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Rh vainly imagined he could reassert his former independence and rid himself of the control he hated.

Nor was this the only prince bound by a subsidiary treaty who caused anxiety at this moment. On the 1st February Pursají Bhonsla was found murdered in his palace, and a successor had to be appointed; the conduct of Apá Sáhib, the regent, was not free from suspicion with respect to the crime, yet there was no evidence to prove his participation in it, and, as he was the next heir, he was recognised as the new Bhonsla. Finding himself now firmly fixed upon the Masnad as ruler of Nágpur, and no longer requiring British support to assert his position, he soon altered his demeanour, and joined the Maráthá intrigues that were going on against the Government of Calcutta. The collapse of the Peshwá's aspirations, it is true, effected a change, and he resumed his former conciliatory attitude; but only for a time, for in the autumn he was again known to be conspiring against British rights, and when the war began in November, arrangements had almost immediately to be made to counteract the hostility which he displayed, and which at last proved fatal to his dynasty.

If affairs gave anxiety in the south, they were not more satisfactory in the north. The geographical importance of Daulat Ráo's territories in the approaching contest, and the power which that prince had to thwart or to facilitate the military operations that were in contemplation, had early engaged the serious attention of the Supreme Government. Application