Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v3.c42.s2.t1.150.4

v3.c42.s2.t1.150.4

When, therefore, in order to attain our ends, we expatiated upon the disinterestedness of our views, his co-operation was granted less from a belief in our professions, than upon a dispassionate consideration of the benefits which such alliance would confer upon Kotah, and of its utility in maintaining his family in the position it had so long held in that State. He must have balanced the difficulties he had mastered to maintain that power, against the enemies, internal and external, which had threatened it, and he justly feared both would speedily be sacrificed to the incapacity of his successors. To provide a stay to their feebleness was the motive which induced him to throw himself heart and hand into the alliance we sought ; and of signal benefit did he prove to the cause he espoused. But if we read aright the workings of a mind, which never betrayed its purpose either to friend or foe, we should find that there was a moment wherein, though he did not swerve from the path he had chalked out, or show any equivocation in respect to the pledge he had given, the same spirit which had guided him to the eminence he had acquired, suggested what he might have done at a conjuncture when all India, save Rajputana, was in arms to overthrow the legions of Britain. All had reason to dread her colossal power, and hatred and revenge actuated our numerous allies to emancipate themselves from a yoke which, whether they were bound by friendship or by fear, was alike galling.