indhari system, involved him in a war with all
the great Maratha states, except Gwalior; that is, with the Peshwa at
Puna, Holkar at Indore, and the Bhonsla at Nagpur; and Gwalior was
prevented from joining the other states in their unholy league
against us only by the presence of the grand division of the army,
under the personal command of the Marquis, in the immediate vicinity
of his capital. It was not that these chiefs liked the Pindharis, or
felt any interest in their welfare, but because they were always
anxious to crush that rising paramount authority which had the power,
and had always manifested the will, to interpose and prevent the free
indulgence of their predatory habits--the free exercise of that
weapon, a standing army, which the disorders incident upon the
decline and fall of the Muhammadan army had put into their hands, and
which a continued series of successful aggressions upon their
neighbours could alone enable them to pay or keep under control. They
seized with avidity any occasion of quarrel with the paramount power
which seemed likely to unite them all in one great effort to shake it
off; and they are still prepared to do the same, because they feel
that they could easily extend their depredations if that power were
withdrawn; and they know no other road to wealth and glory but such
successful depredations. Their ancestors rose by them, their states
were formed by them, and their armies have been maintained by them.
They look back upon them for all that seems to them honourable in the
history of their families. Their bards sing of them in all their
marriage and funeral processions; and, as their imaginations kindle
at the recollection, they detest the arm that is extended to defend
the wealth and the industry of the surrounding territories from their
grasp. As the industrious classes acquire and display their wealth in
the countries around during a long peace, under a strong and settled
government, these native chiefs, with their little disorderly armies,
feel precisely as an English country gentleman would feel with a pack
of foxhounds, in a country swarming with foxes, and without the
privilege of hunting them.[1]

Their armies always took the auspices and set out _kingdom taking_
(mulk giri) after the Dasahra,[2] in November, as regularly as
English gentlemen go partridge-shooting on the 1st of September; and
I may here give, as a specimen, the excursion of Jean Baptiste
Filose,[3] who sallie