Page:The Marquess of Hastings, K.G..djvu/99

Rh the Maráthá princes, more especially for Sindhia; they accordingly urged that peace should be maintained, at any price however degrading, and they enjoined that economy should be practised. Animated by such sentiments they prohibited the Indian Government 'from engaging in plans of general confederacy, and offensive operations against the Pindárís, either with a view to their utter extirpation, or in anticipation of expected danger .'

This dispatch was received at Calcutta in April, 1816, but before that date the Pindárís became bolder, as they observed British indifference to their proceedings, and, urged by the Maratha chiefs, who for their own purposes encouraged them to make their raids in the Company's territories, they subjected the latter to fearful outrages. Towards the close of 1815 they laid waste the Nizám's dominions, penetrating even beyond the Kistná river into the Madras Presidency, and notwithstanding the strenuous exertions made to overtake them, they escaped capture and brought an immense amount of booty back to their haunts in the valley of the Narbadá. Nor was this all, for in the following February they made a still more destructive incursion into the Northern Circars, and devastated a province where security had been enjoyed by fifty years of British rule.

'I have read a letter,' writes the Governor-General, 'from the Guntúr Circar, on the coast, stating a very affecting circumstance. A village was surrounded by the Pindárís.