Finally, an attempt on Aurungzebe's part to get into his power the infant children of Râjah Jâi-Singh of Ambêr, whom he had caused to be poisoned in his distant viceroyalty of Kâbul, joined to the iniquity of the _jizya_, or infidel tax, set the whole of Râjputana in a flame. In this connection the letter sent to the Emperor by Rana Râj-Singh of Chittore may be quoted in part, as an example of the dignified remonstrances which preceded the appeal to the sword. "How can the dignity of the sovereign be preserved who employs his power in exacting heavy tribute from a people thus miserably reduced?... If your Majesty places any faith in those books, by distinction called divine, you will there be instructed that God is the god of all mankind, not the god of Mahomedans alone. The pagan and the Mussulman are equally in His presence ... to vilify the religion or customs of other men is to set at naught the pleasure of the Almighty ... In fine, the tribute you demand from Hindus is repugnant to justice; it is equally foreign to good policy, as it must impoverish the country." The appeal, needless to say, was fruitless; but after a long and mutually disastrous war a sort of peace was patched up between the Râjputs and the Moghuls, leaving Aurungzebe free to attempt yet once again to repress the irrepressible Siva-ji, who by this time had been crowned King of the Mahrattas, and had become a still more ardent Hindu, minutely scrupulous to ceremonial and caste. Thus the two great rival powers in India were bigoted Hinduism, bigoted Islâmism. A far cry, indeed, from dead Akbar's Dream of tolerant Unity. So the struggle recommenced. But Siva-ji was more elusive than ever. He fought by sea as well as by land, and the first record of a naval war in India is that which he waged along the shores of Western India. Only the English settlement at Surat defied him. They put their factory into what state of defence was possible, garrisoned it with their crews, and met the marauding Mahrattas with a sally which effectually drove them off. For which valiant defence of their own, Aurungzebe exempted the English for ever from a portion of the customs duty paid by other nations, and remitted the transit charges. Siva-ji thus indirectly did a good turn to English commerce. Years passed, bringing advantage to the Mahratta side, when, in 1680, death suddenly intervened and carried off the clever, astute little Siva-ji in the fifty-third year of his age.