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 CHAPTER VIII

Reconstruction in Central India and in the South-West, 1818-1823

There is probably no period in the history of British progress in the East more full of interest and more fruitful of important consequences to India than that which has just been described, beginning in the autumn of 1817 and ending in the following June, when the war practically came to a conclusion. In that short space of time stupendous changes had taken place in the vast tracts of country where independent native rule prevailed, and the whole continent, bounded on the north-west by the Sutlej, was summarily brought into subjection to the Government of Calcutta. The predatory system was finally stamped out, and the Maráthá Empire for ever crushed; everywhere victory crowned the efforts of the Governor-General, and though the military power of his enemies was contemptible, yet their latent force of resistance was considerable, and it was due to his foresight and