They were joined on their march by the principal of the Mahratta chiefs and of the Peshwa's officers in the southern parts of the Mahratta empire. The detachments of Holkar's army, which had been upon the Kistna and Godavery, successively fell back; and the British troops formed a junction with the Nizam's army and the subsidiary British troops in His Highness's service on the 15th April, within 100 miles of Poona. Nearly about the same time Holkar withdrew from Poona to the northward, and left that city to be occupied by the British army. A communication was immediately opened with the Peshwa, who was at Bassein, under the protection of a detachment of the army of Bombay, and His Highness entered Poona and took upon himself the government of his country on the 13th May.

In this manner this great arrangement was effected without the loss of a man. By a skilful and ready application of the forces and resources of the government, and by taking advantage of opportunities, the ally of the Company was restored to his dignity and to the exercise of his authority; the usurpation of a most rapacious freebooter was destroyed; and this dangerous neighbour was removed from the frontier of the Company's allies. At the same time an arrangement was made which was calculated to preserve peace between the Company's allies, and secure the weak government against the unjust claims of the strong.

ix. The Validity of the Treaty of Bassein.

From the knowledge which the British government possessed that Sindhia was aware of all the circumstances of the negotiations which the Peshwa was carrying on, that he had earnestly desired their interference in the Mahratta affairs, and, above all, because he must have known that they had acquired a most formidable position for their armies in the peninsula, of which nothing could deprive them excepting great military success, it was confidently expected that this arrangement would not have occasioned any subsequent hostilities.

But these were not the only grounds on which this expectation of the continuance of peace was founded. Sindhia had, in point of fact, no right to interfere in an arrangement between the Company and the Peshwa, particularly in one concluded under all the circumstances which had attended the treaty of Bassein.

The Mahratta empire has at times been considered as an institution, in some degree, of the same description with the Empire of Germany; 1 at others it has been considered as the union of a number of chiefs possessing territory and power, acknowledging the Peshwa as their nominal head; and at others, the Peshwa has been considered as the real head of a government of which Sindhia and others were only the powerful officers. Arguments have been drawn from the supposed existence of all these imaginary forms of government to prove that the Peshwa had no right to enter into the treaty of Bassein without the consent of Sindhia and other chiefs of the Mahratta empire.

Admitting the existence of all, or any, of these forms of government (and excepting the similarity to the Empire of Germany, all have in reality existed at different periods of the Mahratta history), the fact is, and cannot be denied, that the Peshwa has frequently made treaties, not only to which none of the Mahratta chiefs consented, but to which some of them objected. For instance, the Treaty of Triple Alliance, in 1792, was objected to by Mahdaji Sindhia and Tukaji Holkar. The treaty of peace in 1792, at Seringapatam, and of partition, was not consented to by any of the Mahratta chiefs. But if it be true that the Peshwa, who is acknowledged by those who reason upon all these different forms of government to be either the real or the nominal head of what is commonly called the Empire, cannot make a treaty without the consent of Sindhia and the other chiefs, it may be presumed that Sindhia and the other chiefs. . . cannot make a treaty without the consent of the Peshwa. How is this fact? They make war and peace in their own names against whom they please, when they please, and as they please; and never use the Peshwa's name, or refer to its authority, excepting as a last subterfuge in the discussions which may attend their negotiations. In point of fact, Sindhia, instead of being a powerful subject, and in that light a party to be consulted in an agreement to be entered into by the Peshwa with the British government, was himself the guarantee of the treaty of Salbai between the same parties.

In this very capacity of guarantee of a treaty he must have been considered, and must have been in fact, independent of the two powers contracting it. Before he became a guarantee, the history of those times shows that he was independent of

1 The Holy Roman Empire.

the Peshwa. But this very act of guarantee has always been considered important in India, particularly by the Native politicians, as it afforded complete evidence of the division of the Mahratta power.

The hopes of the continuance of peace, then, were founded as well upon the right of the Peshwa to conclude the treaty of Bassein, as upon the circumstances which attended its negotiation and its execution.

x. Threatening Combination of the Mahratta Chiefs.

A new party, however, came forward upon this occasion, through whose means and by whose exertions a peace was patched up between Sindhia and Holkar, on which was founded a confederacy against the British government.

The Raja of Berar had not been engaged in hostilities since the year 1780, when he had marched to the British frontier of Bengal, and had received a sum of money to desist from his hostilities, excepting during the short campaign of 1795, in which he had co-operated with the other Mahrattas against the Nizam. He was the oldest of the chiefs of the present day, and was renowned among them for his wisdom and political knowledge and skill. He had claims upon the power of the state of Poona, from his relationship to the Rajas of Sattara; and he was known to have entertained serious designs of forming a union of all the Mahratta powers against the British government.

When he perceived the advantages which the British government had taken of the existence of the disputes among the Mahratta chiefs, he saw that he must become the victim of the arrangement. Holkar would have been unwilling to discharge his army; he could not remain in the Peshwa's territories, or invade those of the Nizam; and his only resource to provide for their subsistence would have been to enter Berar.

The Raja, who clearly perceived this consequence (and who has since acknowledged this motive for his conduct), determined to endeavour to organise a confederacy of the Mahrattas against the British government.

Whatever might have been the claim of Sindhia to the possession of the power of the Peshwa's government, and the degree of encouragement he gave to the conclusion of the treaty of Bassein, there is no doubt that he lost solid power by the arrangement, which he could not hope to recover. He had

nothing to gain by the continuance of hostilities against Holkar; . . . Holkar could hope nothing from the continuance of his hostilities with Sindhia.

A combination of all the Mahratta chiefs, with their forces, had long been an object with the Mahratta politicians; and the plan flattered the national vanity, although it was impracticable, unless attended by great and important military successes at the outset. The Raja of Berar, therefore, succeeded in patching up a peace between Sindhia and Holkar, none of the important articles of which were performed by either party.

xi. Defence of Wellesley's Mahratta Policy.

Before I proceed to the relation of the events which followed the treaty of Bassein, it will be proper to discuss the justice and policy of the British government in entering into the treaty of Bassein, on the ground that they must have expected the event which followed it.

I have already pointed out the objects of the treaty, the favourable circumstances under which it was negotiated, and the probability which existed that its arrangements would be carried into execution without a war, and that it would secure the permanent peace of India. But the faithless nature of the Mahratta character, and the habits of the councils of all the chiefs, are so well known, that it may be admitted that the British government ought to have contemplated the chance of a confederacy of the Mahratta chiefs to oppose the arrangement.

Considering the nature of the materials of which that confederacy was to be formed; that the two most powerful of the chiefs entertained the most rooted and inveterate animosity against each other; that after they had signed their treaty of peace their hostilities continued, and they could not trust each other so far as to place their armies within reach of attack; that none of the chiefs trusted the other; and that the pride of all prevented them from placing the management of the affairs and the command of the armies of the confederacy in the hands of one; the British government had but little to apprehend from this confederacy, provided vigorous measures were adopted at an early period of time to oppose it effectually, and to prevent it from acquiring strength and consistency by

success.

The arrangements which had been made by Lord Wellesley,

viz. the treaty with the Nawab of Oudh, the treaty with the Gaekwar,1 the arrangements at Surat, the arrangements in Mysore, the treaty with the Nizam, of October 1800, and above all, the treaty of Bassein, afforded the most efficient means of opposing the confederacy with success. If the troops did their duty with their usual bravery, its early dissolution became certain; and by the advanced position in which the treaties of Hyderabad and Bassein placed the British troops,2 the evils of the war would be removed to a distance from the British territories, the seat of the resources of the government.

But it is not clear that the omission to conclude the treaty of Bassein would not have led equally to a war with all the powers of the confederated Mahratta states, under circumstances of increased disadvantage. The removal of Holkar from Poona was absolutely necessary on every ground of justice, policy, and good faith; and if the treaty of Bassein had not been made, the British government must have aided Sindhia in effecting that object. Holkar's armies would have been defeated, and the power of his rival, Sindhia, would have been established in full vigour at Poona. He would thus again have been in possession of all the Mahratta power from the Ganges and the Indus to the Tumbadra; and his situation would have been so far more advantageous, as in the course of the years 1801 and 1802 he had overcome the rebellion which had till then prevailed in his northern dominions, and had completely established the authority of his own government in those rich countries. His first demand would have been upon the Nizam; and here at once the Company would have come in contact with a Mahratta confederacy, but under very different circumstances of strength from that with which they were engaged in 1803. In this contest Sindhia would have been really, as well as nominally, at the head of the confederacy; he would have had no rival, or rather actual enemy, in Jeswant Rao Holkar, and would have been able to direct all his forces against the British government. He would have had on his side, instead of against him, all the strength of the Peshwa, including, what is of no small importance, all the strength of the southern chiefs situated on the frontier of Mysore. Company, on the other hand, would have been obliged to engage with this more formidable confederacy with diminished

The

1 The passage of the narrative explaining this treaty with the least important of the Mahratta chiefs has been omitted for lack of space.

2 I.e. the subsidiary contingents, located respectively in the territories of the Nizam and the Peshwa.