and Tipu Sultan, had broken their treaties of alliance with the Company; and that in consequence of this breach of treaty the Company had a right to act in the manner that best suited their own interest. That which best suited their own interest was, to take into their own hands the entire management of the civil and military government of the Carnatic; giving to the Nawab, for the support of himself and his family, such a proportion of the revenues as should be sufficient for those objects, provided His Highness would acquiesce in the arrangements which should be carried into execution. These principles were considered to apply equally to the son, or supposed son, of the Nawab Omdal ul Omra, as it was obvious that he could claim to inherit the authority of his father in the Carnatic, and the advantages derived from the connexion with the Company, only under the treaties between the Company and his family, all of which had been broken by the correspondence carried on with Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, by Mahomed Ali and Omdal ul Omra.

When the orders from Marquess Wellesley upon this subject reached Madras, the Nawab Omdal ul Omra was in such a state of health as to be incapable of attending to business; and soon afterwards he died. The supposed son was then apprised of the discoveries which had been made at Seringapatam, of the sentiments of the British government in consequence of these discoveries, and of the measures which they proposed to adopt in the Carnatic. But he refused to accept the situation held out to him under the new arrangement. As the claim of this Prince to succeed his father, supposing that circumstances had allowed of the succession, was by no means clear, and as it was desirable for the peace of the Carnatic that the Nawab's family should adopt the arrangement, Lord Clive (now Earl of Powis) 1 determined to set aside Ali Hussein entirely, and to propose it to Azim-uddaula, the eldest legitimate son of Amir ul Omra, who was the second son of the Nawab Mahomed Ali, and brother of the late Nawab Omdal ul Omra. This Prince having agreed to the arrangement, a treaty was concluded by which the whole of the civil and military government of the Carnatic was transferred for ever to the Company; and the Nawab Azim-uddaula, and his heirs, were to preserve their title and dignity, and to receive one-fifth part of the net revenues of the country.

1

Thus was this important arrangement concluded in a

1 Governor of Madras.

...

peaceable manner, by which a remedy was provided for all the evils which had attended the former connexion between the Company and the Nawabs of the Carnatic; additional security was given to the British government, and an addition of £800,000 per annum was made to their pecuniary resources. This improvement in their situation was not attended by any extension of their frontier (for the Company was bound, before, both by treaty and positive interest, to defend the same line of country), or any circumstance which tended to weaken the British government in the Carnatic.

vi. Subsidiary Alliance with the Nizam.

The arrangement, the nature of which I shall next discuss, is the treaty of 1800, with the Nizam. It will be recollected that the treaty of 1798. . . had been directed principally to the object of enabling His Highness to perform his part of the triple alliance of 1790, formed against the power of Tipu Sultan, in which object it had completely succeeded. But. some inconveniences had grown out of the treaty of 1798 for which it was necessary to provide an early remedy. Between the years 1792 and 1798 the power of the government of the Nizam had fallen under the influence of the Mahrattas. This power had large claims upon His Highness; some founded upon the treaty or capitulation of Kurdla, which claims had been afterwards modified and given up by other treaties; and others founded upon the general principle of overbearing extortion of the Mahratta government.

Under the treaty of 1st Sept. 1798, the Nizam was not entitled to the assistance of the British troops stationed in his country, either to defend him against the Mahrattas, or to assist him in overawing those of his tributaries who were likewise tributaries to the Mahrattas; and after the conquest of Mysore the British government, which by that event had become paramount in India, was obliged to determine the precise nature of the relation in which it would stand, as well to the Nizam's as to the Mahratta government, and that in which those powers should stand to each other.

It was obvious that the Mahrattas would continue to make, and would at length enforce, their unjust demands upon the Nizam's government to the length of replacing affairs at Hyderabad in the situation in which they had been left by the treaty of Kurdla in 1795, when a Mahratta minister

governed the Nizam's territories. But this was not the only danger. The Nizam's government could not proceed unless its tributaries were brought under subjection. This measure was necessary as well on account of the pecuniary relief which it would afford to the Nizam as because the rebellion of these tributaries was a dangerous example of insubordination to the governors and collectors of the revenue of the distant provinces of the Nizam's territories. The existence of rebellion and insubordination in any country must always be formidable to its neighbours; but it is particularly so in India and in the years 1799 and 1800 the existence of these evils was peculiarly inconvenient to the British government, and impeded the settlement of the new government of Mysore and the conquered provinces.

After the peace of Seringapatam, therefore, the British government were compelled to advert to the means of strengthening the government of the Nizam. Those which occurred were first to encourage and aid the Nizam in raising an army, to be disciplined and commanded by European officers. It would have been impossible to provide the number of English officers which His Highness's service would have required.. These European officers must therefore have been foreigners . . . and principally Frenchmen. Here, then, the evil would have been revived, of which the inconvenience and danger had been felt previous to 1798, and for which the treaty of 1798 had been a remedy.

The second mode which occurred was to encourage the Nizam to raise a Native army. From the treachery of the Native chiefs, from their habits of correspondence and communication with the Mahrattas, and the superiority which this nation had acquired over them in a long series of contests, nothing effectual was to be expected from this measure, and it would have led directly to place the Nizam in a state of subjection to the government of Poona.

The third mode was to extend the basis of the treaty of 1st Sept. 1798; to make it generally defensive against all powers; and, in fact, to take the Nizam under the protection of the British government.

1

...

But besides the great views of policy which rendered the alteration of the treaty of 1798 desirable... there were other circumstances. . . which rendered expedient the other alterations made by the treaty of 1800.

1 Instead of merely against Tipu.

Under the treaty of 1798 the British government had been bound to furnish the Nizam with a certain force, for the payment of a stipulated sum of money monthly. As was usual in all these cases, this subsidy fell in arrear; and the records of the Presidency are filled with accounts of the complaints made of the existence of these arrears, and of the measures adopted to secure their liquidation. These arrears gave rise to complaints and remonstrances from the British government, which of course must have tended to weaken the good understanding which ought to have existed between the Nizam and them; and they were equally prejudicial to the interests of both powers. The grant of territorial security for the payment of the subsidy removed all these causes of misunderstanding.

The territory which was granted to the Company was that which had been under the government of Tipu Sultan, and had been ceded to the Nizam by the treaties of Seringapatam of 1792 and 1799. The authority of the Nizam had never been firmly established in those countries; and the state of confusion in which they were in 1799-1800 was highly prejudicial to the British interests in Mysore, and in the Company's recently acquired countries. The Nizam's treasury has never received anything from those countries; and His Highness had supported the Company's subsidiary troops by funds acquired from other parts of his territories. It was hoped that the introduction of a better system of government would have produced order and regularity among this hitherto turbulent people, a hope which has been completely fulfilled; and this territory now yields a revenue. . . fully equal to pay the expenses of the subsidiary force stationed with the Nizam, and of the administration of government in the provinces which His Highness ceded. . . .

The provinces acquired under this treaty cover the Mysore country to the northward; and have removed the source of danger to be apprehended to that newly established government, from the neighbourhood and example of a turbulent and disaffected people, paying no revenue or obedience to the government under which it is placed.

From the general view which has been given of this arrangement, it will readily be believed that the Nizam wished to accomplish it much more eagerly than the British government did. În fact, His Highness felt that before this arrangement was made his government was not in a state of security; and

it will be observed that the security of His Highness's government was the principal object and motive of this treaty. Other objects were connected with this principal motive, equally interesting and advantageous to both the parties to the treaty; and upon the whole it may be said that it does not contain an article or an arrangement in which both parties were not equally interested.

by Tipu.

vii. The Mahrattas: their Internal Discords.

The next subject to which I shall advert is the arrangement made with the Peshwa by the treaty of Bassein. It will be recollected that the Mahratta government of Poona had been connected with the British government by a treaty made by Lord Cornwallis on 1st Sept. 17[92], commonly called the Treaty of Triple Alliance, against Tipu Sultan. Under this treaty His Highness was bound to assist the British government and the Nizam, in case either of these powers was attacked After the peace of Seringapatam, in 1792, the Mahrattas attacked the Nizam, and the war ended by a peace or capitulation concluded at Kurdla, by which the Nizam ceded half his territories, placed the remainder under the influence of the Mahrattas, paid a large sum of money, gave up his minister as a prisoner, and appointed other ministers nominated by the Mahrattas. Shortly after this peace the Peshwa, Mahdu Rao Narain, died. A contest ensued among the different Mahratta chiefs for the succession to the office of Peshwa, and the possession of the influence and power of the government, which, after various success, ended in the establishment of the present Peshwa, Baji-Rao, and the possession of all the power and influence of the government by Daulat Rao Sindhia.

This chief already had, by right of succession to his relative Mahdaji Sindhia, all the Mahratta territories in Hindustan,1 situated between the rivers Nerbudda and Tapti, and the Ganges and Indus. The principal support and instrument of his government was an army disciplined and commanded by French officers, with a formidable train of artillery; and, by his influence at Poona, he had now acquired that part of the power of the Mahratta government which was not already in his hands.

1 The word is here used in the narrower sense, meaning northern India as distinguished from the Deccan.