14,000 men, well-disciplined and ably commanded by the officers that had succeeded De Bussy in the Deccan. These troops were not only a defence against the Maráthás, but were hostile to the British, owing to the republican sympathies of their commander, M. Raymond, who carried on a secret correspondence with the Mysore sovereign. The Nizám distrusted both the English and Tipú. If he assented to the Governor-General's proposals and disbanded his French troops, he would lose the power of effectual resistance against the Maráthás, unless he leant on the support of the British Government, to whom he would in that case become subsidiary. If, on the other hand, he refused, and allied himself with Tipú, he would probably be overcome by the joint action of the two powers. On one side he regarded with apprehension the risk of disarming his French troops, and on the other the hostility of Tipú, with whom he had openly waged war, and whose advances towards a matrimonial alliance between the two sovereigns he had haughtily repelled. Swayed alternately by one or other of these considerations, it was long before the Nizám arrived at a decision. At last he consented to execute a treaty by which he agreed to disband his French troops, and to augment the English subsidiary force to six battalions and a due proportion of guns. The disarming was successfully effected, the Sepoys being taken into the English service, and the French officers sent, by way of England, to France.
With the Maráthás, Lord Mornington could not
