Policy and acts of Mahmood Gawan, the minister of State. Gawan, who, in the capacity of chief minister, had behaved with unexampled fidelity and ability. His reforms not only extended to every department of the State, to finance, to justice, to the army, and to public education, but embraced a new assessment and, in many instances, survey of the village lands, traces of which still remain in the country. By a note drawn up by the accomplished translator of Ferishta's history, it is evident that the Bahmuny army was better paid in 1470, when the value of money was greatly higher, than the English native army in 1830, the rates of which, since then, have been considerably reduced. The cost of a regiment of cavalry of 500 men, on the Bahmuny rates of 1470, was 31,500l. per year, that of an English native regiment of the same description in 1830, 21,9007. A private soldier, furnishing his own horse and arms, then received forty rupees per month; the allowance is now only twenty. It may be inferred, therefore, from this example, that the whole of the State establishments were in a highly creditable and practical working condition; and so efficient were the checks imposed by one part of the administration upon the other, that peculation was impossible. Military parties and It has been previously recorded, that there were two great military parties in the State-the foreigners and the Deccanies. The foreigners were Moghuls, Persians, factions. Turks, Arabians, and the like; and these, as well from natural sympathy as from their opposition to the Deccanies, held together. The Decannies and Abyssinians were the descendants of foreigners in perhaps many degrees, mixed up with converted Hindoos. They were equally numerous with the foreigners, indeed perhaps exceeded them; but they were seldom able or trustworthy as State servants in civil affairs, though brave in battle. At the period of Mahmood Gáwan's reforms, he, Yoosuf Adil Khan, a Turk by birth, and some others, were the chiefs of the foreign party; Nizam-ool-Moolk Bheiry and others, the leaders of the Deccanies and Abyssinians. Since the period of the execution of Khwajah Jehan, who had belonged to the Deccany party, the foreigners were in the ascendant; and the admirable conduct of Mahmood Gawan left no room for cavil or complaint. He was in the almost exclusive confidence of the king, who had repeatedly conferred the highest honours on him that could be afforded to a subject, and these, instead of engendering arrogance, had only produced in the great minister additional exertions to make himself worthy of them. The Deccany Conspiracy against Mahmood party were, however, by no means idle; and their representative, Nizam-ool-Moolk Bheiry, and his creatures, began their execrable plot against the minister by poisoning the king's mind with covert insinuations of the minister's faithlessness in public matters, of his peculations under cloak of reform, and of his mischievous interference with ancient vested rights and privileges of the nobility and the people. As these gradually had their effect, the conspirators determined upon a bolder and final effort. Yoosuf Adil Khan, the minister's adopted son, was absent, and the minister in sole attendance on the king in camp accordingly a letter was drawn up, purporting to be from the minister to the Rajah of Orissa, representing the general discontent against the king, and the defenceless state of the eastern frontier; and urging him to march on Beeder, where he himself would join him, depose the king, and divide the kingdom between them. The minister's seal was obtained by drugging the slave who had charge of it, and an impression attached to the blank paper on which the forged letter was written. The letter itself was declared to have been taken from a messenger who had escaped. Such was the hellish plot. Bajazet II. emperor of the Turks. Mahmood cuted, 1481. Nizam-ool-Moolk was present when the letter was delivered to the king, and pretended that it was no more than he had long expected, and given warning of. Mahmood Gáwan was then sent for. He was apprised of his danger, and many of his adherents pressed him to escape, under their escort, to Yoosuf Adil Khan; but he refused. Such conduct,' he said, 'would be open rebellion; and resolute in his own innocence of any crime, he went bravely to meet the accusation. The king was already intoxicated, and on the minister's entrance into the tent, sternly demanded what should be the punishment of a disloyal person? 'Let the abandoned wretch,' said the minister, who practises treason against his lord Gawan exemeet with no mercy.' The king then produced the letter, and while the minister was denouncing it as a forgery, the king rose from his seat, and ordered his Abyssinian slave Jowhur to put the minister to death on the spot. The death of an old man,' said Mahmood Gawan to the king as he passed into the harem, 'is indeed of little moment; but to your Majesty it will be the loss of your character, and the ruin of an empire.' Kneeling down, Mahmood Gáwan repeated the creed of his faith, and at one stroke his head was severed from his body. This lamentable event occurred on April 5, 1481, in the seventyeighth year of his age; and with him departed all the cohesion and the power of the great Bahmuny kingdom. Two Persian verses curiously mark the date by computation of letters, and express the cause of his death. One, which is carved on the architrave of his tomb at Beeder, is:- Kutl-i-na huq―the unjust execution;' the other, Bé goonah, Mahmood Gawan, N shood shaheed - without fault, Mahmood Gáwan became a martyr.' Character of Gawan. The character of Mahmood Gáwan stands out broadly and grandly, not only among all his contemporaries, but Mahmood among all the ancient Mahomedans of India, as one unapproachably perfect and consistent. The utter absence of selfishness or of self-aggrandisement in his public conduct and policy, his perfect and unaffected devotion to his sovereign the queen, through two trying and helpless minorities, when he might, as others had done at Dehly, and as his colleagues did after him at Beeder, have created an independent kingdom for himself; his noble and judicious reforms, his skill and bravery in war, his justice and public and private benevolence, have, in the aggregate, no equals in the Mahomedan history of India. Mah His origin. His personal habits and mood Gawan was descended from an ancient family in Persia, which had filled the office of vizier to the princes of Geelan. He was of royal descent, and, apprehensive of the jealousy of Shah Tahmasp, declined office, and in his fortythird year set out to travel as a merchant. In this capacity he came to Beeder, by way of Dabul, during the reign of Alla-ooddeen Bahmuny II., who persuaded him to join his service, and thenceforward he rose steadily, by the sheer force of his great abilities, to the post he occupied at his death. His personal habits, though he kept up public state as benevolence. befitted him, were curiously simple. At his death his treasurer rendered to the king an account of all the minister had possessed, which consisted of the capital he had brought from Persia-about 4,000l.—out of the profits of which he paid his private expenses for food and clothing, which were two larees, or four shillings a day; the rest being remitted to poor relations in Persia, and to humble friends, and the remainder disbursed to the poor. Out of the public revenues of his ample estates, while he paid the public establishments attached to him, he built and endowed the magnificent college at Beeder, which was partially destroyed by an explosion of gunpowder, in the reign of Aurungzebe, and which, while he lived at the capital, was his daily resort; and the grand fortresses of Owsah, Puraindah, Sholapoor, Dharoor, and many others, attest alike his military skill and science. He slept upon a mat, and none but earthern vessels were employed for cooking his simple meals. He had collected a library of 3,000 volumes, but they belonged to the college he had founded, and those works he wished to read were borrowed as he required them. Many affecting anecdotes of him are told by the local historians, but none more characteristic of the man than the following. When he returned from his great campaign in the him ; and Konkan, and honours and gifts were showered upon when the king paid him a memorable visit, and put his own robes upon his minister, Mahmood, when the king had left him, went to his chamber, and casting himself on the ground, wept bitterly; after which, he sent for the holy men of Beeder, and distributed what he possessed among them. When asked why he had done this, he said gravely, 'When the king honoured me with a visit, and the queen-mother called me brother, my evil passions began to prevail against my reason, and the struggle between vice and virtue was so great in my mind, that I became distressed even in the presence of his majesty. I have, therefore, parted with my wealth, the temptation to evil.' Every Friday night he went disguised through the different wards of the city distributing alms to the poor, saying, as he gave them, 'This is sent by the king;' and his private charities from his estates, and from personal savings, reached poor and distressed persons in far distant cities of Mahomedan kingdoms. Such was the practically benevolent and simple, but noble, character of the man so basely destroyed. O king,' said the fearless treasurer of the minister, when rendering an account of the funds in his charge, may many thousands such as Mahmood Gawan be sacrificed for thy safety; but why didst thou not regard the claims of that minister, and ascertain who was the bearer of the letter to the Rái of Orissa, that his treason might be made manifest to us and to all mankind?' Too late the king discovered the horrible deceit which had been practised on him. Two of his principal officers at once separated themselves from him, and would not return till the arrival of Yoosuf Adil Khan, who was hastily summoned to camp. A fresh distribution of estates was ordered; but on their arrival at Beeder, the recipients of these honours would not enter the city, and sullenly withdrew to their possessions. It was the beginning of the end. When the king, restless at Beeder, soon afterwards marched to Belgaum, he dispatched Yoosuf Adil Khan to defend Goa, of which the Rajah of Beejanugger strove to repossess himself; and returned to Ferozabad. But Imád-ool-Moolk and Khodawund Khan, governors of Berar, with the whole of the Berar divisions of the army, refused to accompany him, and marched to their respective capitals. Mahomed Shah remained for three months at Ferozabad, afflicted with illness, and scared by the reproaches of his own conscience, vainly endeavouring to dispel care by sensual pleasures. When he arrived at Beeder, he had somewhat recovered from his fever, when excessive drinking brought on a relapse, from which he was partially relieved by his physicians; but in their temporary absence, he drank again, and fell into convulsions, from Mahomed Shah dies, 1452. which he could not be relieved, and died on March 24, 1482, exclaiming constantly to the last, that Mahmood Gawan was tearing him to pieces. Mahomed Shah had reigned twenty years, and was succeeded by his son Mahmood. then twelve years of age. Mahmood Shah II, succeeds, 1482. CHAPTER XV. OF THE BAHMUNY MAHOMEDAN DYNASTY OF THE DECCAN Mahmood II. crowned, 1482. The rival ministers. (concluded), A.D. 1482 TO 1526. The NIZAM-OOL-MOOLK BHEIRY, the author of the detestable plot against the late minister, was too strong to be interfered with. He was the head of the Deccany party in the State, and now became executive minister and regent at Beeder. young king was crowned with much pomp and ceremony, but all the chief foreign officers were absent, which gave rise to many rumours, and to not a little apprehension as to their ultimate designs. Shortly afterwards, Yoosuf Adil Khan arrived at the capital with his forces, and his entry into the city at the head of a thousand foreign cavalry, in glittering armour, as described by the local historian, must have been a grand sight, and reminds the reader of the Moorish chivalry of Spain. The minister and Yoosuf Adil Khan met in an apparently friendly manner, but they were each attended by some hundreds of their chosen personal guards, and their sentiments in regard to each other were well known: nevertheless, the offices of State were distributed afresh, and with a really fair consideration for the claims of both parties. Yoosuf Adil Khan, however, would accept no office, except his military command, and remained on his guard at the capital; but so long as he lived, Nizam-ool-Moolk was never certain that the late minister's death might not be suddenly avenged, and a the foreign plot was arranged to attack the foreign troops, and put Yoosuf Adil Khan to death. It was clumsily executed. The foreigners were attacked in the city unawares, and many of them killed; but they soon rallied, and in their turn did much execution. Eventually the holy men of Beeder mediated between the parties, and Yoosuf Adil Khan retired to his estate of Beejapoor, leaving the field to his rival. He never afterwards returned to Beeder, and declared his independence at Beejapoor in 1489, as will be related hereafter. Plot against troops. Nizam-ool-Moolk Bheiry was himself a native of the Deccan, |