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208 upset the equipoise that had preserved the British from molestation. But the intervening period was by no means one of peace and tranquillity for the English in India. On the contrary, it was a time of constant war that severely strained our resources and occasionally placed our dominion in some jeopardy. After 1765, the scene shifts again; the stress of the English contest with the native powers falls backward toward Madras and Bombay; the centres of urgent political pressure move for a time southward to the peninsula and toward the western seaboard; the conflicts that check and retard British expansion are against the Marathas in the centre of India and the Mohammedan rulers of Mysore.

The character and constitution of these two powers rendered them much more substantial antagonists than those whom the English had hitherto encountered in the Indian field. The incessant warfare prevailing throughout India during the past thirty years, and the great prizes that might be won by the sword, had brought a stronger class of combatants into the arena than most of the men who had found themselves by birth or accident in the front rank at the beginning of the empire's dissolution. Of this stronger class was Hyder Ali of Mysore, a man of great natural genius, who had raised himself entirely by superior daring, military instincts, and a faculty of managing the mercenary bands that were always attracted to the standard of a famous and fortunate leader. Of the same class were the chiefs or leaders of tribes, communities,