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332 secondary objects were to interrupt the chain of their confederate possessions by interposing the lands of some non-Maratha state, and to raise a barrier between Maratha and British territory in Northern India by maintaining under British guarantee the independence of the petty states along their frontier. Lastly, he desired so to rearrange the map of Southern India as to link the important British possessions in Madras with the central dominion in Bengal.

This work of consolidation and connection was pushed still further by Lord Hastings twelve years later, and was finally consummated by Lord Dalhousie; but Lord Wellesley's settlement laid out the territorial distribution of all India (excepting the Panjab and Sind) on the general plan which was followed for the next forty years, and which survives in its main outlines to this day. By occupying the imperial cities of Agra and Delhi, with the contiguous tracts on both sides of the Jumna, and by annexing the whole country between the Ganges and the Jumna Rivers, he advanced British territory from Bengal northwestward to the mountains, with a frontier resting on the upper course of the Jumna. By his acquisition of the Cuttack province he secured the continuity of British territory southeastward along the seacoast, joined the two Presidencies of Bengal and Madras, and established sure communication between them. The English dominions were thus prolonged in a broad unbroken belt from the Himalayas downward to the Bay of Bengal and the southernmost district of Madras; while the cessions obtained