Page:Sir Thomas Munro and the British Settlement of the Madras Presidency.djvu/54

 46 SIR THOMAS MUNRO

and zamindars subjected or extirpated, justice severely and impartially administered to every class of people, a numerous and well-disciplined army kept up, and almost every employment of trust or consequence conferred on men raised from obscurity, gives to the government a vigour hitherto unexampled in India. The other, composed of a confederacy of independent chiefs, possessing extensive dominions and numerous armies, now acting in concert, now jealous of each other, and acting only for their own advantage, and at all times liable to be detached from the public cause by the most distant prospect of private gain, can never be a very dangerous enemy to the English. The first is a government of conquest ; the last, merely of plunder and depredation. The character of vigour has been so strongly impressed on the Mysore government by the abilities of its founders, that it may retain it, even under the reign of a weak prince, or a minor ; but the strength of the supreme Maratha government is continually varying, according to the disposition of its different members, who sometimes strengthen it by union, and sometimes weaken it by defection, or by dividing their territories among their children.

' That nation likewise maintains no standing army, adopts none of the European modes of discipline, and is impelled by no religious tenets to attempt the extirpation of men of a different belief. But Tipii supports an army of iio,oco men, a large body of which is composed of slaves, called chelas, trained on