ments. But the king mistrusted him; and on receiving news that Sevajee had openly revolted, and seized a convoy of royal treasure in the Concan, he imprisoned Shahjee in a stone-dungeon, which was so built up as to leave only a small aperture for the admission of food; and the captive was told, that if his son did not submit within a given time, the opening would be closed for ever.

As soon as Sevajee was made aware of the horrible situation in which his father was placed on his account, he applied to the emperor, Shah Jehan, who gladly received the offer of his services, gave him a high command, and sent an order to Bijapur for the release of Shahjee, who was liberated from the dungeon, but detained under restraint, at the court of Bijapur, for nearly four years, during which time Sevajee refrained from making any very serious aggressions. No sooner, however, had his father been restored to liberty, than Sevajee returned to his former course, and even invaded the territories of the Mogul empire, just at the time when the illness of Shah Jehan gave rise to the war among his sons, which ended in the usurpation of Aurengzebe. Sevajee had, by this time, made himself master of the whole of the Concan, with its numerous forts, some of which had been taken by force, others by stratagem: of which the following is an example.

It was customary for the villagers, in the neighborhood of hill-forts, to supply a quantity of grass and palm-leaves to thatch the houses within the fortress, and to carry in the loads themselves. A party of soldiers, disguised as peasants, one day appeared at the gates of a certain fort with the usual tribute, and were admitted, without suspicion; when, throwing down their burdens, they snatched their swords and matchlocks from the bundles of grass they had carried, and, falling on the astonished garrison, captured the place with very little trouble.

Soon after Aurengzebe had mounted the throne of Delhi, Sevajee renewed his depredations in the kingdom of Bijapur, where Mohammed Adil Shah had just been succeeded by his son, a youth of nineteen, who sent out a powerful army against the invader, under the command of an able general, named Afzul Khan, a haughty Mussulman noble, who looked upon the Mahrattas as barbarians, and their chief as a foe scarcely worthy of his attention. Sevajee was under some alarm at the approaching danger, and, in order to gain time, sent an embassador with offers of submission; to which Afzul was the more inclined to listen, as he thought it desirable to avoid a war in so wild a country. He therefore appointed one of his Bramins to negotiate with the chief, and state the terms on which his submission would be accepted. This treacherous Bramin was won over, by bribes and promises, to enter into a plot against his master, whom he persuaded to give a meeting to the rebel chief, saying that the latter was so completely humbled that he was willing to surrender on any terms, provided he should be assured of the king's pardon by Afzul himself. Afzul agreed to grant him an interview, and was imprudent enough to consent to go unattended to a

certain spot appointed for the meeting, as the Bramin said that Sevajee was afraid otherwise to trust himself without a guard, which, under the circumstances it would not be proper to bring with him. The result was such as might have been expected. Afzul, leaving his escort at some distance, proceeded in his palanquin, accompanied by a few attendants,

to the place of meeting, habited in a thin muslin-robe, with no arms but his sword; while Sevajee had put on a shirt of mail under his cotton tunic, had concealed a dagger in its folds, and had also armed his left hand with a steel instrument used among the Mahrattas, called a tiger's-claw, which has three sharp, crooked blades, and being fastened on two fingers, may be entirely hidden in the hand. Having thus prepared himself for the deed he meditated, and performed his devotions, he knelt at the feet of his mother, to beg her blessing; and then slowly descended from the hill to meet his victim.

Afzul Khan advanced a few paces toward him, expecting some mark of homage, when the treacherous chief sprang suddenly, like a tiger, on his prey, fixed his steel-claws in his breast, and in an instant had despatched him with his dagger. Then, on a given signal, his men rushed down from several secret paths, and were led on without delay to attack the Mussulman troops, who were waiting not far off for the return of their commander, and, being unprepared for such an assault, were easily overcome. Those who resisted were killed; but those who surrendered were well treated, and received into the service of Sevajee.

CHAPTER XIII.

REIGN OF AURENGZEBE.

HE reign of Shah Jehan terminated with the usurpation of Aurengzebe in 1658. The new emperor, during the first years of his reign, had to maintain his seat on the throne by force of arms against his two brothers, one of whom, Shuja, having lost a decisive battle, disappeared from Hindostan, where he was never heard of afterward; a circumstance that for several years caused the emperor considerable anxiety, as he was in constant expectation of the return of the fugitive, strengthened, perhaps, by the aid of some foreign

power.

Dara Sheko was still more unfortunate. Deserted by his troops, and pursued by his enemies, he was doomed to witness the death of a beloved wife, occasioned by fatigue and suffering; and was, soon afterward, betrayed by a pretended friend, into the power of his brother; whose conduct toward him is a stain on his character that no time can efface. The captive prince, after having been paraded in chains through the streets of Delhi, was publicly beheaded, and his sons afterward met with a similar fate.

Aurengzebe for some time affected to despise the power of the Mahrattas, whose chief he contemptuously styled the mountain rat; yet he well knew that Sevajee was a dangerous foe; and in 1662 he appointed his uncle, Shaista Khan, to the command of an army which he was about to send into the Mahratta country, for the purpose of taking all the forts, and reducing the daring chief to subjection. Shaista Khan, after some fighting, gained possession of Poona, where he chose for his own quarters the house which had formerly been the residence of Jeejee Bye, and in which Sevajee had passed his childhood. The chief, who had spies in all directions, was soon informed of this circumstance, which led him to plan and execute a plot that is still related with great exultation by the Mahrattas, as one of his cleverest exploits.

Two Bramins, devoted to his interest, gained over one of the Khan's soldiers, a Hindu, who obtained permission to celebrate a marriage in the usual manner, with a procession. Sevajee had brought with him a band of chosen men, whom he mixed among the crowd assembled on the occasion, and contrived to introduce three or four of them at a time into the cavalcade,

according to the plan concerted. Having thus joined the procession, they by degrees detached themselves from the party, which had not assembled for any real wedding, and proceeded to the house occupied by the Mogul commander, every part of which was so well known to Sevajee, that he led the way silently through a back passage, and thus surprised the occupants, who were cut down before they had time to see who were their assailants. The khan, however, saved his life, by making his escape through a window. The retreat of the Mahrattas was so rapid, that they were beyond the reach of pursuit ere the horrible scene that had just been enacted was known in the Mogul camp; and Sevajee, with his daring band, was seen ascending to their fort, at twelve miles distance, amid a blaze of torches, which they had lighted to display their triumph. The Mogul invasion was altogether unsuccessful, and the army was eventually withdrawn from the country.

Not long after the events above narrated, the Mahratta chieftain undertook an expedition against the rich city of Surat, which, for six days, was plundered by his barbarian troops, who carried off an immense booty to Raighur, chiefly the property of the citizens; for although they made great efforts to force the English and Dutch factories, they were not able to succeed, on account of the gallant manner in which they were defended. The English distinguished themselves very highly on this occasion, not only by saving the property of the East India Company, but in assisting the inhabitants of the town, who would have suffered to a greater extent, but for their generous protection. Aurengzebe, in return for their services, granted them a perpetual exemption from a part of the customs exacted from the merchants of other nations trading to Surat.

The frequent incursions of the Mahrattas, and the arbitrary exactions of the emperor's officers, had long made it desirable for the English to have some place of their own, which they might fortify against such aggressions; and, about two years before the plunder of Surat, the wished-for opportunity was afforded by the marriage of Charles the Second, who received with his bride, Catherine of Portugal, the island of Bombay, with its dependencies, as a part of her dowry; and it was thus that Great Britain obtained its first territorial possession in India. The island, however, did not yield a sufficient revenue to pay the expenses of the estalishment formed upon it; and about six years afterward, its entire sovereignty was made over to the East India Company, who, in 1687, transferred the presidency of their other settlements from Surat to Bombay, which has, from that time, been the capital of their dominions on the western side of the peninsula.

In the meantime, their possessions on the eastern side were rising into importance. They had an extensive factory at Masulipatam, the chief emporium for the cottons and muslins of Bengal; and another at Hoogley, a considerable city on the river of that name, connected with the Ganges, where the Portuguese, Danes, and Dutch, also had settlements. While the English were thus gradually increasing their power and possessions in India,

the French, after having made some unsuccessful attempts to establish factories at Surat and other ports, formed a permanent settlement at Pondicherry, on the coast of Coromandel, which they purchased in 1672, of the king of Bijapur; and this was their capital at a later period, during their struggle with the English for supremacy in India.

Shahjee Bhonslay died soon after the Mahratta attack on Surat, when Sevajee immediately assumed the title of rajah, and began to coin money in his own name, which was equivalent to a declaration of independent sovereignty, and was therefore regarded as an act of open rebellion by the emperor, who sent out so powerful an army against him, that he found it expedient to make peace by giving up half his territories, and consenting to hold the rest as a jaghir or fief of the empire. In return for these concessions, Aurengzebe made a grant to the chief of a portion of the revenue derived from certain districts under the government of the king of Bijapur, which he was to collect himself; and this grant gave rise to the claim made and enforced by the Mahrattas, in later times, to the well-known contribution of the chout, which afforded them constant pretexts for invading foreign possessions.

Aurengzebe was at this time engaged in a war with the king of Bijapur, and Sevajee, as the holder of a jaghir, was bound to assist him. On this occasion, Sevajee performed some signal services for the empire, and was, in consequence, invited to court, whither he repaired, naturally expecting to receive some signal mark of favor; instead of which, to his great surprise and indignation, he was treated with coldness and contempt by the haughty sovereign, who scarce deigned even to notice his presence. Sevajee, burning with resentment, allowed some violent expressions to escape him; which being repeated to Aurengzebe, led to the imprisonment of the chief, whose escape is one of the many extraordinary adventures of his eventful life. Under a pretence of being ill, he was visited by a Hindu physician, who was soon made a partner in the plot, and who secured some confederates among the Bramins, to whom Sevajee, still feigning sickness, sent daily large baskets of provisions to be distributed among the poor.

These charities excited no suspicion, as it was very usual for rich men, when ill, to give alms, and make presents to Bramins; therefore the baskets, after having been once or twice examined, were suffered to pass without inquiry. At length he ventured to trust himself in one of these hampers, the bearers having been bribed not to complain of its unusual weight; and he was thus safely conveyed to the house of a Bramin, who was in the secret, and had prepared a disguise and a horse; by the aid of which, he reached his own capital, before his escape was known at Delhi. Shortly afterward, he concluded a fresh treaty of peace with Aurengzebe, who granted him a new accession of territory in Berar, and acknowledged his title of raja.

Being now a more powerful prince than either the king of Bijapur or of