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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 18, p. 307.

xrsTORY 307 passed to the Marathas. Bold and decisive in action, Raghuji was the type of a Maratha leader; he saw in the troubles of other states an opening for his own ambition, and did not even require a pre- text for plunder and invasion. Twice his armies invaded Bengal, and he obtained the cession of Cuttack. Chanda, Chhattisgarh, and Sambalpur were added to his dominions between 1745 and 1755, the year of his death. His successor Janoji took part in the wars between the Peshwa and Nizam ; and after he had in turn betrayed both of them, they united against him, and sacked and burnt Nagpur in 1765. On Janoji's death his brothers fought for the succession, until one shot the other on the battle-field of Panchgaon, 6 miles south of Nagpur, and succeeded to the regency on behalf of his infant son Raghuji 11, who was Janoji's adopted heir. In 1785 Mandla and the upper Narbada valley were added to the Nagpur dominions by treaty with the Peshwa. Mudhoji, the regent, had courted the favour of the British, and this policy was continued for some time by his son Raghuji II, who acquired Hoshangabad and the lower Narbada valley. But in 1803 he united with Sindhia against the British Government. The two chiefs were decisively defeated at Assaye and Argaon ; and by the Treaty of Deogaon of that year Raghuji ceded to the British Cuttack, Southern Berar, and Sambalpur, the last of which was, however, relinquished in 18o6. To the close of the eighteenth century the Maratha administration had been on the whole good, and the country had prospered. The first four of the Bhonslas were military chiefs with the habits of rough soldiers, connected by blood and by constant familiar intercourse with all their principal officers. Descended from the class of cultivators, they ever favoured and fostered that order. They were rapacious, but seldom cruel to the lower classes. Up to 1792 their territories were rarely the theatre of hostilities, and the area of cultivation and revenue continued to increase under a fairly equitable and extremely primitive system of government. After the Treaty of Deogaon, however, all this was changed. Raghuji had been deprived of a third of his territories, and he attempted to make up the loss of revenue from the remainder. The villages were mercilessly rack-rented, and many new taxes imposed. The pay of the troops was in arrears, and they maintained themselves by plundering the cultivators, while at the same time commenced the raids of the Pindaris, who became so bold that in 1811 they advanced to Nagpur and burnt the suburbs. It was at this time that most of the numerous village forts were built, to which on the approach of these marauders the peasant retired and fought for bare life, all he possessed outside the walls being already lost to him. On the death of Raghuji II in 1816, his son, an imbecile, was soon supplanted and murdered by the notorious Mudhoji or Appa Sahib.