170 THE CONQUEST OF BENGAL

leadership the superior numbers of an Indian army might make it a very dangerous antagonist. We have to understand, then, that our earliest vic- tories were over troops that were little better than a rabble of hired soldiers, without coherence or loyalty. An Indian army of that period was usually an agglom- eration of mercenaries collected by the captains of com- panies who supplied men to any one able to pay for them, having enlisted them at random out of the swarm of roving freelances and swordsmen, chiefly Asiatic for- eigners, by whom all India was infested. These bands had no better stomach for serious fighting than the condottieri of Italy in the sixteenth century; the close fire of European musketry was more than they had bar- gained for; and artillery, properly served, they could not face at all. Their leaders, moreover, changed sides without scruple, if it seemed to their advantage, and were constantly plotting either to betray or supplant their employers. It is not surprising, therefore, if troops of this kind were such exceedingly perilous weapons in timid or maladroit hands that the prince, governor, or usurper who had retained their services often went into action with a very uncomfortable distrust of his best regi- ments. In the eighteenth century, most of the revolted provinces of the empire had been appropriated by suc- cessful captains of these mercenaries, among whom the best fighting men were the Afghans. Their most cele- brated leader was Ahmad Shah Abdali, a mighty war- rior of the Afghan nation, and the only great Asiatic