Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/423

Rh herself mounting step by step up to the high office of ultimate arbiter in every dispute and supreme custodian of the peace of all India.

Under the circumstances that have just been described, the marauding bands of Central India, like the Free Companies of mediæval Europe, had prospered and multiplied; until in 1814 Amir Khan, a notable military adventurer, was living upon Rajputana with a compact army of at least thirty thousand men and a strong artillery. That a regular army of this calibre should have been moving at large about Central India, entirely unconnected with any recognizable government or fixed territory, and acknowledging no political or civil responsibility, is decisive evidence of the prevailing disorganization. But Amir Khan's troops were under some kind of discipline and were employed upon a system in some degree resembling regular warfare, their commander's aim being to carve out a dominion for himself.

The true Pindari hordes had no other object but general rapine; they were immense bands of mounted robbers; their most popular leader, Chitu, could number no less than ten thousand horsemen; they could subsist only by irruptions into rich and fertile districts; and they were a perpetual menace to the country possessed or protected by the British power. It cannot be doubted that they maintained a secret understanding with the independent Maratha rulers at Poona, Nagpur, and Gwalior, who were not particularly anxious to join in the suppression of armed bodies that