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Chapter 3 – From the Accession of the House of Toghluk to the Establishment of the Moguls, 1321–1526

Ghazee Toghluk, 1321

Ghazee Toghluk, after this victory, was anxious to place some scion of the royal line on the throne, but it was found that the family of Alla-ood-deen bad been utterly exterminated during the recent convulsions, and he was compelled to yield to the wishes of the nobles and the people, and accept the supreme dignity for himself. His father was originally a slave of the emperor Bulbun, who rose through various offices to the government of Mooltan, which devolved on his son at his death. The administration of the empire in his hands was as commendable as the acquisition of it had been blameless. His son, Jonah Khan, was sent against the king of Telingana, but was completely baffled, and brought back only 3,000 of his troops to Delhi. But a second expedition which he undertook in 1323 was more successful, and resulted in the capture of the capital, Warungole, and the extinction of the Hindoo dynasty, which had flourished for two centuries and a half. Complaints were at this time carried up to the throne of oppressions in Bengal. That province had been under the government of the noble Kurrah, the son of the emperor Bulbun, for forty years, during which period he had witnessed the rise and fall of an entire dynasty, consisting of four sovereigns. The charges against him proved to be groundless; the emperor confirmed him in his government, and the native historian illustrates the mutations of fortune by remarking, that it was the slave of the father who accorded the use of the royal umbrella to the son. On his return to the capital, the emperor was entertained at Afghanpore by his son Jonah Khan, in a magnificent pavilion which he had erected for the occasion; but the son had

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no sooner retired from the edifice than it fell and crushed the father to death.

Mahomed Toghluk, 1325

Jonah Khan ascended the throne in 1325, and assumed the title of Mahomed Toghluk. This prince, whose follies brought on the dismemberment of the empire, was a compound of the most contradictory qualities. He was the most accomplished prince of his day, skilled in every science, and learned even in the philosophy of the Greek schools, a liberal patron of learning, temperate, and even austere in his private life, and distinguished in the field by his courage and military talents. But all these noble qualities were neutralized by such perversity of disposition, and such paroxysms of tyranny, as made him the object of universal execration. It was the intoxication of absolute power which incited him to acts which none but a madman would have thought of. “So little,” says the native historian, “did he hesitate to shed the blood of God’s creatures, that when he took vengeance, it seemed as if he wished to exterminate the human family.” The very first act of his reign was an enigma. The Moguls invaded the Punjab, under one of their most celebrated generals, and the emperor bought them off with a large subsidy, though he could not fail to perceive that this display of weakness would inevitably bring them back with a keener appetite for plunder. He then assembled a large army for the conquest of Persia, but, after consuming his resources, it was broken up for want of pay, and became the terror of his own subjects in every direction. Finding his treasury exhausted by his extravagant schemes, he determined to replenish it by levying contributions on the empire of China. A body of 100,000 men was accordingly sent across the snowy range, but it was attacked by a superior force on reaching the confines of that empire, and obliged to retire. Harassed in their retreat by the Chinese troops, and the exasperated mountaineers, and worn out by fatigue and privation, few of the unfortunate troops returned to tell the tale of their disgrace, and those who

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survived the sword and famine were butchered by their own master. Having heard that the Chinese were in the habit of using a paper currency, he determined to adopt this mode of filling his coffers, only substituting copper tokens for paper. The insolvency of the treasury depreciated the value of the tokens, and foreign merchants refused to touch them. The mercantile transactions of the empire were thrown into confusion, and the universal misery and discontent which the measure entailed, constrained him to withdraw the tokens, but not before thousands had been ruined by them. So exorbitant were his exactions, that the husbandmen sought refuge in the woods, and were driven to robbery for a subsistence. The towns were deserted, and the inhabitants goaded into resistance by despair. The enraged emperor ordered out his army as if for a royal hunt, surrounded a large circle of territory, and drove the wretched people into the centre, where they were slaughtered like wild beasts. On a subsequent occasion, he ordered a general massacre of the inhabitants of Cunouj.

Continued follies of Mahomed, 1338

In the year 1338 he took the field in person against his nephew, who had been driven to revolt in the Deccan. The young prince was captured and flayed alive. On reaching Deogur, Mahomed was so charmed with the beauty of its situation, and the mildness of the climate, that he resolved to make it the capital of his empire, and at the same time changed its name to Dowlutabad. With his usual fatuity, he ordered Delhi to be abandoned, and its inhabitants, men, women, and children, to travel to the new city, a distance of 800 miles, along a road which he caused to be planted with full-grown trees. This wild attempt to change the long established metropolis of the empire was for a time suspended in consequence of the intolerable misery it created. It was subsequently revived, but though Delhi was deserted, Dowlutabad did not prosper, and the project was eventually abandoned, after thousands of families had been ruined by it. At the same time, as if to

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mock the calamities of his subjects, he caused a decayed tooth, which had been extracted, to be interred at Beer, and erected a magnificent mausoleum over it. At length he conceived the notion that the disasters of his reign arose from the fact of his not having received investiture from the Caliph, the successor of Mahomed. A splendid embassy was accordingly sent to Bagdad, and on its return with the firman, he ordered the names of all his predecessors who had not received the same honour, to be struck out of the royal calendar.

Revolt of the provinces, 1340

These caprices and oppressions produced the natural harvest of insurrections. The province of Bengal revolted in 1340, and it continued to be independent of the throne of Delhi for more than two centuries. Two Hindoo fugitives from Telingana, under a divine impulse, as the local historians affirm, and, under the guidance of a holy sage, proceeded to the banks of the Toombudra, and established a Hindoo kingdom, with Beejuynugur for its capital. The site of this city is supposed to correspond with that of the ancient capital of Hunooman and Soogrevu, who assisted Ramu in his expedition against Ravunu with their half savage subjects, and were described by the poet as the kings of the monkeys, and elevated by the piety of the brahmins to the rank of gods. About the same time a descendant of the royal house of Telingana established an independent principality at Golconda, and for two centuries after this period, we find these two Hindoo powers taking an active part in the politics of the Deccan, and maintaining a vigorous struggle with the power of the Mahomedans. A still more important revolution wrested all the remaining provinces south of the Nerbudda from the sceptre of Delhi. Of the foreign mercenaries from Tartary, Afghanistan, and other countries beyond the Indus, with whom the imperial armies were constantly recruited, a large body consisted of the Moguls, who had embraced the creed of Mahomed. A large colony of them was also settled in Guzerat, and they rose at this time to

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avenge the wanton slaughter of seventy of their nobles. The emperor immediately proceeded against them, gave up the cities of Surat and Cambay to plunder, and ravaged the whole province as if it had been an enemy’s country. The Guzerat Moguls obtained an asylum in the Deccan, where they were joined by all whom the atrocities of Mahomed had exasperated, and, having taken possession of Dowlutabad, proclaimed Ismael Khan, an Afghan, king. The emperor marched against them with great promptitude, inflicted a signal defeat on them, and shut them in that fortress. But, while engaged in besieging it, he was called away by a fresh conspiracy in Guzerat. The Moguls defeated his son-in-law, who had been left in command, and in conjunction with the governor of Malwa, who had likewise revolted from his master, succeeded in establishing a new monarchy in the Deccan, which is known in history as the Bahminy kingdom. In 1351, Mahomed proceeded against the prince of Tatta, in Sinde, who had given an asylum to the Guzerat insurgents.

Death of Mahomed, 1351

He halted within a few miles of that city to celebrate the Mohurrum, and surfeited himself with fish, which brought on a fever, of which he died in 1351. At the time of his death all the Mahomedan possessions in the Deccan, as well as the province of Bengal, had been alienated from the throne of Delhi.

Feroze Toghluk, 1351–1388

Mahomed was succeeded by his nephew Feroze Toghluk, who endeavoured to recover Bengal, but seeing no chance of success, acknowledged the independence of Hajee, who had assumed the government, and wisely fixed the boundaries of the kingdom. Soon after, he consented to receive an envoy from the Bahminy king of the Deccan, and thus admitted the fact of his sovereignty. The reign of Feroze, though by no means brilliant, was marked by a wise administration. He discouraged luxury by his own example, repealed vexatious imposts, limited the number of capital punishments, and abolished torture and mutilation. But the erection of public works was his ruling passion,

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and the historians of his day enumerate with exultation among the monuments which he left, fifty dams across rivers to promote irrigation, forty mosques, thirty colleges, twenty palaces, thirty reservoirs, five mausoleums, a hundred carevanseras, a hundred hospitals, a hundred public baths, a hundred and fifty bridges, and two hundred towns. The greatest achievement of his reign, however, was the canal from the source of the Ganges to the Sutlege, which still bears his name, and places him among the most renowned benefactors of mankind. After a reign of thirty-four years, he resigned the throne to his son, usually called Mahomed Toghluk the second, who gave himself up to indulgence, and was deposed by the nobles, when Feroze was constrained to resume the imperial power. But he was now in the ninetieth year of his age, and in 1388 transferred the sceptre to his grandson, Gheias. During the next ten years, the throne was occupied by no fewer than four princes. The court was filled with plots; two kings resided within the circuit of the capital, for three years, and waged incessant war with each other. Hindostan was thrown into a state of complete anarchy, and four independent kingdoms were carved out of the dominions of Delhi, leaving nothing to that august throne but the districts immediately around it.

Four independent kingdoms, 1395–1400

The four independent kingdoms established about the close of the fourteenth century, upon the ruins of the imperial power, were those of Malwa, Guzerat, Candesh, and Jounpore. Dilawur Khan, of Chore, the governor of Malwa, who raised the standard of independence, fixed his capital at the time-honoured city of Dhar, and subsequently removed it to Mandoo, fifteen miles to the north of the Nerbudda, the ramparts of which are said to have been thirty-seven miles in circumference. Mozuffer Khan, a Rajpoot converted to Mahomedanism, and like all converts, in India at least, a ruthless persecutor of his former creed, had been sent to Guzerat by one of the successors of Feroze to supersede the governor, who was

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suspected of treachery. His independence may be said to date from the day of his accession to the government, as there was no power at Delhi to enforce his obedience. It was about the year 1398 that Nazir Khan, the viceroy of Candesh, which consists of the lower valley of the Taptee, threw off his allegiance, and espoused a daughter of the new king of Guzerat, to which more powerful state his little principality was generally considered subordinate. Still nearer the capital, Khojah Jehan, the vizier of Mahomed Toghluk the third, and likewise viceroy of Jounpore, availed himself of the troubles of the times to assume the royal umbrella. The empire of Delhi, thus despoiled of its fairest provinces, fell an easy prey to the invader, who was now approaching it, – the most ferocious of any of those who have laid waste the plains of Hindostan.

Timur, 1398

The Ameer Timur, or Tamerlane, was born within forty miles of Samarcand, and came of a Turki family, which had long been in the service of the descendants of Jenghis Khan. His lot was cast at a period in human affairs when the decay of vigour in the established kingdoms presented the fairest opportunity for the foundation of a new empire by any daring adventurer. Timur was possessed of the spirit suited to such an enterprise, and, having been raised at the age of thirty-four, to the throne of Samarcand by the general voice of his countrymen, in the course of a few years prostrated every throne that stood in the way of his progress, and became at once the scourge of Asia, and the terror of Europe. Animated by a stupendous ambition, he led the hordes of Tartary to the conquest of Persia, Khorasan and Transoxiana, and subjugated the whole of Mesopotamia and Georgia, and a portion of Russia and Siberia. Having made himself master of the whole of Central Asia, he despatched his grandson, Peer Mahomed, with a powerful army to invade India. The youth, however, encountered more opposition than was expected, and Timur found it necessary to advance to his support. He arrived on

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the banks of the Indus on the 12th of September, 1398, with ninety-two squadrons of horse, and crossed it at Attock, where Alexander the Great had crossed it before him. His grandson soon after joined his camp, and the two armies marched to Bhutnere, but though the town was surrendered on terms, it was burnt to the ground, and the inhabitants were put to the sword. The villages and towns were deserted as he advanced, but a considerable number of prisoners necessarily remained in his hands, and as they were found greatly to encumber his march, he ordered them all to be massacred in cold blood, to the number of 100,000. A battle was soon after fought under the walls of Delhi, between the veterans of Timur and the effeminate soldiers of the empire, with the result which might have been expected. The emperor was defeated and fled to Guzerat, and Timur entered the city, and caused himself to be proclaimed emperor. His soldiers could not be restrained from their usual violence which brought on resistance, and the whole of the Mogul army was let loose on the devoted city. The scenes of horror which ensued defy all description. The citizens sold their lives dear, but their valour was quenched in their blood, and many streets were choked up with dead bodies. After Timur had satiated his revenge and satisfied his cupidity, by the desolation of the city, “he offered up to the divine Majesty,” as his historian observes, “the sincere and humble tribute of grateful praise in the noble mosque of polished marble,” erected by Feroze on the banks of the Jumna, and directed his army to prepare for its return. On his way back he ordered a general massacre in the city of Meerut, and then proceeding to Hurdwar, skirted the hills, and recrossed the Indus in March, 1399. He contented himself with the mere title of emperor of India, and left the country a prey to the distractions which his invasion had intensely aggravated.

Government of the Syuds, 1412–1450

Mahomed Toghluk, the third, who had fled to Guzerat after his defeat, returned to Delhi on the departure of Timur, but his minister, Ekbal, monopolized

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all the power of the state. Khizir, the governor of La-bore and Mooltan, resenting this usurpation, attacked and slew him, and thus restored to Mahomed some portion of his authority which he exercised till 1412. On his death, Khizir marched a second time to Delhi, and extinguished the Toghluk dynasty. He was a descendant of the prophet, and his family, which filled the throne for thirty-six years, has from that circumstance, been denominated that of the Syuds. Khizir affected to decline the title of emperor, and styled himself the viceroy of Timur, in whose name he struck the coin, and caused the Khootba to be read in the mosques. His administration was beneficial, and prosperity began again to dawn on the desolated provinces. He added his own principality of the Punjab to the dominions of the imperial crown, but he made little progress in recovering the other districts which had become independent. His son, Mobarik, succeeded him in 1421, but his reign of thirteen years was marked by no event except an indecisive battle with the king of Jounpore. The territories subject to Delhi were as limited in extent at his death as they had been at his accession. He was assassinated by some Hindoos at the instigation of his vizier, who raised his son Syud Mahomed to the throne, but was himself cut off by the exasperated nobles. The youth was found to be totally unfit for the duties of government, and the governors of the few districts still attached to the throne, began to aspire to independence. Among these, was Beloli Lodi, an Afghan, who made himself master of Mooltan, and the greater part of the Punjab. Encouraged by the weakness of the throne, the king of Malwa marched to the capital, but was repulsed by Beloli, within two miles of its gates. That chief subsequently laid siege to the city which he had saved, but finding himself unable to capture it, withdrew to his own province, to await the demise of the crown, which occurred in 1445. Mahomed was succeeded by his son Alla-ood-deen, during whose weak reign the domains belonging to the throne were still farther reduced, till at length

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they extended only twelve miles from the city in one direction, and scarcely a mile in the other. Beloli Lodi, thinking the pear was now ripe, marched down upon Delhi. The king resigned the throne to him without a sigh, and retired on a pension to Budaon, where he passed twenty-eight years of his life in cultivating his gardens. With him, in 1450, ended the house of the Syuds.

Beloli Lodi, 1450–1488

Beloli was an Afghan of the tribe of Lodi, now known as the Lohanee, which is engaged chiefly in the conveyance of merchandise between Hindostan and Persia. His grandfather, a wealthy trader, repaired to the court of Feroze Toghluk, the first great patron of the Afghans, where he acquired sufficient interest to obtain the government of Mooltan, to which was subsequently added that of the Punjab. This rich inheritance eventually came to Beloli, though not without great opposition on the part of his relatives. His success was chiefly owing to the talents of Humeed, the vizier of his predecessor, whom he subsequently banished from his court, on the plea that he was becoming too powerful for a subject. The ambitious Beloli was not likely to remain content with the humble limits to which the imperial territory had been reduced, and the great object of his reign was to extend his authority, and more particularly to re-annex the kingdom of Jounpore to the crown, which, since its establishment, had become, in every respect, the rival of Delhi. Beloli had not been two years on the throne before he made an inroad into it, but was vigorously repulsed. The struggle between the two kingdoms was prolonged with various successes for twenty-eight years, during which period Delhi was twice besieged by the armies of Jounpore. Hostilities were occasionally suspended by a truce, but it only afforded the combatants the opportunity of recruiting their strength for fresh conflicts. It is distressing to reflect on the desolation entailed on these districts, which form the garden of Hindostan, and the misery inflicted on the wretched inhabitants, by the internecine wars of these two royal houses,

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in comparison with which even the oppression of the worst of governments must appear light. Happily for the interests of humanity, the conflict was brought to a close in 1476, when the “King of the East,” as he was styled, fled to Bengal and the kingdom of Jounpore was absorbed in the territory of Delhi. The dynasty existed for eighty years, of which period one-half was comprised in the reign of Ibrahim, one of the most illustrious princes in the history of Hindostan. Under his beneficent administration, the prosperity of the country reached its summit. Learned men from all parts of India were invited to the court, which was universally acknowledged to be the most polished and elegant in India. The city of Jounpore was adorned with superb and massive structures, the remains of which to this day testify the magnificence of the dynasty. Beloli survived this protracted warfare ten years, and died in 1488, after a reign of thirty-eight years, during which he succeeded in extending the territory of the crown from the Jumna to the Himalayu, and from the Indus to Benares.

Secunder and Ibrahim Lodi, 1488–1526

Beloli, as if he had determined to render family feuds inevitable, divided his territories among his sons, but Secunder, to whom he had bequeathed the largest share, together with the throne, lost no time in dispossessing his brothers. His prosperous reign of twenty-eight years was marked by the recovery of Behar. Though just and equitable in his administration, he followed the rule rather than the exception of the Mahomedan conquerors of India with regard to the treatment of the Hindoos. He lost no opportunity of manifesting his hatred of them, and in every quarter demolished their temples and erected mosques with the materials. In the holy city of Muttra he planted a mosque in front of the stairs leading to the sacred stream, and at length forbade the devotees to bathe in it, and the barbers to shave the pilgrims. In the year 1517, he was succeeded by Ibrahim, the third and last of his line, who alienated the nobles by his suspicious temper and his haughty

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demeanour. His reign was a constant struggle with rebellion. Behar revolted under its governor, who is said to have brought a body of 100,000 men into the field, and repeatedly defeated the armies of the emperor. A prince of his own family took possession of the eastern districts and endeavoured to revive the kingdom of Jounpore. Dowlut Khan, the governor of the Punjab, the viceroys of which had frequently imposed their own orders on the emperor of Delhi, and more than once usurped the throne itself, now entered into negotiations with Sultan Baber for the invasion of Hindostan. Even the emperor’s own brother, Alla-ood-deen, joined that prince at Cabul, and encouraged him in his designs on Hindostan. The success which attended his invasion will be the subject of a future chapter. Having thus reached the period when the throne of Delhi was transferred to the fifth and last Mahomedan dynasty, we turn to the progress of events in the Deccan, in Malwa, and in Guzerat, from the period when those provinces were separated from the empire.

Candesh, Malwa, Guzerat, and Mewar, to 1443

The principality of Candesh, the governor of which had revolted from the throne of Delhi, though abounding in population and wealth was too limited and weak for independent action, and became subservient to its more powerful neighbours. During the period of more than a century and a half which elapsed between the dismemberment of the empire under Mahomed Toghluk, and the rise of the Mogul dynasty, the two Mahomedan kings of Guzerat, and Malwa, and the Hindoo raja of Mewar, or Oodipore, were engaged in perpetual hostilities with each other, and their history may therefore be conveniently grouped together. Sultan Dilawur, the first independent king of Malwa, bequeathed the kingdom in 1405, to his son, Sultan Hoshung, who was engaged for more than twenty-five years in wars with his neighbours, in which he was seldom successful. His name is perpetuated in the town of Hoshungabad, which he founded. He was attacked and made prisoner by Mozuffer, the king of Guzerat, but was released, upon a report

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that his subjects were about to elect another sovereign, and take the field. Mozuffer was succeeded in 1412 by his grandson, Ahmed Shah, whose long reign of thirty years, was passed in constant hostilities either with Malwa or Mewar. His name survives in the new capital, Ahmedabad, which he erected on the banks of the Saburmuttee, and adorned with magnificent mosques, caravanseras and palaces, in such profusion, that the Mahomedan historians described it as the handsomest city in the world. He was a zealous Mahomedan, and a great destroyer of Hindoo temples and images. He was succeeded in 1443 by his son, Mahomed Shah, surnamed by his subjects, the “merciful,” and by his enemies, the “weak.” Sultan Hoshung, the turbulent king of Malwa, died in 1432, and bequeathed the kingdom to his son, who was soon after put to death by his minister, Mahmood Khan Ghiljie, the Afghan, who mounted the throne, and proved to be the ablest of the kings of Malwa, during a long reign of forty-seven years, which extended from 1435 to 1482. Some years after his accession, he invaded Guzerat with an army of 100,000 men, and pursued the feeble monarch to the promontory of Diu. The Guzerattee nobles, anxious to retrieve the national honour, persuaded the queen to administer poison to him, and then raised his son, Kootub Shah, to the throne, and resolved to make a vigorous effort for their independence. A pitched battle was accordingly fought under the walls of Ahmedabad, in which Mahmood was for the first and last time defeated; but seeing the day lost, he put himself at the head of some troopers, and pushing through every obstacle, bore off the regalia in triumph from the tent of the king. Notwithstanding this partial reverse, he seems to have had the unobstructed range of northern India, as we find him the next year marching to Biana, and establishing his son governor of Ajmere. On his return to Malwa he proceeded first against the Bahminy kingdom in the Deccan, then to Candesh, and finally against the rajah of Chittore.

War with Chittore, 1554 [1454?]

During the scenes of confusion at Delhi, which

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have been previously described, one Hindoo kingdom in the north recovered its independence, and succeeded in maintaining it for two centuries – the Rajpoot state of Chittore, or Mewar. In the days of sultan Hoshung the throne was filled by Koombhoo, one of the most illustrious princes of that ancient line, who applied himself for fifty years vigorously to the consolidation of Rajpoot power, and founded the city of Koomulnere. In 1456, Kootub Shah of Guzerat, formed an alliance with Mahmood of Malwa, for the conquest and partition of Mewar, but the result of the war is differently related. The Mahomedan historians affirm that the Rajpoot prince acknowledged himself the vassal of Mahmood, while Hindoo writers state that he was triumphant, and erected a column to commemorate his victory on the brow of Chittore. In 1461, Mahmood, seeing the throne of the Deccan filled by a child, and the country distracted by factions, marched against the capital, Beder, under the walls of which a battle was fought in which he proved victorious. He renewed the invasion the next year, when the ministers, unable to cope with his superior force, implored the aid of the king of Guzerat, who readily granted it, and obliged the invader to retire, by creating a diversion in his own territories of Malwa. A treaty appears to have been subsequently concluded between him and the Bahminy cabinet, based upon the cession of certain districts. The career of Mahmood, the greatest of the kings of Malwa, “whose tent was his house, and the battle field his resting place,” was at length brought to a close in 1482, and the court of Mandoo exhibited a sudden and ludicrous change.

Gheias-ood-deen’s seraglio, 1482

His son and successor, Gheias-ood-deen, had no sooner ascended the throne, than he invited his nobles and officers to a splendid entertainment, and in a set speech informed them, that he had passed thirty-four years in the field, fighting by the side of his gallant father, and was determined to spend the remainder of his life in peace and enjoyment, that he intended to retain the royal

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dignity, but to transfer the management of affairs to his son. The youth was accordingly proclaimed vizier, and the king retired to his seraglio, which he had filled with 15,000 of the most beautiful women he could procure. In this female court, the pomp and distinctions of royalty were strictly maintained; the royal body guard consisted of 500 Turki maidens dressed in male attire and armed with bows and quivers, and of 500 Abyssinian girls furnished with firearms. Strange as it may appear, the king was allowed to enjoy this pageantry for eighteen years, without a single attempt at rebellion. His son, Nazir-ood-deen, succeeded him in 1500, and his reign of twelve years was noted only by its cruelty and sensuality.

Mahmood Shah, of Guzerat, 1459–1511

During the listless reign of Gheias-ood-deen, of Malwa, and the dissolute reign of his son, the rival throne of Guzerat was filled by Mahmood Shah, the brother of Kootub Shah, who ascended the throne in 1459, and shed lustre on it for fifty years. Though crowned at the early age of fourteen, his talents were soon matured, and it was while yet a youth that he marched into Malwa, and created the diversion which has been noticed. The European travellers who visited his court, awed by the dignity of his personal appearance, conceived the most extravagant opinion of his power. They affirmed that a portion of his daily food consisted of mortal poisons, with which his system became so impregnated, that if a fly sat on him it dropped down dead. He was the original of the picture drawn by the British poet of the prince of Cambay, “whose food was asp, and basilisk and toad.” But even without the power of digesting poisons, he was a most puissant prince. In 1469, he attacked Gernal, a Hindoo fortress, of boundless antiquity and impregnable strength. It fell on the third assault, when the king is said to have persuaded the raja and all his court to embrace Mahomedanism. Three years after, he overrun Cutch and defeated an army of Belochees, annexed Sinde to his dominions, and extended his boundary to the Indus. Soon after, a Mahomedan saint complained to him that on his

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return from Ormuz in Persia, he had been ill-used and plundered by the people of Jugut, the land’s end of India on the western coast. The king and his soldiers were equally inflamed by the story of the holy man’s wrongs, and they marched with great zeal “against the infernal-minded brahmins,” as the Mahomedan historian, Ferishta, calls them. Jugut was reduced, but the pirates on the coast, who fled to the island of Bete, in the gulf of Cambay, are said to have fought twenty naval battles before they were finally subdued. In 1482, Mahmood led an army against the Hindoo ruler of the very ancient principality of Chumpanere. The place is said to have been defended by 60,000 Rajpoots, of whom a large number fell in the siege, and the prince and his ministers were put to death, when it was found that they refused to become Musulmans. The conflicts of the Guzerat navy with the Portuguese during this reign, will be narrated hereafter. On the death of this renowned prince in 1511, he was succeeded by his son, Mozuffer the Second.

Mahmood the second, of Malwa, 1512

Mahmood the Second, the last king of Malwa, ascended the throne in 1512, when his nobles conspired to unseat him and to elevate his brother. The confederacy was defeated through the exertions of Medni Roy, the Rajpoot chief of Chunderee, who was thereupon appointed the chief minister as the reward of his services, and proceeded forthwith to fill the court and the army with his own countrymen. The Mahomedans, considering all the offices of state as their own property, resented this intrusion, and endeavoured to infuse suspicions into the mind of the king, who is said to have dismissed 40,000 Rajpoots at once from his service, and to have employed assassins to despatch the minister himself. He escaped with a few wounds, and eventually succeeded in regaining his power at the Malwa court. Mahmood, feeling himself little better than a prisoner in his own capital, escaped to Guzerat, where he found the king, equally with himself, alarmed at the growing power of the Hindoos. The neighbouring kingdom of Chittore was governed

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at the time by Rana Sunga, who had raised it to the summit of prosperity by his genius and valour. His army consisted of 80,000 horse, supported by 500 war elephants. Seven rajas of the highest rank, and a hundred and thirteen of inferior note attended his stirrup to the field. The rajas of Jeypore and Marwar served under his banner, and he was the acknowledged head of all the Rajpoot tribes. The historian of Rajpootana enumerates eighteen pitched battles which he had fought with Malwa and Guzerat. Those two sovereigns dreaded lest Medni Roy should obtain possession of the resources of Malwa, and unite with the Rana in establishing Hindoo sovereignty throughout central India. To meet this danger, they marched against Mandoo, the capital of Malwa, which was then held by the son of Medni Roy, and which did not surrender until 19,000 Rajpoots had fallen in its defence. Mahmood was restored to his kingdom, and in 1519 measured his strength with Rana Sunga. In the battle which ensued, the Malwa king was totally defeated and captured. The generous Rajpoot prince personally attended to his wounds, and, when they were healed, liberated him without a ransom. Hostilities, however, continued between the king of Guzerat and the Rana, which, after a succession of successes and defeats, terminated in a solid peace.

Extinction of Malwa

On the death of Mozuffer of Guzerat in 1526, the throne was successively occupied by two princes, who speedily disappeared, when the wild and wayward Bahadoor Shah ascended it. A brother of his fled to Malwa, and, in an evil hour, the king Mahmood granted him an asylum, which so incensed Bahadoor, that he immediately equipped a large army for the invasion of the country. While this storm was gathering on one side, the ill-starred king provoked the wrath of Rana Sunga, who lost no time in forming an alliance with Bahadoor Shah, and their united forces poured down like a torrent upon Malwa. Mahmood in some measure retrieved his reputation by his noble conduct in the last scene of his life. Though his army was reduced

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to 3,000, he still continued to defend his capital with great courage, but he was at length obliged to capitulate; and on the 26th of May, a month after Baber had established the Mogul dynasty on the throne of Delhi, the standard of Guzerat was planted on the battlements of Mandoo, and the kingdom of Malwa, then in its hundred and twenty-fifth year, was absorbed in the dominions of its rival. Mahmood and his seven sons were sent prisoners to Chumpanere, but were put to death on the road, in consequence of an attack by the Bheels.

The Bahminy dynasty, 1347–1397

It has been stated that the oppressions of Mahomed Toghluk produced a revolt in the Deccan, which issued in the establishment of an independent kingdom. Ismael, the Afghan, who had been raised to the throne, voluntarily ceded it soon after to the general Hussun Gungu, who had been the chief instrument in achieving the revolution. He was likewise an Afghan, but of humble extraction, who leased a plot of ground from a Hindoo astrologer in the city of Delhi, and resigned to him of his own accord some valuable treasure which he had discovered in it. The astrologer was so highly pleased with his honesty as to recommend him to the notice of the emperor, under whose favour he rose to great distinction. Out of gratitude to the astrologer Gungu, his early patron, he had assumed his name, and on his elevation to the throne of the Deccan in 1347, took the additional title of Bahminy, by which the dynasty is generally known in history. The kingdom comprised all the territories held by the emperor of Delhi south of the Nerbudda, with the exception of the provinces of the two Hindoo kingdoms of Telingana and Beejuynugur, the establishment of which circumscribed the Bahminy dominions, and led to incessant war. Hussun died in 1358, after a prosperous reign of eleven years, and was succeeded by his son Mahomed, who commenced his reign by attacking the king of Telingana, and obliging him to sue for peace, which was granted on the cession of the hill of Golconda, and the surrender

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of a throne of immense value, which was subsequently enriched with additional jewels till it was estimated to be worth four crores of rupees. Soon after Mahomed, in a drunken revel, granted an order on the treasury of Beejuynugur, and the raja immediately sent an army across the Kistna to revenge the insult, when the town of Moodgul was captured and its inhabitants put to the sword. Mahomed, on hearing of the slaughter, swore “that food and sleep should be unlawful to him till he had propitiated the martyrs of Moodgul by the slaughter of a hundred thousand infidels.” He crossed the Toombudra and pursued the raja for three months from district to district, putting to death every Hindoo who fell into his hands. A pitched battle was at length fought, in which the Bahminy monarch was victorious, when having, as he hoped, completed his vow of revenge, he granted his opponent honourable terms, and, on his return to his own capital, devoted his time to the improvement of his dominions. He died in 1375, after a reign of seventeen years, and was succeeded by his son Mujahid Shah, who possessed the most majestic beauty of all the princes of his line, and was exceeded by none in valour and fortitude. He began his reign by demanding from the raja of Beejuynugur, Raichore, Moodgul, and other places lying in the dooab of the Kistna and the Toombudra, the object of perpetual strife between the rival Hindoo and Mahomedan powers. The demand was refused, and a war commenced, during which Mujahid chased the raja for six months through the whole extent of the Carnatic, and at length accepted his submission. The merit of the young king in this campaign was rendered the more conspicuous by the disparity of his resources as compared with those of the Hindoo raja, whose territories stretched from sea to sea, and who reckoned the rulers of Malabar and Ceylon among his tributaries. Mujahid was assassinated by his own uncle, after a brief reign of four years.

Feroze and Ahmed shah, 1397–1435

Feroze, the son of the assassin, mounted the

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throne in 1397, and his reign and that of his brother, which occupied thirty seven years, are considered the most palmy days of the dynasty. Feroze reigned twenty-five years, and made twenty-four campaigns. He carried fire and sword through the whole extent of the Carnatic, and constrained the raja of Beejuynugur to submit to an annual tribute of a crore of rupees, and to give him his daughter in marriage. He was a great patron of learning, and erected an observatory. He established a mercantile navy, and instructed his commanders to bring the most learned men and the most handsome women from the ports they visited. His seraglio is said to have contained beauties from thirteen different nations; and the historians affirm that he was able to converse with each one in her own tongue. He likewise made a point of copying sixteen pages of the Koran every fourth day. The close of his reign was gloomy. He wantonly engaged in hostilities with the raja of Beejuynugur, and was totally defeated. The triumphant Hindoos appeared anxious to bring up the arrears of vengeance due to their relentless enemies. In the various towns which they captured they razed the mosques to the ground, and erected platforms of the heads of the slain. The end of Feroze was hastened by these reverses, and he was succeeded by his brother Ahmed Shah, denominated Wully, or the saint, for the supposed efficacy of his prayers in procuring rain in a season of drought. Anxious to recover the prestige of the Mahomedan power he proceeded immediately to the invasion of the Hindoo kingdom. He crossed the Toombudra in great force, defeated the raja, and pursued the Hindoos in every direction with unrelenting ferocity, halting only to celebrate a feast whenever the number of the slain was computed to have reached 20,000. He obliged the raja to pay up all arrears of tribute, and then turned his arms against Telingana, captured and despoiled the capital, and, according to the usual Mahomedan practice, pulled down the temples, and erected mosques with the materials. He then marched to the north,

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where he was captivated with the situation of Beder to such a degree that he caused a new city to be built on the site, which he called after his own name, Ahmedabad Beder, and adorned it with magnificent buildings. He was likewise engaged in two wars with Malwa, and a third was averted only by the cession of Berar. His generals were also sent to seize the Concan, or strip of land lying between the ghauts and the sea, from Mahim, or Bombay, to Goa. But this expedition brought him in contact with the formidable naval power of Guzerat, and he was constrained to relinquish it. His wild career terminated in 1435.

Alla-ood-deen, 1435

He was succeeded by his son Alla-ood-deen, who immediately went to war with Beejuynugur, and was successful. He then proceeded to invade Candesh, took the capital, Boorhanpore, and levelled the royal palaces with the ground. The Hindoo rajas of Beejuynugur had seldom been able to cope with their Mahomedan neighbour; but, though their dominions were superior in extent, population and wealth, had been constantly subjected to the payment of tribute. It was about this time that the raja, Deva Roy, is said to have assembled his nobles to investigate the cause of this disgrace. Some ascribed it to the decree of the gods; others to fate, which is stronger than the gods; while a third party traced it to the superior cavalry and archery of the Mahomedans. The raja, therefore, enlisted 2,000 Mahomedan archers in his service, and, in conjunction with 60,000 of his own bowmen, took the field against Alla-ood-deen, and fought two battles, but with doubtful success. Two Mahomedan officers of rank, however, fell into his hands, and the Bahminy monarch swore that if they were not instantly given up he would sacrifice 100,000 infidels for each. Deva Roy had not forgotten the result of a similar vow on a former occasion, and sued for peace, paying up all the tribute that had become due. Alla-ood-deen died in 1457, and was succeeded by his son – a monster of cruelty – who was assassinated by his own servants as he lay on his couch helpless from intoxication.

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We pass on to the last substantive king of the Deccan, Mahomed Shah, who was placed on the throne at the age of nine, in 1463.

Mahomed Shah 1463–1486

During his minority the administration was conducted by the queen mother and two ministers, one of whom, the preceptor of the prince, was assassinated by her orders, because he was supposed to have acquired too great an influence over his pupil. The other, Mahmood Gawan, was the greatest general and statesman of the age, and one of the most distinguished characters in the Mahomedan history of India. He marched into the Concan, where two former expeditions had failed, and not only reduced the province and the ghauts above it to subjection, but wrested the island of Goa from the raja of Beejuynugur, who had usurped it. He then turned his attention to the eastern coast, reinstated the Ray of Orissa, who had been expelled and sought protection, and added Condapilly and Rajahmundry to the Bahminy territories. But the Ray subsequently took advantage of a famine which was desolating the country to make an attempt to regain the districts he had lost. Mahmood Gawan marched down upon him with promptitude, and speedily extinguished all opposition, and annexed Masulipatam to the kingdom. The king, who had accompanied the expedition, having heard of the renowned temple of Canchi, or Conjeveram, near Madras, the walls and roof of which were reported to be covered with plates of gold, rushed through the intervening country, at the head of 6,000 chosen horse, with such rapidity as to astound the various chiefs, took possession of the temple, and despoiled it of its wealth before they could come to its rescue.

Murder of Mahmood Gawan

Under the powerful genius of Mahmood the Bahminy kingdom reached its greatest limits. It stretched from the Concan to Masulipatam, and from the Nerbudda to the Kistna. The minister now resolved to turn his attention to the improvement of the administration. He divided the kingdom into eight provinces,

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and curtailed the power of the governors, thus diminishing the chance of their revolt. He introduced vigorous reforms into every branch of the government to the great disgust of all whose private interests were affected by them. They determined, therefore, on his destruction; and having ingratiated themselves with the Abyssinian who had charge of his seal, induced him, when half drunk, to affix it to a blank sheet of paper, which they filled up with a treasonable letter to the Ray of Orissa, inciting him to revolt, and offering him assistance. The paper was artfully produced before the king, as if it had been found by accident; and Hussun Bheiry, a converted Hindoo, the mortal enemy of Mahmood, who had been his benefactor, endeavoured to inflame his mind against the minister. He was ordered into the royal presence and upbraided with his treason. He exclaimed, “This is a great forgery; the seal is mine, but of the letter itself I am totally ignorant.” The king, inflamed with wine and passion, ordered one of his Abyssinian slaves to cut him down. Gawan calmly replied that the fate of an old man could be of little consequence, but that his death would seal the doom of the kingdom. The king turned into his seraglio; the slave approached the minister, then in his seventy-eighth year, and he knelt down, with his face towards Mecca, and received the fatal blow. He died in graceful poverty. Though he had served five monarchs, his cabinet was found to contain only 10,000 rupees. The proceeds of the jaygeer allotted for the support of his office, he had, in part, distributed among his officers, and, in part, disbursed among the poor in his master’s name. The money which he had brought with him into the country had been employed in commerce, the profits of which, after providing for his kitchen on the moderate scale of two rupees a day, were assigned to the poor in his own name. The king died within a twelve month of his minister, a prey to remorse, exclaiming, in the paroxysms of his agony, that Mahmood Gawan was tearing him to pieces.

Dissolution of the Bahminy kingdom, 1489–1512

It is unnecessary farther to pursue the history

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of the Bahminy dynasty; the sun of its prosperity set with the stroke which deprived the great minister of life. Mahmood Shah, the son of the late king, ascended the throne in 1482, and lived on, though he can scarcely be said to have reigned, for thirty-seven years; the kingdom crumbled away, as governor after governor revolted, and it was at length resolved into five independent states.

The five kingdoms

1. Eusof Adil Shah, the adopted son of Mahmood Gawan, a Turk, who claimed descent from the conquerors of Constantinople, established the Adil Shaky dynasty at Beejapore.

2. Hussun Bheiry, who had instigated the murder of Mahmood, and was subsequently executed by order of his master, was a brahmin of Beejapore, who was taken prisoner and sold to the Bahminy king, who circumcised him and raised him to distinction. His son, Ahmed Nizam, on hearing of his father’s fate, raised the standard of revolt at Ahmednugur, and established the Nizam Shahy dynasty.

3. Imad-ool-moolk, on the general dissolution of the monarchy, made himself independent in the province of Berar, of which he was governor, and gave rise to the Imad Shahy line of princes.

4. Koolee Kootub was a Turkoman of Hamadan in Persia, who came to India in search of employment, and rose to the post of governor of Golconda, where, on the decomposition of the Bahminy kingdom, he established an independent dynasty, which is known in history as the Kootub Shahy.

5. Ahmed Bereed was appointed minister on the execution of Mahmood Gawan, and gradually substituted his own influence for that of the king at the capital and in the adjacent districts, and at length established the Bereed Shahy dynasty at Beder. This division of sovereign power among five independent states who were incessantly at war with each other, was the greatest calamity which could have befallen the country, and subjected the wretched provinces for a century and a half to merciless rapine.

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Rise of the Portuguese power

While the Bahminy kingdom was thus crumbling to pieces, another race of adventurers appeared on the western coast of India, and gave a new direction to its politics and commerce. A Portuguese expedition landed in the harbour of Calicut, and paved the way for the eventual transfer of power from the Mahomedans to the Christians. For some time previous to this memorable event, the general progress of improvement in Europe and the increase of nautical skill and boldness, had inspired its maritime nations with a strong desire to discover the way to India by sea, and to participate in its rich commerce, which was then monopolised by the Venetians. The Portuguese were at this time the foremost and most enterprising among the navigators of Europe; and John, king of Portugal, anxious to make the circuit of the continent of Africa, had sent his admiral, Bartholomew Dias, on this perilous undertaking. It was he who first doubled the Cape of Good Hope, which he named the Cape of Storms in reference to the tempestuous weather which he encountered. But the king was so highly elated with the success of the expedition and the prospects which it opened to him, that he changed the name to that which it has ever since borne. Soon after, Christopher Columbus, hoping to reach India by sailing westward, obtained the patronage of the king of Spain, and, launching boldly into the ocean, which had never been traversed before, made the discovery of America. His successful return from this voyage of unexampled peril filled all Europe with astonishment.

Portuguese expedition to India, 1497

The king of Portugal was deeply chagrined to find that the neglect with which he had treated the advances of Columbus, had deprived him of the opportunity of adding another continent to his dominions; but he resolved to seek compensation for this loss in an attempt to reach India, by doubling the Cape, and stretching to the eastward. An expedition was accordingly fitted out for this purpose, consisting of three vessels, the command of

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which was entrusted to Vasco de Gama. The whole population of Lisbon poured out to witness his departure on the 8th of July, 1497, and the sailors went through various religious ceremonies, as men who never expected to return. Vasco was four months reaching the Cape, which, however, he doubled with a fair and gentle breeze. He anchored at Melinda, on the African coast, where he was supplied with a pilot to conduct his vessels to India. On the 22nd of May, 1498, he cast anchor on the Malabar coast, off Calicut, which presented to his delighted eyes the appearance of a noble town with a fertile plain rising up in the back ground, bounded by a distant range of lofty mountains. Calicut, then a place of extensive traffic, belonged to an independent Hindoo raja, called the Zamorin, and lay considerably to the south of the limit to which the Mahomedan conquests had extended. The harbours on the coast immediately to the north of it, belonged to the Hindoo raja of Beejuynugur; those higher up to the Bahminy kingdom, while those in the extreme north were within the limits of Guzerat. The Zamorin was greatly struck with the appearance of strangers from a remote and unknown region, differing so entirely in aspect, manners, and arms from the foreigners who frequented the port. He received them at first with cordiality, and manifested every disposition to promote their views. But the Moors, as they were called, or the Musulmans from Egypt and Arabia who had engrossed the maritime traffic of that coast, and enjoyed no small influence in its ports, viewed the arrival of the interlopers with great jealousy, and determined to defeat their object. They bribed the minister of the raja to insinuate to him that the strangers were not the men they represented themselves to be, but pirates, who had plundered the coast of Africa, and were now come to India on the same errand. The Zamorin, swayed by these accusations, authorized the Moors to adopt violent measures against them, and two of Vasco’s principal officers, who were on shore, were treacherously arrested. He immediately retaliated by seizing six of

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the respectable natives who happened to be on board his vessel, and refused to release them till his own officers were surrendered. The raja manifested some hesitation to comply with this reasonable demand, and Vasco weighed anchor in haste and began to sail out of the harbour with the hostages. Presently, several boats were seen to pull off from the shore, one of which contained his officers whom the Zamorin now hastened to release. Vasco sent back some of the natives he had detained, but resolved to take several of them with him to Lisbon, to give them an opportunity of viewing the city and reporting its grandeur on their return. Having now completed his cargoes, be set sail for Europe, and, on the 29th of August, 1499, re-entered the Tagus, in regal pomp, after an absence of twenty-six months. Men of all ranks crowded to welcome him, and to admire the vessels which had performed so marvellous a voyage; the king showered honours on him, and the nations of Europe were enraptured with the discovery of a new and easier path to the land of fabulous wealth.

Second voyage under Cabral, 1499

A second expedition was fitted out in the same year, consisting of thirteen ships and 1,200 men, the command of which was given to Cabral. He was accompanied by eight friars, who were sent to preach Christianity to the natives, and he was directed to carry fire and sword into every province that refused to listen to them. In the course of the voyage he discovered Brazil, on the coast of South America, and took possession of it in the name of his sovereign, in the year 1500. In doubling the Cape he encountered terrific gales, and lost four of his ships, in one of which was the celebrated admiral Dias, who thus found a grave in the seas which he had been the first to explore. Cabral, on reaching Calicut, restored the natives who had been taken to Portugal, where they had been treated with distinguished kindness. He was received with much courtesy by the Zamorin, to whom he presented gifts of rare beauty and value. But the Moorish merchants, annoyed at

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the return of the strangers whom they hoped to have finally driven from the shores of India, effectually prevented them from obtaining cargoes. Cabral presented a remonstrance to the Zamorin, and received authority, as he supposed, to sequester vessels carrying the Mahomedan flag. A Moorish ship with a rich cargo was accordingly seized; the merchants hastened to the raja with their complaints, and obtained permission to expel the intruders. The factory which the Portuguese had erected was forthwith attacked, and all the foreigners in it were put to death. Cabral immediately seized and burnt ten Moorish craft, after having transferred their cargoes to his own ships. He then laid his vessels abreast of the town, and having set it on fire with his artillery, set sail for the neighbouring town of Cochin, where he formed a treaty with the raja, and returned to Lisbon in July, 1501.

Second voyage of Vasco, 1502

The report of these transactions inflamed the desire which the king of Portugal had been cherishing to establish an empire in the east. He assumed the title of Lord of the Navigation, Conquest, and Commerce of Ethiopia, Persia, Arabia and India, and fitted out a more formidable expedition than any that had as yet left the shores of Portugal. Vasco de Gama, who was placed in command of it, reached the coast of India without any accident, and anchoring off Calicut, demanded satisfaction for the insult offered to Cabral, which was at once refused, and Vasco is said to have put to death fifty of the natives who had repaired to his vessels. At the same time he poured a destructive fire into the town of Calicut, and then weighing anchor proceeded to the friendly port of Cochin, which now became the mart of the Portuguese trade. Three expeditions of minor importance were successively sent out, and cargoes obtained partly by barter, and partly by terror. The Portuguese were lulled into security by the success which attended them, and Pacheco was left with a handful of men to protect their settlement at Cochin. The Zamorin was thus encouraged to make

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an attempt to expel them, and at the same time to punish the raja of Cochin for having fostered them. The troops of Calicut exceeded those of Pacheco as fifty to one, but his admirable strategy, and the valour of his soldiers, repulsed every assault; and he was the first to exhibit that decisive superiority of European over Asiatic troops, which three centuries and a half have now abundantly confirmed.

Naval battle with the Mahomedans, 1508

In the year 1505, the king of Portugal sent out Francis Almeyda, with the title of viceroy of India, though as yet he did not possess a foot of land in it. The early success of the Portuguese in India is to be attributed to the singular genius and audacity of the men who conducted their expeditions, and Almeyda was inferior to none of them. Soon after his arrival, the Hindoo raja of Beejuynugur, who could not fail to perceive that the power of the strangers would become paramount on the western coast, sent an envoy with rich presents for the king of Portugal, to whom he proposed a treaty of alliance, and offered his own daughter in marriage. But the bright prospects thus opened to the Portuguese were soon overclouded. Before the discovery of the passage to India round the Cape, the whole trade of the east, conveyed overland, had been monopolised by the Venetians, and the “Queen of the Adriatic,” as Venice was called, became the envy of Europe. The Venetians had reason now to apprehend that this magnificent traffic would be diverted into a new channel, and pass altogether out of their hands. They possessed great influence in Egypt, which was one of their most important marts, and they urged the Sultan to fit out a fleet in the Red Sea, to sweep their rivals from the Indian Ocean, and assisted him with timber from their own forests in Dalmatia. A powerful fleet was speedily equipped and sent to India, under the command of Meer Hookum, the Egyptian admiral. The king of Guzerat, who was equally alarmed at the progress of the Portuguese, ordered his admiral to co-operate with the Egyptians. Lorenzo, the son of Almeyda, was cruising in the

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north with a division of the Portuguese fleet, when the combined squadrons bore down upon him. The Portuguese fought with the gallantry of European sailors, but the superiority of the enemy in the number of their ships, and the calibre of their guns, gave them the victory. The gallant Lorenzo, whose vessel was entangled in some fishing stakes, and thus exposed singly to the fire poured in upon him from all sides, fell covered with wounds, after performing prodigies of valour, which filled even the Mahomedans with admiration. To avenge the death of his son, Almeyda reduced the flourishing port of Dabul to ashes, and then proceeded in search of the enemy, whom he found anchored in the harbour of Diu. The conflict was long and doubtful, for the Egyptian and Guzerattee admirals were men of great nautical experience and valour, but all their larger vessels were at length either burnt or captured, and the smaller craft escaped up the river. Peace was subsequently concluded between the belligerents, and all the European prisoners were restored.

Albuquerque, 1507–1516

Almeyda soon after resigned his post to Albuquerque, the greatest of all the Portuguese commanders. It was his ambition to found an empire in the east, and he succeeded in this bold enterprise. Abandoning the system of predatory excursions along the coast which had satisfied his predecessors, he resolved to establish and fortify a port which should serve as the centre of his operations. He fixed on the island of Goa, lying on the Malabar Coast, about twenty-three miles in circumference, of which he took possession, and though at one time driven from it by the native prince, recaptured it, and erected fortifications which effectually baffled all the efforts of the country powers. From that time Goa became the seat of the Portuguese power in the east, and Albuquerque sent and received embassies with all the magnificence of an eastern monarch. Having placed the government of his new settlement on the wisest foundation, he turned his attention to more distant regions and enterprizes. He proceeded eastward, to the port of Malacca,

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then the great emporium of trade in the eastern archipelago, with an armament of 800 Portuguese soldiers and 600 natives whom he had enlisted and trained. The native prince is said to have assembled an army of 30,000 men to resist him, but the valour and discipline of his little force soon placed the city in his hands. The possession of this important position was immediately secured by the erection of a strong fort, and a new field of commercial enterprize to Siam, Java, and Sumatra, was thus opened to his countrymen. His efforts were next directed to the west, and he equipped a powerful squadron for the conquest of Ormuz, in the Persian Gulph. The imposing force which accompanied him effectually deterred the native prince from resistance, and Albuquerque was permitted to take possession of the island, and to raise a fortification in it. Ormuz rose rapidly in importance, the town was filled with 40,000 inhabitants, and became one of the most flourishing settlements in those seas. Thus had the genius of Albuquerque, in the short space of nine years, built up the Portuguese power in the east, and given them the command of the sea, and the control of the traffic throughout the eastern archipelago, which they continued to enjoy for a hundred years without a rival. Though he never obtained possession of a single province on the continent of India, his authority was supreme over 12,000 miles of coast, and it was sustained by an irresistible fleet and thirty factories, of which many were fortified. He was at length abruptly superseded in his command by the orders of his own sovereign, who did not condescend to soften the disgrace by any mark of distinction, or even by the courtesy of a letter. The ingratitude of which he was the victim, broke his heart; he expired on the barque which was conveying him to Goa, and was interred in the settlement which he had created, amidst the lamentations and tears of natives and Europeans, by whom he was equally beloved.

This collection transcribed by Chris Gage
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