2. To surrender to their keeping the records of fiefs (pattabahi);
3. That the court should be transferred from the citadel to the town.
There was no alternative but the renewal of civil strife or compliance; and the first article, which was a sine qua non, the disbanding of the obnoxious guards, that anomalous appendage to a Rajput prince’s person, was carried into immediate execution. Neither in the first nor last stipulation could the prince feel surprise or displeasure; but the second sapped the very foundation of his rule, by depriving the crown of its dearest prerogative, the power of dispensing favour. This shallow reconciliation being effected, the malcontent nobles dispersed, some to their estates [130], and the Chondawat oligarchy to the capital with their prince, in the hope of resuming their former influence over him and the country.
Massacre of the Chiefs.
This was a tremendous sacrifice for the maintenance of authority, of men who had often emptied their veins in defence of their country. But even ultra patriotism, when opposed to foreign aggression, can prove no palliative to treason or mitigate its award, when, availing themselves of the diminished power of the prince, an arrogant and imperious oligarchy presumes to enthral their sovereign. It is the mode in which vengeance was executed at which the mind recoils, and which with other instances appears to justify the imputation of perfidy amongst the traits of Rajput character. But if we look deeply into it, we shall find reason to distrust such conclusion. The Rajput abhors, in the abstract, both perfidy and treason; but the elements of the society in which he lives and acts, unfortunately too often prompt the necessity of sacrificing principles to preservation: but this proceeds from their faulty political constitution; it is neither inculcated in their moral code, nor congenial to their moral habits.
Right of Primogeniture.
The nuncupatory testament of the Champawat was transmitted across the desert to his son at Pokaran, and the rapidity of its transmission was only equalled by the alacrity of Sabhala, who at the head of his vassals issued forth to execute the vengeance thus bequeathed. First, he attempted to burn and pillage the mercantile town of Pali; foiled in which, he proceeded to another wealthy city of the fisc [133], Bhilwara on the Luni; but here terminated both his life and his revenge. As he led the escalade, he received two balls, which hurled him back amongst his kinsmen, and his ashes next morning blanched the sandy bed of the Luni.