both the Peshwa's government and the Nizam, and denouncing the impolicy of Marathas assisting the English to destroy Mysore. About this time, moreover, Lord Mornington received a letter from the Afghan king, Zaman Shah, announcing his intention of invading Hindustan, and demanding aid for the purpose of rescuing the Moghul emperor, Shah Alam, from the hands of the Marathas.
In these circumstances the Governor-General deter- mined to temporize with Mysore by confining his first communication to a demand for satisfaction, while he employed himself in strengthening the Triple Alliance – as he very diplomatically termed the precarious relations of the British with the courts of Haidarabad and Poona – in restoring his finances and reinforcing the Madras army. His first step was to conclude a treaty with the Nizam for the disbandment of the French battalions at Haidarabad, which was then carried out with great skill and resolution; the Nizam receiving instead a force commanded by English officers, to be stationed permanently in his country. At Poona, however, where similar proposals were made, the Maratha government was much more distrustful of the British ascendency and much less in need of British assistance. The Peshwa naturally found very little attraction in the suggestion of an arrangement which, under the name of a subsidiary alliance, manifestly placed the state that furnished the money under military subordination to the state that provided the men.
The Nizam and the Peshwa both consented, never-
