Page:The Marquess of Hastings, K.G..djvu/53

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CONDITION OF INDIA IN 1813
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they moreover agreed to pay for the maintenance of the subsidiary force, and nearly always ceded territory for the permanent discharge of this liability; and they also engaged to discontinue all political relations with other states, except in concert with the Government of Calcutta, and to submit all claims and disputes to its arbitration. The protected states were subject to a similar dependence, but their importance was not sufficiently great to oblige Government to maintain troops among them as was done elsewhere. And lastly came the princes whose independence was recognised, and with whom ordinary treaties — some of them more or less protective — were concluded.

Wellesley succeeded at first in putting an end so effectually to the aspirations of the Muhammadans, that during Lord Hastings' government little or no difficulty was experienced in that quarter. By these measures, the Nizám accepted a subsidiary alliance; the Karnátik was annexed; Mysore was reduced, the dynasty changed, and the state rendered dependent upon the British Government. Wellesley then turned his attention to the Maráthás, but they were engrossed in schemes of ambition, and were busy levying chauth, or 'quarter revenues,' beyond the limits of their own territories. Thus, enjoying a wild and unbridled license to plunder their own dominions and to harry their neighbours, they refused to agree to any terms. As a natural consequence of their own lawlessness they were quarrelling among themselves, and in the course of the struggle the Peshwá was defeated by