Storia do Mogor 294.4.3

294.4.3

They devastated every place that they found upon their route; whereupon the above officer, having gathered together all the troops he had, came against the said Mahrattahs. They thrashed him neck and crop, cut his troops to pieces, and took him prisoner. Out of their clutches he is hardly likely to come without the payment of a considerable sum by way of ransom, just as he had to do the first time he was captured in the way I have already recorded (IV. 16). Although it might be said in a general way that since this prince ascended the throne his reign has been a continued series of victories, still, he has not been exempt from misfortunes. Now and again accidents befall him, which inflict terrible mortification upon him without lessening in the least his courage or his ambition. Neither do they diminish his dissimulation, his unfailing resource in prosperity as in adversity. The taking of Khelna has been followed by very disagreeable incidents, caused by the heavy rains and bad weather which overtook the army on its march. The rains have been so prodigious that they have washed away all the roads, devastated the country, and ruined the inhabitants. These latter place all their hopes upon a good harvest, and this has been entirely lost to them by the tempests destroying all the grain. A famine has been produced in the royal army.