१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

TATIA TOPE
For, that Mahratta general had pressed Mansfield and
pressed him as far as Brahmavarta. He had broken
through the network of the English army, and had gone
off with his army and with all his guns. How many more
networks the English general would have to spread before
they could succeed in capturing the Mahratta tiger will
appear in a future chapter.
Though Tatia was able to escape, on this day, with all
his men and all his guns, Hope Grant was pursuing him
closely and, on the 9th of December, a running fight
ensued between Tatia and the English near Sheorajpur ;
and, though Tatia did break through this time too, most
of his guns fell into the hands of the enemy. Thus, in
an interval of two days between the 6th and the 9th, Sir
Colin was able to repair the defeat of Wyndham, to cap-
ture thirty-two of the Revolutionary guns, and to break
up their army, forcing some towards Kalpi and the rest
on to Ayodhya. After obtaining these big victories, he
thought that minor victories were surely within reach. So,
he marched on to Brahmavarta, looted the property there,
razed the palace to the ground, and, to crown all his
triumph, demolished the sacred temples of that city.
It was in this palace that the brightest gems of India, Nana
and Tatia, Bala and Rao, and the “ Chhabeli ” of Jhansi
had been bred and brought up. It was this palace that
first conceived the War of Independence of that glorious
year. The temples of that city had blessed the birth of
the ideal. When the throne of Raigarh which had been
snatched from the Mahrattas had been re-established again
in this palace washed by a free flow of the stream of
English blood, the palace and these temples had been
illuminated.
That very fire which could produce all the illuminations
had been instrumental in reducing them to-day to ashes.
But history need not drop a tear on these sacred ashes. For
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