[14]
During the early part of his life and reign, Aurangzeb was employed
in conquering and destroying the two independent kingdoms of Golconda
and Bijapur in the Deccan, which he formed into two provinces
governed by viceroys. Each had had an army of above a hundred
thousand men while independent. The officers and soldiers of these
armies had nothing but their courage and their swords to depend upon
for their subsistence. Finding no longer any employment under settled
and legitimate authority in defending 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.
Pages:
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631