The pride of conquest is the bane of all Mohammedan societies sprung from Northern Asia, and the Mohammedans of India form no exception. The Moguls never condescended to trade, but either settled on the land or took service, civil or military, under government; and their descendants are still swayed by the same proud instincts. Their misfortunes in India came upon them in successive waves. Forced by the Mahratta wars into an alliance with the East India Company, the Mogul Emperors became early dependent on these; and with the gradual absorption of the Delhi Monarchy, the exclusive privilege of rule departed from the Mohammedan caste--not all at once, but by degrees as new regulations were enacted and a new system introduced. The first to suffer were the landowners. By a certain fiscal measure, known as the “resumptions,” requiring all holders of lands to show their title deeds, the Mohammedans, who often held by prescription rather than by written grant, lost largely of their estates, and so were reduced to poverty. Next, the military services were in great degree cut off for them by the extinction of the native armies. And, lastly, the Act, changing the official language from Persian and Hindustani to English, took from them their still leading position in the civil employment. The Mohammedans had up to this more than held their own with the Hindus, as Hindustani was their vernacular, and Persian the language of their classics; but in English they were at a distinct disadvantage, for that was already the language of commerce, and so of the educated Hindus. Nor could English be learned except at the secular schools, to which Mohammedans were averse from sending their sons as tending to irreligion. The sources, therefore, of their employment were on every side curtailed, and a growing poverty has been ever since the natural result. The military revolt of 1857, which in Oude and at Delhi assumed a specially Mohammedan aspect, completed their disfavour with the English Government, and with it their material decline.