Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/227

Rh at Púna, and these received a further accession of force by the untimely death of the youthful Péshwa, Madhú Ráo (October 25th, 1795). An account of these intrigues would be foreign to my present subject. A few months after the Péshwa's death de Boigne resigned to Perron the command of the armies of Sindia in Hindostan.

The fortunate man who had left France as a common sailor now ruled and administered in the name of Sindia the country from Lahore to Kotá and between Aligarh and Jodhpúr. He possessed greater power than any European had till that time possessed in Hindostan. This power he used, according to contemporary authority, in such a manner "as to aggrandise his authority and his riches." In his admirable work on the Fall of Moghol Empire, Mr. Keene has extracted from a record published by order of the local Government, a passage bearing upon the mode in which Perron's administration was conducted. "Perron," says this record, which I extract from Mr. Keene's book, "succeeded in erecting" (a principality) "for the maintenance of the army, and reigned over it in the plenitude of sovereignty. He maintained all the state and dignity of an oriental despot, contracting alliances with the more potent Rájás, and overawing by his military superiority the petty chiefs. At Dehli, and within the circle of the imperial dominions, his authority was paramount to