Whatever rigor was used with regard to the Mahomedan adventurers from Persia, Turkey, and other parts, who filled the places of servile grandeur in the Mogul court, the Hindoos were a favored, protected, gently treated people.
The next, which is the fifth era, is a troubled and vexatious period,--the era of the independent Subahs of Bengal.

Five of these subahs, or viceroys, governed from about the year 1717, or thereabouts.
They grew into independence partly by the calamities and concussions of that empire, which happened during the disputes for the succession of Tamerlane, and partly, and indeed principally, by the great shook which the empire received when Thamas Kouli Khan broke into that country, carried off its revenues, overturned the throne, and massacred not only many of the chief nobility, but almost all the inhabitants of the capital city.

This rude shock, which that empire was never able to recover, enabled the viceroys to become independent; but their independence led to their ruin.

Those who had usurped upon their masters had servants who usurped upon them.

Aliverdy Khan murdered his master, and opened a way into Bengal for a body of foreign invaders, the Mahrattas, who cruelly harassed the country for several years.