Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/384

336 tions. In Western India the Bombay Presidency, which had hitherto been almost entirely confined to the seaboard, and whose principal importance had been derived from its harbour and trading-mart, now acquired valuable districts in Gujarat; and the influence of its government rose to undisputed predominance throughout the adjoining native states, especially at the Maratha capitals of Poona and Baroda.

In North India the Marathas had lost all power; the important province of Bundelkhand, containing a number of minor chiefships, had been brought entirely under British influence and partly under British rule; the ceded and conquered districts obtained from Oudh and from Sindhia were settling down under regular English administration. The Presidency at Calcutta, which now extended, as has been said, from the Bay of Bengal northwestward to the Himalayas and the Panjab frontier, became henceforward the centre and the chief controlling power of a vast dominion, ruling directly over the richest and most populous region of India, indirectly imposing its presence over every other state or group of chiefships south of the Sutlaj River, drawing them all within its orbit, and enveloping them all within the external bounds of its sovereignty. The only Indian rulerships completely outside the sphere of this paramount influence were those which occupied the Panjab (where the Sikh power was now drawing to a head), the country along the Indus River, and the mountains of Nepal.

The seven years of Lord Wellesley's