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248 the marauders which a country in the last throes of its agony sends out from its lurking places to plunder and destroy. Such was Sívájí; such were the earlier representatives of the Gáikwár, of Sindia, of Holkar, and of the Bhónslá. Yet these men founded an empire. The Maráthás succeeded the Moghols. When Lord Lake entered Dehli, in 1803, the men he had beaten beneath its walls were the soldiers of the greatest of the Maratha chieftains. Virtually he restored the Moghol.

Could the Maráthá Empire have lasted if there had been no foreign power on the spot to supplant it? To those who would pause for a reply I would point to the condition of the Court of Púna after the death of the Péshwa, Madhú Ráo Narain, in 1795. It was the Court of Dehli after the demise of a sovereign in its worst days. It was the Court of Dehli as it always was after the death of Aurangzib. The Maráthá system of rule was cursed with the same inherent vice which was the bane of the Moghol sway. The succession was never secure to any one member of the family. The people were never safe against the exactions of their rulers. The rulers were never safe against treachery and insurrection. The inevitable consequences were intrigue, rapine, slaughter, constant wars, incessant oppression of the people. Had there been no foreigners on the spot to supplant the Maráthá rule, it is probable that the various members of its clan would have fought to a standstill, only in the end to make way for some