The Military System of the Marathas, with a Brief Account of Their Maritime Activities c12.54

c12.54

‘They stayed not to weigh or to measure their spoil,
They stripp’d off the grain from the sheaves on the soil;
Not Chandi was safe, nor Gunputti the wise;
Nor Shiwa the ruler of destinies:
His Pindi was broken, then who could expect
That the pots of the housewife a god would protect?
No order was left, every rank was confus’d,
Preceptor and pupil were robb’d and abus’d;
Every villain, and traitor, and rebel came forth,
And stirr’d up revolt from the south to the north;
From the south to the north, from the east to the west,
From the sea to the Ganges the land they infest;
The gold of the rich, the rags of the poor
They strip, and the Brahmans they seize and secure;
They bind them in prison, and sentinels stand
Around them, and tramp on each road in the land.
No escape! from the wife of the peasant they tear
The pearl-studded jewel that fastens her hair;
From the peasant they wrest all his hoarded rupees,
The grain from his grain-pits, the food off his knees;
If any delays or refuses to give,
He tastes such a beating that scarce he will live.’