and the differences of creed and caste seemed our best security against any dangerous combination to expel us. Some princes, whose quasi-independent states were allowed to lie like islands among our fully-conquered territory, might at times uneasily remember the martial glories of their predecessors, but knew well how they held their idle sceptres only on our sufferance, and took care not to neglect any hint of good behaviour offered them by the British resident at their courts, as real an authority as the Peshwas or Nizams of the past.
From the Himalayas to Cape Comorin, from Beloochistan to the borders of China, England was recognized as the Paramount Power of this vast country, over which at length reigned the Pax Britannica, and seemed little like to be seriously disturbed when, in 1856, Lord Canning came out as Governor-General.
