Holkar and fled for protection to British territory. Urged by his necessities, he signed a subsidiary treaty at Bassein, 1802; and thereupon threw consternation among the other confederates, who chafed to see their suzerain reduced by this act to a degrading position of dependence upon Calcutta. Hostilities followed in 1802-3, known as the second Maratha war, and Sindhia and the Bhonsla Rájá were crushed. The power of these princes having been thus curtailed, and the Gáekwár having already accepted a subsidiary alliance, the only hostile Maráthá force left unsubdued was that of Holkar.
But the tide of victory had temporarily turned; the military operations which followed were not successful, disasters occurred, and Sindhia rose in revolt. Public opinion in England, moreover, dissatisfied with the vigour of Wellesley's Indian policy and failing to understand its importance, took alarm at these events and imagined that the solidity of British power was being overturned by a few freebooters. The result was that a great Anglo-Indian ruler was recalled before his work was concluded, and a successor appointed with instructions to reverse his system and to come to terms with the enemy at any price. Meanwhile the course of military events had again changed, and British arms were once more victorious; Holkar was flying before Lord Lake, and, as a matter of course, Sindhia promptly returned to his allegiance.
Peace was concluded at the end of 1805, but a
