Selected quad for the lemma: kingdom_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
kingdom_n	prince_n	state_n	subject_n	1,779	5	6.3897	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27515	The history of the late revolution of the empire of the Great Mogol together with the most considerable passages for 5 years following in that empire : to which is added, a letter to the Lord Colbert, touching the extent to Indostan, the circulation of the gold and silver of the world, to discharge it self there, as also the riches, forces, and justice of the same and the principal cause of the decay of the states of Asia / by Mons. F. Bernier ... English'd out of French.; Histoire de la dernière révolution des Etats du Grand Mogol. English	Bernier, François, 1620-1688.; Oldenburg, Henry, 1615?-1677.	1676 (1676)	Wing B2044; ESTC R16888	130,833	407

amongst all sorts of Merchants whether Mahumetans or Heathens except some that are in the Kings or some Omrahs Pay or that have some particular Patron and support in power But principally among the Heathen which are almost the only Masters of the Trade and Money infatuated with the belief that the Gold and Silver which they hide in their life-time shall serve them after death And this in my opinion is the true reason why there appears so little Money in Trade among the People But thence ariseth a Question very considerable viz. Whether it were not more expedient not only for the Subjects but for the State it self and for the Sovereign not to have the Prince such a Proprietor of the Lands of the Kingdom as to take away the Meum and Tuum amongst private persons as 't is with us For my part after a strict comparing the State of our Kingdoms where that Meum and Tuum holds with that of those other Kingdoms where it is not I am thoroughly perswaded that it is much better and more beneficial for the Sovereign himself to have it so as 't is in our parts Because that in those parts where 't is otherwise the Gold and Silver is lost as I was just now observing There is almost no person secure from the violences of those Timariots Governours and Farmers The Kings how well soever they be disposed toward their people are never almost in a condition as I lately noted to get Justice administred to them and to hinder tyrannies especially in those great Dominions and in the Provinces remote from the Capital Towns Which yet ought to be as doubtless it is one of the chief employments and considerarations of a King Besides this tyranny often grows to that excess that it takes away what is necessary to the life of a Peasant or Trades-man who is starved for hunger and misery who gets no Children or if he does sees them die young for want of food or that abandons his Land and turns some Cavalier's man or flies whither he may to his neighbours in hopes of finding a better condition In a word the Land is not tilled but almost by force and consequently very ill and much of it is quite spoiled and ruined there being none to be found that can or will be at the charge of entertaining the ditches and channels for the course of waters to be conveyed to necessary places nor any body that care to build Houses or to repair those that are ruinous the Peasant reasoning thus with himself Why should I toil so much for a Tyrant that may come to morrow to take all away from me or at least all the best of what I have and not leave if the fancy taketh him so much as to sustain my life even very poorly And the Timariot the Governour and the Farmer will reason thus with himself Why should I bestow Money and take pains of bettering or maintaining this Land since I must every hour expect to have it taken from me or exchanged for another I labour neither for my self nor for my Children and that place which I have this year I may perhaps have no more the next Let us draw from it what we can whilst we possess it though the Peasant should break or starve though the Land should become a desert when I am gone And for this very reason it is that we see those vast Estates in Asia go so wretchedly and palpably to ruin Thence it is that throughout those parts we see almost no other Towns but made up of earth and dirt nothing but ruin'd and deserted Towns and Villages or such as are going to ruin Even thence it is that we see for Example those Mesopotamia's Anatolia's Palestina's those admirable plains of Antioch and so many other Lands anciently so well tilled so fertile and so well peopled at the present half deserted untill'd and bandon'd or become pestilent and uninhabitable bogs Thence it is also that of those incomparable Lands of Egypt it is observed that within less than four-score years more than the tenth part of it is lost no people being to be found that will expend what is necessary to maintain all the Channels and to restrain the River Nile from violently overflowing on one hand and so drowning too much the low Lands or from covering them with Sand which cannot be removed from thence but with great pains and charges From the same root it comes that Arts are languishing in those Countries or at least flourish much less than else they would do or do with Us. For what heart and spirit can an Artizan have to study well and to apply his mind to his work when he sees that among the people which is for the most part beggerly or will appear so there is none that considers the goodness and neatness of his Work every body looking for what is cheap and that the Grandees pay them but very ill and when they please The poor Tradesmen often thinking himself happy that he can get clear from them without the Korrah which is that terrible whip that hangs nigh the gate of the Omrahs Further when he seeth that there is no help at all ever to come to any thing as to buy an Office or some Land for himself and Children and that even he dares not appear to have a peny in cash or to wear good cloaths or to eat a good meal for fear he should be thought rich And indeed the beauty and exactness of Arts had been quite lost in those parts long ago if it were not that the Kings and Grandees there did give wages to certain Workmen that work in their Houses and there teach their Children and endeavour to make themselves able in order to be a little more considered and to escape the Korrah and if also it were not that those great and rich Merchants of Towns who are protected by good and powerful Patrons pay'd those workmen a little better I say a little Better for what fine stuffs soever we see come from those Countreys we must not imagine that the workman is there in any honour or comes to any thing 't is nothing but meer necessity or the cudgel that makes him work he never grows rich it is no small matter when he hath wherewith to live and to cloath himself narrowly If their be any Money to gain of the work that is not for him but for those great Merchants of Towns I was just now speaking of and even these themselves find it often difficult enough to maintain themselves and to prevent extorsion 'T is from the same cause also that a gross and profound ignorance reigns in those States For how is it possible there should be Academies and Colleges well founded where are such Founders to be met with And if there were any whence were the Schollars to be had Where are those that have means sufficient to maintain their Children in Colleges And if there were who would appear

who had cause to hearken to me as managing all forreign affairs there that Aureng-Zebe gave them Audience received their Letters presented them each with an embroider'd Vest a silken embroider'd Girdle and a Turbant of the same gave order for their entertainment and dispatched them in a little time and that with more honour than there was ground to expect For in dismissing them he presented them each with an other such Vest and with 6000 Rupies for them all which amounteth to about 3000 Crowns of which the Mahumetan had four thousand and Murat because a Christian but two thousand He also gave them for a Present to their Master a very rich Ser-apah or Vest two great silver and guilt Trumpets two silver Tymbals a Poynard cover'd with Jewels and the value of about twenty thousand Francs in Golden and Silver Rupies to let their King see Money coyned as a Rarity he had not in his Countrey But Aureng-Zebe knew very well that these Rupies would not go out of the Kingdom and that they were like to buy commodities for them And it fell out so for they laid them out partly in fine Cotton Cloth to make shirts of for their King Queen and their only lawful Son that is to be the Successor partly in filken stuffs streaked with Gold or Silver to make Vests and Summer-Drawers of partly in English Scarlet to make two Arabian Vests of for their King also and lastly in Spices and in store of courser Cloth for divers Ladies of his Seraglio and for the children he had by them all without paying any duty For all my friendship with Murat there were three things that made me almost repent to have served them The first because Murat having promised me to leave with me for 50 Rupies a little Son of his that was very pretty of a delicate Black and without such a swelled Nose or such thick Lips as commonly the Ethiopians have broke his word with me and let me know that he should take no less for him than 300 Rupies For all this I had thoughts of Buying him for rarities sake and that I might say a Father had sold me his Son The second because I found that Murat as well as the Mahumetan had obliged themselves to Aureng-Zebe that they would employ their interest with their King that he might permit in Ethiopia to rebuild an old Mosquee ruined in the time of the Portugals and which had been Built for a Tomb of a great Dervich which went from Mecha into Ethiopia for the propagation of Mahumetanism and there made great progress They received of Aureng-Zebe two thousand Rupies for this engagement This Mosquee had been pulled down by the Portugals when they came with their succors into Ethiopia which the then King who turn'd Catholick had asked of them against a Mahumetan Prince Invading his Kingdom The third because they desired Aureng-Zebe in the name of their King to give them an Alcoran and eight other Books which I well remember were of the most reputed in the Mahumetan Religion Which proceeding seemed to me very unworthy of a Christian Embassadour and Christian King and confirmed to me what I had been told at Moka that the Christianity of Ethiopia must needs be some odd thing that it savours much of Mahumetanisme and that the Mahumetans increase exceedingly in that Empire especially since the Portugals that came in there for the reason lately expressed were either killed upon the death of the King by the Cabal of the Queen Mother or expelled together with the Patriarch Jesuite whom they had brought along from Goa During the time that the Ambassadors were at Dehli my Agah who is more than ordinary curious made them often come to him when I was present to inform himself of the State and Government of their Country and principally to learn something of the source of the Nile which they call Ababile of which they discoursed to us as a thing so well known that no body doubted of it Murat himself and a Mogol who was returned out of Ethiopia with him had been there and told us very near the same particulars with those I had received of it at Moka viz. That the Nile had its Origine in the Country of Agaus that it issued out of the Earth by two Springs bubling up near to one another which did form a little Lake of about thirty or forty paces long that coming out of this Lake it did make a considerable River and that from space to space it received small Rivers increasing it They added that it went on circling and making as 't were a great Isle and that afterwards it tumbled down from steep Rocks into a great Lake in which there were divers fruitfuls Isles store of Crocodiles and which would be remarkable enough if true abundance of Sea-calves that have no other vent for their Excrements than that by which they take in their food this Lake being in the Country of Dambea three small daies journey from Gondar and four or five dayes journey from the source of the Nile And lastly that this River did break out of this Lake being augmented with many River-waters and with several Torrents falling into it especially in the Rainy Season which do regularly begin there as in the Indies about July which is very considerable and convincing for the inundation of the Nile and so runs away through Sonnar the capital City of the King of Fungi Tributary to the King of Ethiopia and from thence passeth to the Plains of Mesre which is Egypt The Ambassadors were not wanting to say more than was liked on the subject of their Kings Greatness and of the strength of his Army but the Mogolian did not over-much agree with them in it and in their absence represented to us this Army which he had seen twice in the field with the Ethiopian King on the head of it as the most wretched thing in the World They also related to us divers particulars of that Country which I have put in my Journal one day perhaps to be digested and copied In the mean time I shall insert here three or four things which Murat told me because I esteem them very extravagant for a Christian Kingdom He said then that there were few men in Ethiopia who besides their lawful Wife had not many others and himself owned that he had two without reckoning her which he had left at Aleppo That the Ethiopian Women did not so hide themselves as they do in the Indies among the Mahumetans nor even as among the Gentils That those of the meaner sort of People Maids or Married Women Slaves or Free were often together pell-mell night and day in the same Chamber without those jealousies so common in other Countries That the Women of Lords did not stick much to go into the House of a simple Cavalier whom they knew to be a man of Execution That if I had gone into Ethiopia they would soon have obliged me to

but as they deserve leaving them whole moneths without pay and not looking upon them otherwise than Traitors and infamous men unfit to be trusted after they have so vilely deserted him whose Salt they had eaten so many years After this manner did Chah-hest-kan put an end to this Rabble which as I said have ruined and dispoiled all the lower Bengale Time will shew whether he will be as happy in the remainder of his Enterprize against the King of Rakan The fourth particular is concerning the two Sons of Aureng-Zebe viz. Sultan Mahmoud and Sultan Mazum He still keeps the first of them in Goualeor but if one may believe the common report without making him take the Poust which is the ordinary Drink of those that are put into that place As to the other though he hath alwayes been a pattern of reservedness and moderation yet one knows not whether he was not too forward in making a party when his Father was so extreamly sick or whether Aureng-Zebe have not upon other occasions perceived something that might give him cause of jealousie or whether he had not a mind to make an authentick proof of both his Obedience and Courage However it be one day he commanded him in an unconcerned manner in a full Assembly of the Omrahs to go and kill a Lyon that was come down the Mountains and had made great havock and waste in the Countrey and this he did without giving order to furnish him with those strong and large Nets which they are wont to employ in this dangerous kind of hunting in a real mood telling the great Hunting-Master who presently called for those Nets that when he was Prince he did not look for such Formalities It was the good fortune of Sultan Mazum that he prosper'd in this attempt not losing any more than two or three men and some horses that were wounded although on the other hand the matter went not off so pleasantly the wounded Lyon having leapt up to the head of the Sultan's Elephant Since that time Aureng-Zebe hath not been backward to express much affection to him he hath given him even the Government of Decan though with so little power and treasure that there is no great cause to apprehend any thing upon that account The fifth thing toucheth Mohabet-kan the Governour of Kaboul whom Aureng-Zebe took from his Government and generously pardoned not willing as he said to lose so brave a Captain and that had stuck so close to his Benefactor Chah-Jehan He made him even Governour of Guzuratte in the place of ●essemseignue whom he sent to make War in Decan It may very well be that some considerable Presents he made to Rauchenara-Begum and a good number of excellent Persian Horse and Camels wherewith he presented Aureng-Zebe together with fifteen or sixteen thousand Rupies of Gold did contribute to make his peace On this occasion of mentioning the Government of Kaboul which borders upon the Kingdom of Kandahar which is now in the hands of the Persians I shall here briefly add some particulars that serve to this History and will still more discover that Country and declare the Interests between Indostan and Persia which no body that I know of hath explained hitherto Kandahar that strong and important place which is the Capital and the swaying City of this Noble and Rich Kingdom of the same Name hath in these latter Ages been the subject of grievous Wars between the Mogols and Persians each of them pretending a right thereto Ekbar that great King of the Indies took it by force from the Persians and kept it during his life And Chah-Abbas that famous King of Persia retook it from Jean-Guyre the Son of Ekbar Afterwards it return'd to Chah-Jehan Son of John Guyre not by the Sword but by the means of the Governour Aly-Merdan-kan who surrendred it to him and went over to live at his Court apprehending the Artifices of his Enemies who had brought him into disfavour with the King of Persia that sent for him to make him give an accompt and to deliver up his Government The same City was besieged and retaken afterwards by the Son of Chah-Abbas and since that besieged twice again yet without being taken by Chah-Jehan The first time it was saved from being taken by the ill understanding and jealousie between the Persian Omrahs that are Pensioners of the Great Mogol and the most powerful of his Court as also by the respect they bear to their Natural King For they all behaved themselves very effeminately in the Siege and would not follow the Raja Roup who had already planted his Standards upon the Wall on the side of the Mountain The second time it was saved by the jealousie of Aureng-Zebe who would not fall into the breach of the Wall that our Franguis the English Portugueses Germans and French had made by their Canon though it was a large one being unwilling to have it said that in the time of Dara who was in a manner the first mover of that Enterprise and was then in the City of Caboul with his Father Chah-Jehan the Fortress of Kandahar was taken Chah-Jehan some years before the late trouble was also ready to besiege it the third time had not Emir-Jemla diverted him from it advising him to turn his Forces towards Decan as hath been said with whom Aly-Merdan-kan himself concurred who was so earnest in his disswading him from it as to say to him these words which I shall punctually relate as having something extravagant in them Your Majesty will never take Kandahar unless you had such a Traytor there as my self except you were resolved never to bring a Persian into it and to make the Bazars or Markets wholly free that is to lay no Impost on those that furnish the Army with provision At length Aureng-Zebe like the others had prepared himself in these latter years to besiege it also whether it was that he was offended at the tart Letters written to him by the King of Persia or by reason of the affronts and ill treatment which he had offered to Tarbiet-kan his Ambassador that hearing of the King of Persia's death he turned back saying which yet is not very credible that he would not meddle with a Child a new King although Chah-Soliman who hath succeeded his Father is in my opinion about 25 years of age The sixth particular we purposed to speak of concerns those that have faithfully served Aureng-Z be Those he hath almost all raised to great places For first as we have already related he made Chah-hest-kan his Uncle Governour and General of the Army of Decan and afterwards Governour of Bengale Next he made Mir-kan Governour of Kaboul Then Kalilullah-kan of Lahor and Mirhaba of Elubas and Lasker-kan of Patna The Son of that Allah-Verdi-kan of Sultan Sujah he appointed Governour of Scimdy and Fazel-kan who had considerably served him both by his counsels and dexterity he made Kane-saman that is Great Steward of the House Royal

not to demand any Customs So great was once the power of Emir-Jemla his Father in this Kingdom which time hath not yet been able to root out The fourth is that the Hollanders scruple not to threaten him sometimes to lay an Embargo upon all the Merchants Ships of the Country that are in that Port and not to let them go out untill their demands be granted as also to put in protestations against him which I have seen actually done upon the account of an English Vessel which they had a mind to take by force in the Port of Maslipatan it self the Governour having hindred it by arming the whole Town against them and threatning to put fire to their Factory and to put them all to death A fifth is that the Portugueses as poor and miserable and decayed as they are in the Indies yet stick not to threaten that King also with War and that they will come and sack Maslipatan and all that Coast if he will not render them that place of St. Thomas which some years ago they chose to put into his hands rather than to be constrained to yield it up to the Dutch Yet for all this I have been informed in Golkonda by very intelligent persons that this King is a Prince of very great judgment and that whatever he so does and suffers is only in policy to the end to provoke no body and principally to remove all suspition from Aureng-Zebe and to give him to understand that he hath in a manner no share any more in the Kingdom But that in the mean time a Son of his that is kept hid grows up the Father watching for a fit time to declare him King and so to laugh at the agreement made with Aureng-Zebe Of this time will shew us more in the mean time let us consider somewhat of the Interests of Visapour The Kingdom of Visapour hath also not been wanting to support it self though the Mogol do almost continually make war against it not so much as if he of Visapour were able to bid head to the Mogolian Forces but because there is never any great effort used against him For it is not very frequent there no more than 't is elsewhere for Generals of Armies to desire the end of a War there being nothing so charming as to be in the head of an Army commanding like little Kings remote from the Court It is also grown to a Proverb that Decan is the Bread and Life of the Souldiers of Indostan Besides the Countrey of Visapour is on the side of the Mogol's Dominions of a very difficult access upon the account of the searcity of good Waters Forrage and Victuals and because Visapour the Capital City is very strong and situate in a dry and steril Countrey there being almost no good Water but in the Town And lastly because there are many Fortresses in that Countrey seated on Hills hard to climb Yet notwithstanding all this that State is much shaken if considering that the Mogol hath taken Paranda the Key as 't were of that Kingdom as also that fair and strong Town Bider and some other very important places But principally because the last King of Visapour died without Heirs Males and he that now calls himself King is a Youth whom the Queen Sister of the King of Golkonda hath raised and taken for her Son a favour for which he hath made an ill return having shew'd no esteem for this Queen after her return from Mecca under the pretext of some ill demeanour in her on a Dutch Vessel that carried her to Moka Lastly because that in the disorders of that Kingdom the Heathen Rebel Seva-Gi above discoursed of found means to seize on many strong Holds mostly seated on steep Mountains where he now acteth the King laughing at the Visapour and the Mogol and ravaging the Countrey every where from Suratte even to the gates of Goa This notwithstanding if he wrongs Visapour one way he helps to support it another forasmuch as he is resolutely bent against the Mogol preparing alwayes some Ambush and cutting so much work for his Army that there is no discourse no apprehension but of Seva-Gi insomuch that he hath come and sacked Suratte and pillaged the Isle of Burdes which belongs to the Portuguese and is near the Gates of Goa The seventh particular which I learn'd at Golkonda when I was come away from Dehli is the death of Chah-Jehan and that Aureng-Zebe had been exceedingly affected therewith having discover'd all the marks of grief that a Son can express for the loss of his Father That at the very hour of receiving that news he went towards Agra that Begum-Saheb caused the Mosquee and a certain place where he was at first to stop before he entred the Fortress to be hung with richly embroider'd Tapisseries That at his entring into the Seraglio she presented him with a great Golden Bason wherein were all her Jewels and all those of Chah-Jehan and in short that she knew to receive him with so much Magnificence and to entertain him with that dexterity and craft that she obtained his pardon gain'd his favour and grew very confident with him To conclude I doubt not but most of those who shall have read my History will judge the wayes taken by Aureng-Zebe for getting the Empire very violent and horrid I pretend not at all to plead for him but desire only that before he be altogether condemned reflexion be made on that unhappy custom of this State which leaving the succession of the Crown undecided for want of good Laws setling it as amongst us upon the eldest Son exposeth it to the Con quest of the strongest and the most fortunate subjecting at the same time all the Princes born in the Royal Family by the condition of their Birth to the cruel necessity either to overcome or to reign by destroying all the rest for the assurance of their power and life or to perish themselves for the security of that of others For I am apt to believe that upon this consideration the Reader wil not find Aureng-Zebe's conduct so strange as at first it appear'd However I am perswaded that those who shall a little weigh this whole History will not take Aureng-Zebe for a Barbarian but for a great and rare Genius a Great States-man and a Great King A Letter to the Lord COLBERT of the Extent of Indostan the Circulation of Gold and Silver coming at length to be swallowed up there as in an Abyss the Riches Forces Justice and the principal Cause of the decay of the States of Asia My Lord SInce it is the custom of Asia never to approach Great Persons with empty hands when I had the honour to kiss the Vest of the Great Mogol Aureng-Zebe I presented him with eight Roupies as an expression of respect and the illustrious Fazel-kan the prime Minister of State and he that was to establish my Pension as Physitian with a Case of Knives garnished with Amber