Thus the successful rebellion of one viceroy converted Southern India
into an independent kingdom; and the successful rebellion, of his
lieutenant-governors in time divided it into four independent
kingdoms, each with a standing army of a hundred thousand men, and
adorned with towns and cities of great strength and magnificence.[13]
But they continued to depend upon the causes in which they
originated--the public establishments of the sovereign; and when the
Emperor Akbar and his successors, aided by their own [_sic_]
intestine wars, had conquered these sovereigns, and again reduced
their kingdoms to tributary provinces, almost all these cities and
towns became depopulated as the necessary consequence. The public
establishments were again moving about with the courts and camps of
the emperor and his viceroys; and drawing in their train all those
who found employment and subsistence in contributing to their
efficiency and enjoyment. It was not, as our ambassador in the
simplicity of his heart supposed, the disinclination of the emperors
to see any other towns magnificent, save those in which they resided,
which destroyed them, but their ambition to reduce all independent
kingdoms to tributary provinces.
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