Page:The Marquess of Hastings, K.G..djvu/103

Rh west of the Indian continent to the Northern Circars in the east, and attempted even to devastate the province of Cuttack. Divided into numerous bands, and moving simultaneously to different places far apart from each other, they traversed a much larger extent of territory than they had ever done before, and caused a wide-spread terror by their ferocious and merciless excesses. At first they succeeded in eluding the vigilance of the troops sent in their pursuit; but extraordinary precautions had been taken, and an army large enough to engage in an important campaign had been collected; and thus in the course of the winter, many of the Pindárí bands were fortunately overtaken, attacked, and destroyed.

Lord Hastings was by no means satisfied with these partial successes, and waited with impatience for authority to root out altogether this lawless association. He had been thwarted in his endeavour to do so by the opinions of his colleagues, and by instructions received from England. These, being conceived in a spirit of exaggerated dread of the Maráthá power, produced a passive policy of defence, which was wholly ineffectual against incursions of predatory hordes, whose irruptions extended over a wide range of frontier. He clearly saw that the tranquillity, and even the safety, of British possessions demanded the destruction of that dangerous race of banditti. He had no sympathy whatsoever with the vacillation displayed at home, nor with the timorous policy it dictated, and he repudiated with scorn a suggestion that