and the Durbar presided over by Toolsah Bai, the favourite mistress of the deceased chief, and guardian of his son, was rent by personal feuds and enmities. A general disposition prevailed to side with the Peishwa; but no one possessed sufficient influence in council or in camp to bring about an accord, until the army of Sir Thomas Hislop approached Mahidpore. After a sanguinary struggle on the banks of the Seepra, in which the Mahrattas were defeated, a treaty of peace was made at Mundissore. The claim of ascendancy over the States of Rajpootana was renounced, as well as the lands of the Jeypore country, and the territories South of the Satpoorah hills were ceded to the British Government. The integrity of what remained was guaranteed to the boy Chief and his successors. To scenes of turbulence and violence there gradually succeeded the order and security of a settled government. The irregular horse, whose multitudinous array had long rendered the name of Holkar formidable, were dispersed and finally disbanded; and the Princes of Indore have never since appeared in arms against us. Bereft of the support of the two principal States of the confederacy, it seemed incredible even to Mr Elphinstone that the Peishwa should still seriously meditate repudiation of the engagements imposed on him by the treaty of Bassein; but the conduct of his chief Minister, early in 1817, had been such as to lead at last to a requisition that he should be banished, or surrendered as a hostage for their observance. Trimbuckjee fled, and his master first pretended not to know his hiding-place, and then refused to give him up, although he was believed to be actively engaged in organising plots for an armed insurrection. Communications with him from Baji Rao were discovered, whereupon the Resident insisted on the surrender of his family, who were still at Poona, and the occupation by the

subsidiary troops of certain forts in the neighbourhood of the city. On the refusal of the Peishwa, he was warned that his conduct would be treated as equivalent to a cause of war. The parley being prolonged, instructions were forwarded to Mr Elphinstone to present as an ultimatum the draft of an amended treaty, whereby provinces yielding £340,000 a year were to be ceded for the maintenance of a more efficient subsidiary force; the right to send or receive envoys from other States was to be relinquished; the offending Minister was to be surrendered; and, finally, the Peishwa was required to renounce for ever all right to the headship of the Confederacy. To give emphasis to these requirements, the subsidiary troops were summoned to the gates of the city, and twenty-four hours were given for an answer. Baji Rao woke to a sense of his desperate position. His ministers appealed unreservedly to the forbearance and magnanimity of the Power they had, till lately, been counselling their master to defy. Some allowance ought to be made, they said, for the perplexities of his situation, which had to a great extent been created by previous concessions, and the attitude assumed by a foreign force so mortifying to the feelings of spirited Chiefs and a credulous people. The public opinion of the world, they said, would not justify treatment so pitiless, and the imposition of terms so degrading. Even if agreed to, they could not long be kept, for the Prince would lose all political respect and authority; and in either case they must be held to imply the extinction of their State. Their passionate logic was but too convincing. But Mr Elphinstone's orders were to yield nothing, and after a long but fruitless controversy the new treaty was signed. The poison of 1803 had done its work, and its latest symptoms were manifested in its effect upon the brain. Every subsequent act of the maimed and wounded

Government of the Peishwa was characterised by the craft and incoherency of madness. The treaty was no sooner signed than he repented; its publication alternately filled him with despair, or fired him with wild thoughts of revenge. He had fitted on the yoke with his own hands, but it was on that account none the more endurable; and after some feeble efforts to affect resignation, he entered recklessly into schemes of counter-revolution, and in the space of a few months drew down upon his throne and family utter and irretrievable ruin. The capital was occupied by the subsidiary corps. Two English armies entered the country from opposite sides, and on the 11th February 1818, a proclamation announced that it had been incorporated as a province of the British Empire. After two months' campaign Baji Rao gave himself up as a prisoner of war to Sir John Malcolm, and lived during the remainder of his days at Bitur, near Cawnpore, on a pension of eight lacs. Some years before his death, having no son, he adopted as his heir Nana Saib, to whom he bequeathed his jewels and resentments, cherishing to the last the hope that the house of Balaji Viswanath, which for more than a century had occupied an important place among the dynasties of Central Hindustan, should not utterly perish.

Appa Saib Bhonsla of Nagpore had from the first acted in secret concert with the infatuated Peishwa, and, like him, had attempted to escape from subsidiary thraldom, by attempting to surprise the Residency, and, failing that, to encounter superior discipline with greater numbers in the field. But he, too, signally failed, and was forced to seek refuge among the Sikhs. A grandson of Raghuji Bhonsla was elevated to the Gudi, under the guardianship of his mother, Banka Bai. The administration was virtually confided to the Resident, Mr Jenkins, by whom the resources of the country were carefully

developed, and its productive capabilities much increased. The titular sovereignty of the State was respited during the minority of the new Rajah, who was allowed to reign, but not to govern. In the words of Metcalfe, "We took the government completely into our own hands, and the country was managed entirely by European officers posted, with full powers, in the several districts. There was not any Native administration, and the interference which we exercised was nothing less than absolute undivided government in the hands of the Resident."1

Sir John Malcolm, who, in 1818, took overruling charge of the whole of Central India, narrates with satisfaction the rapid progress to industrial recovery that took place after the war. Scindia's regular troops were reduced from 26,000 to 13,000 infantry, and his irregular forces were almost laid aside. The revenue rose 25 per cent., dilapidated villages were repeopled by the return of the fugitives, who rejoiced in the establishment of tranquillity. The recuperative energies of Holkar's country bore still more abundant fruit. Whole tracts had been laid desolate by the ravages of intestine broils, and the prolonged waste of military service, while every social tie, save that of allegiance to the head of the State, had been ruinously weakened. But here also the excessive levies were discarded, and peaceful production took the place of mutual plunder. The people, weary of warfare, rejoiced in the resumption of peaceful pursuits. Instead of four lacs a year, the Treasury received sixteen lacs as the year's revenue of 1820. Universally, the evidences of a reaction from disorder and insecurity displayed themselves all of which proves, as far as it goes, that the protecting influence of suzerain power is not incom

1 Letters to Chief Secretary, August 14, 1826; Papers and Correspondence,

patible with material prosperity and popular content, provided it is exercised forbearingly and considerately, and that the natural feeling of self-respect and of preference for customary laws and usages, and for Native rule, whether elective in the village or hereditary in the State, be not wantonly wounded or uptorn. The question, nevertheless, remains how far does all this go? Of nations as of individuals, it has been written of old time, "Man shall not live by bread alone." Malwa prospered, as already noted, under Native rule, and was contented; Malwa prospered under alien rule, and was discontented. Safe roads, improving tillage, rising prices, diminution of the percentages of crime, an increase in the amount yearly netted for taxation, are undoubted signs of fat; and if the worth of a country, say to a vendor or purchaser, is to be appraised according to weight, fat tells for more than bone, and quiet is an antecedent and a consequent of fat. All which in policemanship is what is called highly satisfactory. But these things being admitted, history will ask, What then?

Metcalfe, the British Resident, arrived in camp from Delhi, to narrate the repeated efforts made by the Mogul to induce the Governor-General to visit him. He had been repeatedly assured that there was but one difficulty-namely, that no acknowledgment, direct or inferential, would be made of the dignity he claimed by inheritance as Suzerain of India. The Act of 1813, renewing the Company's charter, had specifically declared the sovereignty of all possessions held by the English in the East to be in the British Crown. It would be inconsistent, therefore, as well as impolitic, on the part of an English Viceroy to do any act that might be represented as acknowledging the ancient dynasty or dominion. The eldest son of the titular lord of the East, Jehangir, was a young man of spirit and energy, who might

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