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Rh with alacrity to attack the Maratha confederates simultaneously in various quarters, and to open the impending war on the largest possible scale. The rupture with France intensified, as usual, his sense of the emergent necessity of bringing all the military powers of India under the supreme control of the British. For although there was little real danger, as Arthur Wellesley pointed out, of the French being able to join forces with the Marathas – since their troops, even if they could land, would be destitute of equipments and would be cut off from their base of supply – yet undoubtedly a great European war must always add risks to the English position in India.

Lord Wellesley also saw clearly enough that the security of the dominion that he was establishing on land depended essentially upon the British maintaining a commanding superiority at sea. He urged upon the ministry at home that so long as the Cape of Good Hope and Mauritius were in French hands (for the Dutch were entirely under French influence), the coasts of India could be molested, or the inland enemies of the English might be encouraged by expectations of aid from France. He spared, in short, no pains or preparations that might enable him so to use this opportunity of renewed hostilities in Asia and Europe as to accomplish "the complete consolidation of the British Empire in India and the future tranquillity of Hindustan." Whatever may be thought of the methods occasionally used by Lord Wellesley to compass these ends, it is impossible to withhold our admiration from