Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/397

Rh It was, indeed, so manifest to those actually watching the situation in India that the consequence would be a reversion to political confusion and would discredit England's public faith and encourage her enemies, that the Governor-General insisted on maintaining the treaties, and even found himself obliged, against the logical tenor of his principles, to interpose vigorously in support of British diplomatic authority at Haidarabad. In 1807 Sir George Barlow was succeeded in the Governor-Generalship by Lord Minto.

In the meanwhile, although the French had at last been effectively barred out from approaching India by sea, and although every native state accessible to hostile intrigues by the seacoast had been bound over under heavy recognizances to the English alliance, yet signs and warnings of danger now began to reappear in a different quarter of the stormy political horizon.

The Persian king, who had suffered heavily from a war with Russia in 1804-1805, appealed for succour to Napoleon in Europe and also sent a similar application to Calcutta. From India, where the policy of retrenchment and retractation prevailed at that moment, no encouragement was forthcoming. The French, however, who were just then in the midst of a desperate war with Russia, readily responded to the advances of Persia by sending an embassy for the conclusion of an offensive alliance against the common foe. Napoleon, who had just fought with heavy loss the drawn battle of Eylau, eagerly welcomed an opportunity of harassing the Russians in Asia and also of resuscitating his