17.  We besieged and took Bharatpur in order to rescue the young prince, our ally, from his uncle, who had forcibly assumed the office of prime minister to his nephew.  As soon as we got possession, all the property we found, belonging either to the nephew or the uncle, was declared to be prize-money, and taken for the troops.  The young prince was obliged to borrow an elephant from the prize agents to ride upon.  He has ever since enjoyed the whole of the revenue of his large territory. [W.  H. S.] The final siege and capture of Bharatpur by Lord Combermere took place in January, 1826.  The plundering, as Metcalfe observed, ’has been very disgraceful, and has tarnished our well-earned honours’.  All the state treasures and jewels, amounting to forty-eight lakhs of rupees, or say half a million of pounds sterling, which should have been made over to the rightful Raja, were treated as lawful prize, and at once distributed among the officers and men.  Lord Combermere himself took six lakhs (Marshman, History of India, ed., 1869, vol. ii, p. 409).

18.  The ‘little dingy mosque’ was built over the cave in which the saint dwelt, and was presented to him by the local quarry-men.  It is therefore called The Stone-cutters’ Mosque.  It is fully described by E. W. Smith, op. cit., Part IV. chap. iii.  It is earlier in date than any of Akbar’s buildings, having been built in A. H. 945 (A.D. 1538- 9), a year after the saint had settled in the ‘dangerous jungle’ (Progr.  Rep.  A. S. N. Circle, 1905-6, p. 35).

19.  The people of India no doubt owed much of the good they enjoyed under the long reign of Akbar to this most excellent woman, who inspired not only her husband but the most able Muhammadan minister that India has ever had, with feelings of universal benevolence.  It was from her that this great minister, Abul Fazl, derived the spirit that dictated the following passages in his admirable work, the Ain-i-Akbari; ’Every sect becomes infatuated with its particular doctrines; animosity and dissension prevail, and each man deeming the tenets of his sect to be the dictates of truth itself, aims at the destruction of all others, vilifies reputation, stains the earth with blood, and has the vanity to imagine that he is performing meritorious actions.  Were the voice of reason attended to, mankind would be sensible of their error, and lament the weaknesses which led them to interfere in the religious concerns of each other.  Persecution, after all, defeats its own end; it obliges men to conceal their opinions, but produces no change in them.

’Summarily, the Hindoos are religious, affable, courteous to strangers, prone to inflict austerities on themselves, lovers of justice, given to retirement, able in business, grateful, admirers of truth, and of unbounded fidelity in all their dealings.

’This character shines brightest in adversity.  Their soldiers know not what it is to fly from the field of battle; when the success of the combat becomes doubtful, they dismount from their horses, and throw away their lives in payment of the debt of valour.  They have great respect for their tutors; and make no account of their lives when they can devote them to the service of their God.