Page:Final French Struggles in India and on the Indian Seas.djvu/23

Rh In the last pages of this third Book I have endeavoured to show how in consequence of these vices it was inevitable that India should fall under the domination of a foreign master, and how the course of events caused that foreign master to be British. No one can deny that, however dimly the ultimate consequences may at the time have been foreseen by our countrymen, we fought for the position which we now occupy. It was with design that we crushed the hopes of the French; with design that we conquered Bengal; with design that we subdued Tippú; with design that in 1802-3 we contested Hindostan with Sindia and Holkar. Then, apparently for the first time, alarmed at the empire at our feet, we attempted to hold our hand. We withdrew from the princes of Rájpútáná the protection which Marquess Wellesley had promised them. What was the consequence? Thirteen years of oppression, of tyranny, of misgovernment in its worst form in central and in western India; the licensed atrocities of Amír Khan, the robberies of the Pindáris, dire spoliation by Maráthá chieftains and their followers. In spite of ourselves we had again to step in. With the defeat and deposition