Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/369

Rh whole Maratha Empire; and, what was still more important, their next step would probably be a combination against the English.

The Peshwa, Baji Rao, had hitherto evaded all overtures from the English for a subsidiary treaty; but there was bitter feud between him and Holkar, whose brother he had cruelly executed, and who was now marching upon his capital. When Sindhia came to the Peshwa's assistance, there was a great battle, in which Holkar was nearly defeated, until he charged the enemy at the head of his cavalry with such desperate energy that the allied army was driven off the field with the loss of all their guns and baggage. The Peshwa fled to a fortress, whence he despatched a messenger to solicit help from the English; and soon afterward he took refuge in Bassein, close to Bombay, where, in December, 1802, he signed a treaty of general defensive alliance with the British government, under which he ceded districts yielding a revenue equivalent to the cost of a strong subsidiary force to be stationed permanently within his territory, while all his foreign relations were to be subordinated to the policy of England.

The treaty of Bassein also accomplished another leading object of Lord Wellesley's policy, for by admitting the British government to mediate in all the exorbitant claims that the Marathas were pressing against the Nizam, it placed the Haidarabad state definitely under the protection of the English, to whom all such demands were to be referred in future. No time was lost in acting upon this important engagement. The