Paymaster,* Zulficar-beg, at the head of a detachment of eight thousand men, cavalry and infantry, to put order to those rapines. Zulficar-beg having got with some difficulty over the difficult passes that are beyond Aorengabad, was marching in that tract of hilly ground which borders on the Qhandess as well as on the territory of Surat, when he discovered Cand8-behari at the head of eight or nine thousand veterans, all cavalry, and all effective men, but which had been swelled by fame as far as fifteen or sixteen thousands. It was at about seventy cosses west­ward of Aorengabad, on the confines of the Buglana. Zulficar-beg immediately prepared to attack, but the Marhatta, who was accustomed to fight only on his own terms, declined the combat; and he went on retreating until he had drawn his enemy into a a difficult country full of underwood and uneven ground. In vain Zulficar-beg’s harcaras and scouts informed their master that this was not a proper spot for engaging such a set of expert free­booters as the Marhattas. He made no account of the advice; but proud of his own prowess, and full as thoughtless as a number of Sëids of Barr that followed him, he fell upon them directly, and killed a number of those uncircumcised, whom he sent to the bottom of hell. The Marhattas faithful to their own custom, gave way on all sides immediately, their General seeming to fly like­wise with no more than five hundred men, although this manœu­vre was calculated to draw the Mussulmen farther and farther into that dangerous country, which obliged them at each turn to split into several distinct bodies, parted from each other by ravines and brush-wood. This was precisely what Cand8-behary had intended. As soon as he saw his enemies entangled within such a net, he secured the few passes by which they might join again, and having fallen at once upon them on all sides, he slew their General at the first onset, and killed or wounded every one that fell in his way. The massacre lasted for some time, when those that survived it, having exchanged their late haughtiness for present humility, obtained that their lives should be spared, on condition of parting with their horses, arms, and clothes, and of remaining prisoners.

So disgraceful a defeat having shocked the Viceroy, he appointed Radjah Mohcum-sing, his first Minister, with a good army of veteran troops, to avenge the honour of his arms; and not satisfied with that, he got him followed by another body of troops, of which he gave the command to his own younger brother, Seïf-eddin-aaly-qhan, whom he appointed to the Government of B8rhanp8r. The two Generals, who had orders to act in concert, were resolved to put an end to the Marhattas; but Cand8-behary, who had no inclination to fight on such disadvantageous terms, retreated southward with all his people, whom he placed in several strongholds of the Sah8 Radjah’s dominions. As to his mud-forts, as soon as one of them was besieged by a detachment, it was directly evacuated; but no sooner had the troops marched farther, than the garrison returned. And although Mohcum-sing defeated and dispersed another body of freebooters that advanced from Ahmed-nagor in quest of booty and plunder, and he pursued them incessantly to the very gates of Satara, neverthe­less, Zulficar-beg’s defeat and death remained unrevenged.

Such a disgrace could not but affect the Viceroy’s credit, as well as the honour of his Government—the more so as the people of those parts, at all times unruly, were now become sensible of the intestine dissensions between their Viceroy and the Emperor, and had grown refractory and rebellious; a disposition which was not a little encouraged by letters from Court, where not only the Radja Sah8, but also all the Crown-servants and subordinate Governors of Decan were directed to deny Hossëin-aaly-khan’s authority, and, moreover, to do every thing in their power, to ruin and destroy him and his army. Such secret orders could not but excite troubles and resistance. And although at this very time, Mubariz-qhan, a nobleman famous in those parts, and Governor of the kingdom of Haiderabad, submitted to the Viceroy, who received him with great honours, and confirmed him in his post, yet neither that kingdom, nor that of Bidjap8r, nor that of Carnatek, could be brought under complete order and control; and the Viceroy sensible from whence the wind blew, and convinced that all these manœuvres were calculated to undermine him silently, refused, on his side, to admit those Divans, or Superintendents of Finances, that were sent him daily from Court, and he either tired them with endless delays, or cut them short with a flat denial.

Such a subterraneous warfare between the Viceroy and the Court, could not but undermine the foundations of that little tranquillity and order, which the warlike and victorious Aoreng-zib had been at so much pains to establish in countries, where he had spent so great a part of his life, and dispersed all the trea­sures amassed by that second Lord of the Conjunction, the Emperor Shah-djehan, his father.* With infinite labour and personal toil he had, in a campaign which lasted full five-and-twenty years, wrested thirty or forty strongholds from the hands of the Marhattas, driven that restless nation from its own home, and reduced it to take shelter in skulking holes and in fastnesses. But some years after his death, intestine wars and troubles hav­ing distracted the attention of the pretenders to his Empire, and Bahadyr-shah, who at last mounted the throne, having chosen for his residence the city of Lahor, a place remote from the centre of the Empire, and still farther from those troublesome frontiers now become the scene of so much action, the Marhattas availed themselves of this oversight as well as of the general inattention, to rush out of their fastnesses, and to spread themselves over all the neighbouring provinces, where step after step, they not only recovered several of their strongholds, with most of the con­quests made upon them, but committed such ravages in the Imperial territories, as obliged them to redeem themselves by submitting to pay them a yearly tribute of one full quarter of their revenues, under the appellation of Chö8t;* whilst those that refused to bend under so infamous a yoke, were consigned every year to all the atrocities of fire and sword. Not but that they met with a vigorous resistance in some particular spots, from whence, after a blockade of some length, they retired with shame and loss, but it was in order to return again. Such a state of eternal warfare had tired the Marhattas themselves; and so early as the latter end of Aoreng-zib’s reign, Rana-baï, the relict of Ram-radja, had supplicated that Prince to put an end to the miseries of mankind by granting her a Des-mucky,* in lieu of all her pretensions, that is, a tenth of the revenue of the six provinces that composed the Viceroyalty of Decan. This proposal met with a flat refusal, whether out of avarice and parsimony, or from a principle of honour, and a delicacy upon the discredit that would fall on the Mussulman religion should he comply with such a disgraceful proposal. The Prince’s ambassadors, however, now joined to those of Sah8-radja, were more favourably received at the court of Bahadyr-shah. But this Prince, who wished for some rest, was disappointed in his wishes, by the dissensions which soon after took place between the Prince’s relict and the reigning Prince; and matters remained on that uncertain footing until the times of the famous Da8d-khan-péni, who governed all those countries as Lieutenant of the Vezir Zulficar-khan. This Lieutenant, for whose prowess and bodily strength the Marhattas entertained the highest respect, and who lived in a commerce of amity and brotherhood with them, found means to bring them to this agreement:—“That they would henceforward abstain from any demands on such tracts and territories as were held in appanage by the Princes of the Royal blood; but that as to any others that should belong to the Grandees of the court, or any others, The Marhat­tas establish a tribute all over Decan. whether as Djaghirs or under any other title, their Chö8t would be levied by Hiramon himself, Lieutanant of Da8d-khan’s, with­out their interfering in it in any manner whatsoever.”