Siyar al-mutaʾakhkhirin 6.3.2

6.3.2

But some years after his death, intestine wars and troubles having distracted the attention of the pretenders to his Empire, and Bahadyr-shah, who at last mounted the throne, having chosen for his residence the city of Lahor, a place remote from the centre of the Empire, and still farther from those troublesome frontiers now become the scene of so much action, the Marhattas availed themselves of this oversight as well as of the general inattention, to rush out of their fastnesses, and to spread themselves over all the neighbouring provinces, where step after step, they not only recovered several of their strongholds, with most of the conquests made upon them, but committed such ravages in the Imperial territories, as obliged them to redeem themselves by submitting to pay them a yearly tribute of one full quarter of their revenues, under the appellation of Chöut; whilst those that refused to bend under so infamous a yoke, were consigned every year to all the atrocities of fire and sword. Not but that they met with a vigorous resistance in some particular spots, from whence after a blockade of some length, they retired with shame and loss, but it was in order to return again. Such a state of eternal warfare had tired the Marhattas themselves;