ers loved
were the principles congenial to the disposition of Akbar. They were
the {171} principles of the widest toleration of opinion; of justice
to all, independently of caste and creed; of alleviating the burdens
resting on the children of the soil; of the welding together of the
interests of all classes of the community, of the Rajput prince,
proud of his ancient descent and inclined to regard the Muhammadan
invader as an outcast and a stranger; of the Uzbek and Mughal noble,
too apt to regard the country as his own by right of conquest, and
its peoples as fit only to be his slaves; of the settlers of Afghan
origin, who during four centuries had mingled with, and become a
recognised part of the children of the soil; of the indigenous
inhabitants, always ready to be moved by kindness and good treatment.

There was one class it was impossible to conciliate: the Muhammadan
princes whose families had ruled in India, and who aspired to rule in
their turn; who, in Bengal, in Orissa, in Behar, and in many parts of
Western India, still exercised authority and maintained large armies.
These men, regarding their title as superior to that of Akbar, and
not recognising the fact that whilst their predecessors had lived on
the surface, Akbar was sending roots down deep into the soil,
resisted his pretensions and defied his power. How he tried
conciliation with these men, and how their own conduct compelled him
to insist on their expulsion, has been told in the last chapter.

I propose now to relate how the broad principles natural to Akbar and
confirmed by his association {172} with Faizi and Abulfazl, affected
the system of administration introduced by the reforming sovereign.
In a previous page of this chapter I have quoted an expression of his
own, to the effect that he had, at one time of his reign, forced
Brahmans to embrace Muhammadanism. This must have happened because
Akbar states it, but of the forced conversions I have found no
record. They must have taken place whilst he was still a minor, and
whilst the chief authority was wielded by Bairam. From the moment of
his assumption of power, that is, from the day on which he gave the
till then all-powerful Bairam Khan permission to proceed to Mekka, he
announced his intention, from which he never swerved, to employ
Hindus and Muhammadans alike without distinction. In the seventh year
of his reign, he being then in the twenty-first year of his life,
Akbar abolished the pra