g the life, property, and
independence of the people, they were obliged to seek it around the
standards of lawless freebooters; and upon the ruins of these
independent kingdoms and their disbanded armies rose the Maratha
power, the hydra-headed monster which Aurangzeb thus created by his
ambition, and spent the last twenty years of his life in vain
attempts to crush.[15] The monster has been since crushed by being
deprived of its Peshwa, the head which alone could infuse into all
the members of the confederacy a feeling of nationality, and direct
all their efforts, when required, to one common object. Sindhia, the
chief of Gwalior, is one of the surviving members of this great
confederacy--the rest are the Holkars of Indore, the Bhonslas of
Nagpur, and the Gaikwars of Baroda,[16] the grandchildren of the
commandants of predatory armies, who formed capital cities out of
their standing camps in the countries they invaded and conquered in
the name of their head, the Satara Raja,[17] and afterwards in that
of his mayor of the palace, the Peshwa. There is not now the
slightest feeling of nationality left among the Maratha States,
either collectively or individually.[18] There is not the slightest
feeling of sympathy between the mass of the people and the chief who
rules over them, and his public establishments. To maintain these
public establishments he everywhere plunders the people, who most
heartily detest him and them. These public establishments are
composed of men of all religions and sects, gathered from all
quarters of India, and bound together by no common feeling, save the
hope of plunder and promotion. Not one in ten is from, or has his
family in, the country where he serves, nor is one in ten of the same
clan with his chief. Not one of them has any hope of a provision
either for himself, when disabled from wounds or old age from serving
his chief any longer, or for his family, should he lose his life in
his service.

In India[19] there are a great many native chiefs who were enabled,
during the disorders which attended the decline and fall of the
Muhammadan power and the rise and progress of the Marathas and
English, to raise and maintain armies by the plunder of their
neighbours. The paramount power of the British being now securely
established throughout the country, they are prevented from indulging
any longer in such sporting propensities; and might employ their vast
revenues in securing the blessing of goo