sum of money towards the expenses of the campaign. The Nabob was insolvent, his government was a wretched despotism, and he either would not or could not fulfil the demand. To this refusal was soon added the evidence of another offence. Papers found at Seringapatam proved that the Nabob, and his father before him, had corresponded in cipher with Tippoo. Such a discovery was quite enough for Wellesley. The interests of the Company, he thought, pointed to the annexation of the Nabob's dominions. His misgovernment made annexation desirable, his intrigues made it justifiable. By an act of despotism Wellesley annexed the Carnatic, and by a stroke of his pen added the whole southern coast of India to the territories of the Company.1

These proceedings reconstructed the map of Southern India. When Wellesley reached Hindostan, the Company owned a small strip of territory round Madras, the Malabar coast, and the isolated provinces of Salem and Dindigul. In 1801 it occupied the whole western coast-line from Goa to Travancore and the whole eastern coast from Travancore to Cuttack. The territory of Mysore, shrunk to a moiety of Tippoo's dominions, was under British protection, and practically an integral portion of the Company's empire. The Nizam, who on Wellesley's arrival was leaning on a French force, was sustained on his throne by British bayonets. The whole scheme of Cornwallis for a balance of power was destroyed, and Britain, and Britain alone, was predominant in Southern. India.

But Wellesley was not yet satisfied with his achievements. All the conquerors of India, from Alexander to Nadir Shah, have burst into Hindostan through its north-western frontier. All aggressive statesmen, from Wellesley to Beaconsfield, have looked with alarm at a possible invasion of India from the remote States beyond the Indus. In the closing months Shah. of the eighteenth century an enterprising prince, Zemaun Shah, who controlled the destinies of the Afghans

Zemaun

1 For these events, see Thornton, vol. iii. p. 125 seq., and Marshman, vol. ii. p. 103 seq. cf, Malcolm's Political History of India, vol. i. pp. 284-308.

crossed the Indus and marched on Lahore. In 1800, a bird from Lahore, following the straightest course, would have had to wing its weary way for more than 600 miles before alighting on the nearest British territory in Benares. It was not, therefore, obvious that even the permanent occupation of Lahore foreboded any danger to the East India Company. But there was not even much likelihood of the permanent occupation of Lahore. A native envoy,1 despatched to Persia, easily succeeded in stirring up revolution in Afghanistan, and in thus paralysing the advance of Zemaun Shah. Like the king of the north, whose predicted procedure has been applied to so many potentates, the Afghan heard a report, and hastily retired to his own land. A more timid man than Wellesley might, in these circumstances, have slept quietly in his bed. at Calcutta. Wellesley, however, saw, or affected to see, in the advance of Zemaun Shah, a pretext for a new act of vigour. The kingdom of Oudh immediately adjoined the Company's territory at Benares. Its reigning Vizier owed his seat on its throne to the direct intervention of Shore, and he had stipulated to pay a subsidy of £760,000 a year for the maintenance of a British force in his dominions, on condition that, if the force fell below 8000 men, a proportionate reduction should be effected in his payment, while, if it were increased to more than 13,000 men, an addition should be made to his contribution.2 Oudh being an Indian king

Oudh.

1 For this embassy, Watson's History of Persia, p. 123. It must be recollected that the native envoy was followed by Malcolm, who was then despatched on his first mission to Persia, and who succeeded in forming a treaty with the Persian Court, which is alluded to infra, p. 95. The terms of the treaty will be found in Kaye's Afghan War, vol. i. p. 9. It pledged Persia, in the event of an Afghan invasion of India, "to lay waste, with a great army, the country of the Afghans." It also pledged her to refuse any individuals of the French nation leave to reside in Persia; the king actually directing his provincial governors "to disgrace and slay the intruders." In the event of a French invasion, it pledged both contracting parties to act conjointly "for their expulsion and extirpation."

2 Thornton, vol. ii. p. 576; Malcolm's Political History of India, vol. i. p. 169-178; cf. Dacoitee in Excelsis, or the Spoliation of Oudh, p. 44. The student who desires a short sketch of the treatment of Oudh from an Oudh standpoint cannot do better than consult this remarkable pamphlet.

dom, it is hardly necessary to add, was misgoverned, and the stipulated payment to the Company was irregularly made.

Its treatment.

These conditions were easily converted into a pretext for interference. The Vizier was told that the attitude of Zemaun Shah required an addition to the British force in Oudh. The cost of the additional troops would be half a million a year, and the Vizier could most easily provide for the payment of this sum by disbanding his own disorderly and useless battalions. Even an Indian prince did not easily submit to such a demand. The Vizier told Wellesley that his assent to it would annihilate his authority and expose him to the contempt of his subjects. Wellesley cared very little for such consequences as these, and insisted on a compliance with his requirements. The Vizier yielded, but he found that concession only exposed him to a fresh exaction. The disorganised condition of his province made it almost hopeless for him to pay with punctuality the stipulated contribution to the British Government. Wellesley proposed that the payment should be secured by a surrender of territory. The wretched Vizier opposed every obstacle in his power to the spoiling of his possessions. All that he could do was to secure, by a policy of delay, two years of grace. Throughout the two years Wellesley clung to his purpose. Before they closed, more than half Oudh was annexed to the Company's dominions, and the Company's outposts were advanced some 300 miles nearer the camp of Zemaun Shah.1

If these occurrences had taken place in Europe, history would have condemned the conduct of Wellesley. But historians apply one code of morality to India and another to Europe, and they excuse in the one acts which they would not condescend to defend in the other. Wellesley himself

1 For these events see Thornton, vol. iii. p. 181 seq.; Marshman, vol. ii. p. 115 seq.; Malcolm's Political History of India, vol. i. pp. 273-283. The author of Dacoitee in Excelsis says that the district which Wellesley so annexed yielded a revenue of £1,350,000, the subsidy for which it was exchanged was only £760,000. Wellesley, therefore, appropriated a territory yielding £590,000 more than the required subsidy. Dacoitee in Excelsis, p. 48. But the author has apparently omitted from his calculation the additional £500,000 required Ly Wellesley for the extra force.

felt that the policy of annexation which he had consistently pursued was opposed to the instructions which he had brought with him, and to the wishes of his employers. He was annoyed at the tone of the despatches which reached him from Leadenhall Street, and he offered to retire. He was persuaded to serve Company and Crown a little longer, and he consequently obtained an opportunity for entering on a more formidable war than any which he had previously undertaken.

But

The Mahrattas.

It had been the policy of Cornwallis to establish a balance of power in the Deccan. Tippoo, the Nizam, and the Mahrattas had been weighed one against the other, and the balance, as Cornwallis thought, had been secured. Wellesley had destroyed Tippoo, he had made the Nizam a dependent on the Company, and he had left Britain and the Mahrattas face to face. It was possible to doubt whether the Company had derived much advantage from this reduction in the number of the combatants. The Mahrattas were the most formidable of the powers against which the British had as yet been arrayed in India. Their rise had been almost as rapid as that of the Company. In the latter half of the seventeenth century, Sevajee, a bold adventurer whose career recalls Byron's famous description of Marmion, succeeded in carving a territory for himself out of some of the fragments of the Mogul Empire. His successors, owing their origin to plunder, carried out the traditions of their race. Mahratta horse forced their way into many parts of the Deccan; they invaded Hindostan,1 and levied tribute 2 from every chieftain.

Turbulent races living on plunder do not usually present a compact organisation. Any leader who displayed bravery

1 The Deccan is the country south of the Nerbudda, Hindostan is the country north of that river. In this chapter the term Hindostan is always used in its

true sense.

2 Chout is the word ordinarily used by Indian historians, who fall into the bad habit of employing Indian words in books intended for English readers. Chout is one-fourth of the revenue. Malcolm's Central India, vol. i. p. 66,

note.

VOL. VI.

F

or capacity commanded the allegiance of some portion of the Mahrattas. Sevajee's descendants became Rajas of Sattara. But early in the eighteenth century one of them, destitute of the courage and capacity of his ancestors, gave his minister, or Peishwa-the word Peishwa literally means first man— full administrative power. Subsequent Rajas continued these powers to succeeding Peishwas, and the authority which originally resided with the Raja at Sattara gradually devolved on the hereditary Peishwa enthroned at Poona. The same causes, however, which had in the first instance interfered with the Raja's power gradually undermined the Peishwa's authority. The commander-in-chief set up a second independent kingdom as Raja of Berar, another leading officer ruled as Guicwar at Baroda, while the great Mahratta families of Holkar and Scindia placed themselves under their chieftains, who exercised. authority in Malwa1 and Gwalior.

While the Mahratta Empire was thus disintegrated by the divisions of its chieftains, the power of the Mahrattas was largely extended by the turbulent armies which followed the banners of Scindia and Holkar. Their power extended from Gujerat on the western shores of India to Cuttack on the east, and from Agra in the north to the Carnatic on the south. Both in Hindostan and in the Deccan their famous horse exacted tribute from the tribes which surrounded the Company's territory, and held the whole country

in awe.

Successive Governors-General had naturally hesitated to recognise the authority of turbulent and irresponsible chieftains, and the negotiations which had been conducted with the Mahrattas had been carried on with the Peishwa alone. Such had been the course of Cornwallis in 1790, such had been the policy of Wellesley after the death of Tippoo. But Scindia, the most powerful chieftain of the Empire, had not on either occasion tolerated this disregard of his own importance with patience. His battalions 1 For the previous history of Malwa, see Malcolm's Central India, vol. i. p. 22 seq.

Scindia.