Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/381

Rh on the west coast went far toward completing British command of the whole Indian littoral.

Above all, when Lord Wellesley expelled the Marathas from Delhi and assumed charge of the person and family of the Moghul Emperor, he inaugurated a significant change of policy. For at least forty years the imperial sign manual had been at the disposal of any adventurer or usurper who could occupy the capital, overawe the powerless court, and dictate his own investiture with some lofty office or with a grant of the provinces that he had appropriated. At an earlier period the European trading companies, English and French, had been careful to obtain title-deeds from the Great Moghul. It was known that when Pondicherri was restored to the French at the Peace of Amiens, Buonaparte used the opportunity to send out to the French settlements in India a considerable military staff, whose mission was to communicate with the Emperor of Delhi through the French officers in Sindhia's service. And it was part of a wild project submitted to Buonaparte in 1803 that an expedition should be sent overland to India with the ostensible mission of rescuing the imperial house from its enemies and oppressors.

Lord Wellesley was at any rate quite satisfied that he was threatened by "the aggrandizement of the French power in India to a degree that compelled him to lose no time in placing the person, family, and nominal authority of his Majesty Shah Alam under the protection of the British Government." He formally