Part I Introduction. 3 districts among themselves either by mutual agreement or caprice, or according to their power to enforce obedience to their will and authority. Thus it came to pass that at the time of the introduction of the British power, the smaller States were found under tributary obligations to Sindhia, Holkar, or the Puars of Dhar and Dewas, and sometimes to all these Chiefs. The tributary claims of the Maratha States were occasionally fixed and well defined, but generally varied, both in amount and in the regularity of their enforcement, with the power to exact them. Many of the smaller Chiefs, who had been driven from their possessions, found refuge in the hill fastnesses and jungles, and avenged themselves by levying contributions from, or altogether destroying, the detached villages which had been usurped by the stronger powers. Ther example was imitated by men who, without any claims to territorial inherit. ance, had influence enough to gather round them a sufficient number of robbers to make themselves feared. Unable to suppress such outrages, the larger States found themselves compelled to purchase the good-will of the plundering leaders by allowing them a share of the revenues of their districts as black-mail, or tankha, on co.ndition of their abstaining from aggressions. Such a system could only exist in th absence of a power sufficiently strong to enforce peace and good order. For the pacification of the country all parties eagerly solicited the interference of the British Government, who the more readily undertook the task because of the opportunity which it afforded them of breaking the continuity of the influence of the Maratha powers, with whom they had recently beeLl engaged in a contest for empire, by establishing throughout Malwa a succession of Rajput Chiefs and others owing the security of their estates and the comparative independence of their position to the intervention of the British Government. The policy pursued by the British Government was to declare tile permanency of the rights existing at the time of the British occupancy on condition of the maintenance of order; to adjust and guarantee the relations of such Chiefs as owed mere subordination or tribute, so as to deprive the stronger powers of all pretext for interference in their affairs; and to induce the plundering leaders to betake themselves to peaceful pursuits either by requiring their superiors to grant them lands under the British guarantee, or by guaranteeing to them payments, equivalent to the tankhas which they levied. VOLIV,
