derstood in
England, but which involve no less consequences than the virtual
subjugation of the last native state in India which retained the
semblance of an independent monarchy, and which, scarce forty years
since, encountered the British forces on equal terms at once in
Hindostan and the Dekkan.

The fortunes of the mighty house of Sindiah were founded by Ranajee, who
was a menial servant early in the last century in the household of the
Peshwah, Bajee Rao; and is said to have first attracted his master's
notice by the care with which he was found clasping to his breast,
during his sleep, the slippers which had been left in his charge. He
subsequently distinguished himself under the Peshwah in the famous
campaigns of 1737-8 against the Mogul emperor, Mohammed Shah: and on the
cession of Malwa to the Mahrattas in 1743, he received the government of
that province as a _jaghir_ or fief, which he transmitted at his death
to his son Mahdajee. The life of this daring and politic chief would be
almost identical with the history, during the same period, of Central
and Upper India, in which he attained such a degree of authority as had
not been held by any prince since Aurungzeeb; but we can here only
briefly trace his career through the labyrinth of war and negotiation.
In the disastrous defeat of Paniput, (1761,) where the united forces of
the Mahratta confederacy were almost annihilated by the Affghans under
Ahmed Shah Doorauni, he received a wound which rendered him lame for
life; but he soon resumed his designs on Hindostan, and in 1771 became
master for a time of Delhi and the person of the Mogul emperor, Shah
Alim. In the war with the English which followed, he conciliated the
esteem of the cabinet of Calcutta, by his generosity to the troops who
submitted at the disgraceful convention of Worgaom, in January 1779: and
at the peace of Salbye, in 1782, his independence was expressly
recognised by the British government, with which he treated as mediator
and plenipotentiary for the Peshwah and the whole Mahratta nation. He
had now, by the aid of a Piedmontese soldier of fortune, named De
Boigne, succeeded in organizing a disciplined force of infantry and
artillery, directed principally by European officers, with which no
native power was able to cope; and in 1785, after defeating
Gholam-Khadir the Rohilla, once more possessed himself of Delhi and its
titular sovereign, who became his pensioner and prisoner, while Sindiah