viii PROLOGUE,
Sivaji on the Beejapoor Mahomedaiis in 1657, and the victory of Lord Clive over those of Bengal at Plassey in 1757. Both results led directly to the establishment of powers widely differing in their aims and characters, but not the less irresistible by the Mahomedans ; and the victory at Pertabgurh was as directly conducive to the establish- ment and extension of the Mahratta authority, and the decadence of the Mahomedan, as that of Plassey has been to our own sovereignty, and to the political extinction of both. But this curious accordance of dates becomes still more interesting, when we observe that, on the anniversary of a third century, June, 1857, the heads of Mahomedan and Mahratta power were leagued against that which had subdued both ; and know that their combined efforts however desperate, and their intrigues however virulent, proved alike futile.
