I wonder at the strange fidelity of your officers that they neglect to tell you of the true state of things, but cover a blazing fire with straw ! Ma… - Shivaji

In strict justice the jazlya is not at all lawful. From the political point of view it can be allowed only if a beautiful woman wearing gold ornaments can pass from one country to another without fear or molestation. [But] in these days even the cities are being plundered, what shall I say of the open country? Apart from its injustice, this imposition of the jiziya is an innovation in India and inexpedient.

This firm and constant well-wisher Shivnji, after rendering thanks for the grace of God and the favours of the Emperor,—which are clearer than the Sun,—begs to inform your Majesty that, although this well-wisher was led by his adverse Fate to come nwny from your august presence without taking leave, yet he is ever ready to perform, to the fullest extent possible and proper, everything that duty as a servant and gratitude demand of him.[...]

But In your Majesty's reign. many of the forts and provinces have gone out of your possession, and the rest will soon do so too because there will be no slackness on my part in ruining and devastating them. Your peasants are down-trodden ; the yield of every village has declined, in the place of one lakh (of Rupees) only one thousand, and in the place of n thousand only ten are collected, and that too with difficulty. When Poverty and Beggary have made their homes in the palaces of the Emperor and the Princes, the condition of the grandees and officers can be easily imagined. It is a reign in which the army is in a ferment, the merchants complain ; the Muslims cry, the Hindus are grilled ; most men lack bread at night, and in the day-time inflame their own cheeks by slagping them [in anguish]. How can the royal spirit []you to add the hardship of the jaziya to this grievous state of things ? The x .ipfamy will quickly spread from west to east and become recorded in books of history that the Emperor of Hindustan, coveting the beggars’ bowls, takes jaziya from Brahmans and Jain monks, yogis , sannyasis, bairagis, paupers^mendicants, ruined wretches, and the famine-stricken,—-that his valour is shown by attacks on the wallets of beggars,—that he dashes down [to the ground] the name and honour of the Timurids !