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were entirely unprotected. Hyder dictated a treaty to his enemies; but, considering the desperate condition in which the British were placed, the terms were moderate. The conquests on both sides were restored, and the British agreed to assist Hyder in his future wars for the defence of his own possessions.

It has been remarked by a British writer that his nation never made a treaty in India without violating it. There are many instances on record which justify to a great extent, if not fully, this sweeping condemnation. The bad faith with which the treaty with Hyder Ali was observed by the British, brought the most terrible calamities upon the government of Madras and the country in its neighborhood. Hyder, in 1770, provoked the hostilities of the Mahrattas, who invaded Mysore, and subjected him to great difficulties. He demanded aid from the British, according to the terms of the treaty, but without effect; and, being thus abandoned by his allies, he was compelled to make peace with the Mahrattas, on disadvantageous terms. These enemies, however, soon after became involved in domestic quarrels, and Hyder was thus enabled to retrieve his affairs.

Amid the general fluctuation of politics in this part of India, the Mahrattas again put forth their strength, and threatened Mysore with a second invasion. Hyder once more appealed to his treaty with the British, and solicited help, but with as little effect as in the former instance. His eyes were now opened to the systematic treachery of the British, and he became thoroughly disgusted with these false friends. Determined upon revenge, he easily found means to settle his difficulties with the Mahrattas; and the result was a league, in which these two powers combined with the Nizam of the Deccan for the destruction of the British. Hyder, with a large army, made an immediate irruption into the province of the Carnatic, which adjoins Madras. To copy the language of Mr. Burke, "Then ensued a scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, and no tongue can tell. All the horrors of war before known or heard of were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming villages, in part were slaughtered; others, without regard to sex, to age, to the respect of rank, or the sacredness of function, - fathers torn from children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers and the trampling of pursuing horses, - were swept into captivity in an unknown and hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest, fled to the walled cities; but, escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into the jaws of famine. For eighteen months, without intermission, this devastation raged from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore; and so completely did these masters in their art, Hyder Ali and his more ferocious son, absolve themselves of their impious vow, that, when the British armies traversed the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all directions, through the whole line of their march, they did not see one man, not one woman, not one child, not one four-footed beast of any description whatever. One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole region." This eloquent description, though it may seem overcharged with rhetorical embellishment, yet affords a not unfaithful picture of the ravages of war in Hindostan, and of the appalling amount of bloodshed

and human suffering upon which the splendid empire of । British India has been erected.

A change having been effected in the government of Madras, the new commander proposed terms of peace to Hyder. That chieftain, however, very naturally declined trusting to any further promises of so treacherous an enemy. He answered only by a dignified and disdainful allusion to the breach of faith which had followed the former treaty. The destruction of Madras now appeared inevitable. The whole British territory in this quarter was reduced to the most frightful state of famine, when the sudden death of Hyder, in 1782, unexpectedly relieved the sufferers. Tippoo Saib, his son, succeeded him, and inherited his father's hostility to the British. The war continued for about a year, and was concluded by a treaty of peace. Tippoo was a prince of high military talent, and had already distinguished himself by several vietories over the Mahrattas and English. Nothing could remove his jealousy of the latter nation, and he lost no opportunity of opposing their schemes of encroachment. War broke out again, in 1790, and was prosecuted with great vigor on both sides; but, notwithstanding the courage and resources of Tippoo, he was compelled, at the end of two years, to sign a treaty, by which he lost half his dominions. For several years, he occupied himself with a scheme for uniting all the native chiefs in a league against the British. He opened a negotiation with the French, for aid in this design, which caused the British to declare war against him and invade his dominions. Seringapatam, his capital, was besieged and taken by storm, May 4, 1799. Tippoo fell in the conflict, and his dominions were divided by the British, in such a manner as to secure all the benefits of sovereignty to themselves.

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A new military power had, in the mean time, arisen among the native population, which at one period seemed not unlikely to establish an empire on the ruins of the Mogul authority. Among the mountains which stretch along the western coast of Hin-d dostan, appeared a courageous and enterprising race of men, called Mahrattas, first known as a wild tribe of plunderers. In the reign of Aurungzebe, they descended from the mountains, and spread themselves over the neighboring plains. They soon became a formidable military power. Their cavalry, in particular surpassed that of any other Hindoo nation. Ev- || ery corner of the wide empire learned to tremble at the fearful name of the Mahrattas. Many fertile and populous districts were completely subdued by them;! they reigned at Poonah, at Gwalior, in Guzerat, in B Berar, and in Tanjore. Their chieftains became great and powerful sovereigns without ceasing to be freebooters; for the Mahratta troops still retained the predatory habits of their forefathers. Every part of Hindostan which was not subject to their valor, was wasted by their incursions. Wherever the kettle-drums of the Mahratta cavalry were heard, the peasant threw his " bag of rice over his shoulder, and fled with his wife and children to the mountains, or the jungles, till the storm of invasion and rapine had swept by. Many provinces redeemed their harvests by the payment of an annual tribute. Even the imperial phantom who occupied the Mogul throne, was compelled to submit to this ignominious "black mail," for the camp fires of the Mahratta marauders were at times visible from the walls of Delhi. Clouds of their cavalry descended, year after year, on the rice fields of Bengal,

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Bible or Koran of the Sikhs, and lies daily open before the gooroo on the floor of the great gilded temple of Umritsir, amidst offerings of flowers and jewels, and throngs of martial devotees. The compiler of this volume was thrown into prison by the Mahometan governor of the Upper Punjaub, and died in confinement. This caused an immediate rupture between the new sect and their Mahometan rulers; for it seems that, previous to this event, the Sikhs had been perfectly peaceable. Now they were subjected to persecution, which, as in all similar cases, only augmented their numbers and zeal. Their doctrines, which at first were mild and tolerant, began from this time to disclose that animosity against other forms of religion by which they were afterward distinguished.

The tenth Sikh leader from Nanak was the celebrated Gooroo Govind, who, by his talents and energy, infused into his followers a spirit of activity and resolution which made them the most formidable enemies ever encountered by the British power in the East. He preserved unaltered the original tenets of the sect, but he practically changed the character of the Sikh doctrine by giving it an ambitious and vindictive temper in place of its original quietism. To strengthen his ranks, he admitted proselytes of all classes to a perfect and immediate equality with the original disciples. To secure the force of unity and consolidation, he established a uniform dress and external appearance among his followers. The Sikhs were required to let their hair and beard grow, to dress in blue, and to wear steel about their persons. These precepts of their first military chiefs are still rigidly observed by the Alkalis, or Immortals, a body of these people who profess to maintain in peculiar purity the true doctrines of Govind. This chieftain adopted the denomination of Singh, or Lion; a title which had been previously appropriated by the military class of Hindoos, the highborn tribes of Rajpootana. The successors of Govind followed this example.

Govind appears to have aimed at erecting a great military empire in Northern India; but the Mogul emperor was still powerful, the Sikhs were comparatively weak, and the first struggle ended only in discomfiture. After a brief career of desperate deeds and hopeless enterprises, Govind fell a victim to private assassination, leaving his disciples enriched by nothing but his spirit and example. This inheritance, however, was by no means neglected. After the fall of Govind, the Sikhs were directed by a chieftain named Bandu, who availed himself of the confusion which followed the death of Aurungzebe, in 1707, to lead his followers to actions more resolute than any they had yet attempted. Bursting suddenly from the forests and jungles of the Punjaub, in which they had hidden themselves, they crossed the River Sutledge, which flows near the southern boundary of that territory, defeated the Mogul troops in a pitched battle, and ravaged the country with the most horrible ferocity as far as the banks of the Jumna. Though checked for a short time, they again returned to the charge, and soon displayed their rebellious standards even at the gates of Delhi.

The eldest son and successor of Aurungzebe, who was then reigning under the titles of Bahadar Shah and Shah Allum, was suddenly called from his campaigns in the south to oppose the incursions of the Sikhs, who now appeared formidable enough to threaten the conquest of Hindostan. The presence of the emperor

to their hills; but, six years later, they again issued from their fastnesses under the same leader, though less with views of conquest than of revenge. After committing new ravages, they were overpowered by one of the imperial generals, and in 1716, Bandu was sent prisoner to Delhi with four hundred of his followers, where they were all put to death. The whole sect and nation of the Sikhs were publicly proscribed, and they were hunted and destroyed like the wild beasts of the hills. Although they were not entirely exterminated, yet so merciless was the character of the proscription, that they make no further appearance in history for thirty years; after which, amid the tumults and persecutions which agitated the Mogul empire, we see the Sikhs rising again into rank among the permanent powers of Hindostan.

These people were thought to be utterly extirpated; but in 1739, when Nadir Shah crossed the Punjaub, on his return to Persia from his successful invasion of the Mogul's dominions, many bodies of Sikhs hovered on the flanks and rear of his army. Nadir did not disdain to purchase the friendship of these troublesome marauders by a share of the enormous spoil which he had obtained at Delhi. The terror of the Persian invasion had also driven many of the peaceful inhabitants of the Punjaub from the plains to the hills, where they joined the roving bodies of the Sikhs, who, strengthened by these acquisitions, and encouraged by that keen perception of opportunities which seems never to have forsaken them, seized the first occasion of general dismay, in the political overturns which followed, to descend again into the plains.

It was at this period that the several powers of Northern India began to assume that relationship to each other which has conduced so signally to the success of the British arms and British intrigues in that country. The Mogul empire was virtually at an end. The kingdom of Cabul, instead of an obedient province, had become a hostile and threatening state. The oscillations of fortune between Afghanistan and Persia, after consigning each country alternately to the horrors of barbarous conquest, resulted, on the death of Nadir Shah, in the undisturbed superiority of Ahmed Shah, the founder of the short-lived Dooranee empire, and the progenitor of the reigning house of Cabul. Thus, on the north-western bank of the Indus, a new kingdom had arisen, which was likely to be extended at the expense of the Punjaub. A still more formidable cloud was gathering in the south. The Mahrattas, on the Malabar coast, comprising among their number all the four ordinary castes of Hindoos, and distinguished by a restless and warlike spirit, which had been fostered by the steady successes of three quarters of a century, were gradually making their way northward.

The Punjaub therefore became isolated between two powerful antagonists - the Afghans and the Mahrattas; though it remained under the nominal government of a Mahometan viceroy of the Mogul, who kept his court at Lahore. Affairs, however, soon changed. Ahmed Shah crossed the Indus, overran the Punjaub, and captured Lahore. In 1751, all the north-western parts of this territory, including the province of Moultan, were ceded, by treaty, from the Mogul empire to the kingdom of Cabul. But the Sikhs, who had now established themselves in that part of the Punjaub bordering on the Sutledge, attacked the Afghan garrisons,