Page:A Comprehensive History of India Vol 1.djvu/423

 Chap. I.] THE SEYEDS' liULE. 'S^'J

by exempting all goods protected by the Company's dustid; or passport, from ad iru

stoppage or examination by the officials of the Bengal government.

At the very time when Farokshir was making these concessions to the Com- vimua mie

f the

j)any his own affiiirs were hastening to a crisis. While Hosen Ali was absent seyedc. with the army, the corn-tiers had thrown off part of their former caution, and by evincing a more undisguised hostility, furnished him with a pretext for providing additional secmuties for his personal safety. Pretending an aliinu which it is probable they did not feel, the two brothers at first refused to appear at court, and then began to prepare for open hostihties. After a period of general consternation, during which the capit<l was threatened with anarchy, Farok.shu' found it necessary to submit, and consented to become virtually a prisoner in the hands of the Seyeds, by allowing the gates of the citadel, within which his [)alace stood, to be occupied by their guards, while an attempt was made to effect a reconcihation. After various abortive propo.sals it was at last arranged that Mir Junda, the emperor's favourite and head of the court faction, and Hosen Ali, should both quit Delhi, the former proceeding to his government of Behar and the latter to his government of the Deccan, while Abdallah Khan shoidd still retain his office of vizier. There was no sincerity on either side, and though the actual crisis was prevented, the course of in- trigue continued as before.

During the confusion caused by the dissensions at Delhi, the Sikhs, after xiie siwiis sustaining a series of disasters, had again become formidable. Their chief, uandii. Bandu, who had been made captive, had e.scaped, and suddenly i.ssuing from his mountain retreat renewed his ravages in the level country. Feeble {.s the central government now was, the necessity of vigorous measm-es was so .strongly felt, that a powerful force was despatched into the Punjab under the command of a chief called Abdusemed Khan, who conducted the campaign with consummate ability. After gaining repeated i-uccesses in the open field, he hunted the Siklis out of their fiistnesses, and made many of their leaders pri.soners. Bandu himself was again among the number, and expiated his crimes on the scaffold at Delhi by a death in which all kinds of horrific tor- tures were accumulated. Numerous other executions followed, and the Sikh.s, though still destined to play an important part in the history of India, were so completely subdued, that many years elap.sed before their existence as a nation acjain became discernible.

In the Deccan the Mogul arms were less successful. At first, on Hosen Alis Piooewiing* arrival in 1715, their emplojTiient was in civil warfare, said to have been insti- uoixiu. gated by the emperor himself Daoud Khan Panni, who, as luis been mentioned, was appointed by Zulfikar Khan to hold the government of the Deccan as his deputy, and negotiated a peace with the Mahrattas, was removed in 1713 on the accession of Farokshir, and was now governing the united provinces of Gujerat and Candeish. His immediate succes.sor in the Deccan was Chin Kilicli