New History of the Marathas v1.c2.10

v1.c2.10

One word more of apology is needed from me. The Marathas have long been misjudged by their rivals and adversaries and painted in blackest colours both during and after the period of their downfall, as if they had no single good point to their credit. This attitude became confirmed in popular mind owing to the first flush and glow of the foreign conquest. But more than a century has elapsed since the Maratha State was extinguished, a sufficiently long period for the dust of passion to settle down and enable us to form a sober and rational judgment and to justly appraise the virtues and defects of that race. It is still a difficult task for a Maratha writer to paint his people’s history on a canvas with colours that truly represent facts and avoid prejudices. In the following narrative I aspire to produce a true apologia (*Kaifiat*) of the Maratha people and place it before the impartial public. It is mostly made up of the utterances of the great figures who dominated the historic stage during the two centuries of our rise and fall.