Page:History of India Vol 8.djvu/540

478 RECEPTION OF GENERAL OUTRAM AND STAFF AT THE DURBAR OF THE RAJA OF TRAVANCORE.

It may even be suspected that the system rather accelerated than retarded the rapid extension of the English frontier; because, whereas we annexed fresh territory after each collision with our rivals, so we constantly advanced their protective border beyond the actual line of annexation, and thus have always made a double step forward, keeping the strategic or political boundary well in advance of the limit of our administrative occupation. The lines of earlier British frontiers, now left far behind in the interior of India, may often be traced by the survival of some petty principalities, that escaped being swallowed up by a power-