ungzebe, like the Roman empire in the time
of the successors of Theodosius, was sinking under the vices of a bad
internal administration, and under the assaults of barbarous invaders.
At Delhi, as at Ravenna, there was a mock sovereign, immured in a
gorgeous state prison. He was suffered to indulge in every sensual
pleasure. He was adored with servile prostrations. He assumed and
bestowed the most magnificent titles. But, in fact, he was a mere puppet
in the hands of some ambitious subject. While the Honorii and Augustuli
of the East, surrounded by their fawning eunuchs, reveled and dozed
without knowing or caring what might pass beyond the walls of their
palace gardens, the provinces had ceased to respect a government which
could neither punish nor protect them. Society was a chaos. Its restless
and shifting elements formed themselves every moment into some new
combination, which the next moment dissolved. In the course of a single
generation a hundred dynasties grew up, flourished, decayed, were
extinguished, were forgotten. Every adventurer who could muster a troop
of horse might aspire to a throne. Every palace was every year the scene
of conspiracies, treasons, revolutions, parricides. Meanwhile a rapid
succession of Alarics and Attilas passed over the defenceless empire.
A Persian invader penetrated to Delhi, and carried back in triumph
the most precious treasures of the House of Tamerlane. The Afghan soon
followed by the same track, to glean whatever the Persian had spared.
The Jauts established themselves on the Jumna. The Seiks devastated
Lahore. Every part of India, from Tanjore to the Himalayas, was laid
under contribution by the Mahrattas. The people were ground down to the
dust by the oppressor without and the oppressor within, by the robber
from whom the Nabob was unable to protect them, by the Nabob who took
whatever the robber had left to them. All the evils of despotism, and
all the evils of anarchy, pressed at once on that miserable race. They
knew nothing of government but its exactions. Desolation was in their
imperial cities, and famine all along the banks of their broad and
redundant rivers. It seemed that a few more years would suffice to
efface all traces of the opulence and civilisation of an earlier age.

Such was the state of India when the Company began to take part in the
disputes of its ephemeral sovereigns. About eighty years have elapsed
since we appeared as auxiliaries in a contest betwee