but he escaped from prison, and the Peshwa, who seemed about to take up arms in his defence, only lost courage and made terms just as an open rupture was becoming imminent. In 1817 he signed a treaty making cessions of territory in exchange for an increased subsidiary force, and virtually renouncing all his previous pretensions to supremacy in the Maratha confederation.
Lord Hastings now decided that the time had come when he could begin his combined operations for the suppression of the freebooting hordes, and for such a general reformation of the condition of Central India as might eradicate the predatory system. The policy of isolation had, he found, completely failed; its effect was not only to foster the spread of confusion and disorder outside the Anglo-Indian frontiers, but also to endanger the main position of the British government. His remedy was to step forward as the arbitrator and authoritative peacemaker, to dissolve the plundering bands, and to mark out the whole of the vast inland region into recognized rulerships, so that no part of it should be left outside the jurisdiction of some responsible authority. He relied on the supreme influence and paramount power of the British government in arms to insist, when this had been done, upon the pacification of the whole country through the chiefs to whom it should have been assigned in severalty. He projected, in short, the consummation of the work that had been begun by Lord Cornwallis, and carried very far by Lord Wellesley – the extension of British supremacy
