seized a British fief, called Batwál, held by a hill Rájá whose property had been confiscated by them; and another where a district, Seoráj, was retained by them, on the ground that they had possession of it when the treaty of Lucknow was signed. Sir G. Barlow, while protesting against both these acts, proposed that Batwál should be evacuated and Seoráj assigned to the Gúrkhas; but the affair was not pursued further, and the Nepalese remained in occupation until 1810-11, when they made further encroachments from both these places and advanced into another British fief in the district of Sarán.
The Indian Government observing that a gradual invasion was being persistently made into the all-important valley of the Ganges, now endeavoured to regulate the frontier, and early in 1812 Lord Minto offered to do so on the basis of compromise which had been proposed by his predecessor; but he received for reply that the Nepalese were in their rights and had not yet occupied all that was due to them. Commissioners from both sides, however, were at last assembled for a judicial investigation of the various claims which had been set up, and upon examination it became apparent that the Gúrkhas had no vestige of a right to any of the fiefs they had seized; a demand was therefore made in 1813 for their evacuation, but as the demand was evaded, Lord Minto addressed in June a formal letter to the Gúrkha government calling upon the latter in conciliatory terms to redress the frontier disputes. The answer did not arrive until
