Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/406

356 SITE OF RANJIT SINGH'S ENCAMPMENT NEAR RUPUR, ON THE SUTLAJ.

On the other hand, the eventual consequences of all this premature diplomatic agitation were by no means unimportant or transitory. We have seen how French rivalry accelerated the earlier British conquests; and how at a later time the correspondence of native princes with France and the presence of French officers in the Indian armies aroused English susceptibility. It has been shown how this furnished Lord Wellesley with the necessary leverage for advancing his policy of bringing into subjection or subordinate alliance every Mohammedan or Maratha state that might cross England's path toward undisputed predominance in the interior of India. In the same manner the intelligence of Napoleon's projects first diverted Great Britain's attention from the seaboard to her land frontiers, and first launched the British government upon that much larger expanse of Asiatic war and diplomacy in which