Alexandria Daily Advertiser

From late London Papers.

THE MAHRATTAS.

The following particulars of these extraordinary people, with whom the English government in India is now at war, are extracted from a letter written a few years ago by an officer in the service of the Peishwa:

Gibbon, in his History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire, in speaking of the Tartars, observes, that a pastoral people are, above all others, the most inclined and best cultivated for war. This remark has both truth and novelty to recommend it; and may be farther confirmed by being applied to the Mahrattas, a people whose occupations are partly rural. Homer mentions Princesses going horseback on Thessalian steeds. I affirm having seen daughters of a Prince (able to bring an army into the field much larger than the whole Greek Confederacy) making bread with her own hands, and otherwise employed in the ordinary business of domestic housewifery. I have seen a most powerful Chief of the Empire, after a day of action, assist in kindling a fire to keep himself warm during the night, and sitting on a spread saddle cloth dictating to his secretaries, and otherwise discharging the duties of his station. This primeval plainness operates on the whole people. There is no distinction of sentiment to be discerned; the Prince and his domestic think exactly in the same way, and express themselves in the same terms.

Perhaps no country on earth is better calculated for the purpose of defensive war than that of the Mahrattas; so that, whatever be the fortune of the Mahrattas in the field, we may safely pronounce, that in their own country, they will always be impregnable; of this truth the Emperor Aurengzede, who made some attempts to subjugate it, appeared latterly to be convinced: for, when acting in the Deccan, in the utmost plenitude of his power, he thought it more prudent to submit to the depredations of Savajee, the great founder of the Mahratta empire, than attempt the pursuit, thro' a mountainous country, of a fugitive army, that he might possibly disperse but never defeat. Yet these were the people then apparently inconsiderable, that were destined, by Providence to overturn the empire he was laboring to extend; who, issuing from their mountains and vallies, have, in less than a century, the whole fabric of Mahommedan greatness, and erected for themselves an independent government, on the ruins of an empire of seven hundred years duration: perhaps such a sudden accession of dominion, from so obscure an origin, is without a parallel in the annals of mankind.

About 35 years ago the Mahrattas were strong enough to contend with the Mussulmans for the supreme dominion of Hindostan. At the famous battle of Panniput, the collective strength of both parties contested for the empire. The Mahrattas were defeated, but they were neither dispersed nor subdued. Their steady policy, moving progressively to its grand object of universal dominion, was not to be diverted from its course by a single overthrow; but by the united force of victory and intrigue they have annihilated the overgrown government of the emperors, already prepared for the event by its own extent, its distractions and its vices.

It is one peculiar feature of the Mahratta government, that the empire always considers itself in a state of war. This circumstance entirely results from the unsettled and fluctuating state of the internal government; their recent acquisitions in Hindostan, held only by the sword, and the necessity they are under of compelling the payment of the chout, always given with reluctance, and frequently extorted by actual force. But, independently of these motives, war is with them a source of revenue, as the different chiefs of the empire make annual campaigns, in the districts which have not yet been brought to a state of subjection or actual servitude.

The Mahrattas never come to action without having first endeavored to negotiate; they even very rarely engage when they come in sight of the enemy--but unless attacked will remain in their camp many days; during this time they harass their adversaries, by cutting off forage and supplies, and destroying the adjacent country and never except in the last extremity come to close action.

The Mahratta cavalry at times make very long and rapid marches in which they do not suffer themselves to be interrupted by the monsoon, or any violence of weather --In very pressing exigencies it is incredible the fatigue that a Mahratta horseman will endure ; --frequently many days pass without his enjoying one regular meal;-- but he depends entirely for subsistence on the different cornfields through which the army pass ; a few heads of joary, which he chews in his hands while on horseback, will serve him for the day. His horse subsists on the same fare ; and with the addition of opium, which the Mahrattas frequently administer to their cattle, they are enabled to perform incredible marches. Should the army even be incumbered with heavy artillery, they still move with very great celerity, as there is always an advanced guard of cavalry detached to press draught bullocks from every town in sight.