s so insufficient that he and his household were almost
starved. When Lord Lake took Delhi from the Mahrattas in 1803 he found
the poor old blind emperor under a tattered canopy, trembling at what
might now befall him. Some years previously his eyes had been gouged out
by one of his Rohilla keepers. At once he was treated by us with the
highest consideration. Power was not given, but a handsome pension was
assigned, and he was personally treated with all the honour due to a
reigning sovereign. When these facts are remembered, it is strange we
should be charged with overthrowing the Muhammadan Empire in India.
Whoever was injured by our conquest, Shah Alum and his family were
assuredly benefited.

Our contention was with those whose only claim to rule rested on the
sword. Bold adventurers had risen everywhere, and were snatching at the
fallen sceptre. There were still emperors, as we have mentioned, and
their prestige gave value to documents bearing their seal, but they did
not retain a shred of power. Daring Europeans, helped by native allies,
had set to carving out principalities for themselves. The viziers and
nawabs that ruled in the name of the emperors rendered them neither
obedience nor tribute. Our first great battle was fought with Suraj ud
Dowla, the Nawab of Bengal, the grandson of Aliverdi Khan, an Afghan
adventurer, who had acquired the government of the country. In the South
we fought with Hyder Ali, a trooper who gathered under him a marauding
band, and by courage and craft rose to being a sovereign, and with his
son Tippoo Sahib. Our longest and most severe contests were with the
Mahrattas, a warlike tribe of Hindus in Western India, who came first
into prominence in the seventeenth century under Sivajee, a petty
chieftain, and gradually advanced under various leaders till they became
for a time the paramount power. Their hordes of horsemen scoured the
country in all directions, north and south, east and west, demanding
the _chauth_, the fourth part of the revenue, and returning to their
capitals laden with spoil. The leaders with whom we had most to do,
sometimes in the way of friendship, far more frequently in the way of
warfare, were the Peshwa, the head of the Mahratta confederacy, the heir
of Sivajee; Ranojee Bhonsla, a private horseman, who became Prince of
Nagpore; Pilajee Gaikwar, a cowherd, who ruled in Baroda; Ranojee
Scindia, a menial servant of the Peshwa, who made Gwalior his capital;
and Mul