Page:The Marquess of Hastings, K.G..djvu/63

Rh collection of feudal states, where internal discord, hereditary quarrels, and continual strife made their career easy and prosperous. Amír Khán was the most successful Pathán leader, and had under him an army of some 30,000 men; he might indeed, like another Sforza, have carved out for himself an important principality in those troublous times, had his abilities been sufficient for the purpose, and had his ambition lain in that direction; but he preferred the wild and exciting life of a captain of Condottieri, and as such made an excellent living out of the feuds he fomented and the disorder he created.

The great central tract of the Indian continent presented truly a pitiable spectacle, and never before had there been such intense and general suffering. The native states were disorganised and society on the very verge of dissolution; the people were crushed by despots and ruined by exactions; the country was overrun by bandits and its resources wasted by enemies; armed forces existed only to plunder, to torture, and to mutiny; briefly, government there was none, it had ceased to exist, there remained only misery and oppression.

Besides this serious condition of affairs, Lord Hastings found on reaching Calcutta in 1813 that there was another question of moment which required